back to article Energy minister gives grudging nuke endorsement

UK Energy Minister Chris Huhne has given a ringing endorsement of nuclear energy and lauded the potential of thorium reactor technology, in his speech to the Royal Society today. Actually, he didn't – that sentence is entirely a Johann-Hari style fictionalisation. Huhne did give a speech to the Royal Society on nuclear energy …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Careful readers will note that without the burden of CCS, gas is by far the cheapest of all: and likely to fall dramatically as onshore unconventional reserves are exploited. We'll have more gas than we know what to do with."

    So lets just fall into the trap! Lets just waste this resource until in 30 years or so were are back to square 1. Wow, was this comment considered in any way?

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      FAIL

      Except that for there to be any sort of "trap" to fall into there, there would have to be no other major developments in the next 30 years or so. E.g. to pluck an obvious one out of the air, workable Fusion power.

      History is not on your side here.......

      1. Ru

        Fusion?

        That'll be sorted in about 50 years time. That still leaves a 20 year gap to fill.

        Any other major development can only realistically come from fission power, which the western world seems to be trying to sideline as much as possible, hindering the sort of major developments we really need.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @TeeCee

        Fusion has been going to be ready in about 25 years since research started just after world war 2. It's probably not worth pinning hopes on it. If it is ready, that's great, but it has a consistent history of looking like it's just about ready for a very long time.

        1. Daniel B.
          Boffin

          However....

          ITER is being built, and the roadmap to DEMO is pretty much outlined to be on schedule by 2050. Unless NIF beats ITER to the game, which would bring fusion closer...

  2. Craig Vaughton
    Mushroom

    Get real

    How long before the idiots we elect to govern, regardless of political persuasion, realise that unless they spend billions in research into fusion (cold, warm, tepid or whatever), building new or replacing old fission reactors is about the only reliable way we're going to keep the lights on around these parts in the not too distant future?

    Short of surrounding these shores with flocks of whirling windmills or tidal flow turbines and continuing to plant even more in what's left of our green and pleasant land (before the new planning bill covers it in concrete & tarmac) , use what's left of our coal reserves (heresy, fancy thinking of that) there's no RELIABLE, immune to changes in weather, wind, whatever, electrical source to provide enough to keep my Mac running so I can read El Reg.

    Build enough and we might be able to sell some of the output back to the Germans?

  3. Filippo Silver badge

    uneconomic and cheapest?

    Er. So nuclear is uneconomic, but it's also the cheapest base load option? Can anyone tell me how that isn't a contradiction?

    1. Ru
      Big Brother

      Cheap is uneconomic.

      Poverty is wealth.

      Powercuts are illumination.

      (Yeah, that was a bit tenuous)

    2. Northern Fop
      Meh

      Look, it's simple...

      If you're in the green, anti-nuke lobby, you don't have to be consistent, sensible, or even coherent.

      You spread FUD, then some more FUD, and then some more. Then you fret about Tsunamis hitting Norfolk. Nuff sed.

      1. Ru
        Boffin

        Tsunamis hitting Norfolk?

        Ever heard of the Storegga Slide?

        1. Northern Fop
          FAIL

          Storegga Slide

          OMG it was in 6000BC! Only eight thousand years ago!! In the f*cking bronze age!!!

          FUD, FUD, FUD.

        2. Andydaws

          @Ru

          Well, that might be a problem if we somehow had another ice-age, and didn't notice - to pile up moraines again.

          you'll note the Norwegian coast has been surveyed pretty intensively, to check for potential for antoher such landslip - in order to understand the risk to oil and gas installations.

          http://www.ngi.no/en/Contentboxes-and-structures/Reference-Projects/Reference-projects/Ormen-Lange-and-Storegga/

          anywhere else you want checked?

        3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          RE: Tsunamis hitting Norfolk?

          "Ever heard of the Storegga Slide?" Yes, an event that would first need another extended ice age to create the underwater silt build-up necessary for a repeat, which kinda suggests we're not going to see another Storegga Slide soon. Of course, don't let those simple facts stop you Greenpeckers screamning about it like it was a reasonable idea.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And don't forget

      Nuclear is still uneconomic after the taxpayer assumes all the disposal and insurance underwriting costs. Goodness only knows what it would be like if the nuclear industry had to pick up its own costs.

      A minister who gave the nuclear industry a ringing endorsement after its relentless failures to bring projects in on time and on budget would be a minister who hadn't read his brief. And judging by the former flag bearer for the whole nuclear industry: Olkiluoto 3 in Finland; we're in for a whole raft of substandard construction, cost overruns (now 50% over budget) and delays (at least 3 years). Strange how the nuclear business has gone so quiet over Finland.

      Nice to see the old thorium chestnut again. It's been a while since that brand of snake oil was given a good marketing. There isn't a single thorium reactor operating in the world. There isn't a licensed thorium design in the world. There isn't a prototype thorium reactor operating in the world. Nor is there a reprocessing plant to deal with the thorium cycle, nor even an international agreement to regulate the mountains of highly fissile U-233 which would be produced.

      1. Bluenose
        Mushroom

        But there is .....

        A tide generator that is producing the amount of power forecast as well as solar and wind power generators in the UK producing the forecast amounts of electricity 365 days per year in accordance with the lovely brochures that were sent out.

        Oh sorry, just realised that old chestnut won't go away either since to date none of the renewable energy sources we are currently subsidising such that our fuel bills are over priced whilst the City and the companies involved make a fortune, is anywhere near producing the level of power that we need them to.

        On the other hand, existing nuclear power stations continue to provide consistent levels of power and of course the people we will have to buy future power supplies from, the French are busy building new nuclear power stations.

        Nuclear is the only option we have, we need to research new, safer methods of production but in the long term it is the safest and cleanest means of producing power.

        1. Andydaws

          Bluenose,

          the proponents of tidal power always forget one toher thing - although it's predictable, it's still intermittent - with all the problems that causes.

          The Severn barrage as most recently proposed would cost about £20Bn. It's advocates quote it's PEAK power output - about 10GW. That's what it's make at the usual highest spring tide of the year.

          On most days, it'd make 8-9GW - at peak.

          But over a month, it'll average a LOT less - about 1.8GW.

          In any given day, it'd run through a cycle of starting with peak output, gradually declining to zero over 6 hours or so. Then (as the reservoirs refill) it'd produce nothing for six hours, until coming back onto full power, then declining again, and refilling again.

          So, dependent on the time of day when those peaks and troughs occur, I've got to cycle lots of other plant in and out - like, half of the entire current gas fleet. The implications of that would be dropping the capacity factor of those gas stations from about 65% to around 30%.

          Then think about the implications of the fact that, ovr a month, the timing of the two peak outputs.

          At this time of year, demand varies through 24 hours from a peak of about 47GW down to about 22GW and then back up again. Peak covers about 3 hours. is about 7pm (demand will be above , and demand is pretty much flat at a minimum from about 11 pm until around 5am. What's basically done is the the most efficient/lowest marginal cost stations run 24 hours as baseload (Sizewell B typically refuels then runs flat out for about 18 months until it needs to refuel again, for example). Accomodating the Severn Barrage means I can't use 22GW of plant in that efficient mode - I can use 12GW.

          Worse, I've a 50% probability that one of the peaks of output from the Barrage would happen in that low demand period, and a 25% chance that one will coincide with the peak demand period.

          To cut a long story short, integrating something like the Severn Barrage into a reasonably efficient grid, where other plant can run even close to optimally would be an utter nightmare.

          1. Adrian Midgley 1
            Thumb Down

            No: "as the reservoirs refill) it'd produce nothing for six hours"

            If it is designed like the Rance Estuary scheme then it will produce power for those 6 hours as the water flooding into the reservoir turns the turbines,

            Backwards, you might say.

            No, there are two tricky periods, around slack water, when some otehr way of storing energy has to be used if you want continuous power.

