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Scrutiny on Britain’s nuclear plans: small modular reactors uncompetitive

UK nuclear: a Golden Egg or Poisoned Chalice?  UK nuclear power isunder intense scrutiny as costs balloon on the controversial Hinkley Point C station in southwest England

Recharge Transition by Christopher Hopson in London  02 October 2019, UK nuclear power is on a roller coaster ride with undue commercial pressures and political influence raising big questions over its future at a time when atomic energy is being increasingly undercut by renewables, according to a new book.

Rocketing costs and delays have beset the nuclear industry. French power company EDF revealed last week that the cost of building the Hinkley Point C nuclear station in southwest England would be up to £2.9bn ($3.5bn) more than budgeted, pushing the total project cost up to as high as £22.5bn.

This is in sharp contrast to the cost of offshore wind which has plummeted by a further 30% over the last two years with a raft of 12 projects in the government’s third Contracts for Difference auction last month recording record low prices between £39.65/MWh and £41.61/MWh.

Nuclear critics point out new offshore wind now costs less than half of the £92.50/MWh (at 2012 prices) that the government has committed to pay 35 years for power from Hinkley Point C, and that wind might get even cheaper by the time the much-delayed reactors finally crank into action.

In their book ‘Golden Egg or Poisoned Chalice? The Story of Nuclear Power in the UK‘, co-authors Tony Wooldridge and Stephen Druce reveal how unfortunate and costly decisions destroyed the UK’s ambition to become a global leader in the nuclear industry.

Wooldridge and Druce, who have both held senior roles in the nuclear industry, believe that the UK Atomic Energy Authority has been allowed to wield too much influence over policy, and that the government should have listened more to the concerns of other parts of the industry as well as objectors.

“It has been clear for some time that renewables are undercutting nuclear on cost and, unless something remarkable happens, this trend seems likely to continue. Based on current trends, renewables look set to dominate the market,” Wooldridge told Recharge in an exclusive interview.

The latest offshore wind prices confirm the trend and certainly makes the strike price for Hinkley Point C look expensive in comparison, the author says, but stresses that price is not the only aspect to be considered…..

However, with the UK Conservative government’s plans for nuclear to be the backbone of a low-carbon energy system in disarray the need for a firm policy towards the building and financing of new projects has never been greater.

In the past year, developers Hitachi and Toshiba have pulled out of building 9.4GW of planned nuclear capacity at Wylfa, Moorside and Oldbury, claiming that the prices being offered by the government were not high enough — leaving a giant hole in the country’s energy supply in the mid-2020s.

Plans for a further 7GW or so in the UK by 2030 are now looking unlikely, while 7.7GW of the country’s 8.8GW of ageing nuclear plants are due to be shut down by 2030.

“We believe the history of UK nuclear power could have been quite different had there been less secrecy, more openness and a greater willingness to objectively consider all the relevant evidence,” said Druce. “When making future decisions [on nuclear] there should be clarity of objectives so that the reasons are transparent. If we fail to achieve this, history is likely to judge us harshly.”

“I am surprised by how much support small modular reactors are getting around the world, and in particular in this country. I don’t think small reactors will be able to compete with current nuclear stations, or with renewables or anything else.”…….https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/1858203/uk-nuclear-a-golden-egg-or-poisoned-chalice

October 5, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK energy chief advises that Hinkley Point nuclear project should be scrapped

Telegraph 28th Sept 2019   Scrap Hinkley Point: nuclear plant is expensive and out of date, says Ovo Energy chief, Britain’s next nuclear power plant should be scrapped because it is wastefully expensive and out of date, according to the boss of Ovo Energy. The industry should instead look to the future with ever-cheaper renewable energy, said Stephen Fitzpatrick, the founder and chief executive of the group that will soon be the UK’s second-biggest supplier as Ovo acquires SSE’s consumer business.

“We should just call it a day. I thought at the time the deal was struck at £92.50 per megawatt
hour (MWh), inflation-linked, that it was a bad deal for customers. Unfortunately the technology, the design it is based on, is unproven,” he said. “Looking at the cost for customers of renewables, solar, and wind, the cost just keeps coming down. The cost for nuclear keeps going up.

