Stop Hinkley takes the message to Brussels: ‘No Subsidies For New Nuclear Power Plants’

Report by Jo Smoldon

Stop Hinkley were invited to Brussels to take part in a demonstration on the 24th March.  It took place at the EU headquarters and our Euro MEP Molly Scott Cato joined the list of speakers who inspired us.  We were thrilled to be invited as it was important for us to be there and represent our Stop Hinkley campaign, which was central for the other participant's presentations.  Molly spoke of Stop Hinkley's long standing commitment to the anti-nuclear campaign in Somerset over 30 years and acknowledged our presence and perseverance.

The demo was outside the EU headquarters and our Euro MP Molly Scott Cato joined the list of speakers who inspired us. We were thrilled to be invited and to take part – it was important for us to be there and represent our Stop Hinkley campaign which was central for the other participant's presentations.

Many countries and anti-nuclear groups were represented including Austria , Holland , Belgium and Germany . It was affirming that all of these people were there for us too, different groups coming together in a united way, with common cause, across all our different languages. It gave great strength to us all.

An Austrian speaker's informative talk highlighted the 1957 Euratom treaty which the EU countries all signed in support of nuclear. Austria sees today that this needs to be updated and for nuclear power to be removed. One solution is for individual countries to pull out from the Euratom treaty, perhaps Luxembourg and Austria , and then encourage Germany to pull out. Hopefully others will follow to undermine the dictating Euratom treaty.

Peter Smith, a Stop Hinkley supporter who spent many years working in a very senior position at Hinkley, spoke from the heart about his journey from Hinkley Point worker to anti-nuclear campaigner. The audience fell silent listening to the details of his life experience revealing the delusion, denial, and danger leading to disaster and destruction from the nuclear industry. His shock when he realised that the industry has never confessed to its employees that the finances won't ever add up. The money needed for decommissioning and waste storage is never costed into the nuclear energy production. Nuclear workers are continuously being deceived!

There are many in Europe asking about the UK government and wondering what is going to happen in the forthcoming elections. One speaker, when looking at the attitudes to energy provision comparing nuclear to renewables, described Cameron as not only a donkey in the horse race, but a dead donkey!

Molly spoke of Stop Hinkley's long standing commitment to the anti-nuclear campaign in Somerset over 30 years and acknowledged our presence and perseverance.

The power network was talked about. In the South West the spare capacity is already allocated to Hinkley on the grid and renewables have been left with no possibility to feed in. Is there a strategy in DECC? Businesses are being told that no intermediate renewable sized projects can be approved, only small domestic ones.

We heard about various other reactors around Europe . In Austria , although they finished a nuclear power station, they decided never to switch it on.

Inspiration was given when it was revealed that last year in Germany energy saving technology has meant that in a year 5% of their energy has been saved. That just shows how, by simply looking at what we are doing, from individuals to big companies, everyone can make a difference to the energy total that is required.

The Belgium speaker told of the 18cm cracks in their reactor and again it was highlighted the importance of individuals investing in renewables.

As the different countries told their stories, no one could miss the fact that the two countries pushing for nuclear are UK and France . This is due to the nuclear weapons facility for Europe being subsidised ad infinitum. As always, the weapons issue was mentioned. It has underpinned the need for nuclear power from the beginning.

Everyone pledged to get more signatures on the petition against the illegal subsidy for nuclear. Subsidy and waste needing £billions to keep it safe, goes on and on and on and on…..so must our determination to stop it. https://www.ews-schoenau.de/campaign  

EDF START WORK ON HINKLEY C

Witch Watch Full moon gathering at Hinkley Point   STATEMENT

Edf are currently moving the largest diggers in Europe onto the Hinkley Point proposed C site- 60 tons and with a bucket big enough to hold a police riot van is the whisper. They are moving them onto site during the day and night and haven't announced it from fear that they will be road blocked... meanwhile they also have a delegation in China negotiating with 2 big companies there in order to give them juicy deals for HPC... No ethics, No humanity.. Money rules and the masses will suffer. And song birds are found in the most unlikely of places and will always sing in the face of those with misplaced morals who care only for there own wealth - which pays the way into a bankrupt and warped conscience.. These people wage war on the Mother planet that gives them life, believe they can conquer her and have no eyes to see the beauty under their noses, no foresight, compassion or love for the living, or for future generations

Firms envolved

Firms appointed to various roles on the mega-project include Laing O’Rourke, Bouygues, Costain, Kier, Bam Nuttall and Dean & Dyball, a subsidiary of Balfour Beatty.

Main construction work on the UK’s first nuclear power plant in a generation could begin as early as December, Building can reveal.

Contractors delivering the civils packages on EDF’s £16bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project are being told to prepare to start on site in December this year, according to market sources.

The news comes as the European Commission (EC) announced it was set to approve a deal between the developer and the UK government on how the project will be funded.

Building understands firms appointed to the project are being told the developer will make a “broad” final investment decision in November, after the project receives approval from the EC, which is expected next month.

Sources close to the project said firms building the plant were being told to prepare to start on site in the South-west in December.

Preparatory work on the site has been ramping up this month and will continue to increase in the run-up to December.

HINKLEY POINT C NO DONE DEAL

On 21^st October, EDF issued a press release titled: “Agreement reached on commercial terms for the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.”

My aim in this article is to examine exactly what has been “agreed” and its implications for the likelihood of Hinkley C being built and if so, when. 

In the first paragraph of the press release, the claim in its given title above is qualified, when we read that “EDF Group and the UK Government have reached in principle an agreement on the key commercial terms for an investment contract of the planned Hinkley Point C…” [my emphasis here and in the quotations below.]

The release then goes on to list other “agreements” that have been arrived at, in addition to the “key commercial terms”.  These are

• “Confirmation that the project will benefit from the Government’s Infrastructure Guarantee under terms and conditions to be agreed on.” 

·         “Letters of intent with equity partners.”

·         “The four main contracts for engineering and construction.”

·         “Terms for a Funded Decommissioning Programme for Hinkley C.”  This is not expanded on in the press release; it would be interesting to examine the terms.

The document then adds: “Finalisation of these agreements and construction of the plant are subject to a final investment decision.  The Government and EDF Group will work together to address the remaining steps which must be taken before that final decision can be taken.”

At the end of the document these remaining steps are listed:

• “Agreement of the full investment contract.”  I suppose this means the contract being agreed in concrete rather than just, as at present, “in principle”.

·         “EDF Group to finalise agreements with industrial partners for equity funding and with Infrastructure UK for debt funding.”  I’ll come back to this later.

·         “A decision from the European Commission on state aid.”

So a final investment decision by EDF and any partners it may or may not acquire will only be taken after all the above steps are achieved. 

Nevertheless the document says, “Subject to a final investment decision by July 2014, the power station is expected to complete commissioning of the first unit [ie Hinkley C; the document envisages the possibility of Sizewell C being also commissioned in the future] in 2023.

But this is a big “if”, especially as required the steps two and three above are out of EDF and the Government’s hands.  As we have seen potential investment partners with EDF have not actually agreed investment in the project but only signed “letters of intent” to do so.  And it seems extremely optimistic to suppose that the European Commission will come to a decision on the Government’s proposal of state aid for the project in nine months, let alone that it would be favourable.  Some sources have suggested it might take years.

And what’s this with Hinkley C being built in 9 years from the final investment decision anyway?  Just two other EPR reactors of the type to be built at Hinkley are being built elsewhere in Europe.  In Finland the EPR began construction in 2005 with an estimate that it would begin operation in 2009; currently the estimate is that it will not begin operation until 2015 at the earliest; in France, the EPR started construction in 2007 with the estimate that it would begin operation in 2012; the latest estimate is that it won’t be completed until at least 2016.

By the “key commercial terms for an investment contract” is meant it seems the mechanism of “Contract for Difference”, which involves, the document helpfully explains, that once the plant is operational, “If wholesale prices rise above an agreed “strike price”, consumers will not pay extra.  If they fall below this price the generator will receive a top-up payment.”

