Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

markin

Piddles wrote: »

EDF's Flamanville reactor delayed three years

This is EDF's flagship new nuclear reactor in Normandy, the precursor to Hickey Point C. It's now already more than three times over budget and ten years late.....

That's about all you need to know about the future of nuclear.

Though as an ex nuclear proponent, I do wonder sometimes where nuclear technology would be now if everyone had "done a France", and whether we'd be facing this climate change disaster at all (on the basis that the accelerating speed of technological change would in the future have solved the rest of the emissions problem before it got to current levels).

But the finland plant Olkiluoto 3 is still coming in at €8 billion and the tests are starting in september and is expected to come online in JAN 2020, And they had to deal with 6 months a year below -0C so not the easiest task to pore all that concrete.


And even at 10 Billion for the french plant with a life of 50-60 years its 'Only' 100 million per year. :A


And then the is the 2 That China have got online for €8 billion for both.

In June 2018, Taishan 1 achieved criticality for the first time.[2] It entered commercial operation in December 2018.[1][86]
In May 2019, Taishan 2 achieved criticality for the first time[87], and was connected to the grid at end of June.[88]

markin

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Good way to think about it! ....

Most of what I've read over the years seems to suggest an average of around £5k additional build cost per property would make the kind of difference to energy efficiency we'd need to get to, so if clearing the housing shortage needs ~350k new builds/year we're looking at an ongoing annual cost to purchasers of around £2billion ....

HTH
Z

To go full passive house someone on the green building forum worked it out at around 30K once economies of scale kick in. Thats the number in my head so im sticking to it.

And that number seems to match what happens on the tv show "The £100k House" if they try to push for it.

Martyn1981

markin wrote: »

But the finland plant Olkiluoto 3 is still coming in at €8 billion and the tests are starting in september and is expected to come online in JAN 2020, And they had to deal with 6 months a year below -0C so not the easiest task to pore all that concrete.

But it's a single reactor, not two units like HPC. It was supposed to begin commercial operation in 2009, and cost €3bn. The €8.5bn cost estimate is from 2012, I'm not sure if an update has been published/released.

How 'bad' is it, well Olkiluoto 4 (another of these PWR's) has been cancelled.

markin wrote: »

And even at 10 Billion for the french plant with a life of 50-60 years its 'Only' 100 million per year. :A

No, it's not you're out by ~100%, plus that's ignoring the cost of maintenance and re-fueling, and then decommissioning, costs that are breaking EDF (French owned) having already broken EDF (privately owned).


Also, don't forget to factor in approx +10yrs of FF emissions due to the build time difference between RE and nuclear.

markin

Martyn1981 wrote: »

But it's a single reactor, not two units like HPC. It was supposed to begin commercial operation in 2009, and cost €3bn. The €8.5bn cost estimate is from 2012, I'm not sure if an update has been published/released.

How 'bad' is it, well Olkiluoto 4 (another of these PWR's) has been cancelled.


No, it's not you're out by ~100%, plus that's ignoring the cost of maintenance and re-fueling, and then decommissioning, costs that are breaking EDF (French owned) having already broken EDF (privately owned).

Also, don't forget to factor in approx +10yrs of FF emissions due to the build time difference between RE and nuclear.

At 60 years it would be 166m per reactor, And If the uk gov had backed it the would not be a 10B interest added to the bill for HPC.

Its a drop in the ocean when compared to the £10.5bn given to Oil and Gas a year in the UK.





Jan 2019 - "It found €12bn (£10.5bn) a year in support for fossil fuels in the UK, significantly more than the €8.3bn spent on renewable energy. "

uk has biggest fossil fuel subsidies in the eu finds commission
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/23/uk-has-biggest-fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-the-eu-finds-commission

.......................................................................................................................................

Every home should probably be fitted with a Sunamp Heat battery, No need to lay steam pipes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9upXeTMHUqE

Martyn1981

markin wrote: »

At 60 years it would be 166m per reactor, And If the uk gov had backed it the would not be a 10B interest added to the bill for HPC.*

And at 50yrs €200m pa. So neither even close to €100m then? And again, that's just the build cost. Reactors in the US are closing down before their full life period as the costs of servicing them for further periods is simply not economical. These same costs are the ones that crippled EDF and resulted in virtual state ownership.


Piddles pointed out that Flamanville was 10yrs late and 3 times over budget, and you 'challenged' that with a 'but', however your suggestion Olkiluoto 3 is also 10yrs late and 3 times over budget.

And the UK government is backing HPC, with loan guarantees, and a guaranteed £102/MWh 35yr CfD. If HPC did not have those guarantees/backing then their financing costs would be far higher as they would not be expected to make money on completion. This was clearly demonstrated recently in the US, where 4 nuclear reactors began construction when nuclear was 'economically viable' as a low carbon option, but due to tumbling RE costs, 2 of those 4 reactors have been stopped mid build, after $9bn of expenditure, as they will not be economical on completion.


*The Wylfa deal also failed. It involved £5bn of direct investment by the UK, and then 'only' about £23bn in subsidies. But in 2017 the UK issued a CfD to off-shore wind of £65/MWh for 15yrs, which (if scaled up for an equal amount of generation pa) would work out at approx £5.9bn in subsidies (v's £5bn + £23bn) and commissioning in 2024.