It strikes me that this does not represent value for money for consumers, never more so than this week when the cost went up by £2.9bn.” The Hinkley Point C reactor will cost up to £22.5bn to build as costs keep rising above initial plans.

Mr Fitzpatrick would prefer the industry to invest in restructuring the energy network to handle more renewables, including the variable supply of wind and solar. This could be handled in
part with a “smart network” using batteries to handle shifting supply and demand.

“If you think about the £39/MWh that was achieved at the last auction for offshore wind, and when Hinkley Point goes live it is going to be about £100 more per MWh some time in the late 2020s,” he said. “If we make smart decisions and focus on value for money and what is best for the end consumer, I am quite sure we can keep costs [of decarbonising thenetwork] under control.”  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/28/scrap-hinkley-point-nuclear-plant-expensive-date-says-ovo-energy/

September 30, 2019 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste is piling up – governments need to stop dithering and take action 

Nuclear waste is piling up – governments need to stop dithering and take action   https://theconversation.com/nuclear-waste-is-piling-up-governments-need-to-stop-dithering-and-take-action-123977  Claire Corkhill
Research Fellow in nuclear waste disposal, University of SheffieldSeptember 26, 2019   The UK government has launched a process to find a volunteer community who would be willing to host a £12 billion geological disposal facility for nuclear waste. It’s about time – the initiative comes after seven decades of successive governments putting the decision off. The situation is similar in many other countries, with dangerous nuclear material being stored unsafely because of political inaction.

In the UK, nuclear waste is currently kept in safe but high-maintenance conditions, with some canisters deteriorating, at Sellafield in Cumbria. This is costing tax payers £3 billion per year.

The new geological disposal facility is a vast underground bunker, to be buried around 500m below the Earth’s surface. It is intended to safely store approximately one Wembley Stadium’s worth of highly radioactive waste that has been generated over the past 70 years. Here, it will be isolated from the biosphere – and human populations – for the 100,000 years it will take for the radioactivity to decay to safe levels.

Radioactive waste is generated from nuclear energy, military uses and also the extensive use of isotopes in medicine. The most highly radioactive portion comes from spent nuclear fuel – the used uranium fuel from inside nuclear reactors and the materials produced through recycling of spent nuclear fuel. The latter includes fission products that are transformed to glass and plutonium (which is currently neither a resource nor a waste).

These materials contain radioactive isotopes that have half-lives (the amount of time taken for half of the radioactivity to decay) of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. This means any storage solution must be extremely long-lived. That’s a significant challenge – the oldest known man-made materials are of the order of several thousands of years old.

The principle of geological disposal of nuclear waste is to use multiple barriers, much like a set of Russian Dolls. This makes it possible to contain the waste and prevent it from meeting with groundwater which would start to dissolve it – releasing radioactive materials to the environment. Engineered barriers are intended to contain the waste until most of the radioactivity has decayed.

If the disposal vaults are dug in a good, impermeable rock (such as clay or mudstone), the geology provides a natural barrier that will isolate the waste from the biosphere. This will reduce the likelihood of human intrusion into the facility. Being several hundreds of metres below the ground, there will also be long transport pathways to delay any significant migration of radioactive materials from the waste to the biosphere until far into the future.

International issue

The UK is not the only country opting for this solution. In Finland, construction of the Onkalo facility has already begun. A licence application has even been made to start disposing of spent nuclear fuel.

But progress in other nations has stalled: in France protesters surround the disposal facility in the village of Bure, while in Sweden, the Environmental Court has rejected the construction licence for a facility near the coastal town of Forsmark, due to safety concerns over the corrosion resistance of copper canisters.

In the USA, senators are suing the Federal Government for not building a disposal facility. The lack of a disposal facility has meant that thousands of metric tonnes of spent nuclear fuel, have built up – stored temporarily in dry casks at sites across the country.

The controversy is expected to extend to the UK’s new geological disposal siting process. Recent media articles have criticised the idea that see all areas of the UK – including national parks – could be suitable to host a facility. A previous siting process, launched in 2003, failed to find a site. Although two local authorities from near the Sellafield site came forward, Cumbria County Council was able to veto the vote.

The government hopes that new communities will step forward in this second process. It has proposed an incentive package offering communities £1m per year for having discussions about hosting the facility. This will increase to £2.5m per year when geological investigations are undertaken.

