The FT has just published this in an email:
With Hinckley Point also in doubt, the UK's future energy policy is in tatters: the nuclear option is dead because it is technically and financially not feasible.
If ever there was a moment for us to be focussing on what is important in politics to announce a Green New Deal to solve this problem this would be it.
Instead we have Brexit stupidity.
The opportunity cost of our political paralysis is staggering. And one day we will deeply rue it.
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Hinkley Pointless may yet stagger on for some years. The UK construction industry (a significant Tory party doner) benefits from the project and thus HMMG (Her majesty May ‘s government) will probably keep it going. There is also the belief within HMMG that UK nuclear expertise needs to be sustained mostly for military purposes – thus the reactor. From an econonmic or indeed power systems point of view the project is as the second word of this post suggests “Pointless”. However, we are in the realm of belief systems & so, like this gov, it staggers on. Hitachi was probably wise to cut its losses. That said, there is now a nice double circuit 400kV line from Angelsey to Connors Quay super-grid site that is looking for load. The waters around Angelsey are both windy and shallow. A great places for a couple of GW of off-shore wind. Something to be funded by the Green New deal?
Followers of this blog will understand that the main problem in getting these projects realised is the current ideology-driven insistence that they be privately financed. A “Courageous State” would take responsibility for provision of a secure, sustainable energy supply for the country and fund it directly at much reduced cost.
Without nuclear plants we will be reliant for base-load capacity on fossil fuelled generation, increasingly supplied from other countries over whose CO2 emission policies we have no influence.
James Lovelock, who was one of the first to warn of global warming, and one of the first proponents of a green, sustainable economy, was a supporter of nuclear energy, which he saw as a vital way of avoiding the burning of fossil fuels. His view was that the association of nuclear power with weapons had caused excessive fear of radio-activity and that the radio-active waste issue had been massively overblown.
I think nuclear power should be included in the Green New Deal.
@ A. Pessimist,
How are things going in 1986? Here in 2019 we find that nuclear power is no longer cost-effective regardless of its merits and dangers ($148 per megawatt hour) and that renewable energy like solar ($50 per megawatt hour) is stored in batteries of both household and industrial scale.
Those cost estimates are for North America but they would be much the same elsewhere. FYI they include both fixed and variable costs which, to cut a long story short, means that some existing nuclear plants may remain viable for a while but nobody will be building new ones in the future because they would lose money on them.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/solar-power-cost-decrease-2018-5
https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-can-teslas-giant-south-australian-battery-achieve-80738
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-06/tesla-battery-outperforms-coal-and-gas/9625726
https://www.ecowatch.com/hyundai-tesla-worlds-largest-battery-2622468655.html
The concept of “base load” is becoming/is somewhat dated in an era when there are increasing amounts of embedded generation at various network levels including LV (low voltage). Taking a rather simple example: it is not difficult to model over one year a household PV system plus storage (the data for PV output is readily available). The household (HH) mostly dissapears from the system between April and October because the combo of batt plus PV delivers almost all the elec the HH needs. In winter the batt can store low cost “off-peak elec’ for use during the 1600 – 2100hrs peak period. The HH is around 60% elec independent. It is conceiveable that UK summer load in such circumstances would drop well below 20GW. Nuclear stations have some ability to cycle although this is limited by, as you probably know, by “neutron poisoning” – they can be characterised as on – or off generation sources. This sits in contrast to a system where more flexibility – with respect to geenration, is needed. Had the UK used its nuclear leadership in the 1950s and 1960s it would, instead of building coal stations have built nuclear. However, miners needed jobs and the rest is history. Nuclear has been overtaken by events.
Marco, all interesting stuff, and very positive if you live in the right part of the world. I live in North Yorkshire, where the sun shines occasionally, and sometimes the wind is a bit strong.
And Mike, we can’t even get our housing stock and industrial buildings up to a reasonable level of insulation. Fitting them out with PV panels and storage batteries will be quite a task (but yes, worthwhile). I’ve got PV and I looked into batteries – they need a lot of space and would never repay the expenditure on any conventional understanding (although I personally might choose to subsidise them!)
That is what the GND is all about
A great many people have already moved to wood burning stoves. Sadly, very few do not know that there are major differences in the kind of woods that are best for this. Also, many mindful of the savings to be made are buying the remains of chemically treated woods from rubbish collectors to be had cheaply. It takes only a small number of these stoves to pollute the air for a square mile around. Also, some of them go round telling people that they are being “Green”.
“Wood-burning stove regulations set to be tightened. … Almost 40 per cent of harmful “particulate matter” emitted in the UK comes from the burning of wood and coal in homes, according to the government – more than double the amount from diesel cars. About 2.5m homes are estimated to use a solid-fuel fire or stove”
https://www.ft.com/content/0e367636-a205-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4
Not looking so good…
That is pretty staggering
And it is 8% of homes creating this….
