From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
Plans to build a large nuclear power station in Wales are at risk of being scrapped as Ed Miliband seeks to accelerate Britain’s switch to a net zero electricity grid.
The Energy Secretary has told officials to review future nuclear plans in a move that has thrown into doubt plans for a third new gigawatt-scale plant to be built at Wylfa, in Anglesey.
The review will also reconsider the official target, announced under Boris Johnson, to deploy at least 24 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050, The Telegraph understands.
On Friday, Whitehall sources stressed no final decisions had been made and that Mr Miliband remained strongly supportive of expanding British nuclear capacity.
However, the move will fuel concerns that Britain’s ambitions are being scaled back, with the Conservatives accusing him of turning his back on the industry.
Wylfa was only confirmed in May by the previous Conservative government to follow similar projects at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, and Sizewell, in Suffolk.
The Welsh site is capable of hosting up to four large reactors and has attracted keen interest from major international firms including US-based Westinghouse and South Korea’s Kepco.
It is understood that ministers remain committed to making a final investment decision on the £20bn Sizewell C power plant before the end of this year, as well as to the programme to develop the first mini nuclear power stations known as small modular reactors (SMRs).
But sources said that the Government’s future commitments were being reviewed in the round as part of wider plans to transition to a net zero energy system.
Great idea. Nobody of us will probably be alive by the time this would be finished. And at this point renewables are so cheap that they can close it down immediately.
Hinkley point is a desaster, and beside all the great talk at cop28 nuclear wonderland france hasn’t started building a single new reactor.
Trolling again….
When you add in the required storage renewables are impossibly expensive:
https://www.cfact.org/2024/09/03/the-green-new-deal-could-make-electricity-28-times-more-expensive/
happily this will become clear in time.
Like all other negative predictions about renewables?
https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/07/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf-1.pdf
p.27 – and all other pages too
I can’t wait for this to bite you in the pocket personally.
Remember I said this.
Renewable don’t work (economically) for reasons apparently beyond your comprehension.
I’ve seen renewables lowering my energy bill twice in the last year, so I guess you are out of luck.
I’ve seen renewables lowering my energy bill
Not in the UK you haven’t and you never will, not in Europe even…
Italy urges EU to pause petrol car ban or risk industry’s collapse
I have a few solar panels on my roof, for the quarter June to September I made £300, based on a contract taken out in 2011, if it were a new contract I would have received 1/3 of that, this is down to government subsidies changing. Over the course of the year I think we make approximately £900, depending on the weather of course.
My monthly direct debit for both gas and electricity is £170, currently we are in credit with our energy company, hopefully that credit will hold us in good stead over winter. We’ve already circumvented the energy cap rise next month by fixing the price for 12 months.
I have considered fixed term deals with our present supplier , OVo, but found , buried deep in the terms and conditions , that the deal was conditional on having a smart meter installed. I assume that this is true for most suppliers.. We are intending to downsize in the next 2 or 3 years , but knowing that many people, potential buyers,don’t want smart meters , the number of potential buyers would be significantly reduced if we had one installed.
I don’t understand the downvote. This is my real situation. I know that the subsidies are from the energy companies who add it to their prices. When we installed the solar panels in 2011 it seemed a good idea, whether they’re worth it I’m not so sure. Our energy supplier is Octopus, allegedly only supplying electricity from renewable sources, and they keep pushing smart meters. Our daughter is also with octopus and she does have a smart meter..
And who paid the subsidies?
wow.. granny lets you look at the electricity bill.. !! really !!
P.27 shows 14% penetration. Nothing about the cost of backup for 100%. Is there anything at all on this in the report?
it is easy for small numbers to grow rapidly. A common fallacy. And yet the amount of fossil fueled power has no gone down. Renewable’s growth is barely keeping up,with overall growth.
I’ve read it , it is just basic crystal ball gazing junk-non-science.
RMI are a bunch of anti-science charlatans and propagandists.
27+ pages of JUNK. !
The only things about renewables that “Cheap” applies to is…
A) the fuel source
B) the shoddy Chinese manufacturing
Renewables are resource intensive, land hungry, undependable, low density energy sources that can’t guarantee power availability during peak usage times more than 60% of the year…without dependable back-up generation or batteries
and those promoting green energy always fail to count all the costs- including damage to the landscape
Fossil fuels like “renewables” are free at source. It is the cost of getting the energy to you in a usable form that dictates the price you pay. That and taxes on fossil fuels and subsidies on renewables.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency in September 2024 62 nuclear reactors were under construction in 15 countries around the world. Of that total 28 were in China.
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/UnderConstructionReacrorsByCountry.aspx
[snip]
Renewables cheap!!!!
Consider ………. at the previous auction no company would bid to build windfarms in the UK, the offered price (close to then market price) was not enough, they couldn’t compete in the market (mainly fossil fuel)
Forward to this auction. They have now bid because they are being guaranteed a price of £102 per Mwh. This price is inflation linked and by the time they come on stream they will be drawing far more than this.
