Ministers set to admit Sizewell C nuclear plant price-tag has soared to £38bn.
New official estimate reflects surging construction inflation and
contingency costs. Sizewell C nuclear plant will cost £38bn to build, the
UK government is set to admit for the first time next week as it reveals
the terms of an expected deal for private investors to fund a small portion
of the bill,
The new official estimate is a big increase from a £20bn
figure given by French energy giant EDF and the UK government for the
project in 2020, reflecting surging construction inflation and new
contingency costs.
A trio of private companies are set to invest around
£9bn of equity in Sizewell, but the majority of the construction will be
funded by loans underpinned by a levy on consumer bills, according to
people familiar with the matter.
The UK government is expected to remain
the largest investor in the project with a 47.5 per cent stake, the
Financial Times previously reported. The £38bn cost, details of the deal
and how the financial risk of the project will be shared is set to be
announced before the parliamentary summer recess begins on Wednesday, the
people said.
FT 18th July 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/d4315905-e7b5-4c2c-a0d1-32dd302e7761
Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme
by Paul Linford , 18 Jul 2025, https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2025/news/local-website-reveals-citys-secret-nuclear-weapons-programme/
A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.
The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.
Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.
Danie spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.
Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme
by Paul Linford Published 18 Jul 2025
A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.
The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.
Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.
Daniel, pictured, spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.
The key breakthrough came when he read a set of minutes from a meeting of Berkshire parish councillors around the AWE’s Aldermaston HQ in November 2023 which was addressed by an AWE director, Andrew McNaughton.
Wrote Daniel: “Unsurprisingly, AWE publishes very little. But they do have occasional meetings with local parish councillors around their Berkshire site. And in the published minutes, I finally find what I’d been searching for.
“It was the 108th meeting of the committee, in November 2023. Andrew McNaughton, the executive director for infrastructure on the fissile programme, explained that AWE had not had to design new warheads for decades, and taking this on will require new buildings and facilities.
“But in the meantime, they were doing some work elsewhere. And this was where the key admission was made.
“‘We already have a secure cell in Sheffield (part of Sheffield University) where we have some of the equipment we have been using… where we are going to be trialling the processes and training some of our employees,” McNaughton said.”
The Tribune gave both the Ministry of Defence and the university the opportunity to dispute its reporting, but they did not.
Added Daniel: “I’ve been working on this story for four months. I have no previous experience with the defence sector, and I assumed it would be an interesting diversion that would ultimately lead nowhere.
“Instead, largely by relying on freely available documents, I’ve been able to reveal where a significant aspect of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is taking place — in a building with apparently minimal security just outside Sheffield.
“It’s possible that others with more of a headstart — and with less benign motives — have been able to do the same. But, given the lack of pushback (we haven’t been asked not to publish) perhaps the parties involved aren’t too concerned.”
A spokesperson for the university told The Tribune: “Our work at the AMRC involves developing and testing new technologies and processes for manufacturing companies and does not involve production of components for deployment.
Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme
by Paul Linford Published 18 Jul 2025
A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.
The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.
The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.
Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.
Daniel, pictured, spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.
The key breakthrough came when he read a set of minutes from a meeting of Berkshire parish councillors around the AWE’s Aldermaston HQ in November 2023 which was addressed by an AWE director, Andrew McNaughton.
Wrote Daniel: “Unsurprisingly, AWE publishes very little. But they do have occasional meetings with local parish councillors around their Berkshire site. And in the published minutes, I finally find what I’d been searching for.
“It was the 108th meeting of the committee, in November 2023. Andrew McNaughton, the executive director for infrastructure on the fissile programme, explained that AWE had not had to design new warheads for decades, and taking this on will require new buildings and facilities.
“But in the meantime, they were doing some work elsewhere. And this was where the key admission was made.
“‘We already have a secure cell in Sheffield (part of Sheffield University) where we have some of the equipment we have been using… where we are going to be trialling the processes and training some of our employees,” McNaughton said.”
The Tribune gave both the Ministry of Defence and the university the opportunity to dispute its reporting, but they did not.
Added Daniel: “I’ve been working on this story for four months. I have no previous experience with the defence sector, and I assumed it would be an interesting diversion that would ultimately lead nowhere.
“Instead, largely by relying on freely available documents, I’ve been able to reveal where a significant aspect of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is taking place — in a building with apparently minimal security just outside Sheffield.
“It’s possible that others with more of a headstart — and with less benign motives — have been able to do the same. But, given the lack of pushback (we haven’t been asked not to publish) perhaps the parties involved aren’t too concerned.”
A spokesperson for the university told The Tribune: “Our work at the AMRC involves developing and testing new technologies and processes for manufacturing companies and does not involve production of components for deployment.
“Our collaboration with partners in the defence sector helps them to overcome sustainability and productivity challenges, and support UK security and sovereign capabilities.”
Joshi Hermann, proprietor of Mill Media commented: “This is a fantastic story from Daniel Timms, revealing the existence of a secret nuclear weapons programme in Sheffield.
“If he can work this out from sources and the minutes of a parish council meeting in Berkshire, then the Russians/Chinese can too.”
Remembering the radical anti-nuclear Greenham Women’s Peace Camp
Huck Mag 18th July 2025, https://www.huckmag.com/article/anti-nuclear-greenham-womens-peace-camp-life-fence-janine-wiedel
Life at the Fence — In the early ’80s, a women’s only camp at an RAF site in Berkshire was formed to protest the threat of nuclear arms. Janine Wiedel’s new photobook revisits its anti-establishment setup and people.
Coming of age in the shadow of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Janine Wiedel remembers the “duck and cover drills” of her childhood years, where students hid under school desks, head in hands, practicing quiet surrender to nuclear Armageddon.
By the ’80s, Wiedel was living and working as a photographer, documenting working-class life in the UK. With Ronald Reagan in the White House, Cold War tensions reached a fevered pitch. Across the pond, Margaret Thatcher, Reagan’s “comrade-in-arms”, welcomed the NATO bequest of 96 US-manufactured, nuclear “cruise missiles”, which were to begin arriving at RAF Greenham Common in 1983.
As NATO and the USSR ran up their arsenals, a grassroots resistance movement sprouted in Greenham, in the English county of Berkshire, taking the shape of a “women’s only” peace camp in 1982. Despite evictions, fences, and spies organised to bring them down, the resistance stayed the course until the American forces packed up their weapons and went home following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Their struggle made headlines, with even the Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev paying homage to the ‘Greenham women and the peace movement of Europe’ at the signing of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. But those initial media reports, Wiedel remembers, were ultimately disparaging of the women, so she decided to visit the camp for herself in 1983.
“I was fascinated by the community that had evolved as a result of it being ‘all women’ – there were no leaders,” Wiedel says. “The women built homes out of wood they collected, and they lit and tended the fires. They attended and spoke at conferences. They represented themselves in court when they were arrested. Everyone had an equal voice. Confidence grew. The actions were spontaneous and flexible; the authorities and police never knew what they would do next.”
The lesson became clear: don’t stop until the job is done. Now, Wiedel revisits this historic chapter of protest history with Life at the Fence: Greenham Women’s Peace Camp 1983 – 84 (Image & Reality). Through transportive imagery and interviews conducted at the time, the book brings together Wiedel’s masterful reportage as she takes us through the camps, which were built along the nine-mile perimeter of the RAF base, while paratroopers perched in lookout towers, binoculars in hand. Against the backdrop of gnarly barbed wire, the women sorted themselves out among different camp sites, each named for a different colour of the rainbow. It was a world of striking contrasts.
Drawn to women who had given up everything to live in primitive, volatile conditions, Wiedel listened to the women, recording their testimonies, songs, and remembrances which she weaves alongside documentary, portraits, landscape, still life, and reportage of non-violent direct actions.
“At the time, as a ‘women only’ protest, it was subjected to every form of abuse and ridicule by the media,” says Wiedel. “Its presence at the base also became an embarrassment to the Thatcher government. The women, however, managed to remain at the base for 19 years. Everyone I spoke with said it had transformed their lives.”
Life at the Fence: Greenham Women’s Peace Camp 1983 – 84 by Janine Wiedel is published by Image & Reality.
UK’s nuclear push may hand investors a cushy deal
while the financing looks “private”, the real backstop is public.
Yawen Chen, July 18, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/uks-nuclear-push-may-hand-investors-cushy-deal-2025-07-18/
Brookfield’s (BAM.TO), opens new tab reported plan to take a 25% stake, opens new tab in the Sizewell C nuclear project would mark a big vote of confidence in Britain’s atomic energy revival. But while it suggests that private capital could play a role in funding the country’s energy security, taxpayers are likely to take much of the risk.
The Canadian giant is no stranger to infrastructure, but nuclear power comes with high upfront costs, delays and cost overruns. Sizewell C could cost up to 40 billion pounds ($54 billion) to build, the Financial Times says, up from the latest government estimate of 20 billion pounds.
Britain’s track record is far from reassuring. Take Hinkley Point C, which was majority owned by EDF. Construction began in 2017 and was originally expected to be completed in 2025 and cost 18 billion pounds. It is now unlikely to be operational before 2030, with the overall cost revised to up to 35 billion pounds in 2015 prices. EDF had little protection against those delays as the chief backing it got from the government came from energy price commitments, which kick in when the plant is running.
Bringing in private investors may therefore require a new approach. That’s why the government passed legislation in 2022 so that the Sizewell C plant will be financed via a model, opens new tab seen in utilities like water companies or energy networks, dubbed the regulated asset base (RAB). That model fixes an allowed return to investors by passing on costs to consumers. Crucially, it allows a project to generate revenue from the moment construction begins, instead of only when it becomes operational.
The closest precedent is probably London’s Thames Tideway Tunnel, which funded the construction of a new sewer. There, consumer bills are charged enough to cover a blended return to debt and equity investors, or weighted average cost of capital (WACC), of 2.5% over inflation while the project is under construction. Given the risks in nuclear, industry experts reckon a WACC of 4% above inflation is more likely, equivalent to a nominal rate of 6%. And, as with Thames Tideway, nuclear plants will likely require a commitment from the government for it to compensate investors if cost overruns exceed a certain threshold.
That’s means the RAB model could easily end up becoming pretty expensive. The National Audit Office’s modelling suggests that the WACC of a hypothetical nuclear project could rise to 9% if expenses were to come over budget by between 75% and 100%. As Hinkley Point showed, that’s quite plausible.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer may not have much choice. The government says
, opens new tab it needs new nuclear power stations to help its transition to net zero and ensure energy security threatened by Russia. And Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be loath to fund them all on balance sheet, given the country’s fiscal state. Brookfield’s interest shows that institutional investors may be able to step up. But while the financing looks “private”, the real backstop is public.
Context News
UK energy secretary Ed Miliband said in June that Sizewell C would be the beginning of a “golden age” for nuclear in Britain. He also said the project would be “majority public funded”. The government has committed 14.2 billion pounds
The UK government is closing in on a final deal to secure private investment into the Sizewell C nuclear power project. Its 84% stake in the development is expected to be diluted to around 47.5%, with Canadian investor Brookfield Asset Management, British energy supplier Centrica and French energy giant EDF holding the remainder, the Financial Times reported on July 9 citing people with knowledge of the ongoing negotiations.
Brookfield is likely to take a 25% stake, with Centrica buying 15%, the report said.
France’s state-owned EDF, which is leading the development of the site, said on July 8 it would reduce its holdings to 12.5%.
Office for Nuclear Regulation says its ‘insufficient organisational capability’ is increasing strategic risk.
18 Jul, 2025 By Tom Pashby
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has identified its “insufficient
organisational capability” as an increasing strategic risk in its latest
annual report. The risks are: Insufficient organisational capability, the
ONR being ineffective at discharging its duties as a regulator, failure to
deliver objectives due to an inability to respond to incidents, poor
knowledge management, inflexible funding, the impact of changes to deliver
leadership and insufficient security controls.
Each of these risks has been
analysed on whether it is static, increasing or decreasing. Notably, it
said the risk of “insufficient organisational capability” was found to
be increasing. This has “matured out of the former Insufficient
Organisational Capability and Capacity risk to allow for an enhanced focus
on the capability of the organisation. “We have implemented a review of
regulatory competence and capacity to meet future regulatory
requirements.” An ONR spokesperson told NCE: “The government has
announced its biggest expansion of nuclear power in several decades and so
maintaining a resilient regulatory capability and capacity to deliver our
mission remains a key priority.
New Civil Engineer 18th July 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/office-for-nuclear-regulation-says-its-insufficient-organisational-capability-is-increasing-strategic-risk-18-07-2025/
Call for evidence on building nuclear for a new UK “golden age of clean energy abundance”
The UK is embarking on an ambitious programme of
investment in nuclear energy, seeking to reverse decades of declining
capacity. The Government is counting on new nuclear to help deliver energy
security and decarbonise electricity generation. Announcing funding for the
Sizewell C nuclear power plant in June, the Energy Secretary said “we
need new nuclear to deliver a golden age of clean energy abundance.”
But past promises of a golden age of nuclear energy have failed to materialise.
A new reactor has not been connected to the grid for 30 years. Nuclear
projects have historically faced unique barriers, including complex
regulatory and planning processes. The Government now aims to deliver
reforms to streamline planning approvals and give greater certainty to
developers. The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee is now inviting
written submissions to help assess whether EN-7 provides a coherent and
effective framework for enabling the UK’s nuclear ambitions.
Energy Security and Net Zero Committee 17th July 2025, https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/664/energy-security-and-net-zero-committee/news/208378/call-for-evidence-on-building-nuclear-for-a-new-uk-golden-age-of-clean-energy-abundance/
We’ll stop Nimbys from blocking nuclear power stations, say Tories.
The rule changes would see planning officers ignore all environmental
considerations when building a new nuclear site,
Party wants to make it impossible to challenge plans using environmental impact assessments or habitat regulations
Nimbys will be stopped from blocking nuclear power stations in their area
under Tory plans. The party wants to end the “absurd” blocking of new
nuclear sites through environmental impact assessments or regulations on
habitats, and would make it impossible to challenge a new power station in
court.
The Tories have submitted amendments to the Government’s Planning
and Infrastructure Bill that would exempt nuclear power stations from being
blocked or delayed on environmental grounds, to speed up energy production
in the UK. They accused Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, of presiding
over “the highest prices for offshore wind in a decade” and called for
more nuclear power to meet the UK’s growing demand for electricity.
The rule changes would see planning officers ignore all environmental
considerations when building a new nuclear site, which is likely to anger
locals and lead to public opposition. Writing for The Telegraph, Claire
Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said the new Hinkley Point C power
station in Somerset is set to be the most expensive in history because of
“bureaucracy and rampant lawfarism”. “[There is] Endless lawfare,
environmental paperwork, and legal challenges that do little to protect
nature but create plenty of expensive work for planning consultants and
pencil-pushing bureaucrats,” she said. “Every single delay and absurd
mitigation measure adds more cost.”
The amendments would only become law
with the support of Labour MPs, which is not expected to happen. Labour has
previously said it will reform the same rules raised by the Conservatives,
but will not exempt them from judicial review or all environmental
assessments.
Responding to the Conservative proposal, Sam Richards, chief
executive of pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade, said the UK had the
“worst of both worlds” with a planning system that does not protect
nature and slows down infrastructure projects. “These amendments are
radical, but the status quo where safe, clean nuclear power projects are
delayed and made more expensive due to repeated legal challenges and poorly
drafted environmental legislation is intolerable,” he said.
Telegraph 18th July 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/18/tories-stop-nimbys-block-nuclear-power-hinkley-fish-disco/
Miliband bets on nuclear fusion in bid to lead (?)clean power race.
Energy Secretary to make it easier for developers to build reactors with planning shake-up
Ed Miliband has taken a bet on nuclear fusion one day powering Britain by
making it easier for developers to build new reactors with minimal planning
restrictions.
Fusion plants are to be included in the UK’s national
infrastructure planning system, meaning they can be built in any part of
Britain without needing consent from local authorities and with little
opportunity for local people to object. Mr Miliband said the aim was to
ensure fusion, if it ever works, could rapidly become part of the UK energy
system.
Telegraph 18th July 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/18/miliband-bets-on-nuclear-fusion-by-making-it-easier-to-buil/
Sizewell C | Investor withdraws from consortium set for 25% stake.
17 Jul, 2025 By Tom Pashby, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/sizewell-c-investor-withdraws-from-consortium-set-for-25-stake-17-07-2025/
One of the investors reported to be considering a stake in Sizewell C has decided to withdraw, while the government is no longer planning to classify nuclear energy as “sustainable”.
Schroders Greencoat, which describes itself as “a specialist renewables infrastructure investor”, was previously reported to be one of the companies considering an ownership stake in Sizewell C.
It was widely reported that Schroders Greencoat was one of the companies in the consortium led by Brookfield Asset Management, which was in total considering a 25% stake in the nuclear power plant.
In an email dated 16 July seen by NCE, the investor said it no longer wishes to invest in the project on the Suffolk coast.
Wait for final investment decision continues
Sizewell C must achieve its final investment decision (FID) before main construction can start.
Despite the delay, Sizewell C has committed over £2.5bn on contracts.
It is now expected that the final investment decision will be taken this summer.
Nuclear dropped from sustainable finance classification plans
The UK Government recently decided to not go ahead with plans to create a UK Green Taxonomy for financial investments, meaning that it won’t have a specific classification of certain areas of activity, like nuclear power, as “sustainable”.
This had been a plan hatched by former chancellor Jeremy Hunt in the 2023 Spring Budget, but NCE found that no work had gone towards this 16 months later.
HM Treasury economic secretary to the treasury and city minister Emma Reynolds announced the decision in the UK Green Taxonomy Consultation Response.
“To make sure the UK is well-positioned to capture [growth in the green economy], the government is delivering a world-leading sustainable finance framework,” Reynolds said.
“This includes ensuring that we have the right tools in place and the proportionate regulation that is needed to support the transition, strengthening the UK’s position as the sustainable finance capital of the world so that the UK can lead the clean energy transition at home and abroad.
“That is why, after careful consideration, the government has concluded that a UK Taxonomy would not be the most effective tool to deliver the green transition and should not be part of our sustainable finance framework.
“Whilst our ambitions to continue as a global leader remain unchanged, the consultation responses showed that other policies were of higher priority to accelerate investment into the transition to net zero and limit greenwashing.”
It is understood that the decision to drop plans for the taxonomy may have contributed to Schroders Greencoat’s withdrawal from investing in Sizewell C.
Anti-Sizewell C campaign attributes withdrawal to taxonomy decision
Stop Sizewell C executive director Alison Downes said: “It’s welcome news that Schroders Greencoat won’t be investing in Sizewell C.
Based on our dialogue with Schroders, we attribute this to the government deciding not to adopt a green taxonomy, which thankfully has the outcome that nuclear energy cannot be erroneously labelled ‘green’.
“We wish that other investors would take the same view and exit Sizewell C forthwith.”
No comment from parties to negotiations
The negotiations around the final investment decision are often described as commercially sensitive, and as such the government doesn’t tend to comment.
This hasn’t stopped sources informing the media about certain parts of the negotiations, like the report in the FT that the government is now taking a minority ownership stake.
The Department for Net Zero and Energy Security, Sizewell C and Schroders Greencoat did not supply a comment.
Workers at Hinkley Point C nuclear plant stage wildcat strike over alleged bullying
Hundreds of mechanical engineers stopped work in protest over
‘management practices’ at construction site. A group of mechanical
engineers numbering in the low hundreds stopped work on Tuesday without the
backing of their trade unions amid deepening woes within the 26,000-strong
workforce over the conditions on the site.
It was the second unofficial
strike to take place in a week after a walkout last Wednesday in defiance
of union reps and the site developer, French utility company EDF, following
claims that senior managers on the Hinkley site have bullied engineering
staff. A contract worker on the project, which is running years late and
billions of pounds over budget, told the Guardian one of the incidents was
believed to have involved a senior manager bullying a young woman on the
team.
“They’ve had enough, and they’re out the gate,” he said.
Trade union Unite confirmed that a number of workers are taking part in a
protest over “management practices” which has resulted in the workers
being removed from the site. “Unite expects this matter to be resolved
soon,” a spokesperson said. The Guardian understands that EDF, which is
developing the first new nuclear reactor in a generation at Hinkley Point,
has begun an independent investigation into the alleged bullying on site.
The row has emerged days after the UK nuclear watchdog confirmed it would
prosecute EDF alongside the site’s main contractors Bouygues Travaux
Publics and Laing O’Rourke for health and safety offences over the death
of a site supervisor at the site after an accident in 2022.
Guardian 15th July 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/15/workers-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant-stage-wildcat-strike-over-alleged-bullying
Improvements required at Sellafield after lead oxide release
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has served an improvement notice
on Sellafield Ltd following an incident at the Cumbria site. In April, an
unintentional release of lead oxide was detected at the First Generation
Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP) facility when workers noticed the degraded
condition of some flexible lead shielding.
Lead shielding sheets are used
across the site to protect workers from potential exposure to radiation.
The coating on the sheets used on the FGMSP skip handling machine had
degraded over time, resulting in lead oxide being released which posed a
potential risk to workers. Further enquiries have identified a number of
other locations across the Sellafield site where degraded flexible lead
shielding sheets caused a risk of lead exposure. Lead oxide is not a
radioactive substance, but can be harmful if ingested, inhaled or absorbed.
ONR 9th July 2025, https://www.onr.org.uk/news/all-news/2025/07/improvements-required-at-sellafield-after-lead-oxide-release/
Construction workers walk out at Hinkley Point C
Thousands of construction workers have walked out unofficially at the
massive Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant against bullying management. As
we go to press, they are still out. It has been estimated that there are
12,000 workers on the site, organised by Unite and the GMB, and it is
reported that anything from 2,000 to 4,000 workers are involved in this
dispute, reportedly at MEH Alliance – bringing together Altrad Services,
Cavendish, Balfour Beatty, NG Bailey and Altrad Babcock.
Socialist Party 15th July 2025,
https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/140831/15-07-2025/construction-workers-walk-out-at-hinckley-c/
Hoping for nuclear to boost the economy -will not end well.
Samuel Rafanell-Williams, Scottish CND:
MANY readers will be conscious of
the emerging PR operation to promote nuclear power and admonish the
Scottish Government over its long-standing opposition to new nuclear
projects in Scotland.
This comes at a time when The Ferret reported 585
cracks in the reactor of the Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian,
prompting fears about radioactive risks (Hunterston B power station was
closed in 2022 following the discovery of 586 reactor cracks).
The industrial messes of the Hinkley and Sizewell nuclear projects in England,
both running billions over budget, also don’t sweeten the case for
starting similar projects in Scotland.
Transparently, this media drive is
an attempt to manufacture consent for new potential nuclear plants in
Scotland in the wake of the UK Government’s recent proud announcement of
“Nuclear Britain”.
These PR efforts in Scotland are being led by
lobbyists like Britain Remade, a group composed of former Tory party
officials firmly committed to lifting Scotland’s ban on nuclear power, as
recently reported by Bella Caledonia.
Make no mistake, the UK
Government’s promotion of nuclear power is integral to its vision of a
war economy: massive investment, including exorbitant public expenditure,
into so-called “civilian” nuclear power (£40 billion-plus for Hinkley,
£40bn-plus for Sizewell) is a precondition for shoring up the nuclear
weapons industry. As Scottish CND have frequently argued, much of the same
technical expertise, personnel and fissile materials are required in both
fission and the production of warheads and propulsion reactors for naval
vessels. All nuclear states know building their omnicide weapons relies on
a nuclear power programme.
The National 11th July 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25305651.hoping-nuclear-boost-economy-will-not-end-well/
SIZEWELL C, RISING SEA LEVELS AND EDF’s SILENCE
The dust has just about settled since Labour’s ‘golden nuclear
moment’ laid out by Rachel Reeves in her recent Spending Review. Plans
for the monstrous Sizewell C took another step forward, nudged along by the
offer of another £14.2 billion of taxpayers’ money, together with a
further £2.5 billion promised for Small Modular Reactors, and roughly the
same amount for fusion, the nuclear industry’s very own black hole.
So
loud were the fanfares, so overblown the hype, that the real story of that
week got lost. EDF’s deeply ingrained habits of secrecy and deceit were
– yet again – exposed to the harsh light of a Freedom of Information
request from the indefatigable Together Against Sizewell C (TASC). One of
the principal concerns that TASC has doggedly pursued over the last few
years is the vulnerability of Sizewell C being built on one of Europe’s
most rapidly eroding coastlines and its lack of resilience to the impacts
of climate change. The evidence regarding future sea level rise goes from
deeply worrying to totally terrifying – with the very real possibility of
at least a 1 metre rise – and possibly as much as 2 metres – by 2100.
Given that the spent fuel used at Sizewell C throughout its operating life
(around 4,000 tonnes) will need to be stored on site until at least 2160
this is clearly a matter of the greatest concern.
Johnathon Porritt 7th July 2025, https://jonathonporritt.com/sizewell-c-flood-risk-and-edf-silence/
Staff walk out at Hinkley Point C over alleged ‘bullying’
“This bullying has been going on for far too long.”
Staff at Hinkley Point C walked out
on an unofficial strike on Wednesday over alleged bullying. An unconfirmed
number of workers in the MEH group of contractors have downed tools at the
nuclear power station construction site in Somerset yesterday (July 9). A
person involved in the staff walk out told the Local Democracy Reporting
Service it was a response to bullying from senior management. They said:
“This bullying has been going on for far too long.”
Somerset Live 10th July 2025, https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/local-news/staff-walk-out-hinkley-point-10333388
1 This Month
29 Jan. Thursday 7-8 p.m. Webinar – World’s Largest Nuclear Station in Port Hope, ON?
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
31st January – Challenging the War Machine – a DECLASSIFIED UK SUMMIT
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Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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