Hitachi chairman: Nationalization only way to rescue UK nuclear project. Nakanishi says investor support of power plant has evaporated. Hitachi’s frozen nuclear power plant project in the U.K. could be revived only if the business is nationalized by Britain, Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi said here on Wednesday. “Nationalization is the only path” to resuming the project, he told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. Nakanishi said that a scheme under which the company would not be saddled with massive assets is necessary for construction to begin. For the government to take a majority stake in the business to fill the funding gap left by the private sector, however, legal changes are needed, he said. This clouds the prospect of the project being revived as the tumult of Brexit leaves Theresa May’s government with little political capital to push for such a change. The chairman said that Hitachi had embarked on the project under the strict understanding that the company would be a “provider, not a utility operator,” and that it always needed a partner that would operate the nuclear plant.
Nikkei Asian Review 24th Jan 2019 read more »
Responding to remarks made at Davos by the Hitachi chairman, Hiroaki Nakanishi, that “nationalising is the only path” to rescue their nuclear project at Wylfa, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said: “Hitachi’s boss has made it very clear that nationalising their nuclear project is the only way forward as investors have lost confidence. But there is an alternative system based on storage, inter-connectors with Europe and renewable energy that private investors are queuing up to support. The government should now finally recognise where the future lies.”
Greenpeace 24th Jan 2019 read more »
Hitachi Ltd. plans to remain in the nuclear business, its chairman said, even after suspending a reactor project in the U.K. and as public anxiety over the technology persists. “When we build up some nuclear power stations, we have to maintain this for 40, 50, 60 years,” Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi said in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland. “We don’t have any short-term decision.”
Japan Times 24th Jan 2019 read more »
