Talk:Hinkley Point C nuclear power station/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Construction start after first reactor basement concrete pour

@Absolutelypuremilk and Rodw: preparatory works at the site do not count as construction start. They are low budget that are addressed also if full commitment has not yet been made (generally awaiting for "the money"). It happens often that after the preparatory works, any other activity stops for years, especially, but not only, with new nuclear plants. The "point of no return" is the week long concrete pour for the basement of the first reactor, that is the moment where "hard money" starts to flow. At this moment there is no mention of Hinkley C at IAEA's PRIS information system, and neither of a construction start at the World Nuclear Association News site. The last reference is of four day ago, where it is stated that Hinkley C just got the go-ahead, but until now it is to see when hard money is "pouring" in.

For example, the construction start of Astravets is given as 2013, but you may see that the foundation pit was already dug in 2012. If you check at PRIS you find a construction date start of 06 November 2013, more than a year later.

Another example is Gorakhpur Nuclear Power Plant, which started "construction" with much news, but after two years there is a open pit with no construction activity.

I don't know when Hinkley C will start construction (EDF has the money ?), but I am sure that the PRIS date, when it will come, will not be March 2017. Next time, is it not better to start a talk, replying to the edit summary I gave ("Construction start after first basement reactor concrete pour"), instead of re-reverting ? --Robertiki (talk) 16:33, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I do not believe I have reverted any of your edits on this article & my only recent contribution has been to add a reference Striking drone footage shows Hinkley Point C under construction – video from a reliable source. I do not have specialist knowledge of nuclear power stations (although I do have a fair amount of knowledge about Somerset and started this article when it was first announced in Sept 2008) and technical definitions of what constitutes "construction start" (I have never heard of PRIS dates), but I suspect that most readers would see 1,000+ workers with diggers & concrete pouring as representing construction work.— Rod ^talk 16:53, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Rowd, sorry, you are right, you did not revert. About what is "construction", it is not our opinion that counts, but any edit should rely on reputable sources: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is surely one of the best. The Guardian reference only states about a busy activity in these days, but let us wait what happens after a couple of months. About "City A.M." I would not comment; it states: "A key milestone has been reached at Hinkley Point power station as EDF successfully builds some of the first permanent structures at the Somerset site." Please ? Key milestone ? Are we making a joke ? --Robertiki (talk) 23:30, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Robertiki, could you give a secondary source which says that a nuclear power plant is only in full construction once the concrete pour for the basement of the first reactor begins? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:40, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I am speechless. Not only in the nuclear construction, but in any building work, the "construction" is started at first concrete pour. Example: new soccer stadium (archived):

“The Los Angeles Football Club has begun construction of its new soccer stadium on the former site of the Los Angeles Arena. The effort began with the pouring of the stadium's first concrete slabs, building the foundation for the new $350 million state-of-the-art facility, Banc of California Stadium.”

Where the site preparation works is described as:

“After several weeks of demolition, excavation and digging, construction workers and club owners gathered with over 130 concrete trucks to pour the initial 1,300 cubic yards of concrete needed to form the foundation, marking the beginning of the stadium’s next phase of construction.”

Anyway, it looks that that of the construction start date is a recurring theme in the nuclear sector, so you may have a point in asking. Here (Cambridge Energy Studies - The realities of nuclear power - S.D. Thomas - Cambridge University Press, 1988 - ISBN 978-0-521-12603-8) we have some thoughts (page 102):

“The importance of Table 5.10 is that it attempts - unlike other analyses of US construction times - to put US experience on a basis identical to that used for other countries in this book: namely, to express construction times from the start of serious construction on site (first concrete) up to the point of commercial operation.”

I would underline "serious construction"; and:

“From a utility's (economic) point of view, the period chosen here [My comment: i.e. first concrete pour] is the most appropriate as it represents the time over which significant capital is tied up without return.”

