[Closed] Hinkley C - do you have a view?

Hinkley running at well below rated capacity as it is damaged internatlly

Dibbs - it is damaged internally - no dispute

This analysis from the independednt shows just how bad the sate of the reactors is and how unreliable they have been

Both reactors at nearby Hinkley Point B and at Hunterston B on the west coast of Scotland are running at 70 per cent power, at inspectors' insistence, after developing cracks in the graphite core of their reactors. In the worst-case scenario, the cracked graphite bricks could break up and distort the nuclear core, trapping the highly radioactive fuel, which could overheat and melt.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/power-cuts-feared-in-uk-nuclear-plants-crisis-951810.html

Bristol biker - how biased a question is that? Ridiculous.

Two of the 10 have been idle for almost a year, with both reactors out of action due to corrosion. Another two have had one of their reactors closed down for months. And yet another two are having to run both their reactors at less than three-quarters of their normal power for safety reasons.

And even that is not the end of it. Of the four that are still in good working condition, one is due to shut down permanently in two years' time, a second is partially closed for routine maintenance, and a third is facing safety questions following the discovery of flaws in similar reactors in Japan.

The Hinkley and Hunterston power reductions are due to boiler limitations not reactor core limitations, don't believe everything you read TJ.

Dibbs your sources for that? Conmsidering that it has been widely reported that the cracks have led to the need to reduce output - not one source but many .

Bristol biker - how biased a question is that? Ridiculous

Let's put it another way: 'Put your sensible head on for moment and take you're head out your arse - do you want to watch X-factor on saturday night or sit in the dark around a camp fire because there's no leccy?'

This is actually what the average Joe cares about on the street and when you phrase the question in such terms then the moral case melts like ice cream in a freezer without power. As has been mentioned above several times any politician is committing political suicide to suggest the lights will go out and as there is no plausable alternative that offers the energy density in the short term that the private sector is prepared to invest in then this is direction we will end up goign for the medium term..... and yes, we will have to worry about waste later on.

Even if the question is phrased in less stark terms, coal is still below nuclear as the prefferred solution.

bristolbiker - but that is ridiculous. We can meet our energy needs without nukes. To ignore the waste probloem is absurd.

Private companiews will not build new nukes without massive subsifdy and without the government taking responsibiluty for waste and decommisioning

You are simply being absurd

I don't believe we can, certainly not for the next 25 years. This is what I hear from people in the industry. We will simply have to disagree on this.

Private companiews will not build new nukes without massive subsifdy and without the government taking responsibiluty for waste and decommisioning

Yes - you are completely correct, and those are framing terms of the next generation of reactor licenses. Such is the political demand for new power.

TJ-And no station has been decommissioned yet

With Berkeley and Oldbury just down the Severn from me, you could say I've lived in the shadow of these things all my life.
In reality are renewable electricity sources out there ready to go that can supply a country with the population and density of the UK?
Obviously, renewables are the long term target, but what about the immediate future? Power cuts are a very serious reality in this country because every time the issue raises it head, the powers that be get scared and have refused to push the button for new electricity sources, by whatever means of generation.
I could well be wrong, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Drax (coal fired) was the largest single emitter of CO2 in western Europe? According to Wiki, it certainly is the largest in the UK, and with recent renovations its actually the most efficient!
Thinking about TJs comments about the efficiency of the nuke plants made me think. Again, only on some memory so probably wrong, I do have a recollection about most of our plants being designed built with a 25year service life, most of them now operating well beyond that due to demand. So whats the youngest nuke power station in the UK? How does it stack up to what we know now about nuclear generation?
BTW I'm for it. I don't see we have a choice as yet.

remember the industry has a built in bias in favour of large capital intensive projects. Insulation houses does not do their profits any good

OIf course wwe can meet our energy needs without nukes - its quicker to opena caol mine and build a coal powered station than a nuke FFS. WE could have a huge pelarmis fleet in action in a few years.

energy efficiency could reduce consumption by 25% easily.

While Berkeley may not yet be fully decommissioned, its well on its way. Obviously full cost won't be known till its completed.

