The UK government says it intends to convert “the vast majority” of the country’s civil separated plutonium into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for use in civil nuclear reactors.
Westinghouse Electric has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Czech company Vítkovice for the manufacture of key equipment for the proposed new Temelin reactor units 3 and 4.
It would be silly to suggest that the nuclear industry is perfect. Accidents will happen especially as we build more plants around the world. But what the nuclear industry can claim is to have reduced the probability to an impressively low figure and the consequences are kept to a remarkable small impact on people. This is due to the fact that the nuclear industry works to much higher standards than most and learns from any mistakes.
EDF Energy has applied for consent from the UK’s Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) – whatever that may be – to build two new reactor units at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. EDF Energy is the French owned utility in the UK. Electricite de France will, according to the UK government policy, provide all the money needed to built two 1600 MWe reactor of the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) design developed by the French company Areva. One EPR plant is already being built at Okilluto 3 in Finland, another is following at Flamanville in France, and two more are under construction in China.
EDF should have plenty of money as it is operating 58 Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs) in France as well as the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGRs) in the UK. These produced 315 TWh in France and 44 TWh in the UK in the last year and EDF reported 47.2 billion Euros ($64.2 billion) of sales.
When EDF were building plants in France back in the 1960s and early 1970s there was a good deal of criticism of the huge debt that they were showing in their annual report but that all now seems like nothing. People in other countries are asking why didn’t we do the same.
IPC has now got 28 days in which to consider the submission and decide whether it should become a formal application. We have of course known all about EDF desire to build new nuclear plants in the UK for several years. What we need now is for them to get on with it.
There is also encouraging talk from the other major UK utility, NuGen. It is still saying that it want to build on a new site in Cumbria, near the Sellafied nuclear complex. They envisage up to 3600 MWe for this site which could be made up either of EPRs or the Westinghouse AP-1000.
It was feared that NuGen, which is now owned by Gas de France Suez and Iberdrola of Spain, might be a bit short of cash when the German partner RWE dropped out due to Angela Mercel’s mad decision to close all German nuclear plants because a nuclear plant in Japan had been hit by a horrendous tsunami. There does not seem to be much pressure in Germany for a reversal of this illogical decision.
Anyway, NuGen has recently announced that it is still interested and will shortly begin site characterisation work.
This graph, from the Department of Energy, was part of the presentation by Mark Higson, head of the Office for Nuclear Development, at SONE’s October AGM. It leads to four conclusions:
1 – Whichever way you look at it, nuclear is the cheapest source of secure, low carbon electricity.
2 – Offshore wind and carbon capture and storage (CCS) are grossly expensive – always assuming CCS is technically feasible.
3 – Energy Secretary Chris Huhne needs to explain how on earth he can maintain onshore wind is competitive.
4 – Britain’s energy policy, with wind and CCS two of its main pillars, is plainly irresponsible and wind a monumental waste of money.
