h/t Jo Nova; In the wake of Britain’s recent catastrophic wind drought, the Boris Johnson administration appears set to embrace nuclear power as their main strategy for achieving net zero.
U.K. Net Zero Emission Plan to Focus on Nuclear Power, FT Says
By Sherry Su 16 October 2021, 20:35 GMT+10
…
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is to unveil an overarching “Net Zero Strategy” paper as soon as Monday, along with a “Heat and Building Strategy” and a Treasury assessment of the cost of reaching the 2050 goal, the report said.
The main strategy will have a heavy focus on Britain’s nuclear power program. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to give the go-ahead to the documents on Friday, according to the report.
The creation of a “regulated asset base” model will be key to delivering future large atomic-power stations. Under the plan, households will be charged for the cost of a plant via an energy levy long before it begins generating electricity, the report said.
…
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-16/u-k-net-zero-emission-plan-to-focus-on-nuclear-power-ft-says
A pivot to nuclear power is marginally less insane than a 50 degree north nation trying to stay warm in winter using solar power, but the new proposal still sounds very expensive.
The “regulated asset base” prepayment for new nuclear plants will drive up the cost of energy for Britons who are already reeling from having to pay for the British Government’s energy market tinkering.
In addition, a commitment to future nuclear power does nothing to solve Britain’s current energy woes. A new generator which is planned to come online in 15 years or whatever does not help keep the lights and heating on today.
When France transitioned to affordable nuclear power in the 1970s, there was bipartisan support for the move. Continued reliance on oil and fossil fuel was seen as a major national security risk. The mass produced nuclear plants were deployed with minimal red tape, and have continued supplying France with affordable, reliable nuclear power ever since.
But a similar will to act decisively does not yet appear to exist in Britain.
It is the rush, the government attempts to impose energy policy, which I believe is making everything so expensive. Nobody will invest in nuclear in Britain without government financial support, because the political risk is too great. Building nuclear plants is affordable, until you add the red tape and the risk the next administration might shut you down.
The best thing the Boris Johnson administration could do, in my opinion, is to lay off the power sector, stop funnelling ordinary people’s utility bill cash to special interest groups through sweetheart deals and guaranteed purchase contracts, and allow the free market to restore reliability and affordability to Britain’s energy network.
Right now Britain’s energy market is a mess, everyone has their hand out. All of these demands for special consideration to achieve non-commercial government energy policy objectives are being subsidised by ordinary people, who are suffering unprecedented energy bills and fuel poverty.
BoJo’s administration has got to stop tinkering, they have to stop trying to kid themselves that they can somehow outsmart the smooth operators who run Britain’s energy industry, the smart boys who are doing very well out of this shambles, at the expense of the British People.
A shift is taking place in the EU. France and nine other countries want to make nuclear energy to be a “green energy”, so nuclear project can get subsidies that other “green” source get.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nuclear-option-pits-germany-and-france-against-each-other-tmxwrkqkv
Assuming the TPTB go along, it will be interesting to see whether Greenpeace backtracks after this:
Nuclear Delusions
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/nuclear-delusions/
My guess is that they will come onboard, with the loss of some “useful idiots” who thought the NGO took principled positions.
It is strictly impossible to replace fossil fuels with wind turbines and solar panels.
There are only two sources of large amounts of affordable baseload power that do not involve burning something, and those are hydro power and nuclear.
Since hydro power requires large amounts of water impounded in large reservoirs at a considerable elevation, and UK does not have the geographical conditions to make much power that way, that leaves ONLY nuclear, if the actual goal is to reduce CO2 production.
The big problem is that people who are not given to understanding details have been driving energy policy in a large number of large countries.
Since making a bunch of nuclear power plants takes a forthright and sustained commitment, large upfront expenditures, and a certain amount of time, it is clear that policy planning has run way out in front of any understanding of what is possible to do.
Besides for wind droughts, the large numbers of turbines that have been built over the last 10-15 years are going to wear out before nukes plants can replace them, unless all red tape is shoved aside.
Luckily there is no actual reason why fossil fuels cannot make the power we will need, and we are already seeing what happens when the choice is fossil fuels or running out of energy.
Nuclear power is obviously cleaner than fossil fuels, especially coal. But the technology has lagged for decades, for example, market ready modular reactors. In any case, a long term commitment to the full nuclear cycle is required, which includes reprocessing (to eliminate an intractable waste disposal problem) and then breeder reactors is a long term solution until fusion becomes viable.
In the meanwhile, however, there’s no question that fossil fuels must pick up the slack. Likely fossil fuels will have to power most transport. There are simply not enough raw materials to support a fleet of EVs comparable to ICE vehicles, barring some miraculous technical breakthrough.
If there are going to be subsidies, it might as well go to nuclear technology.
Hey that’s a great business model. Pay now and get nothing. Who could argue with that?
Build Back Better, New Green Deal, Great Reset.
sarc.
You will own nothing, and be happy….
ITYM ‘we will own everything and you’ll just have to lump it.’
JF
They have a nice little home for you, you will work six days for your masters and have one day to grow plant food on a common ground nearby to where you live.
Back to the future.
Medieval serfdom is making a comeback in Green.
As was always the intention, as said above, the great “reset” back to feudalism!!!
Much better to go for the small factory built nuclear power stations which, individually, can be delivered within a single parliamentary term under a fixed price contract with the private sector and can also be sold offshore to get economies of scale in production and amortize design costs over numerous units. The same units, or relatively minor variants are probably suited to marine propulsion and possibly able to be built on marine hulls to be deployed wherever in the world there are medium term power shortages.
Steady in old chap. it taken 20 years for rhem to realise nukes are the only viable replacemnt for fossil. It will be another ten before they realise that SMRs are the future.
Leo, I thought ‘sensible comment, give it an uptick.’ Seeing it’s you – the man whose Gridwatch Templar website reveals the tightrope the UK’s Grid is walking this winter – I’d like to give you more, but the system won’t let me.
