British planning at its best
The irony is that we've known about a potential shortfall for at least a decade. Instead the politicians, the greens and the nimbys have conspired to allow the situation to fester.
The UK faces at least two years of peak-time power cuts in five years, despite the Conservatives' pledge to revive nuclear power. The Tories' energy policy was published Friday, and while a revived nuclear commitment provides some of the promised "energy security", it won't come in time. And, amazingly, the party has committed …
The irony is that we've known about a potential shortfall for at least a decade. Instead the politicians, the greens and the nimbys have conspired to allow the situation to fester.
Here here, there has been little spending on infrastructure. The coal that should have been used (and cleaned up with carbon capture to appease the greens) has been replaced with valuable oil and gas.
Put simply, properly looked after nuclear is safe. The greens went bananas over nulcear in the 70's and 80's.. Now, we need it.
Renewables, wind/wave/solar are unreliable. The quoted output of the equipment is an ideal. 30% to 50% is a maximum output for these toys.
Renewable hydrocarbons if employed would decimate the food supply for the planet. They are a non starter.
The problem for the UK is, WE DONT OWN OUR ELECTRICITY GENERATING INFRASTRUCTURE. It is in private hands.
Shareholders demand profits and dividends. This money should be spent on infrastructure first instead of these leeches.
You conveniently left out tidal, which is so reliable that you could set your watch by it, and with the UK's long coastline it is available in abundance. The problem is that installing tidal generators is difficult and expensive (with the damage to the sea-bed ecology also being an issue).
The efficiency of on-shore wind farms is low (although I'd question the relevance of efficiency when dealing with an infinite resource), but they are built anyway because they are cheap.
Oh, and not to tread on your general point, but 58% is maximum measured output for any wind farm over the course of a year, and this was in the UK.
Of course efficiency is relevant - unless you have magic windmills that once installed will run forever without requiring any parts, maintenance or eventual replacement, all of which require plenty of energy. I suppose you also have magic mining equipment, magic factories and magic transportation in your world too.
> You conveniently left out tidal, which is so reliable that you could set your watch by it
Tidal is predictable, sure. It happens twice a day, at times that depend on the phase of the moon. But you can't rely on a tide happening to occur during the peak load time, every day - it won't. You still need enough coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, or pumped storage power stations to cover that peak load.
Tidal does reduce the amount of coal/oil/gas you burn, so (ignoring the construction cost and the destruction of wetlands) it's "green" energy.
"Tidal is predictable, sure. It happens twice a day, at times that depend on the phase of the moon. But you can't rely on a tide happening to occur during the peak load time, every day - it won't"
True, but not strictly correct.
The Tides occur twice a day at any point around our coast, but due to the length of the coast, it is always high tide somewhere and low somewhere else so there will always be a high tide at peak load.... Somewhere.
My son works in the power industry, and we don't even mention energy policies in his presence.
This situation has been predictable for 20 years - inevitable for the last decade. And those who have known all along how crucial the problem was becoming have shouted themselves hoarse at the government, who pay temporary lip service then carry on as usual with knee-jerk short-term measures.
UK energy these days is about votes, grants, jobs for the boys, nimby councils and head-in-the-sand EEC policies. Wind towers across the UK aren't going to save us from the inevitable - they can't be counted on to provide on-demand power. Whatever your views on nuclear, there isn't enough of that to change anything at current investment. Energy-wise, we're busily throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
My son is outfitting his home with alternate power systems and, if I could afford it, so would I.
Yet again the EU wants us to stop producing energy and become even more dependent on countries like Russia and OPEC for their gas and oil while frittering away billions for windmills made in China. How much evidence do we need to prove that they simply want Britain to become a beggar state so that the world can finally do away with our stupid ideas like the abolition of slavery, democracy, liberty, etc
Without all these conditions and human rights that we demand, authoritarianism around the world would be so much better off and there would be world peace, right?
And who the hell is Herman van Rompuy??
