CANBERRA, May 22 (NNN-AAP) – A large-scale nuclear power plant in Australia would generate electricity at more than twice the cost of renewable sources, a report from the national science agency found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) today published the annual GenCost report for 2023-24, charting the cost of building new electric generation and storage and hydrogen production projects through to 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first time since its inception in 2018, the latest GenCost report compared large-scale nuclear technology with other power generation options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It found that, building a 1,000 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant would cost at least 8.5 billion Australian dollars (5.6 billion U.S. dollars) and take over 15 years to develop, due to the absence of a development pipeline and additional legal, safety and security steps required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If operational by 2040, it is estimated that a large-scale reactor would generate electricity at a minimum cost of 141 AUD (94 USD) per megawatt hour (MWh) and a maximum of 232 AUD (154.7 USD) per MWh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By comparison, the report estimated that onshore wind farms would produce electricity for a maximum price of 74 AUD (49.3 USD) per MWh by 2040, and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology for a maximum of 55 AUD (36.6 USD) per MWh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nuclear power has been prohibited in Australia since 1998, but the governing Labour Party has faced calls to repeal the ban, which it has ruled out doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The GenCost report found that renewables remained Australia’s cheapest electricity generation option, despite inflationary pressures and the associated costs of storage and transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A separate report, published by NGO, the Clean Energy Council earlier in May, found that nuclear energy would cost up to six times more than renewable sources of electricity.– NNN-AAP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CANBERRA, May 22 (NNN-AAP) – A large-scale nuclear power plant in Australia would generate electricity at more than twice the cost of renewable sources, a report from the national science agency found. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) today published the annual GenCost report for 2023-24, charting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":264680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,300,322,286],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264672"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264681,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264672\/revisions\/264681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}