Energy prices.

[premmington]

I wouldn’t say that - I think you made your point perfectly! I think we have the same viewpoint, it’s a currently necessary evil - but to suggest that we shouldn’t also be investing in renewables and other tech I think is wrong. We need both, and hopefully some breakthrough that means we can move away from fission altogether at some point.

I agree we should be investing in renewables and the "debated storage" people have been talking about here.

I am not against new tech - I get all new tech has a slow start - I also get some new tech does not deliver.

I am realist...

I am also realistic that burning fossil fuels at the rate we are - is not a good idea.

@daleyd I do think we have the same view point.

"pragmatic" is the best way I can describe it

 

[knighty]

the last maths I saw said for the price of building a nuke plant, you could build enough renewables+storage to more than cover everyhting the nuke plant would produce

I've googled it but can't find it now :-(

 

[Maker]

the last maths I saw said for the price of building a nuke plant, you could build enough renewables+storage to more than cover everyhting the nuke plant would produce

I've googled it but can't find it now :-(

Hinkley C is currently said to cost £26 billion and will have a capacity of 3.26GW

Dogger bank Wind Farm should cost about £9 billion when it's complete and have an installed capacity of 3.6GW

That leaves £15 billion for storage. For reference, Dinorwig cost about £3.2 billion (adjusted for inflation) and can store 9.1GWh, with a 1.8GW capacity it should supply full chat for 7.3 hours (Though they say 6 hours on their website). Going off those numbers, £15 billion should get you 42.6GWh, or 3GW for 14.2 hours.

That's just installed capacity though, they can't supply full whack all the time. The capacity factor takes into account the wind not blowing hard enough, or downtime for maintenance and refuelling. Dogger Bank's capacity factor is about 45% (According to the first link I found with a figure) and Hinkley C should achieve 91%, adjusting for that:

Hinkley C will actually supply 2.96GW and Dogger Bank will supply 1.62GW, but if you were to scale it up 55% so it would supply the same as Hinkley, it would still only cost £14 billion, leaving £12 billion for storage, or 3.8 Dinorwigs, call it half a day's storage.


So yeah, nuclear makes wind look cheap, and nuclear money gets you a lot of storage, but not nearly enough for wind to truly replace nuclear. Also, if you're happy that nuclear is safe enough, there's no reason it can't provide district heating on top of it's generation capacity (I don't think any existing nuclear plants do it, but plenty of coal and gas stations do), which is a big bonus.

 

[S-Rail]

but to follow your point of nuclear V Dogger Bank , what is the expected life time of Hinckley’s output versus the lifetime of the wind turbine installation .

What if wind was half the price , I can’t see it being there for the long game , ie how many would be replaced in 10 / 20 years alongside the battery storage , which all has a finite lifetime span V the main build of Hinckley .

Again as others say , all for renewables , but it all needs to be like for like , not just on cost , the whole shebang . Life time , disposal , the infrastructure needed for wind farms .

A quick google says Hinckley has an expected life span of 60 years , whilst a wind turbine is 20 to 25 years , so at the worst , 3 sets of turbines , at the optimistic 2.5 sets .

I know there is no easy / simple / laymens answer

 

[cheb]

And the Kawasaki GT550 as I remember.

 

[Maker]

but to follow your point of nuclear V Dogger Bank , what is the expected life time of Hinckley’s output versus the lifetime of the wind turbine installation .

What if wind was half the price , I can’t see it being there for the long game , ie how many would be replaced in 10 / 20 years alongside the battery storage , which all has a finite lifetime span V the main build of Hinckley .

Again as others say , all for renewables , but it all needs to be like for like , not just on cost , the whole shebang . Life time , disposal , the infrastructure needed for wind farms .

A quick google says Hinckley has an expected life span of 60 years , whilst a wind turbine is 20 to 25 years , so at the worst , 3 sets of turbines , at the optimistic 2.5 sets .

I know there is no easy / simple / laymens answer

I agree, all things considered, nuclear probably is the answer for the foreseeable future.

there’s the exotic materials required to build reactors and power stations

Not an exotic material, but I worked out a while ago the embodied carbon in the cement to build Hinkley is about the same as Drax puts out in a week! Based on that, I'd expect the pollution from construction of just about anything is probably next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

 

[S-Rail]

Not an exotic material, but I worked out a while ago the embodied carbon in the cement to build Hinkley is about the same as Drax puts out in a week! Based on that, I'd expect the pollution from construction is probably next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Something from the top of the grey matter and concrete , as an average produces 1 ton of CO2 for every 1 ton of concrete , that is from mining , transport of materials , mixing , to final site delivery / point of use .

