nuclear-news

Nuclear power pushed to back burner in U.K.’s green energy plan, Japan Times , BY RACHEL MORISON, BLOOMBERG, 22 Nov 20,   Britain’s ambition to renew its aging fleet of nuclear power plants is losing momentum after the government offered few new details on how it will support additional projects.Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration set aside £500 million ($661 million) for small modular reactor projects but was silent on support for traditional large-scale plants. The issue gained urgency on Thursday as Electricite de France SA’s announced the closure of its Hinkley Point B reactors two years early.

The government’s latest thinking on how to replace its aging fleet of nuclear plants marks a dramatic shift from 2013, when David Cameron agreed to funding for new reactors at the Hinkley Point site with support from China. Since then, relations with China have deteriorated, electricity demand slumped and renewables such as wind and solar farms became much cheaper than new atomic plants……

• That left an uncertain outlook for the £20 billion Sizewell C nuclear project in eastern England that EDF is hoping to develop. That would replace units set to retire in 2035, when the last of the existing fleet of atomic plants in the U.K. will close. Including the Hinkley Point B that EDF said will close in 2022, four major plants will close in the next four years. The only project set to come online is Hinkley Point C in 2025.
• For more than a year, the government has been promising an energy white paper that may set out a future funding model for nuclear power plants. That document is now due next month, delayed as ministers debate how to balance the energy industry’s needs with strains on the budget from COVID-19 and the worst economic recession in decades.The problem for nuclear power is its cost and time scale. Each project can cost £20 billion or more and take a decade to deliver. Wind farms need a fraction of that money and can come together in less than five years. And while the cost of renewables is falling, nuclear power is becoming more expensive, with EDF reporting cost overruns and delays both at its Hinkley Point C project and one in France.
• EDF is the only remaining nuclear developer with a major project under way. The French utility wants to build additional units in eastern England in a project dubbed Sizewell C. But it has made it clear it can’t shoulder alone the risks and investment needed. The government has suggested it may take an equity stake in Sizewell. The white paper may deliver a verdict on whether it might adopt the Regulated Asset Base model that has been used to with other major infrastructure projects.
• For Hinkley Point C now under construction in western England, China General Nuclear Power Corp. took a one-third stake in the project. The government agreeing to pay a subsidy of £92.50 for every megawatt-hour of electricity the plant produces for 35 years. The price would drop to £89.50 if a station using the same technology goes ahead at Sizewell C.That deal left EDF and its partners with all the risks involved with building the plant and taxpayers owing nothing until the facility begins generating electricity. However, the deal is looking like a bad value for consumers, since the wholesale price of electricity at the moment is about half of what EDF will earn……….. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/11/22/business/nuclear-power-uk-green-energy/