Originally Posted by
racedo
If only the sun shone in Australia you could be self sufficient with solar power with no need to spend $30 billion on 1 reactor (Hinkley estimate). Of course if you were setting up nuclear power stations in Australia then probably need to set up 3-4 sites so that is $150 billion for a start.
Bearing in mind the Estimate for a 1 MW solar power farm is circa $1 Million. One wonders why Australia produces 8 times more from wind than it does from large scale Solar PV or 100 times more from fossil fuels than large scale Solar.
I think the answer to that is in the details of the government subsidy contracts.
Industry hires top notch lawyers to wrangle the maximum of profit out of the minimum of investment. Efficiency and common sense are not relevant to the outcome.
Separately, rather than Australia nuking up, it surely would be more economical to supply uranium to China's neighbors, such as Viet Nam, Indonesia and Taiwan, to develop their own nuclear deterrent.
China has been throwing its weight around a bit, a reminder that other people also have a say would be useful.