Part 4 of 5 Parts (Please read Parts 1, 2 and 3 first)
     Despite criticism from multiple analysts, the U.K. government is still considering taking a direct stake in the Sizewell C project as recommended by BEIS. This action would employ a “Regulated Asset Base” (RAB) model in which costs are added to consumers’ bills during construction. One problem with this approach is the fact that some nuclear power projects have consumed millions of dollars from energy customers only to be abandoned without ever generating a single watt of electricity.
     The RAB approach would result in multibillion-dollar liabilities appearing on the U.K. governments balance sheet. The Treasury is studying the question of whether the U.K. government should receive equity stakes in EDF’s Sizewell plant to compensate.  The U.K. government had previously offered to purchase a one-third stake in a planned Wylfa nuclear power plant to be constructed on Anglesey. Hitachi, the Japanese company that was going to construct the Wylfa plant, ultimately pulled out of the project because it was still going to be too expensive for them even with the participation of the U.K. government.
     In any case, the RAB approach is already being challenged by the U.K. national nuclear regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), because it could introduce a dual regulator for the industry. The ONR does not consider this to be reasonable or practical.
     Renewables are considered to be safer, cheaper, easier to install quickly and genuinely low carbon without the need for a dangerous fuel supply chain. The Sizewell reactor would not be able to supply any power until 2034 at the earlier. Wind and solar plants take about two years on average to construct. The ability of the U.K. national energy grid to absorb fluctuating renewable power sources is improving. Renewable deployment is also benefiting from the rapidly dropping cost of batteries, and investment in hydrogen and other forms of energy storage.
     The National Infrastructure Commission has testified that the absorption of sixty five percent renewables on the national grid by 2030 is more cost effective than nuclear power and more technically achievable.
      Robin Grimes is the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Ministry of Defense on nuclear science and technology. Apparently, he recognizes the attraction of renewables and has been developing other arguments against renewable energy sources. He is advocating for the potential of cogeneration for nuclear power plants. Cogeneration would entail use of the “waste” head from nuclear power plants for many purposes including district heating, seawater desalinization, synthetic fuel production and industrial process heat. Unfortunately, this is not likely to have much impact on the cost-benefit equation for nuclear power.
      Grimes was the author of a once classified report drafted in 2014 for the Ministry of Defense in which it was recommended that the U.K. nuclear submarine industry needed to forge links with the civil nuclear power program in order to offload some of the costs from its overburdened budget. This secret report also discussed possible solutions for the leak of radiation from the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment which is a military submarine reactor testing facility constructed in 1950 at the Dounreay submarine base in Scotland. Engineers with nuclear expertise are dying as the nuclear facilities that service the submarines are failing. New nuclear subs will require a new supply chain and new expertise.
Please read Part 5