Nuclear is an industry that strangled itself with red tape and harmful PR, making every project fiendishly expensive and take so many decades that cost-of-capital costs are insane.
I don't think it will ever again beat solar+wind+battery for grid scale carbon-free power pricing.
Producing power by the mid 2030s? Isn't the entire point of SMRs that they are effectively a complete package and it takes very little effort to ship them out and getting them to produce power. Or is this just a pipe-dream we were sold?
Like, I imagined these things being compact enough to be shipped to the outskirts of towns and producing power. Afterall, they are from the same technology that was powering nuclear subs, right?
Nuclear subs are a "money no object" technology, as our supposed insurance policy against Soviet invasion and/or armageddon, it's whatever it takes.
That technology is so expensive, so far from economically viable, that only two countries (US & France) are even using it for aircraft carriers, despite its potential huge advantages over oil (stay at sea for years at a time without refuelling, no need for vulnerable supply ships etc.)
> "The old nuclear power plant at Wylfa was switched off in 2015"
Tangentially—this is a brownfield site, where there once was an early generation of nuclear fission reactor, cooled by CO2 gas. Here's a brief description of what those machines looked like (not this exact one):
I believe the more technologically advanced we live the more energy we will use. Travel requires energy, ai models require energy, healthy food requires energy
The cheaper and more abundant we can make electricity, the faster we can reap the benefits of new technology
imo nuclear is an important part to have abundant energy at all times
Anglesey is beautiful[0]. My ancestors came from there and I used to holiday there as a child. Today it is somewhat blighted by those ugly and noisy turbines[1]. I am in favor of this if it reduces the number of onshore turbines on the island.
Roughly: the demand is about 33-35GW. That’s projected to become 50GW by 2050 as transportation and home heating become electrified. So that’s the puck we’re skating towards.
Nuclear supplies a constant 10% of the demand today (more, if you count imports from France). The goal is to power 20% of the 50GW demand through nuclear. If it’s cheap, even more. Each of these Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) generates 470MW, so we’d need about 20 of them.
The plan is to set up a factory near Sheffield and produce the reactor parts like IKEA, so they can be assembled on site. The hope is that manufacturing and assembling the same product repeatedly makes people more efficient. That’s the main problem with nuclear - over budget and delays - that SMRs aim to fix.
I’m glad the UK is taking electrification seriously, and is investing in domestic industry that will hopefully export reactors if it’s successful. Some folks might look at the estimated date of completion (2035) and get discouraged, but I wouldn’t. The best time to plant this tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
This is a rare moment of sanity in energy policy. It’s not about wind vs nuclear. We (the whole world) need everything we’ve got. SMRs have the potential to move nuclear out of its mainframe era.
Remember iPhones would cost ~$billions each too if you only made 12 of them.
We desperately need regional pricing. If we had that, manufacturers and data centres would be able to move to places like this, or to scotland, and get almost free electricity.
And then electricity producers would have a huge incentive to build generation in places where electricity is actually used. And NIMBYs would be told to fuck off, because letting someone build an energy source would make your electricity cheap.
I suspect that the push for civilian SMRs is a disguised subsidy for the naval reactor programme. This is shortsighted because (1) for electricity renewables are cheaper than nuclear, and (2) large naval vessels are enormously vulnerable to drones.
Ukraine's success against Russia's Black Sea fleet proves this for surface vessels. Similarly, it is easy to imagine a swarm of small underwater drones detecting, tracking and trailing nuclear submarines.
The UK government's is more focussed on providing juicy contracts to large corporations than realistic preparations for the future.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 34.5 ms ] threadThe whole of Europe needs to get on with energy security and Britain can and should be a leader here, next to Netherlands, Sweden and France.
I don't think it will ever again beat solar+wind+battery for grid scale carbon-free power pricing.
Like, I imagined these things being compact enough to be shipped to the outskirts of towns and producing power. Afterall, they are from the same technology that was powering nuclear subs, right?
That technology is so expensive, so far from economically viable, that only two countries (US & France) are even using it for aircraft carriers, despite its potential huge advantages over oil (stay at sea for years at a time without refuelling, no need for vulnerable supply ships etc.)
Tangentially—this is a brownfield site, where there once was an early generation of nuclear fission reactor, cooled by CO2 gas. Here's a brief description of what those machines looked like (not this exact one):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29890470 ("Nothing like this will be built again"—263 comments)
The cheaper and more abundant we can make electricity, the faster we can reap the benefits of new technology
imo nuclear is an important part to have abundant energy at all times
0 https://www.celtictrailswalkingholidays.co.uk/wp-content/upl...
1 https://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/article21841043.ece/ALTERN...
Roughly: the demand is about 33-35GW. That’s projected to become 50GW by 2050 as transportation and home heating become electrified. So that’s the puck we’re skating towards.
Nuclear supplies a constant 10% of the demand today (more, if you count imports from France). The goal is to power 20% of the 50GW demand through nuclear. If it’s cheap, even more. Each of these Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) generates 470MW, so we’d need about 20 of them.
The plan is to set up a factory near Sheffield and produce the reactor parts like IKEA, so they can be assembled on site. The hope is that manufacturing and assembling the same product repeatedly makes people more efficient. That’s the main problem with nuclear - over budget and delays - that SMRs aim to fix.
I’m glad the UK is taking electrification seriously, and is investing in domestic industry that will hopefully export reactors if it’s successful. Some folks might look at the estimated date of completion (2035) and get discouraged, but I wouldn’t. The best time to plant this tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
Remember iPhones would cost ~$billions each too if you only made 12 of them.
And then electricity producers would have a huge incentive to build generation in places where electricity is actually used. And NIMBYs would be told to fuck off, because letting someone build an energy source would make your electricity cheap.
Ukraine's success against Russia's Black Sea fleet proves this for surface vessels. Similarly, it is easy to imagine a swarm of small underwater drones detecting, tracking and trailing nuclear submarines.
The UK government's is more focussed on providing juicy contracts to large corporations than realistic preparations for the future.
Ignoring cost, I sometimes wonder why we cant build this in 1 - 2 year. And if the first one takes 5 years, why the second one isn't 5 times faster.
It frustrates me that nothing in UK is done with any urgency. And I bet that the Estimate date will be off as well.