As the Guardian notes this morning:
Is there no bad policy that Starmer will not now endorse?
Nuclear is inherently dirty. It leaves waste behind for thousands of years.
It is also potentially dangerous. Much of it just happens to be located on sites likely to be below sea-level within 100 years. Goo luck keeping them safe.
And it is expensive to build with dire rates of return and requires massive subsidy, when it then becomes the most expensive part of consumer energy supply.
So Starmer says it is a good idea. Obviously.
I despair.
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I’ve said on here before that I despair of the Labour Party and everything Starmer says confirms that feeling. Clean wind/solar/tidal? No, we’ll go for the dirty option. I’m surprised he’s not recommending coal and oil. Where do we go for a decent opposition that stands a chance of forming a government?
Curiously there are a number of power stations below sea level already, but not beneath the sea.
It’s mainly down to hard work and engineering and not to luck.
First, you’re trolling
Second, I refer to Canute
You can win for a while
Canute was about tides, not sea level rises.
But what kind of world do you want to live in where you sit on a committee, pronounce on rising sea levels using an unrealistic number (4-5mm a year over a life cycle of 60 years perhaps for a nuke, double it if you like is more realistic), declare it can’t be solved without luck so can’t be done?
That’s not giving the engineers a fair go to solve things.
Idiots like you will be our ruin
Which nuclear power plant is safe yet?
Answer – none
Richard,
And don’t forget some historians say Canute tried to hold back the sea to demonstrate the stupidity and sycophancy of some of his advisors, who were claiming it could be done by so great a King as Canute.
🙂
Join the club. Regardless of one’s view of the Corbyn era, at least they thought out and costed many necessary changes to this country. the question now is whether this is a dunce club or a coup that turned a left-of-centre party into a neoliberal wet dream (or worse).
It is clear that rising sea levels are inevitable now because the ‘international community’ ie the monopoly energy corporations are refusing to counternance any reduction in fossil fuel extraction ans burning that needs to be drastically reduced in the next 5 years to prevent the runaway global warmng that is happening already. Therefore the new UK nuclear power stations of Hinkley and Sizewell and any others which have to rely on sea water cooling will be vulnerable as the Japanese found in Fukashima disaster of high tides . Hinkley will take another 5 – 10 years to get on stream and Sizewell is not yet off the drawing board so will be a t least 10 – 15 years be before operation. The massive capital requirments needed for nuclear if invested in renewable energy and large scale insulation programmes is the only energy option leaving any remote chance of climate mitigation. Its a no brainer really and either Starmer or his advisers are severely lacking in that department or have had their arms twisted by unions involved in the nuclear industry.
The last are very powerful, as I know from my time working with the TUC
In my very amateur opinion, we could power the UK with renewables plus interconnectors.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
We know offshore wind is cheap and effective and we’re looking to install 50GW capacity in the next decade. We should be looking to do 200GW when floating technology comes on stream.
In other examples, I read recently on the BBC that there is a fairly easy 11GW capacity to be had by covering the nations carparks in solar panels.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65626371
It’s a bit far out, but I also read that redundant North Sea oil wells could be a great source of geothermal energy.
We should be building huge glasshouses like they have done in the Netherlands, powered by renewables to ensure our food security:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming
The issue we’re going to have is storing all this renewable energy. Europe will buy this cheap and abundant clean energy from us (the UK as a future net energy exporter?), but we also need storage solutions. Everything from pumped hydro, to compressed air, to batteries (inc cars), hydrogen and everything in between.
None of this is as complex as building a nuclear power station. It’s all comparatively simple technology. There’s nothing new to be invented or designed.
This should be the UK’s Manhattan Project. The Government should be throwing everything at it.
I worry that our policy options always seem to be based on the single premise “There is only one way”. When energy only came from burning coal, centralised big power stations was a better solution than disseminated generation. But throughout history humans have survived based on localised distributed energy production and use. All the talk of wind farms is replacing a centralised power station with another. We need a change in mind set, reorganising the deck chairs won’t help future generations. Why do we keep doing the same thing, and expect a different outcome?