And then look at the quantities used for the bases of a wind turbine , some where around 350 plus tons , nothing is without its “footprint” and if he jntetested to know wether the base is designed to be used once , ie one installation or reused for multiple replacements as I can see it being an easy task digging 350 tons of reinforced concrete out of the ground

 

[Beeezer]

And the Kawasaki GT550 as I remember.

Shaft drive….

 

[fizzy]

Figure sounds plausible, 10yrs to pay back and, on a 20yr life, 10yrs of free electric when the sun shines. Or a shorter payback, DIY.

Levellised cost isn't some tricksy manipulation applied to twist figures, it's just the words used to describe all the costs ("cradle to grave") associated with a tech Vs the output it gives.

View attachment 356009

It really does work out at <5p/kWh. When the sun's shining, nothing is cheaper.

And right through Winter when it isn't?
The amount of arable land being lost?
Sorry I just don't think that the amount of CO2 saved will be any greater than if the same parcel of land was covered in nice trees!

 

[fizzy]

the last maths I saw said for the price of building a nuke plant, you could build enough renewables+storage to more than cover everyhting the nuke plant would produce

I've googled it but can't find it now :-(

Rolls Royce small modular reactors will be far cheaper. And quicker to build once the idiot civil service regulators pull their fingers out! Oh yes they have a job to do - but why do ours take 3 times longer than any other countries

 

[fizzy]

It’s not the accidents that are the problem (though they are obviously a big issue if they do go wrong, but that hopefully is very remote possibility) - there’s the exotic materials required to build reactors and power stations, security, waste that’s hazardous to deal with and remains so for a long time, decommissioning after they are finished, plus the fact that if every country decides to do the same then we are going to run out of easily recoverable uranium quickly.

It’s got a part to play but it’s no silver bullet that’s going to cure all our woes. Of course we need to be looking at getting whatever we can from other renewable sources, and developing storage tech as well - using nuclear fission as a stop gap until we can find “something” better.

What about breeder reactors?
They died out as Uranium became cheaper. So not as viable at the moment but definitely an option if cheaper sources of Uranium run out. In fact they reckon with Breeder Reactors there is already enough fuel available to last a few billion years They have also been making good progress with extracting Uranium from sea water - although that is not commercially viable yet tbh.

 

[fizzy]

As a comparison, perhaps? What is the strike price agreed for our latest nuclear-build (when it eventually gets operational)? Yes, that’s right, it’s £95 for each MWh for the next 35 years. Go figure! How does that compare with renewables. Pretty expensive for our children and their children, I reckon.

Remember, too, that the strike price will increase over the 35 years of operation. What price for just some of our base load requirements!!

The local-to-me 350MW solar development will involve some storage, to level out grid supplied power, but I’m not yet sure of how long the stored energy will fill the peak usage hours. Anyone interested - just look up the Mallard Pass Solar Farm.

Covering over 2000 acres of farming land with solar panels
And panels made in Canada.
Can't see anything about the storage - maybe a few minutes worth perhaps?

I seriously wonder how people who pretend to care about the environment can allow such things to go ahead! Makes my blood boil.
And if Britain were to vanish off the face of the planet the difference in global CO2 levels would be minimal. Why should we destroy our landscape when other countries just use cheap power to make their industries more competitive?

Mallard Pass Action Group | Yes to Solar, No to Mallard Pass

The Mallard Pass Action Group is a collective of concerned residents formed from within and around the footprint of the Mallard Pass Solar Farm project.

www.mallardpassactiongroup.com

 

[Gareth J]

And right through Winter when it isn't?
The amount of arable land being lost?
Sorry I just don't think that the amount of CO2 saved will be any greater than if the same parcel of land was covered in nice trees!

We know output is variable but that doesn't mean it's also worthless!

It doesn't rain all the time either, that's pretty useful too

Do you still believe that total cost of generation of commercial solar is ~10p/unit?

