Brit nuclear reactor planned for Ireland?

SeanW · 23-10-2013 3:58pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I note you are completely avoiding the wholesale price.

If I had to pay €285/MWh when the wholesale price was €38/MWh I'd be angry. That's a massive subsidy to non-domestic customers.

You just answered your own question: residential users subsidise the renewables operators, who sell their power virtually for 'free' - it's like the government buying buses for Dublin Bus so your fare does not include a portion of the captial cost. At best.

Though it should be noted that industrial users are not exactly getting off scott free, the grid is so frighteningly unstable that many industries have had serious damage, up to hundreds of thousands of €€€, caused by minor power gid fluctuations over multiple incidents. All becuase of the effect of mass renewables on the grid.

Again remember that because renewables are literally as reliable as the weather, and the grid is frighteningly unstable, it is most likely that the wholesale price is an average with a frighteningly high standad deviation.

In the UK even renewables have to contribute to nuclear subsidy.

This is a joke, right?

Macha wrote: »

Bad day for the UK taxpayer.

But a good day for the environment since that's 2 or 3 less coal fired power plants that must now be built.

Macha · 23-10-2013 5:20pm

SeanW wrote: »

But a good day for the environment since that's 2 or 3 less coal fired power plants that must now be built.

Nope, that's a huge assumption that coal is the only alternative. And the huge amount of money spent on these plants is effectively being diverted away from more cost-effective carbon cuts. The cheaper the carbon you cut, the more of it you can cut.

Then there's the huge delay: these plants won't send one electron into the grid until 2025 - and that's a generous timeline.

Capt'n Midnight · 23-10-2013 7:20pm

SeanW wrote: »

This is a joke, right?
...
But a good day for the environment since that's 2 or 3 less coal fired power plants that must now be built.

No

All grid users pay for covering when the largest generating unit going off line. At present it 1.2GW But guess what the new largest generating unit will be ?
here's a clue it's over 3GW ...

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Liability-for-Nuclear-Damage/

In the UK, the Energy Act 1983 brought legislation into line with earlier revisions to the Paris/Brussels Conventions and set a new limit of liability for particular installations. In 1994 this limit was increased again to £140 million for each major installation, so that the operator is liable for claims up to this amount and must insure accordingly.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2127599/with_nuclear_power_truth_is_the_first_casualty.html

The "strike price" offered to EDF is a subsidy in all but name. And it's only the beginning of the UK's largesse, which also cover Treasury financing guarantees covering 65% of the construction cost (£10 billion), underwriting of decommissioning costs and waste management liabilities stretching millennia into the future, and limitless insurance against nuclear catastrophes of the kind that struck Fukushima. EDF will only be liable for the first €1.2 billion of costs arising from accident. Fukushima is conservatively estimated to have cost Japan over £300 billion. With free market insurance costs estimated at between €0.14 and €2.36 per kWh produced, the UK Government's insurance represents an additional subsidy worth €3 billion to €60 billion per year.
....
The growth of renewables has additional implications for Hinkley C. As the learned Mr Goodall points out, by the time the new reactors get going at Hinkley in or after 2023, the UK will probably have 35-40 GW of renewable capacity, or more if the cost of solar PV drops fast enough. At times of low power demand, the UK will actually be oversupplied with electricity, and Hinkley could be required to cut back its production. "The proposed contract seems to guarantee to pay Hinkley even when it is curtailed in this way",

if 35 GW of PV sounds crazy, Germany installs about 7.5GW every year and prices are dropping.

and as you well know any new fossil fuel plants are likely to be gas rather than coal.

Capt'n Midnight · 23-10-2013 7:35pm

Oh FFS ,

I've been moaning about the nuclear industry not learning from the past

I've pointed out that Fukushima was a repeat of what almost happened to Blayais in '99, flood defences weren't high enough to cater for historical flooding on the site.

I'm going to have to get a new sarcasm meter.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6311527.stm

Experts believe severe flooding on 30 January 1607 in south west England and south Wales was caused by a tsunami - and not a storm surge or high tides.

It is estimated 200 square miles (520 sq km) of land were covered by water.

...
The flood reached a speed of 30mph and a height of 25ft
It swept up to four miles inland in north Devon, Pembrokeshire, Glamorgan, Monmouthshire, Cardiff and Somerset.
In low-lying Somerset levels, it reached 14 miles inland

http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/articles/2007/01/30/somerset_flood_1607_anniversary_feature.shtml

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070507-tsunami-britain.html

SeanW · 24-10-2013 8:49pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

No

All grid users pay for covering when the largest generating unit going off line. At present it 1.2GW But guess what the new largest generating unit will be ?
here's a clue it's over 3GW ...

The Hinkley C site will have two units generating 1600MW each. I should think it would better either to have to cover just one of them (which I expect is the case), or that it would have been a better idea to have the reactors in two different sites.

In any case, I find it bizarre that someone advocating large scale reliance on uncontrollable, unreliable, expensive, weather dependent renewables to be complaining about the cost of backup ...

if 35 GW of PV sounds crazy, Germany installs about 7.5GW every year and prices are dropping.

Only it is crazy: not only are their grid controllers battling daily to keep their grid from crashing because the power available is too much or too little for the demand, but at one time the chaos in the German grid also threatened to crash the grids of its Eastern neighbors. More of this just sounds like a recipe for more grid instability, and more subsidies.

(TL:DR, the Eastern grid operators have either installed, or are going to install, giant "off" switches on their German borders to prevent their own grids being crashed).

and as you well know any new fossil fuel plants are likely to be gas rather than coal.

Only, they're not. Gas is not exactly plentiful in Western Europe unless you go down the fracking route (non popular here, I expect) but the only other place to get gas long term is on the fag end of a very long pipleline from Sibera. Not smart.
That's why Germany went on a coal plant building spree the likes of which are unrivalled in living memory ... outside only of China. I've been warning about this since the latter years of the last decade. Countries that hastily abandon nuclear energy, such as Japan after the Earthquake, generally find themselves spending more on fossil fuels (in Japans case, imports that pushed its balance of trade into the red for the first time in 30 years) and vastly increasing their CO2 output.

Macha wrote: »

Nope, that's a huge assumption that coal is the only alternative.

Then explain what's going on in Germany? See above.

Then there's the huge delay: these plants won't send one electron into the grid until 2025 - and that's a generous timeline.

If I understand the mainstream environmental view correctly, it's that nuclear plants have a long turnaround time from approval to output on the grid. And there is not enough time to wait, climate action is needed now. The problem that I have with that argument is that come 2025 there will still be a need for action, just as there has been a need for action "now" for every year since the '70s. So when you consider:

1995: "If you approve this nuclear plant, it will not produce electricity until 2005. We need to limit CO2 emission NOW!!"
2005: "If you approve this nuclear plant, it will not produce electricity until 2015. We need to limit CO2 emissions NOW, or its going to be climate catastrophe! We're out of time!
2015: "If you approve this nuclear plant, it will not produce electricity until 2025. We can't wait that long! We have to leave lots of fossil fuel in the ground! We need to act now! It's going to be an unimaginable biblical catastrophe of gigantic proproportions unless we cut CO2 emissions now. We're in the most dire of crises words can imagine.

I suspect it's going to be the same story in 2025.

The problem for me is that if any single nuclear plant proposal had been endorsed 10 years earlier, it would have been online at that time. So if 2025 comes around and there is still alarm about global warming, it would be legitimate for me to say "why didn't you support the construction of nuclear power plants back in 2013? We would have them now," just as I might say of plans dating back to the last decade or even earlier (think, Carnsore Point, and all the CO2 that would have saved replacing Moneypoint).

And the huge amount of money spent on these plants is effectively being diverted away from more cost-effective carbon cuts. The cheaper the carbon you cut, the more of it you can cut.

I find this concern for costs to be somewhat questionable. The cost of environmental taxes and regulations on individuals - especially poor people - is extreme. Like, oh say, €285/Mwh to be paid by Germans living off low wages or Hartz IV (less than €100 per week). Or the various environmental regulations on new cars imposed by the EU that means ~10+ year old cars will be expensive to acquire, mecnahically unstable, full of "car death sentence if it fails" parts and generally a nightmare to own and run, the cost of things favoured by the mainstream environmental movement is extreme.

BTW, the costs of the subsidy for Hinkley Point C are going to be less per kw/h than those for wind and solar, excluding the unreliability of the latter.

Wikipedia Article on Hinkley Point C wrote:

The UK wholesale electricity price in 2013 is about £48 per megawatt-hour. EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (in 2012 prices),[1][2][19] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years feed-in tariff period agreed upon. It is estimated that this would provide around a 10% return on their investment.[17][20] The price could fall to £89.50/MWh if a new plant at Sizewell is also approved.[1][2] If the project is completed after 2019, as planned, the UK government estimate is lower for a range of alternatives: £95 per megawatt-hour for onshore wind, £85 per megawatt-hour for sewage gas and £65 for landfill gas. The UK government draft strike price falls to £110 per megawatt-hour for large solar photo-voltaic by 2019.[21]
EDF will also receive government loan guarantees of up to £10 billion to cover most of the cost of construction

and as you well know any new fossil fuel plants are likely to be gas rather than coal.

As above, where is the gas going to come from?

Experts believe severe flooding on 30 January 1607 in south west England and south Wales

[sarcasm]Ah, good old 1607, just at the tail end of the Dark Ages. I remember it like it was yesterday

[/sarcasm]When I read this, it reminded me of a scene from the "13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo" that I saw as a kid:

Vincent Van Ghoul: We graduate from (some academy) in 36.
Flim-flam: Wow! You graduated in 1936?
Vincent Van Ghoul: No, just 36.

Capt'n Midnight · 25-10-2013 12:50am

SeanW wrote: »

The Hinkley C site will have two units generating 1600MW each. I should think it would better either to have to cover just one of them (which I expect is the case), or that it would have been a better idea to have the reactors in two different sites.

The French used to rely on twin reactors backing up the other one. It's not a good plan. It's one of the reasons the nuclear industry agreed to £20Bn of patches but they haven't implemented them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/nuclearpower/9587497/Practically-all-of-EUs-nuclear-reactors-need-safety-improvements.html

In any case, I find it bizarre that someone advocating large scale reliance on uncontrollable, unreliable, expensive, weather dependent renewables to be complaining about the cost of backup ...

Wind is predictable. Scrams aren't. And Nuclear outages can last months or even years. If a wind turbine konks out it's only a few MW. Even if you loose the main transformer it's not so much of a problem unless it's one of the really big wind farms

Only, they're not. Gas is not exactly plentiful in Western Europe unless you go down the fracking route (non popular here, I expect) but the only other place to get gas long term is on the fag end of a very long pipleline from Sibera. Not smart.

Fracking is going to happen whether people like it or not. Given a choice between Nuclear and Fracking it would be interesting to see what people would choose.

Also Norway is a bigger supplier of gas to the rest of Europe than Russia.

BTW, the costs of the subsidy for Hinkley Point C are going to be less per kw/h than those for wind and solar, excluding the unreliability of the latter.

LOL
Wholesale price for leccy in Germany is €38/MWh ,
our wholesale price is €50/MWh (blue line) - you don't see the spike on windy days

http://www.sem-o.com/Pages/default.aspx
Hinkely C is £92.50/MHw index linked for 35 years
Spain and Italy are no longer giving subsidies for solar.
Solar wasn't an option 30 years ago.

As above, where is the gas going to come from?

Norway, Fracking, LNG from the states and Nigeria, Polar regions, hydrolysis powered by renewables, the Japanese have to commercialise the technology to harvest ocean floor methane hydrates and Russia has a lot of methane in the permafrost that future technology might exploit.

Capt'n Midnight · 25-10-2013 1:08am

SeanW wrote: »

[sarcasm]Ah, good old 1607, just at the tail end of the Dark Ages. I remember it like it was yesterday [/sarcasm]When I read this, it reminded me of a scene from the "13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo" that I saw as a kid:

There are about 500 nuclear plants world wide.

Accepting a one in 500 years catastrophic risk per site would yield an average of one catastrophe somewhere each year

The only reason Fukushima and the other Japanese power plants were flooded was because historical records were ignored. The nuclear industry and many of it's supporters have had 70 years to learn the lessons of history and have consistently failed to do so. If you take enough chances one day it will bite you, hard.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/07/uk-nuclear-risk-flooding

As many as 12 of Britain's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change, according to an unpublished government analysis obtained by the Guardian.
...
According to Defra, Hinkley Point already has a low risk of flooding, and by the 2080s will face a high risk of both flooding and erosion.
...
He continued: "Existing power stations are designed with flood protection measures to protect against a one-in-10,000-year flood event and planning requirements state that new nuclear plants are also designed to take account of climate change impacts."

I'm calling BS on that 10,000 year figure based on flooding in USA (including Nebraska !) , France and Japan and the historical records of flooding in the UK

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13514-nuclear-power-plant-flood-risk-sandy-was-just-a-warm-up

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesperson Neil Sheehan said that Sandy brought a surge of 7.4 feet to Oyster Creek. The plant is obligated to prepare for the consequences of flooding at 8.5 feet, he said, and, at 9.0 or 9.5 feet — Sheehan wasn’t sure — the plant’s pump motors would begin to be flooded.

the_syco · 25-10-2013 1:32am

Judgement Day wrote: »

Nothing happened, thousands of people didn't have to be evacuated from an environmental disaster and if you expect the truth about the damage to come out you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/safety/accidents/Fukushima-nuclear-disaster/

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/10/20420833-fukushima-evacuation-has-killed-more-than-earthquake-and-tsunami-survey-says?lite
"Close to 16,000 people were killed across Japan as a direct result of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. According to the Mainichi report, 1,599 of these deaths were in the Fukushima Prefecture."
Have you any evidence that anyone died from the nuclear power plant?

Technoprisoner wrote: »

and by the way it wasnt the earthquake that caused the nuclear fall out but when the place flooded from the tsunami it knocked out the generators that are used to cool down the plant. And im sure you are well aware of the flooding problems we have in Ireland on a yearly basis

The 13 meter tall tsunami overwhelmed the plant's seawall, which was only 10 meters high. I'm sorry, but I must have missed the annual 13 meter high waves we get on a yearly basis... :rolleyes:

Please note that a lot most of our major cities will just disappear if 13 meter high tsunami hit them.

=-=

Personally I think we should build 4000 windmills along the west coast of Ireland for power, and install a couple of thousand sea snakes along the eastern coast. Pretty sure I had pints with Richard in Nantes back in 2010, and his idea of wave tech works really well.

Eoghan Barra · 25-10-2013 8:01am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Fracking is going to happen whether people like it or not. Given a choice between Nuclear and Fracking it would be interesting to see what people would choose.

The point is: which would you choose, Capt'n?

Macha · 25-10-2013 9:04am

SeanW wrote: »

In any case, I find it bizarre that someone advocating large scale reliance on uncontrollable, unreliable, expensive, weather dependent renewables to be complaining about the cost of backup ...

SeanW wrote: »

I find this concern for costs to be somewhat questionable.

Pfff...

harryr711 · 25-10-2013 9:55am

SeanW wrote: »

The Hinkley C site will have two units generating 1600MW each. I should think it would better either to have to cover just one of them (which I expect is the case), or that it would have been a better idea to have the reactors in two different sites.

In any case, I find it bizarre that someone advocating large scale reliance on uncontrollable, unreliable, expensive, weather dependent renewables to be complaining about the cost of backup ...

Only it is crazy: not only are their grid controllers battling daily to keep their grid from crashing because the power available is too much or too little for the demand, but at one time the chaos in the German grid also threatened to crash the grids of its Eastern neighbors. More of this just sounds like a recipe for more grid instability, and more subsidies.

(TL:DR, the Eastern grid operators have either installed, or are going to install, giant "off" switches on their German borders to prevent their own grids being crashed).

Only, they're not. Gas is not exactly plentiful in Western Europe unless you go down the fracking route (non popular here, I expect) but the only other place to get gas long term is on the fag end of a very long pipleline from Sibera. Not smart.
That's why Germany went on a coal plant building spree the likes of which are unrivalled in living memory ... outside only of China. I've been warning about this since the latter years of the last decade. Countries that hastily abandon nuclear energy, such as Japan after the Earthquake, generally find themselves spending more on fossil fuels (in Japans case, imports that pushed its balance of trade into the red for the first time in 30 years) and vastly increasing their CO2 output.

Then explain what's going on in Germany? See above.

If I understand the mainstream environmental view correctly, it's that nuclear plants have a long turnaround time from approval to output on the grid. And there is not enough time to wait, climate action is needed now. The problem that I have with that argument is that come 2025 there will still be a need for action, just as there has been a need for action "now" for every year since the '70s. So when you consider:

I suspect it's going to be the same story in 2025.

The problem for me is that if any single nuclear plant proposal had been endorsed 10 years earlier, it would have been online at that time. So if 2025 comes around and there is still alarm about global warming, it would be legitimate for me to say "why didn't you support the construction of nuclear power plants back in 2013? We would have them now," just as I might say of plans dating back to the last decade or even earlier (think, Carnsore Point, and all the CO2 that would have saved replacing Moneypoint).

I find this concern for costs to be somewhat questionable. The cost of environmental taxes and regulations on individuals - especially poor people - is extreme. Like, oh say, €285/Mwh to be paid by Germans living off low wages or Hartz IV (less than €100 per week). Or the various environmental regulations on new cars imposed by the EU that means ~10+ year old cars will be expensive to acquire, mecnahically unstable, full of "car death sentence if it fails" parts and generally a nightmare to own and run, the cost of things favoured by the mainstream environmental movement is extreme.

BTW, the costs of the subsidy for Hinkley Point C are going to be less per kw/h than those for wind and solar, excluding the unreliability of the latter.

As above, where is the gas going to come from?

[sarcasm]Ah, good old 1607, just at the tail end of the Dark Ages. I remember it like it was yesterday [/sarcasm]When I read this, it reminded me of a scene from the "13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo" that I saw as a kid:

Couple of points to pick:

The comparison of the nuclear strike price in 2023 with the strike prices of renewable technologies in (2014-)2019 as on wikipedia is absurd. The correct comparison is with renewable plants being completed in 2023 an beyond.

Nuclear is being subsidised for 35 years while renewables will be subsidised for 15 years. The strike prices for renewables would be even lower if support was spread over 35 years.

While it would be more correct to compare 2023 strike prices, the Solar Trade Association is proposing a strike price of £91 per MWh in 2018. With the main trade body for that industry proposing that price, it's unlikely that DECC will say "no, please take some more money, the treasury is loaded". So, 6 years before Hinkly Point comes on line (assuming no delays like in Finland), solar will be cheaper per MWh and subsidised for 20 years less.

The £10 billion public guarantees on the loans being used to develop Hinkley Point deserve a mention too as it represents a risk to the British taxpayer that isn't present with renewables.

Capt'n Midnight · 26-10-2013 12:21am

Eoghan Barra wrote: »

The point is: which would you choose, Capt'n?

maybe, just maybe there are more that two options ?

I've consistently posted about interconnectors, Norwegian hydro as a backup. Storing surplus energy as hydrogen in the gas mains when the technology reduces the cost from 4 times the cost of gas. Renewables are the way to go.

Realistically fracking in unpopulated areas is going to happen, it's just a case of where / when. If the UK don't frack they will import gas fracked abroad.

One key difference is that gas saves half the CO2 emissions of coal.
Even better you only need to burn gas at peak times so renewables will reduce the demand for gas over time. And since investment is lower it's easier to pull the plug when there is something better.

With nuclear the payback time is measured in decades, so there is the temptation to keep it running until it's paid for. With nuclear you can't ramp up/down to match demand you still need to build the gas plants anyway (so compared to nuclear gas has roughly ZERO power plant cost !)

Eoghan Barra · 27-10-2013 12:57am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

One key difference is that gas saves half the CO2 emissions of coal.

The jury is still out on whether shale gas is worse or better than coal in terms of its effect on climate change/breakdown: it all depends on how much gas, much of which is methane (which impacts 25-30 times more than co2), leaks during the process. If leakage is more than about 3.2%, gas becomes worse than coal; a recent study suggests that with fracking, leakage to the atmosphere could be 9%, which, if true, makes shale gas far worse than coal.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Realistically fracking in unpopulated areas is going to happen, it's just a case of where / when. If the UK don't frack they will import gas fracked abroad.