I would stress "significant capital" tied up; and about initial site work:

(which may in fact refer to initial site work; this can precede first concrete by months or years)

I underline "may precede ... by years". Some other examples of the World Nuclear Association here (archived), a self explaining text:

“Safety-related concrete has been poured for the basemat of the first of two AP1000 units at the VC Summer plant in South Carolina. The milestone marks the official start of construction of the USA's first new reactor in 30 years.”

and from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), here:

The concrete pour means nuclear construction is under way for both new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the Fairfield, S.C., site.

And some year counting examples from IAEA here (archived), at page 14:

From F/C to C/O: 62 -> 49 months
From F/C to C/O: 64 -> 47 months

where F/C is "First concrete pouring". Following page describes site preparation times of up to 18 months and than follows construction time. Page 20, 54 and 56 are some more examples. I have extended a request of comments to the Energy Project. --Robertiki (talk) 14:35, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

You seem to have a lot of knowledge about the topic - I would suggest that maybe you might like to write Construction of nuclear power plants or at least a section on construction at Nuclear power plants. However the point here is that construction has started here whether you define it as serious construction or not. If in the article someone wants to compare the construction of Hinkley to other plants then we can certainly use the metric of first concrete pour. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 10:08, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

What has started is only the site preparation. The source added by Rowd states: " ... where new footage has revealed the full scale of the site being prepared for Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation.". I read "site being prepared". No less, no more. Anyway, no problem, I can wait until PRIS or other expert source gives us a sourced reputable start date. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, so we should not feel to urgent updates. I am worried that after a couple of weeks of frenzy site preparation, all will freeze down again. Remember what happened before. And that was October 2015. --Robertiki (talk) 16:55, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Found: Construction officially starts at Summer (archived March 3, 2016) quote:“However, the pouring of the first concrete - the recognised event by which construction on a new reactor is deemed to be officially underway - was delayed due to issues with the shear reinforcement for the basemat.“ and Second Summer AP1000 under construction (archived March 3, 2016) quote:“Safety-related concrete has been poured for the basemat of the second AP1000 unit at the VC Summer plant in South Carolina. It comes seven months after the same milestone for the first unit there.” and “The basemat provides a foundation for the containment and auxiliary buildings that are within the unit's nuclear island. Measuring 1.8 metres thick, the basemat required some 7000 cubic metres of concrete to cover an area about 76 metres by 49 metres. The concrete-pouring process took just over 43 hours and was completed on 4 November.” That's all folks. --Robertiki (talk) 00:40, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

concrete pour for the first reactor is planned only at earliest in 2019. No comment. --Robertiki (talk) 02:04, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Sample at PRIS: today (as archived), under Highlights, I read at the Construction starts section, KUDANKULAM-3 on 29 June, but no reference to Hinkley Point C. --Robertiki (talk) 03:52, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I've not been closely following the Hinkley saga lately, but can offer a recent good cite that might help the article: 5 July 2017 Nuclear Engineering International - EDF said ... "The milestone for the first nuclear safety concrete for the building of Unit 1, scheduled for mid-2019, is confirmed, assuming that the final design, which is on a tight schedule, is completed by the end of 2018." Rwendland (talk) 13:28, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Number of years radioactive waste will remain dangerous for?

Hi, I was wondering if anybody new the number of years that the fuels of this power station would need to be stored for is? thanks Chendy (talk) 10:36, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Wind turbines cost

In the second paragraph of the introduction the projected cost per megawatts of wind power versus the cost of the plant are mentioned. However, this seems slightly misleading and unnecessary considering that wind power is by its very nature unreliable so is not a viable alternative to the nuclear power plant itself. I haven't removed or edited this line, but I was curious of other people's thoughts on this. Peeky Chew (talk) 10:11, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Which generation of nuclear power plant?