            Alternatively, you could sell power cheaply when the turbines will be spinning, and more expensively when it comes from other sources, and let power-users adjust themselves.

            The tides have an advantage of being predictable for arbitrarily long times into the future, so scheduling is not ridiculous.

            1. Andydaws

              They're both "Ebb flow" designs , Adrian

              If you design for bidirectionality, you reduce the total flows available - worse, you tend to end up with complex multi-reservoir designs.

              Here's FoE's comment:

              http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/the_severn_barrage.pdf

              Note

              "The installed capacity, or maximum output, of the Project proposal would be 8,640 megawatts (MW) or 8.64 gigawatts (GW) and would have a load factor of about 23 %. Generation would occur on the ebb tide."

            2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
              Thumb Up

              @Adrian Midgley 1

              "If it is designed like the Rance Estuary scheme then it will produce power for those 6 hours as the water flooding into the reservoir turns the turbines,"

              I had forgotten this fact entirely.

              I suspect it's one of the *major* differences between conventional dams and tidal barrages.

              Not obvious but pretty important.

          2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
            Boffin

            @Andydaws

            "But over a month, it'll average a LOT less - about 1.8GW."

            So its *average* output is close to *two* usual sized UK power stations. in a system with a life span at least as long as the Hoover dam or the Rohn barrage in France, rather than the nuclear power stations built so far.

            With *no* nuclear waste disposal problem.

            I'm not saying it's the best solution but like geothermal it's likely to last quite a long time (roughly until the Moon hit's Roche's limit and disintegrates, which won't be for a while).

            1. Andydaws

              "So its *average* output is close to *two* usual sized UK power stations."

              Well, the EPR is designed at 1600MW, with an inherent stretch to 1800. And there's a design stretch for the AP1000 in the works to 1400MW. So, nearer to one than two. And both are designed around a 60 year design life.

              The problem is, cost.

              Even the Sustainable Development Commission saw a 1.8 GW average Severn barrage coming in at the £20-25Bn mark. Which conservatively prices the ouput in the £180/MW range, roughly comparable to offshore wind. That's excluding the system costs of the variability, by the way. Colin Gobson, former COO for National Grid estimates the incremental life-cycle costs for offshore wind are increased by about 50% by such afctors (transmission investment, back-up and variability compensation, inefficiencies in the compensating capacity) - that wouldn't be so bad, because there's at least some predictability, but it's still unlikley to add less than 25%.

              The last review decided that the barage was unfundable - even assuming large government interventions. I've not seen anything to suggest otherwise since

      2. cloudberry
        Mushroom

        Olkiluoto 3

        The latest delay, announced here in Finland a couple of days ago, takes operational power generation by OIkiluoto 3 to 2014, a delay of five years from the original date.

        Many of the delays have been due to the detection of substandard work, as you note, and one to the fact that a crucial part of the safety plan wasn't yet ready [*]. The long chain of subcontractors has complicated matters, and there has been at least one strike at the plant due to lowest-in-the-chain workers being paid a pittance. I'm sure that encourages quality work. Not.

        And this was supposed to be a shining (no pun intended) prototype of a modern nuclear power plant which Areva hopes to sell many more of. After the fiasco of Olkiluoto 3, I wouldn't be so sure of that anymore.

        Oh by the way, is the Register now of the opinion that climate change is, in fact, happening? This article was missing the usual snide comments on the matter, and in fact repeated the standard concerns of increased carbon output. Or is Lewis Page The Register's only denialist? And why isn't he doing his thing anymore?

        [*] http://www.ecology.at/nni/index.php?p=site&s=207 says:

        The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland (STUK) has asked Teollisuuden Voima Oyj for further clarification of the overall design of automation systems for the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant by 31 July 2009. This request for further clarification is related to the decision made in summer last year by STUK, in which it demanded that TVO revise the architecture of the plant's automation systems.

        In its inspections early last year, STUK observed several deficiencies in the automation system design of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant. From a safety point of view, the most significant deficiencies concerned the mutual independence of automation system components that back each other up. In July 2008, STUK issued a decision, in which it presented comments on the automation system design and demanded that TVO revise the documentation. STUK particularly emphasised the significance of the overall architecture of the automation systems.

        TVO submitted a revised plan for the inspection of STUK in December 2008. Although the plan had been improved, the documents still contained weaknesses and contradictions with earlier documents. STUK asked for further clarification and, through a separate decision, presented demands for a protection system for the reactor. The reactor's protection system is part of the key section of the automation system, the protection automation system, the function of which is to start up the plant's safety systems in case of accident or malfunction.

        In March 2009, TVO submitted a new version of the plan concerning automation system architecture. Both the automation system design and its related documentation had been improved, but they still contained deficiencies, resulting in STUK having to request for a third time greater precision and revisions. STUK is now requiring TVO for updated documents by the end of July. In addition to the documents in question, STUK has also asked TVO for further clarification concerning the validation of individual automation systems and devices.

        1. Andydaws

          Note the dates

          "Stuk requests more details on EPR systems

          04 June 2010

          The Finnish nuclear regulator has said that it is satisfied with the modifications proposed for the design of the control and safety systems of the Areva EPR under construction at Olkiluoto, but clearer documentation on the independence of the systems must still be provided.....

          ......The Finnish radiation and safety authority, Stuk, which first raised queries about the EPR's systems in December 2008, has now reviewed technical plans submitted by Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) concerning the control and safety systems of Olkiluoto 3. It concluded that "no notable change" would foreseeably be needed for the planned design.

          However, whilst noting that considerable progress has been made in the design of the systems, Stuk said that it "has requested TVO to update the reviewed documentation in such a manner that it provides the necessary initial information of detailed system design in an unambiguous format."

          In particular, Stuk requested that "the principles of securing the mutual independence of systems backing up each other are defined clearly enough.""

          In other words, issue closed, now catch up with the paperwork.

          You fail to note, by the way, the 3rd and 4th EPRs (at Taishan) are pretty much on time and budget - much as you'd expect with series build.

      3. Neil Stansbury
        FAIL

        @Mike Richards

        <snip>AHWR, which will use thorium as fuel, was designed and developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and will mark the third stage of India's three-stage nuclear programme.<snip>

        http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-12-20/chennai/27892708_1_ahwr-heavy-water-reactor-breeder-reactor

        <snip>India's Kakrapar-1 was the first reactor in the world to use thorium rather than depleted uranium to achieve power flattening across the reactor core. Both Kakrapar-1 and -2 units are loaded with 500kg of thorium fuel to improve their operation at start-up</snip>

        http://www.power-technology.com/features/feature1141/

        Facts? Yeah - we've heard of them...

    4. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      It's not a contradiction. Nuclear is the cheapest low-carbon option, but if you force it to compete with high-carbon options that have externalised their environmental costs, it loses.

      Actually I urge everyone to follow the link to the speech. It's not half as wild as the article suggests and (allowing for the fact that the Huhne seems to find it emotionally difficult to turn his back on an anti-nuclear childhood) reasonably sane. He *is* calling for a new generation of nuclear stations. He just doesn't want to write a blank cheque. Since I'd be underwriting that cheque, I'm inclined to agree with him.

      Most of the swipes he takes at the UK's past exploits in the nuclear field are painfully true. The civil program was always hobbled by the priorities and the secrecy of the military one, and building the Magnox reactors to 11 different designs was quite astronomically stupid. If we are to avoid similar stupidity in the new nuclear program, we need to be able to admit that.

  4. M7S

    Dear Santa,

    For christmas futures I would really like the following enery policy:

    Sufficient nuclear base load to power the country, including capacity for electrification of rail where possible and for electric road vehicles as they come on line, and perhaps the ability to export electricity to our neighbours should they need it as they do to us currently (sorry about that).

    Some diversification into other predictable renewables such as tidal, hydro-electric, solar (PV and Thermal) etc as technology improves just to ensure we're not totally nuclear dependent, with some gas fired generation for quick start backup as well. Microgeneration such as PV or "uplift" such as ground source to be incentivised although perhaps in the case of PV a bit more logically than at the moment. Wind to be dumped as a serious power source (as it isn't one).