 

[premmington]

but to follow your point of nuclear V Dogger Bank , what is the expected life time of Hinckley’s output versus the lifetime of the wind turbine installation .

What if wind was half the price , I can’t see it being there for the long game , ie how many would be replaced in 10 / 20 years alongside the battery storage , which all has a finite lifetime span V the main build of Hinckley .

Again as others say , all for renewables , but it all needs to be like for like , not just on cost , the whole shebang . Life time , disposal , the infrastructure needed for wind farms .

A quick google says Hinckley has an expected life span of 60 years , whilst a wind turbine is 20 to 25 years , so at the worst , 3 sets of turbines , at the optimistic 2.5 sets .

I know there is no easy / simple / laymens answer

Very valid point (not one I had concidered).

Life cycle versus - cost!

Not easy to weigh up the whole "shebang" is it...?

 

[Kayos]

Very valid point (not one I had concidered).

Life cycle versus - cost!

Not easy to weigh up the whole "shebang" is it...?

No it isn't, but if you go deep enough into reports they do try

The problem we have seems to be a societal problem now, everything is polarised.

The question is not nuclear or renewables, the question is how much of each?

Sadly some nail their flag to the mast and are unwilling to consider the other options

We need nuclear as much as we need renewables, personally I'd like to limit the nuclear to the minimum as in 60 years my children will potentially have grandchildren of their own, and I do not want to leave them the mess of nuclear clean up

"We do not inherit the earth from our fathers, we borrow it from our children"

 

[daleyd]

What if wind was half the price , I can’t see it being there for the long game , ie how many would be replaced in 10 / 20 years alongside the battery storage , which all has a finite lifetime span V the main build of Hinckley .

Again as others say , all for renewables , but it all needs to be like for like , not just on cost , the whole shebang . Life time , disposal , the infrastructure needed for wind farms .

A quick google says Hinckley has an expected life span of 60 years , whilst a wind turbine is 20 to 25 years , so at the worst , 3 sets of turbines , at the optimistic 2.5 sets .

I know there is no easy / simple / laymens answer

isn’t that exactly what levelised cost does though - it’s the cost per unit power produced over the entire life cycle of a project. So it will take into account the life span of the project, how much power it will produce over that period and give you a figure per unit produced.

That’s literally the reason it’s used - so people in charge of the money can work out how much things are going to cost and when things like break even points are.

 

[julianthegypsy]

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but solar is always talked about as wasting agricultural land, when there are thousands of warehouses and factories with massive roofs sitting idle that could quite easily be covered in panels. Car parks could be covered in canopies that would also provide shade for the cars underneath them. Win win. Last I heard you could only get permission to grid tie 5kw on a house and 10kw on a commercial building. That's ridiculous, and purely because the power companies prefer their current central system with a few massive power stations and don't want to deal with it. That has to change. Also worth noting that panels get hot and work best cool. Shouldn't be that difficult to cool them and send the heat underground to a heat store and use it for heating in cold weather. Not a magic bullet, but another big piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

 

[Kayos]

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but solar is always talked about as wasting agricultural land, when there are thousands of warehouses and factories with massive roofs sitting idle that could quite easily be covered in panels. Car parks could be covered in canopies that would also provide shade for the cars underneath them. Win win. Last I heard you could only get permission to grid tie 5kw on a house and 10kw on a commercial building. That's ridiculous, and purely because the power companies prefer their current central system with a few massive power stations and don't want to deal with it. That has to change. Also worth noting that panels get hot and work best cool. Shouldn't be that difficult to cool them and send the heat underground to a heat store and use it for heating in cold weather. Not a magic bullet, but another big piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

It's also wrong

There are export limits based on cable size, not arbitrarily numbers

Currently installing 2MW on some buildings, all grid tied for when they are not in use

 

[fizzy]

isn’t that exactly what levelised cost does though - it’s the cost per unit power produced over the entire life cycle of a project. So it will take into account the life span of the project, how much power it will produce over that period and give you a figure per unit produced.

That’s literally the reason it’s used - so people in charge of the money can work out how much things are going to cost and when things like break even points are.

Well with all this wonderful wind and solar we should have lovely cheap electricity shouldn't we?

 

[daleyd]

Well with all this wonderful wind and solar we should have lovely cheap electricity shouldn't we?

What’s that got to do with what I said? Is levelised cost that, or something different?