My point is made.

TJ: I would not dare to contradict Dibbs in these matters.

But this remark about the design of "C" on the link you posted I find very interesting:

According to calculations by EDF and Areva, the reactor’s RIP (Instant Return to Power) control mode and the control rod cluster configuration can induce a rod ejection accident during low-power operation, and lead to the rupture of the control rod drive casing. This rupture would cause the coolant to leak outside the nuclear reactor vessel. Such a loss of coolant accident (LOCA - a very serious type of nuclear accident) would damage a large number of fuel rods by heating fuel pellets and claddings, and thus cause the release of highly radioactive steam into the containment. So there is a great risk of a criticality accident resulting in an explosion, the reactor power being increased in an extremely brutal way. Following the ejection of control rod clusters during low-power operation, the reactor emergency shutdown may fail. Whatever the configuration of the control rod clusters, a rod ejection accident induces a high rate of broken fuel rods and therefore a high risk of a criticality accident.

So the RIP (how apt) is a cr@p design feature, and inherently unsafe. Is it true or just noise? Who knows!? Normally, the engineering process would design this sort of weakness out. Perhaps it already has.

remember the industry has a built in bias in favour of large capital intensive projects. Insulation houses does not do their profits any good

Insulating houses has minimal impact - our demand, esp in industry is increasing faster than we can save from domestic reductions alone.

OIf course wwe can meet our energy needs without nukes - its quicker to opena caol mine and build a coal powered station than a nuke FFS. WE could have a huge pelarmis fleet in action in a few years.

That survey I referrenced above shows coal has a worse public relations problem than nuclear. 15% would go nuclear, 6% coal IIRC. You appear to be in a minority of wanting Drax-size sites springing up again. Putting some numbers against this, I can go out tommorow and buy the hardware for a gas fired turn-key power station for around £20m to output 60/100MW. A typical sub-sea turbine will generate 1MW (some of the time) for over £1M and the offshore instalation fees are crippling (I know, I've spent an evening in a pub with a guy who's done it crying into his beer how much this costs). The current subsidy on 'renewable' tarrifs means they are subsidused to the tune of 50% to make it even worth the while of companies to build these machines, and there won't be the critical mass for years in these industries for that to go away. We need high energy density installations to take us through that period - and the people would appear to want nuclear before coal.

WE could have a huge pelarmis fleet in action in a few years

I expect you mean Pelamis. It's true that we possibly could and maybe we should if the costs of the steel and the offshore cables work out and we can solve the storage problem, but the numbers don't stack up as a replacement for nuclear. Also remember that these sorts of technologies have a long history of failing to live up to their expectations. Anyone for a Salter's Duck?

bristolbiker - energy efficiency is a huge range of measures - insulation is one of them and yes they would save 25% if done properly

However capitalism does not push people to consume less. NO profit in it.

I did not at any point argue for new Drax stations. I argue for a range of things from insulating houses to local CHP plants, to wave energy to local thermal stores.

When you start attacking me, inventing things I say to support your argument I know that you have lost and its time for me to leave the debate. I should have followed Zokes example ages ago.

buzz-lightyear
I merely asked Dibbs for his sources seeing as he contradicts many reports in quality newspapers I am interested to know why he is so sure they have got it wrong

As haakon_haakonsson has already pointed out, if anyone wants to form an opinion formed on 'science' then try reading "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air" by David MacKay.

In summary all the options are sh1t, but nuclear is the least sh1t one for now, but long term we may be screwed. Unless Fusion is sorted out.

PS. The guy has even put it online for free... http://www.withouthotair.com/

TJ - Dibbs is probably better informed than most of us on the subject.

Rio - you really should know better. You know that salters duck was discredited on the back of some very dodgy numbers and pelamis has a functioning station off the Portuguese coast.

