nuclear-news

If the Hinkley nuclear project bankrupts EDF, will the UK govt pour billions into it?

Dave Toke’s Blog 27th June 2017,The latest announcement from EDF that Hinkley C will be further delayed and that EDF will be hit with even more cost overruns risks making true the prediction of EDF former Finance Officer that the project will bankrupt the company.

This may well lead to increasing pressures on the UK Government to put billions of UK taxpayers money into the project. Hinkley C, which former EDF boss Vincent de Rivaz said (in 2007) would be generating by the end of this year (2017) will now, according to EDF, not be generating electricity until 2027.

Ten years on and the project is still ten years away! But meanwhile the company has spent massive sums getting not very far towards building the plant. It is now in danger of wasting even the money the French state has pumped into EDF to save the company and build the project in Somerset. Sixteen months ago EDF Finance Director Thomas
Piquemal resigned, after EDF decided to make a ‘final investment decision’ over Hinkley C, fearing it could put the whole company at risk.

Perhaps this is an echo of policy before privatisation of electricity when nuclear power appeared to cost very little simply because the Government, through the aegis of the nationalised industry, paid for all of the construction costs, not to mention taking responsibility for ‘back-end’ decommissioning costs. Then nobody noticed that they, the taxpayer and electricity consumer, were really picking up the bill. The nuclear industry longs to return to these bad old days.
http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/could-latest-delays-in-hinkley-c.html

June 30, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general