Green Building Forum - £20 billion Sat, 18 Apr 2026 22:26:44 +0100 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.0.3 £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292616#Comment_292616 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292616#Comment_292616 Wed, 27 Oct 2021 12:59:47 +0100 djh
I wondered: what else would 20B buy?

How much battery capacity (with a decent expected lifetime)? Both conventional existing battery tech (anybody know what big Tesla systems cost, for example?) and new-fangled things like flow batteries?

How much wind turbine capacity? How much solar capacity, somewhere warm?]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292624#Comment_292624 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292624#Comment_292624 Wed, 27 Oct 2021 19:31:09 +0100 WillInAberdeen
The Sizewell C nuclear power plant is reported to cost £20bn for 3.2GW capacity, so the cost works out the same at £6bn per GW output. However this doesn't include the unknown cost of decommissioning.

The nuclear plant will last longer than the wind turbines but I imagine will need more maintenance.

Don't think it's either/or, we probably need both.

Don't think it's all about upfront cost either, otherwise we would choose gas power stations.

https://www.seagreenwindenergy.com/]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292626#Comment_292626 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292626#Comment_292626 Wed, 27 Oct 2021 21:27:43 +0100 fostertom £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292627#Comment_292627 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292627#Comment_292627 Wed, 27 Oct 2021 21:51:08 +0100 philedge Posted By: djh

I wondered: what else would 20B buy?

A big pile of insulation
Alot of bikes
Extensive cycling infrastructure
A fair few trees and restored wildlife habitat
Any change can buy garden soakaways for all]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292630#Comment_292630 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292630#Comment_292630 Thu, 28 Oct 2021 09:02:27 +0100 revor £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292638#Comment_292638 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292638#Comment_292638 Thu, 28 Oct 2021 11:04:06 +0100 djh Posted By: fostertomHow many centuries wiill old windfarms remain a lethal danger to life on earth
Say what?]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292651#Comment_292651 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292651#Comment_292651 Thu, 28 Oct 2021 16:59:51 +0100 Ed Davies Posted By: djhSay what?He's comparing to the waste from nuclear power. I.e., not many centuries. Well, not any centuries, really.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292655#Comment_292655 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=292655#Comment_292655 Thu, 28 Oct 2021 20:16:37 +0100 djh £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294481#Comment_294481 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294481#Comment_294481 Tue, 01 Feb 2022 18:21:06 +0000 fostertom https://www.save-the-severn.com/cooling-water.asp

"The Hinkley C power station will suck in 29,000 gallons of sea-water every second, heat it up by about 10°C and send it back into the estuary, wasting more energy into the environment than the electrical power it will generate"

Can't be true - they'd a thought a that?]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294483#Comment_294483 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294483#Comment_294483 Tue, 01 Feb 2022 20:22:33 +0000 djh Posted By: fostertom"The Hinkley C power station will suck in 29,000 gallons of sea-water every second, heat it up by about 10°C and send it back into the estuary, wasting more energy into the environment than the electrical power it will generate"Hmm if I have my arithmetic right that's 131,836.61 litres which makes the power 131836.61*4182*10 W or 5.5134 GW

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/innovative-thinking/tunnels-delivering-hinkley-point-cs-cooling-system-16-12-2019/ says its 120,000 l/s so a bit lower but it does seem a plausible number and it does seem an awful lot of energy to dump into a relatively restricted area of water. A lot more than HP B has been dumping.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294484#Comment_294484 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294484#Comment_294484 Tue, 01 Feb 2022 20:29:40 +0000 djh https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurecool-consideration-7253954/ which includes the following: "EDF says in its submission to National Infrastructure Planning that the total amount of fish estimated to be killed by the operation of HPC without the AFD system has been predicted by Cefas to be around 56t in a year. “An impact of this magnitude can be compared to that of one small fishing trawler. This compares with approximately 650,000t commercially fished in the UK in the same year assessed,” it said."]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294485#Comment_294485 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294485#Comment_294485 Tue, 01 Feb 2022 22:56:27 +0000 fostertom
Reminds me of this, from my normally anodyne parish mag:

-------------------
Wind Turbines: We Should Know This

Nationally, wind turbines kill 10,000 - 100,000 birds per year. Cats kill 55 million birds per year. If you paint 1 turbine blade black, resulting bird deaths decline by 70% (BBC Science). The RSBP says “in suitable locations, turbine impact on birds is minimal’.

World expert on bats, Dr. C Voight, says that one turbine kills 10 bats per year.

There is no detailed knowledge on turbine effect on insects, but this year, the UK Govt. gave sugar beet farmers permission to use the most harmful chemical (neonicotinoids) against bees!

New generation turbines make the same noise level as a tractor at the same distance from you: a gentle swish (Danish Govt.).

