Coalition’s nuclear plan will hit Earth with 1.7bn extra tonnes of CO2 before 2050, experts warn
"Peter Dutton’s path ‘would be an absolute failure’ in decarbonising the electricity sector and meeting #Australia’s emission targets, analyst says."
A fig leaf.
"Even if [#Australia's] Coalition’s plans go ahead, concrete will not be poured for a nuclear plant before the 2030s – three or more elections away. "
In the #EnergyTransition and decarbonisation, winning slowly is not winning at all:
"Coal and gas would fill the gap."
It's almost as if they planned it that way.
Almost.
#Australia:
"The only really big cuts so far have happened in the land sector — by felling fewer trees, and planting more. (In the jargon of carbon reporting, that's called Land Use, or more formally Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)).
All other #emissions combined are now nearly identical to what they were in 2005."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-09/australias-climate-change-policy-problem-in-charts/104689682
"#Australian greenhouse gas #emissions would surge by more than 2 billion tonnes under the Coalition’s plan for #nuclear energy.
The results showed there would be a “nuclear carbon emission bomb” from extending the use of fossil fuels while waiting for nuclear power."
@CelloMomOnCars fortunately many of the Australian population are voting with their feet and putting up solar panels themselves.
@CelloMomOnCars We cannot wait for anything.
We must build what's available now.
Wind, solar, and nuclear plants. Existing, proven designs.
If we only build wind and solar now, we will run into their limits, and then into their limited lifetime — a straw fire. Carbon emissions will not be dropping anymore, starting in 10—20 years.
If we only build nuclear now, we miss out on quick reduction of emissions, which buys us time.
I think the point is that no-one builds nuclear "now".
The economics is now also weighted towards wind and solar, even with storage.
@CelloMomOnCars It's not an option, not an either-or.
Storage with batteries costs a lot more resources than the same energy of generation with nuclear power. And storage only stores.
@CelloMomOnCars
I'm hugely in favour of nuclear power. on top of deploying renewables. Do both.
Instead? No thank you.
@iinavpov @CelloMomOnCars
@Ardubal whether nuclear would be cheaper than renewables+storage is an interesting question.
But the plan is as actually renewables firmed with flexible gas peaker plants. From AEMO's ISP report --
(The amount of gas needed shown in turquoise)
@markopolo141 @iinavpov @CelloMomOnCars I think that the proposal implied by this graph doesn't work out at all.
Storage doesn't generate. So it is probably meant that this is the amount of energy going through intermediate storage instead of being used directly. But for that, the amount in comparison to the fluctuating sources seem way too small to compensate.
Also, gas and biomass are part of the problem. We want to get rid of them.
@Ardubal @iinavpov @CelloMomOnCars right, so that graph shows electricity consumed, rather than generation capacity (a bit less impressive) - image attached.
But, the sources depicted are utility-scale solar/wind/etc facilities not including storage.
While it does seem incredible, these are the results from supercompute optimisation/forecasting for cheapest and most reliable (99.998% uptime) electricity supply to meet environmental targets.
Consider, we are already at ~45% renewables today.
