nuclear-news

Despite the USA’s V.C. Summer nuclear fiasco, a consortium plans to build the same type of reactor, with same funding model, at Wylfa, UK

SafeEnergy E Journal  No.92. December 21,  Wylfa. In October it was reported that two groups had been speaking to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the possibility of building at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey. A consortium involving US engineering firm Bechtel has proposed building a large Westinghouse AP1000 reactor. Talks have also taken place with UK-based Shearwater Energy, which has hybrid plans for small nuclear reactors and a wind farm. (1)

The AP1000 is the very reactor that was being built at V.C.Summer in South Carolina and which bankrupted Toshiba Westinghouse in 2017. After huge overspending the project was abandoned 40% of the way into construction.   

 Under legislation passed by the South Carolina Public Services Commissioners in 2008—but strongly opposed by civil society groups—construction costs for the V.C. Summer reactors were to be paid by state ratepayers. On 31 July 2017, Santee Cooper and SCANA Corporation (the parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas or SCG&E) decided to terminate construction of the V.C. Summer reactor project. At the time of cancellation, the total costs for completion of the two AP-1000 reactors at V.C. Summer was projected to exceed US$25 billion—a 75 percent increase over initial estimates. Dominion, which took over SCANA in January 2019, will be charging South Carolina ratepayers an additional US$2.3billion over the next two decades, having already paid $4billion, for the collapsed V.C. Summer project. (2)

On 16th November, Steve Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy at Greenwich University, told the House of Commons Nuclear Energy Finance Bill Committee that the V.C. Summer experience shows the folly of the RAB model. The plant has added 18% to bills in South Carolina. 
Since October there has been more of a focus on the fact that Rolls Royce is considering Wylfa and Trawsfynydd as possible locations to build small nuclear power stations. (3) https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/SafeEnergy_No92.pdf

November 27, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK