You really are clueless.
Natural Gas is a local product, where sitting on heaps of it, and it's price has been dropping.
Nuclear however has been getting dearer, and dearer, and the most likely probability is that by the time we actually could get a nuclear plant producing, solar will actually be far cheaper than it.
Solar has halved in cost over the last twenty years, while nuclear has doubled, and the trends show no sign of changing.

Natural Gas went through a price spike a few years ago, but has dropped considerably since 2007, as well we have to take into consideration that the guys are building these power plants right on top of massive Gas Fields, so there is no great shipping and storage costs added on, like there is if you were providing Liquid Natural Gas to companies overseas to then utilise for power production.

The long and the short of it is that on any criteria you look at it, Nuclear is a bad option for Australia.

Gizmo

If your extrapolations of that report for the ACT are valid, and I am a little sceptical, to whit:

"larger plant size would significantly improve the economics by spreading the infrastructure costs over a larger productive plant and capturing economies of scale of the production plant itself. For example, doubling the plant to 44 MW would lower electricity cost by about 25%;"

And if it turns out that building a 1GW solar plant costs the same as 1GW NPP, which do you build?

One that, once built, has only maintenance, without further inputs or harmful outputs?

Or one that requires a mining industry, a refining process (which we currently don't have) and produces a terrible waste product, for which there is currently no solution?

Do you build the systems that need to be on our waterways, or the one that can be anywhere the land is cheap, and the power infrastructure already exists or can be economically installed?

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Dec 8^th, 2010 at 10:29am:


So why has Britain decided not to build any more NP stations?



No reactors have been built since the 1980s, due to:

concerns about accidents
spiralling decommissioning costs
the problem of nuclear waste

http://www.slideshare.net/tudorgeog/nuclear-power-stations-in-britain-presentati...

mantra wrote on Dec 8^th, 2010 at 10:35am:


Actually love the Government has decided to build new nuclear power plants.

Good news.   

Also the new Cameron Government is a strong supporter of nuclear power as well.....



The government has approved 10 sites in England and Wales for new nuclear power stations, most of them in locations where there are already plants.

It has rejected only one proposed site - in Dungeness, Kent - as being unsuitable on environmental grounds.

A new planning commission will make decisions on the proposals "within a year" of receiving them, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told MPs.

Nuclear was a "proven and reliable" energy source, he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8349715.stm

Please delete wrote on Dec 8^th, 2010 at 7:37am:


Yes I see your point....but since a solar plants Mw value is size dependant, doubling the Mw means doubling the physical area needed..
The 22Mw Solar/Thermal plant requirse 120ha, doubling it to 44Mw would mean 240Ha......where as a 1.1 Gw plant is the same physical size as a 500Mw plant, only the internal structure is different...

Please delete wrote on Dec 8^th, 2010 at 3:41pm:


But doesn't Solar Thermal still use steam turbines to generate electricity??

I know PV uses direct conversion, but as far as I know, Solar Thermal generates heat to convert water to steam for turbines..

Please delete wrote on Dec 8^th, 2010 at 3:46pm:


And the same system is used by nuclear power...the heat from the fission reaction heats the water to steam etc...