Cugel wrote: ↑29 Dec 2022, 12:57pm
Carlton green wrote: ↑29 Dec 2022, 10:26am
....... IMHO it is thread drift. IIRC would I rather have renewables that Nuclear wasn’t the original post. If that had been the question then the answer is fraught with practicalities and will remain so until we can store electricity - or even just some form of potential energy - in much much greater quantities.
For the moment Nuclear is needed and rather than deny that the question really is of the evils that you will have to pick which of them is the most tolerable. Do you want fossil fuels, do you want nuclear, can you accept a mix of power sources, do you want the adverse - as well as positive - consequences of being reliant on intermittent sources of renewable power?
Part of any answer to the OP's question (would we be content to have a mini nuclear power production plant in our backyard) must contain alternatives solutions to power production if we answer the OP's question with a "no". The obvious current competitor to nuclear and most other fuel-using power production technologies is: renewables (meaning those technologies that use already extant power that constantly renews as a natural process, such as sun, wind, flowing water).
So, my answer to the OP's post-title question is, "No, because such small & local nuclear is too dangerous, expensive and unavailable". Followed by, "There's a better alternative which is renewables".
You seem to be assuming that renewables technologies have a problem with power availability (when there's little or no wind, sun or water flow) so large storage capacity is needed. This is the case - although it's not so easy to predict the likely quiescent periods when sun, wind and water flow are not likely to be available in enough quantities, in face of an ever-accelerating climate change.
You also assume that storage capacity of sufficient size will be problematic of itself. This might be true if the supply model is based on the current model of a few very large centralised production facilities sending its product over an extensive national grid. But that model is dated and, I would say, defunct.
A solar, wind & water flow model of generation will be far more efficient if its highly distributed, to the degree that every household, factory, office, palace and other building has an array of solar panels, small-scale wind turbines and even small scale hydro-electric plant where possible. This has several advantages over centralised supply, including a far greater resilience and far less power loss because of very long power transmission paths between producer and consumer.
As with the production technology, storage technology can also be highly distributed. Every household could easily have battery storage of an amount that meets their highest demand periods plus a bit. Excess power can be exported via a local grid to a next-size-up communal battery facility that can be accessed by those who've used up all their own household stored power.
Even if the local power production and storage facilities don't meet the total demand over a nation, they will vasty reduce the requirements of a centralised power production and storage facility. The centralised model of power production and transmission has largely been wrought out of a now defunct need for "efficiency". Some of that efficiency was in having very large production facilities that, for X amount of materiel resource could produce more than a multiplicity of similar but much smaller facilities built with the same materiel. But most of the "efficiency" was to do with the financial "efficiency" of servicing large business organisations who wish to have something approaching a monopoly on power production and sale.
As ever, we need to separate out different aspects of what we have now by differentiating what of a service functions well to provide that service from what functions well to provide some very few people with a large amount of profit-money. Put another way, we need to ask, "What are the vested interests" or "Qui bono"?
**************
This month we have at last got installed a second 4K solar array on our house (we already have another 4K array dedicated to a Feed in Tariff - FiT - arrangement) along with a 30KwH battery storage facility. The FiT solar panels typically generate around 3000 - 3500 Kw-hours per year. The second aray will likely generate the same amount. 6000 - 7000 KwH per year in total.
The winter months see insufficient generated from this solar to fully charge the battery and/or service the house demand. In summer, it's likely that most days will see the new 4K array generating enough to service the house with some excess going into the battery array and perhaps even into the grid (for no return). In winter, the batteries charge to full overnight at Economy7 rate from the grid then discharge gradually to service the house demand over the dark winter days.
If we could add small wind power turbines that will operate at low wind speeds (and overnight) we could likely generate enough from them in winter to not need the grid at all. Such small scale wind generators are on the way and will cost far, far, far less than a nuclear power station per-consumer KwH produced, no matter what the size of the nuclear build.
***********
In short, a supply architecture based wholly on renewables is possible, including the storage. It just needs to be localised down to a per-household or per-business premises level. It costs at those levels too. (We paid £28,000 for our new 4K solar panel array, 30KwH battery array and the inverter, wiring, scaffold to put it up etc.). Consumer buying and owning of such localised power production and storage facility is possible, then, especially if subsidised by government to, say, the levels they now subsidise oil & gas production. (Ours wasn't subsidised).
So, new car or a local power production and storage facility? Some folk spend £28,000 per year just going on holiday!
Cugel
Might I suggest you not skip so blithely over the refining process for Rare Earth elements and the mining of cobalt. Rare Earth elements are not actually that rare- BUT they are present in tiny amounts in even the best ores and extracting them is a dirty and energy using process due to the Laws of Chemistry. That's why they are mainly produced in China. Due to the regime control in China, journalists who report on the toxic waste tips (which are also radioactive as Thorium is a byproduct) are extremely rare.
Then there's Cobalt. Mainly mined by children in an "artisan" (hand tools, no safety) approach in the Democratic Republic of Congo. God luck changing that- you need to either find another deposit of the ore and/or control the production (these days that's regarded as colonialism unless done by the country it's happening in, and there's no sign of that so far). Lithium has not quite so bad a profile but it's still not good. Solar panels are mainly made in China. The silicon required needs quite a lot of energy to produce- mainly provided using coal-fired (or gas-fired power generation. China doesn't have the same environmental laws we do, and their coal is more often lignite rather than good quality coal).
The laws of physics and chemistry are such that modern wind turbines, batteries and solar installations require these materials, producing these materials requires cheap labour and power, and so we've outsourced the mess to the other side of the planet.
