Energy Issues in Australia

The nuclear debate in Australia is 100 years behind the rest of Western Civilization. Australia banned nuclear power even before they built one. They could afford to strut their anti-nuke super-cape because they were swimming in 300 years worth of coal. Now they want to ban that too.

Somehow, the idea of nuclear has grown legs, but as Jo Nova says, “The rest of the world must be laughing at Australia.” The US built the first reactor back in 1957, and 50 years ago the French built 56 reactors in just 15 years and most of the reactors were built in 6-8 years. ⁽¹⁾

Nuclear

However, experts at Australia’s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) think it will take Australia 14 years to even build a small one.

Nova observes, “Today we have computer aided design and supercomputers with AI, but we can’t even build a 50-year-old copy of a French plant as fast as the French could in an era when homes still had slide rules

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) says nuclear is the world’s second largest source of low carbon power (26% of the total in 2020 and growing since then). There are 440 operating reactors, with 61 under construction. ⁽²⁾

A recent analysis revealed that including nuclear power in Australia’s energy mix could save $263 billion. Under the Coalition’s plan, nuclear power could supply 38 percent of Australia’s energy needs by 2050, together with 53 percent renewables, delivering reliable baseload power and significantly reducing emissions.

Net Zero

Labor, Greens, and Teals continue to claim Australia should be the only industrialized nation to attempt to get anywhere near the fabled net zero by 2050 by relying totally on unreliable renewables. This will involve destroying an area greater than the size of Tasmania, including arable farmland, native forests, vast koala habitats, offshore fishing ground and whale migration routes.

Alinta chief executive Jeff Dimery, head of Australia’s fourth largest energy retailer, said he could not see a way of building enough renewable energy sources to compensate for the loss of coal, which still generates about two-thirds of Australia’s electricity. ⁽³⁾

Australia’s targets are to bring emissions 43 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Despite claims of progress, genuine emissions cuts have stalled since 2020. ⁽⁴⁾

After 2021 Australia electricity prices rose 20% two years in a row. So that cost of 210 euros per MWh in 2021 could easily have become 300 euros by 2023, putting Australians second highest in the world after the UK.

The bottom line is that from 2008 the price of electricity in China fell from 100 euros down to 80 euros per megawatt hour. While in Australia it rose from 125 euros to 300 euros and in the UK prices rose from 150 euros to 360 euros. Effectively, the price of electricity fell 20% in China at the same time as it rose 240% in Australia and the UK. ⁽⁵⁾

Solar

Jo Nova reports, “It’s barely spring in Australia and already we’re reaching the point where there’s too much solar. There’s such an excess of useless energy, prices are negative, meaning the hapless generators have to pay people to take the poison power away. And recently, at a time when investors ought to be making their peak profit for the day, they were rushing to turn 80% of their panels off. In reality, this is how we make the parabolic curve of orbital solar physics fit a rectangular box—by building five times as much as we need and wasting most of it.” ⁽⁶⁾

Nova adds, “Bear in mind, this is just the start of a lumpy road to nowhere. Even though we already have more solar panels than we can use, we’re supposed to be installing 22,000 more panels every day in Australis to reach our mystical Net Zero target.”

Back in the dinosaur days when Australia had virtually no wind and solar power, the price for wholesale electricity was $30 a megawatt hour year after year. Then they started to add the intermittent, unreliable generators which have free fuel but need thousands of kilometers of wires, batteries, subsidies, schemes, farmland, markets, and an entire duplicated backup grid that sits around not earning money for hours, days or five years at a time. And we wondered why electricity got more expensive. ⁽⁷⁾

So, Australia is close to 30% total wind and solar generation, and aiming with gossamer fairy wings for 82% in five years time. Luckily, it appears there’s no chance they will get there. The solar daytime glut, negative prices, and community hatred of high voltage lines is spoiling the market for developers. And not a day too soon.

The price of electricity hit $17,000 a megawatt hour when a coal power plant was down for a day. Jo Nova reports, “Somehow the unplanned outages of reliable coal plants create sky high prices, whereas then unplanned outages of wind and solar power created Utopia. Not so coincidentally, the price spikes on July 31, 2024 when wind and solar generators were out. The price spikes were boosted by cold weather that Australia wasn’t supposed to be getting in our warmer world.” ⁽⁸⁾

Wind

Regarding wind, Michael Darby notes, “Great for the profiteers and subsidy thieves. Disaster for the poor, for industry and for the environment, and not much fun for the eagles. Forty wind turbines are not capable of powering a single home without 100% backup from a reliable energy source.” ⁽⁹⁾

No evidence has yet been produced to prove that during its life a windfarm will produce and deliver more usable energy than was required for its infrastructure, construction, maintenance, repairs and decommissioning. The probability is high that each windfarm is the cause of a net energy deficit.