I will mention my TCW blog post laying out a speech for the UK Prime Minister to give at COP26 elsewhere. But big nukes, the almost unbuildable EPRs? They’ve got a long way to go before they hit sanity.
JF
I think the Hinkley build shows everything that is wrong with the EDF ‘built to meet EU regulations’ power station.
Government has tossed another £216m at Rolls Royce to match the private investment in their SMR.
And there is a fusion reactor and a Natrium reactor being built – so by the time we realise we need them we might have some idea of costs…
Fifteen years and counting in Olkiluoto, Finland, Taishan 1 shut down indefinitely because of radioactive leakage (don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret!), Taishan 2 will undoubtedly follow as the engineering is the same, Flamanville 3 startup pushed to 2024. If anyone thinks the Hinkley EPR will come in on time, I have a picture of a very nice bridge for sale.
Fusion has always seemed like a great idea, but the unfortunate fact is, no one is even close to trying to build anything that will actually make power.
There is no actual evidence that commercial fusion power will ever be possible. As in a machine that will make grid scale power on a long term continuous basis.
They seem to be inching along doing what has been done for about 50 years…spending a huge amount of money and man-hours to make an incredible complex machine that every once in a long while can make fusion happen for an instant of time.
Back in the day, I was stationed aboard a Nuke surface ship. We were audited for radiation leakage annually. In my three years aboard, the radar spaces failed the audit every time due to broken tubes with radioactive elements, but the actual nuke power spaces passed easily.
Capn Mike, thank you for your service, assuming it was USA or Britain. There was more than annual radiation leakage audits as every person commonly in the area of the nuclear reactor would have a personal dosimeter on them, and these were usually monitored weekly if old style film badges and always if newer bent quartz crystal electronic.
The UK doesn’t have any nuclear powered surface vessels, only submarines. That should narrow things down a bit for you!
Sorry, I call bullshit on your comment. I am a veteran US Navy nuke, and even on a submarine, which is far smaller and far more compact and jammed together than any surface warship, we never ever, and I never even heard of another boat ever seeing any unacceptable if even measurable radiation levels in any non-engineering space. Nothing radioactive can get beyond the engineering spaces, nothing.
His statement was about vacuum tubes with radioactive elements inside. I don’t have a security clearance so I can’t comment on what was used for these subs, however as an electrical engineer I can state that such tubes do exist.
One of the dozen or so problems with fuel rod reactors is the fuel rods. The fuel rods, are a constant threat, of small radiation leaks, due to cracking.
Radioactive gases build up in the thinly clad (zirconium clad) fuel rods. If the fuel rod cladding cracks, the radioactive gases and the water soluble radioactive elements, leak out of the fuel rods.
After Three Mile Island failure which included a small explosion (hydrogen) and small radiation release… …. the Democrats investigated the fuel rod reactor safety problems and found that some US fuel rod reactors, had up 10% of their fuel rods that were cracked. Cracked fuel rods can be avoid by avoiding reactor fuel rod over temperature and by removing the fuel rods before they crack.
Uranium is not expensive. Fuel rods engineered products and are expensive. The cost of a fuel rod is roughly $3000/rod. So fuel rod, fission reactor, fill up of 50,000 rods, is about $150 million.
A typical large pressure water or boiling water reactor has 50,000 fuel rods. About 1/3 of the fuel rods must be replaced every 2 1/2 years, just before the fuel rod cladding cracks. Cracking of the fuel rod occurs because of the gas buildup and the high temperature.
The fuel rods require flowing water, to cool. If the fission reactor, cooling water stops flowing, the fuel rods start to, melt and release their radioactive gases and water soluble fission products, in about 15 minutes. Flowing water requires pumps, to pump the cooling water. The key issue is when fission is stopped… Fission reactors all continue to produce heat, roughly 7% of the thermal output of the reactor, before it was shutdown, from short lived highly radioactive fission byproducts, for about 48 hours.
If power fails/cooling water flow stops during this period, a water cooled reactor will melt down, releasing all of the gases in the fuel rods and causing hydrogen explosion.
The zircon also reacts with water to create hydrogen. The spent fuel rods must be submerged in water or they will react with water vapor in the air causing a small explosion and causing fuel rod cladding to fail, releasing the radioactive gases, in the fuel rods.
In a liquid fuel reactor. There are no fuel rods. The reactor operates at atmospheric pressure rather than 110 atmospheres. Water cooled reactors will explode on over pressure.
A liquid fuel reactor is 9 times more effective at heat transfer than a fuel rod water cold reactor. It is for this reason that is possible to have a backup passive cooling system for a liquid fuel reactor, that does not require electric power or operators.
In liquid fuel reactor, the fission produced gases that are released, float up to the space on top of the reactor vessel and are removed daily and then are disposed safely.
In a liquid fuel reactor there is no water that comes in contact with the reactor vessel or the liquid fuel. There is therefore no possible release of hydrogen and hydrogen explosions.
Water is separated by radiation into hydrogen and water. Water cooled reactors require constant removal of the hydrogen to avoid an explosion. If there is a loss of control power, most water cooled reactors will explode. A liquid fuel reactor on the other hand can be designed so it is walk away safe. ie. It does not have any catastrophic failure modes and it can have a backup cooling system that does not require electric power.
Because liquid fuel reactors can be designed so they have no catastrophic failure modes, that design does not require a containment building to contain explosions. It is for this reason that a liquid fuel reactor can be built for about the same cost/MW as modern coal fired power station.
No doubt, Sixties era nuclear technology is not especially desirable. But nuclear energy R&D has been stifled for decades while trillions have gone to useless Green Energy. So for now conventional designs for nuclear plants will have to do. It’s safe and well understood.
Is that as opposed to running up yet more national debt by buying stuff on the never never?
or the blackmail artists that call themselves banker refuse to support it
No one with a pension or insurance policy, certainly.
But if the money gets stolen for more crappy renewables they are open to litigation
Instead of opening up their abundant oil and gas reserves to provide reliable energy until new nuclear plants can be built, the British pols want their constituents to hunker down and pay in advance for heat and electricity to be delivered fifteen years in the future!? Did they consult with the Bai Den Regime on best energy policies for this idiocy!?
