Should Australia Go Nuclear? | Q+A High School Special

Should nuclear power be on the table as a potential energy source?
Panellists: Panellists: Minister for Youth & Early Childhood Education, Anne Aly; Actor, poet & activist, Aud Mason-Hyde; Biripi Worimi woman & Year 12 student, Amarley Bron; Founder and chief anchor, 6 News Australia & Year 10 student, Leo Puglisi; NSW Youth Parliament & Year 12 student, Laura Strawbridge and Founder, Nuclear for Australia & Year 11 student, Will Shackel.
This episode was broadcast on Wednesday, 19 July 2023.
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[@DavidAlsh]

As a greens voter and an engineer - I'm pro nuclear and agree that it's a technology that complements renewables. It's not perfect, but the points raised are correct. Solar/wind are new technologies and will eventually be how we power the grid but until they are ready we MUST stop burning fossil fuels. Renewables are a totally different, decentralised, way of running the grid and require extensive investment in grid infrastructure - by contrast nuclear would be a drop in replacement as it works the same way as existing plants do. Nuclear waste is safe and is actually stored for later use. It's just cheaper right now to use fresh uranium however current generation full cycle reactors can completely burn up the waste products for energy production - we just don't need to right now. By contrast, coal is actually radioactive however coal plants are allowed to dump their radioactive waste into the atmosphere, soil and waterways. The reason the Australian government says you can only eat 2 cans of tuna per week is because of coal power waste. Most importantly, we are out of time. We need to not only replace existing fossil fuel plants but also add new capacity to an increasingly demanding population. 1kg of Uranium is equivalent to 1.5 MILLION kg of coal and covers powering the entire lives of 3 people. There is already push back by communities to install renewables. Wind projects are being kicked back as are solar. Renewables are the gold standard but we need to be pragmatic - can we really rewire the entire grid infrastructure, mine the materials needed for solar/wind/batteries and construct grid scale plants (something no one has done before) in less time than it will take to build a few nuclear power plants? If going nuclear means that in 12 years we'll be 100% carbon free and maybe a bit over-budget, I'm okay with that.

[@zen1647]

Even if we started right now there's no way we could have even a single nuclear power plant in 12 years time. They also don't work well in high temperatures and need water for cooling so they're not a good fit for Australia. There's plenty of roofs and farms where more solar and wind can be installed.

[@kurtschulte-schrepping8020]

I think that's the main issue. Most people know nuclear is safe, it's proven elsewhere - but if we dropped the moratorium tomorrow, the first reactors wouldn't even be online by 2035. They aren't the answer to Australia's net zero goal, but can be the answer to ongoing energy security.

[@cerealport2726]

You use a lot of buzz-words, but ultimately, don't say very much that is factual, in fact, some is outright disinformation. Are you sure you're actually an engineer...?

[@julian-id6xf]

12 year Olds haveing a conversation adults should have 🧐

[@entropiceffect]

year 12 students (i.e grade 12) not 12 year olds

[@rmc489]

"we can never know the costs of nuclear energy"... Exactly. If you think we can build it here cheaper than Europe (2x current market price), you're dreaming.

[@botanicamelancholia]

Yep. Even the Europeans, with their decades of technical expertise and regulatory precedents consistently encounter massive cost and time blowouts. We have none of that and don't stand a chance. Nuclear is an expensive fantasy in this country.

[@Mgp-Rc]

If you think renewables NOW are the answer then YOU ARE DREAMING!

[@zen1647]

​@@botanicamelancholiaYep again. France has been working on it's newest nuclear reactor for 26 years and it's STILL not complete yet. It's cost has blown out from 3B EUR to 19B EUR.

[@botanicamelancholia]

Will makes good arguments but they don't stand up in the Australian context. Nuclear projects in expert countries regularly blowout in cost and time (like 10-14 year delays). Australia doesn't even have the regulatory framework or skills for nuclear. I don't see how legalising it will change the maths when we already know the capital investment required in other countries.

[@zen1647]

Exactly. Starting a complex industry from scratch will take decades. I'm not against nuclear as a possible energy source for the next century but renewables are so much better at the moment I don't want money wasted on nuclear for the next several decades.

[@DuckReach432]

I think some of the Coalition enthusiasm for nuclear is that it is a continuance of centralised electricity generation. A private company owns the power, millions of customers buy that product, shareholders have that revenue stream as an investment option. Renewables (and storage) are betting both cheaper and more efficient. We are already seeing the first households decoupling from the grid and making their own power. That is a natural trend that nuclear defies.

[@AussieZeKieL]

we don't need nuclear because we have coal and gas.

