UK Strategic Planning

[Genie]

9 hours ago, sidcow said:

They already are. 

I hope it stays that way, not like electric cars where they find ways to tax it down the line. 

[sidcow]

35 minutes ago, Genie said:

I hope it stays that way, not like electric cars where they find ways to tax it down the line. 

I think the plan was always to tax EVS. It was just a plan to encourage take up. 

Now EVs are approaching price proximity with ICE vehicles it's no longer needed. 

[bickster]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

And yet people think hybrids are a good idea. 

Hybrids are a dreadful idea if people can't drive them properly. I get in ours all the time to move them about and find the MPG on 25 when they are perfectly capable of 55-60mpg around town. Then again I get 55 mpg around town from a diesel focus. Essentially I don't see what they achieved apart from getting petrol drivers diesel economy as long as they drove slowly and sensibly, rag the arse out of them and the fuel economy tanks worse than a normal car

[chrisp65]

On the side of the Severn where it becomes the Celtic Sea, with the second highest tidal range in the world, it can get a bit blowy, but it can also be sunny. Dotted across the landscape, deep mines where the earth is degrees warmer. With all this in mind, it’s also worth remembering that Wales is already a net exporter of energy.

So what better use of land between Maesteg and Bridgend than the home of four mini nuclear reactors.

Completely safe for five thousand years.

Quote

Four 20MW micro-reactors are to be built by Last Energy UK in south Wales, with the first projected to be finished by 2027.

The deployment of its PWR-20 micro nuclear reactors is part of the energy company’s Prosiect Egni Glan Llynfi project in Bridgend County. This translates to Llynfi Energy Project and is proposed on the site of the former coal-fired Llynfi Power Station which was in operation from 1951 to 1977.

Last Energy said it had “obtained site control, begun conducting site surveys, and initiated the planning process”.

 

[sidcow]

48 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

On the side of the Severn where it becomes the Celtic Sea, with the second highest tidal range in the world, it can get a bit blowy, but it can also be sunny. Dotted across the landscape, deep mines where the earth is degrees warmer. With all this in mind, it’s also worth remembering that Wales is already a net exporter of energy.

So what better use of land between Maesteg and Bridgend than the home of four mini nuclear reactors.

Completely safe for five thousand years.

 

I think the point is if they explode, no real harm done

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I think the point is if they explode, no real harm done

When they decide a mini nuclear reactor would be the right fit for Westminster, that’s when I’ll start to be persuaded.

If there was ever a development in need of an excuse it’s this one, the blurb basically says “we want to build four nuclear reactors, they might be handy for local businesses”.

I mean, what the **** !
 

[blandy]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

So what better use of land between Maesteg and Bridgend than the home of four mini nuclear reactors.

 

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

When they decide a mini nuclear reactor would be the right fit for Westminster, that’s when I’ll start to be persuaded.

Inserts tongue into cheek (Kenny) - Last week it was Why can't Wales have investment instead of the South East, now it's Why can't the South East have the reactor, not Wales? 

[Lichfield Dean]

4 hours ago, bickster said:

Hybrids are a dreadful idea if people can't drive them properly. I get in ours all the time to move them about and find the MPG on 25 when they are perfectly capable of 55-60mpg around town. Then again I get 55 mpg around town from a diesel focus. Essentially I don't see what they achieved apart from getting petrol drivers diesel economy as long as they drove slowly and sensibly, rag the arse out of them and the fuel economy tanks worse than a normal car

I've never really understood how having two completely different drivetrains with all the extra gubbins that's needed is a great idea.

Fully electric, maybe hydrogen fuel cells at some point and (at a push) maybe range extender generators seem the sensible options to me. Hybrids just seem to combine the worst of all the worlds.

Having said that, people I know with them seem to like them.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

 

Inserts tongue into cheek (Kenny) - Last week it was Why can't Wales have investment instead of the South East, now it's Why can't the South East have the reactor, not Wales? 

Yeah, I mean I know I bang on about it, and I am going to give it a rest, but once you’ve seen it, once you’ve tuned in to it, it’s a bit on the annoying side that so many others are so utterly passive about it. Passive on each individual case, but Olympic standard at having a general grumble.

There is investment in these places, but it’s always to extract something or it’s something unpalatable for other areas. There can’t be any genuine business case for that area needing uninterrupted nuclear power. They literally don’t actually have a specific need. It’s just somewhere cheap and inconsequential to stick it. Wales is a net exporter of energy already and they’ve just last week closed the one big user of energy anywhere near that location.

If they are perfectly safe, well, it’s that London that’s short of energy, put four nuclear reactors in the Euston redevelopment. That’ll keep the coffees and croissants warm.

[chrisp65]

12 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

I've never really understood how having two completely different drivetrains with all the extra gubbins that's needed is a great idea.

Fully electric, maybe hydrogen fuel cells at some point and (at a push) maybe range extender generators seem the sensible options to me. Hybrids just seem to combine the worst of all the worlds.

Having said that, people I know with them seem to like them.

A few years back I had a hybrid Hyundai. Rather than going down the VW group route of using hybrid to add a boost of speed, they used it to improve the mpg. That thing was a big family car, petrol automatic. I could get 80mpg. In rare conditions of a warm day and no traffic, I could do my 12 mile commute without the petrol engine even kicking in. This wasn’t a plug in, just basic self charging.

I did feel that for a little extra expense and tech, getting a family saloon to do 70mpg easily, and 80 if you were careful was a really good idea. No range anxiety, no worries on trailing a charging lead down the street, real world petrol consumption halved. Slightly nerdy but over 3 years of commuting and motorways and dad taxi, that thing averaged over 70. I’d have had another one but they basically doubled the lease price so stripped all those savings back out of the calculations.

 

[Xann]

The best strategic plan is to educate properly, but that would be the end of the money god.

[Genie]

45 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

I've never really understood how having two completely different drivetrains with all the extra gubbins that's needed is a great idea.

Fully electric, maybe hydrogen fuel cells at some point and (at a push) maybe range extender generators seem the sensible options to me. Hybrids just seem to combine the worst of all the worlds.

Having said that, people I know with them seem to like them.

I think the idea of a hybrid is that short commutes only use electric and the ice engine is just a backup. They are a bad idea all round though in real world use.

I’ve been to Warwick and back twice yesterday and today and the mpg in my 2.0L Kuga is 56mpg over about 160 miles. They really should have just skipped the hybrid tech stage and gone to full BEV (or something better than that).

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

There can’t be any genuine business case for that area needing uninterrupted nuclear power.

I think they use something called "the national grid" which moves the electrons to other places. They're never gonna build nuclear power stations in densely populated areas. There's a BNFL site just maybe 8 or 10 miles from here, and Sellafield isn't that far away either, but (unsurprisingly) there's not that many people and there is lots of wind (and to be fair, quite a lot of wind turbines offshore and more on hills). They're also going to put another wind farm close by and run the cables onshore about a mile or two away from here, but various landowners and residents n'that are grumbling - maybe that's the sort of thing that Starmer was on about where regulatory processes are hampering things?

A more serious point is that the national grid is another thing that needs sorting out. All these places and companies installing, or wanting to install wind farms and solar farms and tidal stuff - they're being held back because the national grid needs upgrading and connecting to these places, and it's like a 10 year wait. It's ridiculous.

[fruitvilla]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

"the national grid" which moves the electrons to other places

Funnily enough, as an aside, electrons don't move very far on the national grid.

[chrisp65]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think they use something called "the national grid" which moves the electrons to other places. They're never gonna build nuclear power stations in densely populated areas. There's a BNFL site just maybe 8 or 10 miles from here, and Sellafield isn't that far away either, but (unsurprisingly) there's not that many people and there is lots of wind (and to be fair, quite a lot of wind turbines offshore and more on hills). They're also going to put another wind farm close by and run the cables onshore about a mile or two away from here, but various landowners and residents n'that are grumbling - maybe that's the sort of thing that Starmer was on about where regulatory processes are hampering things?

A more serious point is that the national grid is another thing that needs sorting out. All these places and companies installing, or wanting to install wind farms and solar farms and tidal stuff - they're being held back because the national grid needs upgrading and connecting to these places, and it's like a 10 year wait. It's ridiculous.

There’s about 145,000 people in Bridgend, 140,000 in Neath Port Talbot 16 miles away and another 250,000 across the river in Swansea. Admittedly that’s not Hong Kong levels of density, but in the unlikely event of an incident there’s areas of Essex will be far less populated, and it would be closer to London, and Thaxted (population 3,000) is connected to the national grid.

I might just put in a planning app for four nuclear reactors in Thaxted. Absolute worst that happens, we lose Chelmsford. But the good people of the Essex commuter kuiper belt can feel they’ve contributed when they put fairy lights outside their houses.

[sidcow]

55 minutes ago, blandy said:

A more serious point is that the national grid is another thing that needs sorting out. All these places and companies installing, or wanting to install wind farms and solar farms and tidal stuff - they're being held back because the national grid needs upgrading and connecting to these places, and it's like a 10 year wait. It's ridiculous.

That's absolutely one of the thing's that they are doing 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

That's absolutely one of the thing's that they are doing 

Slowly and belatedly.

[blandy]

43 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

Funnily enough, as an aside, electrons don't move very far on the national grid.

Guilty as charged.

[sidcow]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

Slowly and belatedly.

They've only had 3 month's. Harsh.

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

They've only had 3 month's. Harsh.

I meant by the UK, not specific to Labour.