Nuclear is cheaper than you think

Jon Stanford writes: Re. “Shepherd’s vision: kamikaze politicians delivering for business” (Thursday). In dismissing ideology as a reason for banning nuclear power, Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane assert that “it’s hideously expensive, compared even with renewables”. Recent official evidence from the energy white paper challenges this conclusion. The government’s own data suggests that nuclear power is the cheapest of all available low-emissions electricity-generation technologies with the marginal exception of landfill gas. This result can then be checked by accessing CSIRO’s eFutures model. Using the same assumptions as CSIRO’s reference case, with the exception that nuclear is allowed, this modelling suggests that the introduction of nuclear power from 2030 would make it easier for Australia to meet its 80% emissions reduction target by 2050 and at a much lower cost. If nuclear were not used, the wholesale cost of electricity would be 33% higher in 2050 than otherwise, while the reduction in emissions from electricity emissions would be only 65% as opposed to 85% with nuclear allowed.

These conclusions are reached using official data and a publicly available CSIRO model. Why the government then chose to dismiss nuclear as uneconomic in its white paper is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.

Name up in the air 

Michael James writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (Friday). The airport  is Ayers Rock, hence the three letter airport code AYQ and is located some distance from the iconic rock. Ayers Rock is the appropriate name for the airport, as it has borne that name for many years, predating the changing general name for the geological feature, and changing it would be a first class pain in the rectum, especially as it’s not an Australian organisation that assigns the code. By the way, the code ULU is already assigned to Gulu airport in Uganda.

Art for all

Arstcape director Merran Morrison writes: Re. “Is money for Australian art in Venice a little rich?” (Friday). Venice is a place for all Oz artists and architects to aspire to. The Pavilion enjoys multiple uses (e.g. the Architectural Biennale), and its events create partnerships and opportunities to link us to the global centres of the art world that  counter our antipodean disadvantage.

No news is good news?

Rebecca Barnett writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (Friday). I truly believe that while we like to perceive the news as being “bad” and enjoy the idea that media has a “bad news bias”, in reality if the media were to report the reality of where we are and where we’re currently heading, as a species the pictures on our televisions and in our newspapers would be a lot more “negative”. An example of this is the level of reporting on the Boston bombings and the death of three people, no news on the much greater number of Iraqis killed on the same day. Why? Perhaps there is some truth to the belief that we value Western lives over those of Iraqis. However, I think the real answer lies in the fact that the way news is presented to us is indivisible from the parade of entertainment that is modern media. A great deal of the truly frightening and horrific things happening in and to the world do not fit into this parade. We don’t need good news to make us feel better about our lives we need an ongoing, well-presented, critical perspective on the havoc that our anthropocentrism is wreaking on the world.