Prime Minister Theresa May is being urged to ditch the £18.5bn nuclear project at Hinkley Point, Somerset, altogether after the latest allegations against its Chinese developer. China General Nuclear Power (CGN), which is funding a third of the cost of the plant, has been accused of stealing nuclear secrets from the US. Paul Dorfman, a senior research fellow at University College London, told The Guardian the news added to “endless concern and discussion” among security experts and said a nuclear deal with China “is beginning to look like an Anglo-Sino bridge too far”. “No other OECD country would let China into its critical nuclear infrastructure, given its history of nuclear weapon proliferation,” he said. Dorfman also said May has already taken the “diplomatic hit” by announcing an 11th-hour delay to the project, which has prompted thinly-veiled threats from China over £100bn of inward investment into the UK. Cover for abandoning the project – and preserving relations with China – could be provided by citing the untested French reactor technology, which is “over-cost and over-time where it’s being built in Finland and France”, he added.
The Week 12th Aug 2016 read more »
Ten advisers and civil servants working in DECC, the former UK energy department, were seconded from EDF or had other links to the company, writes Joe Sandler Clarke. This may help to explain the ‘preferential treatment’ EDF has received over the 3.2GW nuclear power station it wants to build at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
Ecologist 12th Aug 2016 read more »