Martin Horwood introduced a motion at the conference opposing the construction of the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C, that was given a controversial go ahead by the government this month. It will be built with a combination of French and Chinese money. Martin quoted a National Audit Office report that said the likely costs of the power plant to be built in Somerset to billpayers had risen from an estimated £6 billion in 2013 to £30 billion. He criticised the government for changing the policy on not providing public subsidies for nuclear power and said: “There hasn’t been a single nuclear power station built anywhere in the world on time, on budget and without public subsidy. The EPR model being model being used at Hinkley hasn’t actually been built at all yet. The two in progress, in Finland and France are billions over budget and years late.
Gloucester Live 26th Sept 2016 read more »
The money invested to support the construction of Hinkley could have been used for other new clean technologies or energy efficiency. That’s the view of some of the energy experts who were at our Power Ride charity event last week, through which we raised more than £1,200 to support Parkinson’s and our Re-energise Nepal campaign Earlier this month the government gave the final go-ahead for EDF’s £18 billion project in Somerset. The Tory Administration has pledged £2 billion in the first nuclear plant in a generation. Industry Expert Georgina Penfold said: “I would prefer it if the money that’s going into Hinkley went into energy efficiency. I think if more investment was put into efficiency we wouldn’t have the supply gap that we’ve got and then we wouldn’t need to knee-jerk reaction into very big, expensive projects like Hinkley. “That said we do need baseload power and there isn’t any other possibility on the table right now so it was a tough call but personally it should have gone into more efficient measures.” Chris Kimmell, Commercial Manager at Open Energi believes Hinkley is “very old school”.
Energy Live News 26th Sept 2016 read more »