Scuppered American power deal throws the UK's promise of a green transition into doubt
Telegraph UK, By Howard Mustoe, 29 November 2023
It was meant to provide cheap, clean power to towns in the Midwest of the US.
But a scuppered nuclear power deal has thrown the promise of green power in the region into doubt, and could have repercussions in Britain.
NuScale Power said earlier this month that its maiden deal to build six of its mini-nukes in Utah was dead, after several towns that were backing the project pulled out over soaring costs.......................................
In Britain, the Government wants a quarter of all electricity to come from nuclear power by 2050, and has launched a competition to find developers who can build SMRs by the mid-2030s. Last month, it unveiled a shortlist of six contenders, including NuScale.
However, the Portland, Oregon-based company's struggles raise the spectre that SMRs may be beset to the same cost overruns that have long haunted the industry, casting doubt over whether mini-nukes can actually deliver on their promise.
NuScale is the only SMR developer with a design approved by a regulator.
The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), which provides power to local areas across the Midwest, first signed a deal with NuScale in 2015.
The ambition of the project changed over time, with UAMPS eventually settling on plans to buy six NuScale reactors that could deliver 77 megawatts (MW) of electricity each, collectively enough to power almost 1.4 million homes.
However, members of UAMPS, small towns and local areas, were uneasy with the long timeline and high costs of the project.
When the Utah city of Logan pulled out in 2020, its finance chief Richard Anderson told the Salt Lake City paper Deseret News: "We don't have the experience to be swimming in these waters. I didn't feel good about it."
The death knell for NuScale came in January when new estimates showed a 53pc increase in costs. The price of steel and other raw materials had leapt, sending the price of power from the plant from $58 per MW hour to $89.
The sharp increase came despite a promise of $4bn (£3.2bn) in US taxpayer support under President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.
Several member towns pulled out over soaring costs, leaving the project dead in the water.
Tony Roulstone, a lecturer in nuclear energy at the University of Cambridge and a former Rolls-Royce engineer, said the deal coming unstuck was "bad for the broader market".
"They're the one with a ticket from a safety authority," he said of NuScale. "They're the one with a project, which has been supported by the US government."
SMRs offered the promise of bringing the cost discipline of mass production to nuclear engineering. They were touted as a way to pull the industry away from unwieldy megaprojects that were subject to cost overruns and delays...................................
the rising costs in Utah evoke worrying parallels to the industry of old. Hinkley Point C in Somerset was estimated to cost about £26bn in 2015, for example, but could now end up costing £33bn, according to the latest estimate.
While the scale of costs is different, the unpredictability is a worry.....................................
The market is also quite crowded. France's EDF, US-Japanese alliance GE-Hitachi, Rolls-Royce and US companies Holtec, NuScale and Westinghouse are all competing for part of the SMR market in the UK through the Government's competition.
With costs rising and interest waning, the industry has complained the Government is moving too slowly.........................................
To succeed in delivering the economies of scale promised by factory production, SMRs must be developed en masse................................................................ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/29/soaring-costs-mini-nuclear-dream-left-on-thread/
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