The UK’s electricity was the cleanest ever in 2024

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

2. Invest heavily in nuclear

We have done that for the last 2 decades almost, how much new generation have we achieved?

10 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

4. Take into account all emissions from mining/manufacture/shipping/disposal etc when deciding on carbon emission figures of a product. If a product is made elsewhere those emissions must be taken into account

That already happens  directly or indirectly. Most industrialised countries already have carbon accounting and taxation system in place.

 

12 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

6. Scrap the ban on petrol/diesel vehicles. It won’t work. Too soon

It is only on new vehicles, it is not banning the existing ones.

 

13 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

8. More emphasis on clean and healthy air/water/food supply than C02

What ELMS is about. 

 

16 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

9. Plan for temperature/sea level rise and invest in what’s needed to cope with it.

There is already a plan down here (Cornwall) for coastal flooding. The plan is abandonment.

Inland flooding is the bigger problem.

18 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

Basically do the best we can with the technology we have and invest in new technology as much as possible. It won’t happen though - too much money to be made. 

Keeps amazing me that the right wingers, free enterprisers, restrictions reducers cannot see that there is trillions to be made in upgrading the worlds energy infrastructures. Seems the main player in this is China, and they come in for a lot of stick for it.

[Mattg4321]

24 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

We have done that for the last 2 decades almost, how much new generation have we achieved?

 

Letting foreign owned corporations take the pee out of us can’t really be counted can it. The technology for nuclear isn’t anything ground breaking. The French have powered most of their country on it for decades. We could easily reliably power our whole grid from it if the will was there. 
 

Your preferred plan involves technology that cannot power the grid reliably and puts us back to the dark ages to boot. 
 

You’re implying that nuclear isn’t a viable option. Extraordinary!

 

Edited Sunday at 17:44 by Mattg4321

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

You’re implying that nuclear isn’t a viable option. Extraordinary

Not at all, I quite like nuclear technology.

But as a cost effective, reliable and quickly deployable technology, forget it.

There is also the global problem of uranium ore supplies.  There was a report by David Elliot many years ago about just this problem.  David Elliot is a nuclear expert and was very supportive of the industry.

 

If you can deploy 1 MW of wind power for £1.5m, and let us say that can generate 2.6 GWh/year.

The initial price of Hinckley C was £18bn back in 2007, 18 years ago.

So say we deployed wind power at £1bn a year, that would be 667 MW installed capacity, generating around 1.7 TWh/a year, in 2008, 2009, another 1.7 TWh, total of 3.4 TWh.  By now, we would be generating nearly 30 TWh/year.  Hinkley with its 3 GW of capacity would, if it was finished, be generating 26 GWh/year.

But Hinkley is not ready, and probably won't be until at least 2031, with a price of £40bn (about what COVID cost us).

So let us take that difference of £22bn and invest it in some lithium storage at £1.5m/MWh.  That is £1000 per kWh, so pricy.  That would be about 14.6 TWh of storage, more than enough to store excess and deliver shortfalls.

And we could be already doing that.

But no, the desperate nuclear industry has proposed that we go for Small Modular Reactors, which like the Hinckley design (EPR0 is unproven.  Olkiluoto was 18 years late and only started producing in 2023, Flamanville was connected last year.

Nuclear, while technically interesting, is dead in the water.

Really is bonkers to support it when there are more viable options.

 

Another way to look at it is how many houses could £18bn have built.  Let us say that a developer can build a house for £120,000.  It may not be the best house ever, but adequate. 150,000 houses, not far off what we build each year.

So if you think that houses are expensive, don't consider the supporting nuclear power, it will come out at twice the price.

(expletive deleted)ing bonkers.

[Mattg4321]

10 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Not at all, I quite like nuclear technology.

But as a cost effective, reliable and quickly deployable technology, forget it.

There is also the global problem of uranium ore supplies.  There was a report by David Elliot many years ago about just this problem.  David Elliot is a nuclear expert and was very supportive of the industry.

 

If you can deploy 1 MW of wind power for £1.5m, and let us say that can generate 2.6 GWh/year.

The initial price of Hinckley C was £18bn back in 2007, 18 years ago.

So say we deployed wind power at £1bn a year, that would be 667 MW installed capacity, generating around 1.7 TWh/a year, in 2008, 2009, another 1.7 TWh, total of 3.4 TWh.  By now, we would be generating nearly 30 TWh/year.  Hinkley with its 3 GW of capacity would, if it was finished, be generating 26 GWh/year.

But Hinkley is not ready, and probably won't be until at least 2031, with a price of £40bn (about what COVID cost us).

So let us take that difference of £22bn and invest it in some lithium storage at £1.5m/MWh.  That is £1000 per kWh, so pricy.  That would be about 14.6 TWh of storage, more than enough to store excess and deliver shortfalls.

And we could be already doing that.

But no, the desperate nuclear industry has proposed that we go for Small Modular Reactors, which like the Hinckley design (EPR0 is unproven.  Olkiluoto was 18 years late and only started producing in 2023, Flamanville was connected last year.

Nuclear, while technically interesting, is dead in the water.

Really is bonkers to support it when there are more viable options.

 

Another way to look at it is how many houses could £18bn have built.  Let us say that a developer can build a house for £120,000.  It may not be the best house ever, but adequate. 150,000 houses, not far off what we build each year.

So if you think that houses are expensive, don't consider the supporting nuclear power, it will come out at twice the price.

(expletive deleted)ing bonkers.

Covid definitely didn’t only cost £40B. Missing at least a zero on that. Makes me question your other figures without even checking. 
 

All those problems, and yet France did it half a century ago, and still have cheaper electricity than us with all our wind power. Not forgetting the fact theirs works 24/7/365

[-rick-]

Agree with all that Steamy. Nuclear is fine if it can be done relatively quickly at competitive cost. Evidence suggests it can not. The only reason Hinkely Point went ahead is because the government desperately wanted to maintain a minimum viable nuclear industry here to support the nuclear deterent. It never made sense financially even before the cost overruns.

 

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

But no, the desperate nuclear industry has proposed that we go for Small Modular Reactors, which like the Hinckley design (EPR0 is unproven.  Olkiluoto was 18 years late and only started producing in 2023, Flamanville was connected last year.

Nuclear, while technically interesting, is dead in the water.

Really is bonkers to support it when there are more viable options.

 

On this point though, the AI bubble has prompted a whole load of US tech companies to pile into small nuclear. I wouldn't want taxpayers money put into it but if private companies want to push it forward with their shareholders money (and the shareholders agree), then maybe this can bring the costs down. Volume and a sizable order book creates a lot of cost efficiencies.

[-rick-]

Just now, Mattg4321 said:

All those problems, and yet France did it half a century ago, and still have cheaper electricity than us with all our wind power. Not forgetting the fact theirs works 24/7/365

 

They did before all the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima accidents and the regulartory over reaction that followed. All their recent projects are equally overbudget and expensive. The nuclear industry shot itself in the foot when it chose to focus on adding redundant safety systems on top of fundamentally unsafe designs rather than pivoting to self limiting/safe designs earlier. Happening now but a lot of sunk cost.

[SteamyTea]

22 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

Covid definitely didn’t only cost £40B

There is a difference between how much was borrowed, and what those borrowings cost us.

It is a figure I read on a government report last year, can't be bothered to track it down as it would make no difference to you.

[SteamyTea]

20 minutes ago, -rick- said:

Three Mile Island

I used to drive past it most mornings on the way to work.  Was a huge steelworks next to it that ran all the way up to Midtown where I worked.

If you want a good reason to not mine coal, go to Centralia, PA.  An underground coal mine fire has been burning since 1962.  It is a very strange place to visit.

[Mattg4321]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There is a difference between how much was borrowed, and what those borrowings cost us.

It is a figure I read on a government report last year, can't be bothered to track it down as it would make no difference to you.

You said ‘about what covid cost us’. 
 

If you seriously think covid only cost £40B then I can see why you swallow some of the other nonsense pushed out by various politicians. 
 

