U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May recently gave the green light to Hinkley Point C, a long-debated nuclear power project backed by French and Chinese capital. Many sceptics believe it is a financial boondoggle in the making. The project’s lead, French utility EDF, has €37 billion of debt and declining revenues at home. Voices both within and outside EDF have warned that Hinkley C will bankrupt the company. The British have promised to subsidize the £18 billion project through a 35-year contract that will pay EDF twice the wholesale electricity price for the power the plant produces, while passing the bill to British ratepayers through extra electricity costs totaling up to £2 billion annually. (Although because the electricity is sold at a fixed price, that doesn’t mean it will be twice the wholesale price for 35 years.) A decade from now, when Hinkley will presumably be on-line and renewable power will be cheaper, more capable, and more likely to be backed by batteries, it’s uncertain whether the country will still have need for large and inflexible (albeit carbon-free) baseload capacity. The question is larger and more complex than Hinkley itself, and at its heart reflects a complex balancing act involving energy security, diversity and the country’s broader industrial aspirations. nuclear’s ability to contribute to carbon reduction is increasingly being questioned. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016 warns that nuclear will be of limited help to countries looking to meet their carbon reduction commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement: “While no energy source is without its economic costs and environmental impacts, what has been seen clearly over the past decade, and particularly in the past few years, is that choosing to decarbonize with nuclear turns out [to be] an expensive, slow, risky and potentially hazardous pathway, and one which few countries are pursuing.”
Green Tech Media 6th Oct 2016 read more »
Somerset County Council heralded ‘the start of a new economic chapter’ as the two parties put pen to paper on a deal, while anti-nuclear lobbyists Stop Hinkley described the move as ‘an enormous error of judgement’. Council leader John Osman said: “The contract signing is the point of no return on this extremely important project. Stop Hinkley spokesman Roy Pumfrey believes the deal is bad news. He said: “We will be paying the bill for this folly for decades. It’s a bad deal for consumers, a bad deal for Somerset, a bad deal for the country and a bad deal for the planet. “Somerset will fall behind other parts of the country which have a more forward-thinking attitude to renewable energy. “While other parts of the world are making fuel poverty a thing of the past and generating jobs from cheap solar and wind energy, Somerset will be left with a legacy of nuclear waste which we will be expected to look after for the next 160 years.”
Weston Mercury 8th Oct 2016 read more »