Skip to main content

Nuclear Expansion an Issue in U.K. Election

By Eric McErlain
It's election day in the United Kingdom, and current Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to win rather easily, but not without the opposition kicking up something of a racket. That's the case with nuclear energy, where Blair's Labor Party is straining not to mention a possible expansion that would help the nation meet its ambitious carbon emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

Here's the Times (U.K.):
Labour is determined to get through this election without saying where it stands on building new nuclear power stations — one of the “greenest” energy sour-ces in climate change terms, but a dirty word with green lobbies worried about waste and potential “meltdown”. Officially, Labour stands where it did in the 2003 White Paper: ill-disposed toward nuclear power and enthusiastic about serried phalanxes of windmills, rolling miles of biomass crops and “high standards of energy efficiency”. But even if renewable energy sources are able to provide 20 per cent of Britain’s electricity by 2020, as hoped, they would merely be making up a loss of around 20 per cent in electricity supply that will be inevitable if no new nuclear reactors are built. Nuclear energy furnishes nearly a quarter of Britain’s electricity today, but most of its 12 nuclear stations are due to be decommissioned before 2020.

But while Labor might not be talking about nuclear, a number of British companies are gearing up all the same, according to the Daily Mail:
BRITISH companies led by BNFL and Amec are lining up to take part in a £12bn bonanza to build up to 10 nuclear power stations in the UK.

The firms are developing advance strategies ahead of a widely-expected announcement to build the plants should Labour win the election tomorrow.

Both Amec and BNFL's Westinghouse are keen to be involved, with Mitsui Babcock, Bechtel and Kellogg Brown & Root seen as likely contenders.

Whatever Blair's plan might be, the usual suspects are already lining up in opposition. Click here for a previous post on the situation in the U.K. from a few weeks back.

Technorati tags: , , , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more