So it is crucial what the “strike price” is to be set at and for how long.  Here the document is precise: it is set at:

• “£89.5/MWh if Sizewell C goes ahead” and

·         “£92.5/MWh…if Sizewell C does not go ahead.”

This strike price, “indexed to inflation through the Consumer Price Index” will be maintained “for 35 years from the date of commissioning”.

It cannot be over-emphasised what a potential enormous financial burden this agreement places on future consumers and/or taxpayers.

The current wholesale price of electricity is just over half the £92.5/MWh figure and there is no way of predicting how electricity prices will move by the date Hinkley C is commissioned.  Indeed the prices of electricity from renewables are tending to fall at present.  Unless the wholesale price rises near the £92.5/MWh by 2023 or whenever Hinkley C is commissioned, consumers/taxpayers are locked in to paying enormous subsidies to EDF and whatever other foreign firms own Hinkley by then for a period of 35 years!

The document reports: “DECC forecasts…electricity from Hinkley Point C will be competitive with future gas generation as well as all low carbon energy sources.  It is estimated that the UK new nuclear programme will save households £74 a year in today’s prices by 2026-2030.”

They would, wouldn’t they?  But how can they possibly know?  The game is given away by the suspiciously precise figure of £74 a year.  When Edward Davey was tackled on this on Channel 4 News on October 1^st he was forced to admit he could not defend the figure and that any such claim was problematic.  And he should know – he is after all the Secretary of State at DECC.  It seem to me that the status of the £74 claim is much that of the claim in the “Iraq dossier” that Iraq could deploy chemical weapons within 15 minutes, a claim that sounds impressive but actually has no basis in fact whatever.

What about the question of “equity partners”?  EDF had previously said it wanted to sell a 49% stake in the Hinkley project after the UK Centrica sold out its 20% stake in it in January this year.

The document says that “Agreement in principle on the scope of the UK Guarantees scheme [see below] and on the key terms of the investment Contract allow EDF Group to move ahead to secure partners for the financing of the project.  The share of the equity is expected to be: EDF Group: 45-50%; AREVA [the designers of the EPR planned to be built at Hinkley]: 10%; China General Nuclear Corporation and the China National Nuclear Corporation: 30-40% [between them].  Discussions are also taking place with a shortlist of other interested parties who could take up to 15%.”  So nothing is actually signed and delivered on this front yet.

The costs of constructing Hinkley C (including £2Bn costs already incurred) is estimated in the document as £16Bn.  65% of this cost is to be guaranteed by the Government under the “UK Guarantees scheme”.  Of course, another enormous subsidy since it will be financed by government debt.                                                                                      David Polden

China to control British Nuclear Power stations

Undemocratic State to control British nukes

 

Stop Hinkley Campaigners today labelled George Osbourne's coalition deal with China as 'reckless. China is experiencing significant home-grown opposition to it's nuclear plans with officials cancelling a significant nuclear project amidst protests back in July.

Said spokesperson Nikki Clark “The coalition government having dug themselves into a hole - desperate as they are to implement their half-baked energy strategy, it seems don't know when to stop digging - they'll go to any lengths to create more nuclear power stations. They claim we need nuclear for climate change but as well as as the long predicted construction delays translating into carbon target delays, the nuclear establishments green credentials are highly contested. The coalition government also claim that we need nuclear power to keep the lights on but this latest move is akin to giving away the light switch! Since when is Russia having control of our gas taps more problematic that the largest most powerful authoritarian state in the world having control of our most dangerous technology – nuclear?”

 

China is a nuclear weapons state, and has NO basic nuclear safety laws and very limited regulations, despite generally accepted global standards of 20 to 40 people (regulators) per station, China's regulatory body has less than a 1,000 staff to regulate it's 17 operational reactors and 30 planned reactors. According to the World Nuclear Association the nuclear power workforce in China is “another factor affecting nuclear safety in China”.

