Sheepwash is a tiny village in North Devon with a population of just 250 or so people,
and the Sheepwash Chronicle is the local magazine - for and about the residents.
It’s not what you might call the mainstream media.
I have some close family ties down there and as result I visit quite often, and las time I
was down I stumbled across an article in the Harvest 2021 edition that I think might be
the best article I’ve ever read about green energy and our future electricity needs.
And so I thought I’d bring some more attention to it with this vlog.
It’s by Dr Philip Bratby of the countryside charity and it’s called
Small Modular Reactors - An Opinion Piece. The ultimate low carbon renewables.
Unfortunately the energy debate is no longer about what is the cleanest most efficient
energy source. The debate has been politicised and corrupted
by those with their snouts in the trough of government subsidy, and so anyone who
suggests that fossil fuels have done a lot for mankind or that nuclear power might not
be all bad is immediately branded a heretic - but, the author Philip Bratby is pro nuclear.
There’s a link in the comments if you want to read the article in full.
I googled the him, after I read the article, and there is n’t much online. He has first
class honours degree in physics from the Imperial College of Science and Technology
(London University), a doctorate in physics from Sheffield University, he worked in the
military and civil nuclear industry as a energy consultant and is now semi-retired.
Anyway I’m going to summarize the article here.
If the government has its way, says Bratby, we will need much more electricity for heating
and for charging all those millions of electric vehicles.
To meet these needs, the electricity supply will need to be expanded and become much more reliable.
Commercial nuclear power stations have been operating for nearly 70 years. They have provided
huge amounts of reliable and affordable “clean” and almost infinitely renewable electricity.
Nuclear energy has the best safety record of any energy technology. All environmental concerns,
such as waste disposal, have been solved. So why hasn't nuclear power been widely accepted?
One reason is that for many years environmental activists have persuaded much of the public,
many politicians and the media that nuclear is unsafe. However, some activists
have recently changed their minds,. For example James Lovelock,
author of the Gaia Theory has said that “nuclear power is the only green solution”.
Bryony (now Baroness) Worthington, a lead author of the Climate Change Act, who once said that she
was “passionately opposed to nuclear power” has more recently said of nuclear power “I urge you
on moral ethical, scientific and environmental grounds to rethink your opposition to it”.
One-time anti-nuclear campaigner, environmental activist and author Mark Lynas, who has said
that he “grew up hating nuclear power” has now said that “continuing to oppose nuclear
was a mistake … it’s extraordinarily safe… and we must learn to love nuclear power”.
So why do some environmental organisations still oppose it
and prefer environmentally destructive wind and solar farms coupled with batteries?
The reason says Bratby is not that it doesn't produce abundant low-carbon energy,
but that it does, and that conflicts with their aim to halt economic growth.
Now - this is Dominic speaking - I think there’s a lot of truth to that statement. There are many
who feel this urge to control others, to stop them progressing - and I often feel that that’s
the main agenda behind a lot (not all) of the authoritarian left’s activism. The agenda is to
stop capitalism and progress altogether. Hence the hashtage end capitalism which you find everywhere.
Any way back to Bratby:
Because of the anti-nuclear propaganda and campaigning, regulators require multiple,
excessive layers of safety in nuclear plant design that needlessly pushes up costs. The
regulatory process is complex, slow and cumbersome and so takes years to complete.
The long lead time between building and operation adds to expense and political uncertainty is one
reason why many recent proposals for nuclear power stations in the UK have been abandoned,
leaving the twin power stations at Hinkley C in Somerset as the only ongoing project.
To overcome some of these problems, the focus for future nuclear power stations
has switched to SMRs - small modular reactors.
SMRs have been in operation for over 60 years in submarines,
aircraft carriers and ice-breakers, but only in the last few years has serious attention
been paid to developing land-based SMRs for commercial electricity generation.
The advantages of SMRs have over current nuclear power stations are legion:
• They use relatively simple proven technology. • They can be manufactured in factories and
constructed on site very rapidly. • They are safer than current
nuclear power stations. • They occupy very little
land and have little impact on the landscape. Some can be constructed underground - surely
preferable to wind turbines and solar power farms: • They provide generation that can be controlled
to provide baseload and load-follow capability.
Their output is not weather-dependent. • They are synchronous and the large
rotating generators provide inertia which is a positive benefit to the
reliability and stability of the grid. • They use very high energy density fuel
and thus require a lot less land. A 440MW SMR would require about 25
acres of land and would produce about 3.5TWh of electricity per year (enough for about 1.2 million
homes). To produce the same amount of electricity from solar farms would need about 13,000 acres (20
square miles) of land and from wind farms would need about 32,000 acres (50 square miles) of land.
There are about half a million homes in Devon and on average each consumes about
1.5MWh of electricity per year. Therefore Devon's domestic electricity 15 needs
could easily be met by a single 440MW SMR occupying a small area of land. By contrast,
a huge area of Devon's farmland would need to be covered in solar farms or wind turbines,
to provide the same amount of electricity. Even then, alternative sources of electricity
would be needed for when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine.
Several competing designs are being developed around the world, ranging in size from 10s
of MWs to 500MW and of many different design concepts.
RollsRoyce, which has built seven generations of SMRs for use in nuclear submarines,
is the one contender with its design for a 440MW SMR. Another NuScale, an American company.
In the UK it is envisaged that SMRs would be constructed on the redundant sites of closed
nuclear and coal-fired power stations, i.e. on brownfield land
where grid connections are readily available.
The big question is, why are several billion pounds a year wasted on subsidising intermittent
renewable energy generators such as wind and solar power? Surely, says Bratby, it would be better for
the government to invest a fraction of this money in developing SMRs for deployment in the UK. The
electricity from SMRs would be considerably cheaper than that from intermittent offshore
wind farms, which, for some inexplicable reason, seems to be the government's preferred option.
I can tell you why there is so much opposition - because one group doesn’t
want to lose their subsidy, and that is more important to them
than the best energy solution for their country and for the environment.
Subsidy corrupts.
So I’m now very keen to find out more about these small modular reactors.
Thanks very much for watching.
Please subscribe to my channel. I’ll be back with another video very soon.
In the meantime enjoy the sights of Sheepwash