UK Government 'to finance' Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant

dr0tcl (64)in #news • 6 years ago

The Wylfa Newydd power station began construction in 1963 and ran until its decommission in 2015 which was welcomed by many. The UK as a whole seems to have many different viewpoints on anything nuclear, some people stand against anything nuclear energy or weaponry and others are for both researching and using nuclear energy and holding weaponry and I would put myself somewhat in the middle.

Now I am no expert on nuclear technology, I understand the basics of what power plants do and how they work including some of the pros and cons on each side and I have come to the conclusion that in my mind that in many cases nuclear energy is not worth the cost and risks when there are so many other option. As for weaponry it boils down to I think, as we already have nuclear weapons we shouldn't get rid of them now because the likelihood and hope is that they will never be used and it is deemed safer to have them to ward of the threat of nuclear attack from other countries which I mostly agree with, however I think we would be better off if no one had nuclear weapons but we just have to except that we have them other countries have them and they are hear to stay and that is just how things are for now.

How much power will we get?

The UK is in talks with Horizon nuclear power a UK based subsidiary of the Japanese company Hitachi that stands as the parent company of some 51 other companies including Horizon. The UK government along with Horizon are in talks of revamping the Wylfa Newydd power plant in the hopes that the electricity produced will be able to be used by 2020. By this time the plant should be able to produce 2700 megawatts of electricity, enough to power five million homes. The amount of homes 1 megawatt can power per hour is a topic widely up for discussion as it depends on a lot of things, most commonly it seems stated that 1mw hour can power up to 1000 homes but as I said different sources give different numbers and numbers depend on the source of electricity.

From what I understand a household will end up paying around £75-£77 per megawatt hour. which is considerably lower than the £92.50 MWh provided by Hinkley point C based in somerset, however this is still more expensive than the average £62.14 MWh provided by offshore wind farms. For comparison Hinkley is a 3200 MW power station.

Although this new plant will provide large amounts of clean electricity for the UK it still seems to be a sort of mid ground project, we can't complain too much because the electricity will be cheaper than that provided by other plants however there still is cheaper alternatives out there such as solar and wind farms that produce cheaper electricity and come with much less risk, however the units produced depends on either the amount of sun we see or how windy any given day is.

Jobs:

Developers have estimated that during the construction of the plant it will provide around 8500 jobs which is always a good thing, however as they are construction jobs they will only last as long as construction takes which is unknown.

So although the plant is creating jobs they are not the most stable long lasting jobs as the plant could be finished by 2020 but it could also take longer, however I would still say short term work is better than no work.

Further than this it is estimated that a further 900 people will be employed when the plant is up and running, which again means these jobs depend on how long construction takes. The 900 job roles are not specified however you would assume they would give the opportunity of long lasting employment.

The BBC states that this could bring a some of £5.7bn to the welsh economy, though it gives no time frame on how long it will take to bring that money to the economy so I would advise taking it with a pinch of salt.

However even though the plant is predicted to bring money to the welsh economy we have to take into account the estimated £20bn it will take to build the plant and out of this £20bn there are numbers of around £17bn being thrown around as too how much will be spent of tax payers money to build this plant. So putting an estimated £5.7bn into the welsh economy over an unknown time frame doesn't seem so much when £17bn will likely be used to build the plant all out of tax payers money and know one likes paying for a plant to be built just to pay more for the electricity from said plant, but that's just the way things go.

Environment:

One of the main factors to always get people worried about nuclear energy is the environmental implications if something goes wrong and we have seen and are still seeing the effects happening in japan and the surrounding oceans.

Below is a list taken from the Horizon site stating the plans for the facility and surrounding buildings:

a power station, including two nuclear reactors with a minimum generating capacity of 2700 MW;
a Marine Off-Loading Facility (MOLF);
cooling water intake and outfall structure
electricity transmission infrastructure;
other associated buildings, such as administration offices, park and ride facilities, temporary worker accommodation, and at least one logistics centre;
construction of a temporary Site Campus to accommodate construction workers;
interim waste and spent-fuel storage facilities;
access roads; and
measures and initiatives to manage any impacts during the construction and operation of a new power station.

All of these different structures will take a lot to build and a lot of preparation that could be harmful to the surrounding environment especially the off-loading facility as it takes a lot of dredging and boreholes to find out the best place for the facility which will stir up and disturb the surrounding ocean. Though the main worry is if something did go wrong in the plant which is indeed unlikely but is a possibility.

My opinion:

Although this deal isn't set in stone yet it looks very likely that things will move forward and production will begin with monetary aid from tax payers if they like it or not. To me it seems that there is a lot better things to spend around £17bn on including safer forms of producing electricity such as wind or solar, especially if you consider the price that people will have to pay for their electricity.

The building and use of this plant also raises further political issues as the plant was only recently shutdown and many people have protested it being revamped and reopened, if the majority of the public is against something and the government does it anyway how much of a democracy do we really live in?

I just think this is blatantly a project that is happening because a big company wanted to expand more and the UK government wants to reach its targets in the areas of clean energy so it is a win for both of them but as for the general public it is not really a win or loss but I would say an injustice because collectively we are paying for something that many people don't want and are even actively against and to make it worse it's not like we can't build other facilities that not only create clean energy at lower costs for the public but that the public would be more happy to see built and would give people a sense that there say is actually listened to.

If the public do have a say is something that matters but also doesn't because for one the general population of any country likely understand little of the larger politics and the ins and outs of how things work but in a situation such as this it seems like it will only breed more divide and anger among the public as they feel there say is null and they will feel exploited. Then again as I said the general public usually don't understand what is going on behind the scenes as it is something we don't get to see and I couldn't tell you without spending a lot of time researching what something like this means for the UK government and relations with Japan and relationships between big business in each country and any other implications, but if someone has more insight on those specific areas please educate me in the comments.