EDF confirms funding for Sizewell C

[dan_b]

https://inews.co.uk/news/business/sizew ... ht-1941336

Looks like Sizewell C will go ahead as an 80% French venture - EDF has somehow found all the money to replace the lost Chinese finance. I guess the recent full re-nationalisation of EDF might have had something to do with that?

[nowty]

I read that as 20% UK, 20% France (EDF) and 60% of other financing to be defined.

[dan_b]

Oh yes, having read it again you're right. That's a lot of money not on the table.

[nowty]

Oh yes, having read it again you're right. That's a lot of money not on the table.

Maybe it means the UK and France are friends again, I hope so for economic and security reasons.

[AE-NMidlands]

How much money would you put int a nuke which probably won't produce any return for 15 or 20 years, but will need absolutely massive funding in the meantime?
Especially one on a low soft sand N Sea cliff, subject to erosion and sea-level rise?

I think it is barking mad, but am afraid that the taxpayer (or electricity standing charge payer) will end up being fleeced in perpetuity. As we are already for cleaning up the most dangerous waste, to say nothing about the costs of long term storage of high-level waste.
A

[Swwils]

Please do suggest another way to get an equivalent capacity factor?

[nowty]

I'm probably biased as I worked in the nuclear industry for a short time early in my career, so I do have a certain fondness for it.

As Swwils implies, It does give the highest capacity factor of all types of generation types and is also carbon free, if just not renewable.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what ... 0in%202021.

[AE-NMidlands]

Please do suggest another way to get an equivalent capacity factor?

Loads of turbines and pv, plus storage? Waves? Tidal flows (not barrages.) When do you think the nuke might come on line - 2035? 2040? and how do you propose to protect it from the waves for a century or two?

I seem to remember a fag-packet calculation here a month or so ago showing that while nuclear digs us ever deeper into carbon generation/release, the same amount of money put into renewables now would pay back in spades and within a year or two as well...
Or are you talking about something else? Jam tomorrow? (just forget or ignore the CO2 from the steel and concrete that will have to go into it.

[AE-NMidlands]

I'm probably biased as I worked in the nuclear industry for a short time early in my career, so I do have a certain fondness for it.

As Swwils implies, It does give the highest capacity factor of all types of generation types and is also carbon free, if just not renewable.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what ... 0in%202021.

is if f***
A
(Any cost estimate or carbon budget or for a deep repository (aka a mine, with no product to sell) ? And for managing it in perpetuity? Oh, I know, these nukes (in increasing numbers) will provide power too cheap to meter. In the City it's called a Ponzi scheme. (and I have worked with the industry for about 20 years too.)

[Oldgreybeard]

I'm probably biased as I worked in the nuclear industry for a short time early in my career, so I do have a certain fondness for it.

As Swwils implies, It does give the highest capacity factor of all types of generation types and is also carbon free, if just not renewable.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what ... 0in%202021.

Much the same for me, I worked for UKAEA in the very early 1970's, and have always felt that the nuclear industry has had an unfair degree of antipathy from the general public. The risks and problems have been massively overstated, and are never, ever, put into the context of the risks associated with working in any other part of the energy sector. The hard facts are unpalatable for many, but the nuclear industry is phenomenally safe when compared with industries that kill thousands, even now, like mining or the gas and oil industries.

Ask anyone that has worked as a miner, or even offshore, and they will know people that have been injured or killed because of their job. Do the same for anyone that has worked in the nuclear industry and they most probably won't know of anyone that's ever been injured, let alone killed.

Nuclear power has been turned into a bogeyman by association with nuclear weapons, when the reality is that, even allowing for major disasters, like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukishima, it is an incredibly safe industry. There's far more radioactive waste released into the environment from the really dangerous power generators, like Drax and other solid fuel power stations, than from nuclear power plants, something that gets completely ignored by the anti-nuclear lobby: https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do ... ive-waste/

The waste contributes far more radiation to the environment than nuclear power stations. The radioactivity comes from the trace amounts of uranium and thorium contained in coal. These elements have been trapped in the Earth’s crust since its formation and are usually in concentrations too low to pose any serious threat. But the burning of coal produces fly ash, a material in which the uranium and thorium are much more concentrated.

The exact amounts depend on the source of the coal, but are usually in the range of a few parts per million. That might not sound a lot until you realise that a typical gigawatt-capacity coal power station burns several million tonnes of coal per year. That means every such station creates fly ash containing around 5-10 tonnes of uranium and thorium each year. Multiply that by the number of such stations worldwide and the total amount of radioactive waste produced is truly astonishing.

According to estimates by the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the world’s coal-fired power stations currently generate waste containing around 5,000 tonnes of uranium and 15,000 tonnes of thorium. Collectively, that’s over 100 times more radiation dumped into the environment than that released by nuclear power stations.