Everything had to be privatised in the 80s because of the mess the last labour govenment left us with, thankfully back then we had the assets to sell, that is now not the case, we have nothing.
yeah The conservatives back then pee'd a lot of people off, no doubt at all, but the financial state of the UK was considerably better off when they passed it back to labour in the 90s
The Tory government (if you could call it that) sold off a great of valuable assets at rock bottom prices with this crap about how you, the British public, could own shares in companies you had already funded with your tax in the first place. Every single company sold off was within days, if not months trading at significantly higher value than at sell off. You could say this was acheived as the perseeved value now those companies, free of political control was greater but I am sceptical and believe those reflected the true share costs that should have been asked for at sale.
As for handing over the finances in a fitter state than they took them over - check out the Bank of England base rates up till labour in 97. They were running as high as 14% at one point in the early nineties we were in a crap state.
At the end of the day we have had far more Tory governments in this country than labour and they have killed our mining industry (cheaper deep mined coal in Europe at the time), shut down 30% of our rail infrastructure (Mr Beeching) and then subsequently underinvested in what was left, deregulated our banking which may have made us rich but also got us into the current mess.
I am not too over inthrawled by what Labour has or has not achieved but they have certainly done less damage to the operational efficiency of this country than the Blues.
check out the national debt around then and compare it to now, our childrens childrens children will still be paying off the mess the "reds" left us, you cant have something for nothing, im not disputing the torys didnt cock things up, im saying we owe a damn site lot more money to banks now then we ever have done and we dont have anything to sell this time regardless of the price they made on it, it worked then at least in the short run to get us out of the hole.
Bass rates means little, the problem then was they fluctuated to much, an the first thing the reds did was to get rid of govenment control of the bank of england so they cant be held responsable for it. Inflation wasnt sky rocketing as in the previous red govenment,
Watch the Britards squabble: was it the party in red or the party in blue who did it? The Britards in red deny the record of the current government ("We inherited a mess from Thatcher who used the Dark Side to make us go to war in Iraq!") and all the miscellaneous misdeeds of the Labour past, whereas the Britards in blue deny the record of their favourite party ("We inherited a mess from Callaghan who made us sell everything off just to spite the unions!").
All we need to take away from this is that both of the major parties have had their turn at wrecking the country over the course of modern political history. That anyone could be rampantly pro-Tory or pro-Labour at this point just goes to show how well they fit into the eyes-forward, delegate-thinking-to-others mindset of the true Britard.
...in every developed nation that I'm aware of but certainly the English-speaking ones...they are full of people who wear the reflected glory of the vanishingly small no. of their countrymen who actually do the forcing change for the better, or the realizing of world-changing technology, or the having ideals that aren't about getting what they can for themselves with the least risk they can get away with. Britain wants Britain to be a beggar state - well, one half wants the other half to anyway. Left to it most people lie, cheat, steal, murder - or pretend they don't see it. That's why we need upstanding citizens who set an example aka leaders. Unfortunately our leaders are worse than nothing. But one might say that the whole charade goes on and on precisely because of all the corrupt and cowardly who all collude to play the 'paragon of virtue' card, part of which involves letting the politicians and big business carry on as per usual.
Being the Devil, I love it!
How many of you green freaks are willing to go without power because of knee jerk reactions to unproven issues? because that is exactly what has happend.
How exactly are you going to charge all those millions of electric cars you want whilst relying on the elements and not even having the power to run a toaster?
dont get me wrong, Im all up for not needlessly poluting the world but logic has gone out of the window, least in part you have your selves to blame for this mess by stoking and refueling the fires politictions and the media corperations have made. Dont be fooled in to thinking they are doing this for the good of man, they did it to get votes, get figures and appear to be doing something about an issue that isnt understood.
This argument for running out of power has been here for years, its not new and the time needed to get powerplants that are not coal or oil up an running is far to long because of serious govenment budget issues.
The whole stinking mess is our fault and a short sighted govenments.
Time for some diesal generators.
Whilst we are at it, you should look in to the resources the planet has left for food, with current and future expected populations increases, its quite a bit less than the time we have left with oil, but its ok, starving to death will be ok because firstly it wont initially effect us, the poorer countries will starve first when we are incapable of supporting them, also CO2 levels will not increase and finally the mass culling of world populations due to lack of food has the upside that more food becomes available to those that survive.
Whats more scary is thats likely to start happening before i leave this world.
You know, straw men.
"How exactly are you going to charge all those millions of electric cars you want whilst relying on the elements and not even having the power to run a toaster?"
