EDF in tortuous discussions with British government. How to make the UK public pay for building new nuclear reactors in Sizewell?

Le Monde 5th May 2018 , Nuclear: EDF launches negotiations for two new EPRs in the United Kingdom.
According to our information, the French group is discussing with the British government to find a new way of financing to build reactors in Sizewell.

The possibility of sharing the cost of construction with British consumers on their electricity bills is thus under consideration. It would not necessarily be a direct payment, but rather a kind of bond that remains to be defined. For the time being, the British Ministry of Industry is simply saying that “new nuclear power plants have an important role to play
in the future of our low-carbon electricity production”.

To understand the current discussions, we have to go back to Hinkley Point. The two EPRs, whose construction in the West of England began at the end of 2016, must cost 19.6 billion pounds (22.2 billion euros), and that of the first must
start in 2025.

They are criticized from all sides. First on the side of EDF, which finances on its own funds two-thirds (the Chinese CGN brings the rest) and sees the English project plummet its balance sheet. Its chief financial officer resigned to oppose it in March 2016.
http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2018/05/05/nucleaire-edf-lance-les-negociations-pour-deux-nouveaux-epr-au-royaume-uni_5294780_3234.html

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Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist

The climate change threat to nuclear power

By Natalie Kopytko “…………The final problem is droughts, which climate models predict will become longer and larger. Legal battles have already been fought in the US over scarce water resources in regions with nuclear power plants, including the Catawba river basin in the Carolinas and the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint river basin in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. These battles show us that adapting our systems – including nuclear power – to a reduced supply of water will not be easy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency advises the nuclear industry to build power plants to last for 100 years. Given that climate models don’t agree on what to expect within this time period, it is not at all clear how this can be achieved.

New reactors could use dry or hybrid systems with lower water requirements, but the costs of running these systems are likely to be prohibitive. Considering nuclear power plants already have problems with construction cost overruns, any additional costs are likely to meet resistance.

What is to be done? Most forms of energy generation are vulnerable in some way to the effects of climate change, and the fact that nuclear power is among them is yet another argument against a wholesale shift towards this source of energy.

The bottom line is that if nuclear power is to be used to mitigate the effects of climate change, it must also be capable of adapting to them. There are serious doubts that it can. more https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028138-200-the-climate-change-threat-to-nuclear-power/

Uninhabitable Regions with Extreme Heat and Humidity

Human Core Body Temperature Limits Adaptability to Heat Stress

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