Some of you ask me about new nuclear power. I have written and spoken recently about energy. My view is we need more cheaper power to ensure security of supply, to tackle fuel poverty and promote industrial recovery. My main recommendation to the government has been to ensure more new gas powered stations are built to provide more lower cost electricity.
I support the government in cutting wind and solar subsidies as they are doing. I also agree with them that if low carbon is an objective of policy then new nuclear offers a cheaper way of producing a constant supply of power whatever the weather. I may write more about this in a later post when more of the detail is available.
September 22, 2015
I find it strange to constantly be told ‘in order to save the planet’ we must cut Co2 emissions. Yet many of the same voices are happy to create tonnes of radioactive waste.
September 22, 2015
Especially when the planet simply has not warmed, despite the higher c02 concentrations for 17 years and counting.
As Richard Feynman said “Nature cannot be fooled” and as he might have added not by the BBC, or the met office with their misguided computer models, or by any government group think religion. He also said “If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong”. When will they all grow up?
September 22, 2015
Prof. Dame Julia Slingo OBE FRS – Chief scientific officer at the Met Office should resign. Not for her daughters job there which I am sure is a mere coincidence, but because the met office propaganda and predictions have been so consistently wrong. Despite this she sticks to the group think, greencrap religious line and simply ignores the real science.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3239251/Met-Office-created-plum-media-job-daughter-new-230-000-year-science-boss-just-months-graduated.html
September 22, 2015
Old Albion makes a very good point. Hinkley Point will only add to the problem of how and where to dispose of our nuclear waste.
Surely we should be spending money on research into new nuclear technology.
September 22, 2015
Nuclear waste is so extremely dangerous that we can concentrate on and get better at its containment and seeking methods of nullification; and besides I don’t see that it makes too much difference if the volume of waste doubles or whatever–volume per se isn’t the problem and no matter who says what we are stuck with what we have so the safest thing (least dangerous some might say) is to carry on as we are. That said, I certainly agree that we should be spending money. Thorium has a lot going for it (not pursued in the early days solely because can’t make WMD from it) and if I remember correctly Thorium can be used to eat the Uranium in the waste pile. I do not claim it would be easy or cheap because the technology doesn’t just jump across.
September 22, 2015
According to Sustainable Energy- MacKay the whole of our nuclear waste could be stored in a volume about the sizeof an Olympic swimming pool. The French put their in a cavern near Dieppe. I stayed at a gite nearby and have not noticed myself glowing unnaturally.
September 22, 2015
perhaps CO2 is more dangerous than radioactive waste.
September 22, 2015
Perhaps is it. But the science suggests it is just a natural, harmless, odourless gas that feeds the trees, plants, increases crop yields and has a very mild warming effect on the planet which is on balance a net positive for humanity. A warming effect countered by natural negative feed back anyway.
Just one of millions of factors that affect the climate.
September 23, 2015
I have noticed that everything in the gardens grows much more quickly. I spend half my time pruning bloody shrubs and mowing the grass.
September 22, 2015
Indeed the warmists’ solutions are complete scientific nonsense even if you accept the truth of the catastrophic warming religion.
September 22, 2015
Gordon Brown flogged off Westinghouse, a world leader in nuclear power station design, for £ 2.7 billion, getting barely more for it than the money they lavished on the MOD offices , and not much more than the grantee Osborne has just given the Chinese.
Months after flogging off Westinghouse they went cap in hand to the French to beg them to build nuclear power stations here. The price the French asked was the sale of British Energy to EDF. The £12.5 billion sale price was loaned to the French Government owned EDF by the British tax payer owned RBS and put down as a loan to British industry.
When the deal was struck Gordon Brown boasted that the ‘investment ‘ would make Britain the home of nuclear power station technology.
Osborne has subsequently underwritten the nuclear power station supplied energy to make it some of the most expensive energy ever, and now underwriting the Chinese for a few billion more.
If the British political establishment aren’t a bunch of fifth columnists then they are doing a very good job of making it appear like that, and I can only presume fifth columnists look on in envy at the wreckage the British political establishment have made of our once leading nuclear power industry, so much so we have to bribe foreign powers to build their nuclear power stations here, bribes that now cost us more than the nuclear power assets Westminster got for flogging them off.
