Amanda Jasi reports that HITACHI has announced the decision to suspend indefinitely its UK nuclear power station construction project, located in Wylfa Newydd, Anglesey, Wales. Experts have warned that this could lead to a UK energy crisis. The company also announced that it would suspend its other nuclear UK-based project in Oldbury. Construction was to begin after Wylfa was completed. Separately, in November last year Toshiba announced the winding in of a nuclear power plant project in Moorside, UK. Out of six sites that were identified for construction in the UK this leaves only Hinckley under construction whilst Bradwell and Sizewell are yet to be given the go-ahead.
Hitachi made the decision to suspend its UK nuclear project as it could not reach an agreement with the UK Government on project financing and related commercial arrangements. Last year it was announced that the UK government would share the cost of the Wylfa Newydd plant with Hitachi and the Japanese Government. The UK was to invest £5bn (US$6.4bn) in what was expected to be a £16bn project.
Leon Flexman, Corporate Affairs Director at Horizon Nuclear Power (HNP), told BBC News that Wylfa was costing Hitachi £1m per day, “a huge ask for any private company”. HNP is a 100% subsidiary of Hitachi, and is undertaking the UK nuclear project. If Wylfa goes forward it would generate 2.9 GW of energy, 6% of the UK’s current electricity needs. Together Wylfa and Oldbury would have generated 5.8 GW of energy. Suspension risks that generating capacity as well as up to 9,000 construction jobs.
Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said: “Nuclear has an important role to play as part of a diverse energy mix but must be at a price that is fair to electricity bill payers and to taxpayers. We will work closely with Hitachi and the industry to ensure that we find the best means of financing these and other new nuclear projects. And our commitment to Anglesey – with nuclear, renewables, and the deep expertise that it has, a real island of energy – will not be changed by this decision.”
Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of HNP, said that the company will “keep the option to resume development in future” and a Hitachi spokesman further told BBC News that the suspension “is not a stop”. Following Hitachi’s announcement many experts have expressed concerns and commented on the UK’s need for nuclear energy.
“Hitachi’s announcement, coming so soon after the Moorside fiasco, raises the very real prospect of a UK energy crisis,” commented Justin Bowden, GMB National Secretary for Energy. Matthew Fell, Chief UK Policy Director at CBI, said: “The loss of new nuclear projects could leave us more heavily dependent in the long-run on fossil fuels, which could risk our legally binding climate targets. The Government needs to build on its support for new nuclear power by giving individual projects the certainty they need, alongside measures that deliver a mix of low-carbon and renewable technologies.”
The Nuclear Industry Association said: “The urgent need for further new nuclear capacity in the UK should not be underestimated, with all but one of the UK’s nuclear power plants due to come offline by 2030. If we want a balanced generation mix, Government must work with industry to deliver that vital capacity on this site. At stake is our ability to provide bulk, low carbon power, energy security, and the potential loss of the chance of thousands of highly skilled, well paid jobs in Wales and North West England.
“Without a diverse low carbon mix and with increasing demand to power electric vehicles, we run the risk of becoming more reliant on burning fossil fuels to produce our electricity.” Jenifer Baxter, Head of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “This is sad news for North Wales and the UK energy industry. The construction of the plant, and its operation, were expected to provide hundreds of highly-skilled engineering apprenticeships and jobs in North Wales for decades to come. This is an area with few of these well-paid jobs and this plant would provide an important economic boost to North Wales.
“When built, it would have provided around 6% of UK electricity demand, all reliable low-carbon electricity, helping the UK meet its decarbonisation targets under the Climate Change Act. The reduction in nuclear power in the UK is a loss to our ability to decarbonise rapidly. This decision to pause development of one of our major nuclear energy sites combined with the decision to leave Euratom as part of Brexit will damage the long-term outlook for the nuclear manufacturing supply chain in the UK.”
Matt Barley, Chair of regional advocacy group Nuclear South West, said: “We will continue to work with industry partners and will do what we can to ensure that the impact can be managed, and we remain confident that a solution can be found for new nuclear development in the Wylfa and Oldbury sites. “Nuclear energy remains the only solution for truly reliable, independent baseload generation that supports our country's commitment to a low carbon future, and the nuclear industry presents a huge opportunity for the UK economy. In the South West, the nuclear industry remains buoyant, with strong progress in Hinkley Point C, Magnox and the defence nuclear estate.” However, not all commentary about the decision has been negative.
Doug Parr, Chief Scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “The government’s thinking seems to have finally caught up with reality. If the UK’s ageing energy policy is at last opened up to scrutiny, we must ensure that the main question is not how best to make the taxpayer cough up for new nuclear. There is little justification for spending our money on this outdated technology when even the government now acknowledges that renewables are cheaper, quicker to build, and cleaner.”
In another project, however, Adam Duckett reports that UK’s Penultimate Power has agreed to form a joint venture with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to build a novel small modular reactor in the UK to provide power and process heat for heavy industry. The partners want to build a 10 MWe high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor in the North East of England, replicating a design that has been running in Japan since 1998. Ian Fells, technical director at Penultimate Power and former consultant to the UK Atomic Energy Authority, said the venture is seeking approvals from authorities and he expects the £500m (US$651m) plant will be constructed within the coming 48 months.
“We talk about distributed electricity generation with wind, solar and biomass generation,” says Fells. “Now we’re talking about distributed nuclear generation.” Plans include scaling up the technology to 100 MWe, and building a factory, preferably in Teesside, to construct the modular plants for use across the UK. Though Fells said a timeline for this has not yet been agreed.
Fells says the technology could be used to fill the energy gap left as the UK shuts down dirty coal-fired power plants and as larger, traditional nuclear power plants reach the end of their working lives. Recent cancellations of large-scale nuclear projects in the UK led experts to warn of a looming energy crisis, and concerns the UK would have to return to burning more fossil fuels to provide baseload cover for intermittent renewables.
The JAEA’s design is helium-cooled and produces heat at up to 950°C, far higher than usual reactors. This heat is suitable for use by heavy industry, including for chemicals manufacture, desalination and direct hydrogen production through electrolysis. This in turn could be used to produce fertilisers and as a reducing agent in steel manufacture, replacing coke. “One great advantage is the intrinsic safety [of the design],” says Fells. Unlike traditional nuclear plants, which require controlled shutdown, a key advantage among SMR designs is that they will automatically shut down safely without power or human intervention, avoiding the out-of-control meltdown that occurred at Fukushima in 2011. This intrinsic safety feature means the SMR design is more likely to be authorised for use on industrial sites, Fells says. On funding, the project has international investors, and would need support from the UK government, he says, adding that the intention is that technology will be exported for use in Europe and the Middle East.
The UK nuclear industry has suffered setbacks recently, with backers withdrawing from plans to build new large-scale plants in Wylfa and Moorside (see above). “I think it is unlikely that [the UK] will build another large, traditional 3 GW reactor in this country,” Fells said. The UK Government’s support for SMRs has blown hot then cold. It launched a £250m competition in 2015 aimed at commercialising the technology but in 2017 scaled back its ambitions, announcing it would offer just £44m to prove the feasibility of a wider set of designs and then for development activities. Outside of this competition, NuScale has said it aims to deploy its SMR design in the UK with the first 60 MWe units aimed for operation in the mid-2020s, while Rolls-Royce has submitted design plans to the government for a 220 MWe unit.
See the full article: https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/uk-japan-venture-seeks-to-build-small-nuclear-reactor-in-north-east-england/
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