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The German election looks very tight – politicalbetting.com

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  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    kle4 said:

    Can some kind soul post link(s) for live coverage of German results? Gotta BIG bet on the Schleswig Party!

    Not sure if anyone has better than the official results page AndyJS posted. Nothing in yet.

    https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/2021/ergebnisse/bund-99.html
    Looks like my bet paid off
    The 6 best words in the English language?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Sandpit said:

    They really don’t want to get rid of Merkel, do they? How many months of negotiations to follow on from the results?

    On a historical note she needs to stay in office for another 85 days to overtake Helmut Kohl's record for longest-serving chancellor.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Zero chance of a critical meltdown incident. A terrorist attack would be a hassle, but wouldn't entirely render the area uninhabitable. Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years.
    I could go on and on.
    Lagoons are a third of the capital cost to build versus nuclear (and last at least twice as long - probably far longer).

    Electricity at a 40-50% discount to the price for that generated by nuclear.

    Virtually zero abandonment costs for tidal versus the current bill of up to £220 billion to abandon the UKs existing nuclear facilities.

    Regeneration of coastal towns by creation of new leisure facilities at lagoons
    - versus each nuclear plant requiring a 24 hour armed police force

    80,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in building a fleet of lagoons.....
    I think MarqueeMark has been bought by big tidal. :o
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Not quite zero carbon. Considerable initial amounts in concrete and steel production. But yes, we should be doing this.
    The initial concrete and steel carbon is offset.
  • Yes of course tanker drivers are a different category - ADR. Part of the issue was that the driver piracy pay rises have led to ADR drivers poached to do non-ADR.

    When we have a big shortage of drivers, and a smaller number do critical things like deliver fuel, its something the government had to sort. Hence the dropping of competition rules.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    edited September 2021

    Scott_xP said:

    Breaking - Keir Starmer’s leadership rule changes got 53% of the vote, a narrow win
    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1442188712020901893

    No, 53-47 is a huge victory. Bigger than 52-48, anyway.
    Although if I have been following this correctly this is not actually the rule change he wanted. This is only the threshold rule.

    Or maybe that's what he wanted all along?

    If this was a result for Johnson at a Conservative conference it would have been painted as successful horse trading by the big man. Just saying

    Starmer is still a disappointment, and his party remains shambolic.
    Starmer only being an MP for five or whatever years the low number is is really starting to show imho.
    He's been leader for 18 months. He should be wising up as to what a duplicitous bunch the Labour Party are by now.
    Party should be wising up as to what a duplicitous useless nonentity he is by now
    He may be naive as to how political discourse works, however he appears to be far more serious and diligent than Johnson

    Edit. BJO, I am sorry, I genuinely mistook your post for one by BigG. hence the Johnson reference.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Now that I'm sufficiently recovered from last night - London is bouncing. At least Camden is, I don't think it's fresher's week either because everyone looked sort of around 25-30 rather than of student age. We went to two bars and eventually a late night one with a dancefloor playing 90s grunge. Absolutely fucking packed. Queue at the bar was at least 3 people deep and the dancefloor was just rammed. Got offered coke and mandy at least three times as well so London's party drug dealers are definitely back in business as well.

    The whole conversation about masks to stop spread just seems so irrelevant when places like this are open.

    All in all the old normal is back, if you want to experience it. People are out there living the old normal and that is going to become more and more common over the next few months until there's just a few holdouts banging on about stopping the virus and tutting behind their masks at the rest of society.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    I agree.

    The issue I have is having a single massive nuclear plant which will have pretty rubbish uptime, at least initially. When HPC is generating, because it has the guaranteed price contract, it will be 7-8% of total UK electricity generation. When it goes off-line, it will mean there will be a lot of capacity to fill.

    Wind also suffers from this - albeit it can be a little bit more predictable than nuclear. We at least know with a bit of notice when the wind won't be blowing.

    As an aside, when the German government announced the end of nuclear power in their country, you'll remember the howls of protest from the electricity generators... You didn't? Me neither. Which is because all their plants were also getting old, and their reliability was starting to wane. Thermal expansion and contraction, strict safety protocols, combined with lots of metal being bombarded with radiation tends to cause lots of problems.

    You need a generating mix, and you need lots of storage of your primary fuel so as to cover you in case of a combination of import issues, clouds and no wind.
  • Yes of course tanker drivers are a different category - ADR. Part of the issue was that the driver piracy pay rises have led to ADR drivers poached to do non-ADR.

    When we have a big shortage of drivers, and a smaller number do critical things like deliver fuel, its something the government had to sort. Hence the dropping of competition rules.

    I would have thought that tanker drivers hourly rate was much higher anyway due to extra training and danger money perhaps?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Scott_xP said:

    Breaking - Keir Starmer’s leadership rule changes got 53% of the vote, a narrow win
    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1442188712020901893

    No, 53-47 is a huge victory. Bigger than 52-48, anyway.
    Although if I have been following this correctly this is not actually the rule change he wanted. This is only the threshold rule.

    Or maybe that's what he wanted all along?

    If this was a result for Johnson at a Conservative conference it would have been painted as successful horse trading by the big man. Just saying

    Starmer is still a disappointment, and his party remains shambolic.
    Starmer only being an MP for five or whatever years the low number is is really starting to show imho.
    He's been leader for 18 months. He should be wising up as to what a duplicitous bunch the Labour Party are by now.
    Party should be wising up as to what a duplicitous useless nonentity he is by now
    He may be naive as to how political discourse works, however he appears to be far more serious and diligent than Johnson
    Maybe, though unfortunately you do need to master the former to be able to then display the latter in office.
  • MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    edited September 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    Interesting.
    Indeed. It's a decision that's comes 8 years too late because Dave and George decided to get in bed with China.

    I do wonder what the subsidies for this will look like and what share of the liability the state will take on. RR isn't in any kind of financial position to take on all of the liability of a civilian nuclear programme.
    It doesn't require the eye-watering up-front investment in a single site, or a tiny handful of sites, though. It can be done in a much more incremental way, and the technology is pretty well established.
    Which is why it's an interesting (and good) decision. I'm not massively in favour of nuclear power as it is being done with a massive and unreliable EPR with a very high subsidised strike price.

    This could potentially be done with a much lower initial subsidy and once they've got it figured out incremental costs could be very low indeed. One of my colleagues compared it to a submarine programme (the top of the week), the first one will be expensive, late and people will slate it because it won't be what was promised. The ones that come after will be cheaper, faster and will bring improvements to the original that they couldn't figure out.
    Agree 100%.

    Nuclear tends to have rather less uptime than you like, with plants being taken off line for unscheduled maintenance rather more frequently than people might think.

    (PBers - give me your guess for EDF's French nuclear availability in 2020. That is, of 100 hours of theoretical uptime, how many hours were power stations actually able to generate power. For context, a modern CCGT has more than 99% availability.)

    Concentrated nuclear - i.e. one massive site - is therefore a really bad idea, because what if your 3GW nuclear plant happens comes off line at the same time the wind isn't blowing?

    Distributed small scale plants don't have this problem. Down for unscheduled maintenance? Well, that's 50-100MW off-line. In the general scheme of things, that's nothing.
    I think something like 75 hours for the French nuclear plants. A fair few of them are getting quite old I think, so they would have managed ~85 hours earlier in their lifespan.

