Gas Cooled Reactors Shut Down In UK

mdsolar writes EDF Energy, the British subsidiary of the French state-controlled utility, said on Monday that it was shutting down three nuclear reactors and that a reactor with a fault that has been shut down since June would remain so. The facilities, which are being investigated as a precaution, generate nearly a quarter of nuclear capacity in Britain. The British Office for Nuclear Regulation said that there had been no release of radioactive material and no injuries. Industry experts did not anticipate much effect on electricity supplies or prices in the short term. EDF said that over the next few days it would idle a second reactor at the facility, Heysham 1, in northwest England. The company said it would also shut down two other reactors of similar design at Hartlepool in northeast England to investigate whether they had the same flaws.

Comments

Re:Sigh!

[AmiMoJo]

There are two issues unique to nuclear that case people not to want it.

1. The extreme cost. As you are probably aware, the UK government has had to guarantee well above the going rate for energy generated from new nuclear plants for their entire lifetimes just to get them built. Even so, only the Chinese are interested in doing it. Current plants were built by the government that literally could not give them away in the 80s when they were privatised, until it agreed to shoulder most of the costs of running and decommissioning them.

2. Single point of failure. As this event demonstrates problems with reactors can knock gigawatts off the grid for long periods of time. Other sources tend not to suffer from that kind of failure, and some sources like wind are extremely widely distributed and fault tolerant.

As for judging nuclear by the performance of ageing plants, the newer designs are not significantly better in any of these areas. We can see what other countries are building and they have all the same problems.