In response to the Prime Minister pledging £700 million of public money to build a nuclear power station at Sizewell[1], Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist for Greenpeace UK, said –
“This money could insulate huge numbers of draughty homes, and cut next year’s bills, instead of being thrown onto the slow-burning financial bonfire that is EDF, to increase our bills for decades. Construction of this reactor type has gone massively over budget and over schedule whenever they try to build it in Europe, and isn’t operating as advertised anywhere. The funding model adopted to pay for it was tried in the USA, and North Carolina households are still paying for a nuclear reactor that was never built as the company went bust. The contrast between these lumbering white elephants and the dynamic, cost cutting, innovative technologies in the renewables sector could barely be more striking. While this down payment on failure shows the government hasn’t noticed, the market has, and investors have fled the nuclear sector. To get Sizewell done, the government would have to step in and add the enormous costs of building reactors to the enormous costs consumers are already paying for their electricity. While Boris Island and the Boris Bridge remain in the land of fantasy where they belong, Johnson will have his legacy, the Boris Bill, and it will be very real for a very long time.”
