(UK) Half of all services now failing as UK care sector crisis deepends

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2015/sep/21/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-fails-cost-reliability

Half of all services now failing as UK care sector crisis deepends
Nils Pratley on finance
Monday 21 September 2015 14.37 EDT

Infrastructure analysts know the phenomenon well. A project becomes so expensive and difficult during the planning stage that the sensible course would be to abandon it altogether. Yet the backers plough on regardless because they have invested so much time, money and energy. As financial assumptions are undermined, and delays occur, new reasons to proceed are invented. In this way, the project acquires a life of its own. Completion, at almost any cost, becomes the priority.

Hinkley Point C, the government’s hoped-for £24.5bn nuclear power station in Somerset, is a classic of this genre. Once upon a time, it was possible to believe that a new nuclear fleet in the UK could provide reliable, low-carbon energy at a reasonable price to consumers. Yet two of those goals – reliability and cheap generation – simply aren’t going to be delivered by Hinkley Point, and it’s about time the government admitted as much.

On the reliability front, Hinkley-style European pressurised reactors are struggling to open for business elsewhere on the continent. EDF’s plant in Finland is nine years late and the one in Flamanville in Normandy is four years behind schedule. “Our view is that EPR’s future is bleak: too big, too costly, and still unproven,” said HSBC’s analysts last month.

In terms of costs to consumers, the agreed price is horrendous. Hinkley’s output will be guaranteed at £92.50 per megawatt hour, rising with the rate of inflation every year for 35 years. That rate is more than twice the current wholesale price. Even onshore wind is cheaper; by 2023, Hinkley’s latest estimated opening date, offshore wind may be too.