Advocacy for the Coalition’s hopes to build nuclear power plants is increasingly coming with large side-orders of misinformation, not just on the speed or costs of nuclear but on renewables.
Dr Adi Paterson, the chair of the Nuclear for Australia advocacy group, has taken to attacking the credentials of CSIRO experts while going hyperbolic with his rhetoric.
When Paterson told Sky News he thought the agency’s report on the costs of different electricity generation technologies was “a form of fascism” there was not a whisper of disapproval from the surrounding studio panel. Mussolini would be turning in his grave.
The definitely-not-fascist GenCost report has found electricity from nuclear would be far more expensive than solar and wind, taking into account the cost of extra transmission lines and technologies to connect, store and rerelease renewable power.
Paterson claimed on the Sky news show Outsiders that the GenCost report “looks at one reactor in Finland”. In fact, the report had based the cost of large-scale reactors in Australia on South Korea’s long-running nuclear program – one of the most successful in the world.
Entrepreneur Dick Smith, a patron of Nuclear for Australia, has also tried to claim CSIRO used a “worst-case scenario” for nuclear costs. One leading energy analyst has previously told Temperature Check the opposite was more likely the case.
Paterson, a former boss of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, said in any case, he wanted to see Australia consider 5MW micro-reactors (less than the size of a large wind turbine, suggesting Paterson would like to see Australia scattered with tiny nuclear reactors).
He then pointed to Bill Gates’ Terrapower company and its project in Wyoming (which has a much higher proposed generation capacity of 345 MW), saying it was currently licensed and “being built now”.
In fact, as Terrapower’s chief executive told CNBC a couple of months ago, the company has only just submitted its construction permit application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and hopes to get approval in 2026. They are doing some construction at the site, but none of it relates to the nuclear aspects of the plant.
Two days out of five?
Paterson has claimed wind turbines only generate electricity “two days out of five” or “37% of the time”.
Dr Dylan McConnell, an energy systems analyst at UNSW, said this was a “misleading” characterisation of windfarm performance.
McConnell said the 37% figure referred to something called the capacity factor – that is, how much electricity is generated over a given period relative to a windfarm’s maximum capacity.
“It is equivalent to implying that windfarms run at 100% of capacity two days out of five, and zero capacity three days out of five. This is of course not at all how windfarms or renewable energy generation works,” he said.
“They infrequently run at 100% of capacity. The converse of this is that they are often running just at levels below their full rated output – which is even more true across the whole fleet.”
McConnell points to data showing over the past year windfarms contributed about 12% of the total generation across the national electricity market (everywhere except WA and the NT) and while he said there was “a lot of variability”, there were no days when windfarms failed to generate.
He said: “Saying they work ‘two days out of every five’ is misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of the contribution of wind to the power system.”
Free pass for renewables?
Conservative economist and contributor to the Australian and the Spectator, Judith Sloan, has penned several pieces in recent weeks favouring nuclear power while making questionable claims about renewables.
In the Spectator, Sloan wrote that state governments “have allowed renewable energy companies to avoid the normal approval processes, including environmental assessments”.
Firstly, renewables projects are subject to both state and federal environmental assessments.
The federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has assessed and approved more than 50 renewables projects – often with conditions attached – under current environmental laws, and rejected one windfarm in north Queensland in May because of potential impacts on nature. (The previous environment minister, Sussan Ley, also rejected a windfarm in 2020.)
Marilyne Crestias, interim chief executive at the Clean Energy Investor Group, said it was “inaccurate” to say that projects avoided environmental assessments at state level.
“Each state and territory has its own set of laws governing environmental assessments for renewable energy projects.
“For example, in New South Wales, large-scale renewable energy projects must undergo an environmental impact assessment (EIA) under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. Similarly in Victoria, projects are assessed under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 for their environmental, social and economic impacts. And in Queensland, the Environmental Protection Act 1994 requires environmental impact statements (EIS) for significant projects, including renewable energy developments. These assessments ensure that renewable energy projects are developed responsibly and sustainably.”
Talking to Sky, Sloan has said: “One of the worst aspects of [the renewables rollout] is that these renewable investors have never entered into an undertaking that they will remediate the land.”
Crestias said this was a “misconception”, saying developers typically did have agreements that included remediating the land.
“These agreements often cover the entire lifecycle of the project, from development through decommissioning,” she said.
“For instance, planning permits for windfarms in Victoria require developers to submit a decommissioning and rehabilitation plan before construction begins.”
