Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

A previously approved, then not approved offshore wind farm has now been approved again, and it's a biggie at 1.8GW.

BEIS gives go-ahead for 1.8GW Norfolk Vanguard

BEIS has granted development consent for Vattenfall's 1800MW Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind farm off east England.

The decision by Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng gives approval for the construction, operation and maintenance of up to 158 Siemens Gamesa turbines located approximately 47km off the Norfolk coast.

“Building this major project will generate enormous economic benefits for East Anglia, creating high-quality jobs in our world-class offshore wind industry and the wider supply chain nationwide.

“To help the UK to reach net zero emissions as fast as possible, the government has set the industry a target of nearly quadrupling our current offshore wind capacity to 40GW by the end of this decade.

shinytop

The Guardian usually features in this thread quite a lot but I think this might have been missed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macron?fbclid=IwAR3k7qdfQWo7t7uYEj10YhS-I4x99XEYUIvIa51yNWaJ4CEUrPwPbQXMfFA

They're building some wind and PV too, so a balanced approach. 

Martyn1981

I don't know if folk saw the news that a small group of tories have been campainging against RE support and action on the climate crisis, but this article brings good news that it is only a minority position, and not supported by the majority, nor the key parliamentary groups.

Tory group fighting net zero ‘a small minority’, say parliamentarians

MPs not fully behind net zero are “a small minority” and the government should stay committed to its goal, a cross-party group of parliamentarians has said.

Chairs of eight all-party parliamentary groups, including on climate change, net zero, clean air and fuel poverty, have written a letter to the Guardian , vowing they will “continue to support and promote ambitious environmental leadership in parliament”.

The signatories to the letter, which include the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, Anthony Browne, chair of the Environment APPG; the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, chair of the Sustainable Finance APPG; and the crossbench peer Lady Hayman, co-chair of Peers for the Planet, write that they hope to “reassure your readers and the public that parliamentarians who are not fully behind net zero are a small minority”.

“We recognise the environment is now a top concern of the British public. And we recognise the spiralling climate crisis and the urgent need to transition to a more sustainable economy.

“There are different approaches to reach net zero, but we all support the goal. Delaying action will cost the country more,” they write.

This week, the Guardian reported that the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) of 19 Conservatives was accused of attempting to derail the government’s green agenda, linking it to the cost-of-living crisis and leading to fears of a “culture war” campaign around net zero.

NigeWick

shinytop said:

NigeWick said:

EVandPV said:

Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy - BBC News

European scientists say they have made a major breakthrough in their quest to develop practical nuclear fusion - the energy process that powers the stars.

The UK-based JET laboratory has smashed its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen.

The only reason I can see nuclear fusion being necessary is when it is small enough to fit in spacecraft. Here on Earth, the big fusion reactor in the sky provides more than enough energy for our requirements, if we would just use it.

It does, but at the wrong times and places.  Until we address that, we still have a problem.   

It can easily be addressed by producing a LOT more wind & solar (rooftops rather than large fields) and storage. Wind & storage are already cheaper than new nuclear, gas or coal. Won't be long before new wind & storage are cheaper than existing nuclear, gas & coal. This offers energy independence along with long term money savings and resilience.

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

The Guardian usually features in this thread quite a lot but I think this might have been missed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macron?fbclid=IwAR3k7qdfQWo7t7uYEj10YhS-I4x99XEYUIvIa51yNWaJ4CEUrPwPbQXMfFA

They're building some wind and PV too, so a balanced approach. 

Hiya, I'm happy to respond, but to be fair nuclear discussions are not too popular on this thread as it's G&E and they always bog down into a facts and economics v's 'but we have to have nuclear because!' argument. Personally I see any mention of nuclear as an opportunity to point to just how much the argument has shifted to RE, and how quickly.

Even this article and Macron's announcement is, I believe, confirmation that nuclear's time has come and gone.*

My view - Is nuclear cleaner, cheaper (including externalities) and lower carbon than coal, absolutely, and I supported it for decades, but my position changed over time reflecting the shifting economics of RE and the reduction in coal generation. Here's my rough timeline (all prices using the 2012 CfD baseline) :

2012: HPC and the CfD of £92.50/MWh for 35yrs was announced (£89.50 if SZC is also built). I thought that was a reasonable cost v's RE at the time. Actually I thought it was a little expensive v's PV and onshore wind, but given their low capacity factors (cfs) it was comparable, and much cheaper than offshore wind which at the time was about £150/MWh with cfs of about 35%-40%.

