On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 11:18:03 UTC+1, Pancho wrote:
On 01/05/2019 10:31, Steve Walker wrote:
On 01/05/2019 07:36, harry wrote:
On Tuesday, 30 April 2019 20:51:43 UTC+1, The Natural PhilosopherÂ* wrote:
On 30/04/2019 16:37, John Rumm wrote:
On 30/04/2019 13:49, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â*Â* Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Clive Page
wrote:

Well it's only worth-while because of the very generous subsidy for
those of us who got in early ...

Meaning that it was never really worthwhile. Subsidies are always
a bad
idea as they hide the true cost of something.

Thus spake a true Tory. Except where that subsidy applies to him, of
course.

Even true tory's can understand basic economics... subsidy can be
worthwhile when it promotes a behaviour that contributes to a common
good. Much like taxation can be be use to fold the costs of
externalities back into any practice where they are currently avoided.
That forces the true cost of an activity back onto those responsible
for
it, and restores more realistic market forces.

Those that promote subsidy of renewable energy generation will argue
that its an industry that is new and hence needs support to reach
maturity (an argument wearing thin IMHO), and that there is a common
good being achieved from the production of low carbon energy.

There are major flaws in the argument that stem from the fact that we
currently have no practical use for intermittent energy sources. Hence
the delivery of it must be forced to become a continuous. Either the
producer of the energy must provide their own storage, or they rely on
existing flexible generation capacity elsewhere in the grid to make up
the shortfalls. Currently a massive externality the producer is not
having to meet. To add insult to injury, most of that flexible
generation capacity will be gas powered. So currently, by having grid
connected solar, you just lock in a requirement for gas generation
which
seems to go against much of its whole stated purpose.



All renewable energy does is push electricity prices up, so instead of a
common good its straight profiteeri8nmg by ****s at the expense of
society.

In short exactly what lefty****s accuse the capitalists of doing.

All Socialists and Greens are now the people they warned you about


And nuclear energy profits the Chinese and French.
(At least they are hoping so.Â* They may well get their fingers burned.)

Yes, I agree on that. It is stupid to export the profits, that is just
money taken out of our economy.

Our government should have funded new nuclear power plants directly - it
can borrow at much lower cost than private companies and once paid off,
any profits from selling electricity could have gone to the treasury
(reducing the required tax take) or been used to lower consumers' bills..


I'm trying to understand this currently I'm coming up with the following
theory.

The key issues with nuclear seems to be that economic viability depends
on a lot of reactors using the same design being built. This allows
design cost and the cost of understanding build issues to be spread.

I guess France did it in the past so it is viable. But the UK government
does have a habit of messing up big projects.

Really speaking a multinational would have a better chance at these
economies of scale but I suspect they fear that government regulation
and/or new technology could limit their ability to use the same design
multiple times.

So we currently have the technology to solve the low CO2 energy
production issue but we aren't doing it, primarily because companies are
worried that someone will figure a way to do it cheaper.

The French went for nuclear electricity in a big way.
Now they are paying the (decommissioning) price.
Nuclear power is the most expensive power you can have. No-one knows the full decommissioning cost because no-one has completed the process.

They just store the nuclear waste away and leave the problem for future generations.

The Hinkley point power station is hugely over budget and late. And may never be completed.