nuclear-news

Price, and politics too, are bringing nuclear power development to a halt

U.K. Feels the Fallout From Nuclear-Industry Woes, WSJ,   By ANDREW PEAPLE, 30 Mar 12, Nuclear power has fallen out of fashion fast since last year’s Fukushima accident; now even supportive governments can’t catch a break. German utilities RWE RWE.XE -1.27% and E.ON EOAN.XE -1.79% on Thursday scrapped plans to invest £15 billion ($23.8 billion) building two new reactors in the U.K., ….

it highlights the challenge for governments to attract private-sector investment into
new nuclear-energy supply…… Such issues aren’t confined to RWE and E.ON. European banks—themselves de-leveraging—are unlikely to lend to long-term projects with uncertain rewards, like setting up a nuclear-power plant.

Cost overruns bedevil the industry: In Finland, estimated construction costs for a new plant similar to those E.ON and RWE were proposing have doubled in the last three years. Building new nuclear plants costs around €4,000 per kilowatt of capacity installed,
more expensive than coal, wind or gas; long-term electricity prices would have to be around 33% higher than current U.K. levels for companies to make an adequate return on investment, according to analysts’ estimates.

Price isn’t the only uncertainty: Political sentiment toward nuclear
power can change suddenly, as it did last year in Germany. It is no
accident that nuclear capacity installed in Europe in the 1970s and
1980s was done through state-backed companies. Now, with countries
like the U.K. needing to replace its nuclear stock before it becomes
obsolete in 2023, only Électricité de France EDF.FR -1.72% —85%-owned
by the French government—remains committed to installing new capacity
there. If the U.K. wants more nuclear, it may have to think of new
ways to press companies’ buttons.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304177104577311674009307822.html

March 30, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK