nuclear-news

Latest roundup on news on Britain’s planned Hinkley nuclear station

Bridget Woodman, Course Director, MSc Energy Policy, at the University of Exeter, says the Hinkley delay makes it possible to start debating the sorts of options being considered widely around the world, with measures to encourage more flexible, smaller-scale, renewable systems incorporating demand-side measures and new technologies such as storage. These are extraordinary times for energy policy in the UK.

After years of resigned acceptance that Hinkley would be built no matter how much of a basket case it was, even though few people argued that it makes sense, there is now a potential to have a real and considered debate about what sort of future electricity system we need. Now is the time to start considering the sorts of options being considered widely around the world, with measures to encourage more flexible, smaller-scale, renewable systems incorporating demand-side measures and new technologies such as storage. A system that is the absolute antithesis of what Hinkley Point C represents. Suddenly UK energy policy has become very exciting

Hinkley Notes NuClear News No. 888 September 16 The Downing Street review of the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is coming to an end – and a decision will have to be made soon, probably before the end of September. The latest wave of public relations activity from EDF, the company that hopes to build the plant, shows how nervous the company is about the outcome. Given the range of doubts about the costs, the construction risks, the reactor technology and the involvement of the Chinese, that nervousness is well justified. (1)

Here are the news highlights from the last month.

It’s about the security stupid! The Times says the review centres on the security threat posed by allowing a Chinese company to invest in critical infrastructure in the UK. But officials are also puzzling over cost and value for money. Building a gas-fired power station with the same generating capacity would probably cost about £2.7 billion, or 15% of Hinkley’s total cost. Onshore wind power and largescale solar will be cheaper to produce — at about £50-£75 per megawatt hour of power — by 2025. And two offshore wind farms off the Dutch coast are being built at a price of €72.70 (£61) per megawatt hour. (2)

Ben Chu, who has been critical of Chinese health and safety standards in the past declaring that behind every industrial accident in China today lies a reeking morass of corruption, (3) says “it would seem to be an overreaction to cancel this project on security grounds. It’s a stretch to believe that the Chinese have some sort of secret plan to sabotage the UK energy supply (or to retain the option of doing so), not least because this would destroy their own sizeable investment in the process and wreck their genuine aspirations to move up the engineering value chain … It’s also worth remembering that nuclear power plants, whoever owns them, are inevitably going to be closely regulated and inspected by the British state … A better reason for May and her ministers to pause than security concerns is cost.” (4)

Yet Ross Clark writing for the Spectator says Theresa May needs to look no further than the advice given to her and her aides before attending the G20 summit in Hangzhou. They have reportedly been advised to not to take their mobile phones, and to use temporary replacements while in China. They have also been given temporary email accounts which can be deleted upon return, and to avoid using public charging points for laptops and iPads. Any mobile phones that are taken to China should be concealed in security boxes out of fears that the Chinese security services have developed ways of accessing phones even when they are switched off. If these are genuine concerns, and not the inventions of paranoiacs inside MI6 or GCHQ, then they do seem to provide an answer to the Hinkley question: how can Britain possibly trust another country with it nuclear power infrastructure when we can’t trust it not to spy on government aides attending an international summit? Of course we want to encourage trade with China – we want to do business there and for the Chinese to invest here. But to allow involvement in sensitive nuclear power infrastructure seems an odd place to start. (5)

Mark Wallace writing on the Conservative Home website says one of the state companies involved in Hinkley is the Chinese National Nuclear Corporation, which is a self-declared part of the Chinese security apparatus, and now a senior employee of the Chinese General Nuclear Corporation (CGNC), the body which would own a stake in Hinkley Point, stands accused of nuclear espionage in the United States. The risks therefore range from the possibility of opening our key national infrastructure up to spying right through to the risk that the Chinese government might be able to disrupt our power supply if it so wished – a fear raised by Malcolm Rifkind, who is not ordinarily given to conspiracy theories. Really it would be bizarre if China did not take the opportunity to embed some spooks and some software loopholes into our energy grid if we offered them the chance. (6)……..

