3 ms·

Hinkley has long interesting history [1] - only 3 years ago the company building it (EDF) weren't sure about whether they should go ahead. While it seems odd t

Hinkley has long interesting history [1] - only 3 years ago the company building it (EDF) weren't sure about whether they should go ahead. While it seems odd that over 50 years ago we could build them quickly, I suspect one of the main drivers of cost is the need to make them bomb proof sic from a safety point of view. With the sums involved, you'd have to say wouldn't the money be better spent in research on alternatives? Either renewable/energy storage systems, or more money for nuclear fusion rather than 20 million here and there[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... [2] https://www.power-technology.com/news/uk-pledges-20m-nuclear-fusion-technologies-2018-budget/ https://www.power-technology.com/news/uk-pledges-20m-nuclear...

LiamMcCalloway 7y ago
EDF's latest non-EPR design in France took over 10 years to build, in the 1990's. The safety requirements to protect against nuclear releases and the inherent complexity are the key factors.
redwood 7y ago
Fair but the UK has a lot of dirty baseload power to replace too. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-24823641 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-24823641 Coal is being replaced by natural gas as with everywhere but a ways to go.
- DrScientist 7y ago
  What's the point of a stop-gap that's too late? Yes the UK has a supply/demand issue - and nuclear is great for base load from a grid point of view - however given the delays will Hinkley actually be relevant by the time it's operational? Perhaps better to spend money on reduction of demand, other generation mechanisms and modernizing the grid to support more distributed generation and storage? One of the under discussed points about fission is the fuel is not renewable - it's dug out of the ground from potentially politically unstable sources.
  - credit_guy 7y ago
    > What's the point of a stop-gap that's too late? The point: we should not be aiming for net-zero energy, we should be aiming for net-zero energy, and a ten or a hundred fold increase in generation.
    - DrScientist 7y ago
      What do we need a 10-100 fold increase in generation for? Have you got a reference? I can see the move from gas to electricity for domestic heating and the move from fossil fuels to electric transport. Even if you ignore the offset against continuing de-industrialization and increasing efficiency, it's surely not going to be that level?
      - credit_guy 7y ago
        > What do we need a 10-100 fold increase in generation for? Have you got a reference? "The US consumes 25% of the world's energy with a share of global GDP at 22% and a share of the world population at 4.6%" [1] This means the US consumes 5.4 more energy per capita than the average human on Earth. If you hope for a world where the non-US population reaches the same life standard as the US, you need to increase the energy production by this factor. Now, in the US, only 38% of the energy consumption is electricity generation [2]. The rest is tranportation, industrial, residential and commercial sectors. Making the huge assumption that you can replace every BTU in these other sectors with one BTU of electricity, you would need to increase the electricity production by another factor of 2.6. More realistically, any replacement of a non-electricity BTU with some electric energy will have an efficiency well below 100%, let's say 30%. You then need a factor of 6.4. So far we get to a total factor of 5.4 x 6.4 = 35. Quite close to the (logarithmic) mid-point between 10 and 100, wouldn't you say? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#By_co... [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/
        DrScientist 7y ago
bbernoulli 7y ago
There are still countries which build them fairly quickly compared to the global average https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-korea-second-fastest-nuclear-plant-building-country https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-korea-s...

LiamMcCalloway 7y ago

EDF's latest non-EPR design in France took over 10 years to build, in the 1990's. The safety requirements to protect against nuclear releases and the inherent complexity are the key factors.

redwood 7y ago

Fair but the UK has a lot of dirty baseload power to replace too. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-24823641 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-24823641 Coal is being replaced by natural gas as with everywhere but a ways to go.

DrScientist 7y ago
What's the point of a stop-gap that's too late? Yes the UK has a supply/demand issue - and nuclear is great for base load from a grid point of view - however given the delays will Hinkley actually be relevant by the time it's operational? Perhaps better to spend money on reduction of demand, other generation mechanisms and modernizing the grid to support more distributed generation and storage? One of the under discussed points about fission is the fuel is not renewable - it's dug out of the ground from potentially politically unstable sources.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  > What's the point of a stop-gap that's too late? The point: we should not be aiming for net-zero energy, we should be aiming for net-zero energy, and a ten or a hundred fold increase in generation.
  - DrScientist 7y ago
    What do we need a 10-100 fold increase in generation for? Have you got a reference? I can see the move from gas to electricity for domestic heating and the move from fossil fuels to electric transport. Even if you ignore the offset against continuing de-industrialization and increasing efficiency, it's surely not going to be that level?
    - credit_guy 7y ago
      > What do we need a 10-100 fold increase in generation for? Have you got a reference? "The US consumes 25% of the world's energy with a share of global GDP at 22% and a share of the world population at 4.6%" [1] This means the US consumes 5.4 more energy per capita than the average human on Earth. If you hope for a world where the non-US population reaches the same life standard as the US, you need to increase the energy production by this factor. Now, in the US, only 38% of the energy consumption is electricity generation [2]. The rest is tranportation, industrial, residential and commercial sectors. Making the huge assumption that you can replace every BTU in these other sectors with one BTU of electricity, you would need to increase the electricity production by another factor of 2.6. More realistically, any replacement of a non-electricity BTU with some electric energy will have an efficiency well below 100%, let's say 30%. You then need a factor of 6.4. So far we get to a total factor of 5.4 x 6.4 = 35. Quite close to the (logarithmic) mid-point between 10 and 100, wouldn't you say? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#By_co... [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/
      - DrScientist 7y ago

bbernoulli 7y ago

There are still countries which build them fairly quickly compared to the global average https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-korea-second-fastest-nuclear-plant-building-country https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-korea-s...