Hinkley is a “disaster” that’s “doomed to failure” because it’s using unproven technology on too large a scale, according to Tom Crotty, a director at chemical maker Ineos AG. The U.K. has also over-committed to wind power and should be investing more in solar energy, he said. Without a sound energy policy, the country risks falling behind other countries trying to develop low-carbon energy capacity. Big energy users such as Ineos also need stable policies when making their long-term investment plans. “The government has done quite a lot, let’s be clear, and we wouldn’t blame them for excitement over nuclear,” Crotty said in an interview in London. “We just think the strategy is totally wrong.” Building new gas-fired power plants to fill a gap caused by a three-year delay in Hinkley Point C could save the U.K. 3.2 billion pounds through 2030, according to analysis by BEIS that assumes low gas prices. Filling the delay using offshore wind and carbon capture technology would cost the nation 7.3 billion pounds. Hinkley is expected to be built by 2025. “In terms of the savings through building gas, if we took this option we wouldn’t meet our climate-change target in 2050,” BEIS said by email. It expects a price on greenhouse gas emissions to “add greater weight to the costs of gas in the 2030s, 2040s and beyond.”
Energy Voice 28th June 2017 read more »
The latest announcement from EDF that Hinkley C will be further delayed and that EDF will be hit with even more cost overruns risks making true the prediction of EDF former Finance Officer that the project will bankrupt the company. This may well lead to increasing pressures on the UK Government to put billions of UK taxpayers money into the project. Hinkley C, which former EDF boss Vincent de Rivaz said (in 2007) would be generating by the end of this year (2017) will now, according to EDF, not be generating electricity until 2027. Ten years on and the project is still ten years away! But meanwhile the company has spent massive sums getting not very far towards building the plant. It is now in danger of wasting even the money the French state has pumped into EDF to save the company and build the project in Somerset. Sixteen months ago EDF Finance Director Thomas Piquemal resigned, after EDF decided to make a ‘final investment decision’ over Hinkley C, fearing it could put the whole company at risk. Perhaps this is an echo of policy before privatisation of electricity when nuclear power appeared to cost very little simply because the Government, through the aegis of the nationalised industry, paid for all of the construction costs, not to mention taking responsibility for ‘back-end’ decommissioning costs. Then nobody noticed that they, the taxpayer and electricity consumer, were really picking up the bill. The nuclear industry longs to return to these bad old days.
Dave Toke’s Blog 27th June 2017 read more »