Nuclear power is too expensive, and it’s also entirely unnecessary. There has been an energy breakthrough called enhanced geothermal. It uses horizontal fracking techniques to drill geothermal wells that can be used to create steam power, almost anywhere on the planet. This is not the same as traditional geothermal, which relies on pre-existing geological formations. Enhanced geothermal can replace nuclear, and even wind and solar over time. It produces clean energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no intermittency issues, and also no need for extra battery storage systems. Look up the experimental research currently underway at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Forge project in Milford, Utah, and also take a look at Fervo Energy’s enhanced geothermal prototype, also based in Utah. The future is geothermal!
the problem is those desperate fucks for money that promote only wind and solar, if wind and solar is pushed then nuclear needs to be side lined; you cant have a 400 turbines wind power plant if people accept nuclear
Yeah as someone who work and construction site i can imagine this most complex engineering project all engineers in different field will come an work to together For Example apartment with 35 floor it takes 2-3 year to finished (depends on deadline or budget from owner )
@@bpn6c1probably because if they communicated true costs upfront, it could jeopardise projects being given the green light. Once you’ve started and beyond a certain point, there’s almost no going back despite the overrun.
Sizewell B was built in 7 years and on budget, by a state-owned corporation which was then dismantled. Hinkley Point C is what happens when you hand over control of infrastructure projects to private companies, and foreign ones at that. HS2, Wembley Stadium are other examples. We somehow manage to build things for 5 or 10x the cost of other countries, because we let ourselves get fleeced for ideological reasons.
At least HPC is not going to cost us a penny more as EDF are building it on a cost-energy basis. In other words, we're not paying for them to build the plant, we're paying for the energy it produces, and the rate has already been agreed. EDF actually said recently they suspect the project will end up losing them money.
Sizewell B was a single reactor who's construction started in the 1980's before nimbys and social media had all the power. Sizewell C is two reactors each with 40% more output than Sizewell B and after 20+ years a who new workforce with no real world experience of actually building a nuclear powerstation. 5 reactors started construction in the 1980's in the UK and Sizewell B was the last so it had an experienced workforce. It took 19 years for Heysham A-1 and A-2 compared to just over 8 years for Heysham B-1 and B-2 because the workforce gained experience.
wasn't the french who built it? I remember they wanted to do everything when they never did before (before it was all subcontracted but decided to do all themselves for more money)
@@dardoukLYSthe french are part of it, in part due to safety reasons being harsh to get to, mostly because that was basically the first nuclear power plant in like 30 ish years and even the very much nuclear heavy french lost the knowhow to build em. Theres also the issue of the french nuclear company being bought and then dissolved which messed things up harder
@@pirateonthetrack1049 that’s because in the UK the way we price electricity is a law which puts the price as the most expensive way to generate electricity which is natural gas, that’s why it cause 2-3x more to boil a electric kettle here vs the us
You talked towards this right at the start, but a big problem is that when the UK turned its back on nuclear, it lost its skillset and industry to build and support it. Now they have to find all that skill set from private foreign business. The UK could have been global leaders in nuclear power station development and building.
The UK turned it's back on a awful lot of skills and industry due to the way it tends to vote. I hope the 80's voters are still proud to own a house that they can no longer afford to heat.
It also a problme with nuclear, you only 10 reactors, they last for 70 years, with all the will in the world, you are probably going to lose skills between period where the new reactors are operating and when the new reactors to replace them have to be built.
The UK has reached the point of bureaucratic sclerosis and organizational entropy, where its inefficient, ineffective, disorderly, and everything it touches goes bad. Like many western countries.
The greatest success in modern times is how private corporations have made people blame govts for all their wrongdoings. This isn't an example of bureaucratic govt processes. These projects are neo-liberal ideology sucking taxpayer money to fund their private profits.
@@DavidKnowles0 EDF has designed EPR2 to be much more efficient during construction with the lessons learned from the overengineering of EPR so hopefully next reactors are built on time.
I recall my cousin in London adding a small addition to his home. When he explained the bureaucracy involved I thought he was taking a piss. A tiny roundabout remodeling near his home cost over half a million pounds, the majority of the cost was studies, licensing etc. so.. a nuclear power plant, wow!
You're wrong, it's "taking THE piss". There are no recognised alternatives, certainly not variants which use the indefinite article. Suck it up.@carbidegrd1
I did one of my MEng projects on Hinckley Point C back in 2013. The problem is that everything EDF are saying now (about managing environmental impacts, about waste disposal, about having solved the mistakes and problems in the project plan and the unrealistic budget estimates, etc) are exactly the same things they were saying back then about their previous EPR power plants and how this meant that Hinckley Point would be constructed on time and within budget. 12 years later and they are still facing the exact same issues.
I’m doing an MEng and had a module where we got a bus tour around Hinkley Point C. It was a spectacle! Absolutely monolithic, I felt actually some pride. It also gives loads of Apprenticeships which is an untold benefit to the nearby communities.
So the excuse for twice the extra cost are birds, fish, water, air, etc? Isn't that what they were supposed to take into account when they gave the initial cost? It looks like someone from EDF went for their toilet break, took a tissue with them, accidentally found a pen in their pocket and did a few drawings, pulled a few figures out of thin air, came out of the cubicle, washed their hands and finally presented that as the blueprint of the project! And the out-of-their-depth British politicians just signed the project (since it's not their daddy's money).
They cant, if HR2 is to provide a lesson. Sure you can lay out a plan for where the train is supposed to go and give an estimate on that... what you cant predict is how many villagers decide they absolutely dont want to hear to see it and force their local councils to do something about it... which will then have to be done, for some reason.
you seem to forgot two point : (1) a mondial pandemy, (2) the difficulty to recreat a complet chain of subcontractor in a country already concerned by decline in its active population
The key fact was omitted from this video, Hinkley Point C has a guaranteed contracted sale price of £92.50/ MWh a price which rises with inflation every year v Wind which is less than £40/MWh with costs falling all the time. So it will make it the most expensive electricity in the UK.
@@maxb8360 Nuclear plants go offline for 2 months for routine maintenance and refueling, this happens every 18 months. With wind turbine maintenance you don't have to switch them all off at the same time!
1 of the big problem of Hinkley is that the UK wanted the private sector to finance that site, therefore instead of having the financing costing 2% of interest, the private sector wanted a return of a lot more, maybe even 10%. Nuclear power stations should ONLY be financed by the government.
The British state is obsessed with offloading everything onto the private sector, even if the public sector could achieve the same results at a lower cost. Schools, hospitals, roads, railways, energy, even defence has the private sector leading the way. Thatcherism is alive and well no matter who is in power despite it being a discredited ideology.
I hated when members of the last government would laud the "Singapore model" of building infrastructure. They'd say it's a great example of how the government and business can work together, while completely failing to understand that in the Singapore model the government "owns" the infrastructure (ports, rail, hospitals, power stations) and the private sector uses it to facilitate their business (airlines, shipping, trains, etc)
I’ve worked there recently, it’s rather a chaotic enterprise. With thousands of workers bused in from the surroundings areas who primarily live in temporary accommodation. In the end I left because I was constantly hanging around with nothing productive to do each day!
not at all @@EtherialofNowherethat was a very cheap Soviet plant with human error to blame removing control rods that should NEVER of been removed trigging melt down
@@edwilko8819 I mean, more on the technical side, when something is being built for so long by different contractors and crew, there will certainly be differences in quality and maybe even oversights. I do not dispute the safety standards of the design itself, it seems great.
If a project is bid on by a firm at a price they know they cannot fulfil they should be sanctioned, its happening loads because firms know the govt will bail them out when it goes over budget
Yes... but, when the government keeps making changes the company can't be held responsible for that, the COVID mess didn't help either (send the bill to China for that one).
But in practise no construction company in the world is gonna take that risk. This market is way too volatile to be able to accurately predict what is going to happening in the coming 10 to 20 years.
Issue is also that if the gov goes for firms with more realistic budgeted proposals people get upset at them for supposedly wasting taxpayer money. It really is a lose lose situation.
You can't sanction the company without bankrupting it and when that happens, you can't even finish the project. They have them by the balls. That's why you don't hire private companies for stuff like that.
A couple of things regarding this project. First, the EPR, a French-German design (EDF, Framatom (ex Areva), Siemens), was a brand new design when the project started in France, the UK, Finland, and China. Like any new infrastructure model, delays and additional expenses are expected. Now, what makes Hinkley Point so expensive is the financial model. Most of the cost is to pay interests and not to actually pay construction materials and workers. Should most of the cost of building these two reactors have been shouldered by the UK state, the final bill would be far less than what is now. That said, the EPR is a terrible design. The main issue is the redundancy of safety measures to satisfy to both safety regulations in France and Germany, which were at the time of designing, different. The EPR is then extremely complex and difficult to build. Furthermore, additional safety measures were added after Fukushima, further complexifying and delaying the projects, and consequently increase the money due in interests. I am French and pro-nuclear but the EPR is a complete lunacy, and the way the UK government decided to finance their two models is a complete scam to rip off the British tax payers and enrich their backers. Nothing new under the sun I am afraid.
The UK really dropped the ball with its energy production, these projects should have been started a decade ago or earlier. I'm sick of our electricity prices being double most other places, we need more of this and yesterday.
@@888twebb I mistyped, I meant just "a decade earlier." There are also plenty of other energy production initiatives started recently that should have been done years ago to avoid the mess we're in now.
The challenges facing Hinkley Point C stem from the complex evolution of its European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) design. Developed through Franco-German collaboration in the 1990s, the EPR incorporated features like maintenance during operation - a German requirement that significantly increased complexity and cost. Following Germany's nuclear phase-out decision, they never built EPRs themselves, yet their design influence remained. Post-Chernobyl, the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) mandated a double-wall containment structure for enhanced safety, adding another layer of cost and engineering complexity. When EDF brought the design to Britain, the UK's Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process required roughly 7,000 modifications to meet British regulations. These changes demanded 35% more steel and 25% more concrete than the original design, driving up material costs substantially. The financial impact of these engineering complexities extends beyond direct construction costs. With project loans accumulating compound interest, delays multiply the financial burden. A £20 billion loan at 5% interest grows to £32 billion after 10 years if unpaid, making schedule overruns particularly costly. Each year without power generation adds another year of compounding interest, creating mounting pressure on the project's economics.
True, the AP1000 may have been a better choice. Though it seems a lot of the expense of the reactor is *where* it's built, the two EPR's built in China have seen much shorter delays than in Europe. Even with the AP1000, the two built in the US were so overbudget and delayed they bankrupted Westinghouse.