    Adapting where possible the non-electric road fleet onto products derived from all that gas they're finding, which could also be used for domestic heat and cooking if required.

    Saving our remaining oil for things that cannot fall into the above categories such as avation, off-grid (as in gas) backup generators where high energy density is required, vehicles that cannot easily access grid connected "gas" etc. And the chemical industry which everyone forgets about.

    I fear however, that as with the Lego sets I asked you for years ago I'll be disappointed.

  5. Ru
    Coat

    It may well be uneconomical in the face of shale gas

    But that's a definitely finite resource.

    Forty years of lacklustre support for nuclear research will cost us dearly; only recently has HMG woken up to the pitiful lack of nuclear physicists and engineers and the army of highly skilled construction staff that a nuclear industry requires. The way things are going right now, its going to get increasingly difficult even to buy that expertise from abroad if the German anti-nuclear stance becomes popular elsewhere. Still, at least the French have their heads screwed on, right?

    Maybe the Chinese will save us from ourselves, by keeping all their neodymium so they can build the fleets of electric cars that their power grid will be able to support and wind power will become even more grievously uneconomical than it is now. Lets hope they don't mind selling us their thorium tech, eh?

    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Joke

      We already import most of our clever stuff from China. We might as well import our power generators as well I suppose.

      That's a sad joke icon by the way because that's what our energy policy is.

  6. David Pollard

    Green Electricity?

    There are suppliers who specialise in providing tree-huggers with electricity generated from wind and PV, so co-called green electricity. But nowhere is there a supplier who buys nuclear energy for their customers as much as possible.

    Perhaps more to the point, people who presently commit a few thousand quids to the installation of PV panels on their roof will be in receipt of inflated feed-in tariffs guaranteed for the next twenty-five years, increasing the price for everyone else in order to cover the subsidy. This scheme is a nice little earner for those involved.

    What we need is a similar opportunity to buy a slice of equally 'green' nuclear generating capacity, a stake in new power stations. This energy wouldn't need to be subsidised, simply supplied free from the absurd loading that the wind and PV programme is and will for decades be adding to electricity prices.

    1. Andydaws
      Happy

      David Pollard

      "What we need is a similar opportunity to buy a slice of equally 'green' nuclear generating capacity, a stake in new power stations. "

      At the risk of getting shot, watch for announcements in the next few months from a certain large nuclear-orientated energy retailer....

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Interesting Idea

      May I suggest a slogan for you:

      Adopt an Atom Today!

      Said in a nice, stereotypical, 1950s BBC English voice. Could be a great campaign. You could have Adam the cuddly Atom teddies and badges, like BT's Buzby campaign in the 80s.

      ...Thinks... I've had a busy week, have I been overdoing it?...

  7. Dave Bell

    How time flies

    A decade ago, I was talking with a bunch of farmers, and Chernobyl had hit farming in some places quite hard. You wouldn't expect them to be nuclear enthusiasts. But there was all the pressure to grow crops for fuel, and a tendency for these schemes to collapse between sowing and harvest. And farmers do tend to think long-term, more so than MBAs.

    Nuclear power was something we knew how to build and operate. It was, ten years ago, clearly the best option available. It would take time to build, but everything does.

    Fuel crop schemes still struggle. Wind farms are working. Tidal and wave power are still at little better than the prototype stage.

    And we've wasted ten years on waiting for more nuclear power.

    Some of the big coal-fired stations will now be worn out before any nuclear power plants can be built to replace them.

  8. J.G.Harston Silver badge
    FAIL

    Gas should be sent direct to the consumer unaltered through the existing gas pipework network, not converted into electricity and diverted onto the electricity network. We've got 300 years of coal under the ground, that should be being used for conversion to electricity.

    Throw in some diversified mixed source electricity production to spread the dependancies as well.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: J.G.Harston

      "Gas should be sent direct to the consumer unaltered through the existing gas pipework network...." That would require every household to have a miniture gas-burning generator for powering items like PCs, TVs, fridges, etc, which cannot be gas-powered directly - not very efficient compared to a centralised generator - and a massive increase in the gas infrastructure to cover the extra demand. Are you sure you don't want to think that one through again?

  9. A J Stiles
    Boffin

    Perhaps I'm being thick here but .....

    ..... if the waste is still radioactive, doesn't that mean it's still got some PE in it? And if we harnessed all that energy, then it wouldn't be radioactive anymore?

    If it's quite happy to give up that energy slowly, it probably could be persuaded to give it up a bit faster by bombarding it with the right kind of particles. Why isn't anyone researching turning radioactive waste into lead?

    1. Ru

      Somewhat inefficient

      A fair amount of nuclear waste simply isn't very useful. Its nasty, toxic, awkward to work with and in most cases there's nothing useful to be done with it. There are various kinds of reprocessing that can be done to extract useful fuel from waste, but they're not entirely economical at present and many kinds of waste wouldn't yield anything usefully fissile. The radiation and heat you get from this useless waste is simply too low to turn into useful power... you'd be better off building wind turbines and photovoltaic panels instead.

      There are various interesting things you could do with a working fusion device that produced a decent amount of neutrons that you use to irradiate radioactive waste, but a) we don't have a working fusion device, b) fusion devices that produce a high neutron flux will create their own hazardous waste products and c) no-one really wants to associate lovely shiny fusion power with nasty dirty fission waste.

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Boffin

    In the UK this matter is becoming urgent

    Roughly 20-25% of *all* UK electricity is currently nuclear generated.

    Those reactors are getting long in the tooth.

    The fact that nuclear power comes out cheaper even when decommissioning costs are factored *in* is pretty astonishing. If the claim holds up the British civil service's apparent ability to handle *one* alternative energy source at a time looks even lamer than ever.

    Note that "Thorium" comes in various different flavors and that nuclear reactor builders make most of their money in the (incompatible) fuel *elements*, not building the things in the first place.

    Refueling a conventional reactor is complex and often done with it switched off entirely. Refueling a molten salt design (in principle) needs a shovel.

    1. hplasm
      Happy

      Stoke the Atom Furnaces!

      Flash Gordon is approaching!

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        @hplasm

        "Stoke the Atom Furnaces"

        Yes, I am old enough to have seen this.

        Ludicrous IRL but it is sort of a compelling image.

        I'd like supporters of MSR's to adopt it as their symbol, but that's a long shot.

  11. HMB
    Alert

    Wind Power Rules

    But we want higher energy bills, increasing fuel poverty, freezing elderly folk and the like! We can only do this with massively subsidised renewables that produce expensive power and cost money even when we have to turn them off:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8770937/Wind-farm-paid-1.2-million-to-produce-no-electricity.html

    It's about time the government ignored sensible, practical and real alternatives. It's not like we have a debt problem to worry about because printing money, I mean... quantitative easing should completely solve the problem.

    (On a genuine note, I have nothing in principle against wind power when it can compete fairly against other forms of power generation. At the moment not only is it too expensive when it works, it often doesn't work because we simply don't have the tech to store that much energy for later usage)

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fusion

    "As we discussed here, 99 per cent of waste can now be converted back to fuel using fusion."

    Yes, but once you've mastered fusion, it doesn't exactly endorse fission as an energy source. If anything, it just closes the book on the legacy of today's nuclear industry. Sure, you might want some use for those neutrons, but messing around with uranium and thorium will be very much taking a back seat at that point.

    It's amusing to see fusion dragged up when most fans of fission usually pooh-pooh the idea. What next? Fusion making natural gas extraction from tar sands and shale economically feasible and not damaging to the environment? It's almost like buying a supersonic jet and using it to taxi around town.

  14. JP19

    more gas than we know what to do with

    What we should do with gas is not piss it away producing electricity.