When we buy electricity, we subsidise the electricity company. How much do we pay? Nuclear energy costs nearly £92 per unit. Wind energy costs £45 per unit. Which do you prefer?

Our landscape is beautiful. Let’s keep it that way with sustainable electricity. Climate change is a real issue. The last 7 years were the hottest since records began (Met Office).

When your children and grandchildren ask what you did to slow climate change, what will you say?
-----------------------

BTW, the above is my first (completely faultless) use of newly rediscovered OCR-enabled MS Office Doc Imaging, in Office Pro XP but the OCR omitted in later versions. I knew I used to rely on it but couldn't find it online, anywhere. Eventually discovered my old Office XP install disc - and there it was, happy to run on W10.
Also on same disc is super-capable old fashioned MS Office Editor, with serious old-photo enhancement capabilities, like Despeckle and much more. I processed some old familiar 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" Brownie b/w family pics, printed them at A4 - staggering hi-definition, faces a revelation of their youth (then) and character, not seen in 50yrs!
Look thro those old boxes and drawers, see if you still have your Office XP!]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294486#Comment_294486 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294486#Comment_294486 Tue, 01 Feb 2022 22:57:30 +0000 fostertom "wasting more energy into the environment than the electrical power it will generate".
Comments?]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294487#Comment_294487 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294487#Comment_294487 Tue, 01 Feb 2022 23:10:36 +0000 WillInAberdeen
5GW of "waste" heat at 20degC isn't much use to anyone in Somerset. If instead it were at say 50degC some could be used, say if Bristol and Cardiff shared a district heating system, but it isn't and they don't! The heat would then be dumped into the air from the roofs and windows, rather than into the sea.

Edit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
Suggests the two reactors will produce 2x4500MW of thermal energy, of which 2x1650MW will end up as net electricity, an efficiency of 37%. The rest (63% or 5.7GW) needs to be dissipated as waste heat. That's why it's sited next to the sea!

The core temperature is apparently kept to only 315C to avoid boiling the cooling water, so the maximum possible theoretical Carnot efficiency would be 48%. The real world efficiency is somewhat less than that.

A CCGT runs much hotter, so is more efficient, but the economics are different - the CCGT must be efficient with its expensive fuel, whereas the nuclear station must run within conservative operating limits due to its expensive hardware.

So it is slightly unfair to compare the "wasted energy" from a nuclear plant against that from a fossil plant, or even a wind turbine or PV panel - different economics apply if your 'fuel' is cheap or free.

The prices quoted in FT"s parish news for nuclear of £92/MWh look like a bargain when gas electricity is £180/MWh, like it is this week, but who knows what it will be in future. The price quoted £45/MWh for wind is continuing to fall. But those prices miss out large "externalities" of emissions (gas), decommissioning (nuclear) and backup/storage (wind).]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294488#Comment_294488 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294488#Comment_294488 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 02:16:34 +0000 djh
As WiA says, the quantity of heat is guaranteed by Carnot, so that in itself is not an issue. It's how it's disposed of that is more of a concern to me.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294489#Comment_294489 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294489#Comment_294489 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 09:34:42 +0000 fostertom Posted By: WillInAberdeenThat's Carnot for you! The thermal efficiency is limited by the 2nd Law. That means that only some of the nuclear energy can be used, the rest is too low a temperature, so it has to be dumped somehowOh that - I get it. They've written it to look like all the power generated, plus more from elsewhere, goes into running the pumps.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenBut those prices miss out large "externalities" of emissions (gas), decommissioning (nuclear) and backup/storage (wind)
and 'forever' storage and military guarding of radioactive waste.
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/extensions/InlineImages/image.php?AttachmentID=6087]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294490#Comment_294490 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294490#Comment_294490 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 09:36:09 +0000 fostertom http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/extensions/InlineImages/image.php?AttachmentID=6087]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294492#Comment_294492 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294492#Comment_294492 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 12:24:43 +0000 djh Posted By: fostertommilitary guarding of radioactive waste.FWIW, nuclear waste is not guarded by the military (at least at the front line). It's a civil police force job.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294493#Comment_294493 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294493#Comment_294493 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 12:27:17 +0000 SteveZ
No doubt all the problems will be sorted out in time for our projects:confused:!

I would rather we spend the money on developing a molten salt reactor, but I guess we'll have to leave that to the Chinese and Indian governments]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294495#Comment_294495 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294495#Comment_294495 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 13:25:58 +0000 bhommels Posted By: SteveZ
I would rather we spend the money on developing a molten salt reactor
That, and scale up the energy amplifier for useful processing of nuclear waste whilst extracting more energy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_amplifier
It might need a bit more than £10B though.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294499#Comment_294499 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294499#Comment_294499 Wed, 02 Feb 2022 15:43:33 +0000 fostertom Posted By: djhFWIW, nuclear waste is not guarded by the military (at least at the front line). It's a civil police force job.Friendly coppers with truncheons? Or all the latest security gizmos I hope, ready for any 'future' attack, which as they do can become 'now', unexpected at short notice? For half-life to the power of 4 at least, just one mad warlord incident could threaten life on earth.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294509#Comment_294509 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294509#Comment_294509 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 14:11:44 +0000 andrew_rigamonti
Interesting read:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719189/tidal-lagoon-programme-factsheet.pdf]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294510#Comment_294510 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294510#Comment_294510 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 16:09:06 +0000 bhommels It costs loads compared to nuclear reactor, but:
it has a far longer operational life, does not need fuel, does not produce waste, and has a fraction of the operational/services/supplies personnel footprint. Highly predictable output too, and could do storage if designed in.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294511#Comment_294511 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294511#Comment_294511 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 17:04:54 +0000 Jonti
As for if the lagoon could be a continuous producer I don't see why it could not be designed to be.

Nuclear is an old technology that despite having ridiculous amounts of money thrown at it has never really produced the goods. Time to consign it to the dustbin where it belongs.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294512#Comment_294512 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294512#Comment_294512 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 17:08:18 +0000 djh Posted By: JontiAs for if the lagoon could be a continuous producer I don't see why it could not be designed to beI'd be interested to know how you'd do that ... ?]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294516#Comment_294516 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294516#Comment_294516 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 19:45:13 +0000 WillInAberdeen
Just for clarity, the tidal lagoons referred to are proposed in Swansea Bay, which has nothing to do with the defunct Severn Estuary tidal dam proposal, it's 50 miles away up the M4.

The unpriced externality for a tidal lagoon is that you need to keep another significant power source on standby, used twice a day, as a lagoon cannot produce continuously at peak times. That standby could be another lagoon further up the coast, where the tide times are different.

Another unpriced externalitity for a tidal dam is that it trashes a lot of estuary habitats, which are turning out to be significant carbon stores.

UK has recently licenced 33GW of offshore wind farms, so all the publicity around a single 3GW nuclear station would normally seem disproportionate, except that the wind farms are intermittent and will be critically dependent on backup power.

The backup power stations can be : Nuclear; or fossil fuels with CCS; or TWh-scale storage. As of now, only one of those technologies exist in the UK. The others could/should probably be developed, but meanwhile there is not much scope to be choosy!]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294517#Comment_294517 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294517#Comment_294517 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:54:02 +0000 fostertom £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294518#Comment_294518 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294518#Comment_294518 Thu, 03 Feb 2022 21:03:59 +0000 WillInAberdeen
I'm quite keen on imagining the previously-unimaginable, but time is running out (has run out?) so we also need to build things that already work at multi-GW scale.

But there's certainly a strong case for trading UK wind power for Algerian PV and Austrian hydro (or Australian hydrogen) for political as well as environmental reasons.

Edit: on the cost comparisons - wind and nuclear are now seen as cheaper than tidal power, but that is partly because taxpayers subsidised decades of their technical and commercial development phases (FITs etc). There could be an investment value in paying over the odds for the first few tidal lagoons (wave farms, electrolyzers, CCS projects) if one of those gives us cheaper energy options in future.]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294521#Comment_294521 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294521#Comment_294521 Fri, 04 Feb 2022 08:36:17 +0000 Jonti Posted By: djh
Posted By: JontiAs for if the lagoon could be a continuous producer I don't see why it could not be designed to be
I'd be interested to know how you'd do that ... ?

because it produces through using a flow from one water level to another by creating multiple chambers in a lagoon you can always have a flow.

I understand that there is a problem with destruction of habitat and carbon storage/release but there has to be balance where by yes a habitat might be destroyed but it might also lead to the saving of many others. Doing nothing is not an option that has a good outcome so it might be a case of the lesser of two evils]]> £20 billion https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294522#Comment_294522 https://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17252&Focus=294522#Comment_294522 Fri, 04 Feb 2022 09:01:08 +0000 bhommels Posted By: Jonti
I understand that there is a problem with destruction of habitat and carbon storage/release but there has to be balance where by yes a habitat might be destroyed but it might also lead to the saving of many others. Doing nothing is not an option that has a good outcome so it might be a case of the lesser of two evils
There are many examples where wet habitats recover very quickly and thrive after civil engineering messed with their water levels, contrary to what many predicted. I am not saying we should just go ahead with whatever and count on nature recovering but as you say there is a balance to be struck.
Unfortunately it is really hard to predict or model how habitats would change, nevermind account for the net CO2 effects of those changes.]]>