Areva and EDF, the French nuclear groups, have both defended the cost of new nuclear projects despite the €2bn of extra cost overruns on their flagship next-generation reactor at Flamanville in Normandy.
The news that the reactor, the first built in France for 15 years, is expected to cost €8.5bn rather than the €3.3bn first forecast comes as questions are raised about whether nuclear power remains affordable.
Chief Executive Luc Oursel said the reactor in Olkiluoto will ultimately cost about 8 billion euros, same as a similar reactor it is building in Flamanville, in northern France. That's well over the last cost estimate of around EUR6.4 billion.
"Our estimation is that the whole project (in Finland) will have a cost in constant euros close to Flamanville," Mr. Oursel said during a press conference.
PARIS (Reuters) - French utility EDF has raised the cost of the construction of its next-generation nuclear reactor by more than 2 billion euros on Monday, the latest in a series of overruns for the first EPR reactor built in France.
Stricter regulation in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster contributed to bringing the total cost of the 1,600-MW Flamanville European pressurized reactor to 8.5 billion euros ($11.11 billion), the group said.
British Gas owner Centrica is expected to write off £200m when it pulls out of the country's nuclear new build programme in the new year.
Centrica has the option of taking a 20 per cent stake in building nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk alongside French group EDF.
President Francois Hollande’s decision to shut Electricite de France SA’s oldest reactor at Fessenheim in 2016 may force the power-exporting eastern region to rely on imports and require extra spending on the local grid.
“The power supply situation of Alsace will become more fragile,” Dominique Maillard, president of grid operator Reseau de Transport d’Electricite, said at a press conference today.
Electricite de France SA’s plan to bolster the concrete base of its oldest reactor would be a world first and could be extended to the rest of its French reactor fleet, the atomic safety regulator said.
EDF, which operates all of the country’s 58 reactors, has submitted a plan to the Autorite de Surete Nucleaire to carry out a project to thicken the base of the 900-megawatt Unit 1 of the Fessenheim plant in eastern France. The regulator, which ordered EDF to improve safety or shutter the reactor by the middle of 2013, could rule within two months on whether the plan is viable.
China is poised to make a dramatic intervention in Britain's energy future by offering to invest billions of pounds in building a series of new nuclear power stations.
Officials from China's nuclear industry have been in high-level talks with ministers and officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) this week about a plan that could eventually involve up to five different reactors being built at a total cost of £35bn.
The Government is planning to write a "blank cheque" to the nuclear industry by underwriting the cost of new power stations, leading energy academics have claimed in a letter to The Independent.
Under a major policy U-turn being considered by ministers, the taxpayer would be left to cover the cost of budget over-runs or building delays at new nuclear plants. Costly setbacks are almost inevitable with such complex construction projects.
The owner of Scottish Power has pulled out of a multibillion-pound plan to build atomic reactors, dealing a blow to Britain’s faltering nuclear renaissance.
The decision by Iberdrola, the Spanish energy giant, means there is now a question mark over two of the three groups that planned plants. Ministers hoped the trio would build a dozen reactors generating roughly a fifth of Britain’s power over the next 20 years.
AP - A steam blast at France’s oldest nuclear plant Wednesday left two workers with slight hand burns and revived calls to reduce the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear power.
Nuclear safety authorities said there was no threat of radioactive leaks and that the incident at the Fessenheim plant in eastern France appeared minor. It touched a nerve, however, because anti-nuclear activists have long urged the closure of the plant. Those calls have mounted since the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant last year.