    We should save it for the pipes already feeding most of our homes and use more of it to power vehicles instead of idiotic batteries.

    1. Andydaws

      JP19, yes, and no

      TBH, using gas as fuel for domestic heating is about as silly as using it for fuelling power stations. We should be looking to a transition to heat pumps (ground or air-source) over the next 20 years or so.

      And don't underplay the need for at least some gas in the power station mix. It's uniquely good at being flexed for peaking, and for assisting with the extremes of the load curve. It'd never make sens to go beyond (say) 70-80% of electricity production (maybe 60% of capacity) coming from nuclear. Although newer nukes can load-follow uite happliy, they'll never do real instantaneous load-matching, and the economics of using them in modes where capacity factors drop below 75% or so are horrible.

      Gas-fired plant is a beautiful match, if you've got no hydro - it's fixed costs are extremely low, and it's technically highly responsive - which means you can live with the plant having low capacity factors as is needed for plant for peaking and extreme load following.

      The nice thing is, you can even do gas CCS quite economically - you don't need to size the CCS plant to support the gas to run at full power for any extended period, and you just hold reformed hydrogen in buffered storage.

      And it's an utter doddle to sibstitute for transport fuels.

  15. Andydaws

    Not that this comes naturally, but...

    Huhne does have at least some points....and that's from someone who's not only seriously pro-nuclear, but took his bachelors degree in Nuclear Engineering.

    We have managed to consistently cock-up technology choices - and then make an even worse job of actually building stations in the past.

    Going with the Magnox designs was probably sensible, given the constraints of the time - little enrichment capacity, no forging capability for larg(ish) high pressure vessels and the fact we'd got the hang of machining high-purity graphite when we built the Windscale piles.

    What WAS unforgivable was the fact that in building eleven stations, we used seven different designs. Which completely bolloxed the idea of a learning curve.

    It was only then that we REALLY cocked -up. In the early 1960s, the CEGB and SSEB approached the then Secretary of State for Energy for permission to start the procurement of their "second generation" nuclear plant. They thought the gas-graphite line of development had gone as far as it reasonably could - and wanted to adopt an American LWR design. The UKAEA was at the same time lobbying for a "super-Magnox" - the AGR (funny that an R&D organisation wanted the option that needed lots of R&D, but maybe that's just me being cynical). The CEGB claimed the complexity of the design, and the need to fabricate almost the whole thing on site would make it expensive and prone to delays. The Secretary of State sided with the AEA, as he wanted to develop a "distinctively British" technology for export - that was Tony Benn, by the way, fresh from the decision to build Concord.

    Not a single AGR was ever sold abroad. Not a single AGR was finished on less than a 50% cost over-run, or less than three years late on a seven year build programme. Hardly surprising, because not only had we picked a pig of a design to build, we then managed to decide to build three and a half different designs amongst seven stations built. Dungeness B, the first to be started, was twelve years late on a seven year build. THe last two, Heysham II and Torness were meant to be built as copies of Hinkley Point B and Hunterson B, but finished up with change on every major system.

    At roughly the same time as we opted for the AGR, the French were faced with the same choice. They went the other way, and licensed the Westinghouse PWR. In the same time it took us to built seven AGR stations (14 reactors, totalling 9,200 MW) the French deployed about 55 PWRs, totalling about 50,000MW, using just four designs, each larger than the last. They also manged to export something like 20 of the things.

    We're about to build a derivative of that design, scaled up to 1600MW in a single reactor - the EPR. The other candidate for new build in the UK is also a PWR derivative - the AP1000 from Westinghouse .

    Only one country has built a gas-graphite reactor in the period since we started building AGRs.

    North Korea.

    The moral of the story? Keep Ministers, and especially the British Civil Service, a thousand miles away from any aspect of technology choice.

    Next, onto Thorium

  16. Titus Aduxass
    Go

    Title (optional)

    "Smart" metering will mean that in the future when we are short of electricity (and we will be) tarrifs can be adjusted many times during the day so that the price you pay for the electricity you use at any given time of the day (or how windy/sunny it is outside) reflects the amount of electricyty available. Simple supply & demand economics.

    The reason we WILL run short of electricity (and personally I can't wait for that to happen) is that no-one is prepared to pay the real cost of power generation, whether that's nuclear, fossil or renewable. The end user will have to pay a lot more for energy in the future if new power generation and transmission infrastructure is going to be built.

    The act that no-ne wants to pay for it is perfectly illustrated by today's furore over OFGEM's claim that (once again) energy companies are charging us too much.

    You can't have your cake and eat it as they say.

    1. Bluenose
      Stop

      We are paying to much

      And one reason is that when the big six increase the price of electricity and gas due to the "increasing cost of buying gas/oil/name your own feedstock" they also quietly pump up the profit margin whilst they are it.

      For example if the cost of gas rises by 10% you bill does not go up by 10% of increase in gas prices instead it goes up by 10% plus the 10% that is applied to the profit margin. OFGEM if it had the power could insist that the companies concerned only increase the cost element of their pricing as opposed to the whole thing. Whilst not having a massive impact on the overall costs of provision, it would force electricity generators to find other ways to improve their profit margins rather than as now, simply boosting it when the price of feedstock goes up

      1. Andydaws

        Not quite, Bluenose.

        Say you pay £10 for electricity at the moment. About 70% of that is the wholesale cost of the power at "station gate" (of which about, with out current generation mix about 45-50% is fuel, 15% operational and finance costs, 6-7% is renewables subsidy, and the rest generator's profit margin...and yes, those are meant to add up that way) . Transmission and distribution together add another 15-20%. Metering and the operations cost for the retailer is about another 5%.

        Retailers gross (not net) margin will hit about 9% this quarter before declining to about 6% next year. For the last couple of quarters, they've been around the 1% mark. Which is below the reatiler's cost of capital. Averaged over the last ten years, margins have been about 1-2%.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          " the wholesale cost of the power at "station gate"

          With the greatest possible respect (given your other contributions), don't you mean the *alleged* wholesale cost of the power at the station gate? The vast majority of our electricity comes from vertically integrated suppliers whose economics are deliberately obscured to prevent regulatory intervention.

          There is a bit of a regulatory and economic parallel here with the situation with BTwholesale, BTretail, the ever-incompetent Oftel/Ofcom, and such. We do not as yet have the electricity equivalent of local loop unbundling to radically change the market dynamics, and I hope we never see the same "race for the gutter" in electricity supply as the race for ever-cheaper broadband has produced in the broadband market.

          1. Andydaws

            You need to understand a bit of the history, AC

            Energy was the model followed in when the local loop unbunding came in - the transmission infrastructure was separated from generation, retail and distribution at privatisation, and separation of distribution from retail was enforced from the mid nineties (first on a "chinese wall" basis, and now almost total separation of ownership - the only part of the network in England and Wales owned by a firm that's also active in retail and generation is the old Manweb patch)

            And we did indeed run a "pool" - compulsory short term auctions - from privatisation to 2001. It didn't work especially well, being prone to "gaming" by generators, and causing a lot of instability in price.

            For those reasons, it was replaced in 2001 by something called NETA - "New Energy Trading Arrangements". You can judge the effectiveness of it by the fact there was something like a 25% drop in average wholesale prices in the 12 months following it's introduction - and prices (allowing for gas and coal prices, which are internationally traded) have if anything fallen further.

            It's also worth saying that both OFGEM and the Competition Commission have been over the generation trading arrangements several times since, and found no evidence of collusion to drive prices. And although its true most power comes from generating capacity owned by the big 6 there's significant capacity that doesn't, or has to be traded outside the parent group. The two biggest examples are Drax (4,000 MW), and Eggborough (2000MW); plus as part of the deal to buy British Energy, EDF signed a deal to sell half its production outside the group (something like 5,000MW. Also, the production from the remaining Magnox stations - about another 1500MW - is not part of any of the big 6. Add that lot together - I make it about 12,500MW - and you've something approaching 30% of total generation. More than enough to establish a reasonably liquid market, and to get a price baseline.