Only a politician or a bureaucrat could be this stupid, and the current crop in Washington may be going for the all time record; but BoJo and his pals are working hard to keep up!
If the pols gave a damn about the poor idiots who voted for them they would insure cheap, reliable gas and coal was producing power unfettered, and ten they could get away with a little tax on the top to help finance the nuke plants. Eventually the mineral fuels will run out ( yes, decades from now) so it will be good to develop and build several generations of nukes by then.
More probably centuries.
The UK is world class in the stupidity of our politicians. An Energy and Climate Change Minister who got us within two weeks of running out of gas for the power stations was elevated to Sec of State during Covid. Failing upward.
JF
We are no worse than any other developed nation – absent of a real crisis all politicians do is invent faux ones that magically can only be solved by more government more taxes and less free speech.
Covid and energy have shown up these charlatans.
They have little idea how to manage anything.
The good part of Brexit is that they can be seen failing miserably. And can be voted out.
As I said last week, my money is on Liz Truss to replace
BorisCarrie Symonds and get all the pragmatic stuff done.Seems silly to charge now for a not operating plant given the extremely low interests rates that prevail today. The Brits need to issue bonds which more or less makes a near interest free loan. Let the investors, or government as the case may be, carry the debt until the plants are generating revenue.
This is one of the compelling reasons to go nuclear – most of the cost of a nuke plant is design and construction, capital costs, rather than long term operating costs. Therefore that favors infrastructure like nuke over other sources that have relatively large ongoing O&M costs.
Finance 101 stuff. Apparently beyond the current Tory government in the UK today.
“most of the cost of a nuke plant is ” ….RED TAPE !
😉
Red tape and lawfare.
Even better, also work on the licensing process so it doesn’t take 15 to 20 years to build one of these things. That way interest rates become less important.
If the lights go out in Westmintser we may see some action.
Not really much before.
The lights won’t go out in Westminster as they have a combined heat and power plant run on natural gas. So they will be OK as we are paying the bills through tax.
Will they allow themselves natural gas after 2035 if the plant needs updating, or will they install air source heat pumps?
It is the countryside which will suffer blackouts. There would be riots if there were blackouts in the cities.
The idea has been floated by the government that industry will be shut down to make sure consumers lights don’t go out. I suspect it was a teaser to judge the response.
That is the way it currently works under high demand situations. In return for cheap electricity some industrial users are on a load shedding schedule. Others who have their own backup plant may be asked to switch to that. Sadly, as salutary as it woul;d be, I expect we will muddle through the winter without more than rocketing electricity prices.
Germany may be a different matter.
Sadly, I think it is actually a very likely action given that gas may have to be rationed to try to keep the lights on but most definitely keep the domestic network full of gas.
I recall my dear old mum’s excuse (back in the days of town gas) for the dinner being late was that the gas pressure was a bit low today. Perhaps this excuse will be dusted off for reuse.
Unfortunately if you don’t want gas and coal for electricity Nuclear is the only choice but that is only about 40% of the use of fossil fuels
The rest is for making everything from clothes to food to medicine
You can’t make nylon or wheat or plastic syringes and medical PPE from electricity
so poor old BOJO is still Fxxx’d along with the NHS and British public
god help the queen because BOJO has no hope
BoJo is not running the show. Carrie is.
Mrs Carrie Johnson’s nickname when she worked in the PM’s Office was supposedly Princess Nut Nuts. I believe it was Princess Numnuts. An urban dictionary gives the definition of a numnuts as someone who spreads disaster whatever she tries to do.
Sums it up I think
JF
No she’s not. Davos is.
then she must have something that keeps that air head blond under control
Yes, she has, but I’m not going to say what!
Ahem…
If the change of strategy is substantially true heads should roll.
For a start there ought to be serious consequences for the Climate Change Committee (CCC) that has misled the parliament and people as to the costs of ‘net zero’.
The fact that the person heading the CCC also runs a ‘sustainability’ consulting firm is neither-here-nor-there 😉.
You mean dum and Gummer?
Is our old pal Tim Yeo still in the trough?
You’re kidding, right? The original meaning of ‘shambles’ was a ‘meat market’ ! Is anyone surprised?
Boris Johnson and his government are in political trouble, this announcement could be simply a ploy to get through a looming tough winter, to divert attention, i.e to ‘keep the natives quiet’ at least for the time being.
Let’s see what happens after COP26 with all its virtue signalling.
Boris will emerge from COP26 triumphant and bullish, waving a sheaf of paper announcing how successful it was.
There’s a clip on BBC News today, Boris in his most Churchillian tone announcing ‘Green is good’.
What he’s not saying is that he’s now flipping to Nuclear.
Didn’t Chamberlain wave a piece of paper in 1938?
It is just that he can’t fly south and land at Heston anymore. And to be fair to Chamberlain, he was just buying time to build up the RAF and radar stations that the sainted Labour leader Attlee opposed.
The natives are already getting restless!
The best thing about Boris is that he has no ideology at all. He will adopt any policy that keeps the electorate happy, The worst thing about him is that he is married to NutNutz who is the opposite.
If Con Home start grumbling and demanding less green and more affordable electricity, he has a choice – NutNutz or Prime Minister ship. They took against May and she was gone…
Plenty of more pragmatic people waiting in the wings…
A pivot to nuclear power is marginally less insane than a 50 degree north nation trying to stay warm in winter using solar power
Wait…what?! Nuclear is the safest, most efficient, and cleanest form of base load power generation invented so far. Now that practical and economical uranium extraction from seawater has been demonstrated, with enough fuel in the oceans to power the planet for a billion years, it is essentially “renewable” energy. It’s the most sane choice for clean, reliable base load power of all the technologies available today.
I’m a fan of nuclear, but I want private people investing their own money to bring competitive nuclear power to market, I don’t want yet more government tinkering with the energy market adding to the pain of ordinary Britons. BoJo has managed to take a halfway sane idea – nuclear power – and turn it into a costly nightmare for British energy consumers.