If you'd actually go out and ask a 'green freak' instead of putting words in their mouths, you'd find most of them are perfectly aware of the issues of electric power. The techno-utopians will say we should just build lots and lots of nuclear plants (and not worry about _nuclear_ fuel running out, natch...) so we'll have enough electricity to provide Electric Ponies For Everyone. Your more tie-dyed type will suggest that, you know, walking never killed anyone. Or riding a bike. Or taking the bus. Compared to Orlowski and his merry band of Panglossians, I'm probably a 'green freak'. I don't have an electric car, and I'm not going to buy one. I don't have _any_ car. Crazy, huh?
"ou know, walking never killed anyone. Or riding a bike. Or taking the bus"
witch is fine if everything you need for the rest of your life can be found with in 5 miles of where you live but most pepol have gotten used to being abel to work more than 30 miles formt here home try to change that and you will have a bigger ressesion than we have seen recently
There are two seperate sentences you quoted me on there,
I never mentioned greens and electric cars together, i asked two seperate questions, one how many greens are going to be happy with power cuts now they have helped kill off the existing inferstructure based on an idea thats still not proven, and secondly how do people expect to power all these new fangled electric CO2 free cars without electricity?
Your point on the availability of Nuclear material is intresting, i suggest you look up how much of that material is available on the planet, i think you will find that the sun will have burnt out by the time we use it all up at current and near future rates.
And i do walk, and own a car depending what needs done, its called using your head, you know, common sence, something the UK is sadly lacking now a days, hence the lack of electricity.
"There are two seperate [sic] sentences you quoted me on there"
Yes, two sort-of sentences one after the other that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Let's have a look, shall we?
"How many of you green freaks are willing to go without power because of knee jerk reactions to unproven issues? because that is exactly what has happend."
End of sort-of sentence #1. Unproven issues would be global warming, would it? In the meantime, proven issues include the depletion of the "nicer" fossil fuels in any territory owned by Britain - something which you can extrapolate reasonably well for the whole planet. Of course, people will tell you how super the technology is going to be sucking oil out of the Arctic seabed, as deep or deeper than the deepest of fields being exploited now and under arguably shittier conditions, but of relevance to Britards is which countries will be controlling those fields. Hint: one of them is already a big supplier of oil, gas and uranium, and you don't like it.
Onto sentence #2 - the *very* *next* sentence - keeping "you" == "you green freaks" in mind...
"How exactly are you going to charge all those millions of electric cars you want whilst relying on the elements and not even having the power to run a toaster?"
That's right: because only hippies and Al Gore (also a hippy) drive electric cars, "you green freaks" are still the people being referenced. Your juvenile "I meant nuffing of t'kind guv'nor" protest is hereby invalidated. I won't go into your stereotypes of "green freaks", many of whom probably have a much firmer grasp on energy issues than you do.
Now the "availability of Nuclear material" (as opposed to "nuclear" with a small "n"?) is an interesting issue. Estimates about how much uranium is left seem to vary quite widely depending on reserves and issues like reprocessing. People like to bang on about thorium, but that's not really a change in paradigm despite the apparently greater availability of fuel. If you move away from the "build more nukes" crowd and consider really forward-looking solutions like fusion, the situation is a lot better, but this obviously requires people to follow through on these solutions rather than throwing money at EDF and friends and telling them to do all the thinking.
It's wonderful to fling mud at "those dirty hippies" or whatever choice terms you might use for people who point out the problems with, say, the nuclear industry, but if anything, history has shown that someone has to hold such industries to account. At least the "green freaks" have a sophisticated view of the energy situation; charging head-down in one direction without considering the consequences ("breeder reactors for everyone, now!") is, if anything, the real knee-jerk reaction.
Im sorry, i got bored of your comments there, but congratulations for pointing out my Dyslexia and generally poor English
you make severl assumptions but i never refered to any one as dirty, and im happy to consider myself as a "green freak" the difference is i do what i need to do but do it in the calculated clean way. if politictions and the media didnt panda to the possibly incorrect assumptions of the public (created by the politictions and media) we might not be in this situation we are now faced with.
your last point about knee jerking is intresting, we wouldnt need to build new plants if we hadnt had knee jerk reactions about firstly nuclear plants and their saftey and secondly coal and oil plants because we are jumping up and down about CO2 levels (which incidently is following global temperatures not coursing them)
Well, I apologise if my remarks exploited any weaknesses in your prose that are due to dyslexia, but you cannot honestly write two sentences together and then claim that they have nothing to do with each other.
