nuclear-news

The government’s deal yesterday with Electricite de France SA to build a $26 billion plant at Hinkley Point in England involves two European Pressurized Reactors. The first EPR project in Finland, led by Areva SA (AREVA), the French company that designed the technology, is seven years behind schedule and won’t be completed until 2016. The second, an EDF project at Flamanville in northwest France, will cost more than twice as much as expected…..

History suggests the plan for the U.K., which needs to replace aging reactors built in the 1970s, isn’t ironclad, said Roland Vetter, head of research at CF Partners (UK) LLP, which runs a fund that invests in utilities.

“Nuclear is the biggest gamble in power generation,” said Ingo Becker, an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux in Frankfurt. “At 16 billion pounds ($26 billion) for two EPRs, they have probably taken into account possible cost overruns.”….

The U.K. project, expected to take 10 years, will be more expensive because soft local soil means it needs deeper foundations, requiring 30 percent more concrete, EDF said in a presentation yesterday. The Paris-based company also has to build an atomic waste facility and 3.8-kilometer (2.2-mile) pipes to carry seawater to cool the reactors….

The EPR was criticized in France for being too big and costly after an Areva-led group lost a $20 billion atomic contract from Abu Dhabi in 2009.

“The credibility of both the EPR and the ability of the French nuclear industry to successfully build new reactors has been seriously undermined by difficulties” at Finland’s Olkiluoto site and Flamanville, according to a report ordered by former President Nicolas Sarkozy and published in 2010. It found the plant’s complexity was “a handicap.”….http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-21/u-k-nuclear-future-relies-on-reactor-plagued-by-delays-energy.html