While you're obviously not prepared to admit it, it's quite clear that you don't have a problem with this - certainly far less than you do with nuclear, which has no effect on the climate.

This is the crux of this debate: those arguing against nuclear see fossil fuels as preferable to nuclear (whether they are honest enough or not to face up to that), despite the former causing incalculable damage to our climate, and the latter causing none.

Capt'n Midnight · 27-10-2013 1:45am

Eoghan Barra wrote: »

This is the crux of this debate: those arguing against nuclear see fossil fuels as preferable to nuclear (whether they are honest enough or not to face up to that), despite the former causing incalculable damage to our climate, and the latter causing none.

Long term we have to go renewable.

So what to do during the transition ?

Invest in white elephants or a technology that complements renewables ?

Nuclear is an expensive white elephant. It's a dead end technology. You can't use nuclear for peaking / reduce supply to match demand on a short timescale. And there simply isn't enough cheap uranium to scale up from reactors providing ~10% of electricity to (say) 50% AND keep those reactors supplied for the 30 years or so to break even. Nevermind the logistics in construction.

You can rule out breeders, next year is the 70th anniversary of industrial scale plutonium production in multiple reactors. All the "new technologies" have been tried, they have built the reactors and they didn't work out. Thorium, pebble bed, molten salt, fast breeders, reprocessing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Conversion_Ratio.2C_Breakeven.2C_Breeding_Ratio.2C_Doubling_Time.2C_and_Burnup Best breeder ratio is 1.2 So it would take 5 reactors to breed enough fuel for the sixth one. It's not geometric yet despite all the promises of past.

Today hydrogen made from electricity costs about four times the price of natural gas. Now if you were to just use the surplus the renewables exceed demand not only is it cheaper but you get some grid stabilisation as well.

92.50 GBP = 108.361 EUR = 2.85 times the German wholesale price.

I cba doing the calcualtions of Columbs/mole and hydrolytic cell voltage but a combined cycle gas turbine is up to 60% efficient so it certain that at some times it would be cheaper to store renewables as hydrogen in the gas mains than use nuclear.

If you have to use fossil fuel the gas is the way to go. We have a supply network in place. It can be produced renewably the trick is to scale up / reduce the costs.

Doubling time for wind is about three years / 25% per annum

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/chart-2-3rds-of-global-solar-pv-has-been-connected-in-the-last-2.5-years

two-thirds of all solar PV capacity in place worldwide has been installed since January 2011.
...
Even more amazingly, the solar industry is on track to install another 100 gigawatts worldwide by 2015 -- nearly doubling solar capacity in the next 2 1/2 years.

7.5GW of solar won't directly replace 3.2GW of nuclear. But Germany are installing 7.5GW of solar every year (5.8GW so far this year). Anyone want to guess how much solar they will have by the time this nuke comes on line ??
Anyone even want to guess the cost per watt or solar by then ?

ITER is a long shot, but the costs are less than some reprocessing plants.

Eoghan Barra · 27-10-2013 12:03pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nuclear is an expensive white elephant. It's a dead end technology.

That is your opinion Capt'n, and it is generally backed up by the following type of statements that I quite frankly find unfathomable:

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I cba doing the calcualtions of Columbs/mole and hydrolytic cell voltage but a combined cycle gas turbine is up to 60% efficient so it certain that at some times it would be cheaper to store renewables as hydrogen in the gas mains than use nuclear.

Granted, I am not a scientist, but the chances are you're not either, despite the type of language used above and regularly elsewhere.

So let's take a look at what the real scientists think. Polls of general scientists invariably show 89% in favour of nukes, rising to 95% for energy scientists (and, not surprisingly, 100% for nuclear and radiation scientists) - Gwyneth Cravens, 'Power to Save the World'.

Do you, like all of those who continue to deny climate change, know better than the vast majority of scientists? I think not.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If you have to use fossil fuel the gas is the way to go.

You still stubbornly refuse to address in a direct manner the question of whether you think fossils fuels are preferable to nuclear or not, insisting simply that nuclear is not viable, and that therefore we have no choice but to rely on fossil fuels, whether that means coal or the probably even worse shale gas.

On the other hand, those who really know the facts, i.e. the vast majority of the scientific community, say the following:
1. Fossil fuels are rapidly bringing us towards global catastrophe through climate change/breakdown
2. Nuclear is a viable carbon-free alternative which should be employed asap together with other carbon-free energy sources such as renewables

I know who I'll be listening to.

Macha · 27-10-2013 12:45pm

[mod] The above post is simply atrocious but I'll stick to the main problems. Stop using arguments to authority as a way to avoid having a debate about the facts. And do not dismiss other posters' attempts to debate the facts as 'unfathomable'.

And if you know who you'll be listening to and have already made up your mind, stop using this forum as a place to push your ideas while avoiding debate. You are straying dangerously into soapboxing territory yet again. [/mod]

SeanW · 27-10-2013 6:18pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Wind is predictable. Scrams aren't. And Nuclear outages can last months or even years. If a wind turbine konks out it's only a few MW. Even if you loose the main transformer it's not so much of a problem unless it's one of the really big wind farms

But winds can suddently die down across an entire country, that will stop every single wind farm. Dead. Same with solar power and clouds.

