Its not. Its lower carbon but not zero. a lot of pollution in the lifetime of the plants.
It's much, much less carbon than fossil fuel through life, not quite zero admittedly but orders of magnitude in terms of CO2/kWhr compared to any fossil fuel source. Same argument can be used both for carbon-based fuels in extraction/transportation/refinement, or for the pollution made during the production of renewable energy.
We have had several serious radiation spills and still have loads of reactors to dismantle yet.
I challenge the definition of serious there, we've had no reactor incidents in either the commercial or naval world that have resulted in the loss of life or the meaningful contamination of land outside of the power plant itself since windscale, which was nearly 70 years ago. For all the arguments against nuclear power the safety one is very dubious in the UK.
the only sustainable solution is use less energy.
We have no choice with the electrification of transport and heating. Nuclear power is the best way of achieving that increase. The UK lacks base-load renewables and nuclear is much better than continuing to consume fossil fuels. I honestly find the argument that we're offloading the problem of waste to the next generation(s) to be baffling, would you want nuclear waste buried (properly) underground doing nothing, or billions of tons of CO2 (and equivalents) contributing towards climate change - something much, much more tangible to people's lives.
We have no choice with the electrification of transport and heating
Of course we have a choice.; The choice is runaway global warming or using a lot less energy. Thats the choice. We have already reached 1.5 degrees of warming, 2C is baked in. 3+ C will happen without radical change to consumption and will result in huge numbers of deaths.
No it's not, stop being dramatic.
You're absolutely right that everything comes at a carbon cost and we need to be consuming less but the choice isn't amish vs gigadeath.
Your sums always assume that the low carbon option is built or serviced using fossil fuels and never with those same low carbon options.
Not forgetting the vast public subsidy required to make it economically viable,
Commercially viable, there's a difference. Usually centred around the long-term payback periods, much like hydro.
Up to a point. It’s heavily reliant on imports and exports from other sources (and countries) to balance the grid,
How is that an issue? Diversity of supply is a good thing!
and is vulnerable to high river water temperatures in heat waves.
Any thermal power station would have the same "vulnerability", high cooling water temps mean the turbine condensers can't pull as good a vacuum which hurts efficiency. It will still throw out megawatts though and could be mitigated with vacuum boost pumps.
@squirrelking I’m also in the industry. Agree with everything you’ve said so far, except Dounreay. I was heavily involved in Dounreay decom for some years. Re weapons… let’s just say you are 💯 wrong on this one.
Huh, fair enough, I thought all that stuff got done at AWE. Or are you talking about breeding fissile material?
the only sustainable solution is use less energy.
That is not a solution on its own. We need to use much less energy AND that energy needs to be renewably generated.
And we need to address all the other sources of carbon emissions besides energy generation.
@squirrelking: I couldn’t say. 🫣
energy not electricity Molgrips
I couldn’t say. 🫣
Especially if you've signed the official secrets act
And you can’t say whether you’ve done that either, as that information is in itself classified.
Alright lads, we've all done spicy stuff. 🙄
@stingmered: Don't think that's true. Are you conflating the notification provisions of the (now dead) Official Secrets Act with the rule around security clearance that you weren't supposed to go around advertising the fact you've been security cleared?
I couldn’t say.
"I said, what colour is the bike shed at Dounreay?"
energy not electricity Molgrips
I said energy. What are you on about?
the only sustainable solution is use less energy
Did you read anything about TWRs?
@squirrelking: I couldn’t say. 🫣
Everyone should stop talking about it. I shouldn’t have mentioned it and we definitely shouldn’t add more detail.
The point was that fast reactors would be a solution to both problems but at a cost, both financial and in terms of risk. Gen IIIs don’t do this, but are still prohibitively expensive.
SMRs also don’t solve the fissile material and waste problem, in fact they make it worse, but they might make the economics more favourable. I’d argue the risk increases. More plants is just more chance for error.
Especially if you’ve signed the official secrets act
The signing of the act is a performance to remind you that the law applies to you. Whether you sign or not the law is still the law.
For all the arguments against nuclear power the safety one is very dubious in the UK.
Details on the risk here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/radioactivity-in-food-and-the-environment-rife-reports
The point was that fast reactors would be a solution to both problems but at a cost, both financial and in terms of risk. Gen IIIs don’t do this, but are still prohibitively expensive.
What risk do fast reactors pose that Gen III doesn't?
I'll be honest and say none. Fast reactors are actually safer as you can't get criticality above a certain level or it shuts itself down due to physics, they're passively safe.
SMRs also don’t solve the fissile material and waste problem, in fact they make it worse, but they might make the economics more favourable. I’d argue the risk increases. More plants is just more chance for error.
Actually you can run them in deproliferation cycles. GE were trying to sell us PRISM to do that years ago but it was a hilariously bad deal where we paid for the reactor, we sold them fissile plutonium, they converted it to non fissile plutonium and we bought it back! Fast reactors also have less high level waste, granted it's still active in the tens of thousands of years scale but that's a tenth of conventional reactor types. You wouldn't run them in isolation either so you would have power stations like we have now with the same training and expertise. It's not something you just dump on the back of a lorry and leave in an industrial estate with a remote operator.
The signing of the act is a performance to remind you that the law applies to you. Whether you sign or not the law is still the law.
Not...exactly. per s1(6), if you were not a member of the security or intelligence services, you had to be notified in writing that you are subject of the provisions of s1(1) of the old Official Secrets Act. So it's not so much the signing that's important, you're right, as the receiving...but the signing is evidence that you received the notice.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/6/section/1
I painted the bike shed at Dounreay (using glow in the dark paint).
Especially if you’ve signed the official secrets act
In triplicate, which makes it especially binding.
Or is it four times, i cant remember 😕 you do what you're told, or get shown the door.
Just out of curiosity, what happens if you refuse to sign? Do you get dragged off to a dungeon, put under surveillance...?
There's not really any choice but nuclear for the foreseeable future, SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) are a bit more concerning in terms of potential environmental impact but they're on the way, like it or not. The race towards AI will drive some of it, they're building GW datacenters now (that house super-dense compute racks, mostly for AI workloads) and those really need local power generation
How is that an issue? Diversity of supply is a good thing!
Yeah, but running nuclear above baseload, as the French do, makes the grid reliant on it. We can't all "do a France" as there would be no-one to trade with! I agree that a diverse mix across Europe is helpful.
Any thermal power station would have the same “vulnerability”,
Not to the point of shutting down I think? Of course, non thermal sources are unaffected, the very sources which compete with nuclear for funding.
The thermal management system for fast reactors (my knowledge is from Na) was far more complex, far harder on components and thus needed more safety systems and more maintenance which made them more than a little more risky, They also, to my knowledge, are not as reactive (to demand) as more traditional PWRs, and in the event of a serious problem with the reactor, an assessment has to be made as to HOW critical a fault was as a full shutdown and cooldown essentially killed the LM jacket surrounding the core and the thought was that this would mean a full core replacement. Obviously this was all theory.
The final problem with LMFBRs is that you do end up with significant amounts of radioactive waste from non fissile material in the form of the reactor jacket used for neutron capture.
There’s not really any choice but nuclear for the foreseeable future,
Apart from the facts that they are an expensive diversion and can never be a significant part of the fight on global warming. 30 years to build a plant, only provide a few % of the worlds energy needs, no fuel for the massive expansion needed to have any significant effect on global warming, no solution to waste.
But apart from that.....
the massive expansion needed to have any significant effect on global warming
How much expansion is that? We are talking about base load in an energy efficient world, aren't we?
I don't think anyone's suggesting carrying on wasting energy with 100% of our generating needs met by nuclear, are they?
Apart from the facts that they are an expensive diversion and can never be a significant part of the fight on global warming. 30 years to build a plant, only provide a few % of the worlds energy needs, no fuel for the massive expansion needed to have any significant effect on global warming, no solution to waste.
So what is the solution to the increased requirements for electricity consumption now and in the future for the UK?
As others have stated, there are solutions for waste, it's on-going management, it's not as if it's being fly tipped or lost at present!
How much expansion to have a significant effect on global warming? At the moment nuclear is just a few % of the global energy usage. To have any significant effect it would need to be many times this. No new reactors can be built in time anyway.
So what is the solution to the increased requirements for electricity consumption now and in the future for the UK?
Reduce energy usage - thats all energy not just electricity. ALL energy usage comes at a carbon cost.