2015: The HPC contract was confirmed, and I felt that it was now too expensive in context with falling RE costs, but not the end of the World.

2017: The US who have the most reactors, nearly 100, all ageing out, cancelled two of the four new reactors under construction as they would never be economical. 

2017: UK CfD's for offshore wind were issued for 2021/22 delivery at £74.75/MWh and 2022/23 delivery at £57.50. These are for 15yrs of support. At this point it was clear (to me) that the nuclear price was now extremely expensive, and its CfD subsidies were committing vast amounts of funding that could deliver cheaper RE sooner.

2018: The Gov's commission - The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) - advised the Gov to scale back nuclear plans from 6 powerstations to just HPC +1 more, as they felt RE plus storage might be the cheaper option, an opinion I had come to by then.

2019: CfD's for offshore wind were issued at £39.65/MWh & £41.61/MWh. These have delivery dates of 2024-26. [So crucially here, we have offshore wind that will start generating in a few years at CfD's in todays money of between £45.73 and £49.47 per MWh, for 15yrs of support, v's new nuclear possibly generating 2027+ at £106.12/MWh for 35yrs of support.]

[Note - Some jump on the 15yrs v's 35yrs subsidy to point out that HPC will hopefully generate for 60yrs v's 20yrs for offshore wind, but this misses a crucial point, the offshore wind CfD's are already close to average wholesale prices, so when these WT's need replacing after ~20yrs, they will not require subsidies. Also ~40% of the cost of offshore wind is the monopile and electrical build out, so like for like replacements of the WT's should bring generation cost reductions of around 40%, even if no further economic improvements happen in the WT industry.]

Also worth noting that whilst HPC should have a cf of 92% if there are no unscheduled shutdowns, offshore wind cf's are also rising. The UK fleet average is now in the 45%-50% range, being pulled up by the newer wind farms/turbines which are larger both in physical size and output, and hopefully have cf's in excess of 50%.

*Over time, France has announced reducing its nuclear contribution from 75% down to 50%, it had peaked at nearly 80% and is now about 70%. France has about 50 nuclear reactors, which are starting to age out, and plans to build 8, possibly 14 by 2050. France has the largest percentage of electricity from nuclear, and massive experience, yet appears to be significantly reducing the nuclear element.

Even if we acknowledge that the existing reactors average just over 1GW, v's the 1.6GW EPR's to be built then that still appears to be a reduction from ~60GW to 13GW or 24GW if I assume that the new upper 14 figure doesn't include Flamanville3 [construction began in 2007, massively overbudget, nearing commissioning, but will now need to wait a few years whilst a new reactor lid is produced to replace the one where cracks were found.]

Storage - always used to knock RE, but the NIC recommendation included storage, and nuclear also needs storage / demand management such as the building of Dinorwig, and the E7 and 'Heat Electric' campaigns in the 70's and 80's.

Back up - always used to knock RE, but nuclear also needs back up since the unplanned loss of even a single reactor (1.6GW) will have a large impact on the grid.

Low carbon - This is now disputed due to the opportunity cost of building RE v's nuclear. With RE taking 1-5yrs to build out, and new nuclear about 15yrs, the nuclear option needs to account for ~10yrs of FF emissions, which arguably means it's no longer low carbon. When you take the cost of geneartion into account, the CO2 savings from nuclear actually become negative v's a RE rollout:

In Europe, let's be generous and price nuclear low, and wind and solar high - so based on nuclear generation costing £100/MWh, and RE costing £50/MWh. [This is weighted in favour of nuclear to avoid any bias.]

Also let's assume no RE generation for 5yrs, but some RE is much faster, and often modular, v's 15yrs for nuclear approval, building and commissioning. This again avoids any bias, but RE could be generating in 1yr+.

