A Manifesto for 2024

[Marco]

Marco you've contradicted yourself.

Er no, this is what I said: £6 billion per SMR to build, with at least the inflationary equivalent of this figure to de-commission

The real cost to build will be £6 billion per SMR and then, if we're talking about the whole life cost, there is the de-commissioning cost which with nuclear power has historically been higher than the build cost.

and when it comes to decommissioning, do you know how many UK Offshore wind farms have been decommissioned yet?

There is the possibility of re-using the cabling, foundations and towers with wind turbines. But even if little of these can be re-used, there aren't millions of tons of radioactive material to safely dispose of for a million years.

[Witton Park]

Er no, this is what I said: £6 billion per SMR to build, with at least the inflationary equivalent of this figure to de-commission

That was your creative accounting that inflates £1.8 billion to £6 billion.

[Witton Park]

There is the possibility of re-using the cabling, foundations and towers with wind turbines. But even if little of these can be re-used, there aren't millions of tons of radioactive material to safely dispose of for a million years.

so you don't know.

[Marco]

That was your creative accounting that inflates £1.8 billion to £6 billion.

No, this is what I said less than two days ago. It would be greatly helpful if you could take the trouble to read what I have said before you insult me.

Er, which taxes will the Witton Park Party be raising to fund this? The optimistic estimate in February 2021 was for £1.8 billion per SMR. So with at least 10 percent inflation, and the fact that large info structure projects seem to end up eventually costing 3 x what was originally said, we're looking at around £48 billion. That's about the same amount of money as is currently being spent to build the London-Armitage (Staffordshire) high speed railway.

[Marco]

so you don't know.

Why should I take the time and trouble to research the issue, when you can't be bothered to read what I have said? This is just a distraction tactic, so you can continue to avoid answering the question I have asked.

For the third time then, which taxes are you going to raise to fund the £48 billion pound cost?

[Witton Park]

Why should I take the time and trouble to research the issue, when you can't be bothered to read what I have said? This is just a distraction tactic, so you can continue to avoid answering the question I have asked.

For the third time then, which taxes are you going to raise to fund the £48 billion pound cost?

I read what you said. You turned 1.8 billion x 6 in to 48 billion. a Multiple of 4.4.

You aren't Prof Ferguson in disguise are you

Paul Stein of Rolls Royce believes it will be ready to sign up to in 2024, with delivery be end of the decade. I think only gas or coal would be able to do that any quicker.

So it gives us baseload quickly, the cost will reduce per unit allowing for inflation and their figure of £40-60/mWh is better than we currently have, so if inflation pushes that up, it will also push up other options.

Good baseload will help business, tech.... basically all business.

I really don't see any problems.

But I'm open to alternative options looking at the next 5-10 years.

[Marco]

I read what you said. You turned 1.8 billion x 6 in to 48 billion. a Multiple of 4.4.

You aren't Prof Ferguson in disguise are you

Paul Stein of Rolls Royce believes it will be ready to sign up to in 2024, with delivery be end of the decade. I think only gas or coal would be able to do that any quicker.

So it gives us baseload quickly, the cost will reduce per unit allowing for inflation and their figure of £40-60/mWh is better than we currently have, so if inflation pushes that up, it will also push up other options.

Good baseload will help business, tech.... basically all business.

I really don't see any problems.

But I'm open to alternative options looking at the next 5-10 years.

Another slur, and another distraction post to avoid answering my question

[Witton Park]

what have I avoided?
and I don't see I've slurred anything.

[Witton Park]

I was hoping that the learned folk on the forum might come forward with their own thoughts rather than I like that, I don't like that, and that it might help me fine tune.

The issue we have on energy is we have gradually moved our grid from almost 100% reliable energy and set it up in a way that prioritises unreliable energy - wind in particular but also solar.

All unreliable energy needs back up options, so even when the wind blows and as at 9:00am this morning wind produces 32% (solar is 0%) that means we don't just pay the wind, but we also pay the gas and coal that are on standby.

In January 2007 OFGEM published a document about reform of the Renewables Obligation scheme. That scheme transferred money from non-renewable generation sources to renewables - at that time almost all wind.
A subsidy for wind generation.
The argument went that:
We need cleaner generation.
Wind is more expensive but will eventually be cheaper as it is scaled up.
So we have to help it scale up by subsidy.