Even factoring in the huge price increase following the start of the Ukraine war, the long term average price in the UK is £67 per Mwh. They had to be guaranteed more than 50% more than the long term price before they would bid and this will only rise with inflation even if other generation costs fall (and they will fall dramatically once the Ukraine war is resolved and Europe gets back to importing Russian fuel.)
Further consider ,……….. this electricity is generated far far away from where it is needed, meaning that huge amounts of money will have to be spent on transmission infrastructure to move it to where it is needed (not to mention the environmental impact of this infrastructure). This cost must be added to the overall renewable cost.
Consider lastly ………. because this power is not reliable, it has to be backed up by building and maintaining reliable baseload generation, again at huge cost and which again must be added to the overall renewable cost.
So brain of Britain set out how and why renewables are ‘so cheap’.
There’s no such thing as renewable. The irony is that when the U.K. has to import energy, a significant amount comes from nuclear and coal/gas fired power stations. Nuclear fission is the best solution as it is very energy dense compared with wind, solar or wave power, particularly if Rolls Royce can develop their commercial versions of submarine nuclear power plants. Hydro is not a viable option. Nuclear fusion is still a dream at the moment.
Cheap? You must be reading lies, like: New study reveals common clean energy source is now cheaper than coal and gas power plants — here’s what it could mean
New study reveals common clean energy source is now cheaper than coal and gas power plants — here’s what it could mean (msn.com)
“New research by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems reveals that solar photovoltaics — converting solar energy into electricity — produce cheaper electricity than coal or gas, even when combined with batteries.”
and
“It’s possible. For 100 consecutive days, California was able to occasionally power its entire grid using renewables.”
Occasionally? Good enough for government work? Maybe, but not for the rest of us.
occasionally means about 15 minutes on a very sunny day in California, not an entire day nor for a stretch of 3 months. typically, the storage of electrical energy in batteries is consumed totally within 2 hours of sundown, before the sky has even gone totally dark at night.
“even when combined with batteries”
Awkward use of language. I wonder if they could not write “including the cost of batteries”
Can you please refer to a single geographical area, like town, small state, let is say 5000 to 50 000 inhabtants, that is totally reliant on PV or wind power. Battery storage or pumped hydro may of course be included. Until this happens, it is clear that the green transition is fake.
If France doesn’t build new nuclear reactors, Germany won’t have ANY electricity on a windless night.
What an ugly thing to wish on the Germans. !
Fortunately the Flamanville reactor has just come on line (somewhat belatedly)
Once they have all the kinks ironed out… another 6 are on the way.
France to build more new generation nuclear reactors to reach green targets (rfi.fr)
Given their anti-fossil, anti-nuclear, anti-freedom, anti-English, anti-capitalist, anti-self-defense tendencies, I’d say the British sense of impervious invulnerability is a bit misplaced. And the rest of the financial world ought to start on some work-arounds because England is going to need to suck the lifeblood out of all its financial partners.
>> the British sense of impervious invulnerability <<
Thanks Coach, but these days it is much more a sense of deep depression at the way that they UK is being ‘governed’.
FWIW we now have a British Government that nobody voted in for their policies, or because they were actually liked. It’s just that the other lot had run out of steam and had lined themselves up for a kicking.
Ed Millipeed has *always* been a “King’s new clothes” type of shyster, and will for sure never consent to argue the true costings of his Net Zero policies with anyone older than a 12-year-old who can actually add up.
Over the years I’ve seen a series of Labour Governments enact stuff that is blatantly designed to drive the UK off an economic cliff, and I have never been able to understand the motive. I mean, WTF ?
Same again with this lot, although sadly I’ll probably be dead before being able to stand reviewing the wreckage and thinking “I told you so”.
And BTW MyUsername you are *such* an insufferable knob.
“And BTW MyUsername you are *such* an insufferable knob.”
You just paid it a compliment.
Diablo Canyon NPP is 2.2GW (2256MW) and supplies around 5% of California’s electricity needs. If CA added 20 more equally sized they would have a net zero system (for current Electric demand) that required zero expensive wind or solar subsidy farms and was almost 100% reliable.
And because the NPPs don’t need batteries and the fuel cost a tiny part of the equation, California could sell off-peak excess electricity to other jurisdictions – especially those stupid enough to think wind/solar can be depended on for base-load energy.
Diablo Canyon power station is only 1/3 complete, the site has operated 2 reactors for the past half century despite it being capable to have 6 reactor vessels. Also, San Onofre nuclear generating station (SONGS) was decommed in 2013 after a dubious decision following some poor quality cooling pipes delivered by Mitsubishi caused delay in restarting after a scheduled maintenance cycle. Environmental activists took advantage of the delay to claim (unscientifically) that Mitsubishi is incapable of making totally safe pipes and were able to convince CA government to shutdown the plant permanently; it is being demolished now. Were we to have any far sighted leaders in CA, that site should be cleared and reused for state of the art reactor designs to plug right into the power lines still standing at the site.
“for the past half century“
My comments are toward the statement:
“accelerate Britain’s switch to a net zero electricity grid.”
Electricity must be controlled and available on demand by society. Of the six electrical generation methods, occasional generated electricity from wind and solar have severe demand limitations with the reliable, continuous, and uninterruptable electricity from hydro, nuclear, coal, and natural gas power plants.
