Is the Government being honest about the cost of energy?

SallyKing

Households taxed £260 a year for Nuclear Energy but less than £2 for Solar PV.

Read the source by clicking here



So who do we believe? I've often been told that nuclear clean up and waste management costs are often exlcuded from Nuclear costs, so where can we (the common taxpayer) find a definitive answer?

Currently nuclear only generates a measily 16% of our electric. Given that any new nuclear will no doubt run way over budget and then hold us ransom for the next 25 years is nuclear really the way to go?

I also understand we are sitting on a huge amount of shale gas, why are we not tapping this resource?

[Deleted User]

[QUOTE=SallyKing;I_also_understand_we_are_sitting_on_a_huge_amount_of_shale_gas,_why_are_we_not_tapping_this_resource?[/QUOTE]

why not indeed

http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/hydraulic_fracturing_101

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/

make your own mind up

SallyKing

Kittie, thanks for the links, very interesting and I feel I now understand 'fracking' a little better than before. A quick search on Google also revealed that earth quakes have been 'probably' caused by fracking.

Could it just be that the process is still new and they need to learn from their mistakes?

If we really are sitting on much gas as they say then I think we should accept some risk and be extracting it. We dont have many other options. Our own north sea gas is down 50% from its peak in 1999.

Its getting cold here now and my combi boiler runs on gas...

whasup

Without nuclear and fossil energy society would grind to a catastrophic halt. Tens of thousands of people would die within days and millions more would follow from starvation and disease in a relatively short time afterwards. I know solar sounds really nice and fluffy but in National terms it's contribution is so small it hardly registers. And that situation is not going to change. Solar will grow on a local level but it simply cannot replace the other two. So which is it, more fossil or maintain the status quo? Until low energy nuclear becomes a reality we have no choice.

bobhawke

Fracking has been around for 60 odd years or something.
Watch the documentary Gasland, has more information there about Fracking with some rural communities destroyed by it
The french have banned it too.
Britain imports a lot of energy from France, we don't have the capabilities of producing it all ourselves because everyone thinks nuclear energy is unsafe and dirty.

wuthton

From my uneducated (like most on here) point of view shale gas is a cheap and dirty short term solution. The future for me is a combination of renewables and nuclear.

albyota

It would be useful to get some opinions as to what we actually need / want / can afford / as to priority / cost / risk / etc...

listed below are some of the choices, please feel free to add to the list. The comments / reasons are taken from comments on different threads on MSE.

Wind = doesn't work when its not windy + NIMBY + ugly + Noisy + expensive = still need all our existing GAS, OIL, COAL power stations.
Solar PV = What in the UK, where we get very little sun, + not much use at 5.30pm in winter. = still need all our existing GAS, OIL, COAL power stations.
Tidal / barrage = .......well thats not gonna happen and yet we are completely surrounded by the sea with tides in & out every single day.
River Hydro / Pumped Storage i.e. Hydro reservoirs powered by PV & wind = needs land, costly + no investment.
Fracking = earthquakes + expensive to mine = fossil fuel = CO2
North sea Gas = dimishing resource + getting more expensive = CO2
Oil = dimishing resource + getting more expensive = CO2
LNG milford haven = at the mercy of other countries buying power + fossil fuel = CO2
Biomass / rapeseed oil = land given up to grow a fuel = cost of growing foods increases, will be warm but we'll starve.
Nuclear = clean electricity, expensive to build + expensive to clean up + NIMBY + have we learnt from chernobil and Fukishima no investment + 8 to 10 years away.

any others?

Cardew

Any others?

Coal! Bring back Arthur Scargil and his merry men! Much cleaner with modern technology.

Plentiful still 'under' UK. - expensive to re-commission pits - provide employment(for those from Poland!!) Cheap to import coal and easy to store! -

John_Pierpoint

Yesterday the government announced a subsidy for our Continental friends EDF. possibly in a desperate attempt to get them to build more nuclear power stations.

The subsidy apparently guarantees a high price of every unit of electricity produced. Normally nuclear power is the cheap base load, because you cannot turn it off. I remember a famous time on a warm summer's night,
when enough stations had offered power at the striking price for the country to be provided with free electricity over night.

Anyway the technique for guaranteeing the profitability of the nuclear power stations which the government can no longer afford to build itself, is "Contract for Difference".

Is anyone able to translate this into something understandable to ordinary people?

WestonDave

A contract for difference is what it sounds like. I might enter into a contract for difference contract with EDF for electricity marked at 10p per kWh. If the best EDF can get for electricity at a given time is 9p, then it takes the 9p from the market buyer and I pay them 1p to make up the "difference". However if it manages to get 11p on the market, it then has to pay me 1p. I would imagine that you can do this via a reference to a general index such as the 10p plus inflation etc. That to some degree isn't a proper subsidy as such - its more a means of taking fluctation risk out which is a benefit obviously but it could go either way and in the EDF example could mean EDF lose out on being able to profit from their energy if prices rise just as much as they benefit from "subsidy" if they fall.

The crucial part is the price specified - if normal market price is expected to be 10p and the contract for difference is based on 12p then you start with a 2p per unit clear subsidy. You'd still have the same protection from fluctuation but you are starting from a point where you are expecting on average to sub EDF 2p per unit.

That will be where the sleight of hand comes in when they bring this through. That said I hope the Government realise they have a relatively strong position here - EDF don't have many other games to play as they are heavily nuclear reliant. If they don't build Hinkley C and other stations shut down, they will be behind other competitors when it comes to looking for power sources particularly low carbon ones. Others are much further down the line with non nuclear renewables than EDF who have bet the farm on nuclear.

jamesingram

here's one possible solution
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