Hinkley Point C - Britain's Most Controversial Nuclear Project
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- Опубликовано: 14 сен 2023
- Hinkley Point C will be Britain's biggest nuclear power plant in it's history. What is the insane engineering behind Hinkley Point C, how will the nuclear energy power 6m homes and why is there so much controversy around the construction of this mega project?
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An insanely costly project! What do you think, is Hinkley Point worth it?
Not really. When they planned it, we didn't have LFP batteries for energy storage, so it seemed to make sense. It's not a modern reactor as in, it's not next generation, and the strike price thing is a real problem. Wind and solar are vastly cheaper and aside from batteries, there's plenty of other ways to store energy (none of which are as good as batteries but do exist).
Regarding European electricity prices, we have undersea cables so it's entirely possible EDF will sell energy back to the French market (and vice versa) and the strike price might affect that so yes, it could affect the EU market but I don't know either way. If you want to know you'd have to look into that.
The absolute worst bit is that the profits are going to China and France (EDF is state owned). We could at least have had a corrupt UK company build it.
Not worth is at all, dangerous, expensive (always massive cost over runs) and problems for generations to come. It's all about people getting back handers
@@jonevansauthor The strike price for the East Anglia (EA 1, all three phases) offshore wind farm is about £152 per megawatt-hour, about 50% more than the strike price of the Hinckley Point reactors. Supposedly new offshore wind farms will have lower strike prices thanks to experience from the EA build, more infrastructure etc. but the recent attempt by the Government to sell new offshore wind farm leases failed with zero takers. They may have to cut the price to zero or even subsidise bidders for a future round of lease sales.
@@robertsneddon731EA1 is ancient history. The strike price for EA 3 was GBP37.35/MWh. No doubt wind CFD prices will have to rise some to reflect turbine cost inflation, but they will be nowhere near the GBP92.5 to be paid for Hinkley C power.
@@gibbonsdp Hinckley C strike price is, IIRC, up to GBP106.50 per MWh. EA1 is delivering electricity at, again IIRC, GBP162.50 (I used to track Contract For Difference data a while back but my memory is not that reliable). The lowest CfD strike figures for offshore wind I've seen are extensions to existing fields, in the GBP80-90 range. The East Anglia 3 project is supposed to start operation in 2027 but I don't think any actual construction has been done for it yet so I'm not that hopeful it will actually happen on time or at all.
EA3 is supposed to be 1300MW dataplate which, given offshore wind's capacity of 35% would result in about 400MW of electricity generation over a year. The two Hinckley reactors with a typical uptime of 85% (pretty normal for modern PWR nuclear reactors) would generate about 2.7GW on average. Ignore the "enough electricity for X million homes" sales crap, it's a pointless figure that wind can never achieve in the real world.
I am proud to say I have been working on Hinkley Point C for the past 6 years. Great place to work.
Wishing You 6 more years, looks it will be 8.
Work faster😅
The UK giverment for the past 15 years has failed this country massively.
wah... wah.... thats you
The last 30 years
Ok nuclear submarine reactors are designed and built by Rolls Royce in Darby, and have nothing to do with Hinckley. Hinckley is not a one off. There is already one plant of this design in operation in China another is nearing completion in Finland. At £102 per MW, that is 10.2p per KW, current average domestic price is 37p per KW. That is Much cheaper than the current gas based price. A second site will be at Sizewell, which will have more government involvement
GBP102/MW is a wholesale not a retail price, and is three times the current price of wind projects. Gas is always costlier than baseload power like nuclear and coal which is why it's only used for generation at peak times.
OL-3 in Finland is finished and running
@@pxidr Yes, but it's been even more of a fiasco that Hinkley C - 19 years late and costing almost four times the original budget.
@@gibbonsdphow well does each form of energy convert to retail price?
The submarines would be for our navy, not the army.
That comment pretty much sums this video up.
@@Music5362 I dunno; I thought the _Hunger Games_ comparison 6:10 was pretty out there.
@@wwoods66yes, forgot about that bit.
In the last few years our bills have increased by 50-100%.
We've been blaming brexit, the plague and the spirited attempt at world war three, now I am wondering if they are just working us up to how bad this is going to be.
And EDF will use the money to keep the French prices reasonable. The benefits of nationalisation of energy for them
Get Solar on ya roof with battery storage so you can produce ya own Electric,fuck ya gas off also and get an air sourced heat pump,it will all pay for it self within 10 years,no brainer 👍🇬🇧
@@alancobbin would love to, unfortunately, I am not in a financial position to do so -_-
@@alancobbin It's a great idea if you're own a house and have a bit of cash but if you rent and/or live in a flat it isn't an option
Its not because of brexit or plage or a war , its coz of bafoons like Boris Johnsons , the ridiculous liz truss etc.
