AEMO boss says nuclear too slow to replace coal, and confirms that “notion of baseload” will not compete with grid powered by cheaper renewables.

The head of the Australian energy market operator AEMO, Daniel Westerman, has rejected nuclear power as a way to replace Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations, arguing that it is too slow and too expensive. In addition, baseload power sources are not competitive in a grid dominated by wind and solar energy anyway.

  • Nightwatch Admin@feddit.nl
    83·
    4 months ago

    Source? I was a kid in the seventies and the OPEC shit show brought a lot of fresh of discussion and investigation into peak oil, and that was expected to be around now , but nobody I heard from said it would run out. Have some wikipedia with that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
    May I quote that the predictions were decent, however “It has been recognized that conventional oil production has peaked around 2005–2006. What has prevented peak oil from then on is US tight oil which rapidly increased since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. Additionally, but to a lesser extent, Canadian oil-sands production has helped increase oil supply since 2008.”

    So yes, more sources were found, however they were mostly obtainable by tight oil, AKA fracking, and as we all know, fracking is economically viable only when all environmental and other damage is externalised.