Talk about a crazy world...

[flecc]

Good to hear that pumped storage, like wind power, is a mature, reliable, safe tech.
Cheers, Mikey

Today's storm warning forecast highlights the weakness of wind, showing how it's anything but reliable. In fact it can never be relied on.

On average modern generator wind turbines commence generation when wind speed reaches about 8mph, but they don't reach the rated output until the wind reaches around 32 mph. Once the wind speed reaches over 50mph, the turbines are automatically stopped to avoid damage to them.

So not only do they only generate when the wind blows, they only deliver the rated output between about 32 and 50 mph winds, a very narrow band and not at all a common one. Slower than that band and the output drops like a stone, faster than that and there's no output at all.

 

[trex]

the only valid support for nuclear generation is this technology causes relatively lower carbon emission - I am not persuaded that carbon emission is a problem, for at least several hundred years.
If you remove carbon targets, nobody is going to support nuclear.
Now, who funds so many organisations to make carbon the scapegoat?

 

[flecc]

That's conspiracy theory Trex, with so little nuclear build in the last quarter century and the high cost of build, there is no widespread financial incentive to promote it.

The promotion of carbon being a problem has been that of scientists advising governments, as usual with scientist in petty squabbles between the two factions, the pro-carbon-cause ones being far in the majority at present.

Like you, I'm far from convinced that carbon is the great enemy yet, but I see no commercial conspiracy, just governments in a quandary about how to produce tomorrow's electricity, influenced by the pro-carbon-cause scientists forcefully trying to prove a point, and the green lobby pushing the alternative energy technologies.

 

[trex]

That's conspiracy theory Trex, with so little nuclear build in the last quarter century and the high cost of build, there is no widespread financial incentive to promote it.

This is a middle of the road analysis of the economics of Hinckley C:
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The UK wholesale electricity price in 2013 is about £48 per megawatt-hour. EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (in 2012 prices),[1][2][19] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years feed-in tariff period agreed upon. It is estimated that this would provide around a 10% return on their investment.[17][20] The price could fall to £89.50/MWh if a new plant at Sizewell is also approved.[1][2] If the project is completed after 2019, as planned, the UK government estimate is lower for a range of alternatives: £95 per megawatt-hour for onshore wind, £85 per megawatt-hour for sewage gas and £65 for landfill gas. The UK government draft strike price falls to £110 per megawatt-hour for large solar photo-voltaic by 2019.[21].

EDF will also receive government loan guarantees of up to £10 billion if the project defaults.[20].

Independent estimates suggest that photo-voltaic prices will decline more sharply. Nagy et al. use US data to test Wright's hypothesis for the rate of improvement in solar technology. These academics say the "expected PV cost in 2020, shown in Fig. 6, is 6 cents/kWh with a range (3, 12). In 2030 the cost is 2 cents/kWh, with a range (0.4, 11). This does not include the additional cost of energy storage technologies. The current cost of the cheapest alternative, coal-fired electricity, is roughly 5 cents/kWh".[22] Whereas the UK government photo-voltaic estimate falls by 3% per annum, the Nagy et al. estimate falls by 10% per annum.

Photo-voltaic industry estimates agree there is 'huge potential for (PV) cost decline: around 50% until 2020' [23]. At UK insolation levels, they estimate photo-voltaic will become less expensive than Combined Cycle Gas Turbine between 2017 and 2019. These estimates use the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) which includes investment, operations and maintenance costs but does not include the cost of energy storage.

It is clear that the nuclear builders cannot make a good economic case so why the tories went for it unless there are powerful [behind the curtain] forces at work?

 

[flecc]

For the reasons I've given, nothing else will definitely give the quantity of supply necessary in time. The promise of photo-voltaic isn't certain by any means, large scale clean-coal burning isn't proven, large scale storage of C02 is not yet feasible, wind is unreliable, gas will get ever more expensive.

So faced with all these unknowns and problems, the known capability of nuclear is seen as the only definite solution. There's no conspiracy, our governments have dithered for many years in their attempts to avoid going nuclear since it's unpopular with voters, but have reached the point where immediate action is vital. Indeed it may already be too late to avoid blackouts.

As for the price comparison you posted, it's pointless to compare today's price with the future price of Hinckley C since today's price will have multiplied by the time the new facility is completed. To avoid blackouts over the next few years we are going to have to build many gas powered generating stations as a stop-gap, hence the gas pipeline from Norway. We'll have to pay through the nose to get those built by suppliers since they will insist on guarantees as well, and the gas will get ever more expensive year by year.

If we go for a majority nuclear solution as France wisely did long ago, we too will end up with similarly much cheaper electricity than the alternatives. Yes, with nuclear the builds are very expensive like wind, but as with wind the ongoing costs are very low so in the long term much cheaper. But unlike wind which averages under 6/7, nuclear delivers 24/7. Faced with all these facts, of course a government will feel obliged to go nuclear, which is why the opposition parties also support the decision. It's the only realistic and sensible one.

 

[Kudoscycles]

I still think that the global warming due to burning fossel fuels is one big con trick by scientists and governments. As a scientist try going to government and say that you want finance to prove that there are other reasons for global warming and you would certainly leave empty handed,the opposite of course was heavily funded.
These green taxes are just too easy to apply and justify but not so easy to take away,especially with a fragile coalition with the Liberals-look at the outcry when Cameron suggested that he may consider taking the green element out of our electric bills.
I would be supportive of any attempts to clean up our planet,but our little island is so insignificant against the pollution generated by the US or China...surely those countries should have been the prime movers of Kyoto and the rest,including us,joined in.
KudosDave

 

[trex]

our planet receives 8,000 times more energy directly from the sun than all we burn today - including all the renewable wood. There is no way that a few hundred years of burning fossil fuel can determine earth weather. Yet, our children are obliged to learn (without qualification or quantification) that green house gases cause global warming and sea level rise.

 

[flecc]

That's surely a false comparison though Trex, energy and gases are not comparable in that manner.

The gases are pollutants changing the atmosphere's acceptance rate of the sun's radiation, and we do know that this has happened at various times in earth's history with global temperatures very different from today's. That didn't matter to us on those occasions since we didn't exist then.

Whether the thesis is true I don't know, but I do know that we cannot support our global population if the average global temperature rises by just a few degrees.