For a bit of balance, here's an article that covers both sides...

For a bit of balance, here's an article that covers both sides of the argument for nuclear.

Sure its expensive to build and takes time. However, at least these 2 things need to be considered.

Firstly, what is the real capital cost and maintain cost in establishing insufficient renewable infrastructure???

Secondly, as we all know, renewables certainly have their place in the grid, but unfortunately, can never provide 100% of reliable base load power.

If we expect industry and the power hungry future demands, including technology, A.I. crypto etc to be efficiently and effectively satisfied by renewables alone, we have a huge disappointment ahead.

As we transition away from reliable coal, gas, diesel and oil, the only effective replacement is obviously nuclear.

It seems in any event, power costs will increase. However, reliability and long term utilisation is paramount.

My highlights in red

What nuclear power in the United States tells usabout the Coalition's controversial energy policy

Story by EricCampbell

• 6h • 9 min read

The Vogtle nuclearplant in Georgia. (Four Corners: Ryan Sheridan)

As day dawns in the southern US stateof Georgia, the first sunlight breaks through steam clouds billowing from thegiant Alvin W. Vogtle nuclear plant.

Residents have been sleeping, but the nuclear power plant never rests.

Its AP1000 reactors run 24/7, using nuclear fission to boil water tocreate steam to turn turbines to power more than a million homes and businesseswith zero-emissions electricity.

Now, Georgia residents are paying the price for Vogtle's overruns intheir electricity bills.

Community organiser Kimberley Scott said people have been struggling tokeep up.

"Power bills have gone up hundreds of dollars for consumersincluding myself," she said.

Georgia ratepayer Anna Hamer said she now has had to ration airconditioning in the Atlanta summer as her bills rise. In July she was hit withher highest power bill ever: $US618 for one month. 

"They were telling us everything was going to be OK with thisplant, that it would be on time and it would be on budget. It's over budget andwe are paying for that. That seems wrong to me."

It's very different to what the Coalition has been suggesting in mediainterviews and energy speeches since it launched its nuclear policy over threemonths ago.

At the nuclear policy launch in June, Mr Dutton said: "Electricityis cheaper where there is a presence of nuclear energy. That is a fact. So wecan rely on that international experience."

The Coalition often cites the Canadian province of Ontario as a model,saying its three nuclear plants contribute to much lower power bills thanAustralia. The plants are owned and subsidised by the provincial government.

While some have questioned whether this is a fair comparison to Australia,Shadow Energy Minister Ted O'Brien maintains it is.

"One of the reasons they see power prices coming down is because ofthe role of nuclear in the mix," he told Four Corners.

Peter Bradford, a former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission,which licences commercial reactors, told Four Corners building nuclear plantswas always the most expensive option.

"It's an unbroken string of economic disappointment," he said.

"If nuclear power were a person, it would be weeping with its headin its hands over the Vogtle story. Vogtle is clear proof that large nuclearconstruction is not an economic way to go."

That's not to say Vogtle doesn't still have keen supporters.

Stephen Biegalski, who teaches nuclear engineering at the GeorgiaInstitute of Technology, believes the AP1000 is potentially a great choice forAustralia, and said with each new reactor built, the price should come down.

"When you build the first of a kind unit you have to establish theprocess. It will not be perfect the first time you do it. But on the positiveside, once it's done, the road's been paved, you can reproduce that with lesseffort, with less uncertainty and less risk."

Australia wouldn't be alone: countries like China and Poland are liningup to install the AP1000 model.

Ted O'Brien said the Coalition's policy has been shaped by the lessonslearned by other countries.

"If you look at the Vogtle example, one of the lessons we need tolearn in Australia is we should not be adopting first of a kind technology. Weshould only be adopting what's referred to as next-of a kind proventechnology."

He said a Coalition government would spend two-and-a-half years studyingthe sites and consulting communities before an independent authority choosesthe most appropriate reactor design.

The SMR conundrum

The other type of reactor the Coalition wants in its nuclear powerarsenal has been promoted as a game changer for the industry.

The theory is that small modular reactors (SMRs) can have theircomponents built in factories then trucked to a site, making them quicker andcheaper to build.

The Coalition wants SMRs operating in Australia from 2035. There's justone problem.

They don't exist yet, at least not commercially.

Billions of dollars are being spent to make them a reality. But so far,all attempts are years from completion or have already failed.

The only project that won approval from the US Nuclear RegulatoryCommission was abandoned last November because of rising costs, even after theUS Department of Energy pledged more than $US500 million in grants.

Four Corners went to the latest place where there's a concerted attemptto break this conundrum. It's a sleepy coal town in south-west Wyoming calledKemmerer, with a population of nearly 3,000.

It's full of ranchers and coal workers.