Here it is from the horses mouth. 
 

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9309/#:~:text=Current estimates of the total,the pandemic for that year.

 

’Current estimates of the total cost of government Covid-19 measures range from about £310 billion to £410 billion.’

 

 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

’Current estimates of the total cost of government Covid-19 measures range from about £310 billion to £410 billion.’

That is the borrowings, which are secured by government bonds.

Not what we have to instantly pay back.

 

Government book keeping is not the same as your household budgeting.

 

If you want to keep on believing that nuclear and gas is the way forward for energy production, I cannot convince you differently.

Thankfully though, we are on a path, all be it too slowly, to decarbonisation, and no amount of tantrums about cost and it not being possible will stop it.

But we will not agree on this, so no point carrying on with it.

[Roger440]

33 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There is a difference between how much was borrowed, and what those borrowings cost us.

It is a figure I read on a government report last year, can't be bothered to track it down as it would make no difference to you.

 

No need to track it down. It was 400bn, not 40bm.

 

[Roger440]

14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That is the borrowings, which are secured by government bonds.

Not what we have to instantly pay back.

 

Government book keeping is not the same as your household budgeting.

 

If you want to keep on believing that nuclear and gas is the way forward for energy production, I cannot convince you differently.

Thankfully though, we are on a path, all be it too slowly, to decarbonisation, and no amount of tantrums about cost and it not being possible will stop it.

But we will not agree on this, so no point carrying on with it.

 

Im not sure "not being possible to stop it" is quite the right phrase.

 

Not being able to fund it will bring it to a halt, nothing else. There is only so much tax you can raise, as the current clown show are fast finding out. Couple that with out complete inability to manage large infrastructure projects, running out of money is inevitable. Should make HS2 look like a minor blip.

 

As i said before, i hope you like the future being created for us. And when it arrives, you can look around at the destruction and think, yes, im pleased we did that. Everyones life is worse, good job.

 

Its not a future i wish for or can support. Its not possible to persuade me that the destruction of our way of life, prosperity, health and wealth is a good idea. Especially, as all our efforts will make no difference whatsoever.

 

 

[LnP]

@SteamyTea is unfortunately right about nuclear. I grew up at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell immersed in the hopes that surrounded it. But it has just proven to be too expensive and takes too long to build. We don't have the time or the money. SMRs might eventually help. There are numerous designs in development, but as far as I know, there are currently no licensed commercial designs anywhere in the world, let alone any built.

 

Regarding Hinckley C, I'm reminded of a headline in the Economist, "What's the Hinckley point?". Unfortunately, the hope of a nuclear solution has the risk of being a distraction.

[-rick-]

6 minutes ago, LnP said:

There are numerous designs in development, but as far as I know, there are currently no licensed commercial designs anywhere in the world, let alone any built.

 

I belive that NuScale has one in the US:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/23/23567711/nuclear-energy-advanced-small-modular-reactor-design-certified

 

Not that it looks like any sort of game changer

Edited Sunday at 20:26 by -rick-

[Mattg4321]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

That is the borrowings, which are secured by government bonds.

Not what we have to instantly pay back.

 

Government book keeping is not the same as your household budgeting.

 

 

The facts are there staring you in the face and you still deny it. Who said anything about it not having to be paid back instantly. It’s going to be a drain on the resources of this country for decades to come. Much like this current obsession with net zero, only on an even greater scale. 
 

Reality deniers are worse even than climate deniers. 
 

At least some on here that argue for it accept that we won’t be able to always heat our home or go on holiday anymore. 

[saveasteading]

OK except number 10. No chance of that happening.

And anyway don't we need some other funder to provide a platform  to argue back against musk?

[LnP]

13 hours ago, Mattg4321 said:

then why are we not investing heavily in nuclear. We all know that renewables can’t operate reliably in isolation.

 

I guess you're talking about when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn't shining.

