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We are pro-nuclear, but Hinkley C must be scrapped: George Monbiot, Mark Lynas, and Chris Goodall
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/18/we-are-pro-nuclear-but-hinkley-c-must-be-scrapped
We are pro-nuclear, but Hinkley C must be scrapped
Overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue, the Hinkley project needs to be killed off and the money invested into other low-carbon technologies
George Monbiot, Mark Lynas, and Chris Goodall
Friday 18 September 2015
As committed environmentalists, our conversion to the cause of nuclear power was painful and disorienting. All of us carried a cost in changing our position, antagonising friends and alienating colleagues. But we believe that shutting down – or failing to replace – our primary source of low carbon energy during a climate emergency is a refined form of madness.
<snip>
Now, however, we are about to antagonise a different faction, by arguing that the UK’s only proposed nuclear power plant, Hinkley C in Somerset, should not be built.
Hinkley C bears all the distinguishing features of a white elephant: overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue. The delay that was announced recently should be the final straw. The government should kill the project.
<snip>
So how do the operators, the French company EDF, expect Hinkley C – even if it can be built – to be economically viable? By extracting from the government a price guarantee of £92.50 per megawatt hour for the electricity it produces, index-linked for 35 years.
This is simply astronomical. It is more than twice the current wholesale price of electricity, and more than the government is now paying for solar power, whose costs are expected to fall greatly during the lifetime of the nuclear plant. Against current prices, the government’s guarantee represents a subsidy of over £1 billion a year.
<snip>
But perhaps the greatest problem Hinkley C imposes is energy blight. As the project is delayed, the power it would otherwise have generated is likely to be supplied instead by fossil fuel plants. If it does indeed turn out to be unconstructable, the result is likely to be a panicked scramble back into gas and even, perhaps, coal.
<snip>
We are pro-nuclear, but Hinkley C must be scrapped
Overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue, the Hinkley project needs to be killed off and the money invested into other low-carbon technologies
George Monbiot, Mark Lynas, and Chris Goodall
Friday 18 September 2015
As committed environmentalists, our conversion to the cause of nuclear power was painful and disorienting. All of us carried a cost in changing our position, antagonising friends and alienating colleagues. But we believe that shutting down – or failing to replace – our primary source of low carbon energy during a climate emergency is a refined form of madness.
<snip>
Now, however, we are about to antagonise a different faction, by arguing that the UK’s only proposed nuclear power plant, Hinkley C in Somerset, should not be built.
Hinkley C bears all the distinguishing features of a white elephant: overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue. The delay that was announced recently should be the final straw. The government should kill the project.
<snip>
So how do the operators, the French company EDF, expect Hinkley C – even if it can be built – to be economically viable? By extracting from the government a price guarantee of £92.50 per megawatt hour for the electricity it produces, index-linked for 35 years.
This is simply astronomical. It is more than twice the current wholesale price of electricity, and more than the government is now paying for solar power, whose costs are expected to fall greatly during the lifetime of the nuclear plant. Against current prices, the government’s guarantee represents a subsidy of over £1 billion a year.
<snip>
But perhaps the greatest problem Hinkley C imposes is energy blight. As the project is delayed, the power it would otherwise have generated is likely to be supplied instead by fossil fuel plants. If it does indeed turn out to be unconstructable, the result is likely to be a panicked scramble back into gas and even, perhaps, coal.
<snip>
6 replies
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