Hinkley C – don’t say I didn’t warn you!
In 2016, I called for Hinkley C to be scrapped. Now its commissioning has been pushed back to the end of the decade and its costs have ballooned to as much as £48 billion in 2024 money. I was right.
MICHAEL LIEBREICH, JAN 25, 2024
“The case for Hinkley Point C has collapsed: It’s time to scrap it.” This was the title of an article I wrote for City AM in July 2016.
The story so far
For those who have forgotten those heady days, a quick recap. July 2016 was one month after the UK voted for Brexit. Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne (whose pet project was Hinkley C, aided by energy minister in the previous Coalition government and currently LibDem leader, Ed Davey) had resigned. Theresa May had just taken over as Prime Minister.
The project already had a ghastly history. In the early 2000s, the nuclear industry, with French champion Areva in the lead (later driven into bankruptcy by cost overruns at Flamanville and Olkiluoto and rescued by EDF in 2017), announced a “Nuclear Renaissance” and was lobbying for a new build programme in the UK to replace aging plants set for retirement. In the absence of evidence, they claimed new plants would produce power for £24 per MWh (£39/MWh in 2024 money, or $50/MWh).
The Labour Party, long dead set against nuclear power, were convinced. In January 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared, in the preface to a White Paper on nuclear power entitled “Meeting the Energy Challenge” that “nuclear should have a role to play in the generation of electricity, alongside other low carbon technologies.” The White Paper estimated the total cost of building a 1.6GW nuclear plant at £2.8 billion – which would translate into £5.6 billion for Hinkley C’s 3.2GW (£9.0 billion or $11.5 billion in 2024 money).
EDF’s UK CEO Vincent de Rivaz was cock-a-hoop, predicting that Brits would be cooking their turkeys with power from Hinkley C by Christmas 2017. But remember that figure – £9.0 billion for 3.2GW.
By October 2013, Osborne and Davey had agreed a Contract for Difference with EDF for electricity production at a strike price of £92.50/MWh in 2012 money (£132/MWh in today’s money or $169/MWh) – rising with inflation for 35 years, but dropping to £87.50 (£125/MWh in today’s money or $173/MWh) if a second EPR were to be built. That EPR is Sizewell C – of which more later.
At that point, Hinkley C was expected to cost £16 billion in 2015 money (£22 billion in 2024 money or $28 billion). It was due to come online in 2023 and continue cooking Christmas turkeys for 60 years.
Since then, on five separate occasions EDF has announced that costs have increased, and the commissioning date pushed back. The only delay which was not fully in the control of EDF and it suppliers in the nuclear and construction industries was Covid – which can be blamed for around a year of delay and a couple of billion of cost increase, but not more.
Last week – yet another delay and cost increase
……………………. Now, I know that supporters of the project and hard-core nuclear fans will be bursting blood vessels at this point, desperate to jump in an explain that most of the difference between £9 billion and nearly £50 billion is down to financing cost resulting from the use of the CfD mechanism, regulatory cost, delay in government decision-making and so on. But I’m going to say it: I don’t care……………………………
How big things (don’t) get done
It is not like cost over-runs in nuclear projects are a big secret. The world’s leading academic expert on project management is Danish Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, author of How Big Things Get Done, who joined me on Cleaning Up last year. Having build a huge database of projects of different sources, he can definitively show that nuclear plants are worse only than Olympic Games in terms of cost over-runs. On average they go 120% over the budget, with 58% of them going a whopping 204% over budget.
The common trope among nuclear fans is that it is only in the western world that nuclear new build is either problematic or exorbitantly expensive, and this is driven by excessive regulation.
While excessive delays in emerging nuclear powers are certainly less common, there is no transparency over how this is achieved. There are ample examples of problems: the use of fake certification documents, the sealing of deals for reactor sales by military inducements, cutting corners on safety, failure to maintain control of the fuel supply chain, failure to disclose problems and accidents; unexplained accidents on aging plants.
There is also no transparency over the real cost of their plants. Put simply, these are are whatever their leaders say they are: it is they who decide the cost of capital, state guarantees, whether safety standards meet or exceed international standards, whether safety standards are enforced, the environmental standards applied to the supply chain, the speed projects proceed through licencing, the need or not to provision for decommissioning costs, the diversion of costs to military, energy or industrial budgets, and so on.
Back to 2016
Now let’s get back to Hinkley C, and 2016. One of the first things Theresa May did when she took over from David Cameron was to ask her security advisors to review the wisdom of allowing state-owned China General Nuclear to invest £6 billion in the project. In the end May backed down and allowed the investment to go ahead, but that is the background to my piece: the project’s future was in doubt, and it was the last realistic chance to kill it before tens of billions of pounds had been invested. And this is what I wrote: The case for Hinkley Point C has collapsed: It’s time to scrap it.
………………………………………………………………. It is worth remembering that while construction costs are in the £42 to £48 billion range, the 35 years of electricity at £87.50 or £92.50/MW in 2012 money, adjusted for inflation will cost UK energy users a gargantuan £111 or £116 billion over the next 35 years. Could we use that money better? You bet.
Summary
So there you have it. 2016 was a missed opportunity, most likely the last opportunity to scrap the benighted project, one of the worst blunders in the history of public procurement and of the UK’s energy industry.
Does that mean we should scrap it now? It’s almost certainly too late. EDF has probably spent so much on the project, that the net present value of its revenues exceeds the remaining cost to bring the project to completion
What I do know is that the UK must resist the French government demands that it put its hand in the public pocket for yet more money to support the project. The whole point of the structure put in place, with its super-generous and inflation-protected CfD strike price, was that EDF was to bear the risk of cost over-runs. These will come back to bite UK energy users in the form of higher power costs from Sizewell C, should that project go ahead. If the UK taxpayers have to bear the cost of cost over-runs, let’s just nationalise and be done with any pretence that the market bears any risk from nuclear power projects.
I know many will say I am just being anti-nuclear.
No, I’m pro-nuclear……..
………………… to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “if Hinkley C, Flamanville, Olkiluoto and Vogtle are the way the nuclear industry treats its projects, it does not deserve to have any”. https://mliebreich.substack.com/p/hinkley-c-dont-say-i-didnt-warn-you
French firm EDF shows its power over the UK govt – no judicial review now required over fish protection from Hinkley nuclear cooling system.
In 2021, EDF was formally told it must fit an acoustic fish deterrent
(AFD) system to the massive seawater intakes of the cooling system. It was
considered necessary to “protect the marine life of the Severn Estuary
catchment area and its nine great rivers: Parrett, Avon, Severn, Wye, Usk,
Ebbw, Rhymney, Taff, Ely and their tributaries where many fish species go
to breed”.
Without AFD it is estimated that 22 billion fish would be
ingested over the planned 60-year life of the plant, of which half would be
killed in the process.
Not so final. EDF appealed against this but in 2022
the then environment secretary, George Eustice, refused the appeal in
definitive terms: “The decision on this appeal is final [and] can only be
challenged in the courts by judicial review.”
Final? EDF, which has been
running rings around the government and bullying ministers (Eyes passim)
since it bought the British nuclear fleet in 2008, simply went
regulator-shopping on the basis that energy ministers are more likely to be
sympathetic. And so it proves: the Department for Environment, Food & Rural
Affairs (Defra) has been reduced to the role of consultee on the “final
final” decision, which will now be taken elsewhere – with no judicial
review required.
Private Eye 2nd Feb 2024
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?issue=1616§ion_link=columnists
How not to go nuclear: Hinkley and Sizewell
by DAVID HOWELL
David Howell: This is not just a matter of finding the cash to meet the
enormous budget overrun. The Chinese payments halt at Hinkley leaves a
growing gap. Love or hate them nowadays, they have already been edged out
of the Sizewell plan (they were actually paid £100m to leave), so the very
large Chinese contribution there will also have to be found from elsewhere.
But EDF has no more money, and the French think the British Government
should open its chequebook. HM Treasury thinks no such thing. So, to
repeat, who is going to fill the gap?
Copying Hinkley, and certainly copying its financial story, looks less attractive by the day. The British hope is that at Sizewell a new financial model, requiring consumers and
customers to pay extra for years in advance for their electricity, will
entice in investors, to replace the Chinese. One allegedly interested
“private investor” is said to be the not-so-private United Arab
Emirates government. But is that the kind of swap — the very non-aligned
UAE in place of the Chinese — that we need?
The Article 29th Jan 2024
https://www.thearticle.com/how-not-to-go-nuclear-hinckley-and-sizewell
Hinkley Point shambles shows why UK must scrap disastrous nuclear strategy.
Energy spokesperson Mark Ruskell is accusing Tories and Labour of wasting billions of pounds on nuclear technology
The UK government must scrap its disastrous nuclear strategy in light of the shambolic saga of the Hinkley Point power station, says the Scottish Greens climate spokesperson, Mark Ruskell MSP.
