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Nuclear End Game
The UK nuclear industry has been continuing what
some see as a last ditch push for survival- by offering nuclear power
as a way of responding to climate change. Both BNFL and British Energy
are pushing for a "rational debate" on new construction in
the UK.
Hugh Collum, British Nuclear Fuels chairman, has
called for a debate on the future of nuclear power (see right). He said
that the nuclear generation industry had suffered from over- exaggerated
safety fears and that the UK would be unable to meet its greenhouse
gas commitments. BNFL has been pointing out that its Magnox fleet will
all be closing over the next decade- and that these elderly reactors
provide up to 8% of UK electricity. "Clearly the UK needs to
start thinking about how this contribution will need to be replaced".
BNFL said "With the acquisition of Westinghouse and ABB, BNFL
(now has) the necessary key skills, technology and infrastructure to
turn a call for new nuclear (construction) into reality should that
call be made".
In parallel, Robin Jeffery, chairman designate of
electricity generator British Energy, whose main business is nuclear
generation, has called for a "nuclear renaissance", raising
the prospect of building new nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom.
He said it was "crazy" that "the only proven
technology capable of supplying reliable baseload [electricity] that
emits no CO2 was positively excluded" from the COP-6 global
climate conference. "Do we in the UK intend to stand by and
see the demise of nuclear power in the UK, or will we be committed to
work together through partnership to achieve a renaissance? Working
in partnership [we can] create a financial and commercial framework
for a programme of new build."
Presumably by ‘partnership’ he meant with
the government. Although there seems little chance of the government
providing public finance for major new nuclear projects, whatever party
is in power, there are signs of a softening of views. In their election
run up, the Conservative Party called for 8 new PWRs to help meet post
- 2010 carbon dioxide reduction targets. Labour too seemed to be rethinking
the nuclear issue. ‘The attractions of alternative forms of
generation have probably been exaggerated. I therefore think we ignore
the nuclear element at our peril’. So said Martin O'Neill MP,
chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry
at a parliamentary debate on Nov. 8th. Jack Cunningham MP, whose constituency
includes Sellafield, commented ‘I would love to see it happen’.
Whether it will, remains very uncertain- given the widespread popular
opposition to nuclear power in the UK.
What about the prospects in the USA? British Energy,
Chief Executive, Peter Hollins, talking about plant life extensions
in the UK and North America, said "in the end plant has to be
replaced ... new nuclear technology may offer improved economics".
He said that if the cost of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere is taken
into account, "good new nuclear plants" should be competitive.
The Chairman of BE's US partner Exelon, Corbin McNeill, declared that
his company would be a strong contender if new nuclear plant orders
are ever made in the USA (Nucleonics Week 16th November). McNeill said
most of the problems of the 70’s and 80’s- high inflation,
limited plant standardization and high operating costs- were now under
control. McNeill predicted that the next plants would be a smaller design
like the high temperature gas cooled pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR)
that is being developed by South Africa’s Eskom. Both BNFL and
Exelon are partners in its development. If and when Exelon decides to
build in the US, it says it "is not going to build one or two,
but a whole bunch". However, Westinghouse, now part of BNFL,
disagree and thinks that larger plants would be more desirable. It’s
in the process of deciding whether to pursue AP1000 certification- a
larger-scale version of its AP600. The AP1000 has been floated as a
possible plutonium burning reactor which BNFL might decide to build
at Sellafield.
Nuclear cheap ?
Calling for a ‘rational debate’ on nuclear
power Hugh Collum, Chairman of British Nuclear Fuels plc, speaking at
the 5th Nuclear Congress 6th December 2000, argued that it was now economic:
‘Historically nuclear has not been economically
competitive, when compared with combined cycle gas turbines, but that
is changing. Many earlier designs of power stations were not completed
on time and to price, thereby raising the cost of the generation, and
the costs of decommissioning them were underestimated. But that is no
longer true.
A recent study in Finland, looking at generation
options for the future, concluded that new nuclear plant, including
building, running and decommissioning costs, would be competitive in
terms of price with all other alternatives, including combined cycle
gas turbines. The study found that if a 50% rise in gas prices was factored
in, generation costs for gas were 60% higher than nuclear. As a result,
the Finnish energy group TVO has applied for government consent to invest
2.5 bn Euros in a new nuclear power plant.
Let me give you an example from within the BNFL
stable. Our US based subsidiary, Westinghouse, has designed a new reactor,
the AP-600, which offers significantly lower generation costs than any
other nuclear station currently operating. With generation costs of
less than 2p per kilowatt hour it would be competitive with gas fired
stations. The AP-600 is now licensed for use in the US. All we need
is the orders.
The new Pebble Bed Modular Reactor currently
being developed in South Africa, in which BNFL has a significant shareholding,
is another example. It is a simple and cost effective reactor design
which will produce electricity at a competitive price. It also has passive
safety features of a very high order- if the operator does nothing it
shuts itself down automatically- and it has very limited waste output.’
He added ‘The recent UNSCEAR report on the after effects of Chernobyl,
fourteen years on, noted that, apart from a localised and high level-
but entirely treatable- incidence of thyroid cancers among children-
there has been no evidence of any long term public health impact due
to radiation exposure’.