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@@Croz89 Even the Chinese units were delayed by 5 years. The issue really is with the core design of the reactor. It was why the French are not building another EPR and instead future reactors will be based on the EPR2. EPR2 has a single containment building with a liner, while EPR has double-layer containment EPR2 removed the fourth emergency/safety cooling system Core catcher design has been modified in EPR2 EPR2 requires 250 types of pipes vs 400 for EPR Number of valves reduced from 13,300 in EPR to 571 in EPR2 EPR2 uses 100 types of doors instead of 300 in EPR Electrical buildings can be completely prefabricated in EPR2 EPR2 does not allow access to reactor building for maintenance during operation
I remember, as a kid, one of my first few huge disappointment moments about state-of-the-art science was when I learnt that atomic reactors are actually just huge steam machines. I had really expected to be something happening at the level of atoms, once it is called nuclear. Whatever.. I am still waiting for the fusion heads to pop something in my lifetime :)
This overspend is not a fault of nuclear power but a problem of run away red tape in the UK. NOTHING gets built any more because of this. The lower Thames tunnel hasn't even been started but has cost over £800 million in planning alone. Norway built the World's longest undersea road tunnel for less than a quarter of that.
But every other Western country that's building nuclear power plants is having the same issue. It's inherently a very expensive way of generating electricity.
@drunkenhobo8020 Sadly the excessive red tape is spreading everywhere. Back in the 70s France built a load of nuclear powerstations due to the oil crisis. They did this at a fairly low cost over only 10 years. South Korea can build a Nuclear power station 10x cheaper than the UK. France still builds 50% cheaper than the UK. Hopefully RR SMRs will move the problem. Factory built mass produced. They are basically nuclear submarine reactors.
Ironically it’s EDF (The French State) that have been screwed over here with the rising costs. Whilst unit rates will still be expensive for British consumers once operational because electricity is in the UK, due to the previous government signing a cheap (at the time expensive) minimum unit price agreement with EDF it means EDF and not the British consumer or British government will be absorbing most of the additional costs. A deal that was awful at the beginning with many calling the unit price to high has not been our saving grace and it’s in actual fact too low. Obviously the French and EDF have kicked up a fuss but a contract is a contract. EDF obviously learnt their lesson because this isn’t the case for sizewell, additional costs will fall upon the consumer via their bills. Hopefully it’ll be built cheaper after this trial run. But previous governments should have done the same for nuclear powers stations as they do for our Submarines/Ships. They should have had a constant stream of projects on the go spanning multiple decades. By time you’re building the 6th plant, the first is on its way to being decommissioned.
@@waltermcphee3787 Solid Stable Energy allowing for high peak demand. Both Nuclear and Renewables need huge state subsidy to build. Look at the failed Danish Off Shore Wind Farm, the guaranteed price p/KW isn't high enough to make anyone bid for the contract. Nuclear is horrifically expensive when full life cycle is calculated, luckily the decommissioning and safe waste storage costs are deferred to the next generation 😢
@@Xiv2022 so what you are saying is nuclear energy is horrifically expensive and society has to foot the bill for decommissioning after 30 to 50 years of use. How is that competitive with the renewable alternatives. Batteries are a varied source of stableising the grid heat, Hydro, gravity.
@@waltermcphee3787 It is not. Renewables are indeed very cheap, but battery storage is very expensive. Hinkley C will generate 76.8 GWh per day. A third of that is 25.6 GWh. One of the cheapest battery storage options on the market is to build a storage facility made of Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (look them up). It is 1.39M$ for 3.916MWh. That puts the cost of storing a THIRD of what Hinkley C produces in a day at 9bn$. And we can't do cheaper stuff like pumped hydro on scale (you can only do it in some small parts of Wales and Scotland). If we use solar panels, let's say cheap polycrystalline from China, you're looking at about 9 cents per Watt in a sunny country like Spain at peak. For the UK, it would be about 400M$ for 3200GW, what Hinkley C produces, assuming all day is peak day. A day is on average 4 peak hours, so really you'd need 2.4bn$ worth of panels to generate 3200 GW. The inverters will nearly double the cost to around 4bn$. To put down that many panels, you'd need about 50km2. Assuming a price of around 10000£ per acre, the land cost would actually be negligible, on the order of 100M£. But getting past nimbys a 50km2 solar farm might be tricky. So all in all, you're looking at 13$bn for a solar+storage equivalent if you can only store a third of what's generated. If you wanna store half, then 17.5bn$. Storage dominates the cost. In practice, such a project would also have additional costs due to bureaucracy and because I didn't factor in the cost of actually building the transmission lines for such a big plant. And there would be cost overruns there as well. So overall, you're looking at somewhere above £20BN for a solar +storage equivalent that would occupy 50km2 (20 square miles). Granted, with a projected final cost of 40BN£ for Hinckley C, I guess renewables + storage work out cheaper. But Hinckley C is probably as expensive as a nuclear plant can get. The original budget was £18bn. And back then solar and storage cost more than now. Another thing to consider is that panels have about a 30-40 year life span, and their output decreases year after year. A nuclear plant can last 100 years with refurbishments. But, a nuclear plant does require significantly more maintenance (especially if refurbished) and it does require uranium to run. I am not sure how these factors change the profitability equation. I would conclude by saying that we face a climate crisis and any new source of CO2 energy is welcome. With cars and house heating becoming electric, the electricity usage will triple. To power the entire country on solar panels + storage for example (assuming such tripling), you'd need a solar farm bigger than Greater London (about 1.5 times). Now, if every rooftop in the country had solar panels (and the storage required) that would not be a problem. Wind turbines are probably even better and we could probably power the entire country if we surrounded this island with them (not sure about that; didn't run the numbers). But given the climate crisis, I would not scoff at any new CO2 free energy source, and nuclear is at the moment on par with renewables+storage cost wise. If storage drops in price a few fold, then we're talking.
Damn, I was wondering why they were so over budget and over time lol As a South African, I think it would be interesting if you made a video about Koeberg, our nuclear reactor (it is literally falling apart loooool)
Another classic example of British contract writing "If you go overbudget and overtime we just give you more money and more time, please complete it on time" until the government prosecutes the C-suite of these companies for fraud and breach of contract this will never be fixed, they will always lie and these projects will always be a disaster.
By the sound of it, our building regs caused a chunk of it - 35% more steel than France required?? Also, building materials have shot up in cost since 2020. I work domestic construction, the last few years have been ridiculous. There's also a complete lack of experience thanks to years of nuclear fearmongering that stagnated the industry, and all the oldboys retired before training a new batch, losing all that experience in the process. SO dumb...
@@spinaltap22 The regulation can be a problem but it is ancillary. If you setup the right incentive you will get the right outcome, clever people figure it out (clever people always figure it out just with the wrong incentives figuring it out is never delivering to get the most money).
@@spinaltap22how is there lack of experience if its build by the EDF? France should’ve more than enough knowledge about building this thing. And in the end they are paying for most of it, so they have incentives to build it fast.
Comparing to Vogtle should probably also mention that we are talking about a bit different things. HPC is 2xEPR, so about 3260MWe Vogtle's new build is 2xAP1000, so about 2234MWe Vogtle seems to have clocked in at about $36.8bn Just for a bit of fun 36.8 * ( 3260 / 2234) ~ 53.7. The video points out "more than 57bn dollars" for HPC.. so, about 3.3bn in difference is they were like for like, or roughly within 7% of each other... That is kinda less than what you'd expected currency fluctuations during the buildltime to differ, so I'd say "about the same".
@@AX2SEG Ehm, the energy output of those are at about 9GWth (2x4.5GWth) ("e" and "th" are "electrical" and "thermal"). But also, it is actually bargain basement prices. (tl;dr - nuclear is a long game, at a huge scale) For the electrical. Quick back-of-the-envelope ballparks the cost per kWh at about 6cent/kWh (at 57bn$ build cost, 60 year service, 92% cf, incl Fuel & OpEx & decom). (At 27bn$ it would have been 4.5cent/kWh). For comparasion: UK land-based wind is in the range of about 3-5cent/kWn and off-shore at about 5-9cent/kWh. The cost per Wh will also be lower over life-time if the unit can be life extended (common for PWRs and BWRs), life extension for PWRs tend to be at about half a billion (+-50%) per 20 years. Should probably be mentioned that nuclear includes grid services, and have a much lower need for storage and overbuild. For the thermal side, you could also use nuclear to supply district heating (fairly common in eastern europe) or industrial heat to use even more of the energy produced.
There's no overlysupervised what comes to nuclear projects. In Finland's EPR the mistakes were everywhere. Casting initial concrete slab under the power plant: partially botched, weldings: had to be redone multiple times, safety systems: dependencies between systems caused redesign, ... and the list goes on. There's not many standard parts in these so everything. One would think EDF learned something...
"oversupervision" is a consequence of the idiotic idea of pushing the perfectly uniform and inherently centralized product like electricity into mangled public-private partnerships that in case of power benefit neither from flexibility of private enterprise nor the top-down and non-income-driven approach of public sector.
For a further perspective... 45bn € equals 45.000 million €. A modern on shore wind turbine generates 1.4 MW/hour off power and costs about 0.85 million € (these are the latest numbers of December 2024) picture this, how many wind turbines you'd be able to errect and how much of equivalent power* they'd be generated and how much less they'd had on the environment (or mich less UK'd needed to built to generate the same power as the nuclear power plants and how much costs they'd safe!) *They'd could erected around 53.000 wind turbines which would generate an output of about 74.000 MW/hour. In average, a modern and huge nuclear power plant generates up to 1400 MW/hour.
Nuclear is expensive to build but cheap to operate. Over the entire course of their economic lifespan, the electricity will be competitive. Wind turbines are expensive to operate (maintain) and generate nothing when there's no wind.
No! Simply no! It's the most expensive kind of energy! And after its use, all the tax payers have to pay for the waste disposal and beg, that nothing is going to happen towards the disposal site for the next 100.000's of years. BTW I used wind turbines as an example for all renewable energy sector.
Fission Products (Nuclear waste) heavily lose their radioactivity. Yes they will take 1000 years to completely deteriorate but after 50 to 60 years the radiation from them will very less compared to when they formed during fission. Note: higher the half life of fission product, the lesser the radiation they will emit. Compared to wind energy 1. nuclear is very predictable i.e. how much output we will get which is very important to maintain the grid. 2. nuclear is much eco friendly i.e. when the plant decommissioned maximum of its materials can be used except the reactor but a large chunk of wind mills/ wind fans becomes complete waste as they made from plastic and other chemicals so they can be made very light and hence can not be recycled and it also take 1000 of years to complete degrade which causes pollution. 3. nuclear doesn't affect ecosystem as compared to wind mills which havocs the surrounding ecosystem because of noise pollution and sheer amount of land required to built or destroys sea ecosystem in which they are built. Hell in terms of recyclability, nuclear even beats solar energy.
If I'm not mistaken with the calculation, 1 billion per year is 114155$/hour. With a capacity of 3200 MW, this NPP will generate 3200000 kWh per hour, respectively. In total, capital costs will be 114155/3200000=0.035$/kWh. Wiki says that the average price of electricity in the UK is about 29 cents, that is, capital costs for construction will be only a few percent of the price of energy. Ok, maybe 10-20%.
Hinley Point C...to quote the Energy Analysts: "as far as we can see this makes Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world...on a leveraged basis we expect EDF to earn a Return on Equity (ROE) well in excess of 20% and possibly as high as 35%. Having considered the known terms of the deal, we are flabbergasted that the UK Government has committed future generations of consumers to the costs that will flow from this deal".
