Nuclear chiefs target deal on plants for U.K.

Nuclear chiefs target deal on plants for U.K.
Chinese officials in talks over a possible HK$424b plan to build five reactors in Britain, with Daya Bay company bidding against another state-owned rival
The Guardian in London 
Jul 22, 2012       
SCMP


The company that runs the Daya Bay nuclear plant wants to splash out hundreds of billions of dollars building reactors in Britain.


Shenzhen-based China Guangdong Nuclear Power is bidding for a stake in a consortium that wants to construct two power plants there.


Chinese nuclear industry officials have been in high-level talks with Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change in the past week.


The plans could eventually involve up to five reactors and a total cost of £35 billion (HK$424 billion).


But Guangdong Nuclear will be bidding against another state-owned operator, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).



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The Guangdong company has previously talked openly about building nuclear plants in Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, but never in a such a potentially politically charged market as the UK.


London has been courting China, as the UK atomic programme has been hit by rows over subsidies and worries that EDF - the French company with the most advanced plans to build reactors in the UK - could be hampered by the change of government in Paris.


A team from the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, an arm of CNNC, met senior British officials over the last few days, three different sources confirmed. The two locations identified in Britain so far are Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire, southwest England.


EDF has the right of first refusal to operate on the sites, but CNNC wants to use an existing technology tie-up with US-based nuclear engineering group Westinghouse to potentially build three more reactors.


A well-placed source said: "The Chinese have the money and the experience. They see setting up in the UK as an opportunity to show they can operate in one of the world's toughest regulatory environments."


A spokesman for the Department of Energy refused to comment on whether talks had taken place.


But he added: "The UK is open for business and actively welcomes inward investment to our energy sector, but any potential nuclear operator is, and would be, subject to rigorous scrutiny."


Keith Parker, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association in London, said it was "highly encouraging" China wanted to invest in the UK.


"They have 14 of their own reactors in operation and 25 under construction. It was clear from my discussions with them that they have international ambitions."


But Greenpeace said the bid to woo China was a last throw of the dice by the British government. Chief scientist Doug Parr said: "This is a sign of desperation."


Daya Bay is the mainland's first commercial nuclear plant, just 50 kilometres from urban Hong Kong.


It has long held concerns for Hong Kong's environmental activists, especially after the Fukushima disaster in Japan last year.