I think you answer your own question – centralisation. State/monopoly control of life’s essentials is the wet dream of politicians and corporates the world over.
We have a small PV on an office roof installed with panels facing East and West. Output logs show that the match of PV output to usage pattern during the day is remarkably good, which means that what can be generated is used most efficiently and minimises any demand on grid infrastructure. There are a lot of “empty” roofs. Rather than looking first at industrial scale centralised plant, we should be working to get every usable roof PV fitted, preferably where the power can be used on site. Distributed generation gives a resilient system and solar PV maintenance is negligible. There are no disposal / recycling issues remotely comparable with radioactive material. Snags – no one is going to get super rich by blagging a handful of big contracts, and I guess that internal generation and use (outside of something like a FIT payment scheme) may not even be counted GDP, and consequently dismissed as valueless or worse.
….tidal has already been mentioned for baseload and there appears to be some potential in wave power.
One thing that falls under the car park solar / low hanging fruit category is repowering older windfarms:
‘Europe’s first generation wind farms are getting old. 38 GW of onshore wind capacity is reaching the end of its normal operational life of 20 years between now and 2025. When they reach 20 years, there are three options: lifetime extension, decommissioning or repowering.
Repowering a wind farm means replacing the old turbines by more powerful and efficient models that use the latest technology. On average repowering more than doubles the generation capacity (in MW) of a wind farms and triples the electricity output because the new turbines produce more power per unit of capacity. And it achieves this while reducing the number of turbines on average by 27%. We expect more than 20 GW of onshore wind farms will be repowered in the next 10 years.
Repowering is an especially effective and important thing to do because Europe’s oldest (and by definition least efficient) wind farms are located in places which have the best wind conditions – because that’s where people naturally tended to build the first wind farms. Turbines with the latest technology can generate much more electricity here.’
https://windeurope.org/newsroom/news/repowered-wind-farms-show-huge-potential-of-replacing-old-turbines/
In the UK, Octopus is busy upgrading 1000 older turbines
https://octopus.energy/blog/repowering-1000-wind-turbines/
…and theyve found that almost all communities are supportive of what they do. So double the power, less turbines to do it, existing connections and infrastructure and a bit less gas used with every turbine refurbished.
Thanks
We need an analysis of the employment implications of nuclear (including health risks/outcomes) vis-a-vis renewables.
The quality of the work, its sustainability and earnings are all relevant. Big Construction will always have its supporters because of the high earnings.
Let’s say that it costs £5m (your estimate?) to train and initially employ a nuclear worker. How much for a renewable energy worker? £100 000? A multiple of at least 20 is at least plausible.
So, for the same investment, 20 renewable workers for one nuclear worker… If only the former were unionised, it would be a large union! If governments wanted to employ large numbers (heaven forfend!), what would be best?
We should also note the role that nuclear consultants and their firms play in their opaque lobbying of governments.
Both main parties darent question nuclear – it wouldbe a bit like teenagers in the sixties calling each other ‘gay’ – its the core of their masculinity.
Also lots of subterranean links to UK as a military ‘nuclear power’. ‘Too cheap to meter’ was the cry in the fiftes/sixtiess when we were building our own nuclear industry – . Of course now we havent got one – ant this EPR at Hinkley has taken up to or more than 15 years to become evn paritally ooperational in France and Finland
The economics are going further and further away from nuclear – needs billions of public subsidy – the proposed new stations will probably wither on the vine – Sizewell is nowhere near yet.
But it’s the antitheses of being a potential governing party – not even to examine the economics – the options – knowing we have less and less time to get clean power.
I was talking to somebody from Rolls-Royce the other day. Nice person. I remarked that I was confident that small modular reactors were safe and that given this, perhaps it would be a great idea to put the first one underneath the Houses of Parliament to provide both heat and power. She smiled.
Both vile-Libeore and the vile-tories are keen on markets. That being the case, why not let markets decide. Hold tech-neutral auctions for capacity. Of course there are those that would argue that PV and wind are not “firm” capacity. Quite true. But let’s consider this: it’s summer, a bright summers day the Uk has a demand of perhaps 25GW and PV on its own has an installed base of circa 16GW (now). We cannot easily “stop” nuclear reactors, do we boot-off all the PV and wind so the nukes have space? Really?