New nuclear takes 30 years to be built. Too late.
To have any significant effect it would need to be many times this
Show your working here please as I think you are mis-understanding something.
Right now, on a still morning before the sun is up much we are on 35% fossil fuels, 18% renewable and 17% nuclear (and also buying a fair bit). So even replacing all our fossil fuel with nuclear right now we would need triple the nuclear power stations we are now using to get to zero generating emissions.
However, that won't be needed in reality since we are increasing our wind capacity significantly, and I'm pretty sure we will end up with energy storage which at a time like this (8.45am) we will be able to offset against solar later in the day.
New nuclear takes 30 years to be built
This web-page suggests 6-8 years to build. Obviously their may be a long planning tail, but that's not necessarily true of every project.
Yeah, but running nuclear above baseload, as the French do, makes the grid reliant on it. We can’t all “do a France” as there would be no-one to trade with! I agree that a diverse mix across Europe is helpful.
Ah right, sorry I see what you mean now. Yeah the French system isn't great but works because of interconnects. You could make the same argument for any sub-grid, it's just a different scale. Having large prime movers is good for grid stability but they should ideally be spread out.
Not to the point of shutting down I think?
I don't know tbh, it depends on what's driving the need to shut down.
New nuclear takes 30 years to be built.
Citation please.
Olkiluoto 3 started construction in 2005 and was commissioned last year. 18 years.
Flamanville 3 started construction in 2007 and is due for commissioning this year. 17 years.
Taishan 1 started construction in 2009 and was commissioned in 2018, Unit 2 was a year later for both. 9 years.
Hinkley C started construction in 2016 and is due for commissioning in 2030. 14 years.
That's just EPR's (which have now been refined to EPR2). As I've pointed out in the past ABWR's are much quicker. In our case a lot of the delays are from a loss of skills. We hadn't built nuclear for over 20 years, you can't just expect people to get up to speed straight away after all that time. Factor in that we had a model that needed redesigned to satisfy the ONR and I'd say we're doing well, obviously could be better but that comes with repetition and learning where you can make efficiency savings during construction (like building things on the ground and craning them in rather than in the air once the larger part has been fitted).
HInckley C was supposed to be online by now and the project was started well before that
Actual time from deciding to build to starting to generate is 25 - 30 years for all recent reactors. You are using a false starting point. Its from decide to build to generate electricity - which is 25+ years. Hinckly is already 15 years late and now pushed back to 2031
Molgrips - once again TOTAL energy usage worldwide not just electricity generation in the UK
Nuclear is around 4% of the worlds total energy usage. To have a significant effect on climate change it needs to be many times this
We have no storage solution yet or on the horizon
actual time from deciding to build to starting to generate is 25 – 30 years for all recent reactors.
Long planning time is true for all large/massive construction projects though, and isn't just peculiar to or a feature of nuclear. It's not necessarily that each project has to take that long, it's just that they have in UK in France becasue the need for additional generation hasn't been so urgent that there's time pressure to get it built. In Korea, Japan and China for instance the project times are much faster. Past project length times to build aren't necessarily a good indicator of how long it would take to build smaller modular reactors in the future if there was political will/public pressure for cleaner energy.
I don't think it a useful counter to why they shouldn't be built.
the increased requirements for electricity consumption
What increased requirements?
Molgrips – once again TOTAL energy usage worldwide not just electricity generation in the UK
So.. because nuclear can't solve the entire world's energy needs, that means we should not install any? You do understand that we need a mix of energy sources, right? We don't need to go with just one.
We have no storage solution yet or on the horizon
When was the last time you read up on this? Serious question.
What increased requirements?
The predicted increase due to the reduction in gas usage and increase in electric cars/trains/etc.
Spending all that time and money on nuclear means that is not spent on more workable solutions. Nuclear cannot be the saviour technology. Its a distraction from the real issues
Local battery storage is useful but once again a tiny % of what is needed. We need global solutions quickly scalable
Nuclear cannot be the saviour technology.
