2y ago

British nuclear revival to move towards energy independence

www.gov.uk

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UK Energy @feddit.uk

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2y ago

UK to drive rapid expansion of nuclear fleet with SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) to move toward energy independence (18/07) | gov.uk

www.gov.uk /government/news/british-nuclear-revival-to-move-towards-energy-independence

91 comments

As far as I'm aware, we don't have any natural deposits of fissonable material in the UK so we'll bot be truly independent. Green energy is what we need for that, we have plenty of wind, waves and sunlight.
- Raw materials are not the choke point for nuclear energy independence- enrichment facilities are, of which the UK has three that produce an exportable surplus. Even if it was, Canada and Australia are second and third in the world in Uranium reserves, which is convenient for the country that houses their King.
  Nuclear energy is green- it's the only energy worldwide that internalizes its externalities and is made to cost what it costs to the environment.
  
  Demanding tithes of nuclear material from commonwealth nations by royal decree is so wonderfully neo-feudal sci-fi, I love it.
- I mean, we can't even build a rail line on time or to budget, I can't see us being able to build nuclear reactors any time soon.
  
  Starmer Voice Where I come from, we're not great at building rail lines because we're too busy railing lines from the bosom of this beautiful nation
- Nuclear power is green energy.
  
  Technically yes, it still creates some waste to be dealt with. I guess arguably you have the same with decommissioned turbines, solar panels, etc with other forms.
- UK, plenty of sunlight? Edit: for the down voter, this is what the UK thinks of the sun https://lemmy.tf/post/538103
  
  This year's been a bit odd with all the rain, but we've been having great summers of late. We get plenty of sun the winter too despite the temperature.
  
  It's a bit of a meme that the UK is always rainy. It isn't always rainy, it does rain a lot but it doesn't rain anywhere close to all the time and when it's not raining it can get quite hot, quite unbearably in fact because we don't have air conditioning.
  Anyway heat isn't really relevant to solar panels, what they really need is just sunlight in general, and we get plenty of that even if it isn't particularly hot. In fact solar panels don't actually like being particularly hot so they probably won't work very well in the Sahara desert. Despite what everyone may think.
- Unfortunately, renewables cannot do it alone and I wish that wasn't the case. Pairing renewables with emission free nuclear is the only option we really have to meet current and future demands without fossil fuels.
  Google search found some uranium in England: https://www.nature.com/articles/246180a0.pdf
  
  You can definitely achieve more if you can work the supply-side as well. In theory if the smart grid were well executed then it'd be possible for consumers to modulate their heat, charging, tumble dryers etc... to provide more elasticity.
  Unfortunately in a lot of places the incentives aren't that high. I don't have that option where I live, but in denver the lowest consumer rate is around 7c and the highest around 17c/kWh. It's hard to invest in new appliances to exploit that difference, but if the off-peak number were 1c then I think you'd see much more take-up of smart car chargers and people delaying when they do laundry.
  
  Unfortunately, renewables cannot do it alone
  They absolutely can when paired with storage. Nuclear is not needed.
- Oh no, we will have to buy it from that evil super state Australia!!!
  
  How many dollerydoos do they want for it?
And Hinkley Point was such a roaring success, let's pour more money down the bottomless barrel!
- It's an obvious distraction pushing the topic of nuclear power again, just days after they prepared to open massive new oil and gas production sites while stifling the well-going UK wind industry.
  But there are enough people out there brain-washed by decades of anti-renewable propaganda that it will work. And in the end we have just another country failing to build the proper amount of nuclear base load AND the proper amount of renewables... but at least someone smart "thought ahead" and worked for enough fossil fuels to compensate.
  
  The conservatives just operate on the assumption that everybody else doesn't have a clue what's going on because they don't.
  I bet they were told that the nuclear commission were going to open another power plant and just ignored them and gave out the oil drilling contracts anyway.
- Burning coal is cheap, that's why we're here. I'll pay more for electric today to leave a planet for our children. Wish my parents did that for me.
  Only a fool would consider the cost in dollars alone.
  
  Only a fool would advocate for paying way more for nuclear when renewables + storage are substantially cheaper.
  
  Nope, burning coal was cheap a long time ago and allowed the people to accululate enough wealth to push for more coal (and brain-wash people to believe coal is cheap; and also how expensive renewables are). Just like the nuclear producers did decades ago to tell the tale of how there's no alternative to nuclear.
  The actual reality looks like this. And if you think that you need to pay more for electricity to not destroy the planet that's already their propaganda having done their work.
  
  Actually coal energy is expensive. Renewable energy is cheap energy.
- Also it works so flawlessly for the French (not*), why not do it too?
  *France is slowly overcoming stress-corrosion problems (35 out of 56 reactors were down, drought is another problem), and Finland celebrates the commissioning of a new reactor (albeit 14 years late), while on the other hand monthly German nuclear generation will be zero for the first time in over 50 years.
  
  The real thing is the cost, the cost per kWh is falling so going nuke and locking in to a price that's already above market makes no sense at all.
  The Tories are ideologically opposed to renewables because of some weird culture war thing, plus they hate the idea of locally sustainable communities not being totally under the control of billionaires - people are a lot easier to scare into obedience when you can tell them their power might be shut off. The main reason though is huge projects can only go to huge companies, they don't want lots of little solar farms they want their oil baron buddies to maintain their monopolies, that's the only reason we still hear so much about this now allbut obsolete technology.
  
  And Germany added 36M tons of emissions because they replaced the decommissioned reactors with fossil gas.
  
  Yeah, let’s just keep burning fossil fuels, amIrite?
- Yeah, let’s just keep burning fossil fuels, amIrite?
  
  Yes, that's obviously what your nuclear fairy tales are aming for: Not building even the minimal capacity needed for base load, failing to build that insufficient capacity at a reasonable time/cost frame, failing to build the complementary renewables and then crying why you need to still burn fossil fuels in decades... while obviously blaming renewables (that you failed to build) and storage (that you denied is viable) for the failings of nuclear.
  Please list the countries either planning/building or already having sufficiently modern capacities right now to cover just the minimal base load of 30-35% of the projected electricity demand by 2050 and onward... Hint: The one country close is France, which will be able to (barely) reach 30% of their projected demand when they build all the planned new reactors... where "all" is the full 14, not the bullshit right now of only bulding 6 with 8 being optional. Because nothing about those is optional. They are the bare minimum that will be needed. But even in France you can't honestly tell the people the required amounts and investments needed...
  That's the actual state of nuclear power right now... It's prohibitely expensive and inefficient and only kept alive by lobbyists. And by people like you they brain-washed for decades who are now fighting their fight against renewables (that are actually also a requirement for every viable nuclear model) and cheering for every country building nuclear power even when it's mathematically proven that it's purely symbolical and not even close to relevant for co2-neutrality.
Ya know, wind and solar are independent too, and much cheaper.
- They're great technologies and we should be building them out. Unfortunately, they struggle with intermittency. Renewables like wind and solar would best complement base load, always-on, capacity of a nuclear generating stations.
  
  I’m honestly surprised the UK hasn’t invested in wave power. Plenty of crashing waves all around it. Can’t cost that much to build. I remember seeing some pilot projects with vertical turbines installed at the base of shoreside cliffs.
  
  But with lots of solar and wind we can store the extra to smooth over dips. We can also import/export power (as now) as it's not going to cloud and windless everywhere. Southern Europe could be big solar exporters and we can be big wind (and wave) exporters.

91 comments