5 ms·

Calculate how many wind generators you need to guarantee the same production as Hinkley point and you'll see that it is not really realistic. Then, take into a

Calculate how many wind generators you need to guarantee the same production as Hinkley point and you'll see that it is not really realistic. Then, take into account the goal of making of vehicles electric in the next 20 years. There is no viable alternative to nuclear as of today even if renewables should of course be pushed as much as possible. Germany is emitting heavily because most of its electricity comes from fossil fuel and it decided to kill nuclear power of purely ideological reasons. (wood fired plants are counted as renewables in the EU, by the way) The absolute priority should be to get rid of emissions, i.e. fossil fuels. Germany decided to get rid of nuclear energy first. They are not a good example to follow.

pytester 7y ago
>Calculate how many wind generators you need to guarantee the same production as Hinkley point Hinkley Point = 3200 MW Average wind turbine generates = 3 MW That's about 1,100 wind turbines at current tech. GE is working on a 12 MW wind turbine - it would take 270 of them would replace Hinkley point.
- yostrovs 7y ago
  ... when the wind blows.
  - pytester 7y ago
    Yep, although: * The wind is always blowing somewhere. * At current prices it makes sense just to overproduce and figure out ways to time shift demand (e.g. start using electric storage heaters again)
- joss82 7y ago
  3MW is the peak power when the wind is blowing constantly at the maximum speed the wind turbine was designed to operate (and not over, at which point the turbine enters safe mode and stops to prevent damage). Load factors for wind turbines are rarely over 40%. Nuclear's is 80%. So you'd need 2200 turbines to replace one Hinkley point. And all the gas power plants to make the energy when the wind is not blowing...
  - lispm 7y ago
    Germany has 30000+ wind turbines.
  - pytester 7y ago
    https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind/haliade-x-offshore-turbine https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind... Quite right, my mistake. GE's new turbine has a 63% capacity apparently. So, 428 of them are needed, apparently. Either way, I don't see what is so intrinsically unrealistic about setting up 500 of these things offshore as compared to a hinkley point. Gansu Wind farm in China is 8,000MW - already 2.5x onen Hinkley.
  - logifail 7y ago
    > Nuclear's is 80% Why is that? I'm sure we're all broadly in favour of free markets. Do electricity consumers buy nuclear because it's good value?[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...
    - joss82 7y ago
      Because the nuclear reaction is not dependant on the wind blowing to produce energy. It's not 100% because you need to do maintenance at times.
      - AntiTechTechie 7y ago
        I would think that they'd run it closer to 100% and do all the maintenance during a scheduled outage...at least that's how I understand they do the maintenance planning/scheduling at Palo Verde.
      - logifail 7y ago
        > the nuclear reaction is not dependant on the wind blowing to produce energy Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, I was alluding to the lively debate about how the selling price for electricity is set, and how it should vary depending on market conditions. I see no reason to lock-in minimum pricing for any kind of electricity generation many decades in advance. Why is that necessary for new nuclear plants? In other words: do we need to guarantee a minimum market price 30 years in advance in order to make it look like building a nuclear plant makes economic sense?
- ftr45 7y ago
  >Average wind turbine generates = 3 MW it doesn't work like that , capacity factor of wind is almost half of the capacity factor of nuclear
- ElBarto 7y ago
  > An average onshore wind turbine with a capacity of 2.5–3 MW can produce more than 6 million kWh in a year (Source: http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/ http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/) That's an actual average of 685 kW, so 4,700 turbines for Hinkley Point. But that's still the _average_ production. If, or rather when, there's no wind during a high demand period you get a nice blackout. Also: > So a 2-megawatt wind turbine would require a total area of about half a square kilometer (Source: https://sciencing.com/much-land-needed-wind-turbines-12304634.html0 https://sciencing.com/much-land-needed-wind-turbines-1230463... So for those 4,700 turbines you need more than 2,350 km^2, so the whole of Dorset covered and as said, you'd still need a backup.
throw082 7y ago
Regarding your comment on wood fired plants: To me it seems that you imply that that is not renewable, which I do not understand. If you regrow the trees that you've burned (cleanly) down then your net impact will be zero, right?
lispm 7y ago
> Germany is emitting heavily because most of its electricity comes from fossil fuel and it decided to kill nuclear power of purely ideological reasons It does because it is a relatively industrialized country. CO2 emissions fell last year by 4.5%. These are actual numbers for electricity production in Germany: from 2017 to 2018: 5.6% more wind electricity, 6.3% more solar electricity. 2.7% less coal/lignite, 6% less hard coal, 9% less gas. The share of renewable energy of electricity production is 40%. In 2030 it is projected to be at around 65%. This is going to be a revolution. We now have working days in 2019 where >60% of the electricity are coming from renewables. There was a week this year with 64.8% renewable energy for electricity, with wind providing 48.4%. Two decades ago this was thought to be impossible.
- ElBarto 7y ago
  > It does because it is a relatively industrialized country. No, it does because its electricity comes from fossil fuels. You are completely avoiding the point of my comment. Germany could have much, much lower emissions with nuclear but it has decided to continue emitting for political reasons, while trying to claim that they are 'green'...
  - lispm 7y ago
    We could also be much much less habitated with one Fukushima or Chernobyl scale event.
    - ElBarto 7y ago
      We know how to make nuclear power safe. Nuclear power is safe. It's not helpful to try to kill the discussion by stroking irrational fears.
      - redprince 7y ago
        > We know how to make nuclear power safe. No, we really don't. We know how to make all sorts of things reasonably safe. Yet planes still fall out of the sky, refineries catch on fire, dams fail, etc. In essence: Any nuclear reactor will have a probability different from zero for producing an incredibly expensive nuclear accident. Much about accidents in complex high risk technologies has been said in "Normal Accidents" by Perrow in the 80s. The reasons he identified why complex systems fail will always be with us. Especially the notion that it is more often than not the organizations and not the technology which enables major accidents.

