EDF chief says survey results show ‘silent majority’ want Sizewell C
TASC’s full response
Together Against Sizewell C TASC) see the poll as meaningless, it’s not independent having been commissioned by EDF, and is nothing more than a contrived advertisement for EDF, who are desperate to garner support for a project that is experiencing growing opposition from all quarters, locally and nationally. Whether it is those who witnessed the destruction of Coronation Wood and appreciate that this was a foretaste of the environmental devastation and disruption that Sizewell C will inflict on East Suffolk or the dozens of local parish/town councils, thousands of individuals, organisations such as the RSPB and Suffolk Wildlife Trust, over 100 local businesses and business leaders, all are united in opposition to Sizewell C.
Such a small sample of 500 people is hardly representative of the people of Suffolk when compared to the 19,000+ who recently signed the joint TASC and Stop Sizewell C petition, 2,492 with an IP postcode and the nearly 60,000 who have supported RSPB’ s Love Minsmere campaign to oppose Sizewell C.
Much of EDF’s propaganda revolves around job opportunities and TASC feels EDF is exploiting people’s fears of job losses due to the pandemic. Neither Suffolk politicians nor EdF should attempt to browbeat the people of East Suffolk into falsely believing that SZC is the only way they will be employed in the future: a renewables, East Suffolk based industry will employ tens of thousands not the paltry 900 at Sizewell costing £22m per job. Suffolk need jobs that go with the grain, not against it. The future for the young people of Suffolk cannot be constrained to the narrowness, capital intensity and secrecy of the nuclear industry. The poll more reflects the panic at EDF as opposition to its development plans grow as people realise the idiocy and unimplementability of the proposals than it does the true mood of the east of the county. .
As for the climate change claims made for nuclear, people have been brainwashed by the false claim that EdF have repeatedly made in their ads that nuclear is carbon free. It is not as the Greenwich University report has shown: the uranium cycle creates carbon at every stage and even EdF admit to a 5.7 m tonne CO2 deficit from the construction work alone. By the time SZC is operational, if ever, it will have only a few years to off-set carbon because by 2050, when the energy sector will be at carbon net zero – by law. We are in a climate crisis. Crises demand immediate actions, not ones that have to wait for over a decade to become operational and a further 6 years to pay off the carbon debt.