 

In 2011 Prof He Zuoxiu, a Chinese atomic bomb scientist called Chinese plans for a 20-fold increase in nuclear power by 2030 as potentially 'disastrous' saying China is 'seriously under-prepared on the safety front' whilst in the same year wikileaks revealed that there were serious concerns held by the global nuclear establishment over China's weaknesses in management and regulatory oversight.

 

Ms Clark said “It's not just investment that the Chinese are looking to make by getting involved in nuclear technology in the UK – they want a say in the day to day operations of any future Hinkley or Sizewell C. The government can't have it all ways – on the one hand they claim we need to renew Trident the Nuclear so-called deterrent, and on the other, they now want to give control of our most dangerous technology to precisely the kind of regime that many of the British public would feel the need to be protected from - an unaccountable, undemocratic, authoritarian regime. This raises serious security issues and can't possibly be in the public interest.”

 

Successive governments have been influenced by the power of the nuclear establishment and it's never-to-be-realised promises. Nuclear power is being revealed to be the same way it always has - dirty dangerous and expensive and now the government want to give the Chinese control over it. We feel that bringing an authoritarian regime such as China is a step to far, the prospect of their being brought in with no approval from the public, when all along the country has been promised that government energy policy is going to give us energy security is a recipe for disaster. Said Nikki “We think the coalition are going to have a fight on their hands.”

 

*******************ENDS*********************************

Notes to editor

First the labour government and now the coalition government have claimed that we need nuclear to keep the lights on:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coal-and-nuclear-will-keep-lights-on-says-hutton-938030.html

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/electricity-market-reform-keeping-the-lights-on-in-the-cheapest-cleanest-way

see here for why we don't:

www.stophinkley.org/NoNeed4Nuclear.pdf

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/nuclear/we-can-keep-lights-without-nuclear-power-20121022

 

nuclear green credentials contested:

http://www.greenrightnow.com/nwahomepage/2010/02/25/rfk-jr-explains-why-nuclear-power-isnt-green-and-coal-isnt-cheap/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2007/06/24/why_nuclear_energy_isnt_the_great_green_hope?wp_login_redirect=0

http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Publications/InsideTrackIssue11HavingOurCake.pdf

 

EDF Signs a historic agreement with London

Nucléaire: EDF signe un accord historique avec Londres

Par Veronique Le Billon | 17/10 | 13:20 | mis à jour à 18:55

L’électricien public a scellé un accord avec le gouvernement britannique pour construire deux EPR sur le site de Hinkley Point dans le Somerset. Areva et les chinois CGN et CNNC deviennent partenaires minoritaires et Londres ouvre la voie à de futures participations majoritaires chinoises.

French Electricity provider signs an agreement with the British Government to construct two EPR nuclear power plants at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Areva and the Chinese become partners.

China General Nuclear Power Corp. and Areva to join Hinkley Point UK nuclear consortium

Date: 17-Oct-13
Country: FRANCE
Author: Geert De Clercq

French nuclear group Areva is ready to join the EDF-led consortium that
plans to build a nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in the UK, Bloomberg
reported on Wednesday, quoting people with knowledge of the matter.

Bloomberg said China General Nuclear Power Corp. would also become a
shareholder and that Areva and EDF's boards would meet next week to
approve the deal.

Areva and EDF declined to comment on the report.

Areva would take a stake in the project from French utility EDF, allowing
EDF to share the cost of building two Areva-designed EPR reactors
estimated at 14 billion pounds (16.5 billion euros).

On Sunday, British Energy Minister Ed Davey said Britain was "extremely
close" to sealing a deal with EDF unit EDF Energy to build the country's
first new nuclear power station since 1995, adding there would also be
Chinese involvement in the talks.

The British government and EDF have long been in talks over financial
terms to build a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest
England.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that British Finance Minister
George Osborne would sign a memorandum of understanding this week to back
Chinese General Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) entering a deal with EDF for
the planned Hinkley Point plant.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; editing by David Evans)
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Reuters
© Thomson Reuters 2013 All rights reserved

Guilty nuclear protesters in defiant mood

Four people who blocked workers access to the Hinkley Point nuclear complex for nearly 4 hours in November pleaded guilty to obstruction of the highway at Taunton Magistrates Court today.  The four were each given 12 months conditional discharge and ordered to pay £100 expenses.

