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They can pay me £1m to write "cheaper emission free energy = good".
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It's not cheaper though.
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Depends what you are comparing it to, and how many newts you need to avoid displacing.
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How are you valuing the newts?
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Very much lower than current environmental regulations.
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Hinkley Point C and starting Sizewell C?
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Worth keeping up to date on both of those in Private Eye. Could be as big a problem (if not bigger) as/than HS2.
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I would have thought there are plenty of studies showing climate change impacts the poorest in society the most (on a global scale at least).
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I thought Sizewell C hadn't started yet?
Either way it's taken absolutely ages. I think it's a drawback of our planning system, rather than simply Conservatives bad. However, the conservatives have had years to improve these things.
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To be fair, PE doesn't pin the blame on Tories, but on a system which has allowed EDF to shovel all the risk onto UK taxpayers.
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Does anyone actually care about newts? Aren't they just a convenient planning obstacle in the eyes of NIMBYs
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It hasn’t although project teams are being put together and it is close to starting under a Tory government. Of all the things the Tories have got wrong, not building any nuclear power stations isn’t one of the better lines of attack. I’m surprised they didn’t scrap HPC when costs escalated though.
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How so? The tax payer hasn't currently paid anything whilst EDF have suffered big cost overruns
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Will have to check relevant PEs. It's always possible I've misremembered (nay, forsooth, tis likely), but the problems (both technical and financial) seem to be legion, IIRC.
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Ah, I didn't say which taxpayers... it might be the French, according to this report:
"Two former EDF executives told the Guardian the odds were stacked against Hinkley from the start. “I would have bet at the time that we would see the costs we have today. And I think they’ll climb higher too,” said one.
Philippe Huet, a former head of EDF’s internal auditing in Paris, said the deal was based on political strategy rather than a commercial rationale. The British government offered EDF a contract that would guarantee payment of £92.50 for every megawatt hour of electricity generated by the nuclear plant. It was criticised for being both eye-wateringly expensive for UK bill payers but not nearly enough to cover the risks of constructing the project.
At the time that it was agreed it was already known that EDF’s estimates understated the cost and schedule of the project. Key decision-makers chose to ignore this because it was too important strategically. As they would say, if a project cannot be profitable it must at least be strategic,” Huet said.
Hinkley is one of many costs facing the French taxpayer after the government renationalised EDF last year. The company’s future investments – in maintaining its existing fleet of nuclear reactors, building new ones, and investing in renewable energy – could exceed €20bn (£17bn) a year, according to Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the country’s energy transition minister.
The French government is reportedly calling on the UK government to provide financial help for both Hinkley and the next planned plant, Sizewell in Suffolk, to keep the struggling nuclear revival afloat. The UK government has been quick to quash any suggestion that Hinkley’s financial fallout will be borne by UK taxpayers. A spokesperson said the government “plays no part in the financing or operation of Hinkley Point C”, which was a matter for EDF and its shareholders.
Huet has predicted that EDF may even try to renegotiate its contract with the government. He estimates it could seek to raise how much it charges per megawatt hour of electricity produced by about 15% to make Hinkley a worthwhile venture."
So it looks like a case of 'watch this space'.
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I do some work at HPC and visit a couple of times a year. They are penny pinching in a lot of areas (including all the recommendations I make in my reports but then paying me to go back 6 months later and regurgitate the recommendations) then they have all sorts of things wasting money. Apparently their bill for providing tea / coffee making facilities for the staff in the site offices is close to a million a year. They have buses running 24/7 around the site and back & forth to the park and rides as very few staff are allowed to park at site (part of their green travel commitments) but outside of the main start and finish times they are often empty. I guess it’s all a drop in the ocean for the overall scheme cost.
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Incredibly expensive for everyone, but the UK will pay the agreed exorbitant price. Really can't see the point of nuclear.
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Very expensive inflexible power. What's the point of base load if you can't turn it off?
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Looking at this https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ you could get to about 20 GW before not being able to turn it off is an issue.
IIRC part of the issue with HPC is that the EPR is a bit of a duff design.
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Err, it's base load, so coveers the constant power need.
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A Severn Barrage could do that and potentially generate more than double what HPC will provide. I still feel tidal isn’t getting as much investment as it should even without a scheme on the scale of a full Cardiff to Weston barrage.
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What we need for tidal to be developed is more vested interests. 😉
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
I think that the habitat destruction/realignment for wildlife will forever rule out that option now... the goalposts have moved since it was fist mooted (I can remember it being talked about on Points West in the 70s).
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Surely tides are pretty reliable, unless the moon wanders off.
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The tide is, but I think the difficulty is building turbines robust enough to withstand a working life in the Severn.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I don't think the power output is constant?
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Maybe not, the volume of water that moves each hour in a tidal sequence is:
1/12, 2/12. 3/12, 3/12, 2/12, 1/12
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It physically can't be. The reservoir behind the barrier has to empty in time to refill for the next tide. It can't empty during the rising tide for obvious reasons.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0
