The UK is wasting wind energy, and why it is increasing your bills.

chris1973

The small modular reactors pioneered by Rolls Royce would appear to be one longer term solution, although the Government investment in the R&D of this has only been a few hundred million £, as opposed to Wind Turbines, where the current combined investment stands at over £32 billion. Currently we still seem to be still throwing the bulk of our money at part time, unpredictable energy generating solutions, which can't be controlled and some days only produce 2 or 3% of our total energy demands, when we  really should be equally investing in other forms of more reliable generation.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-overview

MalMonroe

I'm really very sorry but I just have to say that - it isn't IT'S, it's ITS.

You only need an apostrophe for 'its' when you are contracting either 'it is' or 'it has'. Everything else to do with its - no apostrophe.

Many thanks. 

Scot_39

chris1973 said:

The small modular reactors pioneered by Rolls Royce would appear to be one longer term solution, although the Government investment in the R&D of this has only been a few hundred million £, as opposed to Wind Turbines, where the current combined investment stands at over £32 billion. Currently we still seem to be still throwing the bulk of our money at part time, unpredictable energy generating solutions, which can't be controlled and some days only produce 2 or 3% of our total energy demands, when we  really should be equally investing in other forms of more reliable generation.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-overview

The govt has provided funding to help RR move design through the type approval / regulatory stages of their proposed design.

Last I read that was ongoing, but not expected to complete until cQ2 2024 - but was hope that could be accelerated.

It is iirc also very much a new design to RR too - I.e. it is not using the same design upscaled as their nuclear experience for uk subs.

And until type approved, the govts hands are tied on providing too much funding, they - according to some articles - legally cannot pre license or pre order etc.

Qyburn

chris1973 said:

The small modular reactors pioneered by Rolls Royce would appear to be one longer term solution, 

If I read their info correct these seem to be a fixed or nearly fixed output, so could help, but could not replace gas as a way to backfill drops in wind.

markin

Qyburn said:

chris1973 said:

The small modular reactors pioneered by Rolls Royce would appear to be one longer term solution, 

If I read their info correct these seem to be a fixed or nearly fixed output, so could help, but could not replace gas as a way to backfill drops in wind.

The is room for at least around 8 GW of baseload power going flat out all year, including replacing all the ageing out plants, And Hinkley can load follow.

If we have storage or load following plants we could push that up to 15 GW.

MattMattMattUK

markin said:

Qyburn said:

chris1973 said:

The small modular reactors pioneered by Rolls Royce would appear to be one longer term solution, 

If I read their info correct these seem to be a fixed or nearly fixed output, so could help, but could not replace gas as a way to backfill drops in wind.

The is room for at least around 8 GW of baseload power going flat out all year, including replacing all the ageing out plants, And Hinkley can load follow.

If we have storage or load following plants we could push that up to 15 GW.

I would say we should be pushing it up to over 200GW based on transitioning away from fossil fuels, with the need to de-carbonise everything, removal of non-electric domestic fuels, transitioning vehicles to EV etc. 200GW would likely be a reasonable target for nuclear in the medium term, in the long term it will need to be higher still.