” harmful “particulate matter”
Is not a measure of CO2 / Greenhouse gases or of harmful emissions generally. Most harmful emissions come from cars and industry. Particulate matter is but one of several categories of air pollution with the main ones being:
sulphur dioxide (SO2),
nitrogen oxides (NOx),
ozone (O3),
particulate matter (small suspended particles of varying sizes),
carbon monoxide (CO)
and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Greenhouse gases are a separate category. Not that any of that info is much of a consolation really
https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution
“Subsidies of up to £1billion given to firms for burning wood in power stations could be axed – as critics argue it creates same CO2 as coal” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6592299/Subsidies-1billion-given-firms-burning-wood-power-stations-axed.html
http://www.iter.org There is a future …..
I have to agree that the end of Nuclear power is neigh, despite many nations increasing reactor growth and an equal number placing it on a back burner the concept of Nuclear power leading future energy generation for the world has a short and limited future. Within the UK and more of a “Dead Parrot”, if you consider Nuke power’s recent political management within the UK, really just one of “those” projects where potential suppliers could contribute to Conservative party funding and receive a contact and develop a destined to fail power station. I would seriously have doubts that any accounting method could show a positive future value to the Taxpayer of any Conservative led Nuke development, even after taking the plant and infrastructure, write downs with exorbitant generated electricity costs into the balance sheet.
The UK for decades has engaged in fusion research and despite the projects lack of peak plasma generation failing to create a working “sun on earth” has managed to get close to a working reactor, the UK is now a major scientific contributor to ITER in terms of both physical “reactor” design and scientists. The UK research achievements in this field and their application and relation to the goals of ITER are indeed great and quantitatively the UK’s contribution within the ITER project outweighs that of Russia, China and is on a par with the US.
The entire waste of the French Nuclear power industry, since its expansion in the early 70’s, would fill a building the size of a small 1920’s cinema. I believe this is a very small price to be paid for the clean energy generated in France – Such future waste would be eliminated by an ITER reactor and an unlimited supply of new clean fusion energy would be provided.
It is no wonder that support for ITER is massive and has resulted in a multi national world-wide funded project; http://www.iter.org proving beyond any doubt that a healthy future does exist for fusion generated power.
The UK cabinet took vote a last year to support the UK’s continued presence, funding and support of “all” international agencies. I would assume that this support also included agencies as ITER, CERN and agencies that are funded via current joint EU membership as well as those directly funded. I am sure the EU divorce bill will not cover such costs, no matter what takes place in the next months in terms of Brexit the UK must maintain its scientific funding and commitments to International and scientific agencies.
ITER is Latin for way or path, I would humbly state that ITER will succeed and provide a future path that will be utilised and shared by many nations. I hope the futility and single mindedness of Brexit does not destroy or exclude the UK from an energy future it has already contributed so much to achieve.
Hang on, are you not aware that it’s not the bulk of nuclear waste that is the issue?
If you don’t, all else you say lacks a certain credibility
No simply the wast generated is no where near negating the benefits of the energy provided over the last 50+ years. In France where Nuclear energy has been well managed and developed to meet 65% to 80% of all requirements.
In fact many coal stations have been kept open to use coal from French Mines which have been closing in line with the EU phased closure program.
Scotian says:
” and despite the projects lack of peak plasma generation failing to create a working “sun on earth” ….”
Haven’t we already got one of those ? Something big and yellow is shining through my window e’en as I write.
Scotian says:”The entire waste of the French Nuclear power industry, since its expansion in the early 70’s, would fill a building the size of a small 1920’s cinema. I believe this is a very small price to be paid for the clean energy generated in France”.
The French nuclear Industry was built in another century, for the most part.
It’s old, outdated, costly.
The newest plant built in Flamanville has had so many safety faults, is so much over budget and has been delayed for so long it’s been a joke…not a very funny one.
The nuclear waste, quite apart from the size of storage needed, will spend centuries in someone’s backyard, being watched at great security cost. Not least because of ongoing terrorist threats.
Leaks and “accidents” have been regularly underplayed, covered up, as a country so dependent on it cannot be allowed to go panicky about it.
I remember Chernobyl in 1986, I lived in Paris then, had just had my first child.
We were told by government that there was no nuclear cloud coming anywhere near us in France…it was strange, as friends in Strasbourg, listening to the German news, heard that the authorities there had advised mothers to avoid using cows’ milk for their children, avoid eating leafy green veg, shouldn’t let kids play outside in the grass and sandpits…Stasbourg was fine apparently, 200 yards from the border, as the cloud had clearly respected the Rhine.
The “joke” went on for a while, until the French authorities themselves realised that too many of us could read German papers and listen to their news…and wouldn’t keep quiet.
They came clean 3 months too late. They had lost our trust by then. When we were told such an explosion couldn’t happen in France, did we believe them?
So no, let’s move well away from this costly and potentially lethal form of energy, the sooner the better, let’s transition as fast as it is financially and technically possible to do so.
Nuclear energy is not for the future.
On the contrary….nuclear energy is the future.
Just not nuclear-fission-energy.
After all, nuclear fusion gives us light, and heat, every day. Without that large nuclear fusion source 150 million KM away, we would not be here, and your solarPV would be irrelevant.
Still, you can carry-on with your wind turbines (largely useless without storage, or being backed by fossil-fuel-generators) and your solarPV plant (not much use at night without storage). You can always build tidal-energy-plant…..except the environmental problems from those are still under consideration…and operating in a hostile environment, so is their reliability. By 2030, 7 of the 8 existing nuclear plant will be closed…..so we will see… (well, my kids will, I won’t be here)
John M,
I do seriously wonder what one earth is going on with the British media and public on this subject. Its like both are caught in some weird time warp.
Everything that you have said in that comment is totally obsolete. Here just read these. It won’t take you long and there are some nice charts and pictures as well:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/solar-power-cost-decrease-2018-5
https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-can-teslas-giant-south-australian-battery-achieve-80738
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-06/tesla-battery-outperforms-coal-and-gas/9625726
https://www.ecowatch.com/hyundai-tesla-worlds-largest-battery-2622468655.html
California, Spain, Portugal…all on their way to managing without nuclear energy.
You’re saying we’ve done well thanks to nuclear energy.
Indeed, it has served us well. It’s in the past tense you’ve noticed.
The future will solve the problems you’ve mentioned relating to alternatives, I’m aware there are plenty.
No energy will be produced without objections and problems. No energy can be produced in Europe at least without huge state subsidies. The French State subsidising and propping up failing ERDF projects has been…momentous, over 4 decades…and counting.
We must just find ways to find the least harmful, the least risky, and at the same time efficient, ways of keeping our lights on…
But it goes without saying that all this must be done at the same time as a huge change in our way of thinking and behaving.
Endless race for “progress” and development has to stop.
We need to learn the Earth is not our toy to break.
And if we can’t learn because we’re too blinkered and selfish, our kids will lead the way. Watch them.
” if we can’t learn because we’re too blinkered and selfish, our kids will lead the way. Watch them.”
They’ve started already:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/30/climate-change-strike-thousands-of-students-to-join-national-protest
“Even though 365 years of reserve supply sounds very comforting, the point of the EV and stationary storage revolutions is that current demand will shoot up, way up, if these revolutions do happen. The 100 Gigafactories scenario could come true. And if that happens, the 365-year supply would be less than a 17-year supply (13.5 million tons of reserves divided by 800,000 = 16.9 years)”
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/is-there-enough-lithium-to-maintain-the-growth-of-the-lithium-ion-battery-m
Which is partially why batteries like the Vanadium redox battery are being developed….except all of these come at a cost…which will be carried by consumers. Sure, renewables can power the country, but at a cost which is not always a financial one. Coal is providing 3GW today (at a high cost)….wind 4.6GW, and solar 600MW….gas 22GW and nuclear at 5.5GW.
The UK currently has a 50MW Lithium-battery storage facility, operated as a grid-stability plant….and also has around 100MW of diesel-generators operated as part of the short term operating reserve…..all of which are paid for on the electricity bill
@Marie Thomas.
I’m in considerable sympathy with your attitude towards Nuclear energy. The waste problem persists and won’t just go away, the electricity which would be too cheap to be worth metering never extended beyond fantasy, the levels of hidden subsidy for the industry have never been admitted.
It’s not primarily the technology, (though I’m deeply suspicious about it) it’s as you say the constant lying about it. If the politicians will just keep lying about the industry in ways so blatant, what are they actually not telling us about until they can hide it no longer. And they will not even come clean about the financial costs.
Andy, what is all the “constant lying”, and who is doing it? And who are “they”, and what do you mean by “financial costs”? It seems to come under the Business Secretary (why should a vital Public Good like the electricity supply come under the Department for Business?!?) and he and his advisers from the Big Four or wherever will certainly have a “cost” which is a totting up of money to be transferred, including unnecessary Billions in interest payments to banks and other financial institutions. What they don’t do is consider externalities, because that doesn’t suit their ideology. One man’s “hidden subsidy” is another man’s sensible expenditure. I personally would like to see available resources used to give us a secure, low carbon electricity supply. We can apparently afford £50 Billion plus for HS2 to transport the elite a little quicker and more comfortably in and out of London!
I believe the lowest cost excluding externalities electricity generation would currently be burning gas, probably imported. Next up would be burning coal, definitely imported. So cheapest probably isn’t “best”, if we want our children to live in a reasonably stable future. And renewables are great, if you have geothermal or hydraulic resources as a result of your geography.
I’m not in any way an expert on this stuff and am very willing to learn from others