I hope you are right.
Well, at least the alarmists are talking about nuclear as a viable option now. That’s a step in the right direction.
I agree that Free Enterprise should be doing any nuclear powerplants.
The UK should return to fossil fuels, as should the whole world to allow growth to happen. Then, in the latter half of the century, when nations are a lot wealthier, go nuclear. CO2 levels will be up to around 500 ppm – very good for the biosphere.
Word now is boiler replacement will be compulsory
this sounds like a Nazi regime that needs to be stopped before they have storm troupers knocking down the doors
Lets just say there are some subtle differences between the Nazi dictatorship and our Parliamentary dictatorship.
The third Reich did not have the technologies they have at their disposal today.
Heidegger, their state ‘philosopher’ pushed giant wind generators. This character is revered in the hallowed halls of academia…
Not even Boris would be that stupid. I spent £3,500 on a new gas boiler 3 years ago. Is Boris going to refund that cost? Then subsidise a Heat Pump costing £10,000 (Hah! I costed one – £20k – £30k and it won’t work in my Victorian, solid masonry cottage according to the salesman) to the tune of £6,500. Not a chance.
Boiler replacement mandates will be like mask mandates, eventually no one gives a flying fvck.
You shouldn’t underestimate the Turk. He agrees with the last person he spoke with.
“Replacing gas boilers with heat pumps will be compulsory in long-term, suggests minister“
And Labour?
“The Government’s boiler upgrade scheme only “scratches the surface” of what needs to be done to combat climate change, Labour has said. Pat McFadden, the shadow economic secretary for the Treasury, called for the Prime Minister to be more “ambitious”
Politics latest news: Replacing gas boilers with heat pumps will be compulsory in long-term, suggests minister | UK News • Politics News – Politics69
The Parliamentary dictatorship is determined to push this through.
They may be compulsory in the long term, but right now they are voluntary with grants being offered to those who qualify.
Now, if you have ever attempted to ‘qualify’ for a government grant you will understand just how convoluted the application process is. Most people just give up. The offer isn’t there to be used, it’s a political con job for the rest of the idiots in the HoC.
The other consideration is that households will have to be inspected to see if they are suitable, which all but a very few very modern, and expensive homes are. The refurbishment to the rest of the house will range from expensive to off the scale ridiculous. I had my own modest, three bedroom, End of Terrace, solid masonry, Victorian cottage priced for conversion three or four years ago. It was around £100,000 (including heat pump). I also had an extension to the house costed as well, it was around £50,000.
I re-costed the extension a couple of months ago, it had shot up to £100,000. In common with America, the whole of Europe has seen building materials shoot up in price over the last two years. I suspect I could add another £50,000 to the cost of modifying the house for NetZero.
If Heat Pumps are just slung into old houses, with cowboy installers not informing people that the rest of the house needs to be super insulated, assuming they can still afford it, there will be trouble in a few short years with people freezing in the winter and wild electricity costs. There will be a public hue and cry with people finding they then have to install auxiliary heating, like another £10,000+ for a wood burner or electric heaters in each room.
The cost of these houses, similar to those with contracted solar panels on the roof, will fall as people realise they are unliveable without vast expense.
The only people profiting from all this will be the banks extending mortgages and providing loans for this unnecessary excess.
The whole thing is going to blow up in Boris’ face very quickly. His brilliant solution? Raise gas prices to force people to change to Heat Pumps; completely ignoring those already in fuel poverty. The other? Make it illegal to sell a not NetZero converted house. Imagine that, I’ve spend a working lifetime to pay off a mortgage with no help from the government whatsoever, and now I’m mandated by a government to spend another £150,000 to convert my own property……..??????
The man is a fantasist, he’s always been seeking the grand gesture to stamp his legacy on the country; He tried the Thames Estuary airport to replace Heathrow, he attempted to build a garden bridge across the Thames (pedestrian only of course), then a bridge/tunnel connecting Scotland and Ireland. All have been abject failures not least thanks to Boris’ Bungling but as much to do with his hare brain. Cummings described the Ireland/Scotland link as “the world’s most stupid tunnel”.
The single best person the UK has to campaign the NetZero policy is Boris. He’ll screw it up as comprehensively as he screws everything up.
HS2!
They will need SAS back up to get my 80%+ efficient propane condensing boiler
My sentiments exactly.
100%!
That should get them all rushing to the pumps.
Well that £400m will cover 80,000 homes at £5000 each. The Climate Change Committee say some 3.3 million heat pumps need to be installed.
BoJo hasn’t a clue
There’s a great new Jordan Peterson interview of Michael Schellenberger.
Michael about Extinction Rebellion:
The interview is almost two hours long but they do a great job of pointing and analyzing the pathology of the green religion.
Why are they against….progress?
They are anti human.
Anti Life.
Suicidal self-hatred! Peterson says it is like dealing with the severely depressed!
For me, the whole shit show boils down not to being anti-human but being anti-the-correct-sort-of-human i.e. no nonwhites allowed
The Optimum Trust / Population Matters spreadsheet springs to mind
Once upon a time, socialists at least pretended that they were opposed to racism.
commieBob:
Thanks for the link. It’s a fantastic interview…should be longer! I already have Michael Schellenberger’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ but haven’t been able to read it in a morning…but it’s a wonderful book.
Best thing Boris can do is go f*** himself. And that is the view of many millions of us who voted for Brexit (Cummings) and got green BS thanks to his wife forcing Cummings out, and all her palls in.
you spelt it wrong F*** should be top
COP26 should be a great opportunity for the UK to speak some sense in the climate change /renewable energy debate. It won’t be. Mr Johnson will spout approved rubbish quoting fraudulent figures to justify closing down our economy
The speech that would change the world is outlined at ‘The speech the PM should give at COP26 but won’t’ (or something like that) is detailed at the TCW blog on 29th August.
Incidentally, the Beeb has produced a fictional take on what it calls ‘the hack’ that led to the Climategate scandal. Hack? Well, it couldn’t say ‘leak because whistle-blowers are heroes.
