EDF’s Hinkley Point woes pile pressure on global nuclear push.

When in 2016 France’s EDF signed up to build Britain’s first new
nuclear power plant in two decades, defenders of the costly Hinkley Point C
project included Emmanuel Macron, then economy minister. “If we believe
in nuclear power, we have to do Hinkley Point,” France’s now president
told a parliamentary enquiry, rejecting some lawmakers’ concerns that
state-backed EDF, which was already struggling to deliver a new French
prototype plant in Normandy, may not have the financial bandwidth to take
on the British site, originally estimated to cost £18bn.

Eight years on, with cost overruns surging at Hinkley due to repeated delays and EDF on the
hook for at least another £5bn on top of previous budget revisions,
Macron’s government is on a mission to ensure the French nuclear operator
can indeed withstand the fallout — and keep on top of ballooning
investments and orders at home.

French ministers are trying to get the British state to stump up some support for the soaring Hinkley bill, which could reach a total of £46bn at today’s prices for the two reactors,
people close to the talks have said.

That would be roughly double the original budget in 2015 prices, compared with an EDF project in Finland that ended up costing more than twice what it was supposed to and a plan
for one reactor at Flamanville in France that is running four times over
budget, at €13.2bn.

But the Hinkley setbacks have also revived a core
strategic question that is becoming more pressing than ever for EDF, a
former French electricity monopoly that operates Europe’s biggest fleet
of 56 domestic reactors: whether it is equipped to handle multiple projects
at once, internationally and at home, and financially as well as from an
industrial perspective. Already an issue in 2016, when French labour unions
at the group opposed the Hinkley plans on the basis that the financial
set-up was risky, this tension now has a different edge to it.

FT 29th Jan 2024

https://www.ft.com/content/d401e42b-d953-4ef0-b3ea-ed80e974249a

February 4, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France, politics international

1 Comment »

Ah, the good old “invisible hand of the free market” is finally going to put and end to nuclear power. It has and never will be “too cheap to meter.” It is too expensive, too dangerous and totally unnecessary for our energy needs. We will not “starve and freeze in the dark,” nor “wreck our economy in the process,” of transitioning to a renewable energy economy. We have the natural resources, the technology and the plans to do that now. All we lack is the political will to do so because of the dying, profit addicted nuclear, fossil & for profit electric utility industries control of our elected leaders in the governments from all parties in all branches of government in all nations on Earth. They have bribed our elected leaders and their political parties with their campaign donations to their election campaigns. Go to the websites of The Solutions Project and The Rocky Mountain Institute for the plans and research on how to power the Earth with just wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric power.

Comment by paulrodenlearning | February 4, 2024 | Reply