Re: Critical questions
"there are people on here that are determined a mix of renewable power MUST NOT work"
At best, wind and PV can replace the current UK electricity generation capacity. That would take carpetting the country in turbines and panels.
Right now the entire wind and PV base is about half the output of the existing nuclear fleet.
The problem is that to achieve CO2 targets:
1: All the coal/gas stations need to be shut down.
2: Gas/oil heating systems need to be shut down
3: Transportation systems need to move to being 2/3 to 3/4 electric
That means that not only do you need enough _working_ capacity to replace coal stations, you actually need about 5 times as much as exists today.
Hinkley point is a fustercluck, as are all water-moderated nuke plants - they should have gone away a long time ago, but the USA stopped Molten Salt reactor research in the early 70s. That's only just started getting rolling again and we're effectively 50 years behind schedule on them.
The problem with nuke designs isn't the nuclear part, It's the water. Thermal nuclear reactions run best around 600-900C and are self limiting about 1100C (the core of a conventional fuel rod is about this hot), but you can't allow water to get to these temperatures or "really bad things happen". Using it as the heat transfer fluid is a spectacularly bad idea only matched by using molten sodium for the task.