There is an old saying in football which goes “If in doubt, kick it out”. In the case of Hinkley C, the project should be stopped and stopped now. And with Theresa May kicking the final decision into the long grass of autumn, perhaps the government has realised the sheer folly involved.
Let us look at some facts in the cool light of day. Hinkley C will cost £18 billion to build and it will cost consumers – you and me – £30 billion to run. The French state-owned EDF together with the Chinese who will own one third of the plant does not sound to me much like taking back control now that we are leaving the EU. It sounds like we are losing control of something that is already spiralling out of control. Construction costs alone are so substantial that EDF (the French government, may I remind you) has had to be guaranteed a price for electricity that is vastly higher than the cost of off-shore wind. Far from bringing us cheaper electricity, the precise opposite would occur.
Our own government, until last night, and EDF has been powering ahead with the planned reactor wearing blinkers and ignoring the mounting evidence that Hinkley C will be a monstrous albatross around the necks of both Britain and France. The technology is not there and it’s simply too big. EDF is in chaos with two prominent directors resigning and French unions desperately concerned that it will drastically affect their members jobs. Add to the mix the grave uncertainty facing both the British and world economies following the vote to leave the EU and you have a recipe for disaster. In fact, Brexit is having precisely the effect we knew it would have in terms of uncertainty and future investment.
It is not as if EDF don’t realise the mess they are in. Two stations are already in construction, one in France and the other in Finland and they are both running behind schedule and hugely over budget. Theresa May and her government have surely seen the writing on the wall by their decision to delay a decision.
There are numerous cleaner, greener and cheaper forms of carbon free energy available to us and we should without delay seek to advance investment in these areas. I am not against nuclear energy per se, but Hinkley C as it stands, would be an almighty and potentially catastrophic financial white elephant and it should be abandoned now.
