JOHN QUIGGIN John Quiggin is Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland.

John Quiggan’s Submission to the #NuclearCommissionSAust addressed Question 3.2 of the Issues Papers:

“Are there commercial reactor technologies (or emerging technologies which may be commercially available in the next two decades) than can be installed and connected to the NEM?”

Extract “….Business SA wants Australia to adopt the PRISM reactor, a so-called Generation IV design. Unfortunately, “design” is the operative word here: PRISM is, literally, still on the drawing

(Tell them they’re dreaming • Inside Story http://insidestory.org.au/tell-them-theyre-dreaming 3 of 4 26/06/2015)

It does not exist even in prototype form. The US Department of Energy, along with designers GE and Hitachi, looked at the idea of building such a prototype at the Department’s Savannah River plant a few years ago, but the project has gone nowhere.

Much the same is true of another popular piece of nuclear vaporware, the “small…