The UK government's nuclear power programme will come off the rails because nuclear energy has become uneconomic, the builder of the crucial first reactor faces existential safety and financial threats, ...and other reasons.

1. Why the UK nuclear renaissance plan
is doomed to failure
in 30 pictures and charts
Jeremy Leggett

2. Preface
The slides are from the Future Today chronology
of selected developments in climate, energy, tech
and the future of civilization: www.jeremyleggett.net
The powerpoint version of this summary includes source urls
as notes, and is available free for any use, by anybody, at
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pJlLMT57QZbUP0ZjWf5RMrexzDuanaC2

3. 1. Nuclear power has become uneconomic
And grows increasingly so with each of the many
announcements of nuclear project delays and cost
increases, and every “we were surprised by how
much” announcement of clean-energy cost-down

4. 7th Jan
2016
6th Aug
2016 “Hinkley Pointless”
“Britain should
cancel its nuclear
white elephant
and spend the
billions on making
renewables work”
The Economist had
for many years
been strongly in
favour of nuclear

5. Nuclear is “ridiculously expensive”, “utterly uncompetitive”, says the
longstanding nuclear advocate: it costs $9bn now to build one reactor.
7th Jan
2016
24th July
2018
Nuclear power can’t compete with solar power:
former IEA boss Nobuaki Tanaka

6. 2. Key players know the game is up
Industrial giants once supportive of nuclear
need no further persuasion that they must
change to reflect the new economics of energy

7. For the first time, global solar capacity grew faster
in 2017 than all fossil fuels and nuclear combined
7th Jan
2016
5th Apr
2018
The record 98 GW of new solar built in 2017 increased the world’s
cumulative capacity by a third, to 399GW.
Fossil fuels
Solar
Wind
Hydro
Other renewables Nuclear
Global growth in net electricity generating capacity
(i.e. including retirements of plants)125
100
75
50
25
0
GW
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

8. 7th Jan
2016
One example of officialdom underestimating
exponential technologies: UK’s Ofgem on solar PV
7th Jan
2016
7th Jan
2016
25th July
2016
7th Jan
2016
6th May
2016
Ofgem
2010
based
on DNO
views
Low and Medium
viewed as most likely
Source: University of Exeter

9. Jerome Pecresse, GE Renewables: “We are inventing things that we did
not even imagine three years ago …renewable baseload is coming fast.”
“Utilities dispel all doubts about renewables' ability
to power planet”: Recharge on Eurelectric summit
7th Jan
2016
6th Jun
2018
Francesco Starace,
Enel CEO:
electrifying the
transport sector “is
not only a winning
strategy, it’s a
must.”

10. 7th Jan
2016
10th July
2018
This in the UK’s first ever National Infrastructure Assessment: at least
half UK power should be renewable by 2030, & can be at no extra cost.
UK NIC urges HMG to grab the ‘golden opportunity’
to ditch nuclear & go with cheaper solar + wind

11. “We must gain competitive advantage in renewable energy”, says
President Tomoaki Kobayakawa. Main focus: offshore wind.
7th Jan
2016
24th July
2018
Tepco, long a mainstay of the nuclear industry,
pivots to renewable energy

12. 3. EDF is in deep financial trouble
The utility on which the UK government’s plans
for nuclear renaissance depend faces an
existential threat with no obvious escape route

13. EDF begins construction of an Areva EPR reactor at
Flamanville, to cost €3.3 bn and start up in 2012
4th Dec
2007
This is intended to be the forerunner of 2 reactors to be built at Hinkley
Point C, the beginning of a new UK nuclear build programme.

14. “New UK nuclear plants under threat as 'serious
anomaly' with model found in France”
17th Apr
2015
At the Flamanville plant, already seriously delayed and way over budget,
high carbon is found in the steel of the pressure vessel: a potentially
lethal weakness. The vessel has already been concreted in.

15. • €18.5 bn market cap
• €37 bn net debt
• €22 bn for Hinkley C
• €55 bn to keep
French reactors safe
• € unknown billions
to fix high carbon in
pressure-vessel steel
(if indeed that is
possible)
So, what do you do if you are a CFO with a
balance sheet like this one?
7th Mar
2016

16. EDF CFO resigns over CEO’s failure to cancel Hinkley
Point C, thinking it threatens company’s viability
7th Mar
2016
Union representatives on the board agree about the threat, and vote
against financing the Hinkley project. UK unions strongly favour it.

17. 7th Jan
2016
15th Sep
2016
Pa
UK PM May gives Hinkley Point C green light after 6
weeks of indecision and veiled threats from Beijing
HPC is now a joint venture of EDF and China General Nuclear, who are
investing £6bn in the (currently) £18 bn project.

18. EDF warns of yet more delay and cost over-run
at Flamanville nuclear plant
7th Jan
2016
10th Apr
2018
150 “quality deviations” found in welding of pipes used to carry steam
to turbines in the (currently) €10.5bn ( £9.2bn) EPR reactor project.

