And yet Hinkley C was approved in 2010 and is still not finished, current cost is at 3 times the orginal budget and ETA is now 2030 from originally 2023 (and may slip further).
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.
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?
If funded by private investment. Yep.
If funded as tax payer investment in important inferstructure. Nope
Classic Britain
Afaik it’s headed by EDF so my current supplier is bound to expand some profit marginsAlso 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The important thing is, they’re using SMRs.
Megaprojects can go off the rails of time/budget because people try to make them special, bespoke, unique.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before!” When really, you want your project to be like lego: Lots of standard parts (or at least, mass-produced for your project) that connect together to make a larger whole.
SMRs mean more common parts, and more modular building. Build the first, build the second faster, learn from mistakes, etc.