As for knee-jerk reactions, it's all about bad planning by both Tory and Labour administrations, the legacy of which are a bunch of deregulated power companies wanting more and more gas, some big coal-fired generators, and those nuclear plants that will need decommissioning in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, there's all that plutonium sitting around not being used. All the Tories and Labour have managed to do is to delegate everything to the market and to pretend that private enterprise will magically bring solutions, when such businesses will merely pay whatever it costs to keep the current flowing and then pass those costs directly on to you.
That's what Britain has become now: a country with no vision, managed by a bunch of paper-pushers who want to look good by standing next to the captains of industry as they open the next facility with which they will shaft the general public. And don't blame global warming: all of this started a long time ago.
And global warming isnt the beginning of all this, im sure would could sit here and blame the Romans if we tried hard enough, I think the point is firstly politics need to be taken out of the equation, the right thing to do isnt nessisarly going to be the popular thing to do, politictions are incapable of doing this, they can not be allowed to decide what is going to be done, only how it is going to be done.
Secondly the media needs to stup up and stop dramatising things to increase viewing/reading numbers, they are all guilty of it and they all have political agenders, this of course will never happen
so thirdly, the public needs to either be given balanced information or needs to be kept out of the loop.
I hate to say it because there are too many commities out there doing nothing but make our lives that much more boring but someone needs to say " we have looked at all the posibilites, they have all been given equal attention and this is what is going to happen"
or something like that, what we need now is a quick sustainable fix, we then pump money in to R&D of alternate power, tidal or Nuclear fission / fusion and deal with the CO2 or other waste products on a sensable long term plan, no pissing about, its not ideal but thats what is going to happen or we are screwed kind of attidude.
There is no point cuting CO2 by half if we are getting regular blackouts which potentially could course serious harm to people, or having to pay through the roof to get it from France whilst money gets taken away from R&D of our own energy systems. My only worry is its already too late, the economy is screwed, no money ot build plants, we have to buy in more at inflated prices thus leaving less to sort out our mess.
Typical blinkered 'green freak'. So you live without a car - let me hazard a guess that you live within the metropolitan area of a large city (or perhaps a teepee in the New Forest, but that would probably inhibit your posting of drivel on ElReg). Do you believe *everyone* should live in cities, or do you recognise that other people may not be able to rely on public transport for every activity?
When the lights go out, let's hope neither you nor someone you hold dear is in the operating theatre at the local hospital -- but maybe you expect them to manage without power as well. Never mind, you can always heat them up a pot of herbal tea on your Aga instead.
And as for straw men, do you have any clue as to the number of nuclear power stations needed to fill the energy gap (clue: it isn't "lots and lots" and they would be built on existing nuclear sites). Plus, there's no danger of uranium running out for at least a century and probably much longer if we actually started looking for new suppliers or developing a more efficient nuclear cycle.
10 wave and tide projects total 1.2GW.
Some will win, some will loose, but it's the biggest step forward in this form of energy in *decades*
One of the few *usable* energy sources the UK has a *very* significant advantage to most countries in the EU.
But thumbs down for the *massive* hole in forward planning.
So I guess buying that summer house hooked up to the service circuit of the biggest accumulating hydroelectric in Europe was not such a bad idea after all. Now, all I need is a white cat and to work on my "evil laugh" a bit... Bwahahahaha...
On a more serious note it is time to consider fitting onto the house anything and everything that can generate some extra energy. It is no longer a question of "will it pay back", it is a standard of living question now. I have had endure through a couple of episodes of 2:3 hourly power cuts in midwinter in other countries and it is not a pretty sight. Even less so today when everything in our houses is digitally controlled and needs electricity to function.
Dont have small children, in good health and no a sick/invalid relative do you ?
Probably all of 25 years of less old too.
There used to be mobs of people like you around Europe before the Enlightenment.
Loved hair shirts, self falgelation.
Most of us prefer to live like civilised humans.
if you want 3rd world conditions, go to 3rd world and try to convince them,
that a hard life is better.
Paris, because she knows her persona is not bright
Over 25, 1st on the way, but yes - decent health.
We used to have tons of people like you before we realised 6.6 billion people couldn't all afford to live like pompous spoiled brats demanding instant gratification for our every whim.
:)
I dont consider "taking a bus" and "not having power for 15 mins" to be roughing it. But there you go - maybe I need to be more demanding hey?
my problem is not that i cant put up with it, its having to put up with it because of vote winning media centric ideas for people who messed it up in the first place. The media and the politictions kick up a fuss about something they know little about, everyone jumps on the band waggon and decides knee jerk reactions are the solution which in the long term makes it worse for everyone.
So again, i have no problem putting up with it, simply because i will have too, my problem is having to put up with it in the first place because of numpties trying to score points.
Ok fair enough. In your original post, you seemed to be saying "all you greenies caused this, now you'll bleat cos you dont have power for 15 mins". Which as a "greenie" i took offense to!
But I agree with you - I wish all the parties would just sit down, decide what to do about it, then just get on with it (kinda like the swedes have done) instead of all trying to out "green" each other.
I have lived through two winters of power cuts in one Eastern European country which at the time decided that keeping to its electricity export obligations is more important than the welfare of its cittisens.
A 2:3 or 3:3 in mid-winter with -15 and 30cm of snow on the ground is _NOT_ something you will happily endure. I can tell you this as someone who _HAS_ endured it. Even if your heating is not electric pumps and controls are.
And by the way if you try to counter that with Global W***ing argument, may I remind you that if the proponents of GW are right the UK will freeze and if the proponents of GW are wrong the UK will once again freeze because we will hit the other side of the Atlantic oscillation. In either case this winter's 30+ days of sub-0 is more likely to be a walk on a spring meadow compared to the next 5-7 years.
In either case, I wiring your central heating pump to a 3000KWa UPS may actually be a very smart idea... You really do not want to lose it if the leccy goes dead.
This is one for the monkeys among us:
How come organic life evolved on a planet with more oxygen than is good for carbon molecules when umpteen planets much larger and hence available for lucky chances, haven't evolved much to speak of but one or two rather endearing storm cells and volcanoes?
Or to put it another way:
When the only people involved in the decision making are scientists and politicians, it leaves one with a "certain" feeling about this.
I'm in favour of Thomas Gold's Deep Hot Biospherical alternative.
And nuclear furnaces based in Westminster.
"The Tories note that by 2017, the 3GW hour shortfall will mean "a 15 minute power cut for every household in Greater Manchester, every winter night for a month"
What, they're not going to spread it out across the country? It's grim enough up here as it is. Won't someone think of the Northern children?
I moved from nuclear fan to the opposition.
The only reason to support nuclear (it will never create cheap or clean energy and don't get me started on what a couple of terrorist with a small amount of knowledge can do) is that it funds employment for people who would otherwise be at your doorstep 24hours a day selling you timeshares or chocolate teapots: Politicians and lobbyists.
Nuclear requires massive funding that can be streamed away into a million pockets - that's why we still hear about it.
If nuclear is so good then let the industry insure it, fund it and profit from it. They tried that in the US and now the government is guaranteeing loans (funding it again) after a couple of decades of it accurate placing in the energy hierarchy - at the very bottom.
Setting a price on carbon
= providing certainty for the market
= looking after their own (banks, investors, big business, old money)
Never mind that it's a market made of thin air. (Pun intended, of course.)
Why are they doing this? Because the Eurocrats in Brussels told them to do it... Makes you wonder where the Tories' Euro-scepticism went?
I really despair when i read the anti green comments that this forum attracts, one guy, Darren Tuffs refers to the fears over nuclear safety and the enviromental impact as a "knee jerk reaction and unproven issues"
Obviously you have been watchng more clarkson than you have the news, documentaries, reading new scientsist etc...
Is the evidence of spent nuclear fuel taking 100,000 years to become safe not enough for you?
Are you one of those types that think that Chernobyl was faked?
If it's so frickin safe then why not build some new plants outside your house?
If we all stopped using to much power then this would not be such an issue. We're running out because we are usng more. Do you really need 5 computers running 24/7 plus thayt NAS box in the attic?
Did you know that the average houshold set top box, when in 'standby mode' continues to consume around 50% of the power that it does while switched on?
