UK customers to pay in advance for Hinkley nuclear power, AND cop the financial risk?
EDF’s EDF seeks to charge customers upfront for UK nuclear plants, Ft.com , 23 Nov 18, Financing scheme modelled on London’s ‘super sewer’ aims to cut cost of power from reactors Jonathan Ford in London NOVEMBER 22, 2018 EDF is pushing a plan to finance nuclear investment in Britain that it claims would cut the cost of power from new reactors to levels competitive with gas and renewable energy. The French state-backed power utility wants to use a technique commonly used in utilities such as water, airports and power distribution. This allows companies to charge customers upfront for new infrastructure. It is being used in the £4.2bn project to build a “super sewer” under London’s river Thames. But the mechanism has never been tried for a project as technically complicated and lengthy as a nuclear power station, which can take a decade to build. This and other challenges mean any gains are not assured.
Why nuclear revival is struggling to take hold EDF’s proposal comes at a time when Britain’s much touted nuclear renaissance is in danger of shorting out. The first deal — which will see the French group and its Chinese partners build a £20bn station at Hinkley Point in Somerset — was struck in 2016 at a guaranteed strike price of £92.50 per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2012 prices, indexed for 35 years and worth about £105 in current terms. Heavily criticised for being excessive, it was at least similar in headline terms to the prices required for renewables, nuclear’s main zero carbon competitor. However, renewable costs have since fallen sharply, with some deals for offshore wind farms being signed for as little as £55-60 per MWh with 15 year contracts. ……….
Uncertainty and delay, as UK struggles with plans for dealing with radioactive trash
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Writing on the GDF Watch website before the cancellation, Roy Payne said “there’s no doubting the commitment in Whitehall to try and finalise GDF siting policy before Christmas. But if you ask about timing, you get the same silent stoic smiles revealing the lack of certainty across Whitehall about getting Ministerial decisions on anything at the moment”. He says it’s likely that it will be many months after the policy is launched before we see any sign of active community participation. (2) The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) which advises BEIS on dealing with nuclear waste, has recently published a paper in response to calls during the most recent consultation exercise to select a site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) based on the ‘best geology’ CoRWM says RWM, the UK’s delivery body for a GDF, has developed generic environmental safety cases (gESC) for the three rock types: hard rocks (metamorphic and igneous rocks), soft rocks (clays and mudstones) and evaporites (salt deposits). CoRWM says the recognition that three very different rock types can provide for a safe GDF highlights the difficulty associated with selecting a ‘best’ geology as each rock type have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, from the technical assessment carried out to support CoRWM’s initial work: “Strong indurated1 rocks can provide repository concepts at depth that could provide long pathways and isolation from human intrusion. Weak indurated rocks could provide hydrogeological isolation but be constrained by depth limitations. Evaporites could provide hydrogeological isolation and low gas permeability. Excavations of some evaporites would be difficult to maintain over long time periods.” CoRWM concludes that geologic attributes or parameters cannot be compared across rock types, and the concept of a site which scores ‘highest’ on all parameters’ simply cannot occur. The different and various roles played by geological settings proposed for GDFs across the world highlight this issue. CoRWM says it recommended against geological screening in 2014 because the level of knowledge of the geology of much of the UK at the depths under consideration is too rudimentary to support a ‘screening out/in’ process. This position could only be changed by introducing, country-wide, a level of geological investigation, including investigative boreholes. This would clearly be unsupportable on both economic and public acceptability grounds. (3) Cumbria Trust believes CoRWM’s paper calls into question their independence. They are supposed to act as an independent body, but some of their recent actions suggest to us that they are too close to BEIS and failing to adequately perform their advisory function and to challenge poor decision-making. Cumbria Trust has written to CoRWM expressing its concerns. The letter says: “We feel that you are using an over-literal interpretation in responding to stakeholder consultation replies which advocated a search for the best geology, by taking this to mean the single best site in England and Wales. While