JF
Saw that advertised but couldn’t bring myself to watch it. From the BBC website promo:
‘Professor Phil Jones and his team of climatologists at the University of East Anglia find that their work has been hacked by climate change deniers and turned into the first big fake-news story.’
It wasn’t their work, it was their email accounts.
They weren’t ‘hacked’ by ‘deniers’, it was an inside job – a ‘whistleblower’.
It wasn’t fake news, they never denied that the emails were authentic.
Three out of three factual errors in the first sentence doesn’t bode well for the rest. Britain is fast becoming like the old Soviet Union – the media slavishly follow the progressive narrative and the public quietly disbelieve everything they are told.
The BBC and honesty parted company a few decades ago.
Quietly for now!
Was it me or did the Jones character admit they hid the decline because of the divergence of tree rings and instrument temperatures?
Was this the first time Jones confessed or did I miss that one?
Quotes from the emails in ‘Climategate The Crutape Letters’ by Mosher and Fuller
“But that explanation certainly can’t rectify why Keith’s data, which has similar properties to Phil’s data, differs in large part in exactly the opposite direction that Phil’s does from ours….So if we show Keith’s line in this plot we have to comment that “something else” is responsible for the discrepancies in this case” (Michael Mann)
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temperatures to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline” (Phil Jones)
Remember, the problem was that although the temps had continued to increase Briffa’s tree ring series had declined showing that tree rings did not necessarily increase with temperature and thus casting doubt upon Mann’s ‘hockey stick.’
Other interesting quotes
“I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago” (Keith Briffa)
“I have just read the M&M stuff criticising MBH. A lot of it seems valid to me. At the very least MBH is a very sloppy piece of work– an opinion I have held for some time” (Tom Wigley}
Thanks, Dave, I am familiar with the story, I was unaware Jones had already confessed his guilt publicly until last night
For those times when we have temperature records, tree rings do not track the temperature records. However we have no doubt that during those periods where we do not have temperature records, we are confident that tree rings accurately reflect temperature.
“and the public quietly disbelieve everything they are told.”
I hope that’s right.
Its the year 2021, the dawn of the last age of mankind, with only 9 years left, a place for hustlers, entrepreneurs, the last best hope for survival, all alone in the dark, it’s name COP26. (Apologies to Babylon 5).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58914524
Pitchforks and torches en mass from the local residents and trip/destroy the power supply to hosting institutions and hotels
I recall seeing a particularly bullish speech some years ago from the National Nuclear Laboratory stating that they were confident of considerable progress in the near future for Nuclear energy in the UK.
I found it puzzling as even then wind was the future. Then a few years ago I learned of Rolls Royce proposing 16 brownfield sites were available in the north of England for their SMR technology.
Then over the last couple of years an announcement from RR that they’ll begin building the first of their SMR’s by 2030. I have no idea if these are government funded or subsidised schemes, I would expect so, but it seems to me there has been the commercial will for some years now to move ahead with Nuclear.
Albeit government oversight can be useful in terms of price control and monopolies, if a drive to Nuclear becomes official policy (frankly, I don’t see how it can’t) here’s hoping the sticky fingers of bureaucracy and intrusive, expensive red tape can be kept at bay by commerce.
The question is, of course, who pays for it all, and how. It’s of little comfort that the public is being asked to pay up front, but isn’t that old fashioned economics? Otherwise known as saving up for something before taking delivery of it.
We all b!tch about levels of national debt but, clearly, there is only one way out of it. Stop buying stuff on tick.
The north of England, eh? So far the econuts in Extinction Rebellion and their fellow-travellers in Insulate Britain seem to have confined their activities to the south of England. That’s probably because that’s where they all live. Would they have the resources and the energy (pun intended) to come all the way to the north of England so they can disrupt the building of nuclear power stations? Knowing what southerners think about the north of England they might want to stay away.
If there are fuel restrictions/blackouts/fuel price hikes over the coming few years we won’t have to worry about XR and their offshoots, they’ll have to worry about the British public.
Why isn’t Griff telling him that he has to build more pretty windmills.
Where is griff these days … it seems to have gone very quiet !
People were very rude to him. It is reasonable for him to walk away.
He was wrong but the way he was treated was more so.
He was asked repeatedly to provide sources, references and other evidence.
His silent refusal to do that and to continue to drop his truth bombs here frustrated and irritated quite a few people, I’m sure.
You will find I was always civil. Even so he wouldn’t play ball.
He’s gone in a Huff before and, like a bad penny, reappears with more drive by comments.
People are rude to Griff because he regurgitates the same old guff time and again. He’s rude enough not to consider any other point so deserves all he gets.
Griff was given every opportunity to learn. I posted against him being banned. He has never learnt.
Reposting the same lies, over and over and over again, is very rude.
People responded in kind.
Must be on troll leave. He hasn’t been on the morning or afternoon shifts
Well, think about it: Germany and the UK and China and India are about to suffer severe energy shortages and Griff has been promoting all the policies that brought this about.
He’s been telling us how well it is going in eliminating coal from the world’s inventory, and now the world can’t get enough coal.
Griff has no answers. That’s why he isn’t talking.
“Where is griff these days”
Things don’t seem to be going in the right direction for Griff lately. All his unRE plans for the EU seem to be falling apart, and rather quickly. I think that’s usually what happens when something hits the wall.
What can Griff say?
Last time UK opened a nuclear power station was 1995 since then the art of building them has been lost. There is one currently under construction on UK soil but British involvement is minimal
I seem to recall Mr A. Blair sold most if not all our nuclear technology & know-how to the Japanese years ago for a fast buck!!!
I have family employed in the industry in the States. They have killed off Westinghouse and GE doesn’t care to commit anymore. Expertise is flying out the door with no replacement. But they do have a number of Iranians in their employ.