So, for every pound spent on nuclear, you get twice as much generation from RE, and 10yrs sooner. Assuming prior to large scale storage, some of the RE will be wasted (curtailed/spill), then only 80% will displace FF's. However, because there is twice as much RE generation (v's nuclear), this is equivalent to 160% of the planned nuclear. [This assumes no storage or manipulation is needed for nuclear - though I've challenged that assumption above.]

After 15yrs the nuclear comes on line displacing 100% of equivalent FF's, but 10yrs of RE has already displaced 1,600% (10yrs x 160%) of the nuclear equivalent, so nuclear starts its first year of generation 16yrs behind RE in terms of displaced/reduced CO2(e) emissions.

At the end of nuclear's first year of operation it has displaced 100%, whilst RE has displaced another 160%, so nuclear is now 16.6yrs behind ........ and so is the planet.


I apologise for this long and winding (windy) response, but I just wanted to make clear that whilst I think the arguments for nuclear these days are simply ideological, the counter arguments are reasonable, based on facts and evidence, and have developed over a decade as the technology and economics of RE and storage have evolved.


Lastly can I take this opportunity to address a general background assumption by some that nuclear is simply needed for any country to achieve a very high or 100% RE penetration. For the UK I've often heard throwaway numbers such as 10GW of nuclear is essential. This bit is just a thought exercise, but let's look at the UK currently with an average demand of approx 40GW, and a demand range of about 20GW to 50GW. Next let's assume we have 10GW of nuclear, and it's 100% reliable, never fails, then it is effectively covering 10GW of supply and demand, and we can put that part aside and think of the remaining UK as a country with an average demand of 30GW and a range of 10GW to 40GW - if that 'country' doesn't need any nuclear, nor the majority of countries in the World who will not be deploying nuclear, then why does the real UK require nuclear to achieve its goals ..... I know it's a strange thought, but it does make me ponder.

Verdigris

Excellent post, Martin, thankyou.

2nd_time_buyer

Yes excellent post. Thanks

Exiled_Tyke

For me the final nail in the nuclear argument coffin was the excellent Simon Reeve programme on the Lake District where he visited Sellafield and showed the catastrophic mess that remains there. Proof, if ever it was needed, that nuclear is neither green nor ethical.  And whilst some may argue that modern reactors are dealing with their waste better now,  it's still the same incredibly dangerous stuff it always was.  It irks me that my energy supply was moved to EDF which constantly likes to remind me that there energy is 'zero carbon'.  But zero carbon does not mean Green and as Martyn says, there's a strong argument against awarding the credential to nuclear power.  

Verdigris

For me the final nail in the nuclear argument coffin was the excellent Simon Reeve programme on the Lake District where he visited Sellafield and showed the catastrophic mess that remains there.

I was aware of the state of things at Sellafield, from written articles, but that doco really brought it home what a s*!tshow it is. I'm also deeply suspicious that the huge strike price really covers all the decommissioning and long-term storage of the waste. I suspect we'll be picking up another large tab for that, in due course.

Martyn1981

Verdigris said:

For me the final nail in the nuclear argument coffin was the excellent Simon Reeve programme on the Lake District where he visited Sellafield and showed the catastrophic mess that remains there.

I was aware of the state of things at Sellafield, from written articles, but that doco really brought it home what a s*!tshow it is. I'm also deeply suspicious that the huge strike price really covers all the decommissioning and long-term storage of the waste. I suspect we'll be picking up another large tab for that, in due course.

Well, you ain't gonna like this then - the strike price includes costs for decommissioning, but on the basis that the management of HPC (France and China) invest some of the profits each year, and that that fund grows enough (with interest/income) to cover the costs. If the actual costs turn out to be higher than expected <insert your jokes here!> and the fund hasn't grown enough, then UK Gov (us*) will pick up the extra costs.

Still, could be worse, we could also be the 'insurer' in case anything goes wrong, and also be liable for a £20bn poison pill if we cancel the contract. 


*Well not me, I won't be around after 60yrs of operation, unlikely I'll even make it to see the end of nuclear subsidies (maybe 2063 for HPC, who knows for SZC, looks like it will now need to be partially state supported for its whole life via direct UK funding, so maybe 2097?)