Estimated cost of Hinkley Point C nuclear plant rises to £37bn - Polidicks

[QUOTE=NeonpieDFTBA;50684385]Environmentalists are often anti nuclear. Her explicit argument is that nuclear must play a role in any green future because the storage solutions and renewable technology we have now could not produce a reliable grid off purely renewables. She's arguing there that the base load should be provided by nuclear, and this increase in nuclear would replace coal, oil and gas, not renewables. Her argument against renewables is that they should not be used for base load. Also, his point is that you are comparing building cost/watt with lifetime cost per watt. Also, the cost of this has little to do with nuclear power and much more to do with the government giving the Chinese a ridiculously good deal to try to buddy up to them.[/QUOTE] Lifetime cost for solar is very small after the build cost. Maybe you need to replace the inverter every decade and a half or so for a couple of grand. While the cost is inflated by the government giving the chinese a good deal that isn't the whole story. Every single EPR reactor plant being built has been massively over budget and had several years of delays. I would rather we just scrapped this plant and go with the AP-1000 plants being considered now instead that are estimated to only cost £10bn and produce slightly more power. I don't think any real environmentalists are anti nuclear, I'm not anti nuclear. I'm anti EPR though since the safety benefits it offers are a bit useless in the UK, might be good for Japan though. I say build 4 AP-1000 plants instead with 3 reactors a piece and get some serious nuclear power going. I completely disagree that renewables can't be used as a base load though. Tesla and SolarCity are already working on doing it in the US with several sites. [editline]10th July 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=ksenior;50684493]That's very strange, you don't normally count continuing costs upfront in an item that has a revenue stream.[/QUOTE] It's the cost to the government. Every mWh that this plant produces the government must pay them £92.50 plus interest for. Right now the cost is about £35 give or take a couple of quid. So that's a pretty massive subsidy. The government could just shove it into the wholesale cost of electric but then you'd see a fairly notable rise in household electric bills, which is why I am against it.

[QUOTE=Morgen;50685537]Lifetime cost for solar is very small after the build cost. Maybe you need to replace the inverter every decade and a half or so for a couple of grand. While the cost is inflated by the government giving the chinese a good deal that isn't the whole story. Every single EPR reactor plant being built has been massively over budget and had several years of delays. I would rather we just scrapped this plant and go with the AP-1000 plants being considered now instead that are estimated to only cost £10bn and produce slightly more power. I don't think any real environmentalists are anti nuclear, I'm not anti nuclear. I'm anti EPR though since the safety benefits it offers are a bit useless in the UK, might be good for Japan though. I say build 4 AP-1000 plants instead with 3 reactors a piece and get some serious nuclear power going. I completely disagree that renewables can't be used as a base load though. Tesla and SolarCity are already working on doing it in the US with several sites.[/QUOTE] Solid no true Scotsman there. Anti nuclear environmentalists are the reason we have so many coal/oil/gas plants here. I wish Tesla luck with that but I doubt they'll be able to significantly nuclear/coal/gas etc.

[QUOTE=Morgen;50685537] I would rather we just scrapped this plant and go with the AP-1000 plants being considered now instead that are estimated to only cost £10bn and produce slightly more power. I don't think any real environmentalists are anti nuclear, I'm not anti nuclear. I'm anti EPR though since the safety benefits it offers are a bit useless in the UK, might be good for Japan though. I say build 4 AP-1000 plants instead with 3 reactors a piece and get some serious nuclear power going.[/QUOTE] I'm currently building 2 AP-1000s right now, and I can tell you that they cost more than $10bn a piece, but less than $20bn. What I can say, though, is that the modular design makes it stupid easy and stupid quick to build these things, and we're building the first ones here in the US and having to deal with slight design revisions. By the time we're done, Westinghouse will have the AP-1000 building process much more efficient and much better.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;50685590]I'm currently building 2 AP-1000s right now, and I can tell you that they cost more than $10bn a piece, but less than $20bn. What I can say, though, is that the modular design makes it stupid easy and stupid quick to build these things, and we're building the first ones here in the US and having to deal with slight design revisions. By the time we're done, Westinghouse will have the AP-1000 building process much more efficient and much better.[/QUOTE] Well I used GBP which I guess would be about 13 billion USD now. They aim to start building the first AP-1000 plant with three reactors here in 2018 if the government approves it. They are just in the consultation phase right now: [video=youtube;mlj63lVqqgM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlj63lVqqgM[/video]

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;50680543]It would be cheaper to put solar panels on every house in England.[/QUOTE] Isn't England famed for having shitty weather pretty much constantly? Solar panels work when it's overcast but they don't work well.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;50680543]It would be cheaper to put solar panels on every house in England.[/QUOTE] But it would not provide as much energy, would provide even less at night, and would cost the lives of a couple dozen people more per year in maintenance and hundreds just in installing the damn things. Also the fact that the entire power grid would have to be reworked.