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GB's cheap Chinese nuclear plant -v- solar
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 90788
You’re telling us that nuclear is cheap, yet Hinkley Point C is going to be phenomenally expensive. Construction costs are estimated at £24.5 billion and EDF have been guaranteed a massive strike price of £92.5 per MWh.Markcheese wrote: »Solar costs are plummeting and 7 to 9 cent per kW may be comparable to gas except it's the system costs that counts-
A solar system needs other components to balance out peaks and something to provide power at night -
A gas based system doesn't - ( but who wants all their eggs in one basket )
So if you had a lot of solar on the grid ( Germany / southern USA ) you really want smart meters as well . So day time around noon would be off peak - 2 or 3 am would be expensive -
I'd also argue that payment for solar / renewable should be based on peaks as well - lowest payment around mid -day highest payment in morning and evening -
Solar has decimated the market for pumped storage in Germany. Previously pumped storage could rely on peak prices at peak demand but wind and solar have reduced the margins.According to the study, the revenue prospects of pumped storage plants will only improve over the long term – at least a decade – when the share of renewable energy in the power generation mix has expanded sufficiently
Unless you have oodles of hydro, and France's 20GW isn't enough, you need gas to backup nuclear or wind or solar or stuff like the 3GW surge in demand in the UK after the 1999 eclipse.
During the eclipse Germany organised lots of backup to cater for the loss of PV and managed through a 15GW drop while Italy just took the safe option and didn't take power from any solar farms bigger than 100KW.0 -
One enormous caveat on retail prices is they hide subsidies so they're not a good way of judging technology costs. Actually they're probably one of the worst ways to be honest.What are you talking about? The cost of solar is plummeting. Grid-scale solar in the US can deliver electricity for about 7 – 9 cents per kWh – that’s competitive versus gas:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/topaz-turns-on-9-million-solar-panelsYou’re telling us that nuclear is cheap, yet Hinkley Point C is going to be phenomenally expensive. Construction costs are estimated at £24.5 billion and EDF have been guaranteed a massive strike price of £92.5 per MWh.
In any case, that's not even the main point. From an environmental perspective, with the current hysetria about global warming, nuclear power should look a lot more attractive to the Environmental Left even if the costs were as ridiculous as some claim them to be.
Why? Again, look at France.
They say a picture speaks a thousands words, and for this I really shouldn't have to spell it out, but I will anyway.
France has <10% fossil fuel reliance. Gas in paticular accounted for 3.69% of power consumption in France in 2012. There are only two ways to do this:- Be a country naturally blessed with massive fjords and geothermal resources.
- Embrace nuclear power unreservadley.
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »During the eclipse Germany organised lots of backup to cater for the loss of PV and managed through a 15GW drop while Italy just took the safe option and didn't take power from any solar farms bigger than 100KW.
Instead of building plant for continuous use, you have to build power plants to cover solar eclipses and polar vortexes when the government spends everyone's money on windmills and solar panels. That limits the plant types that can be built (only combined cycle gas can respond to the violent fluctations in supply/demand caused by renewables) and the plants are only viable if they can sell power for some stupidly high cost on the irregular and sometimes unpredictable intervals that it is required. You can't just assume that the thermal plants will just be there as backup, they have to be paid for, their capital costs and staff costs.0 -
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I put it to you that you would say this, since the measure shows your preferred choice in a very bad light.
This report by the European Commission explains how prices are set and the different components: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/20140122_communication_energy_prices.pdf The main components are the cost of generating electricity, network costs and then taxes, exemptions, levies etc. A change in any sub-section of those main components can change the price consumers pay, assuming prices are unregulated, which they are in Ireland.
In addition to the many, many other subsidies that the nuclear industry enjoys in France, electricity prices are regulated by the CRE meaning they set the price. For a long time, the CRE (and the French government) has obliged EDF to sell its power at prices cheaper than the cost of generation.
This keeps retail prices artificially low but the difference accrues to EDF's balance sheet. For this and other reasons, EDF's debt is growing every year, as the newly appointed CEO found out when he started. Indeed, when the French government overruled a proposal to increase prices by 5% last year, it knocked $5 billion off the share price of EDF.
This doesn't even go into the impacts like a price cap acting as a barrier to new entrants thereby reducing competition etc. France remains a huge problem in terms of market concentration and the resistance of the French government to make EDF really compete with other companies with different generation portfolios.
So yes, there's SO much going on underneath the headline retail prices (that doesn't even take into account the number of units being consumed, eg how energy efficient a country is) that comparing retail prices in different countries is a really, really bad way to figure out the costs of different energy system, let alone of a specific generation technology.0 -
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You could make the solar panels for free, it wouldn't make a jot of difference because you can't rely on them.
Weather forecasting advances about a day a decade. At present we can give predictions 5 days out.
http://www.met.ie/forecasts/5day-ireland.asp
For solar eclipses we can predict to within a second for the next thousand years.I don't recall claiming that it was "cheap" per se, just not so stupidly expensive as electicity costs in Germany, Denmark, Tuvalau, the Cook Islands and suchlike places.
In any case, that's not even the main point. From an environmental perspective, with the current hysetria about global warming, nuclear power should look a lot more attractive to the Environmental Left even if the costs were as ridiculous as some claim them to be.That's the other reason Germany's electricity costs are so stupidly high - the old business models of traditional plant operators are no longer viable.
Tell that to the pumped storage operators in Germany
or the coal operators who are running out of time
or the French who import lots of German renewables
or the UK who import from the French
Nuclear isn't cheap.
But more importantly nuclear hasn't been able to deliver what is promised. Cost overruns and delays are the norm.
If you owe the seven three grand it's your problem,
but if you owe the bank seven billion then it's the banks problem because they'll have to keep bailing you out if it's the only way to get repaidInstead of building plant for continuous use, ... (only combined cycle gas can respond to the violent fluctations in supply/demand caused by renewables) and the plants are only viable if they can sell power for some stupidly high cost on the irregular and sometimes unpredictable intervals that it is required. You can't just assume that the thermal plants will just be there as backup, they have to be paid for, their capital costs and staff costs.
Our demand fluctuates over the day. 2GW at night another 1GW in the day , another 1GW in winter. Another 1GW for peak demand and at least 1GW for redundancy.
The reality of the situation is that we only have 2GW of continuous demand but have several times that amount of despatchable generators. (and I'm being generous here when I say 2GW because that's minimum demand of 1.75GW AND 0.25GW into Turlough Hill)
So MOST generators will be off MOST of the time.
In comparison wind here averages half of what the grid can accept during winter.
Only base load plants can be considered for continuous operation. And even then only if they can produce power at the most economic price.
Nuclear has an ABSOLUTE requirement for spinning reserve of the size of the largest plant. For Solar or Wind this just isn't an issue because individual farms are smaller, actually it's an issue because Solar and Wind are levied for a level of spinning reserve they will never need.
Also staffing and capital costs for fossil fuel plant is a fraction of that for nuclear.
There are whole industries like tourism and retail and farming and fishing that are seasonal. Possibly a contract with minimum hours and overtime rates would suit some of the employees , I'm thinking part time farmers.
Re spinning reserve and cycling, here we run gas turbines at 2/3rds power so can ramp up 33%. Also gas turbines can idle at low power instead of a full trip depending on running costs , maintenance costs and payments . It's all very complicated stuff. You may not understand it because - the old business models of traditional plant operators are no longer viable
Using gas as base load means you can just ramp up. Using Nuclear means you can't unless you pay extra to have gas as spinning reserve. It's another hidden subsidy to Nuclear.
There's been a lot of FUD on gas O&M so a reminder that running at 70% means high efficiency with room to ramp up.
http://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/ndt/faq-what-are-the-factors-influencing-maintenance-intervals-for-gas-turbines/Peak load operation will have in excess of a six fold effect on the life of the blades compared with base load operation. Similarly, a trip from a full load will be equivalent to 8 normal starts in terms of cyclic life consumption.
Operation at part load, say 80% load, will reduce the turbine inlet temperature on an open cycle plant by as much as 10%. However, for combined cycle re-heat plant, the inlet temperature needs to be maintained by controlling the variable guide vanes, and therefore part load operation does not significantly influence the turbine inlet pressure until load reduces to around 70%.
TBH the business model of Nuclear generation for the last 60 years has been simple, keep the plant running at close to full power all the time to pay off the crippling debt. Everyone else has had to load balance around them.0 -
I don't recall claiming that it was "cheap" per se, just not so stupidly expensive as electicity costs in Germany, Denmark, Tuvalau, the Cook Islands and suchlike places.
