Japanese conglomerate Hitachi, which owns the GE’s boiling water reactor franchise, has pulled the plug on plans to build a new nuke station on the coast of North Wales, citing the estimated cost of $20.5 billion. Tokyo-based Hatachi’s UK firm Horizon Nuclear Power, originally a German E.ON and RWE venture, had been trying to develop the project at the Wylfa site of two shuttered UK Magnox reactors, since about 2010. Hitachi bought the project from the Germans in 2012. At the time, Prime Minister David Cameron said the deal was a “multi-billion pound vote of confidence in the UK.”
The Hitachi project would have led to the construction of two 1,500-MW advanced boiling water reactors. Project development stopped in 2018. In a statement this month, Hitachi said it made the decision to scrap the project “given that 20 months has passed since the suspension, and the investment environment has become increasingly severe due to the impact of Covid-19.”
The Hitachi departure followed the 2018 exit of Toshiba from the 3,400-MW Moorside pressurized water reactor project. The company was unable to line up adequate financing.
Hitachi had hoped to entice the UK government to invest heavily in the project, but that turned out to be a pipedream as the British economy crashed during the pandemic. The collapse of Wylfa casts serious doubts on the future of another Hitachi UK venture, a 2,900-MW project at Oldbury on the Severn River, another site of two abandoned Magnox reactors. Work on developing that project stopped in 2019.
Two pressurized water projects that have actually moved forward are also in jeopardy, according to the UK press. Sizewell C, at a former site of two abandoned Magnox, has also encountered financing problems, along with local opposition. The project on the Suffolk coast, a planned two unit, 3,200-MW advanced pressurized water reactor (EDF’s EPR) project, is being developed by French government-owned Electricite de France, which bought the the UK’s British Energy in 2009. China’s government-owned China General Nuclear Power Group, which is under U.S. economic sanctions, is also a major investor.
EPR reactors are under construction in Finland, France, and China, with severe difficulties and delays reported in Finland and France. Sizewell C is undergoing regulatory scrutiny and financial insecurity, with an estimated price tag of more than $25 billion. EDF is lobbying to line up financing from the UK government.
That leaves only the Hinkley Point C project, a two-unit, 3,200-MW EDF project, under construction. The $28 billion project has seen site work underway, and some concrete poured, and the containment liner cups for both reactors in place. The British government is backing the project with billions of pounds of debt guarantees. Europe’s top court Tuesday ruled against a challenge from Austria’s government to the UK subsidy, concluding that the arrangement was not a violation of European Union rules. The EU Commission found that the subsidy deal was legal, but Austria appealed. The Luxembourg-based appeals court said, “The Court of Justice confirms the Commission decision approving United Kingdom aid for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.”
Britain’s checkered nuclear power history
Great Britain was a major force in early development of nuclear weapons. Work at the end of World War II was largely on bombs. The focus was on natural uranium fuel and graphite neutron moderation, to produce plutonium. Attention also moved to generating commercial power, which led to the Magnox reactor technology. Magnox refers to magnesium oxide fuel cladding, which is chemically reactive and the fuel must be reprocessed.
In October 1956, Britain opened the first commercial nuclear power station at the military complex at Calder Hall, using the Magnox technology. It was the first of eight small reactors at the site in Scotland. The plants were dual-purpose, generating electric power for the British grid and Pu for the country’s weapons program. Use of the Magnox reactors to make Pu ended in 1964.
The UK rolled out 26 Magnox reactors between 1962 and 1971, increasing in electric generating capacity from 131-MW to 490-MW. All have been shut down, the most recent the 490-MW Wylfa 1, started up in 1971 and closed in 2015. The plants had serious limitations, with low thermal efficiency (the percentage of heat that transforms into work).
The UK’s Central Electricity Generating Board, recognizing the limits of Magnox technology, in 1964 started a program to look at alternative nuclear technologies. That turned out to be a competition between a UK-designed “Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor” (AGR) and U.S. light water reactor designs. The AGRs used graphite moderation and carbon-dioxide cooling (the formula for the Magnox machines), but with enriched uranium fuel in ceramic form, producing high-temperature (600 centigrade) steam and better thermal efficiency.
The UK eventually chose the AGR technology, and the construction of 15 units, ranging from 545-MW to 625-MW of generating capacity between 1983 and 1989. The AGR program encountered serious problems as there was little standardization in the multiple construction projects. Costs soared and budgets skyrocketed.
According to the World Nuclear Association, some 14 AGR plants are operating, most scheduled to go out of service in the next several years. All are owned and operated by EDF, which bought out British Energy in 2009. The UK gets about 20% of its electricity generation from nuclear, about the same as the much larger U.S. nuclear fleet.
Problems with the AGR program and its unique technology led to another competition for a nuclear generation technology in 1980. That eventually led to selecting a Westinghouse-designed PWR to be located at the Sizewell site, Sizewell B. The UK approved Sizewell B after a contentious proceeding and a green light for the project in 1987. The reactor began operating in 1994.
UK’s nuclear future
Late this month, Engineering New Record looked at the UK’s nuclear future. The headline was “U.K. Nuclear Fleet Plans Evaporating Amid Economic, Political Problems.” The economics of new plants are daunting; the politics of engagement with foreign governments, including China, are a problem; the problems with the EPR projects in Finland and France, and the collapse of the UK economy during the corona virus all raise serious obstacles.
Replaying the recent problems for the UK, including the Wylfa and Sizemore projects, the article quoted Stephen Thomas, an energy policy guru at the University of Greenwich in London. He said prospects for new projects around the world look bleak. But, he added that nuclear power “has had a history of climbing out of the coffin.”
— Kennedy Maize