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In the early 2010s, a lobbying campaign against new nuclear in the U.K. basically started, including people like the deputy prime minister [1] complaining that

by rpep 4y ago

In the early 2010s, a lobbying campaign against new nuclear in the U.K. basically started, including people like the deputy prime minister [1] complaining that it was too slow and renewables would be faster and it wasn’t necessary. Fast forward to 2022 and we still don’t have enough renewables, the UK is not very windy at the moment so there’s not enough base load capacity, and we only have 3 active coal fired power stations left. Oh, and we’re in an energy crisis and France, which is normally a net exporter to the U.K., is needing to import energy, making the crisis even closer. It would have been pretty useful to have had a new nuclear power station online right about now. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2011/03/nuclear-power-clegg-britain https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2011/03/nuclear-power-...

simfree 4y ago
There has been plenty of noteworthy pushback against renewable energy has been significant, even for offshore wind farms that would have minimal view impact. Pushback against new infrastructure is high in general, causing society to lean on inefficient and dirty sources of energy. We need more modern nuclear reactors, renewables and storage since neither can load follow like hydroelectric dams or combined cycle natural gas can.
- klabb3 4y ago
  If you wanna put the tinfoil hat on, having a political flamewar between renewables and nuclear is so ideal for fossil fuel companies that it almost looks deliberately architected. Nuclear proponents are rarely if ever against renewables on principle, but rather claim they aren’t delivering on their promises. The environmentalists OTOH have been radicalized to be opposed to nuclear in a dogmatic way, are entirely against improving it by lifting research bans etc. The “nuclear is not economically viable” argument seen in recent years is dishonest from the majority of critics; they were against nuclear before and will be in the future, independent of economics and regional viability of wind & solar. Meanwhile, coal, gas and oil are doing absolutely splendid – even countries with a strong environmentalist ethos can easily be convinced to expand their fossil fuel dependencies during a crisis, when their citizens can’t afford to heat their homes in the winter.
  - seanw444 4y ago
    That's a great point. Those that generally fall on the "just trust the science, bro" side are also the ones saying "nuclear isn't as effective right now, so let's avoid it like the plague" and "think of the long term!" It has always baffled me. This flamewar being pushed by fossil fuel companies makes perfect sense.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      The problem with this analysis is not that it’s wrong: the existence of a zero-sum nuclear/renewables “argument” is absolutely a huge benefit to the legacy fossil fuels industry. The problem is that right now it’s renewables and not nuclear that pose the most direct threat to fossil industry profits. Given current prices and dropping costs/watt of solar and wind, those sources are going to extinguish a lot of fossil competition in a relatively short period through exponential increase in deployment - and delaying an exponential “knee” can mean years of additional profit. Whereas right now there’s really no path to a massive nuclear rollout, and the costs don’t compete with fossil sources even if we decided to push harder.
      - ETH_start 4y ago
        The costs of solar/wind are being severely under-estimated: "True cost of using wind and solar to meet demand was $272 and $472 per MWH" https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.americanexperiment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/The-High-Cost-of-100-Percent-Carbon-Free-Electricity-by-2040-in-Minnesota.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.ame... Nuclear is in reality the most promising substitute for fossil fuels.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Have you got any modelling with a tiny shred of credibility that doesn't triple count various costs that agrees with that figure?
      - moloch-hai 4y ago
- fulafel 4y ago
  Nuclear can load-follow fast enough to balance renewables. See eg http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/
pydry 4y ago
>Oh, and we’re in an energy crisis and France, which is normally a net exporter to the U.K., is needing to import energy They're spending hundreds of billions just to replace ~80% of the nuclear plants that are aging out and officially hoping that renewables will make up the difference. It's almost as if it does take too long and cost too much. Meanwhile the UK is refusing planning permission to solar farms at a record rate because who needs electricity that costs £35 per MWh now when you can pay £92.50+inflation for Hinkley Point C in a decade: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/25/solar-farm-plans-refused-highest-rate-five-years-great-britain https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/25/solar-fa...
- 7952 4y ago
  Some of the refusals may be explained by the increasing size of schemes. That is no excuse, but number of refusals is not the whole story.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > It's almost as if it does take too long It doesn't take too long, it takes same amount any large infrastructure does, like a bridge or a damn. We are too late starting it. > Meanwhile the UK is refusing planning permission to solar farms Yeah this is terrible
Symbiote 4y ago
The government granted the licence to build Hinkley Point C in 2012. Construction started in 2017. It's expected to start producing power in 2027. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
- nine_k 4y ago
  So, both sides are right. Nuclear is too slow, but renewables are not fast enough / sufficient either. Another thing is that politicians tend to plan that things will continue to go about as well as they are going at the moment, and the only major crisis ahead is the one being discussed at the moment. Nobody has the nerve to think that e.g. France will have trouble with several nuclear reactors at once, and a major war erupts in Europe at the same time. Ah, and a global pandemic right before that. Who in their right mind would vote for an energy budget based on such paranoid view of a possible future?
  - Retric 4y ago
    Hardly, the UK completely replaced coal and reduced it’s dependence on natural gas with renewables from 2010 to 2020. Meanwhile that wasn’t enough time to bring any new nuclear online in the current environment. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electricity-production-by-sourceUK1985-2020.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electric... Looks like renewables where simply the better, cheaper, and faster option. Which is shocking considering how little hydro and solar they have.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      Plenty of wind though! Wind farms in the sea are a great idea; UK has a lot of sea at every side.
    - vlovich123 4y ago
      Well sure. When you effectively ban nuclear through regulatory hurdles, why is it a surprise that you don’t builds any and why is that a conclusion you can draw about the efficacy of nuclear itself? Somehow China is building out quite a bit of nuclear capacity while the west is sitting around dithering.
ThinkBeat 4y ago
France is in trouble because nearly 50% of their nuclear reactors are offline due to maintenance. Sweden has taken down at least one reactor again for maintenance. Using that as an argument that we need more nuclear energy seems a bit off.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  50% capacity factor for nuclear power is an aberration: typical capacity factors are over 90% [1] [2]. By comparison, capacity factors between 20-35% for wind and solar are the norm. Nuclear's capacity factor problems are also solve-able: France identified that irregular metallurgy caused faster corrosion, and this informs future builds. Nothing can make the wind blow more consistently, or make the sun stay in the sky for longer. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor 2. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliab...
  - pasiaj 4y ago
    In Finland wind power provides roughly 30% of the nominal power on average. The problem is that it fluctuates between 0-80%. The National Emergency Supply Agency calculates 6% of the nominal power capacity as the guaranteed capacity of wind. Unfortunately even that is overly optimistic. During days when temperatures hover close zero, wind farms are shut down due to the danger from ice debris. This has caused zero production days of wind power in Finland during the last month. Our electricity prices have been 30x the normal. List of causes includes: importing electricity from Russia has been halted, unreliability of wind power, delays in building new nuclear power, premature shutting down of certain carbon based energy production, increased exports to Estonia and Germany due to Nordstream/Russia/Ukraine, increased exports to Sweden due to maintenance of a nuclear plant there. )
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAvailabilityFactor.aspx https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAva... Nuclear is typically under 80% availability, with the three usual examples of "cheap fast" programs being even lower. The only exceptions of note are the US whose program is horrifically expensive -- and to get >90% requires some accounting tricks like spending big money on upgrading rated power without changing the nameplate and ignoring all the failed projects that were still paid for -- and China. The wind blows more consistently by having a higher hub height or putting it in a better place. Both are being done which is why, contrary to your claim, every year the capacity factor of new projects increases. > France identified that irregular metallurgy caused faster corrosion, and this informs future builds This is a great example of a factor leading to a negative learning rate just like the US experienced ever since their first large commercial plants began operating at the end of the 60s.
7952 4y ago
Hinkley B has been in development since around 2010 and has not generated any power. Wind and solar are over 25% of generated electricity per year. And most of that capacity was built in the last five years. It is growing very quickly. A few more nuclear power stations would be very valuable. But in terms of decarbonisation renewables are just faster. Interconnectors are also faster to build and also help avoid power cuts.
- headsoup 4y ago
  What will the ratio be once the reactor does come online?
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    I assume the same, as the nuclear power will displace gas power. There's almost always at least 5% of demand supplier by gas. https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Except when there is no wind we have to fire up all the dirty carbon generators. There can be no wind for a week, easilly.
  - r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
    Yes but, and this is the point that people seem to miss, that means you don't have to have them burning the rest of the time. This is still better than the actual situation that "we shouldn't do anything unless its big nuclear" proponents are helping to maintain where you are burning carbon all the time because we aren't building nuclear reactors in the real world for a variety of reasons (mostly political) and aren't likely to do so any time soon. So let's do the thing that makes things better and is politically possible even if its not perfect rather than doing nothing.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    Without the wind turbines the coal plants would be going 24/7 365.
anonymousDan 4y ago
What do you say to the enormous hidden costs of decommissioning nuclear: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/15/dismantling-sellafield-epic-task-shutting-down-decomissioned-nuclear-site https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/15/dismantl... Are these only an issue for legacy sites and not so much for new builds?
- rpep 4y ago
  I would say that the Sellafield plant has a huge amount of nuclear waste that the UK has to deal with from nuclear weapons development and early power station decommissioning, and that modern nuclear power stations do produce waste but at considerably lower quantities than we already need to deal with, to the point that it’s basically a rounding error.
  - anonymousDan 4y ago
    That's good news at least
danw1979 4y ago
Can’t you just “rustle me up a nuclear power station ?” https://youtu.be/ktIPiKwmnEI https://youtu.be/ktIPiKwmnEI
osigurdson 4y ago
It is all about MTBKB (Mean time between KaBoom). If there hasn't been one in a while, everyone is okay with nuclear. If there has been one recently, everyone comes up with reasons for why they are bad. This will never change.

