Life extension of existing nukes.

[biffvernon]

Hinkley B and Sizewell B life to be extended by seven years.

[JohnB]

Wonderful news. That will give us time to build plenty more renewables, and implement radical energy saving. After the seven years we can abandon nuclear and fossil fuels .

Is there a flaw in my argument?

[raspberry-blower]

Hinkley B and Sizewell B life to be extended by seven years.

SizewellB?????
That's the only PWR in operation in the UK (when it's not down for maintenance) and only became operational in 1995. It's decommission date is 2035
Don't you mean Sizewell A - oh, hang on a mo, that's shut....

[clv101]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20590172

Hinkley Point B in Somerset, and Hunterston B in North Ayrshire, are now expected to remain operational until 2023. Both had been due to cease generation in 2016.

Here's a chart I produced some five years ago:


Heysham and Hartlepool have subsequently had their lifes extended by two years and now Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B get an extra seven years.

What's interesting is that Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B are the oldest AGR by some margin (coming on line in '76) and have already had an extension to 2016. The announcement today is a 2nd extension. The other point to note is that reactors at these two sites are operating at only 70-80% capacity

[Blue Peter]

Do we know what implications this has, if any? Were the initial lifetimes just guesses, so that a change to them isn't particularly significant? Or is it truly a "get back on the pitch, even if you can only stand in the way" type situation?


Peter.

[biffvernon]

Hinkley B and Sizewell B life to be extended by seven years.

SizewellB?????

I think I may have meant Hunterston B. It was on the radio this morning just before I woke up. Might just have been a nightmare.

Nope, it's true: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20590172

[RenewableCandy]

You're cracking up, Biff (this is a transferred epithet).

[biffvernon]

I like transferred epithets.

[adam2]

Dungeness B is shut down for a planned outage and is not expected to resume operation until the Autumn, this is a longer planned outage than most, and AFAIK is for examination of the graphite blocks that form the core.
As these reactors are of the same design as those at Hunterston B, and have also been life extended, I perceive some risk of excessive numbers of cracked graphite blocks being found during this outage.

Any significant delay in re-starting might lead to winter power shortages, especially if anything else goes wrong.

[adam2]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20590172

Hinkley Point B in Somerset, and Hunterston B in North Ayrshire, are now expected to remain operational until 2023. Both had been due to cease generation in 2016.

Here's a chart I produced some five years ago:


Heysham and Hartlepool have subsequently had their lifes extended by two years and now Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B get an extra seven years.

What's interesting is that Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B are the oldest AGR by some margin (coming on line in '76) and have already had an extension to 2016. The announcement today is a 2nd extension. The other point to note is that reactors at these two sites are operating at only 70-80% capacity

The above chart was most interesting at the time, but has of course been overtaken by events.

Any chance of an updated version ?

[PS_RalphW]

From a recent FT article:

Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B 2022
Hartlepool and Heysham 1 2024
Heysham 2 and Torness 2030
Sizewell B 2035

[mikepepler]

Dungeness B is shut down now, which I expect you knew. Not a bad thing, given it's built on a temporary bank of shingle sticking out into the English Channel.

[adam2]

Hinkley B has just been life extended again, though only by a few weeks. Calls on tonight's BBC TV West country news for a more significant life extension. A local MP was calling for life extension.

Also the first time that I recall a nuclear reactor being called "She" in affectionate terms. Ships and railway locomotives are sometimes called "She" But nuclear reactors ! They will be calling it "cute" next !

[adam2]

EDF have confirmed that they intend to close both reactors at Hinkley B no later than mid July this year.

If it was up to me, I would slightly extend that date but only slightly. To avoid endless extensions of "just slightly longer" I would after mid July, place the the following limits of continued operation.
Firstly, only to run until the presently loaded fuel is used up, no more refueling.
Secondly, only to run until the next trip, no more re-starts, not even one.