The future's bright...

[Keaney Michael <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Penners

If my memory serves, Brian Wilson's constituency contains the Hunterston
nuclear power complex. Just like another of his fellow New Labour converts,
"Dr" Jack Cunningham, he is looking after his industry clients.

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Plan for six nuclear stations

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Friday June 29, 2001
The Guardian

British Nuclear Fuels is to put forward plans to the government to build at
least four, preferably six, new nuclear stations on the same sites as its
existing ageing Magnox power plants that are closing after 40 years of
service.

The plan will be put to the government's energy review announced by the
prime minister this week and chaired by the pro-nuclear energy minister,
Brian Wilson.

BNFL's plans, if accepted, would be a radical shift in British policy. The
country's last new nuclear station, at Sizewell, was an expensive one-off
which opened in 1996 in Suffolk at a cost of £2.3bn.

Not only would the new reactors be cheaper, the company believes it could
build a new station in 36 months, a record for a nuclear station. The one at
Dungeness in Kent took more than 10 years.

The prime minister's review and the pro-nuclear Bush administration are
likely to rescue the company, which yesterday announced record operating
losses of £210m.

BNFL believes it can revive its fortunes by building a series of nuclear
stations on both sides of the Atlantic.

By building six stations in the UK BNFL will tell the government it can
compete with gas on price and achieve the "diversity" of electricity supply
Mr Blair is seeking. Costs will be cut because the new reactors could be
plugged into the existing grid lines that serve the Magnox reactors.

One of the sites mentioned by BNFL's chairman, Hugh Collum, yesterday was
Oldbury in Gloucestershire, where the Magnox station has already closed.
Work could begin almost immediately.

But the company emphasised that the plan would only work if the planning
system was altered so a series of stations could be build on a "production
line basis" one after another. Currently, nuclear power provides 25% of the
country's energy supply but this will reduce to 3% by 2020 as nuclear
stations close. BNFL believes it could get that back up to 20%.

Norman Askew, the company's chief executive, said: "We have a new design,
the AP600 ... but we could not build a one-off and expect it to be economic.
We need a proper agreed plan, four to six, or more stations if possible and
build one after the other, to get economies of scale.

"We would need to build two series of AP 600s on both sides of the Atlantic
of slightly different design."

Mark Johnston, of Friends of the Earth, said: "We will fiercely oppose any
new proposals for nuclear power stations. Renewables can already deliver
more power for less subsidy and will overtake natural gas as the preferred
power producer.

"The two hurdles the nuclear industry has to get over are cost and what to
do with the waste. They appear to be unsurmountable by BNFL in the current
circumstances. It would need the government to reinstate a substantial
public subsidy regime to make it work."

Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,514338,00.html

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx