Could Britain face a winter ice age? How temperatures could one day plummet due to climate change
Could Britain face a winter ice age? How temperatures could one day
plummet due to climate change A small but growing stash of science warns a
crucial ocean current that warms Europe could one day collapse, bringing
winter lows of -19C to London and Cardiff and almost -30C to Edinburgh.
Sky 11th June 2025, https://news.sky.com/story/could-britain-face-a-winter-ice-age-how-temperatures-could-one-day-plummet-due-to-climate-change-13382063
The Spring Statement Combines Austerity with Dangerous Military Spending
“In effect, a rising military budget and a nuclear waste is being paid for by sick and disabled people.”
, https://labouroutlook.org/2025/06/12/the-spring-statement-combines-austerity-with-dangerous-military-spending/
by Michael Burke
The Chancellor has delivered a Spring Statement for the medium-term where the big winners were arms’ manufacturers and the builders of nuclear power stations, both of which specialise in cost overruns. But the economy will not get the public investment it needs and once again the most vulnerable are being attacked.
As a result, which is admitted in the detail of the Statement, spending on services and social support will not be rising in line with needs. They will cut further by over £6bn. More than half of that will come from welfare cuts. The Universal Credit health element will be cut for new claimants by 50% and then frozen.
The overall package will increase spending and investment in total. Some will want to welcome it as a result. But economic policy should be judged in comparison to what the economy requires to support it and to lift living standards. The Spring Statement does not do any of that.
It is quite right that investment is crucial to the future growth of the economy. Investment properly understood means expanding the means of production, the basis for future prosperity.
But the Chancellor has applied the term to a variety of areas which are not investment at all. These include military spending, subsidies to nuclear power builders and others which add up to more than half the investment total. The consequence is that the increase in actual investment which can add to the means of production will add up to much less than 1% of GDP over the next 5 years. It will not shift the dial on growth or prosperity at all.
Military spending, creating weapons, missiles and armaments, cannot add to the means of production – only to the means of destruction. If they are ever used at all, they can only destroy lives, as well as cities, transport and factories which are part of our shared prosperity.
n a different way, nuclear spending is also hugely wasteful. It is one of the most expensive energy sources of all, even typically huge budget over-runs, and unknown clean-up costs, even if nothing goes disastrously wrong.
This is a huge, missed opportunity. Spending on services and welfare will be cut again, while most of the investment total does not fit the bill and will not add to prosperity or lift living standards at all. In effect, a rising military budget and a nuclear waste is being paid for by sick and disabled people.
It is morally, politically and economically wrong.
European Power Costs Surge on Fresh Fears of French Nuclear Reactor Corrosion
Power prices across Europe jumped as nuclear giant Electricite de France
SA reported signs of “stress corrosion” at a reactor, renewing fears
that generation may be curtailed once again. The French utility in 2022 and
2023 was forced to halt part of its atomic fleet, the backbone of western
Europe’s electricity market, to fix cracked pipes.
That sent energy prices soaring as the repairs coincided with dwindling Russian gas supplies
to the continent. On Tuesday, the ASNR nuclear safety authority said
“hints” of corrosion had again been found on pipes at the Civaux 2
reactor in central France. That drove French year-ahead power up as much as
8.4% on Wednesday, the most in two years, according to the European Energy
Exchange. The contract for August, when demand for cooling peaks, climbed
13%. Prices also rose in Germany and the UK, which often rely on exports
from neighboring France to keep the lights on. Europe’s power markets
have largely emerged from the energy crisis of a few years ago, when
Russian gas supplies all but stopped. Yet prices remain sensitive to any
issues affecting the region’s largest nuclear fleet, exposing the fragile
nature of the recovery.
Bloomberg 11th June 2025, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-11/european-power-surges-on-fresh-fears-of-french-reactor-corrosion
GB Energy handed £2.5bn bill for funding small modular reactors
GB Energy handed £2.5bn bill for funding small modular reactors.
Financing nuclear projects will leave state-owned company less cash for
backing wind and solar technology.
Great British Energy, the government’s
flagship state-owned energy company, has been handed the £2.5bn bill to
support a new generation of small nuclear power plants, cutting the amount
it has to spend on wind, solar and other technologies.
