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

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#81

Post by opo » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #69

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…

Renewables are already widely deployed and payed for. It is nuts to build nuclear to replace fully functional wind turbines and solar cells. Nuclear fans just have no economic sense. It is all about nuclear no matter the cost.

>...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 matter to some advocates. The cost for renewables + storage is at least the cost of nuclear, but that cost also doesn't matter to some advocates. (If grid storage was cheap, we would have built it decades ago.)

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...

Some advocates recommend massively overbuilding solar or wind to deal with seasonal differences. This is obviously a cost multiplier but that doesn't seem to matter to some advocates.

Advocates also describe how we will rebuild the electrical grid to move vast amounts of solar or wind power across the USA. This will not be cheap or easy. Even the relatively small proposed Tres Amos SuperStation hasn’t been completed yet. This cost doesn't seem to matter to some advocates.

Advocates for renewables seem happy with relying on natural gas peaker plants to get around the costs of building grid storage, but methane is a very potent GHG in the short term and there are lots of methane losses in its capture and distribution. No one seriously thinks that natural gas is a long term answer to climate change.

It is possible there will be some major advances in grid storage that will allow us to stop using natural gas to cover for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. In that case - great! But... what if that doesn't pan out? The dangers we are facing in the coming decades are immense. If you were forced to choose, would you prefer the world to suffer through catastrophic climate change rather than use nuclear power?

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#82

Post by tedk-42 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:41 AM UTC

eunos wrote: post #28

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...

At this point probably only the Chinese, Korean and Russian that can build Nuclear Power Plant properly.

This.

It's quite sad to see the lack of innovation in western countries around the build and development of nuclear power plants. Red tape, regulation and lack of political will (due to unfavourable views on nuclear technology) will continue to see most countries fall behind on this.

It's really quite sad. Nuclear has a negative connotation to most but it's the future. Interstellar space travel will rely on the nuclear technology that should be worked on today.

I reason that we should be building and developing these technologies now rather than continuing to rely on burning carbon based fuels to power our homes. The technology is there. The will is not.

Sadly, too many dummies keep on pandering on about how it's dangerous which in turn, drives up cost - then other dummies come along and say "Oh it is too expensive", without understanding the first group of people that drove the cost up to begin with.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#83

Post by rbg246 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:54 AM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #12

rbg246 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you're right. Though for 2mil quid a job, we could have done better just picking people and sending them cheques imho...

True but equally they might end up with a nuclear power plant at the end of it which means while they paid £200k peer year for each job they get an asset at the end albeit unknown how useful it will be or whether it gets finished

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#84

Post by rbg246 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

tedk-42 wrote: post #82

eunos wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point probably only the Chinese, Korean and Russian that can build Nuclear Power Plant properly.

This. It's quite sad to see the lack of innovation in western countries around the build and development of nuclear power plants. Red tape, regulation and lack of political will (due to unfavourable views on nuclear technology) will continue to see most countries fall behind on this. It's really quite sad. Nuclear has a negative connotation to most but it's the future. Interstellar space travel will rely on the nucle…

And we would be keeping interstellar carbon emissions at a manageable level too!

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#85

Post by fuoqi » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:10 AM UTC

erentz wrote: post #48

Here’s an article discussing the costs more: “The Hinkley Point C case: is nuclear energy expensive?” https://medium.com/generation-atomic/the-hinkley-point-c-cas...

Importance of mass-production can not be underestimated. ERP has only 2 working reactors and 3 in construction. Meanwhile Russia produces VVER reactors in an almost conveyor-like fashion (see list in [0]), iterating on design and streamlining construction process, which results in more than twice smaller CAPEX per GW and less delays. Such mass production allows to lower cost of R&D per built reactor and in general to "spread" cost of supporting country's nuclear expertise, which is then used for development of new technologies such as breeders and non-RTG space reactors (though sadly the latter does not see much development lately).

When energy cost of nuclear vs renewables is compared it's very common not only to forget about cost of storage and of additional generation capacity (including natural gas peak plants) required for renewables, but also to bring cost of nuclear based on the projects like ERP, not on the Russian/Chinese/Korean projects, which arguably have much more sensible and viable in long-term energy policy.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVER#Power_plants

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#86

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #66

lostlogin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless how expensive it get, it won't burn tons of fossil fuels. Maybe it won’t be a lot once built, but fuel extraction and processing are energy intensive. Also, 10 years of construction and the vast quantity of steel and concrete are going to burn one hell of a lot of fossil fuel. It would be interesting to compare the lifetime fossil fuel usage of all power generators, including construction and disposal (a…

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.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#87

Post by fuoqi » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:29 AM UTC

Afforess wrote: post #8

steeve wrote: post #2

Good news for the climate and the environment!

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.

Read about burner mode of breeder reactors, they allow to "burn" spent nuclear fuel and make the resulting waste much safer in the long-term, i.e. not only volume of waste will be 100 times smaller, but also the "burnt" fuel will be relatively safe radiologically speaking after just several hundreds years, instead of tens of thousands of years for waste from existing reactors).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Waste_reductio...

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#88

Post by fuoqi » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:37 AM UTC

1337shadow wrote: post #63

socialdemocrat wrote: post #59

I am not all negative to nuclear power but large nuclear reactors is not the way. They are always over budget and delayed. Put the money in next generation nuclear power like small molten salt reactors, batteries and renewables.

How long and how much will take to build a next generation nuclear power plant like with a small molten salt reactor ? Will it be like, twice cheaper and twice faster to build ? If so, why is it not happening ?

Molten salt reactors is a nightmare for material science. You effectively have half of Mendeleev's table on your hands and it's borderline impossible to design a material which will have enough corrosion resistance (reactors have to serve at least several decades) and don't forget about high levels of radiation as well, which also contributes to material damage. Plus online fuel processing is much more difficult than the fuel processing required for fast breeder reactors, and it's one of the main stumbling blocks for breeders right now (well, judging by Russian's experience).

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#89

Post by adrianN » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:40 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #20

LatteLazy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right. Though for 2mil quid a job, we could have done better just picking people and sending them cheques imho...

It's a 10 year project. 2 mil becomes 200k per year. Still a lot, but then it's not really a purely job project. If you send 10000 people 200k per year you will end up with the same hole in your pockets of 20 billion after 10 years, but with a nuclear power plant less. And 10000 people with zero work experience.

With 2 million in the bank you can easily retire to a low cost of living area. That's 50k for forty years.

Re: New nuclear plant at Sizewell set for green light

#90

Post by onion2k » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 6:47 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #6

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...

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 the whole UK energy grid could become fossil free, and the only cost would be a 2x increase in costs, then that would be to me a fair price to pay.

A large number of people would die as a result of such a policy. Fuel poverty is already a significant problem, the UK government gives out 'winter fuel payment' benefits to some, but doubling the price of energy would push a lot of elderly, infirm, and poor people to stop heating their homes.

This idea would need to come with nationalised energy costs for it to work.