The Daily Mail says the Prime Minister now has the ammunition she needs to block China’s involvement in Hinkley Point C. And she can do so immediately without losing face. (9)

The South China Morning Post says a far greater objection to Hinkley than security concerns is the fact that it is a deeply flawed project, driven more by political vanity than economic rationale, the numbers of which make no sense whatsoever. Theresa May would be right to pull the plug, regardless of any Chinese involvement. In short, Hinkley would be a horror show with or without China’s involvement. (10)

According to various press reports the UK Government is considering a proposal to detach the development of Hinkley Point C from an agreement to allow China to build one of its own reactors at Bradwell in Essex. (11) But Professor Steve Thomas reckons that without Bradwell CGN would pull out. “What Bradwell gives [China] is huge prestige that will help them in other export markets.” Anthony Froggatt from Chatham house says “The primary reason for [China’s] investment is the desire to have a Hualong design reactor – what they’re proposing for Bradwell – in a western environment. If that’s gone then there’s less incentive to invest in Hinkley, and I think it’s likely they would pull out.” (12)

Utility heads gang up against Hinkley The head of energy giant ScottishPower Keith Anderson (13) has joined SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies (14), in expressing scepticism about the need for Hinkley Point C. Anderson said the subsidy deal for Hinkley should be renegotiated because it is too expensive. He said the deal no longer made sense in the light of lower gas and offshore wind costs. PhillipsDavies said the UK does not need Hinkley – it has plenty of alternative options for keeping the lights. The importance of the project for the UK’s energy needs “has been repeatedly No2NuclearPower nuClear news No.88, September 2016 4 overplayed”, he said, insisting offshore wind and gas plants could fill the gap if Hinkley was scrapped.

Paul Massara, who was until recently RWE npower chief – says Hinkley is the wrong solution for meeting the UK’s future energy needs. In view of the costs and “unproven, outmoded technology” involved, pressing ahead with Hinkley would be “madness”. “Listen to any informed energy market insider, and they will tell you that future grids will be smart, decentralised, flexible, and dominated by a mix of renewable energy, demand-side and energy efficiency measures, and storage”. (15)

Board members say final investment decision invalid Five board members of French state-controlled utility EDF are petitioning to have the courts annul last month’s board decision to push ahead with Hinkley Point. All five represent the EDF unions. They say the decision should be invalidated because Jean-Bernard Lévy, the chief executive, did not tell them that the UK government planned to delay its decision on the plant. EDF has admitted that Jean-Bernard Lévy knew that a signing ceremony scheduled for the project site on the day after the board meeting had been pushed back by the UK. But the company insists that Mr Lévy did not know that a full review would take place. (16)

Another day, another Hinkley Point C demolition job Another day, another Hinkley Point C demolition job, said The Times after a report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) was published. The ECIU said there are “cheaper, quicker and simpler alternatives to Hinkley”……….

The report’s author, Richard Black, describes Hinkley as “A giant Godzilla that will either crush all before it or collapse under its own weight.” Energy academics and investment banks have understood for years that renewables-based systems are becoming the logic-based choice, given not only climate change but also simply cost. ………

The National Grid admitted its complete failure to predict the rapid advent of small-scale renewables. Four years ago it estimated that 0.5 gigawatts would be installed by 2021. Already, the total is 11GW – and 13GW more is now considered likely. That’s an underestimate by a factor of nearly 50. Accordingly, Grid has now slashed its forecast for the building of big block power stations by more than 50%.

With the approval of the Hornsea 2 offshore windfarm the UK is on track to have the world’s largest offshore wind farm up and running in the early 2020s. The inescapable conclusion, says Black, is that whether you like renewables or not, they are becoming the centrepiece of the British energy system. With none of the flashy controversy of an £18bn geopolitical timebomb, more and more UK electricity is coming from wind and, to a lesser extent, solar. (18)………

Bridget Woodman, Course Director, MSc Energy Policy, at the University of Exeter, says the Hinkley delay makes it possible to start debating the sorts of options being considered widely around the world, with measures to encourage more flexible, smaller-scale, renewable systems incorporating demand-side measures and new technologies such as storage. These are extraordinary times for energy policy in the UK. After years of resigned acceptance that Hinkley would be built no matter how much of a basket case it was, even though few people argued that it makes sense, there is now a potential to have a real and considered debate about what sort of future electricity system we need. Now is the time to start considering the sorts of options being considered widely around the world, with measures to encourage more flexible, smaller-scale, renewable systems incorporating demand-side measures and new technologies such as storage. A system that is the absolute antithesis of what Hinkley Point C represents. Suddenly UK energy policy has become very exciting indeed. (23) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo88.pdf

September 10, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK