Areva’s EPRs are under construction at Flamanville in Normandy, Olkiluoto in Finland and Taishan in China. Areva forecasts that demand for nuclear capacity could bring it orders for 60 reactors, or one-third of the total market, by 2020 -- each with a price of around
5 billion. Westinghouse has orders from China for four of its new AP1000 reactors, and GE Hitachi’s ESBWR design is being considered by several American utilities.The high cost of building new plants, arid the uncertainty over the cost of nuclear energy relative to other sources, could delay the nuclear renaissance (复兴), especially in the midst of a credit crunch. Luckily for sellers, governments are bent on tackling climate change and securing energy supplies, and are likely to offer big subsidies.Britain, for one, has given its blessing to France’s nuclear ambitions: in September Electricit6 de France (EDF), a state-owned energy giant which owns and runs France’s plants (and is thus closely intertwined with Areva), bought British Energy, a troubled utility in which the British government held a big share.