The Guardian today has two stories reporting that French company EDF Energy has had the funding for the Hinkley Point C nuclear powerstation approved by the EU.
Hinkley Point C will be subsidised by the UK tax payer and EDF has been guaranteed £92.50 per megawatt hour over 35 years for the electricity generated by the plant. However, if the price of electricity becomes high enough in the future, any return on the initial investment above the initially-agreed return will be paid back to the tax payer.
According to the EDF website, Hinkley C will have two EPRs producing a total of 3.2GW of power. It should be noted, though, that the design has been modified (improved automatic reactor protection systems) to meet the UK's strict nuclear safety standards.
World Nuclear News also carries the story.
Hinkley Point C wlll be the UK's first new nuclear power station in nearly 20 years, since Sizewell B.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09 2014, @05:12AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Open4D on Thursday October 09 2014, @07:23AM
It's a price I'm willing to pay for increased energy security and reduced CO2, though we can of course question whether those things should be funded out of the unit price (discussed here [wordpress.com]).
Private Eye implies that until the thing is operational, the energy security aspect is theoretical, because EDF "is actually not obliged to build the nuclear plant, nor is it obliged to build it by a certain date". And they have other criticisms, although I always take their science & technology views with a pinch of salt [wikipedia.org].
P.S. For any casual readers, you need to take the headline completely literally. The funding is approved by the EU, not provided by the EU. The EU has a major say in what you might assume to be an internal UK matter, because of illegal state aid rules [www.gov.uk].
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday October 09 2014, @04:51PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday October 09 2014, @07:27AM
They basically had to bribe EDF to build the new reactors, in partnership with a Chinese company. Nuclear is uneconomical in the UK, but because renewables are unpopular with some voters the politicians decided we had to have it at any cost. There was supposed to be some competition but everyone other than EDF declined, and even EDF didn't want to build new nuclear unless they had these massive, guaranteed profits.
It's a complete disaster.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @07:41AM
Quite frankly anything but coal are uneconomical in the uk, mainly due to the older plants still not having to obey current enviornmental restrictions, the thing here is that the government actually is doing its job and is looking ahead (take a look at the estimated remaining lifespan of UKs current fleet of powerplants (particularly coal) to see why)
And stating that everyone but EDF declined on the Hinkley Point C is a matter of perspective.. EDF is the only one who was filling to take this debate with the UK government and the European Commision, if you read one of the two articles linked at the guardian you'll see it ends with 'Horizon Nuclear Power, owned by Toshiba of Japan and which wants to build new stations at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire, said the EC move was “a huge boost”.' so there are interest to build nuclear in the uk but there are no general interest in fighting the legal battles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mojo chan on Thursday October 09 2014, @08:40AM
Right, in other words other companies were only interested once an insanely high price was guaranteed for the electricity produced. They assumed it would never fly because it was so completely bonkers, but now it has they want to be on the gravy train too.
As consumers we don't want them to build any new plants on this scheme, because they will cost us a fortune to run.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @05:47PM
Considering the CfD for nuclear is one of the lower I'm curious as to what kind of powerplants you would prefer them to build instead.
Also, in case the Hinkley Point C is built you really should champion trying the build of the Sizewell power plant since this will reduce the CfD to 89.5£/MWh (the entire idea behind the CfD is to tweak it, so yes - the earliest projects will get the highest CfD and after that it will drop).
However - yes, I do agree that it will cost a fortune to run, it would be much better if the uk gov't itself ordered and operated a couple of plants (or if they just gave very clear rules with little hassle - both Rosatom (VVER) and Kepco (APR) would happily build and deliver cheaply (at about half the cost of the current CfD) and quickly (at most 60months for each reactor) while still meeting the EU-safety-standards).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09 2014, @03:28PM
Does that increase with inflation or fixed for 60 years? What is expensive now, is rather cheap later. Plan ahead.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @05:57PM
The CfD is intended to decrease with each new plant build and over time (as per TFA). So it will remain this high (adjusted for inflation) for current projects and be lower to future projects (as per TFA).
Also, 60 years? The CfD for Hinkley Point C is only 35years (as per TFA).
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @07:13AM
From what I have gleaned of the energy-debate in UK there are CfD (the kind of feed-in-tariffs discussed) for pretty much all kind of new builds - irregardless of source (ie, it also exists for wind, solar, gas and so on)..
Would be mighty interesting to see those figures as well.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @07:23AM
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/25/solar-power-legislation-gaffe-department-energy [theguardian.com]
Found some figures.. seems it is about 100£/MWh for on-shore wind and 152£/MWh for off-shore wind..
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday October 09 2014, @11:32AM
Those are the figures for right now, and the cost of both solar and wind is falling fast. So what they are saying is that on-shore wind is already competitive with nuclear on price, and off-shore wind soon will be. Since they are guaranteeing the price for 35 years and it will take at least a decade to build the thing in the first place it's going to be more expensive for its entire lifetime.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @05:24PM
Actually, what they are saying is that right now nuclear is surrounded by legal enough legal hassles to make wind competetive (barakah nuclear power plant (UAE, 5.6GWe (4xAPR1400)) was ordered for 20.4bn usd (~12.5bn GBP), compare this to Hinkley Point C estimated 16-24bn GBP for 3.2GWe).
Also - yes, as long as there are on-demand-sources to cope with the intermittency of wind it is a very good alternative in heavily regulated markets (currently only pumped hydro comes even close to solving this this at the scales needed, some power-to-gas-plants that are being tried shows promise)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09 2014, @11:37AM
irregardless
No, that would be [oxforddictionaries.com] regardless.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday October 09 2014, @05:06PM
Thank you (in particular for the link) feel free to continue to help me to improve my english.
I was unaware that ir- and -less in combination are considered wrong when used as the opposite to regardless
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 16 2014, @12:52PM
Since the word has been used as meaning the same as "regardless" since the 19th century, I think I will use it irregardless of whether it is "correct" English. :P
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Thursday October 09 2014, @08:32AM
I'vefast-skimmed the articles, but cannot find the relevant info,
what kind of generator will this have?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09 2014, @08:43AM
It's in the summary, the site will have 2 EPRs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Thursday October 09 2014, @09:01AM
Great thanks. Didn't know which acronym to search for.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09 2014, @09:19AM
Runs 70% nuclear and 70% of the EU.