That’s the problem from putting too much weight on your personal, anecdotal experience.
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Yeah, damn that personal experience. Things might have changed of late but in a state where the sun shines consistently, wind farms were the big investment. You might have more experience there than me, please do elucidate.
Fascinating.
I find the nuclear one interesting. I suppose it has the advantage of being able to produce large quantities in any weather?
Going on that table alone, and knowing the construction times for nuclear plants it really doesn’t look that clever an idea. I do wonder if that cost is coming down with newer plants being more efficient, and likely to have lower decommissioning costs?
That is literally the point. It’s not about the experience, it’s the data.
The data doesn’t lie. @Arminius showed you some. You refuse to take it into account.
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I didn’t refuse anything, Mrs will tell me that’s one of my weaknesses. Think I’m going to bed now, might have had a post work shandy or two…,
Nah, fuck that. 13 vs 11% in favour of solar (over wind) in a state which is bathed in sun all year long? Really? Well that’s the future right there. Let’s fit all the roofs in the UK with solar panels because that’s one hell of a virtue signal.
PV and wind are the cheapest form of power production now, but intermittency is a significant problem - hence the price for power going to zero on sunny afternoons in California. Nuclear isn’t intermittent at all, and in fact grid operations have to be able to take off nuclear power to ensure smooth and safe operations.
The history of nuclear power as an investment is not compelling. All too often, the power that was cheap when the plant cost was amortized over 30 years is disastrously expensive when that plant needs a 12-year refit that costs billions. In particular, it has been disastrous as a private investment, as private operators find they have a white elephant asset that is not economically competitive but cannot be shut down, the worst possible stranded cost. Hinkley Point is already uncompetitive before it is even finished, though I am sure its proponents are reasoning from conditions right now to explain the 30-year raison d’etre.
So far, I have seen no evidence of construction costs for nuclear going down, in fact the opposite. The history of the nuclear power industry is basically this:
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It’s very very simple. Dig a very big hole in a geographically stable area, build the plant, run it for 30 years then back fill with concrete. And repeat.
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Again your showing how very little you know. It is not that easy, believe me.
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Thanks.
I did wonder if the decommissioning would be getting cheaper as by law (in the UK at least) any new construction has to have the decommissioning phase in mind during the design. This is particularly acute in a nuclear plant. This was not considered in any fashion in the design and operation of the first generation plants.
Clearly not, as the complexity is obviously increasing.
Sorry mate. I have far more knowledge on this subject than you suspect. A LOT of concrete does wonders for absorbing radioactive emissions. If you know that already, cool.
Put Chernobly in a pit 5 times its size. Then fill that pit with concrete. Get my point? Yes groundwater and seismic shifts etc etc.
In state, the numbers are the ~15% to 7% I cited. Over half of the 11% you cite is imported, mostly on Paths 15 and 66 from Oregon and Washington, though some slo from further east along Path 46. By contrast, California imports less than 1/6th of the PV electricity - and in fact exports some from time to time. So in terms of what you see when you drive around the state, the 11% is irrelevant, most of that isn’t in California to begin with.
You would probably notice PV more if it was in the form of 80 meter towers as well, but one of the advantages PV has it that it can be deployed in much smaller increments. The really big PV farms are located far away from areas tourists ever really go, some of the less valuable land in the southern areas of the Central Valley, and the other side of the mountains in the desert toward Nevada and Arizona.
The important thing for the UK, though, is that you don’t have to pick just one.
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I’m sorry, you clearly dont. It is not as easy as saying that concrete is good at preventing emissions.
Look at it this way. The plant, while in operation, is very good at preventing emissions. You cant have nuclear emissions killing off all the workforce and creating 3 eyed fish etc. now can we? If that’s the case why do we decommission them at all? Why not just switch it off, leave it there and save millions?
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@Klopptimist why reduce the population?
To 1/2 consumption the most effective way is to reduce the number of rich people, e.g tax them. Otherwise you enter into deciding who should dissappear and the rich would certainly survive the cul and continue consuming.
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The problem isn’t the number of people.
It’s that our economies/measures of success are structurally dependent on growth/GDP. As Bobby Kennedy once said “It [GDP] measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile”
We have finite resources, and as long as we continue to drive for continuous growth we will consume more and more. The difficult decisions won’t be made as the economic arguments frequently outweigh the environment ones.
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We decommission them as they’re built on the shore for water reasons. Better to pipe in the water to a stable rock pit.
BTW, my uncle is a senior decommission engineer at a northern facility. Had very long conversations about this. Lots of concrete tends to sort it out.
Why reduce the population? Hell, let it run riot and infest the planet with nappies, burger cartons and starbucks cups. Fuck’s sake….
I give in.
There are reasons why we do this but I suspect you need to have another chat with your uncle on why nuclear sites are built where they are and at the level they are and then why we spend heaps of cash decommissioning them.
Sure concrete stops radiation but it isn’t the be all and end all. It’s far more complex than that. Your uncle should know that.
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Is this UK politics or climate change? Unreliable rumours maybe? 
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What’s better, build a reactor in its ultimate resting place (solid rock and concrete) or build it out in the open and then spend billions and decades meticulously taking it to pieces with remote drones in an extremely hazardous environment and then transporting it to a solid rock and concrete grave.
Believe me, I really do get this.