Interesting Links for 16-09-2016

[andrewducker]

The Design of Parliaments Has a Major Impact on Politics (tags: politics architecture design psychology ) Man arrested for speeding in DeLorean at 88mph (tags: timetravel funny cars crime ) "How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math" (tags: mathematics learning brain ) In parts of the US it makes more sense to build a solar plant than a

Comments

[gonzo21]

It's nice to see solar really coming alive in our lifetimes.

... as the UK government commits the nation to a 35 year Chinese nuclear power boondoggle to rip off consumers...

[andrewducker]

Possibly. See the discussion yesterday here:
http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/3503991.html?thread=37147511#t37147511

[gonzo21]

Well the odd thing is I am absolutely convinced of the need for nuclear power, if we want to meet our emissions targets and if we want to keep the lights and heating on in the winter times when the sun goes away and the wind drops to nothing in the midst of those big cold winter high pressure zones.

We either have nuclear energy, or we have no power and a wrecked planet within our lifetimes.

I just think this Chinese deal is a very very bad deal for the UK taxpayer.

[danieldwilliam]

I think if Britain's nuclear plan was to build ten of the South Korean AP1400 in pairs, starting now with a build programme out till 2045 at a strike price of £70 / mwh along with aggressive life extension for some of the existing nuclear fleet I'd be fine with that

[gonzo21]

I didn't know the South Koreans had such a good nuclear capacity. Reading more about it now. Thanks for the lead.

And yeah, renewables have made strides, I am very hopeful that the energy situation for much of the world in 20 years time is very different to how it is now. I Just hope and pray it happens quickly enough to avert the looming environmental apocalypse.

And this highlights the problem of our political systems I suppose, because everything is run on a 4 or 5 year cycle, nobody in power has been able to make any meaningful long term decisions. At least, not outside the realm of PFI contracts where governments have signed over vast profits to private companies for the lolz.

And I suppose Hinkley C is itself just another form of a gigantic PFI contract. And what happens if EDF go boom, does the taxpayer step in to rescue the French accountants and pour billions into the project to keep it alive?

Because, yeah, 20 years time? I'm not convinced Hinkley C will have produced a single watt of energy.

[danieldwilliam]

Nojay is the ultimate source of the South Korean knowledge - hat tip to them and their extensive knowledge of all things nuclear.

[danieldwilliam]

One of the things that bothers me about HPC is that the risk of non-delivery by EDF is priced in to the strike price.

They expect the project to over run budget and schedule so they've priced the eventual power to pay them back for the cost of that. We don't carry the can if they fail utterly but we are already paying for a large amount of failure whether it happens or not.

[gonzo21]

Ah, so that's the logic. I was astonished that the project was initially priced at around 6bn. And then quickly rose to 20bn. And they happily admitted they expect it to be a lot more than that.

Which... is it just routine now for infrastructure projects to be radically under-costed at first, to get them off the ground?