PowerSwitch

Jim Duffy, Stop Hinkley wrote:
The French nuclear design and engineering company whose reactor is set to be built at Hinkley Point Areva is facing severe financial trouble.

The European Pressurised Reactor design favoured by EdF for building at
Hinkley Point is owned by Areva who are reported to be facing bankruptcy.

Experts examining Areva's cash situation just days before its accounts are published show that it is "staring down the barrel of business failure" with a 3 billion Euro bail-out request from the French Government. Overrun costs of its reactor build in Finland have left the project facing a 5.4 billion Euro bill including an invoice to Areva of 2.4 billion Euros in penalties for lateness amounting to over three years. Embarrasingly for Areva, German engineering partners Siemans recently walked away from the project.

South Africa has cancelled a 12 reactor programme with Areva who were also forced to pull out of a Uranium mining venture in Canada. Potential nuclear contracts in Africa, the Middle-East and Eastern Europe have evaporated.
Barack Obama has not agreed to a hoped-for $50 billion financial commitment to drive a nuclear renaissance in USA which might have helped Areva who had invested heavily in the country's nuclear future. Areva's shares have slumped by 60 percent since June last year.

EdF who bought British Energy sites last year for £12 billion and who wish to build two reactors at Hinkley Point with two more at Sizewell are also facing financial problems at home with a heavy debt burden and a 70 percent drop in share values. EdF depends on co-operation with Areva to build the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) at Hinkley but the credit crunch seems to be casting a shadow over at least Areva's future.

Jim Duffy, spokesman for Stop Hinkley said: "Other countries are pulling back from Areva contracts. They don't want to pick up the pieces of a failed nuclear industry. Gordon Brown should also pull the plug on the impending financial disaster that could happen here. Having been burnt by the banking industry taxpayers won't want to bail out a nuclear industry who may run out of cash when reactors are half built."

Adam1 wrote:I've just revised downwards my estimate of the number of new nuclear stations that will actually get built in the next ca. 15 years here in the UK, from two, down to half, i.e. one barely started or at most, one half-built plant.

I thought Areva was one of those French Champions that are backed by the French Government and so not allowed to fail.

clv101 wrote:

Adam1 wrote:I've just revised downwards my estimate of the number of new nuclear stations that will actually get built in the next ca. 15 years here in the UK, from two, down to half, i.e. one barely started or at most, one half-built plant.

I always thought it would be four half power stations!

Adam1 wrote:I wonder whether an inventive use will be found for all the white elephants/stranded assets we are creating around the world. I imagine that the physical remains of the cores of nuclear power stations will persist for many thousands of years, whatever becomes of our complex society.

DominicJ wrote:

I thought Areva was one of those French Champions that are backed by the French Government and so not allowed to fail.

It is/was, but due to EU and EURO realities, the French Government legaly and financialy cant.

What can I say? When I was 24 I thought the law always worked too.

emordnilap wrote:Greenpeace are doing their bit too.

a Greenpeacenik wrote:In France, Greenpeace campaigns against EDF and French nuclear company Areva, particularly the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) a third generation reactor that is scheduled to be switched on in 2012 in Flamanville, France.