    Edit: I see I was a bit optimistic.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955
    RobD said:

    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Zero chance of a critical meltdown incident. A terrorist attack would be a hassle, but wouldn't entirely render the area uninhabitable. Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years.
    I could go on and on.
    Lagoons are a third of the capital cost to build versus nuclear (and last at least twice as long - probably far longer).

    Electricity at a 40-50% discount to the price for that generated by nuclear.

    Virtually zero abandonment costs for tidal versus the current bill of up to £220 billion to abandon the UKs existing nuclear facilities.

    Regeneration of coastal towns by creation of new leisure facilities at lagoons
    - versus each nuclear plant requiring a 24 hour armed police force

    80,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in building a fleet of lagoons.....
    I think MarqueeMark has been bought by big tidal. :o
    Convinced, rather. I make the case pro bono......
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    edited September 2021

    Scott_xP said:

    Breaking - Keir Starmer’s leadership rule changes got 53% of the vote, a narrow win
    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1442188712020901893

    No, 53-47 is a huge victory. Bigger than 52-48, anyway.
    Although if I have been following this correctly this is not actually the rule change he wanted. This is only the threshold rule.

    Or maybe that's what he wanted all along?

    If this was a result for Johnson at a Conservative conference it would have been painted as successful horse trading by the big man. Just saying

    Starmer is still a disappointment, and his party remains shambolic.
    Starmer only being an MP for five or whatever years the low number is is really starting to show imho.
    He's been leader for 18 months. He should be wising up as to what a duplicitous bunch the Labour Party are by now.
    Party should be wising up as to what a duplicitous useless nonentity he is by now
    He may be naive as to how political discourse works, however he appears to be far more serious and diligent than Johnson
    Deleted. Posted in error
  • Interestingly HYUFD was sort of right about the CSU who appear to have done somewhat better than the polls in Bavaria although still only around 32% but they appear to have held 3/4 constituency seats in Munich although the Greens are slightly ahead in Munich in the 2nd vote overall.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Very interesting because it can't be the PWR3 then, not even a modified reactor design would do it. It must be an all new design so will be very much like a new submarine programme, late and over budget but eventually very good.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955
    Those Starmer changes he got through - from the Beeb:

    "in future, leadership candidates will need the support of 20% of Labour MPs - rather than the current 10% - to get on to a party-wide ballot.

    They also make it harder for local parties to deselect sitting MPs, while the rule allowing "registered supporters", who pay a one-off fee to vote in leadership elections, is scrapped."

    The Death of the Three Quid Tory......
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    What's the availability of UK nuclear?

    Or is this French power unreliabilty (?) another consequence of Perfidious Albion / Brexit?

    He's happy with what he's got, and it's a sensible compromise. It means MPs have more power over who will be on the ballot for next leader, and people won't just be able to join the party, or just register, for the purpose of voting in a leadership election.
    That's good to see. I called for more influence for Lab MPs on Twitter, and got roasted for my trouble.

    "Matt hates democracy"
    UK nuclear availability is also in the 60s. We have 8.5-9.0GW of nuclear nameplate capacity in the UK. Scheduled maintenance is staggered, so in theory we have a maximum available of about 7.5GW. But the reality is that we rarely get above 5.5-6GW.
  • dixiedean - "Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years"

    Unless of course the Chinese start loan-sharking money to the UAPs so they can strip-mine the Moon and blast it half-away in the process.

    Which leads me to a topic beloved by (some) eminent PBers . . .

    Politico.com - 'A total lack of focus': Lawmaker on a mission to compel Pentagon to take UFOs seriously

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/25/lawmaker-pentagon-ufo-51428

    Those who want to know if the truth is out there have a new champion in Congress. And he has an urgent message for the Pentagon: it's time to take UFOs seriously.

    Arizona Democrat and Iraq War veteran Rep. Ruben Gallego this week pushed through legislation in the House requiring a permanent office under the secretary of Defense to oversee "the timely and consistent reporting" of what the military calls "unidentified aerial phenomena." And it must share what it learns with Congress at least once a year.

    "There's been a total lack of focus across the national security apparatus to actually get at what's happening here," Gallego, who chairs the Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, said in his first extensive interview on the bill. "I think there has been kind of a partial pastime of curiosity seekers that are within the Department of Defense but there has not been any professional initiative across the defense enterprise... so that we can actually make some deliberate and knowledgeable decisions."

    The provision, which was adopted Thursday as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, requires the new office to be established within 180 days.

    Its main task will be "to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents regarding unidentified aerial phenomena across the Department of Defense," according to the legislation. . . .

    SSI - For what it's worth (maybe 2¢) I think this is a sensible approach, though the article goes on to discuss some of the issues with actually implementing it.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Scott_xP said:

    Breaking:

    Ministers have suspended competition laws to enable fuel suppliers to talk to one another and target petrol stations running dry

    Half of non motorway petrol stations said to be running empty amid continued panic buying

    https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1442199533153366017

    Why don't they divert HGV drivers who are delivering crap that no one basically needs on a short term basis (like I don't know - off the top of my head, garden furniture in September) to delivering petrol? Or is a tanker driver a different class of licence?
    You need to have dangerous goods training to drive a petrol tanker, as well as training on the rig itself, loading and offloading fuel.

    Traditionally, DG and outsized loads were the best paid driving jobs around.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Breaking - Keir Starmer’s leadership rule changes got 53% of the vote, a narrow win
    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1442188712020901893

    No, 53-47 is a huge victory. Bigger than 52-48, anyway.
    Although if I have been following this correctly this is not actually the rule change he wanted. This is only the threshold rule.

    Or maybe that's what he wanted all along?

    If this was a result for Johnson at a Conservative conference it would have been painted as successful horse trading by the big man. Just saying

    Starmer is still a disappointment, and his party remains shambolic.
    Starmer only being an MP for five or whatever years the low number is is really starting to show imho.
    He's been leader for 18 months. He should be wising up as to what a duplicitous bunch the Labour Party are by now.
    Party should be wising up as to what a duplicitous useless nonentity he is by now
    He may be naive as to how political discourse works, however he appears to be far more serious and diligent than Johnson
    Maybe, though unfortunately you do need to master the former to be able to then display the latter in office.
    A fair point.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

    Interestingly HYUFD was sort of right about the CSU who appear to have done somewhat better than the polls in Bavaria although still only around 32% but they appear to have held 3/4 constituency seats in Munich although the Greens are slightly ahead in Munich in the 2nd vote overall.

    If true and the SPD win most seats tonight and Scholz becomes Chancellor, then Soder is strong favourite to be Union chancellor candidate in 2025 given the CSU vote have held almost all their Bavarian constituencies.

    Normally when the CDU loses a Federal election the CSU get to pick the next chancellor candidate, eg Stoiber in 2002 after Kohl lost in 1998 and Strauss in 1980 after Kohl lost in 1976
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Foxy said:



    http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2014/10/peel-reveals.html?m=1

    I think the difference is one of scale, but also of emphasis. Peel had a transparent excellence at spotting new musical trends that transcends his sexual misbehaviour. His evening show in the Eighties was a cornucopia of the brilliant and the avant garde alongside stuff like The Fall, which no matter how much I listen, I cannot get.

    If you pardon the expression, fuck the right off.

    The idea that the 'talent' can get away with things because they are the talent is exactly how these sh*ts got away with it for decades. Their talent is unimportant.

    "transcends his sexual misbehaviour," ffs.

    This is the sort of sick rubbish dear Roger used to spout, before MeToo ...
    "Fuck the right off." You aren't really used to this, are you?

    And you are wrong. Gary Glitter we can dispense with because he was a talentless twat (and an eternal stain on the reputation of KLF sadly); Michael Jackson and the Mamas n the Papas we are not going to stop listening to, whatever. I don't say this is a good thing, it's just a thing.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Not quite zero carbon. Considerable initial amounts in concrete and steel production. But yes, we should be doing this.
    The initial concrete and steel carbon is offset.
    Perhaps, but also a convenient fiction that allows rich to fly every week and say it’s carbon neutral. Should still build them though.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Yes of course tanker drivers are a different category - ADR. Part of the issue was that the driver piracy pay rises have led to ADR drivers poached to do non-ADR.

    When we have a big shortage of drivers, and a smaller number do critical things like deliver fuel, its something the government had to sort. Hence the dropping of competition rules.

    I would have thought that tanker drivers hourly rate was much higher anyway due to extra training and danger money perhaps?
    They used to earn a substantial premium a decade or so ago.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    Interesting.
    Indeed. It's a decision that's comes 8 years too late because Dave and George decided to get in bed with China.

    I do wonder what the subsidies for this will look like and what share of the liability the state will take on. RR isn't in any kind of financial position to take on all of the liability of a civilian nuclear programme.
    It doesn't require the eye-watering up-front investment in a single site, or a tiny handful of sites, though. It can be done in a much more incremental way, and the technology is pretty well established.
    Which is why it's an interesting (and good) decision. I'm not massively in favour of nuclear power as it is being done with a massive and unreliable EPR with a very high subsidised strike price.

    This could potentially be done with a much lower initial subsidy and once they've got it figured out incremental costs could be very low indeed. One of my colleagues compared it to a submarine programme (the top of the week), the first one will be expensive, late and people will slate it because it won't be what was promised. The ones that come after will be cheaper, faster and will bring improvements to the original that they couldn't figure out.
    Agree 100%.

    Nuclear tends to have rather less uptime than you like, with plants being taken off line for unscheduled maintenance rather more frequently than people might think.

    (PBers - give me your guess for EDF's French nuclear availability in 2020. That is, of 100 hours of theoretical uptime, how many hours were power stations actually able to generate power. For context, a modern CCGT has more than 99% availability.)

    Concentrated nuclear - i.e. one massive site - is therefore a really bad idea, because what if your 3GW nuclear plant happens comes off line at the same time the wind isn't blowing?

    Distributed small scale plants don't have this problem. Down for unscheduled maintenance? Well, that's 50-100MW off-line. In the general scheme of things, that's nothing.
    I think something like 75 hours for the French nuclear plants. A fair few of them are getting quite old I think, so they would have managed ~85 hours earlier in their lifespan.
    You're a bit high, it's usually in the mid to high 60s.

    But you are absolutely right that it used to be quite a bit better, as nuclear plants tend to go through three distinct stages:

    The first couple of years, when there are lots of kinks to work out, and when you probably only get 50% availability.

    And then a kind of magnificent maturity when you get 80-85%, and which hopefully lasts a decade or more.

    Then a steady increase in problems and issues as things get old and worn out.
  • kle4 said:

    Foxy said:



    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Germany has had four chancellors since 1974. That's astounding. Are there any other democracies with anything close to that kind of stability?
    Germany = 1974
    Canada = 1993
    France = 1995
    Spain = 1996
    New Zealand = 1999
    USA = 2001
    Denmark = 2001/2009 (if you count Løkke twice or not)
    UK = 2010
    Italy = 2013
    Australia = 2013

    I wondered if Samoa might be on there since its last PM was PM for over 20 years, but they they have had quite a few since 74. But on checking I did like the wikipedia summary of their recent constitutional crisis (as the loser refused to accept defeat), with what might be the fastest switch around in position I've ever seen. From wiki

    On 23 July 2021 the Court of Appeal delivered its judgement on the swearing-in ceremony, declaring that it was constitutional and binding, that FAST had been the government since 24 May, and that the HRPP had been unlawfully occupying office since that date.[6][7][81] Following the decision former prime minister Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi questioned the impartiality of the judiciary and accused them of "treason", claiming that "leaders are chosen by God".[82] The next day, he began to pack up his office.[83] On 25 July, head of state Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II recognised the new government.[84] Tuilaepa admitted defeat and said he looked forward to working with the new government.[85][86]


    From 'it's treason!', to 'looking forward to working with you' in a day.
    Could teach the yanks a thing or two.
    Amusing, except what he seems to have done was worse, in that he actually sought to prevent the swearing in of his opponent.
    Wasn't THAT precisely the purpose of the abortive Putsch at the US Capitol?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:



    http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2014/10/peel-reveals.html?m=1

    I think the difference is one of scale, but also of emphasis. Peel had a transparent excellence at spotting new musical trends that transcends his sexual misbehaviour. His evening show in the Eighties was a cornucopia of the brilliant and the avant garde alongside stuff like The Fall, which no matter how much I listen, I cannot get.

    If you pardon the expression, fuck the right off.

    The idea that the 'talent' can get away with things because they are the talent is exactly how these sh*ts got away with it for decades. Their talent is unimportant.

    "transcends his sexual misbehaviour," ffs.

    This is the sort of sick rubbish dear Roger used to spout, before MeToo ...
    I agree. Although one of the most remarkable things about Savile was his complete lack of any discernible talent.
    Perhaps I didn't express myself very well, but Peel was different. There has been no suggestion of coercion or similar in his relationships or preying on the vulnerable. Indeed the reported incidents were from willing girls in a don't ask/don't tell type situation. There is no suggestion that he carried on like this after the early Seventies, and at that time it wasn't considered as particularly unusual.

    Yes, some things he did were clearly wrong, but Peel was a very different character to Saville or others of his ilk.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited September 2021

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:



    http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2014/10/peel-reveals.html?m=1

    I think the difference is one of scale, but also of emphasis. Peel had a transparent excellence at spotting new musical trends that transcends his sexual misbehaviour. His evening show in the Eighties was a cornucopia of the brilliant and the avant garde alongside stuff like The Fall, which no matter how much I listen, I cannot get.

    If you pardon the expression, fuck the right off.

    The idea that the 'talent' can get away with things because they are the talent is exactly how these sh*ts got away with it for decades. Their talent is unimportant.

    "transcends his sexual misbehaviour," ffs.

    This is the sort of sick rubbish dear Roger used to spout, before MeToo ...
    I agree. Although one of the most remarkable things about Savile was his complete lack of any discernible talent.
    Perhaps I didn't express myself very well, but Peel was different. There has been no suggestion of coercion or similar in his relationships or preying on the vulnerable. Indeed the reported incidents were from willing girls in a don't ask/don't tell type situation. There is no suggestion that he carried on like this after the early Seventies, and at that time it wasn't considered as particularly unusual.

    Yes, some things he did were clearly wrong, but Peel was a very different character to Saville or others of his ilk.
    It's SAVILE.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    MaxPB said:

    Now that I'm sufficiently recovered from last night - London is bouncing. At least Camden is, I don't think it's fresher's week either because everyone looked sort of around 25-30 rather than of student age. We went to two bars and eventually a late night one with a dancefloor playing 90s grunge. Absolutely fucking packed. Queue at the bar was at least 3 people deep and the dancefloor was just rammed. Got offered coke and mandy at least three times as well so London's party drug dealers are definitely back in business as well.