At what time was this analysis made? I work at EDF in France and what I have heard is generally that our expected ROE turned from good to abysmal with the overbudget and delays
The you'd think France wouldn't have cost overruns and delays, but then there's Flamanville... Just accept it, nuclear while good, are just too expensive to build, they always cost at least twice the original budget.
@@Simqer France had stopped building nuclear plants for decades and lost a lot of the know-how. Plus EPR was a new design. With EPR2 hopefully construction will be much more efficient in the future.
I drove by the site a while ago, it's fascinating seeing all of those cranes towering above the huge structures, big fan of industrial looking stuff like that
Well Slavery makes "tons of jobs" for black folks in "the surrounding areas" of the cotton-pickin' fields, but we decided more than 100 years ago , that it just wasn't worth it, the social and societal harm, for the jobs produced. For the price of this Nuclear power station, they could have gifted a free solar power setup fully installed to about a quarter of the UK's population. By the time the same French company builds the other plant on the East Coast, half of the UK's population could have been given a free solar system. Nuclear power is the most expensive electricity and Solar Energy one of the cheapest. Plus a well installed Solar system runs, almost maintenance and cost free, for more than 20 years. Nuclear costs to install and costs to maintain and costs to operate daily. And that's even if you leave the toxic radioactive waste for future generations to clean up. Doesn't anyone remember Chernobyl ? Remember Chernobyl was in perfect working condition when it blew up because of "operator error".
@@KiwiCatherineJemma lol solar panels are better than nuclear? Solar panels got like a 10 year lifespan, take up way more land than nuclear would for the same return and in the UK is a wet cloudly and dark climate - not exactly good environment for solar panels which is why nobody has installed them on houses. It just isnt cost efficient. Nuclear is 100% the way to go. Chernobyl safety measures were non-existent and thus irrelevant whne discussing nuclear power.
(In reference to floods) "Not that we get many of those here" They're building the thing in Somerset half that place used be underwater and ends up being for a month every year!
The first of the power plants of this type to start building was the Finnish one, the second the French one. The two which were the first to deliver power to the grid were the Chinese ones.
@@beeftec5862 EDF built the same EPR design in China for Taishan 1 & 2 at a cost of $7.5 billion, the project completed in 2019. Estimate cost of Hinkley C 1&2 is roughly $38 billion in 2015 prices, 2024 price with inflation is $56 billion. At 2015 prices, Hinkley C is going to cost 5 times as much as Taishan, China for the same EPR nuclear plant design. FIVE times, no wonder the UK is stagnating.
I work for a company that supply equipment that is used on Hinkley C. Money is of no objective. If the whole project is similar to our experience then i can say that taxpayers are not getting the best value.
For this one in particular taxpayers are getting the best value due to the original agreement. It’s all being funded by EDF and the French, including any additional costs. The next plant has a different contract with any cost overruns being added to consumers bills.
Thankfully it’s all funded from the private sector so they absorb the additional cost. But sadly,once it is supplying energy to the grid, it will cost the consumer a fortune for energy because of its funding by the private sector. All for the most profit to top that French National pension fund up. Selling off energy infrastructure is one of the worst decisions this country has ever made.
Everyone who can will have those in the UK eventually. With smart pricing most people will buy batteries when their lifespan makes it worthwhile. Charge up when it is cheap and discharge when it is expensive.
Calder Hall was renamed Winscale which was then renamed Selafield because of a series over very serious accidents. As for flooding Hinkley point will need significant flood protection over its lifetime
@@leemacdonald6533 we have the highest energy bills because of a thatcher policy which means that at any given moment the cost of electricity is that of the most expensive producer on the grid, meaning that cheaper renewable energy isn't able to be properly utilised. Wind and solar farms are raking in the money from it
@@bearwynnwe don't have the highest energy bills in the world though. Electricity is now down to the European average and gas prices in the UK are some of the lowest.
@@Redemption80 - but the poster was correct in that the wholsesale price of the highest generating source at any point in time determines the cost of energy, which today is natural gas based generation - typically from peaker plants. Plus beacuse the pricing framework is nationally applied, then everyone in the country pays that price even if their area didn't use natrual gas generation. This is why the renewable energy suppliers are pushing for change, along with energy NGOs and consumer groups. Seeking in the first instance for the pricing framework to be regionalised, meaning those areas with high renewables and seldom use natural gas generation bills will come significantly down compared to the other parts of the country with higher natural gas usage. This should draw a lens to the generation cost disparity so cause public demand for more changes to the pricing framework to reflect that lower cost renewable generation is now the majority generation source.
Has anybody done the maths how much taxpayer money over the past 20 years has been lost due to projects like HS2 and this power plant alone? It must be hundreds of billions at this point. How do we live in a society where none of the people spending OUR money are held responsible for wasting hundreds of billions of pounds?
Non because they choose for others to invest in it instead of themselfs and didn't give the okay much earlier because of politics. The interest on this is very high because of it. And that interest is causing more project costs. The electricity prices are fixed and below what the cost of electricity is today.
Yes, EPR are quite huge for electricity powering. Requiring a lot of time to build, but how long would it require to build equivalent power plant to produce the same with "clean energy" 3gw of stable output power requires time ... And for 80years, batteries, solar or wind would need far more time and cost. So in the end ? EPR win
Well, the Hornsea wind farm out generates Hinkley C, with just two of it's four phases completed even though started construction years after Hinkley C, already generates 3GW. The last two Hornsea phases, one started in 2023 and the last in 2025, are due to complete before Hinkley C will raise the windfarms output to three times that of Hinkley C - some 9GW (likely higher as the forther phases power keeps increasing for the same cost, as turbine outputs are increasing and prices dropping). All for a third of the cost and constructed in half the time frame of Hinkley C.
@@The4lexO - Nope, both solar and offshore wind need less time to construct, start operating almost immediately as they generate as construction is underway (typically starting operations within one year of construction), and are much, much cheaper.
@@edc1569 - wind is higher during winter, offshore wind is pretty much blowing year round, with rare dunkelflaute once every five years or so. However, the UK aims to diversify wind generation around the coast giving a larger catchment area than most lulls occur (supported by onshore wind, solar, hydro and geothermal soruces). With 50GW of offshore generation to be completed by 2030, coupled to 95GW of battery backup storage. The baseload capacity will be retained with gas resreved for emergency use. Whether nuclear is upscaled will depend on other factors including increasing number of interconnects - although here the UK intends to be a renwable generator European powerhouse due to it's location.
According to analysis of hundreds of major global projects, the average cost over-run for all nuclear plants is 238% of initial project budget (Flyvbjerg, Gardnersecond). Of all major projects, that analysis shows nuclear plants are second worst in terms of cost blowouts and delays, only behind the Olympics
Nice skipping over Brexit being directly cited as a hinderance to the project there... Also, how is the solution to avoiding sucking up loads of fish not to just filter them out? Is the setup really just gaping holes under the sea?
Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant: first concrete was poured at the first unit 2010. Unit 1 was connected to the electricity grid in 2015. July 2021 Construction officially started today of the ACP100 small modular reactor
Come on man, why you feel the need to bring up chinese nuclear development in the picture, we get it your nuclear development is on track or whatever but nobody ask you to compare.
The EPR design was based on a joint French-German design when Siemens merged its nuclear energy division with Areva - now Framatome. The idea was to create an ultra-safe reactor to keep the German market. It was not designed to be cheap. As this didn't work out, EDF and Framatome are working on the much simpler and cheaper EPR 2 design. That will make it less expensive. However, it is extremely unlikely, that nuclear power will become competitve again.
It's competitive because it provides a reliable base load. UK wind generated very little for two solid weeks in November with agile prices regularly hitting the 100p cap per kWh. There is no storage technology yet that can see us through on renewables alone. The most feasible low carbon picture is a mix of solar, wind, several storage technologies, nuclear and gas with carbon capture retro fitted.
I’m a lorry driver, not a nuclear engineer. However, if the working system it’s the same like on the roads network then it’s going to take at least 10 more years. Example. 1 lane closure on A414. Transit with lane closure ahead indicator, driver inside. After 500 yards big Class 2 with cones, driver inside. After another 500 yards another one, same with druver inside. After that a Transit tipper with a driver inside. The only one person that literally worked there was a poor lad collecting rubbish from the side of the road. So 4 engines running, 4 drivers swiping on their phones, only one person working. And i got hundreds of stories like this. I’m a night driver. No wonder why everything it’s 10x more expensive and takes 3 times longer.
@thehoundGOT You mean places that have been prone to flooding for thousands of years? I think they already know. Additionally, the power station isn't in Florida, Maldives or Bangladesh...
You should have mentionned that the result of the absurdly high construction price is a resulting electricity price that is several times higher than that of renewables. It will never be competitive.
As always this is due to ministerial complete and utter incompetence. How many of the cabinet have ever had a job? Yet they think they are qualified to manage major projects like this!!
Their job is to shovel as much public money into the pockets of their mates whilst avoiding any accountability. In this regard they are extremely competent.
@@raginganarchist nailed it... its funny how people think that these type of project disasters happen by mistake... This is all about private profits from public money
Basically yes, its the transfer of vast amounts of public money into companies that politicians subsequently become directors of, on fantastic wages/pensions, all bought with you and I's tax money...!!
Nuclear fuel is dirt cheat, and disposal is too. Far cheaper than building out unreliable renewable and needing to buy vast quantities of LNG + oil to stabilise the grid
We don't get many floods in the UK. In Somerset. Much of which is reclaimed land. Next to a massively tidal estuary. With climate change and sea-level rise. And storm surges. What could possibly go wrong?
Same thing happened with the fish in Southern California at San Onofre Nuclear Plant. Hot water discharged offshore killed the kelp forest and they settled massively and are responsible for building the largest artificial reef in the pacific as retribution.
‘There is no nuclear power plant in the world that is economically viable.’ -- said by Joe Kaeser in November 2024. He is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens Energy, an important supplier of power plant technologies.
Patrick, he would say that wouldn't he, after all Siemens have their money in the renewables sector. Cost and value are not the same Nuclear is very valuable, renewables are a waste of money. Also factor longevity, 50 to 60 years for a modern nuclear plant, with some wind farms closing after 15 years as being uneconomic (As output, hence earnings, deteriorate with time, cica 4.5% per annum for offshore wind)
Large cost increase has also been linked with increased interest from higher interest rates and the massive delays. Some estimates expect could be more than 60% of the total cost...
Yes Yers delightful delightful charmed I'm sure simply marvelous what goes on in these fine establishments don't you think ol chap. Care for a spot of golf?
Correction: The EPR in Olkiluoto was not built by EDF, but by AREVA (and mostly its german branch, AREVA gmbh, formerly Siemens Energy). Its actually a very important distinction to understand the difference in the way these projects were handled.
SMNR's (small modular nuclear reactors) are the real answer. They can be located close to the point of demand, require much less site building and can be up and running in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.
