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The UK’s inadequate and messy energy policy has been thrown into sharp focus again. Last month, on the same day that a fracking project was approved by a council in North Yorkshire, MPs in Westminster failed, again, to pin down the French chief executive of the UK arm of EDF on when the firm is going to start building nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point.
Vincent de Rivaz’s latest appearance in front of a select committee of MPs had a certain air of inevitability about it. The final investment decision on the construction of the two 1,600MW reactors had previously been promised for early in May. But both the finances and the engineering issues of the EPR reactor are out of control. The deal to build the nuclear plant guarantees a price of £92.50 per megawatt hour for the electricity produced for decades to come. The build cost, which recently rose to almost £21 billion, is being part financed by the UK, French and Chinese governments.
Meanwhile EDF is still struggling to build at Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France reactors of the same EPR design it wants to use at Hinkley. The Olkiluoto project is nine years late and ¤5 billion over budget. The Flamanville EPR is €7 billion over budget and six years behind schedule. Earlier in the year a weakness in the steel reactor pressure vessel was detected that could set the Flamanville project back several years. Regardless of the environmental and safety debate around nuclear power, even nuclear advocates are beginning to admit that the UK may be paying over the odds for unproven and problematic technology.
De Rivaz told politicians in Westminster that the delay to the final investment decision for Hinkley Point is because of the need to conduct a 60-day consultation period with EDF’s Central Works Council. The works council is an official body for trade unions and management to discuss EDF’s business in France. This leaves the rather bizarre situation that 7% of the UK’s future energy needs are being decided upon by French trade union officials, some of whom are known to favour a three-year delay to Hinkley Point. In Soundbites, PE readers give their views on whether nuclear new build at Hinkley Point should be abandoned.
Meanwhile, a controversial decision to allow Third Energy to test for shale gas in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, angered environmentalists to the extent that they called it “a declaration of war”. The decision to give the go-ahead to the first fracking operation in the UK for five years was made by county councillors. But Third Energy still has several conditions and notifications to obtain from the planning authority and the Environment Agency before final assent is given. You could say that the government’s energy policy is a little out of its own control.
In this issue of PE there’s news of an innovative type of solar installation based on a sunflower, and of a battery that will double the range of electric vehicles. There are two stories about hydropower, one a technology that has taken 40 years to be commercialised, another a project to install an Archimedes screw in a weir on the Thames that is facing cancellation because of local objections. Engineers, it would seem, continually innovate to meet future energy needs, but the delivery of these projects remains in the hands of politicians, financiers and locals.