When I started work on this story, I initially anticipated writing something short, sharp and pointed about how Australian conservatives have embraced nuclear energy. The more I learned about the nuclear influencers wooing the federal Coalition, the weirder things got. /1 - ThreadSky

roycerk2.bsky.social • 20 days ago

When I started work on this story, I initially anticipated writing something short, sharp and pointed about how Australian conservatives have embraced nuclear energy. The more I learned about the nuclear influencers wooing the federal Coalition, the weirder things got. /1

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huggybare.bsky.social•20 days ago

RWNJ won't like this article, nor rusted on Liberals.

lukebro92.bsky.social•20 days ago

If you don't want to be compared to Ontario, maybe compare yourself to France?

nucleargandalf.bsky.social•20 days ago

Wtf is this? This is a straight up fantasy, Ontario had huge demand growth after the 50s and a lot of coal was built up to the 70s. Coal was passed out bringing back the nuclear units

nucleargandalf.bsky.social•20 days ago

We did export reactors to Korea, India, Pakistan, Romania, Argentina and China. Last year we sold two new CANDU reactors to Romania.

nucleargandalf.bsky.social•20 days ago

Here is an Ontario Hydro assessment of the economics of nuclear in 1981. At this time all the nuclear projects were pretty close to on time and budget.

https://inis.iaea.org/records/hazb0-kfa56

nucleargandalf.bsky.social•20 days ago

A big reason for the accumulated debt of Ontario hydro in the 90s were the multiple stops in construction of Darlington in the 80s as demand started to plateau and governments wondered about the need for capacity. Long term bond rates in the 80s were 12+%

nucleargandalf.bsky.social•20 days ago

I’ll repeat my comment made elsewhere: if Australians want to keep being the largest one exporters of coal in the world, one of the biggest LNG exporters, having a unionization rate that is 40% that of Canada, no manufacturing sector and permanent Murdoch brain go ahead, but don’t do misinformation

nucleargandalf.bsky.social•20 days ago

And on the current costs and the electricity subsidy
https://bsky.app/profile/nucleargandalf.bsky.social/post/3lhkabwnibc24

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

Thank you for sage and considered thoughts, Nuclear Gandalf. Good luck with the Balrog.

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

2/ A consistent thread was Ontario. The Canadians were everywhere; people I spoke to in politics and policy also repeated how the leaders of the Coalition would shrug off any challenge with a single word: Ontario.

Here's an example:

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

3/ One is a nation that spans a continent and the other is a small province of Canada. One is mostly desert, the other verdant green forest and ice. Each has different problems to solve, and that begs the question: how did Australia's conservatives end up chugging the maple syrup on nuclear?

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

4/ To cut ahead, the answer has much to do with a convergence of pro-nuclear activism, internationalist conservative political ambition and new media ecosystems selling the idea of nuclear as Canadian soft power. In Australia, the entry point appears to come back to one influential podcaster:

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

5/ I'll leave you to read the story and end on the final words from Ross who closes it out: “My advice to Australia? Two words: elections matter.”

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

5/ Over 300 episodes of his influential podcast, Chris Keefer has helped build the legend of a mighty Ontarian nuclear industry. Federal Australian Coalition ministers and their advisors have met or are friends with him, and he has given speeches to radical free market thinktanks.

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

/6 Much of this origin story traces back to Ontario's 2018 provincial election but as I learned from Don Ross, 70, the meaning of that time turns not just on who is doing telling the story, but who actually lived through it, and how close they were to the action.

roycerk2.bsky.social•20 days ago

7/ I'll leave you to read the rest of the story and form your own judgements, but I'll give the last word to Ross who closes out the story: “My advice to Australia? Two words: elections matter.”

cardine.bsky.social•20 days ago

It makes sense because none of the "policies" Peter Dutton has offered are original.

I was wondering where his nuclear bs came from.

tangibullah.bsky.social•20 days ago

I mean, it's the largest Canadian province by population, & by GDP.

surlysimon.bsky.social•20 days ago

Nuclear power is a Schrödinger’s cat, we are being sold something that we won’t know the truth about till we’ve paid the price and opened the bow

lukebro92.bsky.social•20 days ago

I'm getting the feeling your getting your metaphors confused

surlysimon.bsky.social•19 days ago

Au contraire, the policy is being hidden from us, and when we can see it it will either be a dead cat or a disaster that will cost us billions

rszasz.bsky.social•19 days ago

We need to phase out coal and LNG. Coal's entire cycle makes nuclear, including all the accidents, look absolutely spotless in comparison. Renewables can handle peak loads but to get rid of coal, nuclear is going to be part of the capacity.

surlysimon.bsky.social•19 days ago

No it isn’t, the nonsense of “baseload” just means we end up with a system that has to be kept running all the time at the expense of cheaper renewables, given wind is reliable and cheap to build why not focus on that, in a country the size of Australia the wind is always blowing somewhere

rszasz.bsky.social•19 days ago

Who is supposed to build and run it? If you want to always have power, and cover base load and peak load, 80%+ of your generating capacity is going to be sitting idle a lot of the time.

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