And it hasn’t stopped for Osborne is itching to flogg off our share in the Urenco, the nuclear processing company.
September 22, 2015
For all his faults , I wish we had Mr Putin as our prime minister .
At least he would put Britain and Briton’s first .
September 22, 2015
“And it hasn’t stopped for Osborne is itching to flogg off our share in the Urenco, the nuclear processing company.”
I see Osborne has just come up with a cunning wheeze to sell off the rest of British industry to the Chinese. He’s Irish isn’t he? Aren’t Blair and Brown Scottish? Don’t Cameron and Howard have ME connections? Pity the Englishman, Hague was a bit of a whimp.
September 22, 2015
#Pig-gate is just a diversion to keep eyes off the disgusting exhibition Osborne is making of himself in China .
He’s fully prepared to flog off all the family silver to help his mates in the banking community get their tentacles into China and trade the Rmb .
Well they should be careful what they wish for . If they try over there to pull the strokes they get away with over here then they will experience summary justice .
September 22, 2015
Now we hear that Oz has agreed to let the Chinese build another nuke at Bradwell, Essex. Re Guardian 18.6.15, Prof Dieter Helm has pointed out that if Oz was not so keen to obtain Chinese finance, the government could issue bonds for the construction of the power stations and finance them at 2% rather than 10. While the Chinese expert He Zuoxiu is saying that the Chinese build more cheaply because they have lower standards. While, re Wiki, the French EDF/Areva one at Flaimanville is years late and they will have to rebuild the reactor because they used the wrong steel.
Then,according to the Wiki Chinese nuclear page, their European Pressurised Reactor, the same as the EDF design and 55% CGNPC and 45% Areva is also 2 years late as of 2015- because of component and management issues. Areva is now (in financial difficulty ed)and EDF losing loads. The Chinese are also building 4 Westinghouse (flogged of cheap by Gordon Tony and Peter) AP1000 stations and at least 8 more on the way. They are planning a larger version where they will own the IP rights and export many of these. Unfortunately, the AP1000 is also 2 years late, for the same reasons as the EPR.
etc ed
September 22, 2015
British Energy owned the nuke sites at Hinkley and Bradwell and they were sold to the French. I wonder how much they will be paid to allow an all Chinese built nuke to be built at Bradwell. Also, what is there to stop HMG buying a plot just next to Hinkley and Bradwell, then approving our own nukes financed from bonds and built by the cheapest regulated builder. The Chinese are also building the Russian design, which has been relatively problem free. The Finns has gone for a Russian design .
September 22, 2015
correction -the Fins – Finland.
September 22, 2015
Do you man Sizewell?
September 23, 2015
Mark. No. The Chinese are being given Bradwell, previously owned by British Energy, which was sold to EDF. There would seem to be no reason why other stations such as Sizewell could not be built alongside, if HMG purchased a new site and gave itself permission to build. Why pay a failed French company a fortune?
September 23, 2015
It’s bailing out the French government who owned 87% of Areva, and 84.5% of EdF.
I note that EdF now have a new timetable for the Flamanville EPR reactor, which is estimated to cost €10.5bn for a plant half the size of Hinkley C – coming on stream at the end of 2018 according to their recent press release. That’s still somewhat cheaper (about $7,000/kW of capacity) than the price we’re paying (over $12,000/kW), showing what a bad deal we’ve signed up to.
https://www.edf.fr/en/edf/press_release/Flamanville-EPR-optimised-project-management-and-a-new-timetable
Areva lost nearly €5bn in 2014 alone.
September 24, 2015
R4 Today interviewed the head of EDF and let him explain the advantages of nuclear over renewables. They did not ask him why Hinkley is more expensive than competitors.
Re Wiki Chinese Nuclear- China has 14 AP1000 Westinghouse almost finished and Russian design VVER1000s which are described as ‘well proven’.