Explain?In any case, that's not even the main point.The only alternatives I've seen from the Environmental Left...0 -
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »The reality of the situation is that we only have 2GW of continuous demand but have several times that amount of despatchable generators. (and I'm being generous here when I say 2GW because that's minimum demand of 1.75GW AND 0.25GW into Turlough Hill)
So for nuclear to sell power continuously it would have to target that 1GW when when it's windy and it could only do that when backed up by lots of fossil spinning reserve which would also be sending power in to the grid so nuclear wouldn't be able to displace that much fossil fuel, and that's before you include the grid stability rules of keeping large generators being kept online near the major cities.
Operational Constraints Update
4th February 2015There must be at least 3 high-inertia
machines on-load at all times in
Northern Ireland. Required for dynamic
stability.
...
There must be at least 2 large
generators on-load at all times in the
Dublin area. Required for voltage
control. This assumes EWIC is
operational.
...
There must be at least 2/3 generators
on-load at all times in the South West
area. Required for voltage stability.
...
There must be at least one Moneypoint
unit on load at all times. Required to
support the 400kV network.
And in future we could accommodate more than 50% renewables and with the use of smart appliances to reduce demand dynamically to load balance so it non-renewable demand will probably fall below 1GW at times.
To provide spinning reserve you need to replace 75% of the load within 5 seconds.
The more I look at it the more I'm convinced that Nuclear is a dinosaur.0 -
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It takes a long time for a nuclear power plant to even begin to approach carbon neutral when you take into account all the inputs during construction and mining. http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.htmlAccording to Sovacool's analysis, nuclear power, at 66 gCO2e/kWh emissions is well below scrubbed coal-fired plants, which emit 960 gCO2e/kWh, and natural gas-fired plants, at 443 gCO2e/kWh. However, nuclear emits twice as much carbon as solar photovoltaic, at 32 gCO2e/kWh, and six times as much as onshore wind farms, at 10 gCO2e/kWh. "A number in the 60s puts it well below natural gas, oil, coal and even clean-coal technologies. On the other hand, things like energy efficiency, and some of the cheaper renewables are a factor of six better. So for every dollar you spend on nuclear, you could have saved five or six times as much carbon with efficiency, or wind farms," Sovacool says. Add to that the high costs and long lead times for building a nuclear plant about $3 billion for a 1,000 megawatt plant, with planning, licensing and construction times of about 10 years and nuclear power is even less appealing.
And you have to take into account the relatively large % of nuclear plants that don't get completed or shut down early. Also take into account that production of solar panels is getting more efficient so that future ones will have a lower CO2 level.
n the nuclear world there's been plenty of talk of self contained 300MW reactors and commercialising them. The world's navies have used 100's of them since the 1950's and still there's only talk of commercialising them.
In comparison here what promises to be yet another step change in PV production costs, awaiting commercialisation.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2901612/stanford-breakthrough-could-make-better-chips-cheaper.htmlNext, the uppermost disposable layer is etched so that the many circuits become individual chips. Then, an infrared laser blasts the infrared-absorbing layer, breaking it down so the chips can be separating from the underlying wafer. The remaining wafer is cleaned and is then ready for the next batch of chips.
...
Because the resulting chips are made out of a thin layer of gallium arsenide rather than a full wafer, they are cheaper to produce. As a side benefit, they are also flexible.0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »It takes a long time for a nuclear power plant to even begin to approach carbon neutral when you take into account all the inputs during construction and mining. .
Sounds like people in glasshouses throwing stones - the damage done to the environment by the mining of rare earth elements for wind turbines and their installation(40 tonne concrete bases, roads, substations and pylons etc.) on fragile upland habitats like peat raise serious questions as to just how green this source of power actually is in this country0 -
Apologies in advance this might be somewhat long.Nope, it's just true.
This report by the European Commission explains how prices are set and the different components: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/20140122_communication_energy_prices.pdf
Again, taking reference to global energy costs, on the one hand we have Capt'nMidnight and others telling us how cheap green energy is, then we have the reality on the ground in Germany and Denmark where costs are similar to those of microscopic Pacific islands like Niue, Tuvalau and the Cook Islands that most people have never heard of.
Very simply, I put it to you that somehting has gone very badly wrong in Germany and Denmark. Very badly wrong.In addition to the many, many other subsidies that the nuclear industry enjoys in France, electricity prices are regulated by the CRE meaning they set the price. For a long time, the CRE (and the French government) has obliged EDF to sell its power at prices cheaper than the cost of generation.This doesn't even go into the impacts like a price cap acting as a barrier to new entrants thereby reducing competition etc. France remains a huge problem in terms of market concentration and the resistance of the French government to make EDF really compete with other companies with different generation portfolios.that comparing retail prices in different countries is a really, really bad way to figure out the costs of different energy system, let alone of a specific generation technology.Re spinning reserve and cycling, here we run gas turbines at 2/3rds power so can ramp up 33%. Also gas turbines can idle at low power instead of a full trip depending on running costs , maintenance costs and payments . It's all very complicated stuff. You may not understand it because - the old business models of traditional plant operators are no longer viable
Using gas as base load means you can just ramp up.
Building a power system that relies on natural gas carries with it, AFAIK 4 major problems- Gas is still a fossil fuel, burning it still release piles of CO2 into the atmosphere, supposidly cooking the planet, which we're supposed tobe going El Nutso to try to avoid.
- Gas is among the least sustainable fuel source that there are, it took me about 2 minutes on Google to find out about Reserve to Production Ratios, both oil and gas are fuels that we will run out of in this century. Taking the most liberal view of oil 80 years, the world will run out of gas first in 59 years. Needless to say that any large scale increase in the use of gas will reduce this figure.
- Using gas on power generation is wasteful - because gas is so flexible, using it for any one purpose carries with an an "opportunity cost" of not using it for something else. Gas can be used for power, heating, cooking, transport, it's the most flexible fuel for each of these uses. Uranium is better for power generation because it carries no such opportunity cost, coal having only some.
- Imported gas must usually be purchased from very nasty people. Two of the main sources are Russia (which has spent the last two years fighting a proxy war to destroy the Ukraine, murdering countless civilians including the passengers and crew of MH-17 in the process) and Qatar, which has certain blurred lines in a relationship with the Islamic State or Daesh a thoroughly evil group that has committed mass muders, genocide against the Yadizi people, and the destruction of mankinds cultural heritage on a scale unprecedented in modern times. This is yet another hidden cost to using gas for any reason, yet it does not feature in any of the above analyses. I find that strange.
You seem to be a big fan of the French and their energy industry. Well, EDF are building the new reactor at Hinkley Point and it’s going to be stupidly expensive, as you put it.
Again, look at the chart I posted earlier showing that France having less than 10% reliance on fossil fuels. This is accompanied by sensible power costs. The downside, whether that be subsidies or something else, would have to be extremely serious to counteract the positive results of the French approach. But so far as I can see, it's just not happening.Another of your favourite debating techniques – when all else fails, attribute some argument to the nebulous “environmental left” to add weight to your own baseless claims.
I imagine most of the residents of this board would consider the above to be at least mostly accurate in describing their own views, and it is my view that this view is extremely common. Thusly, while I could repeat the above spiel every time I want to question the ideology, I suggest the term "Environmental Left" is a useful, time saving summary.
If I were to peg a label on my own position, at least in this area, I'd call myself "Environmental Right" because although I accept the need for mankind to be good stewards of the Earth, I'd favour things like nuclear power which is traditionally something of a right-wing point of view. I'd also prefer a policy of energy security vs writing out blank cheques to Vladimir Putin and Daesh, which again makes me a rightie.0 -
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 90788
Sounds like people in glasshouses throwing stones - the damage done to the environment by the mining of rare earth elements for wind turbines and their installation(40 tonne concrete bases, roads, substations and pylons etc.) on fragile upland habitats like peat raise serious questions as to just how green this source of power actually is in this country
some pictures of the environmental impact of nuclear - don't forget about the mining or the soil heaps or leachate
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-05-11/does-nuclear-power-produce-no-co2
Nuclear plants use a LOT of concrete. Sizewell used more than 40 tonnes 10,000 times over. And then there's the concrete used for the waste etc.
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/160237/SizewellPamphlet_lo.pdfAt its peak, there were over 2,000 workers employed on the construction of Sizewell A
power station. This included different types of machine operators, fitters, carpenters, concrete
gangs, electricians, welders, platers, laggers, scaffolders and many other categories of
operative. The process of building the station involved the shifting of around 700,000 cubic
yards of earth, and the application of approximately 300,000 cubic yards of formwork,
5000 tons of steel and 200,000 cubic yards of concrete.0 -
Again, taking reference to global energy costs, on the one hand we have Capt'nMidnight and others telling us how cheap green energy is, then we have the reality on the ground in Germany and Denmark where costs are similar to those of microscopic Pacific islands like Niue, Tuvalau and the Cook Islands that most people have never heard of.
Very simply, I put it to you that somehting has gone very badly wrong in Germany and Denmark. Very badly wrong.