Turn all your stuff off at the mains, or buy a remote controlled mains switch,if everyone did that then this would not be an issue.
We (they) should be encouraging us all to use less power not building more power stations.
And what's wrong with being a green anyway, they are looking out for you too. You may loose your 3rd car and 5th computer if your wrong, if they are wrong then you loose your life.
Better to let them continue to point out the obvious to those that refuse to see it for themselves.
> Turn all your stuff off at the mains, or buy a remote controlled
> mains switch,if everyone did that then this would not be an issue.
Sorry, but that's horseshit. Set-top boxes draw a few watts when left on standby, sure. Let's all turn them off then. Even if they were never on you're looking at, say, 50W per household saved? Whoop-de-do.
Standby power accounts for about 8% of home energy use. (http://www.iea.org/textbase/subjectqueries/standby.asp). We need considerably more than 8%, and that's discounting growing demand due to population growth and decreased supply due to mothballing of old plants. I completely agree on the need to cut consumption, but even the best projections show it simply isn't enough.
Personally I think it's nuclear - nothing else gives reliable 24h energy, and while I'm not a big fan of the waste, it's a few thousand kilos of high-grade waste vs. a few million tonnes of CO2 vs. unreliable supply. Pick any one.
because if i left everyting on standby my home uses about 10-13W, i do have a DC running 24/7 drawing about 50W but thats it, using a washing machine once a week more uses more than that.
Also, sorry mate, but they are knee jerk reactions, no one agrees on Global warming because no one knows for sure whats happening, there are some intresting facts about GW that whilst temps may indeed be rising the CO2 levels are rising because of this not as the media pushed coursing the temperature rises, which makes sence as the worlds biggests CO2 scrubber is less efficient at warmer temperatures, so if its not CO2 thats doing it what is? and there in is the problem, if that most basic argument for GW is taken away we have nothing left, at best reducing CO2 levels we output might slow down the warming but something else is coursing it.
Nuclear safety is fine, modern reactors are much safer than those that our russian friends used to use, case point would be france which as far as i know uses it to make most of its power and has had no serious issues
No id rather not have a plant next to my house, just like id not like a huge wind farm or solar array destroying the landscape, id rather i didnt have a coal oil or gas plant, and i bet you would not be too chuffed if they plonked one of the above outside your door either.
The safety of the Waste is a vaild concern, however it is one that can be delt with if it is properly handled and thought through.
Fact is, no one wants it on their door
"case point would be france which as far as i know uses it to make most of its power and has had no serious issues"
That would be those cracks mentioned a few years back. I cannot remember if it was in the reactor vessels themselves or the concrete dome. All Pressure Water Reactors (PWR).
By the way PWRs have historically give more scares than any other reactor type (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl etc). This is what happens when you scale up a nuclear plant technology that was originated in submarines. They at least float in tonnes of the coolent as opposed to elec. generation that has to be based near the sea or large body of water and you hope the pumps don't give out.
Those two reactors are vastly different, and i repeat, there has been no serious issue in france, no radiation leakage on any significant scale and the the mile island incident dumped out radiation to the local 2 million people on a scale significanty less than each of them taking an xray.
I cant find it but i believe there is a report somewhere that said more harm was done because of anti nuclear activists helping people beleave there were in a worse state than they were which made them too dependent on healthcare which they didnt need, it was some phycological condition or something, of course im aware that that report might be somewhat bias so take that with a pinch of salt but it sounds like there is some merit to it.
.
I'm just abut ancient enough to remember town gas that were made from t'coal and stored in big drummy things. It smelled nasty and you really could see yourself off by putting t'head in t'gas oven.
Them nice blokes in t'NCB used to tell us we had enough nutty slack to last us 300 years. And then t'North Sea farted up a load of methane and t'pits started to close. And then Wiggy Scargill finished 'em off in t'80s. T'UK could burn it's weight in t'coal and it would make sod all difference t't'global warming (if it exists). So let us buy British and stuff't carbon rubbish. And if I am overheard ordering t' coke and a bag of nuts you know it is perfectly innocent.
My main problem with nuclear (other than the obvious, like what we're going to do with the toxic waste, and how can we rehabilitate land devastated by the acid leaching uranium extraction process) is that I have a fairly shrewd idea of how the reality is going to pan out.
