New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

Post by jnxx » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

florimondmanca wrote: post #121

dane-pgp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the reasons that the electricity that Hinkley will one day produce is so expensive (£92.50 per megawatt hour, compared with gas and wind at about £40) is that the constructors were required to shoulder the risk of any cost overruns themselves. EDF estimates that the cost of electricity produced at Sizewell will be somewhere between £40 and £60. So even the company with a financial incentive to under-estimate…

> So even the company with a financial incentive to under-estimate the cost is saying that the electricity it produces will be at best as expensive as wind energy already is. ... And be low-carbon (~10gCO2/kWh). Whereas the £40/MWh estimate for wind included gas power generation, which is at 400gCO2/kWh. Given how wind has a typical load factor of 20-30% max in Western Europe, you’d be using gas at best 70% of the ti…

Post by jnxx » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

petre wrote: post #111

Reason077 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, EDF have not been so successful with their most recent project in France, Flamanville 3. Construction started in 2007, with estimated completion in 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion. As of 2020, the plant is still not complete and the cost has spiralled to €19.1 billion. It is now tentatively planned to go online at the end of 2022.

We saw what happened to Areva building reactors on a fixed cost contract. Today's economic realities do not quite let one plan a 10 year project on a fixed cost. 3.3bn do not equate to 2007 3.3bn in 2020. The Chinese are able to do it because they not a free market economy, they can force people to work at gunpoint.

Post by jnxx » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #22

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...

> The others are already over budget and behind schedule The reason why is important though. Is it because of: 1) Political issues, where the government has set up incentives for the builder to lie? 2) Social issues, where environmentalists attack the project to drive up costs? It seems unbelievable to me that nuclear plant planners are unable to plan because ... dunno, maybe they hear nuclear and lose the ability to…

Post by jnxx » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #61

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50

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> 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…

Post by jnxx » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

spockz wrote: post #93

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…

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