Hinkley Point C

Amp34 said:
I though part of the problem is we don't have the manufacturing capability to make the reactor and we don't have the human expertise to design it either, hense going to other countries/companies that know what they are doing.



Of the US for that matter...
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We did design one the ap1000 thats what the chinese are building in china..
 
Shows how far we've fallen, especially since the privatisation of energy supply. We were the first country to develop a commercial nuclear power station; Calder Hall in the 1950s. Now not only do we not have the skills to build our own (enter the French, stage left), but we also don't have the money to pay someone else to do it for us (enter the Chinese, stage right).
 
Tefal said:
We did design one the ap1000 thats what the chinese are building in china..
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Or attempting to build? Aren't they massively complex, with a completely unproven design, and all the ones in construction massively over-budget, and hideously delayed?

Sounds like something we should invest billions in too. Uh-huh.
 
FoxEye said:
Or attempting to build? Aren't they massively complex, with a completely unproven design, and all the ones in construction massively over-budget, and hideously delayed?

Sounds like something we should invest billions in too. Uh-huh.
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Not really they're nuch simpler than this and being built around the world.

That's one of its selling points much reduced complexity

Theyre having supply problems and china is having problems through miss management and changing the design to a later version

Looks like though they are going to build 3 in the uk though.


The EPR design though is also suffering major delays and difficukties and beign redesigned because of it.
 
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Bonjour said:
Shows how far we've fallen, especially since the privatisation of energy supply. We were the first country to develop a commercial nuclear power station; Calder Hall in the 1950s. Now not only do we not have the skills to build our own (enter the French, stage left), but we also don't have the money to pay someone else to do it for us (enter the Chinese, stage right).
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Not really the chinese are planning 100 reacrors of the uk design
 
Bonjour said:
Isn't the AP1000 a Westinghouse reactor? A US subsidiary of Toshiba?
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it was a subsidiary of British nuclear fuels, but Gordon brown sold it and the design off for a tuppence.

wasn't just the gold he flogged to try and keep the ridiculous spending going
 
British nuclear fuels bought Westinghouse in 1999, but they are an American-based company. Sold it on again to Toshiba in 2006.

We do not have the skills in this country to design and build a nuclear power plant.
 
Bonjour said:
Shows how far we've fallen, especially since the privatisation of energy supply. We were the first country to develop a commercial nuclear power station; Calder Hall in the 1950s. Now not only do we not have the skills to build our own (enter the French, stage left), but we also don't have the money to pay someone else to do it for us (enter the Chinese, stage right).
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Thats not actually true.

They just want to keep it off the official Govt Debt and to do so would rather pay over the odds for someone else to take the risk.

Of course when the Bank of England has just given the banks ANOTHER £100bn and interest rates are so low its crazy, you might argue that the sensible thing to do would be to pay for it yourself.

But that wouldn't line a lot of certain pockets the way this deal does.
 
We do have the skills to build a nuclear reactor. Forgemasters for instance is a World leading forging company. In 2009 the Labour Government offered a loan of £90m to them to build a larger press as the company, privately owned, couldn't secure a commercial loan. The incoming coalition cancelled the loan immediately for some utterly unknowable reason.

However with the right investment Forgemasters are capable of making the highest integrity pressure vessels. The same is true of other critical items the UK can supply them no problem. Valves are commodity items almost and can be bought from international manufacturers.

The big problem is the lack of nuclear design knowledge in the UK. The greatest Chancellor ever forced the sale of Westinghouse to Toshiba so he could have his £3Bn to spaff on public spending. So we no longer own a company that designs nuclear reactors on that scale.

Personally though I think pressurised water reactors are a dead end, we've taken the technology as far as it's going to go and it won't get any safer. We should be looking at molten salt reactors or sodium cooled reactors where there is no high pressures going through the reactor core and much lower thermal density in case of cooling loss. The UK should institute a crash programme to develop and build them and just take half the international aid budget to pay for it.
 
FuriousGeorge said:
They just want to keep it off the official Govt Debt and to do so would rather pay over the odds for someone else to take the risk.

Of course when the Bank of England has just given the banks ANOTHER £100bn and interest rates are so low its crazy, you might argue that the sensible thing to do would be to pay for it yourself.

But that wouldn't line a lot of certain pockets the way this deal does.
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There's paying over the odds and then there's Hinkley C. 10 year govt. bond yields are 0.5%, 30 year at 1.2%. There's clearly a huge appetite.
 
Shamelessly stolen from a thread in SP
PlacidCasual said:
Just for perspective winter peak demand is 60GW normally. Assume a 4 hour window between 4pm and 8pm in December where no solar power is being generated. We have a low over the UK so wind output is down to 1GW or less, which could happen 3 times a winter for 2 to 3 days according to a 2011 John Muir Trust assessment on wind power.

So 60 GW = 60,000 MW = 60,000,000 kW

For a 4 hour period you would need 240,000,000 kWh assuming no solar or wind supply is available.

At a price of £600 per kWh that works out at £144,000,000,000 at current prices to provide 4 hours of peak demand.

As proof against current demand for a 3 day period mid winter, which is not an unfair requirement in my mind the storage capacity is going to have to be enormous if we only had wind or solar power.
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So 60 GW = 60,000 MW = 60,000,000 kW

For a 4 hour period you would need 240,000,000 kWh assuming no solar or wind supply is available.

At a price of £100 per kWh that works out at £24,000,000,000 at current prices to provide 4 hours of peak demand. So every 4 hours of current winter demand would require £24Bn of battery storage at the predicted reduced cost. Now the John Muir Trust report from 2011 suggests winter lows can last several days several times a year. We're going to need a lot of batteries.

If we move to electric heating and cooking which is a reasonable prediction if the 2050 80% CO2 goal is to be met. Electricity demand will increase beyond 60GW some have suggested a doubling or tripling of electricity demand if that rationale is met.
 
PlacidCasual said:
We do have the skills to build a nuclear reactor. Forgemasters for instance is a World leading forging company. In 2009 the Labour Government offered a loan of £90m to them to build a larger press as the company, privately owned, couldn't secure a commercial loan. The incoming coalition cancelled the loan immediately for some utterly unknowable reason.
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Because there was a vwry knowable reason.

Lanour knew they where going out so offerre loans to everyone knowing the torys would have to cancel them and look bad.
 
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