Only the rotten system will allow such people to become the PM.
When I see the comments, can see lot of information on strike off prices of Offshore wind vs Nuclear. Point we forget is service life of wind farm vs nuclear (20-25 vs 60) and Levelized cost of electricity. Just do a simple math on HPC and compare that with your current energy bill, so can understand how important HPC is for UK. Zero(Ultra low) emission energy+Energy security+Renaissance of civil nuclear in UK will be additional benefits.
forget wind farm is standing in 1 year.
Come on man. Tidal or wind isn't going to put a dent in your energy needs. You need this.
It can and often does. Yes, we need more plus extra storage capacity. We don't need this nuclear power station, and certainly not at this cost.
@@tamingthejungleanallotment5486and who exactly are you to make such an entitled statement?
@@mpokoraa Who I am doesn't matter. I am an inividual with an interest in our future. I'm not an expert, and don't claim to be. All I can really do is voice an opinion formed by the research I have done. It's an opinion I am entitled to.
The end goal is to produce all our energy requirements without the production of carbon. We do have options:
1. Continue as we are, but capture and carbon that is produced and either bury it, or repurpose it. This option sounds promising, but is currently not feasible due to the cost, complexity and energy requirements.
2. Build enough nuclear capacity to cover all our energy requirements. This would be extremely difficult, as governments of all flavours are reluctant to commit to programs that take decades to show any benefit. As the current program demonstrates, the funds to build it came from France and China, who could, if they chose to pull out leaving us with a half-finished (and useless) power station. When it it finished, there is no guarantee of the amount of power it will produce, but what is guaranteed is that we will be paying an extortionate rate for it. Additionally, although the risk of disaster is small, the costs of any clean-up as well as the future costs of decommissioning will be bore by the tax payer, not the companies taking the profits. It would seem that a better nuclear option would by the SMR's that companies like Rolls Royce are developing.
3. Increase our solar and wind capacity and energy storage. Believe it or not, this is actually the cheapest option. It has far less risk than nuclear, and gives us a level of energy independence this country hasn't had in decades. Lithium batteries are expensive, but we don't need to use them for this purpose. It doesn't need to be mobile, as the infrastructure is already in place. Simply replace the existing power stations with energy storage fed by renewable sources.
@@tamingthejungleanallotment5486Please let me know of any storage tech that can store the energy needed for say weeks? We often have almost no wind for over 2 weeks.
@@Music5362 , @tamingthejungleanallotment5486 is correct. Wind is a very large part of our generation stack and we have an optimistic 50GW of wind capacity planned for 2030. To put that in perspective, in winter times of peak supply we will only need max around 45GW.
We are a very windy county in the UK, but you are right that wind output is varied. We are in need of stable renewable generation to cut out reliance on gas and I do believe nuclear is the way forward. Unfortunately the way the UK manages infrastructure processes as a whole is very broken and it becomes painful to watch all these necessary projects go 3-4x over budget.
The other problem with wind is that it generates no grid inertia which is why we need storage capacity to balance the grid. Storage is not meant for powering the grid by itself when renewables are not available unless we are in desperate need of more generation, it is primarily meant for balancing.
I think it would've been a lot cheaper, if they first built a small 700 MW reactor, learnt from its mistakes, and then built lots of them at scale. Learning from the building of each previous reactor would've bought the subsequent cost of each future reactor down. India is doing this with their new indigenous, 700 MW reactor. It is building them in fleet mode.
This video has only one fact, and that is that Hinkley Point is in Somerset.
😁
The first point made in this video is incorrect. Hinkley Point C has not been " under construction since 2008". It has been under construction for 5 years. That's 2018.
It didn't take more than 30 seconds of video to have a lie about nuclear power....
Navies have submarines, not armies. You make cool videos, but I'd really like to proofread your scripts for you.
£41,000,000,000 to power 6,000,000 homes
North sea produces just under 1,000,000 barrels per day, Harbour energy and Enquest produces 250,000 barrels per day and have a combined market cap of under £2,500,000,000 so you can assume a total market cap of £10,000,000,000 for 1,000,000 barrels a day, you could double the price of the market caps to buy out all North sea producers for £20,000,000,000 and save £21,000,000,000
you are a finance genius.
except for the scientific fact that if we want a planet suitable for human life and the life that supports us, we must stop using fossil fuels except for rare use cases.
Once we achieve that, 5-8million lives will be saved each year (more than covid deaths).
It also would mean a shift in geo-politics as petro-states would no longer be dominant and governments in general will no longer be hostage to profiteering fossil fuel companies policy demands, such as subsidies, meaning more channelled into healthcare, social care, education etc
Nobody starting a debate with this guy
Wrong - Not been under construction since 2008. On 28 July 2016, the EDF board approved the project, and on 15 September 2016 the UK government approved the project.
Wrong - UK army doesn't have nuclear subs.
Wrong - The strike price was agreed at the start of the project. It goes up with inflation of course.
This is just an anti nuclear rant.
So the UK started building this in 2008, now 2024 and not still not online. In South Korea this would been built and up running within 4 years for a faction of the price. South Korea is full of nuclear power station and electricity costs are 1/10th of the cost of that in the UK. We keep begging the South Korean government and companies to come fix the UK failing nuclear power stations they keep saying no because they are not that stupid. Instead LG and Samsung are leaving the uk. Why do you think the uk again in November 2023 invite the South Korean president over. The UK is a global laughing stock and pathetic. You do not realize that the companies, civil servants and politicians are stealing everything in the UK and hiding it in the British tax havens, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands etc. my cousin is a civil engineer for Samsung has spent 4 years in Mongolia and just finished up a project in South Korea building a nuclear power station and was awarded with recognition award from the South Korean government. The UK cannot do anything right apart from scam people and act a money laundry centre of the world. Anyway the uk will be a nuclear wasteland in a few years just look at Sellafield about to collapse with thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste. Will cost hundreds of billions to fix, while the UK government still imports nuclear waste from around the world for processing.
Nice to see a video of this type on RUclips which is an honest assessment rather than government or corporate spin on what an amazing job they're doing. There were rumours EDF would pull out and also rumours we've had to kick the Chinese out because giving them huge economic or nuclear control on our shores was always a dumb idea. The fact that we, the British taxpayer, is underwriting every risk as well as the guaranteed strike price, well above market price, which itself is inflated due to wholesale market in the UK being based on the most expensive unit of electricity rather than the cheapest, is ridiculous.
What risk are there undertaking ? TIB is saying nonsense in this video. This type of contract does not minimize cost for sure, but it fore sure minimizes risks since private companies are bearing all the risk (in case of cost overrun, they will go bankrupt and the government will have spent comparatively nothing)
It is complete bullshit to say that EDF and cgn can change the strike price. The UK government doesn't want to give away money to a company like this... If the project cost exceeds the target selling price, it will just be cancelled.
No. This is everything but honest.
why dont we just buy it off edf etc. we need a government owned energy company anyway
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future" (2017).
Underrated channel, this was a great video!
It is what it is. If the UK was starting today, it would be better to buy 4x South Korean PWR .
Nuclear reactors are a great idea for windless nights. They have to be built no matter how much environmentalists kick and scream.
Communists not environmentalists. They contribute and fix nothing beside making life harder.
Jai Hind. We India had build our own commercial Fast Breeder reactor independently in Kalpakkam
Nuclear power is great but corruption and bureaucracy is a pain
Thatcher ruined the UK's nuclear industry with her ideologically driven 'privatization' policy.
Previous to this, the then CEGB had a well planned program to gradually go fully nuclear with PWRs, after the I'll fated excursion with domestic AGRs failed to work out. Size well B, which has been reliably supplying the UK with electricity for 25 years was the pathfinder project, and the only one to be built under CEGB plans. A nuclear program is only really feasible with a centralised, state owned electricity supply industry. Thatcher's I'll conceived privatisation scuppered this and the nuclear industry. The UK would likely be fully nuclear by now if not for Thatcher.
Dare I say the British public will be responsible for the cost of decommissioning in the future.
I'd like to thank everyone working so hard to ensure we reach the RCP 8.5 target.
Got to build it because it gives UK an independent supply of energy, and cuts CO2 emissions.
The U.S. president left that much in Atgahistan at least we have a power station
Who builds and runs it and where will the profit from energy go?
Full of mistakes, biased from the start. Film footage excellent - all taken from EDF's channel and not properly acknowledged.
If R Royce can produce small reactors for nuclear powered submarines,some of which have been operational for as long as 50yrs, I’m sure they could easily scale them up by say 4x or 5x and produce them on an assembly line basis at a fraction of this cost and a lot more flexible in their use across the UK. I fail to understand the lack of imagination by successive governments.
the reason why you fail to understand is probably because you don't know sh*t about nuclear technology to begin with. simple as that.
They are looking at RR small modular reactor. We'll have to see if anything comes of it, or anyone else's gets built.
environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2023/04/03/taking-the-rolls-royce-small-modular-reactor-smr-to-the-next-step/
@mpokoraa whoa there nice guy
@@mpokoraa No need to be so rude.
