UK to build new nuclear fleet - did we not learn the last time around ?

[Moxi]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/u ... df7592ae9c

Sounds like the usual chaos in general and no real understanding of the implications of the propossal being evidenced by the ministers, as underlined by the short line that they do not plan to put further funding in to energy efficiency or insulation. Such a short line of text but sufficient to damn the ministers planners and mandarins for the fools that they are.

The back line appears to be that the UK wants to sell its small modular reactor concept around the world to make revenue.

Oh and cheer up apparently theres still plenty of oil and gas under the North sea for us to tap into - did they forget the climate emergency during the recent energy supply crisis. The sad fact is that successive governments in the UK continue to mishandle the country's infrastructure to ensure security of capability and supply in all our essential and strategic requirements.

Short termism still reigns supreme in Whitehall apparently

Moxi

[dan_b]

And to top it all off, they tried to blame Labour for not having created a new nuclear programme. Seem to recall the Tories have been in power for 12 years, and that in fact when Labour were in power they had a proposal for 10 new nuclear sites, of which only Hinkley C has got off the ground since, everything else was cut back by, wait for it, the Tories.

I guess it's all very well saying let's build 30GW of new Nuclear or what ever they're going on about, but we all know that in the intervening 15 years, we still need to do something else. By all means build some nukes, but whilst they're coming online, we urgently need to put solar on every home, start building on-shore wind again, massively improve energy efficiency of our dwellings, put heat pumps in everywhere, and escalate the roll-out of off-shore wind. Oh and that nutty issue of storage. Get on with it!

[Mart]

My 'fun' takeaway is that they suggest 95% low carbon by 2030, which is entirely possible with just a small ramp up in RE deployment.

But, the only new nuclear by 2030 will be HPC, at about 7% of current leccy demand. So by 2030, the vast majority of the grid will be RE, with RE probably deploying at close to zero subsidy and ~4% of annual demand per annum.

Presumably the shift to leccy industry, transport and space heating, will be a slower shift than 4% pa.*

So, in order to give the new nuclear something to do, when (if) it arrives 2035+, we'll actually have to ramp down the fast and cheap RE rollout. Anyone got Alanis Morrisette's number?

*For instance, an all BEV car fleet would add (net) about 10% to UK leccy consumption. That transition will take about 20-25yrs from now, assuming 100% sales by 2030, and 15yrs for the ICE fleet to ageout, so that's about plus 0.5% pa.

[dan_b]

Aah but then we'll have all that "spare" renewable energy to use to make hydrogen to, you know, use in hydrogen fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles, or burn in the mythical hydrogen gas grid for heat...

[AE-NMidlands]

Not only did we not learn anything last time around (or the time before that,) the government didn't even pay any attention to the previous day's news: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60984663 said

Climate change: IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming
A key UN body says in a report that there must be "rapid, deep and immediate" cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts. Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century

When you think of the amount of carbon-heavy concrete and steel that goes into a nuke for years (decades) before it becomes operational - and then realise that we haven't even started digging the deep mine to safely store high-level waste - you wonder whether they even consider CO₂ emissions in their strategies.
Compare the CO₂ implications of wind turbines and nucs: one has a relatively small concrete foundation and a (recyclable) steel tube tower, composite blades and a recyclable generator, the other is very different! One quick and relatively cheap to put up - and clear the site afterwards - and the other the complete opposite. I suppose the City and a number of big firms make millions (billions) out of building just 1 nuke, whereas a turbine can even be done by a small cooperative!

I'm conviced that the Treasury doesn't give a hoot, in fact if it can provoke more calamities it gives hedge-fund operators more disruption to exploit. Guess what the Chancellor's previous life was?
A

[Tinbum]

I just don't understand why we are continuing with nuclear at all, utter madness.

It's expensive, it takes years to build, it's not environmentally friendly to build, it's potentially extremely dangerous, it's expensive to decommission and when decommissioned still dangerous for 1000's of years. Also doesn't it still heat up the planet?

[Mart]

Not only did we not learn anything last time around (or the time before that,) the government didn't even pay any attention to the previous day's news: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60984663 said

Climate change: IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming
A key UN body says in a report that there must be "rapid, deep and immediate" cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts. Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century

When you think of the amount of carbon-heavy concrete and steel that goes into a nuke for years (decades) before it becomes operational - and then realise that we haven't even started digging the deep mine to safely store high-level waste - you wonder whether they even consider CO₂ emissions in their strategies.
Compare the CO₂ implications of wind turbines and nucs: one has a relatively small concrete foundation and a (recyclable) steel tube tower, composite blades and a recyclable generator, the other is very different! One quick and relatively cheap to put up - and clear the site afterwards - and the other the complete opposite. I suppose the City and a number of big firms make millions (billions) out of building just 1 nuke, whereas a turbine can even be done by a small cooperative!

I'm conviced that the Treasury doesn't give a hoot, in fact if it can provoke more calamities it gives hedge-fund operators more disruption to exploit. Guess what the Chancellor's previous life was?
A

Could not agree more. I find the whole thing bewildering. It's not even the 'throw the kitchen sink at it' dodgy argument, since this new nuclear arrives long after the Gov expects leccy gen to be almost all RE + HPC. In fact 90-95% low carbon (annual average), looks to be a doddle now, just with intraday storage, and falling back on 20+GW's of gas gen at times, and another 20GW's of interconnectors.

The nuclear will simply interfere with the fine tuning and longer term storage as we enter the next decade. (Actually it probably won't arrive / interfere till the end of the next decade.)


In situations like this, I often assume that my lack of understanding / bewilderment is because I don't know enough, and can't see the big picture. But on this occasion I have the NIC advice to the Gov in 2018 (before the shockingly cheap offshore wind results of the 2019 CfD auction), telling the Gov to ramp down nuclear ambitions to HPC + 1, as it was looking like RE + storage would be a cheaper option, and a better economic decision.

Cool down nuclear plan because renewables are better bet, ministers told

If the Treasury does give a hoot, then why can't we hear them? Something here is seriously broken. Leaving da yuff with AGW is bad enough, but adding on higher leccy bills / nuclear subsidies, and then all the nuclear clean up mess and costs too is simply rubbing salt into the wounds.

[Moxi]

They speak of nuclear as low carbon BUT how can it be when you consider the carbon expended in the uranium mining, processing, fuel system production, the embedded carbon in the concrete and steel of the actual power station, and then the reprocessing and deep repository long term waste store (if and when they build it)

1956 to present day all the muck and rubbish is still hanging around from the magnox stations and is shortly to be added to by the decommissioning AGR's and the generation provided by them (Magnox) has long since been used up and theres not much more to come from the AGR fleet- it would be good to see what the power balance is from a nuclear power station once all the energy required to build it, fuel it, operate it, and decommission it and store its waste has been deducted.

I see AEM has beaten me to the same points

Moxi

[Moxi]

Mart,

I don't think its you not seeing the BIG picture its the politicians being short term in their pitch - they won't do important decision making that costs the country billions to accomplish if they don't think they will be around to reap the praise and rewards and sadly, as we see with Hinkley C, nukes don't get built fast enough to serve the politicians beauty pageant style of 5 year politics.


Moxi

[CrofterMannie]

I suspect that when decisions are to be made about nuclear, there is a nondescript man from the MOD standing in the background making sure that the decision makers are keenly aware that if there is not a viable civilian nuclear industry it would make it much more difficult and expensive for the country to maintain any military nuclear facilities. And I suspect that they can be more persuasive than those who are merely advocating the economic and environmental arguements.