Energy prices go up

[cooky1257]

Worry not for we have the benefit of two nationalised industries coming to our rescue to build nuclear oh wait....they'll be French and Chinese state owned companies ah so much for privatisation then..

 

[Steven Toy]

Chris,
I don't hold the 'Hovis Ad' view and your opposite view is extreme.

Mostly though, you ignore the fact that especially after WW2 the bulk of miner's traveled to work from outside mining villages.

And whatever was the reality of the past it does not follow that any future mining operations need to be as labour intensive. I'd put money on them being more efficient too, despite us previously having the most efficient deep mines in the world.

My argument though, is less about employment than energy.

Whatever the 'green' arguments and treaties, it is clear that the rest of the world is doing as it damned well likes to source, use and profit from energy.

You are now in the curious position that your usual irrational hatred of the former miners is forcing you to renounce your own capitalist views as they apply to our use of resources.

'Hoist', 'Petard' etc.

Mull

I agree that it is time Bwitain stopped trying to lead the way on climate change. It achieves nothing other than cause fuel poverty for the nation's most vulnerable while chinless twats with weak Rs for politicians get to feel all warm and glowy inside as well as delusional regarding our influence on the global stage on such matters.

 

[chutts]

Healthier and wealthier

....and wiser? Lineker and his friends impart such pearls of wisdom.

 

[KC Cantiaci]

So, it would appear a new nuclear power plant has been given the go ahead by Osborne at a cost of £14bn and the construction will be by a consortium including the French and Chinese. Estimates suggest the price of electricity to consumers will need to double to make the project viable and the govt have given assurances that if the required price isn't met, the tax payer will subsidise the bills.

A couple of exerts from Wiki - 'In May 2008, The Times reported that Wulf Bernotat, chairman and chief executive of E.ON, had stated that the cost of each new nuclear power plant in the UK could be as high as €6 billion (£4.8 billion), much higher than the Government's estimate of £2.8 billion.'

'The Times reported the cost of building each EPR reactor had increased to £7 billion, which Citigroup analysts did not regard as commercially viable, projecting a generation cost of 16.6p/kWh for private-sector financed reactors.'

How did the build costs go from estimated £2.8bn by the govt to £4.8bn in 2008 by experts to £7bn in 2012 and end up at £14bn in 2013?? I can't help but feel we're being conned.......again! It's going to take 10 years to build (if it goes according to schedule but if the one being built in France and the other in Finland by EDF are anything to go by, it'll be late) and I'm expecting price hikes for electricity to be in the region of 8-9% per year for the next 10 years to bring the prices into line. It just doesn't make sense to me??

 

[KC Cantiaci]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24604218

Just read an updated article on the BBC news website as well as Reuters and the reported costs to build are now £16bn. It'll probably be £20bn by the end of the week

It's also being reported in the FT that the taxpayer is underwriting the consortium as EDF has qualified for the Treasury's UK Guarantee Scheme which effectively means we would act as insurance if the consortium couldn't pay back borrowed funds.

So the 'consortium' borrow money to build a nuclear power plant and the UK taxpayer guarantees the loan and also agrees to a guaranteed 'strike' price which ensures the consortium will make at least 10% profit? So why doesn't the govt do it themselves which would add the 10% profit to the coffers or reduce the bills to the consumer in the future by 10%?

 

[stephen bennett]

So, it would appear a new nuclear power plant has been given the go ahead

You mean given a subsidy by Osbourne - Oh, these free market capitalists! If it's a going financial concern let it finance itself. If it's (as I suspect) not, we should accept that and use taxes to pay for it if we really think it's the answer to our energy needs.

I smell a PFI - like pushing of costs to another parliament here.

BTW 'Clean' coal is only cleaner in particulates and other toxins - it still produces unacceptable amounts of CO2. I really hope we can get carbon capture right - Mull's right in the sense that coal is a much better bet for UK energy security that letting the Chinese (you couldn't make this stuff up ) and French build nuclear in the UK.

I wonder what £16bn would bring if the investment went into carbon capture research?

I bought a flat conversion in 2009. It's poorly insulated and the heating is crap. I can't do anything to change the fabric so I'm stuffed unless the 50 other people in my block want to spend some cash. Surely,forcing builders to make sure all new homes are energy efficient would be a start?

Stephen

 

[dweezil]

Afaik it would appear this will be old technology Gen 3 power.
With all the waste we have knocking about i'd have thought a Russian collaboration
to do a few Gen 4 units would have bben the way to go.
250 times the power from the same amount of fuel and no long lived waste among
other advantages.
The current policy is being touted as green by those who haven't seen the massive environmental impact of a decent Uranium mine.
Where i've been the Uranium is taken by the Chinese leaving Africans with a big mess and shortened life expectancy.

 

[KC Cantiaci]

I bought a flat conversion in 2009. It's poorly insulated and the heating is crap. I can't do anything to change the fabric so I'm stuffed unless the 50 other people in my block want to spend some cash. Surely,forcing builders to make sure all new homes are energy efficient would be a start?

What about plaster boarding on the inside and insulating the gap between the plasterboard and the brickwork?

My understanding is the building regs do require a certain amount of energy efficiency measures to be implemented on new builds. Whether the regs are stringent enough is a different matter. I'm sure I read somewhere that current regs allow upto 10% heat loss to comply but on programs like Grand Design, some have really gone for it on passive designs and got their homes down to 0.6%. One such home was entirely heated by one wood burner because the heat loss was so low, any heat put into the home would warm it up as hardly anything was ever lost.

But I guess this also comes down to mass builders doing the bare minimum required to make more profit whereas an individual would take extra steps for the long term. An extra few thousand spent at the start might save considerably more in the long run with low energy bills.

 

[KC Cantiaci]

Afaik it would appear this will be old technology Gen 3 power.
With all the waste we have knocking about i'd have thought a Russian collaboration
to do a few Gen 4 units would have bben the way to go.
250 times the power from the same amount of fuel and no long lived waste among
other advantages.
The current policy is being touted as green by those who haven't seen the massive environmental impact of a decent Uranium mine.
Where i've been the Uranium is taken by the Chinese leaving Africans with a big mess and shortened life expectancy.

Any ideas why they haven't gone for 'Gen 4' power plants? And what is the difference between Gen 3 & 4?

 

[Guest432]

Simple, Osborne's pals are on the board of EDF and he's bribing the Chinese to invest more in UK, I mean his pals in the UK.

You may as well just install a diesel gene in your back garden, it's going to be cheaper than the energy companies soon.

 

[Guest432]

nPower have just announced leccy up by 9.2% and gas up by 11.1% or a dual fuel by 10.4% which is a con in itself as dual fuel should be 10.15%

 

[Eric L]

How did the build costs go from estimated £2.8bn by the govt to £4.8bn in 2008 by experts to £7bn in 2012 and end up at £14bn in 2013??

I think the proposal would use the same Areva-designed European Pressurized Reactor technology that has seen massive cost overruns in France and in Finland. So they were probably looking at those and realizing that the early estimates were a joke. Also, note the delays in construction on these two (6 years for the Finnish plant).

By the way, the £89.50/MWh strike price on the contract proposal, which would last for 35 years, is nearly double the wholesale price.

 

[Guest432]

OK I'm not up on all this but who pays them the £89.50 per MWh?

 

[KC Cantiaci]

OK I'm not up on all this but who pays them the £89.50 per MWh?

If I understand it correctly, the energy providers like British Gas, nPower etc etc buy the electricity at this price from the producers/manufacturers or generators of electricity if you like. This is the wholesale price of which they will buy in bulk and then sell it onto the consumers.

1mwh is 1000kwh so £89.50 per mwh equates to 8.95p per kwh. Current prices for electricity generation is closer to £45 per mwh (4.5p per kwh) so you can see how the mark up occurs as current rates to consumers are circa 15p per kwh.

 

[Guest432]

I assume the govt will subsidise these prices with taxes to keep the wholesale price as it is now?

 

[dynodebs]

I think you assume incorrectly. The subsidy works by ensuring that the consortium will get the inflation-proof price of £89.50 (at 2012 rates) If the wholesale price is less than £89.50 (adjusted for inflation) the subsidy will be paid by the government, that is, from taxes collected, to the consortium.

More money moving from Income Tax payers to friendsofthetories.com

Debs

 

[KC Cantiaci]

I assume the govt will subsidise these prices with taxes to keep the wholesale price as it is now?

The wholesale price is dictated to by the markets that buy/trade them. So when there is plenty of supply and low demand, prices will drop and when visa versa, prices will rise. If energy, or fuel to generate the energy, is bought from abroad, then currency price fluctuations may also have an effect much like the price of oil has an effect on petrol prices as it is priced in US Dollars.

What the govt have done is offer a guarantee to the EDF/Chinese consortium that if the market price does not reach the strike price of £92.50 or whatever it is, the tax payer will make up the difference. This means that rather than make an investment based on calculated risk like most companies do, they are assured to get their target price irrespective of what the markets are doing. So unless they really screw up on the build costs or run the plant inefficiently, they should make money. And I'm sure there would have been some adjustments made when they set the strike price to account for overruns and efficiency issues. Hence the reason I believe the UK govt should have built and operated our own plant(s).

 

[Seeker_UK]

The simple reality is that there is mass unemployment, a mountain of unskilled people and an energy planning catastrophe right around the corner.

Burn the long-term unemployed for energy.

 

[Mullardman]

You mean given a subsidy by Osbourne - Oh, these free market capitalists! If it's a going financial concern let it finance itself. If it's (as I suspect) not, we should accept that and use taxes to pay for it if we really think it's the answer to our energy needs.

I smell a PFI - like pushing of costs to another parliament here.

BTW 'Clean' coal is only cleaner in particulates and other toxins - it still produces unacceptable amounts of CO2. I really hope we can get carbon capture right - Mull's right in the sense that coal is a much better bet for UK energy security that letting the Chinese (you couldn't make this stuff up ) and French build nuclear in the UK.

I wonder what £16bn would bring if the investment went into carbon capture research?

I bought a flat conversion in 2009. It's poorly insulated and the heating is crap. I can't do anything to change the fabric so I'm stuffed unless the 50 other people in my block want to spend some cash. Surely,forcing builders to make sure all new homes are energy efficient would be a start?

Stephen

I'll give you a clue Stephen. Carbon Dioxide is soluble in water. CO2 also combines chemically with any alkali.

Even with my 1965 O Level Chem I can envisage a situation where a portion of the heat from the coal is diverted to 'roast' limestone (usually pretty abundant close to coal) to produce lime. This will absorb CO2.

Far cleverer people than me could no doubt come up with far more efficient solutions, but I sincerely believe it is possible.

Mull

 

[Mullardman]

Burn the long-term unemployed for energy.

They don't have any.

That's why they are unemployed.

Haven't you been listening to Dave and George?

Mull