Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
If [or when ?] Labour get into power, you'll have a whole new energy crisis to deal with.
One of Starmer's 'five missions' is "removing fossil fuels from all of Britain's electricity generation by 2030".
This despite the fact that almost 42% of current generation is from Gas, and 2.5% from Coal.
What does he think is going to generate all this electricity in [just under] 7 years time ?
(when of course, we'll likely need even more to than we produce now, to charge up all these electric cars).
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Well, we’ll get about 3.5 GW from Hinckley Point C when it opens (should be 2028) but we’d need 8 of those to replace all the gas. Plus we’re going to lose 7 old nuclear reactors at the same time HPC opens. So it’s swings and roundabouts really.
There are signs of sanity from the Labour front bench in Scotland, where the SNP is presently using its planning powers to forestall any talk of new nuclear north of the border, even though just a couple of nuclear plants would take care of Scotland’s entire base load requirement with plenty to spare. Labour now says it is favourable to new nuclear in Scotland.
The problem with nuclear as designed and deployed in the UK in recent decades is, first, it takes far too long to design and build, and second, it costs an absolute smegging fortune to do. But as it’s the most carbon efficient means of providing reliable base load we really need to find a way to do it. Rolls Royce’s new Small Modular Reactor is one possible way forwards. They’re small so should be easier and cheaper to build. And there are multiple sites in the UK with decommissioned reactors on them already so possibly easier to get done without too much local opposition.
SMRs are a lot smaller - around 470MW as opposed to 3GW or more for the traditionally-sized stations the government has been trying to get built for the last 20 years. But in terms of cost per megawatt, they should produce twice as much electricity per £1 of construction cost as their larger alternatives.
However, the first Rolls Royce SMR will not be built before 2029, so in answer to your question, no, there is absolutely not a snowball’s chance in hell of Labour or anyone else getting gas entirely out of our energy mix in the next 7 years.