As for this statement: ““My government will lower household energy bills, create jobs and ensure Britain’s energy security. Nuclear is a critical part of the UK’s energy mix,” Hmm, I believe that the LCOE for Hinkley Pointless is circa £120/MWh (++). LCOEs for on-shore wind are £30/MWh and ground mount PV @ £70/MWh. Yes, neither is “dispatchable” but linking nuclear with “lowering households energy bills” suggests an interesting detachement from reality. I suspect some unions have been whispering in Keiths ear.
My understanding is that the prototype thorium reactor of the late ’40s and ’50s was powered down every Friday afternoon and up again every Monday morning. The medium for the reaction was liquid salts in two chambers, one inside the other. The salt was allowed to run out into a settling vessel and solidified. Then re-melted and pumped back into its reaction vessel to restart the reaction. The experiment was discontinued partly because they had a problem of corrosion and partly because the residues were not conducive to being made into weapons.
It is not possible to maintain 11 nuclear submarines, 4 of which carry our ‘deterrent’, without a civil nuclear power industry.
That is the reason Starmer appears to defy the arithmetic of economic power generation. Nothing to do with keeping the lights on, all about retaining our power to commit genocide.
I would wholeheartedly welcome a discussion as to the true cost of the ‘deterrent’, whether our conscience would ever allow us to use it anyway, and whether the considerable funds could be reinvested into something with a potential positive legacy instead. Alas, I can’t recall the last time a politician with any likelihood of genuine power so much as raised the topic…
Corbyn did. Look what happened to him.
In Scotland, the government knows this.
Some years ago, I remember hearing about some scientific studies that shows the result of energy accounting done over many years, covering uranium mining, building the power station, decommissioning after 30years or so, then the energy input of looking after the waste for the next few hundred years (40 years ago, they said they would solve the waste problem, but they still haven’t). The result was that nuclear energy is actually an energy sink, which makes the whole thing pointless. It has been suggested that it is only in existence to produce bomb making material.
Has anyone else come across these studies?
In answer to davidn’s point, in Canada the are successfully storing heat underground. See Drakelanding on google
I am certain that accounting is right
Perhaps this is why Labour will be given its spot in the sun – to get the nuclear reactor built?
Dire.
Prof of theoretical nuclear physics Lord Flowers – headed the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and in the late 1970’s recommended no more nuclear until the waste issue had been solved.
He was right
One thing that has occurred to me about the utter uselessness of both the Tories and Laboured is that I wonder if they are addicted to austerity and new ideas because they expect to go to war in the near future?
Could Laboured’s conversion to nuclear be about depleted uranium rounds and other weaponised atomics?
I’d love to see what rhubarb the political advisors are pouring into the ears people like Stymied?
Conventional thermal stations were always lower on the listings of ‘First to Run’, we found out that we had a ‘Sink’ fund to de-commission the plant as a rate per MWhr, derived from the predicted yearly load and the build cost.
Nuclear stations had No such ‘Sink’ fund as the cost could not be predicted.
Result was they always were first to be run.
Conventional thermal stations have a limit of efficiency of 40%, that means 60% of the energy from the fuel is dumped into the heat sink, the Sea or River.
Last summer the French nuclears had to be de-rated due to the low water levels in the rivers causing a rise in condenser feed water temperature and lack of flow.
The nuclears generated electricity to dump the heat of the fission process of producing plutonium, along with dump into the environment.
I’m no fan of the Labour leadership but to discuss the pros and cons of options for energy going forward, it’s vital to begin dealing with the reality of energy use & different sources. Simon MIchaux is one of the best experts on this. His insights are extremely confronting. It’s not practical to say, nuclear bad because it’s dangerous and dirty – it exists. Michaux in one talk (with Nate Hagens) explored the possible comparative benefits of thorium (vs uranium) molten salt reactors – China’s just opened its first: https://min.news/en/tech/30bdf6748162428883857d361132e177.html
Perhaps more critically, Michaux’s and others’ work shows that we’re on a cliff with not much, if any, margin left to avoid collapse unless we make abrupt changes. Here’s one summary of some of his thinking/calculations: https://rptrimbathjr.substack.com/p/do-we-have-a-realistic-plan-to-convert
And here’s another podcast with Prof Murphy’s friend Prof Keen and another expert materials scientist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txnJgg06tWU&ab_channel=ProfSteveKeen
Our politics is still palaeolithic, sadly.
