Moorside nuclear bidder stripped of preferred status, Construction News, 3 AUGUST, 2018BY BINYAMIN ALI
The £10bn Moorside nuclear power plant has been plunged into further doubt after Korean energy firm Kepco lost its preferred bidder status to develop the scheme.
The plant’s current developer Toshiba is now looking at alternative options for the future of the site after negotiations with Kepco failed to reach a conclusion.
Toshiba said this week that a sale to Kepco was still on the table and it was in “consultation with stakeholders including the UK government” to find a solution.
The protracted negotiations have also forced NuGen, Toshiba’s Moorside development body, to restructure its business………
NHK 2nd Aug 2018 The president of Tokyo Electric Power Company says the utility is
considering scrapping some of the reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant,
at the request of one of the 2 municipalities that host the nuclear
facility. TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa revealed for first time the
request is under consideration during a meeting with Kashiwazaki Mayor
Masahiro Sakurai. The pair met in the Niigata Prefecture city located on
the Japan Sea coast on Thursday. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180802_36/
Wind Power Monthly 31st July 2018 , David Milborrow:
In a complete policy reversal, the UK government has
announced it will consider direct investment in a proposed new nuclear
power station, Wylfa in North Wales.
This will enable the electricity price
to be brought down below the level agreed for the Hinkley Point C nuclear
plant, which attracted criticism from many quarters, including the
government’s own spending watchdog, the National Audit Office.
The UK government’s stake in Wylfa is likely to be around £5 billion, or around
30% of the total, although estimatesof the total cost vary between £12
billion and £20 billion. The government has not put a figure to the
expected electricity price for the Wylfa project, but speculation suggests
that it will be around £75-77/MWh, payable for 35 years.
The UK’s Guardian newspaper points out that the £75/MWh price (payable for 35
years) for nuclear power is significantly higher than the £62/MWh average
(payable for 15 years awarded for offshore wind projects due to come online
about the same time. The £13/MWh difference is higher than the cost of
backup for wind, which most studies putat around £5-£10/MWh. https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1489040/windeconomics-uk-government-steps-support-nuclear-power
Times 31st July 2018 Multibillion-pound plans to build a nuclear plant at Moorside in Cumbriaare likely to be abandoned within months unless a buyer is found.
The Nugen venture, owned by Toshiba, is considering plans to shut down with the loss of 100 jobs after a sale to Kepco stalled.
The decision would be a blow to government hopes for a series of new plants to help to keep the lights on
once existing reactors close. Moorside, which is next to the Sellafield
waste site, is one of five proposed plants vying to follow EDF’s Hinkley
Point project that is under construction in Somerset.
Nugen was founded in 2009. Toshiba bought into the venture in 2014 with plans to deploy reactors
made by Westinghouse Electric Company, its subsidiary. The Japanese
conglomerate was thrown into crisis last year when Westinghouse’s costs
overran on reactors in the United States. Westinghouse filed for
bankruptcy protection and was sold off, while Toshiba was forced to take
full control of Nugen when Engie, the French utility company, quit.
Nugen appeared to be saved when Toshiba announced that Kepco had been appointed
the preferred bidder to buy the venture. The South Korean state-controlled
company hoped to use its own reactors at the site.
Talks have since stalled, amid leadership changes in South Korea and uncertainty over the
financial support on offer from the British government. Ministers do not
want to repeat the funding model used for Hinkley Point, which was
criticised as too expensive. They said the government may invest directly
in the next project, Hitachi’s Wylfa plant on Anglesey, but would go back
to the drawing board for other projects. Toshiba confirmed that it had
cancelled the preferred-bidder status, meaning that it would consider other
buyers.
Delay in sale of consortium behind plant leads Toshiba to lay off 100 UK project staff, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 29 July 18,
Doubts have been raised over the fate of a new nuclear power station planned for Cumbria after it emerged that most of the project’s 100 UK staff had been laid off.
The Korean state-owned firmKepco appeared to swoop to the rescue last Decemberby agreeing to buy NuGen but the sale, which was meant to complete this January, was then delayed until the spring. The transaction has still not closed, and uncertainty has been created by a change of government in Seoul and the appointment of a new Kepco chiefexecutive.
