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SILICON
CHIP
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Production Manager
Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.)
Technical Editor
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
Technical Staff
Ross Tester
Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc, VK2ZLO
Mauro Grassi, B.Sc.(Hons.)
Photography
Ross Tester
Reader Services
Ann Morris
Advertising Enquiries
Glyn Smith
Phone (02) 9939 3295
Mobile 0431 792 293
glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au
Regular Contributors
Brendan Akhurst
Rodney Champness, VK3UG
Mike Sheriff, B.Sc, VK2YFK
Stan Swan
SILICON CHIP is published 12 times
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Publisher’s Letter
Now is the time for
Australia to build nuclear
power stations
In the Publisher’s Letter of the January 2008 issue, I discussed some of the possible implications
of Australia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and
the Federal Government’s promise to set up a carbontrading scheme by 2010. Now, only six months later,
some of those implications are turning out to have
real bite. For example, I suggested that “Victoria’s brown coal-fired power
stations could well get the chop and quite soon”. That prediction has been
confirmed by recent financial analysts’ reports which highlight the resultant
cost to Victoria’s electricity consumers.
More importantly, the Federal Government’s actions are a real whammy
on the potential price that the New South Wales Government will be able
to get for the sale of its electricity generation and distribution assets. Since
these are coal-fired generators, the prospect of heavy costs for carbon dioxide fees is likely to greatly reduce the eventual sale proceeds. So much
so that the State government has mooted the possibility of listing some or
all of the assets on the ASX as suitable for “mum and dad investors” (read
“mug punters”). No doubt they will be listed as some sort of complicated
“stapled security” which will be difficult for most investors to fully assess.
If this does come to pass, I would suggest that all investors consult closely
with their financial advisers.
In fact, if the full effect of carbon trading is taken into account, the NSW
State Government really should not be selling those assets. Instead, it should
bite the bullet and invest in new generators in its own right. After all, the
financial return on their generating assets has been excellent over the years,
as they would be well aware.
However, both State and Federal governments can act to ensure that their
coal fired generating stations are not seriously devalued by the advent of carbon trading. How? Simply by converting them to nuclear power. In essence,
all that needs to be done is to disconnect the existing coal fired boilers and
hook up nuclear “kettles” instead. This solves the problem of carbon emissions in one fell swoop and we need not worry about complex and costly
geosequestration schemes which have yet to be proven viable.
Such an approach is entirely practical and could be done progressively
over the next decade, with little disruption to supplies. It goes without
saying that any new base-load power stations should either be nuclear or
gas-fired.
I have no doubt that the various state-run electricity authorities have
already assessed all their power stations concerning the viability of such
nuclear conversions. However, they are likely to have kept such assessments
well under wraps until the political climate becomes more favourable to
such conversion.
Well, now is the time. Australia should not persist with the hypocrisy of
being one of the biggest suppliers of uranium ore but not entertaining the
idea of using nuclear power generation on its home soil. The sooner we
make the change, the better.
Leo Simpson
ISSN 1030-2662
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