Speaking after the verdict,  tree surgeon Zoe Smith from Bristol was in a defiant mood.  “Two days after we used lock-on tubes to form a human barrier at Hinkley Point the same tactic was used at EDF’s other planned development  at Sizewell  in Norfolk.  This is a national campaign and I expect there will be many more surprises for EDF over the coming months.   If the tories are prepared to pressurise our local representatives,   change planning laws, and rubber-stamp EDF’s reactor design without a rigourous safety assessment, then we are prepared to put our bodies on the line to oppose them.  The workers at the development site are clearing away our landscape before EDF even have planning permission”.   On the day of the protest blockade Ms Smith had said that she was also there to register opposition to plans for extending the license of the ageing reactor at Hinkley B.  The licence has since been granted by the Office of Nuclear Regulation, in spite of concerns over cracks in it’s graphite core.

Greeted by supporters outside the court,  Barnaby Hodges (29) a catering worker from Glastonbury, said “I am proud of what we did.  I have never been arrested for protesting before, but like many people in Glastonbury I am ready to take whatever non-violent action is necessary to prevent  the building of a potential Fukushima only 25 miles away.   It is a scandal that local people are being excluded from decisions which could lead literally to the evacuation of Somerset.  It’s not as if there aren’t any alternatives.”

Bob Nicholls (55) who works with the homeless in Bristol said, “I don’t consider what we did was a crime.  The real crime is that Hinkley C will be given the go ahead without any genuine consideration of the extreme danger that nuclear accidents and centuries-long radioactive  waste  storage will pose to the people of the south west.  The entire planning process has been corrupted by the governments fixation with nuclear, at a time when we urgently need to switch to safe and renewable  energy in the UK”.

STOP HINKLEY PRESS RELEASE, 18/12/12

Campaigners have accused Britain’s Office for Nuclear Regulation's nuclear regulators of caving in to government pressure and approving a new reactor before its design has been properly assessed. The ONR had previously said that outstanding design problems would not be resolved by the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) before March 2013.

In 2009, independent nuclear experts Large & Associates warned that if the EPR licensing process was allowed to proceed on a piecemeal basis it could be compromised by having to wave through unsatisfactory aspects of the final design. More recently, they called for the ONR to come clean about delays, claiming that resolving outstanding issues by the end of 2012 deadline was unachievable. (1,2)

Speaking today, John Large said, “ I was extremely surprised to hear that the ONR claim to have wrapped this all up when there are still so many unresolved problems arising from Fukushima and the central issue of Instrumentation and Control”.

UK, French and Finnish regulators have been voicing concerns over “Instrumentation and Control” of the new EPR reactors for nearly a decade. Some of these concerns relate to the independence of important systems, whilst others address problems of diversity and susceptibility to common cause failures. UK regulators have previously insisted that the reactors should have a separate non-computerised safety system as a fail-safe.  It is unclear from the documents in the public domain whether or not such a system is now actually proposed and if so, whether it has been assessed. (3)

The lengthy GDA process has been under immense strain, caused by a lack of technical assessors and by EDF being untimely with their submissions. As recently as Spring this year, the ONR stated that at least three control and instrumentation issues were subject to significant delays that “could not be recovered” and would “impact on the target closure date”. (4,5,6)

Stop Hinkley spokesperson Nikki Clark said: “We're very concerned about this development - how can the regulators claim that these issues are resolved ahead of their target deadlines, when their own reports indicate otherwise? We will be writing to the ONR to ask how they've managed to finish the GDA ahead of recent forecasts for completion.”

“The key issue of reactor safety at Hinkley C was excluded from recent public consultations by the planning inspectorate. The ONR’s speedy conclusion of the GDA process make’s permission more likely, yet the findings of the GDA decision will not be available for public scrutiny until March 2013 – AFTER approval for Hinkley C has already been granted!”

