ENERGY SECURITYNuclear Electricity Supply Would Be Less Vulnerable to Attack Than Renewables

By Graham Cummings

Renewable energy generation is not as robust in the face of enemy attack as it looks. Nuclear power, even though it would probably be concentrated in a few large generating stations, should in fact be a little more dependable in wartime.

This warrants careful consideration, because an enemy may choose incapacitation of electricity supply to pressure Australia into cease fighting, just as Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s power generation and distribution system.

Yes, solar and wind electricity generation is dispersed into many units of modest output, each relatively uneconomical to attack, as Chris Douglas points out in an article in The Strategist. But supply-firming installations, such as batteries and peak-demand generators, are not as numerous and can be targeted instead. Moreover, renewable generation is just as reliant on a limited number of key transmission lines and substations in the distribution grid as big power stations are.

Also, whether an enemy would take the huge step of attacking nuclear power stations is doubtful.

How easily an enemy could cripple electricity supply can be analyzed in terms of the criticality of points in the system, their vulnerability and their recuperability.

Consider a hypothetical but plausible case in which seven nuclear power stations have a combined capacity of 11 gigawatts. Each is critical, because losing its output would cause great economic disruption. But the same applies to supply-firming installations that back up renewables. Australia’s eight largest planned firming installations have a capacity of about 11 gigawatts, so the concentration of supply in critical assets is quite comparable in the nuclear-generation and renewables-generation scenarios.

As for vulnerability, concentration of generation capacity in nuclear stations would simplify protection with air and missile defenses. In the all-renewables scenario, defenses would instead cover the largest firming assets, but we would have to accept risk with the remainder.

If an enemy overcomes air and missile defenses and scores hits, nuclear power stations may actually be less vulnerable than the equivalent firming assets, because they are necessarily built with impressive, passive defensive and protection measures. To achieve a high probability of kill our adversary would likely need to increase the volume or yield of the missile attack.