Hinkley B - output 860Mw, even if thats 100%, it means its putting out 602Mw at 70%.
http://www.british-energy.com/pagetemplate.php?pid=89

Pelamis Aegir project - output up to 20Mw, thats with 26 Pelamis generators.
http://www.pelamiswave.com/our-projects/aegir-shetland

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for renewable energy, its definitely the future. I just don't think its ready yet. I don't disagree that building nuke power plants is environmentally unfriendly, but I'm interested to know what the cost (cash and to the environment) of building enough Pelamis generators to equal the power output of one new nuke station?

Let's just say that I'm probably the only person on this site that's been inside the Hinkley pressure vessels with the inspection teams.

PeteG55, 860Mw is the 70% figure, we used to generate around 1200Mw.

TJ - even so, the numbers don't add up [i]even if you could extract 100% of the energy from the waves[/i], never mind the environmental effects that would have.

Dibbs - fair enough but why was it so widely reported that the cracks in the bricks was the issue? are there no cracks in the bricks? is this not an issue?

Rio - Member

TJ - even so, the numbers don't add up even if you could extract 100% of the energy from the waves, never mind the environmental effects that would have.

Pish. There is plenty of energy in the waves if we can get at it. Its low grade and hard to access but there is plenty there is we can get at it.

I have some lovely views of Hinkley stored in my head after the Steart Beach rave of 2002..

Pish

As usual I refer the hon gentleman to [url= http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c12/page_73.shtml ]Prof Mackay's figures[/url].

The problem with diffuse power sources is that the resource cost of harnessing them can easily exceed their value so there may be a lot of it but it's not necessarily much use, and maybe we want to use all that steel for something else. Wave power has its place, but it's not the answer to keeping the lights on.

I lived for many years about 15 miles due east of Drax, its smoke/condensation etc use to give us ace sunsets...

Two choices really; less consumption or more creation - and based upon the number of electrical devices in my house compared to my folks when I was growing up, either way we'll need more power.

So whatever you all decide is the answer to power creation, just hurry up and build it.

Rio - as I keep saying its not one tech thats the answer - wave is a part of it.

I get so frustrated with teh ridiculous assertions and the continual inventing of theings I say

Its not "nukes or the lights go out" - thats just a ridiculous stance.

The shortfall can easily be met by implementing a range of things from Ebnergy efficiency to renewables. Unfortunalty there is no money fgor big business in this so theya re against it and no political will to get there.

Those are the main stumbling blocks

I'm not disagreeing with TJ's assertion that we should also look at renewables at all scales and also a major look at lower consumptions (I wish they would turn off half/all the street lamps round here)

Frankly, we should do all of it, including nuclear for base-load. It does annoy me that it's a French company doing it tho - I'm not anti-France, I'm just pro-British!

I seem to remember a documentary a while back on the UK nuke industry. Apparently, Oldbury couldn't be run at full power due to unexpected levels of corrosion on the bolts that hold the core together.

(Personally, I would rather go to bed by candle-light than see more fission stations built...)

"I would rather go to bed by candle-light"

🙂

Candle-power Internet anyone?

...or how about photo-voltaics and batteries?

To be serious for a minute, I think TJ is correct when he says it's mostly a political problem.

I knew someone who knew about Salter's Duck. The figures were altered to make the renewable seem hopelessly inefficient and expensive and nuclear wonderfully efficient and cheap.

Funny how nuclear's costs never include decommissioning, and when you ask how much that will be, there's just a load of foot-shuffling and mumbling.

We need to use less electricity. I think it can be done, as I said above, by reducing, reusing, insulating, local generation schemes; in short, a whole raft of solutions.

This will however never happen because the whole point of being "green" is to reduce consumption and the whole thrust of what we are being urged to do now to "save our economy" is to consume.

I've been environmentally aware now for almost 40 years and I actually believe now that it's too late, and that India and China's industrialisation will cancel out anything we can do here in the UK.

My feeble attempts at recycling, cycling, watching food miles and wearing an extra jumper at home when it's cold are so ineffectual as to be risible. Still, I shall continue to do my part, it makes me feel better and I've been doing it so long it's become a habit now.

Oh, and I wasn't talking about directly bombing a nuclear station, I was thinking more of the potential for the disaffected to hijack the raw material/waste material as it travels round the country by train.

We need to use less electricity. I think it can be done, as I said above, by reducing, reusing, insulating, local generation schemes; in short, a whole raft of solutions.

You've forgotten the need to replace gas for space heating and petrol for cars. One thing you can be absolutely sure about is that even though we may use less energy due to efficiency, we will NOT use less electricity. Even things as seemingly unrelated as increased water stress have an effect - isn't there a desalination plant being built / planned for london? These need huge amounts of electricity.

Nuclear power is not a panacea - far from it. However, large scale generation needs to be carried out by something, and in a few years time we'll need to replace all the nuclear stations and most of the coal ones with something. As has already been said, we're probably just pi$$ing in the wind anyway by now. Modern society will collapse if energy shortage becomes a real issue, and unless we crack technologies like fusion and its ilk, that's ultimately where we're headed.

Ironically, it's probably the knee-jerk reaction to Chernobyl and the massive cuts in nuclear funding that it caused which have left us in this mess. Given that sooner or later us and our main gas suppliers (the Russians) will probably fall out over the lack of oil in the world, it might be a good idea not to be too reliant on them for most of our heating and electricity needs. I know we can't mine Uranium in the UK, but a lot of it comes from Australia, who I suspect (Ashes cricket aside), we'll be good friends with for some time yet...

wowo this has got lots of clever words in !!!

As a local to hinkley i think that hinkley C is the best option over the wind turbines, the only people that are really protesting the station is greenpeace, most of the 45,000 people who live withing 25 miles are really not fussed, we have grown up with the station there, people in the area know that there is no risk of any terrorist attack or huge radiation leak,

the idea about burying the waste under the quantocks is another good idea, there are alot of disused quarys around the area which could be developed into a store for them,

it is one of the biggest employers in the area and will only do more good by providing more jobs, also if they do choose to build the station they will need to put a percentage back into the local area which will hopefully improve the road structures and little rumors of a new golf course 🙂

+1 for nuclear here..

As wonderful as it would be for us to meet all our leccy needs from wind/wave/sunlight we as a nation piss energy away, and before even the most efficient renewables are going to meet the UK's energy needs we need a massive cultural change to reduce the levels of wasted electricity...

Where as I applaud all efforts to cut down the wanton destruction, pollution and rape of resources etc, in the persuit of the all mighty dollar dividend, but what i do chuckle at is mans arrogance to imagine its all down solely to our activities

Big time. elevating fear of CO2 is a-la-mode; governments can use it as a control measure, companies can use it as a short term money spinner. I've not that much of a problem with either of those in principle, its not ideal but it has the associated benefit of reduction of our reliance on fossils. Being preached to about man-made-up global warming really 'grinds my gears' though, its just a load of bollocks.

I don't believe we'll have much of a problem with fossils running out however; we'll run out of political clout (best case) or military might (worst case) well before the wells truly dry up.

Renewables, one day, will provide for us the clean infinite source of power we crave; the Earth receives 20,000 times the amount of energy from the Sun humans currently require, so we're not short of a Watt or two. But for now they can't even get close to providing for current consumption, and as Zokes points out, notions of reducing consumption are laughable (despite both consumer and industrial efforts to increase efficiency, driven by cost). Consumption is going to head skyward fairly rapidly regardless.

Fears over nuclear catastrophes and terrorism are not unfounded, but are artificially inflated as a by-product of the political and media hysteria about the issues generated to achieve disparate objectives. Nuclear waste is a problem for sure, but not insurmountable. Its a small step in innovation away from providing a the medium term ticket we desperately require, so we have to (and will) cautiously progress down the nuclear route whatever our preferences.

and as Zokes points out, notions of reducing consumption are laughable (despite both consumer and industrial efforts to increase efficiency, driven by cost). Consumption is going to head skyward fairly rapidly regardless.

this is completely ridiculous statement. Energy is cheap. There is no great drive to reduce consumption. There is no profit in reducing consumption.

