Nuclear | Claverton Group

The curious case of a minister in a debate refusing to debate with the MP moving it! New Nuclear Power debate in Parliament today

EXTRACT Andrea Leadsom: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that each project is taken on its merits. Britain is open for business. We are very keen to see investment from overseas in our new nuclear, but it is very clear that the UK supply chain will provide an enormous amount of the jobs and growth […]

MOVE OVER FOSSIL FUELS, RENEWABLES TAKE OVER WORLDWIDE GENERATION INSTALLATION

As Bloomberg says (see below), time is running out for fossil fuels as installation of renewable electricity generation exceeds installation of fossil fuels. Now that’s not yet a lead in electricity production itself, as fossil fuel power plant usually have a higher capacity factor compared to renewables, but at the current rate of change it […]

Nuclear silver bullet?

Hi, FYI two nuclear articles copied below – about Gen IV fast reactors and supporting film called Pandora’s Promise. So, the nuclear technology promoted by G. Monbiot and M. Lynas (Pandora’s Promise film) over the last few years, the SFR (sodium-cooled fast reactor), out of the six or so fast -reactor / Gen IV concepts […]

not one British national paper or TV or Radio station has mentioned the most important conference of 190 nations dealing with the world’s nuclear insecurity – the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

As far as I can monitor, not one British national paper or TV or Radio station has mentioned a single world about the most important ( five-yearly ) conference of 190 nations dealing with the world’s nuclear insecurity – the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – starting today in New York at the UN. And this […]

cost of nuclear power compared to renewable energy

LETTER FOR PUBLICATION Dear Editor THE OPPORTUNITY COST OF NUCLEAR POWER Your editorial on energy policy (2015-04-20) implies that nuclear power is part of the answer to the problem of decarbonising energy supplies, but this is false. The main reason is opportunity cost: money spent on nuclear power is money diverted away from alternatives that […]

Nonsense from Dieter Helm – Energy Futures Network: The Coalition Effect – Energy Policy and the Coalition

11:27 (16 minutes ago) to Claverton Excellent Alan .. good to have some first hand evidence .. I think Helm is seeking controversy for his own ends .. it is important that this version of the “truth” does not take hold ..kind regards m On 15 April 2015 at 16:59, Alan Simpson I’m on […]

history of the reasons why Britain Govt likes nuclear despite all the downsides

Neil, et al, Thanks for your comments. You give a whole stack of good reasons why nuclear is unattractive, but still the establishment pursues it, at vast costs in environment, security, cash, credibility and so on, and have ignored many of these costs. So why do they still do it. Do they not see history […]

Look at the list of Labour Party politicians (and their spouses) who are open to the susupicion of having been corrupted by nuclear industry

. These are from Donnachadh McCarthy’s new book The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought, http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2587477/nuclear_power_trumps_democracy.html Former Energy Minister Brian Wilson became a non-executive director of Amec Nuclear, a client of BNFL. Former Energy Minister Helen Liddell was hired to provide “strategic advice” by the former nuclear corporation British Energy. […]

Is nuclear power flexible, does it have load following capability?

Some Notes on the Flexibility of Nuclear Units What is “Flexibility”? What does “flexibility” mean for a generating technology? I guess that most people would think about the ability to increase or decrease active power output (Megawatts) either on instruction, or automatically, in order to help balance generation and demand on the system. But the […]

Relative / comparative costs of wind energy, nuclear energy, hydro power, coal power, natural gas, geothermal energy, and biomass

In general it can be seen that there is not a lot to choose between the cost of wind energy, and coal, gas or nuclear. PV and CSP are considerablymore expensive however.