Nuclear too slow to be effective, and will soak up all the UK climate change funds

Nuclear damages attempts to tackle climate change nuClear News Dec 14

“……….You might say “well climate change is urgent, so why don’t we do nuclear as well as all the other

stuff”. But there is a limited supply of funds and the way the Government has organised thesubsidy schemes at the moment it looks as though nuclear will use up all of those funds.

The Treasury’s so-called Levy Control Framework limits the amount of money which can be

collected from consumers’ bills. This year the pot of money available will be £3.5bn. This will

increase to £6.45bn by 2018/9. But because subsidies to low carbon energy are an ongoing

commitment, £3.55bn of that will go to projects already running and only £2.9bn will be

available to new schemes. The total pot will go up to £7.6bn in 2020/21, an increase of just over

£1bn. We don’t know the exact figure for 2023/24, but we do know that Hinkley will require

around £1bn, so it will probably use up all the money for new projects. (4)

And there isn’t expected to be any more money for new projects until 2027, by which time

Sizewell C could be ready to start gobbling up cash.

Nuclear is too slow

The sooner we make carbon savings the greater the cumulative impact by, say, 2025. Nuclear

takes a long time to build. Hinkley is expected to take about eight years, so there won’t be any

carbon savings until at least 2023. The two other reactors being built in Europe at the moment

are both late – Olkiluoto in Finland is 7 years late and Flamanville in France is 4 years late.

Hinkley might save a million tonnes of carbon per year in eight years time, whereas a re-booted

energy efficiency programme could have already saved 14 million tonnes by then. (5)

Centralised utilities – a dying model

Former Government Chief Scientist, Professor Sir David King who was instrumental in

persuading Tony Blair to ditch the 2003 Energy White Paper and go for new reactors now says

we might be able to do without them if we can develop energy storage. (6)

He’s probably been reading the financial press. The 21st November might go down as the day the

nuclear renaissance finally died in Britain. Look at UK Nuclear News for that day and you will

discover that:

Consumers could be on the hook for £37bn worth of undiscounted subsidies to Hinkley over its

lifetime.

The cost of Hinkley has gone up from £9bn in 2011 to £24.5bn now.

Reactor builder – Areva – which was expected to take a 10% stake in Hinkley is in the midst of a

financial crisis.

The Treasury is re-examining the Hinkley project.No2Nuclear http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo69.pdf

December 17, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, Reference, UK

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