Jim PavlidisCredit: .
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If federal and state Labor governments wanted to improve their chances at upcoming elections they should placate regional voters by spending more on renewable energy delivery systems. Most people think wind, hydro and solar are a great idea but not too many want ugly and dangerous transmission towers on their land and towns. By placing them underground in appropriate sections would improve visual amenity, safety and increase positivity towards renewables. Given the Coalition’s recent announcements it would still be much quicker and cheaper to secure Australia’s energy needs.
Pete Sands, Monbulk
... And then there’s the question of water
One of the details missing from Peter Dutton’s proposal is how he can guarantee cooling water for the seven nuclear power stations being proposed over the next 50 years as the climate heats up. Australia is already facing periods of severe water shortages which will only get worse as the impacts of climate change intensify. The Coalition expects us to believe that climate change is such a minor problem that water supply will always be available to keep these power stations running at full capacity. This is not the case now and certainly will not be the case over the next 50 years.
Dean Wotherspoon, Northcote
Why not try Templestowe?
Lake Narracan and Yallourn Weir provide water to Loy Yang B. They aren’t particularly big. All the nuclear plants I have seen in Germany and Scotland were near the ocean or a substantial river. If a plant is to be built, despite the warning by the CSIRO regarding cost, timelines and safety, it needs to be near a reliable water source and close to high voltage power lines. I can think of no better place than the Yarra at Templestowe.
Paul Chivers, Box Hill North
First, a few answers are required
A few basic questions that must be answered before we could even consider voting for the Coalition with its energy policy. What is the governance model for managing the construction of nuclear power plants over the next 25 years (at least eight electoral cycles)? Who will operate (and maintain) the plants when completed? How much will they cost to build and commission? Where is the money coming from? Why has the Coalition rejected its longheld policies of private ownership of energy infrastructure? What happens to the waste? Where is it disposed of and how does it get there?
Phillip Johnstone, Cape Woolamai
No water needed for renewables
Seismic faultlines aren’t the only consideration in siting nuclear power plants (″Neither state Labor nor Libs favour nuclear idea″, 20/6). Nuclear power plants require plenty of cold water, the colder the better, more than coal or gas powered power plants. Nuclear, coal and gas power plants are just steam generators, and they’re more efficient in generating electricity with access to abundant cold water. Fukushima in Japan was sited on the coast for a reason – its access to cold ocean water (unfortunately it had more access to cold ocean water than it wanted in 2011). Coal power plants are often sited where there’s ready access to its fuel. Nuclear power plants need to be sited where there’s access to abundant cold water, which probably doesn’t apply to Peter Dutton’s seven sites.
One power source doesn’t need any water at all – solar photovoltaic and wind turbine farms, which is an advantage in a country prone to droughts. How much electricity would Peter Dutton’s nuclear power plants generate if there’s a drought when they’re due to be optimistically switched on?
Wayne Robinson, Kingsley
THE FORUM
Multiplier effect
The low level of skills of young people in numeracy is a problem for now and into the future (″Push for tests to find pupils not keeping up with maths″, 20/6). We need to commit to a rigorous process to make sure they do not fall further behind.
There is a large pool of resources that we have ignored for years now. Retired teachers and some who are not registered with the Victorian Institute of Teaching sit idly while they could be useful tutors in enhancing the level of understanding in mathematics.
We need to be more flexible in our ability to interact with these experts. A way to get these people back into the art of teaching mathematics must be on the agenda of all of those people who make decisions about the future of education.
A resource that is truly wasted.
Graham Haupt, Ivanhoe
Gainful knowledge
Even if the benefit from the Department of Education’s post-COVID maths tutoring program was ″little″ (″Little benefit from $1b school program: audit″, 20/6), it would have been useful to know the nature of the small gains for the students concerned.
As with the measuring and invitations to complete surveys issued by the federal aged care services portfolio newsletters, what is measured is often not what is of most value, and the questions asked in surveys are often not the questions which need most to be addressed.
Ruth Farr, Blackburn South
Teach the teachers
It is all very well to say that students are not keeping up with maths, because in my experience, it is some teachers, particularly in primary schools, who are not confident in teaching maths or are themselves very poor mathematically.
I recall two instances of this. The first was when one of my daughters, when in grade 2, was showing me her maths work. She showed me a division problem – what is 13 divided by 3 and had her answer 4.1 marked correct. I spoke to the teacher about it, who said it represented 4 with a remainder of 1. I explained that it would confuse students when they actually moved on to decimals and should be represented as 4 rem 1 (or 4 r 1). Second, after I retired as a secondary maths teacher and was doing private computer maintenance in a primary school, I saw a teacher had a problem on the board which boiled down to, after the multiplication and divisions had been performed, as 5-4+3=?. She incorrectly stated that the addition had to be done first leaving the question 5-7=?. For the uninitiated, addition and subtraction are worked out from left to right (as are multiplication and division) and the answer is 4.
Alan Inchley, Frankston
A billion here or there
A statewide school tutoring program that cost taxpayers more than $1 billion has done little to improve students’ learning, the auditor-general has found. The $1billion-plus that the Victorian government has spent to support the F1 Grand Prix at Albert Park has likewise done little to improve the lives of Victorians.
Geoff Gowers, Merricks North
Tests and opportunities
The push for nuclear by Peter Dutton provides a test and an opportunity for Anthony Albanese.
He must now articulate why we can achieve energy stability without nuclear. Sell the virtues of renewables and in particular what’s possible with batteries and pumped hydro and why renewables can deliver reliable, baseload power not just the peak loads. He needs to focus on the positive storyline of renewables and not just become a naysayer about nuclear. Otherwise the debate will be lost and Australians will pay the price.
David Brophy, Beaumaris
More than one oppressor
Your correspondent (Letters, 20/6) refers scathingly to the Israeli suppression of Palestinians since 1948. It is worth noting that a former distinguished US ambassador to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Kuwait, Ryan Crocker, has commented recently on the historic and current reluctance of Arab states to come to the Palestinians’ aid.
Tellingly, after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain did not withdraw ambassadors from Israel; and Saudi Arabia continues to leave open the possibility of a peace agreement with Israel. The Iranian ayatollahs in Tehran have, moreover, had little regard historically for the Palestinian diaspora. The last thing the Arab states want is an independent Palestinian movement, exemplified by how Egyptian governments have over the years regarded Palestinians with fear and loathing, too. Israel’s recent indiscriminate military tactics in Gaza are to be condemned; but it is fanciful to think that the Palestinians can rely on meaningful support from Arab nations that have a record of hosting them under sufferance and even regarding them as, effectively, ″fifth columnists″. To characterise Israel as the sole oppressor of Palestinians is disingenuous in the extreme.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza
Get real, Coalition
When questioned on details of their policies, the answers given by Peter Dutton and his Coalition colleagues almost always seem to include the phrases “in due course” or “at a later date”. A policy with insufficient detail is not a real policy.
Ross Bardin, Williamstown
Little bits not enough
“We want the information out there in bite-sized bits,” explains Peter Dutton about the lack of detail in his nuclear ambitions. If I went to a restaurant and my meal was served to me in bite-sized bits, I’d be having words with the chef. I want everything on the plate in front of me, so I can decide for myself if I want to chow down on it, or send it back.
Barry Miller, Kyneton
Dutton’s homework
As part of his research into nuclear energy, I recommend Peter Dutton watch The Days, about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, based on station manager Masao Yoshida’s first-hand account of events. It reveals how they came within a whisker of knocking out a third of Honshu for 10,000 or so years. Then he should follow up with the BBC series Chernobyl, the account of Russia’s encounter with mass irradiation and the narrowly averted catastrophe in greater Europe.
John Berger, Trentham
Nuclear necessity
Australian energy and climate policy is delivering neither affordable, adequate electricity nor sufficiently rapid emissions reductions.
Coal and gas are being wound back. Wind and solar provide more than enough electricity in the middle of the day but not at other times. Investment in renewables is declining. Battery development is still primitive. Electricity prices are rising.
