UK getting more nuclear energy. Liberal Democrats drop opposistion to nuclear energy!

The Liberal Democrats agreed to drop their opposition to a new generation of nuclear power stations in one of many "unpleasant" compromises needed to secure a power-sharing deal with the Conservatives, the new energy minister said on Thursday.

Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat who has described nuclear power as a "failed technology," said it was worth sacrificing one of his party's key election pledges to bolster Britain's first coalition since 1945. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats agreed to share power on Wednesday after the ruling Labour Party failed to win a fourth term in office at an inconclusive election last week.

Under their agreement, the Liberal Democrats agreed not to vote against Conservative proposals to build new nuclear power stations to replace the current aging plants. "This is a coalition agreement that has always involved compromise on both sides," Huhne told BBC radio. "There are a whole series of compromises which have been struck in this agreement which I think are obviously unpleasant for each of the parties."

The pay-off for such compromises is a chance to "reshape British politics" and protect the economic recovery, he added. The Labour Party, forced out of power after 13 years, supports the new nuclear power stations and its votes would probably guarantee a conservative victory in any parliamentary vote. The Liberal Democrats, who say nuclear power is too expensive, would abstain.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-13/britain-says-new-nuclear-plants-can-proceed-without-subsidies.html

“If they come up with a plan which genuinely involves no public subsidy, and that’s the agreement of the coalition, then they’ll put it through the new national planning process, and the proposal will go forward,” Huhne said in an interview on British Broadcasting Corp. radio’s “Today” program. “We’re committed in the Liberal Democrats to not vote against it.”

the economics of new nuclear mean that equity investors are unlikely to earn an adequate return unless there is direct government support to reduce the risks of the project.

In our base case (which uses current industry forecasts for construction costs - €3,100/KW, and assumes on-time completion) new nuclear plants operating as merchant capacity in a pool system, do not offer an attractive risk-reward to investors. We estimate that equity investors would earn a return competitive to that offered by other technologies with at best a 37% probability. We also analyse the economics new nuclear on perhaps more realistic assumptions – higher construction costs and time over runs – and needless to say we find that equity investors are even less likely to earn an adequate return in a merchant market.

We also examine the items that we believe the market might have been too complacent in factoring in:
1. Load factors – a slowdown in demand and a consistent pace of renewable build out could reduce LFs in the European nuclear fleet (existing and planned) to as low as 56% in the next 20 years. This could also affect the economics and value of existing plants.
2. Purchase of sites – we estimate that should utilities have to pay for the sites of new plants, IRRs could fall by 100-300bps; and
3. System reinforcement – build out of new nuclear plants could require substantial investment in the system that could create, at minimum, planning delays.

In the face of all these, we argue that the risk-reward for equity investors only becomes attractive if government share part of the risk via either guarantees prices or volume purchases or support on financing/decommissioning.

Consensus view is that electricity demand in the wide European region will grow by 1.5% p.a. over the next couple of decades. This is a view shared by UCTE in its latest System Adequacy Report. Although it is virtually impossible to produce irrefutable electricity demand forecast we are tempted to argue that the risks are on the downside since:
1. During the boom years of 2003-07, when GDP growth was strong and infrastructure investment high on the back of very liquid debt markets and due to the convergence of the new EU joiners, electricity consumption grew by 2.1% p.a.

2. Energy efficiency is likely to become a bigger driver as technology advances and as awareness rises. It is important to highlight that such measures also fall under the Climate Change agenda of governments, which has been one of the driving forces behind the renaissance of new nuclear.

As a result, we would expect electricity demand growth to be in the 0-1% range for at least the next 5 years, before returning to more normal pace of 1.5-2%. We therefore see scope for an extra 346TWh of electricity that needs to be covered by 2020 vs. 2008 levels.

Should EU countries go half way towards meeting their renewables target of 20% by 2020 that would be an extra ca. 440TWh. Even if EU went only half way, which by all means is a very conservative estimate, that would still be ca. 220TWh of additional generation. Under its conservative ‘scenario A’ forecast, UCTE expects 28GW of net new fossil fuel capacity to be constructed by 2020.

On an average load factor of 45% for those plants that’s an extra 110TWh. Therefore under very conservative assumptions on renewables, we can reliably expect an extra 330TWh of electricity to be generated by 2020, leaving a shortfall of 16TWh to be made up by either energy efficiency or new nuclear.

There are currently 10GW of nuclear capacity under construction/development, including the UK proposed plants that should be on operation by 2020. If we assume that energy efficiency will not contribute, that would imply a load factor for the plants of 18%. Looking at the entire available nuclear fleet that would imply a load factor of just 76%. We do believe though that steps towards energy efficiency will also be taken, thus the impact on load factors could be larger.

Under a scenario of the renewables target being fully delivered then the load factor for nuclear would fall to 56%.

http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectionCode=132&storyCode=2040766

News

No new nukes for UK
07 December 2006

Clare Spottiswoode, deputy chairman of British Energy, has said that no new nuclear generation capacity can be expected in the UK or much of the the rest of Europe before 2020.

The comments came at a Platts energy security forum in New York where Spottiswoode was quoted as saying that, apart from France and Finland, it is "highly unlikely" that any plants will be built in the rest of Europe before 2020.

Spottiswoode added that the reason was that the rest of Europe would not undertake any new nuclear development until the UK does and it will take until at least 2020 for the UK government to put in place a proper planning regime and regulations for new construction.

With the UK’s current fleet of nuclear stations due to be all but decommissioned by then, a significant capacity crunch is looming.


Nuclear Engineering International ©2010
Published by Global Trade Media, a trading division of Progressive Media Group Ltd.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x109378

Reuters: No new nuclear plants likely before 2020 in Britain

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070820/tuk-uk-britain-nuclear-report-fa6b408_1.html

No new nuclear plants likely before 2020

Reuters - Monday, August 20 06:26 pm
By Daniel Fineren Reuters - Monday, August 20 06:26 pm

LONDON (Reuters) - No nuclear power plants are likely to be built in Britain before 2020, if they are built at all, which will be too late to fill the country's looming power generation gap, according to a report published on Monday.

The government wants the private sector to build new nuclear power plants to replace the country's ageing reactors and plug a generation shortfall left by the closure of coal-fired power plants under European environment laws.

But the report by Poyry Energy Consulting says the commercial case for building new nuclear plants is shaky and that none will be built without a higher long-term carbon price than that set by the current European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

"Despite the rhetoric, it is difficult to see much new nuclear capacity coming into the market before 2020," Poyry director Andrew Nind said.

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