Latest news with #AGRs
Business Mayor
04-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Scottish nuclear plant emptied of fuel as UK winds down ageing gas-cooled reactors
Unlock the Editor's Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The first of the UK's seven advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power stations has been emptied of fuel, kick-starting a decommissioning process that will cost at least £27bn in total and take almost a century. EDF said on Thursday it had defuelled Hunterston B, on the west coast of Scotland, paving the way for the transfer of the site and 250 staff from the French power company to the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority next April. The site provided most of Scotland's energy for more than 40 years from its launch in 1976 until its final closure in 2022. Andy Dalling, station manager at Hunterston B, said the process was 'on time and to budget and marked the first time this type of station has been defuelled'. 'That means lessons we've learned over the past three years will be applied to the rest of the fleet,' he added. EDF owns seven advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) plants in the UK, which were built between the 1960s and 1980s and differ from newer nuclear plants that use water for cooling. Just four are still operating. The uranium fuel has been packaged into 350 large flasks, which will be stored by the NDA at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria for at least 50 years until a longer-term underground facility has been built. Although the process took just three years and £400mn, it will take almost a century to eradicate the radiation from the land and buildings, EDF has said. The decommissioning of the seven AGRs is separate to a much wider £105bn decommissioning programme, which will cover an additional 17 closed nuclear sites over the next 120 years, according to the NDA. The closures will leave the UK with just one nuclear power plant still running by 2030 — Sizewell B in Suffolk, which is also managed by EDF and uses a pressurised water reactor. The NDA said it was 'acutely aware of the costs associated with delivering our mission'. The cost of decommissioning nuclear power plants is under scrutiny as the UK presses ahead with new nuclear projects, including the £40bn Sizewell C, which is expected to get government go-ahead this spring, and the £46bn Hinkley Point C, which is still under construction and will open by 2030 at the earliest. EDF has a 72.6 per cent stake in Hinkley Point C and is tipped to take a 10- 20 per cent stake in Sizewell C, though discussions with the government are ongoing. The decommissioning on both Hinkley and Sizewell C is expected to be shorter, with separate funds planned to cover the costs. Steve Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at Greenwich university, said the cost of decommissioning should be taken into account when the government decided on new nuclear plants as 'no scheme can be guaranteed to meet a cost more than a century into the future'. Although EDF has owned Hunterston B and the seven other AGR nuclear plants since 2009, the cost of decommissioning is being paid for through the ringfenced Nuclear Liabilities Fund (NLF), which was set up in 1996 after privatisation and is valued at £20.6bn. Decommissioning costs have soared over the past three decades, with the fund requiring cash injections from the Treasury, including £5bn in July 2020 and a further £5.6bn in March 2022, according to the NLF. Recommended The last of the AGR reactors is expected to be defuelled and transferred to the NDA by 2035, though they may receive further life extensions. Hunterston worked for 20 years more than was originally intended. Although controversial, nuclear power complements the intermittency of renewable energy such as wind and solar power. But there are concerns that the UK has no permanent and safe facility for storing the waste. Most of the waste is stored at Sellafield, where 140 tonnes of plutonium is held in decaying containers and ageing buildings, though in line with regulatory requirements. The government is seeking a site where treated high-hazard waste could be safely disposed of underground with three potential locations in Cumbria and Lincolnshire identified.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
EDF signals ageing British nuclear fleet can run into ‘the 2030s'
EDF has signalled that Britain's fleet of ageing nuclear power plants can keep running into the next decade amid a scramble to hit Ed Miliband's clean power targets. The company on Monday said it aimed to 'maximise output' from the remaining gas-cooled nuclear reactors to '2030+', providing this can be agreed with regulators. It is the strongest sign yet that EDF, which is owned by the French state, believes the plants can go even further beyond their planned lifespans after extensions were most recently announced in December. Further extensions would deliver a boost to Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, as he seeks to make the electricity grid at least 95pc reliant on 'clean' sources of power – including wind, solar, batteries and nuclear – in just five years. On Monday, EDF pointed to the ability of nuclear plants to keep the lights on when output from wind and solar farms was low due to 'dunkleflaute' periods of gloomy, low-wind weather. EDF said: 'This winter there have been prolonged periods of dull, calm weather leading to low output from wind and solar. 'At times, gas provided more than 60pc of our power needs, pushing up electricity prices and adding to our carbon emissions. 'A low carbon future needs a renewables dominated mix along with new British nuclear, for lower electricity costs, energy security and thousands of great jobs which will help to transform communities across the country.' Two of EDF's oldest nuclear power stations, Heysham 1 in Lancashire and Hartlepool in Teesside, have had their shutdowns postponed from spring 2026 to 2027, while the other two, Heysham 2 and Torness in East Lothian, were extended from 2028 to 2030. But in a newly-published fleet update, EDF says there is a potential opportunity for all four plants to remain online until at least 2030. The company said keeping them going for longer would help Britain 'achieve its 2030 clean power targets', support thousands of jobs and 'preserve valuable skills' needed as the country builds new nuclear power plants such as Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and potentially small modular reactors (SMRs). It added: 'The ambition is to continue generating from these stations for as long as it is safe and commercially viable to do so.' Heysham 1, Heysham 2, Hartlepool and Torness all use advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) and came online in the 1980s. EDF also owns Sizewell B, in Suffolk, a newer type of plant switched on in the 1990s. Combined with Sizewell B, which EDF hopes to run into the 2050s, the plants collectively generated around 13pc of Britain's electricity needs last year. Seven AGR power plants were in operation originally, with EDF having already shut down Hunterston B, Hinkley Point B and Dungeness B for de-fuelling. All seven plants would have shut by 2023 under plans made when the French company first acquired them in 2009. In Monday's fleet update, EDF said the continued operation of the remaining four AGRs would 'most likely be determined by the condition of the graphite making up the reactor cores'. Hairline cracks can occur in the graphite over time, potentially impeding control rods which must be dropped to lower output – or shut the reactor down in emergencies. To continue operating, EDF must prove to regulators that this will not happen and that it could still shut down the reactors amidst a 'one in 10,000 years' earthquake, much larger than any the UK has ever experienced. An internal note sent to staff in the UK, EDF stressed that it believed the AGRs could technically go for longer than their latest extensions suggested. Hartlepool and Heysham 1's reactors are the oldest, having opened in 1983 and 1984. Out of an abundance of caution, the company said it opted for short extensions for the two plants last year because of 'important milestones' coming up in 2025. These include reactor core sampling and feedback due from the Office for Nuclear Regulation on the safety case 'for operation beyond 2027'. On their current dates for shutdown, EDF told staff: 'While our ambition remains to generate beyond these revised forecasts at all four stations, we will continue to take informed and conservative decisions, utilising the skills and expertise across the company and keeping nuclear safety as our over-riding priority.' Across the country, EDF's UK nuclear business employs 5,000 staff although the company estimates that a total of 31,000 jobs are supported by its power stations when supply chains and contractors are included. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
