nuclear-news

Delay after delay , and soaring coasts, for Britain’s new nuclear build plans

How the UK’s nuclear new-build plans keep getting delayed 20 Nov 2014, The Carbon Brief Simon Evans When will the UK get a new generation of nuclear power plants? Doubts  surfaced again today with the Times  reporting a “secret government review” into French firm EDF’s plan to build a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

The review is costing tens of millions, the Times says, and is trying to establish whether EDF can complete the new plant by 2023 as it has promised.

The news follows an  announcement from EDF that its Flamanville plant in Normandy is facing further delays. The project uses identical designs to the Hinkley scheme.

Flamanville was supposed to take five years to build and  begin operating by 2012. Instead it will now take 10 years, and open in 2017. A third identical project at Olkiluoto in Finland is nearly a decade behind schedule.

New nuclear capacity is a key part of UK government plans for decarbonisation. So why is it proving so hard to predict when the UK’s first new nuclear plant for a generation will start operating?

Predicting the future

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) makes annual projections of the future of the UK’s energy and emissions. It has been publishing these projections for a number of years. We’ve trawled the data going back to 2007 to find out how DECC’s predictions about when we’ll get new nuclear have changed.

First, some history. ………..

It’s worth emphasising of course that the Hinkley Point reactors are not yet under construction. EDF had originally said it would finish building them in 2017, indeed chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said some people would be cooking their 2017 christmas dinner using new nuclear power.

De Rivaz now says the project will be finished in 2023. Preparatory groundwork has already started. Carbon Brief asked EDF when construction of the plant itself will begin and how long it will take to finish. EDF said that level of detail was not yet available.

The cost of UK new nuclear

It isn’t only the finish date that has changed for the UK’s new nuclear plans. The costs have also skyrocketed.

Back in 2008 the white paper on new nuclear in the UK suggested it would cost £2.8 billion to build a first of its kind 1.6 gigawatt plant, with a range of between £2 and £3.6 billion.

The government later said in 2013 that the the Hinkley C project of two 1.6 gigawatt reactors would cost £16 billion. When the European Commission gave the deal the green light in October it said the project would cost £24 billion……….. EDF has delayed its final decision on whether to build at Hinkley Point until after this review has given it the all-clear. Until then, it will not divulge detailed timelines for its plans. http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/11/how-the-uks-nuclear-new-build-plans-keep-getting-delayed/

November 22, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, politics, UK