Office buildings with light left on overnight, uninsulated housing, new build with low insulation values ( compared to what is possible) consumer goods that don't turn off but remain on standby, massive use of private cars etc etc. If everyone recieved say half the average energy consumption at half price and anything over that was ten times the price then we would see consumption driven down as a result of costs.

There is huge scope for massive savings in energy usage with the political will to do so.

this is completely ridiculous statement

Been happening some time already. According to the DTI, industrial and service sector (where costs are paid more attention than anywhere else) energy efficiency rose by 100% between 1970 and 2000.

The DTI also showed how in final energy terms, space and water heating accounted for 60-80% of domestic and commercial energy usage, lighting and appliances are responsible for 9%. I accept some heating is electric, but the majority of that water and space heating will be carried out by domestic and commercial boilers running on fossils.

IF we get to a point in the near future where those fossils are hard to come by and we heat by electric, no amount of energy saving would make up for the shortfall. That again isn't even to mention the 26% primary energy consumed for transport, which no doubt will have to be replaced with electric too.

Skywards I tells ye! 😀

Ben - ENERGY EFFICIENY

Saving energy in all forms from heating buildings to personal transport.

if we were serious about this energy would not be so cheap and there would be serious incentives to be energy efficient. You only have to look around our towns to see massive energy wastage. Not use - wastage

Being preached to about man-made-up global warming really 'grinds my gears' though, its just a load of bollocks

"Energy is cheap. There is no great drive to reduce consumption. There is no profit in reducing consumption"

You see this is where I agree with TJ. When energy prices go up, people will conserve it.

But I'm looking at my gas boiler and cooker and thinking: "how much longer?" before all that has to be electric.

Being preached to about man-made-up global warming really 'grinds my gears' though, its just a load of bollocks.

Really? Is it? Suppose I'd best give up my day job, and tell all my colleagues and collaborators the same 🙄 STW wisdom has spoken.

(And you wonder why people day don't believe a word spoken on the internet)

You see this is where I agree with TJ. When energy prices go up, people will conserve it.

Indeed they will, but there's only so much conservation can do without reducing numbers of users. [perhaps this is time to introduce Godwin's law]

However, as you also pointed out, your heating is currently gas - as is the majority of the UK's. Your car drives on petrol / diesel - so do most others. The bottom line is that both these forms of energy WILL run out, regardless of any mount of oil-money propaganda to deny anthropogenic climate change or peak oil. These energy forms will be replaced by something, most probably H2 - produced by electricity.

No matter how efficient we want to be, whilst energy usage could decrease massively with the correct political will, electricity demand WILL increase. I'm afraid that the only current technology not reliant on certainly polluting the entire planet is nuclear fission. No, it's not C-neutral, and no, it's not perfect. But (as I demonstrated on the last nuclear thread I posted the link to earlier - something TJ has conveniently 'forgotten' about in his misguided 'green' stance), even the old reactors are a lot more efficient than he would have us believe. That information is freely available from whatever DTI and BNFL call themselves these days.

I do have some faith (as TJ insists on calling it) that a new generation of reactors would be better, especially as the existing benchmark is startlingly high. I don't argue the outcome of a serious nuclear accident [i]could[/i] be catastrophic locally, but accelerated anthropogenically-driven climate change from a regressive step back to coal as a stop-gap to fusion and renewables that actually deliver is NIMBYism in its most extreme form. Whilst the consequences of a 2-degree [b]average[/b] increase in global temperature may not seem much in the UK, the overwhelming body of rigorously peer-reviewed scientific data points to not only a level of sea rise that would inundate many low lying areas, but changes in weather patterns could lead to food shortages for over 2 bn people. I'd wager that such a decrease in food availability may just affect the naysayers in their comfy middle-class suburban homes more than they dare realise...

Suppose I'd best give up my day job, and tell all my colleagues and [b]collaborators[/b]

The more I read these threads the more I think you are probably right on the nuclear issue- STW er persuaded by facts shocker

If sea levels rise, Hinkley A, B and C will be flooded. Worse still, I won't be able to go riding on the Quantocks without a boat.