Finland has 2 VVER 440s working and has ordered a VVER 1200 to be running in 2024 at Fennoviioma. These reactors are adapted to western standards. The cost to a mix of shareholders is 50 Euros/MWh or £36, about 40% Hinkley EDF. This includes waste management, production, depreciation and finance.
Thiscompares with Finland’s experience with its EDF/Areva EPR ordered at fixed price for 3 billion Euros to be finished in 2009 and now 3x the original cost and promised in 2015. There is a claims dispute for the cost overrun. The station was ordered from Areva with Siemens.The EU investigated for anti trust violations and Siemens sold their share. .
At Loiivisa Finland has 2 Russian VVER440s and in 2008 started to install modern instrumentation with Areva which was to take 6 years.This contract was terminated and the project given to Rolls Royce. Re Word Nuclear Association- nuclear power in Finland and Wiki.
September 23, 2015
Quite right Iain. I would like some member of the political class to explain why they have stood idly by for decades while huge swathes of our engineering and technological IP have been either sold off to foreign ownership or closed down altogether.
When I was a lad the British were world leaders in nuclear and aerospace. We made practically every engineered product ourselves and exported a great deal of them. Thanks to the theorists at the Economist and FT supported by the usual suspects at the BBC we have been subjected to the idiotic mantra of ‘it doesn’t matter who owns what’ for as long as I can remember.
Try telling that to the Germans, French, Japanese, Americans, in fact any country whose political class has pride in home grown technology and actually understands something about it: which British pols obviously do not. How many front bench pols on either side have degrees in science or engineering ?
September 24, 2015
Ineed, it seems we can’t even build a bloody railway now ( a railway few want) with Osborne going off to beg the Chinese to get involved.
Sometimes you wonder what the point of this country is, for our political master have flogged off our industrial base for the glories of globalism, which few other countries have, and doing its best ( much against the wishes of the British people) to give away our sovereignty to Brussels.
Like I said , fifth columnists.
September 22, 2015
We may need new nuclear in due course but gas, coal, oil & fracking are the main way to go currently . I suspect we are opting for the wrong nuclear option with this new arrangement.
September 22, 2015
What I am disgusted about is that we were once the world leaders in nuclear power and built some of the first nuclear power stations. As in a number of other fields, we allowed other countries to get ahead of us by failing to continue research and development with the result that any new nuclear power stations will be of French design.
There are other forms of nuclear power being studied for use in other countries such as China and India. Whilst I know little about the technologies, the Thorium reactor is considered an interesting possibility as it produces little radioactive waste whilst further down the line there is the possibility of nuclear fusion.
Successive governments of all parties have failed the country very badly in respect of research and development in general, I can’t think of anything of significance where we are now a world leader as we were in the past with, for example, railways where we build them in numerous countries around the world. Civil Engineering was another example, we built structures around the world but no longer have the capacity. What can we now sell abroad where we are the undoubted experts? This is surely particularly relevant if we leave the EU; what do we have to sell to the world that they don’t?
September 22, 2015
I believe that we have to be careful to ensure that we are not responsible for sending our dear earth to its death for humans for generations to come. That overiding feeling of responsibility leaves me open minded to all new developments which should be worked upon until they produce a satisfactory result. Most of us bloggers are in the latter half of our allotted years; let’s not think money without responsibility.Let us not be so arrogant as to think that the evidence that scientists produce should be discredited .Okay so there is evidence and contra evidence; but let us be objective.
September 22, 2015
No source of energy is risk free. Gas can explode. Dams can burst, the released water sweeping away all those in it path, miners die digging coal, even solar cells on roofs can be an electrocution risk. Oil can cause environmental disasters when spills occur.
So we need to take a good hard scientic look at the risks involved in all forms of energy generation. I don’t believe nuclear power will fare that badly against the competition. There’s a perception than nuclear power generates high levels of nuclear waste. But, surprisingly so does coal burning. Coal contains trace elements of radioactive materials such as Thorium and Radium which are concentrated in the fly ash which is left over after combustion. It is moderately radioactive and would not be allowed to be just dumped as it is had a similar level of waste been produced by a nuclear station. Then there is the particulate emissions from the coal station which are both radioactive and have severe health hazards in their own right.