.
A similar pattern emerging in the US
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/10/17/electricity-prices-soaring-in-top-10-wind-power-states/0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 6185
Apologies in advance this might be somewhat long.
I would say it's simply not true. I suggest very simply that when a country follows Green policy on energy, costs unavoidably rise.
Sorry but you're objecting to basic facts of how the energy market works. Costs are just not the same as prices. That's why the European Commission called it's report 'Costs AND prices'. If you can't grasp how things like subsidies, exemptions and regulated prices can distort the true cost of energy in retail prices, I really can't help you.
I get that you're trying to argue that renewable systems are more expensive than others but you're doing it in a way that shows glaring gaps in your understanding of market mechanisms like price setting, government interventions, externalities etc
By the way, I find your association of nuclear with right wing politics quite amusing as it is the energy technology that has benefitted the most in the past from state support and even today cannot survive without enormous public subsidies, not to mention the costs of waste disposal and decommissioning coming up as Europe closes down its fleet of old reactors.
As an industry that cannot survive without the state and likes to socialise its costs, I associate it more with communism. No surprise that two of the few big nuclear players in the world are Rosatom and the Chinese state nuclear company. Very right wing indeed...0 -
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Paraphrasing
We are only getting 1,664 MW of fossil fuel power being replaced by wind at the moment blah blah blah
Ignore the actual cost and focus on the retail price blah blah blah
Gas has problems because
Nuclear is so slow to respond to demand it has an absolute requirement on gas for load balancing in exactly the same way renewables have.
Nuclear reserves in soft rock are running low , soon the EROEI will be marginal but let's pretend that we haven't found all the easy uranium ( thanks to radioactivity you can locate ores with low flying aircraft )
Let's pretend that Norway isn't supplying more gas to the EU than Russia and that Lithuania won't be importing LNG from the USA.
Let's pretend that France doesn't import a lot of renewables from Germany during the day and has to sell nuclear back at night. Let's ignore France's 20GW of hydro when I say less than 10% fossil.
and some name calling
You can forget nuclear as a solution to CO2. A decade to build and another decade to become carbon neutral. And that's if there aren't problems and we don't have to mine granite for uranium. And there's a demand for it on a grid that can accept 75% renewables.
Gas is a stepping stone. Building new Nuclear is a 60 year commitment, decade to build , decade before carbon neutral (maybe) , further decade or two before break even financially. And then running it for another 30 years or so depending on the political climate or competition or price of ore.
Gas plants have shorter life cycles. Less capital tied up. Easier to change tack to new generation sources in future because you aren't locked in for decades. And they'll run on hydrogen that could be got if we can improve PV cells.
Remind us again how many Generation III+ nuclear reactors are in full service without teething problems ?0 -
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The retail price of electricity in Denmark is US$0.40 per unit. Even including the difference between wholesale and retail, and currency exchange, there is still a hell of a difference between 9.25p and 40cents.The "Environmental left" is a description of a position that I consider to be common to many of the posters here and for example major world Green parties, and other entities like Greenpeace, who share the same policies - (among others) climate change alarmism, promotion of energy taxation, promotion of weather based renewabe power, opposition to the use of nuclear electricity despite the aforementioned climate change alarmism ... these are things one associates with a mainstream environmental ideology, that has traditionally been considered a Left-of-Centre point of view.
I imagine most of the residents of this board would consider the above to be at least mostly accurate in describing their own views, and it is my view that this view is extremely common. Thusly, while I could repeat the above spiel every time I want to question the ideology, I suggest the term "Environmental Left" is a useful, time saving summary.0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »LOL
some pictures of the environmental impact of nuclear - don't forget about the mining or the soil heaps or leachate
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-05-11/does-nuclear-power-produce-no-co2
Nuclear plants use a LOT of concrete. Sizewell used more than 40 tonnes 10,000 times over. And then there's the concrete used for the waste etc.
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/160237/SizewellPamphlet_lo.pdf
The equivalent of the above for wind mills is the CO2 cost of extracting the rare earth metals for windmills and solar panels, building the things, installing them where they are to operate, often causing a considerable level of environmental destruction in totality for things that will only ever produce small amounts of power and then only depending on the weather.Sorry but you're objecting to basic facts of how the energy market works. Costs are just not the same as prices. That's why the European Commission called it's report 'Costs AND prices'. If you can't grasp how things like subsidies, exemptions and regulated prices can distort the true cost of energy in retail prices, I really can't help you.As an industry that cannot survive without the state and likes to socialise its costs,Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Gas is a stepping stone.
Too bad that using gas for power generation raises 4 very, very serious problems that have been almost totally ignored.There’s also a hell of a difference between a strike price and a retail price. You seem to be completely unwilling to accept this.In other words, it’s a lazy dismissal of anyone who’s posts you disagree with.0 -
Too bad that using gas for power generation raises 4 very, very serious problems that have been almost totally ignored.
- Nuclear power is not carbon neutral, not by a long shot.
- That source is seven years old. Two words: shale gas. Also, gas is renewable, to some extent. For example, Germany produces about 2.3 GW of electricity from biogas-fired power plants.
- There’s not much else that gas can be used for other than generating heat by burning it.
- Almost half of the world’s uranium is produced by Russia and two of its satellite states (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).
Did you even read what you quoted? I stated very clearly that I accepted there would be a difference between ~9p/kwh and the price on the consumers electric bill. Just not 40 cents worth.
I’m asking you why EDF have been guaranteed a wholesale price of twice the going rate in the UK, but you keep avoiding the question.
It’s been suggested that, by the time the plant becomes operational, this could make Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/10414889/Insane-power-station-deal-will-raise-electricity-prices-for-decades-to-come.htmlNo, it's my attempt at a succint, accurate description of a common viewpoint, held by a wide variety of principals with little if any deviation from one another.0 -
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There’s also a hell of a difference between a strike price and a retail price. You seem to be completely unwilling to accept this.
In other words, it’s a lazy dismissal of anyone who’s posts you disagree with.
I'd love to know the economics of carriage on the The National Grid etc. on those margains.0 -
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Oh, it's a lot more than that - gas like in CCGT plants is the only way to design a power system that co-operate with unreliable renewables. Anything else, including nuclear, is as of yet not flexible enough to deal with the problems that renewables cause.
Nuclear flexible ???
The existing Flexible power suppliers on on the grid have to respond within 5 seconds. France's reactors are optimised to respond faster than others, at the expense of efficiency and they can ramp up / down in about 6 hours. Within well defined limits.
Back in 1943 General Groves asked for an extended run of the first reactor. This didn't happen because the experts on nuclear knew better. Xenon poisoning affected the first batch of reactors used to breed plutonium in 1944. If you shut down a reactor today you may still have to wait for up to 72 hours to restart.
When you have a grid that can respond to 75% of the maximum outage within 5 seconds the 5 day forecast for wind makes it dependable and reliable compared to something that can go off line without warning, and worse could stay off line for years.
Again a reminder that most of the technologies needed for nuclear also benefit renewables. Cheaper tunnelling technology would help with the waste problem, but it would also make geothermal cheaper too. Materials technology mean better turbines, but since gas and renewables have much shorter life cycles they will benefit sooner.0 -
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »PSML
Nuclear flexible ???
So you not only strawmanned an arugment I never made, but also attacked a claim when I accepted the exact opposite. Way to go!Capt'n Midnight wrote: »In fairness you can see how nuclear supporters could easily get confused by the difference when Hinkey C has a strike price of 9.25p per unit and Sainsbury's are offering it for 9.36p per unit, retailThey haven’t been totally ignored, they've been done to death on this forum. To summarize:- Nuclear power is not carbon neutral, not by a long shot.
- That source is seven years old. Two words: shale gas. Also, gas is renewable, to some extent. For example, Germany produces about 2.3 GW of electricity from biogas-fired power plants.
- There’s not much else that gas can be used for other than generating heat by burning it.
- Almost half of the world’s uranium is produced by Russia and two of its satellite states (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).
2) Accepted on the point of shale gas, not sure how much of the stuff there is, but I'd question the renewability of gas used in vast quantities, I've seen a video of an experiment in Kassel in Germany, biogas comes from farming of corn and suchlike. Again, using farmland and farm inputs (fertiliser, herbicide, fuel for agricultural machinery) for this purpose raises the same Opportunity Costs as are relevant in other parts of the problem: yes, you could use that stuff to grow crops for biogas, or you could all of those things for something else.
3) Seriously, this is simply not credible. You cannot deny that gas is more flexible than other fuels, as such it has higher opportunity costs. For example, you can use gas in your car, and there are people who have converted their cars from refined oils to gas. Gas is also much more useful in central heating systems - you can start it with the flick of a switch and get instant heat - cooking, same properties. It's also a raw material/feedstock in some chemical processes.
