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New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

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Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#91

Post by onion2k »

pfdietz wrote: post #73
pasabagi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Construction projects are inherently unpredictable, because it's building something large, bespoke, and in constantly varying conditions. Nuclear plants are very complex, so that obviously raises the level of unpredictability. Every manufactured object has an insanely long and convoluted dependency chain, where each link is subject to disappearance due to factors completely out of your control. Especially objects tha…

> Construction projects are inherently unpredictable And yet, renewable projects typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.

Offshore windfarms cost billions. A 10% overspend is quite significant.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#92

Post by cbmuser »

MikeAmelung wrote: post #65
pfdietz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables + storage (both short and long term). At the current rate of improvement of these technologies, this will be cheaper. Building expensive baseload now is a recipe for stranded assets not far down the road.

Can you explain a little more about the storage part of this? I see renewables and storage mentioned every time this topic comes up. It seems like we've got the solar panels and wind turbines figured out, but I'm skeptical on the storage part. I tried doing some research myself, but everything I find reads like a press release from a company that is attempting some kind of storage. As far as I can tell, there is no a…

You won’t get an answer to that.

Large scale electricity storage other than hydro power doesn’t exist and is extremely unlikely to materialize anytime in the near future.

Some advocates of renewables argue that “Power2Gas” is an option but they completely underestimate the amount of energy large countries need to store.

In Germany, for example, the daily electricity consumption is 1600 GWh. Converting that into methane would require to produce 3.5 million gas trucks filled with methane - for just a day.

And Germany’s current total hydro capacity is about 40 GWh, so only 1/40 of what we need of storage for a single day.

I don’t see a future for 100% renewables other than for small countries like Norway, Austria or Iceland who have lots of mountains for hydro power but only a fraction of the population of Germany or even the US.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#93

Post by spockz »

manfredo wrote: post #61
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you build enough nuclear power to fill in the gap in the duck curve, then you could just run those plants all day and ditch renewables. If you build enough nuclear power to fill the gap in the duck curve without storage, and remove fossil fuels, you're basically running entirely nuclear and hydro, and mostly nuclear. You end up building almost double the amount of capacity that you actually use, because you n…

The point is that nuclear is the only known geographically independent way of generating carbon free energy that isn't subject to intermittency. The redundancy isn't an issue with nuclear, it's an issue of the notion that we need nuclear and renewables. Just cut out the renewables, and only use nuclear. Using nuclear to fill in the duck curve makes renewables redundant, thus the aversion to nuclear of many proponents…

Nuclear is not really geographically independent though. The plant has to be constructed to withstand earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#94

Post by cbmuser »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #59

I am not all negative to nuclear power but large nuclear reactors is not the way. They are always over budget and delayed. Put the money in next generation nuclear power like small molten salt reactors, batteries and renewables.

China and Russia building large nuclear on time and budget proove you wrong.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#95

Post by seanwilson »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #79
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the Europe Union really wants a trade war with the US. Basically, Germany is the weak spot in this. They are an export driven economy and a US embargo on Germany would be devastating.

The US isn't the largest CO2 emitter, though it used to be. China's emissions are approximately double the US's and growing.

> China's emissions are approximately double the US's and growing.

China's population is 1.4 billion compared to 330 million for the US though. Surely you should be comparing this relative to population size (China is four times bigger) and countries with smaller emissions per person should be recognised as doing well?

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#96

Post by wahern »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #79
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the Europe Union really wants a trade war with the US. Basically, Germany is the weak spot in this. They are an export driven economy and a US embargo on Germany would be devastating.

The US isn't the largest CO2 emitter, though it used to be. China's emissions are approximately double the US's and growing.

China's per capita CO2 emissions are still 1/2 that of the U.S. More importantly, neither the Chinese government nor powerful Chinese politicians deny anthropogenic climate change. And they've recently recommitted to nuclear energy expansion despite growing public fear after Fukushima and a subsequent rise in costs as Chinese regulatory policies became more strict.

Part of the reason for the gap in nuclear construction in recent years, separate from Fukushima, seems to have been growing trade tensions with the U.S. Now that construction and approvals have resumed, it seems like China has decided to ditch almost all foreign designs and only build their "homegrown" AP1000 derivative. Unlike American politicians, Chinese politicians haven't forgotten the art of turning lemons into lemonade. Nuclear, solar, electric cars--they're using the transition to bolster and develop their industrial sectors. As countries should be making many of these investments anyhow to hedge and supplement the often myopic and short-sighted pursuits of the free market, the net costs to abandoning the fossil fuel economy can be significantly reduced. (In retrospect the contracts for American nuclear plants were probably handouts, anyhow, intended to mitigate balance of trade tensions. But with all goodwill having been burned to ash by the current administration, not to mention the collapse of the American nuclear construction industry, it became a pointless gesture.)

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#97

Post by joijoiwejrr »

Camas wrote: post #46
Afforess wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence nuclear waste can be disposed of safely in the medium or long term. Only technocrats and elites want more nuclear energy. Its not the will of the voting public. This is a defeat for the environment and democracy.

In the UK more people support than oppose nuclear power when polled. The tories were also voted in with nuclear power in their manifesto, albeit only in one small section.

> The tories were also voted in with nuclear power in their manifesto, albeit only in one small section.

I'll bet my life that fewer than 10% of the people who voted Conservative last December had any idea what the manifesto said about nuclear power.

(I don't mean this as a jibe at Tories in particular; my point is just that no-one reads manifestos, and even fewer people bother to learn about the finer details of their party's nuclear policy in an election that's completely dominated by one issue [Brexit])

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#98

Post by joijoiwejrr »

breakfastduck wrote: post #45

Astounds me how so many people can be pro nuclear in opposition to fossil fuels - the instant impact is obviously much better, but the risk if something goes wrong is so catastrophically higher that the increased risk with each plant seems a huge gamble. Where do people think all that nuclear waste goes?

Fossil fuels are already going catastrophically wrong: their continued use is the greatest threat to life on this planet in the history of humanity.

Compared with the certainty of carbon-induced climate catastrophe, I'll take the risk of nuclear any day.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#99

Post by 14u2c »

eunos wrote: post #28
LatteLazy wrote: post #3

The others are already over budget and behind schedule, the private companies meant to be heading them are dropping like flies. This won't end well... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54158091 https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/energy-news/toshiba-withdraw... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/25/hinkley-poin...

At this point probably only the Chinese, Korean and Russian that can build Nuclear Power Plant properly.

The US has built many nuclear plants in modern times and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, they are all in naval warships. I wish the same political will could be applied to civilian nuclear research at least.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#100

Post by konschubert »

belorn wrote: post #6
LatteLazy wrote: post #3

The others are already over budget and behind schedule, the private companies meant to be heading them are dropping like flies. This won't end well... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54158091 https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/energy-news/toshiba-withdraw... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/25/hinkley-poin...

Regardless how expensive it get, it won't burn tons of fossil fuels. Government should just set the conditions for new power and heating infrastructure. No fossil fuels. Zero carbon. A minimum and peak capacity based on current and projected demands. Private companies can bid, but they can't change the conditions. If a private company can more cheaply and faster build massive amount of battery and use exclusively win…

The easiest way to implement your policy is an emissions trading scheme, where the amount of issued certificates is reduced every year.
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