Which generation of nuclear power plants is Hinkley Point C? I.e. what is used as fuel (and how long is the waste hazardous radioactive)? QV (talk) 08:53, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It uses the EPR reactor, all the details are in that page. --Ita140188 (talk) 19:14, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Second largest nuclear power plant under construction

I removed this claim as it was uncited and ambiguous. It was probably meant to mean second largest in terms of design output of reactors currently under construction at one site (ie not including completed or planned for a site). Barakah now has one reactor grid connected and one completed but not yet started up so if they are no longer counted as "under construction" (again ambiguous) this may no longer be true. On the other hand there are several larger if you count reactors already completed and/or planned, eg Leningrad-II with one 1.2 GW reactor operating, one finished and being prepared for start up and two planned; Akkuyu with two 1.2 GW reactors under construction and two more planned. Shin Kori has two 1.4 GW reactors operating and two more under construction plus two 1 GW reactors operating. Booshank (talk) 09:37, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 21 October 2020

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Berkeley Nuclear Power Station which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:26, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Billions consistency across articles

About the second reverse without trying a talk with a second editor upholding the first reverse, the question is not a "I don't like it" isn't good enough , but that of consistency in articles about power stations. A editor is changing a given long time consensus and that without even trying a talk, despite two edit reverse. So I am giving here a opportunity to talk about it before changing that long time convention. --Robertiki (talk) 14:30, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand why power stations should be different to any other article in the use of shortened forms of large numbers. What is special about them and when was the convention agreed / established? Even if they were to be different they are still incorrect at the moment because there is no non-breaking space {{nbsp}} between the number and the million/billion. --10mmsocket (talk) 17:38, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Power station articles are not different, there are about 3.8 million hits of the word billions in Wikipedia and 4 million more of the word billion. The string bn gets only little more of 100,000 hits. If you don't like it, you could propose a general discussion to a common written policy to change all millions/billions to M/bn.
You are right about the missing {{nbsp}} and you are warmly greeted to add them (but not in the sources titles). --Robertiki (talk) 22:40, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Turbine speed

HPC turbine speed is listed as 'around 1500 rpm' and HPA as 3000rpm with poor old HPB with no speed (which will be true in a few months)

This is not really correct. WHile the turbine speed will vary slightly with grid frequency, the design turbine speed at HPC is 1500 rpm and is a four pole machine where as HPB & HPC are more conventional UK machines running at 3000 rpm two pole machines.

This should be edited for consistency without someone having a fit and claiming vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.149.117.67 (talk) 15:43, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Nobody will "have a fit" if you find a reference that states what the rotation speeds is and explains why it is important in relation to grid frequency. As for a few months for HPB - it's sadly a matter of weeks now... 10mmsocket (talk) 17:17, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. References will be sought but at the moment there is an inconsistency between the figures with no reference. 192.149.117.67 (talk) 10:23, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Lead in a mess

The lead is now a bit of a mess, with dates and costs jumping all over the place. Anyone fancy having a pop at sorting it out? All references can be removed as well - they're not needed in the lead if the content is a proper summary of sourced content contained within the article. 10mmsocket (talk) 08:27, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at it, though I've left the references for now. I've been fairly brutal in pruning it back, but I don't think anything important has been left out. Rosbif73 (talk) 09:23, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Huge improvement, thanks! 10mmsocket (talk) 09:47, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, clearly not everyone thought agreed. All the cruft I tried to remove has come back. I've just restored a semblance of chronological order – but I'm still not convinced we need all the approval dates. Rosbif73 (talk) 19:34, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

EDF website page may have been changed?

