FOAK costs are not representative. But, EON Chief is right because costs were underestimated: Raw mat. rocketing prices, post-deregulation era client behaviour, post-Chernobyl new guidelines and lack of experienced engineers explain most.
Areva bears the costs of upgrading the nuclear industry...

Henry Cress, PARIS, France

FOAK costs are not representative. But, EON Chief is right because the costs were underestimated: Raw mat. rocketing prices, post-deregulation era client behaviour, post-Chernobyl new guidelines and lack of experienced engineers explain most.
Areva pays the costs of upgrading the nuclear suppliers.

Henry Cress, PARIS, France

The cost of the Finland plant is not representative of the possible cost, this is a FOAKE plant (First of a kind engineer, I think). The actual cost should be analized in the construction of the new EPR being built in Flammamville, with the previous experience in Finland.

Javier, Madrid, Spain

There is such a thing as shopping around. About which design is E.ON talking? Now that Shell has pulled out of the London Array, the world's largest offshore windfarm, E.ON is looking for another investor, perhaps the taxpayer - so hyping the cost of nuclear is understandable.

Dwight Vandryver, Scholar Green, Cheshire, UK

The reactor design originated in France. Perhaps a French bid will be cheaper? Also, the 2.8 or 6-7 billion is only the investment cost. It is only one item of the total cost that will determine the electric rate. Has anybody estimated the electric rate?

Craggs, Flint, Michigan, USA

It's still the cheapest form of carbon free base load electrical generation, including the comparatively negligible costs of waste storage. If we're serious about going carbon neutral then we need a stable base load of electricity - wind and solar won't provide this in a remotely economical way.

Andrew, Leeds,

They could save money by building thirty reactors at once and mass producing parts. They don't all need firing up but having thirty reactors would be a significant cushion in times of energy uncertainty. This could easily knock the price back down to a reasonable level.......

kevin, Lincoln, UK

I think people need to realise that any estimate is based on factors that cant be completely understood. I can tell you that in many companies the way they get over design and build issues is by throwing money at the problem. The issue really isnt how they cost its time < time = > money always!!!

Mark Halls, Ipsiwch, UK

OK, we get the message - they will actually cost £6-7 billion each (largely going to their foreign builders).

It's like a comedy version of the old cold war 'Kremlinology' trying to separate what the government actually think from their public spin.

paul, sheffield, UK

Would not the solution to building new big and costly nuclear plants to using smaller military reactors that have been running in submarines for years. Much smaller and would be easier to decommission when they have done there job and would not take as long to build and getting up and running

GARY SCALES, london, england

PM BROWN cannot be wrong. After all he is the economic guru.He was with GOLD. Trust him he knows about the "LONG TERM". I hope he listens and goes soon.

john, CARDIFF, WALES

You can be sure that the DBERR's figure is yet another of a long string of tactical estimates, unrelated to the real number. Do we really have to be governed by people who play these games? If so, can a statistician work out some conversion tables for us, so that we can look up the real number?

Colin, shrewsbury,

Nuclear plants are economically uncompetetive if all the legacy costs of decommissioning and waste storage are factored in. Building Nuclear plants is in essence a shifting of the true cost of power generation onto the backs of future generations. It is deeply unethical and enviromentally foolish.

Callum, Jakarta, Indonesia

Nulab never was any good at sums.

Albert Hall, kettering,

Yes, except that the construction of the plant in Finland was totally screwed up by Areva, which could not even get the basic construction right. Who knows what a plant would cost if constructed competently?

And of course we know that wind power never comes in at budgeted cost either.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/USA