I’d like to see an official government report addressing these issues in a quantitative manner.
For now I’d just reference this New Scientist article:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/
September 23, 2015
I wouldn’t believe every scare story published in a science rag that takes as its base supporting the Green agenda. The amount of radioactive trace elements in coal will vary greatly according to the source, and the radiation threat is almost certainly less than living in a granite house in Aberdeen or Cornwall.
September 22, 2015
On the subject of cheaper power,my utility bills include an 8% levy for the governments green and social policies,and 5% VAT….If these were removed a 13% drop in charges would go some way to cheaper power!
September 22, 2015
The Renewables Obligation (RO) cost is substantially higher than 8% for most utility providers. Some have admitted that its more like 20% or even 30% in one case of the average bill.
Utter madness brought in by Liebour, but remarkably kept in place by the Conservatives.
September 24, 2015
Can’t remove the 5% VAT under current EU law.
September 22, 2015
John,
If the floor price of energy paid back to China and France is going to be twice the market value – which is even more than it was reported to be with just EDF onboard – then it’s not really…err…value…is it?
September 23, 2015
Onshore wind costs twice the market price and off shore three times.
Both of these are intermittent and only last for a few years before needing replacement. SSE are replacing their blades after 10 years here with – you’ve guessed it – even bigger ones to add insult to injury. They obviously don’t think the existing ones make enough noise now and want to treat us all to more!! Nuclear is constant and lasts longer and wouldn’t have been so expensive if we hadn’t sold off Westinghouse. I agree with many here though in that instead of spending the billions of pounds we have on renewables that don’t cut the mustard, we should have used it on Research into nuclear fusion or thorium. Still, you can always rely on a politician to muck up the works.
September 22, 2015
Swansea bay and Hinckley Point are total insanities. The cost of build and the cost of running them do not make economic sense but then governments are famous for making decisions that leave rational people shaking their heads in disbelief.
September 22, 2015
I have been a strong advocate of nuclear power generation, but the costs of Hinckley Point have given me pause to doubt. We obviously must have a reliable source of power to cover our needs when so-called ‘renewables’ let us down, but perhaps there are other ways. How come we have a number of nuclear powered submarines that apparently generate enough electricity to keep quite a few villages going, but we never seem to think of building power stations with this reliable technology at a known cost?
For the longer term, we really should be devoting more research into thorium nuclear power. The only reason that uranium was chosen in preference to it after the war was that you can’t produce weapons grade plutonium from thorium, only from uranium. Beyond that, we should put our hopes on nuclear fusion.
September 22, 2015
I agree strongly re thorium and have responded on this previously. The Chinese are the ones doing the work on this at the moment. I hope the UK-China nuclear co-operation announced by Mr. Osborne will include the development of this technology.
September 22, 2015
From last night’s TV news it appears the UK government has signed a deal with EDF ( in addition to obtaining funding from China which does so out of charity and compassion ) where we will pay twice the going rate for energy.
Only Corbynomics can explain and save the Tory Party: “There is no such thing as Government Debt” and all peoples of the world should stand in a ring holding hands necklaced in daisy chains and sing “ring a ring of rosies a pocket full of posies”
September 22, 2015
The trouble is Mr Redwood, that David Cameron will certainly attend at least one day of the Paris climate warmist’s love-in in December. Obama will be there and is hell bent on leaving a legacy as a confirmed anti greenhouse gas, environmentalist. The danger is that our Prime Minister will feel he has to confirm his own green credentials, and might sign us up to another expensive energy policy. Perhaps even worse than the climate change act.
September 22, 2015
It can’t get much more expensive , for the idiots went and voted for an 80% cut in green house gasses just to signal their virtue, they never thought through what their votes meant in the real world, especially in light of another orgy of virtue signalling when they laid waste to our nuclear power industry.
September 22, 2015
Peter
The danger is that our Prime Minister will feel he has to confirm his own green credentials, and might sign us up to another expensive energy policy. Perhaps even worse than the climate change act.
