Is this the Tory plan to stuff up Suffolk with nuclear waste?
Hinkley C tower collapse: this happened on a site EDF is constructing, as recently as June this year. Despite this demonstrable failure of safety precautions, Boris Johnson’s corner-cutting Conservative government wants to pay the same outfit to build another one, next to a National Trust site and an RSPB bird sanctuary.
Those geniuses in the Conservative government are out to pollute our countryside with nuclear waste again.
Presumably they think Fukishima was long enough ago that everybody has forgotten about it.
Come to that, they probably think we’ve all forgotten about the collapse of part of the new Hinkley Point C nuclear generator, under construction in Somerset, in June.
Maybe that’s why they have announced that they are in talks with France’s government-owned EDF Energy firm about building a new £20 billion nuclear reactor at Sizewell in Suffolk.
According to the BBC,
The Sizewell C site could generate 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to provide 7% of the UK’s energy needs.
The announcement is part of the long-awaited Energy White Paper, which ministers say will support up to 220,000 jobs over the next decade.
The policies should remove 230 million metric tonnes of emissions – equivalent to taking 7.5 million petrol cars off the road, the government says.
The paper… will also provide at least £6.7bn in support to the fuel poor and most vulnerable over the next six years.
Yes, but…
Hinkley Point C… has been hit with delays and rising costs, and is set to cost up to £2.9bn more than originally thought and be up to 15 months late.
The latest estimate for the project is between £21.5bn and £22.5bn, with EDF blaming “challenging ground conditions”.
Were those “challenging ground conditions” responsible for the collapse of a tower there last June? I wrote,
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.
Energy supplier EDF has denied that a blast occurred.
Commenting on the event, I stated:
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?
And now the people of Suffolk are looking forward to all of this.
Already the announcement has been greeted with… shall we say trepidation?
What a bunch of ignorant politicians (@BorisJohnson & clan) are. You want nuclear? #fusion or nothing. Stay stick to #renewable that r cheaper, healthier n available now. Sizewell C: government restarts talks over £20bn nuclear power station https://t.co/66eBAEF7G4
— giovanni a. della rossa (@giadro) December 14, 2020
It’s a good point. The price of renewables is plummetting, and could bring far more benefits for employment and the economy.
And also, who are we giving the money to, again?
Sizewell C was planned and will be built in co-operation with the EDF, which, if you'd care to look it up, you'll find is French.
That's the problem with nationalistic talk: it's just emotional drivel.
Whingeing Girlies should grow up and join the real world, where adults live.
— Mark Wallace (@MarkWal45145801) December 14, 2020
Yes indeed; so much for Brexit. After more than five years of jingoism and sabre-rattling, it turns out that all that talk was just for show and the UK is going to continue selling every single nationally-owned asset it has to Johnny Foreigner.
It means that in the future, more than 10 per cent of the money we pay on our energy bills will go to the French government, where it will be invested in that country’s own energy policies.
Judging by what has happened with the privatised water firms, we already know that not a single penny will be spent on the UK.
I am also interested in this, which seems to be an expert view:
The only possible way Sizewell C makes sense is ro run flat-out generating hydrogen until there is a #winterdoldrum (weeks with no wind or sun), whereupon you turn down the electrolyzers and feed the grid. Unless it's paired with demand-response/storage, it's economic madness.
— Michael Liebreich (@MLiebreich) December 14, 2020
Finally, there’s this:
Impact of Sizewell C on Suffolk Coast is huge. Right next door to @RSPBMinsmere and @DunwichHeathNT https://t.co/99U3ZyQsRT
— Mandy Pearse (@MandyPearse) December 14, 2020
So this nuclear threat will be right next to a National Trust site and a bird sanctuary.
Is this part of the plan – to breed mutant birds?
Source: Sizewell C: Government in talks to fund £20bn nuclear plant – BBC News
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I used to live in Suffolk. We spent hours protesting, writing letters, fundraising with a baby in my arms – all useless, because the decision had already been made in Whitehall. Friends who live near Sizewell A told me that when they were kids they used to swim in the sea ; ‘and we always swam to the outlet from Sizewell because the water was nice and hot’.
Why does the Windscale Disaster immediately spring to mind ?
We are already the world’s nuclear dustbin. Windscale? Now renamed the fluffy “Sellafield”. In October 1957 a graphite moderated pile caught fire and eventually sprayed plutonium containing ash all round the area. There were two such piles, one has been demolished, the other is still being dismantled. I have the No.1 Radiation Meter that was issued to officials for testing milk and other foodstuffs. Thousands of milk had to be poured down the drain. Bear in mind this is from memory so pardon any mistakes over detail.