EDF pushes case for nuclear power
Credit: By Ed Crooks, Financial Times, www.ft.com 7 January 2010
Nuclear power is a much more cost-effective way to cut carbon dioxide emissions than building offshore wind farms, the head of the company seeking to lead Britain’s nuclear revival has said.
Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of the French-owned EDF Energy, which plans to build at least four new reactors in Britain at a cost of about £20bn, argues in Friday’s Financial Times that nuclear is “the cheapest, large-scale, low-carbon electricity source”, costing less than half as much as offshore wind power.
On Friday the government will launch a huge expansion of offshore wind, intended to add a further 25,000 megawatts of capacity to the grid, compared with the present total of less than 700MW. Ministers are counting on offshore wind to play a key role in meeting its target that 15 per cent of the UK’s energy should be derived from renewable sources by 2020.
EDF says it believes all energy sources will be needed and it is developing a small offshore wind farm in the north-east. But it has not bid for any of the latest round of offshore wind licences that are to be announced on Friday.
EDF argues that support for nuclear power might cost £40 a year on electricity bills, the equivalent electricity from offshore wind would cost £100.
Charles Anglin of the BWEA, which represents the wind power industry, responded that new nuclear developments could play no significant role in meeting demand for electricity in this decade, because the first reactor was unlikely to be in commercial operation until 2018 at the earliest.
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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