Jervis Bay Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Under Gorton we even made foundations at Jervis Bay for a nuclear plant would have allowed us to enrich weapons grade plutonium.
en.wikipedia.org
Under Gorton we even made foundations at Jervis Bay for a nuclear plant would have allowed us to enrich weapons grade plutonium.
downunderblue
Active Member
It is ADF General Discussion and clearly involves, will/may impact the ADF? It's a pretty broad category and does involve current/ future capability and strategy. I've seen longer bows drawn IMO, but that's just my 2 cents.
downunderblue
Active Member
Excluding any technical or industrial limitations, I couldn't at all see how CoA could keep it quiet during development. No one needs any inspections or regional scorn associated with accidental disclosure and that could happen so easily with the loose lips of a drunk staffer in a Kingston night club or the prying questions of a Greens Senator in Senate Estimates.
It's almost like we would need to acquire it magically (maybe as a gift), repeating what allegedly happened to a eastern Mediterranean state allegedly in the late 50s +++. Maybe Boris (not Yeltsin) can help??!
I don't think such an activity would need to be kept quiet. Just like with the SSNs, it is perhaps more useful as a public strategy. We would have more internal rather than external dissent with a nuclear weapons procurement.
In regards to obtaining warheads, I would have thought teaming again with the UK, who are almost certainly going to need to restart their nuclear weapon production line in the very near future to prepare for the US pulling out of Europe. They are going to be desperately looking for financial partners to underwrite the expense, and we have fat check books.
Delivery systems would be more difficult. The US owns all the Tridents, and the UK doesn't have an air launched nuclear capable missile to buy as a package. The French ASMP is relatively short ranged and is very specifically matched to French aircraft.
Perhaps the US would provide a parting gift of a bunch of B61 missiles for use with our F35s. Trump would likely sell them for a good price if we asked nicely. It could be a useful tactical weapon to use on an advancing force, but not much else. It's not like an F35 could fly over Beijing.
P.S. in case anybody gets the wrong idea, the above is a hypothetical spit ball in the unlikely event the US removes its nuclear umbrella service across SE Asia. It's a low probability, but one we unfortunately need to start thinking about.
I believe the F-11 aircraft were to be the delivery aircraft of such ,I think there were deals done
This was done prior to independent parties coming along there was research into w.m.d we dont need to go into specifics
downunderblue
Active Member
Not just quiet, invisible maybe. If the US wont guarantee our security and we publicly announce we are developing nuclear weapons, expect to be immediately blockaded by the PLA-N at a minimum, with strikes on our facilities to follow. We'd be smashed and lost.
If that (now imaginary) cat gets out of bag the regional bully will yank our chain, big time. Secrecy would be paramount until the capability is 100% sufficient to guarantee our future sovereignty. Only then would we be prickly enough to be leave alone, whilst the CCP focuses on an easier target.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Not likely IMO as Japan and SKorea will be first to develop WMD and I really can't see China going to war with them over their legitimate concerns over NK developing a SSBN. If China wants to limit WMD in the region, curb fat-boy's BS!
downunderblue
Active Member
If it impacts PRC/CCP authority, sovereignty or security, then I don't see them holding back if the US is disengaged/ non involved. That's the $50 trillion question though, what does the Donald think about it all.
Btw FWIW I think his nickname is either Big Daddy Xi, or Winnie the Pooh. He's not probe for outbursts, with the only time I can recall him being remotely annoyed in public was when he interacted with your former PM.
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What could they do…seriously…they could not invade. If they attacked about a trillion dollars in investment gets burned and one thing a communist loves more than the state is money.
Slightly OT but I can’t understand why a 2mw nuclear power station in the US is about $10 billion US to build but in Australia its $30 billion.Jervis Bay Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia
Under Gorton we even made foundations at Jervis Bay for a nuclear plant would have allowed us to enrich weapons grade plutonium.
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Because there are plenty of rent seekers in Australia who want the renewables subsidy gravy train to continue. They will lie through their teeth about nuclear because it is a threat to their income streams.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
The cost in current dollars to build another Darlington station, 4 CANDU reactors (~3,500 MW) would be $30 billion CDN. A similar output US reactor would be in this price range as well. This is why SMRs are likely the new way forward.
Oh dear, too much cool aid? If you are looking for rent seekers go no further than coal and gas. The whole nuclear concept is nothing more than getting another decade of two of coal subsidies, more if the reactors are actually built but can't produce enough power to replace the existing coal and gas plants.
