Australia

@DavidDoesLemmy @Zagorath Here's an article about a company named RedFlow, that has sold its fourth grid-scale long-duration zinc bromine flow battery to California:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/redflow-tapped-as-preferred-battery-provider-for-a-fourth-major-california-project/

Where's RedFlow based? Brisbane.

An alternative to bromine flow batteries is grid-scale lithium.

And where is one of the world's largest lithium minjng regions? Western Australia.

The Coalition's policy is to ban any further investment in grid-scale batteries from RedFlow or with WA lithium, along with banning further investments in wind and solar.

Instead, it wants to hand roughly half a trillion dollars to largely foreign-owned multinationals to build nuclear power plants in Australia.

Assuming the Coalition can deliver 7 large-scale first-of-its-kind infrastructure projects on time and on budget in Australia, it will take 10 to 15 years to build them. In the meantime, Australia will continue burning coal and natural gas.

And all this for an energy source that costs substantially more per megawatt hour than renewables, coal, or gas.

@DavidDoesLemmy @Zagorath This type of “small bet” would cost 10x more than the same bet on batteries and grid upgrades. The nuclear option is nothing more than a massive carbon tax, except this time it’s a nuclear tax, and it’s funding the nuclear instead of reducing it.

Every time someone proposes to spend NBN levels of money, or multiples of NBNs, ask yourself what the coalition would say if they were against it.