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If we save money by cutting every single project and never delivering anything then we’ll save a fortune sure, except we won’t have anything.

And then you’ll have us buy Russian gas and Iranian oil to save money… and oopsie woopsie looks like we’re dependent on the evil countries again.

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While I don't disagree, Britain is hardly in the sweet spot for efficient, year-round solar production.
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A was Magnox and B was AGR. A collectible set of British dead end nuclear technologies.

C is not a great idea but like HS2 failing to finish it would also be a disaster.

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Thanks for the correction, what specifically makes them dead end that we can't re-use the designs - e.g. use modern parts?
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Long discussion: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/why-british-nuclear-flopp...

Magnox: un-enriched fuel, designed for weapons, low operating temperature.

AGR: too complicated, can't be refuelled without complete shutdown.

PWR has emerged as the only viable design, and even that is too complicated compared to solar+batteries.

Basically, plumbing is the enemy. Every joint is a potential failure. If what's in the pipe is radioactive or corrosive or explosive (in the case of molten sodium, all three), that's extra bad. So there's tremendous cost of inspections.

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The last chance to stop that particular albatross was lost under Theresa May, who was advised that it was already over-budget and wouldn't deliver value for money, and had to guarantee a pretty eye-watering price per kWh at the taxpayer's expense.

I can only think that the UK must need the reactor products for something defence related, because little else makes sense.

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> I can only think that the UK must need the reactor products for something defence related, because little else makes sense.

Obviously as a country with nuclear weapons that's an ingredient.

However Hinkley C's strike price £2012 92.50 is lower than was renegotiated for Drax £2012 109.90. Those are £2012 which means they're inflation adjusted as if you were being paid in the year 2012 not in current pounds. For a real world comparison, AR6 Solar got a strike price of about £2012 50 and that translates into about £75 right now today. Inflation is a hell of a thing.

Drax burns imported trees ("waste wood") so it requires some creative Green accounting to come up with the idea that this is carbon neutral so even if it's not quite as trivially friendly as a solar panel Hinkley is obviously less stupid. Both Hinkley and Drax run happily in the still dark, so to compare solar or wind you need to factor in a lot of storage. Today the government does not fund storage, that's a free market opportunity, so we can interpret the significant discount from Hinkley or Drax to a solar farm as a sign that the market thinks storing enough power is quite expensive actually.

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One crucial point is that military nuclear know-how (engines and weapons) needs a civilian industry for continuity of knowledge and betterment of practices and procedures.

I'm not sure how essential Hinckley Point C would be in this regard (probably not really), but I don't think this is about nuclear fuel.

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They worked around the CfD and shifted nearly 2 billion of the costs to the next nuclear build by paying the first project out of the new budget for "lessons learned"!

Apparently the main lesson learned was, don't use a CfD because you'll be contractually bound to your initial bid and be responsible for cost overruns. Instead consumers are paying upfront for construction, with no cap on costs for the next one.

Though of course that's not really a lesson learned. Their CFO knew enough at the time the deal was originally signed to resign over it.

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