Government warned that energy plans could be thwarted by shortages of skills and components
David Gow in Brussels, Monday October 1, 2007
The government's plans to build up to 10 nuclear power plants in Britain over the next decade could be thwarted by a shortage of skilled project managers, industry executives have warned.
They have told ministers that the coming nuclear renaissance in Europe and in emerging economies such as Russia, China and India - driven by the need to combat global warming and reduce energy imports - could also constrain the delivery of key reactor components unless decisions are made swiftly and the planning process is speeded up.
The executives are even warning that the first new nuclear plants may not come on stream until towards the end of the next decade because of the demand for project managers to deliver the 2012 Olympic Games and other big infrastructure projects.
At an energy summit at General Electric's research centre in Munich last week, Rod Christie, president of the US group's energy operations in central and eastern Europe and Russia, said that Russia alone was planning to build 40 nuclear power stations.
GE is one of four manufacturers applying to build new-generation nuclear reactors in Britain and is offering its ESBWR (economic simplified boiling water reactor) which, Mr Christie claimed, has built-in safety features.
It is competing with the EPR, a third-generation pressurised water reactor being built in Finland and France by the French state-owned group Areva with Siemens; the AP1000 reactor designed by Westinghouse, the former BNFL unit now owned by Toshiba; and the Candu design from Canada's AECL.
About 10 operators, including British Energy, France's EDF, Germany's Eon and RWE; Centrica, owners of British Gas, and Sweden's Vattenfall, are among those mooted to have applied for certification to run the new nuclear power plants.
A government consultation on the future of nuclear energy, triggered by a legal victory for Greenpeace and other green campaigners, ends on October 10 - the 50th anniversary of the fire at the Windscale atomic reactor in Cumbria.
Ministers have promised a decision by the end of the year but it is a foregone conclusion that they will give the go-ahead for up to 10 reactors at five "brownfield" sites by the end of the year.
Jeremy Nicholson, head of the pro-nuclear Energy Intensive Users Group, said: "It is vital for the UK to give a decision quickly and get on with getting one or two of the first schemes in the pipeline ... There's only a handful of companies worldwide capable of forging the new pressure vessels and other critical components and there will be capacity constraints there for the next 10 to 15 years so we need to get this sorted out well in advance so we are not at the wrong end of the queue behind Russia and China."
In a recent capability study, the Nuclear Industries Association (NIA) insisted that competition for resources such as turbines and generators from other projects "should not be a problem" and building new plants would occur predominantly after the Olympic Games in London.
But Mr Nicholson, who said the first plants could come on stream in 2016 at the earliest and probably later, would be competing for project managers when the Games were still being prepared.
British Energy insists that between 70% and 80% of the manufacture can be met within Britain but, in its response to the government consultation, admitted that "there is high demand in a worldwide market for specialist skills in nuclear construction and for key components."
The NIA says it is vital that Britain attracts the necessary skills as its nuclear renaissance is one of the most advanced planned so far.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007