5 ms·

It will produce annually, about as much electricity as UK produces now from solar. Which is installed at a much faster clip than these two sad reactors are buil

It will produce annually, about as much electricity as UK produces now from solar. Which is installed at a much faster clip than these two sad reactors are built, even if UK is one of the worst countries for solar in the civilised world due to expensive land and terrible weather. What's even the point? Maybe this reactor is a live testament to the observation that "any new nuclear starting construction today will be obsolete before it's completed, due to competition from renewables"? It's been started almost 10 years ago and it seems to be already there.

Ekaros 2y ago
That the energy is produced during night, winter and heavily overcast times...
- anovikov 2y ago
  There is storage for that, which is now finally, available, inexpensive and safe. Plus, it's long since proven that with moderate losses, renewable electricity system that combines solar, wind, and hydro, does not need any storage at all, or very moderate amounts of storage to achieve no or almost no losses.
  - dageshi 2y ago
    Is there? What storage?
    - the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
      Batteries?
      - Moldoteck 2y ago
        lol, look at California and how much it imports & used gas. And that's WITH a nuclear plant. Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten
        the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
        I am not sure what your point is honestly. Batteries are a very viable option for storage, competing cost wise with pump storage which has been in use for decades. > Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten Even existing storage solutions in Germany are already sufficient for the present day electricity network and build-out is progressing rapidly. The time for a nuclear build out was 20 years ago. We missed that window, now other technologies will prevail.
        Moldoteck 2y ago
        How are these sufficient when Germany still bumps coal, gas and imports in off peak hours? The question isn't if you can build them, the question is how much storage do you need and the cost. Like how much storage does Germany need for dunkelflauten? Are there any estimations?
        the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
        > How are these sufficient when Germany still bumps coal, gas and imports in off peak hours? Because they bump coal, gas and imports in peak hours. > The question isn't if you can build them, the question is how much storage do you need and the cost. Like how much storage does Germany need for dunkelflauten? Are there any estimations? I suppose you did not spend a lot of time researching this. That can be easily found by mere googling.
        Moldoteck 2y ago
        Um... No, Germany bumps them in offpeak hours https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?lang=en https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?lang=en You can also check their imports. Sorry, I'm quite bad at googling, may you show me what you found regarding this topic? I mean how much energy storage does Germany need to not use fossils and to not import from neighbor states with fossil generation?
    - davedx 2y ago
      https://www.energy-storage.news/massive-growth-potential-continues-for-battery-storage-in-uk-and-ireland-co-location-emerging/ https://www.energy-storage.news/massive-growth-potential-con... > The energy storage market in the UK is currently experiencing substantial growth, as evidenced by the current operational capacity of 4.6GW/5.9GWh, projected to increase to 7.4GW/11.6GWh by the end of 2024.
      - Moldoteck 2y ago
        "4.6GW" - that means that after 1h the 4.6GW are gone?
        matt-p 2y ago
        no, 5.9GWh, so after 1 hour at 4.6GW we could do another hour at 1.3 GW (or another 16 Mins at 4.6HW) ~76 mins at 4.6GW.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        Too bad the nights a little bit more than 76 minutes.
        matt-p 2y ago
        Indeed. We can only have a small amount of solar, but wind keeps blowing at night, Nucular continues, biomas too. The gap we need to bridge most urgently is turning off gas generation. Take a look here, https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical the majority of "turning off gas" is daytime demand that needs to be covered.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        > wind keeps blowing at night But stops during anticyclones, which can last several weeks (that makes it completely unfeasible to use wind power with gas as a backup, because there's no way we can build several weeks worth of storage). > Nucular continues The problem is that nuclear plants cost is roughly the same no matter if they produce or not, so nuclear + solar is strictly costlier than just nuclear. Solar in a country as cloudy and rainy as the UK, and one that is so far north it gets very long nights in winter, doesn't make make any sense whatsoever.