a few stakeholders may have intended that in its very narrowest sense, which is clearly incompatible with voluntarism, we believe that the majority did not. By confining your response to this narrow interpretation, you have missed the opportunity to examine a more realistic and widely-held view. It is quite possible to combine the principle of voluntarism in site selection, which we accept, with some level of geological pre-selection. Cumbria Trust advocates actively seeking volunteers from areas which have promising geology, as recommended by many experts including the Lead Inspector of the Nirex Inquiry, Chris McDonald.” The Trust also refers to a statement made in 2013 by Professor Yardley, who subsequently became RWM’s Chief Geologist, in which he pointed out that due to the UK’s extensive programme of spent fuel reprocessing there is a significant amount of carbon-14 present in the UK inventory. This poses a particular risk to a GDF project and increases the need for an effective gas barrier to prevent radioactive methane, amongst other gases, from escaping. This is a further reason why a clay host rock may well be preferable for the UK. (4) 1 in a million CoRWM also points out that: A Geological Disposal Facility must isolate the waste it contains from people and the environment such that the risk levels to individuals that are most susceptible is kept within 1 in 1 million (10-6) into the very distant future. This is assured by developing a Safety Case which models the behaviour of the repository system. The Environment Agency (EA) has set a limit on the risk that may be caused by the burial of radioactive wastes of 10-6 (i.e. one in a million). (5) However, the NDA Disposability Assessment Report for waste arising from new EPR reactors states: “…a risk of 5.3 x 10-7 per year for the lifetime arisings of a fleet of six EPR reactors each generating a lifetime total of 900 canisters is calculated” (6) This is more than half the total risk of 10-6 allowable for a GDF for 9.6GW of new capacity. If the Government succeeds in persuading the nuclear industry to go ahead with 18GW of new capacity clearly this will exceed the risk targets set by the EA. Two ways round this have been suggested. Firstly there could be two repositories, but although both dumps might share the same access shaft, there would be a sufficient distance between two separate groups of disposal chambers so that you have in effect two dumps giving a potential dose to two different populations. The second excuse seems to be that if the probability of such an outcome is very low then the Environment Agency may allow a risk higher than 10-6. This kind of ‘make-it-up as you go along’ technique of risk assessment will not go down well with communities surrounding a proposed GDF http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/NuClearNewsNo113.pdf |
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Julian Assange at risk, as changes occur in Ecuadorian Embassy
Will shake-up at London embassy leave Assange out in the cold?, By Claudia Rebaza and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN, November 23, 2018 London The Ecuadorian government has removed its ambassador to the UK, sparking speculation over Julian Assange’s future at the diplomatic mission there.
Architects awarded contest prize for nuclear project that is now cancelled
Nuclear power station contest winners announced – after project is axed, Architects Journal UK, 21 NOVEMBER, 2018 BY MERLIN FULCHER Reiach and Hall Architects and K2 Architects have been named winners of the RIBA’s Moorside contest to provide a visitor centre and workers accommodation for the Cumbrian nuclear power station that was cancelled earlier this month
The contest, launched by the RIBA almost three years ago, sought proposals for the 200ha site’s visitor centre and for a workers’ accommodation campus nearby.
On Monday (19 November) NuGen finally announced Reiach and Hall Architects had won the contest for the workers’ accommodation campus while K2 Architects had been chosen for the visitor centre. Neither project will go-ahead.
A shortlist was revealed in May 2016 but the announcement of winners was postponed. Last year the troubled £10 billion project was placed under review after joint-funder ENGIE withdrew and the reactor manufacturer Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy.
Earlier this month, the project’s sole remaining backer Toshiba announced it had failed to bring its preferred bidder Korea Electric Power Corporation on board and would be winding up its subsidiary NuGen, which had been tasked with delivering the ambitious scheme.
In a statement, NuGen said: ‘Though prizes for the competition itself have been awarded, NuGen had hoped to be able to announce the intention to work with winning entrants, regrettably though as NuGen is the process of being wound up, there will not be the opportunity.
‘NuGen thanks all entrants to the competitions and wishes them the best of success in their future projects.’
