U.K. Reveals Potential Sites for 11 New Nuclear Power Plants

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The U.K. government has released a list of 11 sites that it has deemed suitable for the building of new nuclear power stations. The decision by the Department of Energy and Climate is a big step toward the U.K.'s plans to have new nuclear reactors up and running by 2018.

French electricity giant Electricite de France (EPA:EDF) (Paris), which bought U.K. nuclear energy developer British Energy in a 12.5 billion-pound ($18.6 billion) deal last year, nominated five of the sites. This was followed by RWE Power (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany), which nominated three, including one with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The NDA nominated three in total, including one with RWE and another with German power group E.ON AG (OTC:EONGY) (Duesseldorf).

The Department of Energy and Climate Change published the list after completing the Strategic Siting Assessment. This included vetting all applications to ensure they were "credible, that the sites could be operational by 2025 and that the nominator had raised public awareness of their intention to nominate."

Of the 11 sites, nine of them have previously had nuclear reactors, while the other two are located close to Sellafield in Cumbria.

The 11 sites are:

• Hartlepool, nominated by EDF Energy
• Heysham, nominated by EDF Energy
• Dungeness, nominated by EDF Energy
• Sellafield, nominated by NDA
• Kirksanton, nominated by RWE
• Braystones, nominated by RWE
• Wylfa Peninsula, nominated by NDA and RWE
• Oldbury, nominated by NDA and EON
• Hinkley Point, nominated by EDF Energy
• Bradwell, nominated by NDA
• Sizewell, nominated by EDF Energy

"Nuclear power is part of the low carbon future for Britain," said Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. "It also has the potential to offer thousands of jobs to the U.K. and multimillion-pound opportunities to British businesses. This is another important step towards a new generation of nuclear power stations. I want to listen to what people have to say about these nominations and I encourage people to log on to our website, read the information and let us have their comments. We will consider this alongside the advice of our independent expert regulators. Later this year we will be running a consultation on the draft list of sites, so people will have further opportunities to have their say."

Leading players EDF, RWE, E.ON and others have been engaged for five weeks now in an online bidding war to buy some of the sites. The NDA put sites in Wylfa, North Wales, Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Bradwell in Essex. The hotly contested auction will finish when 24 hours elapses without a bid. For additional information, see related news item from April 1, 2009 - Bidding War Erupts for New U.K. Nuclear Sites.

A final list of suitable sites will be published this summer as part of the draft National Policy Statement on nuclear power.

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