As we know, the Evil US is doing a much better job of emissions reduction than Coalstralia:
The reason is very simple. The US has domestic gas reservations, which have allowed for immense coal-to-gas switching.
Now, it is planning for the next stage of outdoing Coalstralia:
Bill Gates and his energy company are starting construction at their Wyoming site for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will “revolutionize” how power is generated.
Gates was in the tiny community of Kemmerer Monday to break ground on the project. The co-founder of Microsoft is chairman of TerraPower. The company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor that uses sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant.
The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp’s Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. PacifiCorp plans to get carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is weighing how much nuclear to include in its long-range planning.
…Advanced reactors typically use a coolant other than water and operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Such technology has been around for decades, but the United States has continued to build large, conventional water-cooled reactors as commercial power plants. The Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has tried to get an advanced reactor up and running as a commercial power plant in the United States, according to the NRC.
…A Georgia utility just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion. The price tag for the expansion of Plant Vogtle from two of the traditional large reactors to four includes $11 billion in cost overruns.
The TerraPower project is expected to cost up to $4 billion, half of it from the U.S. Department of Energy. Levesque said that figure includes first-of-its-kind costs for designing and licensing the reactor, so future ones would cost significantly less.
The US already has a substantial nuclear sector so it makes sense that it be upgraded to the latest technology.
What is most noteworthy about this is the process of transition. Gas will be used as the transitional fuel while firming power in nuclear will come in behind.
This guarantees security of supply and the lowest prices.
Australia has the same plan, but it was been wrecked by the emergence of the East Coast gas export cartel, which is still rorting local gas markets on behalf of China:
Gas sets the marginal cost of power, so it is crazy too:
We have what is shaping as another climate election, yet neither side is talking about the only issue that matters: gas reservation.
Why? Everybody is afraid of these guys:
Origin Energy chief executive Frank Calabria says the country’s largest electricity utility will minimise the company’s ownership of wind and solar generation assets as part of a strategy to boost investor returns.
The strategy, unveiled in a briefing for Origin investors on Wednesday, is a marked departure from plans outlined by Brookfield last year. The Canadian investment giant, which made a $20 billion takeover bid with EIG Global Energy Partners, said it would invest up to $30 billion to double the company’s renewable generation portfolio.
Briefing investors, Mr Calabria said the transition away from fossil fuels, and increased price volatility, presented a major opportunity for the company.
The pitch to investors positions Origin as a company that can manage that volatility – its “core DNA”, Mr Calabria said – with a mix of renewable energy purchase contracts, rooftop solar, and firming assets like batteries and gas peaking plants.
Origin is a member of the East Coast gas export cartel. It has no incentive to build anything to break its gas-gouging regime. Rather, it’s planning to maximise economic rents via assets that benefit from its ongoing stranglehold over gas.
Origin also sponsors the Grattan Institute, which promotes pointless distractions like electrifying households to stupid politicians to cover up doing nothing.
Without gas reservation and gas transitional power, publicly subsided coal will continue as baseload power until nuclear or batteries arrive many years hence.
The Evil US is going to humiliate the Coalstralian renewable superpower for many years to come.