    The whole conversation about masks to stop spread just seems so irrelevant when places like this are open.

    All in all the old normal is back, if you want to experience it. People are out there living the old normal and that is going to become more and more common over the next few months until there's just a few holdouts banging on about stopping the virus and tutting behind their masks at the rest of society.

    You got offered Peter Mandelson???
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    RobD said:

    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Zero chance of a critical meltdown incident. A terrorist attack would be a hassle, but wouldn't entirely render the area uninhabitable. Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years.
    I could go on and on.
    Lagoons are a third of the capital cost to build versus nuclear (and last at least twice as long - probably far longer).

    Electricity at a 40-50% discount to the price for that generated by nuclear.

    Virtually zero abandonment costs for tidal versus the current bill of up to £220 billion to abandon the UKs existing nuclear facilities.

    Regeneration of coastal towns by creation of new leisure facilities at lagoons
    - versus each nuclear plant requiring a 24 hour armed police force

    80,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in building a fleet of lagoons.....
    I think MarqueeMark has been bought by big tidal. :o
    @MarqueeMark works for big tidal!

    And, as an aside, it's really not stupid, and is certainly a better idea than HPC. It's unclear to me why the government doesn't seem to give a shit.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Germany has had four chancellors since 1974. That's astounding. Are there any other democracies with anything close to that kind of stability?
    Germany = 1974
    Canada = 1993
    France = 1995
    Spain = 1996
    New Zealand = 1999
    USA = 2001
    Denmark = 2001/2009 (if you count Løkke twice or not)
    UK = 2010
    Italy = 2013
    Australia = 2013

    Tough for an ambitious politician - you have to be at the right time or you won't get a chance for a decade and more to get the top job, or even adjacent to it.
    If you're ambitious, but a bit shit, you'll get shuffled off to Brussels. So it's win-win.
  • rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    What's the availability of UK nuclear?

    Or is this French power unreliabilty (?) another consequence of Perfidious Albion / Brexit?

    He's happy with what he's got, and it's a sensible compromise. It means MPs have more power over who will be on the ballot for next leader, and people won't just be able to join the party, or just register, for the purpose of voting in a leadership election.
    That's good to see. I called for more influence for Lab MPs on Twitter, and got roasted for my trouble.

    "Matt hates democracy"
    UK nuclear availability is also in the 60s. We have 8.5-9.0GW of nuclear nameplate capacity in the UK. Scheduled maintenance is staggered, so in theory we have a maximum available of about 7.5GW. But the reality is that we rarely get above 5.5-6GW.
    As a matter of interest, what's the availability of CCGT and OCGT?

    However: availability is just one metric. The question for power generation are *unplanned* stoppages: i.e. if you know a plant is going down for a month's maintenance period in January next year, you can plan accordingly and prepare other plants to cover it. You cannot do this with wind, as it is very intermittent in nature, with only broad scheduling ("it's usually windy in January.")
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Ideally you'd distribute them, otherwise you have the risk that a storm takes down a single cable and the whole site is knocked off the grid. But I guess it does simplify matters in other ways.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955
    The other thing to bear in mind with tidal lagoons is that if we have left it too late on global warming, we are going to need to build some massive barriers against rising sea-levels. Fast.

    May as well double up with power generation.
  • IF I'm reading the Tagesschau webpage correctly, Linke is hanging right at 5.0% of votes counted so far, with 76.0% turnout.

    But is that TOTAL turnout, or percent counted so far. And what is left to count?

    IF Linke does worse in the remaining votes than what's already counted, then could push them under national threshold, reduce them from current 40 (based on current count) down to a few constituency seats and alter the math for parties who do make 5%.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    What's the availability of UK nuclear?

    Or is this French power unreliabilty (?) another consequence of Perfidious Albion / Brexit?

    He's happy with what he's got, and it's a sensible compromise. It means MPs have more power over who will be on the ballot for next leader, and people won't just be able to join the party, or just register, for the purpose of voting in a leadership election.
    That's good to see. I called for more influence for Lab MPs on Twitter, and got roasted for my trouble.

    "Matt hates democracy"
    UK nuclear availability is also in the 60s. We have 8.5-9.0GW of nuclear nameplate capacity in the UK. Scheduled maintenance is staggered, so in theory we have a maximum available of about 7.5GW. But the reality is that we rarely get above 5.5-6GW.
    As a matter of interest, what's the availability of CCGT and OCGT?

    However: availability is just one metric. The question for power generation are *unplanned* stoppages: i.e. if you know a plant is going down for a month's maintenance period in January next year, you can plan accordingly and prepare other plants to cover it. You cannot do this with wind, as it is very intermittent in nature, with only broad scheduling ("it's usually windy in January.")
    OCGTs will be close to 99.9%. They're just jet turbines, after all. You press the button, and 15 seconds later you find glorious electrons flowing. They're cheap too. Sadly, they're not very efficient.

    A modern CCGT is going to be in the 96-99% range. Because you have a thermal cycle as well as the gas turbine, there is more wear and tear and more maintenance. But it tends to be pretty scheduled. So you can choose times of the year when electricity demand is low.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    edited September 2021

    IF I'm reading the Tagesschau webpage correctly, Linke is hanging right at 5.0% of votes counted so far, with 76.0% turnout.

    But is that TOTAL turnout, or percent counted so far. And what is left to count?

    IF Linke does worse in the remaining votes than what's already counted, then could push them under national threshold, reduce them from current 40 (based on current count) down to a few constituency seats and alter the math for parties who do make 5%.

    If they win their three Berlin seats, then the 5% threshold doesn't matter.
  • rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    What's the availability of UK nuclear?

    Or is this French power unreliabilty (?) another consequence of Perfidious Albion / Brexit?

    He's happy with what he's got, and it's a sensible compromise. It means MPs have more power over who will be on the ballot for next leader, and people won't just be able to join the party, or just register, for the purpose of voting in a leadership election.
    That's good to see. I called for more influence for Lab MPs on Twitter, and got roasted for my trouble.

    "Matt hates democracy"
    UK nuclear availability is also in the 60s. We have 8.5-9.0GW of nuclear nameplate capacity in the UK. Scheduled maintenance is staggered, so in theory we have a maximum available of about 7.5GW. But the reality is that we rarely get above 5.5-6GW.
    As a matter of interest, what's the availability of CCGT and OCGT?

    However: availability is just one metric. The question for power generation are *unplanned* stoppages: i.e. if you know a plant is going down for a month's maintenance period in January next year, you can plan accordingly and prepare other plants to cover it. You cannot do this with wind, as it is very intermittent in nature, with only broad scheduling ("it's usually windy in January.")
    You get unplanned loss of other generating capacity, and wind forecasts are pretty good.

    The main problem is that it wouldn't be economic to store electricity to cover the 1-in-10 year events when you have an unusually calm December for an extended period. But that can be dealt with and prepared for with some subsidy.
  • Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:



    http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2014/10/peel-reveals.html?m=1

    I think the difference is one of scale, but also of emphasis. Peel had a transparent excellence at spotting new musical trends that transcends his sexual misbehaviour. His evening show in the Eighties was a cornucopia of the brilliant and the avant garde alongside stuff like The Fall, which no matter how much I listen, I cannot get.

    If you pardon the expression, fuck the right off.

    The idea that the 'talent' can get away with things because they are the talent is exactly how these sh*ts got away with it for decades. Their talent is unimportant.

