CSIRO releases final 2024-25 GenCost report following consultation

  * The report found renewables remain the lowest-cost new-build electricity generation technology, while nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) are the most costly.

  * Electricity systems rely on a mix of technologies, because no single option can deliver all the capabilities required for a reliable, secure and flexible supply.

~ https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2025/july/2024-25-genc...

Nuclear power, in Australia, relies upon high upfront costs with an uncertain delivery timeline; there are no sizeable existing nuclear power skillsets in the country, no living experience of construction, and a history of global clusterfucks when it comes to third party power station construction / delivery.

For the same money that maybe gets Australia some turnkey nuclear power by 2040 (ish) there can be nearly immediate delivery of solar power, battery farms, geological hydrogen storage, mini hydro, etc.

Right now, in Australia, nuclear isn't a pragmatic economically feasible choice.

Uranium based nuclear is ... a headache to say the very least, if not for the realisation that any waste sites will require much more security than they do presently, not ideal for the issue of decommissioning large uranium nuclear plants when they reach end of life. [1] [2] Perhaps the smaller reactor plants might not quite the same level of trouble decommissioning them.

Almost always what echoes in the quiet gap between the reality there is if not multiple billions of dollars of expenditure to implement going nuclear with Uranium, is the repetitive assertion just having all that Uranium is why we should go ahead with it. Well actually we have plenty of Thorium too, and the by product waste is not as great an issue.

[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Cs8I-6PkQ [video 27 mins] How a Nuclear Power Plant Is Actually Decommissioned — The Full $20B Process

- can take 30 to 60 years - average US nuclear plant decommission cost sits around 10 billion dollars.

"A 2009 poll conducted by the Uranium Information Centre found that Australians in the 40 to 55 years age group are the "most trenchantly opposed to nuclear power". This generation was raised during the Cold War, experienced the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s, witnessed the 1979 partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in the US, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It was the generation which was also subject to cultural influences including feature films such as the "nuclear industry conspiracies" The China Syndrome and Silkwood and the apocalyptic Dr Strangelove. Younger people are "less resistant" to the idea of nuclear power in Australia. Analysis of opinion polls from 2012 shows a "significant decrease in favourable views of nuclear power" following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Austr...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Australia

Decarbonisation is very much discussed in Australia, but not much progress has been done, because coal and natural gas is cheap in Australia. Australia also one of the largest coal exporters in the world.

https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/decar...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g...

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/coal-expo...