pytester 7y ago

>Calculate how many wind generators you need to guarantee the same production as Hinkley point Hinkley Point = 3200 MW Average wind turbine generates = 3 MW That's about 1,100 wind turbines at current tech. GE is working on a 12 MW wind turbine - it would take 270 of them would replace Hinkley point.

yostrovs 7y ago
... when the wind blows.
- pytester 7y ago
  Yep, although: * The wind is always blowing somewhere. * At current prices it makes sense just to overproduce and figure out ways to time shift demand (e.g. start using electric storage heaters again)
joss82 7y ago
3MW is the peak power when the wind is blowing constantly at the maximum speed the wind turbine was designed to operate (and not over, at which point the turbine enters safe mode and stops to prevent damage). Load factors for wind turbines are rarely over 40%. Nuclear's is 80%. So you'd need 2200 turbines to replace one Hinkley point. And all the gas power plants to make the energy when the wind is not blowing...
- lispm 7y ago
  Germany has 30000+ wind turbines.
- pytester 7y ago
  https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind/haliade-x-offshore-turbine https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind... Quite right, my mistake. GE's new turbine has a 63% capacity apparently. So, 428 of them are needed, apparently. Either way, I don't see what is so intrinsically unrealistic about setting up 500 of these things offshore as compared to a hinkley point. Gansu Wind farm in China is 8,000MW - already 2.5x onen Hinkley.
- logifail 7y ago
  > Nuclear's is 80% Why is that? I'm sure we're all broadly in favour of free markets. Do electricity consumers buy nuclear because it's good value?[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...
  - joss82 7y ago
    Because the nuclear reaction is not dependant on the wind blowing to produce energy. It's not 100% because you need to do maintenance at times.
    - AntiTechTechie 7y ago
      I would think that they'd run it closer to 100% and do all the maintenance during a scheduled outage...at least that's how I understand they do the maintenance planning/scheduling at Palo Verde.
    - logifail 7y ago
      > the nuclear reaction is not dependant on the wind blowing to produce energy Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, I was alluding to the lively debate about how the selling price for electricity is set, and how it should vary depending on market conditions. I see no reason to lock-in minimum pricing for any kind of electricity generation many decades in advance. Why is that necessary for new nuclear plants? In other words: do we need to guarantee a minimum market price 30 years in advance in order to make it look like building a nuclear plant makes economic sense?
ftr45 7y ago
>Average wind turbine generates = 3 MW it doesn't work like that , capacity factor of wind is almost half of the capacity factor of nuclear
ElBarto 7y ago
> An average onshore wind turbine with a capacity of 2.5–3 MW can produce more than 6 million kWh in a year (Source: http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/ http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/) That's an actual average of 685 kW, so 4,700 turbines for Hinkley Point. But that's still the _average_ production. If, or rather when, there's no wind during a high demand period you get a nice blackout. Also: > So a 2-megawatt wind turbine would require a total area of about half a square kilometer (Source: https://sciencing.com/much-land-needed-wind-turbines-12304634.html0 https://sciencing.com/much-land-needed-wind-turbines-1230463... So for those 4,700 turbines you need more than 2,350 km^2, so the whole of Dorset covered and as said, you'd still need a backup.

throw082 7y ago

Regarding your comment on wood fired plants: To me it seems that you imply that that is not renewable, which I do not understand. If you regrow the trees that you've burned (cleanly) down then your net impact will be zero, right?

lispm 7y ago

> Germany is emitting heavily because most of its electricity comes from fossil fuel and it decided to kill nuclear power of purely ideological reasons It does because it is a relatively industrialized country. CO2 emissions fell last year by 4.5%. These are actual numbers for electricity production in Germany: from 2017 to 2018: 5.6% more wind electricity, 6.3% more solar electricity. 2.7% less coal/lignite, 6% less hard coal, 9% less gas. The share of renewable energy of electricity production is 40%. In 2030 it is projected to be at around 65%. This is going to be a revolution. We now have working days in 2019 where >60% of the electricity are coming from renewables. There was a week this year with 64.8% renewable energy for electricity, with wind providing 48.4%. Two decades ago this was thought to be impossible.

ElBarto 7y ago
> It does because it is a relatively industrialized country. No, it does because its electricity comes from fossil fuels. You are completely avoiding the point of my comment. Germany could have much, much lower emissions with nuclear but it has decided to continue emitting for political reasons, while trying to claim that they are 'green'...
- lispm 7y ago
  We could also be much much less habitated with one Fukushima or Chernobyl scale event.
  - ElBarto 7y ago
    We know how to make nuclear power safe. Nuclear power is safe. It's not helpful to try to kill the discussion by stroking irrational fears.
    - redprince 7y ago
      > We know how to make nuclear power safe. No, we really don't. We know how to make all sorts of things reasonably safe. Yet planes still fall out of the sky, refineries catch on fire, dams fail, etc. In essence: Any nuclear reactor will have a probability different from zero for producing an incredibly expensive nuclear accident. Much about accidents in complex high risk technologies has been said in "Normal Accidents" by Perrow in the 80s. The reasons he identified why complex systems fail will always be with us. Especially the notion that it is more often than not the organizations and not the technology which enables major accidents.