            Part of the problem is, the press is lazy - they conflate concentration in retail with concentration in generation, and don't look at the internal structures of the market. For example, Centrica has no choice but to trade for 75% of its electricity requirements (and they're the biggest player - 25% of the residential market). They simply don't possess enough generation, so buy from just about everyone out there. By contrast, EDF/BE and SSE are notably long in generation compared to retail - EDF/BE produces about 25% of total production, but only has about 10-15% of the retail market. Indeed, as I commented elsewhere, SSE's gambit about open auctions is more to do with the fact they're short on sales for their generation, and their plant's running horrifically low capacity factors as a result.

  17. Andydaws

    OK, on Thorium....

    first, let's get it right about what the Chinese are doing.

    They're committed to a 70-80GW build, the backbone of which will be an enlarged derivative of the "generation III+" AP1000 - it'll be stretched to at least 1400MW, and possibly 1700-2100MW if they can add a third loop to the system without making passive cooling unworkable. Even allowing for lower costs there, that'll be a $300-400Bn investment.

    They're playing in several "Generation IV" technologies, not only Thorium - in fact, Thorium is the smallest of their GIV commitments.

    They're building at least two commercial scale (500MW+) sodium cooled fast reactors. That's a commitment probably in the order of $6-8Bn.

    They're building at last one near-commercial scale High Temperature (Pebble Bed) helium-cooled reactor of about 100MW. That'll be perhaps $600-800M.

    And they've opted to support a lab-based R&D activity to look at thorium-based options - probably a few tens of $millions.

    And they're already doing similar lab-scale work on at least one other GIV system - the lead-cooled fast reactor (mostly partnered with the Russians)

    So, let's not run away with the idea that the Chinese are "betting the farm" on Thorium. It represents a tiny proportion even of their nuclear R&D spend. they're putting massively more effort into more mainstream technologies.

    The country that IS betting the farm on throium is India. It's the long term basis of their entire programme - but not using molten salt designs. They've opted instead for a mixed fleet of heavy water moderated thermal reactors, and sodium-cooled fast reactors.

    As a nuclear proponent, I'm getting increasingly cncerned with the over-selling of molten-salt concepts. Contrary to what the proponents claim, it's not only at best underdeveloped, but other options can equal and better most of its claimed virtues - for example, the lead-cooled fast reactor options.

  18. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Poor Chris Huhne

    Perhaps I'm being cynical, but he's always been anti-nuclear, and I think it was a bit mischievous (at best) of Nick Clegg to lumber him with being Minister for Nuclear Reactors. It's been obvious for a while that nuclear was the preferred option - even if no government's actually done anything about it yet... Before the election Conservative policy was nuclear but without subsidies. I'm don't remember what the Lib Dems said.

    So knowing this, Clegg has bunged the job (poisoned chalice?) of bringing in the next phase of nuclear development to his last leadership rival. I'd imagined nuclear is still unpopular with the grass roots...

    One point about the article though, it's a bit unfair to complain that nuclear is only cheaper than gas with a cost for carbon capture built in. You can't use nuclear prices that include the costs of clean-up, and not do the same for fossil fuels. By definition any calculation like this is bound to be a bit arbitrary. But whatever the debate about runaway global warming, we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we do know about the other pollutants you get from burning fossil fuels. If you don't include this in the cost, then society is effectively paying a subsidy - even if you're not bothering to measure it. Externalities, as our economist friends call it.

    If the cost of risk mitigation or carbon use reduction is really measured in whole percentage points of world GDP (over decades), then nuclear starts to look really cheap. Especially as global nuclear waste is measured in tonnes not billions of tonnes...

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Boffin

      @I ain't Sparticus

      IIRC the UK Govt commissioned a report on the "cost" of dealing with results of carbon dioxide release on the environment.

      The price came to (at the time) £87/tonne of CO2 emitted.

      So I guess that would be the cleanup cost (indirectly) of the output of a fossil fueled generating station.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AndyDaws

    Thanks for the informed posts.

    "newer nukes can load-follow uite happliy"

    Citation needed, preferably with references to something closer to reality than Powerpoint.

    "[nukes wil] never do real instantaneous load-matching"

    That's for sure. Any backup needed by wind power because the wind is allegedly unpredictable is to a large extent also needed by inflexible nuclear because the demand isn't static whereas nuclear output pretty much is (to date).

    "the economics of using [nukes] in modes where capacity factors drop below 75% or so are horrible"

    That's for sure too.

    "Not a single AGR was finished on less than a 50% cost over-run, or less than three years late on a seven year build programme. "

    How are the EPRs at Olkiluotuo and Flamanville doing? What will make the not-quite-identical next few EPRs so much better? Who will be paying for the cost overrruns at Olkiluoto and Flamanville?

    "We're about to build a derivative of that design, scaled up to 1600MW in a single reactor - the EPR. "

    Citation needed - isn't "about to build" putting it a bit strong wrt any plans for UK nuclear capacity? Especially where there's a German connection, such as Horizon/RWE/E.On's proposals for 6GW or so at Wylfa and Oldbury? Had Horizon made a decision wrt EPR vs AP1000 yet?

    1. Andydaws

      AC (funny they're always anonymous, isn't it....)

      You can find the necessary details in the UK GDA documentation for both types. The EPR follows existing French practice in that it uses what are called "grey control rods" to permit the fine controls that's needs to offset Xenon poisoning effects. The AP1000 uses fine control drives on its conventional rods for similar effect.

      If you'd thought for a moment, you'd realise that in the various nations where 50% or above of electricity production MUST have their nuclear plants at least in part in load-following mode, or have very much flatter daily demand profiles than we do. Take France as the most obvious example - their daily swing isn't disimilar to ours (2:1 rather that the 2 1/2:1 we see). There simply isn't the non-nuclear capacity on the system to accomodate that variation.

      " Any backup needed by wind power because the wind is allegedly unpredictable is to a large extent also needed by inflexible nuclear "

      Not if you do the numbers.

      National Grid has recommend that the spinning reserve equal to the average output of any connected wind capacity must be kept connected - as wind variations equal to that within a three hour threshold have been observed on the system on multiple occasions. Spare capacity equal to 90-95% of total connected wind capacity is required for longer outages.

      (National Grid - "Operating the Transmission System in 2020")

      At the moment, we maintain spinning or other rapid response reserve equal to the largest credible unit loss - 1200MW for Sizewell (or part of the French interconnector). That'll go to 1600MW when we have EPRs on the grid.

      Following Grid's advice would (at the current average wind capacity factor of 27% - from last year's RO annual report), would mean that once connected wind capacity goes above about 5GW - roughly where it is now - extra spinning reserve PURELY TO ACCOMODATE WIND VARIATION. If we were to see 20% of production from wind, against an average demand of 40GW, we'd see spinning reserve increasing roughly eight-fold.

      And no, it's not primarily or even exclusively to accomodate nuclear - it's just as much defined by the probablity of losing a large coal-fired or gas-fired unit.

      "How are the EPRs at Olkiluotuo and Flamanville doing? "

      About that badly. But, as you'd expect with a series build, the third and fourth units (at Taishan) are pretty much on time and budget . What's remarkable is just how consistent this is with earlier French experience of introducing new designs.

      Wh9ich, in large measure goes to show what made a big controbution to the screw-ups in the earlier UK programmes.

      I can't think of many large novel developments that don't show the same sort of behaviour - think A380 and B787, for example.

      What is more remarkably, perhaps is that the AP1000 lead sites are running bang-on time and budget (at Sanmen and Haiyang). The difference is, Westinghouse learned from Japanese experience and modularised the plant. The first pressure vessel went into Sanmen-1 on the 23rd September - within about a week of plan.

      "Who will be paying for the cost overrruns at Olkiluoto and Flamanville?"

      Areva. They;ve just announced provisions in their annual results.

      "Citation needed - isn't "about to build" putting it a bit strong wrt any plans for UK nuclear capacity?"

      Not really. The EPR has to all intents and purposes completed GDA, and awaits only the site clearances for Hinkley Point and Sizewell. In fact, you'll find anti-nuclear groups are complaining that EdF has broken ground for site preparations at Hinkley.

      As to the Germans, Volker Beckers couldn't have been stronger in an interview just a week ago:

      (Updates with closing RWE share price in 11th paragraph.)

      Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- RWE AG and EON AG are pressing ahead with plans to build new reactors in the U.K. after the German government ordered the closure of nuclear plants at home.

      “We are still recruiting people and spending almost a million pounds ($1.54 million) every single week,” Volker Beckers, chief executive officer of RWE's U.K. Npower division, said in an interview in Bloomberg's London bureau.

      “In Germany, a big proportion is against nuclear power stations, while here you see an increase in acceptance. For an investor it's key you invest into a country where you have a supportive framework: political, commercial and social. I do see this in the U.K.”

      “We need to sustain 12 gigawatts of nuclear. We need investments in renewables, we need gas plant as part of the mix and we need a certain slice of coal plant so we can manage volatility in commodity prices.”

      I found that 12GW number interesting. Assuming he's talking for RWE as a whole, if Germany does go through with it's nuclear retirement plans, that's suggesting RWE building another 9 GW (over and above it's 50% of Horizon's 6GW).

      (If you want to search it, the interview was with "Business Week", dated 4/10/11).

      Horizon's due to make its technology choice in December. My money's on the AP1000.

      What's most intriguing at the moment was this, from Mike Weightman earlier in the week

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/us-britain-nuclear-idUSTRE79B1QT20111012

      He's committing to provide a team to complete the ESBWR GDA - but only in a timescale that's consistent with the NuGeneration consortium's timescales. That suggests to me that GE-Hitachi has good reason to think that its got a very good chance of winning the NuGeneration deal. It's also telling that the declared size for their Sellafield project is consistent with building a pair of ESBWRs.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "when the big six increase the price of electricity and gas"

    There was a not widely reported announcement from SSE earlier this week.

    SSE are a vertically integrated company, as are most of the UK big boys. They generate their own electricity and have their own delivery/retail company.

    The announcement said that SSE would be the first of the big companies to sell ALL their generation output and buy all their retail needs on the "day ahead" auction market.

    The numbers seemed to imply that 80-90% of the UK's electricity requirements were generated and delivered by "vertically integrated" companies whose economics are basically invisible to the regulators.

    Is that as bad as it sounds?

    And is a daily day-ahead auction really the best mechanism the industry has for ensuring that demand and supply can be relatively closely matched, given that there is a two to ten year lead time on most kinds of generating capacity? [aircraft engines/ccgt = short leadtime, nuclear = very long lead times] Remember that this kind of trading mismatch between short term and long term commitments is, in a completely different context, what brought down Northern Rock - ignore the tales about 'liar loans' etc.

    Or would we be better off nationalising the assets again and having some proper planning, given that "market forces" post privatisation look likely to leave us with a ten GW or so generation gap before the decade is out?

    1. Andydaws

      There's a more cynical explanation for SSE's position

      If you look at their website, you'll see they've got an extraordinarily low capacity factor on both their thermal plant and their renewables over the last three months - 23% and 13% respectively.

      I think they're having trouble absorbing their power generation across their customer base - and they've been locked out of contract for independent retailers because EDF committed to sell half of British Energy's output to non-EDF retailers.

  21. Primus Secundus Tertius

    No thank you

    The article ends: "You can read Huhne's speech here."

    I can only say: "Huhne Rede, nein danke".

  22. Vulture_Fan

    Huhne was clearly endorsing nukes

    Perhaps I'm missing something.

    I read the speech, and Huhne was clearly endorsing nuclear energy to (I think) a great extent.

    He was saying that mistakes have been made; that there's no intention of repeating them, and that nuclear energy is clearly required in the future energy policy of the UK. OK, he didn't mention Thorium (I don't know much about that, frankly, so I won't comment), but in all other regards he gave a far more enthusiastic push for nuclear energy than I would have expected - definitely not "anti-nuclear".

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AndyDaws 15:33

    Thanks for the detailed response (AC 14:10 here)

    Please don't read anything into my anonymity; it's primarily intended to encourage responses to address the message rather than the messenger.

    Wrt French load following: thank you, that's interesting, and in several years of asking, it's the first I've heard of it. The usual response has been to promise jam tomorrow. if I had an infinite amount of free time I'd go read the GDA. Is there a suitably digested form elsewhere? Once upon a time I might have expected the heavy end of the IEE comics to cover stuff like that, but the post-IET IEE is as much use as a chocolate teapot.

    ""Who will be paying for the cost overrruns at Olkiluoto and Flamanville?"

    Areva. They;ve just announced provisions in their annual results.

    I suspect you and I both know that all that means is the next generation of Areva customers will be paying for it.

    "think A380 and B787, for example."

    Been there, seen that, signed a vow of silence (anonymously).

    I'll have a look at the rest in due course, thanks.

  24. itzman
    Headmaster

    Huhne. lies, damned lies and political spin

    Huhne really has not got his facts right. Gas is actually around 5p a unit, allowing for O&M and capex BEFORE carbon capture (whatever that means, darling).

    Not sure on new build coal because there isn't any.

    Total nuclear costs over 40-60 year lifetime including decommissioning and waste disposal are around 6p-8p

    Total wind costs including gas backup, and necessary grid extensions are are around 10-15p for onshore in a windy place neglecting all the environmental and social costs which are extremely high. Once all the best sites are taken its more like 12-15p

    Offshore wind is somewhere in the 20-30p bracket.

    Solar + gas backup is edging to the 40-50p bracket.

    IIRC that is the level for tidal & wave as well..and huge environmental impact.

    All wind/solar/tidal/wave renewable energy is totally dependent on gas to back it up so offers no cheap option, at best only 30% CO2 reduction before renewable energy must be discarded when it peaks, no energy security and massively over-engineered grids to take it when it is there, which lies idle when it isn't. Plus massive structures to collect a relatively low power density source.

    Want to know the cost of 100% wind/solar/tiodal/wave grid? well to guarantee supply it ionvolves covering every square meter of the country with wind farms, wasting 90% of the power so the windless days STILL have enough power, and then something like £10 a unit.

    Only one technology offers reasonable costs approaching gas or coal, real energy security with the ability to stockpile years of fuel and very low environmental impact and no need to upgrade the grid at all, and 100% replacement of fossil fuel, and that's nuclear power.

    Huhne has been told this, but as 'Mr green' on the limp dim front bench he simply cannot bring himself to admit it to his beloved constituents.

    Placing his political career and his ego ahead of the truth, and the national interest is a particularly egregious trait.

    Probably the most despised man in government these days. I have it on good authority he hardly bothers to attend DECC meetings at all. DECC is quietly getting on with the job of swimming against the irrational profiteering renewable tide and trying to haul back on green subsidies, and get some nuclear in.

    1. Andydaws

      Soorry, should have added this earlier...

      There is a way of getting ahandle on what an "all renewables" grid would cost - at least, as a baseline.

      Grid planners use a concept called "firm rating"(or "Capacity credit" depending where you are in the world). National Grid use a definition that basically rates a station dependent on the power it's 90% probable to be able to put out at any given moment. Typically, for a conventional or nuclear station, it's 95-99% of nominal capacity let's call it 97%.

      NG rates wind as 8% firm, based on operating experience. That means, for every 1000MW of windpower, you're 90% probable to see 80MW or more.

      If we make a simplifying assumption - that wind unit operate truly independently, which isn't true, as we'll come back to that in a moment, we can do a simple sum to calculate how much wind capacity we're need to have the same grid reliability as we have at the moment.