Oil has the same opportunity costs for any selected use, coal less so because it can't really be used in a car and is not quite so convenient in central heating, uranium is the "best" in terms of opportunity costs because you can only really use it in nuclear power plants or submarines, there's really nothing else to do with it except leave it untapped. Which is not true of gas, if we stopped burning gas in power plants the price of gas would crash but only for a short time and it would take a very short time for drivers and the motor trade to take notice and eventually pick up the slack.
4) Yes, almost half of Uranium reserves may be in Russia's sphere of influence but you can be sure that's all either going to be used in Russia or sold to China: Russia's on its way to becoming a vassal state of China.
Sources commonly utilised by the West are primarily Canada, Australia and part of Africa. Heck, some energy companies thought we in Ireland had some in Donegal, but we had a Green minister for the environment that denied them exploration licenses :mad:I’m asking you why EDF have been guaranteed a wholesale price of twice the going rate in the UK, but you keep avoiding the question.
That's chickenfeed compared to what green policies add to the price - as they're finding out in Germany and Denmark.It’s been suggested that, by the time the plant becomes operational, this could make Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/10414889/Insane-power-station-deal-will-raise-electricity-prices-for-decades-to-come.htmlNo, it’s an attempt to dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree that nuclear power is the silver bullet that will solve all our energy problems. The reality is there are serious questions with regard to the economics of nuclear power, which you absolutely refuse to accept. Any time anyone raises these issues, you avoid the question by dismissing them as a Greenpeace activist and pointing out that renewables are subsidized and their output is variable.
In fact, if you think the term "environmental-left" is off the mark, then please show me the error. I challenge yourself and Captn'Midnight to show me why your policy on nuclear electricity is different to those of mainstream environmental groups such as the Green Party.
In fact, I'll be generous: (I may regret this ) I'll happily eat my words on the topic of the "Environmental Left" if yourself, Macha or the Captain can show any large, irreconcilable and fundamental difference of point of view between any of you and any European Green Party on any important issue.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »... And they'll run on hydrogen that could be got if we can improve PV cells.
Again, look at France. 90%+ non-fossil, and only 3.7% dependent on gas. All at sane electricity prices delivered to French householders.0 -
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Again, look at France. 90%+ non-fossil, and only 3.7% dependent on gas. All at sane electricity prices delivered to French householders.
Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.
A huge % of electrical heating to even out demand.
A huge budget for safety improvements. The old plan of having two reactors per site and relying on them to supply backup and cooling power to each other pretty much guarantees trouble if both go offline at the same time.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France
France will be spending €1Bn on each plant to keep them working for another 10 years. (€55Bn/58 plants) It's not that long ago that the nuclear industry was promising new build for that sort of money. That's about the cost of new gas or a large fraction of the cost of onshore wind.
French nuclear isn't providing cheap electricity either.In 2014 the rate is €42/MWh, but CRE proposed an increase to €44 in 2015, €46 in 2016 and €48 in 2017 to allow EdF to recover costs of plant upgrades, which it puts at €55 billion to extend all 58 reactor lifetimes by ten years.
The tl;dr version of the Myth of French Nuclear
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/edf-france-germany-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114EDF's new chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy said German power consumers are subsidising French power users via the export of cheap renewable energy to France.
Levy told a senate hearing that France imports German power every day nearly all day, and that part of it is re-exported profitably to Britain, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.
"The weight of German subsidies for renewables, and coal, is such that the German end consumer pays, via his green taxes, a subsidy to the French consumer," he said.0 -
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I've already conceded the point: in the post you quoted I admitted that nuclear was NOT capable of reacting to the unpredictability of renewables, in fact I accept what appears to be your point that only gas power can complement renewables.
The UK will need to spend £160m extra a year on spinning reserve just to cover the the larger size of Hinkley C over existing power stations.
Over a 50 year lifetime that's an extra £8 Bn subsidy. Just to cover the unreliability of that one plant. ( unless the UK builds larger plants which is unlikely. Tidal would comprise multiple generators over a large area )
You could get a lot of renewables for that sort of money. Wind, Solar , Tidal lagoons not to mention other ways of spreading load matching like interconnectors, Smart Meters, insulation.
Wind needs no such subsidy because it isn't unpredictable. Also since it's distributed power there is no single point of failure. In fact the constraints to cover local grid stability alone more than cover wind.0 -
…more people will die falling off their roofs to install solar panels per million KWH of solar electricity generated than by the same measure of deaths caused by nuclear electricity.…I've seen a video of an experiment in Kassel in Germany, biogas comes from farming of corn and suchlike.You cannot deny that gas is more flexible than other fuels, as such it has higher opportunity costs. For example, you can use gas in your car, and there are people who have converted their cars from refined oils to gas. Gas is also much more useful in central heating systems - you can start it with the flick of a switch and get instant heat - cooking, same properties.Oil has the same opportunity costs for any selected use…4) Yes, almost half of Uranium reserves may be in Russia's sphere of influence but you can be sure that's all either going to be used in Russia or sold to China:Ok, so if Hinkley C is twice the normal wholesale rate in the UK, that's a premium of, what, 4 and something pence a unit?
That's chickenfeed compared to what green policies add to the price - as they're finding out in Germany and Denmark.The most expensive power plant maybe, but not the most expensive power source, which will be renewables both directly (in subsidies) and indirectly (in the need to have a full alternative power infrastructure constantly on standby).0 -
In fact, I'll be generous: (I may regret this ) I'll happily eat my words on the topic of the "Environmental Left" if yourself, Macha or the Captain can show any large, irreconcilable and fundamental difference of point of view between any of you and any European Green Party on any important issue.
No poster, mod or otherwise, has to explain themselves to you or anyone else.
Attack the post, not the poster.
If you have to resort to lazy dismissals of anyone who disagrees with you as an "environmental lefty", then maybe your argument is not on terribly solid ground?0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear.Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.That's about the cost of new gas or a large fraction of the cost of onshore wind.French nuclear isn't providing cheap electricity either.
The tl;dr version of the Myth of French Nuclear
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/edf-france-germany-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114- It shows that either the French grid, with all its nuclear power and hydroelectricity, is dramatically superior to Germany's Eastern neighbors, all of whom are in serious trouble because the instability of the German grid is spilling into theirs.
- Either that or the subsidised exports are within France's ability to deal with the erratic oversupply. (Read that article BTW, it explains much better than I could many of the negatives of the Energiewende, including being among many others, a frightening destabilising force on Eastern European energy grids.
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »The point is that nuclear also has an absolute requirement for gas.You could get a lot of renewables for that sort of money. Wind, Solar , Tidal lagoons not to mention other ways of spreading load matching like interconnectors, Smart Meters, insulation.
Demand does not follow the weather. Period. I questioned the ideas for demand shedding earlier in this thread - I believe it would be grossly detrimental to what remains of our industrial base and to human quality of life, but these concerns were not addressed for whatever reason.There are several plants here in the UK producing biogas with slurry and sewage.All of which fall under the heading of “energy”. Gas is used for little else other than as a fuel.No, it doesn’t. Oil has infinitely more uses than gas does.Regardless, that still gives Russia a significant influence over the world’s ability to generate electricity from nuclear power.
In any case, even if we were importing Uranium from Russia and satellites we'd have one major advantage - Uranium can be hoarded, unlike gas. So even if we imported all our Uranium from the Russian bloc, we could always hoard several years of fuel and then if the Russians did something we couldn't tolerate like destroy another country or shoot down another passenger plane, we could tell them to go to Hell and have ~2 years or whatever to make alternative arrangements.
We can't do this with gas - if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.Once again, you’re dodging the question.
And again.- Any increase would be good value for money.
- Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.
If you have to resort to lazy dismissals of anyone who disagrees with you as an "environmental lefty", then maybe your argument is not on terribly solid ground?0 -
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They export power to most of those countries, no?
They export power because you can't throttle back nuclear at night. They don't get the same rates for it as the stuff they have to import back in the day.So you get gas plant cheaper than nuclear, great, but you're still burning gas. Or wind - great when the wind is blowing. So neither is any better, even if the headline cost is lower.
In theory wind is intermittent. In practice we get 25% of our power from it in winter and that figure should go up to 40% when the grid can accommodate more. There's no point in tilting at windmills after the horse has bolted.instability of the German gridThis is simply not true - again, refer to my graph posted earlier regarding France. 90%+ non-fossil sources in France, Gas only accounts for ~3.67% of power supplied. It can be avoided.
Have you already forgotten the 25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear ??
Hydro is dispatchable upon demand, unlike nuclear which needs a lot of advance notice, if you don't have hydro you'll need fossil fuel.
and this week they've imported an average of 3GW from Germany
http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/eco2mix-echanges-commerciaux-enDemand does not follow the weather. Period.I questioned the ideas for demand shedding earlier in this thread - I believe it would be grossly detrimental to what remains of our industrial base and to human quality of life, but these concerns were not addressed for whatever reason.