………. A separate competition, organised by the Landscape Institute, was also launched in January 2016 to find ‘creative and sustainable’ proposals for the facility’s surroundings but no winner has been announced…
……The two competitions together had a £20,000 prize fund, with the winning architect and landscape architect receiving £5,000 each and a chance to bid for work on the scheme.
Reiach and Hall confirmed to the AJ that they had been paid the honorarium……. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/nuclear-power-station-contest-winners-announced-after-project-is-axed/10037412.article
Moorside project collapses, but UK’s Conservative government is Socialist when it comes to nuclear power projects
Another Nuclear Megaproject Bites The Dust, Oil Price,
Toshiba’s announcement follows word of a breakdown in negotiations with prospective buyer, Korea Electric Power (KEPCo). It appears the Koreans, like others, are rethinking their commitment to nuclear energy worldwide.
Absent the cancellation decision, Toshiba is likely to have had trouble financing a project of this magnitude especially given the stress on its finances from its troubled venture into American nuclear construction. The Moorside project in Cumbria will have cost Toshiba over £400 million and management announced it was taking a write off of £125 million. Toshiba described its decision as “economically rational.” Amen to that.
A government spokesperson commented, “All proposed nuclear projects in the UK are led by private sector developers and … this is entirely a commercial decision for Toshiba.” This is an interesting statement. The only UK nuclear construction project currently underway is owned by French and Chinese state controlled entities, financed with liberal debt guarantees provided by the UK government.
But let’s review the UK’s nuclear energy plans. There were at a minimum three large facilities planned. One for Cumbria, the Toshiba NuGen entity, is now cancelled. The Hinkley Point C units, being built by a French and Chinese consortium, are under construction and slated for commercial service in 2025-27. Lastly, Hitachi had a planned nuclear site in Wylfa.
Given the turmoil surrounding new nuclear construction, we have our doubts about the financial viability of Wylfa. This plant would cost at least 20 billion pounds ($26 billion). Press reports indicate government support would be necessary for close to two thirds of that amount. To further encourage developers, a government minister said in June that the government might directly invest 5 billion pounds into the project for a one third ownership share.
A little over three decades ago, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wanted her government to end state ownership of power producers. And she privatized the UK’s electricity industry. Her successors, who still call themselves Conservatives, seem to have reversed course. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Another-Nuclear-Megaproject-Bites-The-Dust.html
Because of Brexit, the clean-up of UKs radioactive Dalgety Bay is stalled
Delay in Dalgety Bay radiation remediation work ‘due to Brexit’, Courier UK by November 19 2018 A further delay in the project to contain radiation at Dalgety Bay has been blamed on Brexit.
It was hoped remediation work to contain radioactive particles at the contaminated shore would be complete by the end of next summer.
The East Yorkshire village almost wiped out by a nuclear bomb
It was, understandably, opposed by residents Alex Grove 18 NOV 2018
It is a quaint rural hamlet on the coast of East Yorkshire with around 600 people and a few small amenities.
Life in Skipsea is peaceful, sleepy and quiet, but a controversial proposal put forward by scientists 65 years ago threatened to effectively wipe out the village from existence and change the face of the seaside village forever.
In 1953, almost 240 miles away from Skipsea in another similarly small Berkshire village called Aldermaston, scientists at the Atomic Research Establishment seriously considered detonating a nuclear weapon next to Skipsea.
At the time it had a medieval church and the remains of a Norman castle but not much else, and its close proximity to the RAF base at Hull made it an ideal spot to explode an atomic bomb.
In the midst of the Cold War, the UK wanted to find a coastal site for an above-ground atomic bomb explosion after detonating under the sea off a group of islands near Australia in 1952.
They first opted for a Scottish beauty spot called Duncansby Wick near Caithness in the Highlands of Scotland, but this plan was halted by the damp.
They turned their attention to Donna Nook in Lincolnshire before settling on Skipsea.
However, the people of the small East Riding village were not going to relinquish their hamlet without a fight. Unsurprisingly, community leaders rallied to protest against the idea arguing the site chosen was too close to bungalows and beach huts. The area’s MPs encouraged the government to reconsider the radical plan and with opposition to the idea too fierce, the government backed down and secured Skipsea’s future with the bomb test carried out at Emu Field – a desert area in South Australia.
