Yes, Hinkley and Sizewell may be expensive - but they're unlikely to be that much more expensive than wind/PV plus enough storage to provide reliable 24/7/365 power. In the end, I'd much rather have some diversity in the system. If the choice was 100% nuclear vs 100% wind/PV, the answer would probably be different, but for 15% of the UK's capacity to come from a reliable (but expensive) source that is uncorrelated with wind or PV downtime, that extra cost seems to be a good investment to me.
Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
91–100 of 206 posts
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's like a release valve, no point in going out rioting if you can vote the bastards out in the next election.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that's one point that gets lost in the brouhaha over nuclear cost overruns: Even the most catastrophic nuclear projects are competitive if not better than the best renewable projects. Yeah, I know this sounds like frothing-at-the-mouth nuclear fanboiism, but run the numbers! I did, and once I did I started sounding like a frothing-at-the-mouth nuclear fanboi. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Looking at the numbers for this, I don't see how it is better or even competitive at today's cost. Not taking into account the operating costs and decommissioning costs. Off-shore wind is still scaling to become cheaper and cheaper. In 30 years it might cost much less. How can Nuclear compete?
> How can Nuclear compete?
A factory built plant or any economies of scale.
Start a company with a mobile workforce and go country to country building 5 or more large scale reactors in parallel in each country.
Small scale reactors (again factory built) are the other alternative. They would have to be installed in a 'farm' together for security reasons.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weren’t those agreements made way back before the giant cost overuns?
Yes. Huge mistake for France, that. Fixed price contracts in the nuclear industry have rarely if ever worked out well for the suppliers. Contrast this with renewables which typically come in within 10% of the contracted price.
Yes, it seems the only projects that have larger cost overruns than nuclear power stations is dealing with nuclear waste.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#95Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you mean it's competitive due to the longer lifetime? Is the operation cost of the reactor over such a long duration not significant? Also why are you comparing 8gw to 3.2gw? Is it due to peek output? if so won't this be solved by grid level storage?
> Do you mean it's competitive due to the longer lifetime? > Is the operation cost of the reactor over such a long duration not significant? Yes. Also because maintenance costs are probably somewhat similar-- offshore turbines are still mechanical systems in a very unpleasant environment, after all. > Also why are you comparing 8gw to 3.2gw? Is it due to peek output? if so won't this be solved by grid level storage?…
Interesting. I've been reading about the much lower costs of grid level storage and the fact that it's now getting into economies of scale. I also assume there's a lot of room for cost reduction in wind over the next decade, while I'm guessing Nuclear won't see the same level of changes. Won't this change the situation significantly over the next decade.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#97Yes, Hinkley and Sizewell may be expensive - but they're unlikely to be that much more expensive than wind/PV plus enough storage to provide reliable 24/7/365 power. In the end, I'd much rather have some diversity in the system. If the choice was 100% nuclear vs 100% wind/PV, the answer would probably be different, but for 15% of the UK's capacity to come from a reliable (but expensive) source that is uncorrelated wi…
Why hold wind to a higher standard than a nuclear plant? A nuclear plant typically has 95% uptime. Wind/PV/storage can hit 95% or 99% or 99.9% a lot cheaper than Hinkley can hit 95%.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
no, 5.9GWh, so after 1 hour at 4.6GW we could do another hour at 1.3 GW (or another 16 Mins at 4.6HW) ~76 mins at 4.6GW.
Too bad the nights a little bit more than 76 minutes.
Indeed. We can only have a small amount of solar, but wind keeps blowing at night, Nucular continues, biomas too. The gap we need to bridge most urgently is turning off gas generation. Take a look here, https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical the majority of "turning off gas" is daytime demand that needs to be covered.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#99> As the cost of Hinkley Point has increased, the backers have had to provide more funding. The souring of relations between Britain and China saw CGN stop providing any more money, leaving EDF to fund the shortfall. EDF has called upon the UK government to help out with the escalating cost but it has refused. EDF was fully nationalised in 2023, leaving the French taxpayer to pick up the tab for the cost overruns. Th…
OTOH if I understand it right the French "taxpayer", i.e. govt, will be the beneficiary of the above-market price for electricity produced by the plant that the UK has guaranteed, presumably for the lifespan of the plant, which is 60 years. So I presume that will be a net gain for France, otherwise there would be no sense in continuing with the project.
Depends on what, if any, penalties there are for discontinuing.
Re: Hinkley Point C: Building Britain's first nuclear reactor in 30 years
#100Earlier 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 (CCGT or OCGT), which cost money to sit there. Or batteries, but yes. Battery manufacturing capacity is growing fast, but still — figures from recent years as reported by the IAE are [2022: 1720 GWh, 2023: 2500 GWh], but that's global and I'm not sure if demand is currently driven (no pun intended) by vehicles or by grids. Still, if those batteries need replacement every d…
>Or batteries, but yes.
Grid batteries make sense for those 30 second to 30 minute outages but it seems unlikely that they would be viable for those 2 week cloudy windless spells we get.
My understanding is the UK plans to fill that gap with peaker gas plants with CCS. They are being contracted for a maximum of two weeks in the year.