Hitachi has terminated its involvement in UK nuclear power projects, a decision that dents Britain’s ambitions to develop a new nuclear fleet.
Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant on Anglesey in North Wales and Oldbury on Severn in South Gloucestershire were being developed by Horizon Nuclear Power, which was acquired by Hitachi in 2012. The company had planned to develop at least 5,800MW of new nuclear power across the sites.
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Hitachi suspended both projects in January 2019 after failing to negotiate a deal with the government on financing the projects, a situation exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.
During the hiatus, Horizon maintained the capability to remobilise in the event of a new financing model being established. Horizon said it will now take steps to close its current development activities, adding that it will keep lines of communication open with government and stakeholders regarding future options at both sites.
In a statement, Horizon’s chief executive Duncan Hawthorne said: “Nuclear power has a critical role to play in helping tackle our energy needs, meeting our climate change targets and levelling up the economy through green growth and job creation.
“Wylfa Newydd on Anglesey and Oldbury on Severn are highly desirable sites for new nuclear build. We will do our utmost to facilitate the prospects for development which will bring the major local, national and environmental benefits that nuclear can uniquely deliver as we push to transition to a net zero carbon economy by 2050.”
Commenting on today’s announcement, Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said: “It is imperative that a way forward is found for the site, to deliver thousands of jobs, hundreds of apprenticeships and millions of pounds of investment into an economic boost for the area while delivering secure, reliable and low carbon power to underpin the UK’s transition to net zero.”
“If we are remotely serious about hitting our carbon reduction targets as a country then we need to invest now in proven low carbon technologies, including new nuclear,” said Sue Ferns, senior deputy general secretary of trade union Prospect. “The stark reality is that without replacement nuclear capacity the country faces a potential energy gap of 9-21 per cent at peak winter times.”
Time to look again at all the potential tidal energy generating barrages. But this time keep the real ‘green’ goals in mind rather than allow the local small minded environmentalists and NIMBY’s block what is probably one of the best green energy source the UK has.
Not anti-nuclear, but its not strictly a low cost renewable energy source or not at least until we we can use fusion, till then (always 20 years away!) better to use easier resources.
this decision by Hitachi leaves a major hole in the Government’s energy strategy and makes it more vital than even that tidal range power generation is explored as an emission-free source of electricity. The Northern Tidal Power Generation project for a barrage across Morecambe Bay and the Duddon Estuary is the most advanced project of its kind and now needs Government support to thorough test viability and lay the foundations for a new industry in the North West delivering thousands of high value jobs. The project will not only provide a new road link between Cumbria and Lancashire across the Duddon and Morecambe Bay, it will also safeguard the precious ecology of the Bay by protecting it from projected sea level rises over the next century, and alleviating tidal flooding. Emission-free power, economic regeneration, environmental protection and transformational infrastructure improvements – all in one project.
Nuclear power always raises a big debate on its pros and cons. However, the UK has more or less closed its coal fired power stations now and is dependent upon renewables and natural gas. Both of these are security risks: especially in the winter months when demand maximises, in terms of both availability and price. The UK has even cut-down on gas storage due to the short-term savings potential of demand side management and LNG import.
Both economically and security wise the UK is in a parlous state that has never occurred before, where, if gas supplies stop for political or financial reasons, we have virtually no winter storage to live on. Coal fired power stations held several months worth of coal, so were virtually independent of world wide politics.
Nuclear power is the only other reliable source of secure power: as France recognised many years ago – not having much coal or gas available. We need SMRs as a matter of urgency.
The sub-title for this article “Hitachi has terminated its involvement in UK nuclear power projects, a decision that dents Britain’s ambitions to develop a new nuclear fleet” gives the impression that this impinges upon Naval vessels, whilst the content of the article indicates no bearing upon such.
Can you have a “fleet” of power stations ? Surely being part of a fleet is based upon the premise of being a mobile unit ?
Indeed you can, as EDF say on this page: https://www.edfenergy.com/energy
There once was a time, when we were a poor nation, crippled by debt and recovering from a World War when we could actually afford to build nuclear power stations without the need for foreign investment, or indeed, any private investment. Here we are 65 years on and supposedly one of the richest nations in the world and we are unable to finance projects of this nature. Such is progress.
