GB's cheap Chinese nuclear plant -v- solar

If (and it is a big if ) they get it up and running by 2024 ,give it 40 years lifespan and then the real cost begins in 2064-
Do you know how many decommissioned UK power stations have been dismantled to date - none , they haven't even got a long term storage facility site identified yet -

There are only two problems with the analyses by your good self and Capt'nMidnight. They are a little simplistic at best. Firstly, as for Cap'tnMidnights claims that nuclear power is unreliable, it seems they've had some different experiences in Chicago, according to a leading newspaper in that city. Aparently nuclear power produces almost all of that states clean (i.e. non-fossil) electricity and was a key part of the states' energy supply during a "polar vortex" (probably like Xmas 2010 in Ireland, on steroids) during a recent year. One can certainly imagine that solar panels aren't much use during a polar vortex and if it involved an anti-cyclone, the windmills would have been fairly useless too.

As for Macha, the kind of stuff that has been proposed by that poster has already been tried to a large extent in Germany and it's been a complete disaster. The IEEE highlights the obscene increases in electricity costs in Germany - all to do with renewable subsidies, and highlights the disproportionate effect this has on the poor. It's made all the more regressive because the subsidies come FROM the poor, living in apartments and the like, TO the rich, landowners with windmills, homeowners with solar panels. So much for renewables getting cheaper.

But that's only the start of the cluster**** that is Green energy policy. More is outlined here: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/germanys-green-energy-destabilizing-electric-grids/
TL;DR, Germany has not only driven its electricity costs skyward, but microfluctuations in the power supply have caused serious damage to equipment in the countrys industrial sector, making many firms spend tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands on repairs and power backup systems. But the damage doesn't end there - in a bid to deal with regular unplanned overproduction, German grid controllers have often tried to dump excess power on their Eastern neighbors. Needless to say, the grid operators in these countries don't like unplanned surges in imports so those countries have had to put massive OFF switches on their borders. Far from having more interconnection, Germany has basically turned itself into an electricity island.

There's more. Germany is on a coal burning spree. It's been going on for years and is now rapidly getting worse.

You also have to take into account demand-side management options like industrial and residential load-shifting, interconnections to neighbouring capacity and putting in place a good mix of renewables.

I really don't think you've thought this through, because it poses yet more problems - all the insanity that I've referred to in Germany plus a lot more that you can't explore in a soundbite like the above.

For example, you propose "industrial load shifting" but you do realise that while industy does indeed draw a lot energy, your estimates of its flexibility are grossly overstated to the point of absurdity. Because electricity is not the only time sensitive input into industrial processes, there is also labour (i.e. people to carry out the process) and most importantly orders from customers. Two problems arise:

1. What impact does this have on the workers in the indstrial sector? With a reliable energy supply where power output can be controlled, you can schedule production shifts. But if you force industry to fit itself around the weather, what becomes of the workers? If they're only needed when the wind is blowing, how do they plan their lives if they can predict neither their working hours, (those are dependent on the wind/sunshine) nor their incomes (if they are based on hours worked)? More to the point, what do all the industrial workers do when they're not needed during what would otherwise be a work day? Go home, turn on the heating/air conditioning? Wash/dry the clothes in the washer/dryer? Wash the dishes with the dishwasher? Charge the phones and laptops? Make tea? Watch TV? Turn on the gaming PC and have a monster fragging session? Nope. Can't do any of that because the residential sector is subject to the same problems and they'd pay €2+ a kw/hr for the priviledge of doing any of that.
   
   In summary, you take workers who had the traditional "9-to-5" and now you've put them on-call, totally unable to plan their lives beyond the variability of the weather. When they're not needed at work, for the same reasons they have to just sit at home twiddling their thumbs.
   
   Do you really think this is preferable to using nuclear power?
2. What impact does this have on production planning? Remember, manufacturers presumably like to know in advance how much product they can make, what they will be able to deliver on a particular date and modern businesses like to eliminate any activities that are not part of their core business, things like holding massive inventories, which are a pointless cost but would be required if they needed to guarantee a certain output but had little control over production. This is of course in addition to the other costs of an unplannable workforce, a power supply full of fluctuations that cost a fortune to manage, in addition to the true cost of electricity if fully applied (currently only residential users pay the green subsidies in Germany). How much do you think these companies will bear before they sod off to somewhere that electricity (among other things) is cheaper and more reliable, and where they can hire full time staff and actually plan their production?

