Hinkley tower collapse: what did you expect from this duff, expensive, USELESS project?
Hinkley C: does this look like safe construction to you?
The dust has probably settled by now – physically, if not metaphorically.
The decision to build a third nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset was hugely controversial and had been fought for 40 years before the Tories finally had their way in 2016.
They signed complex financial agreement with Électricité de France (EDF), the energy giant that is 83% owned by the French government, and China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), a state-run Chinese energy company for the provision of the reactor, in a new design that has never been made to work, anywhere in the world.
For this, the UK is paying £20.3 billion and when it is working – if it ever does – the UK will pay £92.50 per megawatt-hour, which is roughly twice the current market rate for this kind of energy.
In a comment that typifies the scandal that has been Tory privatisation of UK utilities like energy, former EDF director Gérard Magnin has described Hinkley C as “a way to make the British fund the renaissance of nuclear in France”.
And now part of it has collapsed, sending a huge dust cloud into the skies above Somerset:
The 35-metre tower, weighing around 5,000 tonnes, suffered “structural damage” at around 7.30am, when onlookers claimed to have heard what sounded like an explosion.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang at around 7.30am, but energy supplier EDF has denied that a blast occurred, Somerset Live reports.
In a statement the company said no one had been hurt.
The energy supplier stated: “At around 7.30am a silo in the concrete batching plant at Hinkley Point C suffered structural damage, releasing a dust cloud around the area.
“Nobody has been injured and the emergency services were not required.
“An investigation is underway to understand the cause of the event.”
I reckon the cause is obvious: bad design, substandard construction materials, corner-cutting in order to maximise profits.
So not only is this project a hugely expensive white elephant, it is a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.
Are we looking at the West Country’s future Fukushima?
Source: Huge dust cloud released at UK nuclear power site after tower ‘collapses’ – Mirror Online
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Someone in the government must have made some money out of this