Poles Apart: Poland Joins Europe’s Nuclear Power Renaissance

Poland is the latest country to join the Europe-wide nuclear power renaissance. While their German neighbours set out to destroy their once reliable and affordable power supply with a maniacal attempt to run on sunshine and breezes, the Poles kept powering on using their abundant coal reserves. The same coal-fired plants routinely provide surplus power to the Germans whenever wind and solar output collapses.

The French were, and remain, Europe’s biggest nuclear power generator, delivering reliable and affordable electricity to the German and British neighbours, among others – which is the reason the French are demanding that their dependents start building their own nuclear power generation capacity, instead of sponging off the French every time the sun sets or calm weather sets in.

The Swedes and Finns are all in – ditching wind and solar targets and building new nuclear power capacity. And Britain is on the same path, too.

Which brings us back to the Poles. As Paul Homewood outlines below, Poland is not only lining up to build two new large-scale nuclear plants, it’s also well ahead of the curve when it comes to small modular reactors, with plans to build 6 those in the very near future.

Where Are The SMRs?
Not a Lot of People Know That
Paul Homewood
30 January 2024

While the Government continues to blindly pursue its obsession with offshore wind power, blissfully unaware that the wind does not blow all the time, the Royal Society warn us that we have dangerously underestimated the need for energy storage, and Hinkley Point faces yet further delays, what on earth is happening with Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)?

While we dither, it seems that Poland has made up its mind:

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Six-SMR-power-plants-approved-in-Poland

The Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment has already issued decisions-in-principle for the construction of two large nuclear power plants: one for a 3750 MWe plant in Pomerania using Westinghouse’s AP1000 technology, the other for a plant comprising two South Korean-supplied APR1400 reactors in the Patnów-Konin region. So the country could soon have 14 GW of nuclear power.

Rolls Royce still don’t have design approval, but CAPEX has been estimated at £1.8 billion for a 470 MW plant, or £3.8m/MW. By comparison, the cost of Hinkley C is now reckoned to have gone up to £35 billion, about £11m/MW.

Rolls Royce reckon they can generate power at £40 to 60/MWh. If this is so, we should immediately abandon all further subsidies for wind and solar power. .

And it seems that Rolls Royce are expensive in comparison. Thorcon who are still developing their prototype molten salt fission reactor, claim CAPEX of $1m/MW.

I am reliably informed that Hitachi, who already have Canadian design approval, would be somewhere between Thorcon and RR.

So why are we so intent of accelerating down the dead end of expensive, obsolete and unreliable wind power?
Not a Lot of People Know That