No alternative to nuclear power

[intaglio]

2. Take off the rose coloured glasses

Firstly this is about a proposed method to remedy the shortcomings of existing nuclear stations with some nuclear and a lot of wind.

Secondly, it does not mention the massive lead time for any new nuclear plant to come on line. Because of this there is difficulty in persuading private business to invest in nuclear - except by applying public subsidy.

Thirdly it ignores the savings that will be coming from the planned smart energy grids - the user end metering is already being tested and the high accuracy metering for supply elements is already being fitted. Apparently the National Grid at present has to depend on a 10 to 20% overcapacity because of losses and poor design of the network.

Fourthly, it ignores renewables other than wind because they tend to be distributed and current power supply models cannot easily factor those in.

The last 2 parts of this came up in discussion in a recent Siemens staff/management roadshow.

Fifthly it ignores load sharing - because, as yet, suitable storage facilities are very far from production - so that is a maybe, admittedly.