I don't think anyone thinks that's true, do they? there's only 100 or so years worth of usuable material anyway , so it's never going to be the "solution to everything" but that could be the 100 years space that someone needs to get on with transitioning to use less, or build some other form of sustainable power generation
Its a distraction from the real issues
I disagree. The future energy crisis isn't going to be solved by just doing this thing , or only doing that other thing, it'll be a mix of solutions. Just like we can build roads and rail at the same time...Nuclear might not be that answer to everything, but it'll the right solution in some instances. Dismissing it out of hand is short-sighted
I'm not aware of any major fuel shortage for nuclear plants beyond 100 years? Especially with recycling of spent fuel in Gen IV reactors?
I also strongly disagree with using Hinkley as a reference point for how long it takes to produce a nuclear plant. It was the first plant built in the UK for decades so there was a huge amount of investment in people and equipment required, along with the fact that the project has been run poorly - its no exemplar.
A common design plant, once the skills base is there, could be done much quicker than 30 years.
What Gen IV reactors - There aren't any.
We shouldn't be placing more money into Fission in its current form. I'd rather we placed more into Deep Geothermal (It's still nuclear, but far away) A report published by UK Gov last year showed the potential sites, their practicability and the technology exists today (Cornwall Eden Project), is controllable and scalable and can fit well with other forms of renewables. From planning to operation was 5 years (and that included drilling a 5.5km deep hole!) and ~£23m
Plasma drilling technology (currently in development) will further enable this by exposing vastly deeper options and MUCH higher temperatures.
Enigmas
Ita always " going to be better in the future " with nuclear. The actual record is somewhat different.
25 plus years is the normal time to build a reactor from deciding to build to getting electricity out. Thats the reality.
25 plus years is the normal time to build a reactor from deciding to build to getting electricity out. Thats the reality.
In January 2008, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) indicated that it would pay attention to new nuclear power projects in countries with no experience in this area. ASN said it takes at least five years to set up the legal and regulatory infrastructure for a nuclear power programme, two to ten years to license a new plant, and about five years to build a power plant. That means a "minimum lead time of 15 years" before a new nuclear power plant can be started up in a country that does not already have the required infrastructure
If I'm going to listen to anyone about how long it takes to build nuclear from plan to energy out, I'll take the experience of folks who've actually built them over you (no offense). so these folks thought it takes half the time you originally said to build in countries that don't have the required infrastructure. Just becasue it takes so long in the UK to build is no indicator of how long they actually take to build
Nuclear cannot be the saviour technology. Its a distraction from the real issues
No-one's saying it's the saviour, they haven't said that since what, the 60s?
Ita always ” going to be better in the future ” with nuclear.
Pretty sure that's the case with most technological things.
Regardless, it’s an awfully long time to wait while the climate continues to change.
Maybe we should invest in renewables and storage in the meantime.. oh wait - WE ARE.
If I’m going to listen to anyone about how long it takes to build nuclear from plan to energy out, I’ll take the experience of folks who’ve actually built them over you (no offense). so these folks thought it takes half the time you originally said to build in countries that don’t have the required infrastructure. Just becasue it takes so long in the UK to build is no indicator of how long they actually take to build
It's certainly ironic that the French said this. EDF are the primary contract for HPC and the EPR (Flammenville) started in 2007 and planned for commissioning in 2012 has now been pushed back to 2024 with subsequent sites now pushed back to 2035 and 2039 respectively. Total time for the EPR from planning to commissioning is now estimated to be 25y. The subsequent reactors are now supposed to be 14y and 12y respectively, but that's after site approval.
Hard to argue the French don't have the required infrastructure with 56 operational plants...
Q;Should we consider nuclear energy to be clean ?
A: No
HInckley C was supposed to be online by now and the project was started well before that
Actual time from deciding to build to starting to generate is 25 – 30 years for all recent reactors. You are using a false starting point. Its from decide to build to generate electricity – which is 25+ years. Hinckly is already 15 years late and now pushed back to 2031
Er, it wasn't even identified as a site for new build until 2009, round about when the various companies started building their cases for Generic Design Assessment.
Spending all that time and money on nuclear means that is not spent on more workable solutions.
Excuse the comparison, it's not personal, but here you are spending time on this, I take it Right to Die is all sewn up then? Or is it completely different and able to be worked on simultaneously? It's not a case of one or the other, that's not sustainable whatever way you cut it.
What Gen IV reactors – There aren’t any.
