Comment on Sizewell C power station to be built as part of UK’s £14bn nuclear investment

abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Classic Britain Afaik it’s headed by EDF so my current supplier is bound to expand some profit margins

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• Womble@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If we’re not doing anything that the Tories mismanaged over the past 15 years the list of things to do is going to be very short.

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  • abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Sure, but the business case for a nuclear plant straight up doesnt stack up unless you’re weighing some parameter other than the best interests of the public. The facts on the costs and timelines are sitting right there.

    Build out renewables - you get faster power on the grid (a couple of years vs a couple of decades) AND the power is cheaper. LOTS cheaper.

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    • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Sorry no. France has proven the case for nuclear as a business many times over.

      And for all the benefits of renewable. It has one huge disadvantage. We cannot control availability. So either storage (takes more space then the UK has. Or harmful materials for battery’s. Or some form of power plant that can be turned on or of with demand.

      Nuclear is by far the cleanest that meets that goal. Until STEP is proven at large scale. (We are now building a full size fusion plant so post 2040 that looks likely).

      It really is the best option.

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    • Womble@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      There are grid connection delays of 8 to 10 years for lots of renewable energy projects, as the grid wasnt designed to have many small inputs, so its not like there arent issues there too, and thats before you start getting into reliability issues once the percentage of non-dispatachable energy gets higher.

      In general both need to be invested in heavily, and structural reforms done, if we have a chance of actually meeting climate goals. Thankfully that seems to be the plan.

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      • luisgutz@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Funny enough, the article mentions 54 billion of investment on the national grid is needed over the next 10 years, and hinkley point currently costs 31!

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    • Denjin@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      What happens when it’s not windy or sunny? Burning gas. Sure it’s expensive and will be late but nuclear is not in stead of more renewables, it’s in addition to. They also pledged to double the amount of offshore wind (which already makes up around 20% of UK energy) in the same announcement.

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• luisgutz@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Also consider how much renewables that investment could buy; its not just 31billon of today money that will start to see some benefit 20 years after it was started.

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• blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  What’s worse is they contract in a fixed price for the power generated which is way higher than renewables can generate it for. So we’re paying more for our electricity.

  I guess they do this due to the enormous amount of investment needed to build a nuclear power station, so need some way of guaranteeing returns on it?

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  • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    If funded by private investment. Yep.

    If funded as tax payer investment in important inferstructure. Nope

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  • abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Which is exactly why this is a bad choice

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