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The Economics of Nuclear Power aka as Reds under the Bed

2

Comments

  • wymondham
    wymondham Posts: 6,355 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Mortgage-free Glee!
    Its sad when a country can't build its power infrastructure itself ... does this show lack of competitiveness of even worse lack of knowledge?

    Having another country build something so volatile is risky
  • Generali
    Generali Posts: 36,411 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    wymondham wrote: »
    Its sad when a country can't build its power infrastructure itself ... does this show lack of competitiveness of even worse lack of knowledge?

    Having another country build something so volatile is risky

    Well nuclear power stations don't get built very often and they tend, I suspect, to be designed and built by highly skilled people.

    Keeping a team of people like that trained up to date and hanging around just in case the UK wants another power station building is a waste of talent that could be better employed designing derivative products or high frequency trading systems for banks .
  • CLAPTON
    CLAPTON Posts: 41,865 Forumite
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    we don't need power stations that need subsidies for their entire life time

    better to wait and use gas/coal until we can see the future a little clearer.
  • wymondham
    wymondham Posts: 6,355 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Mortgage-free Glee!
    Generali wrote: »
    Well nuclear power stations don't get built very often and they tend, I suspect, to be designed and built by highly skilled people.

    Keeping a team of people like that trained up to date and hanging around just in case the UK wants another power station building is a waste of talent that could be better employed designing derivative products or high frequency trading systems for banks .

    its a pity we're not the ones with the knowledge who build these in other countries...
  • Generali
    Generali Posts: 36,411 Forumite
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    wymondham wrote: »
    its a pity we're not the ones with the knowledge who build these in other countries...

    True I suppose but it's neither possible nor desirable for the UK to make everything.

    As it is the UK is one of the top exporters in the world (6th largest from memory) and the revenue from those exports is used to buy the things that the UK isn't very good at doing like making nuclear reactors.

    Given the current rate of building nuclear reactors I don't see how you could have more than a couple of companies building them.

    This is a graph that claims to show the age of all reactors in use:

    reactors-by-age-0615.gif

    I make it 40 reactors completed in the past decade. That's not many.
  • kabayiri
    kabayiri Posts: 22,740 Forumite
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    It's one thing for the typical man/woman in the street to have a concern. These concerns are often founded on a lack of knowledge or information about the topic.

    But when it is people like Paul Dorfman then I think they should take a step back and consider their concerns seriously.

    Are the government rushing in to a decision because the deal on the table may not be there for long?

    Are we confident that there are no other options for providing base load? Gas fired reactors can be up and running from first design in less than 2 years. We happen to be sat on years of fracking gas.

    It does seem like we have options... there is the Iter project on fusion power as well.
  • chris_m
    chris_m Posts: 8,250 Forumite
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    kabayiri wrote: »
    there is the Iter project on fusion power as well.

    We don't have time to wait for that. It's going to probably be a decade or more before it starts producing (hopefully) useful science results - and those will only be at an experimental scale.
    Depending on the results, either a further, more powerful, experimental machine will be needed or they may feel that they can go for a commercial demo plant straightaway - but that will probably take a further decade or two before it can be operational, if it works.

    I hope they do succeed, and I'm sure that, eventually, they will - however I also believe that many of us won't still be around to see it come to full fruition.
  • stator
    stator Posts: 7,441 Forumite
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    Just having one nuclear power station under design and one under construction would have been enough to keep the skills in the UK. Theses things take ages to build.
    Changing the world, one sarcastic comment at a time.
  • Mistermeaner
    Mistermeaner Posts: 2,999 Forumite
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    edited 18 October 2015 am31 10:26AM
    But not enough to realise the economies of scale.

    Complex industry naturally finds a home in a limited number if companies/countries as each job they win builds experience, expertise, patents, know-how and economies of scale.

    Think silicon valley in US, German compressors/turbines, rolls Royce engines. It's not just a marketing protected origin status ala champagne and parmesan - there's real expertise in Chinese nuclear that we'd be fools to ignore.

    British engineering is pretty pap in the main nowadays (this is said by someone who amongst other things buys industrial goods for a living - most complex kit comes from outside uk)
    Left is never right but I always am.
  • wotsthat
    wotsthat Posts: 11,325 Forumite
    After the last nuclear power plant was built in the UK maybe we should have kept the British engineers in an office somewhere just in case their skills were going to be needed in the future.

    To save cost they could share the building with the tin miners, lamplighters, and muffin men.
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