The folks behind it know full well that it takes at least a decade of effort (regulatory and otherwise) before a new plant can be brought online. This won’t stop them from shovelling wheelbarrow-loads of taxpayer cash into the furnace to make it appear that they’re taking action. Meanwhile the grifters pedalling #SMRs will be laughing all the way to their offshore bank accounts.
Peter the Malignant Potato is talking shit again. He's rolling out the stale, old arguments against renewable energy. There's nothing new here in his message.
But his delivery has changed. I think he's had some analysts telling him his personal performance on the Dunkley bye-election was a flop, and nobody is believing his hype about Small Nuclear Reactors.
As a result, Dutton has started to mix-in some folksy humour, common misconceptions held by Boomers, conspiracy shibboleths, and some preposterously wrong assertions. It takes time for opposing viewpoints to critique his garbage, but he's already moved on to his next point quickly.
It's a subtle but dangerous shift. Dutton has adopted a media strategy used by Steve Bannon, MAGA nutjobs, and QAnon conspiracy theorists: flooding the zone with shit.
Small modular nuclear reactors: a history of failure by Dr Jim Green | Jan 17, 2024
Context: Australian conservative Liberal and National Parties will take a pro-nuclear power policy to the next Australian election as the large part to their climate policy, including advocacy for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
Green itemises the history of failure and massive cost and construction time over-runs in SMRs and current western conventional nuclear power construction.
The former frontrunner of the small modular nuclear reactor hopefuls, @NuScale_Power, now seems to be fading away on the stock market. Chased by law firms organizing class action lawsuits taking aim at the stream of (too) good news in recent years (Standard Power! Romania! etc.) #NuclearPower#SMR#SMRs#nuclearenergy
> ... much-hyped #SmallModularReactors (#SMRs), now.. in deep delay.. soaring prices. SMRs are theoretical nukes designed to be far smaller than today’s 1,000+ megawatt reactors, to be mass produced and buried throughout the country. Only #NuScale , has gotten significant preliminary licensing approval. Cost and delivery projections from #BillGates’s #TerraPower.. and other prospective[s].. are theoretical, with little.. data to back up when.. deployed.. what prices. https://truthout.org/articles/how-the-nuclear-renaissance-robs-and-roasts-our-earth/
"The concerns are aimed at Moltex, a Saint John, N.B., nuclear startup building small modular reactors (SMRs) that will be powered with spent fuel from CANDU reactors. To make the fuel, Moltex plans to separate plutonium from uranium in CANDU waste and use the extracted plutonium to power new SMRs."