Liberal Party PR agency, News Crap Australia, has published yet another glowing almost-full-page advertisement urging Australia to adopt nuclear power as advocated by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
This time columnist Tim Blair waxes lyrical about a new nuclear power plant that started supplying power to customers in the southern US state of Georgia on 31 July. (main picture)
The new facility, known as Plant Vogtle Unit 3, is the third part of a four-unit nuclear plant near the town of Waynesboro whose first two units started feeding the state grid in 1987 and 1989.
The fourth unit is due to start up later this year, or early next, according to its developers.
In his column Mr Blair is cock-a-hoop that the new Georgia unit was the first new nuclear plant to come online in USA for 30 years.
He uses the space allocated to him to advertise and argue that nuclear power generates no emissions of the kind that currently are shown to contribute to climate change.
So why aren’t we all rushing to embrace it as fast as we can?
He puts the answer down to what he says is the “nuclear fear fakery” supposedly being spread by “the left” in Australia about problems such as how to store nuclear waste, the possibility of dangerous meltdowns, the cost of going nuclear, as well as the issue of where to site nuclear plants.
Unfortunately, while Mr Blair acknowledges all of those issues as potential barriers to the establishment of an Australian nuclear power system, he doesn’t provide solutions to any of them.
The fact is that Mr Dutton has adopted a far-right strategy to back nuclear power as a means to differentiate his Liberal Party from Labor and to supposedly force Labor into rejecting a “clean” power source that generates zero emissions.
But he too never addresses the same issues Mr Blair ignores in his latest column.
Let’s take the cost issue for starters.
Mr Blair’s column makes no mention of the cost of the new Georgia plant.
The independent Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York City can shed some light on that issue.
In a recent report the Centre noted: “After years of schedule delays and cost overruns, the Vogtle Unit 3 nuclear generating facility has finally begun commercial operations.
“When the state of Georgia approved the project in 2009, the expectation was that Units 3 and 4 would cost US$14 billion and begin commercial operations in 2016 and 2017, but recent estimates put the cost for the two units at over US$30 billion, with Unit 4 still under construction.”
To put that into context, in Aussie dollars that’s a rise in costs from $21.3 billion to almost $46 billion.
Mr Blair also ignores that impact the high costs of such plants can have on power bills for households and business operators.
A statement by power utility Georgia Power says its share of the cost of the new plant is US$10.2 billion, or AUS$15.5 billion.
It admits that the figure is above the US$7.3 billion (AUS$11.1 billion) previously deemed reasonable by the state regulator, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC).
What that means, and what Mr Blair ignores, is that the extra cost will flow on to power bills.
Georgia Power states that it will add an estimated US$5.42 (AUS$8.25) or 3.2% to the typical residential customer’s monthly bill.
Nothing about that appeared in Mr Blair’s advertisement even though it took one of our MGH researchers about 10-15 minutes to find that key information.
Nor did he mention the additional ominous line from Georgia Power which said: “Any additional increase to rates will be decided on by the PSC at a later date.”
Mr Blair doesn’t address the simple issue of why Australia should prefer to build expensive nuclear plants that will see bills go up instead of embracing more renewable energy that uses free energy sources.
All of this has left our MGH researchers scratching their heads and prompting them to ask themselves a few simple question: Aren’t opinion pieces meant to be based on facts? And also, aren’t columnists obliged to ensure all relevant facts are disclosed or at least taken into account when they pen their opinions on the big issues up for public debate?
Of course, they answered themselves, such strictures don’t apply if you’re writing ad copy for a News Crap Australia publication.
Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!
The Bug Online 