It now occurs to me that the EDF page used as a source for what EDF was saying in 2020 may have been changed. Is that page saying now, in 2022, the plant is making incredible progress including in construction? Therefore the source now used for the statement at the end of this article's section on "Costs for consumers" may have been changed and no longer provide the support for it - effectively equivalent now to a dead link. The claim of this article that there were delays including some caused by the pandemic may have been based on information available there earlier from EDF, it does need a proper source as I have no evidence from this article of where any delays were happening regarding this project in the pandemic and note that even if information from EDF was found saying it had delayed the project due to or caused by the pandemic I would still want substantiation for this yet-to-be-substantiated claim in respect of anything beyond international travel and connected industries and disruption to government business, as opposed to numerous countries in the world letting the virus in and then failing to control the pandemic being the cause of numerous disruption and delays when then forced to close their economies down but I don't have to prove what the cause was anyway - it is for those claiming things beyond those I have mentioned to prove that they were caused by the pandemic. If "incredible progress" is being made now regarding this plant, in 2022, then clearly delays aren't caused by the pandemic as there do not appear to be delays now, given the fact that we are still in this ongoing pandemic - the pandemic now, 2022, doesn't seem to be delaying the project and therefore isn't the cause of delays just by its existence! aspaa (talk) 16:40, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Sources found but reluctant to link to any of them as both give greater currency to widely-assumed things that are not correct

I have now found a source that does show that there have been delays to this project in the pandemic - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-61519609 - however I am reluctant to amend the article and include this source as it also includes a claim from a government spokesman that the article claims confirmed "While the Covid pandemic has understandably led to delays,..." and therefore gives currency to a doubtless widely-believed misinformation trope, when it was the UK Government that led to these delays by failing to have effective border controls and therefore failing to control the pandemic: the article refers to two points, April 2020, near the start of the pandemic when Government inaction over not shutting the borders led to the virus spreading widely and therefore leading to the delays when it reached people near Hinckley C and January 2021 when there was a second wave (actually a third wave in England as some parts of North West England had a second wave in autumn 2020). Whilst the BBC article claims the spokesman "confirmed", they did not in fact confirm any such thing at all, in the sense of "confirm" meaning "establish the truth or correctness of (something previously believed or suspected to be the case)" - the spokesperson's statement does not establish that this is true or correct as the statement has yet to be proven to be true or correct and mere statement of something does not amount to providing proof that what is claimed is true or correct and therefore does not "confirm" it, in this definition of confirm given. They never showed that the pandemic has led to delays, especially as the same ongoing pandemic now, in 2022, doesn't seem to be leading to delays so doesn't show the Covid pandemic leads to delays. What does lead to delays is failing to stop the virus from spreading so that measures are then needed very early in the pandemic, when no-one is vaccinated, to stop numerous people arriving in hospital ill having caught Covid after being caused to catch it by the virus being allowed to get into the country in the first place and then to spread once it was here, with the Government delaying and taking no measures to stop it, relying on hand hygiene rhetoric instead, the virus getting across the country and affecting Hinckley and then the Government eventually imposing lockdown restrictions that then see delays after the Government had to impose those restrictions to stop the NHS being overwhelmed after it causing numerous patients to be catching the virus and then presenting to hospitals in such great numbers across the country.

Another article I have found has the Hinckley Point boss blaming the pandemic for the disruption - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/20/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-power-station-edf-delayed-covid-costs-rise - and mentioning "the severe impact of Covid-19", but that "severe impact" only caused by the Government allowing Covid-19 to spread and cause such a severe impact by failing to shut the borders that likely would have stopped the virus as New Zealand showed it was a substantial time indeed before the virus got back in and then forced a relatively short lockdown to stamp out what was a much less transmissible virus than the numerous subvariants of Omicron we have now. The article claims "Crooks said that in January 2021, EDF estimated a six-month Covid impact, assuming an imminent return to normal conditions, but the second wave of Covid-19 stopped that happening." However the second wave (actually a third wave in some parts of England) was caused by the Government failing to take any measures to prevent it, as with every wave we have seen in the pandemic to date. Both articles are therefore articles that contain likely widely-assumed claims and misinformation, although much of this in technical truth of doubtless factually accurate quotation of what people have said but what people have said may be incorrect and therefore mislead by omission of the articles to point out matters such as I have stated. aspaa (talk) 17:20, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Citation needed