Electricity on demand means that the electricity must be dispatchable and available continuously. If electricity generation is intermittent, variable, or unreliable like wind and solar, it is necessary to have a 100% backup supply of continuous electricity available on immediate demand.
Energy policymakers seem to be oblivious to reality that all six methods of generating electricity from hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar are ALL based on the components and equipment that are made with PRODUCTS made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
And cheap for the economy to thrive, otherwise expensive energy is just an extra tax to pay which drags the economy down. There is a reason Sailing ships where so rapidly taken out by steam powered ships, with steam you know pretty much when your ship will be and when it will arrive, with sail both location and arrival were unknown until you saw the sails on the horizon. Wind is not a way to run a modern society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_Reserve_Service
“Plans to build a large nuclear power station in Wales are at risk of being scrapped as Ed Miliband seeks to accelerate Britain’s switch to a zero electricity grid.”
Fixed the typo.
Indeed. The irony being that rapid construction of NPPs presents the ONLY possible path to “net zero” electricity generation.
Previous UK PWR projects have been financial disasters due to the inherent safety problems with this design, that was originally intended for submarines and isn’t really scalable for large generation. Instead of pursuing these money pits the UK should be installing small modular reactors, the technology already exists from nuclear subs and developing thorium fuelled reactors that will be cheaper and easier to construct.
Mind you by the time the adminisphere has got round to this we will be able to buy them off the shelf from China!
Your first sentence says the plan will fail because it’s a submarine design and the second sentence says it would be better to rely on a submarine based design….????
+10 on the thorium plan, however. +100 if online reprocessing/refueling can be worked out – because the design is liquid, the fission products can easily be separated out and more thorium (which is a ‘waste’ product from rare earth metals processing) added.
You also mentioned scaling, but the PWR design has worked very well, especially when built by diligent people and companies that don’t try and cut corners. France, Finland and China all built EPRs, yet totally different results in spite of it being the same design. The Koreans have recently finished construction of a similar design in UAE, 4 huge 1.4GW reactors at Barakah, successfully completed and started up, without significant issues in spite of covid and the fact the country has no pre-existing experienced companies or workforce that dealt with the peculiarities and preciseness needed for nuclear construction.
The Sizewell project and a similar one in Finland are seven years overdue and massively over budget due to the complexities of the PWR design. This and the current ridiculous planning laws makes the politicians nervous about nuclear, plus they also seem to believe the renewable energy propaganda.
Failure to scale up a submarine design, that’s the difference.
Story tip – Recapping some of the most erroneous ‘climate change’ predictions – American Thinker
Link: “This natural dust and wind, from a tiny speck of land (the Sahara Desert) …”
vs quick Google: “Sahara – 3.5 million square miles“
Milliband should be locked up for treason.
Don’t you mean strung up? He’s always been useless.
Ditto Starmer. It’s nauseating to see him standing alongside a prop flag that he clearly hates so much.
Will nobody rid us of this troublesome priest?
Not before it’s too late…
St. Thomas Becket was speaking Truth to Power, much like his spiritual descendant, St. Thomas More – and both were trying to counsel totalitarian kings named Henry.
Miliband is the current totalitarian Power of the regime and there is no one close to him to tell him the truth.
Story tip:
Labour-run council funds Extinction Rebellion ‘climate cafe’ using taxpayer’s money
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/09/extinction-rebellion-climate-cafe-bolton-council/
…so long as it doesn’t cost him anything. I suspect this might be a financially motivated walk-back rather than an ideological one.
Didn’t Britain already try not heating buildings and serving gruel rations to its populace before in the 18th and 19th centuries?
Miliband is a fool.
We can at least laugh at fools. Miliband’s ignorant delusions, on the other hand, are positively dangerous.
You’re too polite.
Government Studies are a great way to employ friends and relatives that have no idea how to make things work in the real word.
The simple fact is that governments lack the ability to deliver anything on time on budget. Instead it is all about laying blame and CYA. Delay and delay to avoid responsibility.
Net zero is a non starter, it is worse than useless. Great Britain needs power desperately, nuclear can provide what they need and desire. Wind, solar, biomass and storage can’t come close. Spend your precious resources on programs that actually work, are dispatchable, affordable, have a small footprint, do not slaughter animals, have a long life expectancy and are not a threat to the grid. It only makes sense.
Of course the brainless Miliband doesn’t understand that nuclear is the greenest and cleanest fuel we know beating both solar and wind hands down both causing high environmental damage in their lifetime even if we discount other damages altogether. The trouble with the woke is they do not have any working and functioning intelligence period. They just have agendas.
Given the low proven dead-status of Net Zero Milliband need to get educated
Sen. Iselin here to make things Real Simple for Ed Miliband.
The way the electric system works, Generation Must Equal Demand EVERY SECOND.
Highest priced: Generation that can be turned on with the flick of a switch.
Next: Generation that takes a while to ramp up.
Next: Baseload generation that delivers the same load all day, all night.
Lowest priced: Generation that relies on the sun or the wind.