The weakening business case for nuclear energy

The Japanese energy company Hitachi is pulling out of building nuclear in the UK:
Hitachi scraps £16bn nuclear power station in Wales | Business | The Guardian

One of the alternatives is to allow the Russians or Chinese to build instead: 

The withdrawal of the Japanese conglomerate could leave the nuclear newbuild industry open to Russian and Chinese state-owned companies as Western private firms struggle to compete.

China’s General Nuclear Services, an industrial partnership between China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) and French utility EDF (EDF.PA), plans to make a number of investments in Britain’s nuclear power sector, most notably the Hinkley Point C project in southwest England. China’s CGN told Reuters it would bring forward plans to build a nuclear plant in Bradwell, eastern England, helping to plug a potential supply gap.

Hitachi halts UK nuclear project as energy supply crunch looms | Reuters

Perhaps post-Brexit, this would be a good thing:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and the fleet-footed, clever trading nation

But there are national strategic considerations to take into consideration when it comes to who builds nuclear - as the Welsh MP Geraint Davies has just warned:
China would be a fickle and dangerous ally for post-Brexit Britain | The Independent

And as this blog has considered, in the context of the nuclear build in Somerset:
Futures Forum: Energy infrastructure @ Hinkely C >>> losing control and paying tithes to Direct Foreign Investors
Futures Forum: The future of Hinkley: Is the UK government about to invest 'direct public subsidies'? And is China about to 'pull out of the UK, creating an even bigger tax burden'?

Indeed, in these parts, all eyes are now on Hinkley, as outlined by the East Devon Watch blog: 

HITACHI SUSPENDS WALES NUCLEAR PLANT – WHAT IS THE BUSINESS CASE FOR HINKLEY C

17 JAN 2019

Hinkley C is leaking out money from Devon via the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership, whose board (past and present) includes people with direct and tangential interests in the nuclear industry and that particular site.

Now we hear that Hitachi is suspending work on the nuclear plant it was meant to build in Wales. It is prepared to take a hit of more than £4 billion to walk away.

It begs questions:

> How can the French (EDF) and Chinese – who now own Hinkley C – make a business case for Hinkley C even with the massive subsidy for its (eventual) electricity?

> Just how much of OUR money is propping up these French and Chinese businesses?

> What is the Plan B if one or both of the companies fail; how much of OUR money will be used to plug financial holes?

> What effect has this had on renewable energy sources in Devon and Cornwall?

Hitachi suspends Wales nuclear plant – what is the business case for Hinkley C | East Devon Watch

Others are insisting everything is going very nicely:
Innovation drives Hinkley Point C construction | Feature | New Civil Engineer
Hawk Plant jobs saved as Plantforce acquires Hinkley assets | News | Construction News

Hinkley work progressing well as row over new nuclear erupts - Bridgewater Mercury 

However, there are bigger questions over the future of nuclear power in the UK - and in the wake of Hitachi's decision, these are being asked more urgently, whether it's about:

Climate change:
Why ditching nuclear is bad for climate change, good for Putin - The Scotsman
Climate change: Is nuclear power the answer? - BBC News

Or the alternatives:
Does Hitachi decision mean the end of UK's nuclear ambitions? | Business | The Guardian 

Scrapping of nuclear plant should see UK renewables filling the void

Letters
Fri 18 Jan 2019

An artist’s impression of the Wylfa nuclear plant in Anglesey, which Hitachi has announced it is pulling out of building. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The pulling out of Hitachi from the proposed Wylva nuclear power plant is a good thing for energy policy – not a serious blow as said in the article (Hitachi scraps £16bn nuclear power station in Wales, 18 January). Nuclear power is now one of the most expensive form of electricity there is. But beyond the economics, it no longer fits with the digitalising world that we live in. The global energy system is undergoing change similar to that in telecoms and computers over the last few decades. The energy system is becoming smarter and more flexible and it is on the path to being operated in a completely different way than hitherto because of that.

Nuclear – with its huge, inflexible output – is the equivalent of a giant boulder in the middle of a motorway. We, the energy customers of Britain, would have ended up paying way over the odds for Wylva, which would have also undermined the UK’s move to a smart and flexible system – which really is the future. We are already going to do that for Hinkley Point C.

Going down the nuclear route has been a wasted decade for UK energy policy. Exiting from the EU and the loss of flexibility we may end up with because of difficulties to do with interconnectors and market arrangements is a far greater threat to security than some phantom nuclear power plant from a previous age. 

Catherine Mitchell

Professor of energy policy, University of Exeter

Or lack of a Plan B:
The UK could suffer a blackout in 10 years if new a energy plan isn't implemented in the wake of the latest nuclear plant shutdown - The Sun
Will Britain's new nuclear age ever see the light of day? - Telegraph

Or cost:
Work on UK nuclear power plant halted over financing impasse - New Jersey Herald -
Government admits nuclear is far too expensive, but will renewables plug the gap? | The Independent
Hitachi pullout throws UK nuclear policy into disarray | Financial Times 

Why is the government cooling on nuclear?

Simon Jack Business editor

@BBCSimonJackon Twitter

17 January 2019

The previous power station at Wylfa was closed in 2015

There was a time - not so long ago - that government ministers talked enthusiastically about a new nuclear age. A fleet of brand new reactors producing reliable, low carbon electricity for decades to come. Not only that, but the government wouldn't be taking any of the risks associated with financing and building them.

Hinkley, Moorside, Wylfa, Oldbury, Bradwell and Sizewell were identified as the sites for the most significant national wave of new nuclear power construction anywhere in the world.

Of those six, only one is under construction, three have been abandoned, and two face an uphill battle to get the green light.

Under those circumstances, you might think the government would be embarrassed that its energy policy was in disarray. But it's not.

The collapse of the Wylfa and Oldbury projects today (following the abandonment of Moorside) is evidence of some new economic realities that have seen government enthusiasm for new nuclear fade.

High price

The first and most obvious is the cost of building the darn things.

At £20bn Hinkley Point is the most expensive UK construction project to date - HS2 will beat it.

The good news is that the UK government isn't paying a penny of it.

The bad news is that the electricity it will one day produce will be expensive.

EDF, the French contractor that's paying for its construction, could only raise the money to do it by extracting a guarantee from the UK government that it would receive more than double the current going rate - for 35 years.

That's one way to finance it. Let EDF raise the money and take the risk but ultimately foist the cost onto future generations of energy customers.

Who pays?

One of the reasons Hinkley is so expensive is that EDF needed to go out and borrow huge sums for a risky project at interest rates of over 9%. In fact, of the total £20bn bill for Hinkley, well over half of it was the cost of raising the money over the lifetime of the project.

There are cheaper ways to finance a project like this.

The government can borrow money much more cheaply than anyone else. Right now it could get a £20bn 10-year loan at 1.3% and use that money to build the thing itself. There are financial and political problems with that.

First, it adds to the public debt - which successive recent governments have been keen to reduce.

Second, if there are massive cost overruns (and that is almost a rule with nuclear projects), the government foots the spiralling bill, taking commensurate political flak.

Third, if the government is suddenly in the business of building nuclear power stations, why not other things - in fact why not nationalise the infrastructure we have already got? That is not comfortable territory for a Conservative government.

Doing the sums

There is a another way. Pay-as-you-go. Rather than lumber future generations with more expensive energy, get current consumers to pay a little extra on their bills (amount decided by the regulator) during the construction. This removes the need for massive borrowing and means you don't have to offer a juicy price guarantee to the contractor at the end as a reward for taking the operational and financial risk.

This is the model the government now prefers and is testing on the Thames Tideway project. If Sizewell and Bradwell are ever built - this is how they will be financed.

I say "if" because the truth is, the sums for new nuclear have been made very tough by the sharp falls in the cost of renewables. In 2015, the cost of offshore wind was over £140 per megawatt hour. That makes Hinkley Point look cheap at £92.50. The price of offshore wind is now £57.50.

But hang on, says the nuclear industry. The wind doesn't always blow. When it doesn't, you will have to fire up gas or even coal stations to fill the gaps in the depths of winter. You are jeopardising our chances of meeting CO2 emissions targets and threatening security of energy supply.

The government accepts some of this, and that is why Business Secretary Greg Clark said today that he is still open to new nuclear projects. But the government's preferred direction is towards smaller reactors of the type being developed by Rolls Royce, in which the government will contribute research backing, in the hope it becomes a major new export industry.

Future calculations

The UK government is not alone in cooling on big nuclear. One of the reasons that Wylfa, Oldbury and Moorside collapsed was because the Japanese government could not get sufficiently behind the Hitachi and Toshiba projects. After the Fukushima disaster, backing nuclear power - particularly foreign nuclear power - is a pretty tough sell back home.

Whatever it does, the government doesn't feel the need to do anything very quickly. The National Infrastructure Commission has said it doesn't need to make a decision for several years yet, and the National Grid says spare energy capacity is increasing rather than decreasing. Government sources say the resilience of the system to last year's "Beast from the East" also reassured officials.

All this makes life difficult for EDF, which wants to build the follow-up to Hinkley Point at Sizewell. They will argue strenuously that only by adding a second, do you realise the economies of scale. Same design + same process + same skilled workforce + different funding model = quicker and cheaper project. Also, the more you rely on wind, the more exposed you are to its intermittence. The only way to make sure you have a secure, low carbon, reliable "base load" is to double-down on nuclear.

That argument may yet still work but it is now much, much harder to win.

Why is the government cooling on nuclear? - BBC News
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