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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @02:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-less-radioactive dept.

Energy from offshore wind in the UK will be cheaper than electricity from new nuclear power for the first time.

The cost of subsidies for new offshore wind farms has halved since the last 2015 auction for clean energy projects

Two firms said they were willing to build offshore wind farms for a subsidy of £57.50 per megawatt hour for 2022-23.

This compares with the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant securing subsidies of £92.50 per megawatt hour.

Nuclear firms said the UK still needed a mix of low-carbon energy, especially for when wind power was not available.

Both nuclear and wind receive subsidies, but for the first time wind is coming to market with less, so providing the same electricity with less cost to the public than nuclear.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:46AM

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:46AM (#567028)

    Just a pedant note: All power sources are intermittent, and you always need grid backup, renewables or not.

    Nuclear isn't always on. It goes down for months at a time, and someone has to carefully plan how to deal with the shortfall (in small countries with few reactors. France/US always have a few refuiling on a rolling schedule).
    Worse, it takes one (big) mistake to get a nuke to suddenly scram. Someone gets yelled at, a thick report gets written, activists get water-cannoned, and two weeks later, you're back at full blast. But in the meantime, the grid instantly lost a GigaWatt and nobody saw it coming, no forecast, nothing. It you suddenly lose five windmills to unforecasted failures, 'tis but a scratch in comparison.

    Yes, nuclear is the king of baseload stability. But let's not act as if the only threat to grid stability worth planning for is because panels don't like thick clouds.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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