Energy dystopia: Australia’s baseload power possibilities
Imagine trying to predict today’s energy environment forty years ago.
In the UK, just 1.3% of electricity was renewably generated in 1985, rising to over 40% by 2023. Australia has a similarly dramatic rise, from 12% in 1985 to 30% in 2023. Both countries transitioned from predominantly coal-powered electricity (over 80% in Australia and 60-70% in the UK) to a diverse mix today. The UK has phased out coal almost entirely, while 46% of Australia’s electricity is still coal-burned. Renewable energy, gas-fired plants and nuclear have filled the gap. And don’t forget the woodchips.
But what will the next forty years hold for Australia’s energy system? My work-in-progress novel, Bad Land, is set forty years in the future, and this alone might make the energy landscape difficult to predict. Layer on a dystopian scenario in which Australia has become isolated from trade, communications and immigration due to war and pandemics, and the future is even murkier.
Australia is a resources motherlode. Although it is might be more famous for iron ore, lithium and copper, Australia is home to the largest uranium and third largest coal reserves globally.
Australia exports much of its natural resources and has not ramped up production of uranium nearly to the potential that its deposits would suggest. In a situation where Australia is cut off from the rest of the world, its domestic resources will be even more important, and the government will be unconstrained by diplomatic commitments like climate treaties.
In imagining the future power system of Australia, the sexy, tech-y parts would likely include distributed generation and storage, dynamic response to power prices, and an abundance of renewable energy and storage technologies, some of which may not exist today. My conception of Ethiopia’s future power system will explore this, given that they will be part of the interconnected world of finance and technology transfer.
My hunch is that if Australia were to become totally isolated, a less glamourous system would emerge, reverting to traditional base load power like nuclear and coal. But which would Australia choose?
It seems likely that coal would be the leading option, given that the country’s infrastructure is still optimised for it today. Australia would also be under even less pressure from international climate commitments, thus removing the need for low emissions fuels. If Australia is cut off from global supply chains, it also may take a significant amount of time to develop the resources and manufacturing capacity required to replicate what is currently imported. Running coal electricity to the ground may be the cheapest and easiest option.
I am also interested in the potential for nuclear in Australia in this isolated world. Although it has the largest deposits and fourth largest annual production, Australia does not have a single nuclear power plant for generating electricity. Yet on paper it is an excellent environment to do so.
Nuclear power requires a significant amount of cooling due to the large heat generated from the reaction. Water is a common cooling agent, and being situated near coasts reduces the transportation cost of water to site. ~90% of Australia’s population is coastal, so this would also reduce load losses when transporting power from the facility to homes.
Locating nuclear power near residential areas is also not particularly harmful from a radiation perspective. In a single year, a person is exposed to ~0.09 microsieverts of radiation, whereas a plane flight from one side of the US to the other is 400 times as much exposure.
Nuclear waste management is also a major factor in developing nuclear power. Australia has access to vast swathes of unpopulated desert, where nuclear waste could be buried safely without disturbance or risk of contamination.
Australia may also still want to contribute to carbon emissions reduction in this future world, especially as they are more likely to be impacted from severe climate events like droughts, bushfires and flooding. Nuclear has around the same life cycle emissions as wind, a third of the emissions of solar, and is 98.5% less carbon intensive than coal.
In a situation where Australia is cut off from the world and forced into self-dependency, the reasons stymying nuclear power development may fade away, like environmental concerns and worries about radiation impacts. While these projects would take a long time to develop, they could offer a cleaner, baseload power with higher durability and efficiency than coal.
Perhaps neither of these long-run scenarios would be likely if the renewable energy wave washes forcefully over Australia’s power grid in the next ten years. But it’s not such an improbable possibility given the persistence of coal on Australia’s grid today, and without cost-effective storage options to reliably provide baseload power.