UK Wind Record

[Mr Gus]

Nice, thanks Nowty.

So, how long for a nuclear plant build to become neutral !?

[nowty]

Nice, thanks Nowty.

So, how long for a nuclear plant build to become neutral !?

The maths aint going to be as easy, especially as they need fuel, storage of spent fuel and decommissioning, etc.

That's far too controversial for me.

[Mr Gus]

You need to smoke superking, cos the packets bigger then innit!?

Thats why I was interested in build alone, without all the other schmutter that is involved, for an overview on one big site minus all the dirty crap for this * cough* clean energy

[Moxi]

The trouble here Mr Gus is that to compare equally we have to also factor in whatever the costs are for energy storage to go with the renewables (wind turbines), without that it isn't a level playing field- note this is more important when comparing renewables with CCGT or hydro generation which are best placed for load following and are reactive generators.

As we noted elsewhere large nuclear stations do not have the ability to load follow easily (AIIRC the new Hinckley C is purported to be able to perform the function as required by the national grid, but I am as yet unaware of how their design overcomes the practicalities of physics?).

BUT IS THIS STILL TRUE FOR WT's ?

Its all a bit mute really isnt it?

Large nuclear - load follows poorly if at all in practical terms.

WT's? - well if the wind is blowing can you have a turbine spinning but not connected to the grid ? If so then you have conceivably got spinning reserve? breaker in and you up the load, breaker out and you drop the load in milliseconds - with enough turbines of various sizes across the geographical area of the UK and its shores this should provide pretty fine control sufficient to balance the grid (when the wind blows of course) - so does anyone know IF standard turbines can spin without generating ? or do wind farms need a number of WT's with gearboxes, clutches and the like to enable them to function as spinning reserve ?

All you need after that is storage for the low/no wind days or a minimum number of nuclear (or other prime movers like tidal and hydro) to cover a minimum base load.

As we have said before its all achievable except for the political will to make it so.

Moxi

[nowty]

.......... so does anyone know IF standard turbines can spin without generating ?

Yes as it was explained by Ripple before WT1 was connected to the grid in a storm. The blades are feathered so they hardly catch the wind and turn very slowly.

[Moxi]

So it does come down to storage costs versus construction costs of alternate prime movers

Moxi

[nowty]

So it does come down to storage costs versus construction costs of alternate prime movers

Moxi

I guess so and for the foreseeable future its gas plants taking up the troughs.

[Moxi]

In that case Mr Gus I would think its a heck of a lot cheaper to build a simple heat battery and a turbine / [umped storage etc, to store excess WT electrical energy for later use and as battery and capacitance technology continues to be updated and modern manufacturing applied theres every chance that direct storage of electricity may become even more cost effective for large scale storage instead of enduring conversion efficiency losses.

It certainly seems difficult to argue the nuclear generation option and when factoring in decommissioning, reprocessing and long term storage costs then its no longer an economic option only a geo-political one.

As an example Trawsfyndd Magnox power station went off for its statutory safety outage in 1991, in 1993 it was moved into early decommissioning following the invasive trepanning of the reactor containment vessel gas shield for a condition assessment. Leap forward to today 2023 and we still have that station in decommissioning 30 years on ! still costing money, and even if you assume 1.5 million per year (its been much more at stages) thats 45million pounds for one station in decommissioning add in the 103 million build costs and the fact that the site will not be fully decommissioned for a further 70 years so shall we be (very) kind and say that the rest of the 70 years will only cost half a million a year so another 35 million.

Total 183 million pounds to produce ?? KWh of electricity ( I tried to find the final export meter readings but cannot so I have attempted to extrapolated from the two 195MWh electric generator sets 850MWh Thermal)

28 years operational (includes 2 years hot commissioning period) less statutory outages, lets conservatively say 1 every six years lasting for a year but covering both reactors, giving us a final on the grid indicative period of 23 years (with rounding). 23 years at nominal capacity of 380MWe ignoring ramp up and down for refuelling and any other outages.

A theoretical 201,480 operational hours which could have produced 76,562,400MWh, it would in fact been quite a bit less than this for for many reasons some noted above.

However if you needed proof that nuclear power was and still is excessively expensive just search for the governments statement to the house of commons on the UK energy balance in 1965 which stated that at that time nuclear was twice as expensive as nuclear power generation, parts of the statement were based on inputs from Sir John Cockroft and lets face it, he knew what he was talking about when it came to Nuclear physics and the practical application.

Despite that fact that it was more expensive the decision was made to build because "it would weaken the British Coal Miners bargaining power".

Decisions made by conservative governments of the day to build nuclear regardless (1957 to 1963), coupled with the political turmoil of the 1970's where union pressures inadvertently maintained the policy to build nuclear fed neatly into the conservative Thatcher period where the miners were dismantled at the cost of serious and dangerous over loading of the Sellafield reprocessing facility fuel storage, combined with the selling of and privatisation of energy in the UK has put us where we are today !

You just can't trust a short term goal orientated political system to deliver long term strategic security for a nation - they are mutually exclusive.

So I guess the main problem for any government of the day is "how do they maintain the status quo and civil stability, based on the mess that their predecessors have made?" The question for the rest of us is easier " how do we change the political system to better serve our modern world and society"

DISCUSS

Moxi

[Countrypaul]

So I guess the main problem for any government of the day is "how do they maintain the status quo and civil stability, based on the mess that their predecessors have made?" The question for the rest of us is easier " how do we change the political system to better serve our modern world and society"

DISCUSS

Moxi

Unfortunately we know the answer to your first question - make a bigger mess.
I find it difficult to believe that the second question is easier, far too many different opinions as to how to change resulting in stalemate and continuing the status quo.

[Moxi]

I was being provocative suggesting the second question was easier CountryPaul, in reality the former should be easier to accomplish than the latter, although I really do think the political system we have now needs to be updated as its not fit for purpose.

Moxi