“The hurried conclusion of this assessment, without public transparency , has only added to our concern that regulators are now putting political deadlines before public safety.” (7)


*******************************************ENDS******************************************

Contacts:   Large & Associates, John Large: 020 8317 2860
            Stop Hinkley:   Nikki Clarke, 077369 30069  Theo Simon, 07805 666239


Notes to editors

1  Stop Hinkley press release July 2009 http://stophinkley.org/PressReleases/pr090701.htm

2  Large & Associates 2nd Interim review of Generic Design Assessment Outstanding Issues, 3rd Sept 2012 http://largeassociates.com/cz3206/3206 GDA Review/R3206-I2.pdf

3  Large & Associates 2nd Interim review of Generic Design Assessment Outstanding Issues, 3rd Sept 2012 http://largeassociates.com/cz3206/3206 GDA Review/R3206-I2.pdf

4  Office for Nuclear Regulation Generic Design Assessment Quarterly report 3rd quarter 2010 http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q3-10.pdf

5  Office for Nuclear Regulation Generic Design Assessment Quarterly report 4th quarter 2010 http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q4-10.pdf

6  Office for Nuclear Regulation Generic Design Assessment Quarterly report 2nd quarter 2012 http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/reports/gda-q2-12.pdf

7  Stop Hinkley NFLA joint press release http://stophinkley.org/PressReleases/pr120601.pdf

Nuclear giant EDF postpones decision on new Hinkley Point reactor

UK energy policy cast into doubt after company breaks pledge to make investment decision by end of 2012

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• Damian Carrington and Terry Macalister
• The Guardian, Friday 7 December 2012 19.37 GMT

Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Somerset, where EDF is deciding whether to build a new power station. Photograph: PA

The troubled French nuclear giant EDF has postponed its decision on whether to build a new power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

The delay puts the nuclear renaissance at the heart of the UK government's energy plans into further doubt after a difficult week in which EDF was hit by cost overruns and the exit of its partner from a key French project.

The new reactors at Hinkley were to be the first of a new generation of atomic plants in the UK and EDF had repeatedly pledged to make a final investment decision by the end of 2012.

But the decision to plough billions of pounds into the project is now unlikely to be taken before April 2013, according to sources close to the project, although EDF declined to comment.

"This is another broken promise from EDF on a policy that has always been failing," said Tom Burke, the founding director of the green thinktank E3G.

"To spend at least £14bn on a pair of reactors at Hinkley is very, very high risk."

The latest projections from the Department of Energy and Climate Change have reduced the amount of nuclear power expected in future, with only Hinkley expected to be up and running by 2025, he added.

The energy secretary, Ed Davey, fast-tracked negotiations over the guaranteed price EDF would be paid for electricity from Hinkley to help the end-of-year deadline to be met.

However, amid concerns that consumers would end up paying a high price, the energy minister John Hayes recently warned that the government could walk away from the talks. EDF is also awaiting planning permission to build the reactors and does not expect that decision before March 2013.

A failure to secure the building of the Hinkley reactors would be a serious blow for both the government and EDF, which is majority owned by the French state.

But it also comes in a week that EDF admitted that the cost of building its prototype European pressurised reactor (EPR) at Flamanville in Normandy had risen by €2bn (£1.6bn) to €8.5bn. The following day EDF's partner in the Flamanville 3 scheme, Enel of Italy, announced that it was pulling out.

EDF said in 2005 that it would construct the EPR, which is similar to the ones planned for Somerset, for €3.3bn. The cost overruns – and delays – have partly been blamed on changes required after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan but they have also been put down to engineers discovering the project was more difficult than they had foreseen.

New statistics just released by Decc show the British government expects only 3.3 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity to be built by 2025 and 9.9GW by 2030.

This compares with 4.8GW by 2025 and 12GW by 2030 as recorded in Decc's energy and emissions projections 12 months ago.

Dawn blockade leaves nuclear workers locked out

At 6am this morning 10 protestors blockaded access to EDF energy's nuclear sites at Hinkley Point, preventing the morning shift from starting work. 4 people in arm locks formed a barrier across the main access road at Wick Moor Drove in a bid to prevent further ground clearance work at the planned Hinkley C site and to protest at EDF's plan to extend the life of aging reactors at the Hinkley B station.

Sitting beneath a banner saying "Nuclear Power - not worth the risk" Bristol tree-surgeon Zoe Smith said, "We want the destruction of land at the proposed Hinkley C site to stop. EDF still don't have planning permission for the new nuclear plant, the governments energy policy is in tatters. With Centrica pulling out and the long awaited Electricity Reform Act delayed, there is not even enough investment to finish the project. If the tories fix the electricity price for nuclear so that the project can go ahead it will leave a radioactive waste

dump here for hundreds of years." The early morning blockade caused long tailbacks for scores of workers contracted in to perform maintenance work on the the existing reactors at Hinkley B, EDF have signalled their intention to re-licence the reactor again in 2016.

Bridgwater mum Nikki Clark from South West Against Nuclear said, "Not only do we not need new nuclear, we certainly don't need to extend the life of the existing reactors even further. Just this year alone reactor no 4 in the B station has scrammed at least three times. EDF like to call these emergency shutdowns 'unplanned outages' but this deliberately conceals the fact that these ageing

reactors are now in a dangerous condition. In 2008 the regulators threatened British Energy with closure of the site. The reactors do not have any fewer cracks in the graphite core now than they did then. Do we have to have our own Fukushima here in Somerset before we abandon this insanity and embrace a renewables revolution in the UK?"

Stop Hinkley spokesperson Theo Simon said, "We support this protest. New nuclear is dead in the water. We need public investment in a renewables revolution which could create a million climate jobs and cut energy bills through a programme of home insulation and energy-efficiency. With it's massive marine energy resource, West Somerset is perfectly placed to lead the way in renewables, but EDF's plans would turn it into a toxic waste dump for our grandchildren."

From: South West Against Nuclear

Why I continue to fight the Hinkley nuclear plant next door

Theo Simon

07.11.2012

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While Britain’s green movement remains split over nuclear power, a determined band of campaigners are staging their own protests against a planned nuclear plant in the south-west. Activist Theo Simon gives an insider’s view.

In spring, 2012, around 1,000 people blockaded the Hinkley site, where EDF plans to build a new nuclear plant. (Copyright: Adrian Arbib)

 

In the southwest corner of Britain, where the mighty River Severn flows into the Atlantic Ocean, a small but significant battle rages over energy and the legacy we leave for future generations.

For a thousand years people have trudged down the long lane that leads through windswept coastal farms to the headland of Hinkley Point, where a fresh water spring bubbles up beside an ancient burial mound. Within living memory villagers believed the water had curative powers and was protected by the spirits of the mound. But in the 1960s two nuclear power stations,Hinkley A and B, were built on the site. The Neolithic mound was fenced off, the lane became a driveway for nuclear workers, and the sacred well was covered by their car-park.

Read also: Nuclear waste: the 270-tonne legacy that won't go away

Now the two stations are at the end of their operational lives, but central government is supporting plans for French energy giant EDF to build a massive new nuclear plant on adjacent farmland. For the government, it looks like a way to cut carbon-dioxide emissions while still expanding the power supply. For those of us who live in Somerset county, it looks like a massive new hazard on our doorstep, a Fukushima waiting to happen, a bottomless drain on public funds and a future radioactive waste dump for our grandchildren.

If it is built, it will only be because it has been steamrollered over us. So the lane is seeing another kind of traffic now, as police vans monitor coach-loads of protesters opposing the plan with blockades, trespass and illegal camps.

Public consultation “a sham”
Because the government declared a “National Policy” to build 10 new nuclear plants in Britain, with Hinkley C as one of the likely sites, most local officials feel powerless to resist. They pressured the reluctant landowner into selling the land, then gave EDF permission to begin ripping it up before the project has even been given the go-ahead.  Ancient oak woodland has been felled, historic buildings have been demolished and precious wild-life habitats destroyed to make way for the biggest building site in Europe. 

