nuclear-news

Japan’s controversial nuclear waste water plan could impact the UK’s decarbonisation agenda

House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee drily warned that this new nuclear power station “may not now represent good value for UK taxpayers”.

Andrew Warren, 15 August 2023

The UK government has already broken with precedent and
contributed £870m towards Sizewell C’s development costs. Poverty
campaigners have noted that this is a near identical sum to that spent on
the government’s now-abandoned Warm Front programme, energy upgrading the
homes of low-income families. Such largesse would certainly have gone a
long way towards helping reduce the rocketing number fuel poverty numbers
in England.

The government has also been employing Barclays Bank to try to
drum up the estimated £30bn needed to build the power station from UK
pension funds.

Already, three massive pension funds – BT, NatWest, People’s
Pension – have publicly stated that they will not be getting involved. As
the People’s Pension Fund laconically acknowledged this month: “Direct
investment into nuclear power infrastructure projects is not part of The
People’s Pension investment strategy. We will not be investing directly
into Sizewell C.”

Meanwhile, a recent report from the House of Commons
Science, Innovation and Technology Committee drily warned that this new
nuclear power station “may not now represent good value for UK taxpayers”.
Such financial concerns come in addition to the apparently insoluble
problem of how to deal with the ever-growing amounts of storing, let alone
disposing of, nuclear waste. The problem of knowing what do with
contaminated cooling water off Japan is only adding to the question marks
over the wisdom of putting many further billions of pounds into the
apparently spendthrift nuclear basket.

Business Green 15th Aug 2023

https://www.businessgreen.com/opinion/4122176/japans-controversial-nuclear-waste-water-plan-impact-uks-decarbonisation-agenda

August 18, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK