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

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#31

Post by bryanlarsen » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

rllearneratwork wrote: post #7

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…

If only countries could work together to institute a global carbon tax. Pollute too much - pay the tax. Don't pollute - great and, if you are poor/developing, here is help (funded by polluters) to stay that way while still being able to develop.

We don't need anywhere near global consensus, a small group of nations can start. The idea is called a "climate club", and it won William Nordhaus a Nobel Prize.

https://issues.org/climate-clubs-to-overcome-free-riding/

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#32

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

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...

> 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 the cost is saying that the electricity it produces will be at best as expensive as wind energy already is.

Of course nuclear power plants can still generate electricity on a windless day, but if they're only used on such days, then the cost per Joule is even worse.

Perhaps the (estimated) £20 billion could be spent on energy storage projects like Vehicle-to-Grid distribution or hydrogen generation, which should be even more competitive 10 years from now when this power plant is supposed to start operating.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#33

Post by godelski » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #10

steeve wrote: post #2

Good news for the climate and the environment!

Better news if they had put the money into renewables and storage.

Why? This article even explains why? It isn't an either or situation. You need a well diversified portfolio of zero (operating) emission technologies. Nuclear is one of those, along with wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#34

Post by manfredo » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #33

pfdietz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better news if they had put the money into renewables and storage.

Why? This article even explains why? It isn't an either or situation. You need a well diversified portfolio of zero (operating) emission technologies. Nuclear is one of those, along with wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal.

The issue is that peak power consumption occurs after sundown in most countries. Nuclear power also costs the same to generate power 24/7 as it does to generate power intermittently. 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. This is why people invested in renewables are often very adverse to nuclear power.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#35

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

rbg246 wrote: post #4

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...

It's a job stimulus package, creating 10000 jobs and advertising this(whether or not it eventuates) is the reason for giving this project the green light.

[deleted]

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#36

Post by com2kid » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

Afforess wrote: post #17

com2kid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no evidence nuclear waste can be disposed of safely in the medium or long term. Only technocrats and elites want more nuclear energy. Its not the will of the voting public. This is a defeat for the environment and democracy. You could put all the nuclear waste the US has ever produced on one football field stacked 3 stories high. Roughly 83,000 metric tons. Meanwhile we produce over 50 million tons of elec…

Comparisons of hog fecal matter to nuclear waste are tens of magnitudes of danger and complexity apart. A person can move hog waste. The most complex equipment the human race has ever designed can move nuclear waste.

> The most complex equipment the human race has ever designed can move nuclear waste.

Concrete and a train is the usual method.

Nuclear waste isn't some magic death substance. It is hazardous, but so are a lot of other substances that are dealt with in large volumes every day, and again, nuclear waste isn't even that large of a volume!

Meanwhile coal plants pump radioactive particles directly into the air, and communities surrounding coal plants have higher rates of cancer, but people complain less because it is in the air and not in barrels labeled with a scary symbol.

With modern nuclear plant designs, the waste would be even less, and there are even designs for plants that would use existing nuclear waste as fuel.

Nuclear is a technology with trade-offs like anything else. There is no need to dismissing it outright.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#37

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #24

sudosysgen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always astonishing how hydro and nuclear are so much better handled by SoEs like EDF or HydroQuebec that manage to turn a profit too, while private companies can never do it well.

EDF is the "private company" which is building Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. For Hinkley, EDF have assumed the construction risk in return for an exceptionally high, guaranteed "strike price" for the electricity it produces. But for Sizewell, it sounds like a different finance arrangement will be in place, likely where the UK government/public assumes more of the risk in return for a cheaper per-MWh price.

The main advantage that EDF has that allows it to work well isn't that effective out of France. They still do good work, but they act much more like a private company than an SoE, which is why it's so much more successful in France.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#38

Post by godelski » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #34

godelski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? This article even explains why? It isn't an either or situation. You need a well diversified portfolio of zero (operating) emission technologies. Nuclear is one of those, along with wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal.

The issue is that peak power consumption occurs after sundown in most countries. Nuclear power also costs the same to generate power 24/7 as it does to generate power intermittently. 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. This is why people invested in renewables are often very adverse to nuclear power.

I don't think it really works that way. Think about battery power, it isn't going to scale linearly. If land costs are a big issue (and limitation) this is true. If wind and sun aren't uniform, this is true. If the premise was true then we would have always only used coal because it is so cheap. You don't have to eliminate the duck curve, but smooth it out. There's also many other reasons to have a well diversified portfolio. It would be ridiculous to say "only wind" or "only solar." I'm not sure why this argument is made with nuclear when we don't do it in with any other source nor have we done it historically. It is just a non sequitur and a weird argument to make.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#39

Post by Arubis » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #26

Afforess wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence nuclear waste can be disposed of safely in the medium or long term. Only technocrats and elites want more nuclear energy. Its not the will of the voting public. This is a defeat for the environment and democracy.

> Only technocrats and elites want more nuclear energy. Only technocrats know how to build an operate an electricity grid, it isn't commonly held knowledge. The voting public are not equipped to vote on how to create a reliable, performant and affordable energy grid. It isn't an issue that should be decided by the public's will. The public can overrule anyone on anything, but on technical issues it is usually wiser t…

At the risk of being too reductive, it strikes me that it’s most appropriate to let the public determine the strategy: the broad strokes and goals they want (clean, safe, low/no carbon energy sources), but to defer to actual trained experts on the tactics: the generation mix and transmission tech.

This isn’t to say there should be no supervision or accountability; more that the elites are called so for a reason (a better word would be “experts”), and that there’s otherwise a risk of micromanagement and all that it entails.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#40

Post by Reason077 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Reason077 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDF is the "private company" which is building Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. For Hinkley, EDF have assumed the construction risk in return for an exceptionally high, guaranteed "strike price" for the electricity it produces. But for Sizewell, it sounds like a different finance arrangement will be in place, likely where the UK government/public assumes more of the risk in return for a cheaper per-MWh price.

The main advantage that EDF has that allows it to work well isn't that effective out of France. They still do good work, but they act much more like a private company than an SoE, which is why it's so much more successful in France.

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.