But environmentalists are likely to object, as they fear a better storage facility will only lead to more nuclear power stations. And indeed, Oliver Eden, former parliamentary undersecretary for energy under Theresa May’s government between 2017-2019, highlighted the disposal facility as being “the key to the future of the UK’s new nuclear build programme … providing a safe and secure way to dispose of the waste new nuclear reactors produce.”

Whatever the outcome of the current siting process, something must be done about nuclear waste. Leaving it for our grandchildren to deal with is simply not fair. What’s more, we can’t assume that future civilisations will be able to keep it safe.

The first step on the road to a solution is to initiate a public conversation about what we should do with the world’s most dangerous materials in the long term. If you are interested, a good first step could be to watch the video above and start discussing the topic with your friends, family and local authorities.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear power future might be ended, with Hinkley Point C’s escalating costs

Could rising costs at Hinkley Point C end the UK’s nuclear ambitions?  New Scientist  25 September 2019, By Adam Vaughan   It’s nearly two years since Christmas turkeys were meant to be cooking with electricity from the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Today EDF Energy, the company building the vast 3.2 Gigawatt plant in Somerset in the UK, admits even the latest plan of delivering power by 2025 is at an increased risk of being missed.

EDF Energy says that “challenging ground conditions” mean costs could be £2.9 billion higher, taking the total bill to £22.9 billion. This might seem only of interest to EDF shareholders, given the controversial subsidy deal for the plant means consumers are protected from cost overruns.

But the potential significance of this is much bigger – it could cast a cloud over the UK’s hopes of a new wave of nuclear power plants. Ministers want more nuclear power in the energy mix alongside renewables, to meet carbon targets and provide continuous electricity supply.

Two Japanese companies have already pulled out of plans to build new nuclear plants in the UK, leaving EDF Energy’s designs for a second one at Sizewell in Suffolk as the main option. But the government’s proposed financial model for Sizewell C is very different to the one agreed for Hinkley. Unlike that deal, the “regulated asset base” (RAB) model under consultation for future plants would see consumers paying through energy bills while power stations are still being built.

The main trade-off with the RAB deal was that loading more construction risk onto consumers should make it cheaper to raise funds and therefore cheaper electricity, says Jonathan Marshall at non-profit the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.

But the more delays and over-runs there are, it will add to concerns that consumers will be left to pick up an ever-increasing bill, he says. “Consumer groups and others that are against the new framework are going to point to the delays at Hinkley as evidence that billpayers will be liable to pay more than planned to bring new power stations online.”……

What are the alternatives? Some nuclear proponents think small modular reactors could do the job. But the technology for commercial ones is still years off and analysis suggests they could even be more costly than conventional large ones…….  https://www.newscientist.com/article/2217725-could-rising-costs-at-hinkley-point-c-end-the-uks-nuclear-ambitions/

September 28, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Sizewell C nuclear plan puts iconic British nature reserve in danger

The battle of nature versus nuclear: will Sizewell C destroy Minsmere nature reserve?    Sophie Atherton   Telegraph 22nd Sept 2019  Almost anywhere you walk at the RSPB’s Minsmere nature reserve, you get a view of the Sizewell nuclear power stations. They are a curiously ambivalent landmark, a somewhat menacing presence on the skyline, but also lending a moody, sci-fi edge to the landscape – especially on grey days when the dome of Sizewell B seems to appear and disappear depending on the passing clouds. It’s impossible not to notice the industrial behemoths, but because Minsmere is such a carnival of wildlife, you can, to a degree, ignore them. For now.

However, French energy company EDF and partner China General Nuclear Power Corporation want to build a nuclear power station to the north of the two already there.

Almost anywhere you walk at the RSPB’s Minsmere nature reserve, you get a  view of the Sizewell nuclear power stations. EDF and partner China General  Nuclear Power Corporation want to build a nuclear power station to the north of the two already there. Construction is due to start in 2021 and
going on for 10 to 12 years. “The plans EDF have shared have tried to indicate that the visual impact won’t be that great because of this bank of woodland,” says Rowlands, gesturing to a line of trees beyond the water overlooked by the Island Mere bird hide. “We’re trying to ascertain what
that means in reality.

