One of the problems with nuclear is that its business model - which is built to accommodate the characteristics of large scale coal and nuclear both - is one predicated on growth in energy consumption. When the UK was aggressively pursuing a renewable rollout, they also had one of the best energy efficiency programs in the world.
Once the right wing started pushing to revamp their nuclear program one of the first things they did was to gut their energy efficiency effort and their renewable push.
From 2011:
'Green deal' will fail, government's climate advisers warn
Scheme to make 14m UK homes more energy efficient will only reach 2-3m households, Committee on Climate Change says
The government's flagship programme to transform the energy efficiency of 14m homes in the next decade will fail and only reach only 2-3m households, according to an unprecedented attack from the government's own climate advisers.
The warning comes from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which on Tuesday for the first time published an open letter criticising government policy. It follows soaring energy bills and the news that one in four homes are now in fuel poverty...
Very good article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/20/green-deal-fail?intcmp=122
Energy efficiency measures have a serious negative effect on merchant (market based) nuclear plant's economic viability.
Citigroup 2008 evaluation of investment potential for merchant nuclear in Europe says:
"...There are currently 10GW of nuclear capacity under construction/development, including the UK proposed plants that should be on operation by 2020. If we assume that energy efficiency will not contribute, that would imply a load factor for the plants of 18%*. Looking at the entire available nuclear fleet that would imply a load factor of just 76%. We do believe though that steps towards energy efficiency will also be taken, thus the impact on load factors could be larger.
Under a scenario of the renewables target being fully delivered then the load factor for nuclear would fall to 56%.
Such a reduction is actually already underway, with load factors for nuclear plants in Europe falling from 85% on average during the beginning of the decade to below 80% as renewables increase their share in the fuel mix. In our opinion a slow down or fall in demand could have an even bigger effect, substantially affecting the economics of new plants.
*refers to new plants.
Less effective efficiency programs equal more money for nuclear plants.
Other notes from Citi docs analyzing UK nuclear:
associated grid upgrades for the new plants expected to be about $2.2 billion plus
an
*additional* 260MW of new spinning reserve would be needed for EACH new reactor.
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