Sponsored by
A bittersweet feeling in the new age of nuclear power
A BRAVE new dawn is breaking in Britain's nuclear industry. But am I alone in feeling peeved that it is the French and the Germans bankrolling this new wave of nuclear power stations?
Yes, tens of billions of pounds will be invested in the UK.
Yes, in the words of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), this represents "a massive economic shot in the arm for the UK".
And yes, hundreds of Yorkshire firms will surely reap rewards by getting themselves into the supply chain for reactors.
At the forefront of these will hopefully be Sheffield Forgemasters International, which is seeking Government support for a 140m investment plan to place itself in pole position in that lucrative chain.
But couldn't we have built the new stations ourselves? Not according to the NIA. It seems we lost that ability several years ago.
Britain, through the Central Electricity Building Board, built the first generation of Magnox nuclear power stations in the 1950s and 1960s.
Britain, again through the CEBB, built the second generation of more advanced, gas-cooled reactors in the 1960s and 1970s. But by the mid-80s and early-90s, Britain was losing that valuable expertise in engineering and design.
The UK had the ability to build 90 per cent of Sizewell B, said the NIA, with France and America contributing the remainder.
Today, there are eight new nuclear power stations on paper. They form part of Britain's energy policy for the future.
EDF, which is part owned by the French government, plans to build four new stations in Britain, while a consortium of German firms E.ON and RWE plans to build another four.
Each will cost up to 4bn to build, according to estimates. That is an incredibly substantial investment.
British firms at present possess the capability to build up to 70 per cent of these reactors. According to the NIA, UK companies can increase that capacity to 80 per cent. That is what Sheffield Forgemasters is trying to do.
Asked to quantify the size of the market, NIA spokesman John McNamara said: "Tens of billions of pounds."
And Britain is ahead of many other countries in terms of its commitment to total renewal, he added. "You could be looking at a 20-30 year stretch of supply, just in the UK."
Then the rest of the world will open up, the theory goes. This means that firms that invest now in establishing a name for themselves in the nuclear sector will stand themselves in good stead for international contracts further down the line.
Despite the massive opportunities present, I am left with a bittersweet feeling. It is a shame that Britain can no longer build, or apparently pay for, its own power supply.
Yesterday, Richard Caborn, the Labour MP for Sheffield Central who has been backing the Forgemasters' bid, said if firms invest now, and if Government supports that investment, we can get ourselves back to that 100 per cent. I hope so. The Government should support our engineering and manufacturing industries. Given the billions of pounds it has thrown at the financial services sector, it would be a scandal not to.
n LAST week, I expressed concern over the downgrading of Britain by credit rater Standard & Poor's. I was worried that external agencies like this one would take a dim view of the prospects of the nation's economy based on an assess-ment of our leadership in West-minster, which is seemingly reeling from one crisis to the next.
I argued that S&P should take a look at the strong and diverse set of businesses in Yorkshire and take that into account.
Tim Hale, chairman of Champion Hire in Sheffield, came back with an interesting response. He said: "Surely the key point is that we cannot trust Standard & Poor's – or any of the others either – to rate anything accurately any more.
"Wasn't it these same agencies who rated dud and doubtful collateralised debt obligations as triple-A when they didn't deserve more than a C - and wasn't it that which led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, and got is in the awful mess we are now in?
"When is the international finance community going to test and regulate these agencies properly?"
I'm sure that some of the region's building societies may agree. They have suffered from negative publicity following similar downgrades and changes in outlook by some credit rating agencies. Isn't it time we cast a more critical eye over these agencies' pronouncements?
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