If we ever get fusion working then that might solve all of or energy problems but fusion is a very bad option: it takes many years to build and commission and the construction requires a lot of concrete that results in carbon emissions. By the time we have enough new reactors we will have passed the climate point of no return.
Is it at all possible that Starmer just keeps announcing stupid stuff because he thinks that will get him elected but will then ditch the manifesto and demonstrate that he really did understand economics after all and implement radical policies and fix all of our real problems?
I think he believes the stupid stuff
I am sure you are right.
I also wanted to correct my stupid mistake. I meant to say that fusion could be the answer but FISSION takes too long and a lot of carbon is released making the concrete required.
That does make more sense
@ Richard,
You’ll know that I’m no supporter of Starmer, who’s a political weathervane and neoliberal to the core, but on the issue of nuclear power there are some advocates who do know much more about the issues involved.
Dr James Hansen, a former NASA climate scientist with impeccable credentials and track record on sounding the warning about GHG emissions, makes the case with others in the linked article that we don’t have any choice other than to go nuclear if we want to prevent the rising sea levels which you mention in your OP.
James Hansen would take issue with your comment that nuclear power is the worst choice. There’s no ideal and totally risk free option. Nuclear power in the UK, USA and USSR was always about providing the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Corners were cut. Safety standards were lax in the early days which has tarnished the reputation of the nuclear industry. This is changing. The mini reactors, for example, being designed by Rolls Royce are designed to be both safe and commercially viable. In the longer term we can expect the development of fusion reactors which will potentially be the ultimate solution but we do need an interim solution too.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
Pick your expert
As you will know, there are many who utterly disagree with this
And until you can answer the question ‘what do you do about the waste?’ in my opinion anyone arguing for nuclear is recklessly irresponsible.
@ Richard,
There are potential technical solutions. This article discusses some of them. Parts of Australia are geologically ultra stable and could be as good as anywhere for long term storage. It’s not a hypothetical problem. There is a huge mess to clear up at Sellafield, largely thanks to the rush to build nuclear weapons, even if no more nuclear reactors are constructed.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/what-should-we-do-with-radioactive-nuclear-waste
But in 70 years the best you can say is ‘maybe Australia’.
I guarantee they won’t do it. Why should they? They have almost no nuclear exposure.
Try again.
@ Richard,
I didn’t say “Maybe Australia”. The most stable geological region on Earth, somewhat surprisingly, is the Kibi Plateau in Japan. You can Google that for verification. Japan does have a nuclear exposure.
Of course we don’t have to choose the most stable region. Sufficiently stable is enough. There’s no shortage of those.
We’re going to have to find somewhere to permanently store the nuclear waste that has accumulated in Sellafield. There is no real technical problem. The big problem will be social acceptance, even though whichever area is chosen will likely end up as a nature reserve.
So the big problem is the unacceptability of managing nuclear waste near anyone
I rest my case
You have no solution
So nuclear is not an option
“Safety standards were lax in the early days which has tarnished the reputation of the nuclear industry.”
Chernobyl was little to do with safety standards and everything to do with human failings.
Parking that to one side – nuclear is expensive when compared to other much lower impact tech – such as PV & wind. Arguably, off-shore wind will restore the sea-bed (no more trawlers). PV can be comboed with agriculture – happening now. I would never argue “don’t do nuclear” – but the alternatives seem to me more “interesting” more flexibile and more scalable.
@ Richard,
If I don’t have a solution then neither do you.
The renewables have their place but at best they are only a partial solution for most countries in Europe. The exceptions will be those which are sparsely populated and which theoretically could survive on a combination of hydro, wind and solar. Hydro isn’t going to be enough when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
The only remaining practical options for most of us are to use nuclear power or to carry on destroying the environment by burning fossil fuels. This, in a nutshell, is the basis of Dr James Hansen’s argument. One other, but none practical, option is to try to persuade everyone to revert to a pre-industrial lifestyle. No cars, no central heating, no electricity, no flying off to foreign parts for holidays etc. Good luck with trying to persuade even the greenest of us to choose that one!
Sorry – I have a scientific solution that is declared to be workable and is official policy
It is renewables – and your claims are pure nonsense within the net zero framework so shall we get real?
So, shall we do it?
And might you stop posting nonsense?
With regard to your comments about Australia, both Australia and New Zealand are laughing at our government for their non- trade deals to replace those with the EU. Somehow I don’t think Australia will be wanting Sellafield’s nuclear waste no matter how much our government pays them.
You are right Jen
In response NeilW’s dual point about “nuclear & TINA” and “otherwise we all end up living in tents/huts” (I’m extemporising a bit).
The EU uses about 18,000TWh per year of energy – that covers everything & all energy inputs, oil, gas, nuke, etc etc. & all end use.
Energy efficiency measures (via electrification) could reduce this to circa 12,000TWh.
On-shore and off-shore wind resource in the EU is around 25,000 TWh, PV is certainly north of 10,000TWh – just for roofs. Not bad and this ignores hydro (mostly exploited) and biomass/gas. So nope, no lack of energy & no need to live in a tent/hut.
It takes about 9 months – start to finish to build 1GW of off-shore wind (start point is kit on the quay – end point commissioned and running). Orsted did this in the middle of Covid BTW. Renewables can go up real fast. Remind me how Hinkley is going.
Not against nukes – but parking the waste problem – they take far too long to build and we don’t have that sort of time. You could even park the cost argument (RES is much lower in cost vs nukes) on the basis of what price a planet. But time is of the essence and RES can be built real quick.
For the avoidance of doubt – I’m not offering points of view – the above are facts.
Thanks Mike
It’s interesting that many of the more optimistic assessments on the possibilities of the renewables include the nuclear component.
For example we have this from ‘national grid’ :
“In 2019, zero-carbon electricity production overtook fossil fuels for the first time, while on 17 August *renewable* generation hit the highest share ever at 85.1% (wind 39%, solar 25%, nuclear 20% and hydro 1%)”
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/how-much-uks-energy-renewable
Presumably the 17/08/2019 was both a sunny and windy day. What about the days that weren’t? There’s no mention of biomass in this sentence but later the article gives a figure of 5% for biomass. This may be carbon neutral in the long term but in the short term it means felling trees in Canada, which are then burnt and emit just as much CO2, if not more than burning fossil fuels.
So we do need to understand what is meant by such terms as ‘renewable’ and ‘carbon neural’. Even words like ‘viable’ and ‘feasible’ are open to interpretation and aren’t necessarily synonymous.
@ Mike,
On the question of what’s safe we do have some statistics. Surprisingly wind comes out to be slightly worse than nuclear. This is even with Chernobyl and other major disasters included. Maybe this is due to accidents on the construction and maintenance of wind turbines? It’s not much fun working in a harness , dangling from a rope several hundred feet off the ground. Even fixing solar panels to sloping roofs can be hazardous. I’d take a safer job in a modern nuclear power plant any day!
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Talk about small world view.
The National Grid is hardly objective. If you can’t see that Neil you need to get some polutcial education.
Abnd yout totally micro-focussed perception of risk in energy production is staggering. You are shooting your credibility to bits whilst commenting here.
I will continue to read your interesting blogs and Mastodon input, but your anti-Starmer position is becoming tiresome.
On his nuclear inclusion plan, what are your alternatives, other than those Starmer also includes in his green energy planning? He will maintain existing North Sea contracts and acknowledges the necessity of nuclear in the same pragmatic approach. I believe Starmer is a realist and boy, have we needed one over the last interminable Tory crises!
Go and read the science
Starmer is not
So I will be tiresome
I think you’ll find there are a lot on here who are anti-Starmer, and who don’t agree with his nuclear stance.
You do realise that Putin thinks we are fair game because of our support for Ukraine, don’t you?
I am reading a book by Michael Rosen called Getting Better. He went on the first Aldermaston march at the age of 14, against his parents wishes. If people like him hadn’tt and hadn’t tried to change things from 1961, would we still be having this discussion? Or would we have been taken over by nuclear power and weapons?
I’d prefer the discussions.
Some recent studies for the UK looking at high or 100% renewables:
– Christian Breyer, et al [2023] 100% renewable energy Net Zero plan. LUT University, Finland for 100% Renewable UK Ltd
https://100percentrenewableuk.org/new-report-shows-100bn-savings-with-100-renewable-energy-net-zero-plan
– Mark Barrett [2022] A 100% renewable UK with a focus on heat (webinar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4-ipOnH8X4
Perfectly feasible, not easy… granted, but no more costly and a lot safer than the current nuclear trajectory.
For those unconvinced about the flood risk of UK coastal nuclear see :
Office for Nuclear Regulation [2022] NS-TAST-GD-013 Annex 3 Reference Paper: Analysis of Coastal Flood Hazards for Nuclear Sites
https://www.onr.org.uk/operational/tech_asst_guides/ns-tast-gd-013-annex-3-reference-paper.docx
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/07/uk-nuclear-risk-flooding
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/are-coastal-nuclear-power-plants-ready-for-sea-level-rise/
Appreciated
Thank you
John Daglish, I spent a couple of hours this afternoon reading lots of links on your first link about renewables. Lots of brilliant information and we need to get it out more, particularly to those who think nuclear is the answer.
Talking about preferring the discussions, here’s Dale Vince with a bit of common sense about renewables and Starmer’s stance on nuclear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d-98u4EZk
It’s always useful to read such responses and we all have our political views and can read the science of course. But scientists’ views, as with economists’ views, are often expressed in a political context. As are my own of course.
Hearing views alternative to one’s own is what education is all about. Most of the academics I’ve listened to in lectures and know privately, understand those challenges and welcome them.
NeilW, I looked at your safety data link.
I think the difference between 0.04 and 0,03 deaths per terawatt is hardly significant.
I watched a series with Guy Martin, his Great British Power Trip, and he discovered that the only place where there had never been anyone killed was when checking the pylon grid. That’s a fact about safety that I remember.
He did actually help build a nuclear power station. He also spent months doing safety training to go on off-shore wind turbines, and he couldn’t go until he’d passed.
@ Jen,
I agree that the safety differences given, in the link provided, between solar, wind and nuclear aren’t at all significant. They are all approximately the same. I was surprised myself at how well nuclear came out of it all. The figures that are significant are the deaths from pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels for electricity production which are three orders of magnitude higher. If we add the deaths caused by traffic fumes from burning hydrocarbon fumes in cities we could probably add another order of magnitude on to these figures. None of these figures include deaths from induced climate change. Add another order of magnitude for that.
So when Richard says I’m taking too narrow a view, he’s right – but if we include all the factors the case for doing what it takes to stop burning fossil fuels is even more compelling.
This is the important step we have to take. Whether we do it with or without the use of nuclear power is somewhat of a secondary issue. The question is if whether or not this enables us to do this more quickly and also gives us a better chance of success.
@Jen I’m no expert on energy sources but I do believe that it’s likely to be necessary to maintain sufficient conventional energy sources, including nuclear, until the UK has developed substantial green options for a switch away from nuclear and even the contracted North Sea options for example. I that’s the way Starmer is thinking, he may be on a realistic right track.
I should add that I am a Labour Party Member and believe that Starmer has a socialist outlook, mitigated only by his pragmatism. He has a long view and I’d rather have that than the short termism that has blunted the UK’s development for far too long: “sticking plaster” politics, as Starmer says.
But as Mike Parr makes clear, the switch could be quick.
It is claimed otherwise and feet are being dragged using the excuse we need fossil fuels and nuclear. We don’t need them. We need to replace them asap.