      We run about 70GW typically declared available to the Grid, excluding renewables. We'll make another simplying assumption, that that's in 1000MW lumps. At the simplest level, we'd need (70*97/8) = 849GW of installed wind. to match that adjusted for firm power. Average demand, btw, is about 40GW.

      That's obviously not feasible onshore. so, let's assume most of it ends up offshore. Even then, most would have to be far offshore - so let's take a nice convenient inshore example as about representative - like the London Array.

      That's costing about €1.9 for 640MW of nominal capacity. Converting that to £, that's roughly £2.6/GW.

      The lowest cost of capital for a significant European generator is EDF - 7.8%. Let's assume they'd gear, and could borrow at just 5%.

      849*2.6*0.05 = £110 Billion per year in financing costs alone - we've made no contribution to amortising (paying down the plant), O&M or whatever. To also get the plant to pay for itself over a 20 year life you need to bump that up to about 9% Add another 2% on for O&M (which is well under half the prevailing rate for O&M on offshore structures in the North Sea in oil), and you're at 11% to simply break even.

      So, we'd need to recover about £242 billion per year

      My net demand will stay the same - 40GW average. That's 350 million megawatt-hours/year.

      I make that about £690/MWh - or £6.90/KWh. Average wholesale at the moment is 5-6p/KWh.

      There's an underpinning error, by the way, in that - it wouldn't give matching reliability to the current system, because you've still dealing with coupled weather systems. NG reports (Operating the Transmission System in 2020) that it observes several multi-hour period per year when wind output UK wide drops close to zero - often associated with peak demand.

      So, you'd pay more than ten times as much for a less reliable system. Sounds like a good move!

      1. Andydaws

        typo - that's £0.69/MWh.

        Still tenfold todays wholesale prices (and excluding transmission costs, etc.

        Making a simple assumption the amount of transmission infrastructure would also increase pro-rata, and with typical transmission charges today of about 1.5p/unit, you can add another 18p onto that. So, about 87p/unit.

        Which'd probably have you and I paying about 95p/unit, after distribution charges, retailers costs and margin and so on.

        That'd put the average domestic power bill up around the £6k mark. If you also assume replacing gas with electricity, even using off-peak power and heat pumps, it'd be about £11k.

        And using the usual definition of "energy poverty" - more than 10% of income going on power and gas - it'd mean about 98% of us would be "energy poor"

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "All wind/solar/tidal/wave renewable energy is totally dependent on gas to back it up"

    Are you suggesting nuclear isn't? Don't be so silly.

    "no energy security and massively over-engineered grids to take it when it is there"

    Gridco don't seem that unhappy with their future picture of the UK grid with quite a lot of input from renewables.

    Wiser folks than me seem a bit worried about the energy security of being over-reliant on Olkiluoto-style promises, with yet another delay announced recently and important safety questions re the control systems apparently still being unresolved after several years of discussion.

    1. cloudberry

      Regarding Olkiluoto: indeed. See my previous post on the matter, in this thread.

    2. Andydaws
      Thumb Down

      AC,

      not to anything like the same degree, no.

      NG (and most other grid operators) run a policy of maintaining spinning reserve or fast-response hydro sufficient to accomodate the largest single potential sudden loss to the system, plus a bit. As this stands that's treated as 1200MW (for Sizewell, or for the loss of 2 out of 3 of the French interconnector supplies).

      Grid recommend for wind, that the spinning or short term reserve is equivalent to the average production of the total amount of connected wind capacity.

      So, if we were to hit the last government's target of 55GW of wind and maintain current wind capacity factors (a bit over 25%), we'd need about about 12GW of spinning, or short term reserve.

      Grid also recommend that there is basically full back-up for wind available within 3-24 hours.

      What's been the case for the last few years is that under the last government, DECC opted to accept lower system resilience, so that the back-up costs for wind would be avoided. Instead of doing what ought to be good practice, and running a reserve equal to both the worst case single unit loss plus the short term varaiability of wind, they left Grid's instructions re reserve as it was.

      That will change, under the proposed market reforms. A specific "capacity payment" will be brought in to incentivise availability of spinning and long term reserve capacity. However, it's costs won't be loaded on the form of generation requiring the reserve, but "smeared" across the whole market. So, yet another low-profile subsidy for wind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Thanks once again.

        "Grid also recommend that there is basically full back-up for wind available within 3-24 hours"

        Makes some sense to me. There are occasional national lulls, though usually with rather more than 3 hours notice. I'd be interested to hear why these lulls couldn't be dealt with at least in part by interruptible contracts rather than (fossil?) backup.

        "Grid recommend for wind, that the spinning or short term reserve is equivalent to the average production of the total amount of connected wind capacity."

        I'm not following that. It seems to me as an outsider that the likelihood of significant instant (or short term) loss of wind is really quite small. What have I missed?

        All contributions gratefully received.

        1. Andydaws

          AC, If you want chapter and verse,

          See below for "operating the transmission system in 2020" from National Grid. It cites evidence on multiple occurences of huge shifts in wind output on that a two hour horizon. (pages 23-27).

          http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/DF928C19-9210-4629-AB78-BBAA7AD8B89D/47178/Operatingin2020_finalversion0806_final.pdf

          As to "interruptible contracts", what industries do you see shutting down at three hours notice? It wouldn't include any process plant (or indeed, most manufacturing). Or shutting down datacentres and so on. In fact, I can't even really see the likes of Tesco being up for that.

          For what it's worth, the two largest users of electricity in the country are Corus and Network Rail. Neither of those is about to drop off-grid at short notice.

          "Short term" means less than three hours in grid terms, AC - ramp-ups of any plant that involves significant steam generation take at least that long, if you don't want to bugger the plant from things like thermal stressing and fatigue.

  26. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    For another look on the Huhne speech, *especially* the "no govt subsidies" claim.

    Check this.

    http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-huhne-far-from-clear-on-nuclear/8230

    And note the result at the top.

    It makes entertaining reading.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Andy + others

    Where does "demand management" fit into the picture of the coming mismatch between supply and demand?

    We already have interruptible contracts.

    Some of us used to have storage heaters, and their water-based big brothers, calorifiers (which can in principle use other fuels besides electricity).

    There's probably a few GW of industrial and commercial stuff that could be saved simply by moving to more modern technologies.

    There is much talk of "smart meters" although relatively little clear consensus in what they are for and can do (e.g. are they for customers who want to monitor usage, or are they for managing demand while ensuring that essential services stay on when the rolling powercuts start in a few years time?)

    Is there anything that needs doing about these things?

    If there is, how does "the market" make it happen, in a reasonable timescale, especially when the banks are on strike without even so much as a ballot?

    Or is that all irrelevant, and all that matters is ever more capacity to meet ever more need?

    ps

    cheap low energy domestic lightbulbs paid for by other eletricity bill payers are a horrendous irrelevance so please let's not go there

    1. Andydaws
      Meh

      Demand Management?

      No be honbest, I doubt a great deal.

      The national Smart Metering trials finished about this time last year, and they're not suggestive that domestic demand is readily influenced - according to the NAO's review, even with self-selecting volunteers in the trial ( as they dryly put it "not nationally representative") the reduction in use was only 2-3% - and even then something like 20-25% dropped out in the year. It showed NO impact in terms of peak shifting, which is what would matter more.

      I've seen internal survey work for one of the "Big Six" that examined what sorts of price differential it'd take to get a major shift in usage patters - to displace even 10% of peak demand would need price ratios (as compared to normal day rate) of between 5 and 10:1. Even the in-day wholesale market rarely varies by that much in any 24 hour period.

      There's a common sense "sanity check" - the uptake of "economy 7" and the various off-peak incentives. I use it - on my deal the differential between day and night is between 2 1/2 and 3:1. Quite a differential, and with no great effort (timers on the dishwasher and washing machine, and a timed immersion heater running in summer only) I can shift over 1/3rd of my usage to night rate.

      And uptake nationally of E7 and similar is under 10%.

