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Nuclear energy production is a possible answer to a problem of reducing CO2 emissions whilst maintaining (or increasing) our overall use of energy.

Members of the exclusive club of companies who have been allowed to become members of the energy cartel want to maintain their dominance and thus we (and you) speculate that the will go 'nuclear'.

The key points that are seldom addressed in the above statements are: 1. "reducing CO2 emissions", 2 "maintaining (or increasing) our overall use of energy" and 3 the ever important "cartel" issue.

First, we must face reality that the unpleasant predicted side effects of global warming will happen and there is little we can do about it no matter how many green evangelists we incinerate to save carbon!

Second, we must strive to reduce our use of energy - something that is not at all in the commercial interests of the energy cartel - no matter how they protest that it is.

Third, The energy companies of the World form an impenetrable cartel against the best interests of their customers and over which their customer have no influence - this is reality - no matter how much claim green credentials.

Having said this I see no benefit to the consumer is encouraging Centrica, a fossil fuels company, is going 'Nuclear'. They seem to only recently improved their customer service and have as far as I am aware no experience in running any part of the nuclear industry. At least EDF (and RWE - I think) are experienced safe operators in this dangerous field.

Can someone explain to me all this interest in Nuclear power alll of a sudden when it is even less sustainable than conventional means of power generation?

Nuclear power requires Uranium. According to the Australian government - a major producer of Uranium if ever there was one - at current usage there is only about 80 years worth of the stuff that is accesible. Anyone on here willing to say the Aussie government is talking bilge?

If we build more nuclear power stations then we will need more and it will run-down faster.

In fact, could this be the real answer as to why we won't let other countries embark on huge nuclear programmes?

If the Treasury changes the rules then presumably other bidders could enter the fray as well. Why focus solely on Centrica?

BE's 14 AGRs are deteriorating and the nuclear contribution to the UK's electricity was only 15% in 2007 compared with 22% in 2004. EdF would have to meet the losses from BE's falling revenue over the next 20 years or so. If allowed, they would obviously prefer to build on the recently acquired sites.

As Areva's supplies of uranium are declining fast, Edf would have the option then to build a coal-fired station on the new sites which are adjacent to the soon to be redundant transmission lines.

It would be prudent for Areva to await the results of the commissioning of the Olkiluoto EPR prototype before starting another project, so that modifications seen to be needed can be incorporated.

The rapidly failing UK nuclear sector will mean that several coal-fired stations will have to be built to maintain generation before the first nuclear replacement can be commissioned in say 2020.

However, it is highly unlikely that the nuclear "renaissance" will ever happen as, as is happening in India, load factors of the existing fleets will fall due to lack of uranium fuel.

Red Lenin:

Possible reasons for interest in nuclear power
- High temperatures could provide method of disassociating hydrogen for a hydrogen based economy
- Carbon emission costs for current fossil fuel baseload power generation systems; if world governments increase levy on carbon production to the point where nuclear power becomes attractive in terms of cost per MWh compared to clean coal or clean gas technologies, suppliers will switch to building nuclear plants instead of new gas or coal plants
- Buying fuel from Canada and Australia (depending on the cycle used) is potentially more stable and less politically / economically damaging than relying on cartels of oil producing nations in relatively politically unstable countries.

The Australian government may be correct when they say that there are currently only 80 years of resources at current usage. Firstly, they refer to known resources. When resources begin to dwindle, more exploration will take place and more resources will be found - just look at oil production for an analogue. I would also be willing to wager that they are referring to high grade, 'easily' extracted uranium. In a similar situation to oil, the cheaper, easier, purer reserves will be harvested first, and more difficult reserves will begin to be exploited when the market price of uranium rises.

In addition, nuclear fuel isn't just uranium - there are other possibilities, such as running plants on the thorium cycle (India has huge deposits) or breeder type reactors, which run on nuclear waste.

Still, all of these possibilities require mining of natural deposits in processes that are energy consuming and quite harmful to the environment and to those carrying out the extraction. Most of the arguments about electricity production methods, whether it be coal, gas, wind, water or nuclear, focus on the relative pollution at the power plant end, and not throughout the whole cycle from mining through installation and production to decommision.

surely centrica would just be swapping one problem for another . diversification is good but as noted by another poster , gas and uranium are both finite resources so where is the advantage ?

As a matter of record. Canadian uranium mining production fell 19% over the two years, 2006,2007, while in Australia it fell 20% in 2006, recovering but 10% in 2007. Only Kazakhstan showed big gains, but its output is signed up to China, Russia and Japan.

The average uranium ore grade in Australia is 0.045%, while in the combined ore at the proposed expansion of Olympic Dam it is only 0.039%. So although it claims to have the world's largest reserves, they are mostly useless because of the huge rise in the price of diesel, net imported into Australia. Just to dig the initial hole to reach ores at 350 m down at Olympic Dam, some 6.6 million tonnes of diesel costing US$ 6 billion at the current price would be needed. The diesel price from 2009 to 2013, when the hole will be dug, can only be guessed.

Although India may have thorium its use is complex, requiring a costly 3-stage process and the current halved output is due to lowering ore grades in the indigenous mines and banned imports of uranium.

McCain is proposing 700 nukes for the US, requiring the import of 140,000 tonnes/year of natural uranium, while sinking world primary mining produces only 40,000 tonnes a year. The waste would need 7 Yucca repositories, when the first is still under discussion.