A literal fleet of nuclear power stations would be a good idea! I’ve carried out back-of-the-envelope calculations and reckon there are 22 coastal sites around the country which are cities or conurbations with a population at least 130,000. One (or more) ship-based small modular reactors moored at each site would individually produce combined heat and power (80 MW-electrical and 300 MW-thermal), the power going into the grid for local and national consumption and heat fed to a new district heating network for the local residents at a heavily discounted price (compared to gas)
The fleet would produce 5GW (five gigawatts) of new low carbon electricity generation and 10GW (ten gigawatts) of low carbon heat, suitable for household space heating and domestic hot water for 17 million people – about one-quarter of the UK population
This really illustrates that the nuclear power industry needs to adapt to survive, investigating innovative solutions such as SMRs or MSRs rather than iterating what is effectively a 1950’s technology (large PWRs). Of course to do this funding is needed, and unfortunately funding into nuclear power research appears to be very low priority, and bad for PR.
Tidal energy – especially tidal barrage – is a lot more expensive than offshore wind power, and even more expensive than Hinkley C power. So there is no electricity rationale for it.
Granted, there may be other reasons to build a tidal barrage, and Morecambe Bay could certainly benefit.
There might be scope for a Severn Barrage made up of steel paddles – see Rod Rainey Severn Barrage.
As the Head of Civil Engineering (2011-2012) at HNP, I learned a great respect for Hitachi and my counterpart Oshima-San. Having worked on EPR/ABWR/AP1000/HPR1000 and having spent time in France, USA, China and Japan I think it is time for a UK Review. We should buy-back Westinghouse and construct a fleet AP1000 in readiness for own own super fleet of SMR technology.
The decision to get rid of coal fired power generation is something we will bitterly regret. A couple of hard long winters with little wind or solar input should reduce us to and confirm our third world status. Dark, cold, wet, hungry, disease ridden and miserable. Is this what the eco-zealots/fascists truly want? If so I suggest they go off grid and into the wilderness.
I for one am getting heartily tired of being bombarded by endless torrents of quasi science being used to justify irrational actions, policies and strategies. It has become a growth industry designed to frighten, intimidate, confuse and distort. The green lobby seems to have untrammeled access to gullible media and politicians. Their understanding of the complexities of power generation is non-existent.
In many fields of engineering the major part of the cost is defined by the design – and then engineers are asked to try and take the manufacturing (or fabrication) cost out.
Additional constraints have been placed on nuclear reactor s that make it harder t o keep the cost/timescales down.
Admittedly making the same designs smaller (such as some SMRs) have beneficial effects on costs (and timescales) but any radical reductions require designs that are manufacturable. It is likely that having a modular design, at some level, will simplify issues and, for example, moving heat stores and heat exchangers and turbines out of the “nuclear island” will allow more off-the- shelf equipment and construction to be used.
The design of the fuel “rods” , selection of coolant and primary heat exchangers are major issues (for example if steam and or lead is used then corrosion at high temperature is a real danger – as opposed to most gases or sodium) – which may well require suitable designs to be developed (and possibly materials for high temperature applications).
I would favour design approaches, for pressurized components, that could fail gently (or not at all) – for example when fractures would propagate tangentially, as in some composites.
This is of course taking a different approach to the cost-reduction by building lots of them approach – but I would suspect has more potential. However such a shift in design requires research to establish what technology gaps there are (or perhaps are not?) – and it is unclear how this might be resourced.
If a SBIR project was tasked (and properly funded) by the government to doing the required scoping research (with the government department being the customer) then this could allow appropriate funding (hint 100% – as in USA) – and possibly any required research
They’ve been referred to as a fleet of power stations for decades now – clearly not a terminology you are familiar with, but in no way misleading.
Geoff Bateman raises a most interesting point about the post-war massive investment programme when the country was truly impoverished by an expensive war. The privatisation of our utilities has taken responsibility for future stability and security away and replaced it with short term profitability as the criterion for investment. Bodies like the CEGB held accountability and responsibilities and planned many years ahead. The owners of our utilities are primarily overseas owned and have little or no responsibilities for the future security of our systems.
The chickens are about to come home to roost but no one will be to blame……..