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Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

building.co.uk

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Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#61

Post by myrmidon »

blitzar wrote: post #53
myrmidon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a very good comparison-- to be fair though, 3.2GW nuclear are comparable to pretty much the whole Dogger Bank (including Sofia/South) at ~8GW (nameplate power), because offshore capacity factor is about ~40% in the UK. Total cost for the wind farm is probably around 20-ish billion $, but the lifetime is likely shorter than the reactor (possibly less than half!). It's surprising to me that the reactor at $35bill…

Dogger Bank will when fully built-out at a cost of some £11bn. Lifetime cost will be much lower - near 0 staff - no anti-terrorism policing operation - no fuel. If it were onshore, cost would be significantly cheaper and would be able to scale onto the grid and generate revenue (nearly) one turbine at a time as they are installed which makes a massive difference for financing and servicing a debt. Cost wise certainly…

£11Bn is just Dogger Bank A, B, C (which is only 3.6GW total nameplate power, not 8GW)-- but this is in fact where my "~£20Bn total cost" estimate came from :P

Maintenance cost for offshore wind is NOT negligible. This is possibly as high as the reactor maintenance cost already by itself. Then, for a fair comparison, you would also have to add costs for improving grid connectivity and/or local battery storage...

I'm not arguing for more nuclear power btw, just honestly suprised that the expensive reactor is somewhat competitive, still...

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#62

Post by blitzar »

defrost wrote: post #10
dvh wrote: post #4

What would be equivalent solar/wind installed power?

Enough wind + solar + storage to deliver > which gives Hinkley Point C a total output of over 3.2GW. at least 3 GW 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 50 weeks a year (allowing for some step down in output for maintainance, etc) for some 30+ (?) years.

The UK’s average nuclear load factor for 1970 to 2017 was 67.4 per cent

3 GW 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 34 weeks a year.

or

3 GW 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#63

Post by Gud »

ben_w wrote: post #32
Hikikomori wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't you put yourself in that situation?

In UK elections, because it's not a 2-party system, the winner usually has less than half of the votes. But even if they didn't, losers don't have to take it quietly. But even if they did, governments are complex representatives, not ongoing referendums on each individual topic, so we can agree with 80% of the party we vote for and strongly disagree with the rest of their policies. The cynical alternative is that dem…

*representative democracy, the lowest form of democracy.

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#64

Post by griffzhowl »

defrost wrote: post #40
griffzhowl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, "capacity" is the maximum generation in ideal conditions, so for wind the actual produced amount will be much lower than this.

The Dogger Bank Wind site recognises this and bases the number of households serviced on proven reasonable wind conditions ( apparently ) 6 million homes powered per annum based on Typical Domestic Consumption Values (Medium Electricity Profile Class 1, 2,900kWh per household; OFGEM, January 2021), typical 55% wind load factor, and projected installed capacity of 3.6GW.

Right, but doesn't that mean projected output of 55% of 3.6Gw? i.e., about 2GW

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#65

Post by matt-p »

chickenbig wrote: post #23
dingdingdang wrote: post #6

Very good to hear about upskilling taking place but also immensely sobering numbers (i.e. 1300 apprentices is seen a big uplift) for a country the size of the UK.

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-sta... 118,770 apprenticeships achieved in the UK last year. We're not that big on practical education, with a preference for getting degrees so we can sit behind a desk moving (electronic) paper.

I would also just say that a half of these 118,770 were over 25 Years old when they started, and only 44% of the total are for "advanced" level starts.

They are often not very high quality, sometimes it will be things like the person who puts bread in the oven at a supermarket getting a level 2 in kitchen skills and so on.

1,300 high quality apprenticeships is noticeable (which is nuts).

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#66

Post by chickenbig »

blitzar wrote: post #55
chickenbig wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obligatory "what's the capacity factor" discussion should happen here; 40% to 50% might be reasonable, with highly correlated availability. Additionally the wind farm requires backup (CCGT or OCGT), which cost money to sit there. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6556027d046ed... (take it with a pinch of salt) gives a figure of £80/kW/year for an H class CCGT; that's £250M/year (2015 prices). Another…

> Additionally the wind farm requires backup So does a nuclear reactor.

Nuclear capacity should be around 90% when running baseload, with However offshore wind has a capacity factor of 40% to 50%, and its lack of output is correlated with other wind farms. Therefore one backup power station can only really serve one wind farm.

Not only is it capacity factor but demand correlation that weights against the intermittents.

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#67

Post by matt-p »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #50

The budget overruns are predictable. To the point where you can confidently predict that neither year nor the budget will stay as they are currently predicting. Honestly, it sounds more like wishful thinking at this point. I would say late 2030s at probably > 40 billion is realistic. They'll find a way to make it worse. Maybe they'll get lucky and only overrun only a few billion. Every year it overruns will cost bill…

Indeed, we may as well finish it, certainly, but it's going to reduce appetite for future nuclear schemes enormously. Realistically I think small reactors are our last hope for net new nuclear in the UK - if we don't get them we'll end up with Wind/Solar and storage.

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#68

Post by defrost »

griffzhowl wrote: post #64
defrost wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dogger Bank Wind site recognises this and bases the number of households serviced on proven reasonable wind conditions ( apparently ) 6 million homes powered per annum based on Typical Domestic Consumption Values (Medium Electricity Profile Class 1, 2,900kWh per household; OFGEM, January 2021), typical 55% wind load factor, and projected installed capacity of 3.6GW.

Right, but doesn't that mean projected output of 55% of 3.6Gw? i.e., about 2GW

There's probably a more detailed report to be found if you go looking, and

the same qualifications apply to the nuclear reactors and turbines - it's unlikely they'll always run at peak all the time either.

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#69

Post by SirHumphrey »

davedx wrote: post #38
anovikov wrote: post #11

It will produce annually, about as much electricity as UK produces now from solar. Which is installed at a much faster clip than these two sad reactors are built, even if UK is one of the worst countries for solar in the civilised world due to expensive land and terrible weather. What's even the point? Maybe this reactor is a live testament to the observation that "any new nuclear starting construction today will be…

The pro nuclear types hate these observations because they’re painfully true. Battery storage is already doing a lot in the UK (4.6GW/5.9GWh) and the huge solar build out is a no brainer. Nuclear power is a dead end technology

Output of the discussed nuclear facility is 3.6GW, which means weekly production of 604.8 GWh, or around 100x as much as currently installed storage capacity.

And going into only one type of electricity production especially with the unpredictability of renewables is never wise.

Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years

#70

Post by pjc50 »

ben_w wrote: post #32
Hikikomori wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't you put yourself in that situation?

In UK elections, because it's not a 2-party system, the winner usually has less than half of the votes. But even if they didn't, losers don't have to take it quietly. But even if they did, governments are complex representatives, not ongoing referendums on each individual topic, so we can agree with 80% of the party we vote for and strongly disagree with the rest of their policies. The cynical alternative is that dem…

> democracy is a way to get everyone to shut up

Democracy is a way to get people to acquiesce without violence. If you look at history, it's remarkable how common insurgencies and succession crises or breakaway warlords are.

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