Why we need "Net zero"

[LnP]

On 09/05/2026 at 21:03, Beelbeebub said:

Ultimately the tax payer is the decomissioner of last resort though. You can write all the contracts you want but if EDF go bust what are we going to do?

 

EDF go bust? Wholly owned by the French state. Seems rather unlikely.

[LnP]

On 10/05/2026 at 10:49, JohnMo said:

UK government is the majority stake holder with 45% ownership and £14+ billion stake in it. Government money comes from taxes. The UK government funds its 44.9% stake in Sizewell C through a combination of direct taxpayer-funded capital allocations and sovereign-backed financial instruments.

 

So level playing field 

Never said and never thought renewables are an only solution - but add battery storage, hydro storage, hydrogen generation from excess spinning reserve all help.  Hydrogen going to hydrogen gas powered combined cycle turbine generators for background load and or gap filling.

You're talking about Sizewell C, I was talking about Hinkley Point C. In both cases, though in different ways, the funding model is designed to recover the decommissioning costs from bill payers. I agree though that nuclear power is expensive (Hinkley strike price currently £135/MWh) and that decommissioning costs are a risk. At least the funding models are intended to recover all the costs from consumers. 

 

My post though was making the point that renewable aren't cheap either. That's because the system costs don't show up in the e.g. £91/MWh strike price agreed for off-shore wind in AR7. The point I was making was the facilities you mentioned - battery storage, hydro storage, hydrogen - are expensive pieces of kit and will only be required to run when the wind doesn't blow. So their capital costs will have to be recovered from the few MWh of electricity they produce, which makes that gap filling electricity very expensive. And if we want to compare intermittent wind with firm nuclear on the same basis, we have to add the cost of the gap filling to the £91/MWh ... in which case wind won't look so cheap. And that's even before we talk about the cost of the grid upgrades required for off-shore wind.

 

BTW, I strongly support decarbonisation and that renewables will play an essential role. I just like decisions to be made on the right information.

[SimonD]

1 hour ago, LnP said:

That's because the system costs don't show up

I think generally this is the problem with all types of energy - there still isn't a consistent way to assess them on a like-for-like life-cycle basis. And each side tends to provide limited or incomplete information. 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, LnP said:

their capital costs will have to be recovered from the few MWh of electricity they produce

That would be the same for (new) pumped storage though.

Pumped storage was commissioned so that nuclear does not have to throttle back at night.

So probably very expensive.

[saveasteading]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

probably very expensive.

Having been in the shaft under construction for one, it felt expensive even before any mechanical kit.

The land-rover drove us into the mountain to the man made cavern.

There may have been 2 tunnels, one for pipes and one for people.

Very James Bond.

[SteamyTea]

49 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Very James Bond

Was that Dinorwig, or that new one in Scotland?