Does Nuclear electric offer a solution?

[Nick Grant]

OK I want to keep this factual and numeric. No speculation about future decomissioning costs.

As many of us suspected, Blair seems to be going for Nuclear and has the backing of the Sun (!) so my questions are:

1. Will this help solve climate chaos?

2. Can it meet the predicted energy gap?

3. What is the cost per kw.h over lifetime compared with other low carbon options.

4. Do we give up bothering about designing low energy buildings and just whack in electric heating and aircon?

Hard numbers only, post any rants or opinions in the rants or philosophy boards and vote on the poll at:

https://aecb.net/smf/index.php?topic=209.0

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Projected energy mix based on DTI current, forecast are:

2004 % , 2020 %

Coal  33, 15
Gas 49, 59
Oil 1, 1
Nuclear 19, 7
Renewable (other) 4.5, 15
Imports 2.5, 3

Essentially the low carbon nuclear is swapped for low carbon renewables (no net gain) and the real CO2 savings comes from the dash for gas at the expense of coal.

Centre for Future Studies indicates suggest over 75% of UK energy will be imported by 2020 but I suspect this includes electricity and transport fuel but never-the-less shows that the decision to go UK based nuclear is not as crucial to the overall carbon mix as it first seems. It seems more important when you just focus on electricity.

[David Olivier]

A quick calc. based on reasonable assumptions (I sent an earlier e-mail to some AECB members before posting this) suggests that this much-trumpeted “solution to climate change” will in fact produce 3% of the UK's delivered energy in the period 2025-2028.

This assumes the government's favoured nuclear program. It seems to involve about 10 reactors, presumably the same size as Sizewell B. The cost, based on figures from Sizewell B, would be roughly £40 billion at today's prices.

So, after huge expense, trouble & effort, endless planning enquiries, arguments over subsidies by the taxpayer, safety & waste disposal, nuclear produces 3% of the UK's delivered energy in about 2028!

The Chief Scientist's recent emphasis on nuclear seems to be seriously OTT and ignores the physical and economic realities that:

1. An affordable nuclear program (it still needs subsidies from the taxpayer) does little to solve the climate change problem
2. A much more ambitious nuclear program – in theory, big enough to solve the problem – would be unaffordably expensive.

[Andy Mitchell]

Interesting but very dense article by George Monbiot today in the Guardian, see http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/11/29/how-much-energy-do-we-have-/#more-962

[David Olivier]

I e-mailed him after he spoke on TV yesterday to point out that the evidence on takeup of energy efficiency is more favourable than he assumed. For instance, California's per capita elec. consumption in 2005 is similar to what it was in 1975. This meant taking energy efficiency pretty seriously (not paying lip service to it, as happens in the UK). It changes one's conclusions compared to his report.

D.

[Nick Grant]

An excellent paper by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has been circulating among the ctty.

Pdf available for download at:

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid171.php#e05-08

24 solid A4 pages but well worth the effort.

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