The call follows revelations that the Hinkley Point project has been hit by yet another delay of up to four more years, and that it could cost an eye watering £46 billion.
This month the UK government announced plans for the biggest expansion on nuclear energy for 70 years.
Mr Ruskell said: “Hinkley Point C has been a shambolic money pit. It’s been hit by delay after delay and the costs are escalating at an alarming rate. Nobody can say with any confidence when it will go live or how much money will have been wasted on it.
“Yet, the UK government wants to throw even more time and money into an unsafe, unreliable and eye-wateringly expensive energy source that will leave a terrible legacy for future generations.
“The climate crisis is happening all around us. We don’t have time to waste on a disastrous nuclear strategy. Renewable energy is the cleanest, greenest and cheapest energy available, that is what all governments should be focusing on.
“That is what we are doing with Scottish Greens in government in Scotland. Yet the Tories and Labour are committed to wasting billions of pounds on nuclear technology.”
Sellafield nuclear plant: Cancer fears raised by Scottish MP.
By Hamish Morrison The National, 1st Feb 2024
CANCER fears have been raised amid fresh concerns about the level of nuclear waste found in Scottish waters.
As delays and costs mount on Britain’s new flagship nuclear project, SNP MP Allan Dorans has unearthed research showing the environmental impact of atomic energy – and has
raised fears it could cause cancer. Dorans has previously raised concerns
about the Sellafield nuclear waste processing plant in Cumbria, which pumps
waste out into the sea, reaching as far as the Ayrshire coast in his
constituency. While the levels of radiation remain within what the UK
authorities consider safe, Dorans has repeatedly raised fears these
assessments may be underplaying the health risks of exposure to
radioactivity.
Now he has highlighted research from Manchester University
which examined how the sea bed conditions around the Sellafield site
effectively contain radioactive waste which is then distributed around the
coast to Scotland and disturbed by fish, including haddock. Dorans said:
“While most Government advisors insist that this radioactivity only
inches down is safe from transmission into the food chain, the activity of
bottom-feeding species and the disturbance that storms and flooding must
cause in the sediment suggests to me complacency.”
The National 1st Feb 2024
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24091797.sellafield-nuclear-plant-cancer-fears-raised-scottish-mp
Britain plans ‘robocop’ force to protect nuclear sites with paint bombs
AI-powered drones are being designed to cut labour costs and boost
security at Sellafield. Britain’s nuclear sites could soon be protected
by a “robocop” style police force made up of AI-powered drones equipped
with paint bombs and smoke guns.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
(NDA), which runs high-security nuclear sites such as Sellafield and
Dounreay, wants to build a robotic police force to cut costs and boost
security across sites containing radioactive waste. It has offered £1.5m
to security and defence companies for initial designs of a robotic defence
system, with a view to commissioning a fully-fledged version in the future.
The NDA’s document for the project says that a key aim is to cut labour
costs by reducing the number of armed police. Currently, the Civil Nuclear
Constabulary employs nearly 1,600 people, with its cost bill rising to
£130m in 2022/23 – up from £110m in 2018.
The procurement document
said: “The NDA covers 17 nuclear sites, 1,000 hectares of land and over
800 buildings. We are interested in innovative ways to ensure our sites
remain safe and secure in a resource-constrained environment.” A
spokesman for the NDA confirmed the “roboforce” plans, claiming that
police officers will be able to control the technology without being
exposed to danger. “They will be able to override the system, or
investigate and deal with intruders from a control room,” the spokesman
said.
Telegraph 1st Feb 2024
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) firmly contradicts Therese Coffey, MP on Bradwell as a nuclear site.
Therese Coffey MP suggests Bradwell is a large brownfield site. In fact,
the site is occupied by the long closed Bradwell A power station now in the
process of decommissioning before being returned to greenfield land use.
Perhaps her most preposterous assertion is that ‘Bradwell has hosted
nuclear power and hopes to do so again in the future’. In fact, the
communities and Councils around the Blackwater estuary in Essex are
overwhelmingly against new nuclear development at Bradwell.
Many years ago, BANNG gathered 10,000 signatures face-to-face for a petition against new
nuclear development at Bradwell which was taken to Whitehall. Since then,
the Chinese developer, CGN, has withdrawn its proposals for a massive new
nuclear power station in the face of implacable hostility from the local
community.