[@jimgraham6722]

You make the big mistake of thinking it is about households. It's not. Suburban households are just a drop in the ocean. It is about industry and powering cities, particularly CBDs and apartment dwellers. Think transport, steel, aluminium, cement, brick making, building materials, silicon, fertilizer, chemicals, paints plastics, desalination agriculture, energy content of exports and industrial plants and you start to get the correct picture. This energy requirement is many times what can be produced from household roof top solar. Taking all this into account, Alan Finkel the former chief scientist has estimated Australia's total energy needs by 2050 could be as high as 700GW (while Finkel is an expert in such matters, doing my own sums I am more inclined to think it will be in the 400-500 GW range) Currently Australia produces around 20GW from rooftop solar. There is little prospect of extending that much beyond 60GW (not enough suitable roof space). We need to build out .more renewables urgently. We also need lots of storage say around ten Snowy Hydro Twos and nuclear, somewhere between six and twenty plants.

[@PeterMilanovski]

​@@jimgraham6722 I think that you really don't understand, as an Australian, I don't care for industry... We don't have any industry the last time I checked, it's all in China... So all that matters to me is how much I'm getting reamed by grid power! I'm half off the grid already and I'm currently about to go fully off grid in the next few weeks.... As long as I have energy, I don't care about you because it's clear that you don't care about me by siding with the pro nuclear energy minority.... And as for your beloved industry, my brother-in-law has a caravan manufacturing company and he doesn't need nuclear energy, the amount of solar panels on the roof of his factory takes care of all his energy needs and then some... I think that you missed how much renewable energy industry can afford to have installed... They are quite capable of fending for themselves.... So crying about industry and their needs... No one buys it... Why didn't you mention the elderly who are struggling with the cost of energy at the moment... And how they will cope with the more expensive nuclear energy if it was to be implemented here in Australia...

[@jimgraham6722]

@@PeterMilanovski I am elderly. About twenty years ago we put in solar panels and have been off grid ever since, so it's nothing new to me. This doesn't solve the industry problem though. You know very little about Australia, it is financed by industry including mining and agriculture that both involve huge energy inputs at present, largely coal, gas and petroleum imports, all of which have to be replaced. It's great you relatives caravan factory is solar powered but that is not where most of the energy is needed, it's in the steel, aluminium, rubber, copper, paint and fibreglass used as inputs to caravan manufacture. If you are happy to give up industry you condemn your kids and grand kids to poverty it's as simple as that.

[@zen1647]

​@@jimgraham6722Rooftop solar will only be a small part of the renewable energy mix - solar and wind farms will be able to generate a lot more energy then existing fossil fuel power plants, AND cover the electrification of transport and industry, AND allow the development of new energy intensive manufacturing industries due to our cheap renewable electricity instead of expensive nuclear electricity.

[@mirandajames9246]

Only Fusion - decades away. Not Fission!!!

[@zoeolsson5683]

Due to nuclear power being so very very efficient with fuel and Australia being rich with uranium - it's kinda hard not to really start looking at this. Would have to be government corporate run. Our power needs to be held by the people not some rich sobs

[@zen1647]

You think regular people can research, build, and operate a nuclear power facility? Nuclear power would be the most centralised source of energy this country has ever seen. Solar is the opposite of that.

[@garycpriestley]

Wow - these "kids" are far more educated, articulate and civilised than many "adult" guests - well done to all!

[@brendo7363]

Whose kid is Aud Mason-Hyde? Must be well connected and wealthy.

[@Tryinglittleleg]

A Movie director

[@dexterrity]

Nuclear waste storage isnt an issue, just look up the Oklo phenomenon to learn about when an uncontained nuclear fission reactor occured naturally, and note how far that waste moved (spoiler, not far).

[@dexterrity]

Not to mention the fact Australia already stores nuclear waste from our medical nuclear reactors and nuclear submarines. We don't have any long term storage plans because it's too hot a political issue, only temporary ones. I remember raising many of this young man's points during highschool debates on the nuclear issue nearly 20 years ago. It's funny to think we could be mostly done building reactors if we had started then.

[@dexterrity]

also Rio Tinto (which has divested from all uranium and coal assets, and instead transitioning to lithium and other minerals needed for renewable technologies) was a lazy uninformed example of "bad mining company" in this context - should have gone with an oil and gas company instead. We need to extract resources to do anything in a modern society, and by nature that will be a destructive process. If one can't swallow that pill, then even giving up all your technology and modern comforts and going to live in the bush won't solve things because that's not a suitable solution for the billions of people on this Earth.

[@QueenslandOverland]

There's gonna be some fkn scary politicians 30 years from now hahaha

[@darrenjohanson3594]

Australia Government should be looking at Nuclear Fusion energy

[@reinhardtburger7108]

You are joking right, you realise there isn't a single fusion system that has reached the break even point yet. Except for a nuclear bomb and even that is started with a fission device.

[@user-gd1wr3wt3r]

This young man will be our prime minister Hey, certainly sounds hell of a lot smarter.The politicians we have now

[@rainey06au]

Build more strategic military targets in Australia? Hard no.

[@reinhardtburger7108]

You realise all you have to do to destroy australia is blockade your fuel imports, right? In other words most of your strategic military targets was taken out of action by our own government.

[@betweendrinks8885]

Why use children who know little?

[@messsatsu4118]

the land is called Australia. it belongs to all Australians.

[@shannondavis4049]

YES we need it... we are the only country who again miss out..

[@user-kx4bm5rj2y]

Yes we should

[@Psybo]

I’m gonna say it, what we’re all thinking This is the cringiest episode of Q&A ever It’s not that these 15 year olds aren’t educated, but it makes the skin crawl to hear 15 year olds give advice I just can’t take these kids seriously when I know they were dancing to the wiggles in 2017 Cute though.

[@cb14011970]

it's their land, then we better all leave then

[@libatalklieb5793]

Vote NO

[@hmq9052]

Absolutely. Join the brotherhood ✌️🇬🇧🇦🇺

[@Lexnbert]

Also quick isn’t not a good economic way of doing things. I say buy once cry once, and it will pay back on the dollar more then every single source of energy.

[@Mgp-Rc]

Do you English!!??

[@jimgraham6722]

In the end the energy issue is about what we see as Australia's future. Prosperity, modern existence and standard of living is directly linked to energy consumption. Reduce energy consumption per capita and living standards will drop, while rising in those countries that are not so squeamish. The central issue is to decouple energy use from emissions. In this regard, the Australian ban on nuclear had nothing to do with safety proliferation or any other such concern. It was about shoring up the role of coal in Australia's energy mix. It must be remembered the nuclear ban was a COALition initiative, that a later COALition PM used to carry a lump of coal around with him says it all. Renewables are great but we need the mining, extraction and purification of silicon, copper, aluminium and steel in large quantities. This is an extremely energy intensive and polluting business. One reason solar PV is so cheap is much of the silicon refining is done in China where hitherto there have been very few pollution laws. Sadly Australia's efforts to go renewable have already failed. To support renewables, Australia needs between eight and twelve storage projects on the scale of Snowy Hydro 2, so far only two possibly three projects of the required scale have been identified, and work has only started on one. Most experts also agree we need at least one possibly two HVDC lines connecting the highly prospective areas for renewables, east to west and north to south. We needed to be much further along on these projects if there was to be any hope of meeting targets. While the optimal solution to addressing Australia's energy issues would be six or so large nuclear plants similar to the Canadian Candu plants, a more realistic prospect is small modular reactors built in a country such as South Korea and delivered as a turn key unit on a barge. Ten to twelve of these could to all intents and purposes be drop in replacements for existing coal plants and providing a stable base from which the overall system's capacity can then be safely extended with renewables.

[@zen1647]

Or we could stop dreaming and invest in renewables and distributed storage TODAY!

[@historychannel365]

The politicization of nuclear energy is the current issue; the odds of having a thoughtful dialogue about this are slim.

[@zen1647]

The nuclear option is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry because they know nuclear will not be viable before 2050 in Australia and in the mean time they can continue to put the atmosphere.

[@intrusivethought]

the problem now is that Nuclear energy has been politicised, the chances of a nuanced discussion about this now are buckleys.

[@resiliencewithin]

Hello cute babies

[@Maddog00427]

Unfortunately.. The red tape that would come with this means our governments have let us down, term after term and it would be VERY expensive to get off the ground. I personally think Nuclear Energy is the cleanest form of energy at Australia's disposal and we should harness that. If the Governments (plural) can see past their myopic four year term for once, then maybe we could actually move to cleaner energy.

[@Maddog00427]

@@Thomas_Santa.5686 ...............sure. 🙄

[@tlb2970]

Too much crap from kids who knows very little about anything VOTE NO

[@sdpearshaped831]

I'm open to nuclear, but I really wish the overenthusiastic nuclear simps would stop lying about aspects of the process. It's not clean. It doesn't emit carbon in the energy creation process but its still very corrosive to the environment, and I'm not just talking about the radiation. The mining, the refinement process to create enriched uranium, it's all incredibly dirty. The process is still quite carbon intensive. If proponents of nuclear were more honest about the downsides instead of uncritically preaching the bible, they would probably have nuclear in Australia by now.