Down here on earth our laws of physics suggest that the average person probably won't notice if their immersion or storage heater stops heating for intervals of this time. Well insulated buildings should also take longer than this to cool appreciably. Based on the difference between summer and winter demands there's probably 1GW here used for heating. So shedding demand could easily more than match Turlough Hill for short periods.Good, but remember that your plans (you, Capt'nMidnight, most world Green parties) are planning on gas reliance on a very large scale. Can these sources of renewable gas take the place of imports?
In any case, even if we were importing Uranium from Russia and satellites we'd have one major advantage - Uranium can be hoarded, unlike gas. So even if we imported all our Uranium from the Russian bloc, we could always hoard several years of fuel and then if the Russians did something we couldn't tolerate like destroy another country or shoot down another passenger plane, we could tell them to go to Hell and have ~2 years or whatever to make alternative arrangements.We can't do this with gas - if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.
Even Lithuania is building a terminal so they can import LNG from the US. The UK already do this. Thanks too to renewables the EU is weaning itself off Russian gas.
Like lots of your posts it's almost like you haven't been keeping up with developments in energy over the last decade or so. You'd be surprised at the price of solar these days and it's still dropping and there are many new developments in the pipelines. It's been a very long time since nuclear has demonstrated or proven any substantial technological improvements. And even if there were it would take a long time before they could commercialised.- Any increase would be good value for money.
- Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.
Never , ever forget that while Hinkley C is the latest nuclear technology you have to compare it with what other sources will appear during it's life. So the economics of renewable today can't really be compared to Hinkley in the far future. Except of course that you could install a LOT of renewables for a fraction of the cost long before Hinkley is scheduled to deliver any power.
Gas is a stepping stone towards more renewables. It provides time to develop them. And new gas has less emissions than older fossil fuel plant and you don't have to wait for a decade to see if nuclear will deliver any savings in emissions.Fine, I won't use the term "environmental-left" any more. But continue to believe that there is a common point of view on these and other issues and I most certainly do not concede that point.
The nuclear industry has consistently failed to deliver on it's promises over the last 70 years, so it's very , very hard to reconcile the spin with the reality. Until nuclear delivers what it promises , on time and on budget there is no reason to believe the propaganda.0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear.
Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.
A huge % of electrical heating to even out demand.
A huge budget for safety improvements. The old plan of having two reactors per site and relying on them to supply backup and cooling power to each other pretty much guarantees trouble if both go offline at the same time.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France
France will be spending €1Bn on each plant to keep them working for another 10 years. (€55Bn/58 plants) It's not that long ago that the nuclear industry was promising new build for that sort of money. That's about the cost of new gas or a large fraction of the cost of onshore wind.
French nuclear isn't providing cheap electricity either.
The tl;dr version of the Myth of French Nuclear
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/edf-france-germany-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114
A large amount of electricity is wasted in the creation of heat. A good heat pump (eg Daikin A++ rated) provides 4x heat for the power input - ie a heat pump using 700W of electricity produces 2.8 kW+ of heat. I have them installed in a secondary home in damp Ireland. I can arrive in the house after a flight at 23h00. Power on the system while washing my teeth, and get the temperature in the bedroom up to a wasteful 28C in five minutes. The same system cools the air (in the South of the country, in a conservatory that regularly reaches 40C on a sunny day). It can prevent mould and woodworm by automatically turning on for a few hours and reducing the humidity in the room to say 35% - preserving furniture etc.
These systems can be used for air heating/cooling and water heating - which can in part be used underfloor.
French nuclear might look cheap on one's bill (around 10c per kWh), but the long term costs of nuclear are part of the massive French tax bill, which is one of the highest in the world. It is like free domestic water in Ireland. Only a lot more expensive in lifecycle cost terms.0 -
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A large amount of electricity is wasted in the creation of heat.
For wind, solar and tidal the efficiency isn't that critical because they aren't "wasting" heat. Except of course they displace fossil fuels.
Nuclear is similar, but it's down around 35%. 2/3rd's of the energy is wasted before it leaves the plant. Lots of promised technology could increase the efficiency. It's still being promised after attempts to build it have failed. Heat pollution might be a problem, like the crocodiles living a certain hot river in Florida. But the main point to take away here is that nuclear is very very susceptible to cooling water shortages. Like in summer in France when people like to turn on the AC.
While I was looking for figures on Nuclear thermal efficiency I found this.
http://www.atomeromu.hu/download/1722/EPR%20reaktor1.pdf
Please ignore the schedule on Page 9 as none of the last 4 reactors havebeen finished yet.
Page 17 shows steam temp of 328c ( 1600Mw leccy / 4590 thermal = 35% efficiency )
Page 24 shows one large cost of nuclear. Quadruple safety systems. Assume the incident takes out one, and the second is off line for maintenance you then have the third one working and the fourth is the backup. You can't do nuclear safety on the cheap.
Page 40 I LOL'd at "Predictability based on experience" None of the plants listed is operational. Or on budget. And after 7 years of "project preparation" Calvert Cliffs 3 was put on hold a month ago.
page 18 seems to show that the EPR is more flexible than I had thought between 50% and 100% it can change output by 5% a minute. Then again more recently that's been redefined to 60%-100% And that's before they've actually got one operational.0 -
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Update 07 April 2015
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Flamanville-EPR-vessel-anomalies-under-scrutiny-0704154.htmlAnomalies have been identified in the composition of the steel in certain parts of the reactor vessel of the EPR under construction at Flamanville,
Google translate from http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/content/download/96443/693392/file/Pr%C3%A9cisions+techniques+sur+les+anomalies+de+fabrication+de+la+cuve+de+l%27EPR+de+Flamanville.pdfAreva has made mechanical testing in representative areas, which gave values of
Resilience 1 of 36 J and 64 J, for an average of 52 J, below the regulatory limit (60 J).
Areva also measured carbon content in a central core formed on the cover, which
revealed a carbon content of greater than expected (0.30% for a target value
0.22%).0 -
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Using your 60% conversion ratio for gas > electricity, a heat pump system is a no brainer. ie 4x energy output for a 60 % conversion loss.
http://www.daikin.be/docs/ECPEN14-017-tcm478-310779.pdf
Aside from the gross incompetence of the ejits who work for Daikin Ireland. Elsewhere in Europe Daikain rank with Miele in terms of product quality and installation service quality.
Irish Daikin customers are often victims of Daikin Ireland - paying 2x EUR average premium prices, for exceptionally well manufactured product, which one is forced to purchase via Oirish dealers/installers who couldn't be bothered answering emails / orders for more stuff. Which makes one wonder what the response might be in the hopefully unlikely event of a defect?0 -
Good, but remember that your plans (you, Capt'nMidnight, most world Green parties) are planning on gas reliance on a very large scale. Can these sources of renewable gas take the place of imports?True, outside of energy, oil I think is used as a raw material for lots of things, taramacadam, linoleum, plastics, maybe even phamaceuticals, god knows what else. But as an energy source, it's as convenient and flexible as gas in most uses, and only slightly more useful in transport.…if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.I didn't dodge anything - I accepted that based on the evidence you showed, Hinkley C and more plants like it could add to UK energy bills. But I maintain that:
- Any increase would be good value for money.
Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »it's not a bug it's a feature :rolleyes:
For the Nth time. Nuclear has an absolute requirement for gas because it can't load balance. Simple as. So even if you upgrade the nuclear plants you still end up paying for gas.In theory wind is intermittent. In practice we get 25% of our power from it in winter and that figure should go up to 40% when the grid can accommodate more.
But that weather bomb also came with a severe anti-cyclone, i.e. no wind. Of course solar wouldn't have been much use either. So we know that we can spend a bunch of money on renewables but they will not be any use when we need them most. If anything they will aggravate the need for usually idle electric plant because the rest of the grid will have to cover every scenario from warm breezy summers weekend day when everyone's gone to the beach, to a Christmas 2010 type case where the average temperature is -10, the wind is dead calm but there's a major rush of demand for heating. Oh and as an added bonus, because its Xmas Eve, everyone that isn't cowering in their houses from the cold is charging up their electric cars to go somewhere.In theory renewables cause intermitterancy , but the recent eclipse showed that in practice the German grid didn't have a problem with 15GW dropping off the system.
Again this was all explained in the link I gave above, but here's another source for it: http://www.praguepost.cz/opinion/15258-region-german-green-energy-push-needs-a-rethink.html
So by your account of the EdF chief, France is able to benefit nicely from subsidised forced imports from Germany where the same is causing chaos and critical danger in Poland and the Czech republic.