It is not just Gordon Brown relying on fantasy; he is united with Sarkozy and McCain!

The waste problem is not an issue. We can store it in Gordon's fiscal black hole. It's seemingly infinite and totally one way.

EDF will always be able to pay more, whether in cash or shares: the French have a deeply strategic interest in how they are going to decommission their own vast fleet of nukes - their biggest national liability - and are masters of the politics of this. We have long argued that Sarkozy plans to get the EU to foot the bill - a Common Nuke Policy similar to the CAP.

As argued , the other interesting aspect is the Credit Crunch. Utilities have thus far seemed unaffected, but it may only be a matter of time. Again, EDF is best placed.

How are we the taxpayer likely to fare if a deal is done to sell BE?

Will it be a pat on the back for Mr Brown or another slap in the face?

To the Tories, Labour, MPs and Directors of BE:

People are missing some key points in the future of the UK economy and development:

(1) Nuclear power is a key UK national strategic asset for the nation and the people.

We need new nuclear build in the hands of someone who has the UK national econcomic development in mind for the longer term.

BE is not just another company being sold to reduce the government ownership.

Private or foreign company ownership means they maximize profits for their benefit within the various regulatory and legal laws. There are 'good and wise' owners and there are 'short-sighted and simply profit maximization' owners.

(2) While other nations would not permit ownership of their strategic assets, we seemingly ignore this fact.

As a 'mad' excercise, let us ask the French or Germans if they will sell us their generating assets under the same economic and job losses. Check the true response not the political rhetoric. The EU has been complaining of their closed attitude towards the energy industry.

(3) The world will always run out of commodity fuels sometime in the future - gas, oil and even nuclear; but that is a mad excuse for not building new nuclear sites.

(4) Did someone figure out how many jobs and families will be dramatically impacted by whomever takes over BE such as the French or Germans?? Or do we not care about the lives and communities being impacted by this takeover?

Come on policiticans, you are elected by the people, think of the people in BE.

Do not make selling your 35% share your only priority.

(5) Where the heck is the transparency in this to the people of the UK???

It is partially a UK asset and should remain that way. Public ownership does have its rightful place in key strategic industries.

(6) Watch out for the investment bankers!!

They simply want to do the deal and get their fat fees to pay their mansions and buy their Aston Martins. They could give a damn about the what it really means to the UK nation and the people.

Make the right, wise and long-term decision for the families of BE, the people of the Uk and the long-term national interests.

Time to invest in Wool.

A lot of people will be wearing extra cardigans and jumpers this Winter.

Still, with the extra sunshine from global warming we'll be able to have a solar panel on every house.

Hmm, whatever became of the hole in the ozone layer ?

Imagine if only 60% of the world's crude oil supplies came from wells, while the balance came from stocks and reprocessed sump oil.
Would investment decisions be made on what might or might not be found?

The nuclear industry itself regularly discusses the uranium supply crisis in its many conferences, but ducks the issue when it wants our money.

It is certainly not a "mad excuse" for China, which has scoured the world for supplies for its nuclear build. It will be disappointed to find that the Olympic Dam expansion in Australia is abandoned, as it was on John Howard's tick list, as was India and Russia to be provided with uranium.

France must be getting short as it imports all its uranium as its own mines are extinct, because it was to rely on the new Cigar Lake mine, which is catastrophically flooded.

Just wondered why you illustrated the article with stock footage of the Sellafield plant? I'm not well up on this, but I'm sure Sellafield Ltd (as it now is) is held by British Nuclear Fuels plc and has never had any connection with British Energy (who incidentally also operate Eggborough coal-fired power station in addition to their nuclear portfolio). I realise Sellafield is iconic, but I think many people would recognise, for instance, the distinctive shape of Sizewell B.

As we don't have our own supplies of uranium, aren't we potentially opening ourselves up to further energy security worries ? The Chinese seem to be much better customers by helping with infrastucture building in source countries, unlike the US method of blowing it all up. They also are less intrusive in a country's domestic politics.

Given the waste issues, this isn't a sustainable energy source.

Surely as a nation we need to be altering our behaviour to cut our energy consumption.

With renewables unlikely to fill the gap, we need to be cutting down on ipods and other gadgets (let alone the other big uses).

How many nuclear power stations are actually generating?
This is more about getting someone to pay for tax cuts than sound policy. I doubt the French are going to risk building power stations in England if they can just send over more power from France.

It only takes one mistake and you make huge tracts of land unusable for decades - ask the Byellorussians and Ukrainians. Nearly 20% of Byelorussia was contaminated after Chernobyl.

Were you aware there are still today restrictions on 371 farms in Wales, Cumbria and Scotland following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986?

See

#15 markaurelius

The Orkney Isles have uranium deposits.
Whether they are up for grabs is another matter of course.
The locals don't want mines.
Then of course the Scottish Assembly might not want mines.
Money will talk in the end..

centrica buying the British energy atomic power at least there will be something that is owned by Britain just about every other utilities are owned by foreigners before long the country will be owned by China

That's interesting - I wonder where all these other suitors appeared from.


Perhaps they aren't "serious bidders"?

Personally I would favour EDF. Here in France we use just over 80% Nuclear produced electricity and EDF are probably the most experienced company in that field and have an excellant safety record. Also the cost here is cheaper than the UK.