It is hard to imagine now, but Britain once led the nuclear revolution.

Ernest Rutherford first broke the nuclei of atoms at Manchester University in 1917. Our Queen opened the world's first nuclear power plant in 1956 at Calder Hall.

Such were the halcyon days of British atomic confidence, before defeatism took hold and free market ideology was pushed to pedantic extremes.

Most of Britain's ageing reactors will be phased out over the next decade, leaving a gaping hole in electricity supply. By historic irony the country has drifted into a position where it now depends on an ailing state-owned French company to build its two reactors at Hinkley Point, with help from the Chinese Communist Party.

The horrors Hinkley are by now well-known. The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) is not yet working anywhere. The Olkiluoto plant in Finland is nine years late and three times over budget. EDF's Flamanville project is not faring much better.

What is clear is that the costs of 'old nuclear' have spun out of control everywhere in the developed world. It is too expensive to keep trying to refine an inherently dangerous technology dating back sixty years in a Sisyphean attempt to make it less threatening after Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The capital cost of new nuclear plants in Europe and the US has risen from $1,000 per kilowatt in the 1970s to around $5,500 today in real terms. Hinkley will be nearer $8,000. Hence the lapidary term 'negative learning' coined by Yale scientist Arnulf Grubler.

The standard light water reactors were solid workhorses in their day - and averted huge releases of CO2 from fossil fuels - but they operate at 100 times atmospheric pressure. They need costly containment structures  to prevent an explosive release of deadly radioactive gases across hundreds of miles. 

 

This nuclear cost spiral has been happening just as solar and wind costs plummet, and the verdict is in. The nuclear share of global power has dropped to 10.7pc from 17.6pc in 1996. Ten new reactors were built last year, but eight were in China. In Europe they are shutting down.

There is an alternative. Research into a radical new wave of safer, cleaner, and cheaper reactors is suddenly reaching critical mass, some are entirely compatible with the intermittency of wind and solar.

This is what Theresa May should be looking at as she launches her industrialisation drive and fashions an energy policy fit for the 21st Century.

The Washington think tank Third Way has identified fifty advanced reactor projects in North America, including eight based on molten salt fuel, ten on liquid-metal, and some based on fusion designs.

David Fuller's view

Here is a PDF of AE-P's excellent article.

It is beyond comprehension that any intelligent person with a reasonable understanding of competing energy developments in 2016 could think that the Hinkley Point white elephant was a good idea.  This was a short-term pre-Brexit political decision which should never have been seriously considered.  It totally ignored economic risks, given EDF’s reworked and risky Heath Robinson technology, plus the company’s catastrophic delays and soaring costs on Finland’s Olkiluoto Island and France’s own Flamanville project on the Cotentin Peninsula.  

Prime Minister Theresa May wisely put Hinkley Point on hold, to the consternation of French and Chinese officials, before leaving for her walking holiday in Switzerland.  If her advisors are up-to-date on our worldwide energy revolution and the Hinkley Point debate, Mrs May will be able to resume her sensible overhaul of Britain’s energy policies on return.  These commenced with realistic financial incentives for people living in regions where fracking needs to occur.  However, the delicate diplomatic issue, for which she will not thank David Cameron or George Osborne, concerns Hinkley Point.  The plain truth is that it does not add up and would be a costly disadvantage for the UK over 35 years.

OK, these articles and my comments are mainly about the UK.  Nevertheless, the topic is of global interest.  Diversified economies with the smartest and most efficient energy policies will have a considerable advantage, including the potential for stronger GDP growth due to competitive industrialisation and a higher standard of living.  These will be important contributing factors in terms of relative long-term stock market performance.