This years off-shore wind CfD (results in the Autumn) are expected to be cheaper again.

markin wrote: »

Its a drop in the ocean when compared to the £10.5bn given to Oil and Gas a year in the UK.

That's what is known as a strawman argument, as we should not compare new nuclear against old FF. We should compare it against the alternative option of RE, which is a cheaper, faster, cleaner and more popular option to displace FF generation.

ABrass

Cross posting from the solar in the news thread but the Solar roadway project in France has been declared a failure for the exact reasons everyone thought it would fail.

The world’s first solar road in Normandy, northern France, which opened in 2016, has failed to meet expectations.
The 1-km-long by 2.8-m-wide road of solar panels is in part damaged beyond repair and is not producing the power that the manufacturer Wattway had promised.

I'm a big fan of Solar but there's a few places that it doesn't make sense. This being one of them.
https://www.energy-reporters.com/environment/worlds-first-solar-road-fails-to-meet-expectations/

GreatApe

markin wrote: »

At 60 years it would be 166m per reactor, And If the uk gov had backed it the would not be a 10B interest added to the bill for HPC.

Additional new Nuclear isn't necessary in the UK because we will soon have 7.4GW links to northern France so will be importing significant quantities of nuclear energy from the nukes on their north coast. If we keep the domestic nukes as long as it is safe we will have significant nuclear in the mix more than most people realize

At some points we will be 14GW domestic and import nuclear
That is 70% of nighttime summer demand and as much as 50% of a whole summer days needs

Plus we have significant existing infrastructure in the form of existing onshore offshore wind and PV. In short the UK grid is more or less solved with what exists and what is under construction and what will be existing by 2025

Heating and transport needs to be electrified but that is 10-15 years away



The big problem is heating people don't realise how huge heating demand is and electrifying heating will be a huge huge challenge especially since demand is so concentrated around 3-4 months and peak days can be even more stressful to the grid.

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

And at 50yrs €200m pa. So neither even close to €100m then? And again, that's just the build cost. Reactors in the US are closing down before their full life period as the costs of servicing them for further periods is simply not economical. These same costs are the ones that crippled EDF and resulted in virtual state ownership.

This is mostly fake news. USA 2018 nuclear output was the highest ever
A few reactors are closing down, the vast majority are not

Most of the ones that are closing are single reactor power station where costs are higher.
France doesn't have any single reactor stations they range from 2 to 6 reactors per station and the most common are 4 reactor stations

Also the French make it work running their nukes at about 72% while availability is closer to 88%

This means there is a spare 88TWh output potential at very low cost. (Cost something like 5 euro per MWh sale at 50 euro which would add 4 billion euro to EDF bottom line profit).

Right now there just isn't the demand for it not the interconnection capacity. but in the next five years France will be adding 7GW+ links to its neighbours and many of those neighbours are retiring their own nukes and some coal plants are also retiring. This could potentially allow EDF to produce more nuclear and also sell at a slightly higher price.

GreatApe

Piddles pointed out that Flamanville was 10yrs late and 3 times over budget, and you 'challenged' that with a 'but', however your suggestion Olkiluoto 3 is also 10yrs late and 3 times over budget.

The last reactor built in the UK was built on time and in budget
Sizewell B completed 1995 for £2 billion cost (£5.3 billion in today's money) 1.2GW capacity built in 8 years

https://ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/sizewell-b

Nuclear works well anyway but with BEVs would work even better
A country like the UK just needs just 9 nuclear power stations with 5 reactors each of 1.2GW like sizewell B to get to 100% nuclear for electricity and transportation

In a different universe that is what we would have done. Built 1 of these per year from 1995-2040 and we would in 2040 be 100% nuclear for electricity and transportation.

And from 2035-2050 you could convert these to be CHP to then solve heating needs with no additional fuel cost. By 2050 you could have been 100% nuclear for electricity transport and heating. No waste problem either because once you use the fuel in the reactors you store them in the heating grids where it's continuous fuel. 2050 solved for a population of 80 million Brits

Good luck getting that far with with intermittent wind and solar
Maybe hydrogen or syn fuel will save intermittent energy.....but probably not

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

but in 2017 the UK issued a CfD to off-shore wind of £65/MWh for 15yrs, which (if scaled up for an equal amount of generation pa) would work out at approx £5.9bn in subsidies

The bids have a lot of hidden subsidy

Intermittent supply should have to build (or buy an existing) a thermal generator so as to be able to demand follow which is critical

So if you want to own and operate an wind heavy energy company.
Say you want to build out 1GW peak of wind power you should also have to build/buy 1GW of CCGT or enough batteries to be able to demand follow (which might be 1 months worth of batteries) both if which means the bids would have to be a good deal higher to cover the cost of these backup CCGT/batteries

The truth is wind and PV have a subsidy of not the CFD minus wholesale prices. They have a subsidy of CFD minus marginal cost of production which is typically around £25 in the UK

So a CFD of £65 for wind is a subsidy of £40 (£65-£25)
A CFD of a nuke is X minus about £50 wholesale. If X is £92.50 then the sub is £42.50
So pretty close

Another way of saying this is
If you build 30GW of nuclear that's 30GW of coal and gas you can shut down
If you build 60GW of offshore (producing say the same energy per year) you can't !!!! down that 30GW of coal and gas and that needs to be paid for...