If either one of the two alternative government parties of the UK get in they will scrap all. Reform UK sets out plans to tax renewable energy, conservatives are all for the oil.
2030 is four years away & the next election is in 2029. The Labour party is unlikely to get in again, and if they do it'll be a miracle. Far-Right or Fascist Right.
Reform UK won't get enough seats to sit in parliament this election but if in the future, it's a dystopian vision I don't want to think about. Trump-XL, tax the EU, climate change doesn't exist, kick out asylum seekers, higher taxation to further screw Scotland and Wales. Heavily back pocketed by the US oil and tobacco industry, Nigel is foul MAGA of the UK.
Conservatives, sponsored by oil and pharmaceutical. Exxon, Esso, BP et cetera. They got their wish with Brexit, they made a bucket load of cash from that and they're the ones who scrapped the renewable industry in the first place. One of their aims is to scrap the NHS and make it privatised.
Wrong, unless you can prove otherwise. EVs cost a little more emissions to build but are widely regarded as breaking even with a gas car in 1-2years after production. And even shorter as grids decarbonize.
Such a tired point. It’s not the 1970s anymore, and the west can build any large projects cheap. Go look at the projected costs for France’s new fleet, and that’s before the inevitable cost overruns
"EDF estimates EPR2 programme cost at EUR72.8 billion"
France's EDF has said its preliminary cost estimate for the project to build six EPR2 reactors at Penly, Gravelines and Bugey totals EUR72.8 billion (USD85.3 billion).
Each reactor outputs 1650 megawatts of electricity running at full power. Assuming they run at 92% capacity factor, that's $9.38 per real annualized watt.
Great. So 538TWh per year is 61 GW so roughly 61 GW * $9.38 = $576 billion staggered over the 80 year life of nuclear plants is $7.2 billion per year of capital expenditure.
For comparison, wind is about $5/W. Assuming a 35% capacity factor and a 30 year expected lifetime for the latest turbines that comes to $10.0 billion per year of capital expenditure with no storage or fossil backup systems or extra capacity given weather variability.
PV solar is between $.97 and $1.16 per watt, so that's going to be the front line. With storage you can get from $1.60 to $2. This is already the bulk of the power generation in Europe and is only going to increase. The idea that you're going to run nuclear plants at 95% capacity factor economically is also very suspect in a continent saturated with cheap PV solar.
US NREL Puts it at $2/W with no storage and ~20% capacity factor. Lifetime of latest panels is unknown but optimistically is 25 years. Assuming perfect and free storage that comes to $24.4 billion per year of capital expenditure for a country the size of France to be 100% solar. So no, it would not be more economical to use solar over nuclear. Wind would be better but when you add the full system costs of storage and backup intermittent heavy systems are vastly more expensive and emit more carbon than nuclear ones.
https://discussion.fool.com/t/levelized-full-system-costs-of...
Intermittents are only gaining market share because their unreliable and intermittent power which is less valuable is being purchased by governments at prices that far exceed what it is worth. In other words, massive hidden subsidies. Without those, there would be next to no intermittents on the grid anywhere.
> But they have limited flexibility: you can't turn it on and off easily and there's limited power modulation you can do. That's why France keeps its gas output relatively constant in winter and do the modulation with nuclear despite its marginal cost being lower than gas on paper.
Gas peaker plants are extremely flexible and fast to turn on and off. That's the style that will fill the gap until batteries (or whatever else) takes over the last ~10%.
Sure, I’m just pointing out that 24% share of power being nuke by 2060 is never going to happen now. Renewables got too cheap, and it’s not “on target”
If I have zero wives yesterday and one today, by next week I will need a new house for all my new wives.
Like I said in the original post:
>Even the people who understand the scale don't understand the purpose.
>The Chinese grid isn't renewable or non-renewable. It's built to keep the lights on for anything short of a thousand year catastrophe.
Only capitalists are so penny wise and pound foolish to bet their civilization on the lowest bidder while hoping the inevitable doesn't happen in the next quarter.
I agree with you, china is building risk mitigation in a way that no one else is, and it will serve them well. However, in this thread I’m solely replying to your comment on the “24% nuke by 2060” plan. That particular plan is not going to happen any more, nuclear is not competitive enough, even for china.
I disagree. They’re not going to go the battery energy storage route, instead they will just fill in intermittent gaps in renewable electricity production with nuclear as they ramp down coal.
But where is the evidence to back up this 4D chess move? They have been failing to meet their nuclear roll out plans year after year? Why would they magically hit a ridiculously high goal of 24% by 2060?
4D chess? This is not some memery. They’re essentially building out aiming for a 100% redundant capacity. Renewables and coal are much faster to build, nuclear takes longer (7 years for standardized ones, 10 for newer kinds).
And thank god they have this incentive alignment! Chinas greentech buildout and export is the only thing with a chance of getting us out of this climate mess. Imagine how fucked we’d be if they had their own oil.
>And thank god they have this incentive alignment! Chinas greentech buildout and export is the only thing with a chance of getting us out of this climate mess. Imagine how fucked we’d be if they had their own oil.
IIRC that list of companies that polluted the most on the planet, 1 and 2 were Chinese state owned entities. China Coal and China Petroleum from memory.
sure. But today china is the #1 producer of solar panels (80% of global production capacity), #1 producer of wind turbines (40%), #1 producer of batteries (~80%), #1 producer of EVs (75%).
Noone has done more for global clean energy, and its not even close. Sure they polluted a lot up until now, but honesty who cares about the past, times change fast.
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