Poland's nuclear plan seen coming unstuck by finances

[kristopher]

Poland's nuclear plan seen coming unstuck by finances

Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
February 7, 2014


The Polish government hailed the adoption in late January of a programme to develop nuclear energy as a decisive step towards the construction of two power plants by the mid-2030s. But the political decision to adopt the 152-page document was the easy part; finding the financing is likely to prove more difficult.

Under the programme, Poland will build two 3,000-megawatt (MW) nuclear plants of by 2035. Drawing on the cost estimates of 11 new nuclear plants underway in the US and Europe, the government assessed the cost at PLN40bn-60bn (€9.5bn-14.3bn).

Poland's biggest energy company, the 61% state-controlled Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), has been tasked with leading the project. But the nuclear programme will stretch the finances of an already hard-pressed utility, which has been pressured by the government to push on with a 1,800MW, PLN11bn coal-fired plant in Opole. PGE is also a key member of a group of state firms picked by the government to explore for shale gas in northern Poland.

To ease the burden of the nuclear project, PGE entered into a loose agreement in the autumn of 2013 with three of its state-controlled siblings – energy firms Tauron and ENEA as well as copper and silver mining group KGHM – to sell a 10% stake in nuclear power unit SPV to each. While one condition for the agreement to go ahead – namely, the adoption of the government programme – has now been met, it still requires the green light from the boards of the three partners...

http://www.bne.eu/story5736/Polands_nuclear_plan_seen_coming_unstuck_by_finances

[Journeyman]

1. If they can't afford to build it, how will they afford to fix it when it goes awry? . . .

Dumb blind bastards put us all at risk for their shitty garbage burners.

[840high]

2. Your post is offensive.

[Journeyman]

3. Yeah. I have no tolerance for unrestrained garbage burners or those who support them. . .

[GliderGuider]

4. Lucky they put that lignite plan in place during the climate summit...

[kristopher]

5. Is it relevant when?

The fact that they are pursuing it period is the main problem.
I don't see it as a "sign" of the failure of the climate summit because we don't need sign. It was a foregone conclusion that the possibility of a 'grand bargain' type of internationally negotiated solution was nil.

The real tell in the OP is what I keep hammering on here - that nuclear and coal are twins. As long as we have a system designed around centralized generation we are going have interest groups pursuing fossil fuels. Nuclear does nothing to change that.

A history lesson.

The climate-change deniers have now gone nuclear
When the rightwing tradition of bad science comes onside, it's time to look seriously at other energy technologies

Polly Toynbee
The Guardian, Monday 17 July 2006

...The old right has been on an arduous journey, with most finally converted to the truth universally acknowledged, except by flat-earthers: the world is warming at life-on-earth threatening speed. When the climate-deniers' case collapsed, they retreated to an ideological redoubt claiming global warming was a natural phenomenon, not amenable to man-made remedy. But that fortress crumbled too, and even George Bush, last of the deniers, conceded.

For some reason the old deniers, barely batting an eyelid, shifted over to nuclear as the only salvation, though those who have been so wrong owe a little humility when it comes to next steps. Many hail from a bizarre tradition of rightwing bad science: remember Andrew Neill as Sunday Times editor running a dangerous campaign that denied HIV caused Aids, branding the latter as a disease only of gays and the wildly promiscuous. Consider the continuing claim of the Mail and Melanie Phillips that the MMR vaccine causes autism, panicking mothers into failing to immunise babies. Posing as hard-headed realists, those on the right are more prone to pit their ideology against the weight of science. Seat belts? Motorbike helmets? Chlorofluorocarbons and the ozone layer? Smoking bans? Advertising junk food to children? The science-based realos tend to be on the left, conviction fundis on the right.

Climate change leaves no doubt that nuclear power is infinitely better than roasting to death. New stations are likely to be safer and better built, but will still produce a lot of radioactive waste, if less than before. The energy review still has no idea what to do with it. Even so, nuclear is better than baking.

But why are nuclear enthusiasts so sure there is no better alternative? ...

Here's the conundrum: the kind of people now supporting nuclear are the same ones appalled by vast state-sponsored groundnut schemes in the making: look at ID cards, gigantic IT pipedreams, Concorde, the Dome or other balloons swelling up from politicians' airy rhetoric. The history of nuclear power is the most grotesque example of a state programme founded on dreams mushrooming out of control because no one dared say "Stop!". In the 50s people were promised energy so cheap there would be no bills, so no party dared stop pouring good money after bad. Construction was always wildly over cost and late, delivering far less energy than promised. So why are they falling for the same snake oil again?

...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jul/18/comment.politics3

[madokie]

6. As far as finances are concerned

I don't think we could ever afford our own nuclear power plants here in the good ol USA. What I mean by that is the price of electricity would be so f*'n high we'd have to do without a lot of the time. If Nuclear was playing on a level playing field it would have never got off the ground. By buying that pig in a poke that was to be clean, cheap and safe, of which it is neither btw, we lost 60 years of development in alternates. That to me is where the crime in all this is. We seen way back when we were fighting PSO's attempt at stuffing Black Fox down our throats that the nuclear power industry is a lot of thing, truthful not being one of them.

I'm convinced that if early on there wasn't a perceived need for the MIC to acquire a lot of nuclear weapons we'd not have any nuclear power plants today.

[kristopher]

7. Article: The true cost of disaster insurance makes nuclear power uncompetitive

The true cost of disaster insurance makes nuclear power uncompetitive
Ingmar Schumacher

6th February 2014


The European Commission is assessing how it should augment its nuclear disaster insurance. Ingmar Schumacher calls for full transparency of insurance costs in the cost-benefit evaluation of the nuclear industry.

Nuclear energy becomes uncompetitive once the costs of completely insuring against disasters are fully integrated into its price.

The continuing nuclear disaster at Fukushima has concentrated minds on the risks of nuclear catastrope in Europe - all the more so as estimates of Fukushima's cost rise towards a giddying US$500 billion.

And so it is that the European Commission is considering whether, and how, it should amend the insurance of nuclear power plants on European territory. In the event of the unthinkable taking place in a European reactor, who will pay the cost?

The focus is timely. For these three observations on nuclear power seem indisputable:
- We will continue to operate nuclear power stations for many decades to come.
- There is no exemption from nuclear disasters in the future.
- We will have to decide on the best ways to compensate victims of nuclear incidents as far as that is based....

...

Excellent discussion in the rest of the article at http://preview.tinyurl.com/okxthwz

[diane in sf]

8. good, efficiency and clean power are cheaper.