New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light • Hacker News Board

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#151

Post by KaiserPro » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 11:41 AM UTC

markvdb wrote: post #149

KaiserPro wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.businesselectricityprices.org.uk/historical/ They've already doubled. Now, of course this is more complex because some of that price rise is due to "levies" being placed to support both "green" initiatives and support for the vulnerable.

...and for nuclear. Look at how Hinkley point got subsidised.

Hinkley was and is an aberration.

Its a fucking stupid project that was signed to make a political point. Instead of thinking about the needs of the next 100 years, it was signed to fulfill a short term political goal.

The government were over a barrel, the people making the contract knew it, and the government signed anyway.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#152

Post by read_if_gay_ » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 11:44 AM UTC

_Microft wrote: post #138

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your iPhone was not built here. Your banana was not grown here. The corn might have been grown half a country away. The drugs you might have been prescribed were maybe not produced in your country at all. Why would energy be so different in that regard? The examples you provided here really don't illustrate your point well because most of them are easily shipped across the ocean which is not at all true for energy.

Renewable energy production is not as centralized as production of physical goods. There is no need to transmit energy that far .

Exactly, and that's why those examples aren't really illustrative of the point you're making. That's all I was trying to say.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#153

Post by Udik » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 11:45 AM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #62

belorn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cost matters. If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price, why go nuclear? We can keep gas as backup until storage solutions are better developed. If money was no issue you could just build a ton of pumped hydro in Scotland and or batter storage. And if you absolutely want to spend on nuclear power, spend it in SMRs and molten salt reactors. ThorCon is probably not that far from a working solution if…

> If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price

We keep thinking of "building renewable power" as "we can produce this amount of watts at peak". What we should demand of these projects instead is "we can provide this amount of renewable power 24/7". There is a big difference. We're ending up in a situation where we can "build renewable power at a fraction of the price" for half of the time. For the other half we rely on fossil fuels but we don't see the issue because we're focused on the amount of clean watts we get at peak.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#154

Post by Udik » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 11:49 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #86

natmaka wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear and offshore wind are equivalent (median: 12 gCO2eq/kWh) Source: IPCC, 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis...

Although offshore has continued to get cheaper and nuclear only seems to be getting more expensive since then.

> offshore has continued to get cheaper

What is the cost of an offshore generation plant that can produce power with the same reliability of a nuclear one? This needs to get into the equation.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#155

Post by roenxi » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 11:50 AM UTC

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #124

_Microft wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle Ages called, they want their concepts back. Why is "geographical independency" desirable here? We ditched the concept of self-sufficiency long ago for almost every other product. Your iPhone was not built here. Your banana was not grown here. The corn might have been grown half a country away. The drugs you might have been prescribed were maybe not produced in your country at all. Why would energy be so differ…

> Your iPhone was not built here. Your banana was not grown here. The corn might have been grown half a country away. The drugs you might have been prescribed were maybe not produced in your country at all. Why would energy be so different in that regard? The examples you provided here really don't illustrate your point well because most of them are easily shipped across the ocean which is not at all true for energy.

We do ship energy across oceans though, in oil tankers and as coal.

A better counterargument would the suspicious number of wars, invasions and military bases involved in cross-country energy exchanges (ie, there is a lot of fighting over oil in the middle east). It seems remarkably foolish to source energy from territory controlled by a foreign military.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#156

Post by roenxi » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

guerby wrote: post #120

manfredo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"geographically independent" Well nuclear needs water, not a very strong constraint I agree but one nevertheless. In France when it gets too hot they have to stop the nuclear plants since by environnement regulations they cannot pump out too hot water in the river. By now offshore wind is still behind in capacity factor compared to nuclear but it's closer and closer. For the past two years (2018 2019) capacity factor…

Capacity factor isn't the issue as much as correlation.

2x nuclear plants with 50% capacity factor due to planned maintenance can work fine, one covers the other.

2x solar panels with 50% capacity factor due to night is a problem, because now something else is needed to deal with night-time power.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#157

Post by roenxi » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:04 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #142

opo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...It is all about nuclear no matter the cost. Oddly, this is the exact sort of behavior I sometimes see with the advocates for renewables. Cost should always be a consideration, but when people conveniently ignore some costs and focus on others, it does a disservice to the goal of decarbonizing the grid. The levelized cost for residential rooftop solar is at least as high as nuclear, but that cost doesn't seem to m…

Ok, tell me how do you plan on restoring the dying nuclear industry? It's still dying to this very day and it's not because there is a lack of trying or too much regulation. It's because of the inherent complexity of a monolithic power plant. They are so complicated that no single party except the government can take full responsibility for them. Meanwhile no other industry has this problem.

My plan is to watch China do it, they're currently aiming to be the world #1 nuclear energy producer by 2035. They probably have the infrastructure experience to pull it off. It is an interesting experiment and it'll be fascinating to compare it to the German Energiewende to see which is more effective.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#History

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#158

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:07 PM UTC

skitout wrote: post #144

radu_floricica wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economies of scale. Most of the cost for a traditional nuclear plant is regulatory&decomissioning. If new nuclear can get over that, and it's allowed to go through a couple of iterations (which happens much faster nowadays), there is really no way to estimate how low the price can go. A 10x reduction is not out of question, if you look at SpaceX for example, another industry where innovation has been frozen for decad…

But the fact is we have now cheap existing clean technologies, with a fast decreasing cost (decreasing cost of energy, and decreasing cost of managing intermittence)... It does not seems wise to bet that SMR will be cheaper than renewable in 10 to 20 years and wait and pray... SMR is not a viable option right now. That is an interesting possibility we should study and work on, that could be a good surprise later on,…

SMRs are being touted not because they are particularly promising, but because they are the last option nuclear supporters have. Traditional reactors have run out of chances, so now it's either the Hail Mary Reactors or give up.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#159

Post by petre » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

Spare_account wrote: post #135

gambiting wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, have you replied to the wrong comment? Besides, very soon all new construction in the UK will be required to be heated exclusively by electricity, so for new housing heating costs will be absolutely huge compared to gas.

My rough calculations me that switching my 1970s UK detached home from gas to electric for hot water and central heating would triple my usage costs (and that doesn't include the cost of switching in the first place). I'm still interested in doing it though because it would massively simplify the heating system. Removing gas from the system would mean I could do all the regular maintenance by myself whereas at presen…

You could use a heat pump if your radiators allow it.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#160

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 12:10 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #154

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although offshore has continued to get cheaper and nuclear only seems to be getting more expensive since then.

> offshore has continued to get cheaper What is the cost of an offshore generation plant that can produce power with the same reliability of a nuclear one? This needs to get into the equation.

Probably the 100% renewable system will end up cheaper than one that includes nuclear. This requires prediction of where costs will be going, but the worldwide the market seems to be betting on that outcome, not nuclear, which only gets built when governments heavily tilt the scales.

https://model.energy/