You must be living under a rock if u think this only happens in britian. this happens in every advanced economy with lots of regulation. One example is California’s High-Speed Rail was originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008 and suppose to complete by 2020, now its estimated to cost $128 billion and they haven't even completed 2 percent of the project yet.
Construction culture in the UK is ridiculous. We spend like 70% of the time on health and safety. Most of what management does is wander autistically enforcing silly rules that make no logical sense. Actually building the project doesn't seem to be a high priority at all. The Chinese could probably build 5 skyscrapers by the time we've finished 1
Battery storage isn’t going to make the grid stable for longer than a couple hours and is extremely expensive. I guess you would rather have coal plants suffocate us
It amazes me when they say that it’s over budget, everything we do in the uk ends up over budget, we seem to be absolutely incompetent at constructing something to budget with all the paperwork and regulations that we have compared to other countries. Recently they widened a road by one lane between two junctions and guess what it ended up over budget and took over a year extra to finish, all the plans to build power plants to help support this country seem to take so long and cost so much compared to other countries, why ?
I live just along the coast in Watchet. There are pretty much no homes available to rent and rents have gone through the roof which is a massive burden for local people and families on local wages. I expect the huge influx of workers for hinkley point are adding to this problem
The chinese, relative to their prevailing wages and costs, didn't do much better with their own nuclear projects. The EPR and America's WP1000 were supposed to make nuclear reactors easier to build, but on both counts they've proven to be anything but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Chinese are already involved in Hinkley C - the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) co-financed it with EDF, and have a high number of engineers (over 100) working on the site (using the experienced they gained from construction of their own EPR power station). The financing agreement indicates that the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and CGN will become joint shareholders in the plant once operating (holding about a 33% share in the plant).
I am sorry I love the technology and construction of nuclear but it isn't worth it with the price tag for construction and then managing the waste afterwards
£46 billion TO BUILD (not decomissioning possibly x2 as much) for 6 million homes, for 60 years at 10 units demand per day works out at 35p per unit. Holy God, that's expensive... and that's at cost. 🤔
One thing we locals are pissed about are the overhead power lines. They're gigantic and have ruined the landscape. The cost of burying them is such a small part of the overall budget it laughable.
This should be a case study on the dangers of planning bureaucracy. The planning office are completely incapable of seeing the forest for the trees on this one.
No one will care once it's completed, we desperately need to get this over the line. No one ever mentions the Elizabeth line and how much it costs now it's up and running
The problem with nuclear is that if you built thousands of these power plants across the globe to offset fossil fuels, the reserves of ore that we know of would run out in a couple of decades.
And our Opposition leader (In Australia) wants to go big on nuclear and says its going to be cheaper than renewables, I don't see solar panels, hydro or wind getting this much over budget.
Each EPR unit produces 1,650MW, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year regardless of the weather and will do so for a minimum of 60 years. Now do the sums on how much solar, wind and storage you need to build to cover for shortfalls in adequate weather to deliver the equivalent amount of electricity.
@@bradcavanagh3092 We don't need to do the sums because the CSIRO already did (twice) and said nuclear was completely unfeasible economically (both times).
@@bradcavanagh3092 Nuclear power plants do not actually operate at 100% 24/7.The French plants(and German before) regularly shut down on hot days as cooling water gets too hot.
3.2 gW can supply 700kg of plutonium every year for 60years. 40 tonnes of plutonium. 4,000 tonnes of uranium metal waste. Plutonium extremely small size makes it easy to handle and transport anywhere. 😮😮😮
France gets 70% of its power from nuclear energy and almost all of those plants were built before the 1980s. I am pretty sure a lot less carbon than oil, gas or coal.
@ mining that much fuel, not so sure also, how high are european cancer rates dur to off gassing and contamination? there are key holes down wind that have statistically significant increases in cancer, especially lymphoma
@@estimatingonediscoveringthree there is no 0 emission source of energy and one with very low carbon footprint are solar panels and wind turbines. They aren't as reliable as nuclear so they need to compensate among each other. Again, when you calculate how long a nuclear plant can last, it is obvious it will pay off. Keep in mind that all these delays and construction issues will be more under control when they start building other plants. Also, keep in mind that spent fuel could be reused
@ no emission source?! you have just proven you have no idea what your talking about. nuclear power generators are constantly off gassing radioactive gas. please stop commenting until you get educated about this industry
Try everything Brilliant has to offer for FREE for a full 30 days here 👉 brilliant.org/TheB1M/
@TheB1M Could you please do a video on Steel Bricks? It is a company from Scotland that is trying to speed up the construction of nuclear power plants
Nuclear electricity is 3-5x more expensive per kWh than any other electricity source.
Nuclear power is too expensive, and it’s also entirely unnecessary. There has been an energy breakthrough called enhanced geothermal. It uses horizontal fracking techniques to drill geothermal wells that can be used to create steam power, almost anywhere on the planet. This is not the same as traditional geothermal, which relies on pre-existing geological formations. Enhanced geothermal can replace nuclear, and even wind and solar over time. It produces clean energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no intermittency issues, and also no need for extra battery storage systems. Look up the experimental research currently underway at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Forge project in Milford, Utah, and also take a look at Fervo Energy’s enhanced geothermal prototype, also based in Utah. The future is geothermal!
the problem is those desperate fucks for money that promote only wind and solar, if wind and solar is pushed then nuclear needs to be side lined; you cant have a 400 turbines wind power plant if people accept nuclear
China just use 5B to made 1 Nuclear reactor
If its not a overbudget, half built nightmare, then its simply not a UK construction project.
They should have let the Chinese handle the whole thing. It would have finished years ago.
You dont hear about the successes - Crossrail and tideway come to mind
It’s a French construction project on British soil
@@barrymaguire7958 The British are so bad at construction they need the continent to do it for them...
😂😆
Should be enough power for 1 data centre when its finished
😂
Lmao
Billy the Chip's chip broke right now! 😂
and by then data centre are moving to colocation or the cloud
@@geoms6263 I don't think you know what any of those words mean.
Can you imagine... there are CAD files and spec sheets that detail every single nut, bolt, and screw in that thing. Mind-blowing.
Yeah as someone who work and construction site i can imagine this most complex engineering project all engineers in different field will come an work to together
For Example apartment with 35 floor it takes 2-3 year to finished (depends on deadline or budget from owner )
and they still can't get the price right, why?
@@bpn6c1 Because of it being so complex, it's what makes so hard to define the price of every single variable and any unpredictable.
People with the brilliant minds to lay everything out on blueprints, knowing it will all work, before ground is even broken
@@bpn6c1probably because if they communicated true costs upfront, it could jeopardise projects being given the green light. Once you’ve started and beyond a certain point, there’s almost no going back despite the overrun.
Sizewell B was built in 7 years and on budget, by a state-owned corporation which was then dismantled. Hinkley Point C is what happens when you hand over control of infrastructure projects to private companies, and foreign ones at that. HS2, Wembley Stadium are other examples. We somehow manage to build things for 5 or 10x the cost of other countries, because we let ourselves get fleeced for ideological reasons.
At least HPC is not going to cost us a penny more as EDF are building it on a cost-energy basis. In other words, we're not paying for them to build the plant, we're paying for the energy it produces, and the rate has already been agreed. EDF actually said recently they suspect the project will end up losing them money.
That's a goood shill pat pat pat don't read the next post down will you lol.
Not sure you can make these sweeping statements with just a couple of cherry picked examples
@AndyLowe-net Give us some cherry-picked examples of infrastructure projects that the UK has managed to deliver better than other countries.
Sizewell B was a single reactor who's construction started in the 1980's before nimbys and social media had all the power.
Sizewell C is two reactors each with 40% more output than Sizewell B and after 20+ years a who new workforce with no real world experience of actually building a nuclear powerstation.
5 reactors started construction in the 1980's in the UK and Sizewell B was the last so it had an experienced workforce.
It took 19 years for Heysham A-1 and A-2 compared to just over 8 years for Heysham B-1 and B-2 because the workforce gained experience.
One in Finland was recently commissioned - 14 years behind the original schedule.
For a total of 11 Billion Euros - 8b Billion over the Budget!!!
And hearing about the problems here nothing sounds new really. Perhaps the electricity production can start before 2050 here.
wasn't the french who built it? I remember they wanted to do everything when they never did before (before it was all subcontracted but decided to do all themselves for more money)
@dardoukLYS The French and Germans, if I understand correctly.
@@dardoukLYSthe french are part of it, in part due to safety reasons being harsh to get to, mostly because that was basically the first nuclear power plant in like 30 ish years and even the very much nuclear heavy french lost the knowhow to build em.
Theres also the issue of the french nuclear company being bought and then dissolved which messed things up harder
Nothing in this country goes to plan, on time or on budget
The price of electricity will go up even when this site come to market
Don't worry, EPRs are always over budget and late in other countries too.
@@SocialDownclimber This particular design has had huge problems - the one in Finland is another epic tale.
That's not always true, just nobody cares when something happens on-time and in-budget. It doesn't make the news, nobody talks about it.
@@pirateonthetrack1049 that’s because in the UK the way we price electricity is a law which puts the price as the most expensive way to generate electricity which is natural gas, that’s why it cause 2-3x more to boil a electric kettle here vs the us
You talked towards this right at the start, but a big problem is that when the UK turned its back on nuclear, it lost its skillset and industry to build and support it. Now they have to find all that skill set from private foreign business. The UK could have been global leaders in nuclear power station development and building.
Their first set of reactors was also extremely expensive to build and operate.
The UK turned it's back on a awful lot of skills and industry due to the way it tends to vote. I hope the 80's voters are still proud to own a house that they can no longer afford to heat.
We still can be with a bold enough govt. those rolls Royce mini reactors sound like a massive potential.
It also a problme with nuclear, you only 10 reactors, they last for 70 years, with all the will in the world, you are probably going to lose skills between period where the new reactors are operating and when the new reactors to replace them have to be built.
Shouldn’t have pulled the plug on the Chinese because America said so
The UK has reached the point of bureaucratic sclerosis and organizational entropy, where its inefficient, ineffective, disorderly, and everything it touches goes bad. Like many western countries.
Totally agree. Greetings from Belgium. The small country with the complex federal government.
Even China couldn't build this reactor design on time or on budget. It the system it the design they chosen.
100% this.
The greatest success in modern times is how private corporations have made people blame govts for all their wrongdoings. This isn't an example of bureaucratic govt processes. These projects are neo-liberal ideology sucking taxpayer money to fund their private profits.
@@DavidKnowles0 EDF has designed EPR2 to be much more efficient during construction with the lessons learned from the overengineering of EPR so hopefully next reactors are built on time.
I recall my cousin in London adding a small addition to his home. When he explained the bureaucracy involved I thought he was taking a piss. A tiny roundabout remodeling near his home cost over half a million pounds, the majority of the cost was studies, licensing etc. so.. a nuclear power plant, wow!
Accountants vs Engineers
To save you from potential future embarrassment with said cousin, it's 'taking THE(not a) piss'
@@haydon524 Actually it is "Are you pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining?" Any short form is acceptable like GFY for example.
