Nuclear power in the UK

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland:
Red pog.svg In operation shut down
Purple pog.svg 

Currently (as of January 2018) in the United Kingdom (Great Britain), 15 reactor units with a total installed net capacity of 8,883 MW are operated at 7 locations ; 30 reactor blocks have already been permanently shut down. The first commercially used reactor block went into operation in 1956.

The share of nuclear power in total electricity generation is around 21%. In 2016, the UK generated 336 TWh of electricity, 72 TWh of which came from nuclear power plants.

List of nuclear reactors in the UK

In Great Britain there is so far only one pressurized water reactor, Sizewell B, at the site of the Sizewell nuclear power plant . All other reactor blocks currently in operation are gas-cooled reactors of the AGR type .

Construction of new reactor blocks

In January 2008 the British government (from June 2007 to May 2010 it was a Labor government under Gordon Brown ) asked the industry to develop plans to expand nuclear energy. State funding of construction, operation or disposal was excluded. As a result, the French company EdF announced the construction of four nuclear power plants in the UK and predicted that the first could be completed in 2017. The Cabinet Brown took on 10 January at the 2008 plans, which provided for the construction of new nuclear power stations well before the 2020th

In March 2009 E.ON and EdF asked the British government to limit the expansion of wind energy , since otherwise new nuclear power plants would not be profitable. A few days after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster - it was not yet known that there were three meltdowns - Prime Minister David Cameron reiterated his nuclear power plant construction plans.

When Gordon Brown took office in 2007, the economy was booming (although the UK had had a large trade deficit for many years: $ 183.86 billion in 2007, $ 173.59 billion in 2008, 129.9 in 2009, 155.83 in 2010). Some serious crises began in 2008 and 2009 ( financial crisis from 2007 , euro crisis - including a currency crisis, a national debt crisis and a banking crisis); worldwide expectations of economic growth (=> increasing energy demand) clouded over.

At the end of March 2012, the German energy companies RWE and E.ON announced that they were withdrawing from building new nuclear power plants in Great Britain. The joint venture Horizon Nuclear Power , which was founded for this purpose, should be sold. RWE and E.ON managed to sell their shares.

At the end of July 2012, French media reported that Chinese companies may invest up to 45 billion euros in the construction of five new nuclear reactors in Great Britain: they want to prove themselves in one of the most heavily controlled markets in the world, in order to attract further investments in Africa, for example or the Middle East to prepare. High-ranking representatives of the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute ( SNERDI / Shanghai Institute for Research and Design of Nuclear Technology , a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation / CNNC) met with high-ranking British officials to clarify the submission of an offer as part of the Horizon project .

The NIA (, Nuclear Industry Association ', a British advocacy group ) announced in August 2012, a survey found 80% of the UK population would nuclear power as part of the energy mix in favor - but only the electricity produced unless expensive either as other sources. Originally, the Électricité de France (EDF) was supposed to decide on the construction of one or two new nuclear reactors in Hinkley Point by the end of 2012 .

At the end of September 2012, EDF and its Chinese partner CGN (China General China Nuclear Power Group) let the deadline for submitting an offer for the E.ON / RWE joint venture Horizon pass.

On February 4, 2013, Centrica announced its withdrawal from the construction of new nuclear power plants in Great Britain. It had a 20% option on the new reactors to be built at Hinkley Point and Sizewell . The company justified the exit with planning uncertainty due to increased costs and longer construction times.

The British government ( Cameron I cabinet ) is trying (as of February 2015) to obtain approval from the EU Commission that it may pay nuclear power plant operators a fixed feed-in tariff (which is above the market price for electricity ) (equivalent to 12 cents per kilowatt hour) ); this should make new nuclear reactors attractive. Austria wants to sue against it.

Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Plant

In March 2013, approval was given to build two EPR units at the Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Plant site (Hinkley Point C); whether these will actually be built remains to be seen. In order to be able to operate this profitably, the operator EDF demands a feed-in tariff (strike price) of 95 to 100 pounds / MWh over 40 years - the electricity exchange price in the first half of 2013 was around 45 pounds / MWh, which is roughly the feed-in tariff paid in Great Britain for wind energy corresponds. Negotiations with the government on the level of the strike price should be completed by the end of March 2013; until September 2013 they weren't.

On October 21, 2013, EdF announced that its French-Chinese consortium had agreed in a framework agreement with the British government to build two pressurized water reactors for 16 billion pounds sterling (GBP; at that time just under 18.9 billion euros).

The consortium includes EdF with 40–50% and the power plant builder Areva with 10%, the Chinese companies CGN and CNNC with a combined share of 30–40%. On October 21, 2013, EdF announced an “accord de principe” (roughly: agreement in principle).

Sizewell nuclear power plant

EDF intends to build two EPR reactor blocks at the Sizewell site. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2021 and commissioning would take place in 2031.

Uranium enrichment

Urenco operates a uranium enrichment facility at Capenhurst, Cheshire .

Sellafield

The reprocessing of spent fuel takes place in the nuclear complex Sellafield (formerly Windscale ) . On October 10, 1957, a fire occurred in a nuclear reactor in Windscale (see Windscale fire ), which was classified as level 5 on the INES scale.

See also

Web links

Commons : Nuclear Energy in the United Kingdom  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom. World Nuclear Association (WNA), accessed January 9, 2018 .
  2. ↑ United Kingdom. IAEA - Power Reactor Information System (PRIS), accessed on January 9, 2018 .
  3. ↑ berr.gov.uk ( Memento of the original from July 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berr.gov.uk
  4. ^ New nuclear plants get go-ahead. on: news.bbc.co.uk January 10, 2008.
  5. ↑ Great Britain gives the green light to new nuclear power plants. on: euractiv.com , January 11, 2008, updated: January 29, 2010.
  6. ↑ Own goal for Eon and EdF: Wind makes nuclear uneconomical. on: taz.de March 25, 2009.
  7. ↑ Maximum limit - electricity giants versus wind power. ( Memento from July 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Frankfurter Rundschau. March 24, 2009.
  8. ↑ Tories dream of the atomic renaissance . In: Spiegel Online . March 20, 2011.
  9. ↑ de.statista.com/
  10. ^ German nuclear phase-out on the island . In: taz , March 29, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012.
  11. ↑ La Chine voudrait construire cinq réacteurs nucléaires en Grande-Bretagne .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. lesechos.fr, July 21, 2012: ( China wants to build five nuclear reactors in Great Britain )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lesechos.fr  
  12. ↑ Friedbert Meurer : British want cheap nuclear power , dradio.de , Environment and Consumers , August 31, 2012 (September 1, 2012)
  13. ↑ Setback for British nuclear plans . Handelsblatt.de, October 3, 2012.
  14. ↑ Centrica withdraws from British new construction projects . nuklearforum.ch, February 8, 2013.
  15. ↑ sueddeutsche.de March 5, 2015: Yesterday's industry, financed by the state
  16. ↑ What price nuclear power? The final hurdle for Hinkley . In: BBC . March 20, 2013. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  17. ↑ Exchange rate on October 21, 2013: 1.18 euros for 1 GBP. The figure of 16 billion euros is mentioned on page 3 of the press release; shortly before that, The Guardian had named the now outdated figure of GBP 14 billion. [medias.edf.com/fichiers/fckeditor/Commun/Presse/Communiques/EDF/2013/cp_20131021-1_vf.pdf#page=3 Communiqué de presse] (pdf)
  18. ↑ sueddeutsche.de
  19. ↑ Accord de principe sur les termes commerciaux des contrats relatifs au projet de centrale nucléaire Hinkley Point C with link to the press conference
  20. ↑ Sizewell C Could Begin Operation In 2031, But Will Need Lower Strike Price, Says EDF's Outgoing CEO. www.nucnet.org, accessed on January 9, 2018 .