UK nuclear power plant set for go-ahead

[Graham]

UK nuclear power plant set for go-ahead

---

---

The government is set to give the go-ahead for the UK's first new nuclear plant in a generation on Monday.

French-owned EDF Energy will lead a consortium that includes Chinese investors to build the Hinkley Point C power station in Somerset.

Ministers and EDF have been in talks for more than a year.

But it is understood that the two sides have agreed the all-important "strike price" - the guaranteed rate to be paid for electricity produced at the site.

Chancellor George Osborne removed another obstacle last week when he announced that Chinese firms will be allowed to invest in civil nuclear projects in the UK.

The existing plant at Hinkley currently produces about 1% of the UK's total energy, but that would rise to 7% once the expansion is complete.

The two reactors proposed for Hinkley, which will provide power until around the second half of this century, are a key part of the coalition's drive to shift the UK away from fossil fuels towards low-carbon power.

However, BBC business correspondent Joe Lynam says this will come at a price, with the government promising to pay the owners of Hinkley Point a fixed fee of possibly between £90-£93 for every megawatt of power generated per hour.

"That's almost twice the current wholesale market price for electricity at around £50," he said. "And the government will be paying that price for 30-40 years irrespective of whether market prices soar or collapse."

Monday's announcement comes as concerns about domestic energy bills move up the agenda after some of the big gas and electricity suppliers raised prices.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg both raised concerns about the increases on Sunday.

Mr Welby told the Mail on Sunday the companies had to be "conscious of their social obligations" and "behave with generosity and not merely to maximise opportunity".

And Mr Clegg told Sky News that gas and electricity companies should provide more evidence that the price rises were needed at all.

[Rudel]

Is that the first nuclear power plant in the UK ? What are you using currently ?

[Graham]

Is that the first nuclear power plant in the UK ? What are you using currently ?

No there are a few.

[Rudel]

32 % coal ? Sheeeeiiiiitttt. I'm glad we're 79% nuclear.

[Svipdag]

This is unfortunate. The less nuclear fission reactors in the world, the better. The nuclear waste disposal problem has never been solved; it has merely been postponed. The short-lived "hot" isotopes do not occur in nature on this planet because, if they ever existed, they hsve long since decayed. They are something we will have to deal with for tens of thousands of years. How can we guard a storage facility for, say, 30,000 years ?

VENIT SVMMA DIES ET INELVCTABILE TEMPVS -- PVBLIVS VERGILIVS MARO