Hmm. I wonder. Why is this? What do the Frenchies have that the Poles and the Czechs do not? I wonder. Oh, that's right - you pointed it out!Have you already forgotten the 25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear ??Hydro is dispatchable upon demand, unlike nuclear which needs a lot of advance notice, if you don't have hydro you'll need fossil fuel.and this week they've imported an average of 3GW from Germany
http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/eco2mix-echanges-commerciaux-enWeather is predicable.
Weather forecasting is very complicated (in fact the problem was the basis for Chaos Theory). The UK Met Office is spending nearly £100,000,000 on a super-computer that may make their sometimes way off forecasts just a little bit better.So shedding demand could easily more than match Turlough Hill for short periods.Actually it's more Norway we've to be nice to.
The top 3 are Russia, Iran and Qatar. All hellholes with abominable human rights records and mostly with a very nasty and aggressive world view. Anything that makes us unnecessarily reliant on these entities is inexcusable.Even Lithuania is building a terminal so they can import LNG from the US.
Most of their justification is the Russian colonists Stalin sent to those countries in attempt to extermine those nationalities. Ukraine and the Baltic bloc were all badly affected and all now have sizeable Russian populations who are often disloyal and are used by the Kremlin to justify doing whatever the hell it wants to those countries. So the Lithuanians are building an LNG terminal. Great. But it remains to be seen how much good it will do them.The UK already do this. Thanks too to renewables the EU is weaning itself off Russian gas.
As of 2012, the 2nd largest source of UK gas was LNG imports from Qatar. Renewables are not weaning the EU off Russian gas, they're doing the opposite, as the experience of France vs. Poland/Czech showed above when dealing with dumped exports from Germany, more fast dispatchable plant is required.Perhaps the common point of view is evidence based ?Are they a silver bullet? No, I doubt it. But why does everything that can’t supply 100% of energy needs have to be dismissed as impractical?Oil is only slightly more useful in transport? Then why aren’t we seeing gas-powered cars all over the place?
Needless to say I think the plan is questionable in parts (especially the part about using windmills instead of gas for electricity ), expensive and impractical, except the bit about gas in cars which could actually work.It really doesn’t and besides, it’s not going to happen – Russia needs income from gas exports far more than Europe needs Russian gas. Putin is not holding us to ransom like you think he is.This is a meaningless statement? Have you got some figures to support it?Again, you seem to be stating this as a belief rather than a demonstrable fact? What are you basing this on?0 -
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But it is not absolute. Even if you actually need all that hydro to cooperate with nuclear, gas is not absolutely required. Again, for the Nth time, France. Does. Not. Rely. On. Gas. Period.
Of course France doesn't need Gas. The GWe of their Hydro is 40% that of nuclear. AND they have neighbours who will happily import and export to load balance. Yes they get 75% of power from nuclear but there is a whole continent underpinning it.Winter, yes, like Winter 2010? Don't know if you were in Ireland for this, but it was nasty. My family effectively did not have a Christmas that year because the temperature went down to -17C. Then our central heating failed, and we had to thrown on everything electric to stay alive.
Excluding Renewables, Interconnectors and pumped storage, how much dispatchable generation do we have on this Island ?
And how does it compare to Peak demand ?? (which wasn't in Jan or Dec 2010 BTW)
We have surplus generation. It's not an issue, wasn't an issue in 2010 not even remotely.Again this was all explained in the link I gave above, but here's another source for it: http://www.praguepost.cz/opinion/15258-region-german-green-energy-push-needs-a-rethink.htmlWeather forecasting is very complicatedHow short? And to what specific ends? How would this be accomplished? Would immersions, electric heaters etc have to be fitted with devices? How much would all this cost? Where would they get their instructions to turn off?
As for the cost , you can get microcontroller boards with ADC and USB posted to your door for €1.40. Buying in bulk is a lot cheaperI think the conversation between myself and the Captain has shown that potentially both nuclear and renewables have a considerable requirement for quickly dispatchable power backups, though I still tend to believe it's worse where renewables are concerned
If we get a warm summer I predict the Jellyfish will strike again.
Care to predict the chances that the wind forecast two days on eirgrid's site will different to the actual wind by more than the power of a reactor ? ( excluding the grid stability limits that restrict actual wind usage )Just common logic. Spending a small amount extra on non-fossil energy is something I have no problem with. The figures earlier saying 9.25p/kwh were double the wholesale rate. That means that Hinkley C will be about 4.6p/kwh more expensive than fossil fuel fired power stations. That's not really bad. But of course it's just one plant producing a fraction of UK needs, so it won't add that much to electricity bills on its own.
B , nuclear can only supply base load. Fossil can provide peaking power which can command many multiples of the base load price.
C, so you are saying it's OK to subsidise ONE plant because it won't add much ?
Care to predict to the nearest £10Bn how much the total Hinkey C subsidies will cost over it's life ??0 -
Inertia. Oil has first movers advantage. All the cars are oil powered, so all the fuel stations sell fuel oil (mainly petrol and diesel). A different fuel would need to be radically better to break this cycle.I think the conversation between myself and the Captain has shown that potentially both nuclear and renewables have a considerable requirement for quickly dispatchable power backups, though I still tend to believe it's worse where renewables are concerned.Just common logic.Spending a small amount extra on non-fossil energy is something I have no problem with. The figures earlier saying 9.25p/kwh were double the wholesale rate. That means that Hinkley C will be about 4.6p/kwh more expensive than fossil fuel fired power stations. That's not really bad.Accepting previously quoted figures suggesting that Hinkley C would be a few pence per kwh more expensive than fossil fuels, but comparing such a cost to what bill payers in Germany and Denmark must pay in Green taxes…0
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Yawn.
Excluding Renewables, Interconnectors and pumped storage, how much dispatchable generation do we have on this Island ?
And how does it compare to Peak demand ?? (which wasn't in Jan or Dec 2010 BTW)
We have surplus generation. It's not an issue, wasn't an issue in 2010 not even remotely.
If we have surplus generation then why do we continue to build wind farms all over the country that supply little if any usefull power in those conditions. In those conditions it is much more likely we will be importing nuclear and other conventional power sources from the UK and near continent which also experienced those severe weather conditions at the time. All the more reason to review our current crazy energy policies that saw this government sell-off a big chunk of our gas power generation on the cheap. I'd also like your defination of "peak demand" if it isn't on cold, dark winter evenings around the Christmas period when these conditions occured.
PS: We have a tiny amount of pumped storage and that is all we will ever have given the geography needed for it. HP conditions in winter and spring can last for weeks and extend over much of western Europe.0 -
You keep citing Denmark and Germany as support for your argument that renewables are substantially more expensive to support than nuclear. Ignoring for a moment that retail prices for electricity are heavily influenced by factors other than wholesale prices,?
Green taxes ,subsidies and the cost of wind related pylon sprawl and back up are the main drivers - same in the US. Its a common theme on such grids
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/10/17/electricity-prices-soaring-in-top-10-wind-power-states/0 -
If we have surplus generation then why do we continue to build wind farms all over the country...In those conditions it is much more likely we will be importing nuclear and other conventional power sources from the UK and near continent which also experienced those severe weather conditions at the time.Green taxes ,subsidies and the cost of wind related pylon sprawl and back up are the main drivers - same in the US. Its a common theme on such grids0
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Far cheaper and more effective to put money into energy saving measures and or converting existing peat/coal stations to gas or sustaineable biomass(forestry/agri waste). The government dances to the wind industries tune in this country far too much and evidence from Germany and elsewhere strongly suggests wind is a rather ineffective and expensive way to reduce emmissions. Wind power needs far more back up too as it is totally non-dispatcheable at time of peak demand, so building ever more across the country, including areas like the midlands makes no sense at all.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21608646-wind-and-solar-power-are-even-more-expensive-commonly-thought-sun-wind-and
Secondly it is the energy consumer that pays for wind related pylon infrastructure and maintainance. the wind developer only pays for the basic connection of a wind farm to the local grid. Eirgrid wants to spend many billions on the likes of Gridwest to allow more windfarms sprawl across North Mayo. Its all over their literature they send people through the post there, I got some myself recently at my address in Erris.
Thirdly, again you dismiss posters or links that don't conform to your own views on the matter. Is this forum meant for debate or some kind of Eamon Ryan fanpage??
PS: Check out SEAI latest wind atlas. Appears to seriously downgrade the wind potential of the country. Another reason to stop throwing good money after bad at this.0 -
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If your wind turbines are spinning (and the wind forecast is good) the system needs x amount of spinning reserve - (I assume not the entire amount being produced )
I assume if the winds not predicted to blow much ,the plants that would have been spinning reserve are now producing - but would also need other plants spinning ?
