nuclear-news

The European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) is dragging nuclear company EDF into $billions of debt

Climate News Network 31st Dec 2019, The edifice already heading for the status of the largest and most expensive construction project in the world, the Hinkley C nuclear power station (above)  in the UK, is dragging its builder, the French giant EDF, into ever-deeper debt: the company’s flagship reactor is facing still more delay.

Although EDF is a vast company, owning 58 reactors in France alone,
and is 85% owned by the French state, it owes around €60 billion ($67bn),
a debt expected to increase by €3 billion ($3.35bn) a year.

This has led some city analysts, notably S&P Global, to downgrade the company’s prospects to “negative” − which is essentially a recommendation to
shareholders to sell.

Apart from the problem that EDF’s fleet of reactors in France is operating well beyond their original design life and are in constant need of safety and maintenance upgrades, the company’s main problem is its flagship, the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR), which is getting into ever-greater difficulties.

In Europe there are four EPRs under construction: the two barely begun at Hinkley Point in Somerset in the west of England; one in northern France at Flamanville (below) in Normandy; and the original prototype in Finland, known as Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) (above) . The extraordinary fact is that, although OL3 was due to start up in 2009, it is still incomplete, and its start date has just been put back again – until 2021.

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/flagship-reactor-launch-postponed-again/

January 2, 2020 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France, politics