7 months ago
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The UK / Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have written to the new Secretary of State for Energy Clare Continho MP asking her not to make Sizewell C ‘Suffolk’s nightmare’.
Ms Continho replaced Grant Shapps after the former Energy Secretary was sent to Defence following the resignation of Ben Wallace. She was only elected to Parliament in December 2019 for the safe Conservative seat of East Surrey and is largely unknown having previously saved in only a very junior ministerial post. With a background in banking, the new Energy Secretary does however have close connections with the Prime Minister having been an advisor and then a parliamentary aide to Rishi Sunak when he was at the Treasury, and a leading figure in Mr Sunak’s leadership campaign team.
Energy represents a massive promotion for Ms Continho, but it is a complex brief. In his letter the Chair of the NFLAs Councillor Lawrence O’Neill outlines why Sizewell C, and indeed the whole new nuclear programme, should not go ahead and urges the Secretary of State to ‘take up the offer made by local campaigners to visit the site and speak to local people about their serious concerns about this costly and foolhardy project’.
The NFLAs are also backing the campaign initiated by Stop Sizewell C to deprive the nuclear monster of private sector investment by lobbying pension funds. In this vein, we have previously contacted pension funds and last month we wrote also to the Chief Executive of Centrica, a previous commercial investor in nuclear plants, asking him to refrain from backing the project.
With recent unwelcome news of a further £300 million of government funding being awarded for preparatory works at Sizewell C, the campaign feels that ‘it is time to scale up’ the pensions campaign and is asking for public support. A bespoke platform has been developed featuring almost 70 pension funds, https://action.stopsizewellc.org/goodpension which is now backed by a short animated video voiced by Fiona Turnbull https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LjV_WbyWkUsGf7ClwPuinU_Dq_sY7NZ9/edit .
Stop Sizewell C is asking campaign supporters who make pension contributions or receive pensions to write to their fund managers urging them NOT to invest in Sizewell C. However, the most pressing priority is to expand the reach of the campaign so Stop Sizewell C is asking supporters to raise awareness of it by sharing the links on their social media accounts.
The links to the latest pensions campaign post are:
Twitter/X – https://twitter.com/StopSizewellC/status/1699788799654637820?s=20
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cw5KbW6s6wq/
Facebook – https://fb.watch/mVA8OdaiP7/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7105240738447114240
Threads – No link, but search @stopsizewellc on the app and it will be one of their most recent posts.
Councillor O’Neill added: “Sizewell C can be seen as many-headed like the mythical hydra; many of the heads represent a possible financial investment. It we can cut off the heads we can kill the monster!”
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For further information please contact the NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to: richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Notes to Editors
The letter sent to the new Secretary of State reads:
The Rt. Hon. Clare Continho MP,
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
6 Sept 2023
Dear Secretary of State, As Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities let me congratulate you on your appointment to the role of Energy Secretary. We noted that in your acceptance speech you spoke with pride of the contribution made to Britain’s energy supply by wind turbines located off-shore in your community and that you have been a strong supporter of wildlife.
This leads us to make two observations – one, an appeal to you to go further in your recognition that renewable technologies of all types can together, when married with a range of storage solutions, meet both the energy needs of the UK and our commendable international commitment to become a nation that is net zero and two, an appeal to save wildlife habitats from the threat of encroachment by large-scale nuclear projects.
Renewables can deliver far faster and far more cheaply than the development of new nuclear and are reliant only upon the natural elements – sun (solar), wind, rivers (hydro), seas (wave and tidal), and subterranean heat (geothermal) – with which Mother Nature has blessed us, not upon a dependence upon uranium products frequently sourced from Russia or its allies. This indeed is what US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm meant when she said that nations generating energy from renewable sources would not be ‘held hostage’ to external forces.
New nuclear plants are notorious for being built very late and very over budget. Hinkley Point C is not expected to be operational prior to the summer of 2027 at the earliest at a current estimated cost of £32.7 billion (near twice that originally expected at sign-off) and French-owned EDF does not appear confident that there shall be no further delays or cost increases. (In contrast the overall cost of renewables is reducing). But at least this project is being delivered at the developers’ risk.
Future nuclear plants would instead be funded through the application of a Regulated Asset Base model which transfers the project risk from the developer to the electricity customer through the imposition of a nuclear levy. This disincentives developers from addressing cost or time overruns as these are passed onto the poor struggling customer through a higher levy. Nuclear also comes with the costly and deadly legacy of decommissioning old plants and managing radioactive waste for millennia, with plans for the eventual disposal of Britain’s high-level waste in a repository (a Geological Disposal Facility or GDF).
Secretary of State, the sums that the taxpayer would be expected to find are truly staggering. Over a period exceeding one century the current estimate cost of decommissioning just our existing nuclear powers is at £260 billion and a GDF could cost up to £53 billion. This represents money that could be invested now to generate the green power we need now at a price that consumers can afford. Any attempt to continue down the road of former Prime Minister Johnson’s plan to generate 24GW of power by 2050 through nuclear would incur vast additional costs to taxpayers and in any case be frankly technically unachievable within the timescale.
Sizewell C would be a case in point. It is impossible to believe that this project would be delivered at a lower price than Hinkley Point C – indeed Greenwich University Business School estimated the cost could be up to £44 billion at current prices. An inspector at the Office of Nuclear Regulator conceded that the site would be ‘expensive to develop’ and it presents especial challenges that must impact upon its eventual cost; including real concerns that the plant would place pressures on the amount of potable water available to both it and local human consumers at a time when Suffolk is increasingly suffering from water shortages. There is every likelihood this will necessitate the deployment of a desalination facility. Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that the site will over time become inundated with coastal erosion and storm surges as the impact of climate change begins to bite. This shall require greater sea defences lest we witness in future a repeat of the Fukushima disaster.
Sizewell C would also be disastrous for local bird and marine life. The site lies on the Suffolk Heritage Coast with wildlife reserves and bird habitats of Special Scientific Interest on the doorstep. Local fauna has already suffered because of extensive preparatory site clearance work and, anticipating significant long-term damage to habitats, wildlife charities are backing a local action to stop the project. In addition, the Environment Agency has recently lifted a requirement placed upon EDF to install an Acoustic Fish Deterrent at Hinkley Point C and will doubtless chose not to do so at Sizewell C; its impact at Hinkley has been estimated to be the deaths of up to 11 billion fish over the 60 year lifecycle of the plant as marine life is drawn into the plant with the cooling water never to return. Sizewell C will be employing the same designs.
Like our colleagues in the campaign groups, Stop Sizewell C and Together against Sizewell C, we firmly believe that Sizewell C is an expensive and risky distraction from a more strategic deployment of renewables, energy efficiency, storage, and grid upgrades to better support energy distribution.
Secretary of State, please do not besmirch your ministerial appointment by making Sizewell C Suffolk’s nightmare. It is not too late to stop it.
I will end by urging you to take up the offer made by local campaigners to visit the site and speak to local people about their serious concerns about this costly and foolhardy project.
Thank you for reading this letter. We would welcome your comments in response. Please reply by email to NFLA Secretary Richard Outram at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Thank you. Yours sincerely,
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill,
Chair, UK / Ireland NFLA Steering Committee