Rolls-Royce’sefforts to develop Britain’s first small modular reactors will be funded
by GB Energy’s £8.3bn budget over this parliament, according to measures
announced in Wednesday’s spending review. Until now it had been unclear
which part of the government’s budget would cover the funding for the
small modular reactor programme.
One senior government official said the
moves amounted to “reprofiling” of spending commitments into GB
Energy’s budget that might have previously been funded by the Treasury or
energy department. It follows months of negotiations between the Treasury
and the energy department, led by Ed Miliband, over whether the cash Labour
pledged to GB Energy in last year’s election manifesto would be cut,
given the tight public finances.
FT 11th June 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/a8e3a775-33c9-4ad6-b01a-bfb212dfdcbe
Hinkley Point C | Court rules that nuclear developers must follow environmental information law
Hinkley Point C | Court rules that nuclear developers must follow
environmental information law. A recent tribunal ruling has declared that
private companies involved in building and operating nuclear power plants
in the UK qualify as public authorities under environmental information
laws, obliging them to disclose information about their environmental
impact to the public.
New Civil Engineer 10th June 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/hinkley-point-c-court-rules-that-nuclear-developers-must-follow-environmental-information-law-10-06-2025/
China banned from investing in Sizewell C, energy secretary Ed Miliband vows
China will be blocked from investing in the new Sizewell C power station,
the energy secretary has said. It comes as the chancellor announced plans
to pump billions of pounds into Britain’s nuclear energy sector, putting
£14.2bn towards the new plant’s construction. Asked whether China would
be able to invest in the new power station in Suffolk, Ed Miliband told BBC
Radio 4’s Today programme: “No.”
Independent 10th June 2025,
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sizewell-c-nuclear-plant-china-investment-ed-miliband-b2767038.html
Six years late and £28bn over budget, this project signals disaster for Ed Miliband’s nuclear plans
Labour is banking on Sizewell C to deliver the net zero goal – but its blueprint was fraught with problems.
Eleanor Steafel, Telegraph, 10 June 25
“Build and repeat.” That is the plan for Sizewell C, the nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast which Ed Miliband has announced plans to pump billions of pounds into. Writing in The Telegraph, he hailed a new “golden age” for the British nuclear industry, pledging £14.2 billion for two reactors at Sizewell which will, eventually, provide six million homes with electricity.
Eventually being the operative word. News that the Government is throwing its weight behind nuclear in the midst of the Energy Secretary’s pursuit of net zero was met with relief by some campaigners …. But concerns have been raised about the modelling. Sizewell is to be a rinse and repeat of Hinkley Point C, the two-reactor power station in Somerset which has been beset with problems from the moment EDF first broke ground there in early 2017.
The Government says it’s to be almost an exact replica. Meanwhile on its website, Sizewell C points to “the benefits of replication”. “Sizewell C will use the same design as Hinkley Point C,” it adds.
It says Hinkley has already “created a huge workforce and supply chain” and that replication “means Sizewell C will benefit from all the efficiencies and expertise learnt by our sister project”.
Efficiency and expertise. It’s one way of summing up Hinkley, though it does rather overlook the £28 billion it has gone over budget to date, the endless delays and challenges from environmentalists, not to mention the international political tensions.
China’s General Nuclear is a significant shareholder in the project, but in 2023 halted funding for it as relations between London and Beijing worsened; the same year the UK government took over the country’s stake in Sizewell C.
Meanwhile, work at the site crawls on, its deadline shifting and bill expanding………………………………………..
At Sizewell, many question how possible it will be in practice to shift operations from one side of England to the other. Alison Downes, of the campaign group Stop Sizewell C, suspects the idea that you can simply move teams and processes without a hitch is unrealistic. “The company want people involved in Hinkley Point C to come over and do what they’ve done there again at Sizewell C, but unless there’s a seamless transition and the roles that they’re just finishing at Hinkley start at Sizewell, then the likelihood is those people will go off and find other jobs and then are lost to the supply chain,” she says.
“Hinkley has been delayed, yes, but Sizewell has also been delayed. It’s very difficult to get two projects of this size to perfectly dovetail.”
Even if they do manage to bring some of that infrastructure across, it’s hard to make the case that Hinkley has been a poster project for Britain’s nuclear prowess.
