nuclear-news

nuClear News No 85 May 16“…….Sparks were flying at EDF’s Annual General Meeting on 12th May as EDF employees were given a chance to air their views and grill the company’s board, which remains divided on whether to go-ahead with HPC. In the run up to the meeting EDF announced that the contingency needs of HPC could increase the cost by about £3bn to £21bn.

“It’s clear that EDF’s top management and the French government are still backing the project,” Yves Marignac, director of WISE-Paris, an energy research group, said, “but neither has the means to solve all of the problems and push it forward.”

EDF has €37 billion of debt. Add to this the problems caused by the collapse of energy prices, which pushed earnings down 68% in 2015, and we are left with a company in a very precarious financial situation. EDF also needs to spend €50 billion upgrading its network of 58 ageing reactors by 2025. EDF requires a bailout so it is scrambling to sell €4 billion ($4.5 billion) of new shares and €10 billion of assets to strengthen its balance sheet. About the last thing that it needs is a new €15 billion millstone around its neck. But that is what it appears destined to get. France’s Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, is insisting that Hinkley will be approved in September. (11) The French government is planning to sell shares in some of the country’s largest companies to pay for a €3bn aid package that will help EDF build Hinkley. Shares in Renault and Safran are likely to be sold this year, along with the airports in Nice and Lyon, in order to ensure that there will be no extra cost to taxpayers for the investments by the majoritystate owned utility group. (12) This will all take time, as will a separate, €5 billion bailout of Areva, the bankrupt developer of the EPR technology, in which EDF is expected to participate by taking a 75 per cent stake. With French presidential elections due in a year’s time, big decisions may become increasingly difficult to make, adding to the likelihood of further delay. “They are likely to postpone the decision again,” says Yves Marignac. He believes that a final decision is unlikely before the end of 2017.

Now Greenpeace and Ecotricity have warned that the European commission needs to approve further planned support from the French state. A legal opinion given to Greenpeace by three competition barristers from Monckton Chambers says plans for state help from France’s government to enable EDF to continue with the reactor scheme could break European competition rules….http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo85.pdf