The fact that the alleged nuclear revival has evaporated into the ether is being trumpeted as breaking news. But there was never a nuclear revival -- only "plans" and "aspirations" built on quicksand. The collapse of the South Carolina nuclear new build project at V.C. Summer had been seen coming since it's first glimmer on paper -- by groups such as Southern Alliance For Clean Energy, relegated, as are many of us, to anti-nuclear Cassandras.
The same reactor design -- the untested AP 1000 -- is planned for a site next to the Sellafield reprocessing faciity in the UK. But with the implosion of Toshiba under the weight of the Westinghouse financial collapse, that project is under serious threat. The site is owned and operated by the rashly named consortium, NuGen. But as the sign at the site indicates, there is nothing happening there right now as NuGen partners scamper for the exits and the South Koreans -- who have forsaken nuclear power at home -- mull sticking it on others overseas. If the South Koreans switch out the AP 1000 for their own reactor design at the Moorside NuGen site, it will become very old Gen indeed, with likely many more years of delay. By that time, nuclear energy will have become 100% redundant, as renewables, combined with energy efficiency, will have completely taken over.
As Martin Forwood of Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment commented in a recent press release: "The latest news of the plug being pulled on the half-built AP1000 reactors in the US and the fall from grace on the Tokyo Stock Exchange of NuGen’s sole investor Toshiba will further add to the increasing uncertainties swirling around in the Moorside mists”.