The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
Ian Geary said:
Today's ruling will have implications on UK energy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwwzmn12g9o
Basically it says the council must consider at the planning stage the impact of the energy subsequently being used, and not just the energy used in it's construction.
I wonder if this is specific to the environment: what if I want to open a cake shop - do planners have to consider the "downstream" effect of my hugely unhealthy cakes on the NHS?
I guess it's a forgone conclusion that the environmental impact assessment including the downstream emissions won't pass, as the climate campaigner talks about this as a victory, whereas the ruling says Surrey needs to revisit the decision.
Also note: the developer plans to scale back production under the limit where an eia is needed. However that can't work everywhere (ie the oil fields in the north sea)
I guess we can just buy the oil in from overseas, so this decision on its own won't change the emission of carbon in any meaningful way.
Considering the environmental and social impacts of a development is nothing new.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwwzmn12g9o
Basically it says the council must consider at the planning stage the impact of the energy subsequently being used, and not just the energy used in it's construction.
I wonder if this is specific to the environment: what if I want to open a cake shop - do planners have to consider the "downstream" effect of my hugely unhealthy cakes on the NHS?
I guess it's a forgone conclusion that the environmental impact assessment including the downstream emissions won't pass, as the climate campaigner talks about this as a victory, whereas the ruling says Surrey needs to revisit the decision.
Also note: the developer plans to scale back production under the limit where an eia is needed. However that can't work everywhere (ie the oil fields in the north sea)
I guess we can just buy the oil in from overseas, so this decision on its own won't change the emission of carbon in any meaningful way.
Increased transport, emissions, litter etc etc Are these sort of energy extraction decisions not called in by central government in England? I think in Wales it would be a Senedd judgement.
Evanivitch said:
Considering the environmental and social impacts of a development is nothing new.
Increased transport, emissions, litter etc etc Are these sort of energy extraction decisions not called in by central government in England? I think in Wales it would be a Senedd judgement.
The courts ruling, by a margin of 3 to 2, is that fossil fuel projects must consider the carbon produced as a result of the downstream activities - ie what happens to the oil once it is out the ground. This is new, as before the consideration was only for construction and operation of the site, not what happened to a product once it had been sold. Increased transport, emissions, litter etc etc Are these sort of energy extraction decisions not called in by central government in England? I think in Wales it would be a Senedd judgement.
Condi said:
The courts ruling, by a margin of 3 to 2, is that fossil fuel projects must consider the carbon produced as a result of the downstream activities - ie what happens to the oil once it is out the ground. This is new, as before the consideration was only for construction and operation of the site, not what happened to a product once it had been sold.
I read it. Again, little different to litter being considered as part of a fast food restaurant. Or increased traffic caused by new homes being built.
Evanivitch said:
I read it. Again, little different to litter being considered as part of a fast food restaurant. Or increased traffic caused by new homes being built.
Well, sort of, although litter mitigation is simply a case of putting 2 bins in the car part. Millions of tonnes of CO2 is somewhat harder to contain. Surely the point is that regardless of where oil/gas is sourced the emissions when it is burnt by the end user are the same? So from the CO2 reduction point of view what matters is the CO2 produced getting it out the ground and transported to the UK.
So if a new field in the UK has a lower CO2 cost of production that is all that matters (ignoring the economic benefits of local production V imports).
Thre big gains are by reducing consumption not worrying about where it comes from.
So if a new field in the UK has a lower CO2 cost of production that is all that matters (ignoring the economic benefits of local production V imports).
Thre big gains are by reducing consumption not worrying about where it comes from.
Condi said:
Evanivitch said:
I read it. Again, little different to litter being considered as part of a fast food restaurant. Or increased traffic caused by new homes being built.
Well, sort of, although litter mitigation is simply a case of putting 2 bins in the car part. Millions of tonnes of CO2 is somewhat harder to contain. Condi said:
TGCOTF-dewey said:
You're cherry picking your data there a bit though. The plant you reference is a two loop pwr which would be unlikely to pass NRC approval today. Look at the slightly later PWRs (e.g. SNUPPS... Some of those are nearly 10 years from breaking ground to OTG.
Yes, I'm not really sure what relevance a plant which was started nearly 60 years ago is to any discussion about today's nuclear industry. Only 10 years before that operators at Windscale were using scaffolding pipes to knock burning fuel rods out of a reactor while someone else poked their head pretty much through the chimney to check how things were going. The nuclear industry bears little resemblance to 60 years ago. Adjusted for inflation the whole plant was <$1bn in 2023 terms. By comparison the latest nuclear reactor to be finished in Europe took 18 years to build and cost about €11bn, nearly 4 times the original budget. To see the difference you only have to look at what spec HPC is being built to and compare that with what went into SZB. HPC is a totally different level of engineering, cost, safety, etc.
