Sizewell C Nuclear not just a waste of money – a waste of time, too!
But there is another type of waste even more expensive than the construction costs of nuclear power stations and one that the public will be paying for way into the far future: the storage of toxic high-level radioactive wastes. The public is seldom told that these will be stored on site until at least the middle of the next century, partly to cool down before they can be moved. But moved to where? There is currently no national repository in sight for new build reactors like Sizewell C and there may never be.
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) 10 June, 25, https://www.banng.info/news/press-releases/10-june-2025/
The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) agrees with Stop Sizewell C that the proposed new Sizewell C nuclear power station is ‘HS2 Mark 2’. But the public is seldom told about another, much more expensive – and dangerous – waste arising from new nuclear development: toxic high-level radioactive wastes.
The Government has announced that £14BN of public money will be spent over the next four years on the construction of Sizewell C (SZC) new nuclear power station in Suffolk. The amount of taxpayers’ money to be expended at the end of that period is not mentioned, nor is the actual levy to be placed on energy bills to pay for the construction.
The belief of Secretary of State for Net Zero, Ed Miliband, that SZC will be built in a decade flies in the face of the large body of evidence that shows construction of new nuclear power stations runs well over time and over budget. Hinkley Point C (HPC), on which Sizewell C is based, was estimated to cost £16BN in 2012 and to be cooking the Christmas turkey in 2017. Current estimates are £46BN, with operations starting in 2031 (at the earliest).
But there is another type of waste even more expensive than the construction costs of nuclear power stations and one that the public will be paying for way into the far future: the storage of toxic high-level radioactive wastes. The public is seldom told that these will be stored on site until at least the middle of the next century, partly to cool down before they can be moved. But moved to where? There is currently no national repository in sight for new build reactors like Sizewell C and there may never be.
The £14BN package will also cover the construction of Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and the Bradwell site, unfortunately, remains a remote possibility for these. But SMRs have the same problems as major new nuclear stations. And don’t be fooled they will be anything but small!
Varrie Blowers, Secretary of BANNG, says: ‘Building one or more SMRs at Bradwell is inconceivable. The site will be wiped out by Climate Change. It is far too remote with no good grid connections. Above all the Blackwater communities and Councils are as resolutely opposed today as they have been for many years.
“As far as public finances are concerned, nuclear power stations, large or small, are not just for life, but forever.”
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.”
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
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
Zelensky’s spectacular Operation Spiderweb has backfired spectacularly
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 11 June 25
The June 1 Ukraine drone attack on air bases deep in Russia was spectacular only insofar as it galvanized the Ukraine war dead enders to proclaim Ukraine can prevail in the war Ukraine lost on Day One.
The attack was strategically insignificant for Ukraine. Russia, as expected, launched devastating retaliatory attacks that will dramatically weaken Ukraine’s ability to keep fighting.
What was Ukraine President Zelensky thinking in allowing an attack that had no strategic importance but guaranteed to bring a strategically devastating response?
A likely explanation is Zelensky’s hope that the Russian retaliation might shame Trump into expanding his military aid to Ukraine rather than reduce or even end it. That desperate gambit will likely fail. Trump is determined to end the war so he can continue the process of withdrawing from European defense. Trump prefers expanding the US military Asia pivot to counter China’s growing regional dominance there. Trump also needs his highly stretched military resources for possible war with Iran. If that’s the worst possible reason for ending the war, so be it.
Zelensky has been on a reckless suicide mission with Russia virtually guaranteeing a Ukraine military collapse ahead of Ukraine’s descent into a weakened rump state.
Zelensky has been pursuing this self destructive policy for all 1,200 days of this war. And every time he attacks deep into Russia, he’s guaranteeing Russia will expand the buffer zone they’re creating in Ukraine to prevent such attacks.
Zelensky has been Ukraine’ worst enemy thruout this senseless war. Filled with delusions of grandeur, he keeps fighting to win back all 45,000 square miles of lost territory he could have avoided by signing the Istanbul Agreement 3 years ago. He even demands return of Crimea lost in 2014 after a US inspired coup disposed Russian friendly Ukraine President Yanukovych. That madness is not only destroying Ukraine, its keeping the world in fear this now escalating war could possibly go nuclear.
To save the remainder of Ukraine, Zelensky must be pushed out, replaced by sensible leaders willing to make peace on the best terms possible, none of which are recognized by Zelensky.
And Trump must stop waffling and withdraw all US military support that squandered nearly $200 billion of US treasure on a lost war.
If both happen, not only will the war end, the three and a half year threat of nuclear war over Ukraine will end as well.
We must never abandon that hope.
UK pledges £11.5bn of new state funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant.
Latest money raises total taxpayer investment in power station site to
£17.8bn. The move marks a return to significant state funding for nuclear
energy after the UK chose the private sector to finance and build its last
project, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which is heavily delayed and over
budget.
The previous record public investment in nuclear energy was £2bn
for the Sizewell B plant in 1987, or £7bn in today’s prices. The UK
government already has a partnership with French state-owned energy group
EDF, which has kept a 15 per cent stake in Sizewell C.
The pair are now seeking financial commitments from several other investors before they can sign off a “final investment decision”, expected next month during an
Anglo-French summit in London.
The chancellor will promise £14.2bn of
taxpayer funding for the 3.2 gigawatt plant over the current parliament,
including a £2.7bn commitment she previously made in the autumn Budget. The
Treasury had already committed £3.6bn over the past two years.
EDF has said the final investment decision will depend on securing private investment
and on whether it can make its expected return on capital, but Simone
Rossi, the company’s UK chief executive, said the project would benefit the
UK’s “energy security and economic growth”. Private investors expected
to bid for stakes in Sizewell C include Canadian pension fund CDPQ, Amber
Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, pension fund USS,
Schroders Greencoat, Equitix, Centrica and insurer Rothesay.
The total cost of the project could be close to £40bn by the time it is built, industry
figures believe. State-owned Great British Nuclear will soon announce the
outcome of its competition to choose a company to start building a fleet of
“small modular reactors”. The government said it would also invest more
than £2.5bn in nuclear fusion over five years in what it called a “record
investment” in the nascent technology. Melanie Windridge, head of
advisory group Fusion Energy Insights, praised the government for
recognising the “economic value of developing fusion in this country”.
The sum is slightly less than the US is spending on fusion and one-third of
China’s annual investment on the technology.
FT 9th June 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/e017efeb-0a9c-4d30-894f-86037a096984
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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