‘Therese Coffey would do well to check her facts and look to
her own backyard and devote her campaigning against the destruction of the
Suffolk coast by the giant Sizewell C nuclear power station project, with
its long-term stores of radioactive wastes, rather than seek to impose
unwanted infrastructure on the precious marshlands of Essex.’
BANNG 31st Jan 2023
Britain will test fire Trident nuclear missile for the first time since 2016 as fears of World War Three grow
- HMS Vanguard is reported to have sailed into the Atlantic earlier this week
- It is expected to test-fire a Trident missile 3,500 miles from the US
Daily Mail, By CHRIS JEWERS, 2 February 2024
Britain is primed to test a Trident nuclear missile for the first time since 2016 amid growing fears of a global conflict, according to reports.
Officials are said to have issued a warning to shipping in the region of the test as nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard sailed into the Atlantic earlier this week.
The test will be the first time the UK has test fired a Trident missile since a botched launch in 2016 on sister sub HMS Vengeance which left the navy red-faced.
HMS Vanguard has undergone a seven-year refit in Plymouth since then, and is now set to fire an unnamed missile, The Sun reports.
The tests are understood to be the final hurdle the £4 billion submarine must clear in order to re-enter service as part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent force. ……..
HMS Vanguard has been hailed as a 491-foot ‘colossus’ that can patrol under the surface of the seas for months at a time.
On board, she can carry up to 16 Trident 2 D5 missiles, a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), built by American firm Lockheed Martin.
They also share the name with the UK’s nuclear programme (the Trident nuclear programme) the purpose of which is to ‘deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means,’ according to the mission statement by the Ministry of Defence.
Each missile is armed with British-made thermonuclear warheads that are 20 times more powerful than the Oppenheimer-developed weapons dropped during the Second World War on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The warheads are delivered by multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), or – in other words – exoatmospheric ballistic missiles.
Citing a Royal Navy source, The Sun said Britain’s nuclear submarines can carry more explosive power than was dropped in the entirety of the Second World War.
In the coming test, HMS Vanguard is expected to launch a single missile that will not be armed with nuclear warheads, about 55 miles off the US coast……………………
The missiles are designed to blast to the edge of space and track their position against the stars, before re-entering the atmosphere (hence exoatmospheric), plummeting to earth and raining warheads down on its target.
The maximum range of the missile is 12,000km (7,400 miles), which is roughly the distance from London to Indonesia one way, or Hawaii the other.
A warning was issued by the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency to shipping that could cross the missile’s expected course, The Sun said.
The ‘hazardous operations’ warning also plots areas closer to the launch site where debris is expected to fall into the ocean…………………………….
Reports of the test come amid rising fears that Britain and her allies could be pulled into a conflict in the coming years.……………………………………………………………………
The test also comes after it was reported last year that a Royal Navy nuclear submarine and its crew were mere moments from being crushed after its depth gauge suddenly failed.
Reports said the Vanguard class sub, which had been carrying 140 crew and Trident 2 missiles, suffered the huge malfunction while on a mission in the Atlantic.
It caused a frantic scrabble with engineers managing to stop the submarine and its nuclear reactor from plunging further and being crushed by underwater pressure just minutes before disaster struck. …………………………………………………… more https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13034029/Britain-test-fire-Trident-missile.html
Campaigners Warn Return of US Nukes to UK Would ‘Make Britain a Guaranteed Target’
The U.S. is reportedly planning to deploy nukes “three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb” to an air base in Suffolk.
JAKE JOHNSON, Feb 02, 2024, Common Dreams
Nuclear weapon abolitionists sounded alarm Friday in response to fresh evidence that the United States is planning to station nukes in the United Kingdom for the first time in more than 15 years, a move that opponents said would only heighten the risk of an atomic war.
The U.S. removed more than 100 nuclear bombs from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, in 2008 following sustained protests from the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and other nonproliferation advocates.
CND warned in a statement Friday that the redeployment of nukes to Lakenheath would “make Britain a guaranteed target in the event of any war between NATO and Russia.”
Nuclear weapon abolitionists sounded alarm Friday in response to fresh evidence that the United States is planning to station nukes in the United Kingdom for the first time in more than 15 years, a move that opponents said would only heighten the risk of an atomic war.
The U.S. removed more than 100 nuclear bombs from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, in 2008 following sustained protests from the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and other nonproliferation advocates.