Also Norway is a bigger supplier of gas to the rest of Europe than Russia.

The North Sea Field is running out.

LOL
Wholesale price for leccy in Germany is €38/MWh ,
our wholesale price is €50/MWh (blue line)

LOL indeed - I thought I proved, quote cogently in fact, that the German wholesale price is totally meaningless.

If you disagree, then go to Germany, find someone who is existing on Hartz IV or some less-than-Irish minimum wage job, and tell him that the wholesale rate of electricity is only €38/Mwh.

It is meaningless because the actual cost to a German person is closer to 10 times that.

- you don't see the spike on windy days

That's presumably because we are almost totally reliant on gas.

http://www.sem-o.com/Pages/default.aspx
Hinkely C is £92.50/MHw index linked for 35 years
Spain and Italy are no longer giving subsidies for solar.
Solar wasn't an option 30 years ago.

The UK government is tapering off some solar subsidies. Their own figures suggest that the solar power producers will only need £110 per kw/h by 2019 - a decrease from todays values no doubt.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There are about 500 nuclear plants world wide.

Accepting a one in 500 years catastrophic risk per site would yield an average of one catastrophe somewhere each year

Only, it hasn't happened, there has only been one nuclear catastrophe outside the Soviet Union in the last 50 years or so (that being Fukushima) and so far noone has died from the radiation.

The only reason Fukushima and the other Japanese power plants were flooded was because historical records were ignored. The nuclear industry and many of it's supporters have had 70 years to learn the lessons of history and have consistently failed to do so. If you take enough chances one day it will bite you, hard.

I should point out that Fukushima was built in the '60s. 20 years before Chernobyl.

the_syco wrote: »

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/10/20420833-fukushima-evacuation-has-killed-more-than-earthquake-and-tsunami-survey-says?lite
"Close to 16,000 people were killed across Japan as a direct result of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. According to the Mainichi report, 1,599 of these deaths were in the Fukushima Prefecture."
Have you any evidence that anyone died from the nuclear power plant?

2 people died at Fukushima; crane operators working on site doing day-to-day activities died when their crane collapsed during the quake.

We hear a lot about the dangers of nuclear power in certain quarters but the facts are clear: Nuclear power is the safest form of power in terms of human deaths per TW/h generated.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
The facts couldn't be any clearer - a person is 10 times more likely to die because of rooftop solar (falling off the roof and so on) than to die by any cause related to nuclear energy, per kw/h generated.

Macha wrote: »

Pfff...

Quite a thorough response there LOL. But is true that given that the taxes and regulations promoted by the environmental-left (and forgive me if I have oversimplified anyone's position here) add considerably to a persons' cost of living - poor people especially so - when one with such a view says "this is too expensive" I tend to be somewhat dismissive.

harryr711 wrote: »

Nuclear is being subsidised for 35 years while renewables will be subsidised for 15 years. The strike prices for renewables would be even lower if support was spread over 35 years.

Does anyone seriously think that in 15 years the renewables won't need to be subsidised anymore?

While it would be more correct to compare 2023 strike prices, the Solar Trade Association is proposing a strike price of £91 per MWh in 2018.

The UK government still thinks they'll need £110 the following year, likely the same in the years to follow.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I've consistently posted about interconnectors

The Polish and the Czechs have interconnectors with Germany. They had to modify them with giant "off" switches to stop the Germans from crashing their grids.

Norwegian hydro as a backup.

Considering that with renewables in play, you can't even have a stable power system from one country to the next, what the heck do you think Norwegian hydro is going to do for us? IIRC they have problems of their own.

Storing surplus energy as hydrogen in the gas mains when the technology reduces the cost from 4 times the cost of gas.

Ha ha ha, LMAO ... oh wait, you are actually serious about that?

With nuclear the payback time is measured in decades, so there is the temptation to keep it running until it's paid for.

I can't speak for any energy policymakers but as far as I am concerned, if something that is actually better comes along - like that guy posted here some months back that was researching artificial photosynthesis to make chemcical liquid fuel from sunlight - if something like that comes along my support for nuclear energy is gone. Kaput. bye bye. IF someone were to actually come up with something that made lots of cheap, clean energy, that we could deploy cheaply on a gargantuan scale, I'd be the first to call for the decomissioning of nukes, even if they were state of the art only built a few years back. Naturally though I'd have the coal/gas plants in mind first though.

Macha · 27-10-2013 7:58pm

SeanW wrote: »

Quite a thorough response there LOL. But is true that given that the taxes and regulations promoted by the environmental-left (and forgive me if I have oversimplified anyone's position here) add considerably to a persons' cost of living - poor people especially so - when one with such a view says "this is too expensive" I tend to be somewhat dismissive.

Granted, not my most eloquent post! But my original point was the more expensive the decarbonisation measures we go for, the less decarbonisation we can afford to carry out. And by that I do mean in the wider sense, including future costs. So, for example, if nuclear were becoming cheaper as a result of public investments the way renewables are, I wouldn't mind the initial investment. Unfortunately, that's not what's happening.

SeanW wrote: »

Does anyone seriously think that in 15 years the renewables won't need to be subsidised anymore?

The UK government still thinks they'll need £110 the following year, likely the same in the years to follow.

I think we can look at different segments of the renewables industry. So onshore wind is probably pretty close to market, as is rooftop PV. The newer energy technologies could need some subsidies but in 15 years some of the ones we're more familiar with won't.

Let's not forget this is all against the backdrop of nuclear and fossil fuels still receiving more subsidies that renewables, at least in Europe.

Curly Judge · 28-10-2013 12:36am

It has long been my contention that renewables will not solve the energy crisis.
They are too diffuse, have far too wide a footprint and only work about 23% of the time.
You can revamp the grid , install all the smart meters you want but neither of these things will boil an egg on a foggy morning.
The only real option is new nuclear and without it we will return to power cuts and brownouts.
I used to be an admirer of President Clinton, but when he cancelled the Integral Fast Reactor programme in 1994 [ three years before its scheduled completion], I lost all respect for him.
http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad0509till.html
Americans were so close to closing the fuel cycle and heading the country towards fuel independance then that the actions of their President and Senator John Kerry and that dreadful woman Hazel O'Leary were nothing short of treasonous.
Some claim that Big Oil had a hand in it but my money is on the anti nuclear wing of the Democratic party.

moc moc a moc · 28-10-2013 12:46am

Reamer Fanny wrote: »

Fukushima?

a) That wasn't a particularly modern plant

b) We don't get major earthquakes and tsunamis in Ireland

Capt'n Midnight · 28-10-2013 12:52am

SeanW wrote: »

But winds can suddently die down across an entire country, that will stop every single wind farm. Dead. Same with solar power and clouds.

Yawn. Did you ever read the US study I posted several times where the North East US could run on renewable needing gas backup about 1% of the time ?? It's a simple trick you install more renewables than you need so you still meet demand even if supply is below the theroritical max.

Nuclear can't balance wind, gas and hydro and interconnectors and tidal can.

All nuclear can do is supply base load at multiples of the existing wholesale price.

LOL indeed - I thought I proved, quote cogently in fact, that the German wholesale price is totally meaningless.

Point is that it is a real world price. Industry can buy at this price. The consumer being screwed is a political matter. If renewables really did cost that much then industry would have to chip in too. And besides solar is eating into the premium price at peak demand.

The UK government is tapering off some solar subsidies. Their own figures suggest that the solar power producers will only need £110 per kw/h by 2019 - a decrease from todays values no doubt.

Interesting figure that
£92.5 today will index link to what by 2019 ???

Also meaningless since Spain and Italy have already removed solar subsidies.

I can't speak for any energy policymakers but as far as I am concerned, if something that is actually better comes along - like that guy posted here some months back that was researching artificial photosynthesis to make chemcical liquid fuel from sunlight - if something like that comes along my support for nuclear energy is gone. Kaput. bye bye. IF someone were to actually come up with something that made lots of cheap, clean energy, that we could deploy cheaply on a gargantuan scale, I'd be the first to call for the decomissioning of nukes, even if they were state of the art only built a few years back. Naturally though I'd have the coal/gas plants in mind first though.

We can make fuel from sunlight. It's just more expensive than gas at the present. Higher gas prices or economies of scale or carbon taxes will narrow the gap. And of course there are interesting technologies being developed. Direct conversion has been done but it's a complex cell. IMHO the key is to try to use the oxygen liberated by hydrolysis either to improve fossil fuel efficiency or use another reaction to try to recover some of it's energy. An alternative would be to use the hydrogen to produce ammonia and then use it as a fuel. Unlike nuclear renewables have new developed new technologies.

As for decomissioning of nukes, ain't going to happen. Hinckley will cost sixteen billion pounds sterling. HS2 will cost seventeen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24589652 Hinckley isn't a megaproject but has megaproject costs.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-10-2013 1:31am

Eoghan Barra wrote: »

Granted, I am not a scientist, but the chances are you're not either, despite the type of language used above and regularly elsewhere.

Put it this way, I've read up on stuff. I've also compared what the nuclear industry say, to the facts that come out later.

I don't believe a massive poliferation of nuclear power of say 50% of world electricity would return the energy invested in it over the full 70 years.

So no I don't even think nuclear is low carbon in the future context of peak uranium and fossil fuels being used primarily in peaking plants rather than base load.

Do you, like all of those who continue to deny climate change, know better than the vast majority of scientists? I think not.

associating me with climate sceptics ? shame on you.

2. Nuclear is a viable carbon-free alternative which should be employed asap together with other carbon-free energy sources such as renewables

I know who I'll be listening to.

Lets make it clear nuclear is not carbon free when you look at full life cycle.

The nuclear industry is very economical with the truth so I take all of their figures with a pinch of salt.

IMHO the hidden carbon costs of nuclear rule it out.
The cost of the construction and cement
The mining costs that will increase in the future.
The petrochemicals needed to extract uranium from seawater mean that approach might not break even
The decomissioning costs and waste storage costs in the face of tighter controls.

