Comment by robertlagrant
3 days ago
> When Hinkley point C is completed, estimated 2029 at the earliest, it will have taken 12 years and will produce as much electricity per year as the solar panels installed in Germany last year.
I agree that engineering in the UK is a mess, which explains a lot of Hinkley Point C, but just a technical point: people in these conversations often do what you've done and pick a "levelling" stat that elides all of the non-nuclear's disadvantages.
E.g. in this case maybe solar in Germany does produce all that power, but does it do it consistently? And does that cost include the batteries needed to level it out?
It's like saying you're more likely to get rained on in Johannesburg than in London because the yearly rainfall's higher there. It's an accurate stat, but in Johannesburg all that rainfall is concentrated between 3pm and 5pm in summer months, so you're much less likely to get rained on all year round.
>I agree that engineering in the UK is a mess, which explains a lot of Hinkley Point C, but just a technical point: people in these conversations often do what you've done and pick a "levelling" stat that elides all of the non-nuclear's disadvantages.
This is a fair point, I only mentioned the total power produced per year, but it wasn't intended to be deceptive. I wanted to emphasize that solar is not a "toy amount of energy" any longer, which it was as lately as say 2020 in many countries.
It used to be that solar doubled from tiny to slightly less tiny, but it's basically doubled semi-annually for many years by now, and the rice on the chessboard is starting to get heavy, so to speak. China went from "same as all nuclear" to "twice all nuclear" in two years. I think that's remarkable and might have gone unnoticed.
That you can't predict very reliably when you get peak production is for sure a problem with solar, and wind, but it's not without solutions. Solutions exist and are also being deployed already.
And even before we have built enough of those, solar still saves the use of hydro reserves, reduces the burning of oil, coal and gas during the day, and so on.
The leveling argument is often employed the other way too btw - all downsides to nuclear tends to be erased, mainly by pretending there is no cost or risk related to the long-term waste management, or for financial risks related to accidents.
Nuclear is generally operated under a government umbrella that covers all such costs, so they are forgotten/ignored, but they shouldn't be.
> all downsides to nuclear tends to be erased, mainly by pretending there is no cost or risk related to the long-term waste management, or for financial risks related to accidents
I think this is all priced into the TCO of a nuclear plant, as they are very well known.
>I think this is all priced into the TCO of a nuclear plant, as they are very well known.
Fukushima was not well known and is not at all covered by profits from selling nuclear power in Japan. Same for Chernobyl. See also Asse II in Germany - not known. There are many many more examples.
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