  - clarionbell 2y ago
    And yet the energy prices are so high that they drive companies to cut production. Especially in countries which banked on renewables the most (along with gas).
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    > There is storage for that There literally isn't, it doesn't exist.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      In the same sense this reactor doesn't exist?
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        Yes, anybody speaking as though this reactor already exists is wrong.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        Well HPC exists, it's not operational yet (and won't be before several years) but it does exist. And equivalent storage doesn't exist not as a WIP, not even as a project.
        pfdietz 2y ago
        Storage can go from planned to installed in a very short time, much shorter than a nuclear power plant, so that doesn't mean much. Storage prices are declining and installs are expanding with short time constants as well. The whole skeptical approach here smells strongly of ignoring rapid exponential change, which is pretty remarkable for a SV associated forum like HN.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        > Storage can go from planned to installed in a very short time, No it cannot, when you start building large hazardous (because of fire risk) facilities, then you face the same kind of red tape that you face with any big projects. Storage also requires adapting the electric grid to allow the energy to flow from and to the storage facilities. Believing storage is easy is just magical thinking. Nuclear isn't different, it's just big by default. And the French example in the 80s shows that building mass nuclear from scratch is in fact tractable in under two decades.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    The UK has almost 7GW of shovel-ready pumped storage hydropower projects with over 135GWh storage capacity.
davedx 2y ago
The pro nuclear types hate these observations because they’re painfully true. Battery storage is already doing a lot in the UK (4.6GW/5.9GWh) and the huge solar build out is a no brainer. Nuclear power is a dead end technology
- Moldoteck 2y ago
  i mean you can look here https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map how much batteries are doing for uk vs gas/imports...
- SirHumphrey 2y ago
  Output of the discussed nuclear facility is 3.6GW, which means weekly production of 604.8 GWh, or around 100x as much as currently installed storage capacity. And going into only one type of electricity production especially with the unpredictability of renewables is never wise.
  - anovikov 2y ago
    Storage is almost useless at over 24 hours of daily peak capacity stored, and fulfils most of it's purpose at as little as 2-6 hours depending on the climate and solar/wind mix.
- matt-p 2y ago
  That's Hydro (and it's a bit more than that now).
phkamp 2y ago
One of the points is that if you have a nuclear powered navy, there needs to be a career path for disembarking reactor-techs. This is in no small part the reason why the countries with nuclear powered navies are most eager to build new nuclear power reactors.
enopod_ 2y ago
„Sans nucléaire civil, pas de nucléaire militaire“ as the French say…
Moldoteck 2y ago
there are several problems here: 1 - this nuc plant in uk is a 'customized' one because uk has different laws compared to france. As result when you want something custom for the first time - it's both expensive and time consuming. 2- solar/wind can be scaled faster leading to faster decarbonization but makes the grid more unstable, just like the prices. Some tell you can use batteries for this but battery tech isn't there yet, you need absolutely huge amounts of them to cover the deficit reliably,especially for uk. Transmission&balancing costs are huge too. Right now uk's strategy is gas + more imports, usually from france. Afaik there aren't any countries globally(without big hydro resources) with a clear plan to ditch gas and reduce imports from nonfossil neighbors to cover own needs with renewables, be that California or Germany. Even green hydrogen plans are still a pipedream. It's ironical that even Norway with huge hydro resources is considering kickstarting some new nuclear plants