The village was still used later on by The Royal Observer Corps as a site for a Cold War observation post on the east coast of England. The site remained active from October 1959 until its decommissioning in September 1991. It gathered dust for years before being restored by an enthusiast ten years ago.
People may not think there is much to do in Skipsea with the village home to a couple of churches and post offices, a village hall a pub and a few shops.
However, this tale of old will just make you appreciate the fact that this quiet, sleepy village even exists at all.
UK’s THORP nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield was a dud – never met its operational targets
International Panel on Fissile Materials 18th Nov 2018 Martin Forwood: The UK government announced on 14 November 2018 that the THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield has started its planned shutdown. A
Sellafield Stakeholder committee was told that by 11 November 2018, THORP would have chopped up (sheared) its last batch of spent fuel, bringing to an end almost a quarter century of operation.
Based on the officially published ‘annual throughput’ figures (tons reprocessed per year) collated
by the environmental group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) since the plant opened in 1994, THORP has failed to meet its operational targets and schedules by a large margin. Just 5,045 tons were
reprocessed in the first 10 years of operation–the 7,000 tons only being completed on 4 December 4 2012–over nine years late. Not once during the Baseload period (1994-2003) was the nominal throughput rate of 1,000 tons
per year achieved. http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/11/sellafields_thorp_reproce.html
UK’s Moorside nuclear project will not go ahead unless the taxpayer pays for it
In Cumbria 16th Nov 2018 A nuclear power station for West Cumbria is unlikely to ever get the
go-ahead without the backing of public money. That was the conclusion of a
heated debate at a full meeting of Cumbria County Council, which saw an
urgent notice of motion agreed after tempers flared among the 80
councillors gathered.
It was the first time the council had met following
the decision by Toshiba to win up NuGen, the developer behind the £15
billion Moorside power station plans in West Cumbria.
The motion raised by David Southward (Lab, Egremont) and seconded by council leader Stewart
Young (Lab, Carlisle) read: “Council calls on the Government to enter
into urgent discussions with all interested parties and to take any
necessary steps to ensure that the nuclear power plant construction project
at Moorside goes ahead.
“Council considers that due to the level of commercial risk involved in projects of this nature, they are highly
unlikely to proceed without Government support, whether that be by way of
equity acquisition, underwriting potential losses or guaranteeing the
strike price.” Cllr Southward called the decision a “devastating
blow” and meant the area missing out on 5,000 construction jobs lasting
eight years, and a further 1,000 operational jobs.
http://www.in-cumbria.com/Moorside-Nuclear-power-plans-for-West-Cumbria-need-public-cash-2ebfba47-e6c9-4fb6-8a1b-1df5e4748f99-ds
Closure of UK’s Sellafield Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant – a commercial failure
15th Nov 2018 On the morning after the Financial Times has called on the UK Government to reassess its long-term energy plans following the demise of Toshiba’sMoorside nuclear project, the Stop Hinkley Campaign has published a briefing about lessons we can learn from the Sellafield Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant which is in the process of closing after only 24 years of operation and a very chequered performance.
The “Lessons for Hinkley from Sellafield” briefing says: The cost of building THORP increased from
£300m in 1977 to £1.8bn on completion in 1992. With the additional cost of associated facilities this figure rose to £2.8bn. Originally expected to reprocess 7,000 tonnes of spent fuel in its first ten years, it has managed only around 9,300 in 24 years.
The original rationale for THORP ended with the closure of the UK’s fast reactor programme in 1994. The new rationale – to produce plutonium fuel for ordinary reactors – was a disaster costing the taxpayer £2.2bn.
Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said: “The rationale for building the THORP plant at Sellafield had disappeared before it even opened. The lesson for 2018 is that we should scrap Hinkley C now before costs escalate. The cancellation costs are small relative to the £50billion extra we’ll have to pay for Hinkley’s electricity, if it ever generates any. If we wait any longer to scrap it,
we risk heading for another Sellafield-scale financial disaster.” http://www.stophinkley.org/PressReleases/pr181115.pdf
Nuclear material stored in UK, but owned by EU – poses a Brexit problem
What’s In the 585-Page Brexit Divorce Deal Document?, By Ian Wishart, November 15, 2018,
“………Nuclear Material
What to do about the fissile material owned centrally by the EU but stored in the U.K. posed a tricky problem for negotiators. The draft agreement will see the U.K. take over ownership after the transition period. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/the-brexit-divorce-deal-champagne-banks-data-and-t
Australian population – the guinea pigs for British nuclear scientists in the 1950s
British scientists secretly used Australian population to test for radiation contamination after nuclear tests at Maralinga,
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the agency said it had detected varying levels of Strontium-90 in all Australian capital cities.
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UK nuclear regulator completes 2nd stage of assessing Chinese nuclear reactor for Bradwell, in Essex
Reuters 15th Nov 2018 , The first Chinese-designed atomic reactor for use in Britain moved a step
closer to fruition on Thursday as the UK nuclear regulator said it had
completed the second stage of its assessment of the technology. General
Nuclear Services, an industrial partnership between China General Nuclear
Power Corp (CGN) IPO-CGNP.HK and French utility EDF, hopes to use the
design at a nuclear plant planned to be built at Bradwell in Essex, eastern
England.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/nuclearpower-britain-china/update-2-china-designed-uk-nuclear-reactor-plan-clears-second-assessment-stage-idUKL8N1XQ4A1
Wylfa nuclear power project may require an embarrassing state-aid plea to the EU Commission.
Dave Toke’s Blog 14th Nov 2018 , Clark’s plan to underwrite losses on Wylfa nuclear project will likely lead
to an embarrassing state-aid plea to the EU Commission.
Now that it seems, short of an extended ‘no-deal’ Brexit scenario, the UK will remain within
EU state-aid rules for a long time to come, Greg Clark will have to oversee
an embarrassing state aid case in support of his proposals to underwrite
the (almost certain) losses from building the Hitachi-led Wylfa nuclear
power plant.
I have already discussed how the taxpayer (and/or electricity
consumer) is exposed to almost certain multi-billion losses as a result of
the plan that Clark is touting here and in Japan. The last time that the UK
applied for what amounted to an exemption from EU state aid rules for
nuclear power was in late 2013 when Ed Davey led the plea for the Hinkley C
deal. The state aid was granted in October 2014 after the Commission ruled
that the Hinkley C deal was a reasonable way to avoid ‘market failure’.
Any application for state aid for Wylfa would be a tougher challenge. Indeed
the very proposal whereby the state will take at least a half equity share
in the project and take responsibility for cost overruns is an action that
in itself creates market failure if curbing carbon emissions is the
objective!
The Government’s cover story in 2013 was that support for
Hinkley C was on the same level available for renewable energy since
renewable energy schemes were also being offered CfDs (as well as very
extensive loan guarantees that most renewable energy schemes could not get
from the Government of course). The European Commission seemed to buy into
this line stating ‘The aid would not have a negative impact on other
low-carbon sources, given that they are also supported by the UK, and there
is no discrimination against renewable technologies’
https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2018/11/clarks-plan-to-underwrite-losses-on.html
UK: Reactor 3 at Hunterston B remains offline, due to cracks in the graphite core
routine inspection into cracks in its graphite core, in March. Cracking of
the graphite bricks in Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors such as Hunterston B is
expected as the reactors age.
the inspection of Reactor 3 has led to the licensee, EDF Nuclear Generation
Limited, carrying out further inspections of the core. Reactor 4 at
Hunterston B was taken offline in October for an inspection of its graphite
core.
one for Reactor 3. The safety cases will be assessed by us to determine
whether the reactors are safe to return to service. Neither reactor may
restart without our consent, which will be given only if it is safe to do
so. http://news.onr.org.uk/2018/11/hunterston-b-outages/
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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