14 DAY TRIAL // Given the fact that the effects of global warming are becoming increasingly obvious and devastating, the government of the United Kingdom is among a select few in the world today that is actually doing something about it. A huge part of its future plans is to construct an entirely new generation of nuclear power plants, which are to supply a large fraction of the country's energy needs based solely on nuclear fission. However, a new report douses the enthusiasm in a cold water, showing that plans to have these plants operational by 2020 are overly optimistic at best, the BBC News reports.
In an interview with Newsnight, the British nuclear regulator said that it would halt construction on all power plants, if the need arises. It also mentioned the fact that, statistically speaking, none of the existing nuclear plants in the country were finished on schedule. Most of them had at least a few months of delay between the initially-planned term of commissioning, and the actual one. The UK is currently aiming at building “third generation” reactors, which are advertised as being a lot more safe, affordable and easy to produce than existing types.
The first such reactor is scheduled to be constructed at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, and it will be an exact replica of the Areva-built Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) reactor. The latter is a facility that is being constructed by the French company in Finland. Hopefully, the UK will not take after the massive delays and cost overruns that the EPR was plagued with. A simple look over construction-related statistics shows that its builders made more than 3,000 mistakes while raising the structure. The entire project is about three years behind schedule, and billions over budget.
“When they encounter a problem on site they usually follow their previous experience, (...) this is how we did it on a coal power plant and that just doesn't work on a nuclear construction project,” says of the mistakes Petteri Tiippana, who is the Finnish regulator on the EPR reactor. His British counterpart, Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) regulator Kevin Allars, says that he will be every bit as thorough as his Finnish counterpart in assessing the successes and errors that will be made when constructing the new generation of UK reactors.