I suppose in the UK we could close our eyes to the consequences of all this but make no mistake- "green energy" isn't really that green for the people at the bottom end of the supply chain producing all the raw materials. I'm also very opposed to outsourcing our responsibility for stuff like this to others.
On the wider subject of "we could." Aye well we could do a lot of things if the govt and media wasn't filled with people who confuse magical thinking with doing. There's a bunch of very challenging engineering problems plus major infrastructure investment plus social change needed unless you're happy to have major power cuts in winter in future years.
Look up the Energy Triads
https://www.edfenergy.com/large-busines ... -confirmed This is already effecting business in UK. For example, small foundries making items for repair of passenger trains, local companies in their community in UK with highly efficient production, decent jobs, good standards of health and environmental compliance and highly efficient operations. If they fail, that work will be outsourced (prob China) again and still be made using much poorer controls and then shipped around the world. Or the train will be scrapped (perhaps replaced with something even more energy intense to make).
On the Saturday at the start of the recent cold snap, at around 15:00 (not peak) Gridwatch showed 18% electricity coming from "sustainable sources" (14% nuclear, 4% wood pellet shipped from Canada), 2.5% from all renewables (wind, solar and UK hydro), 3% from coal and the rest from gas. Today, on a very windy day (albeit much warmer day with corresponding lower demand) renewables are up to 57%.
Sums don't add up for renewables on calm day (often associated with coldest weather and so highest demand in (winter) and storage technology is limited and still in infancy.
So what can be done? Well, we need a "bridging strategy" which will mean a few things. I'd start by putting everyone who claims they are fine as on "100% green" tariff onto a true 100% green (i.e. interruptible) tariff- minimum 12 months. Then when they realise the reality of our energy rich demands for living (and the low energy intensity of "green" energy) we could have a sensible conversation about where we go from here. Reality is that to avoid bad consequences, we need to do make this a major priority and use ALL things we can.
Here's a few suggestions of stuff that ALL should go into the basket of "what we must do":
- simple boxes that can be installed cheaply so you can feed in "extra" sources of power without endangering Grid workers when power goes off
- taper help for fuel bills- you get help for the first XX units then is tapes off quickly
- If you've got a little stream on your property/land and want to make a micro/nano hydro plant- no licence required from EA/NRW
- ditto if you really want to put a little windmill on your chimney stack or in your yard. Might not generate much but it would be highly educational about energy generation constraints
- push on SMRs (I'd happily have one in my yard). Those who object no longer allowed to have radiotherapy or x-rays. Ever (most radioactive waste being from medical sources).
- Introducing Cugel's radical approach to property renting so that folk come to own their homes and hence desire to invest in making it an efficient home (add in a Landlord duty to make the property energy efficient)
- Investment in the Grid (take it back into public ownership) to make it resilient and able to cope with lots of localized supplies. And mandate minimum "connection" times for significant power generation
- Severn Barrage/tidal lagoons
- big programme of tidal lagoon building around our coast
- small-scale hydro on all our upland streams. That might also mitigate against flood and encourage more preservation of blanket bog (penalize shooting moors, incentivize hydro but in an unobtrusive way via lost of small-scale).
- lots of small-scale storage using cheap, safe and fully recyclable technology such as lead-acid deep-cycle leisure batteries- aimed at easing the pain by providing lighting and possibly the power needed for a gas boiler during the inevitable power cuts as the energy system transitions
- all owners of EVs must have a system where the Grid can use their battery for load balancing. Otherwise they are restricted to public chargers which will only work at off peak times.
- Where we need coal for necessary activity (such as making iron and for steel production- e.g. Scunthorpe works which makes steel for all railway lines in UK) we mine it ourselves and take responsibility for making it as clean and targetted as possible, rather than outsourcing messy energy intensive processes to where we cannot see them. We should be taking responsibility for our own energy needs. This also applies to fracking for gas- why is it not OK to extract gas in UK, but it is OK to have a warm house heated by gas sourced from Qatar and subsidized by public funds? And without gas, for at least the next few years a lot of folk WILL be cold in winter.
- Encouraging build of non-conventional homes- straw bale, cob, earth-sheltered- which are also energy efficient. Goes with the redistribution of land/property and making homes a place to live not a financial investment
- Along with that, encouraging gardening for food production.
- Making a "right to broadband" a thing- to encourage remote working and lessen need for transport
And last but by no means the least...... changing social norms. My family were always skint when I grew up, in all my childhood we only ever had one holiday- a week in a chalet in the Lake District (from north east England). We don't NEED to fly abroad every year- if at all. As for family- well, when I was 12, my grandparents emigrated to Australia. I never saw them again, and my mother in the 25 years they lived only saw them twice (one of those times for the funeral of one of them). In those days, phone calls were costly and we used airmail paper to write letters that were expensive to send. These days even without flying, we are much better off with Zoom/Teams and cheap international calls.
Part of that is also about social norms for acquiring "stuff" and conflating "success" with "the ability to buy more stuff." Another aspect of that is conflating "enjoyment" with "the ability to make a lot of noise and consume food/alcohol/trimmings to excess" and "owning branded new SUVs using finance packages." It's about wearing (and making) clothes and shoes that last, and lots of other things.
This all will probably not be popular; but I'm pragmatic and prefer honesty. All "magical thinking" will do is bring on power cuts and mass unrest. All of our political class seems to think that the road to "net zero" (whatever that really means) is paved with Unicorn tears and all they need to do is keep repeating the mantra and it will happen by magic.
Well, it won't, and even to maintain a cut-down version of our current lifestyle (which has resulted in great benefits) we'll need to accept some difficult things. SMRs are, IMO, one of the least problematic of those things. But as ever.... YMMV.......
TPO