Hinkley Point C - Subsidised White Elephant

 

Published in House Magazine - 4th December 2015

 

Mass delusion is an unrecognised malign force in politics. Shared accepted wisdom is often a harbinger of future catastrophes. 

 

Almost every time all major Parties agree on any project, they are wrong. Faith in the value of drugs-prohibition is evidence-free and prejudice rich. Three Prime Ministers and their Parties were bewitched by the blandishments of Kids Company. The Pied Power of nuclear power has enchanted and deceived with impossibilist promises.

 

But the consensus of the gullible is breaking down. Boris Johnson spotted that the nuclear Emperor has no clothes. He said the mega-subsidy of taxpayers £2 billion (perhaps rising to £10bn) is an “extraordinary amount of money to spend”. Treasury officials are becoming twitchy and nauseous at the prospect that they are incubating a looming financial cataclysm. The magnitude of the future scandal could rival those of the Groundnuts scheme and the South Sea Bubble.

 

The financial deal has an incredible history. All the sensible investors fled years ago. Centrica abandoned a £200 million investment. The near bankrupt EDF has no choice. They hope that their €30 billion debt could be reduced by this desperate gamble. The Chinese’s long-term plan is to use their designs in all future UK reactors, including Bradwell, to establish world dominance for their nuclear technology.

 

Originally conceived in 2006 the earliest date for completion at Hinkley is now 2023. The Government’s ludicrously generous deal agreed to buy electricity at twice the present going rate with a price guaranteed and index-linked for 35 years! It’s impossible to guess what fuel prices will be for 35 weeks. Future fuel payers could be fleeced for decades by two foreign governments with the most expensive electricity in the world.

 

In denial the UK stumbles on.  Europe’s catastrophic delays in all other European Pressurised Reactors (EPG) stations are ignored even though their problems are likely to be repeated here. Finland's Olkiluoto was due to generate electricity in 2009. The latest of many promised completion dates is 2018. Cost overruns stand at €5 billion.
The sister EPG station at Flamaville in Normandy was originally planned to be completed in 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion. Later the hope was 2016 at €8.5 billion. In April 2015 a serious problem was discovered in the vessel's steel that will add more years delay and £billions of unplanned cost.

 

Other factors are likely to doom Hinkley. Its technology has been overtaken by superior designs. The EPG reactors have yet to generate enough electricity to light a bicycle lamp.  The financial forecast disregards the problem of nuclear waste. The stratospheric cost of cleaning up past nuclear waste at Sellafield is currently heading from £53 billion to a possible £100 billion.

 

A major obstacle is the legality of the cost of £tens of billions of UK taxpayers’ subsidy. Austria, Luxembourg are challenging this in the European court. Insiders suggest our Government will lose.

 

There is an ignored alternative. Lapping the walls of Hinkley Point is the world’s second biggest tidal flow. An immense cliff of water sweeps up the Bristol Channel. Twice a day. Its power could be tapped with a simple proven technology.  It’s green, entirely predictable, carbon-free, British and eternal. Lagoons linked with pump-storage schemes in the Welsh Valleys could produce baseload energy that is entirely demand responsive.

 

Obvious, really.

 

 

 

Comments

[Todd Millions]

Paul-
1-send Ms Rudd to Cologne and leave her at the train station(that will scare them off).
2-forget the pumped storage and tidal Barrage.Tempting I know but testing of 'nodding duck' wave power units that can be incorporated into harbor maintenance and expansion works is a higher priority.
3-The interlinks to Europe particularly to existing power grids,and on to the East.We live on a sphere(whod of thunk!)-and its turning!So sun and wind(smeared sun) is available at all times-you just have to move the power extracted from it to where its needed.The wires are already there and merely require connecting-NOT by Tennant!
Then you(and the Germans) can tell the evil french to shut down the nucs or you pull their plug.They will comply.

[Paul Flynn]

Its been published in the z
House of Commons magazine, thanks for your interest.

Sent from my iPad

On 13 Dec 2015, at 10:06, Typepad wrote:


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Love this! Has Amber Rudd had a read? Suki in Somerset

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[Suki Lilienthal]

Love this! Has Amber Rudd had a read? Suki in Somerset