Last February, EDF said it had taken a near £11 billion hit amid delays and overrunning costs on the project. The month before, it said the plant was expected to be completed by 2031 and cost up to £35 billion. Factoring in inflation, the real figure could be more like £46 billion.
It was, let’s not forget, initially supposed to have started generating electricity in 2017 and cost £18 billion. When construction finally began the same year, it was expected that the plant would be completed by 2025.
It will now come online six years later than that and at more than double the cost of the initial estimate. So not, it would be fair to say, an unmitigated success as major infrastructure projects go………………………….
Downes points out the last update on Hinkley came in January last year, “when there were still five or six years to go, so there was plenty of time for things to get even worse”. That same month, EDF said further delays were in the offing because of a row about fish. The energy company was struggling to agree protection measures for fish in the River Severn. Fears thousands could be killed in water cooling intakes had “the potential to delay the operation of the power station”.
…………………………..campaigners are less optimistic, pointing out the significant geographical differences between the sites. “I get the principals behind replication – but the thing you can’t do is replicate the site,” says Downes, who understands Sizewell is set to be a more expensive site to develop than Hinkley.
“There are very specific complexities around the Sizewell C site… It’s quite likely that any savings they might expect to make through replication will be absorbed in the more complex groundworks.”
While Hinkley is “a dry site”, Sizewell C is by the sea. “It’s going to need huge sea defences. They’ve got to build a crossing over a Site of Special Scientific Interest. They’ve got to build a deep cut-off wall. There’s a lot of associated development that’s needed because there’s less infrastructure than there is down at Hinkley Point C. These are the sorts of things that concern us.”………… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/10/hinkley-point-c-blueprint-for-sizewell/
Greens react to plans for new nuclear plant at Sizewell
by Green Party, https://greenparty.org.uk/2025/06/10/greens-react-to-plans-for-new-nuclear-plant-at-sizewell/
Responding to news that EDF will build a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell at an estimated cost of over £14bn, co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay MP, said:
“Nuclear power is hugely expensive and far too slow to come on line. The only thing delivered by EDF so far at Hinkley Point in Somerset is overspend and delay. Electricity was promised by 2017 with a price tag of £22bn but this has mushroomed to 40bn and Hinkley is still producing no power.
“The money being spent on this nuclear gamble would be far better spent on insulating and retrofitting millions of homes, bringing down energy bills and keeping people warmer and more comfortable. We should also be investing in genuinely green power such as fitting millions of solar panels to roofs and in innovative technologies like tidal power. All this would create many more jobs than nuclear ever will.”
‘We Are Preparing for War’ With China ‘Threat’, Says US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered an extremely hawkish speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue 2025 summit in which he demonized China as a “threat” and said, “We are preparing for war” in the Asia-Pacific region.
By Ben Norton, 5 June 25, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/06/06/preparing-war-china-threat-us-defense-secretary-pete-hegseth/
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered an extremely hawkish speech in which he demonized China as a “threat” and said, “We are preparing for war”.
“Those who long for peace, must prepare for war. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We are preparing for war, in order to deter war — to achieve peace through strength”, Hegseth stated.
The top Donald Trump administration official made these aggressive remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue 2025, a summit held in Singapore on 31 May.
“The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent. We hope not, but it certainly could be”, Hegseth claimed, indicating that the Pentagon was preparing for a war over Taiwan.
“Beyond our borders and beyond our neighborhood, we are reorienting toward deterring aggression by Communist China”, he stressed.
The message of Trump’s Pentagon: war is peace
The Trump administration’s Pentagon has essentially pushed the message “war is peace”.
Hegseth has incessantly reiterated the slogan “peace through strength”.
“President Trump said it himself [in May] in Riyadh – and will never hesitate to wield American power swiftly and decisively if necessary. That is re-establishing deterrence”, the defense secretary emphasized in Singapore.
Hegseth is a war hawk and a religious fundamentalist. He made his name as a former host on the conservative TV network Fox News, where Trump discovered him.
In 2020, Hegseth published a book called “American Crusade”, in which he proudly identified as a “crusader” and wrote that the US right wing is waging a “holy war” against China, the international left, and Islam.
“Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years”, he promised in the extremist book.
Trump admin pressures Asia-Pacific countries to minimize “economic cooperation with China”
In his speech in Singapore in May 2025, Pete Hegseth noted that it was his second time in his four months serving as secretary of defense that he had visited the Asia-Pacific region (which Washington has sought to rebrand as the “Indo-Pacific”).
In March, Hegseth traveled to Japan and the Philippines, where he threatened China and boasted of US “war-fighting” preparations and “real war plans”.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue conference, Hegseth half-jokingly threatened the Asia-Pacific region with his endless presence……………………………..
The Trump administration essentially told countries that they must choose between either the United States or China — that they can’t have good relations with both sides, because a war could be coming soon.
Hegseth said (emphasis added):
Facing these threats, we know that many countries are tempted by the idea of seeking both economic cooperation with China and defense cooperation with the United States. Now that is a geographic necessity for many. But beware the leverage that the CCP seeks with that entanglement. Economic dependence on China only deepens their malign influence and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension.
China opposes hegemony, while the US empire seeks it
Defense Secretary Hegseth claimed in his May speech in Singapore that, supposedly, “China seeks to become a hegemonic power in Asia. No doubt”.
This is false. China has consistently emphasized, over decades, that it does not seek hegemony. In fact, Beijing does not want any country to have hegemony.
Principled opposition to hegemony has been a constant since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under Mao Zedong in 1949, through the Reform and Opening Up initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, and into the New Era launched by President Xi Jinping in 2012.
The Chinese government has always stressed what it calls its “unequivocal commitment to supporting other developing countries in their efforts to defend national sovereignty, develop national economy and fight imperialism, colonialism, and hegemonism”.
In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in 1974, Deng Xiaoping stated, “If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression, and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it, and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it”.
In fact, when the PRC normalized diplomatic relations with the United States and Japan in the 1970s, a source of diplomatic tension was China’s insistence that, in the joint statements signed by Beijing and Washington and Beijing and Tokyo, there had to be an “anti-hegemony” clause.
It is actually the United States that has consistently sought to impose its hegemony on the rest of the world.
This was spelled out clearly in a 1992 document published by the US Department of Defense, known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine (because it was co-written by Paul Wolfowitz, who then served as US under secretary of defense for policy, before later returning as secretary of defense under George W. Bush).
The Pentagon’s Wolfowitz Doctrine stated (emphasis added):
Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
The Trump administration’s foreign policy is still consistent with much of the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Although Trump has de-prioritized Western Europe and the territory of the former USSR, he has dedicated significant resources to US military operations in East Asia and Southwest Asia (also known as the Middle East).
In fact, the main theme of Hegseth’s speech was that the Pentagon will not accept China challenging US dominance in the Asia-Pacific region.
“We will not be pushed out of this critical region”, Hegseth said, in a clear message to Beijing.
This was the US empire stating clearly that it seeks to impose its hegemonic control over East Asia.
Bipartisan warmongering in Washington
This aggressive anti-China stance is bipartisan in Washington.
A former top Joe Biden administration official said he agreed with the thrust of the anti-China policy pursued by Pete Hegseth, a right-wing extremist and religious fanatic.
Ely Ratner, who served as the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs in Biden’s Pentagon, wrote approvingly on Twitter/X, “Rhetoric aside, on actual defense policy Secretary Hegseth’s speech was near total continuity with the previous administration”.
“That’s good, but we’ll need heightened urgency, attention, and resources to address the China challenge”, Ratner added.
Biden’s neoconservative Secretary of State Antony Blinken had also maintained a hardline anti-China position.
In a speech in 2022, Blinken announced what was essentially a containment policy targeting China.
“We cannot rely on Beijing to change its trajectory. So we will shape the strategic environment around Beijing”, he said.
Blinken added, “The scale and the scope of the challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China will test American diplomacy like nothing we’ve seen before”.
Miliband’s Sizewell plan in meltdown over potential cost
Huge nuclear power scheme promises much-needed energy but taxpayers have a right to know if the costs of delivering it will be radioactive.
