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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Ah yes, the nebulous “energy storage methods” makes it’s appearance. Pumped hydro is great, but we aren’t exactly flush with vast areas of waste land we can flood.

    It’s all possible in theory but in reality it’s not if we opt for a nuclear-based grid it’s when. You cite the cost of nuclear, but ignore the cost of storage when evaluating renewables and also I suspect fail to appreciate that more than half the cost of UK nuclear is in the financing costs and interest payments. Hinkley C would have been literally half the price if it’d been funded by government borrowing, and wind is more than double it’s stated cost once you account for the need for dispatchable backup or storage.

    Ultimately renewables like wind and solar have nothing to add to a nuclear-based grid because they’re non-dispatchable. The only ones which may have some value are hydro and tidal, both of which I fully support. Nuclear is also not limited in any practical sense for a country like the UK. Is it a solution for the whole world? No. Is it the solution for a small geologically stable nuclear-armed island nation in the 48-49th parallel? Absolutely.