Thursday 20 July 2017

We [the UK] are going back to the Top Table as far as Nuclear is concerned !

Now this is how to deliver a presentation - without hesitation, repetition or deviation - plus a little bit of irony and humour - and with hardly a glance at any notes. 

Professor Paul Howarth, Chief Executive of the National Nuclear Laboratory [NNL] implying deals on the future of nuclear have already been done in the Corridors of Power.

It's [at least] 75 GW of Nuclear, and more probably 
100 GW, by 2080, to have any chance of meeting 
our mandatory carbon targets.


"…the Government is now looking at what industry is it going to rely on in terms of manufacturing.
Nuclear represents that nice, warm comfort-blanket that the Government is going to need in a Post–Brexit world, of a long-term, sustainable, engineering, science and technology-based industry sector..." 

And that’s written into our industry strategy now !

Thursday 8 June 2017

930,277 Lancastrians reject 299 sq km of Offshore Wind in Favour of a Single Sellafield Reactor.

A Sellafield based Nuclear Reactor 
can generate all of the electricity [domestic; commercial; industrial] used by a population of 942,424 people for 60 years.  That's more than what is required for the Cities of Lancaster, Preston and Liverpool.
Population Supplied: 930,277
--------------------//--------------------
6 Offshore Wind Farms
Off the North West Coast of England are : 
West of Duddon Sands; Walney; Robin Rigg; Ormonde; Barrow; Burbo Bank.          
4C Offshore

A total of 363 x 3.47 MW [average] turbines occupy 188 sq km, have an Installed Capacity of 1,260 MW, have an Average Lifespan of 22.5 years and cost £3,655 million 
[£2.9 million/MW Installed]

'Homes powered annually': 762,507.
BEIS figure: 3,994 kWh/home per year.
So - Electricity generated per hour: 347,654,447 W
 @594 W/person
Population Supplied: 585,277
--------------------//--------------------
To supply 930,277 would:
Require 577 x 3.47 MW Turbines
Occupy an Area of 299 sq km
--------------------//--------------------
Have an Installed Capacity of 2,002 MW
Cost £5,806 million
--------------------//--------------------
To supply for 60 years, all of this Offshore Wind Farm Capacity has to be built a 2nd Time and then Generate for 2/3 of the life of the 3rd Build - That's a factor of X2.66' !
That would cost: £15,487 million.
[The output from 1,539 x 3.47 MW turbines]
--------------------//--------------------
The most expensive form of Pressurised Water Reactor, the the 3,200 MW EPR at Hinkley Point, has a capital cost of £18 Billion + a 'delayed' cost of £7.2 billion for decommissioning and waste handling and storage. That works out at £7,875 million/MW.
--------------------//--------------------
At the same rate in £/MW for capital cost, decommissioning, waste handling and storage, a 620 MW SMR would cost:                    £4,883 million.

Offshore Wind Turbines cost 3.17X more than SMRs !
-----------------------------//-----------------------------

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Sellafield 24/7 Electricity to supply 930,277 Lancastrians and Save 94,153,882 tonne of CO2 Emissions.

In 2016, 338.6 TWh of electricity were generated in the UK

In 2016, the population of the UK was 65,111,143

That means every hour of every day, every man, woman and child in the UK 'used' 594 Watts - that includes the electricity used domestically and by industry, commerce, schools, hospitals - and everything that, 
for each and everyone of us, provides our 
wonderful way of life.
------------------//-----------------
On a site the size of a large supermarket, the GE-Hitachi PRISM Reactor has an installed capacity of 622 MW. It will operate at 90% capacity factor for 60 years

Every hour it will generate 559,800,000 Watts of 24/7, low-carbon electricity.

So it is capable of supplying: 
942,424 people, every year for 60 years !


100 miles of National Grid, serving:
City of Lancaster: Population 138,375
Preston Built Up Area: Population 313,322
City of Liverpool: Population 478,580
Grand Total: 930,277
List of Towns and Cities in Lancashire by Population

With coal disappearing from the electricity generating scene, a conservative estimation of emissions saved would be to consider displacing gas-fired generation:
"...electricity supplied by gas (320 tonnes of carbon dioxide per GWh)..."
P. 15 - Electricity Generation. CO2 Emissions by Fuel Type

--------------------//--------------------
From a tiny supermarket-sized site, this single PRISM installation will generate 4,904 GWh of 24/7 electricity and save 1,569,231 t CO2 emissions, every year for 60 years.
--------------------//--------------------

THAT'S SAVING EMISSIONS OF 94,153,882 t CO2



Sunday 26 February 2017

Wind and Solar Power Drain the Lifeblood Out Of The Economy !

Hot off the press:     All in the one Government document - both employment data and TWh generated in 2016, for Solar, Wind and Nuclear Power:



From the enlarged view it's possible measure the bar-lengths and accurately estimate the TWh generated for Nuclear - Solar - Wind, using the 1000 TWh line as a datum. TWh generated for the whole of 2016 taken to be the estimate for 'Sept 2016 YTD' x 4/3. 



"...Energy is the lifeblood of the economy.  
The primary 
objective of the 
energy sector 
is to supply 
cost-effective 
energy to the 
broader economy, 
allowing it to 
grow and increase the standard of living of its citizens. 

Artificially pumping up employment in the energy sector per se - and thereby driving down productivity, 
while driving up costs to the broader economy - is counterproductive to overall net job creation and economic growth. It is a sign of increased efficiency if more energy can be produced and delivered with fewer workers, because this expands the overall output potential of the economy..."

Nuclear Power - 1 Job = 100% UEL (a)
Wind Power ----- 1 Job = 27% UEL
Solar Power ----- 1 Job = 1.25% UEL
Note (a): 'Use of Economic Lifeblood'


Tuesday 7 February 2017

Secrets Revealed About The UK's Biggest Onshore Wind Farm - Criminal Levels Of Environmental Impact!

The topography of the area is of a relatively flat plateau with occasional hills rising above the flatter plateau landmass, all of which is overlain with deep peat, in some places reaching down past 8 meters. 

On top of this is found a mixture of plants that are specialised in living in the low nutrient peat environment and which give the area its distinctive appearance.

One further factor had to come into play for the peat to form of course - a high rainfall (oceanic) climate. This coupled with the underlying geology of Whitelee meant that blanket bog formed over the scarred hills.


No-one knows exactly when blanket bogs began to form but its accepted that it was somewhere between 6000 and 9000 years ago.

Whitelee Landscape


Utopia - Dystopia ???
Commenting on the official opening of Whitelee Wind Farm, Friends of the Earth's Executive Director Andy Atkins said it was "...an exciting step towards a greener future..."
---------------------------//---------------------------

3,200 MW Hinkley Point C [HPC] will operate at 90% capacity factor [cf]. 539 MW Whitelee has a cf of 27%. It needs 20 wind farms the size of Whitelee to generate the same amount of intermittent electricity in a year, as the 24/7 electricity delivered by HPC.

"...With the current windfarm covering 78 km²..."

20 x 78 km² = 1,560 km²


  • A windfarm constructed sympathetically on peat can produce a positive CO2 return within 3 years of operation. If however the windfarm is poorly built, the CO2 payback can take 30 years - longer than the lifespan of the windfarm
  • About 70% of the roads at Whitelee are built using floating road construction methods because of the deep and sometimes fluid peat
  • 900 hectares of non-native conifer plantation was removed as part of the development of Phase-1 of the windfarm - around 2.25 million trees
  • Deepest peat encountered was 7m. Average peat depth was 3.3m
  • Approximately 850,000m3 of peat excavated and spread
At 7:29, a walk through Whitelee Windfarm and a description of peat removal.
--------------------//--------------------
"...No-one knows exactly when blanket bogs began to form but its accepted that it was somewhere between A6000 and 9000 years ago..."

6,000 to 9,000 years of carbon storage - then it's all released in an instant. And for what? To cut an *unknowable* amount of greenhouse gas emissions 

*unknowable* - The calculation can only be modelled because of the impossibility of measuring the amount of methane released during construction, forest removal and peat bog excavation !
--------------------//--------------------
And that's not the end of the story. Whitelee's lifespan is stated as 20 years, but it will probably produce for 25 years, which is the norm [claimed by wind power bodies]. So the 20 wind farms would have to be built a 2nd and be 10 years into the 3rd build to deliver for 60 years. That's a factor of X2.4

That's 2.4 x 20 x 539 MW = 25,872 MW of installed capacity.
--------------------//--------------------
At £600 million for 539 MW:
25,872 MW Costs £28,800 million !!!!!!!