God forbid that the man could be so stupid. If he does all he will deserve is the early morning long lonely walk to the firing post.
We have got to get serious over all of this. We have long gone past the black dog syndrome. You have a black dog, I have a blacker one
September 23, 2015
Yes, I also see the Pope is to meet with Obama and talk about climate change. Just what these two know about it all beats me but you can bet there will be many agreeing with them. I despair.
September 22, 2015
If we are to retain or even increase our dependence on electricity generated from gas, it is essential that we sort out the balance of payments by producing more of the gas ourselves rather than importing it. This makes it essential that we rapidly increase the amount of fracking. This could also help to reduce the amount of coal that we import.
Transporting these imports also generates large volumes of CO2.
September 22, 2015
Shouldn’t be hard to do given that not a single onshore UK well has been hydraulically stimulated for 4 years .
September 22, 2015
It is extremely unclear what Osborne’s £2bn guarantee amounts to. I can find nothing that explains the terms on which the guarantee is callable, or whether the £2bn simply represents a premium in exchange for offering a blank cheque, or just a cash gift. When will the associated cashflows hit the government budget?
The only thing that remains clear is that Hinkley C starts as the world’s most expensive nuclear power station as over $12,000/kW before we even begin to rack up cost overruns (and therefore blackmail to raise the agreed power price) that have plagued all Areva’s recent projects. Indeed, Areva is (financially stretched ed) and being taken over by EdF, the “customer” – and the British energy bill payer is in effect being asked to bail out the French (company ed) This is a new situation compared to when Ed Davey told Parliament about the deal. The risks are too high financially, and the deal should be cancelled before we get dragged in.
We should instead be looking at cheaper technology from elsewhere. The South Koreans seem to be worth talking to: they are building four 1.4GW reactors in the UAE for a total cost of $32bn including projected financing, or just $5,700/kW. The deal was awarded in 2009, with first power projected for mid 2017, and the fourth reactor due for completion in 2020.
There needs to be some serious questions asked in Parliament about the lazy manner in which DECC and the Treasury and FCO have been allowed to use the Hinkley C arrangements to favour the French and Chinese.
P.S. the last time we discussed nuclear I included links to the site of world nuclear dot org which never passed moderation, despite having been allowed on previous occasions. As perhaps the site with the most available information on nuclear power, it would be useful to be able to make links there, rather than clutter the blog with extensive transcriptions and précis.
September 22, 2015
Its a shame we let all our leading nuclear power specialists retire and didn’t bring on a new generation. So that now we have to scrape around internationally for designs and talent. No doubt the reactor vessel will be subcontracted to the lowest bidder. There is more than financial engineering to doing this well.
September 22, 2015
Nuclear power is extremely safe. AtFukishima there was a catastrophic failure of an elderly station, and all power supplies and backups failed at the same time, leading to meltdown of the cores. Any Green fule know that that is a death sentence for anyone within 100 miles. But how many people died? Yes, not one. compare that to the smaller power station and other fuel incidents, where a few to several to hundreds of people die. Look at the facts, and ignore what the foolish lefty politicians and MSM tell you – remember, the thing they hate the most is people having a good time and enjoying ourselves!
September 22, 2015
Nuclear reactors have a future even if Hinkley Point C is part of its inglorious past of disasters, high costs and nuclear waste. Obtaining energy safely and economically from radioactive decay can only be achieved by advances in engineering design.
The function of engineers is to solve problems. The problem with conventional nuclear power plants is that the fuel rods cannot maintain critical mass after 5% of the fuel has been utilised, leaving a legacy of spent fuel such as that at Fukushima. The BN-800 fast breeder reactor uses fuel from spent fuel rods from conventional reactors and could produce more fuel for conventional reactors as well as electricity. A further advance on the BN design is the BREST-300 fast reactor prototype which further advances the design of plants that can burn nuclear fuel in a continuous closed cycle without waste.
Another interesting design is the Fusion-Fission reactor being designed by the Kurchatov Institute which does not require fission fuel with critical mass because the neutrons which bombard the fuel is externally produced by the nuclear fusion reaction therefore not only facilitating the use of previously ‘spent fuel’ but also means that there is no critical mass to potentially lead to a nuclear catastrophe.