CND warned in a statement Friday that the redeployment of nukes to Lakenheath would “make Britain a guaranteed target in the event of any war between NATO and Russia.”
“We encourage both the media and the public to increase pressure on the British government to be honest about this deployment,” said Kate Hudson, CND’s general secretary.
The Telegraphreported last week that “procurement contracts for a new facility at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk confirm that the U.S. intends to place nuclear warheads three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb at the air base.”………………………………………. more https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-nuclear-weapons-uk
It’s not a done deal and you are not alone’: anti-GDF campaigners pledge solidarity with South Holderness over nuclear waste dump plan,
Last week’s surprise news that South Holderness is being considered as another
potential site for a Geological Disposal Facility, or in layperson’s
language a nuclear waste dump, will have been a great shock to many local
people. But residents can take heart because this is the fifth such
announcement by Nuclear Waste Services and residents in West Cumbria and
East Lincolnshire faced with similar news in previous years have mobilised
successful campaigns to fight similar plans in their areas.
NFLA 30th Jan 2024
1
Cracks appear in Labour-Green alliance over claims that Heysham power stations letter was ‘reckless’
Cracks have appeared in an alliance between Labour and the Greens after a
letter calling for the lives of Heysham Power Stations to be extended was
branded “reckless”. Lancaster City Council leader Phillip Black was also
accused of “operating outside the terms of a collaboration agreement”
between Labour and the Greens, who between them form the majority of the
council’s coalition cabinet.
Councillor Jack Lenox of the Greens also said
it was “completely inappropriate for Councillor Black to suggest that
pressure on the council’s budget should be a factor in extending the lives
of these nuclear power stations”. Councillor Black, from Labour, has
responded by accusing the Greens of “Machievellian nonsense” and making
“baseless accusations”.
Beyond Radio 30th Jan 2024
Is this the World’s Most Expensive and Most Delayed Power Project?
By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Jan 31, 2024,
Yes, they are still building the Hinckley Point C nuclear power station in the United Kingdom, and yes the latest estimated cost is more than the previously estimated cost and the completion date has receded another two years into the future.
This nuclear project received its license for construction in 2012, with an estimated cost of £18 billion and completion date in 2025. The last estimate calls for 2029-2031 completion at a cost of £46 billion. To the extent that these estimates can be trusted, the plant would end up costing double the original estimate in real terms. In the same time period, solar and wind costs will decline by at least one half. We are not sure yet whether Hinckley Point will set an all-time record as the most expensive and most delayed power-related project in history, but it certainly will be a contender.
As is the case for so many climate- or security-related projects, the UK government offered significant subsidies to the builder. But in a different way. Most governments, nowadays, offer start-up subsidies in order to bring production levels up to a point where economies of scale kick in, after which costs drop rapidly and consumers get real benefits. The cost curves for wind, solar, and energy storage show how well this strategy works. Give the industry a kickstart and watch the action take place.
Not so with nuclear, where costs seem to rise with encouragement rather than fall. Opting for nuclear, then, seems more like an ideological rather than a technological or economic choice, especially for British Conservative politicians. “Nuclear has to be part of the package”, they seem to say. Even if the nuclear cost per kW installed is five-eight times higher than non-fossil alternatives. But, fortunately, the UK government is not directly on the hook for the added costs, the Chinese co-investor in the project has declared that it will not contribute more, and it looks as if French utility EDF will bear the increased costs if it does not get a new power contract. But if the UK decides to stick EDF with the bill, what will that decision do to discourage further nuclear construction? Given the perilous nature of that construction (namely the danger of cost inflation), who could take the risk of initiating new projects other than a government agency?………………………………………….
Oil Price 31st Jan 2024
MP calls for vote on Holderness nuclear site which local petition brands ‘hazardous waste dumping ground’
Graham Stuart has called for a public vote on whether a nuclear waste site
should be built in Holderness amid opposition from some living in the area.
‘Beverley and Holderness ‘ MP said Nuclear Waste Services, the Government
Agency which unveiled the waste site proposals last week, should be forced
to make their case directly to the public. Joanne Turner, whose Change.org
petition calls for the site to be rejected, said the beautiful south
Holderness area should not be turned into a dumping ground for hazardous
waste.
Hull Daily Mail 31st Jan 2024
2
UK’s Nuclear “money pit” tops $59 billion.