Quote:”Under the plan, households will be charged for the cost of a plant via an energy levy long before it begins generating electricity, the report said”
Absolutely typical, have Government coerce you into spending money for no immediate return. Just like Climate Science innit except in CS The Computer predicts your return
Like UK Government has done itself for decades now = dream up A New Tax and then spend the expected revenue stream long before it even starts
As if nuclear wasn’t already a hideously over priced and bloated bean-feast for bureacrats and cronies alike.
This can only be another Train Wreck
time to get out methinks
The answer to that is simple. We either do as our forebears did, save up and pay cash for stuff or buy it on the never never and run up the national debt some more.
Everyone b!tches about the national debt but no one’s prepared to pay to reduce it. Be it by government folly or otherwise, it’s our debt.
There was an estimate not long ago that if the United States cut one percent out of the budget of all governmet programs (with a few exceptions), that the U.S. national debt could be paid off in about 10 years. It was called the “Penny Plan” based on cutting one penny out of every government dollar spent.
Since the U.S. national debt has about doubled over the last couple of years, the Penny Plan would take double the time to pay off the debt.
It can be done, but the question is can governments we have today cut their budgets? Even a little bit? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that many of our politicians don’t look at the Big Picture, they look at the little, selfish picture, instead. More spending helps the selfish picture.
Before the penny plan could work, you would first have to balance each year’s budget. Otherwise all you are doing is slowing the rate at which the debt builds up.
Currently we would have to cut the budget by at least 30%, just to stop collecting new debt.
The Rusty Lady, Thachter, had a fight with the coal miners. She wanted to take their power. So she, and the nuclear industry started the whole CO2 scam.
Grow up.
Is that really your take on the battle of Orgreave?
MacGregor seems to have got away with it.
He retired from the NCB in 1986, rejoining Lazard’s as a non-executive director.
Trebles all round.
The scam was already well entrenched by that time.
It was the unions who started the fight, and it was the unions who sought to over throw the government. Don’t believe me, just read their own words.
You seem to be really upset that the communists run unions weren’t allowed to take over the government. Why is that?
Nothing to do with the Nuclear industry.
Thatcher wanted a shift to North Sea gas to stop particulate emissions from coal as well as to free the country from the stranglehold miners had on the country.
The public largely supported her because we had endured 3 day weeks and national blackouts because miners were persistently striking for more money whilst productivity was questionable.
The global warming scam was already on the road before she mentioned it. The global cooling scam had ended in dismal failure and everyone was aware there was slight warming as it happened quickly, and noticeably in the mid to late 70’s.
Thatcher was a scientist and was convinced of the greenhouse effect in its early days, quite rightly, as no one had a clue what was going on. 1988 was notable as it was the first time she mentioned it in a speech to the Royal Society. She was instrumental in establishing the IPCC, for one reason, to understand scientifically what was going on, not to have it turned into a chorus boy for climate change.
However, she did eventually recognise what was going on, too late alas for she was no longer PM. In her book Statecraft (2002) with a chapter “Hot Air and Global Warming”. By then she had realised the IPCC was ‘alarmist’ and climate change science as a stalking horse for international socialism.
From the book: “The new dogma about climate change has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes.” And “provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.”
Thatcher’s ‘belief’ in global warming lasted from 1988 until quite some time before the publication of her book in 2002. Less that 14 years to figure out the world was being conned.
Nowhere that I can find did she ever mention CO2, only greenhouse gases.
Isn’t France planning to shut down most of its nuclear power? Maybe it could dismantle them and ship them to Britain.
That was yesterday, today they are arguing with Germany about keeping it!
And Germany is arguing to keep what it has left with the new left/green coalition.
The whole thing really is hilarious.
Or just leave them in place and sell all their electiricty to the UK.
Yes, the French have been reported to be thinking about terminating their nuclear plants. It’s a ridiculous idea.
Germany terminated its nuclear reactors because they were afraid a Japanese Tsumani might hit one of them. This was one of the dumber moves I have witnessed.
I’ve heard that argument about Germany before – it still doesn’t hold water. Germany divested from Nuclear way before Fukushima – they were starting to phase out existing nuclear in the 80’s and banned all research into new nuclear technology. That move coincided with the Greens gaining more and more ground in Germany, after the formation of the Green party in 1980.
If you want it to take 10 times as long and cost 100 times as much, have government build it.
“An engineer is someone who can build for five bob what any damned fool can build for a quid” Anon.
and have it not work when done.
The only good government is the one that stays out of the way, and expedites the private sector.
The U.K. strategy https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58899006
The idea that this hair brained administration has a strategy, about anything, is as far fetched as a viable fusion power station.
Hilarious.
They can cancel the nuclear project later. For now they just need to show some action, Jimmy Carter style.
Even nuclear plants only cover part of the problem. Every joule of energy delivered by fossil fuels today will be rerouted over electricity distribution plant. Larger wires, higher voltages, bigger transformers, bigger drops, expanded breaker boxes, etc. Whose going to pay for this?
We are. Already I pay double what even wind farms get for electricity. The difference goes to the grid.
It will all happen, just not as fast, or as completely as governments say it will.
Making grand pronouncements does not equal boots on the ground laying cables.
I’d say we will more than halve fossil fuel use by 2050. But that’s about it.
After that it gets tricky. There are severe reservations being voiced about electric cars, boats and aeroplanes. And an Army, Navy and Air force running on biofuel and fairyFart™.
Obviously larger ships can use nuclear reactors, but smaller ones probably not. My guess is that synthetic diesel and gasoline at about 3-5 times current prices is what will power the irreducible residue of stuff that needs to be mobile.
And indeed the economics of synthetic methane to run domestic gas installations is something worth investigating.
Given the availability of oxygen, and the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels, why not make and use them?
All this was well understood 14 years ago…read this 2007 McKinsey report on carbon reduction.
There’s a fundamental problem with all this as pointed out by Professor of Engineering Michael Kelly, in his analysis of NetZero for the GWPF.
The UK has about one third of the physical labour to undertake all the changes required to insulate homes and buildings, instal Heat Pumps/EV charging stations etc.etc. (that’s not counting grid modifications).