Welcome to “a golden age of clean energy abundance”. And how do we deliver this dream of Ed Miliband’s? By raiding the taxpayer for enough cash to deliver around
half of Sizewell C, the new nuke planned for a Suffolk flood plain. The
government’s sudden discovery of an extra £14.2 billion for the
3.2-gigawatt project has some merits. After the Tories’ pretence that the
private sector alone would fund new nuclear, at last some overdue
realpolitik: that if the UK wants new plants, taxpayers will have to stump
up for them. ………………..
the government’s Sizewell announcement is still full of
holes: a point driven home by Rachel Reeves’s claim that “we are
creating thousands of jobs, kick-starting economic growth and putting more
money [sic] people’s pockets”. How can the chancellor promise that? The
government doesn’t even say how much the project is expected to cost, let
alone how much consumers will be paying for Sizewell’s electricity.
Indeed, ministers have come up with nothing so far on what makes this
project value for money — despite the taxpayer sticking in £17.8
billion, including the £3.6 billion already committed. More may well be
required, too, given Sizewell is the same European Pressurised Reactor
design as Hinkley Point C, the Somerset nuke being built by France’s EDF
that’s now running six years late and whose costs have mushroomed from
£18 billion in 2015 prices to £46 billion in today’s.
Ministers claim Sizewell will be cheaper, given all the lessons learnt from Hinkley. Yet,
its geography is trickier: sited on marshland, on a coastline that’s
eroding, requiring sea defences. Total costs are still likely to top £40
billion, with the “mid 2030s” start date probably wishful thinking. The
government says it will “set out the full cost of the project” at the
time of the final investment decision “later this year”.
But, from that, two things are clear. First, that it’s in no position to make that
decision yet. Second, that it’s yet to sign up any equity partners for
Sizewell — not even EDF, which theoretically has a 15 per cent stake.
Times 10th June 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/economics/article/milibands-sizewell-plan-in-meltdown-over-potential-cost-p2cnvkfjq
UK taxpayers to spend billions more on Sizewell C nuclear plant.
Ministers have agreed to take a £17.8 billion stake in the Sizewell C
nuclear power plant in a move that they claim will reduce carbon
emissions and even make money for the taxpayer. Under plans announced by
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, the government will increase its investment
in the project by £14.2 billion over the next three years on top of £3.6
billion of public money committed under the Conservatives.
Further funding will come from the French energy group EDF, which is building the plant, as
well as private infrastructure investors. Whitehall sources said ministers
decided to take a larger stake because they were confident it would provide
a significant return to the taxpayer.
Under the funding model, investors
carry all the risk of cost overruns but are paid back through consumer
bills and can make more money if the project comes in on time and on
budget. The company said it had learnt lessons from Hinkley, in Somerset,
and can build Sizewell C, in Suffolk, faster and more cheaply.
However, it is still likely to cost much more than the estimated £20 billion in 2020
and will not produce power for at least another decade. The total cost will
be set out this summer when external private investors are announced.
Ultimately, the project will be paid for via consumers’ electricity bills,
adding about £1 a month to the cost of power over the 60-year lifespan of
the plant.
The announcement is among investments in nuclear at the spending
review as part of the government’s pledge to decarbonise electricity
supplies and cope with growing demand.
Alison Downes, of Stop Sizewell C, the campaign group, said ministers had not “come clean” about the full cost of the project, which the group previously estimated could be as much
as £40 billion. “Where is the benefit for voters in ploughing more
money into Sizewell C that could be spent on other priorities, and when the
project will add to consumer bills and is guaranteed to be late and
overspent, like Hinkley C?
Times 10th June 2025,
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/sizewell-c-nuclear-power-plant-3z7jlqdd6
US launches AUKUS review to ensure it meets Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda
By Brad Ryan and Emilie Gramenz in Washington DC, ABC News, 11 June 25
In short:
The US is reviewing the AUKUS security pact with Australia and the UK, which Australia is depending on to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
A US defence official said it would ensure the pact met President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, as the US struggles to build enough submarines for its own fleet.
But Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was “very confident this [AUKUS] is going to happen” and it was only natural for the new US administration to review it.
The Pentagon is reviewing the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and the UK to ensure it aligns with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, a US defence official told the ABC.
But Defence Minister Richard Marles said he remained confident the pact would remain intact, and a review was a “perfectly natural” thing for a new administration to do.
The news follows US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent request for Australia to significantly boost its defence spending “as soon as possible”.
