They always plead changes in regulations** / covid / inflation / phase of the moon or whatever, but it's hard to obscure the facts of their basic incompetence, as manifest in, well, every one of their wretched EPR projects. I could elaborate. Now, it seems, they're passing round the hat for another £4bn. Under the terms of the CfD, they pick up the tab for project over-runs - the only good thing about that contract. Personally, I suspect the extra £5bn just granted them "for Sizewell C" - even before it reaches FID, FFS! - is also really a cash-bung to keep going with Hinkley. Sizewell, you see, isn't going to be developed on the CfD model, it'll be 'rate-based' (to use the American term), i.e. nothing effectively reining back the costs: Taxpayer Will Pay.
I know nukes have their advocates, but surely that's only theoretical, wishing for hypothetical nukes that don't exist? Or, someone will tell me we could have a S.Korean one that actually works. Or indeed three, for the same price.
You just know it's also bound up with French 'cooperation' over the boat people. Ah, diplomacy. Thank Heaven the FCO is so good at what it does, eh?
ND
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**The CfD for Hinkley electricity indemnifies EDF against "unforeseeable" changes in regulation.
21 comments:
"I know nukes have their advocates, but surely that's only theoretical, wishing for hypothetical nukes that don't exist?"
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/
We could have a Russian one that works, Erdogan is still working both sides of the street. It's meant to be kicking off any day now, 9 years after first breaking ground and with a few hold ups (like having your planes shot down):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkuyu_Nuclear_Power_Plant
12.35 US cents per kW·h - is that a decent wholesale price? Seems high to me, I pay 20p but with a 60p daily standing charge.
There needs to be a reckoning of those who took these decisions to stop it ever happening again. The rot goes very deep across government/parliament/public sector so it'll require a lot of cutting to excise it.
We had a nuclear power station open near us when I was a boy. It was the first "factory" I ever visited. It was enthralling. I spent happy hours and days reading up on nuclear energy.
It was, I suppose, as a consequence of all that reading that I was recruited to take part in an HMG assessment of Chernobyl. Rather a delayed pay-off. Though "pay-off" isn't the right term since HMG neglected to pay me for my efforts.
Ask the Chinese (5 - 7 years per build https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-rate-of-nuclear-construction)? Or don't you rate their standards?
To be fair the Russian build in Turkey only started six years ago, and they're now in commissioning.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-5935/commissioning-work-started-atturkeys-first-nuclear-plant/
You like to think China will come good with a flagship product like a Tesla or a nuclear reactor. Anyone read "Poorly Made In China"? Book by a fluent Chinese speaker, Paul Midler, who was a middleman between US companies and Chinese manufacturers.
Here's a Chinese company selling antibacterial liquid soap to go on Poundland-equivalent shelves in the States:
Donald looked at some examples and noticed a logo on the back label of one of the bottles. It was a small outline of a rabbit and around the cartoon figure were the words: No Animal Testing. “That’s good,” he said. “You don’t test on animals.” It was a nice logo, and it was truthful. We didn’t conduct any tests on animals. Then again, we didn’t do any other testing either. King Chemical ran some basic checks to ensure the general stability of the formulation, but they were not the sort of rigorous tests that brought anyone any real comfort. We did not test for toxic chemicals or bacterial contamination, for example.
It's not the nukes that's the problem though, is it? It's UK Gov being useless at negotiations and handling big ticket jobs.
We pay over the odds for pretty much everything, and management of projects is generally a clown show. And it's not just at the top level, it runs through the nation like a message in a stick of rock.
You can take a chainsaw to all the red tape, and all that'd do it speed up being screwed, so more suppliers get their well funded jollies in before the nations purse prolapses.
I don't know what the solution is, but if we could just incrementally improve it, it would doubtlessly save billions.
Exactly right, CH - civil servants make truly crap negotiators. In both the areas I know well, (energy, defence) the examples are legion and BIG. Solution is to have state entities involved in as little as possible. (Including technically independent/ private monopolies because they get fat & lazy, too - no jeopardy.)
This can be made to work v. well across most of Energy - we're slipping backwards right now) but I despair of Defence.
https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1807677
"Coal India Ltd Plans to Produce One Billion Ton By 2023-24"
Daddy, why do India and China own our steel production?
@ND - I'm not sure reducing state involvement would do it, I can't speak of energy, but I've worked in/with any number of other sectors with private businesses as well as public sector and local government, and I've become convinced there is something in UK culture that has always been there, but globalisation has brought into sharp relief.
A big part of it is we focus on the tactical, not the strategic, so the bigger the project, the more spit and bailing wire is used early doors to stick disparate parts together, rather than being planned as solidly connected
Big Energy is almost always strategic because whole sector is staggeringly capital-intensive (phys assets, risk capital); pay-back periods are so long; deals (can be) so big & long-term.
I recall Samuel Pepys finding the King's ships always cost more than commercial ships - and were late.
If you embark on a one off big project you actually need the reality is you are bit stuffed for leverage. Unless you are in a position to say 'not delivered, it don't work and I'm not paying'. You can hire all the fancy consultants and lawyers you like the builder (if competent) will always beat you.