You're wrong, it's "taking THE piss". There are no recognised alternatives, certainly not variants which use the indefinite article. Suck it up.@carbidegrd1
A double roundabout in a small town USA costs around $1.5 million 😂
It is called corruption and bureaucracy 😢
I used to work at EDF energy. Them delaying it is no surprise. It was absolute chaos around HPC.
I did one of my MEng projects on Hinckley Point C back in 2013. The problem is that everything EDF are saying now (about managing environmental impacts, about waste disposal, about having solved the mistakes and problems in the project plan and the unrealistic budget estimates, etc) are exactly the same things they were saying back then about their previous EPR power plants and how this meant that Hinckley Point would be constructed on time and within budget. 12 years later and they are still facing the exact same issues.
But they have finished the french and finnish ones. They can achieve this one
As the bee genes used to sing….its only words…
to be fair Flamanville was 12 years late, but HPC will be "only" 6 years late, so they're actually learning
I’m doing an MEng and had a module where we got a bus tour around Hinkley Point C. It was a spectacle! Absolutely monolithic, I felt actually some pride. It also gives loads of Apprenticeships which is an untold benefit to the nearby communities.
It's like the tail might in fact be the thing that is 'wagging the dog', so to speak! 😅
No other country has sold off its infrastructure & energy sectors like the UK, honestly shocking.
Ehh Australia is close behind. Short term government thinking!
Australia: "Hold my beer"
Ireland entered the chat.
Belgium sold half of its electricity production to the French to shmuck up a couple budgets :'(
Electric generators, shocking
Love it 😂
So the excuse for twice the extra cost are birds, fish, water, air, etc? Isn't that what they were supposed to take into account when they gave the initial cost?
It looks like someone from EDF went for their toilet break, took a tissue with them, accidentally found a pen in their pocket and did a few drawings, pulled a few figures out of thin air, came out of the cubicle, washed their hands and finally presented that as the blueprint of the project! And the out-of-their-depth British politicians just signed the project (since it's not their daddy's money).
The cost overruns according to the contract are taken on by EDF so I doubt they're very happy with the outcome.
Daddy's Money never goes bad. It's always there when you screwed up and need it in a pinch!!
Similar budget overruns and delays, about 13 years of them, also happened in the Finnish project as well.
They cant, if HR2 is to provide a lesson. Sure you can lay out a plan for where the train is supposed to go and give an estimate on that... what you cant predict is how many villagers decide they absolutely dont want to hear to see it and force their local councils to do something about it... which will then have to be done, for some reason.
you seem to forgot two point : (1) a mondial pandemy, (2) the difficulty to recreat a complet chain of subcontractor in a country already concerned by decline in its active population
The key fact was omitted from this video, Hinkley Point C has a guaranteed contracted sale price of £92.50/ MWh a price which rises with inflation every year v Wind which is less than £40/MWh with costs falling all the time. So it will make it the most expensive electricity in the UK.
It’s like privatisation doesn’t work
So what about when the wind stops blowing?
@@maxb8360 lmfao what?? 😂😂😂
@@0rrrev was replying to to OP.
@@maxb8360 Nuclear plants go offline for 2 months for routine maintenance and refueling, this happens every 18 months. With wind turbine maintenance you don't have to switch them all off at the same time!
1 of the big problem of Hinkley is that the UK wanted the private sector to finance that site, therefore instead of having the financing costing 2% of interest, the private sector wanted a return of a lot more, maybe even 10%. Nuclear power stations should ONLY be financed by the government.
The British state is obsessed with offloading everything onto the private sector, even if the public sector could achieve the same results at a lower cost. Schools, hospitals, roads, railways, energy, even defence has the private sector leading the way. Thatcherism is alive and well no matter who is in power despite it being a discredited ideology.
Also economies if scale: Don't build 2! Build 10+ or don't build at all, small volumes guarantee high costs.
I hated when members of the last government would laud the "Singapore model" of building infrastructure. They'd say it's a great example of how the government and business can work together, while completely failing to understand that in the Singapore model the government "owns" the infrastructure (ports, rail, hospitals, power stations) and the private sector uses it to facilitate their business (airlines, shipping, trains, etc)
Nuclear power stations shouldn't be financed at all.
@auffmWeg hahahahahahah
I’ve worked there recently, it’s rather a chaotic enterprise. With thousands of workers bused in from the surroundings areas who primarily live in temporary accommodation. In the end I left because I was constantly hanging around with nothing productive to do each day!
well thats not a good sign...
Easy money though, wasn't it?
We are looking at potential chernobyl 2.0 with this approach
not at all @@EtherialofNowherethat was a very cheap Soviet plant with human error to blame removing control rods that should NEVER of been removed trigging melt down
@@edwilko8819 I mean, more on the technical side, when something is being built for so long by different contractors and crew, there will certainly be differences in quality and maybe even oversights. I do not dispute the safety standards of the design itself, it seems great.
If a project is bid on by a firm at a price they know they cannot fulfil they should be sanctioned, its happening loads because firms know the govt will bail them out when it goes over budget
Yes... but, when the government keeps making changes the company can't be held responsible for that, the COVID mess didn't help either (send the bill to China for that one).
@@JeffDeWitt convid... fact
But in practise no construction company in the world is gonna take that risk. This market is way too volatile to be able to accurately predict what is going to happening in the coming 10 to 20 years.
Issue is also that if the gov goes for firms with more realistic budgeted proposals people get upset at them for supposedly wasting taxpayer money. It really is a lose lose situation.
You can't sanction the company without bankrupting it and when that happens, you can't even finish the project. They have them by the balls. That's why you don't hire private companies for stuff like that.
A couple of things regarding this project. First, the EPR, a French-German design (EDF, Framatom (ex Areva), Siemens), was a brand new design when the project started in France, the UK, Finland, and China. Like any new infrastructure model, delays and additional expenses are expected. Now, what makes Hinkley Point so expensive is the financial model. Most of the cost is to pay interests and not to actually pay construction materials and workers. Should most of the cost of building these two reactors have been shouldered by the UK state, the final bill would be far less than what is now. That said, the EPR is a terrible design. The main issue is the redundancy of safety measures to satisfy to both safety regulations in France and Germany, which were at the time of designing, different. The EPR is then extremely complex and difficult to build. Furthermore, additional safety measures were added after Fukushima, further complexifying and delaying the projects, and consequently increase the money due in interests. I am French and pro-nuclear but the EPR is a complete lunacy, and the way the UK government decided to finance their two models is a complete scam to rip off the British tax payers and enrich their backers. Nothing new under the sun I am afraid.
The UK really dropped the ball with its energy production, these projects should have been started a decade ago or earlier. I'm sick of our electricity prices being double most other places, we need more of this and yesterday.
You can thank Thatchers free market principles for that. Public services and essentials are in ruin
It’s 2025 and the video said contracts were signed in 2016 that’s pretty much a decade ago…
@@888twebb I mistyped, I meant just "a decade earlier." There are also plenty of other energy production initiatives started recently that should have been done years ago to avoid the mess we're in now.
So don't expect to Britain's new facility to be finished anytime soon. :D
Then how about you build some cheap power plants instead?
Didnt expect to see my old workplace in one of your videos! I was there from early ground breaking and worked on the tunnels, amazing project!
7000 changes due to regulations. Solicitors and consultants- money machine go BRRRRRRR.
The uk is a joke at this point. More money spent on propping up bull shit jobs than building it.
But think of how much gdp and jobs we can create by pushing paperwork instead of actually constructing the building 😝
Country built on bs jobs woops
Let’s blame universal credit recipients 😂
Now people can understand why China produce so many, so quickly. They don’t give a 💩 about environmentalists
7000 orders of change... Not regulation...
The challenges facing Hinkley Point C stem from the complex evolution of its European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) design. Developed through Franco-German collaboration in the 1990s, the EPR incorporated features like maintenance during operation - a German requirement that significantly increased complexity and cost. Following Germany's nuclear phase-out decision, they never built EPRs themselves, yet their design influence remained.
Post-Chernobyl, the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) mandated a double-wall containment structure for enhanced safety, adding another layer of cost and engineering complexity. When EDF brought the design to Britain, the UK's Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process required roughly 7,000 modifications to meet British regulations. These changes demanded 35% more steel and 25% more concrete than the original design, driving up material costs substantially.
The financial impact of these engineering complexities extends beyond direct construction costs. With project loans accumulating compound interest, delays multiply the financial burden. A £20 billion loan at 5% interest grows to £32 billion after 10 years if unpaid, making schedule overruns particularly costly. Each year without power generation adds another year of compounding interest, creating mounting pressure on the project's economics.
True, the AP1000 may have been a better choice. Though it seems a lot of the expense of the reactor is *where* it's built, the two EPR's built in China have seen much shorter delays than in Europe. Even with the AP1000, the two built in the US were so overbudget and delayed they bankrupted Westinghouse.
@@Croz89 Even the Chinese units were delayed by 5 years.
The issue really is with the core design of the reactor. It was why the French are not building another EPR and instead future reactors will be based on the EPR2.
EPR2 has a single containment building with a liner, while EPR has double-layer containment
EPR2 removed the fourth emergency/safety cooling system
Core catcher design has been modified in EPR2
EPR2 requires 250 types of pipes vs 400 for EPR
Number of valves reduced from 13,300 in EPR to 571 in EPR2
EPR2 uses 100 types of doors instead of 300 in EPR
Electrical buildings can be completely prefabricated in EPR2
EPR2 does not allow access to reactor building for maintenance during operation
Soo you basically can’t maintain ERP2? (Shutting down takes quite some time and is hella expensive afaik)
Also as I see it after 6:55 UK regulation is the main issue here…
One could imagine that maybe adapting the paper-written regulations would be a more prudent choice, but we can't expect that from bureaucrats.
I remember, as a kid, one of my first few huge disappointment moments about state-of-the-art science was when I learnt that atomic reactors are actually just huge steam machines. I had really expected to be something happening at the level of atoms, once it is called nuclear. Whatever.. I am still waiting for the fusion heads to pop something in my lifetime :)
Agreed. Really disappointing that they go to all this trouble to create and control a nuclear reaction - just to make steam . . .
yep, they're just big boilers
This overspend is not a fault of nuclear power but a problem of run away red tape in the UK. NOTHING gets built any more because of this. The lower Thames tunnel hasn't even been started but has cost over £800 million in planning alone. Norway built the World's longest undersea road tunnel for less than a quarter of that.
But every other Western country that's building nuclear power plants is having the same issue. It's inherently a very expensive way of generating electricity.
@drunkenhobo8020
Sadly the excessive red tape is spreading everywhere. Back in the 70s France built a load of nuclear powerstations due to the oil crisis. They did this at a fairly low cost over only 10 years. South Korea can build a Nuclear power station 10x cheaper than the UK. France still builds 50% cheaper than the UK. Hopefully RR SMRs will move the problem. Factory built mass produced. They are basically nuclear submarine reactors.
Red tape=CORRUPTION.
Ironically it’s EDF (The French State) that have been screwed over here with the rising costs.
Whilst unit rates will still be expensive for British consumers once operational because electricity is in the UK, due to the previous government signing a cheap (at the time expensive) minimum unit price agreement with EDF it means EDF and not the British consumer or British government will be absorbing most of the additional costs.
A deal that was awful at the beginning with many calling the unit price to high has not been our saving grace and it’s in actual fact too low. Obviously the French and EDF have kicked up a fuss but a contract is a contract.
EDF obviously learnt their lesson because this isn’t the case for sizewell, additional costs will fall upon the consumer via their bills. Hopefully it’ll be built cheaper after this trial run.
But previous governments should have done the same for nuclear powers stations as they do for our Submarines/Ships.
They should have had a constant stream of projects on the go spanning multiple decades. By time you’re building the 6th plant, the first is on its way to being decommissioned.
Yep. They're very keen to get Sizewell C approved so they can cancel them getting screwed over by screwing us over there.
But do we need nuclear when renewables with battery storage is so much cheaper.
@@waltermcphee3787 Solid Stable Energy allowing for high peak demand. Both Nuclear and Renewables need huge state subsidy to build.
Look at the failed Danish Off Shore Wind Farm, the guaranteed price p/KW isn't high enough to make anyone bid for the contract.
Nuclear is horrifically expensive when full life cycle is calculated, luckily the decommissioning and safe waste storage costs are deferred to the next generation 😢
@@Xiv2022 so what you are saying is nuclear energy is horrifically expensive and society has to foot the bill for decommissioning after 30 to 50 years of use. How is that competitive with the renewable alternatives. Batteries are a varied source of stableising the grid heat, Hydro, gravity.
@@waltermcphee3787 It is not. Renewables are indeed very cheap, but battery storage is very expensive. Hinkley C will generate 76.8 GWh per day. A third of that is 25.6 GWh. One of the cheapest battery storage options on the market is to build a storage facility made of Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (look them up). It is 1.39M$ for 3.916MWh. That puts the cost of storing a THIRD of what Hinkley C produces in a day at 9bn$. And we can't do cheaper stuff like pumped hydro on scale (you can only do it in some small parts of Wales and Scotland). If we use solar panels, let's say cheap polycrystalline from China, you're looking at about 9 cents per Watt in a sunny country like Spain at peak. For the UK, it would be about 400M$ for 3200GW, what Hinkley C produces, assuming all day is peak day. A day is on average 4 peak hours, so really you'd need 2.4bn$ worth of panels to generate 3200 GW. The inverters will nearly double the cost to around 4bn$. To put down that many panels, you'd need about 50km2. Assuming a price of around 10000£ per acre, the land cost would actually be negligible, on the order of 100M£. But getting past nimbys a 50km2 solar farm might be tricky. So all in all, you're looking at 13$bn for a solar+storage equivalent if you can only store a third of what's generated. If you wanna store half, then 17.5bn$. Storage dominates the cost. In practice, such a project would also have additional costs due to bureaucracy and because I didn't factor in the cost of actually building the transmission lines for such a big plant. And there would be cost overruns there as well. So overall, you're looking at somewhere above £20BN for a solar +storage equivalent that would occupy 50km2 (20 square miles).
Granted, with a projected final cost of 40BN£ for Hinckley C, I guess renewables + storage work out cheaper. But Hinckley C is probably as expensive as a nuclear plant can get. The original budget was £18bn. And back then solar and storage cost more than now.
Another thing to consider is that panels have about a 30-40 year life span, and their output decreases year after year. A nuclear plant can last 100 years with refurbishments. But, a nuclear plant does require significantly more maintenance (especially if refurbished) and it does require uranium to run. I am not sure how these factors change the profitability equation.
I would conclude by saying that we face a climate crisis and any new source of CO2 energy is welcome. With cars and house heating becoming electric, the electricity usage will triple. To power the entire country on solar panels + storage for example (assuming such tripling), you'd need a solar farm bigger than Greater London (about 1.5 times). Now, if every rooftop in the country had solar panels (and the storage required) that would not be a problem. Wind turbines are probably even better and we could probably power the entire country if we surrounded this island with them (not sure about that; didn't run the numbers). But given the climate crisis, I would not scoff at any new CO2 free energy source, and nuclear is at the moment on par with renewables+storage cost wise. If storage drops in price a few fold, then we're talking.
Damn, I was wondering why they were so over budget and over time lol
As a South African, I think it would be interesting if you made a video about Koeberg, our nuclear reactor (it is literally falling apart loooool)
Falling apart how ?
Bs, it just has been refurbished and will go on for another 20 years.
@@ferkeapdid they finally fixed their permanent water leak?
No it's not failing apart. They were doing refurbishment to extend its life span.
@fischX yes.
These enormous powerplants are great to build private yachts for the main contractors
Another classic example of British contract writing "If you go overbudget and overtime we just give you more money and more time, please complete it on time" until the government prosecutes the C-suite of these companies for fraud and breach of contract this will never be fixed, they will always lie and these projects will always be a disaster.
By the sound of it, our building regs caused a chunk of it - 35% more steel than France required?? Also, building materials have shot up in cost since 2020. I work domestic construction, the last few years have been ridiculous.
There's also a complete lack of experience thanks to years of nuclear fearmongering that stagnated the industry, and all the oldboys retired before training a new batch, losing all that experience in the process. SO dumb...
@@spinaltap22 The regulation can be a problem but it is ancillary. If you setup the right incentive you will get the right outcome, clever people figure it out (clever people always figure it out just with the wrong incentives figuring it out is never delivering to get the most money).
@@jonathan2847 That makes no sense whatsoever.
@@spinaltap22 "show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome"
@@spinaltap22how is there lack of experience if its build by the EDF? France should’ve more than enough knowledge about building this thing. And in the end they are paying for most of it, so they have incentives to build it fast.
As I see it now, the project will fail... no money, no resources and chaos on the streets...
Comparing to Vogtle should probably also mention that we are talking about a bit different things.
HPC is 2xEPR, so about 3260MWe
Vogtle's new build is 2xAP1000, so about 2234MWe
Vogtle seems to have clocked in at about $36.8bn
Just for a bit of fun 36.8 * ( 3260 / 2234) ~ 53.7.
The video points out "more than 57bn dollars" for HPC.. so, about 3.3bn in difference is they were like for like, or roughly within 7% of each other... That is kinda less than what you'd expected currency fluctuations during the buildltime to differ, so I'd say "about the same".
For 3.2GW of energy WOW bargain basement prices. Cuein Errr beavis/butthead laughter.
@@AX2SEG Ehm, the energy output of those are at about 9GWth (2x4.5GWth)
("e" and "th" are "electrical" and "thermal").
But also, it is actually bargain basement prices.
(tl;dr - nuclear is a long game, at a huge scale)
For the electrical.
Quick back-of-the-envelope ballparks the cost per kWh at about 6cent/kWh (at 57bn$ build cost, 60 year service, 92% cf, incl Fuel & OpEx & decom). (At 27bn$ it would have been 4.5cent/kWh).
For comparasion: UK land-based wind is in the range of about 3-5cent/kWn and off-shore at about 5-9cent/kWh.
The cost per Wh will also be lower over life-time if the unit can be life extended (common for PWRs and BWRs), life extension for PWRs tend to be at about half a billion (+-50%) per 20 years.
Should probably be mentioned that nuclear includes grid services, and have a much lower need for storage and overbuild.
For the thermal side, you could also use nuclear to supply district heating (fairly common in eastern europe) or industrial heat to use even more of the energy produced.
Working in UK construction projects is always an unnecessarily over supervised, over regulated nightmare. Greets from the Netherlands
There's no overlysupervised what comes to nuclear projects. In Finland's EPR the mistakes were everywhere. Casting initial concrete slab under the power plant: partially botched, weldings: had to be redone multiple times, safety systems: dependencies between systems caused redesign, ... and the list goes on. There's not many standard parts in these so everything. One would think EDF learned something...
"oversupervision" is a consequence of the idiotic idea of pushing the perfectly uniform and inherently centralized product like electricity into mangled public-private partnerships that in case of power benefit neither from flexibility of private enterprise nor the top-down and non-income-driven approach of public sector.
Big Carl is a perfect name for a crane
For a further perspective...
45bn € equals 45.000 million €. A modern on shore wind turbine generates 1.4 MW/hour off power and costs about 0.85 million € (these are the latest numbers of December 2024) picture this, how many wind turbines you'd be able to errect and how much of equivalent power* they'd be generated and how much less they'd had on the environment (or mich less UK'd needed to built to generate the same power as the nuclear power plants and how much costs they'd safe!)
*They'd could erected around 53.000 wind turbines which would generate an output of about 74.000 MW/hour. In average, a modern and huge nuclear power plant generates up to 1400 MW/hour.
Nuclear is expensive to build but cheap to operate. Over the entire course of their economic lifespan, the electricity will be competitive. Wind turbines are expensive to operate (maintain) and generate nothing when there's no wind.
No!
Simply no! It's the most expensive kind of energy! And after its use, all the tax payers have to pay for the waste disposal and beg, that nothing is going to happen towards the disposal site for the next 100.000's of years.
BTW I used wind turbines as an example for all renewable energy sector.
Fission Products (Nuclear waste) heavily lose their radioactivity. Yes they will take 1000 years to completely deteriorate but after 50 to 60 years the radiation from them will very less compared to when they formed during fission.
Note: higher the half life of fission product, the lesser the radiation they will emit.
Compared to wind energy
1. nuclear is very predictable i.e. how much output we will get which is very important to maintain the grid.
2. nuclear is much eco friendly i.e. when the plant decommissioned maximum of its materials can be used except the reactor but a large chunk of wind mills/ wind fans becomes complete waste as they made from plastic and other chemicals so they can be made very light and hence can not be recycled and it also take 1000 of years to complete degrade which causes pollution.
3. nuclear doesn't affect ecosystem as compared to wind mills which havocs the surrounding ecosystem because of noise pollution and sheer amount of land required to built or destroys sea ecosystem in which they are built.
Hell in terms of recyclability, nuclear even beats solar energy.
Will it all last 60 years or more . Or do you resend every ten years .
And when there is no wind you can still use wax candles.
If I'm not mistaken with the calculation, 1 billion per year is 114155$/hour. With a capacity of 3200 MW, this NPP will generate 3200000 kWh per hour, respectively. In total, capital costs will be 114155/3200000=0.035$/kWh. Wiki says that the average price of electricity in the UK is about 29 cents, that is, capital costs for construction will be only a few percent of the price of energy. Ok, maybe 10-20%.
Not even close your logic is flawed. Look how much nuclear power costs in America or anywhere else.
Hinley Point C...to quote the Energy Analysts: "as far as we can see this makes Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world...on a leveraged basis we expect EDF to earn a Return on Equity (ROE) well in excess of 20% and possibly as high as 35%. Having considered the known terms of the deal, we are flabbergasted that the UK Government has committed future generations of consumers to the costs that will flow from this deal".
Any company would need to make at least 20% return on this project to justify the enormous financial and geo political risks involved. Totally normal.