I think at Hinkley – which they are modelling this station on – it’s something like 56 cranes at the peak of the construction but what does that look like – and even if the visual is somewhat obscured,
how does the noise travel? How does that affect the wildlife if it becomes more noisy?” The RSPB feels that EDF’s plans for Sizewell C throw up as many questions as answers and is concerned about the lack of information on the environmental impact of such a huge construction project so close to sites that are internationally renowned for their wildlife importance.

As well as the power station itself, building it requires new roads (for the daily journeys of hundreds of HGV lorries), a new rail link, a double-deck car park for 1,500 vehicles and several three and four-storey accommodation blocks providing 2,400 bed spaces for workers.

That’s merely a flavour, rather than an exhaustive list, of what will happen to this Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty – on supposedly protected land – if Sizewell C goes ahead. One of the things that makes Minsmere so remarkable is that it has such a variety of different habitats. Some nature reserves are predominantly one type of landscape, but Minsmere has everything. The fate
of its reed beds, wet grassland, scrapes and lagoons, woodland, heath, vegetated shingle and beyond that the sea, along with all the thousands of species that live there, are all inextricably interconnected.

It is like a microcosm of the whole of the UK’s ecology. If one part is damaged, the whole will be affected as creatures and plants lose the conditions and then the food they need to survive.

Nuclear power is supposed to be a part of the UK’s plans for phasing out fossil fuels and moving to sustainable, eco-friendly, renewable energy sources. But if a new power station threatens to destroy the very things we are trying to protect, we have to consider carefully where to put it.

The latest stage of the Sizewell C public consultation closes on Sept 27. Details of how to respond can be found at sizewellc.co.uk

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/battle-nature-versus-nuclear-will-sizewell-c-destroy-minsmere/

September 24, 2019 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Ever cheaper wind energy a big threat to UK’s nuclear white elephants

Times 21st Sept 2019, Alistair Osborne: Who wouldn’t prefer clean energy from Dogger than, say, Hinkley Point C: the £20 billion nuclear disaster in leafy Somerset?

The latest round of offshore wind contracts is quite a moment. For the first time, it looks like being subsidy-free. Companies have agreed to build 5.5 gigawatts of new capacity, enough to power almost seven million homes, for a guaranteed price of as little as £39.65 per megawatt hour – in 2012 prices. Compare that to the price for when the turbines start whirring in 2023-24, also in 2012 money: £48.13/MWh. In short, clean energy without any extra cost to the consumer.

In just five years, wind has blown the competition away. It was only in 2014 that Dong Energy, now Orsted, signed up to build the 1,200MW Hornsea 1 project at a strike price of £140/MWh.
By September 2017, the guaranteed price for the 1,386MW Hornsea 2 was down to £57.50. And now it’s 30 per cent cheaper again: a dizzying drop that drives home two things.

First, that Britain, blessed with a nice bit of breeze, leads the world in offshore wind: by next year it’ll have 10GW of installed capacity. Second, that the more you build, the cheaper it gets.

If only the same thing could be said for nuclear power. The strike price for Hinkley Point, in the same 2012 money, is a rapacious £92.50/MWh: a socking bribe to get France’s EDF and its Chinese partner to build the thing. It’s set to rip off consumers for 35 years. Naturally, it’s at least eight years late: now shooting for operations in 2025, not 2017. Its French prototype in Flamanville, where building costs have more than trebled to €10.9 billion, is at least ten years late. Oh, and its welding’s dodgy, too.

And nuclear’s not even green: it comes with a vast clean-up bill. True, it brings baseload energy that wind can’t yet match. But storage technology is advancing all the time.

So why’s the government persisting with last century tech that comes at a radioactive price? Yes, offshorewind might endanger a seabird that’s forgotten its specs. But, luckily, it’s a bigger threat to another species: nuclear white elephants.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/597b8770-dbdf-11e9-9cfd-b79996a387b0

September 22, 2019 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Strong environmental case to scrap Bradwell B new nuclear build

Mersea Island Courier 16th Sept 2019, Native oysters at risk from new nuclear build. Graham Farley of Mersea Island Environmental Alliance (MIEA) shares why marine life in the
Blackwater Estuary will be at risk if the Bradwell B nuclear new-build goes
ahead.

CHINA General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) and EDF Energy are currently
circulating updates on the proposed Bradwell new-build nuclear project. In
their article they say that members of the public have a chance to win a
photographic competition or even submit their happy memories associated
with the original Bradwell Magnox Station!