I didn't know the German issues had been refuted ??
But isn't the whole thread a bit daft anyway - solar in the uk and nuclear (chinese or otherwise ) aren't really interchangeable - nuclear's about steady (hopefully ) base load - solar is doable in the uk especially in the south but not in large solar farms because the lands too expensive -
Nuclear and coal would be more comparable-
And energy security is all about the mix of generation types -gas might be a clean(ish) ,convenient reasonably priced choice for most of your power generation but it's useless if the Russians turn it off -

Macha wrote: »

What you saw about Germany has already refuted many, many times in this forum. I'm tired of repeating myself to be honest. The vast majority of German citizens SUPPORT the Energiewende and are happy to pay for it. The only people complaining about the costs of the Energiewende are 1) the utilities, who don't even PAY these costs and are losing market share and 2) heavy industry like BASF who pay FAR below the headline costs. You won't ever know what they actually pay because they sign individual purchase power agreements with their energy providers at insanely low prices.

It would also be nice if you don't refer to other posters as 'that poster'.

Yes, the majority of German citizens may be happy to pay 3 times what Americans pay for electricity (and rising), doesn't mean that will always be the case, especially when another trillion or so in demands come in for grid improvements.

It also doesn't mean that it isn't a regressive policy that disproportionately transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.

Yes the utilities may be annoyed, they've been relegated to providing backup power only (instead of continuous) while their rates have been going down becuase the market has been so fooled around with.

As to the industrial sector I highly doubt they'd be complaining about paying "insanely low" prices, unless either A) They aren't really paying "insanely low" pirces or The levels of fluctuations in the power supply were costing them, as a sector, tens if not hundreds of millions of euro.

I'm also quite sure that the German industrial sector is not so keen on your plan for industrial demand-side management. How do you think a manufacturing or other business can work when their schedules will be literally no more dependable than the weather? Even if the logisitical problems can be worked out, what effect would this have on the people who work in the industrial sector?

You also haven't explained how any of this stuff would help in a Christmas 2010 style scenario, where the solar panels are covered in snow, the wind is dead in an anti-cyclone, the rivers are frozen and because it's Christmas Eve, anyone who has an electric car will be charging it to go somewhere and everyone else will be turning on everything electric to stay alive because the temperature is -17.

If it were true that renewables were all the time getting cheaper, why is it still the case that there is a direct correlation between implementation of Green policies, and increased energy costs. Capt'nMidnight may have been talking about "solar is getting cheaper" for the past number of years, indeed your spiritual ancestors (who doomed us to generations of fossil fuel dependence and were almost single handedly responsible for the construction of Moneypoint) were probably saying the same stuff at Carnsore Point. It's 2015 and nothing has fundamentally changed.

Finally, my apologies if I caused any offense with my "that poster" term, I meant it in a much more polite "in refernece to that particular poster" rather than a dismissive "THAT poster" or however it may have appeared. The pitfalls of written debate I suppose.

Macha wrote: »

What you saw about Germany has already refuted many, many times in this forum. I'm tired of repeating myself to be honest. The vast majority of German citizens SUPPORT the Energiewende and are happy to pay for it. The only people complaining about the costs of the Energiewende are 1) the utilities, who don't even PAY these costs and are losing market share and 2) heavy industry like BASF who pay FAR below the headline costs. You won't ever know what they actually pay because they sign individual purchase power agreements with their energy providers at insanely low prices.

It would also be nice if you don't refer to other posters as 'that poster'.

:rolleyes:

Meanwhile in the real world

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

I've friends and family in different parts of Germany and they are getting rather sick of high energy bills on the back of greenwash nonsense and vested interests

Macha wrote: »

And the stats show 92‰ of Germans support the Energiewende.

And, er, vested interests? Did you manage to miss the chart I posted in my previous post showing the utilities only own 6% of renewables capacity & how over 170 municipalities have voted to buy back their local grids? What vested interests are you talking about? The Energiewende is a people-led transition.

Spurious claim + random article link from 2 years ago + policy by anecdote is not a debating style that is particularly convincing.

92% you say - when was that poll taken and who commissioned it?? The other chart you posted is irrelvant to the issue of fuel poverty and the cost of energy in Germany. Of course the landowners pocketing the fat wind subsidies are all for wind energy and care little for the working poor who have to pay for all this hubris

PS: I don't really care what you think of my debating style. You seem to have a problem with anyone who dares to express an opinion contrary to your own. I have posted on a number of forums on boards for many years and have never encountered such an arrogant and condescending attitude(based on delusions of grandeur it would seem) from mods as I have in this particular part of boards.

