You did misrepresent the facts.Please dont accuse me 'wow, misrepresenting the facts as if "only nuclear will save us" Its extremly rude and arrogent,
You said:The uk has to go ahead with the proposed 10 new sites, if not we will have a large energy gap!
you're pro nuclear, and you said there will be an energy crisis and that the UK HAS to go ahead with building ten more nuke power sites.you said:as the 10Gw of capacity they all currently produce wont be fully replaced by the 19Gw of the new EPR generation until 2025ish!!
despite the fact that nuke is more expensive to build, and takes longer to build, and don't provide as much power (at the current average size) as regular burning stations.
you took a fact, (that if you turn off 10GW of generating power and don't replace it there sill be a shortfall)
and you said that only your chosen method would get us out of it.
you took a fact, added your own opinion and misrepresented it as a fact also.
biomass is CO2 neutral. and it's easy to retrofit existing coal stations for burning what is essentially garden waste. it's a zero emission strategy that fits with all existing infrastructure methodology, and existing stations. it also allows for stations to be built quicker (as I said 3 yrs compared to 6), and even with zero risk of tsunami in this country it's still safer, with no radioactive waste left at the end of it.I agree nuclear is not ideal, but atm we have no alternative, nuclear is the only clean resource we have that will help us meet are legally binding 2050 C-emissions. Renewables currently are simply not good eneough...YET
sadly it's too late to build nuclear power stations, they just won't be finished in time given the current decommissioning timetables,
flame based power stations, can be built in half the time of the quickest ever built nuclear station, (six years is the fastest nuclear build in the UK so far, whilst a coal station has been built in three years with greater generating capacity).
the average time for building nuclear power stations is what 9 years? So if we start building all sites now they'll only just be finished in time. (early next decade)
you're saying that the crunch will really start in four years, so that's even less time... (unless you're considering trying to build ten power plants two years quicker than any other single nuclear plant has ever been built before in the UK or in half the average time to build) -personally I find the likely good of that happening unlikely for three reasons.
first, it's never been done before, just getting 1 plant finished in 4 years would be an immense undertaking. and wouldn't address the gap we'll be facing there.
second, we don't even have confirmed sites yet, so we can't even start right now even if we wanted to.
third the fact that an earthquake and tsunami knocked out a station on the other side of the world. something that has no relevance here but (in the same way that Germany just turned off all it's nuclear stations for "safety testing" (despite the infinitesimally small risk of either earth quake or tsunami)) factor in the anti nuke brigade will now call for 10 times the safety factors to be built in snagging up the process even more!
I don't think nuclear is "ideal". I think that coal is worse.
I think that coal is do-able in the given time scales, nuclear is not.
biomass seems to be the middle ground encompassing the best of both, -cheap and quick to build as coal, co2 neutral like nuke. and it's safer than both, (no mining accidents exposure to nuclear fuels, no possibility of explosion, no CO2 net output).
or bio gas would be a similarly good compromise.
renewable would be awesome, but are still at a foetal stage.
wind power is a non starter -not enough wind, not reliable.
solar is pathetically low return in this country.
hydroelectric isn't good enough, (we don't have the land to make large damns flooding acres of either habitable or agricultural land).
tidal is dependable and could have the capacity given the amount of coastline we have, but it's yet to be proven outside the lab/very controlled harbour settings.
geothermal is starting to be used, (for example they are currently boring under Newcastle in search of geothermal energy), but it's still so immature.