Electricity supply seems always to be on the edge of shortage with day-by-day crisis management substituting for reliable supply.
No one can foresee Australian emissions being reduced sufficiently rapidly by this policy, or its implementation to give the country a shot at the 2030 targets, let alone net zero by 2050.
This looks like market failure. In this context, government intervention to support nuclear power is an obvious and necessary course.
Michael Angwin, Hawthorn
Clashing views
So to get this straight, those protesting against wind farms 20 kilometres out to sea (″Wollongong’s wind era powers up despite blowback″, 15/6), where you would have to stand on high cliffs with binoculars to see the towers, are OK that people in Lithgow are being expected to live with having a nuclear power station in their valley despite the great risks and the huge in-their-faces visual impact?
Robert Brown, Camberwell
This isn’t the ’30s
There is a growing belief that the world today is coming to look more like the 1930s.
Certainly there is an underlying worldwide dissatisfaction and restlessness, as evidenced by the drift to the right in recent polling in key liberal democracies, particularly in Europe. This trend is causing apprehension over whether these key liberal democracies can sustain their values and stability, and achieve growth in the face of vicious power plays by hostile autocratic nations seeking to take advantage of these trends and create their ″new world order″ to displace that which emerged following and in consequence of WWII.
The 1930s had similar features to the present day. But the view that history repeats itself is misleading if not false. It does repeat in some respects but only in respects peculiar to time and place in its own circumstances.
The missing factor today is that there is no Hitler-like figure similar to the 1930s pressing extreme views on vulnerable issues and susceptible peoples.
Thank goodness for that, but it won’t remain that way if the leading democracies fail to hold their ground and keep reinvigorating and supporting their core beliefs and values.
Andrew Farran, Malvern
Cost scepticism
If the opposition’s nuclear project turns out to be anything like their Snowy Hydro project, which began life in 2017 costing $2 billion and is currently projected to cost $12 billion and not be completed until 2029, then I’m very sceptical about any cost and timeline projections they may come up with.
Rob Smith, Rye
An obscene load
Imagine if the same police who charged the two actors for using obscene language during a play in 1969 (An Age Ago: 1969, 20/6) were to frequent today’s Melbourne streets. They would need more than a divisional van, they would need a divisional semi-trailer.
Mark Hulls, Sandringham
AND ANOTHER THING
Dutton
When is the Peter Dutton nuclear pipe dream going to be called out for the distraction it is in respect to effective action on climate change?
Peter Baddeley, Portland
With seven nuclear reactors up and running, what will we be doing with the radioactive (for thousands of years) nuclear waste?
Michael Brinkman, Ventnor
Too little, too late Peter Dutton. Your party’s 10 years of climate inaction cannot be undone by this irrational thought bubble.
Ralph Frank, Malvern East
Presumably the Coalition expects to be better at organising nuclear power stations than it was with Snowy 2.0: not pay more than double, not make a mess with waste and actually work in time.
Barbara Lynch, South Yarra
Now here’s an idea. Dig channels from the ocean to the disused coal power stations. Drive the AUKUS submarines up the channels, plug them in and they can power the nation.
Teresa McIntosh, Keysborough
The Coalition may know where to build nuclear power plants, but how will they dispose of nuclear waste?
Penny Garnett, Castlemaine
As the Coalition was unable to build 47 new commuter car parks as promised I wonder how seven nuclear reactors would go?
Joan Segrave, Healesville
The Age has reported that hundreds of high voltage power lines are rusty and at the end of their life (″Hundreds of electrical towers have rust damage″, 16/2). This would be another cost the Coalition hasn’t considered.
Jason McCutcheon, East Malvern
Furthermore
Bet365, NEDS, Sportsbet, Ladbrokes, Pointsbet, Tabcorp. Ridiculous. Ban all gambling advertisements.
Neale Woods, Wattle Glen
With the appointment of Gil McLachlan as the new CEO at Tabcorp I expect we will soon be able to bet on the polo.
Andrea Plantinga, Point Lonsdale