Yet. As I pointed out LFR is already in the works and if approved likely heading for GDA.
Hard to argue the French don’t have the required infrastructure with 56 operational plants…
None of which are EPRs.
A minimum lead time of 15 years is absolute best case, and surely translates to 25 years in the real world. You wouldn’t reasonably plan for anything less. Regardless, it’s an awfully long time to wait while the climate continues to change.
Well you wouldn't have the setup or same regulatory hurdles so 15 years seems like a reasonable outside estimate.
As for the time whilst things change, you can thank successive governments and their can kicking for the mess we're in now. Maybe if the lights weren't on people would pay attention.
Aaaand today Sizewell C got its site licence granted. Projected to start operation in early 2030s as long as nobody pulls an HS2 on it.
Hinckley-C projected to start generation of power in early 2030s.......if they're lucky.......(originally sposed to be 2017)
And Sizewell C isn't yet fully funded, so early 2030s sounds optimistic.....especially as sea defences on an at high risk suffolk coastline are not designed yet.
So if we assume £70Bn to build energy generation that won't happen for another 10ish years - what progress could we make if we invested similar amounts in renewables?
Aren't we already investing lots in renewables? And we still need some base load don't we?
Not investing enough in renewables according to multiple sources.
And renewables is a better way of reducing carbon emissions:
Tories stopping offshore wind to allow oil/gas exploration instead....
And renewables is a better way of reducing carbon emissions:
It is, but without nuclear how do you meet base load demand? We can only store so much renewable energy. This has always been the problem. Everyone knows nuclear has tons of problems, but so do all the other options at the moment.
Like I said above - using deep geothermal.
None of which are EPRs.
Irrelevant - You're arguing that rapid nuclear deployment using new technology is possible, yet all evidence to date is that it's not. The EPR will have taken 17y to build and commission, HPC was started over a decade later and will take no less time. the next two in France are predicted to take a similar amount of time reducing only by 1-2 years per reactor. France has 56 to provide most of its power. At that rate, we'd need to build 10-20 to meet baseload, so assuming 2 building at once, we're talking talking what 50-60years?
SWC will not be operational before 2035. Not a chance in hell. If even the French are saying 14 - 15 years, 11 in the UK is just not feasible, especially with HPC ongoing for much of that period.
Hinckley-C projected to start generation of power in early 2030s…….if they’re lucky…….(originally sposed to be 2017)
Considering they didn't break ground until 2016 and a GDA wasn't completed until December of 2012 I'd say that sits in the 'nonsense' pile.
And Sizewell C isn’t yet fully funded, so early 2030s sounds optimistic…..especially as sea defences on an at high risk suffolk coastline are not designed yet.
Guardian needs to do some proper journalism. If I said the moon was made of cheese that doesn't make it so, campaigners can say what they like, fact is I'm currently looking at the publicly available Development Consent Order application with the proposed sea defences in it. That was published June 2021.
So if we assume £70Bn to build energy generation that won’t happen for another 10ish years – what progress could we make if we invested similar amounts in renewables?
I don't know, you seem to be assuming you can just throw money at a problem and achieve linear results. As I said before, we need an energy mix, nobody is saying we shouldn't be pursuing renewables but throwing everything at them isn't necessarily going to correlate with proportional increases.
Like I said above – using deep geothermal.
And how long and how expensive would it be to get that even close to replicating an EPR in the UK? It's exactly the same problem as we don't have the expertise, infrastructure or supporting industry to do deep geothermal and that's before you get into plasma boring (Coming Soon™️).
deep geothermal
Deep geothermal is limited by current technology, but also by imagination. You could easily drill down to the earth's mantle using hydrogen bombs sequentially. Each bomb would melt the bedrock and you could then use that heat to power geothermal power generation until it ran out of heat, then just drop another bomb down the hole and repeat until you hit the mantle. I've sent schematic illustrations to all the relevant ministries, plus potential overseas parties that might be interested, but never got any response beyond, "We have received your correspondence."
Okay, theres a few things to unpack here.
Irrelevant – You’re arguing that rapid nuclear deployment using new technology is possible, yet all evidence to date is that it’s not. The EPR will have taken 17y to build and commission, HPC was started over a decade later and will take no less time.
