Sizewell C & Sea-Level Rise
Posted: 10th July 2025
The dust has just about settled since Labour’s ‘golden nuclear moment’ laid out by Rachel Reeves in her recent Spending Review. Plans for the monstrous Sizewell C took another step forward, nudged along by the offer of another £14.2 billion of taxpayers’ money, together with a further £2.5 billion promised for Small Modular Reactors, and roughly the same amount for fusion, the nuclear industry’s very own black hole. So loud were the fanfares, so overblown the hype, that the real story of that week got lost. EDF’s deeply ingrained habits of secrecy and deceit were – yet again – exposed to the harsh light of a Freedom of Information request from the indefatigable Together Against Sizewell C (TASC). One of the principal concerns that TASC has doggedly pursued over the last few years is the vulnerability of Sizewell C being built on one of Europe’s most rapidly eroding coastlines and its lack of resilience to the impacts of climate change. The evidence regarding future sea level rise goes from deeply worrying to totally terrifying – with the very real possibility of at least a 1 metre rise – and possibly as much as 2 metres – by 2100. Given that the spent fuel used at Sizewell C throughout its operating life (around 4,000 tonnes) will need to be stored on site until at least 2160 this is clearly a matter of the greatest concern.