    "transcends his sexual misbehaviour," ffs.

    This is the sort of sick rubbish dear Roger used to spout, before MeToo ...
    I agree. Although one of the most remarkable things about Savile was his complete lack of any discernible talent.
    Perhaps I didn't express myself very well, but Peel was different. There has been no suggestion of coercion or similar in his relationships or preying on the vulnerable. Indeed the reported incidents were from willing girls in a don't ask/don't tell type situation. There is no suggestion that he carried on like this after the early Seventies, and at that time it wasn't considered as particularly unusual.

    Yes, some things he did were clearly wrong, but Peel was a very different character to Saville or others of his ilk.
    "no suggestion of coercion or similar in his relationships or preying on the vulnerable."

    Ahem.
    https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/12/john-peel-jimmy-savile-bbc_n_1960523.html

    Yes, it's HuffPost, and claims were never proved. But it is certainly a 'suggestion'.

    And marrying a 15 year old when you're 26 might be potentially coercive, and certainly preying on the vulnerable.

    But you are right on one thing: Peel was indeed different. Because he allegedly had 'talent', some people excuse behaviour that they would castigate (say) a Tory MP for.

    You are defending the indefensible.
  • rcs1000 said:

    IF I'm reading the Tagesschau webpage correctly, Linke is hanging right at 5.0% of votes counted so far, with 76.0% turnout.

    But is that TOTAL turnout, or percent counted so far. And what is left to count?

    IF Linke does worse in the remaining votes than what's already counted, then could push them under national threshold, reduce them from current 40 (based on current count) down to a few constituency seats and alter the math for parties who do make 5%.

    If they win their three Berlin seats, then the 5% threshold doesn't matter.
    Except they would get zero list or top-up seats based on national vote share. I think that's the case.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
  • rcs1000 said:

    IF I'm reading the Tagesschau webpage correctly, Linke is hanging right at 5.0% of votes counted so far, with 76.0% turnout.

    But is that TOTAL turnout, or percent counted so far. And what is left to count?

    IF Linke does worse in the remaining votes than what's already counted, then could push them under national threshold, reduce them from current 40 (based on current count) down to a few constituency seats and alter the math for parties who do make 5%.

    If they win their three Berlin seats, then the 5% threshold doesn't matter.
    I think the 76% is turnout in total. I think they count the totals first to weed out the weird ballots.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    edit
  • rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    What's the availability of UK nuclear?

    Or is this French power unreliabilty (?) another consequence of Perfidious Albion / Brexit?

    He's happy with what he's got, and it's a sensible compromise. It means MPs have more power over who will be on the ballot for next leader, and people won't just be able to join the party, or just register, for the purpose of voting in a leadership election.
    That's good to see. I called for more influence for Lab MPs on Twitter, and got roasted for my trouble.

    "Matt hates democracy"
    UK nuclear availability is also in the 60s. We have 8.5-9.0GW of nuclear nameplate capacity in the UK. Scheduled maintenance is staggered, so in theory we have a maximum available of about 7.5GW. But the reality is that we rarely get above 5.5-6GW.
    As a matter of interest, what's the availability of CCGT and OCGT?

    However: availability is just one metric. The question for power generation are *unplanned* stoppages: i.e. if you know a plant is going down for a month's maintenance period in January next year, you can plan accordingly and prepare other plants to cover it. You cannot do this with wind, as it is very intermittent in nature, with only broad scheduling ("it's usually windy in January.")
    You get unplanned loss of other generating capacity, and wind forecasts are pretty good.

    The main problem is that it wouldn't be economic to store electricity to cover the 1-in-10 year events when you have an unusually calm December for an extended period. But that can be dealt with and prepared for with some subsidy.
    Yes, you do get unplanned loss of other systems. My question is how frequently does that happen? (I could ask my friendly contact about this, but he's currently pulling long shifts on planned maintenance of a power station in Dublin...) ;)
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489

    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Zero chance of a critical meltdown incident. A terrorist attack would be a hassle, but wouldn't entirely render the area uninhabitable. Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years.
    I could go on and on.
    Lagoons are a third of the capital cost to build versus nuclear (and last at least twice as long - probably far longer).

    Electricity at a 40-50% discount to the price for that generated by nuclear.

    Virtually zero abandonment costs for tidal versus the current bill of up to £220 billion to abandon the UKs existing nuclear facilities.

    Regeneration of coastal towns by creation of new leisure facilities at lagoons
    - versus each nuclear plant requiring a 24 hour armed police force

    80,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in building a fleet of lagoons.....
    I've often wondered about Tidal, and you are selling it well, I haven't checked the numbers, but what are the downsides/why has it not happened already? Environmental damage to the seabed?
  • rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    What's the availability of UK nuclear?

    Or is this French power unreliabilty (?) another consequence of Perfidious Albion / Brexit?

    He's happy with what he's got, and it's a sensible compromise. It means MPs have more power over who will be on the ballot for next leader, and people won't just be able to join the party, or just register, for the purpose of voting in a leadership election.
    That's good to see. I called for more influence for Lab MPs on Twitter, and got roasted for my trouble.

    "Matt hates democracy"
    UK nuclear availability is also in the 60s. We have 8.5-9.0GW of nuclear nameplate capacity in the UK. Scheduled maintenance is staggered, so in theory we have a maximum available of about 7.5GW. But the reality is that we rarely get above 5.5-6GW.
    As a matter of interest, what's the availability of CCGT and OCGT?

    However: availability is just one metric. The question for power generation are *unplanned* stoppages: i.e. if you know a plant is going down for a month's maintenance period in January next year, you can plan accordingly and prepare other plants to cover it. You cannot do this with wind, as it is very intermittent in nature, with only broad scheduling ("it's usually windy in January.")
    You get unplanned loss of other generating capacity, and wind forecasts are pretty good.

    The main problem is that it wouldn't be economic to store electricity to cover the 1-in-10 year events when you have an unusually calm December for an extended period. But that can be dealt with and prepared for with some subsidy.
    Yes, demand management will have to be a critical component of future energy policy.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    And if one goes up - they all go up! (Or at the very least, go offline....for a few hundred years.)

    It does nothing on security of supply.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:



    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Germany has had four chancellors since 1974. That's astounding. Are there any other democracies with anything close to that kind of stability?
    Germany = 1974
    Canada = 1993
    France = 1995
    Spain = 1996
    New Zealand = 1999
    USA = 2001
    Denmark = 2001/2009 (if you count Løkke twice or not)
    UK = 2010
    Italy = 2013
    Australia = 2013

    I wondered if Samoa might be on there since its last PM was PM for over 20 years, but they they have had quite a few since 74. But on checking I did like the wikipedia summary of their recent constitutional crisis (as the loser refused to accept defeat), with what might be the fastest switch around in position I've ever seen. From wiki

    On 23 July 2021 the Court of Appeal delivered its judgement on the swearing-in ceremony, declaring that it was constitutional and binding, that FAST had been the government since 24 May, and that the HRPP had been unlawfully occupying office since that date.[6][7][81] Following the decision former prime minister Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi questioned the impartiality of the judiciary and accused them of "treason", claiming that "leaders are chosen by God".[82] The next day, he began to pack up his office.[83] On 25 July, head of state Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II recognised the new government.[84] Tuilaepa admitted defeat and said he looked forward to working with the new government.[85][86]


    From 'it's treason!', to 'looking forward to working with you' in a day.
    Could teach the yanks a thing or two.
    Amusing, except what he seems to have done was worse, in that he actually sought to prevent the swearing in of his opponent.
    Wasn't THAT precisely the purpose of the abortive Putsch at the US Capitol?
    Granted - but he didn't have enough people in office willing to help him.
  • IF I'm reading the Tagesschau webpage correctly, Linke is hanging right at 5.0% of votes counted so far, with 76.0% turnout.

