Hinkly Point C nuclear power station is to go ahead.
So, the UK government is going to give a state owned French company working in partnership with a Chinese state owned company a subsidy to build a nuclear power station on low lying land inherently at risk of long term flooding.
If you want an example of poverty of thinking pointing to a long term disaster where none of the short term recipients of gain from this decision will carry the responsibility for sorting out the mess then this is it.
That's a fair summary for much of our energy policy though. And that's what's really worrying.
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And is it true that EDF has been guaranteed twice the market price for each unit of electricity? While we underwrite the cost of decommissioning and storing the waste.
It seems that we as the consumers are the product being sold here, as a revenue stream to the generators.
The linked Guardian article states that the guaranteed electricity sale price is twice the current wholesale price (and further is CPI indexed) – but claims that it does cover decommissioning and nuclear waste management costs.
The have come to the New Zealand government with a similar proposal.
The NZ government now wants to build a reactor in NZ, built by the Chinese, and run by the Chinese.
Power costs are going up each year. Even if Mr Miliband does freeze power for 20 months, the costs will still go up. Is it therefore possible to expect the cost of power to be a figure which is significantly more than what we pay at the moment when this starts producing power.
Should we not say that the cost of power is going to double in the next 20 years, and expect to pay that to keep the lights on and the games machines working.
To become more or less totally reliant on foreign companies to provide energy security in the UK is surely a dereliction of duty by the government to its citizens on a massive scale.
I feel particularly cross about this as my first job in the late 1960s was an engineering buyer for a West Midlands capital plant manufacturer making boiler drums for power stations and pressure vessels for oil refineries. Our industrial policy over the last 30/40 years has been a complete disaster as we have allowed excessive financialisation of our economy to displace manufacturing and continue to do so. As I have previously stated these problems stem in part from the fact that our political class is drawn for a narrow circle most of whom have never worked in the real economy. They lack the necessary experience to think outside the box and judging from the nature of the contract with EDF and the Chinese company they and their advisors lack tough negotiating skills. The Royal Mail fiasco is another example of disastrous decision-making – witness Cable’s defence of the share offer price for all kinds of spurious reasons on the basis of advice by the experts.
On a personal level, I am very pleased that last week I took the decision to have solar panels installed and my decision appears to have been vindicated by the recent announcements of electricity price increases.
I could not agree more with your first observation
And I have solar panels
Agreed. Moreover there is a school of thought now that argues for a network of much smaller, cheaper, quick to build and commission nuclear power plants to meet the increasing needs. Westminster is fixated by the biggest is best concentration of power supply dogma of the 1950’s to 1980’s arising from the input of coal or piped gas needed. There are many advantages to small and dispersed as a model for the 21st Century.
“Charles Chase describes what his team has been working on: a trailer-sized fusion power plant that turns cheap and plentiful hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) into helium plus enough energy to power a small city”
http://www.dvice.com/2013-2-22/lockheeds-skunk-works-promises-fusion-power-four-years
the world has been working on fusion for forty years. I don’t know of any working model. Do you?
This is a sad indictment of the nation that built the first commercial nuclear reactor in 1956! I’m fighting the desire to blame weak govenment and the Uk’s “City of London” centric approach for the loss of know how etc!
That price double, at todays prices, will be much less in succeeding years.
Gas is set on a 15% increase in cost, year-on-year.
Renewables, particularly wind, already cost more than gas, coal or nuclear. Nuclear costs are mainly structural, with fuel being low-cost, energy-wise.
With wind generation increasing, prices will also increase due to the guaranteed price paid to the installers (even if they are not used).
Germany, that early-adopter of green energy, is facing astonomical price increases.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/10/11/germanys-renewable-energy-subsidies-could-threaten-economic-growth/
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/policy/germany-could-face-electricity-customer-revolt
“Green policies will add 41 per cent to electricity prices by 2030 — according to the energy department’s own forecasts”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/826d345c-34e3-11e3-8148-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl&siteedition=intl&siteedition=uk (paywall)
In a few years the chinese will be operating thorium reactors instead of uranium-fuelled.