What a turkey! by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/01/31/what-a-turkey/
Hinkley Point C costs hit a new high but nuclear plant still isn’t roasting Christmas turkeys
By Linda Pentz Gunter
The Great Mosque of Mecca is considered the most expensive building in the world at $115.2 billion. Right behind it comes….a nuclear power plant! The two-reactor 3,260MW Hinkley Point C nuclear site still under construction in the UK will now cost at least £46 billion ($59 billion) according to the latest figures released by its developer, the French energy giant, EDF.
As such, Hinkley Point C has now earned the dubious honor of becoming the second most expensive building in the world. And it’s not even finished. The price could soar still higher.
EDF originally bragged that Britons would be baking their Christmas turkeys powered by Hinkley Point C by 2017. The completion date has now been pushed to “after 2029”.
The nuclear power industry is very good at tripling things. Perhaps not global nuclear installations by 2050 as it bragged would happen during an announcement at the COP28 climate summit last December. But the price tag for a new reactor? Timelines for new reactor construction? Straight A grades all around!
That’s almost what’s happening at Hinkley Point C where the new price is more than double the original estimated cost of £18 billion ($23 billion). Getting to triple the cost still seems eminently achievable given the new completion date.
This not-so-shocking news, given nuclear power’s track record, comes after the recent, overblown announcement by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government that Britain would launch its “biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years to create jobs, reduce bills and strengthen Britain’s energy security.” The plan will of course achieve none of these things.
Far from reducing electricity bills for British consumers, the Hinkley nuclear project will in fact increase them “far above the market electricity price,” predicted Dr Norbert Allnoch, CEO of the International Economic Forum for Renewable Energies (IWR), based in Münster, Germany.
According to estimates by IWR, the cost of the electricity generated by Hinkley Point C will be “significantly higher than the 15 cents/kWh mark” and will continue to rise. This is because the UK government agreed a “state-guaranteed price for nuclear power being paid to EDF, which is linked to the inflation rate,” says IWR.
All of this came after the recent announcement that UK authorities had granted a Development Consent Order (DCO) to EDF’s identical twin EPR reactor project on the Suffolk Coast at Sizewell, while committing £1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) in funding for the project. The French company has already been tearing up pristine countryside there, destroying habitat and disturbing wildlife at the adjacent Minsmere Nature Reserve.
Meanwhile, France is pushing the UK to pay for the cost-overruns at Hinkley and the expected ballooning bills at Sizewell once work begins. France reportedly blames Britain for prompting the Chinese firm CGN to withdraw its 33.5% share from the Hinkley plant after Britain booted China out of the Sizewell C nuclear project.
Chinese investment in UK nuclear projects has been a hot political potato for some time, and came to be viewed as “an unacceptable national security risk.” A proposed new reactor project at Bradwell in Essex, a joint project between China and France, looks unlikely to go forward, at least in part due to security concerns about Chinese involvement.
These challenges prompted the UK government to seek alternative sources of funding, inevitably settling on ratepayers using something called a Regulated Asset Base (RAB). RAB effectively funds future nuclear projects by charging ratepayers up front in their electricity bills for the anticipated costs of nuclear plant design, construction, commissioning, and operation.
“Hinkley Point C has been a shambolic money pit,” said a spokesperson from Together Against Sizewell C on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s been hit by delay after delay and the costs are escalating at an alarming rate. Nobody can say with any confidence when it will go live or how much money will have been wasted on it.”
The story of Hinkley C illustrates that the nuclear sector is “out of control economically,” said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear. The cost of EDF’s EPR reactor being built in France at Flamanville and still incomplete, has more than quadrupled to close to $15 billion. Another EPR, at Olkiluoto in Finland, went from $3.2 billion to more than $12 billion and launched 12 years late.
On U.S. soil, two AP1000 reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant site in Georgia, will likely come in at a total price tag of at least $35 billion, $20 billion more than originally estimated, with the second of the two reactors still not on line.
UK govt awards Hitachi £33.6 m to design small nuclear reactors
GE Hitachi awarded nuclear design funding, 30 January 2024
GE Vernova’s nuclear business, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, was on 25
January awarded a £33.6 m Future Nuclear Enabling Fund grant from the
UK’s Department for Energy Security & Net Zero. The UK government has
ambitions for 24 GW of nuclear generation by 2050 to help in providing
energy security for the UK and for meeting net zero. The grant will help GE
Hitachi develop its small nuclear reactor design.
Modern Power Systems 30th Jan 2024
https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/newsge-hitachi-awarded-nuclear-design-funding-11474778
1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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