The US defence official said the review “will ensure the initiative meets … common sense, America First criteria”.
“As Secretary Hegseth has made clear, this means ensuring the highest readiness of our service members, that allies step up fully to do their part for collective defence, and that the defence industrial base is meeting our needs,” the official said.
Under the AUKUS pact, Australia would be armed with nuclear-powered submarines at a cost of more than $350 billion.
Elbridge Colby, who is the under secretary of Defense for Policy and has voiced scepticism about AUKUS, is leading the review, according to the UK’s Financial Times.
Last August, Mr Colby tweeted he was an AUKUS “agnostic”.
“In principle it’s a great idea. But I’ve been very skeptical in practice,” he wrote, but added he’d become “more inclined based on new information I’ve gleaned”.
Mr Marles told ABC Radio Melbourne he was “very confident this [AUKUS] is going to happen”.
“The meetings that we’ve had with the United States have been very positive in respect of AUKUS,” Mr Marles said. “That dates back to my most recent meeting with Pete Hegseth in Singapore.”
……………………………………………. The Australian government paid the US almost $800 million earlier this year — the first in a series of payments to help America improve its submarine manufacturing capabilities.
………… Mr Hegseth met Defence Minister Richard Marles in Singapore, and said Australia needed to lift its defence spending.
Mr Trump himself has said little publicly about the AUKUS pact, and his criticisms of America’s traditional alliances have fuelled anxieties about its future in Canberra and London.
When a reporter asked Mr Trump about AUKUS in February, he appeared to be unfamiliar with the term, replying: “What does that mean?”…………………………..
Under “Pillar I” of the two-pillar AUKUS deal, the first submarine would arrive in Australia no sooner than 2032. It would be a second-hand US Virginia-class vessel.
The US would subsequently supply Australia with between three and five submarines, before Australia began building its own in Adelaide, modelled on British designs.
Mr Albanese was expected to meet Mr Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada next week. But that’s now in limbo after the US condemned Australia and several other countries that placed sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers.
…………..Critics of the deal, including former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating, have long warned it is unfair and risky. “I’ve never done a deal as bad as this,” Mr Turnbull told Radio National earlier this year.
The Greens have proposed a “plan B” defence policy that would eventually see AUKUS cancelled.
There are also longstanding concerns around the US’s consistent failure to meet its own submarine-building targets to fully stock its military fleet…………………………………………….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-12/aukus-pentagon-review-donald-trump-america-first/105406254
Campaigners launch legal challenge against Sizewell C’s ‘secret’ flood defences
09 Jun, 2025 By Rob Hakimian, New Civil Engineer,
Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) is seeking a judicial review over the development consent order (DCO) for the Suffolk nuclear power station, citing new concerns over unapproved flood defence measures that could adversely impact the environment and local heritage.
Since 2013, the community-based voluntary campaign group opposing the Sizewell C nuclear power project in Suffolk have campaigned against the construction of the twin European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) on the Suffolk coast, an area renowned for its rapidly eroding shoreline and precious designated natural habitats, including RSPB Minsmere and the Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape. The group’s latest salvo targets the recent disclosure that Sizewell C Ltd, now under UK government control, has committed to installing sea defences not included in the DCO, which was granted in July 2022.
TASC’s concerns stem from an Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) assessment document April 2024 about the external hazards to the Sizewell C site which was put together as part of the process of granting it a nuclear site licence (NSL). The group has said that the process has proposed “huge” flood defences in the case of adverse climate change, which were kept “secret” from the DCO process.
The ONR’s assessment document states: “Consideration of a site’s flood hazard is a fundamental part of ONR’s assessment of site suitability and is included within ONR’s external hazards NSL assessment. Ensuring that there is confidence that sufficient defences against flooding can be constructed, is similarly important and is included within ONR’s civil engineering NSL assessments……………………………………………….. https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/campaigners-launch-legal-challenge-against-sizwell-cs-secret-flood-defences-09-06-2025/
Sizewell C nuclear plant gets £14bn go-ahead from government
Alice Cunningham, BBC News, Suffolk, 9 June 25
The government has committed £14.2bn of investment to build the new Sizewell C nuclear plant on the Suffolk coastline, ahead of the Spending Review.
