HINKLEY C: FURTHER DELAY AND COST OVERRUNS

Hinkley Point C in Somerset is currently the only new nuclear power station in construction in the UK.

Its history has been bedevilled by delays and increasing costs.

Its site was one of eight chosen for new nuclear power stations as long ago as 2010.   The owners originally said they aimed to get it up and running so that customers could cook their Christmas dinners with electricity produced from Hinkley C by Christmas 2017. However, after various delays it was not until 2019 that building actually started, with completion planned for 2025 and the total cost of the project estimated at £18 billion. As the building proceeded this predicted cost was said by its owners had risen to £22.5 billion by July 2019.

Most recently, on January 27th, the lead developers of the power station owned 70% by French company Electricité de France (EDF) and 30% by Chinese state company, China Nuclear Power Group (CGN) announced that the opening of the power station would be delayed until 2026, and that the predicted cost had risen to between £22 and £23 billion. It claimed the impact of coronavirus and lockdown restrictions as reasons for the delay.

However, EDF/CGN claimed that it had made “significant” progress (the best sort of progress!) with the construction, with the base for the first reactor completed in June 2019 and the base for the second reactor being built at the site completed in summer 2020.

There are two other nuclear power stations at the site, Hinkley Point A and Hinkley Point B. Hinkley Point A was closed down in 2000, having been in operation since 1966; Hinkley Point B began operating in February 1976 and EDF also announced in its January 27th statement that it will be shut down no later than July 2022 because of its age.

BRADWELL B: PROJECT “PAUSED”

On February 11th, Maldon District Council (MDC) in Essex issued a statement saying that the company, Bradwell B Power Generation Company (BRB), applying to the council for consent to build Bradwell B had recently informed the council that “engagement and all active project work will pause for at least a year”. While not denying this, the company issued a statement the same day which claimed that the pause was to “ensure that we take the project forward efficiently [by] prioritising technical aspects of our work, such as site feasibility, which will in turn feed into our development work in the future with the local authorities, when this is ready to be progressed.”

MDC, who clearly supports the project, says in their statement that, “we have been told by the developer, BRB, that “they remain committed to the project”. That of course means very little: all developers claim to be committed to their projects until they pull the plug on them.

And certainly the company haven’t given a coherent reason for pausing the project for at least a year. What’s the real problem?

A member of Kick Nuclear has pointed out that on the same day as the above statements were issued, the government of China announced the blocking of BBC World TV over its reporting of Ughar oppression, so perhaps the UK government, in the face of its falling out with China, has pulled the plug on financial support of the project since a Chinese state company, in which CGN owns a majority stake, 66.5% in BRB, with EDF owning the rest.

 

 

SIZEWELL C: NEW EDF PROPOSALS

Local criticism of new EDF proposals relating to the planned building of Sizewell C were reported in the January 13th edition of the East Anglian Daily Times (EADT).

EADF reports that the revised plans which EDF claims will take hundreds of lorries a week off Suffolk’s roads during the construction of Sizewell C, and which it says are the outcome of a 30-day public consultation held in the autumn, have been formally submitted to the Planning Inspectorate.

The proposals involve a larger focus on sea and rail for the delivery of materials during the construction, involving building a beach landing facility for the delivery of large loads by sea as well as a temporary landing facility, and talks with Network Rail to see how many extra trains could run on the presently single track branch line from Saxmundham to Sizewell.

The new proposals also include plans to “reduce” use of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and using “less” land designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the creation of an independent Environment Trust. [Editor’s italics]

Of course the important question as far as lorries is concerned is how many lorry movements will still take place on the minor roads involved. EDF says numbers on an average typical day at the peak of construction will be 2-way movements by between 250 and 350 HGVs. Construction is likely to take at least 10 years.

Not surprisingly local critics are underwhelmed by these changes.

Charles Macdowell, chair of the B1122 Action Group is reported by the EADT as saying: “While any reduction in HGV numbers has to be a move in the right direction, the overall pressure that EDF’s trucks will exert on Suffolk’s roads – including the A12 – is still unacceptable.

“Local people reject the huge increase in noise and pollution as well as the safety issues it brings.

“We will be looking closely at the details including the use of the existing unimproved village roads during the first few years of construction, and the effect of noisy night trains on Saxmundham and Leiston.”

EADF reported Paul Collins, chair of Stop Sizewell C, as saying: “There are serious questions about all of [this], given the lack of supporting information in the consultation. With such a short time between the end of the consultation and today’s submission, we also have little confidence that adequate impact assessments have been carried out.”

WHAT PRICE NUCLEAR POWER?

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reported in November that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA’s) most recent estimate to UK taxpayers of decommissioning the UK’s (presumably existing) civil nuclear sites is £132 billion, with the work not being completed for another 120 years.

The PAC also criticised the NDA for having a “perpetual” lack of knowledge about the state and location of nuclear waste on the 17 sites it is responsible for and may not have a proper understanding of the safety of the sites. This, it says, results from decades of poor record keeping and “weak” government oversight.  The Guardian reports the NDA as acknowledging that it does not have full understanding of the condition of its sites – quite an admission!

This lack of knowledge of the sites, the PAC says, is a significant factor in the failure of a 2014 contract the NDA signed with a private company to decommission the 10 Magnox nuclear power station sites. The government was forced to take back this contract in 2018 and that this contract has cost taxpayers £140 million.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Direct Rail Services, which operates trains carrying nuclear waste from UK nuclear power stations announced on 17th February that it has joined up with the Nuclear Development Authorities’ Transport
Subsidiaries to launch Nuclear Transport Solutions, which will start in
April 2021. The freight operator is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a nationalised body.