OFGEM in 2007 wrote
"We fully support the Government's aims of reducing carbon emissions and promoting renewable generation but we think there are cheaper and simpler ways of meeting these aims than the RO scheme which is forecast to cost business and domestic customers over £30bn."

£30bn back in 2007!

We are still tied to these RO contracts and the Government didn't close the RO system until 7 years later when they moved to the system call Contracts for Difference.

The UK CfD system was recently analysed by the Canadian Climate Institute.
As a subsidy-based policy, the U.K.’s CfD has a unique financing structure in that it is ultimately paid for by U.K. power consumers
The CfD payments are funded by a statutory levy on all licensed electricity suppliers, with this cost eventually passed on to households and businesses through their power bills.

So these costs paid by us, indirectly have an effect on levels of taxation and borrowing.

The U.K.’s "independent" ( ) Climate Change Committee, the official advisor to the government, has estimated that reaching the net zero commitment will require an investment of £50 billion (C$81 billion) a year by 2030, with much of this investment needed to replace older energy-related infrastructure.

So when Marco critiques the cost of my SMR proposal, what needs to be taken in to account is that we have huge current costs of subsidy impacting the debt, deficit and taxation and expectations of £50 Billion a year by 2030 if we are to effectively reduce the carbon footprint of our electricity grid.

I'm not a climate catastrophist. I accept we are warming. We should be. I think it's plausible that humans have had an impact, but unclear to what extent, but believe it prudent to act as if we have had some impact in as pragmatic way possible.

Because it is unreliable, needs subsidy support, and backup support, I do not believe that expansion of wind is the way forward.
I'm also concerned about the huge footprint on land or at sea that is required to develop a commercial windfarm.

SOLAR is just not productive enough in the UK, there are supply chain concerns, still that need for backup and I also believe that these solar farms are being used as a way to "in the name of green" convert pastureland to semi-commercial land that will get a nice little subsidy supported earner for 20 years or so and then allow the land to be more easily sold for housing development.

Gas is transition as far as electricity generation goes, so should not be demonised, but also shouldn't be expanded.

Nuclear seems the way.

Large scale nuclear is 15 years per project.

So being pragmatic, SMRs are the way forward.

They can be set up on old and existing sites and have a small footprint.

As for nuclear waste. If all the nuclear waste from the USA was piled up on a football field it would be about 25-30ft high.
It's not a huge amount.
Ours is less.
It's also not as dangerous as is often made out. The half life of the the most potent waste is short and those with the extended half lifes such as plutonium are barely radioactive.

[anthonykay]

I'm rather surprised that you have said nothing about reducing energy use: insulating buildings, making the transport system efficient (like the Dutch have done, re-engineering their cities so that only an idiot would get in a car, because it is so much quicker to cycle or get a bus/tram), etc. Unfortunately, no-one makes any profit out of selling less oil, solar power or whatever (an example of the "Tragedy of the Commons), but since every form of energy generation has some effect on the environment, reducing our energy use is essential.

I'm not a climate catastrophist. I accept we are warming. We should be. I think it's plausible that humans have had an impact, but unclear to what extent, but believe it prudent to act as if we have had some impact in as pragmatic way possible.

This would have been a reasonable statement 30 years ago. Our understanding of the climate system has moved on a huge amount since then, and it's now absolutely certain (inasmuch as any scientific theory can be certain), not merely "plausible", that humans have had a major impact on the climate.

Nuclear seems the way.

Large scale nuclear is 15 years per project.

So being pragmatic, SMRs are the way forward.

They can be set up on old and existing sites and have a small footprint.

As for nuclear waste. If all the nuclear waste from the USA was piled up on a football field it would be about 25-30ft high.
It's not a huge amount.
Ours is less.
It's also not as dangerous as is often made out. The half life of the the most potent waste is short and those with the extended half lifes such as plutonium are barely radioactive.

I would be interested in your views on nuclear fusion: clean, safe energy, with no radioactive waste. I worked in research related to fusion for a while back in the 1980's, when it was predicted that commercial fusion reactors would be available in about 2030. Hmmmm. Even then, I sometimes got the impression that fusion research was a big pit into which money was being shovelled.