19. Weld failures mean the nuclear plant scheduled online in 2012 at
€3.5bn is now probably delayed to 2020, at €10.5bn plus a lot TBD.
Nuclear regulator fears “epidemic” safety-culture
collapse at Flamanville: disaster looms for EDF
7th Jan
2016
31st May
2018

20. 33 welds need repairing. Nuclear fuel now to be loaded Q4 2019, EDF
says, cost up €0.4bn to €10.9bn. Now 7 years late and €7bn over budget.
7th Jan
2016
25th July
2018
EDF’s Flamanville: yet more bad news

21. 4. The nuclear industry lives on
a safety knife edge, globally
And after Fukushima, it cannot afford
a single additional major accident

22. Tepco wants to risk a meltdown at Kashiwazaki
for profits to pay for the meltdown at Fukushima
7th Jan
2016
28th Dec
2017
This, the biggest nuclear plant in the world (7 reactors, 8.2 GW) has
been shut since the Fukushima disaster. It sits on 2 active faults.

23. 7th Jan
2016
5th Sep
2016
BBC investigation finds Sellafield nuclear plant in
Cumbria riddled with safety flaws
Former senior manager tells Panorama of a catalogue of
neglect including degraded infrastructure, improper storage
of highly radioactive materials & chronic under staffing
Whistleblower most worried about the risk of a fire that “could generate
a plume of radiological waste that will go across western Europe.”

24. 7th Jan
2016
29th Sep
2016
Sizewell B and 27 other EDF nuclear plants “at risk
of catastrophic failure” from carbon anomalies
Report from Greenpeace France based on documents provided to the
independent French Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire

25. Yet another setback for EDF: a £120 million loss of revenue for the six
months the reactor is (supposedly) offline for repairs.
New cracks in a reactor core at Hunterston raise
questions about reliability of entire UK nuclear fleet
7th Jan
2016
6th May
2018

26. 5. Opinion in the business world is turning
against the nuclear industry
And as its desperation becomes ever clearer,
the UK government is in danger of over-reaching:
nuclear power in the UK is now effectively
nationalized, at great expense to taxpayers

27. 7th Jan
2016
19th Aug
2016
A major reversal in opinion on nuclear versus
renewables in latest poll of UK business leaders
A big majority for new nuclear 12 months ago. Now only 9% “strongly
agree”. 75% of IoD members support strong solar and wind policies.

28. 7th Jan
2016
4th Aug
2017
Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund will sell Areva shares
at a 86% loss …and stay away from nuclear
French media report that KIA has complained to the state that its
investment in Areva in 2010 was based on incorrect company accounts.
Areva is the
company that
makes the reactors
for Flamanville and
other EDF plants

29. Total cost of Wylfa, to be shared with Hitachi and Japanese government:
£16bn. Price of power: £75-77 MWh …more than solar & wind.
In a remarkable U-turn, UK government agrees to
£5bn public stake in a Welsh nuclear power station
7th Jan
2016
4th Jun
2018

30. 66% would be happy to have a large renewables project locally. 74% are
concerned about climate change. 35% support nuclear (22% oppose).
Meanwhile, UK Government poll finds a record 85%
public support for renewable energy, 87% for solar
7th Jan
2016
26th Apr
2018
Onshore wind:
not so unpopular after all

31. 6. Security risks are becoming intolerable
Despite Whitehall’s belief that military nuclear
needs civil support, the security risks posed in
the modern era simply by the existence of a civil
nuclear programme are growing fast

32. “It seems that Whitehall’s infatuation with civil
nuclear energy is in fact a military romance”
7th Jan
2016
29th Mar
2018
So argue researchers at the Science Policy Research Unit. They find
evidence of desperation to keep expertise for submarine reactors alive.

33. Hackers shut down Ukraine power grid:
Russian security services accused by Kiev
5th Jan
2016
Malware used had previously infected power suppliers in the US and
Europe, without shutting down the grid. This is a beginning.

34. Hackers take over safety system in “watershed”
attack on undisclosed energy plant
7th Jan
2016
16th Dec
2017
Schneider Electric reports first breach of their safety systems, used in
fossil-fuel and nuclear plants. Malware dubbed “Triton” used.

35. Cyberattacks have turned potential control of US
power plants over to Russia, DHS reports
7th Jan
2016
15th Mar
2018
Russian cyberattacks surged last year, starting three months after
Donald Trump took office, the Department of Homeland Security says.

36. 7. And then there is global warming
If governments do not shut down residual nuclear
programmes, it seems climate-change impacts will
at some point - in the case of the many reactors
on coasts and rivers - do the job for them

37. Nuclear regulators around the world have used out-
of-date scientific understanding of sea-level rise
8th Aug
2018
Ensia: “A number of scientific papers published in 2018 suggest that
climate change will impact coastal nuclear plants earlier and harder than
the industry, governments or regulatory bodies have expected.”
c. 1 in 4 of the world’s
460 operating
commercial reactors
are on coastlines

38. Water is too warm for reactor cooling in the sea off Sweden and Finland,
& the River Rhone too warm in France. Shut reactor: Ringhals, Sweden.
7th Jan
2016
1st Aug
2018
Heatwave forces 3 Nordic reactors to be curbed, 1
to close, more expected, & EDF may close 4 reactors

39. Not the first time: heatwaves forced nuclear shutdowns or curtailments
across Europe in 2003, 2006, and 2015. A microcosm of the future.
7th Jan
2016
16th Aug
2018
Renewables offset fossil & nuclear shortfalls in
generation as heatwave limits their water use