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Starmer must drop support for flagship £20bn nuclear power station, says former Gordon Brown adviser.

Nick Butler urged the Labour leader to instead back the use of British-designed nuclear tech. A former adviser to Gordon Brown has urged Labour to drop its support for the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear power station because of concerns the French design is unreliable.

Nick Butler, who advised Mr Brown when he was prime minister and was an
executive at BP, pointed to delays building the Hinkley Point C power
station, in Somerset, and warned that using the same technology at Sizewell
C, in Suffolk, was “a mistake”.

Both projects are being developed by
EDF, the state-owned French giant, which has opted to use its own European
pressurised reactor (EPR) design for each. EPR reactors in various
countries have suffered delays and cost overruns.

Hinkley Point C was originally set to cost £18bn and come online by 2025 but is now expected to cost up to £32bn and may not enter service until 2028. Mr Butler urged Sir
Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow energy secretary, to withdraw
their support for Sizewell C and back the type of small modular reactors
being developed by Rolls-Royce and others instead.

Speaking at a panel
event alongside Mr Miliband at King’s College London, Mr Butler, who is a
visiting professor at the college, said: “On Sizewell, I hate to disagree
with Ed but I think that the choice of the EPR French nuclear reactor is a
mistake.

“It was a mistake at Hinkley – still not built, supposed to be
on stream by 2027, probably now 2030. “And to sink so much money, £20
billion, into one project where you can’t trust the technology is really a
mistake. “We should be looking much more positively at the small nuclear
reactors that Rolls Royce are developing, because that could be a British
technology which could sell around the world.”

Telegraph 20th June 2023

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/20/keir-starmer-stop-nuclear-power-plant-support-nick-butler/

June 23, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized