Professional Engineering Magazine : Nuclear champion

Return to:

Nuclear champion

Lord Mandelson is throwing his weight behind plans to bring about a renaissance of nuclear power – and he’s determined that it will bring success to British businesses. Lee Hibbert reports

The government has finally woken up to the fact that Britain faces a looming energy gap in the coming years unless additional generating capacity is brought on stream.

Not too long ago, ministers were still publishing wildly optimistic white papers containing over-inflated predictions of the role that renewables would play in helping to keep the lights on. But times have changed: now it is a new batch of nuclear power stations that will save the day.

Switch on: With hundreds of nuclear plants set to be built around the world, the business opportunities are substantial

There is no greater proponent of nuclear power within the upper echelons of government than business secretary Lord Mandelson. Over recent days, he has been giving speeches and briefings on energy matters that have revealed an almost messianic zeal behind his support for the renaissance of the nuclear sector.

“Nuclear is absolutely vital for our country,” insists Mandelson. “It is back on the map, centre screen, and that’s where it is going to stay.”

At present, nuclear power provides around 15% of the UK’s electricity. But by 2025 only one nuclear station – Sizewell B in Suffolk – will remain in operation. To replace the nuclear capacity that will have closed down by then will require an estimated investment of £21 billion at a time when other countries are also looking to add to their nuclear infrastructure.

According to the Nuclear Energy Agency, around the world about 12 nuclear reactors will be built every year for the next 20 years. That will require an astonishing construction and engineering effort on a global basis. Not only does nuclear have the potential to go a long way towards answering the UK’s energy needs, but it also represents an enormous business opportunity for some of our best-known firms – Rolls-Royce, Doosan Babcock, VT Group and BAE Systems, to name but a few.

So the challenge, says Mandelson, is twofold: to ensure that the UK has the capacity and the capabilities to meet its own low-carbon energy requirements and to ensure that British industry is well placed and properly equipped to win business in the growing global market.

“Our commitment can be nothing less than to develop and maintain one of the best business environments in the world for nuclear investment and companies working in the nuclear supply chain,” he says. “I don’t say that lightly, partly because I know how important it is, but also because I know what a challenge it will be. We are going to have to organise ourselves better in this country in order to pull that off.”

Lord Mandelson: Nuclear is vital for our country

Mandelson insists that the government does not seek to do the job of business, nor seek to influence commercial decisions. He says the government’s role is to provide clear, firm frameworks and policies within which commercial decisions can be taken by the private sector. “I’m very clear in my head what the difference is between those two things – governments trying to take commercial decisions, as opposed to government providing clear frameworks and policies within which others can take commercial decisions. That is the rubric of policy that I and my department are seeking to establish,” he says.

But what does that actually mean? And how does the government intend to establish the kind of regulatory clarity that big companies want to see?

Well, first, it has recently established the Office for Nuclear Development, bringing together civil servants and technically qualified people such as scientists and engineers to help facilitate the nuclear build programme as quickly as possible. The office is meant to offer a single point of contact for businesses in the nuclear sector, helping them to avoid having to traipse from one government department to another.

Meanwhile, officials within the Department of Energy and Climate Change are meant to be driving forward progress on the development of the nuclear new-build sites, along with the justification process and other issues crucial to investors. And then there is the work of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the regulatory body that is carrying out the generic design assessment of the two proposed reactors from Westinghouse and Areva. Working together, these organisations are meant to provide a smarter, more coherent approach to the development of nuclear power than what might have been seen before.

Much effort is being focused on ensuring that British firms win as much work on the new-build programme as they can. Mandelson says that openly supporting British firms makes common sense, and is nothing to be ashamed of.

“We are pro-competition: we are not protectionist, we believe in open markets,” says Mandelson. “We believe in the freedom to compete but that doesn’t mean to say that we don’t want the British supply chain to win – we do. We are just not going to fix or gerrymander the rules, as some others do in other countries, to distort the competition in favour of the UK supply chain. If they are going to win, and we want them to win, and we are going to support them to win, they have to do so on the basis of open and free competition.”

Mandelson believes that, as a pioneer of nuclear power, the UK has the right kind of skilled resource base, particularly in areas such as advanced engineering and project management. But he wants the benefits of the new-build programme to filter all the way down the supply chain to small companies, and says that a low-carbon industrial strategy to be published this month will set out proposals to make that happen.

The one area where Mandelson worries that the UK doesn’t have anywhere near enough capacity is in the forging of ultra-large components and reactor pressure vessels. At present, these massive components, which can weigh up to 500 tonnes each, are only made in a handful of sites, and there are fears that this could cause bottlenecks during construction.

One UK company that would like to build a press capable of producing these components is Sheffield Forgemasters. Mandelson says the government is looking at private- and public-sector options that would help Forgemasters to raise the estimated £140 million it would need to build such a press.

“It is very difficult to find purely commercial private-sector sources of finance,” he says. “The return is over such a long period of time that it is very difficult, in the present economic climate, to get the private-sector funding on the scale that you need.”

Skills shortages are another area of concern. To identify the UK’s skills requirements, the government is working with the regional development agencies, the sector skills council Cogent, and academic bodies.

Mandelson sees slowness in reaching design and planning approvals as one of the biggest threats to the renaissance of the nuclear sector. He says: “One of the things we have done is to enact legislation that faster tracks planning decisions. That is offensive to some who think that local democracy rules supreme and that nothing can ever be allowed to go forward unless absolutely everyone agrees. This is just crazy.”

But, in conclusion, he remains convinced that nuclear power is here to stay and that the government’s support for it is unwavering. “There’s never been a greater global demand for money, equipment and skills to build and operate new nuclear,” says Mandelson. “It’s a hugely exciting challenge and opportunity, and we are focused in government on doing everything we can to attract investment that will enable us to reach our energy goals and reap the immense business benefits that exist.”

FORGING AHEAD

Only a handful of companies globally have the ability to build giant nuclear forgings, restricting supply to the equivalent of five to seven reactor systems a year. With the construction rate between 2010 and 2030 expected to be around 12 new reactors a year, there is clearly the potential for severe bottlenecks.

As a result, Sheffield Forgemasters is in discussions with the government and other partners about finance towards the £140 million cost of installing a 15,000-tonne press to enable the company to compete in the nuclear market.

Japan Steel Works currently meets the vast majority of world demand. Other suppliers are France’s Areva, which is boosting forging capacity at its Sfar Steel business, Russia’s OMZ, which is committed to Russian requirements, and South Korea’s Doosan, which supplies the Korean and Chinese markets.

One of the main difficulties faced by new entrants to the market for large nuclear forgings is the length of time it takes to gain the necessary technical quality assurance approvals, such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME, certification. Sheffield Forgemasters is in a favourable position in that it already has ASME approval.

“We can be immediately fully competent and approved for all the larger critical nuclear forgings regardless of design if the proposed installation of a 15,000-tonne press is completed,” says Peter Birtles, a director at the company.

“For new starters in the forging business, the approval takes five to 15 years, depending on the technical help they can attract. Doosan is the most recent entrant to this market and it took 20 years to gain certification,” he says.

The proposed 15,000-tonne press at Sheffield Forgemasters would enable production of the 500-tonne ingots necessary for the creation of the nozzle ring, which is the largest of several sections that make up pressure vessels. The company’s current 10,000-tonne press, which is just over 50 years old, was refurbished in the late 1980s and produces almost all of its nuclear products, but it cannot make the largest pieces for the nuclear island.

Around 6% of Sheffield Forgemasters’ annual turnover of just over £100 million is attributable to civil nuclear power forgings. “If we consider the average of expectations over the next 15 years, but with the addition of a 15,000-tonne press, that percentage could go up to 20-25% on much larger revenues,” says Birtles.

Discussions over the potential for a state-funded contribution towards Sheffield Forgemasters’ heavy press investment remain ongoing, with a formal announcement due by the end of this month.

	Previous feature story	Next feature story
	Back to contents	Email us your views

www.profeng.com The home of Professional Engineering on the web

Professional Engineering

Related links and resources

Nuclear champion

www.profeng.com The home of Professional Engineering on the web

Professional Engineering

Search our back issues

Related links and resources

Nuclear champion