by rpep 4y ago

simfree 4y ago

There has been plenty of noteworthy pushback against renewable energy has been significant, even for offshore wind farms that would have minimal view impact. Pushback against new infrastructure is high in general, causing society to lean on inefficient and dirty sources of energy. We need more modern nuclear reactors, renewables and storage since neither can load follow like hydroelectric dams or combined cycle natural gas can.

klabb3 4y ago
If you wanna put the tinfoil hat on, having a political flamewar between renewables and nuclear is so ideal for fossil fuel companies that it almost looks deliberately architected. Nuclear proponents are rarely if ever against renewables on principle, but rather claim they aren’t delivering on their promises. The environmentalists OTOH have been radicalized to be opposed to nuclear in a dogmatic way, are entirely against improving it by lifting research bans etc. The “nuclear is not economically viable” argument seen in recent years is dishonest from the majority of critics; they were against nuclear before and will be in the future, independent of economics and regional viability of wind & solar. Meanwhile, coal, gas and oil are doing absolutely splendid – even countries with a strong environmentalist ethos can easily be convinced to expand their fossil fuel dependencies during a crisis, when their citizens can’t afford to heat their homes in the winter.
- seanw444 4y ago
  That's a great point. Those that generally fall on the "just trust the science, bro" side are also the ones saying "nuclear isn't as effective right now, so let's avoid it like the plague" and "think of the long term!" It has always baffled me. This flamewar being pushed by fossil fuel companies makes perfect sense.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    The problem with this analysis is not that it’s wrong: the existence of a zero-sum nuclear/renewables “argument” is absolutely a huge benefit to the legacy fossil fuels industry. The problem is that right now it’s renewables and not nuclear that pose the most direct threat to fossil industry profits. Given current prices and dropping costs/watt of solar and wind, those sources are going to extinguish a lot of fossil competition in a relatively short period through exponential increase in deployment - and delaying an exponential “knee” can mean years of additional profit. Whereas right now there’s really no path to a massive nuclear rollout, and the costs don’t compete with fossil sources even if we decided to push harder.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      The costs of solar/wind are being severely under-estimated: "True cost of using wind and solar to meet demand was $272 and $472 per MWH" https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.americanexperiment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/The-High-Cost-of-100-Percent-Carbon-Free-Electricity-by-2040-in-Minnesota.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.ame... Nuclear is in reality the most promising substitute for fossil fuels.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Have you got any modelling with a tiny shred of credibility that doesn't triple count various costs that agrees with that figure?
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
fulafel 4y ago
Nuclear can load-follow fast enough to balance renewables. See eg http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/

pydry 4y ago

>Oh, and we’re in an energy crisis and France, which is normally a net exporter to the U.K., is needing to import energy They're spending hundreds of billions just to replace ~80% of the nuclear plants that are aging out and officially hoping that renewables will make up the difference. It's almost as if it does take too long and cost too much. Meanwhile the UK is refusing planning permission to solar farms at a record rate because who needs electricity that costs £35 per MWh now when you can pay £92.50+inflation for Hinkley Point C in a decade: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/25/solar-farm-plans-refused-highest-rate-five-years-great-britain https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/25/solar-fa...

7952 4y ago
Some of the refusals may be explained by the increasing size of schemes. That is no excuse, but number of refusals is not the whole story.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> It's almost as if it does take too long It doesn't take too long, it takes same amount any large infrastructure does, like a bridge or a damn. We are too late starting it. > Meanwhile the UK is refusing planning permission to solar farms Yeah this is terrible

Symbiote 4y ago

The government granted the licence to build Hinkley Point C in 2012. Construction started in 2017. It's expected to start producing power in 2027. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

nine_k 4y ago
So, both sides are right. Nuclear is too slow, but renewables are not fast enough / sufficient either. Another thing is that politicians tend to plan that things will continue to go about as well as they are going at the moment, and the only major crisis ahead is the one being discussed at the moment. Nobody has the nerve to think that e.g. France will have trouble with several nuclear reactors at once, and a major war erupts in Europe at the same time. Ah, and a global pandemic right before that. Who in their right mind would vote for an energy budget based on such paranoid view of a possible future?
- Retric 4y ago
  Hardly, the UK completely replaced coal and reduced it’s dependence on natural gas with renewables from 2010 to 2020. Meanwhile that wasn’t enough time to bring any new nuclear online in the current environment. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electricity-production-by-sourceUK1985-2020.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electric... Looks like renewables where simply the better, cheaper, and faster option. Which is shocking considering how little hydro and solar they have.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Plenty of wind though! Wind farms in the sea are a great idea; UK has a lot of sea at every side.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    Well sure. When you effectively ban nuclear through regulatory hurdles, why is it a surprise that you don’t builds any and why is that a conclusion you can draw about the efficacy of nuclear itself? Somehow China is building out quite a bit of nuclear capacity while the west is sitting around dithering.

ThinkBeat 4y ago

France is in trouble because nearly 50% of their nuclear reactors are offline due to maintenance. Sweden has taken down at least one reactor again for maintenance. Using that as an argument that we need more nuclear energy seems a bit off.

Manuel_D 4y ago
50% capacity factor for nuclear power is an aberration: typical capacity factors are over 90% [1] [2]. By comparison, capacity factors between 20-35% for wind and solar are the norm. Nuclear's capacity factor problems are also solve-able: France identified that irregular metallurgy caused faster corrosion, and this informs future builds. Nothing can make the wind blow more consistently, or make the sun stay in the sky for longer. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor 2. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliab...
- pasiaj 4y ago
  In Finland wind power provides roughly 30% of the nominal power on average. The problem is that it fluctuates between 0-80%. The National Emergency Supply Agency calculates 6% of the nominal power capacity as the guaranteed capacity of wind. Unfortunately even that is overly optimistic. During days when temperatures hover close zero, wind farms are shut down due to the danger from ice debris. This has caused zero production days of wind power in Finland during the last month. Our electricity prices have been 30x the normal. List of causes includes: importing electricity from Russia has been halted, unreliability of wind power, delays in building new nuclear power, premature shutting down of certain carbon based energy production, increased exports to Estonia and Germany due to Nordstream/Russia/Ukraine, increased exports to Sweden due to maintenance of a nuclear plant there. )
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAvailabilityFactor.aspx https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAva... Nuclear is typically under 80% availability, with the three usual examples of "cheap fast" programs being even lower. The only exceptions of note are the US whose program is horrifically expensive -- and to get >90% requires some accounting tricks like spending big money on upgrading rated power without changing the nameplate and ignoring all the failed projects that were still paid for -- and China. The wind blows more consistently by having a higher hub height or putting it in a better place. Both are being done which is why, contrary to your claim, every year the capacity factor of new projects increases. > France identified that irregular metallurgy caused faster corrosion, and this informs future builds This is a great example of a factor leading to a negative learning rate just like the US experienced ever since their first large commercial plants began operating at the end of the 60s.

7952 4y ago

Hinkley B has been in development since around 2010 and has not generated any power. Wind and solar are over 25% of generated electricity per year. And most of that capacity was built in the last five years. It is growing very quickly. A few more nuclear power stations would be very valuable. But in terms of decarbonisation renewables are just faster. Interconnectors are also faster to build and also help avoid power cuts.

headsoup 4y ago
What will the ratio be once the reactor does come online?
- Symbiote 4y ago
  I assume the same, as the nuclear power will displace gas power. There's almost always at least 5% of demand supplier by gas. https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Except when there is no wind we have to fire up all the dirty carbon generators. There can be no wind for a week, easilly.
- r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
  Yes but, and this is the point that people seem to miss, that means you don't have to have them burning the rest of the time. This is still better than the actual situation that "we shouldn't do anything unless its big nuclear" proponents are helping to maintain where you are burning carbon all the time because we aren't building nuclear reactors in the real world for a variety of reasons (mostly political) and aren't likely to do so any time soon. So let's do the thing that makes things better and is politically possible even if its not perfect rather than doing nothing.
- blitzar 4y ago
  Without the wind turbines the coal plants would be going 24/7 365.

anonymousDan 4y ago

What do you say to the enormous hidden costs of decommissioning nuclear: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/15/dismantling-sellafield-epic-task-shutting-down-decomissioned-nuclear-site https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/15/dismantl... Are these only an issue for legacy sites and not so much for new builds?

rpep 4y ago
I would say that the Sellafield plant has a huge amount of nuclear waste that the UK has to deal with from nuclear weapons development and early power station decommissioning, and that modern nuclear power stations do produce waste but at considerably lower quantities than we already need to deal with, to the point that it’s basically a rounding error.
- anonymousDan 4y ago
  That's good news at least

danw1979 4y ago

Can’t you just “rustle me up a nuclear power station ?” https://youtu.be/ktIPiKwmnEI https://youtu.be/ktIPiKwmnEI

osigurdson 4y ago

It is all about MTBKB (Mean time between KaBoom). If there hasn't been one in a while, everyone is okay with nuclear. If there has been one recently, everyone comes up with reasons for why they are bad. This will never change.