[Closed] Hinkley - non merci

Tidal lagoons make so much sense- lets just get on with them ffs!

I would make the tidal lagoons the government's top priority.
It would be funded by the tax payers and never ever sold off.

Factor in the new reactors are being built by a foreign owned comapny using money borrowed from another country, using untried technology to produce if it all works at huge cost power to keep your tv on for Hollyoaks, thats without the huge costs and delays if stuff doesnt work and even higher costs if it all goes boom.

The 'great' thing is we don't have to pay for them, we're simply saying "we'll pay you 2x todays price for 50 years", hands up who doesn't think energy prices are set rise enough to make that a bargain?

Well it's just as well it only takes 5 minutes to build a nuclear power station and they're completely uncontroversial and straightforward then eh.

Correct me if I'm wrong but even if Hinckley C goes live in 2025 (and I bet you 20 scottish pence it doesn't, since it's in the exciting position of being behind schedule before it's even financed, while the other reactors of the same design currently under production seem to get no closer to generating), then it still isn't enough to replace the nuclear capacity that's scheduled to close by then.

Land use is a big problem with pv's, 11+ acres operating for a whole year only equals 1 hr of operation for Hinckley point C

garyfisher
Is storage of renewable energy such a problem that the billions of pounds that are needed for Hinkley wouldn't be able to sort it out?

The thing people maybe don't realise is just how GROSS our consumption of cheap energy has become!

Hinkley Point C, a [b]single[/b] station has a capacity of 3.2 GW. That's 3,200,000,000 Watts.

Turn it on for just one hr, and it produces 3.2GWHrs of electricity. As a comparison, if you attached a generator to your bike, and pedaled like mad, you'd have to do that for around 1800 years to make the same amount of energy!!!

You need 640 full sized off shore wind turbines in a decent gale for an hr to provide the same amount of energy

You'd need to drop 3600000000000 litres down 320 meters (assuming you had a magic 100% efficient system) to get the same amount of energy

Nuclear IS the future of our energy needs simple because it harness the highest power density currently possible in our practical understanding of physics!

What it isn't is cheap........

So the solution is build even more?

A solution is to commission reactors built to proven designs, preferably modular rather than bleeding edge tech that can only be built on site. We've left it too late to have the luxury of messing about with unproven technology.

thisisnotaspoon - Member

So the solution is build even more?

Quite possibly. But do it in a way we're all confident works, that won't leave us (for example) with a builder on a shoogly peg, dependant on uncertain finance, to build a reactor which is as yet unproven, whose other developments have been and remain fraught with issues.

You don't have to be anti-nuclear to look at the Hinckley plan and wonder if this is a smart move. OTOH I think you have to be an incredible mug to believe it's going to go smoothly- frankly based on the story so far, the financial picture, and developments at Taishan and Flamanville, the question is just how badly it's going to go.

And that's the fun part- if you believe it's essential for the country then we don't have the option of just standing back and letting the project go bad- it will be our problem regardless of what the contract says. Hurrah for too big to fail.

French government could just inject more money if required, albeit at a cost to the French tax payer.

Or The Government of this country could just build it. Yes, I know a Government of this ilk is opposed to the state doing anything like that.

We have had two decades of the privatised power industry, and it has been gutted for profit, like all the other utilities, built by the state using taxpayers money, and sold off at our expense, and big decisions put off due to cost. How anyone actually believed the private sector was ever going to fund these sort of infrastructure projects needed their heads seen to.

So we ended up with the clusterf*ck of state owned EDF with Chinese money with the leccy being sold to us at a high price, but now its too expensive even for them.

So the state should build it. It doesn't matter whether it runs over budget as such, its about the benefit to the nation long term that matters.

This is what happens when your energy policies are only ideologically driven.

...there has been **** all serious investment in UK power gen for decades...

THM - if you were an accountant and not an economist you'd know that companies go bust due to cashflow, not profits

You learn something everyday!! Gee, thanks Doc, must google cash flow 😉

But not sure of the reason for the post or the link to the actual issue???

So the state should build it. It doesn't matter whether it runs over budget as such, its about the benefit to the nation long term that matters.

Phew

Scotland proclaiming "we're all right jack, you can't build power stations here".

Good point, maybe independence isn't such a bad idea 🙂

Thames valley would be a good tidal lagoon...

"THM - if you were an accountant and not an economist you'd know that companies go bust due to cashflow, not profits"

You learn something everyday!! Gee, thanks Doc, must google cash flow

But not sure of the reason for the post or the link to the actual issue???

The link is surely that EDF may worry about running out of cash even if the ultimate profit on the project may be large.

Indeed, quite possibly, which is why I argued two years ago that the idea that we selling out to the French was ridiculous. It was quite a punchy thread back then!!!

OK - maybe I misinterpreted your OP

If we're being told before work has even started that it's going to cost c£20bn than you can be sure by the time it goes live that will be £60 billion.

Yes I predict double build time, double budget. I don't know if the strike price is set in stone either or if they'll manage to push that up too.

Mis-read the thread title - I thought it was Hin[u]c[/u]kley.

If it had have meant Hinckley near Leicester I would have been in full agreement - dreadful place. Full of pissed-up, drugged-up, highly aggressive, knuckle-dragging, inbred halfwits.....

Storage is a very good option to facilitate higher levels of renewable energy at a lower price than new nuclear.

Costs are falling (LiIon due to fall another 50% over next 3 years) and technology improving.

Have a look at:

The first report of the government's new [url= https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/505218/IC_Energy_Report_web.pdf ]National Infrastructure Commission calling for work on interconnectors, storage and DSR[/url]

[url= http://www.eunomia.co.uk/investing-in-uk-electricity-storage/ ]Eunomia report[/url] on potential for energy storage, including large ramping up of capacity.
[img] [/img]

Or some practical examples with some [url= http://cleantechnica.com/2014/12/16/europes-largest-energy-storage-plant-began-trial-run/ ]big grid tied batteries in Leighton Buzzard[/url] or some [url= http://www.britishsolarrenewables.com/news/2016/01/07/new-%C2%A31-million-energy-solution-in-store-for-the-uk/ ]big batteries attached to a solar farm in Somerset.[/url]

All of this is fairly new and needs to be tested but the basic technology is there and ready to be rolled out more widely. There are lots of regulatory barriers at large scale and this is ultimately down to government. But as noted our current government can't see beyond fossil fuel and nuclear (mini-nukes FFS!).

But we're probably not thinking big enough yet. We do need to be at multi-GW scale to make an impact.

Oh and if you've got solar on your roof but tend to be out during the day, then house batteries are starting to look promising too. [url= https://www.bre.co.uk/nsc/page.jsp?id=3431 ] I worked on this report a few weeks ago[/url], aimed at providing good quality info on consumers of domestic and small commercial systems

Interesting stuff.

where are you going to put all these renewables? buildings only account for less than 3% of the UK land mass, less than 1/2 of the roof area would be suitable.

where are you going to put all these renewables? buildings only account for less than 3% of the UK land mass, less than 1/2 of the roof area would be suitable.

there's a bit more to renewables than people's roofs (rooves?)

when thinking about energy generation it's best not to think about only one source, it makes for dramatic statements/headlines/stw arguments or whatever, but it isn't how things work in the real world.

its good to consider if they are credible and if you have space

wonny_j:

mini-nukes FFS!

Actually, nuclear power stations have far, far [b]more[/b] nuclear material in them than your average “nuke”…

Rachel

This seems like the wrong scheme. I am not against nuclear, but Hinkley seems like it is doomed for failure.
Also, lets stop mucking around and get some tidal lagoons built in the Severn estuary.

Also, lets stop mucking around and get some tidal lagoons built in the Severn estuary.

Tidal Lagoons? Where the cost of electricity is far higher than Hinkley Point Nuclear and four times higher than gas generated electricity.

Tidal lagoons where for long periods of the day generation is zero as the lagoon refills.

Finally, how much storage would be needed to convert the tide power generated over this period into baseload generation so that it can compete head-to-head with nuclear, as some of its backers claim it can? It comes out to approximately 500GWh, over fifteen times current UK pumped hydro capacity,

http://euanmearns.com/a-trip-round-swansea-bay/

cheap energy, sounds good to me

T1000 - Member
where are you going to put all these renewables?

On all unshaded carparks for a start:
[url= http://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/nsc/Documents%20Library/NSC%20Publications/BRE_solar-carpark-guide.pdf ]Link to solar car parking report[/url]

This is the roof of Bentley motors in Crewe, 100% comsumed on site.

[img] [/img]

This is the roof of Bentley motors in Crewe, 100% comsumed on site.

is it really a good idea to build machines we cannot control?

nuclear energy is a disaster waiting to happen (again) not a solution.

What are you basing that on?
Nuclear energy is controllable. A modern reactor and fuel rod is much different to the early tech.
The majority of the waste issues is from rapid historic and unplanned developments.

What is the disaster that can happen to a power station - do you think those risks are not considered and mitigated. In the UK there is no Tsunami risk to the stations, they are designed to meet the seismic conditions and then some, things like chernobyl were a combination of poor design and human error - neither is allowed in the designs these days.

Want to give some details about why you think what you do, whats it based on?

Also worthy of a read
http://www.nuceng.ca/refer/risk/risk.htm
Energy Source Death Rate
deaths per TWh/ deaths per GWy
Coal – world average 161/ 1410 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278/ 2435
Coal – USA 15/ 131
Oil 36/ 315 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4/ 35 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12/ 105
Peat 12/ 105
Solar (rooftop) 0.44/ 3.85 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15/ 1.31 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10/ 0.88 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqia 1.4/ 12 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04/ 0.35 (5.9% of world energy)
Source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html from different e

[quote=iffoverload ]is it really a good idea to build machines we cannot control?
nuclear energy is a disaster waiting to happen (again) not a solution.

Go on then, list the major nuclear accidents which have happened at UK nuclear power stations and how many people have died due to nuclear accidents at UK power stations?

I note that the number of deaths due to other methods of power generation isn't zero.

Go on then, list the major nuclear accidents which have happened at UK nuclear power stations and how many people have died due to nuclear accidents at UK power stations?

Careful, we're not exactly swimming in gory in this country (Windscale being a fine start).

Iffoverload - Nuclear is very controllable, these days it's just more about getting it going rather than getting it to stop that's the issue. Breeders shut themselves down if you try to run them too hard and fusion is literally a flick of a switch to knock it out (just stop providing fuel). Both are looking viable in the near future. Gen III+ reactors are all designed along similar lines.

Careful, we're not exactly swimming in gory in this country (Windscale being a fine start).

Yeah my point was that we HAVE had accidents in the UK.

(I'm pro BTW, just lending some perspective)

mikewsmith - Member

wonny j
This is the roof of Bentley motors in Crewe, 100% comsumed on site.

Not a very useful stat is it...

Fair point, the case study says (somewhat ambiguously):
"Bentley’s powerful new solar system produces up to 40% of their energy requirements at peak times."

http://www.solarcentury.com/uk/case-studies/bentley/

is it really a good idea to build machines we cannot control

Breeders shut themselves down if you try to run them too hard and fusion is literally a flick of a switch to knock it out (just stop providing fuel). Both are looking viable in the near future.

Nuclear decommissioning safety is a joke (and is not costed in the already high price /MWh )

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nuclear-waste-workers-at-dounreay-power-station-fear-for-their-safety-10108715.html

On the solar panel thing Ikea have 6,000 solar panels on the roofs of its stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh – to generate 30% of their total power use. Not exaclty the game changing tech some people make out.

how many people have died due to nuclear accidents at UK power stations?

Coal has the worst safety record by a long way, deaths in mines, deaths through smog etc. hideous stuff, but we still use it! Currently coal is contributing 22.4% to the National grid as I type.

I think the point with nuclear safety is the potential that if something goes wrong it goes really, really wrong. As such maybe it's not valid to compare deaths from nuclear during a no-big-accident period with the deaths from other causes (lung cancer from coal mining etc.)

Not saying that proves anything one way or the other - just a comment on methodology.

Would we still be able to evacuate England, if a reactor gets stroppy, post Brexit ?

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

and why not re-use the old gasometer sites for huge Prussian Blue liquid batteries

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/04/us_hits_battery_storage_holy_grail/

aracer - Member

Go on then, list the major nuclear accidents which have happened at UK nuclear power stations and how many people have died due to nuclear accidents at UK power stations?

This is more about the use of nuclear material in general, not just for power plants but.

lazy link to first non comprehensive list on a google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

To ask about UK specific is somewhat shortsighted as when radioactive material gets out into the enviroment it travels and the damage it does is irreversable and can last for many generations.

A nuclear incident anywhere is relevant .

The number of deaths and illnesses due to accidents and the effects of permitted leakage and use of radioactive materials in conventional weapons etc. is high and probably impossible to accurately count, and this is without there having been any serious (in relative terms)incidents.

mikewsmith - Member

What are you basing that on?
Nuclear energy is controllable. A modern reactor and fuel rod is much different to the early tech.
The majority of the waste issues is from rapid historic and unplanned developments.

What is the disaster that can happen to a power station - do you think those risks are not considered and mitigated.

No. Of course the risks are considered.

If you define controlable as something that is not a problem when everything is opereational and undamaged then I suppose it is not a problem.

As far as I know (IANANE), there is really no way to remove the material effectively from the enviroment or food chain.

I would class this as something that is not controlable.

Another not talked about issue is how vulnerable reactors,processing plants,mines, material in transportation and waste storage facilities are to deliberate attack, physical or cyber, also they are preferred targets in times of conflict.

Not sure how this can be mitigated, technology is unlikely to improve this.

aracer - Member

I note that the number of deaths due to other methods of power generation isn't zero.

noted... 😕

DrJ - Member
I think the point with nuclear safety is the potential that if something goes wrong it goes really, really wrong.

And yet, it all the accidents we have had (windscale, Chernobyl, 3mile island etc) none have actually caused significant devastation?

A few people have been killed, a few more will die a bit younger, and there as few hundred square miles of land we can't live in for a bit (although nature is loving the isolation and thriving without mans presence!)

Compare that to coal power. Hundreds of deaths from work related injuries, hundreds of square miles torn up to mine the raw materials, the potential to change our climate for ever, if it already hasn't done so.

But to the average person, the fear of what "could" happen in a nuclear accident is stronger than the knowledge of what fossil fuels are actually doing to our planet....

Would we still be able to evacuate England, if a reactor gets stroppy, post Brexit ?

AIUI we can all marry jamba's wife and get French passports. Or maybe I misunderstood his argument ...

Fast breeder reactors have been technically viable for years but are not economically viable as we have a lot of surplus plutonium. The view in the industry is that commercial fusion reactors are about 30 years away, and always have been (and maybe always will be).

Umm, the whole point of breeding is to generate and then burn plutonium, you don't actually [i]have[/i] to feed it with uranium. For instance the whole selling point of PRISM is to burn those very same stockpiles (or at least render them useless for weaponisation). Fusion IS actually coming along, I doubt they would be pouring several billion into building ITER if the international community thought otherwise.

Nuclear decommissioning safety is a joke (and is not costed in the already high price /MWh )

Shit point shitly made, one site doth not the entire industry represent. Also, Dounreay was a research site (that, like Sellafield presents some very 'unique*' challenges), you'll probably want to be looking at Magnox if it's commercial site costs you're after. Not that it makes a difference anyway, decommissioning IS costed.

* The Shaft and B30 spring to mind