Ekaros 2y ago

That the energy is produced during night, winter and heavily overcast times...

anovikov 2y ago
There is storage for that, which is now finally, available, inexpensive and safe. Plus, it's long since proven that with moderate losses, renewable electricity system that combines solar, wind, and hydro, does not need any storage at all, or very moderate amounts of storage to achieve no or almost no losses.
- dageshi 2y ago
  Is there? What storage?
  - the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
    Batteries?
    - Moldoteck 2y ago
      lol, look at California and how much it imports & used gas. And that's WITH a nuclear plant. Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten
      - the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
        I am not sure what your point is honestly. Batteries are a very viable option for storage, competing cost wise with pump storage which has been in use for decades. > Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten Even existing storage solutions in Germany are already sufficient for the present day electricity network and build-out is progressing rapidly. The time for a nuclear build out was 20 years ago. We missed that window, now other technologies will prevail.
        Moldoteck 2y ago
        How are these sufficient when Germany still bumps coal, gas and imports in off peak hours? The question isn't if you can build them, the question is how much storage do you need and the cost. Like how much storage does Germany need for dunkelflauten? Are there any estimations?
        the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
        > How are these sufficient when Germany still bumps coal, gas and imports in off peak hours? Because they bump coal, gas and imports in peak hours. > The question isn't if you can build them, the question is how much storage do you need and the cost. Like how much storage does Germany need for dunkelflauten? Are there any estimations? I suppose you did not spend a lot of time researching this. That can be easily found by mere googling.
        Moldoteck 2y ago
        Um... No, Germany bumps them in offpeak hours https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?lang=en https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?lang=en You can also check their imports. Sorry, I'm quite bad at googling, may you show me what you found regarding this topic? I mean how much energy storage does Germany need to not use fossils and to not import from neighbor states with fossil generation?
  - davedx 2y ago
    https://www.energy-storage.news/massive-growth-potential-continues-for-battery-storage-in-uk-and-ireland-co-location-emerging/ https://www.energy-storage.news/massive-growth-potential-con... > The energy storage market in the UK is currently experiencing substantial growth, as evidenced by the current operational capacity of 4.6GW/5.9GWh, projected to increase to 7.4GW/11.6GWh by the end of 2024.
    - Moldoteck 2y ago
      "4.6GW" - that means that after 1h the 4.6GW are gone?
      - matt-p 2y ago
        no, 5.9GWh, so after 1 hour at 4.6GW we could do another hour at 1.3 GW (or another 16 Mins at 4.6HW) ~76 mins at 4.6GW.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        Too bad the nights a little bit more than 76 minutes.
        matt-p 2y ago
        Indeed. We can only have a small amount of solar, but wind keeps blowing at night, Nucular continues, biomas too. The gap we need to bridge most urgently is turning off gas generation. Take a look here, https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical the majority of "turning off gas" is daytime demand that needs to be covered.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        > wind keeps blowing at night But stops during anticyclones, which can last several weeks (that makes it completely unfeasible to use wind power with gas as a backup, because there's no way we can build several weeks worth of storage). > Nucular continues The problem is that nuclear plants cost is roughly the same no matter if they produce or not, so nuclear + solar is strictly costlier than just nuclear. Solar in a country as cloudy and rainy as the UK, and one that is so far north it gets very long nights in winter, doesn't make make any sense whatsoever.
- clarionbell 2y ago
  And yet the energy prices are so high that they drive companies to cut production. Especially in countries which banked on renewables the most (along with gas).
- lupusreal 2y ago
  > There is storage for that There literally isn't, it doesn't exist.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    In the same sense this reactor doesn't exist?
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      Yes, anybody speaking as though this reactor already exists is wrong.
      - littlestymaar 2y ago
        Well HPC exists, it's not operational yet (and won't be before several years) but it does exist. And equivalent storage doesn't exist not as a WIP, not even as a project.
        pfdietz 2y ago
        Storage can go from planned to installed in a very short time, much shorter than a nuclear power plant, so that doesn't mean much. Storage prices are declining and installs are expanding with short time constants as well. The whole skeptical approach here smells strongly of ignoring rapid exponential change, which is pretty remarkable for a SV associated forum like HN.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        > Storage can go from planned to installed in a very short time, No it cannot, when you start building large hazardous (because of fire risk) facilities, then you face the same kind of red tape that you face with any big projects. Storage also requires adapting the electric grid to allow the energy to flow from and to the storage facilities. Believing storage is easy is just magical thinking. Nuclear isn't different, it's just big by default. And the French example in the 80s shows that building mass nuclear from scratch is in fact tractable in under two decades.
- blitzar 2y ago
  The UK has almost 7GW of shovel-ready pumped storage hydropower projects with over 135GWh storage capacity.

davedx 2y ago

The pro nuclear types hate these observations because they’re painfully true. Battery storage is already doing a lot in the UK (4.6GW/5.9GWh) and the huge solar build out is a no brainer. Nuclear power is a dead end technology

Moldoteck 2y ago
i mean you can look here https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map how much batteries are doing for uk vs gas/imports...
SirHumphrey 2y ago
Output of the discussed nuclear facility is 3.6GW, which means weekly production of 604.8 GWh, or around 100x as much as currently installed storage capacity. And going into only one type of electricity production especially with the unpredictability of renewables is never wise.
- anovikov 2y ago
  Storage is almost useless at over 24 hours of daily peak capacity stored, and fulfils most of it's purpose at as little as 2-6 hours depending on the climate and solar/wind mix.
matt-p 2y ago
That's Hydro (and it's a bit more than that now).

phkamp 2y ago

One of the points is that if you have a nuclear powered navy, there needs to be a career path for disembarking reactor-techs. This is in no small part the reason why the countries with nuclear powered navies are most eager to build new nuclear power reactors.

enopod_ 2y ago

„Sans nucléaire civil, pas de nucléaire militaire“ as the French say…

Moldoteck 2y ago

there are several problems here: 1 - this nuc plant in uk is a 'customized' one because uk has different laws compared to france. As result when you want something custom for the first time - it's both expensive and time consuming. 2- solar/wind can be scaled faster leading to faster decarbonization but makes the grid more unstable, just like the prices. Some tell you can use batteries for this but battery tech isn't there yet, you need absolutely huge amounts of them to cover the deficit reliably,especially for uk. Transmission&balancing costs are huge too. Right now uk's strategy is gas + more imports, usually from france. Afaik there aren't any countries globally(without big hydro resources) with a clear plan to ditch gas and reduce imports from nonfossil neighbors to cover own needs with renewables, be that California or Germany. Even green hydrogen plans are still a pipedream. It's ironical that even Norway with huge hydro resources is considering kickstarting some new nuclear plants