Rolls Royce SMR

[Ken]

Some good points there.
Yes i always think its kind of the EU tax payers to subsidise our imported leccy. Although the UK person just thinks our leccy is expensive.

Your right about the gas but something has to change as its something like 84% of the time the gas production is setting the price wheras in Europe its well less than 50%. Sometime soon we will be down to say 10% gas leccy but still setting the price -madness.

[dan_b]

Tidal could certainly be one of the eggs in my basket but we cannot compare tidal with nuclear it is an order of magnitude different. Rance - Installed capacity, 240 MW · Capacity factor, 24%. Annual generation, 500 GWh. 500GWh will be little more than than 20 days of HPC production and remember Rance is in one of the best positions in the world with its very large tidal range, twice the UK. As you know they have been doing tidal research in Orkney Islands for yrs and still not able to demonstrate a economic proposition. The tidal flow turbine in N Ireland could not stand the enviroment, fast flowing water with sand and grit etc in is only trouble.

I think there’s about 8MW of tidal stream turbines operating in UK waters.

I believe there are plans for about 100MW by 2030

[Mart]

Got me pondering the Swansea scheme power, as that's one of the smallest and maybe more a proof of concept, as the larger lagoons improve on economics since the volume of water/energy increases disproportionately. [If you double the circumference of a circle, you quadruple its area, and that principle will apply to building larger lagoon walls.]

Swansea is expected to be 320MW, and generate 14hrs per day. That's 3.5hrs generation and 2.5hrs between, times 4.

I assume that the 320MW will be when the lagoon is empty and water outside at max heaight, or vice versa, dropping to zero as the lagoon fills or empties, so an average of 160MW. I also assume that the rating is based on highest tides not an average, not sure.

For the Cardiff scheme the generation figure varies depending on final design, but seems to be roughly 2GW to 3GW, so perhaps 1GW x 14hrs per day?

The 'package' of tidal lagoons seems to have the potential for around 30TWh pa, so similar to one HPC or SCZ, but I'd suggest much nicer to look at.

[Ken]

And how are they going to stop it silting up ? The historical evidence of silting along the south wales coast is self evident.

On the Rance, the Rance tidal power plant has experienced significant silting of the basin since its construction. The operation of the barrage, which involves maintaining high and low water levels for extended periods, contributes to sediment settling and thus silting. This silting has had ecological impacts, including the disappearance of certain fish species and the transformation of some areas into salt marsh