I hear a lot of vague generalist arguments on either side.

Anyone seen any kind of analysis of how a renewables + storage + demand reduction strategy would play out in terms of cost v Hinkley C?

I yet to see any evidence that renewable will be allowed to be built on the scale needed in the UK, due to MPs not liking losing votes over wind farms in “nice” places. Hence I think Hinkley C is needed, as not even the green party can get its members to vote for wind farms close to where they live or go on holiday.

This is why I want an analysis. Given different scenarios (different amounts of storage, different amounts of demand reduction) do we even need more generation? If so, how much?

There's not the same degree of opposition to solar - although there is some.

Exactly so ST - why I am generally 'for' nuclear power but specifically against Hinkley C. I also have a 'thing' about EDF, having worked closely with a couple of bits of them.

Posted By: SteamyTeawe, as a nation, still need huge amounts of baseload generation

That's conventional wisdom, but don't you think that Teslas's just changed the game fundamentally?

Not Tesla solely of course, and maybe not Tesla at all if EM over-reaches himself - but all the big shots, Mercedes, Fiat-Chrysler are scrambling to catch up now he's so accellerated what was just a future dream.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: gravelld</cite>I hear a lot of vague generalist arguments on either side.

Anyone seen any kind of analysis of how a renewables + storage + demand reduction strategy would play out in terms of cost v Hinkley C?</blockquote>

Hinkley is now redundant as the capacity has already been replaced by new gas capacity and a dusting out of mothballs of some older gas plants to cover the closure of coal fired plants which originally where being dismantled but are now being mothballed as an insurance policy. In addition new interconnectors are being built on shorter time scales than that proposed for Hinkley.

Posted By: gravelldNo offence but this is the kind of generalisation I was talking about.

You can easily go to the old DECC website and download the appropriate spreadsheets, they are there for the taking, Just that I don't have time right now to look at them all (summer being my busy time).
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change/about/statistics

When dealing with statistics, your first question is 'is it a big problem'. Then you start slicing and dicing to see what can easily be done.
Taking just heat loss from about 7,000,000 E7 water storage cylinders, it is probably possible to save around 14 GWh/day.
Sounds a lot, but that is spread over 7 hours, so about half of DRAX and about 2/3rd of Hinkley C, over that 7 hour period.
A quick look at our old mate Damon's website shows that this morning our mean demand between 00 and 0700 was 24 GW, or 167 GWh. so we could possible easily save 8% of that time period's generation. Significant, but not huge.

Not for 'fixing', that was not DECCs remit, but the usage data and classes are there.

They do get mentioned when it suits them. When energy prices were rising rapidly a few years back, I remember hearing a female politician (could have been May) saying that the long term outlook was for declining prices. Could be why May is not a fan of Hinkley.

Could it be the UK government is using Hinkley as a Brexit bargaining chip with the French. Seeing as the French government has, I understand, a stake in EDF, and Hollande and others are vociferous in giving the UK a rough ride.

Power politics in play. Personally I hope it doesn't go ahead, but don't get your hopes up.

Posted By: SteamyTeawe, as a nation, still need huge amounts of baseload generation.

But not necessarily in the traditional sense - renewables can provide 'baseload' too, but to enable them to do so would require changes to the energy landscape - in particular more interconnectors to match supply with demand, and an adequate number of peak-load plants to cope with peaks in demand - see also my comments below.

Posted By: gravelldAnyone seen any kind of analysis of how a renewables + storage + demand reduction strategy would play out in terms of cost v Hinkley C?

There are a number of studies that show how renewables + storage + demand reduction can provide a viable alternative to conventional energy generation (though not specific to nuclear power or Hinkley). Skeptical Science's page 'Can renewables provide baseload power?' has links to over a dozen - see https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=374

Posted By: SteamyTeaCould be why May is not a fan of Hinkley.

It looks as though the concerns of May's advisor Nick Timothy over Chinese involvement could be driving the review, not (just) cost: http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2016/07/what-nick-timothy-wrote-on-conhome-about-china-and-hinckley-point.html

barney, conventional wisdoms obsolete, as the blue-sky future suddenly becomes 'very soon' in the last few months. See Mike1 above incl
"renewables can provide 'baseload' too, but to enable them to do so would require changes to the energy landscape - in particular more interconnectors to match supply with demand, and an adequate number of peak-load plants to cope with peaks in demand"
which addresses your 2 points, also several of my links above.

Posted By: barneyTom - Gen Y and Gen Z have yet to discover that you can't boot up a MacBook Air by harnessing the power of wishful thinking

Don't know what that means, excedpt that most GenY/GenZ uninterested in desktops and laptops, already universally have their devices of choice, which run on a pocket-sized PV if necessary.

Posted By: Mike1But not necessarily in the traditional sense - renewables can provide 'baseload' too, but to enable them to do so would require changes to the energy landscape

Yes, very true. The UK has a particular problem though with allowing access to land for generation and storage.
The do have some potential for tidal lagoons and barrages, but they are limited, as is flooding valleys. These problems don't affect other countries like Iceland and the Scanwegians.

As time progresses, we are slowly going to swap fossil fuels for non combustion methods of energy generation. This means that our electrical generation is going to have to increase. In 2015 we consumed about 2,326,000,000 MWh of energy in the UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/513244/Press_Notice_March_2016.pdf).
Electricity was about 338,000,000 MWh. So electricity accounted for 14.5%.
All renewables accounted for 83,000,000 MWh, or about 3.5% of our total needs for all energy.
Nuclear accounted for 70,000,000 MWh, 3%.
So even if we manage things really cleverly, and cut usage down to the minimum, we still have a real problem.

Posted By: SteamyTeaThe UK has a particular problem though with allowing access to land for generation and storage.
The do have some potential for tidal lagoons and barrages, but they are limited, as is flooding valleys. These problems don't affect other countries like Iceland and the Scanwegians.

True, but there are other technologies that require much less land - flow batteries and hydrogen hydrolysis come to mind, for example - that would be more suitable for the UK. But they're going to take Government support though to scale them up rapidly, and that could be a problem.

Posted By: SteamyTeaUm
Hydrogen–lithium chlorate is the best there is, and that has an energy density of 1.4 kWh/kg. As a comparison, diesel is about 10. Even wood is better by a factor of about 3.

But you were talking about the shortage of land for lagoons and flooding valleys. Water has a very low energy density, so you need vast quantities of it (compared to chemical storage) making it (as you correctly pointed out) problematic in much of the UK. Specifically:
Water dropping 100m from a dam = 980 J/kg

And for comparison:
Hydrogen–lithium chlorate = 5,040,000 J/Kg (converted from your 1.4 kWh/kg)
Diesel = 48,000,000 J/Kg
Compressed hydrogen @ 700bar = 142,000,000 J/Kg

Posted By: SteamyTeaThen there is the price, reliability and overall 'environmental' issues i.e. how do you successfully make low carbon hydrogen.

Proton exchange membrane electrolyses of water is the currently favoured option, using surplus renewable energy during peak times. Waste product = oxygen. More: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2014/07/hydrogen-energy-storage-a-new-solution-to-the-renewable-energy-intermittency-problem.html

Electron-coupled proton buffer electrolysis is a recent development that promises to be cheaper: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/04/green-energy-cheaper-hydrogen-separate-water-splitting

I wonder how far the £30bn cost of Hinkley Point would go on developing either of these technologies to grid scale? (Comparison: Boundary Dam Power Station CCS Project - cost CAD 1.35bn - http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/publications/16235)