The delay has forced Toshiba, a Japanese corporation, to look again at the consortium’s running costs, leading to a decision on 27 July to cut many of the venture’s 100 jobs across Manchester and Cumbria. The job losses will be subject to consultations.
Toshiba is believed to have spent hundreds of millions of pounds developing the project so far. In a statement NuGen said: “It has been decided by the NuGen board to re-profile the organisation at this point in order to pursue alternatives.”
It remains unclear whether the South Koreans will go ahead with a deal that looked a certainty last year. Kepco officials are due to arrive in the UK on Monday, and the UK government has been in talks to save the deal. A source close to the process said: “The Kepco deal is not dead yet.”
If the acquisition were to collapse the failure of the Moorside project would leave a large hole in ministers’ wishes to encourage the construction of as many as six new nuclear power plants to meet climate goals.
Unions said the problems showed that a recent sector deal between government and industry did not got far enough to ensure nuclear installations were built.
ue Ferns, senior deputy general secretary of the union Prospect, said: “Despite the welcome nuclear sector deal it is increasingly clear that the government needs to do far more to reassure the nuclear industry and support them in developing the next generation of low-carbon energy sources in the UK.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We continue to engage with new-build developers, though the detail of these discussions is commercially confidential.”
A nuclear power plant project in Britain is giving Japan a glimmer of hope for spurring infrastructure exports, a key growth strategy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Hitachi Ltd. and the U.K. government started official talks last month on building new reactors in Wales, with a goal of firing them up in the first half of the 2020s.
The outlook for the ¥3 trillion project is unclear, with both sides facing a string of challenges in the talks going forward.
For Tokyo, the plan is one of its few remaining major overseas projects on the horizon, with other nuclear power generation plans discontinued or facing cancellation.
The government’s bet on nuclear power plants as a pillar of infrastructure exports comes as the likes of Germany, Italy, Taiwan and South Korea are pulling out of atomic power generation.
Critics argue that a surge in safety costs and accident worries caused by the 2011 Fukushima disaster, in addition to the lack of viable disposal solutions for radioactive waste, mean there is no justification for keeping faith in nuclear energy. Compounding the sector’s decline is the rapidly dropping cost of tapping such renewable energy sources as wind and solar power.
Still, some emerging economies look like they will need new nuclear power plants, and Japanese builders see few chances to construct new ones anytime soon in Japan.
“The Japanese government has been pushing hard for exports of nuclear power plants but it’s clear that it’s not going well,” said Tadahiro Katsuta, a professor at Meiji University. “The government will spare no effort in giving momentum to the exports.”
If the project in Britain proves successful, it will give the government “a good excuse” to push harder abroad, he said.
Before the official talks began, Hitachi had told Britain it might not take part in the project to build two advanced boiling water reactors on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, because the price tag had soared higher than initially estimated.
But an offer by London to shoulder about two-thirds of the cost convinced Hitachi stay in. Tokyo welcomed its decision to begin the talks.
“The nuclear business overseas is significant … it would lead to strengthening and maintaining human resources and technology for nuclear power in Japan,” Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko told a news conference.
Under the agreement, the British government will subsidize much of the cost through direct investment and loan guarantees, according to sources close to the matter.
“We are currently examining the financial and cost issues of the project, before making a final decision in 2019 on whether to invest in the project,” Hitachi Chief Financial Officer Mitsuaki Nishiyama said Friday at a news conference to announce earnings.
For Hitachi, nuclear power is a core operation. It wants to increase revenue from the business by more than 33 percent to ¥250 billion over the four years through March 2022, mainly through boosting overseas revenue.
Rival Toshiba Corp. exited overseas nuclear operations after incurring huge losses in the United States, a decision that could cripple Tokyo’s efforts to promote Japanese nuclear plants abroad.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., is pursuing a nuclear power plant project in Turkey. But it hit a snag when it saw safety-related costs surge and trading house Itochu Corp. walked away from the project.
In another blow to the government, Vietnam in 2016 decided to abandon a plan to build its first nuclear power plant with Japanese assistance due to tight state finances.
Those failures have led to an increased focus on the new power station in Wales. But London and Hitachi still need to address such issues as how to spread the remainder of the costs among Hitachi, local companies and Japan-backed financial institutions. They also need to determine who should be held liable if there’s a major accident.