Sizewell Cwill create 10,000 direct jobs, thousands more in firms supplying the plant and generate enough energy to power six million homes, the Treasury said.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves saidthe “landmark decision” would “kickstart” economic growth, while Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the investment was necessary to usher in a “golden age of clean energy”.
However, Alison Downes, director of pressure group Stop Sizewell C, said ministers had not “come clean” about Sizewell C’s cost, because “negotiations with private investors are incomplete”.
Once construction work begins, Sizewell C will take at least a decade to complete.
Reeves said it would be the “biggest nuclear building programme in a generation”.
Ms Downes added she believed the investment could be spent on other priorities and feared the project would “add to consumer bills”……………………………………………………..
Hinkley Point C in Somerset, the other new plant of which Sizewell C is a copy, will switch on in the early 2030s – more than a decade late and costing billions more than originally planned.
The Sizewell C investment is the latest in a series of announcements in the run-up to the government’s Spending Review, which will be unveiled on Wednesday……………………….
In the 1990s, nuclear power generated about 25% of the UK’s electricity. But that figure has fallen to about 15%, with all but one of the UK’s existing nuclear fleet due to be decommissioned by 2030.
The previous Conservative government backed the construction of Sizewell C in 2022.
Since then, Sizewell C has had other pots of funding confirmed by government, and in September 2023 a formal process to raise private investment was opened.
Ministers and EDF – the French state-owned energy company that has a 15% stake in Sizewell C -have previously said there were plenty of potential investors and they were close to finalising an agreement on it.
The final investment decision on the funding model for the plant is due later this summer.
The Sizewell C project has faced opposition at thelocal and national level from those who think it will prove to be a costly mistake.
“There still appears to be no final investment decision for Sizewell C but £14.2bn in taxpayers’ funding, a decision we condemn and firmly believe the government will come to regret,” she said.
“Starmer and Reeves have just signed up to HS2 mark 2,” she added, referring to the railway project mired by years of budget disputes and delays…………..
On Saturday about 300 protesters demonstrated on Sizewell beach against the project, with many concerned about how the plant would change the area’s environment………………..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gr3nd5zy6o
Another delay for Sizewell C nuclear despite Government 14bn pledge
ITV News. 10 June 2025
The government has confirmed a £14.2bn investment to build the Sizewell C nuclear plant – but still cannot confirm the project is fully funded.
Ministers claim the reactor – the third to be built on the Suffolk coast – will create 10,000 jobs, 1,500 apprenticeships, and generate enough “clean” energy to power millions of homes.
It will be part of a “golden age of clean energy abundance” which will pave the way for household bills and help tackle the climate crisis, according to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
But the government has had to stop short of issuing a “Final Investment Decision”, which can only be given once full investment has been secured.
Opponents insist the government “will come to regret” this latest backing for Sizewell C, claiming the project “will add to consumer bills and is guaranteed to be late and overspent”, comparing it to Hinkley Point C, the nuclear plant under construction in Somerset.
Sizewell, which sits just a few miles south of celebrity hotspot Southwold and borders the former Springwatch base at RSPB Minsmere, was first identified as a potential site for a new plant back in 2009.
The project was granted development consent by the then-Conservative government in July 2022 and Sir Keir Starmer made a further £5.5bn available to the project last August.
Preparatory work has already been started by French energy firm EDF and contracts worth around £330m have already been signed with local companies.
The government said Tuesday’s announcement would end “years of delay and uncertainty”.
“We will not accept the status quo of failing to invest in the future and energy insecurity for our country,” said Mr Miliband.
“We need new nuclear to deliver a golden age of clean energy abundance, because that is the only way to protect family finances, take back control of our energy, and tackle the climate crisis.
“This is the government’s clean energy mission in action – investing in lower bills and good jobs for energy security.”
The joint managing directors of Sizewell C, Julia Pyke and Nigel Cann, said: “Today marks the start of an exciting new chapter for Sizewell C, the UK’s first British-owned nuclear power plant in over 30 years.”But with an estimated cost of at least £20bn – and some experts predicting it could exceed £40bn – EDF continues to seek investors in the project.
The government said it expected to issue a Final Investment Decision in the summer.https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2025-06-09/another-delay-for-sizewell-c-despite-governments-14bn-pledge
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