Interesting gamble the government is taking here. Unusually the environmentalists are right to be cautious, SMRs have been designed since the 90s and not a one of them has ever come to anything.
Also not completely sure why we’d need it. By the governments own plans we can expect our wind power to jump from 10gw to 50gw by 2035, which would mean being 100% renewable powered for months at a time.
Which will make it very very expensive, the research I’ve seen recently says nations that manage that transition can expect electric price falls of a quarter to a half, and that Hinckley plant is already going to be selling at over twice the unit price of any other source. I would expect SMR plans to collapse for that reason by itself.
I guess this is justified by the fact nuclear has a high initial cost, but a very low cost if and when demand increases, whereas most renewables are the opposite?
If we’re doing a grid that has a base load, then I’d much rather have that base load supplied by nuclear than by coal, oil or gas. It’s a straight swap. Nuclear is clean and safe. And it’ll be these same big nuclear companies that pivot to fusion if and when it happens.
Ideal scenario is 100% renewable. I’ll take a shift to nuclear from fossil fuel as a positive step even if it’s not perfect.
I don’t understand that thinking.
Nuclear has a very high incremental cost when demand increases. You need to build another nuclear power station. You’re then set for a while.
Wind has a very small incremental cost. You need to build another wind turbine, but that won’t last you very long. Maybe you build a wind farm rather than individual turbines. Still a lot cheaper / quicker.
Nuclear is better for the environment than renewables tbh
I’d say we don’t understand enough about secondary and tertiary effects of supply chains to know which is better environmentally. Certainly both are far better than fossil fuels, but our supply and construction worlds are so dependent on fossil fuels we can’t really tell the impact of constructing them.
What you can absolutely say is that the time scale of nuclear is too slow. Wind power in the UK has basically gone from ~0 to 80TWh annually in 15 years. 32 megatonnes of CO2 didn’t get emitted because of wind generation last year (Vs combined cycle gas generation). When Dogger Bank comes on line this year that will be closer to 100TWh and 40 MT of CO2. I haven’t even considered the 5 MT saved from solar.
(Loose annual numbers based off grid.iamkate.com)
Hinckley point C is looking at a construction time of 13 years (2017-2030). That’ll generate 28TWh annually. It’ll save 11 MT of CO2 annually Vs gas, but up until 2030 it’s saving a big fat zero. All whist our other nuclear plants age out and we have to resort to gas for the shortfall.
People can say we should of / would of / could of done things better with nuclear in the past, but we didn’t. Renewables are saving CO2 emissions today because they can be brought on-line bit by bit. Nuclear is all or nothing and a long way in the future.
It absolutely is. Nuclear waste is bad, but it’s not nearly as bad as millions of tonnes of carbon.
The main issues people have that I’ve seen are:
(And the ever present 3rd option: I don’t want it near my house, and I don’t want pylons on my land)
You recycle nuclear waste. The bits you cannot recycle are so small, you can keep it in an underground bunker.
Nuclear explosions only happen if you extremely mismanage a power plant.