nuclear-news

Costs, technical hitches – it’s time that UK abandoned Hinkley Point nuclear project

Time for the UK to end attachment to Hinkley Point nuclear plant, Ft.com, 10 Mar 16 
The costs and technical uncertainty were a warning to ministers.
When George Osborne, touring China in September, announced the UK’s commitment to a new power station at Hinkley Point, he intended it as a cornerstone of Britain’s drive for Chinese investment.

No matter that, the following month, protesters inflated a giant white elephant near the site for a visit by Xi Jinping, China’s president.

Not easy, then, for the chancellor to announce that the deal should not go ahead. Yet that is what he should do.

The resignation of Thomas Piquemal, chief financial officer of EDF, the French utility building the plant — apparently because of the threat that the project poses to EDF’s financial stability — gives him the chance.

If the plant is ever built, it would have claim to the title of the most expensive object in Britain. The cost is £18bn but could rise to £24bn. It is meant to produce 7 per cent of Britain’s energy needs.

The costs and the technical uncertainty of Hinkley C should have been decisive in prompting ministers to find another way. The plans make a nonsense of Britain’s fitful attempts to give itself an energy policy. Instead they promise unnecessarily expensive energy for consumers and businesses………

EDF is stalling on a “final investment decision” despite lavish commitment from the UK. The contract promises to pay £92.50 per megawatt hour of electricity produced for 35 years — index linked, too. This is extraordinarily expensive, almost three times today’s wholesale price and three times as much as from new gas-fired power stations………

EDF is struggling with the European pressurised reactor (EPR). It has had to bail out Areva, the French reactor maker behind the design, while two smaller nuclear plants in Finland and France are behind schedule and over budget. Two others of similar design, in China, are also running late; no others have been ordered. If Hinkley C is built, it would be among the first of its kind and very likely the last.

This repeats the mistake that has dogged British nuclear power: of reinventing the model each time a new plant is built.

March 11, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general