Author Topic: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?  (Read 5733 times)

  • Offline Serious

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Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
on: July 29, 2016, 06:13:04 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36903904

Seems it's delayed again.

Quote
The new power station was initially supposed to cost just £6bn, but has more recently been estimated at £18bn.

As part of the 35-year deal signed with France's EDF in 2013 to build the plant in Somerset, the government agreed to pay £92.50 for each megawatt hour of electricity.

Wholesale energy prices have fallen since that price was agreed, which meant the government must now make up the difference.

The NAO estimated that future top-up payments would rise from £6.1bn to £29.7bn over the length of the contract.

The spending watchdog's report came less than a week after an Infrastructure and Projects Authority assessment published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change put the potential cost of Hinkley at £37bn.

A Department for Energy spokesperson said that the revised estimate would not mean higher bills for consumers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36794172

'not mean higher bills for consumers' meaning you pay anyway through your taxes.

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #1 on: July 31, 2016, 21:21:45 PM
I dont like the ways these things get funded.
Look at the Severn Bridge - £380m it cost to build.
in 2014 they raked in £91m - deduct running costs & VAT of £31
they still made £60m!
Lets 1/2 that & be very kind & say they made £30m a year profit since 1996.
Thats still £600m


Lets not forget.. £10 is for every household in the uk
About 27m houses.
£270m per year
Over 35 years that works out at £9.5b (ignoring running costs)
Only 6m homes will see the benefit - so its really a stealth tax to the other 21m households.
Also, we know what the government maths are like. Just look at the olympics - a price of walnut whip we was told.
Now 50p for the treat * 65m people = £32.5m - nowhere near the £9billion it actually cost... and lets not forget about forgetting to price in the expense of VAT!
The Walnut whips barely paid for the opening/closing ceremonies (inc. the spaz olympics as well)
Last Edit: July 31, 2016, 21:32:40 PM by Eggtastico #187;

  • Offline Sam

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Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #2 on: August 01, 2016, 06:00:08 AM
I don't think anyone said the olympics would cost 32m !!

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #3 on: August 01, 2016, 09:24:31 AM
on top of everything else, nuclear power plants have to have insurance to cover an accident/leak/meltdown/accident/whatever

but no-one will insure them, too much of a risk, so the government has to cover it

and the plants cost more to decommission than they cost to build... government foots that bill instead

better to dump however many billion into renewables and storage tbh

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #4 on: August 01, 2016, 14:17:39 PM
I don't think anyone said the olympics would cost 32m !!

ahh, it would cost londoners the price of one each week!

  • Offline Serious

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Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #5 on: August 02, 2016, 00:48:17 AM
on top of everything else, nuclear power plants have to have insurance to cover an accident/leak/meltdown/accident/whatever

but no-one will insure them, too much of a risk, so the government has to cover it

and the plants cost more to decommission than they cost to build... government foots that bill instead

better to dump however many billion into renewables and storage tbh

Almost precisely what I was thinking. Renewable energy technology is getting better all of the time. Prices should continue to drop and efficiency increase over the next few years at least. What we need is a reliable and cheap large scale storage option.

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #6 on: August 02, 2016, 06:40:41 AM
on top of everything else, nuclear power plants have to have insurance to cover an accident/leak/meltdown/accident/whatever

but no-one will insure them, too much of a risk, so the government has to cover it

and the plants cost more to decommission than they cost to build... government foots that bill instead

better to dump however many billion into renewables and storage tbh

Almost precisely what I was thinking. Renewable energy technology is getting better all of the time. Prices should continue to drop and efficiency increase over the next few years at least. What we need is a reliable and cheap large scale storage option.

Its not really. The wind does not always blow & the sun does not always shine.
THe best renewable we can have is to make use of the tides.

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #7 on: August 02, 2016, 13:19:26 PM
interconnects too

already have big ass connections to france and ireland (think there's a few to france)

supposed to be one connecting to norway soon


once the grid is big enough it doesn't matter if there's not much wind here because it's windy somewhere else and they can export power to us
(and us to them when we have spare)


plus, we just need more renewables... if we have 4 times the capacity we need then we only need 25% if it to work at any one time anyway

  • Offline Serious

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Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #8 on: August 18, 2016, 03:44:02 AM
on top of everything else, nuclear power plants have to have insurance to cover an accident/leak/meltdown/accident/whatever

but no-one will insure them, too much of a risk, so the government has to cover it

and the plants cost more to decommission than they cost to build... government foots that bill instead

better to dump however many billion into renewables and storage tbh

Almost precisely what I was thinking. Renewable energy technology is getting better all of the time. Prices should continue to drop and efficiency increase over the next few years at least. What we need is a reliable and cheap large scale storage option.