      That's a much easier sell than getting people to shift from peak - think of it this way. How many people would shift their meal times because the electricity to heat the meal was going to be a couple of pence cheaper if they ate at 9pm instead of 7? Or is my mother about to decide to delay putting on the kettle at 6?

      On the industrial side, there are already very heavy incentives to both reduce usage and shift. Most really large users are on contracts called "flex" where they can pre-reserve power at a fixed price, and anything up to three says in advance opt to trade it instead. They already see the full impact of demand peaks.

      So, I don't see a lot of mileage there. The market's already been making it happen, for some time - if you follow a trend of "energy intensity" - i.e. the amount of energy used to produce a unit of GDP - it's been falling for 30-odd years.

      One other thing to consider. If you do assume decarbonisation is a worthwhile agenda (and I'm not going into THAT debate here....), a major shift away from direct combustion of fuel domestically, industrially and in transport is a prerequisite. That alone should drive a major shift to electricification. On conservative numbers, even getting halfway to HMG's carbon targets tells us we should be assuming about 75% more electricity usage in 25-30 years time, shifting average demand from 40GW to 70GW or more.

  28. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    The energy business is cost plus

    There is *no* limit on what the ultimate price could be.

    And with enough outside pricing factors that can be blamed for any "unfortunate" price rises.

  29. gmciver

    Onshore?

    The other thing missing from Chris Huhne's speech, at least as reported here, is onshore wind farms. These are possibly up to half the cost of offshore (cheaper to construct, service and decommission) making it competitive with nuclear. A fact not lost on the French - you will see a lot of wind turbines as you drive through northern France. France being a country that generates most of its electric power from nuclear.

    No political party in the UK seems prepared to confront the whining middle class NIMBYs on this issue. Not even the Green Party which emphasises offshore windpower on the grounds that it generated more jobs! Meaning that it is more expensive.

    1. Andydaws

      Onshore wind

      If you look at the "Renewables Obligation" Annual Reports, you'll see that the rate at which onshore wind is being deployed is falling - it was 700MW in 2007-8, 600MW in 2008-9 and 500MW in 2009-10 (the latest year available)

      That's because there are huge planning objections to both the farms, and to the transmission infrastructure required.

      If you apply the aveage capacity factor of onshore wind to those, you'll get an idea how little actual production can be expected - just 130MW on average from the turbines deployed in 2009-10, for comparison. Or, 1/24th of what'll be made at either Sizewell C or Hinkley C.

      And no, I'd not draw too many conclusions about there being a few turbines in France - all politicians do the odd bit of greenwashing.

  30. Mike Cresswell
    Joke

    A source of limitless free green energy?

    I'd suggest that all our energy problems could be solved forever if we could only find a way of harnessing all the hot air that comes out central and local government :-)

  31. dwieske

    IFR's can be built RIGHT NOW and solve all our problems

    Stop spreading the lies made up by Greenpeace and other compagnies that make big bucks by scaring people....the "greens" are the sole reason we have any issue with nuclear energy....they stopped the IFR being put in production as that woudl destroy any and all argument they had against nuclear (look it up: IFR project was cancelled bij Clinton in echange for a huge campaign contribution from the green lobby).....no bigger enemy of the environment then compagnies like Greenpeace imho

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Andy

    "what industries do you see shutting down at three hours notice?"

    Back when I were a lad, the point of cheaper electricity on interruptible contracts was to encourage big customers (of any kind) to be ready to go off grid at short notice. If the market isn't working that way any more, then let them pay the same prices as non interruptible customers, and see what happens.

    Going off grid doesn't have to mean shutting down either, it may mean switching to an alternative supply/alternative fuel for the duration of the interruption.

    "uptake nationally of E7 and similar is under 10%"

    I didn't even realise it was still actively marketed. Focusing solely on domestic usage is silly anyway. There ought to be "quick wins" available elsewhere with better return on investment.

    @Matt ages ago

    "every household to have a miniture gas-burning generator for powering items like PCs, TVs, fridges, etc, which cannot be gas-powered directly ... efficiency ..."

    Efficiency is one of several criteria. Efficiency is the mantra which has driven the insane replacement of heating and hot water systems which had storage by trendy modern systems which have no storage and therefore need energy input exactly when you want the energy output - the insane combi boiler scam (nearly as mad as the post-privatisation "dash for gas" in the electricity industry).

    Gas powered fridges? Every caravanner knows they exist.

    Gas powered electricity without going via steam in between? Go read about Bloom Box (or fuel cells in general).

    Gas powered electricity and heat? Yep, small scale CHP now exists, and has existed on larger scale, for hospital/officeblock etc for years.

    But "the market" only sees this month's prices, not this decade's energy security policy.

    1. Andydaws

      Not that many are

      on interruptible contracts, AC. They're far more common on gas (where end users can have local CNG or LPG storage). Gas interruptions have been exercised in both of the last two winters.

      One other comment. I spend a good few weeks each year in India, where (for different reasons) the power grid isn't especially reliable. The reaction of businesses there to interruptions there isn't to shut up shop until the lights come back on - it's to fire up diesel or other standby generators.

      With frequent interruptions, you'd see the same behaviour here. Which would be hugely counter-productive from either an energy efficiency, cost or carbon output perspective.

      And who's focussing solely on the domestic sector? I've addressed industrial and commercial use, and why demand management isn't about to make over-much headway there (imagine the impact on Corus of being told to cut power in a couple of hours in the middle a pour of steel, or Network Rail in the middle of the London rush-hour). Or finding your local Waitrose shut. Or your ISP going off line.

      The electricity market is split broadly half and half residential and Industrial & Commercial, so domestic impact would be just as useful - if it were available.

      And yes, e7 and other off peak tariffs are actively marketed. See EDFE's "20:20" campaign as recently as this year, or look on youswitch.

      It wasn't addressed to me, but re the gas CHP units you talk about. Think on two things....

      First, how well coincident is your electicity and gas usage - or well matched? If I take my own household, we don't run the heating normally between early may, and october. My heating starts in winter at 5:30, but we don't get up and start using significant power for another hour. The heating goes off at about 7:30 because the house will then stay warm until 8:00 when my wife and daughter leave.

      The patterns are just as mismatched in the evening.

      DECCs work suggests energy use is reduced by just 7% or so - which is more than offset in both carbon and energy security terms because it increases gas dependency. Never mind the cost implications of hanging a complex fuel cell off the side of a simple gas boiler!

      David Mackay goes into this at length in "Sustainable Energy without Hot Air". He comes down on the side of a shift to heat pumps, ground source where possible, or air source otherwise (gshps are a bugger to integrate with anything but underfloor heating systems).

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thanks again.

    "(imagine the impact on Corus of being told to cut power in a couple of hours in the middle a pour of steel, or Network Rail in the middle of the London rush-hour). Or finding your local Waitrose shut. Or your ISP going off line."

    I don't have to imagine. I remember the three day week, but I assume many don't. Shops able to run the lights and the tills on batteries (and relying on thermal inertia for chilled goods). Factories scheduling operation depending on the regional schedule for rolling disconnects. Happy days.

    "domestic impact would be just as useful [as commercial] - if it were available."

    There's a difference between impact and practicality. Getting a worthwhile win in the domestic market involves convincing lots of independent punters. Getting a worthwhile win in the commercial sector involves changing policy at the top of a small number of big organisations. Which one is more practical?

    "David Mackay goes into this at length in "Sustainable Energy without Hot Air". He comes down on the side of a shift to heat pumps, ground source where possible, or air source otherwise (gshps are a bugger to integrate with anything but underfloor heating systems)."

    http://www.withouthotair.com

    Been there read that recommended reading for all (though it may not please everybody).

    GSHPs are nice where practical, but for anything other than low density housing they're not all that practical and they don't yet seem to appeal to the mass new-build market. ASHPs are fine as long as it's not *really* cold outside and the cold end gets iced up; then what do you do?

    Complicated isn't it.

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