That would mean several million skilled immigrant workers would need to to live and work in the UK, over and above the thousands of migrants paddling across the English Channel every month.
In the current political climate with resistance to immigration as it is, that’s just not going to happen.
A Wall Street Journal editorial claimed :
“In the long run, greens hope, demand for fossil fuels will dry up, leaving producer countries stuck with stranded assets.”
Greenpeace and the Sierra club have successfully demonized nuclear.
This insures that fossil fuels will be providing most of the baseload and dispatchable electrical power for decades.
No need to go nuclear. Hydrogen will be our salvation.
‘We want to be the Qatar of hydrogen – I think Qatar may already be the Qatar of hydrogen, but we want to be with you.’
– Boris Johnson speaking at the Global Investment Summit ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow next month
He has gone mad. There can be no question now. The difference is that Qatar has large oil reserves. The UK has no hydrogen reserves and no way of making the stuff. And if it could overcome these obstacles, it then would have to replace all gas powered appliances, and also replace the transmission pipe network to make it hydrogen safe.
This is another of those classic ‘don’t bother me with implementation detail, I am saving the planet’ stories.
It cannot be done. And if it were to be done, it would have zero effect on the climate.
Notice by the way China and Russia are not going. No-one outside of few lunatics in government and academia in the West believes any of this stuff.
Holy cow, will someone shoot his wife and shut him up?
We have but one chance, and that is to use the massive installed engineering base to create small modular reactors cheaper and better than anyone else can.
Leo, I’m betting on NuScale’s 77 MWe unit to be the first western-nation SMR design to be installed in an operating commercial nuclear power plant.
A 462 MWe NuScale plant comprised of six 77 MWe modular units is scheduled to go online in eastern Idaho in late 2029. It will be owned by UAMPS, will be constructed by Fluor, and will be operated by Energy Northwest..
Here are the reasons why I think the NuScale design will be the first out of the gate:
— Their SMR design is a light water reactor derivative which uses half height conventional fuel rods and which integrates the reactor vessel and the steam generator into a single module which can be produced in a factory.
— The NuScale design delivers a very large portion of an SMR’s theoretical operational advantages but at the least overall technical and financial risk for the power plant’s constructors and owners.
— The NuScale project team is taking the time and effort needed to create a fully NRC compliant industrial infrastructure which can cost effectively support the manufacture and installation of their 77 MWe SMR design
— The NuScale project team works very closely with the NRC to ensure that no regulatory surprises or regulatory bottlenecks will occur while their SMR manufacturing industrial infrastructure is being developed and optimized.
— The NuScale SMR design will not go into production until its design is reasonably complete and stable, and until the manufacturing infrastructure needed to produce their design cost effectively has been reasonably well optimized.
— UAMPS and the NuScale team are being completely realistic concerning the slim possibility that a centralized spent fuel repository will go into operation in the US during the operational life of their plant. Their Idaho plant site will have enough spent fuel capacity to handle 60 years worth of output stored in NRC-compliant dry casks.
As far as the technical and the financial risk of a new-build nuclear project are concerned, a nuclear power plant’s technical design, and the manufacturing and construction processes used to produce and install that technical design, are all One Thing — and must be managed as such.
Nuclear power demands a highly professional and disciplined approach to doing business at all phases of a new-build nuclear project — starting from the initial technical concept and then on through system design, regulatory approval, component manufacture, and site installation.
If history is any guide, any weaknesses present anywhere along the line in any of those phases will result in significant cost overruns and project delays.
Why would a “free market” function when there remains “the risk the next administration might shut you down”?
Well, exactly. Banks and capital sources will not put money into long term projects where there exists a risk of political shutdown and no guarantees of ROI if it happens.
RWE and, IIRC, EON sued Merkel’s government over that.
The problem is that the whole EU business model has become ‘legislate for it, we will build it, and the plebs will pay double for it’. Such shameless underwriting of industry has become the norm – less pork barrel, more Bay of Pigs – that no one is prepared to take an un-guaranteed risk any more!
The only way to get Hinkley Point built was to guarantee a sale price for its electricity. EDF have a signed contract from the guvmint.
Great. Maybe my brother can get a job over there since we’re still shutting nuclear power down in the States. Then again, they will probably prioritize hiring Iranians.
How does one fix a government generated crisis? Three guesses: Government, Government, Government!
“The creation of a “regulated asset base” model”
Pay attention to that idea. Not just for nuclear power, but for everything. It’s called a new way to justify spending, raise taxes and go further into debt.
Boris Johnson on climate change, from 2013. “It is time to consult once again the learned astrophysicist, Piers Corbyn.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20190109234953/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/9814618/Its-snowing-and-it-really-feels-like-the-start-of-a-mini-ice-age.html
Just announced: The UK Taxpayer is to stump up another £620 million so government can fund Electric Vehicles for the wealthy to virtue signal with.
Britain decides to makeup to unreliable renewables by going nuclear.
This is obviously part of the conspiracy by the Nuclear Industry to get Greens to embrace nuclear energy by having them experience the many failures of renewables.
/snark
There is already blood on the floor and the fools in government want to squeeze the stone for more, not having learned a thing after the many failures of their central planning and eco religious zealotry based on nothing factual.
IWD’s (intermittent weather dependents) are more of a risk to human health than the status quo. The only sane intermediary source of energy is nuclear.
If the UK built just 27 Palo-Verde scale nukes at $12 billion/plant ($324 billion total) they could run 24/7/365 on 100% nuclear power with basically “zero” CO2 emissions.
Pretty cheap compared to 100% wind/solar plants + 1 week battery backup system which would cost around $14 trillion..
