10 months ago
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The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are dismissive of the UK Government’s announcement today (11 Jan) of a ‘Roadmap’ supposedly outlining the route to undertake ‘the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years’,[1] as another example of blinkered thinking by Ministers who are taking the wrong path to achieve energy security and net zero.
NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill said of the ‘Roadmap’: “Prime Minister Sunak and his ministers seem more like a group of clueless hikers too focused on the endless trail to their nuclear nirvana to see the turning immediately enroute which leads down the renewables path and the truly sustainable electricity future that Britain needs.
“Those with a cynical bent may be inclined to believe that its launch may not be coincidental in what is likely to be an election year as it represents a mantra of aspirations that will appeal to a certain voter base – two pointed references to Churchill are made by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho in the preamble – but is nonetheless completely unaffordable. How can a vast programme of nuclear new build costing hundreds of billions of pounds be paid for, when the HS2 railway programme was curtailed on grounds of cost?
“Despite several academic reports having been published in recent months outlining how the UK can meet its electricity needs through renewables [2,3,4] this government appears intent to once more trod the route taken by many Ministers before them – the route of greatest resistance – to the nuclear never-never.
“A plan based upon generation by a range of green technologies, coupled with energy efficiency measures and storage solutions, would be far quicker, far cheaper, and create many jobs to achieve the government’s stated goals of achieving energy security and net zero for the nation.”
The ‘Civil Nuclear Roadmap’ recommits the government to building a fleet of nuclear reactors capable of producing 24GW by 2050, around a quarter of electricity demand. Approval will be given for one to two reactors every five years between 2030 and 2044, a rate far faster than historic trends. The plan is predicated upon building a third large-scale plant alongside Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. This would most likely be located at Wylfa in North Wales, which was ‘talked up’ by Prime Minister Sunak in a recent interview with BBC Wales as ‘a fantastic site’.[5]
Government ministers are also wedded to investment in so-called Small Modular Reactors, which may be built at existing or former nuclear sites or co-located alongside large industrial consumers. A ‘competition’ is currently being held by a new company specifically created to take forward the government’s SMR ambitions. In the initial stage, Great British Nuclear has approved new SMR designs from six companies with a view to taking forward two as preferred competitors in the spring. The plan also provides for investment in a range of so-called Advanced Modular Reactors.
Alongside the ‘Roadmap’, the government has also launched two consultations. One is to establish a new policy on ‘siting’ nuclear plants on ‘a greater diversity of sites’ and with ‘a flexible approach to nuclear siting’. The second concerns Alternative Routes to Market for New Nuclear Projects exploring how to ease the way for new nuclear. To the NFLAs these both sound suspiciously like vehicles to favour developers by loosening the regulatory regime to enable SMRs and AMRs to make development and deployment possible on a wider range of sites, by adopting new procedures involving less planning, licensing, and consultation with elected members, community organisations and the public.
A third consultation on the taxonomy of nuclear projects, to declare nuclear a ‘green’ energy source to facilitate investment, and the publication of the government’s response to the consultation on managing radioactive waste are promised, but these have already been long-delayed.
But all is not ‘rosy’ in their nuclear garden.
Both the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C plants will be built and operated by EDF, a French state- owned company which is in dire financial trouble and is faced with the diversion of needing to make further significant investment in existing and new nuclear plants at home. Hinkley Point C, which is currently under construction in Somerset, is behind schedule and massively over budget. In 2016, EDF estimated the cost of building the plant at £18 billion, this budget has now mushroomed to £33 billion at current prices. The enterprise was a partnership with CGN, a Chinese state-owned nuclear company, which agreed to take a 33.5 percent stake, but which last month declined to put any more money into the project after meeting its contracted share, putting more financial pressure on EDF.[6]
The date of first generation has also been constantly pushed back, with the latest official estimate that generation from reactor one will start in the summer of 2027 and from reactor two one year later. However, it is interesting to note that both The Daily Telegraph[7] and now The Guardian[8] have recently printed that generation will not actually begin until the 2030’s. Even the road map is non-specific pledging only to monitor developments so generation ‘can come online later this decade’.
At Sizewell C, EDF’s partners, CGN, were forced out on a tide of anti-Chinese sentiment and the French and British Governments instead agreed to take a fifty percent stake. £1.2 billion of UK taxpayers’ money has already been poured in, whilst Ministers seek private investment from the money markets to enable them to reduce the government’s stake. Eager to move things on, in the ‘Roadmap’ Ministers have pledged to arrive at a Financial Investment Decision ‘before the end of this Parliament’ and to hold a future consultation on taxonomy, but this will not make money materialise.