[@vbevan]

Do you know where lithium comes from? What about the other materials on solar panels? Hint: it isn't from trees. Nuclear proponents aren't saying it is perfectly clean, just that it's comparable or better than renewable sources.

[@sdpearshaped831]

@@vbevan I am aware. They don't though, as demonstrated by the fact you just said it's better than renewables, it's not. Don't be dishonest about it. This is what I'm talking about. If it's to be the firming capacity for a renewable grid just sell it on that basis. Be realistic and stop with this pie in the sky nonsense that it'll solve our energy problem.

[@taknoef9195]

@@sdpearshaped831 u are aware we still dont have a way to recycle our solar panels and wind blades either only abput 10% of them get recycled

[@sdpearshaped831]

@@taknoef9195 I am also aware of this.

[@phillippereira6468]

​@sdpearshaped831 i like how you tried the holier than though argument but all these people had very good counter arguments against yours. I also loved how you acknowledged their points but effectively deflected at the same time....head in sand or is it blinkers on🤔

[@Afterlifemerc]

People kept interrupting William because he has a bright mind. This interview should’ve been all about nuclear. We are not going to wait we want change today not tomorrow

[@zen1647]

The kid is just straight up wrong on several points. Nuclear is not cheap - France's nuclear power industry has had enormous government support, and recently collapse and needed to be taken over by the government.

[@justadam1917]

People underestimate the true environmental cost involved in green energy We need nuclear baseload if we are to move away from a high carbon power source for both transit and all other energy requirements

[@justadam1917]

Very pleased to see a we'll reasoned comment section on both sides

[@zen1647]

Actually baseboard power is the last thing we need. Even nuclear boy said that we need dispatchable power (or storage), which is different to baseload power.

[@windwaker0rules]

Why are you pushing a transitioning power that would take at least 30 years to make, when whe only have 25 to hit net zero?

[@sheep.herder]

high school students know ok 🤣

[@Blackfire-yo6zn]

Great points made for nuclear points against were really weak and didnt even make sense ie nuclear is bad cause we need to extract resources however solar and wind fall out of the sky and dont require the extraction of resources 😂😂😂

[@user-fl5ro6ph6h]

Yes we should go nuclear, we have 3/4 of the worlds uranium, reactors are very safe now and a small reactor every 300 k would be great, or a big one where the coal stations are now.

[@zen1647]

But it's about 5 times more expensive than renewables. So even after you add in the cost of storage renewables are much, much cheaper.

[@zen1647]

Australia also has absolutely huge amounts of renewable energy sites available to us - that's more relevant than Uranium deposits.

[@vbevan]

Wow, every single argument from the kids was either wrong on the facts or ignored that renewables were worse in context. In terms of land use, mining, indigenous rights, the expert kept throwing facts showing the kids were wrong. Honestly, a wasted topic if the kids arguments aren't even logical. I wonder if any of them actually read the stats? "If the indigenous people don't want it, I don't want it." - great, so the mobs that do want it, can have it? Your opposition to nuclear isn't opposition, it's just support for the rights of the traditional land owners? Great, but why are you on this panel then, you have no opinion on energy generation.

[@pacnbeans]

YES FOR NUCLEAR POWER IN AUSTRALIA !!! ASAP.

[@rainey06au]

Hey guys, Damien from the internet said to do it. Even if the entire world is held to ransom in Ukraine over Zaporizhzhia.

[@windwaker0rules]

that would be 20 years from now at the quickest which would make it too late.

[@andrewperkins5678]

Absolutely not - look at what is happening in Ukraine. It is unrealistic to assume Australia will never be at war, or never experience earthquakes/tsunamis. Our continental plate is drifting relatively quickly.

[@zoeolsson5683]

I like the fact that fission leaks are easily detectable with a geiger counter - a simple scanner for one variable - the waste from fossil fuel burning needs to test for multiple chemicals. Yes Tsunami very very bad but the waste of coal burning power is so profound on the environment....The waste is exponentially more in volume and reach. I don't know .... I think that fission probably is safer environmentally than the green house gas effects of coal powered stations... weird but true... Was really scary growing up in the 80s with the cold war hinting at nuclear war end for the world. That had to have an effect on policy making in the 90s.

[@pastexpiry2013B]

The focus shoudl be nuclear FUSION which beats them all.

[@adamdymke8004]

In what way is fusion a better choice for Australian energy policy?

[@pastexpiry2013B]

@@adamdymke8004 No mining required. Good regardless of state.

[@wwav9921]

Nuclear energy before subs… if we get subs why not benefit from power. nuclear power stations with propellers…