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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

#171

Post by mncharity »

pjc50 wrote: post #70
ben_w wrote: post #32

Earlier 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.

A recent discussion[1] suggests China's ~500 CE Keju imperial exam was designed as a royal ranking system to reduce violent political fights between noble houses. But at a cost of stagnated innovation.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41624827

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

#172

Post by 7952 »

crote wrote: post #162
mhandley wrote: post #91

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 wi…

The problem is that you can't use nuclear to compensate for low wind/PV supply. The cost of nuclear energy is dominated by the need to pay back the massive construction loan. Nobody is willing to take that risk on an open electricity market, so they've signed a contract with the government to guarantee price and demand. If the price on the open market is less than the "strike price" the government will pay for the di…

In an open market nuclear (and wind/solar) would still operate 100% of the time. That is because the marginal cost of one extra unit of energy is trivial. They would sell energy even if it was not enough to cover the capital costs. Because that is more revenue than turning the piywer station off.

We have strike prices so that generators can cover the capital costs. But it will also hold prices down when the wholesale cost exceeds the strike price.

I agree that Hinckley may increase peaks and excess generation. But that will be a feature of the grid anyway. We will need storage/interconnector exports either way. And it will also help a lot with the valleys in production. That is less electricity that needs to be stored or generated using gas and diesel. Adding a couple extra GW's is useful.

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

#173

Post by 7952 »

myrmidon wrote: post #84
invalidname wrote: post #51

Earlier 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?…

Nuclear needs for more specialist disciplines than turbine maintenance. The systems are more complex. And you have to deal with a wider range of hazards. All whilst having the worlds most onerous rules.

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

#174

Post by robocat »

crote wrote: post #162
mhandley wrote: post #91

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 wi…

The problem is that you can't use nuclear to compensate for low wind/PV supply. The cost of nuclear energy is dominated by the need to pay back the massive construction loan. Nobody is willing to take that risk on an open electricity market, so they've signed a contract with the government to guarantee price and demand. If the price on the open market is less than the "strike price" the government will pay for the di…

> so they've signed a contract with the government to guarantee price and demand

Matt Levine writes about a gas contract where the gas supplier was obliged to deliver gas at a fixed price. However the contract required that the plant be completed. The spot price has been above the fixed price so the plant owners have been selling gas on the open market and the owners have not technically "completed" the plant on purpose (perhaps by not painting one last rivet).

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

#175

Post by adrianN »

littlestymaar wrote: post #168
adrianN wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear+Hydrogen makes no sense economically. If you have the extra capacity to run electrolysis, your nuclear fleet is too big. And not everybody is betting (only) on batteries. A mix of storage technologies is most likely the cheapest solution.

> Nuclear+Hydrogen makes no sense economically. If you have the extra capacity to run electrolysis, your nuclear fleet is too big. It's cheaper than running it on wind or solar, so no.

That’s a bold claim.

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

#176

Post by adrianN »

littlestymaar wrote: post #167
adrianN wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody claimed that the current battery capacity is sufficient to last a night. The interesting part is the growth curve of available storage.

Going from 76 minutes to a full British night (which can last up to 16 hours in winter!) is going to need a heck of a growth curve indeed.

Less than four doublings is not a lot. We’re at the beginning of the storage expansion. The interesting question is not when we‘ll be able to cover a night, but when we’ll be able to cover a month.

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

#177

Post by chickenbig »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #94
pfdietz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I take it you are referring to https://x.com/BentFlyvbjerg/status/1662016016493191169

Interestingly the nuclear data implies that those (45% of) projects not in the tail (defined as >= 50% cost overrun) have a mean overrun of 17.33%.

120% = 0.45 * X% + 0.55 * 204% therefore X% = (120% - 0.55 * 204%)/0.45 = 17.33%

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

#178

Post by chickenbig »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #164
imtringued wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is doomed to fail, because people's lifespans are too short. You can build a nuclear power plant, then do nothing for 50 years and have no workforce left to build new ones. This leads to nuclear power being excessively expensive and slow to construct. If you decide to go the SMR route so that you continuously build nuclear reactors every year to sidestep this problem, then you run into the problem that the co…

The local moors flood every winter. However, this was the most catastrophic flood in recent times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1607_Bristol_Channel_floods Some nice maps in the referenced report [pdf]: 1607 Bristol Channel Floods: 400-Year Retrospective https://forms2.rms.com/rs/729-DJX-565/images/fl_1607_bristol...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c339e40f0b... page 276

Sea wall will have a crest height of 13.55m AOD.

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

#179

Post by chickenbig »

Moldoteck wrote: post #145
throw0101b wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's one of the reasons. Others include, but are not limited to: These probably also apply to Vogtle 3 in the US; IIRC, Vogtle 4 was less expensive. Economies of scale applies to large nuclear plants as much as it does to small widgets: the more you build the easier it becomes to build them.

yep, V4 did cost 30% cheaper than unit 3. It's interesting if the next plant will be built and if yes - how much cheaper/faster

If only the Chinese numbers were more transparent. Their CAP1000 are licensed derivatives of the AP1000, and are building several simultaneously.

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

#180

Post by chickenbig »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #151
defrost wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a common mistake to price up renewables delivering flat nuclear shaped energy in an effort to inflate the price. It's as silly as demanding that a nuclear plant must emulate the delivery profile of solarn and install batteries capable of shifting night time power to the day. With a similar effect on prices. Demand is not flat. It's actually a bit more solar shaped on many markets which is why initial solar deplo…

> It's a common mistake to price up renewables delivering flat nuclear shaped energy in an effort to inflate the price. > Demand is not flat.

The system as a whole has to deliver baseload plus variable demand. If the demand and supply do not match then there are problems. Load shifting/Demand Flexibility Service may be a promising concept, but there is only so much that will shift.

> It's actually a bit more solar shaped on many markets

That is not the case for the UK, the country being discussed, with peak electrical demand in winter. Electrification of heating (and not so great a need for cooling in the summer) indicates this will continue to be so.

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