Although the news from the new chancellor in the autumn statement, was disappointing to say the least, it’s still not too late to write to Jeremy Hunt with your objections to Sizewell C.
Below is TASC’s letter.
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The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP,
Chancellor of the Exchequer,
public.enquiries@hmtreasury.gov.uk
cc Grant Shapps, Secretary of State BEIS beiseip@beis.gov.uk
Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister (by post)
Dear Chancellor,
Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) would like to congratulate you on your recent appointment and wish you every success as Chancellor.
TASC are aware that you are due to announce a fiscal statement relating to the government’s plans to improve the country’s worsening financial situation including addressing the growing financial deficit. We are pleased that in your recent statement to the House, you stated that ‘nothing was off the table’ and this was demonstrated by your well-considered decision to reverse many of the poorly considered elements of your predecessor’s mini budget. In his previous job as Secretary of State for BEIS, your predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng, also made an ill-considered, some would say reckless, decision to approve the Development Consent Order for Sizewell C’s twin EPR nuclear reactor project on the east Suffolk coast, against the recommendation of the Planning Inspectorate. The result being that Sizewell C could be built but never be able to start up due to lack of the required 2.2 million litres per day of potable water supplies required for operation, hardly a sensible use of public funds.
TASC believe that a common sense reduction in public expenditure would be to drop the government’s commitment to use public funds to finance part of the Sizewell C project, the construction cost of which has been forecast as being between £26-£43 billion in BEIS’s own impact assessment. The initial £700 million stake verbally committed by Boris Johnson in the last few days of his premiership and the much touted 20% stake that could expose the public purse to a commitment of over £8 billion based on BEIS’s impact assessment, both represent unnecessary expenditure. Sizewell C would not be operational for another 14-18 years (according to the BEIS impact assessment) so will make very little or no contribution to achieving net zero or energy security, each of which are urgent priorities. Surprisingly, there appears to be no government paperwork supporting the £700 million investment in Sizewell C so it would seem an ideal candidate to cancel in order to reduce immediate public expenditure, especially as there are cheaper and quicker to deploy alternatives to meet our electricity demands. These alternative means of electricity generation no longer need direct government investment or subsidies even though they are far less mature than the 70 year old nuclear industry. TASC draw your attention to the recent report from University College London and Aalto University, Finland, ‘The role of new nuclear power in the UK’s net-zero emissions energy system’ that summarises “We show that a nearly 100% variable renewable system with very little fossil fuels, no new build nuclear and facilitated by long-term storage, is the most cost-effective system design. This suggests that the current favourable UK Government policy towards nuclear is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.”
Sizewell C, in particular, has many other reasons as to why it would be a bad investment for the UK, including:
- Sizewell C could be built but not be able to operate because it has no potable water supply,
- it is situated on an eroding coast vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,
- recent reports highlight the inadequacies of current plans for Sizewell C’s sea defences (see the two documents authored by N. Scarr attached) and there will be material unbudgeted additional costs that will need to be incurred to rectify the lack of protection, whether that be to raise the platform height, put flood defences to the rear and south of the nuclear site or extend the sea wall northwards to Dunwich cliffs,
- it involves the construction of two of EDF’s EPR nuclear reactors, an unproven technology, that has experienced time and cost overruns and technical problems in all previous projects at Olkiluoto, Flamanville, Taishan and Hinkley Point C,
- it has a poor choice of business partner in EDF, a company with huge financial problems in its home country that will inevitably be the corporation’s main focus, as well as having close ties with the Russian state’s nuclear operator, Rosatom,
- the cost of looking after the toxic radioactive waste on site for over a hundred years and then for millennia in some other form of yet to be found disposal facility,
- is dependent on nuclear fuel from overseas with over 40% of the world’s supplies coming from Russia or countries under its influence,
- the RAB financing model due to be employed to help finance Sizewell C will add to electricity bills for 10-15 years of construction with no electricity supply. This, at time when many businesses and residents are struggling to meet fuel bills.
Based on a newspaper report from earlier in the year, TASC believe that you have a genuine understanding of worries relating to the negative environmental impacts that infrastructure projects can have on people and places, so we hope you will sympathise with TASC’s concerns of the huge damage that Sizewell C will have on Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB, effectively cutting it in two, as well as the damage to many national and international designated wildlife sites including Sizewell Marshes SSSI and RSPB Minsmere. In addition, Sizewell C will devastate the marine environment, killing hundreds of millions of fish and other marine biota for each of its 60 years of operation, as was set out in TASC’s submission to the DCO examination.
Events in Ukraine have demonstrated how nuclear power plants can be a major threat to national security, especially with operating stations such as Zaporizhzhia but even with the spent fuel stores such as those at Chernobyl.
In summary, TASC suggest you could make real progress in restoring the public finances, if you make the wise decision not to back the Sizewell C project with public cash by way of an equity stake and at the same time protect a special area from a project that is a political choice rather than an imperative.
Yours faithfully,
Chris Wilson on behalf of
Together Against Sizewell C
Enclosures:
‘Sizewell C’s EGA- The Applicant’s non-precautionary shoreline change assessment for the Greater Sizewell Bay’. Author Nick Scarr 08.09.2022
