Hinkley Point Attacked By Former Energy Secretary
By Paul Homewood
Lord Howell, former Energy Secretary in the Thatcher Government, has weighed in on the Hinkley Point deal:
“I’m very pro-nuclear, I’m pro its low carbon contribution but this must be one of the worst deals ever for British households and British industry.
“When you add to this that the component suppliers to EDF are in trouble, costs keep rising, no reactor of this kind has ever been completed successfully – those that have been built are years behind – workers at the site have been laid off, personally I would shed no tears at all if the elephantine Hinkley C project was abandoned in favour of smaller, possibly cheaper, nuclear plants a bit later on.
“Our far better hope lies with Japanese nuclear plans at Wylfa and Moorside. They can build quicker with more tested and reliable reactor designs, and because of cheap gas for years to come we will not need them so soon anyway.
“And I’d very much like to hear the minister’s assessment of what is happening on this front.”
The father-in-law of Chancellor George Osborne welcomed changes in the Bill connected to onshore wind support and measures designed to help North Sea oil and gas.
He said he hoped the proposed legislation was the “harbinger of more changes” to come, adding the Government’s energy policy is one of the “less happy legacies” of the coalition with “major alterations” required.
But the peer said energy policy-makers had failed to resolve the need to combine affordability, reliability and decarbonisation.
Lord Howell warned energy prices are “through the roof”, adding: “It is ridiculous that in an advanced society energy and fuel banks have to be opened to help vulnerable people avoid freezing, or that Tata Steel has to lay off hundreds of workers because of cripplingly high electricity costs.
“This is self-harm on a grand scale.”
The electricity supply system has become “precarious” while new gas turbine capacity is not being built fast enough despite the Government’s “heroic” attempts to attract new investors, Lord Howell said.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Paul, is it just possible that some common sense is breaking out over Energy Policy?
I’ve been banging on the for ages that the EPR is a dinosaur of a design and that the current nuclear options are the far better AP1000 and ABWR, both being examined by the ONR. See http://www.onr.org.uk/new-reactors/assessment.htm
Ed Davey didn’t make a single sensible decision.
We can hope for common sense somewhere….now the left over here across the pond is attacking air conditioning. IF they can find someone anywhere in the world who is hurting, we must all be brought down to their level and that will be called “fair”. “Fair” requires the lowest common denominator and it is in evidence when it comes to their lack of common sense.
We sold our / Westinghouse PWR technology to Japan a few years ago, in another of our clever energy moves.
The old UK nuclear reactor designs based on the AGR have been pretty successful, why do we not resurrect these: proven and putting work into the UK?? A generation ago they were dropped largely because Arnold Weinstock who had massive influence was committed to PWR technology.
Not “We”, but Gordon Brown. He sold Westinghouse just a few months before he decided we needed to start building nuclear power stations.
The AGR technology has not been very good, whereas the standard PWR (as at Sizewell B) has been a big success.
I would suggest more research into Thorium based reactors, just as the Chinese and Indian Governments have.
The latest Westinghouse reactors have much to offer too.
Worth looking up.
Foglte 3 and 4 are being built by Southern in Georgia. Two gen 3 Westinghouse AP1100s will provide 2200MWe. Cost all in $10.5 billion. For reference.
Is that Georgia in the US or Asia?
US. South of Atlanta. US dollar value per Southern’s most recent estimate. Seems to on budget and schedule so far.
What’s happening with the ‘serious design fault’ on parts already built for the Hinkley reactor? There are ZERO working examples of this type of nuclear design.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-nuclear-strategy-faces-meltdown-as-faults-are-found-in-identical-french-project-10186163.html
Big problems with the reactor they building for Flamanville
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11662889/Faulty-valves-in-new-generation-EPR-nuclear-reactor-pose-meltdown-risk-inspectors-warn.html
‘Finland cancels Olkiluoto 4 nuclear reactor – is the EPR finished?’
This week [in May 2015] Finland cancelled its option for a second European Pressurised Reactor as the existing EPR project sinks into a abyss of cost over-runs, delays and litigation, writes Jim Green. It now looks like the EPR is a failed technology and its owner, French nuclear giant Areva, is fast running out of both money and orders as its ‘hot prospects’ evaporate.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2859924/finland_cancels_olkiluoto_4_nuclear_reactor_is_the_epr_finished.html
And on and on…
‘Twelve years after the first EPR was ordered there is not a single working example of the reactor, and the earliest projected date for completion of the first EPR is 2018 – and no surprises if that slips to 2020.’
Why are we constantly having to rely on foreigners to provide and build our infrastructure these days? It is positively humiliating to see trains being imported from Japan for instance. I agree that Hinkley point is a complete disaster. Why not go for Small Modular Reactors dispersed all around the country, close to the main areas of demand? This is one solution that the yanks are looking at, so why can’t we?
“Why can’t we”? Because we have had a succession of Governments who haven’t a clue and have been advised by green advisers and NGOs who hate nuclear power of any kind. Research money has been poured into useless renewable technologies and things like CCS.
If you want to see massive data tampering…… go to
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/national-temperature-index/time-series?datasets%5B%5D=uscrn¶meter=anom-tavg&time_scale=p12&begyear=2005&endyear=2015&month=7
turn on all three data sets.
Remember.. these all come from different measurement systems. 😉
Seriously..??????
Engineers and mathematician out there will have to have a laugh. !! 🙂