nuclear-news

The ghost of Concorde stalks the Franco-British nuclear renaissance

Critics fear history is repeating itself as Flamanville opens late and vastly over budget

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD, 29 May 2024

Critics fear history is repeating itself as Flamanville opens late and
vastly over budget. France’s first nuclear plant for a quarter century is
finally going ahead at Flamanville on the coast of Normandy, 12 years late
and six times over budget.

EDF has loaded the fuel of the giant European
Pressurised Reactor or EPR1. The first nuclear reaction will take place
within weeks, reaching full power of 1.65 gigawatts (GW) by year’s end.
It will be the most powerful reactor on the planet, to be joined eventually
by two sister reactors at Hinkley Point, and another at Sizewell C if
anybody can find the money.

To fans, Flamanville is an ultra-safe feat of
advanced engineering, with three layers of protective barriers. It can
withstand an earthquake, a tsunami, a head-on crash by an Airbus A380, or
even (arguably) a meltdown of the core. It is built to last 60 years,
perhaps a century.

To critics, it is a ruinous misadventure, the ultimate
over-refinement of obsolete fission technology that can never compete on a
commercial basis.

Delays have left France dependent on old reactors that
are literally falling apart. EDF has racked up debts of €54bn (£46bn)
and had to be renationalised in 2022. To those of us in the middle –
friendly to nuclear, if cheap enough – it is striking that Korea seems
able to roll out workhorse reactors relatively quickly at half the cost.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power’s modified APR1000 reactor was certified in
Europe last year. All is forgiven, apparently, even though a parallel EPR1
plant at Olkiluoto in Finland – opened last year – had similar delays
and cost overruns, and even though the Taishan I variant in China had to
shut down for a year due to damaged fuel rods.

Emmanuel Macron began his
presidency by closing a working reactor near the German border in order to
please Angela Merkel. He had a Damascene conversion after Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine. Mr Macron now wants to build 14 modified EPR2 reactors
– supposedly cheaper – in a repeat of France’s “dash for nuclear”
under premier Pierre Messmer in 1974.

It is a heroic undertaking for a
country with a structural budget deficit of 5pc of GDP and a debt ratio
stuck at 112pc, with rating agencies on the prowl. Much the same can be
said about Britain’s nuclear renaissance, targeting 24 GW by mid-century.
The bet is that the average cost per EPR will fall by 30pc as the series
rolls out a scale. That would cut the putative bill for Sizewell C to £85
MWh in today’s money, or lower if you treat it as a 60-year venture in
accounting terms. Reste à voir, as the French say.

 Telegraph 29th May 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/29/ghost-concorde-stalks-franco-british-nuclear-renaissance/

June 1, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics international, UK