 

Nuclear isn’t the answer. Flexible generation is what's needed to balance renewables; nuclear is inflexible. We could doubtless build it to be more flexible, but then it would get even more expensive, both due to the extra engineering required and running at a lower capacity factor.  If we asked it to run like we are now running our gas CCGT plants (35-40% capacity factor), it would cost around double the current unit cost.  Exactly how much that is, nobody knows of course.  Hinkley C strike price is £137/MWh in today’s money, but it’s nearly 100% over budget, so perhaps the real price is closer to £200/MWh at its design capacity factor. Operating like a CCGT could make that power £400/MWh. That's 40 pence/kWh vs the current Ofgem energy price cap of 25 pence/kWh.

 

The jury is still out on what technologies will provide the required resilience. I've seen articles suggesting that short duration supply/demand imbalance will be managed, as batteries become cheaper and more ubiquitous, by a mix of EV smart charging and V2X. Longer "Dunkelflauten" might be managed by gas back-up or through extensive interconnection (even transatlantic) to avoid correlated weather events, or biomethane and hydrogen to power. Nuclear is unfortunately swimming against this tide.

 

How this eventually looks will depend on finding the right mix of market and regulatory mechanisms. Let's hope our regulators are up to the task and resilient to lobbying.

 

Credits: Most of the above is taken (even copied!) from LinkedIn articles by Rachel Lee.

[saveasteading]

Nuclear contributes to climate change as much as fossil fuels.

All the energy is being released from a historic source.

All the electric power turned to heat at point of use, and a large proportion is released as waste heat at the power station.

[-rick-]

It's not the heat from the reaction thats the problem for climate change. The sun provides many orders of magnitude more heat. It's the CO2 (and Methane) that is providing a blanket of insulation in the atmosphere that is stopping the heat from the sun escaping.

 

That said, the amount of concrete and steel used in a nuclear reactor means that they are a negative for climate change initially much more so than other power generation methods. They work long term because once they are built emissions are minimal.

 

Edit to add: The steam emitted from power plants (not just nuclear) does have some effect on the local climate surrounding the plants, more fog, clouds, etc. Read an article a few years ago about how motor accidents were much more common on a road near a plant due to the commonly difficult conditions. When the plant shut down the issue went away.

Edited Monday at 11:31 by -rick-

[saveasteading]

I had the privilege of visiting a nuclear plant and looking down on the very James Bond looking hall with the cores under it.  Turning 180° there was a view  out to sea and about a km out, a visible whirlpool of hot coolant water.

 

Isn't releasing energy encapsulated with the big bang, much the same as from coal, oil or gas.

As you say, it can't escape, but there is also lots more of it, to not escape. 

[-rick-]

The release of energy is much the same. But the release of energy is not whats causing climate change. That is CO2, methane and various other gasses that act as an insulator in our atmosphere.

 

Our planet has at times been much warmer than it is today and some of the CO2 from that period ended up being sequestered in the ground. Releasing that today is the problem. The sun blankets the planet it many orders of magnitude more energy than all the power plants on earth so the release of a little more from a buried source is not going to change things. Releasing the buried gasses do.

[Crofter]

On 05/01/2025 at 06:29, Mattg4321 said:

Agree almost entirely with @ProDave

 

why are we not investing heavily in nuclear. 

France, acknowledged as one of the leading nuclear powers, has just commissioned its first new plant in 25yrs. It came in about four times over budget and timescale. And these are the guys that are so good at nuclear that the the UK is getting them to build new plants for us. 

 

I'm not against nuclear, but the cost and time just doesn't seem competitive at all. 

[joe90]

It will be interesting to see to see if SMR,s can be viable, especially if UK built (rolls Royce)

[Crofter]

6 hours ago, joe90 said:

It will be interesting to see to see if SMR,s can be viable, especially if UK built (rolls Royce)

Are SMRs completely site agnostic? Nuclear power stations generally need to be built near water, for cooling. If that still applies to SMR I'm not sure that they'll be as helpful as people make out 

[joe90]

Small modular reactors (SMRs) don't always need to be near water because some SMRs use air cooling instead of water cooling: 

 

• Air-cooled SMRs

  Some SMRs, like the Last Energy PWR-20, use air cooling instead of water cooling. This means they don't need to be located near a body of water for cooling.