Eds promises of price freezes will never materialise, contracts signed now will cost him tens of billions to buy out of, even if he wanted to, which he won’t.
They’re all spouting hot-air, and they know it.
Mark my words: electricity will be at least 50% more expensive by 2020, and twice that by 2025.
Practically everything you could need to know is in here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223940/DECC_Electricity_Generation_Costs_for_publication_-_24_07_13.pdf
Note that while nuclear is expensive, its long life (Hinkley proposed 25, but will go to 40/50) means its costs will be lower.
“Renewables, particularly wind, already cost more than gas, coal or nuclear.”
I’m sorry, but that is bull***t!!
Really?
If the subsidy for wind-power did not exist, they could not generate electricity that would be bought. They only “sell” any because it is mandated that the power companies buy it. That is at the present cost of fossil/nuclear fuels (nuclear fuels are unlikely to increase in cost as much as fossil). So to the cost of manufacture of the units and the construction of the installation, we can add the forced purchase price the utilities have to pay to the wind turbine operators, and then the cost of connection to the grid (at cost to the bill-payer). We can also add to the cost of wind turbine operation the cost of having to run fossil fuelled generation to level-out the basic intermittency of the wind turbines. It is quite a considerable amount. Not forgetting their lack of reliability mechanically. Funnily enough, as the cost of power increases the cost of the turbines increases..because as their height of operation above ground increases the amount of steel increases, and steel production is power intensive (probably the steel will be produced in India…it’s cheaper there…not much windpower).
Anyway:
http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-WIND_POWER.pdf
Note the installed capacity UK of around 8GW…..producing an average of around 2.5GW, but still being paid for…. ?
So apart from the problem of them producing an average of only 28% of plate capacity (while fossil power stations manage over 80%), the nature of their power generated means it is basically useless without other generators to fill-in when wind drops off the grid. I note that at this time wind is contributing 3.5GW, up from 1.5GW at 0600z. Reliable. Not.
Anybody that says renewables cost more than nuclear, coal and gas is looking at seriously skewed figures.
For a start, renawables such as solar panels and wind turbines, after manufacture and installation, the running costs are zero! They are powered by the elements which are free. Nobody has to be employed to ship coal or put coal into a furnace or put fuel rods onto water to generate electricity. The cost of manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels and such is dropping with each passing year. The only reason nuclear power was apparently regarded as cheap in the past is because it received massive government subsidies. Nuclear energy, in particular the disposal of nuclear waste is hugely expensive; an expense that is borne by the taxpayer.
The government, rather than spend money to manufacture wind turbines in this country, chooses to import them instead. True, there will be expense in research and development of renewables, that is inevitable, but they will more than pay that expense back in cheap, sustainable electricity. With renewables, there is no real externalities to be passed onto the taxpayer either, such as clearing up and redeveloping old open cast mines or cleaning up pollution from oil spills or the cost to the ozone layer from gas.
Something to consider; if every south-facing property was fitted with solar panels, that could provide 30 percent of our energy needs. Then there is the power of tides and geo-thermal to consider, too.
When much of Europe is largely turning away from nuclear, it makes no sense for us to invest in a dirty, monumentally expensive and potentially unstable form of power as nuclear.
Also, solar panels put electricity back into the grid. It makes sense to strongly invest in the technology of renewable energy.
You are thinking literally, not laterally.
For a start, your solar panels do not put anything into the grid. You are confusing using your own electricity,and taking some of the strain off the network, with being a power station for others. Somewhere along the line you come face-to-face with a transformer….your power will not go any further than that. And there are other considerations with that system..such as balancing the load.
If you are using the various subsidies provided, you are raising others bills to lower your own.