I’m not saying any county should go 100% nuke, but this is just to show how crazy and delusional Leftists are about wind/solar…
Oh, and nuclear power costs around $0.12/kWh vs. $0.40/kWh for wind/solar…
Boris assures us that his plans will not be compulsory:
“So while we’re going to have to make some pretty major changes to the way we heat our homes, the Greenshirts of the Boiler Police are not going to kick in your door with their sandal-clad feet and seize, at carrot-point, your trusty old combi.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16460774/boris-johnson-reassures-sun-readers-climate-change/
No, you can keep your efficient gas boiler. You can’t afford the gas to burn in it after the government enforced price rises though. The government is slowly closing off the alternatives. House coal can no longer be sold in England. Only kiln-dried firewood can be sold in England which has increased the price of firewood. Briquettes certification has increased the price of the same briquettes by almost 25%. Similarly, they are likely to eliminate petrol vehicles not by banning them, but by making the fuel unaffordable.
A pivot to nuclear power is marginally less insane
WUWT’s antinuclear politburo letting it’s prejudice show through.
The best thing the Boris Johnson administration could do, in my opinion, is to lay off the power sector, stop funnelling ordinary people’s utility bill cash to special interest groups through sweetheart deals and guaranteed purchase contracts, and allow the free market
“Free market” is as big a myth as perfect communism. What it means is freedom to be bullied into buying American gas. Thanks but no thanks.
The current gas and energy price spike is perfect evidence of the failure of the “free market” for energy.
Government intervention is a perfect example of “free market”?
Allowing people to run their own lives instead of having government tell them what to do, is just bullying?
The current failure in Europe is due to Govt intervention.
But so is the high cost of nuclear, entirely a function of over regulation
Until there is another Nuclear boogie man hitting the evening news, then its turn on a dime back to coal for what coal plants still remain functional. Yes Nuclear could be great, but its human emotional weakness for running for the exit every time there’s a new Nuclear horror movie or TV News Show nuclear drama. So, Nuclear sadly is DOA only after getting a plant or two built if that.
Small Modular Nuclear reactors which are safer and easier to build the today’s nuclear plants are the wave of the future. DOE has funded 3 companies to build these Gen 3/4 nuclear plants and develop the manufacturing and supply chains needed for relatively quick build (from a nuke plant perspective).
For example, Nuscale (SMR developer backed by Flour Corp.) is working with companies in UK, Czeck Republic, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania on building SMR nuclear plants for power generation after they’ve got their first plant up and running in the US by 2029.
Yes, it’s still a long way off, but the reality is that we have plenty of time, despite the “10 year window until doomsday” predictions from alarmists that come out every year since James Hanson’s 1988 Congressional testimony.
I can’t believe that our incompetent UK government has actually agreed to embrace nuclear power ?!! They are against anything which works well and are determined to send the UK into the dark ages of breezes and heat !! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha !!! If they ever DO get off their backsides and develop nuclear it will be a miracle !
Rolls Royce, a British company, have already developed a modular reactor. It’s not that small, at about 200 MW. But it is modular. It makes perfect sense for the U.K. to use a British made modular reactor which is the future of nuclear power, and in fact power generation in general.
France have just announced their own SMR program along with their captive market in the EU.
That is the story from politicians this week.
If the left had simply embraced Nuclear to begin with it would have made it so skeptics like myself would have merely shrugged our shoulders and said – you want to move away from coal to nukes? Sure that is fairly sound.
Instead they have insisted on a FANTASY of ‘CLEAN ENERGY’ coming from IRRATIONAL sources that when you do SIMPLE MATH, show themselves to be untenable.
Solar makes sense if you are OFFGRID, or change your roof shingles over to it for 25 – 30 years at a small increase in cost of replacing your roof, and then only to offset the peek summer months you would use electricity.
If this was the USA plan – to invest 3.5 TRILLION in building Nukes which will be reliable, and last a VERY long time… I would feel much, much better.
Rolls Royce, a British company, have already developed a modular reactor. It’s not that small, at about 200 MW. But it is modular. It makes perfect sense for the U.K. to use a British made modular reactor which is the future of nuclear power, and in fact power generation in general.
France have just announced their own SMR program along with their captive market in the EU.
There has to be a sea change in attitudes on the crazed enviro-left.
If they really believe CO2 is a problem then they need to back off the endless litigation and piling on of regulations regarding nuclear.
It can be built affordably but only in a non-insane policy environment.
Without that we continue of the path to maximum stupidity.
And
One of my dearest wishes is to see the left admit that their anti-nuclear activities has led to far more CO2 emissions than otherwise would have happened so Jane Fonda can go to her grave knowing she was responsible for the “climate emergency”.
Maybe she has a conscience and this knowledge ends up ki!!ing her.
Britain’s built by China nuclear power program?
They’re so deep in the swamp, the crocodiles are chewing their ears and noses.
My name is Boris. I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.
Right now Britain’s energy market is a mess, everyone has their hand out.
Well stop listening to paleoclimastrologists sitting at computer desks and ring a plumber instead boofheads-
ROGER BISBY: Heat pumps are one of the biggest con I’ve seen (msn.com)
I’m afraid this is just misleading nonsense…
17GW of new nuclear power has been part of the present govt’s energy strategy since October 2010. No pivot here…
This is just another attempt to find some way of funding the intended nuclear plant… companies have pulled out of Wlfa and Moorside because no way could be found to produce a return on investment without burdening consumers (as Hinkley will)
There is also now no chance the Chinese will be allowed a stake in Sizewell or to build Bradwell. so there’s an element of revised foreign policy in there. So the UK has no regulation against building nuclear, however US foreign policy has scuppered this…
And BTW – Rolls Royce has not yet got or even designed an SMR – their head was explaining their plans last week on UK R4 and said they were currently trying to fund the development.
They only waited till all the engineers that built the UK reactors retired to start demanding that we MUST have (French) reactors and far far greater cost than our own ones would have costed.
“the Boris Johnson administration appears set to embrace nuclear power as their main strategy for achieving net zero.” Good for you Mr. Johnson. I wish America would comment to more nuclear energy. Stop shutting down the ones we already have that are still functioning just fine. Nuclear is the best answer.
I am curious as to where the nukes would be built. Given the relative small size of the Isles I would guess it would take 10 years alone to site a plant!
As for the funding plan, it at least addresses the financial risk of bankruptcy facing any corporation or bank should they (try to) build it.