Sizewell B was every bit as costly as an EPR once you adjust for output, £9-10 billion in todays money if you inflate the costs with wages which is probably the most accurate way to do it. The only significant difference from a safety perspective between HPC and SZB is the degree to which the EPR is protected against aircraft impact and core melt otherwise both plants systems are diverse and redundant to about the same degree. Similar to HPC vs SZC CEGB estimated that the next double unit would be ~30% cheaper mostly because SZB had a load a UK specific design content that wouldn't need to be designed twice.
My other example was Japan's most recently completed ABWR plants which are modern plants built to modern standards in under 4 years. They did plenty of novel at the time modularisation but even then barely scraped the surface of what is possible.
The Westinghouse 2 loop plants are still in service and with the exception of some civil structures which can't be retrofitted they have been upgraded to modern standards, some will be in-service for at least 80 years. If you believe the hype the modern passive safety systems should be cheaper and have a smaller footprint than the ones used on these older plants. Certainly "modern" nuclear control and information will be cheaper and smaller than the stuff originally installed in the 70's. Virtually everything else is basically the same as on an upgraded older plant.
Most of the issues with the EPR come down to the fact that it was designed for about £2.50 which both curtailed all opportunities for elegant design and also meant that the design and construction processes overlapped result in delays and re-work for both. What is interesting is that in France they will be building the EPR2 for all subsequent plants. See this image from the consultation:
Notable things; they have got rid of the aircraft shield around containment and heavily rationalized the aircraft protection in the rest of the plant. We've always known that a concrete containment dome will stop an aircraft which is why we haven't shut all the old plants down following 2001. When they designed the EPR for £2.50 it was much cheaper for the design team to claim dome 1 stops the aircraft and dome 2 contains steam leaks. Proving that one dome could do both equally well costs time and money so they didn’t do this.
I’d estimate that the cost of demonstrating said dome could do both jobs in the design stage will probably cost £10-20 million that second dome has probably added about £5 billion to the collective cost of the EPR plants plus its direct involvement in the delays at Flamenville.
If all players wanted it we could make plants as fast and as cheaply as we did in the 70’s. Plenty of other industries manage to make equipment to ever higher safety standards and still deliver these components at prices lower adjusted for inflation than they did in the 70’s, aviation being a good example. Quality processes and similar vastly decrease in cost with scale and automation.
How does the court expect the applicant to consider the environmental impact of the product of an oil well when oil is the feedstock for many different industries? Who's to say it'll be burned in any way at all? It might be lubrication, or chemicals used in production of myriad things. It's illogical.
motco said:
How does the court expect the applicant to consider the environmental impact of the product of an oil well when oil is the feedstock for many different industries? Who's to say it'll be burned in any way at all? It might be lubrication, or chemicals used in production of myriad things. It's illogical.
It's not like this has been studied for 30+ years and standard models apply...motco said:
How does the court expect the applicant to consider the environmental impact of the product of an oil well when oil is the feedstock for many different industries? Who's to say it'll be burned in any way at all? It might be lubrication, or chemicals used in production of myriad things. It's illogical.
It seems to open a veritable pandora's box; why not argue in court that most oil producers have such s
tty environmental and worker protection law that buying oil & gas from them is illegal and only domestic production is allowed?motco said:
How does the court expect the applicant to consider the environmental impact of the product of an oil well when oil is the feedstock for many different industries? Who's to say it'll be burned in any way at all? It might be lubrication, or chemicals used in production of myriad things. It's illogical.
Because its all a political agendaEvanivitch said:
Jinx said:
Evanivitch said:
Essarell said:
When they ignore important data points like volcanic activity and cloud cover then the inferred assumptions will be useless
Given all of them show runaway warming without constantly tweaked parameters or cutting the model run short i tend to agree with you. For those that say that isn't correct show me one initiated at the earths conception out to 100 years from now or even 1850 to the year 2200 with no in run adjustments.https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/spains...
A few weeks old, but this does make me wonder: I'd always assumed that if we, say, solved the silver bullet of fusion that we'd finally have the "too cheap to meter" Jetsons future. But would capital costs make even that a financial impossibility without a state-level investment/subsidy plan?
Spain's solar industry is apparently running into the same (albeit shorter) problem that hampers nuclear or any big capital project- making it pay quickly enough for the capital costs and interest not to wipe you out.
Could they, hypothetically start aluminium smelting, or some other energy intensive businesses as a hedge against low prices and higher interest rates? Well, against energy prices at least.
It reads as a bad news article, but at the same time they're producing more energy than they can sell which sounds like a success as a national strategy even if a poor annual business plan.
A few weeks old, but this does make me wonder: I'd always assumed that if we, say, solved the silver bullet of fusion that we'd finally have the "too cheap to meter" Jetsons future. But would capital costs make even that a financial impossibility without a state-level investment/subsidy plan?
Spain's solar industry is apparently running into the same (albeit shorter) problem that hampers nuclear or any big capital project- making it pay quickly enough for the capital costs and interest not to wipe you out.
Could they, hypothetically start aluminium smelting, or some other energy intensive businesses as a hedge against low prices and higher interest rates? Well, against energy prices at least.
It reads as a bad news article, but at the same time they're producing more energy than they can sell which sounds like a success as a national strategy even if a poor annual business plan.
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