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Chinese Seek Greater Say In UK Nuclear Plants
mdsolar writes in with news about negotiations between the Chinese and the UK over nuclear power plant investments. "The state-owned Chinese nuclear group that is in talks to invest in Britain's new nuclear program wants greater operational control of any new plants it finances, potentially creating a national security headache for the government. China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), is in talks with EDF of France on sharing the cost of building a new plant at Hinkley Point, Somerset, which has an estimated price tag of £14bn. But CGN has made it clear to EDF that it will only proceed if it is given more of a say in running other plants the two companies build together in the UK, according to people familiar with the talks."
So, it has come to this.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
All your power plants are belong to us ... belong to CN !!
Bow down to your... fuck off China you'll only ever be given "cosmetic" control of such a vital asset, that applies to however much money you pour in.
So, China pretend to integrate themselves into the international community, then they want a say in how Hinkley Point "C" runs, then they start a meltdown which makes the surrounding area uninhabitable. The UK economy crumbles due to the loss of Cheddar, Somerset Cider and Glastonbury hippies doing face-painting. The Chinese buy up the rest of the UK, but due to their lack of economic know-how forget that the UK can't buy the stuff they produce, so they put down the whole episode as a bad learning experience.
The worst bit, I'm left drinking Suffolk cider and eating Wensleydale. I'm happy about the lack of face-painting facilities though.
Yes, I RTFA and they are nigh devoid of requisite detail.
No doubt there would be legitimate concerns if "greater operational control" meant something like "allow us to perform Chernobyl-like experiments with the reactor".
However, my guess is that they are demanding this control to protect their £billion investment. Nuclear power plant operators always have a political sword of Damocles over their heads. If anything, it is in their interest to operate safely to avoid having their license revoked and their colossal investment's value reduced to a negative number (due to mothballing/demolition costs).
Either way, we can't know without more information, all of which is likely going to be heavily tinged by political spin.
You lose control when you insist on not paying for your shit.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
In what political universe do they imagine the people of the UK would be interested in giving operational control of a nuclear reactor in Somerset to a foreign government, esp. one they don't particularly trust?
...who said the UK wasn't like Communist China?
Are they worried that the Chinese will get the plans of reactor technology thirty years older than what they already have? The UK stopped building nuclear power stations when Thatcher was in charge.
EPR's produce 1650 MWe, so this plant will produce 3.3 GWp. The price is put at "£14bn", that's 21.8 bU$, or about 6.6 USD a watt. And that's at *an existing site*. New sites would be much more expensive due to paperwork delays.
Clearly the nuclear renaissance estimates of $4.6 are too low, as this is the cheapest plant I've seen recently and it's still over $6. Darlington B was $8.25 (at least), Vogtle 3&4 are around $7.25, and Crystal River 6 came in around $11.
For those new to this, the price of power from fission is almost entirely a function of its capital cost, measured in dollars per watt. Anything above 5 is generally uneconomical, and with NG at $2/MBTU that number is almost certainly even lower, probably down around $3 or $4/W.
Ah the Chinese .... Britain's oldest allies .
Brought to you by the John Kerry school of political history.
I assume a lot of the kerfuffle is the Chinese investor wanting to have a say over how engineering, procurement, and construction is sourced--specifically they would want a good portion of the investment in services and jobs to go to China.
Whats with all the Privatization bullshit about delivering better value for the $.
Sinapore, China have State run businesses making shit loads of $$ for their governments. Now State owned Chinese want to run the UK Nuclear Industry.
About time we fkin privitized our own oil industry and took the profits back into the country.
Robbing parasite companies!!
Invest in offshore wind power and water power.
It might sound silly, but it is much more cost effective than nuclear power.
Look at how much damage the Fukushima has already cost TEPCO and the Japanese government.
And it is not over yet: Fukushima's Radioactive Plume Could Reach U.S. Waters By 2014
Everybody get are "fair" share.
Just one of these accidents every twenty years and it is goodbye turnover.
No mention in the summary of the massive subsidies the British tax payer would have to pay to build maintain and close these costly Chinese made disasters waiting to happen.
Nuclear power: leaks show new EU push | Environment | The ...
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
WE LIVE ON PLANET EARTH, your nationalistic globalism denial will only destroy your economy...
potentially creating a national security headache for the government.
The Chinese, having been unable to deliver nuclear weapons via ICBMs, have now cleared that hurdle --- place the nuclear weapons within the sovereign state of the enemy with a remote control capability to blow it up at any time. What more could China ask for?
Even a monopoly can't force you to buy. People will switch to alternative sources. They'll make their own. Where neither of those is feasible they'll be very frugal. In the last resort, the people can change the government.
In short, it's not guaranteed that at any price the monopolist sets the market demand will be sufficient for it to make a profit.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In the US, nuclear power is shrinking in generation and fraction of overall generation. Early retirement announcements of five rectors and cancellation of five power uprates recently are basically attributable to market reforms that caused nuclear power to compete and lose against other energy sources. http://slashdot.org/journal/496141/is-indian-point-next-to-close Most of Europe is exiting nuclear power with even France beginning to have reservations. So really only command-and-control economic systems have a way to play with nukes. If you want a nuclear renaissance, Iran, China, Russia and petrostates are where you have to look for it.
I don't see what national security problem this would pose. The Chinese have a non-interventionalist foreign policy, which does not threaten the United Kingdom, and a more developed nuclear capability than Britain, so we have no nuclear secrects to loose. We don't complain about US investments in the UK, and America has a foreign policy that is both coercive, and bordering on that of a terrorist/rogue state. China has never demonstrated an of this ill intent.
Britain should make new aliances, with allies who want to base our relationships on fair mutal trade, rationality, and mutal respect. Our relationship with the United States, certainly does not fall into this category. The United States was mostly built on technology stolen from Germany, and Britain, post war.
Why fear China? Yes, they have human rights problems at home, but so now does the United Kingdom. The UK has collaborated with the US regime's spying policies, detention/harrassment of journalists, has a one sides extradition treaty with the US, that allows American persecution of its own choice of British citizens. We also now employ the 'kettling' of crowds [sometimes better know as pressure cook er] technique of preventing democratic protest.
Isn't this a little like an investor saying that he's willing to fund something but he wants a bit of a say in how his investment is handled? I don't see how this is unreasonable.
Some seem's
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