A Severn barrage still makes economic sense
My view is that large-scale nuclear power of up to 20% of maximum demand is essential as a provider of UK baseload. Nuclear power stations should always be at coastal locations away from population centres. The Severn estuary should not be included. It is uniquely able to offer significantly more secure and lower-cost electricity from hydro power.
The estuary generates two tides every day whose magnitude is unmatched anywhere in Eu-rope. The electrical energy extracted using a barrage could far exceed that required by South Wales and the West Country.
A Severn barrage could easily generate 4,000MW of very low-cost electricity for four hours dur-ing both ebb and flow tides. A design incorporating all the best practice could be built within six years.
In Brazil the Santo Antonio hydroelectric station in the Amazon interior provides 3,150MW of electricity using 44 bulb turbines. The technology changes from run-of-river to tidal generation in the Severn estuary are easily accommodated.
The price of 3,200MW Hinkley Point C is at least £18 billion – grossly overpriced, in my opinion. The agreed strike price of £92.50/MWh (2012 prices) reflects this. It was also agreed that the strike price would fall to £89.50 if a second nuclear project, two further EPRs at Sizewell C, went ahead.
The estimated cost of a 4,000MW Severn barrage hydroelectric station is less than £6 billion. A strike price of £30/MWh would be fair.
My assessment is that Hinkley Point C will go ahead. The adversarial nature of Westminster politics makes a policy U-turn very unlikely, no matter how strong a case is made for an alternative that is in the national interest and is cheaper.
I comment now on the need reportedly being considered to add a 2,760MW boiling water reactor power station at Oldbury-on-Severn. An escape of radioactive material from such a plant during its predicted life of over 30 years is almost inevitable.
Added to concerns is the necessary inclusion of massive cooling towers that provide a simple terrorist target of disrupting the essential cooling water supply from the main A48 road on the other side of the narrowing estuary. The consequences of losing cooling water supply on this design were demonstrated at Fukushima.
The risks to safety must not be ignored. The centre of Bristol is 10 miles away.
Edward Grist,Congleton, Cheshire
Engineers must act too
Your Editor’s comment sets out that UK energy projects face delays (PE June). To suggest that the government “must get a grip” is entirely wishful thinking and would be a first for quite some time as regards power and energy policy.
Governments since World War Two only ever had a reasonable grip in the 1950s and 60s, when the world was a simpler place and we used UK coal in power stations. Nuclear power has been a headache.
What is clear about Hinkley Point C power plant and fracking is that few actually understand and can explain dispassionately and in depth the issues and problems, not to mention the tech-nical, social and financial impacts.
Many can be blamed for the current situation. But the engineering profession must carry some of the blame. The institutions appear to be more interested in innovation, technology, govern-ance, information, protocols, process and the rest and its promulgation. No bad thing but there are limits. The situation requires that institution presidents get their hands dirty, plan for and deal with nationally important circumstances. When did a prominent president make the front pages of a national with a really cutting opinion?
Some of us would like to know why the upper bound cost of Hinkley Point C cannot be given with any accuracy. PWRs have been built for quite some time, all over the world. But the finan-cial press has been at pains to point out some costing blunders. “Spongy money” doesn’t auger well for anyone, not least engineers.
And what precisely is wrong with the Finnish and French EPR reactors? PE editorials have inti-mated the steel in the primary or secondary containment. Which one, or other, or both? Some in the technical press, whilst not completely understanding these technicalities, don’t need to be world experts in structural design, material properties or fracture mechanics to make a stab, and put two and two together.
Politicians, civil servants, special advisers, corporate chiefs and financial fixers are breeds apart admittedly, and need due diligence applied to them. But the engineering fraternity – practi-tioners and, more importantly, presidents – need to get a grip as well.
William Ralph, Oxford
Take the heat out
I agree with Max Oakes’ view on nuclear power (Soundbites, PE June). When considering global warming, we only ever seem to mention CO2 emissions. In the case of nuclear power, as well as fossil fuels, what about the effect of direct heating from the energy stored up over millions of years and then released in a few decades into the environment?
For the planet to dissipate that energy, unless the emissivity of the planet is increased (which has its own problem in terms of heat gain), the only way to achieve this is to increase the tem-perature of the radiating body, the planet. Yet more global warming.
The only form of energy that does not introduce more energy into the system is that which is already in the environment – renewable energy. So should not the question be this: What do we need to do to live within our sustainable energy supply? If we ask this we will come up with more realistic answers.
Geoff Bell, St Austell, Cornwall
Widening horizons at work
The interview with IMechE president Jon Hilton refers to the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of most projects (PE June). This is hardly new.
I encountered this way back in the 1960s. I became chartered in 1959 via the IMechE but, working on a flight control system for a research vertical take-off and landing aircraft (Shorts SC1), I soon realised that I needed to embrace electronics and much more. I did my own homework, including digging out new mathematical methods to assess stability.
