Rolls-Royce plans 16 mini-nuclear plants for UK

[sloeffle]

Maybe there is some hope for nuclear in the future

Rolls-Royce plans 16 mini-nuclear plants for UK

The firm says the project will create 6,000 new jobs in the Midlands and the North of England

www.bbc.com

 

[woodgeek]

They are rolling the dice here on cost, and admit it. The next admin, or the current one in a few years could see the price of storage fall, and still kill it.

In the US, the 'bridge fuel' to the future, natural gas, is now being seen as a marginal or poor investment for new construction. That bridge is looking a lot shorter than it did 10 years ago.

 

[sloeffle]

In the US, the 'bridge fuel' to the future, natural gas, is now being seen as a marginal or poor investment for new construction. That bridge is looking a lot shorter than it did 10 years ago.

By "bridge fuel" - I'm assuming you mean a fuel that bridges us from coal, etc to full renewables ?

 

[woodgeek]

By "bridge fuel" - I'm assuming you mean a fuel that bridges us from coal, etc to full renewables ?

yup.

 

[DBoon]

The push by some politicians and by utilities for more nuclear completely stumps me. Today's site-built plants are crazy expensive - there is no way this power will ever be cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels or even with renewables with battery storage in a market where carbon has a price associated with its emissions. If you are a utility and you can convince your local PUC to invest in a nuclear plant and then stick the rate payers with the bill for the next 30-40 years, then good for you, I suppose, but bad for your customers (i.e. us).

I thought the modular small nuclear plants might be different. But I am reading that these will still be about a billion dollars for a 500 MW plant, and they are 5-10 years away (at least). So I don't get the economics of these either. Remember that PV and wind didn't start to make a really big dent in power production until the economics were favorable, and in 5 or 10 years, PV and wind will have an even larger footprint and be more economical and battery storage will be less expensive. I could also see some green hydrogen projects starting to show enough promise for green long-term storage and dissuade a move to expensive modular nuclear.

So I just don't get it.

What makes perfect sense is to continue operating the batch of nuclear plants we already have for as long as possible, and (gasp) toss a few subsidies their way until there is a real market price for carbon that levels the playing field with (still dirty) natural gas.