July 2025: Wind not doing very well

Really? La Rance comes in at about €0.018/kWh, compared with €0.025/kWh for nuclear power.

Eh? I'm seeing strike price about £100 /MWh for Hinkley and Swansea Bay, but for 35 years or 90 years.

No wonder La Rance took 20 years to break even, at those prices.

And keep in mind that nuclear power is available 24/7, whereas you will need to factor in the cost of the inefficient four-times-a-day on-again off-again backup for when La Rance produces nothing.

Wiki says the cost of electricity from La Rance is 0.12€/kWh, but doesn't give the source.

No. Nuclear power is not that expensive

That's about right for a moderately s***ty intermittent source that doesn't include costs of dealing with its intermittency or negative impact on the environment

Agreeing the economic costs of generation does seem to be a sticking point when discussing all of this.

I'm not sure of the best way forward.

Well it all falls into place once you stop implicitly believing statements made by renewable shills like the green party and renewable UK.

Well, yes, they're obviously biased.

But if I rule out you, cognate academics and their research, practising scientists, the entire AI programme, industry data and personnel (so all raw data), and any form of news or peer reviewed (wikis etc.) media, I'm not left with much.

Pretty much left to construct an estimate from first principles. Which works on a personal level. I can work out costs/benefits of my home solar. Maybe even a wind farm. But nuclear or coal? No chance.

No. They actually tell pure lies. And always have done

No. So unless you are actually able to *think for yourself*, oehaps yioyu hade better stay out of the discussions altogether?

Data doesn't lie. Your electricity bill doesnt lie.

Although in the post modern age of 'Truth/reality is a social construct' as a fashionable and very convenient lie, the physical world and the facts thereof are not capable of lying.

The fact is that EDFs Hinkley point is contracted to a lower strike price than any wind or solar installations will accept, and that is before you cost in the extra grid links, gas backup and battery stabilisation.

Governments and other powerful interests have always lied to their people. It's just that the Internet is making it become more obvious.

Perfectly capable of that thanks very much. If I don't know an answer, I rely on the expertise of others. You obviously don't. So I'm trying to find a middle ground.

That's the price, not the cost. Not entirely sure why I bother.

Truth, especially in discussions such as this, becomes socially constructed. I try to strip away my prejudices, You seem to embed yours. Probably your worst excesses relate to the social world, funnily enough. Some very odd assumptions.

Ah, got there in the end. Strike price plus other listed variables equals whole cost. That's your truth. I disagree. Does that mean I'm lying?

OK, interesting, sort of.

Well you have better start constructing some 'truth' out of the fact that Ørsted's share price crashed 75% since 2021 and they are looking to raise £7bn to cover their debts as apparently subsidy programs and sale of 'cheap renewable' electricity does not...

And since the Danish government owns 50pc, it's their taxpayers who will have to pay. One way or another.

I am afraid truth as 'dependent on which websites you believe' is not a reliable guide to reality.

But so long as you don't invest on the stock market or venture outside, you should be fairly safe in your naive beliefs

Quote: “Orsted plunges 30% as it plans $9.4 billion rights issue after ‘adverse’ turn in U.S. market PUBLISHED MON, AUG 11 20254:10 AM EDT UPDATED MON, AUG 11 202511:37 AM EDT Chloe Taylor @CHLOETAYLOR141 WATCH LIVE KEY POINTS Shares of Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, plummeted on Monday morning after a surprise rights issue. The company said the move was being made after its Board of Directors decided to end the partial divestment of a project off the coast of New York. Orsted cited a “material adverse development” in the U.S. market as driving its decisions. Unquote

PEBCAK

It's not just governments, it is any large organisation.

Climbing the political pole is all about following the fashion, short termism, if you don't know what the current fashion is, you hire a consultancy, like McKinsey.

One of my drinking buddies took the corporate managerial path, listening to him talk about his concerns and motivations was sad.

I fear you are right. The decision makers all operate within a limit sphere of influence and cognisance.

I never dealt much with super large businesses, but the general deciding factor in any decision made by middle management was 'can I get blamed for that? will it affect my career?

I'd like to think that you go back there frequently in order to rub their noses in it.

Who exactly is this they? You've mentioned this before in the context of a couple of politicians, and explained that you knew this to be a fact because of your privileged grapevine. Have any of these people actually gone on record as saying that 100% renewables is currently achievable?

Even I have always known that it's highly improbable with current technology. So I'm afraid I find it highly unlikely that that an expert would claim otherwise.

That's unfortunate. OOI does it cost much to run?

Again, when did people who claim any measure of expertise claim otherwise? Intermittency has been known about in government policy circles for at least a decade. Known about isn't the same as 'properly accounted for' BTW . . .

She and her ilk have probably been reading:

Good luck with that. If you're expecting anything like widespread adoption soon, at a decent cost. The current model of nuclear implementation is just broken. Ironically, part of the high cost of intermittency is at least in part due to the model of nuclear adoption that we have in the UK.

Still, I think you're on record as saying SMRs will start rolling out in 10 years at 1/3rd of the economic cost of renewables? Again, no substantiated figures, but hey.

I'm surprised that H2 is incompatible with old town gas pipes. I understood it had a fair amount of hydrogen in it.

But I'm equally surprised there are many left!

Andy