"...[T]he project has been subject to several delays, including some caused by the COVID-19 pandemic..." - where is the evidence for this? At the source used later in this article, at the end of the section on "Costs to consumers", a source from soon after the beginning of the first official lockdown of the pandemic, has EDF itself saying "Hinkley Point C is making incredible progress on-site in terms of construction." https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/hinkley-point-c/about/realising-socio-economic-benefits This Wikipedia article is talking about "Since construction began in March 2017" but it therefore does not seem that there was a delay in construction caused by the pandemic as very soon in the first lockdown, EDF itself is saying there is incredible progress in terms of construction. Apart from this, generally I question the likely widely-held assumption that many things are "caused by the pandemic", a rhetoric often repeated that has yet to be proven in respect of most things. These things, such as delay to the construction of a nuclear power plant, although the source at EDF puts in question whether this has occurred, may have happened *in* the pandemic but this does not show that they were *caused* by it. Apart from disruption and closure of the international travel business, including flights into and out of the country and disruption to business directly linked to this, including the business of travel agents, which regardless of response to the pandemic would have been required anyway, including New Zealand that didn't need widescale closure over extended periods for industries and extended lockdowns of its population including furlough but instead dealt effectively with the pandemic by keeping its virus out - clearly it still had to shut down much of international travel and subject it to the impact from restrictions of managed isolation so, either way, the travel industry would have been affected by the pandemic, therefore this is caused by the pandemic. Additionally, changes to government legislative programmes and business were caused by the pandemic: in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern was still pulled away from other business and into making coronavirus briefings aimed at the New Zealand public and her government passed Covid legislation. The UK also passed Covid legislation so, whatever the response, clearly this was a change to the legislative programmes that had been planned by the governments and therefore the pandemic did cause such thing.

However, beyond this, I dispute that the pandemic is the cause, including of things such as disruption to the business of construction workers or any other people involved in building the plant or otherwise delivering projects such as this on time. My no doubt controversial position (therefore I haven't amended the article) is that the UK Government was the cause of such things, including construction workers unable to be at work and continue their work on building the plant, if indeed this ever was the case although did not the UK Government actually give an exemption to enable construction industry to carry on in the early part of the pandemic? This Government appears always concerned to prioritise short-term economic interests and only closed down the economy when forced to do so at the last possible moment in March 2020, along with other Governments in the UK acting at the same time under a four-nations approach, it is the failure of the UK Government to ever have effective border controls to stop the virus coming into the country and to have an effective test and trace system to stamp out the virus if it did get through - New Zealand shows that it was, under the Wuhan virus at this time, a *substantial* amount of time before the virus got in again. The UK and New Zealand show very different outcomes at this time, despite both of them dealing with a pandemic being in the world. The lack of effective border controls in the UK is an intervening event that breaks the chain of causation back to the pandemic and is not caused by the pandemic: there would not be delay in construction of projects when people able to go to work and continue much as normal life in long periods in New Zealand when it effectively had stamped out the virus, and the information from EDF doesn't support delays in the pandemic anyway, instead, in May 2020, saying incredible progress is happening in terms of construction. Even if a source often considered to be reliable is referenced that claims delays "caused by the pandemic" (or similar), I would dispute reliance on such a source as such usually reliable sources often claim numerous things to have been caused by the pandemic but I have seen no substantiation from any of them to prove that this is the case and to satisfy the causation test to show the pandemic was the cause, rather than later Government action or inaction. Where is the evidence there even were delays in the pandemic given I dispute causation to it for anything except international travel and connected industry and disruption to government business (no evidence of delays to this project from EDF itself on that page from early in the pandemic and indeed instead appears to say the opposite of what this article claims)? aspaa (talk) 16:25, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

The immediate cause may have been the government's pandemic management strategy (and the strategies of other governments too, given that not all contractors on the project are UK-based), but that doesn't change the fact that the root cause was the pandemic itself. A different strategy might have resulted in less (or more) disruption, sure, but if there hadn't been a pandemic, this disruption wouldn't have occurred. Rosbif73 (talk) 06:50, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Rosbif73, the pandemic was the root cause and it's not misleading to point that out, as per the source. Bellowhead678 (talk) 08:18, 30 September 2022 (UTC)