There is news today that Électricité de France (EDF), Europe’s largest energy producer may be about to make a takeover bid for British Energy plc, the UK nuclear power provider.

Électricité de France produces 22% of Europe’s electricity mainly from French nuclear reactors, some of this energy is already exported to the UK.

The UK has aging nuclear power stations, some of which are scheduled to go offline soon and there is projected energy black-hole. The UK government dragged it’s feet for 10 years up until the last few months when they finally decided that nuclear power would be needed to keep the country running.

If British Energy plc were to be sold, the UK government would give up it’s stake so potential energy export revenue for the British from new reactors sited in the UK may be limited.

Possibly the only chance for avoiding the energy gap in the United Kingdom is the purchase and deployment of quick-assembly modern nuclear reactors from France.

I had a brief go at explaining the issues surrounding the UK government’s ten-year-late decision to build new nuclear power stations yesterday.

Bascially, the UK government have procrastinated for ten years and now we’re staring at an energy gap that we can’t fill.

Burning Our Money blog has made a rather better job of the discussion including comparing the cost of renewables with the cost of nuclear energy. Burning Our Money even include a reasonably witty Pen & Teller clip for your enjoyment.

The British government has decided that building new nuclear power stations would be a good idea after all. Business Secretary John Hutton has stated that new nuclear reactors could be built next to existing reactors around the country.

Of the UK’s 24 nuclear reactors, many are becoming quite elderly having been commissioned in the 1960s and 1970s. All but one of the current reactors which currently provide about 20% of UK power generation will have been decommissioned by 2025 which raises a problem. Most estimates suggest that the first of the new reactors will come on line at about the same time (2025) so there will be a huge and increasing energy gap up to that point at which the first new reactors can start making a dent in the UK’s energy requirement.

Quite where the UK is going to find the extra energy it needs in the interim decade or so is anybody’s guess.

The UK currently imports electricity from France, it is unlikely that they could cover our increased needs but their own model is sound. The French have 59 nuclear reactors providing 70% of the power requirements of a population comparable in size to the UK. Their principal energy company EDF (Électricité de France) manages these reactors and already has major interests in the UK. I suspect that EDF will probably be the primary company for new reactor construction in the UK. This is probably a good thing as the French pretty much lead the world in reactor design and technology.

So, this leaves us hamstrung by the governments procrastination. If they’d pulled their collective finger out at the turn of the century, we would have new reactors on-line by now and a level of energy security we can only dream about having (or have nightmares about not having).

I can only hope that EDF or any other company that takes up the challenge of providing new reactors can fast-track the construction process and saves us from the energy black hole we face. I’d hate to have to move the delusionofgrandeur server to France to avoid it going on a 3 day week.