中文导读
近日，英国政府正考虑新建一座核电站，即塞兹韦尔C核电站。相较风能和太阳能，核能不仅能更稳定地供电，也能更有效地避免二氧化碳释放造成全球变暖。然而，欧洲压水反应堆造价高昂，大大超出法国电力公司的预算，且最早要到2022年才能建造完成，而英国的核电站即将停止使用，英国陷入了使用风能发电还是核能发电的两难境地。
Britain's nuclear industry faces a do-or-die moment
THE VILLAGE of Sizewell, on the east coast of England, has hosted nuclear power stations since 1966. The first is closed. The second, Sizewell B, started feeding power into the grid in 1995. The government is considering whether to back the construction of a third. It would be a replica of the Hinkley C plant that is under construction in Somerset, the first new nuclear power station built in Britain in 25 years. Sizewell C, if it is built, will be the second. The decision is crucial for the future of Britain’s nuclear industry.
Climate change has made the politics of nuclear power even more complex than it used to be. Public concerns about radiation and the disruption caused by construction must now be balanced against the capability of nuclear power to generate large amounts of electricity without the emission of carbon dioxide, which warms the atmosphere.
Unlike the two fast-growing mainstays of zero-carbon electricity generation, wind and solar power, nuclear power’s output is stable, and does not fluctuate with the weather. This makes it valuable to any country attempting to decarbonise. Most of the mathematical models which stay within the confines of the Paris Agreement, which aims to constrain the temperature increase on the planet to less than 2°C, have nuclear power playing a significant role.
Yet the West is abysmal at building new nuclear power stations. Olkiluoto 3, in Finland, is running 12 years behind schedule. Flamanville 3, which is being built in France, is about ten years behind and €10bn ($12bn) over budget. Both use European Pressure Reactors (EPR) from a French company, Areva, which is owned by the French state utility Electricité de France (EDF). Hinkley C and Sizewell C are also being built by EDF. Each contains two EPRs.
Critics of large nuclear-power stations cite EDF’s overruns as reasons why Britain should pull back from its nuclear ambitions. Instead, some say, Britain should focus on offshore wind turbines, diverting the money it will take to build plants like Sizewell C. In just the past few years, the proportion of electricity generated by wind has jumped dramatically.
Since Hinkley C is under construction, Sizewell C is the project around which the current debate is playing out. EDF argues that the situation in Britain is different to that in Finland and France, and that its British reactors stand to benefit from cost reductions as it builds more copies of the same design in a way that its European reactors have not. This summer Julia Pyke, an EDF director, said that the second EPR to be used in Hinkley C has had 45% more steel installed than the first unit over the same timeframe, and that the reactor’s cooling components had been installed 50% faster. Sizewell C would benefit from the same dynamic, as well as lower regulatory costs, since the Office for Nuclear Regulation has approved its progenitor.
Even if Boris Johnson announces his support for Sizewell C, additional barriers remain. EDF won’t complete the government’s planning process until 2022 at the earliest. Its approval will also take time. A method of financing the plant’s construction must still be worked out and private investors found.
The risk of overruns is considerable, but the risks of failing to decarbonise are much greater. If Sizewell C does not go ahead, Britain will lose any hope of reducing the cost of nuclear power, and thereby the realistic option of including it in the grid. Its existing nuclear fleet is scheduled for decommissing within the decade. Wind power is cheap and getting cheaper; nuclear power is yet to start moving in the right direction. But it may; and given the danger of global warming, there is an argument for keeping the nuclear option open. ■
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Nov 14th 2020 • Britain • 625 words
文章导语“Britain’s nuclear industry faces a do-or-die moment"中的 do-or-die 作何解释？
注意这里用到了 do or die 这一俚语，表示“破釜沉舟的； 决定胜负的”，英文释义为 presenting as the only alternatives complete success or complete ruin，看一个例句：Nobody will know the exact position until Monday, when it is do-or-die for the deal. 没有人在周一之前知道确切的情况—那时将是决定交易胜负的时刻。(查看每日主推更多讲解，欢迎加入《阅读训练营》，踏踏实实提升阅读理解能力，词汇量过八千，随来随学)
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