An Occasional Reader drew my attention to this article by Mark Ludlow in the Australian Financial Review, which is behind a paywall, and I’m not going to bother paying. I’ve got quite enough subs, thank you. (AFR don’t even give you the option to get a few free articles in exchange for your email address, the lousy blighters....).
It’s about the update to a report on the cost of various options of producing electricity in Australia, by GenCost.
Occasional Reader sent me pix of the article:
The report looks at the estimated cost of various electrify production options, wind, solar, coal, gas, etc. Not much about nuclear, though the report does not discount that it may be in the mix, after 2030, in the shape of Small Modular Reactors, SMRs, (4.3.6 page 37) although not in large-scale plants, for reasons they don’t explain.
Still, my Occasional Reader comments: 
But we nuclear proponents don’t insist that it be nuclear or nothing. We suggest that nuclear ought be in the mix. It’s not "either/or" for us, but "both/and". Based on what might make economic sense the time.
Which is why I don’t get this by Mark Ludlow, talking of the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese and the GenCost alleged high cost of SMRs:
“it may further embolden the Albanese government, which has consistently shot down low-emissions nuclear power as an option to help reach net zero by 2050.”
Why would you shoot it down? I mean... why?
Instead of “shooting down” nuclear, why doesn’t Albanese say something like “we are trying to reach a Net Zero carbon emission economy and anything that can safely contribute to that is welcome.” ?
BTW: I doubt GenCost's prediction that SMR cost may increase. Their reasoning is that there will be more deployment of offshore floating wind power and that this will mean less nuclear SMR, and therefore greater cost per SMR. I’m not sure of that reasoning. Strikes me as rather tendentious. But even if, why “shoot it down”, when all the other costs of Renewables have increased averagely 20%. Not fair!
The GenCost report from the CSIRO does not itself “shoot down” nuclear power for Australia. It discounts large scale nuclear power plants, for reasons not given.
However GenCost does consider the costs of Nuclear Small Modular Reactors, which could come into use in Australia after 2030.
Yet nowhere in the Oz media do I see discussion of even this modest proposal for nuclear power for Australia, which would be a huge shift from then policy of the last 70 years. If it is to be an option, shouldn’t we be talking about it right now?
Anyway, bottom line: Nuclear SMRs are not “shot down” by GenCost; they are right there in the report as a possibility, post 2030 (at 4.3.6 page 37)
GenCost provides some Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) figures, but not for Nuclear. I’ve got those LCOE for nuclear on my blog earlier, together with an explanation of what LCOE means, here.
LCOE for nuclear are around the lowest of all the electricity production methods. They are not the highest as we often are told. That’s from figures from the US Department of Energy, which oversees the 90-odd American nuclear power plants, which have been operating for over 70 years. 
The GenCost report (page ix) has a chart of LCOE to which below I’ve added the cost of Nuclear, from the US DoE, that I posted just above. You see it’s amongst the lowest costs, similar to Wind and Solar.