For real economics you have to look at the NETT energy from the system, and this will drop if nuclear expands because poorer ores and more work units required for separation

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3877

Also Nuclear by it's nature runs all the time so the NETT energy is more than you need unless you reduce the supply by others on the grid. This precludes the development of other power sources. Gas on the other hand isn't used unless it's needed.

Another inefficiency is that in France for example 3 out of 58 reactors are used to power enrichment ( this is in addition to mining/disposal etc )
http://mdsolar.blogspot.ie/2008/01/eroie.html

harryr711 · 28-10-2013 10:58am

SeanW wrote: »

But winds can suddently die down across an entire country, that will stop every single wind farm. Dead. Same with solar power and clouds.

The energy storage systems that are coming on line in Germany will come on line in Britain in the future.

SeanW wrote: »

The UK government is tapering off some solar subsidies. Their own figures suggest that the solar power producers will only need £110 per kw/h by 2019 - a decrease from todays values no doubt.

The UK government still thinks they'll need £110 the following year, likely the same in the years to follow.

The Government figures are draft figures. The industry has come out and said £91/MWh by 2018. There is no way that the government/treasury will pay more than that now! Those strike prices will be revised before CfDs are available next year.

The strike prices are likely to be the same in the years to follow? That's made up rubbish. Prices for stage 2 CfDs will be discussed from 2017 and should be set for another 5 year period. It's expected that there will be further degressions.

SeanW wrote: »

Does anyone seriously think that in 15 years the renewables won't need to be subsidised anymore?

You appear to have missed the point on funding terms/contract lengths. A shorter contract length means a higher strike price because developments have levelised revenue requirements over a lifetime which is greater than the subsidy period.

In 15 years will either renewables or nuclear need to be subsidised? The hope with renewables is that they will reach grid parity, as has already been achieved in some countries which have consequently removed subsidies.

Curly Judge · 28-10-2013 11:15am

harryr711 wrote: »

The energy storage systems that are coming on line in Germany will come on line in Britain in the future

Can you tell us more about this?

harryr711 · 28-10-2013 11:31am

Curly Judge wrote: »

Can you tell us more about this?

I have to do my homework on it first, it's not something I've had to look at in great detail yet but it's been at the back of my mind for a few months. I'll post something up when I can.

Bobeagleburger · 28-10-2013 11:33am

I'd certainly be in favour of some nuclear power given our dependence on oil and gas which are increasing with price year on year

Curly Judge · 28-10-2013 11:47am

harryr711 wrote: »

I have to do my homework on it first, it's not something I've had to look at in great detail yet but it's been at the back of my mind for a few months. I'll post something up when I can.

Thanks.
Personally I don't think it's possible, [several laws of thermodynamics and all that], but the ditches of science are littered with the corpses of guys like me.

In the meantime this might interest you.
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/17/5-reasons-you-should-care-about-californias-new-energy-storage-mandate/

Capt'n Midnight · 28-10-2013 1:23pm

moc moc a moc wrote: »

a) That wasn't a particularly modern plant

b) We don't get major earthquakes and tsunamis in Ireland

Yeah the Hinckley site hasn't been inundated by tsunami/storm surge since 30th of January 1607. Add sea level rises and most of the UK coastal nuclear power plants don't have adequate flood defences to cater for the whole life including decommissioning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Channel_floods,_1607

and the tsunami from the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake reached here, admittedly a minor one but not something you want added to a storm surge.

Also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide - 6100BC ago, hopefully ice age retreated and no longer a threat but...

worrying about a landslide in the Azores causing a megatsunami is probably a bit extreme though.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-10-2013 1:30pm

Curly Judge wrote: »

Can you tell us more about this?

research into blending hydrogen into the existing gas network
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/51995.pdf

Daimler, others promise 100 hydrogen stations in Germany in four years, 400 by 2023
http://green.autoblog.com/2013/10/02/daimler-others-promise-100-hydrogen-stations-in-four-years/

storing hydrogen as methanol, this could solve the storage problem
http://www.nature.com/news/liquid-storage-could-make-hydrogen-a-feasible-fuel-1.12518

And the Germans are making hydrocarbons from Hydrogen , I'll dig up a link later on.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-10-2013 5:25pm

rarnes1 wrote: »

I'd certainly be in favour of some nuclear power given our dependence on oil and gas which are increasing with price year on year

Reality check on the cost of Nuclear.

Hinkley is costing £16Bn

As recently as March they were giving the bad news that it had gone up from £10Bn or even 12Bn.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9954515/Government-extends-new-nuclear-power-station-timetable-by-five-years.html

EDF has declined to give an offiicial cost estimate for Hinkley, but expectations were that costs had risen from £10bn in recent years to £14bn. Yesterday’s Government strategy confirmed they had increased, describing it as a “£12bn - £14bn project”.

The strike price is now twice the wholesale price, and it's indexed linked, for 35 years.

Since there is more to the cost of electricity than the cost of fuel even a doubling of the cost of fossil fuel won't bring the wholesale price up to the price agreed for Nuclear.

This is not an isolated incident. The usual excuse given is that the value of the currency drops over the time they take to build, net present value and all that. Also delays are costly because of the extra interest accrued. Seriously financing is one of the biggest costs of Nuclear power.

Brit nuclear reactor planned for Ireland?

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