You can stop hugging hoodies, there’s a nuke that nobody loves except the Conservative government and me.
The nuke in question is the Hinkley Point nuclear power station, supposed to be built by a French company, in Somerset, if they can get the Chinese to pony up a good dollop of the chunky bill. When it is built, at considerable expense to the French and Chinese, it will be pay-back time for those of us that pay electricity bills in the UK. We have agreed to pay about 50% more than nuclear power costs today in the UK and almost everybody thinks we are bonkers.
I thought so too, for a while. But nobody has made the government’s case, which is actually pretty simple. This power station will produce roughly 6% of our electricity. If we end up paying top dollar, the price spread over the other 94% of electricity generated will be nugatory and we will have diversified our electricity supply. It is impossible and unwise to attempt to forecast what the future holds but diversification of something as critical as electricity must be sensible. Here are comparative costs from 2010 and note that we will pay £92.50/MWh for output at Hinkley Point which doesn’t look so dear set in this context.
UK levelised cost of electricity in £/MWh (2010)
Natural gas turbine, no CO2 capture 55 – 110
Natural gas turbines with CO2 capture 60 – 130
Biomass 60 – 120
New nuclear 80 – 105
Onshore wind 80 – 110
Coal with CO2 capture 100 – 155
Solar farms 125 – 180
Offshore wind 150 – 210
Tidal power 155 – 390
We must have power to the people.
Christopher, you are absolutely spot on. Even George Monbiot, the Guardian anarchist bunny hugging greenie, became pro nuclear after Fukashima on the basis that, if that’s all that a really bad nuclear accident can do then it’s worth the risk.