The debate over costs will no doubt continue (we’ll
be surprised if they get down to 5p/kWh), but we can’t let the
claim on Chernobyl go without comment. According to a report in the
Guardian Weekly (Dec 19, 2000) ‘Ukrainian government figures
state that more than 4,000 clean-up workers have died and a further
70,000 have been crippled by radiation poisoning. About 3,400,000 people,
including 1,260,000 children, are suffering from fallout-related illnesses.
Unofficial statistics put the casualty rates much higher. A report by
the World Health Organisation earlier this year said that a further
50,000 new cases of thyroid cancer were likely to develop in young people
who are living in the worst affected region, known as the Zone.’
WISE, the World Information Service on Energy, has
produced a pocket sized booklet ‘Nuclear Energy; a dead energy’
with the US Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which distills
the arguments against nuclear power into 36 pages. In parallel, the
European green group Groenlinks has produced a critique
" Coming Clean: how clean is nuclear energy?’ which includes
an interesting analysis of energy pay back times. These are put at 0.62-0.9
years for wind projects and 10-18 years for nuclear plants.
Nuclear Renaissance?
As things stand, all but one of the UK’s nuclear
plants are due to close by 2025 at the latest, reducing the amount of
power generated by nuclear energy from 28 per cent today to only 3 per
cent. Most other western European countries are also drawing back from
nuclear power generation. However Finland is considering plans for a
new E2.5bn plant, while France, Europe's largest nuclear generator,
has unveiled plans to make its industry more commercial. And although
the Chernobyl site is to be closed, other nuclear plants are planned
in the Ukraine. So some limited renaissance may be at hand.
As noted earlier, there are also pressures for a
rethink in the UK- the Independent ran a editorial (16 Dec) saying ‘this
is a debate that is going to come, and it would be as well to start
addressing it now’. However, there are a number of problems in
the way, not least the future of reprocessing and the fate of the existing
inventory of nuclear waste - and plutonium. By 2010 the latter could
rise to 100 tonnes- two thirds of the world total. With no fast breeders
to use it, and the prospects for selling mixed oxide fuel (MOX) overseas
uncertain, something will have to be done with it, and also with all
the other wastes. We are still waiting for the Governments Green Paper
on Nuclear waste.
Meanwhile there have been hints that, in order to
get the privatisation of BNFL back on the rails, following the Japanese
MOX mess, the Government might consider setting up a separate nuclear
authority- a Liabilities Management Authority- to take over the liabilities
for decommissioning BNFL’s elderly MAGNOX reactors and cleaning
up the nuclear industries messes generally. BNFL’s liabilities
are put at up to £34bn. If this was covered by the taxpayer, it would
clearly be easier to sell off the proposed 49% government share of BNFL.
The taxpayer would also end up covering the other liabilities- the Observer
(19/11/00) estimated that the total bill might be £50 billion, including
the UKAEA and MOD related nuclear liabilities.
These sums are in undiscounted money. If decommissioning
the reactor cores can be delayed, it gets cheaper- because you can then
invest relatively small amounts over a long period to provide a significant
sum to meet the cost of decommissioning- as BNFL says it is doing. And
leaving it for say 100 years means that decommissioning is in any case
cheaper and easier, since the radiation levels will have fallen. The
Guardian (20/11/00) quoted BNFLs discounted liability as only around
£10bn.
Even so, that’s still a huge liability, and
with that facing the taxpayer, there’s no way the government could
countenance funding new nuclear plants, even if public sector funding
came back in fashion.
See the new Greenpeace leaflet ‘BNFL at a Glance’,
a lively parody of a company report. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?UCIDParam=20001030123054
No CDM support? No nuclear!
While the prospects for nuclear renaissance in the
USA and Europe are slight, there is more chance of expansion in Asia.
However, one of the conclusions that seems to have emerged from the
2000 general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
last Sept. was that if nuclear is not included for support in the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), there is unlikely to be much interest from
developing countries in pressing ahead with nuclear power. India, Pakistan,
China and Vietnam presented papers which warned that if they do not
receive CDM credits for nuclear, new construction will either be reduced
or cease altogether. The IAEA underlined the point with the extraordinary
admission that "nuclear would not be used by most developing
countries in the absence of the CDM mechanism".
There’s also the problem of proliferation of
weapons making capacity and materials. The industrialised countries
which are pushing hardest for nuclear power to be in the CDM- the US,
Japan and Canada- have refused to export reactors to India and Pakistan.
The UK and France have also declared them off-limits. The reason is
that neither India nor Pakistan has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), refuse to open their nuclear facilities to full-scope
anti-proliferation safeguards inspections, and are actively developing
nuclear weapons. It’s a particularly touchy issue for the US and
Canada, as they provided nuclear technology to India in the 1960’s
and 70’s which India used as the basis for their bomb program,
despite promising they wouldn’t. But at COP-6 in The Hague, these
same industrialised countries still seemed to be pushing hard to turn
the CDM into a subsidy for the India and Pakistan nuclear programs?
Were the US, Japan and Canada really proposing to provide political
and financial support through the Kyoto Protocol to two nuclear industries
against which they are currently imposing sanctions? Not only would
that have been, embarrassingly, an inconsistent policy, but one which
threatens to undermine global efforts to avoid proliferation.
(source: ECO’s COP-6 coverage)
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