Planned Somerset nuclear plant on hold ? or not ?

[Blue Peter]

The technology is on a continual upward graph.

Batteries are really chemistry, not technology. It's unsafe to infer improvements in batteries from observed improvements in technology.

Is 'technology' the right word here? It generally means the application of science, and batteries, being an application of chemistry, would count as technology.


Peter.

[woodburner]

One way, and the way that EVs have to go in the future, is making the cars much lighter using, say, carbon fibre bodies and suspension parts instead of steel. That would increase the range using current battery technology, well any battery technology, reduce the vehicle's carbon footprint and sequester some CO2 for the increased life of the vehicle.

Please let us know how we deal with the materials when the car is scrapped, and how we avoid the hazards of carbon fibres when the cars crash.

[kenneal - lagger]

Grind them up and use them as a filler for new cars?

Design the cars to reduce the risk from the carbon fibres. Design the cars to ensure that they are less at risk of crashing: minimum distance sensors; automatic driverless vehicles? Reduce road speeds for individual vehicles while allowing faster public transport.

Find a better lightweight material. I did add "say" into the sentence suggesting carbon fibre. I am trying to suggest ways improve things whereas you, Woodburner, seem to enjoy knocking people off their perches without making any suggestions of ways to improve things. I look forward to you educating me in the problems with carbon fibre and perhaps suggesting a better way of improving the overall performance of EVs and their batteries.

I am fully aware that we cannot just replace all cars with EVs and have to drastically reduce the number of miles travelled but EVs are here now and some will replace steel built ICE powered cars so the sooner we can get to the ultimate EV the better for all. Please can we have some positive contributions to this debate from your undoubtedly superior brain!!

[adam2]

To get back on topic, it was announced last night* that the cost of the proposed new nuke "could reach £21 billion" was not it only about 18 billion a few months ago ?
Presumably this will require either a bigger subsidy towards the capital costs, or a higher price for the electricity produced, which is already expected to be £92.50/MWH.

*BBC TV news, west country edition.

[biffvernon]

More from those anti-nuke radicals at the FT
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26f4b45c-190f ... z48cfRqaop

France’s energy minister has warned of the “colossal” cost of the £18bn flagship Hinkley Point nuclear project to EDF, saying the state-owned utility may have been “carried away” with its British investment.
The comments by Ségolène Royal are likely to fuel already fraught negotiations over a final investment decision for the nuclear plant that is critical to the UK’s energy future. The Somerset power station is expected to provide 7 per cent of the nation’s electricity within a decade.
Ms Royal told the Financial Times she was worried at the impact the project would have on EDF’s already stretched balance sheet if it were to proceed. “I am wondering if we should go ahead with the project. The sums involved are colossal,” the minister said.

[alex]

To get back on topic, it was announced last night* that the cost of the proposed new nuke "could reach £21 billion" was not it only about 18 billion a few months ago ?
Presumably this will require either a bigger subsidy towards the capital costs, or a higher price for the electricity produced, which is already expected to be £92.50/MWH.

*BBC TV news, west country edition.

Yes, actually started at £8bn. Gradually creeping forever upwards. Get ready for the announcement of £24bn.

We were promised that our 2017 Christmas dinner will be cooked by power supplied from Hinkley C. They need to get a wiggle on then!

[clv101]

The technology is on a continual upward graph.

Batteries are really chemistry, not technology. It's unsafe to infer improvements in batteries from observed improvements in technology.

Is 'technology' the right word here? It generally means the application of science, and batteries, being an application of chemistry, would count as technology.

The point is that when most people talk about changes/improvements to technology they are thinking of order of magnitude on order of magnitude changes, my phone is literally more powerful than a multi-million pound supercomputer 20 years ago etc...

Batteries on the other hand have hard chemical limits and pretty much the whole periodic table has been well explored these days. There are improvements in the material science of the lattice, packaging etc but orders of magnitude improvements in energy density just aren't on the cards.

[woodburner]

Grind them up and use them as a filler for new cars?

Grinding carbonfibre polymers results in much shorter fibres which then don't have the strength to be used in the same way as the original.

Design the cars to reduce the risk from the carbon fibres. Design the cars to ensure that they are less at risk of crashing: minimum distance sensors; automatic driverless vehicles? Reduce road speeds for individual vehicles while allowing faster public transport.

Why not teach people how to drive responsibly, and have regular testing with refresher courses for those who need it. Having retests will mean people have an incentive to develop good habits instead of hurtling around in a selfish manner.