@Macha. In the first instance, could you please explain how your plans for residential and industrial load shifting would work in practice?

Macha wrote: »

Just to take one of the many, many convenient assumptions that you make in every single one of your posts: prove German industry doesn't pay the lowest energy prices in the EU. Go on.

I never said they didn't, per se. Rather, I suggested that it was not reasonable for a group to be complaining about a policy that they were benefitting from. It is indeed possible that they pay very low rates for energy (for now) but that they're paying for it in terms of damage caused by micro-fluctations costing the German industrial sector likely 10s if not 100s of millions.

And why do Germans support the Energiewende, always have and always will? Because it's theirs. They own it. They believe in it. 92% of Germans support it.

Nice pic. But you do realise that in Germany the lower and middle classes have a much greater tradition of renting apartments than here in our fair isle? So even if all of the renewable power (and subsidies) were owned by individuals, it would still be mainly the rich who benefit.

Your claim that they will suddenly stop supporting it is based on sheer bias and zero fact.

Again, I never said that. Rather I wonder how long they're prepared to go on paying multiples of what they pay in other countries. Especially if the costs only go up with the need to pay for €1trn of grid upgrades.

As to the jibe about your spiritual ancestors, that may have been a bit rough, but only to point out that the same things have been presumably said since the '70s, when environmentalists doomed Ireland to generations of reliance on fossil fuels.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There are only two problems with you analysis.

One , you haven't commented on the list of reactor outages.

Of course nuclear plants can go down like traditional thermal plants, indeed like any kind of power plant. Nothing groundbreaking there I'm afraid.

As for this:

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth says federal regulators are sending a special inspection team to the plant related to an unplanned shutdown during last week’s blizzard.
...
An outage related to the blizzard was blamed for shutting down two of the major lines carrying electricity from the generating facility. Plant officials said the shutdown was similar to one in a 2013 snowstorm and wasn’t a safety threat.

I'm sorry, I just can't take any of that seriously. You're blaming nuclear technology for the fact that snow brought down some external power lines? Seriously?

Two - that piece was written by Former Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) is co-chairman of Nuclear Matters, a campaign designed to engage and inform policymakers and the public about the need to preserve existing nuclear energy plants. in a category labelled "Other Views".

Couldn't be too far off if the Sun Times printed it though ...

And nuclear still isn't reliable. You need way more spinning reserve to cater for reactor shutdowns than for inaccurate wind predictions. The difference is that nuclear can have no warning before dropping out, whereas the wind predictions are days ahead.

Renewables are literally as reliable as the weather. And some people are talking about 100% renewables reliance in a country that has sod all sunlight, a prolonged winter and could be struck by a long term anti-cyclone at any time, like we were in Xmas 2010.

Does 100% of forecast wind generation need spinning reserve ? Or just a proportion ? ( ie. You'd plan on having spinning reserve for 10 or 20 % of forecast wind power as there no way that all 1200 turbines will go offline at once)
And I assume gas turbines or moneypoint also need spinning reserve - or at least a proportion them do ?

Macha wrote: »

If you wanted to define something that the majority of people benefit from and support as vested interests, go ahead.

SeanW, I've seen your post and I'll come back to it when I have a bit more time.

For anyone interested, the 87% state-owned nuclear manufacturing company Areva just announced losses of a whopping $4.9 billion in 2014: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/23/areva-loss-idUSL5N0VX0TE20150223. The French government is going to have to get involved and bail out EDF and AREVA by making some sort of arrangements.

Most French industries have been undercut by foreign rivals and nuclear is no different as mentioned in that link. Russia has recently signed deals with both Egypt and China. The former is rather interesting given the country's apparent vast solar resources. India is also expanding nuclear

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/02/russia-build-egypt-nuclear-power-plant-150210185343926.html

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/India/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/21/china-nuclear-idUSL3N0ND1GS20140421

Birdnuts wrote: »

Yeah,Yeah - the nuclear industry is evil and we'll all be saved by windmills etc:rolleyes:. As for running to the tax-payer - a bit rich given the escalating amount of "green" taxes and subsidies the EU consumer is getting burdened with on behalf of the wind,solar etc industries. You conveniently ignore the fact that 2 of the biggest(and fastest) growing economies have major nuclear plans.. building new plants that will that have a far superior design to what was built 40+ years ago. Thorium reactors in particular could be a major game changer in the years to come.

I'd bloody well hope that a modern nuclear reactor would be far superior to a 40 year old design - things (and costs) have moved on a lot -
How long now has thorium been the future ? Any real light on the horizon ?