This continued for 10 years until I moved on and had to brush up on more new tricks, not least nuclear plant. Human factors featured strongly and I worried about safety-critical projects which involved many disciplines, not least the obscure world of software.
Part way through my aircraft stint, it occurred to me that I might have been better joining what was the Institution of Electrical Engineers in those days.
Jim Stark, West Scotland
Not so smart for consumers
Rachel Boagey ends her article on smart meters by saying “whether smart meters are the solution to these goals is yet to be proven” (“More heat than light,” PE May). Saving money by the customer is unlikely, considering the difficulty the government has had in getting the suppliers to present tariffs fairly.
I commend the BBC News web article “Smart meters will save only 2% on energy bills, say MPs”, which suggests that the cost of meters will be recovered at £11 per year. At that rate it will take 19 years to pay off the costs.
As a lifetime observer of government estimates for major projects, I note that outcomes nor-mally exceed the initial value by 25% to 100%. Can we believe this will be different? The BBC article says MPs think the technology “could be out of date by the time the roll-out is com-plete”.
I have another fear. The half-hourly reading sent from smart meters will enable the suppliers to introduce load-related tariffs with higher costs during peaks like the evening. Do you fancy having your evening meal at midnight to save on your bill?
It seems likely that consumers will have even less understanding of their bills than now, thus giving the suppliers even more chance to increase profits.
Alfred Reading, Surrey
Dawn of the double-decker
A News article states: “HS2 could become the first railway in the UK to run double-decker carriages” (PE June).
In fact British Railways ran double-deck units designated 4-DD between 1949 and 1971 on the Dartford to London Charing Cross services. They were designed under OVS Bulleid of the Southern Railway. They were restricted to the Dartford lines due to their construction to the very maximum loading gauge on the Southern, exceeding some of the less generously proportioned routes.
They were not particularly popular because the air-treatment units were not adequate, resulting in them being cool in winter and hot and stuffy in summer.
Nick La Hive, Chichester
Doctors do it differently
I read the article on the ABC of CPD with interest (“Life-long learning,” PE June). Beyond the onerous requirement to record CPD monthly, I’m intrigued with the comparison to junior doctors.
Their CPD is a formal part of their training scheme which contains centrally set assessments against which they are locally assessed. Can we assume the IMechE will similarly support us?
If not, I find the use of the medical comparison to be poor.
Dr Mark Flower, Brough, East Yorkshire
A way to lose members
CPD is a good idea but the last paragraph in your article fills me with horror (“Life-long learn-ing,” PE June). Can it really be the Engineering Council’s intention to downsize all the engineer-ing professional bodies?
Only the first 12 years of my 45 years of membership were in mechanical engineering per se. After that, I moved to other fields of research but was happy and proud to remain a member. I regard PE as by far the most positive publication I read because problems are highlighted in the general media but engineering solutions rarely.
There must be very large numbers of other members who no longer have daily engineering du-ties that are the bedrock upon which CPD may be achieved but who have loyally remained members.
Members are encouraged to take their skills into other spheres, even parliament – but to do so would entail loss of membership.
I only hope that the highest priority is being given to creating new membership categories for people threatened by the changes before they feel no option other than to resign.
Alastair John Wright, Thingwall, Merseyside
Stand up for British industry
Successive governments have upheld the banking profession whilst denigrating manufacturing.
In recent years, two banking institutions were saved by the government. Now we have the steel industry on the ropes but the government is doing nothing to help. Is it any surprise the work will go to foreign competition when the government will not assist British business? The people responsible for the demise of British manufacturing are ourselves, for electing minis-ters who want to make a quick profit, never mind the long-term effect on the lives of so many people.
George Dewsnap, Crewe
Questions of accountability
Michael Fish raised some important issues concerning the Croxley Rail Link (Letters, PE April and June).
I remain unclear which public body is accountable for the result. Keeping the link open is good news, but closing Watford Metropolitan Line station yet keeping the rail infrastructure seems like a lost opportunity.
London Travel Watch proposed in 2012 that there was “a business case for a Croxley Rail Link that retains Watford station as part of a split service”. They suggested that a trial service be operated so as to validate the passenger numbers using the link.
Watford Met station has to remain open for the stabling of trains because there are no facilities at Watford Junction. So actual cost savings are not as great as they might be.
The Department for Transport have made it clear that keeping Watford Met is not an option and they would not support a trial split service.
I assume that all the public bodies involved have exercised their duties in accordance with legislation and that those overseeing proper process, such as the Parliamentary Ombudsman, have diligently undertaken any role which they deemed to be necessary.
Many residents expressed their support for retaining the link and I am surprised that their weight of opinion failed to modify the Hertfordshire County Council proposal.
It might be useful to use this scheme as a test for reviewing the extent to which each public body played a part and to examine whether or not there exists proper overall accountability for the result.
At a time when people are being encouraged to use public transport and leave their cars at home, the closure of an urban station seems to be a retrograde step.
B L Clementson