Enter Bill Gates. In June the billionaire climate change activist cameto town and turned a sod on his project to construct a working SMR, declaring:"This is a big step towards safe, abundant, zero carbon energy."

He's putting $US1 billion of his own money into trying to make it asuccess, with the federal government pledging another $US2 billion.

At Kemmerer's main bar, Grumpies, Trump flags with messages like"F*** Your Feelings!" adorn the walls. Owner Teri Picerno said therehadn't been a lot of chatter about nuclear at the bar.

"Gates has a hard sell," she said.

"I don't know if it's his politics, but they just don't trust himsaying it's going to make anything better."

With coal production falling across Wyoming, Kemmerer's coal-fired powerplant is slated to close next decade.

Ms Picerno said most folks still think coal has a future and don'tbelieve in climate change.

"I think people would be OK if the nuclear were to gain us jobs.But it's not, we're not getting a gain, we're maintaining."

Fortunately for the project, the town administration welcomes theprospect of anything that might bring work.

"Essentially, the town was going to lose a couple of hundred jobsor more," Mayor Bill Thek said.

"We're hoping that the people that work for the power plant, thecurrent coal burning power plant will be able to transition, or at least someof them, into the nuclear plant."

For now, all that's being constructed are the bits around the reactor,while the project waits for approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission(NRC). Project spokesman Jeff Navin said they still hoped to finishconstruction by 2030.

"We expect to get our license from the NRC in anotheryear-and-a-half to two years and I suspect when that happens we'll start to seea significant number of orders coming up so people can get in line and get intothe queue."

SMRs face a challenge. They're small, producing far less power. Anypower they produce would therefore be more expensive, unless the modules can bemass produced to make them cheaper to construct to offset the generation cost.

But nobody is going to mass produce anything until there is a workingmodel that promises to produce power economically that attracts lots of eagercustomers. Which takes you back to square one.

Peter Bradford has seen promised breakthroughs like SMRs come and go.

"In this industry, vendor claims about cheaper nuclear costs have along, well-documented and very sad history — they just don't come true.

"There is no basis for believing that this utterly unproventechnology is going to sweep in and make a success of a field that up to nowhas been an unmitigated economic failure."

Even in the Gates-backed project's most optimistic scenario, it'sunlikely SMRs would be mass produced to bring down costs before Australia plansto install them.

When asked about this, Ted O'Brien did not appear fazed.

"By the time Australia would be making procurement decisions, therewill be multiple SMR designs.

"The Wyoming story is a fascinating one … a wonderful example ofhow you can practically go from coal to nuclear and leverage the existingworkforce."

Getting it done

The uncertainty around SMRs, and the cost blowout in Georgia, point tothe practical difficulties Australia would face in trying to build reactorscheaper than countries with decades of experience, when we've never built anuclear energy plant before.

The US is not the only nuclear country struggling to build new plants.

• France's latest reactor opened 12 years behind schedule and around 10 billion euros over budget.
• Britain's Hinkley Point plant is running six years late and facing a 20 billion British pound overrun.
• A South Korean consortium was able to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates over 12 years. Even under an authoritarian regime, each reactor was connected to the grid around three years later than expected.

US journalist and nuclear historian Stephanie Cooke has been coveringthe industry since 1980.

"I have never seen a project come in on time or budget. They'vecome in way, way over budget and way over time. It amazes me that there's somuch hype about something that's been such an abject failure in my opinion.

"I mean, yeah, it's produced electricity, but at what cost? I don'tthink that we should be wasting our money on it plain and simple."

Clean energy analyst Simon Holmes a Court — who backed climate-focusedteal independents to win Coalition seats at the last election — is a big fan ofnuclear, just not in Australia.

"The resources that we have in wind and solar are the best in theworld. To turn our back on that and pursue a technology where we do not haveany advantage is crazy," he said.

"One day the nuclear sector might have a product that fits theAustralian market. What's really clear is that the nuclear sector does not havea product at the moment that fits into what Australia needs right now."

The finer points of how the Coalition plans to overcome the challengesit will confront are still unclear.

It's yet to reveal how much its plan will cost or how it will overturnfederal state bans on nuclear energy.

It says SMR plants could be operating by 2035, or 2037 if it starts withlarger reactors. But the timing beyond that is unclear.

It says it will release more details before the next election but fornow it's asking Australians to take it on trust.

Mr O'Brien insists in the end Australia's can-do mentality will triumph.

"There is no shortage of political opponents who will always pointto an example of a project not going well. Or they want to basically say,Australia does not have the capability. I'll let them run that argument. WhenAustralians have put their mind to things, they've gotten it done."

Watch FourCorners's full investigation, Nuclear Gamble, tonight from 8:30pm on ABC TVand ABC iview.