    But is that TOTAL turnout, or percent counted so far. And what is left to count?

    IF Linke does worse in the remaining votes than what's already counted, then could push them under national threshold, reduce them from current 40 (based on current count) down to a few constituency seats and alter the math for parties who do make 5%.

    They are extremely unlikely to be bounced out as they are currently polling ahead in Leipzig's 2nd seat and should get 3+ in Berlin as well. An SPD-Green-Linke majority looks unlikely now though.
  • Guten Abend, Lieblings :)
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    rcs1000 said:

    IF I'm reading the Tagesschau webpage correctly, Linke is hanging right at 5.0% of votes counted so far, with 76.0% turnout.

    But is that TOTAL turnout, or percent counted so far. And what is left to count?

    IF Linke does worse in the remaining votes than what's already counted, then could push them under national threshold, reduce them from current 40 (based on current count) down to a few constituency seats and alter the math for parties who do make 5%.

    If they win their three Berlin seats, then the 5% threshold doesn't matter.
    Except they would get zero list or top-up seats based on national vote share. I think that's the case.
    Yes, makes the difference between 3 seats and 40!
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
    I was using poetic licence. My point? Are you unaware of Chernobyl and Fukushima?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Amazing how Linke is still on 5.0% after multiple adjustments to the exit poll.
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Very interesting because it can't be the PWR3 then, not even a modified reactor design would do it. It must be an all new design so will be very much like a new submarine programme, late and over budget but eventually very good.
    Interestingly, the PDF says they started looking at this with a reference design in 2015, and commercial operation *could* start in 2030. This is not necessarily a thing they've just plucked out of thin air.

    (I know that might have meant one man and his dog working on it back in 2015...)
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    dixiedean - "Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years"

    Unless of course the Chinese start loan-sharking money to the UAPs so they can strip-mine the Moon and blast it half-away in the process.

    Which leads me to a topic beloved by (some) eminent PBers . . .

    Politico.com - 'A total lack of focus': Lawmaker on a mission to compel Pentagon to take UFOs seriously

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/25/lawmaker-pentagon-ufo-51428

    Those who want to know if the truth is out there have a new champion in Congress. And he has an urgent message for the Pentagon: it's time to take UFOs seriously.

    Arizona Democrat and Iraq War veteran Rep. Ruben Gallego this week pushed through legislation in the House requiring a permanent office under the secretary of Defense to oversee "the timely and consistent reporting" of what the military calls "unidentified aerial phenomena." And it must share what it learns with Congress at least once a year.

    "There's been a total lack of focus across the national security apparatus to actually get at what's happening here," Gallego, who chairs the Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, said in his first extensive interview on the bill. "I think there has been kind of a partial pastime of curiosity seekers that are within the Department of Defense but there has not been any professional initiative across the defense enterprise... so that we can actually make some deliberate and knowledgeable decisions."

    The provision, which was adopted Thursday as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, requires the new office to be established within 180 days.

    Its main task will be "to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents regarding unidentified aerial phenomena across the Department of Defense," according to the legislation. . . .

    SSI - For what it's worth (maybe 2¢) I think this is a sensible approach, though the article goes on to discuss some of the issues with actually implementing it.

    Supposedly senior members of Congress have been recently shown the video reel of the really juicy stuff. The stuff which falls outside the bucket of “defies explanation” because the explanation is quite blindingly obvious - non human intelligent origin. Assuming that claim is true, it would explain why there is increasing congressional pressure for transparency.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021
    Apparently "Operation Escalin", which sounds a lot unintentioally iike either a new pharmaceutical, or one of Aldous Huxley's trips into psychedelic alternative universes with Mescalin, is now the solution.

    It looks like this will involve bringing in a reserve army of squaddies trained to drive tankers in the event of a no-deal Brexit - except it will take about three weeks to implement.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/26/boris-johnson-to-consider-using-army-to-supply-petrol-stations
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited September 2021
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Can some kind soul post link(s) for live coverage of German results? Gotta BIG bet on the Schleswig Party!

    Not sure if anyone has better than the official results page AndyJS posted. Nothing in yet.

    https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/2021/ergebnisse/bund-99.html
    Looks like my bet paid off
    The 6 best words in the English language?
    The final four will do for me ;)
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    I thought three constituencies got you the PR seats irrespective of vote share.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    And if one goes up - they all go up! (Or at the very least, go offline....for a few hundred years.)

    It does nothing on security of supply.
    That's not quite true.

    Let's not forget, the other reactors are Chernobyl kept working for a surprisingly long time after the... accident.
  • BigRich said:

    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Zero chance of a critical meltdown incident. A terrorist attack would be a hassle, but wouldn't entirely render the area uninhabitable. Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years.
    I could go on and on.
    Lagoons are a third of the capital cost to build versus nuclear (and last at least twice as long - probably far longer).

    Electricity at a 40-50% discount to the price for that generated by nuclear.

    Virtually zero abandonment costs for tidal versus the current bill of up to £220 billion to abandon the UKs existing nuclear facilities.

    Regeneration of coastal towns by creation of new leisure facilities at lagoons
    - versus each nuclear plant requiring a 24 hour armed police force

    80,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in building a fleet of lagoons.....
    I've often wondered about Tidal, and you are selling it well, I haven't checked the numbers, but what are the downsides/why has it not happened already? Environmental damage to the seabed?
    MM will know more, but they are massive engineering projects: and the more power you want to generate, the larger the project and therefore the cost. There are also potential environmental issues as well, from fish spawning to birds.

    There are also many different designs, from tidal lagoons to full-on barrages. In fact, many bird fans (Hi, MM!) like some tidal designs as they can create larger area of intertidal zones.

    Projected costs are also all over the place: some in favour of the Severn Barrage (just one potential type) give a cost of £4 billion; others come up with costs between 14 and 25 billion.

    All AIUI.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    tlg86 said:

    I thought three constituencies got you the PR seats irrespective of vote share.

    So did I. Although Linke could be down to two according to what some people have posted about their seats in Berlin.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
    I was using poetic licence. My point? Are you unaware of Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    One was an unsafe core design, the other the result of a magnitude nine earthquake. Those don't seem like things to worry about with the UK power plants.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    .
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    And if one goes up - they all go up! (Or at the very least, go offline....for a few hundred years.)

    It does nothing on security of supply.
    That's not quite true.

    Let's not forget, the other reactors are Chernobyl kept working for a surprisingly long time after the... accident.
    Well that's reassured me here in the Hinkley Point 30km blast zone.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
    I was using poetic licence. My point? Are you unaware of Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    One was an unsafe core design, the other the result of a magnitude nine earthquake. Those don't seem like things to worry about with the UK power plants.
    That doesn't mean there aren't other potential issues, like terrorism.
  • RobD said:

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
    I was using poetic licence. My point? Are you unaware of Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    One was an unsafe core design, the other the result of a magnitude nine earthquake. Those don't seem like things to worry about with the UK power plants.
    We don't get Tsunamis, but in geological time we can get severe floods. In particular, that area suffered the following:

    https://www.aforgottenlandscape.org.uk/projects/1607-the-great-severn-estuary-flood/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1607_Bristol_Channel_floods
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    Soldiers likely to be put on notice to drive petrol tankers to forecourts within days amid panic buying

    It will take at least a week before they are ready for deployment & ministers hope crisis will have eased by then

    But ministers planning for worst


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81c95d4a-1efb-11ec-a1fd-37d9030e4d65?shareToken=9da441ad39c185f701b8e7a32702e09d
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    BigRich said:

    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As no one was willing to take a stab at French nuclear availability, I'll tell you.

    61.7% in 2020.

    Now, there were probably some Covid related issues in there. So I'll tell you what 2021 was: 67%.

    A French nuclear power is typically only available to generate power on two-thirds of days. The availability of Hinkley Point C, which is based around the new EPR design, will be less than that - at least initially. It is probably reasonable to assume no more than 50% availability for the first couple of years.

    The problem with wind is that turbines all go offline together (too little wind or stormy weather) in addition to individual outage for maintenance or mechanical failure.
    Tidal lagoon power produces for 14 hours a day. 58% coverage

    But one 3 hours tide up the coast would give 70% production coverage through 24 hours.

    Four spread around the coasts could give 95.8% coverage through 24 hours.

    Each day. Every day. For 120 years. Minimum. Zero carbon. Zero waste.......
    Zero chance of a critical meltdown incident. A terrorist attack would be a hassle, but wouldn't entirely render the area uninhabitable. Predictable what the tide will be in 120 years.
    I could go on and on.
    Lagoons are a third of the capital cost to build versus nuclear (and last at least twice as long - probably far longer).

    Electricity at a 40-50% discount to the price for that generated by nuclear.

    Virtually zero abandonment costs for tidal versus the current bill of up to £220 billion to abandon the UKs existing nuclear facilities.

    Regeneration of coastal towns by creation of new leisure facilities at lagoons
    - versus each nuclear plant requiring a 24 hour armed police force

    80,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in building a fleet of lagoons.....
    I've often wondered about Tidal, and you are selling it well, I haven't checked the numbers, but what are the downsides/why has it not happened already? Environmental damage to the seabed?
    MM will know more, but they are massive engineering projects: and the more power you want to generate, the larger the project and therefore the cost. There are also potential environmental issues as well, from fish spawning to birds.

    There are also many different designs, from tidal lagoons to full-on barrages. In fact, many bird fans (Hi, MM!) like some tidal designs as they can create larger area of intertidal zones.

    Projected costs are also all over the place: some in favour of the Severn Barrage (just one potential type) give a cost of £4 billion; others come up with costs between 14 and 25 billion.

    All AIUI.
    I'm willing to bet that the first large scale tidal power plant will be massively overbudget. And I'd be willing to bet that by number five, they'll get both costs down and predictability up.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    Per betfair SPD have won. Thanks to @NickPalmer for the tip when it was 1.3.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,227
    edited September 2021
    Andy_JS said:
    For what it's worth, SPDer has taken the Pied Piper's constituency . . .

    EDIT - most of the constituencies reporting results so far are Bavarian.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    .
    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
    I was using poetic licence. My point? Are you unaware of Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    One was an unsafe core design, the other the result of a magnitude nine earthquake. Those don't seem like things to worry about with the UK power plants.
    That doesn't mean there aren't other potential issues, like terrorism.
    Luckily the reactors aren't all that flimsy:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjhxuhTmGk&t=1s
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Soldiers likely to be put on notice to drive petrol tankers to forecourts within days amid panic buying

    It will take at least a week before they are ready for deployment & ministers hope crisis will have eased by then

    But ministers planning for worst


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81c95d4a-1efb-11ec-a1fd-37d9030e4d65?shareToken=9da441ad39c185f701b8e7a32702e09d

    Very interesting that this new Operation Mescalin was originally optimised for a no-deal context.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    AfD projected to get 85 seats compared to 94 last time.
  • For all their efficiency, the Germans don't seem to know how to spell "SDP" properly!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    edited September 2021
    What a shame that the FDP and the AfD didn't get 10% each. Then we could have had the visually pleasing result of:

    25 / 25 / 15 / 10 / 10 / 5
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730

    Andy_JS said:
    For what it's worth, SPDer has taken the Pied Piper's constituency . . .

    EDIT - most of the constituencies reporting results so far are Bavarian.
    That’s some Hanover.
  • ydoethur said:

    Andy_JS said:
    For what it's worth, SPDer has taken the Pied Piper's constituency . . .

    EDIT - most of the constituencies reporting results so far are Bavarian.
    That’s some Hanover.
    You've been Aachen to post that!
  • LoewLoew Posts: 5
    If I were either Scholze or Laschet (or whoever else it is in the CDU in the event that Laschet fails to win a seat), I would say let's agree a damned deal and keep the Greens out of office (and the FDP too, but especially the Greens). I hope they don't spend ages messing about, leading Steinmeier to don green specs. It looks as though between them the SPD and CDU/CSU will have a majority. Do it. It's OK - it won't be a return to the 1960s when a coalition had 90% of the seats and the results weren't great. No need to worry.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530
    Scott_xP said:

    Soldiers likely to be put on notice to drive petrol tankers to forecourts within days amid panic buying

    It will take at least a week before they are ready for deployment & ministers hope crisis will have eased by then

    But ministers planning for worst


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81c95d4a-1efb-11ec-a1fd-37d9030e4d65?shareToken=9da441ad39c185f701b8e7a32702e09d

    If only they had put fuel shortages on the side of the bus ! We just need the powdered eggs and general rationing now to be able to re-live the glory years ! I feel a Vera Lynn song coming on ! The EU must be pissing themselves laughing , the last few weeks has done wonders for them. Just imagine another country stupid enough to go for a referendum . All the pro EU side have to do is show the cluster fuck in the UK.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    .

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    And if one goes up - they all go up! (Or at the very least, go offline....for a few hundred years.)

    It does nothing on security of supply.
    That's not quite true.

    Let's not forget, the other reactors are Chernobyl kept working for a surprisingly long time after the... accident.
    Well that's reassured me here in the Hinkley Point 30km blast zone.
    Don't be such a wuss.

    You should be proud to live near such a monument to French engineering, Chinese money, and British procurement.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730

    ydoethur said:

    Andy_JS said:
    For what it's worth, SPDer has taken the Pied Piper's constituency . . .

    EDIT - most of the constituencies reporting results so far are Bavarian.
    That’s some Hanover.
    You've been Aachen to post that!
    Well, yes, but I had no particular Aix to grind.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    edited September 2021
    tlg86 said:

    I thought three constituencies got you the PR seats irrespective of vote share.

    Yes, sorry, my mistake.

    By the way, the AfD campaigned heavily against mask-wearing - their big drop in support is possibly related to that. But I suspect suspect both they and Linke got squeezed by people trying to make the CDU or SPD largest.

    Green leader saying they would have preferred a coalition with the SPD alone, but would now have to see what the negotiations produce. Similarly, the FDP leader is open to negotiations but definitely wants to be in government. I don't think there's much doubt that Scholz will be Kanzler, though.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Andy_JS said:
    For what it's worth, SPDer has taken the Pied Piper's constituency . . .

    EDIT - most of the constituencies reporting results so far are Bavarian.
    That’s some Hanover.
    You've been Aachen to post that!
    Well, yes, but I had no particular Aix to grind.
    Bonn voyage!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Soldiers likely to be put on notice to drive petrol tankers to forecourts within days amid panic buying

    It will take at least a week before they are ready for deployment & ministers hope crisis will have eased by then

    But ministers planning for worst


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81c95d4a-1efb-11ec-a1fd-37d9030e4d65?shareToken=9da441ad39c185f701b8e7a32702e09d

    If only they had put fuel shortages on the side of the bus ! We just need the powdered eggs and general rationing now to be able to re-live the glory years ! I feel a Vera Lynn song coming on ! The EU must be pissing themselves laughing , the last few weeks has done wonders for them. Just imagine another country stupid enough to go for a referendum . All the pro EU side have to do is show the cluster fuck in the UK.
    Seems unlikely given that HGV driver shortages seem to be a problem all over the continent. The fuel shortages have only been caused by panic buying, with demands over 500% of normal levels. That would cause issues in any country, Brexit or not.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    Britain is doomed to a Winter of Discontent, warns Ukraine’s gas king
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/26/britain-doomed-winter-discontent-warns-ukraines-gas-king/
  • Scott_xP said:

    Britain is doomed to a Winter of Discontent, warns Ukraine’s gas king
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/26/britain-doomed-winter-discontent-warns-ukraines-gas-king/

    You Lviv and learn!
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Just seen that Kwasi is set to approve the RR mini-nuke reactors.

    I wonder if any of them will ever actually get built.

    I think they're based on the PWR3 design that RR did for the Dreadnought class submarines.

    (And yes, I know that a chunk of the design of PWR3 is American.)
    Which is interesting because that's a highly enriched uranium reactor. The safety implications of that in a civilian nuclear programme will be extremely negative.
    Perhaps not:

    "It would use 4.95% enriched fuel"

    From this:
    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
    and this:
    https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/UK-SMR_2020.pdf

    So if they are correct, then the RR SMR would use low-enriched uranium.
    Show me a Tory MP that wants a RollsRoyce mini-nuke in their constituency.
    You don't need to distribute them widely, the national grid still exists. The point of these is that they are manufactured on a production line (sort of) and then shipped to a location. One imagines you'd put 10-15 of these in a single location, probably those places where nuclear power plants already exist, given the infrastructure also already exists there.
    Well stuff that. I am in the 3Okm blast zone of Hinckley Point and a similar distance from @MarqueeMark 's Swansea Bay Barrage. I know which one I want In my back yard. The one with no potential for mushroom clouds.
    I don't think either of them have the potential for mushroom clouds.
    I was using poetic licence. My point? Are you unaware of Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    One was an unsafe core design, the other the result of a magnitude nine earthquake. Those don't seem like things to worry about with the UK power plants.
    We don't get Tsunamis, but in geological time we can get severe floods. In particular, that area suffered the following:

    https://www.aforgottenlandscape.org.uk/projects/1607-the-great-severn-estuary-flood/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1607_Bristol_Channel_floods
    In 'geological time' (er, 4.6bn years) Britain will certainly have had tsunamis. But more pertinantly in recorded history there are records of tsnuamis affecting Britain.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunamis_affecting_the_British_Isles
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    Guten Abend, Lieblings :)

    Lieblinge :)

  • RobD said:

    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Soldiers likely to be put on notice to drive petrol tankers to forecourts within days amid panic buying

    It will take at least a week before they are ready for deployment & ministers hope crisis will have eased by then

    But ministers planning for worst


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81c95d4a-1efb-11ec-a1fd-37d9030e4d65?shareToken=9da441ad39c185f701b8e7a32702e09d

    If only they had put fuel shortages on the side of the bus ! We just need the powdered eggs and general rationing now to be able to re-live the glory years ! I feel a Vera Lynn song coming on ! The EU must be pissing themselves laughing , the last few weeks has done wonders for them. Just imagine another country stupid enough to go for a referendum . All the pro EU side have to do is show the cluster fuck in the UK.
    Seems unlikely given that HGV driver shortages seem to be a problem all over the continent. The fuel shortages have only been caused by panic buying, with demands over 500% of normal levels. That would cause issues in any country, Brexit or not.
    HGV driver shortages are less acute in europe as they have the 20000 EU drivers that we used to have. Also any food shortages can be managed when 27 countries are touching each other so drivers can swap around. GB has noone. It seems NI are ok as they can rely on the republic for supplies.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    I thought three constituencies got you the PR seats irrespective of vote share.

    Yes, sorry, my mistake.

    By the way, the AfD campaigned heavily against mask-wearing - their big drop in support is possibly related to that. But I suspect suspect both they and Linke got squeezed by people trying to make the CDU or SPD largest.

    Green leader saying they would have preferred a coalition with the SPD alone, but would now have to see what the negotiations produce. Similarly, the FDP leader is open to negotiations but definitely wants to be in government. I don't think there's much doubt that Scholz will be Kanzler, though.
    What are the AfD predicted to get? I thought I saw 11%, isn’t that what they were polling pretty much throughout?
  • LoewLoew Posts: 5
    edited September 2021
    Farooq said:

    Germany has had four chancellors since 1974. That's astounding. Are there any other democracies with anything close to that kind of stability?
    Germany = 1974
    Canada = 1993
    France = 1995
    Spain = 1996
    New Zealand = 1999
    USA = 2001
    Denmark = 2001/2009 (if you count Løkke twice or not)
    UK = 2010
    Italy = 2013
    Australia = 2013

    Singapore has parliamentary "democracy" on paper and has only had three prime ministers since 1959, six years before independence.

  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021
    RobD said:

    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Soldiers likely to be put on notice to drive petrol tankers to forecourts within days amid panic buying

    It will take at least a week before they are ready for deployment & ministers hope crisis will have eased by then

    But ministers planning for worst


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81c95d4a-1efb-11ec-a1fd-37d9030e4d65?shareToken=9da441ad39c185f701b8e7a32702e09d

    If only they had put fuel shortages on the side of the bus ! We just need the powdered eggs and general rationing now to be able to re-live the glory years ! I feel a Vera Lynn song coming on ! The EU must be pissing themselves laughing , the last few weeks has done wonders for them. Just imagine another country stupid enough to go for a referendum . All the pro EU side have to do is show the cluster fuck in the UK.
    Seems unlikely given that HGV driver shortages seem to be a problem all over the continent. The fuel shortages have only been caused by panic buying, with demands over 500% of normal levels. That would cause issues in any country, Brexit or not.
    We did discuss this quite extensively on PB ; the EU nations are having shortages of drivers, not supplies, up to now, because the more mobile EU drivers are continually filling the gaps all over Europe.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Is this rumour that Laschet may fail to win a seat likely? Or just a possibility?
  • SAN MARINO REFERENDUM to Legalize Abortion - Yes 77.3% (35 of 37 districts reporting)

    https://www.barrons.com/news/san-marino-votes-to-legalise-abortion-partial-referendum-results-01632686706?tesla=y

  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Andy_JS said:
    For what it's worth, SPDer has taken the Pied Piper's constituency . . .

    EDIT - most of the constituencies reporting results so far are Bavarian.
    That’s some Hanover.
    You've been Aachen to post that!
    Well, yes, but I had no particular Aix to grind.
    Bonn voyage!
    You'll be Saary
This discussion has been closed.