One lunacy dodged, let’s nuke the other one

Now that Australia’s submarine program has gone nuclear, will we accept the logic of also buying and building 21st century nuclear power stations?

PThe first best option for Australia’s power generation for the 21st century is a mix of al state-of-the-art new coal, nuclear and gas power stations.

What a day: Australia goes nuclear and unemployment drops to its lowest level since before the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.

The first was great news, the second was fake news.

What was so great about the subs was not just the ‘correction’ of what had been the single most stupid decision ever made by an Australian government, but the faint hope that by going nuclear, so to speak, ‘offshore’ we might finally embrace going nuclear onshore.

As I wrote in January 2020 – ah, back in those lazy but also hazy days of the last summer before anyone had heard of the virus – buying French nuclear subs but demanding they be totally redesigned and turned into (early) 20th century diesels was almost literally unbelievable.

It was exactly like buying F35s and demanding they be turned into World War Two Spitfires with propellers and engines to match – and then still waiting 25-40 years for them to arrive.

Now, we are actually buying – and indeed building – 21st century subs.

Will we now accept the logic of also buying and building 21st century nuclear power stations – the absolutely critical foundation of a future power grid if we are really stupid enough to close down our coal-fired power stations and even if by some miracle we don’t?

Incidentally, can someone tell Adam Bandt – Greens leader and ‘deputy prime minister’ in the next Labor government, at least in the privacy of his own delusions – that subs, nuclear or otherwise, don’t normally trundle down Collins, Pitt, Queen or Rundle.

Can they gently break it to him that subs tend to be “out there” in the, well, ocean. Bandt tweeted the decision “puts” – that’s present tense; so what Adam, next week? – “floating Chernobyls in the heart of Australia’s cities”.

The first best option for Australia’s power generation for the 21st century is a mix of al state-of-the-art new coal, nuclear and gas power stations.

He was only equalled in lunacy by NZ’s PM Jacinda Ardern banning them from NZ waters.

Only the waters? Does that mean they’ll be, contra Bandt, welcome, trundling up the streets of Wellington and Auckland?

Let’s hope it breaks the taboo against nuclear power.

The first best option for Australia’s power generation for the 21st century is a mix of al state-of-the-art new coal, nuclear and gas power stations. There can be some solar and wind where it makes sense – like the back of Bourke.

But if we are to continue our nationally suicidal pursuit of more and more wind and solar and closing and not replacing coal, the least insane mix would be nuclear as base load and peaking gas for when the wind don’t’ blow and the sun don’t shine.

The ABS jobless rate edged down to 4.5 per cent in August.

Batteries, whether Tesla-style or Malcolm’s Big (Snowy) Battery, simply won’t cut it.

As for the fake news, the only reason the ABS jobless rate edged down to 4.5 per cent in August, was that around 160,000 people just gave up looking for a job.

If they hadn’t done that, the jobless rate would actually have leapt by a full percentage point, to 5.6 per cent. Further, the ABS data covers only the first two weeks of August. Yes, the NSW lockdown was into its second month, but the Victorian lockdown was only getting started.

This showed in the Victorian jobless rate falling to just 4.1 per cent, but the NSW rate rising to 4.9 per cent. But if that NSW rate is adjusted for those who gave up, it would have been close to 7 per cent. That’s where Victoria is headed in the next numbers.

Queensland was dragged down a bit by NSW and Victoria, but WA actually grew jobs in its iron ore-driven isolation heaven.

The mix reflects what we are experiencing with GDP – Victoria and NSW down around 6-7 per cent this current quarter, the other states around zero – with Queensland slightly negative, WA positive.

And national GDP down 4 per cent.

Originally published as One lunacy dodged, let’s nuke the other one