Planned Somerset nuclear plant on hold ? or not ?

[adam2]

Hinkley point deal "risky and expensive" according to NAO.
I think that by "risky" they mean financially risky and not that it might blow up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40372613

[PS_RalphW]

With luck the project will collapse financially before building is complete. Of course that will then lead to power cuts because the government will have no plan b

[adam2]

On tonight's "points west" evening TV news it was reported that the Hinkley project is already over budget and behind time.
In addition to last nights other negative reports.

[clv101]

The chance of this coming in on time and on budget are approximately zero.

I think the most likely outcome is that it'll be cancelled partway through construction.

[adam2]

The chance of this coming in on time and on budget are approximately zero.

I think the most likely outcome is that it'll be cancelled partway through construction.

Yes, and within a few days of your post quoted above, another £1.5 billion of extra costs have been announced. And some delay.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40479053

[adam2]

The chance of this coming in on time and on budget are approximately zero.

I think the most likely outcome is that it'll be cancelled partway through construction.

Yes, and within a few days of your post quoted above, another £1.5 billion of extra costs have been announced. And some delay.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40479053

That is an estimated cost of very nearly £20 billion so far.
Pity we did not spend five billion on PV, five billion on wind turbines, five billion on a tidal barrage, and five billion on conservation instead.

[adam2]

Renewed calls for a strike by workers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-41353437

[adam2]

And now a dispute about the waste from dredging.
Personally I think that the risk of the waste being dangerously radioactive is negligible and I would no concerns about it being dumped near me.

My views wont however stop a huge nimbyfest, protests and calls for more studies, consultations and enquiries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41347137

[kenneal - lagger]

Renewed calls for a strike by workers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-41353437

95% of workers reject offer. Strike action will ensue unless the employers up their offer.

[adam2]

Local radio reports that the strike has started already, for 24 hours from 06-00 this morning. (wed 27/09)

[Mr. Fox]

Long and comprehensive article in the Guardian:

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Hinkley Point, on the Somerset coast, is the biggest building site in Europe. Here, on 430 acres of muddy fields scattered with towering cranes and bright yellow diggers, the first new nuclear power station in the UK since 1995 is slowly taking shape. When it is finally completed, Hinkley Point C will be the most expensive power station in the world. But to reach that stage, it will need to overcome an extraordinary tangle of financial, political and technical difficulties. The project was first proposed almost four decades ago, and its progress has been glacial, having faced relentless opposition from politicians, academics and economists every step of the way.

...

“We cannot be sure that in 2060 or 2065, British pensioners, who are currently at school, will not still be paying for the advancement of the nuclear industry in France.�

...

Andrew Stirling believes that there was a crucial, largely unspoken, reason for the government’s rediscovered passion for nuclear: without a civil nuclear industry, a nation cannot sustain military nuclear capabilities. In other words, no new nuclear power plants would spell the end of Trident. “The only countries in the world that are currently looking at large-scale civil power newbuild programmes are countries that have nuclear submarines, or have an expressed aim of acquiring them,� Stirling told me...

[kenneal - lagger]

We can only hope that it does become impossible to build and we can pull out before the Chinese get to control their own nuclear bomb on British soil.

[adam2]

I agree, apart from the rapidly escalating costs and ever growing delays, I do not like a foreign power placing a nuclear bomb on our territory.

I USED to believe the mantra that "a nuclear power plant simply can not explode like a nuclear weapon" Since then reports suggest that part of both the Chernobyl and the Fukushima disasters were low yield nuclear detonations.
And remember that both the above were accidents, a better explosion could probably be produced by deliberate malice.

[clv101]

Whist the plant will have a lot of Chinese money/engineers and French engineers/money... it'll still be in the UK and have a lot of UK staff/management/regulatory bodies etc. I think it's a stretch too far to say a "foreign power placing a nuclear bomb on our territory".

[kenneal - lagger]

Hinckley is west of London so any fall out from an accident, let alone an explosion, would likely be blown London's way by the prevailing westerlies. A Fukushima type disaster would be far worse for the UK than it was for Japan on that basis.

The Chinese have taken over the manning of the infrastructure that they have built elsewhere in the world so how do we know how many UK staff there will be and in what positions?