For whilst ministers and certain sections of the media talk of the budget as being as low as £20 billion, this seems fanciful given the additional engineering challenges attached to development at the Suffolk site and the established runaway cost of Sizewell’s older sister at Hinkley Point C, and respected academics, such as Professor Stephen Thomas at the University of Greenwich, have calculated that the eventual cost could be over twice that. Although there has rumours of interest in investment from Middle East sovereignty funds and Centrica, nothing of substance has so far materialised, and investors may baulk at the cost.
Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C would both be equipped with the EPR, the European Pressurised Reactor, a design with a chequered history. One EPR in China was offline for many months following an accident and others in Finland and France have, or are being, delivered very late, well over budget and with a series of ‘teething troubles’. Even EDF’s former Chief Executive Henri Proglio, in December 2022 told a hearing of the French National Assembly in exasperation that: “The EPR is too complicated, almost unbuildable. We see the result today.”[9]
Interest in Wylfa has been expressed by American nuclear engineering companies Westinghouse and Bechtel, whose performance has proven to be lamentable at the VC Summer and Vogtle 3 nuclear projects in the United States. In South Carolina, a new nuclear project ended in a fiasco, with a corporate bankruptcy, prosecutions for fraud, and an inoperable plant which amounted to a ‘hole in the ground which had to be filled in’ at an estimated cost of up to $9 billion to state taxpayers.[10] Whilst in Georgia, Vogtle 3 has just begun operations after a six-year delay and with a $30 billion price tag.[11] More likely to coalesce is an interest from KEPCO, the South Korean nuclear company, which signed a commercial partnership agreement alongside the recent state visit paid to the UK by the South Korean President.
On the SMR front, only two of the six potential designs have so far been entered into the Generic Design Assessment process managed by the Office of Nuclear Regulation. The government have pledged to speed this process up but may face pushback from the regulators. Although the ‘Roadmap’ specifies 2029 as the target date for investment decision making, we are still at an early stage with the six designs still technically unproven and, as shown by NuScale’s recent experience in Utah, financially uncertain. As to the supposedly Advanced Modular Reactor designs, these are mostly rehashed concepts first developed in the aftermath of the Second World War, tried previously, and found wanting.
In describing the ‘road’ that Ministers have ‘mapped’ out, NFLA Chair Cllr Lawrence O’Neill added:
“This is indeed a rocky road involving dependency on foreign investment, foreign technologies, and, yes until at least 2030, Russian uranium; failed or uncertain reactor designs; the uncertain risk of accidents; the most certain generation of radioactive waste; and the massive cost of managing both it and the decommissioning of old plants. And reliance on nuclear will mean creating an energy network of potential ‘dirty bombs’ that will be a prime target for terrorists and hostile state actors in time of war.
“Nonetheless these Whitehall hikers are heedless, for ultimately it will be electricity consumers and taxpayers who will pick up the tab for their folly with new plants funded through the imposition of a ‘nuclear tax’ on bills through the Regulated Asset Model; through paying higher metered prices for the electricity generated by nuclear plants; by paying for the cost of decommissioning the old nuclear plants; and by bankrolling the ongoing management of the resultant nuclear waste.
“These costs will be especially burdensome for low-income households already faced with huge energy bills and would be iniquitous to consumers in my own native Scotland which has so robustly rejected nuclear.”
Ends//… For further information please contact the NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, by email at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-expansion-of-nuclear-power-for-70-years-to-create-jobs-reduce-bills-and-strengthen-britains-energy-security – Department of Energy Security and Net Zero January 11, 2024
2. https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/Oxford_Smith_School_Policy_Brief_UK_clean_energy_transition_2023.pdf – Oxford Street School for Enterprise and the Environment June 2023
3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222023325 – UCL published Energy January 1, 2023
4. https://100percentrenewableuk.org/new-report-shows-100bn-savings-with-100-renewable-energy-net-zero-plan – LUT University / 100% Renewables April 2023
5. Rishi Sunak hints Wylfa could be preferred nuclear site – BBC News September 28, 2023
6. EDF told not to expect UK to step in to fund flagship nuclear project – Financial Times, December 14, 2023
7. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/29/hinkley-point-nuclear-plant-faces-risk-11-year-delay/ – The Daily Telegraph November 29. 2022 / https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/12/15/worlds-largest-crane-lower-roof-hinkley-point/ – The Daily Telegraph December 15, 2023
8. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/11/uk-government-sets-out-plans-for-biggest-nuclear-power-expansion-in-70-years – The Guardian, January 11, 2024
9. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/a-mature-design-or-junk-edf-plan-for-sizewell-c-continues-to-rely-on-controversial-epr-reactor/ – NFLAs September 26, 2023
10. https://theintercept.com/2019/02/06/south-caroline-green-new-deal-south-carolina-nuclear-energy/ – The Intercept, February 9, 2019
11. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/vogtle-3-nuclear-reactor-is-finally-seriously-for-real-online – Canary Media, July 31, 2023