My memories of the Bradwell Magnox station include: radioactive leaks, record fines, more leaks and attempts to cover up a catalogue of failures including the failed FED
dumping of radioactive waste in our estuary.

Unsurprisingly, there are no mentions of climate change and environmental protection in their
literature. It was assumed that with the decreasing cost of green energy,
spiralling costs of new nuclear projects and collapse of other UK proposed
nuclear builds that Bradwell would be shelved.

However, this isn’t so, as we have a copy of a Marine Licence application from July this year to
survey the estuary, which confirms that the project is still moving
forward. This document confirms the power station “will likely operate
with cooling water abstracted from the Blackwater Estuary”.

The case I’m making to stop the nuclear new build at Bradwell is environmental:
the Blackwater Estuary is one of the most important wildlife habitats in
the country, therefore safeguarding and preserving this habitat for future
generations is a priority! We must protect of the delicate ecology of the
mud flats, salt marsh and the shallow estuary with its many international
environmental protections and UK Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) status.

https://www.facebook.com/MerseaIslandCourierNews/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARCXSjfi2E_C6CL5eAX4Wa1zR6M4NHF98IQvB60PU0ALVpvfuFzC7Kyd1J8fQ6a4UpvR19lHEu5jwshV

September 19, 2019 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) see Revenue Asset Base (RAB) financial model as a danger to UK’s public purse

NFLA 16th Sept 2019, The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) publishes today its response to
the UK Government consultation on the Revenue Asset Base (RAB) financial
model being proposed to assist the funding of new nuclear reactors.

NFLA see this new model as a real risk to the public purse, providing
preferential treatment to new nuclear over renewable energy investment, is
overly complicated to implement at a time when the ‘climate emergency’
calls for more straightforward and realisable schemes like energy
efficiency and decentralised energy solutions instead.

http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-view-governments-proposed-funding-new-nuclear-reactors-moving-risks-taxpayer/

September 19, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Opposition in Suffolk to Sizewell nuclear plan, which hugely threatens wildlife

ITV 15th Sept 2019, RSPB hosts new festival in response to EDF’s plans to build nuclear reactor
at the edges of a nature reserve. A thousand people attended a festival
today organised by the RSPB in response to EDF’s plans to build a nuclear
reactor in Suffolk. Sizewell C will be built on the boundary of the
Minsmere Nature Reserve which is home to more than five and a half thousand
species of wildlife.

The RSPB manages the site and opposes the energy
giants plans. They say building the reactor so close to the nature reserve
could threaten the thousands of different species of wildlife that call
Minsmere home. EDF say that the environmental impact of the new site would
be kept to a minimum, and argue that new jobs for local people will be
provided.

Among the visitors supporting the festival today (Sunday,
September 15) was television presenter, Bill Turnbull, who lives nearby. He
said: There’s no infrastructure or communications for it here. What is
here, is Minsmere – where the RSPB have been trying really hard to get all
these birds to come back. And we are going to risk it all just simply
because it’s a convenient place to build a power station.” The public
consultation into EDF’s proposal for Sizewell C will end on September 27.

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2019-09-15/rspb-hosts-new-festival-in-response-to-edf-s-plans-to-build-nuclear-reactor-at-the-edges-of-a-nature-reserve/

September 17, 2019 Posted by | environment, opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

“The Guardian” co-opted by UK security services?

Getting Julian Assange   The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.

It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to undermine Assange.

In 2018, however, The Guardian’s attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began on 18 May 2018 with one alleging Assange’s “long-standing relationship with RT”, the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been closely documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.

How the UK Security Services neutralised the country’s leading liberal newspaper.   https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-uk-security-services-neutralised-the-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/ By Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis• 11 September 2019, The Guardian, Britain’s leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the ‘security state’, according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.

The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.

Snowden’s bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of mass surveillance operated by both agencies.

According to minutes of meetings of the UK’s Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence. Continue reading →

September 14, 2019 Posted by | media, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

UK continues to pour tax-payers’ money into (non-existent) Small Modular Nuclear Reactors


Nuclear Energy Insider 11th Sept 2019 Rolls-Royce group wins funding as UK SMR race gathers pace. The UK SMR Consortium has received financial backing from the UK government to advance
its small modular reactor programme, as part of the Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund.