The terms of this deal have worked in our favour. The French are paying for the additional cost overruns, not the taxpayer or consumers.
At what time was this analysis made? I work at EDF in France and what I have heard is generally that our expected ROE turned from good to abysmal with the overbudget and delays
@@alex180111 What you’re saying is correct
The extra cost, is the price to pay for having abandoned the technology for such a long time
The you'd think France wouldn't have cost overruns and delays, but then there's Flamanville...
Just accept it, nuclear while good, are just too expensive to build, they always cost at least twice the original budget.
@@Simqer They always cost at least twice the original fake budget.
@@Simqer France had stopped building nuclear plants for decades and lost a lot of the know-how. Plus EPR was a new design. With EPR2 hopefully construction will be much more efficient in the future.
There's always the time and budget to do it right, the second time. 🎉
Thanks for using one of my stock photos in your video!
What we love to hear, our so called cheap future energy source over budget... Means we'll be paying out our rear ends for decades.
Nothing about nuclear is cheap
Nuclear is by far the energy that cost the most.
@@merzto It's cheaper in France
Only while France gets their fuel cheaply from africa
it’s the UK of course they’re going to be over budget and late for infrastructure projects
I worked on the reactor pressure vessel and steam generators for HPC !
Greetings from France
I live so close to it when you walk in the hills you can see it. I think it is good it has made tons of jobs for the surrounding area.
I drove by the site a while ago, it's fascinating seeing all of those cranes towering above the huge structures, big fan of industrial looking stuff like that
yeah my family are in watchet and minehead and it’s been so interesting watching it develop on my visits over the years!
I grew up in the area around it's construction and the light pollution was insane
Well Slavery makes "tons of jobs" for black folks in "the surrounding areas" of the cotton-pickin' fields, but we decided more than 100 years ago , that it just wasn't worth it, the social and societal harm, for the jobs produced.
For the price of this Nuclear power station, they could have gifted a free solar power setup fully installed to about a quarter of the UK's population. By the time the same French company builds the other plant on the East Coast, half of the UK's population could have been given a free solar system.
Nuclear power is the most expensive electricity and Solar Energy one of the cheapest. Plus a well installed Solar system runs, almost maintenance and cost free, for more than 20 years. Nuclear costs to install and costs to maintain and costs to operate daily. And that's even if you leave the toxic radioactive waste for future generations to clean up.
Doesn't anyone remember Chernobyl ? Remember Chernobyl was in perfect working condition when it blew up because of "operator error".
@@KiwiCatherineJemma lol solar panels are better than nuclear? Solar panels got like a 10 year lifespan, take up way more land than nuclear would for the same return and in the UK is a wet cloudly and dark climate - not exactly good environment for solar panels which is why nobody has installed them on houses. It just isnt cost efficient. Nuclear is 100% the way to go. Chernobyl safety measures were non-existent and thus irrelevant whne discussing nuclear power.
The wonder of consultancies, quangos and lawyers all coming together
Now that they have trained so many thousands of people on planing and building a NPP, it would be a waste not to use them to build others
(In reference to floods) "Not that we get many of those here" They're building the thing in Somerset half that place used be underwater and ends up being for a month every year!
Hi Fred, you should take a look at ‘Sizewell C’ in Suffolk, too, it’s just kicking off. 👌🏼
The first of the power plants of this type to start building was the Finnish one, the second the French one. The two which were the first to deliver power to the grid were the Chinese ones.
Certainly. You don't hear too much about "protests" from China, when it comes to big government projects.
same design chinese one has developed faults too from the design
@@beeftec5862 Chinese have more experience now building nuclear plants than anybody else does
hire them not the French next time around
Just hire ourselves? We've built one now.
@@beeftec5862 EDF built the same EPR design in China for Taishan 1 & 2 at a cost of $7.5 billion, the project completed in 2019. Estimate cost of Hinkley C 1&2 is roughly $38 billion in 2015 prices, 2024 price with inflation is $56 billion. At 2015 prices, Hinkley C is going to cost 5 times as much as Taishan, China for the same EPR nuclear plant design. FIVE times, no wonder the UK is stagnating.
I work for a company that supply equipment that is used on Hinkley C.
Money is of no objective. If the whole project is similar to our experience then i can say that taxpayers are not getting the best value.
For this one in particular taxpayers are getting the best value due to the original agreement. It’s all being funded by EDF and the French, including any additional costs.
The next plant has a different contract with any cost overruns being added to consumers bills.
@@Jake_5693 you are wasting your time replying so many in the comments are too stupid to understand the tax payer is not paying for it
Thankfully it’s all funded from the private sector so they absorb the additional cost. But sadly,once it is supplying energy to the grid, it will cost the consumer a fortune for energy because of its funding by the private sector. All for the most profit to top that French National pension fund up. Selling off energy infrastructure is one of the worst decisions this country has ever made.
Hinkley point was the reason I decided to get solar panels and why I'm currently considering batteries. F'd up from start to finish.
Everyone who can will have those in the UK eventually. With smart pricing most people will buy batteries when their lifespan makes it worthwhile. Charge up when it is cheap and discharge when it is expensive.
Chinese made with coal?
Calder Hall was renamed Winscale which was then renamed Selafield because of a series over very serious accidents. As for flooding Hinkley point will need significant flood protection over its lifetime
@B1M
Hold my beer...
You should check out the Australian 'Snowy 2.0' pumped hydro for cost overruns 🤣
Doesn't even mention the most divisive aspect of the project - the ludicrously high strike price guarantee the UK govt gave EDF
The same terms given to companies bidding for renewable energy projects, no wonder we pay the highest energy bills in the world.
@@leemacdonald6533 we have the highest energy bills because of a thatcher policy which means that at any given moment the cost of electricity is that of the most expensive producer on the grid, meaning that cheaper renewable energy isn't able to be properly utilised.
Wind and solar farms are raking in the money from it
@@bearwynnwe don't have the highest energy bills in the world though.
Electricity is now down to the European average and gas prices in the UK are some of the lowest.
@@Redemption80 - but the poster was correct in that the wholsesale price of the highest generating source at any point in time determines the cost of energy, which today is natural gas based generation - typically from peaker plants. Plus beacuse the pricing framework is nationally applied, then everyone in the country pays that price even if their area didn't use natrual gas generation.
This is why the renewable energy suppliers are pushing for change, along with energy NGOs and consumer groups. Seeking in the first instance for the pricing framework to be regionalised, meaning those areas with high renewables and seldom use natural gas generation bills will come significantly down compared to the other parts of the country with higher natural gas usage. This should draw a lens to the generation cost disparity so cause public demand for more changes to the pricing framework to reflect that lower cost renewable generation is now the majority generation source.
@GruffSillyGoat Correct. Heed the goat, people
Has anybody done the maths how much taxpayer money over the past 20 years has been lost due to projects like HS2 and this power plant alone? It must be hundreds of billions at this point.
How do we live in a society where none of the people spending OUR money are held responsible for wasting hundreds of billions of pounds?
Non because they choose for others to invest in it instead of themselfs and didn't give the okay much earlier because of politics.
The interest on this is very high because of it.
And that interest is causing more project costs.
The electricity prices are fixed and below what the cost of electricity is today.
No taxpayer's money is involved in Hinkley. It is financed by EDF and the Chinese.
In a more just society these people would be in prison for blunders like this.
now calculate how much climate change caused by fossil fuels has cost - so far
It goes into the economy, people spend this money, it gets taxed. Better than bezos just pocketing it.
3260MWe!? Thats almost the entire demand of denmark on average!? In one powerplant!? Omfg.
Yes, EPR are quite huge for electricity powering.
Requiring a lot of time to build, but how long would it require to build equivalent power plant to produce the same with "clean energy"
3gw of stable output power requires time ... And for 80years, batteries, solar or wind would need far more time and cost.
So in the end ? EPR win
Well, the Hornsea wind farm out generates Hinkley C, with just two of it's four phases completed even though started construction years after Hinkley C, already generates 3GW.
The last two Hornsea phases, one started in 2023 and the last in 2025, are due to complete before Hinkley C will raise the windfarms output to three times that of Hinkley C - some 9GW (likely higher as the forther phases power keeps increasing for the same cost, as turbine outputs are increasing and prices dropping). All for a third of the cost and constructed in half the time frame of Hinkley C.
@@The4lexO - Nope, both solar and offshore wind need less time to construct, start operating almost immediately as they generate as construction is underway (typically starting operations within one year of construction), and are much, much cheaper.
@GruffSillyGoatdoesn’t do that 24/7 through winter though
@@edc1569 - wind is higher during winter, offshore wind is pretty much blowing year round, with rare dunkelflaute once every five years or so. However, the UK aims to diversify wind generation around the coast giving a larger catchment area than most lulls occur (supported by onshore wind, solar, hydro and geothermal soruces). With 50GW of offshore generation to be completed by 2030, coupled to 95GW of battery backup storage. The baseload capacity will be retained with gas resreved for emergency use. Whether nuclear is upscaled will depend on other factors including increasing number of interconnects - although here the UK intends to be a renwable generator European powerhouse due to it's location.
According to analysis of hundreds of major global projects, the average cost over-run for all nuclear plants is 238% of initial project budget (Flyvbjerg, Gardnersecond). Of all major projects, that analysis shows nuclear plants are second worst in terms of cost blowouts and delays, only behind the Olympics
UK construction is industry is a nightmare. So much corruption and so much missmanagement still no one ask a single question to these governments?
Nice skipping over Brexit being directly cited as a hinderance to the project there... Also, how is the solution to avoiding sucking up loads of fish not to just filter them out? Is the setup really just gaping holes under the sea?
wwwaaoahhhh mah brexit
Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant: first concrete was poured at the first unit 2010. Unit 1 was connected to the electricity grid in 2015.
July 2021 Construction officially started today of the ACP100 small modular reactor
Come on man, why you feel the need to bring up chinese nuclear development in the picture, we get it your nuclear development is on track or whatever but nobody ask you to compare.
The EPR design was based on a joint French-German design when Siemens merged its nuclear energy division with Areva - now Framatome. The idea was to create an ultra-safe reactor to keep the German market. It was not designed to be cheap. As this didn't work out, EDF and Framatome are working on the much simpler and cheaper EPR 2 design. That will make it less expensive. However, it is extremely unlikely, that nuclear power will become competitve again.
It's competitive because it provides a reliable base load. UK wind generated very little for two solid weeks in November with agile prices regularly hitting the 100p cap per kWh.
There is no storage technology yet that can see us through on renewables alone.
The most feasible low carbon picture is a mix of solar, wind, several storage technologies, nuclear and gas with carbon capture retro fitted.
@@cad4246 Reliable *providing no siesmic events or turbine trips occur. Ohh OOps GO the armchair experts love your work ZZzzz.
