PeFe wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 3:19 pm
Ontario subsidises it's electricity by 8 billion Canadian Dollars per year.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... da-ontario
Ontario is building a small nuclear reactor (300mw) at the moment. The Ontario government refuses to reveal the cost....it literally is hiding the cost from Canadian taxpayers.
Ontario built the majority of their nuclear reactors in the 1970;s and 80's and have spent billions refurbishing them.
If Australia builds nuclear it wil have to pay 2028/2030 prices....not 1970's Canadian prices.
The question of how the liberals will hide the costs of nuclear power is a good thought exercise. Let's try it. But first let's make a couple of basic assumptions:
1. Let's assume we are dumb enough to believe they intend to build nuclear power and that this is not just an attempt to prolong coal for another 20 years and let their 65+ constituents squeeze the planet for the last bit of profit.
2. Let's give them free kick of the century and assume they build it on time and not factor in delays and overruns. That's one massive free kick, but they'll need it.
3. Let's give them another free kick. Fuck it, a penatly kick. And no goal keeper. Let's say Australia, with no experience whatsoever, will build it for the same price as an experienced country. Let's go with Hinkley Point C U/C in UK. 42 billion GBP for 3,200MW. Something that can power roughly 1/7 of the NEM. Except that rooftop solar basically powers the NEM during the day anyway. But anyway. About 84 billion AUD.
How will the Liberals pay for it and make it look cheaper than solar and wind?
1. Most importantly, it needs to be funded in a way that the costs sunk into it can't in anyway be actually connected to a bill paid for by a consumer.
2. It needs to be funded by the government but kept off the federal budget. LOL. Imagine a Liberal government (or Labor for that matter) trying to look good by not running budget surpluses? Don't make my laugh.
3. It needs to give the chosen generation another chance to squeeze everyone else to keep their voting constituency happy.
So, this is the formula for doing it:
They'll fund it with bonds. They'll give it a lame, sorry arsed excuse for a name to make people proud of them. Building True Blue Australia Bonds or something like that. The money from the bonds will sink into a bottomless pit but dressed up for "mum and pop" like an investment. To make it look like it's even better, they'll pay well overs on the interest, because we're already wasting another generation's money, what's an extra 4% interest on top of that? Mom and pop will be laughing at everyone collecting their interest on them, bragging about how their generation was the only one that understood other people's money.
Over the life of the industry, every subsidy in the book will be thrown at nuclear to keep the price as low as possible. It'll be the Greens fault.
And when they're decomissioned by a later generation, the cost won't matter, because the greedy generation will be long gone and never made accountable for it in their lifetimes.
Thank god they don't actually intend on building nuclear.
