The HEEDnet seminars are sponsored by the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics and HEEDnet.  The next seminar is kindly hosted by DEFRA and is entitled:

NUCLEAR POWER: HOW COMPETITIVE IS IT UNDER ELECTRICITY MARKET REFORM?

Seminar at DEFRA, Room 808, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London
5.30 (for 6.00) till 9.00 pm, Tuesday 17th July 2012

The seminar will be followed by refreshments at 8.00pm, to be provided by the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics.

Topic:
How is it that all three nuclear power consortia are in various states of withdrawal or uncertainty about moving ahead with their proposals?  Might this have anything to do with negative financial appraisals of nuclear new build prospects in the face of the Electricity Market Reform Proposals?   Should earlier Government assessments of nuclear power’s relative competitiveness (compared with renewable energy) in practical liberalised market conditions be subject to critique?  Dr David Toke analyses nuclear costs from the standpoint of how they may be assessed by a consultant hired by a credit rating agency considering actual project delivery costs.  This he argues is a surer way to assess whether nuclear (compared to other fuels) can be brought to market under EMR proposals than Government assessments that have so far been done.

Chair:
Henry Leveson-Gower
Policy Adviser in Defra and an environmental economist for almost 20 years working on a wide range of policy areas.  He is also the coordinator of Heednet.

Presenter:
Dr David Toke
Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy at the University of Birmingham, based in the Department of Political Science and International Studies.  He has published various analyses of the political economy and practical financing of renewable energy, as well as research into the commercial practicalities of technologies such as combined heat and power and nuclear power.  In the earlier 1990s, he was Managing Director of a wind power company which bid for a contract under the NFFO scheme.

Discussant:
Mike Thompson
Leader of the central analytical team at the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), covering the power sector and cross-cutting issues relating to carbon budgets. Mike has been with the CCC since the secretariat was first established in shadow form in 2007, and has covered a range of topics, from advising on Scottish carbon targets to the UK’s fourth carbon budget, and from agriculture to electricity market reform and the Renewable Energy Review.  He studied economics at St. John’s College, Cambridge and University College London.

Followed by discussion.
*
Please present yourself at the building reception on the ground floor.  The staff will have a list of participants and will issue badges.  You will be  escorted to the room.

To register, please e-mail me at dt@camecon.com and I will confirm your place.  There is no charge for attending.  The HEEDnet website is http://www.heednet.org.