I fully expect that should the nuclear plan go ahead there will be a new program of gas and maybe even coal plants kicked off to supplement them.
OT but why is it allegedly so much more expensive in Australia. Sth Korea built 8Gw power station in the UAE for about $25 billion US$ …That was around 12 years (2009-2021) from proposal to power generation. ..kicking off UAEs nuclear program from scratch in the process. Apparently SMRs are going to be a lot cheaper…The LNP plan was 5 x 5GW and 2 x 2 GW…but somehow some one has come up with $650 billion?…. It’s just politics?
And I for 1, don't have a problem with that to be honest.
I couldn't care less if we ditched Nuke power and ditched the wind turbine/solar plans completely, and continue with coal and gas.
Our contribution to going Stone age is pretty insignificant in the long run, I would be happy to ditch the Paris agreement Morrison sold us out to.
It's stupid to spend what we are proposing to do, for less efficient supply, higher demand, bigger environmental impact, when we can burn gas, that we have an abundance of.
The renewable is really a scam as far as I can work out. 3 tons of copper in every turbine...ever see a copper mine?
I see it as an incredibly expensive straw man to divert investment to coal and gas on the promise of something better down the road.
The thing is, the grid is already changing, batteries are real and here to stay, so is roof top solar. The big batteries have already shown their worth in improving grid resilience.
At a tactical level, how the electrons are produced doesn't matter so much any more, it's how they are transmitted and stored (which previously only applied to major hydro).
I'm looking to buy an extra couple of batteries because our power bill went from $300 credit average per quarter to a bill of $1500, because the scum sucking turd retailers cut our feed in tariff by 80% . Instead of selling to them I'm going to store it for my own use.
Why did the tariffs get cut? Easy, there is a glut of power during the day, meaning the "baseload" generators are uneconomical, so they are "taxing" renewable producers to subsidise them.
The sooner we move to a predominantly distributed grid the better in my opinion. Not just for cost and efficiency, but for resilience and security.
We had solar and a battery, as well as a generator in Darwin because of grid issues. Powerlines being taken down (storms), transformers arcing out (suicidal fruit bats). No issues now, just a beep and the flicker of lights when some bogan crashes into a power pole.
At the strategic level, look at Ukraine and Russia's attacks in infrastructure.
Hypersonic missiles even conventionally tipped ballistic missiles would be very effective against fixed power stations, coal, gas, or nuclear. Major substations would be harder as would big batteries, but a distributed network, I honestly don't see how they could take that down, so long as cyber defences were up to scratch.
As for defence relevance, every base in Australia needs electricity, that's why the Chinese tried to buy our powerstatiins, and were prohibited from doing so. Imagine an attack on Australia, and the enemy own and runs your power supply?
Imagine trying to defend an attack against 20square kms of wind turbines that if destroyed take years to replace. Imagine how easy it would be for just 1 person to destroy a wind turbine?
Imagine what just 1 cluster munition could do to a solar array?
Yes I know, Imagine what would happen if a nuclear power station took a few hits as well!
Coal and gas would be easiest to defend, and rebuild quickly.
Imagine trying to defend an attack against 20square kms of wind turbines that if destroyed take years to replace. Imagine how easy it would be for just 1 person to destroy a wind turbine?
Imagine what just 1 cluster munition could do to a solar array?
Yes I know, Imagine what would happen if a nuclear power station took a few hits as well!
Coal and gas would be easiest to defend, and rebuild quickly.
Ever major defence facility should have its own power generation.
This ironically is where a lot of the original idea of electrification of defence equipment and micro reactors came from. The US were doing the sums on the logistics in Afghanistan, in particular the supply of fuel and it very nearly made micro reactors economical.
The added benefit of electrification combined with distributed generation is resilience. Less fuel, used by fewer assets, means less fuel you need to transport store and defend. The more distributed to generators and storage of your energy, the harder it is for the other side to target and the more gracefully it degrades when it is attacked.
The US uses aviation fuel for their tanks, in part, because aviation fuel is the larger supply chain because of how much the helicopter fleet requires. The whole C-27J Spartan program arrose from the need to reduce losses being suffered by road convoys in Afghanistan.
This is so much more than nuclear (coal/gas) good, renewables bad. You can literally set up solar cells and wind turbines at campsites, grey nomads do it all the time (before going off to vote for Clive Palmer because renewables are "woke").
Renewables are not the be-all and end-all but they are becoming a very sensible economic and strategic choice.