HPC, Flamanville and Olkiluoto were three separate projects, the latter two were started before the design had even been finalised hence the redesigns.
the next two in France are predicted to take a similar amount of time reducing only by 1-2 years per reactor.
The next ones in France, to the best of my knowledge are EPR2. So a different design again with a lot of simplicity added but still a new design.
France has 56 to provide most of its power. At that rate, we’d need to build 10-20 to meet baseload, so assuming 2 building at once, we’re talking talking what 50-60years?
Why assume that? I assume in that time they will ramp up EPR2 and also start on SMRs. But who knows, that's entirely a planning strategy and logistics problem. Again, you could ask the same question of where several gigawatts of renewables over and above what we currently install are going to come from.
SWC will not be operational before 2035. Not a chance in hell. If even the French are saying 14 – 15 years, 11 in the UK is just not feasible, especially with HPC ongoing for much of that period.
Going back to my first point we've at least been clever about this. The plan is that resources are redeployed to SZC from HPC which gives continuity and means no duplication of resources. It's also going to be built to the original EPR design so there is a lot of commonality between the two. I agree however that early 2030s is more likely to be 2034 than 2031.
You could easily drill down to the earth’s mantle using hydrogen bombs sequentially. Each bomb would melt the bedrock and you could then use that heat to power geothermal power generation until it ran out of heat, then just drop another bomb down the hole and repeat until you hit the mantle.
But surely we need those for Orion Plates?
And how long and how expensive would it be to get that even close to replicating an EPR in the UK? It’s exactly the same problem as we don’t have the expertise, infrastructure or supporting industry to do deep geothermal.
Tough to say, but the Geysers is through to have cost between £1.5 and 2bn (22-30 plants) and produces 1500-1800MWe...Offshore drilling and pumping we have plenty of expertise in.
and that’s before you get into plasma boring
We don't need it to get to 500m-1km deep. It would just be vastly more capable and require less sites if you can go deeper without incurring massive additional costs. If you could get down to 3km, the basic ground temperature is over 100 degrees, so every site is viable so long as it's stable which most of the UK is.
(Coming Soon™️).
Juuust like HPC and SWC.
SWC
It's SZC. Don't ask me why, it just is, the same convention has run all the way from A station.
But yes. It's all coming soon. It's not a lack of will on the builders part but the political will to make it happen in both cases. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that your proposal has any less merit. We can and should be throwing our resources at everything we can, we're going to need all of it!
Yes, appreciate that I am just an interested observer - relying on ?reliable? news reporting like the graun - rather than someone with professional expererience within the industry. And thanks for the insights.
However, it feels like the the timescales/approvals for nuclear are so tortuous, nuclear is not making up the gap.
And in that interim between 2008 (Hinckley and Sizewell C decision) and now we could have put in much more renewables that would reduce the need for some of that base capacity ? And innovating in that 16 years we might have made lots of useful progress, linear or not.
As you say we need it all, but at the moment UK energy policy seems a bit cockamamey and overreliant on a couple of nuclear stations that are still somewhere in the future
Don't even get me started. I totally agree and whilst there are very sound reasons for the time taken to get things approved the push to get things done is almost non-existent.
We're back to the same place we were in 2009 when the government of the day announced 4x EPR's at Hinkley Point and Sizewell, 4x ABWR's at Oldbury and Wylfa and 3x AP1000's at Moorside. I appreciate Fukushima put a lot of things on pause and screwed some of the consortiums but there was no need to sit back and wait for a miracle. And now we're finally at the stage where the government is doing what it should have in the first place and taking a controlling stake.
At the end of the day, whilst we can disagree on the how I'm sure we can agree that this is all critical infrastructure and shouldn't just be left to chance to plan and deploy. This is why we're so short of what we require, by any projection, that we need everything we can get.
You can expect to find this lot hiding in the bottom of your garden.
At least it's better than Vinnie Jones being there!
You can expect to find this lot hiding in the bottom of your garden.
Well none of them have a moustache or obligatory black eye shield so I wouldn't worry too much.
And in other news Flamanville 3 got permission to start up yesterday so will now be loading fuel over the next few days before testing and connecting to the grid later in the summer.
@tjagain I hope you have a tasty hat for when Hinkley C hits the bars 😉
Its a decade away yet😜
😂
