| The new-built nuclear power plants you are mentioning are not finished yet, have huge cost overruns and delays (and that's not finished yet). The french EPR (Flamanville) for example had many issues (for example, some serious defects on the reactor vessel) and required redesigns while under construction.
Quite frankly having seen it from the inside (I worked on a minor sub-system of this plant a few years ago), I even doubt it will ever deliver a significant amount of electricity to the grid.
Even if construction is completed, it will be quite unique compared to the other EPRs, so I will not be overly confident about learning and be more efficient at constructing those. The finish EPR (Olkiluoto) played a huge part in the near bankruptcy of Areva (french company providing various elements of the nuclear life cycle, from uranium mining to nuclear waste "recycling") and lead to its bail-out by EDF (which is mostly state owned, so in the end, the tax payer will pay). The two Hinkley Points EPRs are a huge gamble, and the decision to go through by EDF (builder and operator of the future plants) on this project lead to much criticism, the EDF workers syndicates are deeply against it and the financial director and a member of the board resigned because of it. Given all the unknowns regarding the EPR, at 20 billion euros, it's a really huge risk taken more for political reasons than economic ones. Also EDF must face a huge overall of all its nuclear reactors as they are nearly all reaching 40 years old. This "Grand Carénage" will cost ~50 billion euros to gain 10 to 20 years for the 58 existing french reactors. For the decommissioning part, there are many unknows. The old and small Brennilis plant is being dismantled since 1985 with no definitive solution regarding the handling of the reactor vessel. Also there are tons of criticism regarding the future underground storage facility at Bure. That the not so bright economic situation of nuclear industry in France (nuclear produces 70% of electricity here). To finish, I'm personally worried by the implication of nuclear energy. Basically, believing in our capacity to manage highly dangerous wastes for several order of magnitude longer than human civilizations exist (let alone individual states) seems overly confident. |