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Part 1 of 2 Parts
       The U.K. has eight nuclear power reactors. They provide about twenty percent of the electricity for the country. Seven of these plants utilize what is referred to an advanced gas reactor (AGR) design. The oldest of these reactors was built forty-three years ago and the youngest was built 30 years ago. They were intended to have a lifespan of about thirty-five years.
         Two of the reactors had to be closed temporarily in January which resulted in a twelve percent drop in nuclear powers contribution to the national grid. There have been multiple outages recently due to either safety checks or engineering work that ran over its allotted schedule. When nuclear power plants have to reduce their output or be shut down temporarily, the carbon emissions of the nation rise because the shortfall is usually made up be firing up dormant fossil fuel power plants.
         EDF is a French utility company which is primarily owned by the French government. It is the owner of the U.K. fleet of nuclear power reactors. As the reactors reached the intended end of their operational life, EDF applied to the U.K. regulators for and received new licenses to extend the reactors lives into the 2020s. Now there are fears that aging and deteriorating U.K. nuclear infrastructure may reduce reactor output or even require that some U.K reactors be shuttered and decommissioned before their revised licenses run out.
          Iain Staffell is a lecturer in sustainable energy at Imperial College. He recently compiled information on the output of the nations nuclear power reactors. He said, “Just as Toshiba and Hitachi have pulled out of building new reactors, we have one third of the existing nuclear capacity unavailable either for maintenance or because their maximum power has been reduced as they get older. Many of our reactors were built in the late 70s, and like your typical 40-year-old they aren’t in peak physical condition anymore.”
       Reactor 3 is an AGR at the Hunterson B nuclear power station on the west coast of Scotland. It was taken offline last March because more cracks than were anticipated were found in the graphite in the core of the reactor. The graphite acts as a moderator to slow down neutrons but years of bombardment by neutrons has altered the structure of the graphite.
       EDF had originally said that Reactor 3 would be back online by November of 2018 but now they believe that they will have it working by the end of April 2019. The other reactor at Hunterson is scheduled to be back online by the end of March 2019. EDF will only be able to restart the two reactors at Hunterson if their safety report is approved by the U.K. nuclear regulatory agency.
      EDF just announced this week that it was changing the schedule for the reopening of its Dungeness nuclear power plant in Kent from February to April. The closure was due to maintenance of the pipes that carry steam from its broiler. EDF hopes that Dungeness will be back on line before the Hinkely B reactor in Somerset will have to be taken offline for inspection of the graphite in its core. If more cracks that expected are found, that would mean that it will have to be offline longer than scheduled.
Please read Part 2