In reply to Jack B:
> Why not do the maths? I'm sure you're capable of it.
> Number of households in the UK: google says 26 million.
> Reasonable panel size: How does 2x3 meters sound? people in detached houses get more, high rises much less
> Found on ebay: 1kW panel, 6 square meters, £1200. Lets give each household one of them. Cost: £30bn
> How much energy? On a really sunny day at noon 26GW, but what on average? DECC says 9.7%, so 2.6GW
> So the solar panels are good for about 3/4 of what hinkley can do, at a bit under double the price.
> How about the wind turbines? Found a 1kW design on ebay for £1000. In the UK wind turbines average 25% of their nameplate capacity, but that's for wind farms built in windy places. Homes are usually in sheltered places. Lets use 15%, so you get 3.9GW for 26bn. So a better than the panels but still more expensive than nuclear. Those cheapo turbines are really noisy, I wouldn't want one on my roof; double the price for a car-engine-loud one with a 20 year life. But lets assume we use the cheap ones.
> But what about when it's night, and not windy? You'll need to shell out for some pumped storage power stations too, or some big battery banks. Since we're talking small installations, lets look at battery banks. The average output of the turbine and panels together is 250W. To cover that for 24 hours will need 16 12V/125Ah deep discharge lead acid batteries at £50 each is £800 per household, or £20bn total.
> So lets add that up. We have a total average of 2.6+3.9=6.5GW and a cost of £30+26+20=76bn. Twice the powerof Hinkley, four times the cost. And that's just to build it - a nuclear plant lasts 40-50 years, but those batteries will need replacing after 5 and you'll be lucky if the panels and turbine are serviceable after 20 - so more like 8 times the cost. And I wouldn't put too much hope in economy of scale dropping prices - enough wind turbines are made to get most of the gain already, but using half the worlds annual lead production in batteries might push prices up.
Thats fascinating and proves my argument wrong.
Not overly keen on your original sentence. That's kinda why I asked, because I didnt know but hey, nothing like a bit of acid to make your mark.
Anyway, genuinely interested in your response so thanks.