nuclear-news

Nuclear company’s financial burden, trying to sell to UK

EDF open to partners on UK nuclear scheme, Ft.com, July 31, 2012  By James Boxell in Paris EDF  of France is seeking partners to share the financial burden of its project to build four atomic reactors in the UK, sparking fresh concerns about whether nuclear energy is becoming too expensive.
The cost of atomic power was called into question this week by Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric , who said it had become “really hard” to justify compared with cheap shale gas.

The UK wants to replace ageing nuclear reactors but it is locked in negotiations with EDF – the world’s largest supplier of atomic energy by kilowatt hours – over setting a price for electricity that would justify the heavy investment.

EDF said on Tuesday it would decide this year whether to push on with the first UK facility in Somerset. But Thomas Piquemal, finance director, said it was looking at cutting its 80 per cent share of the project to spread the risk. The UK’s Centrica  owns the other 20 per cent of the four-reactor consortium.

“We are thinking about the best ways of financing this and attracting new partners,” Mr Piquemal said.

EDF is 84 per cent-owned by the French state, but private shareholders are worried about spiralling costs in the UK unless favourable terms are offered. The company is planning to build next-generation EPR reactors, which have suffered big cost overruns in France and Finland.

RWE  and EON  of Germany abandoned plans to build reactors in the UK because of increasing industry costs, which have jumped since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in Japan last year http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/49b4ef00-daea-11e1-8074-00144feab49a.html#axzz22Kejy7Ba

August 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK