EU regulator slams UK nuclear deal with EDF

[bananas]

Source: Financial Times

Britain’s new nuclear power station would be profitable even without the £17.6bn of potentially illegal state support provided, according to Brussels estimates that underline the uphill challenge ministers face in winning EU approval for the deal.

In a scathing 68-page initial assessment published on Friday, the EU’s top competition regulator raises fundamental concerns about the UK contract with French utility EDF for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset.

While the commission is now undertaking a more in-depth review of the project that is to provide 7 per cent of UK electricity needs, the severity of initial concerns will cast a dark shadow over government hopes to avoid big revisions to the deal terms.

The commission questions whether the intervention addresses a genuine market failure and suggests the terms will overpay EDF, shield it from almost all operational risk and crowd out alternative sources of energy supply.

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Read more: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fac6a7924-8a68-11e3-9c29-00144feab7de.html

[bananas]

1. 68-page initial assessment

pdf: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/251157/251157_1507977_35_2.pdf

[kristopher]

2. Wow, who could have seen this coming?

<- Just in case...

[bananas]

3. I expected them to bribe/blackmail the commissioners.

And I'm not being sarcastic, considering the revelations of Katherine Gun, Edward Snowden, etc, etc.

[kristopher]

5. The UK is pulling the entire EU hard right.

The Conservatives have enacted the policies in the ALEC playbook and now they want to remake the rest of the EU to the ideals of the world's Koch-a-likes.

[FBaggins]

4. Indeed... who could have seen that coming?

That the project would be profitable under all price scenarios even with their maximum expected cost of capital?

So Brussels is now saying that nuclear power is profitable without any government support... but we've also seen the wind/solar industries in the UK whining that they can't get by even with much higher subsidies?

Of course... missing from the article is the fact that "profitable" is irrelevant so long as fossil generation is more profitable without the capital outlays.