Your system is providing power only when provided with light, after that it is draining power from its batteries (if you used the power as it was being produced and the batteries were not charged, then they will charge off the grid). All the renewables require the baseline generators running to fill-in the blanks when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, or the tide isn’t. And that is the factor you are missing in your “renewables are cheap”…factor ALL the conditions in, and cheap they are not. Don’t forget, the wind generators produce energy at more than twice the cost from even the most expensive fossil-fuelled plant. In fact, about the same cost as that from large diesel plant (which we are using as part of the STOR).
Wind. Planned 25 year life. Real world, about 10, if that.
Large coal, about 40 years.
Gas, about the same.
Nuclear, planned 25, but likely to be 40. (Rolls-Royce has a nuclear generator running in Derby, and has for over 20 years).
As fossil gets more expensive you would have thought that renewables get cheaper, but in this interconnected world that is unlikely. and unless a means of storing very large amounts of electricity from renewable comes onstream, we will still need the large generators fuelled by gas/coal/nuclear. But that mean another investment of tens of billions, which, in this economic climate, is unlikely. and given that the wise money says that the economy, worlwide, is going for catastrophice meltdown anytime soon….
Check your solar actually works with no grid power….many are grid-cconnected and do not work with no grid power!
I forgot. Factor in the amount of the energy bill that is added-on to provide the subsidy for renewables generators.
It isn’t small either, some 9% to each of electricity and gas bills.
Don’t forget, this winter we are ok…just…next winter we will have a reduction of 10+ GW from coal plant closure….on paper we won’t have enough from home plant, and will rely on the interconnectors for 3GW….so that will be “demand side planning” then….power cuts..We have another 2-3GW of new gas plant coming along next year as well….tighter and tighter.
But we are approaching the advent of nuclear fusion generation…..which will render most other generation redundant. Lockheed reckons they will have such plant working by 2017….India/China are going thorium fission reactors….meanwhile fracking for gas had had a large spanner thrown in the works by the EU who reckon they are going to legislate it into non-existence. Oh well, the EU is also going to be that soon..
I notice yet again hardly a word about the massive cost of nuclear power, or for that matter, the huge cost of externalities caused by gas and coal. In fact, much of the “green” costs that companies have to pay is for these companies to clean up their act, not to pay for renewables.
I don’t know where you got your statistic that wind turbines only last 10 to 15 years! Even if that were true (which I doubt) they are quite easily replaced. And solar panels do put spare capacity effectively back into the grid.
And when did the sun not shine and the waves stop going in and out? I must have missed this highly unusual phenomenon being reported on the news. Your point about the wind is rather silly too.
The actions that create the electricity, the motion of the turbines in the wind and the motion of the waves are provided free and gratis. Nuclear, gas and coal are not. This is passed on to the price at the power stations.
There is no cost to create this electricity and little to no externalities to consider! Therefore, green electricity is much the cheaper option.
Tide: Severn barrage. Cost in excess of 34 billion. Massive environmental damage. Fortunately, not going ahead.
Wind turbines, several hundred thousand bird deaths.
How many wind turbines to replace a power station ?
To replace, reliably, the new Hinkley point 3.6GW would need, at 100% of nameplate capacity, some 3000 (since they only manage an average of 28%, multiply by four).
Irrelevant anyway, the government, any government (except a fully green one) will never build one hundred thousand wind generators…not onshore anyway…they are meeting massive resistance from those living nearby..property values don’t you know
The current price paid for gas/coal is £44/MWH, for the proposed new nuclear £96/MWH, for offshore wind £155/MWH, for onshore wind £100/MWH.
Wind will not keep the power flowing, without reliable generation to fill-in the periods it does not blow, blow enough, or blow too much. So the cost of that needed back-up is factored into the calculation/s.
And where is your consideration of externalities?
“And where is your consideration of externalities?”
Apologies, Richard, but are you referring to me or JohnM here?