Find a better lightweight material. I did add "say" into the sentence suggesting carbon fibre. I am trying to suggest ways improve things whereas you, Woodburner, seem to enjoy knocking people off their perches without making any suggestions of ways to improve things. I look forward to you educating me in the problems with carbon fibre and perhaps suggesting a better way of improving the overall performance of EVs and their batteries.

"Improve"? what is improve? does it always have to be doing things which encourage unnecessary travel? I can't remember who said, while standing next to a busy road, it's amazing how many people are in the wrong place.
I do not as you put it, enjoy knocking people off their perch, but it's quite reasonable to make points that don't agree with some statement. There's no benefit in just agreeing with what you say because you said it. As for carbon fibres, they are not nice things to get in your tissues, like other small stiff fibres. Unfortunately EVs are a bit like other "cures" for modern problems, primarily a way to make more "stuff" to market. if everyone was to travel in EVs, the power stations couldnt cope.

I am fully aware that we cannot just replace all cars with EVs and have to drastically reduce the number of miles travelled but EVs are here now and some will replace steel built ICE powered cars so the sooner we can get to the ultimate EV the better for all. Please can we have some positive contributions to this debate from your undoubtedly superior brain!!

I'll treat the last sentence with what it deserves.

[BritDownUnder]

To get back on topic, it was announced last night* that the cost of the proposed new nuke "could reach £21 billion" was not it only about 18 billion a few months ago ?
Presumably this will require either a bigger subsidy towards the capital costs, or a higher price for the electricity produced, which is already expected to be £92.50/MWH.

*BBC TV news, west country edition.

Yes, actually started at £8bn. Gradually creeping forever upwards. Get ready for the announcement of £24bn.

We were promised that our 2017 Christmas dinner will be cooked by power supplied from Hinkley C. They need to get a wiggle on then!

It may be cheaper soon to burn piles of banknotes in a 'biomass' power station than open Hinckley Point C.

More seriously there has been an argument in Australia about building nukes and the point was made that it would involve entirely imported technology and while it would be sensible on one level for Australia to use its own uranium in its own nukes the cost of the imported technology would lead to such a trade imbalance that the country would have to sell so many millions of tonnes of coal overseas to pay for them it would work out cheaper just to burn the Australian coal in the existing coal power stations.

I would like to know where at some point in the last 60 years the UK lost the ability to design and manufacture its own nuclear power stations.

[kenneal - lagger]

...
I would like to know where at some point in the last 60 years the UK lost the ability to design and manufacture its own nuclear power stations.

In the last 60 years the people who designed the first lot of reactors retired and most have since died. Because we weren't building any more reactors no one was trained to design them.

[BritDownUnder]

...
I would like to know where at some point in the last 60 years the UK lost the ability to design and manufacture its own nuclear power stations.

In the last 60 years the people who designed the first lot of reactors retired and most have since died. Because we weren't building any more reactors no one was trained to design them.

You would have hoped that they wrote some manuals or something. I know that the UK nuclear industry was based on gas cooled reactors until the Americans who were bidding for Sizewell B told Margaret they were no good, socialist, plutonium producing behemoths. Maybe the UK could build a few more AGRs at a fraction of the price on Hinckley from old 1970s designs?

The tech industry in Australia is fairly dire the UK really seems to take the biscuit at times.

[kenneal - lagger]

One of my cousins trained as a nuclear engineer but he emigrated to South Africa because there was no work here. I'm not sure what he is doing in SA.

[RenewableCandy]

I think HMG have just set aside some amount of money to build a college to train the next lot, having taken about 40 years to realise that "competitive" industry (which has to, er, compete) won't do it.

[BritDownUnder]

One of my cousins trained as a nuclear engineer but he emigrated to South Africa because there was no work here. I'm not sure what he is doing in SA.

South Africa had its own hush hush bomb project. They also have nuclear power station near to Cape Town.
Apparently the UK universities trained quite a few Iraqi nuclear and biological weapons experts too!

[kenneal - lagger]

When I was at college in 1965-66 studying OND Civil Engineering we had a large Iraqi contingent of the course.

Why would competitive industry or even the NHS train anyone when they can import people from abroad far cheaper? Waste of money training Britons to do jobs when you can get immigrants. Train Britons and they will go and work for someone else for more money when they finish training!

Now you can get people to pay for their own training, degrees, and offer them peanuts when they've finished because they're competing with graduate immigrants from poor countries who will take a job on minimum wage, send some money home, live in pitiful conditions and still be far better off than at home. That's what immigration does for the country, well the corporations anyway!