They are also at odds over how much the electricity produced at the plant should cost. Britain at one point offered a price some 20 percent lower than what Hitachi wanted, a source familiar with the matter said.
“A key focus of discussions with Hitachi has been and will continue to be achieving lower-cost electricity for consumers,” Greg Clark, British business and energy secretary, told Parliament last month.
The two sides also need to talk to residents and win over those worried about the new power station.
“We have a major multinational and two governments supposed to be democracies playing a high-stakes game of poker … without any transparency or scrutiny for the people that they are representing,” Mei Tomos, a resident of Wales, said at a news conference in Tokyo during a recent visit to Japan.
“We have seen the destruction which nuclear power can cause. It is really too much to expect us to take the same risks. Even if such an accident didn’t happen at Anglesey we will still be faced with over a hundred years of storage of nuclear waste on site which presents a massive danger to us,” another resident, Robert Davies, said at the news conference.
REPORT PROJECTS DOE COAL, NUCLEAR BAILOUT COSTS COULD TOP $34 BILLION, Popular Resistance, By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Greentechmedia.com
A previous estimate, from a pro-coal group, put the cost at $4 billion.
Analysis out this week from The Brattle Group estimates the Trump administration’s coal and nuclear support plan could cost between $9.7 billion and $17.2 billion annually.
Working off of the scant details presented in a draft memorandum released by Bloomberg in May, The Brattle Group analyzed several scenarios the administration might employ to support nuclear and coal-fired power plants.
One assumes the government would pay an average $50-per-kilowatt flat rate to all plants, costing $16.7 billion a year. In another scenario, facilities experiencing shortfalls would be compensated directly at a customized level between $43 to $58 per kilowatt, costing between $9.7 billion and $17.2 billion each year. The draft memo suggested facilities would receive payments for two years, putting high-end cost estimates north of $34 billion for the duration of the program.
If the administration moves forward with a plan that pays facilities back for capital already invested in power plants, in addition to operating shortfalls, it bumps the price to $20 billion to $35 billion per year.
Brattle’s cost estimates dwarf the $4 billion calculated by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, presented in a report earlier this month. Groups that have opposed the potential policy, including Advanced Energy Economy, the American Wind Energy Association and the Natural Gas Supply Association, funded the Brattle report.
The widely varying price tags echo diverging opinions on the bailout policy.
In a statement on the Brattle analysis, Amy Farrell, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Wind Energy Association, called the costs “a steep price to pay in an era of U.S. energy abundance, when independent regulators and grid operators agree that orderly power plant retirements do not constitute an emergency.”……https://popularresistance.org/report-projects-doe-coal-nuclear-bailout-costs-could-top-34-billion/
Building 26th July 2018, The National Infrastructure Commission’s landmark report this month
seemed to sound the death knell for nuclear energy new-build, calling for a
large-scale shift to renewables by 2050 – and for only one more nuclear
power station approval by 2025. But are we really likely to get 90% of
Britain’s electricity from green sources within a generation? The NIC’s
assessment does not call for the end of all nuclear new-build aspirations.
But the direction of travel is clear: its prediction is that the cost of an
energy system heavily reliant on nuclear will, on current terms, be
marginally more expensive than one powered 80%-90% by other renewables, and
– importantly – that the cost of renewables is much more likely to fall
in future and thus ultimately work out significantly cheaper.
It is only because of all the uncertainties inherent in these predictions that it
recommends continuing with nuclear at all, albeit on a “go slow” basis,
so as not to entirely lose capacity in the industry in case the programme
has to be fired up again.
The assessment says a minimum of 50% and as much
as 90% of UK electricity should come from renewables such as wind and solar
power by 2050. And hence, that no more than one further nuclear reactor
should be given the go-ahead before 2025. This, it says “will allow the
UK to maintain, but not expand, a skills base and supply chain [and] to
pursue a high renewables mix […] without closing off the nuclear
alternative”. This may sound like a nuanced shift, but for those in the
sector it is very radical.
Few outside of environmental lobby groups have
ever proposed a UK electricity generation sector reliant 80%-90% on
renewables before. Richard Lowe, director of power in Aecom’s
environmental division, welcomes the emphasis on renewables but questions
how realistic it is. “Others such as the Committee on Climate Change have
done their own projections as to what is realistic, and I wouldn’t say
this is the midpoint of the range – it’s very much at one end of the
scale.”
Owner of Iowa’s lone nuclear plant plans to shutter it by 2020 Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register July 27, 2018
NextEra Energy, owner of the Duane Arnold Energy Center, says it will retire Iowa’s lone nuclear plant in late 2020, five years earlier than anticipated.
The Florida-based utility said Alliant Energy, the plant’s largest power user, has agreed to pay NextEra $110 million to shorten its agreement to purchase power from Duane Arnold.
Alliant said it will partially replace the nuclear energy with wind energy from NextEra and expects new energy deals will save Iowa customers nearly $300 million over 21 years, even after the utility pays NextEra to end its contract early.
Alliant Energy’s plan must go through the Iowa Utilities Board for approval. Duane Arnold, which is located near Cedar Rapids, was licensed to operate until 2034. ……..
Bill Cherrier, CEO of Central Iowa Power Cooperative said low-cost natural gas and the declining cost of renewable energy such as wind and solar have created challenges for nuclear power generators.
NextEra said it plans to invest about $650 million in existing and new renewable energy generation in Iowa by the end of 2020. That includes a $250 million investment to repower four wind facilities, providing about 340 megawatts of electricity for Alliant’s Iowa customers.
Repowering these facilities is expected to create 200 new construction jobs, NextEra said, and will extend payments to landowners and tax revenues for local communities for decades.
Japan’s Tepco plans 7GW renewables roll-out, in pivot away from nuclear, REneweconomy, By Sophie Vorrath on 26 July 2018
Japan’s biggest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has revealed plans to develop up to 7GW of new renewable energy capacity, marking a major departure from nuclear as the company strives to re-gain “the competitive advantage” in energy generation.
Tepco President Tomoaki Kobayakawa told the Nikkei Asian Review on Monday that the company planned to pour tens of billions of dollars into between 6 and 7GW of renewable energy projects both in Japan and abroad, including offshore wind and hydro power.
Reports suggest the focus in Japan will largely be on offshore wind, including the use of floating turbine technology that is considered to be well suited to the island nation’s relatively deep coastal waters.
And in hydro, Tepco plans to develop sites in south-east Asia, alongside its overseas and domestic wind power businesses. The company reportedly hopes to have each of the three renewables components generating at least 2GW of power.
……..The new tack for Tepco suggests a major change in direction and thinking in the Japanese electricity market, where a skew towards nuclear and “baseload” generation has roughly mirrored Australia’s attachment to coal.
As a 2016 Greenpeace Japan report noted, the nation’s nuclear utilities have had a history of “(lobbying) hard for the right to block access to the grid for renewable power plants” whenever they deemed it necessary to preserve grid stability.
They argued, said Greenpeace Japan, the all-too familiar line that the fluctuating output of renewables was incompatible with the output of nuclear reactors the government was trying to restart.
But this thinking appears to be shifting, and not just among power companies. A separate report last week in the Nikkei Asian Review noted that renewable energy momentum was also building in Japan’s corporate and industrial sectors, boosted by the liberalisation of the nation’s energy market in 2016.
Study: US Unlikely To See New Nuclear Power Anytime Soon, WABE MOLLY SAMUEL•Nuclear power doesn’t have much of a future in the U.S., according to a recent paperthat says the country is unlikely to see many new reactors in coming decades, unless there are major policy changes.
That means the only nuclear reactors under construction in the country right now, which are here in Georgia, could be the last ones built in the U.S. for years.
Afifth of the nation’s electricitycomes from nuclear power, but the number of plants isshrinking. Some have already closed, and others are scheduled to. Low natural gas prices have made building new nuclear reactors less competitive, and renewable energy is getting more competitive………..The findings in the paper weren’t a surprise to Sara Barczak, regional advocacy director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a group that has been critical of the nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle in Georgia.
She said years ago, there were more than 15 new reactors planned in the Southeast, but now there are only the two at Vogtle going forward. A similar project in South Carolina was canceled last year.
“The authors took a hard look at the realities … coming to the conclusion that it’s extremely costly, it takes quite a long time for these things to come online if they do, ever,” she said.
And the idea that nuclear power faces an uncertain future isn’t bad news to everyone.
“Nuclear energy is too expensive and too dangerous, and uses a ton of water,” said Colleen Kiernan, executive director of the group Georgia Conservation Voters.
