Thought we were an advanced and rich country oozing with engineering expertise ?
And why does it have to be the French and Chinese states that do it, and not private enterprise ? What happened to the privatised energy industry ?
It’s infuriating to say the least. I think I know why now nations revert to 3rd world status, because they can’t be bothered labouring themselves so they get some other country to do it for them.
The Chinese deal seems to be part of a quid pro quo with China wherein they get to use Britain as a showroom for their nuclear technology and London becomes the pre-eminent RMB trading centre outside of China, further entrenching London as the financial capital of the galaxy.
One wonders what the real deal is behind the scenes.
But yeah, UK built nuclear plants before, it’s home to some of the world’s top science and engineering universities, so what’s the problem ?
Ah. Did you ever see that chart that shows the average lifespan of world reserve currencies ?
So it’s a preparation for that time ?
Didn’t Britain go down some technological deadend with its own nuclear technology? FWIR Britain pursued Magnox reactor designs which turned out to be less economical than other designs.
So this is a benefit for The City ? Given how little trickle down there will be from this renminbi trade, and how the deals we have signed have locked us into extraordinary high prices, it’s a bit of a shafting isn’t it ?
At least they will provide jobs and are drawing investment.
Its a fair question and I didn’t know Britain couldn’t build its own nuclear plants - given you have them already.
I’d guess the simple answer is economics and expertise.
British engineers say - righto, we can do that for 16 million euros.
French engineers say we have a plan and we know our stuff - cost you 12 million euros.
The American Westinghousestrasse says forget the rest, we can supply a nuclear plant and throw in a submarine for 18 million euro.
And the Chinese say no problem, we can supply two pebblebed reactors with our French friends technology for 8 billion euro. We and India are already doing this new tech at home - nothing to worry about.
Hmm, nuclear safety is opaque at the best of times. Can we file FOI request to the Chinese government on their safety record ? :eek:
But wait, the 16 billion paid to the UK largely stays in the UK and gets splashed around locally. Where do the Chinese and French spend their billions ?
And while we’re at it, why can’t the Roman Empire provide its own troops, instead of having to hire Germanic mercenaries?
I tell you, this reliance on cheap foreign labor will be their downfall.
Nuclear power plant building needs a supporting eco-system. That is one of their big problems. There are a lot of difficult engineering and materials problems to manage, and they are not solved by off the shelf or conventional contract engineering. Things like alloys that are resistant to degradation by neutrons. And the manufacturing capabilities to fabricate very large components from them. There are a lot of capabilities that only have a market if they are making stuff for nuclear power plants. So no matter how advanced technologically a country might be, if they are not in the game of making nuclear power plants, they simply won’t have that capability hanging around.
Further, unless you have a ready to roll, fully debugged design, you are adding some serious delay and expense whilst you work one out. And you won’t have experience with the plants, as this will be your first. Five years late and double the price would be an optimistic starting point for comparison. Tens years late and triple the price not unbelievable.
IMHO, right now there is only one reason for any nation to embark on building a nuclear power capability. That is energy security. Nuclear is never going to be cheap enough to compete head to head with any other power source. Too long to build, too expensive to build, too expensive to decommission. But of you are a nation with little to no long term endowments in other sources of energy, you probably want to insulate yourself from the worst dangers of reliance on power from other nations. There is every prospect that mid to long term photo-voltaics will become so cheap that nothing will compete. In the interim methane can make huge inroads into coal’s place as the base load provider as well as providing peak demand. But if you don’t have enough sunshine, or enough methane, and don’t trust those that do, let alone trust those with oil, nuclear is something you will want.
As anyone who has outsourced a project will know, the big advantage is that, so long as you write the contract properly, it will be the contractor who takes the risk on delays and overruns.
Of course, it’s not that simple and the points made above are also a factor. Originally it was hoped that local finance would play a larger part but it seem that the City thought it too risky to invest in. China may well have different priorities.
“Embark on?” But we already have nuclear power plants. We’ve had them for decades. We had the means to make them before, and apparently don’t know. This is the UK in question, btw, since you seem to be answering a general point rather than the one raised.
China is willing to make higher-risk, lower margin investments-- in part because more developed countries staked out the better investments decades ago and China has no choice but to make a go at what’s left.
Do you want the UK to start throwing more money into things that are likely to fail and unlikely to make much money if the succeed?
The last power plant built began construction in 1988 and was completed in 1995. That is 20 years ago. You don’t keep an industry dormant for 20 years and expect to have anything left to show. Most, if not all the nuclear power design engineers have long since retired or died, and any special industrial capacity needed long since abandoned. The UK is a for all useful intents looking at a scratch start. And a scratch start where the rules are very much different to when it was in the game.
In the past the UK had the infrastructure to make the parts for the reactors, much of this has gone. It “might” be possible to build reactors with only UK resources but the price and timescale probably rules it out.
Just look at ship building. The far east can build and deliver a bulk carrier while the UK is thinking about design and arguing with unions.
This is basically the result of the rise and fall of North Sea hydrocarbon production. In the 80s, when the North Sea oil and gas production peaked, nuclear power became less attractive. Add in Sellafield and other safety concerns and nuclear power was no longer a good deal.
Because of Trident (and later, wrapping up the Cold War) there was little or no military nuclear development going on to sustain nuclear development independently. Rolls-Royce still builds reactors for the Royal Navy, but AIUI the small pressurized water reactors used in submarines aren’t really suited to civil energy generation.
Related to the tech used:
Any idea why the UK/Europe went with the pressurized reactor design, more specifically the EPR*?
What was the rationale for using gas as a coolant before and why has it been abandoned?
The British nuclear industry took a wrong turn-the gas-Cooled Reactors were not a good design. It would have been better to license a proven water-cooled reactor and build it domestically. the thing is, with modern computerized controls, reactor operation is a whole lot safer today-you do not need walls covered in analog meters and dozens of technicians running around with clipboards. I think that the new designs will be safe and reliable. As for solar, with the cloudy weather in England, i don’t see it.
Re-reading the OP’s link, it doesn’t look like China will be building these plants at all, just financing construction. They’re being built by (France’s) Areva.