Its not really. The wind does not always blow & the sun does not always shine.
THe best renewable we can have is to make use of the tides.
That depends, sometimes you don't need the electric all of the time, demand isn't constant. The common example is when a TV break comes on and there is peak demand as people put kettles and similar on. For that you need energy that is available quickly over a short time, just a few minutes. You could store energy from the grid during programs in huge capacitor banks and release it when the demand happens. It would be expensive to construct but once built energy supply would be considerably more efficient.

The second problem is when the renewables can't provide, such as solar panels at night and wind farms on calm days. For that you could use tidal power but that has problems too, there are times when the tide won't provide energy. The tide changes direction and for a short time no power will be generated.

The trans Atlantic Gulf Stream can provide a huge amount of constant power, if we can get the tech to work. We need to store power when it's available for times when it is needed. That means new batteries or very low loss capacitors. This is a problem with many present energy sources, including nuclear. It can take many hours or even days to get full production going at a nuclear power plant, and then you want it running at full power all the time for efficiency.

This is interesting, it's just a prototype, and as such has quite a few issues still, but eventually there should be no problem in storing whatever spare electric is available for when it's actually needed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34669405

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #9 on: August 18, 2016, 09:54:13 AM
on top of everything else, nuclear power plants have to have insurance to cover an accident/leak/meltdown/accident/whatever

but no-one will insure them, too much of a risk, so the government has to cover it

and the plants cost more to decommission than they cost to build... government foots that bill instead

better to dump however many billion into renewables and storage tbh

Almost precisely what I was thinking. Renewable energy technology is getting better all of the time. Prices should continue to drop and efficiency increase over the next few years at least. What we need is a reliable and cheap large scale storage option.

Its not really. The wind does not always blow & the sun does not always shine.
THe best renewable we can have is to make use of the tides.
That depends, sometimes you don't need the electric all of the time, demand isn't constant. The common example is when a TV break comes on and there is peak demand as people put kettles and similar on. For that you need energy that is available quickly over a short time, just a few minutes. You could store energy from the grid during programs in huge capacitor banks and release it when the demand happens. It would be expensive to construct but once built energy supply would be considerably more efficient.

The second problem is when the renewables can't provide, such as solar panels at night and wind farms on calm days. For that you could use tidal power but that has problems too, there are times when the tide won't provide energy. The tide changes direction and for a short time no power will be generated.

The trans Atlantic Gulf Stream can provide a huge amount of constant power, if we can get the tech to work. We need to store power when it's available for times when it is needed. That means new batteries or very low loss capacitors. This is a problem with many present energy sources, including nuclear. It can take many hours or even days to get full production going at a nuclear power plant, and then you want it running at full power all the time for efficiency.

This is interesting, it's just a prototype, and as such has quite a few issues still, but eventually there should be no problem in storing whatever spare electric is available for when it's actually needed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34669405

So point is, you need an expensive combination of wind, sun & tide along with storage batteries along with the extensive maintaining expense of the 4, to do the job of what one nuke plant could do.

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #10 on: August 18, 2016, 10:32:52 AM
few years ago a nuke sized amount of wind/solar/hydro +storage would cost crazy money

not it's pretty close to even

pretty soon the renewables +storage will be cheaper

nuke takes 15 years to build... chances are by the time is 15 years it up renewables will be even cheaper

and that's ignoring nukes going over budget

  • Offline Serious

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Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #11 on: August 18, 2016, 21:12:35 PM
Actually Knighty it's cheaper, half the price of nuclear or less. That is why the French want a guaranteed price per GWH of nuclear power generated. Price of solar voltaics energy is lower than fossil fuels, many others are a similar price now.

Then renewables don't leave a multi million year radioactive pollution problem that isn't going to just go away. Even if it doesn't come on your normal fuel bills it will still be there on your tax. It's also going to continue getting cheaper and better.

Hinkley already looks a bad deal and they haven't started building yet.

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Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #12 on: August 29, 2016, 12:41:31 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-37212373

Tidal turbine electricity generators. 200kW isn't much, but it is a start.

  • Offline Pete

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Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #13 on: September 18, 2016, 23:44:13 PM
It's kinda funny that a nuclear plant is being built in a patch where they rejected wind turbines, in case a blade fell off and hit something. Just read that on Wikipedia so it must be true.

Nuclear is still the best clean energy, until boffins can get solar panels working at night or wind turbines that don't have to be 500ft tall we're stuck with it. Renewables are great at a small scale but when you've got millions of home and businesses to run 24/7 you need something consistent and reliable.

Give it ten years though and we'll all have a solar panel the size of a fag packet running our central heating :)


I know sh*ts bad right now with all that starving bullsh*t and the dust storms and we are running out of french fries and burrito coverings.

Re: Hinkley Point - still a good idea?
Reply #14 on: September 20, 2016, 16:00:40 PM
I'm really struggling with my knitting :-(

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