This is the work of Russian engineers, but if we had had the right governments, they could have been British. Shame our government ministers are so relentlessly unpatriotic and stupid.
September 22, 2015
We have an abundance of energy in the UK, but the loony eco warriors and NIMBY’s seem to hold sway with the government as they have done for many years with DECC. My correspondence with Gregory Barker at DECC over the years was illuminating. I was left with the conclusion that scientific ignorance prevailed and Barker, Beddington and McKay fed off each other.
So what is the solution…
1. Frack baby Frack. We have trillions of cubic feet of Shale gas under our feet which could power John’s new Gas Fired Stations. The government is trying to get things moving, but must do better at stopping local authorities putting up barriers egged on by rent-a-mob eco loons and professional protesters.
2. Coal…..yes I did say coal. We are sat on billions of tonnes and technology has moved on since the mines shut in the mid to late eighties. Extraction and burning are no longer that difficult, even the Germans are building 20 new coal fired stations.
September 23, 2015
Totally agree. The SNP are trying to employ a Scientific Advisor at the moment and are having difficulty in doing so because they simply don’t listen to advice anyway. They haven’t listened to the advice of energy experts either and just roll over for the renewables industry believing every fairy tale they are told.
September 22, 2015
Nuclear power might be a cheaper and more reliable low carbon source of energy, but the proposed new nuclear power station in Somerset is about twice the cost per unit of electricity as a gas fired power station. Gas could be even cheaper with a competitive fracking industry.
The alleged benefits of low carbon – the prevention of dangerous global warming – will only be fully realized if global emissions are reduced. Britain plus a few other countries will end with the huge costs of carbon emission reduction and nearly all the consequences of dangerous global warming than if they had done nothing. Indeed a small minority of aggressive carbon reduction countries will create a competitive disadvantage to non-policy countries, exacerbating the emissions reduction costs.
September 23, 2015
Perhaps John might feel that the main problem we have with Energy Policy is the lack of numeracy in the higher echelons of Government (ie the ability to understand what is really happening and the consequences of proposed actions).
September 23, 2015
Lets do that instead of nuclear reactors then. I will put up with the odd earthquake.
Don’t you mean slight tremor?
September 23, 2015
There was a 2.8 ML tremor in Rutland overnight:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3245980/Rutland-hit-FOURTH-earthquake-17-months-don-t-worry-tremor-measuring-2-8-Richter-scale-not-one-bigger-ones.html
That’s 5 times more powerful than the larger Preese Hall event, which itself is one of a mere handful that have occurred and been linked to fracking as a possible cause – out of many hundreds of thousands of such wells drilled.
September 23, 2015
It is extremely unclear what Osborne’s £2bn guarantee amounts to. I can find nothing that explains the terms on which the guarantee is callable, or whether the £2bn simply represents a premium in exchange for offering a blank cheque, or just a cash gift. When will the associated cashflows hit the government budget?
September 23, 2015
Please do stop spouting this nonsense about earthquakes. The one in the north west was miniscule and most didn’t know it had happened until it was pointed out – cue rent a mob outrage. According to the official independent report it was due to the drilling hitting a fault line, but it would have happened anyway at some point naturally. There was no fracking involved.
September 23, 2015
I believe that the French/Chinese nuclear power station proposed by EDF would generate a lot of power but would not be ready for more than a decade. I’m not very au fait with this subject, so I have a few questions:
– Will we ever need more than one nuclear power station?
– If yes, will Japan be allowed to compete for others (don’t laugh)?
– What will be our energy mix in, say, 2030?
September 24, 2015
Don’t close early large coal plants until the nuclear or others are on stream.
I suspect the big economic deals being done are part of something else which we will not be told about.
It also makes you think about security issues and wonder if its all a game and if its just one elite conspiring for gain with another?
September 27, 2015
An energys deathprint is the number of people killed by one kind of energy or another per kWhr produced and, like the carbon footprint, coal is the worst and wind and nuclear are the best.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/