First up, we'll have the wonders of "who bid lowest" for the construction phase. It's pretty much a certainty that the cheapest quote is the one that'll be used. How will they make that quote a reality? By cutting corners. So we have a potential disaster there already, even assuming it's a perfectly safe design - a design which I'll remind you comes from a combination of human and computer work - you should all be familiar with that side of things. So, are the build and design likely to be perfect? It could happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Second up, who's actually going to be operating this poorly built reactor? Is it, a) a team of highly trained physicists (expensive), or b) people on minimum wage with no training? Since this is the private sector you can bet it'll be the latter, shareholder value and all that... So that's another disaster in the making.
Thirdly. Who's going to pay for the decommisioning phase, after all the profits have been milked? That's going to be us, the taxpayer. Why? Well as soon as the profit making stage is over, I'd put money on the shell companies that are operating the reactors folding like cheap decks of cards. Of course that's also going to be the case if there's an accident. Will we see the people in charge being held accountable? Hardly. They will make an obscene amount of money though, which will be great when they're on their superyachts over in Australia listening to the reports of the UK being rendered a nuclear wasteland...
So, my guess is that we'll get a poorly built reactor, being run by hopelessly undertrained staff, operated by a company that is solely there to make money. That sounds perfect, I mean, what could possibly go wrong ;)
Really quite embarassing for El Reg really. Nice to see the usual crap being trotted out as the reasons for the supposed impending armageddon. Probably by the usual Mail munching morons. Sad to see El Reg pandering to them. A couple of things to think about:
* in what areas is the UK (still) self-sufficient, apart from moaning? oil, food, manufacturing?
* if it is cheaper to buy what you need from elsewhere, what's to stop you doing it?
* if you always buy what you need elsewhere because it's cheaper, what do you do if the price goes up?
* how many less capacity do you need if you can achieve > 10% energy efficiency?
"* in what areas is the UK (still) self-sufficient, apart from moaning? oil, food, manufacturing?"
It's interesting that as sterling trades as low as it does, in previous years this would be taken as a positive sign by "industry": cheaper products for export markets, more exports, and so on. Now, it just means that Britards cannot spend as much on foreign stuff or on jetting around to foreign places.
"* if it is cheaper to buy what you need from elsewhere, what's to stop you doing it?"
The lack of money from exports or from the financial crater left by badly behaved bankers.
"* if you always buy what you need elsewhere because it's cheaper, what do you do if the price goes up?"
Well, point taken, but at some point you'll be calling Titan for that natural gas and the other end won't be picking up.
"* how many less capacity do you need if you can achieve > 10% energy efficiency?"
This is where Britain has really messed up: instead of spending oil revenues on needing to use less energy, everyone got used to "heating the sky". Still, if money can be prized from the grubby paws of the bankers and put to good use, there's still some hope.
"in what areas is the UK (still) self-sufficient, apart from moaning? oil, food, manufacturing?"
Self-sufficiency isn't a goal for any modern economy. If it was we'd be much, much poorer.
If that's all too Daily Mail for you, you definitely need a basic course in GCSE economics.
IIRC 20-25% of *all* UK electricity comes from nuclear reactors, *many* of which are close to their sell-by (or rather un sell buy date given the history of trying to flog off "British Energy").
There are modern reactor designs which are designed to be safe by use of the laws of physics. They'd fail if the basic laws of physics broke down in their vicinity. If that happens you have bigger fish to fry.
Some designs (especially the molten salt ones) avoid high pressure vessels and can burn nuclear waste (they also seem to relax the tolerance quite a lot compared to the conventional precision assembled block of carbon). they can also burn Thorium, which is even more abundant than Uranium (IIRC the current yellowcake price is in the doldrums as it's too cheap to sell at a profit). The CANDU types don't need the enrichment process either (handy if you don't want a large centrifuge plant set up near your local primary school).
Will any of these better designs even get a look in.
I doubt it.
OTOH The Scots parliament had green lighted 10 wave and tide power pilot projects. At 120MW each they should give a bigger haul of design data than anything from Whitehall in the last 30 years. Note. Waves are driven by the *global* weather machine. Tides are driven by the moon, both 24/7/365 suppliers.
Mines the one with alternative energy without the hot air in it.