Which is grand if your talking summer, low demand across the system - but what about around Xmas -and massive demand - how much extra installed capacity is there in the system (including wind) to cope with a calm day at peak demand -Slava ukraini 🇺🇦
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Gas has been used for far longer than oil hasFrançois Isaac de Rivaz (Paris, December 19, 1752 – Sion, July 30, 1828) was an inventor and a politician. He invented a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine with electric ignition and described it in a French patent published in 1807. In 1808 he fitted it into a primitive working vehicle - 'the world's first internal combustion powered automobile'
The main advantage of oil is that it stores a lot of energy for it's weight/volume. And don't forget that almost all cars use electric starter motors.Give me a coherent economic explanation of why it is necessary to provide such massive subsidies for nuclear, bearing in mind that you keep telling us it’s wonderfully cheap?
But still claims it's worth paying for. Even though any benefit on the CO2 side from a new build won't appear for a generation or more by the time the thing is completed and the carbon used in construction is accounted for.
And again investing in nuclear means diverting funds from renewables, hobbling the competition.0 -
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Markcheese wrote: »If your wind turbines are spinning (and the wind forecast is good) the system needs x amount of spinning reserve - (I assume not the entire amount being produced )
I assume if the winds not predicted to blow much ,the plants that would have been spinning reserve are now producing - but would also need other plants spinning ?
Which is grand if your talking summer, low demand across the system - but what about around Xmas -and massive demand - how much extra installed capacity is there in the system (including wind) to cope with a calm day at peak demand -
http://www.eirgrid.com/media/OperationalConstraintsUpdateVersion1_22_February_2015.pdf
Been done to death. We've reasonably accurate wind predictions 5 days out and the Operation Constraint listed above mean that backup has to kick in within 5 seconds to cover 75% of the loss. It takes more than 5 seconds for a weather front to move across a single wind farm, never mind a whole country so there's plenty of warning of drops in wind.
And any drop in wind is more than covered by the requirement to provide backup of the largest single generator on the grid.
No drop in wind would come close to having a transformer outage at Moneypoint. And even that would be minor compared to the effect of a nuke tripping out and staying off line for days/months/years/forever as has happened many, many times. And the requirements of large inertia generators to provide frequency control in or around the main cities. ( Read the pdf ) And in the future adding more sensors and software will mean that the wind conditions at each farm and each turbine can be factored in to help predict what will happen downwind.
On a grid designed to handle major generators going offline at the drop of a hat a predicted dip in renewables is easily handled.0 -
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Far cheaper and more effective to put money into energy saving measures and or converting existing peat/coal stations to gas or sustaineable biomass(forestry/agri waste).The government dances to the wind industries tune in this country far too much and evidence from Germany and elsewhere strongly suggests wind is a rather ineffective and expensive way to reduce emmissions. Wind power needs far more back up too as it is totally non-dispatcheable at time of peak demand, so building ever more across the country, including areas like the midlands makes no sense at all.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21608646-wind-and-solar-power-are-even-more-expensive-commonly-thought-sun-wind-andSo what was inaccurate about Dr. Frank’s key assumptions? In his calculations, U.S. solar and wind power are one-third to one-half less productive than they actually were during 2008–13. His calculations assumed that solar power is little more productive on sunny afternoons than its annual average, even though its strong near-coincidence with peak loads is, as he agreed elsewhere, a major source of its value. He assumed solar and wind power capital costs are twice those documented in the 2012–13 U.S. marketplace (and falling fast). Conversely, he assumed combined-cycle gas plants are twice as productive as they were in 2008–13, but did not count methane leakage (which offsets carbon savings) and gas-price volatility (which increases risk and hence cost). He assumed that new nuclear power has half its actual market price per MWh, a construction time roughly half the world average over the past decade, and U.S. operating costs one-fifth what the Nuclear Energy Institute says was the average in 2012. With data like these, his conclusions weren’t surprising—just wrong.0 -
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New research carrying out a statistical analysis of risk of nuclear accidents. Main findings:
With the current model and in terms of dollar losses, there is a 50% chance that :
(i) a Fukushima event (or larger) occurs in the next 50 years,
(ii) a Chernobyl event (or larger) occurs in the next 27 years and
(iii) a TMI event (or larger) occurs in the next 10 years.
Further, smaller but still expensive (≥ 20 MM 2013 USD) incidents will occur with a frequency of about one per year.
Finally, we find that the INES scale is inconsistent in terms of both damage and NAMS (radiation release) values. For the damage values to be consistent, the Fukushima disaster would need to be between an INES level of 10 and 11, rather than the maximum level of 7.0 -
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Gas has been used for far longer than oil has, but oil was still the preferred choice for automobiles because it’s liquid.
The point is that fundamentally gas is useful in transport (and the Sierra Club and T. Boone Pickens both advocate doing this extensively) - as well as electricity, home heating, cooking as well as a feedstock in some chemical processes - and to claim that the use of gas for any reason does not have an extreme opportunity cost (the foregone option to use it for something else) is something I consider to be both troubling and bizarre.You’re quick to dismiss advocates of renewable energy as “environmental lefties”,but the reality is your own support for nuclear seems to be based on little more than personal beliefs.
Wasting gas on an industrial scale, making people pay 40cents a kilowatt hour for electricity and accepting the many other very severe downsides (international grid stability, industrial scale killing of birds and bats in windmills just to name a few) to using weather based non-hydro renewables may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. But such a view IMHO is much more open to a charge of being "personal beliefs."100% more expensive than the going rate is “not that bad”?!? Are you kidding? Why is it more expensive at all? You keep telling us nuclear is amazing, yet here we have a situation where the operators of a new facility have to be guaranteed twice the going rate, adjusted for inflation, to convince them to build the facility.- The 4.5p/kwh price is largely from fossil fuels. These are very cheap, especially coal, because any fool can stuff a load of coal into a boiler and sell power for relatively low rates.
- As the German and Danish experience is showing, low power costs, e.g. 4-5p/kwh have nothing to do with renewables. For someone who advocates copying the Germans and the Danes to complain about how expensive nuclear is, strikes me as being somewhat bizarre.
- Hinkley C will have to cover all it's own costs. When the UK gov announced the scheme years ago, it was made clear that the plant would have to cover ALL of its own costs, consturction, operation and decommissioning. I don't know if waste disposal was included in that, but I would speculate this is also included in an all-in price.
- Unlike fossil fuel generators, nuclear plant waste is solid, not gaseous, so it must be handled by the nuclear facility where as fossil fuel operators get to spew their wastes into the air.
This is another factor making the costs of fossil fuels (the backbone of the UK wholesale rate) and nuclear very problematic - the cost of waste disposal is levelled onto the public with fossil fuels constituting a massive public risk and health subsidy, the same cost is internalised for nuclear.
You keep citing Denmark and Germany as support for your argument that renewables are substantially more expensive to support than nuclear. Ignoring for a moment that retail prices for electricity are heavily influenced by factors other than wholesale prices,explain to me why the operators of a nuclear plant in the UK are being guaranteed twice the going rate for power produced at a time when subsidies for renewables are largely being phased out?
So in theory the "subsidies" might be phased out (and I'm skeptical even of this) but if renewables are expensive and problematic the utilites have no choice but to pay for it and pass on the cost.Stop avoiding the question. Give me a coherent economic explanation of why it is necessary to provide such massive subsidies for nuclear, bearing in mind that you keep telling us it’s wonderfully cheap?Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Of course France doesn't need Gas.The GWe of their Hydro is 40% that of nuclear.
By highlighting the use of hydropower in France and posting that piece from the head of the EdF about how France is benefitting from the same subsidies German imports that are imperiling Germany's other neighbors, you've shown the logical bankruptcy of your own argument.
You can only benefit from even subsidised renewable power when you have, oh, say, 10% hydro. Like France. Otherwise its an extreme danger. By the way I have no idea where you got your 40% figure from, my chart shows 10.2% hydro and 76.6% nuclear for France in 2012. Where on Earth did you get 40% from?AND they have neighbours who will happily import and export to load balance. Yes they get 75% of power from nuclear but there is a whole continent underpinning it.
Oh and their grid is not too inflexible as a recent French law on night time illumination has shown. Nutshell, non-residential buildings are now required to turn off lights after the last worker leaves the building and shopfronts etc must have their lights off by 1AM.
Traditionally, the challenge is the exact opposite - to keep power demand up during the night (and down during the day) so as to keep demand as even as possible throughout a 24h period. Yet the French, with all their horrible inflexible nuclear, expect turning off the lights at night to have a positive effect? What's going there?So if we had nuclear the central heating wouldn't have failed ??