The consortium, led by Rolls-Royce, comprises Assystem, SNC
Lavalin/Atkins, Wood, Arup, Laing O’Rourke, BAM Nuttall, Siemens,
National Nuclear Laboratory, and Nuclear AMRC. “The £18 million [US$22.3
million] government funding for phase 1 of the programme (from the ISCF
Wave 3 bid we were recommended from by government) is being matched by
industry funding in the consortium,” Ben Todd, Rolls-Royce Communications
Business Manager – Nuclear, told Nuclear Energy Insider.

“It’s a really big boost to the project, however we have a conservative outlook and
realise there remains a significant amount of work still to do and many
hurdles to overcome. Phase 2 will be a further circa £500 million [US$618
million] total (matched from government, industry and possibly equity
providers) to take through to the completion of the GDA process.”

https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/rolls-royce-group-wins-funding-uk-smr-race-gathers-pace

September 14, 2019 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK forest to be chopped down for Sizewell C nuclear project, though project approval not yet complete

East Anglian Daily Times 11th Sept 2019, Coronation Wood will now be chopped down to make way for Sizewell C – even though the proposed new twin reactor nuclear power station has not beengiven the go-ahead yet.

The application from EDF Energy, part of major
changes to the Sizewell B estate needed for Sizewell C’s construction,
generated a huge number of objections. However, it was approved by East
Suffolk Council’s (ESC) strategic planning committee by nine votes to
eight. Theberton and Eastbridge Parish Council, supported by a number of
other parish and town councils, will now ask the Secretary of State for
Housing, Communities and Local Government to “call in” the application and
consider it for a planning inquiry.

Paul Collins, of Theberton & Eastbridge
Action Group on Sizewell, said: “We strongly oppose ESC’s decision to
approve this application when the DCO request for Sizewell C has neither
been submitted nor approved. If Sizewell C does not go ahead – and there
are many reasons why it might not, including uncertain financing and major
environmental obstacles – the AONB will have been needlessly damaged.”

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-coronation-wood-and-visiting-centre-plan-decision-1-6265010

September 14, 2019 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Unacceptable risk to consumers: “regulated asset base” system to fund UK’s new nuclear reactors

How can we pay for new nuclear power stations?  https://www.ft.com/content/4b81682e-cf19-11e9-99a4-b5ded7a7fe3f, Funding methods that work in the water industry cannot be applied to the sector, NICK BUTLER 9 Sept 19, 

We are coming to a crucial moment of decision on the future of nuclear power in the UK, with implications for the industry across Europe and beyond. The basic issue is whether nuclear power can be provided at a cost that does not damage industrial competitiveness or impose an unacceptable burden on consumers. Without a positive answer to that question, nuclear will not be able to play a role in the transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Despite a long standing commitment to build 16GW of new nuclear capacity, only one new plant is under construction — Hinkley Point C in Somerset — which will, when eventually brought on stream, impose a long-term burden on UK consumers. The price agreed in 2013 — £92.50 per MW hour — looked extremely expensive then, but the real burden will come from the agreed index-linking of the price for 35 years. That already gives a price of over £100, a number way above those for competing sources of power such as wind, solar and natural gas.
The latest attempt to reduce this headline price slipped out in a consultation paper from the department for business, energy and industrial strategy in the dying hours of former UK prime minister Theresa May’s administration. The suggestion is that future nuclear power projects should be funded through the “regulated asset base” system. Put simply, the Rab would fund new projects from the moment construction begins through a levy on consumers. This would reduce the borrowing costs for the companies building the projects and thus in turn bring down the level of future bills. £92.50 might come down to £80.

This method of funding is a serious option for long-term projects with high upfront capital costs and has been used effectively in the water industry and elsewhere. As a mechanism for funding new nuclear, however, it is far from convincing. Water projects, such as reservoirs and pipeline systems, require large-scale capital investment. But the technology is proven and the construction risks are low. In new nuclear, however, the construction risks are high and to place them on the shoulders of consumers is unfair.

Of course, the dream of any company is to pass the burden of risk in any project to someone else while collecting a guaranteed stream of income once the project is up and running. In this case, however, the unfairness of such an outcome makes the model unsustainable. Consumers cannot be encouraged by the example of one of the few new nuclear stations being built in Europe — Flamanville on the northern coast of France.

