"and RE generating cost"
And there in lies a nugget because one would expect Fossil FUEL to broadly follow inflation but the wind and solar FUEL is always zero and not subject to inflation.
decommissioning of nuclear
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ALAN/ALAN D
Re: decommissioning of nuclear
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... wer-plants
EDF Energy is planning to extend the life of four nuclear power stations in the UK and step up investment in its British nuclear fleet.
The output of EDF’s UK nuclear fleet was 37.3 terawatt hours last year, 15% lower than the year before because of station closures and statutory outages. The company aims to maintain output at 2023 levels until at least 2026.
The company is also looking into running its Sizewell B plant on the Suffolk coast for 20 years longer than scheduled, until 2055. It is the UK’s only pressurised water reactor plant and has a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW). A final decision will be taken next year.
EDF Energy is planning to extend the life of four nuclear power stations in the UK and step up investment in its British nuclear fleet.
The output of EDF’s UK nuclear fleet was 37.3 terawatt hours last year, 15% lower than the year before because of station closures and statutory outages. The company aims to maintain output at 2023 levels until at least 2026.
The company is also looking into running its Sizewell B plant on the Suffolk coast for 20 years longer than scheduled, until 2055. It is the UK’s only pressurised water reactor plant and has a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW). A final decision will be taken next year.
Re: decommissioning of nuclear
Not sure if they (EDF) will determine the graphite cores to be suitably robust at Heysham 1 and Hartlepool for much of an extension, add in the age and general deterioration of the two plants pod boilers and a host of other issues and they become very marginal on terms of economics.
Lets not forget EDF closed Dungeness B early for unreliability and that pair of reactors had the best core conditions of the entire AGR fleet, it also had possibly the worst fuel route which I assume was a big consideration when they made their decision to close.
Heysham stage two and Torness (again sister stations) have a much better record and are arguably the best of the various AGR designs put in to service and so they could economically be run for longer quite successfully although they still have the gas baffle corrosion constraint that exists on the rest of the stations as well as the ever present degrading cores so their extensions are relatively limited.
Sizewell B is more interesting and the suggested 20 years plus extension is a highly credible proposition that has parallels to other PWR extensions around the world so there's a wealth of existing supporting evidence for EDF and the regulator to base their safety cases around. It also helps that the reactor core is much more accessible than is the case for the AGR's.
It will be interesting to follow the SzeB safety case extension.
Moxi
Lets not forget EDF closed Dungeness B early for unreliability and that pair of reactors had the best core conditions of the entire AGR fleet, it also had possibly the worst fuel route which I assume was a big consideration when they made their decision to close.
Heysham stage two and Torness (again sister stations) have a much better record and are arguably the best of the various AGR designs put in to service and so they could economically be run for longer quite successfully although they still have the gas baffle corrosion constraint that exists on the rest of the stations as well as the ever present degrading cores so their extensions are relatively limited.
Sizewell B is more interesting and the suggested 20 years plus extension is a highly credible proposition that has parallels to other PWR extensions around the world so there's a wealth of existing supporting evidence for EDF and the regulator to base their safety cases around. It also helps that the reactor core is much more accessible than is the case for the AGR's.
It will be interesting to follow the SzeB safety case extension.
Moxi
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ALAN/ALAN D
Re: decommissioning of nuclear
I was involved in the boiler house burner system commissioning at Sizewell B.
The canteen food was very good at the time.
Not been back since then so not sure what the Grubs like.
The canteen food was very good at the time.
Not been back since then so not sure what the Grubs like.
Re: decommissioning of nuclear
I think they should throw in the towel for the older Heysham 1 and Hartlepool nuke plants. Not much point of having nuke plants that breakdown in the middle of winter and offering negative power factors for weeks on end. 
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power- ... y-statuses
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power- ... y-statuses
18.7kW PV > 109MWh generated
Ripple 6.6kW Wind + 4.5kW PV > 27MWh generated
6 Other RE Coop's
105kWh EV storage
60kWh Home battery storage
40kWh Thermal storage
GSHP + A2A HP's
Rain water use > 510 m3
Ripple 6.6kW Wind + 4.5kW PV > 27MWh generated
6 Other RE Coop's
105kWh EV storage
60kWh Home battery storage
40kWh Thermal storage
GSHP + A2A HP's
Rain water use > 510 m3
Re: decommissioning of nuclear
I suspect that will be the case, these two stations suffered from a value engineering exercise to reduce construction costs and were based on the Hinckley B station footprint and experience of building it.
The result was some good ideas, and some bogus ones, but despite all that the two stations have in general been good performers and it’s only age and a heavy service life early on combined with some of the cost cutting ideas that have made the stations less reliable as they approach end of service.
I think I mentioned once before that they tried to make the footprint of the stations smaller by building the turbine hall directly off the reactor island with the steam pipes, condensate and associated ancillaries are crammed in to the smaller space by dint of many more bends and changes in direction than the previous design.
That has caused a lot of issues with stress fatigue over the time, vibration and also required a dividing wall to be built very early on to substantiate a safety case when it was realised that a failure of the condenser unit could flood the turbine hall and reactor island basement in minutes which would take out all the primary coolant recirculation blowers. Quite an oversight on the part of the value engineering team !
Then of course there was the pod boilers - a great idea/ opportunity lost due to a lack of suitable maintenance.
All the AGR stations share the same fundamental issue that the core is largely inaccessible and that’s why I think the PWR at sizewell B will be the longest served reactor of the EDF fleet.
Moxi
The result was some good ideas, and some bogus ones, but despite all that the two stations have in general been good performers and it’s only age and a heavy service life early on combined with some of the cost cutting ideas that have made the stations less reliable as they approach end of service.
I think I mentioned once before that they tried to make the footprint of the stations smaller by building the turbine hall directly off the reactor island with the steam pipes, condensate and associated ancillaries are crammed in to the smaller space by dint of many more bends and changes in direction than the previous design.
That has caused a lot of issues with stress fatigue over the time, vibration and also required a dividing wall to be built very early on to substantiate a safety case when it was realised that a failure of the condenser unit could flood the turbine hall and reactor island basement in minutes which would take out all the primary coolant recirculation blowers. Quite an oversight on the part of the value engineering team !
Then of course there was the pod boilers - a great idea/ opportunity lost due to a lack of suitable maintenance.
All the AGR stations share the same fundamental issue that the core is largely inaccessible and that’s why I think the PWR at sizewell B will be the longest served reactor of the EDF fleet.
Moxi