HPC

[chris_n]

According to National Grid Live Nuclear output is 2.67 GW which is the lowest I've ever come across. The grid seems to be coping adequately all the same, it has me wondering just how low the figure needs to drop to before the "Must have a Nuclear baseline" argument has the wind taken out of it's sails!

Unbelievable that every Nuclear power station has at least one reactor offline for refuelling at the same time at this time of year. Could maybe do with some better planning! The reactors that are offline are also consuming nearly 100MW to keep them cool etc.

[nowty]

According to National Grid Live Nuclear output is 2.67 GW which is the lowest I've ever come across. The grid seems to be coping adequately all the same, it has me wondering just how low the figure needs to drop to before the "Must have a Nuclear baseline" argument has the wind taken out of it's sails!

Unbelievable that every Nuclear power station has at least one reactor offline for refuelling at the same time at this time of year. Could maybe do with some better planning! The reactors that are offline are also consuming nearly 100MW to keep them cool etc.

I think its actually perfect planning cos every current outage is planned refuelling and coming back early Dec.

Its actually been even lower last year down to just over 2.0 GW mid Feb 2023.
https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... 594#p28594

[Bugtownboy]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg725xpxleo

[dan_b]

Impressive engineering

[Moxi]

Thats just the "bin" that contains the "slow explosion" of a controlled nuclear reaction the clever stuff is the primary and secondary coolant circuits that keep the energy transfer in equilibrium. Lose that capacity and all sorts of things go wrong very quickly, especially in a hydraulic coolant circuit as opposed to a compressive coolant circuit.

On the previous generations of reactor the size of the reactor was much smaller and was able to be manufactured by many more of the heavy engineering companies around the world as well as forgemasters in the UK - thats maybe one of the stronger arguments for the SMR's that the supply chain is much larger because the net operating parameters are more manageable with regards to temperature and pressure.

Always nice to see a big chunk of steel though, thats sixty years operational then another 60 to 120 years in situ while the activated portions of the steel vessel decay back to manageable levels to allow it to be removed and cut up / reprocessed / buried.

Moxi

[dan_b]

Looks like nuclear is coming back up just in time for Christmas - now at 4.4GW again with two more due back on by 21st December.

[dan_b]

Looks like Flamanville 3 will be connected to the grid tomorrow (20th December) as it continues to ramp up the power levels

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 ... -on-stream