If Australia had built CANDU reactors — the rollout we never had
Energy Realism
a sister site of Unprepared
19902035
…then by 2050(the net-zero deadline), at Canada's actual CANDU build rate, Australia would have:
36
CANDU reactors
25 GW of always-on power
100%
of the coal fleet
replaced (23 GW)
5,448
TWh generated
cumulative, zero-carbon
311
Sydney Harbours
of desalinated fresh water
The renewable path
~35 GW
of firm backup capacity STILL required — for when the wind drops and the sun sets.
The nuclear path
0 GW
of backup required — nuclear is the baseload. It runs day or night, calm or still.
Fresh water desalinated & fleet built — 2000 to 2050
Desalinated water (Sydney Harbours) Nuclear fleet (GW)
Outcomes shown at 2050 (the net-zero deadline). A counterfactual at Canada's ACTUAL CANDU build rate (~0.7 GW/yr — its real 1971–93 record), capped at a 25 GW Australian fleet. CANDU 6: ~700 MWe net, ~90% capacity factor, ~5-yr build. NB: even if the ban were lifted today, first concrete is ~5–6 years away — so the slider runs to 2035 (a realistic earliest start), and the cost of every year of delay is visible in the gap. Desalination assumes a conservative 10% of output run off-peak at 3.5 kWh/m³ (modern seawater reverse osmosis is 2.5–4). Sources: World Nuclear Association, AtkinsRéalis Enhanced CANDU 6, IAEA, SWRO literature.