Meanwhile, government created a new “consultation process”, replacing the old democratic form of public hearings with a National Planning Inspectorate. They will record your objections – so long as you submit them correctly in writing and don’t question the safety, toxicity, cost or necessity of nuclear power and its radioactive waste products. This reduces local representatives to showing their resistance through wrangles over bits of road widening or costs to the public purse. People believe that the decision has already been made and the consultation is just an expensive sham.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, 10 of us dodged security guards in February 2012 and entered the proposed development site to occupy an abandoned farm. We claimed squatter’s rights, raised anti-nuclear banners and flags, talked to the press and TV, broadcast on the internet and invited others to visit us. After three weeks, EDF took us to the High Court and asked the judge for an injunction to forbid all protest at Hinkley C.  They didn’t get the blanket ban they wanted, but did get an eviction order against the people at the farm. Some of us will now face prison if we are seen going back on the site.

None of this has stopped a growing tide of protest. A blockade by 1,000 people in the spring was followed by mass trespass and disruption to site preparation this autumn. Although the police were mobilised in force, they mainly stood by and chatted pleasantly while filming us, as it is their job to intervene only if there is violence or property damage.   They have enjoyed watching us repeatedly outwit the private security guards and dogs patrolling the site.

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Many of the police are on our side in their hearts. They are local people themselves, with families who would face evacuation and contamination if there were a nuclear accident, and with children whose great-grandchildren will have to take care of the highly toxic radioactive waste dump which will be remain long after Hinkley C has stopped generating electricity. Recently at a roadblock one officer explained to me that the sea at Hinkley Point has the second highest tidal range in the world and is an ideal place to harvest marine energy – but state investment is lacking. Where nuclear is concerned though, the government now says it may underwrite the construction and fix the electricity price for EDF if that is what it takes to secure enough corporate or foreign state investment to keep the project afloat.

The British state has a historic attachment to nuclear power as a source of nuclear weapons material and a centralised power system that requires secretive control. While no one seriously doubts the need for urgent and rapid action to cut carbon-dioxide emissions to prevent climate change, MPs have questioned the way the decision to use such hazardous technology was made when renewable energy options of wind, sun and wave-power also exist. They believe that nuclear industry lobbyists have corrupted the democratic process. Even at a local level, the press rely so heavily on money from EDF’s advertising that they have effectively become propaganda sheets for the Hinkley C project.

Economic and environmental “blackmail”
Thanks to our protests on the one hand and the reluctance of investors to commit on the other, the nuclear edifice has now begun to crack. Eight of Britain’s 10 planned new-nuclear projects have stalled. But it is still an uphill struggle to challenge such large-scale construction when it has full government backing and a supposedly “green” justification.  Local people feel trapped. Their resistance is softened by cash handouts from EDF to the community – a kind of legal bribe – and the promise of jobs. One local teacher told me she wanted to visit our camp but felt she couldn’t as EDF had given money to her school.

Economic and environmental blackmail makes people reluctant to speak out. “Don’t tell anyone in the village I was here,” said one man who brought supplies to our farm occupation, and he was typical of many. But through direct action and social media, campaigners are making local resistance more visible and inspiring self-confidence. At a recent rally in nearby Bridgwater town, we showed that there are alternative ways to cut CO2 while creating a million new “green” jobs. We also brought survivors from Fukushima to remind workers of the terrible cost communities must pay when nuclear goes wrong. As a former senior engineer from the Hinkley B plant explained to the rally, such human mistakes are always possible when there is strong financial pressure to cut corners in construction and no genuine public scrutiny.

Climate change is global, and tackling it will require global solidarity. Globally also, Fukushima has reawakened ordinary people to the hazards of nuclear power. We have had visits from Indian and European campaigners, and we know that our common future lies in the hands of the larger so-called “emerging economies”, not with us. But hopefully we can play a small part here by successfully rejecting new-nuclear in Britain, while acting to leave our descendants a world which is as clean and safe as the world our ancestors left for us.

Theo Simon is an environmental campaigner and musician with UK band Seize The Day