The scientific body whose role it is to advise the Australian government has done a study .
" Australia’s main scientific body, the CSIRO, has reaffirmed its assessment that integrated renewable energy is by far the cheapest option for Australia, and that nuclear – be it large scale or small modular reactors – is too slow and too costly."
The CSIRO’s findings have been consistent since the first of its now annual GenCost reports was released under the then Coalition government in 2018. In fact the gap between renewables and nuclear has widened, despite the addition of integration and transmission costs to wind and solar, even with up to a 90 per cent renewable share.
The CSIRO has bent over backwards to respond to the criticism from the nuclear lobby, and added an estimated cost in Australia for large scale nuclear. It says is not as pricy as SMR technology, but is still at least double the cost of integrated renewables, and wouldn’t be possible before 2040 even if a commitment was made now.