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Flamanville began construction in 2007 and was due to come on stream in 2012. When I was working in government a decade ago, I was told that Flamanville would set the example for all new nuclear stations to be built in the UK. Today, Flamanville is still under construction. Earlier this year further faults were found by the French regulator and the commissioning of the station has been put back. The operator EDF has so far been unable to name the date when it will come on stream but has talked of a further delay of perhaps another three years. The cost of the plant was originally set at €3.3bn. Now the estimate is €10.9bn.

Under the Rab funding system, consumers would have been paying a surcharge on their bills since 2007 with nothing to show for it. They would have no leverage over the company building the plant and no scope for compensation. They would also of course have to pay in addition the cost of buying the power they need from someone else. Such an allocation of risk is unfair and unacceptable, and it is hard to think that ministers in a UK government, highly attuned to public opinion when it comes to energy prices, will impose such a system.

What are the implications of this? If the private sector will not fund new nuclear, and if no fair system of allocating costs and risks can be found, the 16GW of capacity required under current energy policies will not be built. That will be true not just in the UK but across most of Europe and perhaps even France, a country committed to nuclear power in the past and where a decision on new nuclear facilities is due to be taken in the early 2020s. Over time, nuclear power will become a source of power only in countries, such as China, where the state can provide full funding for new developments, as well as subsidies to conceal the costs to business and other consumers.
Nuclear’s future in Europe, Japan and the US is limited by these unanswered challenges. Of course there are alternatives. Wind and solar are becoming cheaper, and there is huge scope for energy efficiency. But until large grid-level storage capacity is available, economically viable renewables will always need some back-up — which means gas or, in many countries, coal. If Rab pricing systems are not the answer, is there another way through this dilemma? Next week, I will look at one possible option. The writer is an energy commentator for the FT and chair of The Policy Institute at King’s College London

September 10, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) gives incorrect information on Calder Hall

David Lowry’s Blog 4th Sept 2019, The UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), owner of the Sellafield  nuclear site, press release included two significant factual errors, so egregiously inaccurate, that they may be deemed deliberate ”fake news.”
The media release asserted of the Calder Hall ‘Magnox’ nuclear plant: “Hailed as the dawn of the atomic age, it made Britain a world leader in the civil nuclear industry.”
But, in fact, Calder Hall was not a ‘civil’ nuclear power plant, but a plutonium production plant run by the UK Atomic Energy Authority for the Ministry of Defence ( then called the Ministry of Supply) to provide nuclear explosive materials for nuclear warheads. In fact it was clearly stated at the time of the plant’s opening, in a remarkable little book entitled Calder Hall: The Story of Britain’s First Atomic Power Station, written by Kenneth Jay, and published by the Government’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell to mark Calder’s commissioning in October 1956.

http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-believethat-some-energy-industries.html

September 8, 2019 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

County Council rejects plans for transport of Hinkley Point A nuclear wastes through Somerset

Hinkley Point A nuclear waste transport plans refused, BBC, 5 September 2019  Plans to transport nuclear waste through Somerset and store it at Hinkley Point A, have been rejected by the county council.

Magnox, which manages the decommissioned site, applied for permission to bring waste from three UK power stations to the site by road.

But Somerset County Council voted unanimously to refuse the plans.

Magnox said it was disappointed the council had not agreed with the recommendation for approval.

Under current planning conditions, only waste generated on the Hinkley A site – which is currently under construction- can be stored there.

The company had applied to change the rules so it could transport and temporarily store waste from Oldbury in Gloucestershire, Dungeness A in Kent and Sizewell A in Suffolk.

It had wanted to make a total of 46 deliveries of “intermediate waste”, such as used nuclear fuel containers, by road through Bridgwater.

Despite being recommended for approval, the council’s regulation committee voted unanimously to oppose the application.

‘No benefit’

Councillor Simon Coles said approving the plans would send a message that more of the Hinkley A storage facility could become home to waste from other parts of the UK.

Brian Smedley, of Bridgwater Town Council, said the plans would have “no economic, social or environmental benefit” to the town……. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-49597817

September 7, 2019 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, safety, UK | Leave a comment

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