By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Today’s dose of misinformation from the renewable industry’s cheerleader:
Energy bills in the UK are inflated partly because households are subsidising nuclear submarines, MPs have been told.
Experts think one government motive for backing civilian nuclear power is to cross-subsidise the defence industry.
They say nuclear power is so expensive that it should be scrapped in favour of much cheaper renewable energy.
Others argue that nuclear still plays a key role in keeping on the lights, so the military aspect is not significant.
But in evidence to MPs on the Business Select Committee, researchers from the University of Sussex said the government should be frank about the inter-dependence of the civilian nuclear programme and the nuclear defence industry.
Supply chain
Prof Andy Stirling from Sussex argues that one reason the government is willing to burden householders with the expense of nuclear energy is because it underpins the supply chain and skills base for firms such as Rolls Royce and Babcock that work on nuclear submarines.
He said: “It is clear that the costs of maintaining nuclear submarine capabilities are insupportable without parallel consumer-funded civil nuclear infrastructures.
“The accelerating competitiveness of renewable energy and declining viability of nuclear power are making this continuing dependency increasingly difficult to conceal.”
The debate has taken on greater significance as the true costs of nuclear power have been revealed.
It was once forecast that nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter. But it’s clear now that bill-payers will give price support to the Hinkley Point C nuclear station at a cost of £92.50 per megawatt hour, compared with £55 for offshore wind.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48509942
What Harrabin forgot to tell you is that when the Hinkley Point contract was being drawn up in 2015, the cost of offshore wind was much greater than the price agreed for Hinkley.
The CfDs allocated that year awarded prices of £114.39 and £119.89/MWh to the two successful offshore wind projects:
Onshore wind farms were also nearly as dear as Hinkley.
Because the prices have been index linked since, the current rates are now £129.88 and £136.08/MWh, and will continue to be inflated till the end of the contracts.
https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/cfds
These projects were bargains compared to the first batch of contracts handed out by Ed Davey in 2013, which gave prices to offshore wind of between £140 and £155/MWh, not to mention £105/MWh to Drax for burning trees:
According to Harrabin, nuclear power is so expensive that it should be scrapped in favour of much cheaper renewable energy, even though contracts have been signed.
Why does he not call for all of these offshore wind deals to be scrapped as well, given that they are even more expensive?
In any event, Harrabin as usual ignores the fact that you cannot compare costs of intermittent and unreliable offshore wind with the dispatchable baseload offered by nuclear energy.
Harrabin presents Prof Andy Stirling as if he was impartial academic. In fact, he is no more than an eco-activist with a clear bias against nuclear energy:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/7513
I suspect, looking at his CV, our Mr Stirling is also strongly biased against our military, hence his absurd allegations about subsidising nuclear submarines.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
June 7, 2019 at 07:45AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
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