This happened at a time when the country was in a severe anti-cyclone.Excluding Renewables, Interconnectors and pumped storage, how much dispatchable generation do we have on this Island ?- Minimal draw on the grid, massive production from windmills and solar panels (e.g. a breezy sunny day when everyone decides to go to the beach)
- Massive draw on the grid, no production or even a drain from windmills and solar panels. (E.g. Christmas Eve 2010)
An opinion piece from 2013 vs. fact that 15GW just dropped off the grid last month and didn't cause problems. For me evidence based wins every time.The "instructions" come from the changes in the 50Hz mains frequency. No network control or connection needed. Simply reduce demand if freq slows down. http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all/frequency
As for the cost , you can get microcontroller boards with ADC and USB posted to your door for €1.40. Buying in bulk is a lot cheaperI'm tired of posting links where nuclear plants have gone off line without warning for extended periods.What’s the difference between “green taxes” and “subsidies”? Are they not the same thing?And aren’t they paying for the upfront capital costs of wind power, or “pylon sprawl” as you call it? So aren’t those three things essentially one thing? And don’t those costs essentially disappear once the generation capacity is installed?New research carrying out a statistical analysis of risk of nuclear accidents. Main findings:
With the current model and in terms of dollar losses, there is a 50% chance that :
(i) a Fukushima event (or larger) occurs in the next 50 years,
(ii) a Chernobyl event (or larger) occurs in the next 27 years and
(iii) a TMI event (or larger) occurs in the next 10 years.
Further, smaller but still expensive (≥ 20 MM 2013 USD) incidents will occur with a frequency of about one per year.
Remember that Chernobyl can be effectively discounted because the manner in which it was designed and run by the Soviet Union means that it really wasn't an "accident" at all, more like recklessness verging on intent. The way the Soviets ran their nuclear programme was the general equivalent of getting into car, off your head on drugs, and then proceeding to run every red light for a hundred miles. It's some claim to believe this is likely to happen again within 27 years, when it's already been more than that since 1986 and Fukushima was the closest thing to a repeat and it was nowhere in the same league.
Fukushima was built in the 1960s and was even older than Chernobyl.
TMI showed that even semi-modern Western style safety systems work - the reactor melted down at least in part but there was no need for any permanent evacuation.0 -
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But if we had to stop or dramatically reduce the use of oil for whatever reason, we could reengineer the national fleet of cars to use gas, many cars can be converted to LPG operation,
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The main problem, again, is the chicken and egg scenario. The use of car gas is at artisan levels, in part or whole because there are not many LPG fuelling stations, so a gas powered car is not very useful, while every other street has a fuel station selling oil distillates.
Natural gas, is a totally different beast, not easily liquifyable and having much lower emissions as it's CH4Granted, when I see a country with sod all natural resources going 90%+ non-fossil, I believe that's worth looking at. When I see a nuclear plant able to directly replace coal, I believe that's a good idea. Though as you claim these may be "little more than personal beliefs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Station This was a nuclear power station. It was converted to gas in 1989. And it used thorium. It pretty much sums up all the "new nuclear technology" / "only because gas is cheap today" arguments.Wasting gas on an industrial scale, making people pay 40cents a kilowatt hour for electricity and accepting the many other very severe downsides (international grid stability, industrial scale killing of birds and bats in windmills just to name a few) to using weather based non-hydro renewables may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. But such a view IMHO is much more open to a charge of being "personal beliefs."
We pay 20c here.At Hinkley C there are a few things going on:[*]Hinkley C will have to cover all it's own costs. When the UK gov announced the scheme years ago, it was made clear that the plant would have to cover ALL of its own costs, consturction, operation and decommissioning. I don't know if waste disposal was included in that, but I would speculate this is also included in an all-in price.
Hinkley C will be getting 170m a year in grid support. AFAIK clean up costs are not included (£100Bn + for calder hall/windscale/sellafield/whatever they'll call that site next) the costs don't include grid upgrades or carraige fees, and the electricity price is garanteed for 35 years , not only guaranteed but indexed linked , and one of the inputs in the CPI is the cost of electricity. The UK still doesn't have a long term storage repository and as we all know the enviromental regs will only get more stringent in future.
Also I see that you are finally begining to understand that nuclear relies on having massive amounts of other dispatchable generators connected to prop it up since it can't load balance,
compare the Average French demand with the Installed Hydro. And then remember that they import/export to the UK , Germany , Belgium , Spain and Italy.0 -
The 4.5p/kwh price is largely from fossil fuels. These are very cheap, especially coal, because any fool can stuff a load of coal into a boiler and sell power for relatively low rates.
As the German and Danish experience is showing, low power costs, e.g. 4-5p/kwh have nothing to do with renewables.
You’re also clearly unaware that investors are being scared aware from the German electricity market because wholesale prices are getting so low:
http://www.dw.de/german-power-giant-rwes-profits-shrink/a-18305030Hinkley C will have to cover all it's own costs.This is fictional. So long as there is any kind of support or mandate for renewables, it will add cost. If there is for example a requirement to use X% renewables, then that amount will have to be used regardless of how much it costs or what affect it has on the proper functioning of the grid.So in theory the "subsidies" might be phased out (and I'm skeptical even of this) but if renewables are expensive and problematic the utilites have no choice but to pay for it and pass on the cost.You're comparing a 4p premium for Hinkley C to an absolutely stupid cost of subsidising renewables…
I’m tired of going around in circles. Start producing some solid figures to back up your arguments - pretty much everything you’ve stated above is an assumption.0 -
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Don't know, don't massively care. Point is, when you introduce renewables, you have to cover wildly divergent cases:- Minimal draw on the grid, massive production from windmills and solar panels (e.g. a breezy sunny day when everyone decides to go to the beach)
- Massive draw on the grid, no production or even a drain from windmills and solar panels. (E.g. Christmas Eve 2010)
So how to do you all the immersions and electric heaters in the country fitted with these things? How long could an end user expect their heater to be down for? Seconds? Minutes? Longer?Then don't bother because you're not proving anything. Power plants fail! Stop the presses! You might as well be highlighting that the sun rises in the East or that the sky is blue!No they don't - these things will all have to be rebuilt in time. And each time, the money used may have to be borrowed at interest. You don't just spend X billion on renewables and energy grids, they have to be maintained and eventually replaced.That's a little bizarre, considering that Chernobyl was a far worse event than Fukushima. Your research predicts a bad (or larger) accident occurs with in 50 years, but a catastrophic (or larger) occurs with 27 years? Where is the logic behind this?
Logic and nuclear in the same sentence
http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303982504576425312941820794In 1967, Tepco chopped 25 meters off the 35-meter natural seawall where the reactors were to be located, according to documents filed at the time with Japanese authorities.
Look into the history of nuclear and there are many , many examples of design and construction problems that are as a result of cost and corner cutting. Find out just how many have had to be taken offline for them. Genius stuff like building earthquake shields the wrong way around. Actually just look at how many are built on top of nuclear fault lines, and not just in Japan ? Most coastal plants will be affected by global warming too.
The fact that people can make predictions on nuclear incidents shows just how common they are.0 -
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GB now has 7.5GW of solar"As in markets like Germany, France and Italy, PV developers and installers in the U.K. try to demonstrate how fast they can build large PV plants, once the paperwork has cleared,” said senior analyst for solar power at IHS, Josefin Berg. "In fact, some of these projects received their permits as late as early February of this year."
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201504270010.aspxTaipei, April 27 (CNA) One of the two reactors at Taiwan's third nuclear power plant was shut down early Monday after a fire broke out in the plant's non-nuclear zone, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) said.
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At present, only three of the six nuclear reactors at the three nuclear power plants are in operation.
The No. 1 reactor at the first nuclear power plant has been out of service since Dec. 28 due to a component failure, while the No. 1 reactor at the second nuclear power plant has been shut down since April 24 for routine maintenance
Other unplanned outages in April
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-nrc-inpects-calvert-cliffs-20150413-story.html
http://triblive.com/business/headlines/8179437-74/pump-power-shut
http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20150415/limerick-nuclear-reactor-shutdown-starts-with-a-hiccup
http://www.yournuclearnews.com/xcel+energy+%3A++operators+safely+shut+down+unit+2+at+prairie+island+nuclear+plant_114673.html
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150416000837
also A shutdown at New Brunswick’s Point Lepreau nuclear generating station was extended to allow for more repairs.
http://metronews.ca/news/canada/1335296/point-lepreau-shutdown-extended-for-work/ http://www.nbpower.com/html/en/about/media/media_release/2015/04-21-15-EN_PLNGSUpdate.html
http://plymouth.wickedlocal.com/article/20150305/NEWS/150309065Pilgrim was no sooner coming back online when winter storm Neptune hit on Valentine’s Day. This time, Entergy shut down Pilgrim as a “precautionary” measure – an explicit acknowledgement that public safety would be at risk if there was another emergency at Pilgrim. Pilgrim was offline for three days, taking an additional five days during restart to reach full power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesman Neil Sheehan reported that during the restart Entergy was “working through some non-safety related, balance-of-plant equipment problems. These are new issues and not problems from the 1/27 storm. Such issues are not unusual following two shutdowns and start-ups in a short period of time.”0 -
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