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Lately I used to be engaged in an odd dialog on-line, one which spanned from Australia to Germany, nearly precisely the alternative sides of the world. Australia is within the throes of a deeply odd vitality dialog about whether or not nuclear technology is important or not (it isn’t). The chief of the Australia’s fossil-fuel funded opposition, the inappropriately named Liberals, is claiming nuclear is Oz’ reply, for instance.

It’s price unpacking this a bit. Australia isn’t a very industrialized nation. It’s blessed by absurd quantities of wind, sunshine, and empty land, with a median inhabitants density of three individuals per sq. kilometer, in comparison with 34 for Europe, 152 for China, and eight,592 for Singapore. The inhabitants is concentrated alongside the decrease edge, principally within the east.

You don’t should go removed from Sydney or some other metropolis earlier than you discover a entire lot of sun-baked nothing. And it’s a mining nation, blessed with wealthy pure sources that aren’t simply coal, though generally its arduous to inform. Together with all that vacant comes a variety of city sprawl. One attention-grabbing factor I found up to now few years is that the common Australian manages to have extra sq. meters of dwelling house than the common American. Sure, Australia has a lot empty house that properties are greater than America’s and principally single story ranch properties.

Australia’s capacity to slap photo voltaic on its rooftops in staggering quantities per capita is strongly enabled by all the massive rooftops, even when far too lots of them are trendily black today. Actually? An deliberately darkish black roof in a sunburnt nation? In keeping with one current research, Australians are choosing AU$700 per 12 months greater cooling payments with a view to have the fashionable charcoal rooftops. The huge rooftop sq. footage, low roofs, and good regulatory frameworks for rooftop photo voltaic imply it has the very best penetration of rooftop photo voltaic on the planet, no less than on per capita foundation. China dwarfs it in fact, with extra rooftop photo voltaic than most international locations have photo voltaic of any form.

And Australia is a pacesetter in onshore wind vitality as nicely, one thing that led to it being one of many bizarre epicenters of the English-language communicated illness, wind vitality syndrome. Suppose I’m kidding? I’m quoted extensively for my wind vitality and well being courtroom circumstances research from 2014 within the guide Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Communicated Illness by my Oz and NZ long-term collaborators Simon Chapman and Fiona Crichton, each well being PhDs — public and psychology respectively — with numerous letters after their names.

Principally, some areas of the English-speaking world went by means of a well being hysteria about wind vitality beginning within the mid-2000s. One of many main sources of actively health-harming nonsense was a lapsed household physician and wind vitality hater out of Australia who was discovered and funded by one among Australia’s fossil gasoline moguls as a result of he was combating a wind farm that may barely be seen on the finish of the valley his rural property was positioned on. The individuals with medical credentials engaged in claiming wind vitality well being harm had been and are essentially breaking medical moral pointers with their nonsense and a few of them had been doing it for fully egocentric causes, not merely delusion. The Oz medical physician now’s a respiratory marketing consultant. I want I had been making that up and so they had discovered actuality once more, however sucking on the teat of well being hysteria stays profitable.

Australia additionally mines a variety of copper, aluminum, and metal, the fundamental supplies required for electrical transmission, to not point out a variety of battery minerals. They principally don’t course of them onshore as a result of it’s simpler to dig them up and ship them to China, however that’s one thing that may be mounted partly. However they’re now constructing a giant HVDC cable manufacturing facility within the north for the Solar Cable to Singapore, which is again up and working now that hydrogen-obsessed mining billionaire Andrew Forrest has been kicked out post-restructuring, and software program billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes can get on with delivery electrons as a substitute of molecules.

Australia is a large nation with most of its inhabitants within the east. That implies that in the event that they strung HVDC from east to west alongside the southern shoreline and up the sides a bit, they might transfer early afternoon sunshine from the east to the excessive demand durations of the west trivially simply.

Oh, and Australia has tons and plenty of closed loop off-river pumped hydro sources near demand areas and is aware of construct tunnels by means of rock and reservoirs, so that they have numerous vitality storage capability and the power to construct it, regardless of what’s taking place with Snowy River 2.0. Australia’s nationwide college (ANU) even did the international GIS research of the useful resource, on the lookout for 400 meters or extra of head peak, off of working water, near transmission and off of protected lands.

What’s Snowy River 2.0? It’s most likely the worst instance of pumped hydro as a design and executing venture on the planet, sadly. Amongst different issues, the 165-meter lengthy tunnel boring machine is caught 200 meters into its kilometers lengthy journey and created a large sinkhole as a result of they didn’t assume sluggish and act quick as per megaproject skilled Professor Bent Flyvbjerg’s dictum in essentially the most acknowledged, awarded, and translated enterprise guide of 2023 How Huge Issues Get Executed. (I’ve a tiny half in that as my materials on the pure experiment of nuclear vs renewables in China is included in chapter 9, What’s Your Lego?)

Tunneling is the Achilles’ heel of pumped hydro. Reservoirs are simple. Reversing generators are commoditized elements. Electrical elements and transmission are very low threat. However tunnels are useless middle of the 25 classes of tasks Flyvbjerg and workforce have recognized of their 16,000+ information set of megaprojects, unfortunate quantity 13. That is completely manageable with numerous intentional care up entrance — considering sluggish — however was ignored for Snowy River 2.0, therefore a part of the continuing failure.

Regardless, if Australia acquired critical about pumped hydro and engaged a few of its deep experience in its mining sector, that is a completely manageable threat. Additional, the storage sources are properly near the inhabitants and a variety of the long run mineral processing sectors. By comparability, nuclear vitality megaprojects are more likely to go over finances and schedule, being twenty third on the record, overwhelmed solely by the Olympics and nuclear waste storage amenities.

