hinkley

 It is understood that the decision whether to invest £24.5 billion into the Hinkley power station in Somerset hangs on a knife edge. A key management level trade union, CFE-CGC, who sit on the board, have issued 15 questions raising financial, legal and strategic concerns over whether EDF can afford the project, or deliver it on time.(1)

In response to the announcement of the Hinkley deal, Greenpeace UK Executive Director John Sauven said:

“Hinkley C fails every test – economic, consumer, and environmental. It will lock a generation of consumers into higher energy bills, via a strike price that’s nearly double the current price of electricity, and it will distort energy policy by displacing newer, cleaner, technologies that are dropping dramatically in price.

“Whilst wind farms and even shale gas developers have to pay community benefits, only nuclear stations will get a fat taxpayer subsidy to fund them. Our entire energy policy is now absurdly distorted by the desperation to prop up EDF’s faltering Hinkley C project, with the government piling the costs onto the taxpayer to avoid the embarrassment of admitting they backed the wrong technology. We can’t go on like this.”

ENDS

Nuclear power stations are at risk from significant sea-level rises and storm surges in the future. Many existing and proposed sites are not suitable locations for new nuclear reactors, according to a report by flood experts.