WITH Australia’s energy grid rapidly transitioning to renewables, sensible and practical solutions are needed to keep our power cost-effective and reliable.
Any grid dominated by renewables is a huge, complicated, and expensive process – think forty wind turbines built every month and 22,000 solar panels installed every day for the next eight years, and the construction of 28,000km of poles and wires just to meet the target of 43 per cent renewables by 2030.
Pragmatically, I believe we need to look at the opportunity of small nuclear reactors.
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) of less than 300MW capacity do not require the 28,000km of grid expansion currently planned under the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan, which maps out the details of the nation’s energy transition to a decarbonised grid.
These SMRs could be installed into our current grid and be a “plug-and-play” replacement for retiring coal and gas plants.
This would save billions of dollars, and SMRs have effectively no carbon emissions.
Also our economy would not be dependent on the weather alone.
Nuclear would provide baseload power in an energy mix with solar panels and wind turbines.
New Generation III+ SMRs have a design life of 60 years, which can be extended to 80 years with midlife refurbishments.
And they are sustainable, with spent fuel able to be recycled to make new fuel and then finally repurposed for medical isotopes.
Once it is finally waste, there are also international protocols for storage.
No one in Australia wants a Fukushima or Chernobyl event, that is why people will be pleased to know SMRs have safety systems to prevent these taking place.
SMRs reflect 70 years of continuous evolution in design – in parallel with the development of cars and planes today which are safer and more efficient than those made 50 years ago.
We are a modern and advanced country with nuclear capability already, and excellent regulatory framework.
We have an option in front of us which is clean and with the right energy mix of renewables will deliver affordable, sustainable and reliable energy.
This level of technology should be embraced.