Only if you have a credible upcoming workstream the supplier needs do you have leverage. This is almost never true with power stations or military projects. You know it, the civil servants know it and the suppliers know it and the lawyers and bean counters know it. And of course the customer is always changing their mind and timescale and rulebook.
In the private sector a good project manager will be a rough and ready and numerate person prepared to sit down on site on a Saturday morning for a look round and a chat with the foreperson. Then prepared to give the supplier's accountants and project managers a kick where it hurts. The job is clear - build this by then, easy for everyone.
This can be a bit vulgar and a bit confrontational (the first time). Not suited to those with soft hands and lily livers. As a very competent Civil Servant told me 'we only hire you lot as someone to blame when it all goes wrong'.
@ND - I think that's the difference.
A lot of places are penny wise on capex, pound foolish on opex. The capex is a big number that focusses minds, opex looks a lot smaller and goes under the radar until someone starts multiplying by 12 and the number of years and finds a number that may have now dwarfed the capex...
Had a client paying 3-4x a month than what they needed to, were not interested in investing in fixing that as new BAU covered it, oblivious to the fact those cost were scaling with new business, and inside 12 months the investment would have paid itself off and padded those profit margins some.
"If you embark on a one off big project you actually need the reality is you are bit stuffed for leverage. Unless you are in a position to say 'not delivered, it don't work and I'm not paying'. You can hire all the fancy consultants and lawyers you like the builder (if competent) will always beat you."
I suspects the Chinese have a way round this problem - just tell the civil servant and builder alike if it all doesn't go according to plan its the Gulag for both of them........or a firing squad.
"if it all doesn't go according to plan its the Gulag for both of them"
Unless you happen to be the child of a senior CCP official. It's only occasionally one of them gets into serious trouble, and when they do I imagine it's just to keep people on their toes, so to speak.
If your senior CCP official parent gets purged, on the other hand, you could be in trouble even if you've done nothing.
With. AI requiring 100GW of power generation, bit tech is going for modular nuclear. Most likely using the SpaceX playbook. They will probably get there before Hinckley/Sizewell. Could well be one of the biggest benefits of AI.
Al
The greenists are not going to allow modular nuclear. Once they realise the scam is up with climate change as a way to enforce a 17th century lifestyle on the proles, super dangerous nuclear waste will become the next global crisis.
> The greenists are not going to allow modular nuclear.
I think it's more likely the high costs of SMRs (modular nuclear) will do for them. There is no evidence yet they are cheaper than big nuclear a la Hinkley Point C.
The first (and only) SMR build in the west (NuScale in Idaho) was cancelled in November 2023 as cost estimates had escalated beyond what the Utah power companies were willing to pay: $119/MWh after a $1.355 billion US govt contribution to build cost, or $89/MWh with the further $30.MWh subsidy from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Comparing the capital (& build finance?) cost with Hinkley Point C, the NuScale project was ultimately projected to cost $9.3 billion for 462 MWe generation capacity (6 * 77 MWe small reactors). Scaling that up to HPC 3.26 GWe output gets you to $65.6 billion, roughly the same as HPC actual costs even before the SMR project hits the reality of the build and likely cost escalation.
And that's with a private company running the build. Not at all promising for the SMR story.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/nuscale-cancels-first-of-a-kind-nuclear-project-as-costs-surge/
Unfortunately that article didn't provide the reason the costs went over. It could be technological, although we've had nuclear plants for tens of decades, but it's almost certainly regulatory.
Same reason we can't have new (reasonably priced) nukes in the UK. The boogeyman has already been set in the minds of the public.
Part of the promise of SMRs was that smaller scale meant it should be easier to accommodate them closer to where the power was required. If they don't have that benefit, then you might as well build fewer, larger plants.
Matt, I don't think NuScale had any great problems with the regulator. Their first 50MW version got licensed without any great problem, and they had $600 million of support from US govt DOE to design the reactor and get it licensed. V2 77MW version currently going through licensing seemingly OK.
But there are genuine economies of scale large nuclear SMRs have to overcome somehow. That's why actually-built reactors have gotten much larger over the years. eg larger objects have a lower surface are/volume ration, and surface area of a reactor is very roughly proportional to the amount of materials in the reactor containment (concrete & steel - large component of costs) and the volume is roughly proportional to power. So large reactors generally use less materials per MW than small ones, so are on that score at least cheaper per MW.
the NuScale design in particular uses a lot of concrete per MW, as they place the reactors into a large water filled pool made from lots of concrete & steel for passive cooling and accident protection
The SMR case is that this disadvantage is more than offset by a) the build will be much quicker, so there are much lower finance charges in the build phase, b) lots of smaller modules more amenable to cheap factory manufacture (but if each country has its own pet SMR design, not really enough volume to achieve this) c) small reactors easier to finance or start smaller and more modules added over time. But we have yet to see evidence that all this really works.
The future NuScale plan seems to be to build abroad with lower costs (Romania, South Korea etc), to a considerable extent financed by the US govt EXIM bank which supports exports.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/us-exim-bank-approves-loan-for-romanian-smr-project
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-ceo-defends-modular-nuclear-plants-after-project-cancellation-2023-11-14/
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