Good thing about governments is that they can introduce more competition or crazy laws to fk EDF in the future 😂
‘It can render the social fabric of the UK unrecognisable’. Little bit of hyperbole, perhaps?
These projects are never right for their time. They are built for 20 yrs in the future.
The irony is that the UK stands upon vast coal reserves - in the past 2k years we used only a small fraction of them. Proven reserves would fuel the UK for 300 years. The mines were closed with great haste and if anyone remembers it, the mines themselves were demolished rapidly - there was a reason for it. You see, several 'super pits' were literally a few metres away from tapping those vast coal reserves.
Coal can indeed be used cleanly. We do not need to burn it - we can distil it instead. That way we get all of the components of The Coal Tree out of the coal and the end product is pure carbon, a clean burning fuel. The rest of the fractions from the coal distillation include coal gas, medicines, plastics and even petrol and diesel can be made from coal.
The mines were closed for political reasons. It was purely a political move.
This nuclear power station shows the world exactly how good the British Government are - useless. They do not know how to run a country, know nothing about the pitfalls, do not care about the consequences of their actions. A big part of me wants the Government to suffer badly from this power station. I actually want it to fail.
Nuclear is not green, is not clean and will leave a massive legacy of waste management issues for thousands of years.
Thank you for this video.
No, the mines were closed for economic reasons. UK coal production peaked in WW1 and went into steep decline after WW2 with the availability of cheaper foreign coal and alternative energy sources. Nationalisation and miners strikes merely delayed the inevitable.
logic tells me that burning pure distilled carbon would eventually mix with oxygen and create CO2, which i believe is one part carbon and 2 parts oxygen. Once the carbon interacts with water or air, you'd have CO2
@@kimwarburton8490co2 is not our enemy . Don't Believe the propaganda
It is 👍
I'm sorry? Nuclear submarines for the UK army? It's the British Army and just as elsewhere they don't have submarines. You're thinking of The Royal Navy there.
The people of this island need to own this project. We need it’s electricity like yesterday. It is disgraceful that we have given any involvement to the Chinese. The way forward is SMRS built by Rolls Royce and British contractors. Our Government has failed us.
Which British contractors would they be, we have no nuclear expertise left in the UK which is why we have to farm everything out. Rolls Royce options are not scalable to the outputs that we need.
Cgn was kicked out. That is why it is not able to finish the project. If cgn was allowed to continue it would have been finished.
What exactly is the UK Army doing with nuclear powered submarines? If you can't get the basics right, why should we believe anything in this video?
Ce reportage ne décrit pas la réalité des prix d autant que le prix de l énergie fossile va immanquablement augmenter. Un projet nucléaire coute cher surtout en raison des mesures de sécurité. En France grâce au nucléaire nous sommes beaucoup moins sensibles aux variations du prix de l énergie et nous avons les prix d énergie les moins chers d Europe.
So happy that I looking to leave the UK. The UK is so F..ked
OK spend the money on the part time solar and unreliable wind atomic works allday even in the dark windless days,
IMPORTANT TO SAY IT IS 41 BILLION AND COUNTING. ITS A SHAME ON BRITAIN! IT SHOULD HAVE SCRAPPED THE PROJECT LONG AGO.
oh cool, another sea level nuclear plant, brilliant - so just so we are clear, standing in a circle, France is reaching around to Chiner, Chiner is reaching around England, and to complete the ring, England is reaching around to France - sounds great, what could go wrong ?
But not for those that can afford to generate their own power using solar or anything else. It will be mostly the poorer people that will be paying much more of their income on energy.
I think for most people this will be a very costly mistake. If we have to use nuclear I think SMR's would be better.
Oh and nice video by the way.
The problem is the contracting. The result would be quit different if proper controls and incentives for on time and cost containment were negotiated.
Who in their right mind would agree to this mess? Either stupid and/or corrupt politicians, and we have plenty of both.
It centres around brown envelopes, friends with contracting companies (look into the railway contracting companies).
Need a government with the balls to seize it and nationalise it.
we need to get solar on every roof, and just have a massive battery system in each county
Grapheme is only 30 years away
Batteries have serious issues that need resolving
Nuclear fission = bad
Nuclear fusion = great on paper.
Hydrogen won't make money
Solar is still in infancy - batteries required *see problem one*
The cheaper the energy price the less investors are interested.
This is old and expensive technology.
France's own nuclear fleet is getting long in the tooth. Their reactors are designed to last forty years.
We should become world leaders in a much better technology - the two chamber molten salt reactor.
Its advantages over the horrible, expensive, old pressurised water (heath robinson) reactors are legion.
Economic warfare.
This narrator has not got a cue.
Explain.
@@jackking5567 the narrator doesn't even know the difference between a MW (a rate of energy flow) and a MWh (a quantity of energy).
Hinkley Point C looked horribly expensive when the UK government signed up for it, but may look good value when it starts generating. And a similar plant at Sizewell has since been ordered, suggesting the government are satisfied that Hinkley C is worthwhile.
Can he borrow someone else's?
The problem started with the last Labour government, The Energy Authority reported extra delivery of power would required by 2030 due to green policy expiring power stations and older end-of-life nuclear sites. PM Blair refused t sign off a new power station build leaving it to the incoming tory government. Due to the time constraints to build and test a new nuclear station PM Cameron was forced to accept a bad deal by EDF (very public at the time). This coupled with a Chinese reactor that the French versions have never managed to get to designed outputs. Basically the UK from the 2030's will have the most expensive electricity in the world, meaning no company's will want to move their product facilities to the UK further weakening the UK GDP and reducing public services, ultimately turning the UK into a third world country in western Europe.
I would not call EPR experimental. There are three in operation. And even at the new price, they will produce relatively cheap and low emission power and you will be glad you have them since they will ensure at least some energy independence.
Wtf
🫣
so controversial, they are building another one XD
The real question is, can it microwave my pizza and boil water for my tea?
I'm sure it could boil your pizza in a fraction of a second.
So much poorly informed conjecture here
Explain.
Personally they should never sold them in first place should stay in Uk ownership…..but hey ho.
I have no issue with nuclear, but this project dose not offer value for money, we should have not thrown our own nuclear industry under the bus in the late 70’s and secondly we should be building CANDU much more elegant and safer in my eyes.
im the first can i get pin? pleaseeeeeeee📍
📌 ---> U got my PIN 💁♂enjoy
@@masti437 lol
One of the most biased and baseless videos ive seen. Very poor delivery lacking any realistic and important economic context
I'm pro nuclear power plants Egypt should move forward in this sector we build 4 plants 4800MW end 2031 We should build another 8 9600MW we had alot of desert and sea coast not used we need electric to exporting or industry fuck climate change
Its a good a idea to build a lot. The first nuclear reactor is always very expensive, but the 2nd, 3rd...10th are generally much cheaper.
well if you have desert ,why not go for solar energy
@@openmind2161 Solar is great, but you need match the variation in the amount of solar with some sort of energy storage. That normally means pumped hydro, though obviously that's difficult in a desert due to water scarcity.
Batteries are very expensive if you want more than a few hours of energy storage (at least with current technology), and long distance transmission cable can help balance the grid but require a country to have great geopolitical relations with a nearby country with lots of dispatchable power on the grid.
So solar is great, but not that simple.
The europe call edf a scam? Please link about this outrageous claim instead of spreading misinformed rumors.
this channel has a huge bias
Nuclear reactors are overrated. They're way too expensive, complicated, and hard to keep running. Just build wind and solar already.
We don't have enough sunshine 🌞 wind is growing, but its not nearly as effective or reliable since wind peaks at certain times of the day. It's tough
Right where this cash cow is located, has some of the highest tides in the world. One tidal power plant right there could power THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. Just saying……
If you look at the history of nuclear reactors, the first is always extremely expensive, sometimes the second, but the third, forth... tenth are pretty cheap. Once you have the experience of building a design their quite cost effective. Also their useful for providing base-load power alongside variable renewables (its not wind/solar vs wind, a diversified green grid is with a combination of all 3 is always more stable).
@@davidwebb4904 We need both. We need a lot more electricity to electrify home heating (we need to phase out gas/oil burning), run electric cars/more trains, and electrify heavy industry like steel/cement/fertiliser making.
If only it was so easy, you need a baseline of electricity, whenever that is Nuclear, Gas or Coal out of which Nuclear has the potential to be the cleanest. While Nuclear energy does pose challenges there are alternatives to these massive projects so I wouldn't call nuclear energy overrated. I can name a few arguments, such as nuclear waste being recyclable, smaller modular reactors being a thing nowadays and the cherry on top with e.g. Thorium reactors producing nuclear waste having a much, much shorter half life.
Research the topic a bit more and you'll see why neither solar, wind nor nuclear energy would be a solution on their own, a combination of the set is required with the exception of hydro or thermal power but there are only a few places on earth where this is viable.
*NEWS: "Hinkley Point C inflated cost rises to £43 billion"* (2024-01-25)
Read: current-news hinkley-point-c-inflated-cost-rises-to-43-billion/