A gushing media release does not mention the cost of construction, nor the area of grazing land marked for destruction, nor the length of high tension powerlines required to connect to the grid. ⁽⁹⁾

Carbon Credits

Australia’s carbon credit scheme was undermined by damming new research which found a world leading reforestation project had been an underperforming ‘catastrophe.’ ⁽¹⁰⁾

Vast swatches of land across Australia’s desert Outback have been earmarked for native forest regeneration, which is meant to offset emissions as new trees suck up carbon. But researchers have found that across almost 80 percent of these plantations forest growth were either stagnant, or that woodlands were shrinking.

Despite this, Australia had used these projects to bank millions of tons in questionable carbon credits, which are used to supposedly offset polluting industries.

“I think it can only be described, and I’m using generous words here, as a gross failure.” lead author Andrew Macintosh said. ⁽¹⁰⁾

Blackouts

The manager of the Australian grid released a major report on problems coming in the next ten years on the national grid, and it’s even worse than they thought even six months ago.

The report doesn’t use the word blackout, but it has a dozen flavors of blackouts by another name, many of them voluntary or subsidized and somewhat it prearranged. (11)

Mandatory Climate Reporting

Mandatory climate reporting begins this year, marking a generational changer for corporate Australia. Legal, penalties for greenwashing could force Aussie companies to declare their total lack of interest in climate action. ⁽¹²⁾

Food Firms Revolt

The Independent Food Distributors Australia, whose members use large chillers and freezers to store and supply food for 60,000 members, has broken with other peak industry bodies and is calling on the government to recalibrate its climate change agenda, with business owners reporting energy price increases of more than 50% since Labor gained power. ⁽¹³⁾

Polling Results

Polling shows Australians don’t believe there is much of a climate crisis. If they thought the planet would boil, they would surely be willing to spend more than $20 a week. ⁽¹⁴⁾

When it came to other climate punishments to save the planet, the average person rated giving up meat as the worst option, followed by giving up petrol and diesel cars, and appliances. “The truth laid bare in this poll is that Australians have no idea what the real cost of Net Zero fantasies are. If they had any idea what the true price was, they’d be livid.”

Lastly, until recently, Australian pension funds manage assets of around $4.1 trillion had net zero targets. Certainly, there were none that tried to appeal to climate skeptics even though 70% of Australians didn’t want to even spend $1 a week on net zero plans. Now, many of them are backing away slowly, speaking about a corporate and political backlash, like it’s a force of nature. ⁽¹⁵⁾

References

1. Jo Nova, “French built a reactor in 7 years, but modern Australia needs decades,” joannenova.com.au, March 6, 2024
2. John Mikkelssen, “Australia the dumb country- can we get lucky again?”, saltbushclub.com, December 20, 2024
3. Jo Nova, “Green Australia: where industry is on edge, the grid precarious and electricity prices up 25%,” joannenova.com.au, December27, 2023
4. Eric Worrall, “Government ABC accuses Aussie government of exaggerating climate progress,” wattsupwiththat.com, December 12, 2024
5. Jo Nova, “The most expensive electricity on earth is in countries with cheapest sources of electricity,” joannenova.com.au, April27, 2024
6. Jo Nova, “Random power glut means 80% of solar plant output was thrown away on Sunday,” climate-science.press, September 5, 2024
7. Jo Nova, “The more renewables Australia added the more expensive electricity got,” cfact.org, July 30, 2024
8. Jo Nova, “Wholesale electricity prices hit $17,000 in five states in Australia- renewable fans blame a lack of coal power?”, climate-science.press, August 2, 2024
9. Michael Darby, “Yet another false claim by Australia’s Department of Climate Changer,” principia-scientific.org, July 31, 2024
10. Steven Trask, “Shock discovery: carbon credit project in Australia turns out to be a sham,” principia-scientific.org, March 30, 2024
11. Jo Nova, “Panic now: the Australian national grid manager admits blackouts are coming,” joannenova.com.au, Septerm4, 2023
12. Eric Worrall, “Will Australia’s mandatory climate reporting make greenwashing illegal?, wattsupwiththat.com, January 1, 2025
13. Sallust, “Food firms revolt against net zero over Australia’s energy crisis,”, wattsupwiththat.com, February 4, 2025
14. Jo Nova, “Australians still don’t want to give up steak, cars, gas stoves, or pay much for Net Zero,” joannenova.com.au, August 1, 2023
15. Jo Nova, ‘Thank US voters: Australian pension funds are backing away from climate pledges too,” joannenova.com.au, January 30, 2025