Instead, she supports investing more in energy efficiency, renewable power and battery storage.
The two nuclear reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta, are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Last year, when the future of that project was up in the air, there were questions of whether it was really needed in Georgia. ….https://www.wabe.org/study-us-unlikely-to-see-new-nuclear-power-anytime-soon/
EDF Wooing Pension Funds to Finance Sizewell U.K. Nuclear Plant, Bloomberg, By Rachel Morison 12 pension funds interested in backing plant in East Anglia Plant would lower nuclear costs by copying design of Hinkley
The developer of Britain’s first nuclear power station in more than three decades has approached 12 pension funds about helping finance a sister plant on the other side of the country.
Electricite de France SA is working on ways to pay for its Sizewell C project in East Anglia that will make it cheaper than the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant it’s building on the coast of Southwest England. Hinkley has been a lightning rod for controversy since the government pledged to pay 92.50 pounds ($122) a megawatt-hour for its power, more than 60 percent more than the latest offshore wind farms……..
FT 25th July 2018 , French power utility EDF has said there will be further delays and cost overruns at its flagship Flamanville nuclear site. In April, the company said that problems with the weldings at its Flamanville site might have an
impact on the costs and the schedule for starting the long-delayed nuclear reactor.
On Wednesday, the company said that out of the 148 inspected welds, 33 had quality deficiencies and would be repaired. As a result it had “adjusted the Flamanville EPR schedule and construction costs . . . The loading of nuclear fuel is now scheduled for the fourth quarter in 2019 and the target construction costs have been revised from €10.5bn to €10.9bn.”
The plant was already seven years late and €7bn over budget. The Flamanville plant in France is one of three being
built in Europe using the next-generation European Pressurized Reactor technology. The other two projects are the Olkiluoto project in Finland, which is more than a decade late, and the UK’s Hinkley Point, which is mired in controversy over the high cost of the project. http://www.ft.com/content/1b2473c8-8fdd-11e8-b639-7680cedcc421
South Africa Opens Door to Future Russian Nuclear Power Deal, US News, July 26, 2018 , BY ALEXANDER WINNING, JOHANNESBURG (Reuters)– South Africa cannot afford large-scale expansion of its nuclear power capacity but would still be open to future deals with Russia, a senior ruling party official said on Thursday, shortly before the arrival of President Vladimir Putin for a summit.
Russian state firm Rosatom was one of the front runners for a project to increase South Africa’s nuclear power-generating capacity championed by former president Jacob Zuma.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has put nuclear expansion on the back burner since taking office in February, saying it is too expensive, and has focused instead on pledges to revive the economy and crack down on corruption.
African National Congress Treasurer General Paul Mashatile, one of the six most powerful members of the ruling party, said Pretoria would not rush into major nuclear investments but that it was still open to deals. ………
Russia wants to turn nuclear energy into a major export industry. It has signed agreements with African countries with no nuclear tradition, including Rwanda and Zambia, and is set to build a large nuclear plant in Egypt.
Rosatom signed a separate agreement with South Africa’s state nuclear firm on Thursday to explore joint production of nuclear medicines and other ways of harnessing nuclear technology, a statement from the two firms showed.
The agreement, which is non-binding and is not related to large-scale power generation, is a further sign that Rosatom is keen to cement its position on the African continent.
New Economy 25th July 2018 The cost of EDF’s new Flamanville nuclear reactor has swelled to more
than three times the French state-owned utility’s original budget after
further issues were revealed in the construction process. EDF said target
construction costs had risen by €400m ($468m) to €10.9bn ($12.7bn).
Already seven years behind schedule, the project will now be delayed by
another year, with the loading of nuclear fuel not expected until the
fourth quarter of 2019. In April, EDF revealed that problems with the
weldings at its flagship nuclear site could impact the project’s costs
and timetable following an assessment by the French Nuclear Safety
Authority.
On July 25, EDF said 33 of 148 inspected welds were found to
have “quality deficiencies” and would be repaired: “EDF teams and
their industrial partners are fully mobilised and are continuing all other
assembly and testing activities at the Flamanville [European Pressurised
Reactor (EPR)], including the system performance tests.” France’s
Flamanville project is one of three EPRs currently being built across
Europe.
nuclear-news 