I’m a lorry driver, not a nuclear engineer. However, if the working system it’s the same like on the roads network then it’s going to take at least 10 more years. Example. 1 lane closure on A414. Transit with lane closure ahead indicator, driver inside. After 500 yards big Class 2 with cones, driver inside. After another 500 yards another one, same with druver inside. After that a Transit tipper with a driver inside. The only one person that literally worked there was a poor lad collecting rubbish from the side of the road. So 4 engines running, 4 drivers swiping on their phones, only one person working. And i got hundreds of stories like this. I’m a night driver. No wonder why everything it’s 10x more expensive and takes 3 times longer.
they must of been waiting for heavy equipment mate!!! or just on a break.
From trains to plants, the UK can't get anything done without massive amounts of bureaucracy and budget overruns.
I'd love to know what they plan to do about the potential damage from sea level rise
It's not rising so not much.
@@entropy5431 Try telling that to everyone who lives on the coast in southern Florida, or the Maldives or Bangladesh maybe?
@thehoundGOT You mean places that have been prone to flooding for thousands of years? I think they already know. Additionally, the power station isn't in Florida, Maldives or Bangladesh...
How many GW of wind power with batteries could have been built for the same money in a fraction of the time?
57GW
thats gonna be the most expensive kW/h ever...
You should have mentionned that the result of the absurdly high construction price is a resulting electricity price that is several times higher than that of renewables. It will never be competitive.
Great video, genuinely had no idea the site was that vast.
As always this is due to ministerial complete and utter incompetence. How many of the cabinet have ever had a job? Yet they think they are qualified to manage major projects like this!!
Their job is to shovel as much public money into the pockets of their mates whilst avoiding any accountability. In this regard they are extremely competent.
@@raginganarchist nailed it... its funny how people think that these type of project disasters happen by mistake... This is all about private profits from public money
Basically yes, its the transfer of vast amounts of public money into companies that politicians subsequently become directors of, on fantastic wages/pensions, all bought with you and I's tax money...!!
Still gotta pay for the fuel. Then you’ve gotta safely dispose of it. I’m sure that’ll all be super cheap too! 🤦🏻♂️
Nuclear fuel is dirt cheat, and disposal is too. Far cheaper than building out unreliable renewable and needing to buy vast quantities of LNG + oil to stabilise the grid
What’s a UK construction project without spiraling costs and a half-finished site? Practically unheard of!
Much better to turn the lights off when leaving the building and banning space heating of supermarkets.
You would think having port Talbot nearby would help with steel costs... But they of course needed to switch out the blast furnaces
We don't get many floods in the UK. In Somerset. Much of which is reclaimed land. Next to a massively tidal estuary. With climate change and sea-level rise. And storm surges. What could possibly go wrong?
Good to hear from someone who remembers 1607 ;-)
@@paulspinks6716 I do! It was when the Environment Agency last received sufficient funding from the government.
They are flooding all the surrounding farmland, most of north somerset. Many farmers unhappy.
Same thing happened with the fish in Southern California at San Onofre Nuclear Plant. Hot water discharged offshore killed the kelp forest and they settled massively and are responsible for building the largest artificial reef in the pacific as retribution.
‘There is no nuclear power plant in the world that is economically viable.’ -- said by Joe Kaeser in November 2024. He is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens Energy, an important supplier of power plant technologies.
Absolutely . . .
Thank you any chance of you forwarding that to the Australian Liberal party Att: Peter Dutton? They won't listen to me or the general public.
Patrick,
he would say that wouldn't he, after all Siemens have their money in the renewables sector.
Cost and value are not the same Nuclear is very valuable, renewables are a waste of money.
Also factor longevity, 50 to 60 years for a modern nuclear plant, with some wind farms closing after 15 years as being uneconomic (As output, hence earnings, deteriorate with time, cica 4.5% per annum for offshore wind)
Large cost increase has also been linked with increased interest from higher interest rates and the massive delays. Some estimates expect could be more than 60% of the total cost...
I would not be surprised if there are further delays and the costs rise even higher.
big carl is the literal translation of the dutch emperor "karel de grote" AKA charlemagne
Dutch? ahah :)
One of my favorite historical figures, along with Queen Victoria of China and the American president Genghis Khan.
@@momon969 he was Frankish which was the ancestor of dutch, luxemburgish and limgurgish, he wasn't fr*nch
I like the part where he used finding Nemo and SpongeBob 😅
that was perfect lol
UK over-budget by billions and behind schedule by years in enormous project mismanagement chaos.....its rare to find such a situation in Britain 🤔.
Yes Yers delightful delightful charmed I'm sure simply marvelous what goes on in these fine establishments don't you think ol chap. Care for a spot of golf?
Correction: The EPR in Olkiluoto was not built by EDF, but by AREVA (and mostly its german branch, AREVA gmbh, formerly Siemens Energy). Its actually a very important distinction to understand the difference in the way these projects were handled.
SMNR's (small modular nuclear reactors) are the real answer. They can be located close to the point of demand, require much less site building and can be up and running in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.
Nuclear is great but it's got to be in the form of small modular reactors like those rolls royce build. These huge stations are outdated.
Two words CSIRO report.
Only in Britain, over budget and over run on time and so much red tape.
Certainly not. Google airport BER. Or train station S21. Or opera house Hamburg.
You must be living under a rock if u think this only happens in britian. this happens in every advanced economy with lots of regulation.
One example is California’s High-Speed Rail was originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008 and suppose to complete by 2020, now its estimated to cost $128 billion and they haven't even completed 2 percent of the project yet.
No all nuclear sites were massively over budget and years late. Google the powerstations mentioned in the Video, (US, Finnland, France).
Construction culture in the UK is ridiculous. We spend like 70% of the time on health and safety. Most of what management does is wander autistically enforcing silly rules that make no logical sense. Actually building the project doesn't seem to be a high priority at all. The Chinese could probably build 5 skyscrapers by the time we've finished 1
Happens everywhere
How much wind, tidal and battery storage could’ve been built instead of this? 😮
Not much.
not as good as nuclear
Shhh don't ask lol.
@@thegoodgunner Yes because you one liner is precise proof of such. Uhuh very convincing care to cite some proof nO AWWW Imagine that. Next!
Battery storage isn’t going to make the grid stable for longer than a couple hours and is extremely expensive. I guess you would rather have coal plants suffocate us
It amazes me when they say that it’s over budget, everything we do in the uk ends up over budget, we seem to be absolutely incompetent at constructing something to budget with all the paperwork and regulations that we have compared to other countries. Recently they widened a road by one lane between two junctions and guess what it ended up over budget and took over a year extra to finish, all the plans to build power plants to help support this country seem to take so long and cost so much compared to other countries, why ?
Money laundering hidden behind red tape regulations is my guess
I live just along the coast in Watchet. There are pretty much no homes available to rent and rents have gone through the roof which is a massive burden for local people and families on local wages. I expect the huge influx of workers for hinkley point are adding to this problem
Should have got the Chinese to build it, then it would have been on time and on budget
The Chinese EPR was a similar length programme to date. The EPR is just a dog to construct.
The chinese, relative to their prevailing wages and costs, didn't do much better with their own nuclear projects. The EPR and America's WP1000 were supposed to make nuclear reactors easier to build, but on both counts they've proven to be anything but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
it is the chinese they own 35% of it
The Chinese are already involved in Hinkley C - the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) co-financed it with EDF, and have a high number of engineers (over 100) working on the site (using the experienced they gained from construction of their own EPR power station). The financing agreement indicates that the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and CGN will become joint shareholders in the plant once operating (holding about a 33% share in the plant).
like others have said CGN is there, you can see their logo on the highvis at 4:16
I am sorry I love the technology and construction of nuclear but it isn't worth it with the price tag for construction and then managing the waste afterwards
£46 billion TO BUILD (not decomissioning possibly x2 as much) for 6 million homes, for 60 years at 10 units demand per day works out at 35p per unit. Holy God, that's expensive... and that's at cost. 🤔
Wind is cheaper.
@@tidtidy4159 It's windy 24/7 eh?
@@anon2645x when theres too much wind and solar,as there often is, the energy can be stored in many different ways. Google, energy storage.
And the costs of renewables are decreasing every day
One thing we locals are pissed about are the overhead power lines. They're gigantic and have ruined the landscape. The cost of burying them is such a small part of the overall budget it laughable.
This should be a case study on the dangers of planning bureaucracy. The planning office are completely incapable of seeing the forest for the trees on this one.
Is this actually an american channel now? You keep using dollars and saying gotten.
You say potato I say potato.
No one will care once it's completed, we desperately need to get this over the line. No one ever mentions the Elizabeth line and how much it costs now it's up and running
Yes because 7% of all of the grids power is an essential err what sorry? You were saying. Oh boy we got a live one here.
@@AX2SEGdon’t be dense, the point is to hit carbon zero, we need a renewable/nuclear energy production. Look at France
I challenge the B1M to do a video about a British project that was on time or early and on or under budget
Aren’t a lot of the skyscrapers and large buildings in the UK constructed on time??
The problem with nuclear is that if you built thousands of these power plants across the globe to offset fossil fuels, the reserves of ore that we know of would run out in a couple of decades.
And our Opposition leader (In Australia) wants to go big on nuclear and says its going to be cheaper than renewables, I don't see solar panels, hydro or wind getting this much over budget.
Each EPR unit produces 1,650MW, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year regardless of the weather and will do so for a minimum of 60 years. Now do the sums on how much solar, wind and storage you need to build to cover for shortfalls in adequate weather to deliver the equivalent amount of electricity.
That's because they don't produce enough energy to warrant any large budget project, clean renewable energy is a farce at best.
@@bradcavanagh3092 We don't need to do the sums because the CSIRO already did (twice) and said nuclear was completely unfeasible economically (both times).
@@harrisonds3950 If you read the CSIRO report you'll find that its assumptions are complete garbage. The authors clearly have an ideological bent.
@@bradcavanagh3092 Nuclear power plants do not actually operate at 100% 24/7.The French plants(and German before) regularly shut down on hot days as cooling water gets too hot.
3.2 gW can supply 700kg of plutonium every year for 60years.
40 tonnes of plutonium.
4,000 tonnes of uranium metal waste.
Plutonium extremely small size makes it easy to handle and transport anywhere. 😮😮😮
So you wrote your comment to emphasise how little you know about nuclear?
how much carbon has been released in the construction and mining of the fuel?
France gets 70% of its power from nuclear energy and almost all of those plants were built before the 1980s. I am pretty sure a lot less carbon than oil, gas or coal.
@ mining that much fuel, not so sure
also, how high are european cancer rates dur to off gassing and contamination? there are key holes down wind that have statistically significant increases in cancer, especially lymphoma
@@estimatingonediscoveringthree there is no 0 emission source of energy and one with very low carbon footprint are solar panels and wind turbines. They aren't as reliable as nuclear so they need to compensate among each other. Again, when you calculate how long a nuclear plant can last, it is obvious it will pay off. Keep in mind that all these delays and construction issues will be more under control when they start building other plants. Also, keep in mind that spent fuel could be reused
@ no emission source?! you have just proven you have no idea what your talking about. nuclear power generators are constantly off gassing radioactive gas. please stop commenting until you get educated about this industry
@ do you have a clue how many tons of material need to be excavated and processed to acheive a ton of fissile fuel!!!!?
Well put together video, thank you