OT: grid upgrade?

That seems to be awarding more intelligence to Boris than hitherto shown!

Uk energy policy has consisted for some time of a heath robinson mix of renewables and nuclear.

Why, if you have built nukes, you would want to build intermittent renewables is of course a question that can only be answered by assuming that energy policy is nothing to do with providing reliable low cost energy to the nation.

One assumes that the true purpose of 'smart meters' is to switch off the population, but leave the house of commons well ablaze with lights.

Well, assuming Hinkley-C is the new "standard capacity" nuclear power station, we'd need a dozen of them for current demand, and then double that (or more) for heat pumps and EVs

No, 8 power stations - they are talking 32GW and that is a 8 Hinkley sized 3.2GW monsters, plus a scattering of SMRs.

Its all very doable in a sufficiently long timescale.

There are after all around 8 sites that are suitable that have already been used for stations - or are being used. Old MAGNOX sites.

----------------------------- Berkeley, Bradwell, Chapelcross, Dungeness Hinkley Point Hunterston Oldbury, Sizewell Trawsfynydd, Wylfa, Harwell and Winfrith

AGR sites

-------------- Dungeness Hartlepool, Heysham , Hinkley Point Hunterston Torness.

If you blend those there are 13 brownfield nuclear sites with reasonable connections to the grid, suitable for large or small reactor installations

But I can assure you that the political landscape will change well before they are all built anyway.

Energy is not something that can safely be left to politicians or virtue signalling profiteers.

We will need that anyway for when its night time, the wind isn't blowing and so on. The point being that renewables plus any sort of storage is vastly more expensive and carbon emitting than another couple of nukes.

Once you agree politically to have nuclear, renewables make no sense at all in terms of adding generation capacity, because they don't. Not without non-existent storage.

And the overall cost is then prohibitive anyway. We will need around 100 nuclear power stations to fully run the country off electricity, and even then there are serious issues as to how you do aircraft cars lorries and boats. And make steel and fertiliser and concrete. Unless we go back to a population level and lifestyle of the 17th century, we wont do it on 'renewable energy'

Agreed. Not so different from Margaret Thatchers "new station per year for a decade" before the 1984 miners' strike, in the end they stopped after Sizewell B.

All the meeja is saying "reactors" rather than "stations" but they've copied and pasted from what appears on .gov.uk which says both "8 reactors" and "8 sites"

Would be nice, does anyone capable of building them, have the capacity to build several at once?

And that really is the point. 10 years to plan? Plus 10 years to build and commission? It needs to be done now.

Which is why the combination of existing sources of generation plus increasing 'green' sources makes most sense (to me).

We've done Generic Design Assessments for UK ABWR, Westinghouse AP1000, and (iirc) Hualong 1 (although of course the Chinese are currently out of fashion).

This is actually the hard part of making a Nuclear Safety Case, which is required for operation in the UK. We do need a local "planning permission" stage to cover some environmental and safety factors, but that does not *have* to take 10 years. And several countries are building and commissioning plants in ~ 6 years, just like we used to do in the 1950's.

To my mind the price aspects of the current "crisis" are comparable to the OPEC-driven oil price shock in the early 70's. That was the point where the French said "sod this" and launched their serious nuclear programmes, which is why they have the cheapest electricity in Europe and (until the current problems) were exporting to all their neighbours. We felt more insulated by our 300 year reserve of coal and soon after that the anti-nuclear lobby started to kick in.

The problem with large-scale renewables is intermittency. Batteries are

Maybe ABWR will knock a couple of years off, but 8 are needed nowish.

The planning and consultation stage is notoriously time-consuming. And then there's procurement . . .

Intermittancy is not a key issue when you have multiple sources.

Why not stick with EPRs?

And the pesky stuff is so small and light compared to a hydrocarbons, it manages escapes through defects that natural gas cannot.

Yes.

Unlikely given that no MP actually lives in the house of commons

China does.

The point about SMRs is that they are factory built.

There isn't much to actually building a reactor: its just a big structure, built out of exactly specified material. Its the box ticking that is expensive

Not needed if you just do more Hinkley Point Cs

Doesn't need to take that long.

Nope, and nothing non nuke can do that anyway.

No it does not. The need isn't that urgent.

Nope, and the renewables can't be done nowish anyway.

Not when say doing more Hinkley Cs

Just as true of the renewables.

But wasting all that money on the renewables is.

Yes it (intermittency [sp]) is.

There will always be dull days with no winter wind...

You should analyse the data, instead of having a childish faith.

And cost out the overall solution, not just the parts.

No but. Intermittency is the whole problem and is why we are wasting money on renewables.

If we are not to have routine powercuts we have to have enough conventional generation to cover the 'no wind/no sun' scenario, and that has to be built and paid for and kept operational.

Anyone who does the overall holistic calculations comes to the conclusion that once you have that generation in place, *and it is nuclear*, there is no point in having any renewables *at all*. They add nothing except instability and cost and negative environmental impact.

The only scenario they make some sense is balancing against limited rainfall hydroelectric.

We don't have nearly enough of that.

No.

Based on the fallout from failed nuclear projects, not a lot of prime contractors will bid on the job.

A naive person would think this style of press release was magical, but... it is not. This is not like building a thousand units of low rent housing.

If the entire world starts building nukes at the same time, how many countries will end up with third-rate jobs ?

My country has made the same mistake.

There's only one way to do these.

The first press release made in public should read:

"Toshiba has agreed to build 8 identical 1.234GW reactors at a cost of 80 billion, with completion in 2042."

A *committed* resource, paperwork signed, *that* is a real project.

You should not even be telling other countries you have enlisted Toshiba, until the paperwork is signed. Some countries are scumbag enough, to "offer Tosh a few bucks more to build ours first". In 2022, that's how the world works now. You must not show your hand in public.

This practice of governments writing:

"50 nukes please, and by Tuesday"

who are they really fooling ? Our government has written the same silly thing. Four SMRs by Tuesday. Not going to happen. it might roll out. There will be no economies of scale. No pipelined construction. And so on. Projects prematurely announced, will be a shambles.

So now really, the damage is done. Once you announce you're in the market (and you haven't secured a contract), all manner of gamesmanship will occur. Maybe your reactor will be built by "Bobs Drywall".

Paul