All of that is to say that Australia is maybe one of many best international locations on the planet to energy principally with wind and photo voltaic and nuclear is unnecessary. So why is nuclear even a problem?

Along with figuring out an inexpensive quantity about Australian renewables and mineral sources, I additionally spent a while taking a look at their financial dependence on fossil fuels. Proper now, they export 4 instances as a lot vitality within the type of fossil fuels as their complete financial system consumes. There are a variety of billionaires who’ve been created because of digging carbon wealthy filth out of the bottom and delivery it to India and Japan, and they’re desperately combating renewables and on the lookout for their subsequent billions. I appeared on the above in context of their bizarro world technique for increasing their vitality exports with inexperienced hydrogen, a doomed strategy.

So what does this should do with nuclear vitality? There a few large hitters.

The primary is that nuclear vitality is one among local weather change-denying and action-delaying politicians’ go-tos for delaying getting off of fossil fuels. Promising nuclear ticks the field on local weather motion for local weather change-accepting conservatives and ticks the field on renewables can’t lower it for tribalist conservatives. It ticks the field for the fossil gasoline business supporters of conservative governments as a result of you may’t construct a nuclear reactor shortly. The median is a decade proper now. A decade is 40 quarters to report income within the fossil gasoline business. No marvel they like nuclear.

And what else does Australia dig up and ship overseas? Uranium. In truth, it has 23% of the world’s reserves. The rationale why conservatives love them some fission chips is clear. So Liberal chief Dutton is pushing nuclear. And wherever there’s vitality, there are vitality analysts with various levels of biases. Again to the start of the story.

A few days in the past a UK ‘gasoline strategist’ — aka gaslighter — promoted an Australian article about nuclear being a requirement for decarbonization. A few Australian mates, one an affiliate prof and the opposite apparently a full prof, printed an op-ed within the Sydney Morning Herald — a typically centrist tabloid that at all times endorses the deeply conservative and fossil-fuel beholden Liberals — saying that wind and photo voltaic clearly couldn’t lower it and that nuclear vitality was essential.

One of many claims was that no nation may probably run on renewables alone. I supplied a listing of 10 international locations which can be already at 100% renewables or inside a p.c or two. In addition to the 20 international locations, 10% of the international locations on the planet, with over 90% renewables. And the 33 international locations over 80%. In truth, there are 62 international locations over 60%.

Clearly, the claims that top penetrations of renewables had been unattainable was debunked by empirical actuality. And that is the place it acquired unusual. An Australian requested what about any industrialized nation that ran on 100% renewables and the way the cited international locations, together with Norway and Iceland, in comparison with Australia. Perhaps a gotcha query, perhaps not.

I checked their profile, briefly. They work in mining decarbonization and are engaged on a PhD in decarbonizing the Australian vitality market. That they had labored with KPMG Australia on vitality. Not clearly a nuclear advocate. Unusual that they might be defending a nonsense declare being amplified by a UK gaslighter. What was happening? I gave them the advantage of the doubt.

I supplied a hyperlink to Mark Z. Jacobson and workforce’s most up-to-date research of now 145 international locations’ mixture of 100% renewables, a complicated situation they’ve been creating for shut to twenty years and which I’ve mentioned with Jacobson a couple of instances. I urged they take a look at the combo for Australia. I additionally supplied a short gloss positioning Australia as a straightforward to energy nation.

They dismissed the Jacobson et al., research as theoretical. Then I referenced Germany’s instance as a vastly extra industrialized nation that noticed nearly 60% of electrical energy from renewables in 2023. Issues began getting weirder.

They dismissed Germany fully. “Germany is absolutely the worst instance — actually the German instance will get taught as a failure in vitality coverage. Giant points with grid stability, “

As a word, Germany’s grid reliability is the envy of the world, with 13 minutes of outages on common per buyer per 12 months. Australia is 2.7 hours per 12 months. North America is 2 hours. Nobody is educating programs on Germany being an electrical energy supply failure. And as famous, they’re approaching 60% electrical energy demand from renewables.

The rest? Sure, they shut down their nuclear, one thing I didn’t agree with however accepted given how good a job they’ve been doing at decarbonizing their nation in comparison with just about each different main financial system. Regardless of eliminating a low carbon type of electrical technology, they’ve additionally dropped coal technology massively and noticed a ten.1% discount in greenhouse gasoline emissions throughout their financial system in 2023. They’re on monitor to a 2045 web zero goal, one thing only a few main economies can declare.

Is Germany good? In no way. They will waste much more cash and energy and political capital on hydrogen for vitality earlier than that collapses, together with their present plans for €20 billion for nearly 10,000 km of hydrogen pipelines with low curiosity loans for many years, assured 6.7% returns for the operators no matter demand, and 76% taxpayer legal responsibility for the inevitable failure. They’re challenged by a radically reworking industrial panorama that favors business near low carbon technology. However they’re working arduous on the transition, not like Australia.

So what the heck was this particular person speaking about? They claimed it wasn’t nuclear. After which they shared hyperlinks to their PhD papers the place they had been selling the requirement for pure gasoline in decarbonization methods. They didn’t point out that that they had labored with one of many authors of the op-ed in a tiny consultancy up to now.

The biases had been baking off of this particular person and so they appeared unaware of them. They usually had been accusing me of bias as a promoter of renewables.

As I mentioned, it was a bizarre dialog. Clearly a vivid one that has allowed private relationships and skewed views lead them right into a useless finish and odd arguments. I often get sucked into vortices of irrationality and this was a kind of instances.