John M
I will have to take your word about the environmental damage that would have been caused by a project that never left the drawing board, as opposed to the monstrosity that is the Sellafield nuclear power station (being decommissioned?) slap bang in the middle of one of the best areas of outstanding natural beauty on earth.
I concede that offshore wind farms are expensive in comparison to fossil fuels, but that is probably because it receives a tenth of the subsidy of fossil fuels. Also, wind power is not taxpayer subsidised. Any fuel can be cheap if it receives enough subsidy. Despite this, prices are falling all the time. They provide clean energy around 75 percent of the time. As development costs fall, there is little doubt that renewables will eventually be amongst the cheapest forms of energy around.
They would be now if the government properly subsidised the cost. And renewable energy condists of more than just wind farms; as discussed, there is solar panels, wave power and possibly geo-thermal.
Properly subsidised through the development phase, as fossil fuels are, renewables would provide clean, efficient electricity as the price inevitably falls!
Renewables are publicly subsidised through the energy bills.
The bbc, chosen because it cannot be said to be right-wing, has a page on “it”:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24238708 (“green levy”)
I’m all for replacing fossil with another source…not wind…
From another site (right-wind-green-scorning):
“We currently get about 18 % of our power from nuclear power stations. Fifteen of our sixteen reactors will be closed by 2023, leaving just Sizewell B operating. Sizewell B provides about 2% of our energy and the new Hinkley Point reactor will provide about another 7%. So, when Hinkley Point is running in 10 or 11 years time, we’ll get just 9% of our power from nuclear. That’s half of what we get at the moment and doesn’t look to me like, as Porritt claimed, “the Government has put all its eggs in the nuclear basket”. Can Porritt not do simple arithmetic? Doesn’t he realise that 9% is half of 18%? Or was he just exaggerating to make a point? Or was he deliberately lying, hoping that none of the listeners would have the time or energy to get the real facts? Who knows? But this does suggest we can’t trust some of the things the great Greenie says”
Not to worry….although I point out that if wind is cheaper, then the offshore guys are creaming it @ £155/MWH.
And solar @ £125 (but then the solar people are creaming it from those who do not/cannot have solar installed, who are paying the solar subsidy from their bills…)
I’d like to also point-out that the extinction of homo-sapiens has already started, birth rates through the “developed” world have fallen below subsistence levels. The indigenous population of the UK are not contributing to the population growth. As much as the green party considers that 13 million is the maximum population that the UK can support, it is not a population that can thrive. An ageing population is a dying population.
I consider externalities Richard. I’m just considering the externality of HS extinction is a maximum of 1500-2500 years, if that.
Consider the possibility of war. High at the moment. Getting higher all the time the failing world economic system continues to fail. We can look at the middle east, where nuclear conflict gets closer all the time. Somehow, wind power seems so low class in consideration?
Through energy bills, yes, probably deliberately so to make green energy unpopular, but not taxpayer subsidies. Wind power is subsidised through consumer bills at a tenth of the subsidy fossil fuels get! Conveniently, you don’t take this into consideration. You know full well that nuclear power is massively expensive and, without large taxpayer subsidies, consumer bills would be massively expensive. Fossil fuels like coal and oil are also taxpayer subsidised. Taking this into consideration, which is really the most expensive option?
This is to say nothing of the clean up costs from oil spills, opencast mining and pollution from gas, which, incidently, part of these “green” subsidies are paid for exactly that, to get companies to pollute less. Often, much of this cost is also passed onto the taxpayer or consumer in one form or another.
Green renewable energy gets little consideration simply because the fossil fuel monopoly want to keep their profits and that the right wing are simply ideologically opposed to renewables. The fossil fuel lobby have more money to throw around and are much more vocal.
As I have said before, any fuel can be cheap if it is subsidised enough. Nuclear energy is hideously expensive, there are massive disposal problems and other external factors, yet you conveniently ignore these important facts when describing the cost.
When these are considered, it becomes clear which power is the truly most expensive. Nice try, but no cigar, JohnM.