Sizewell C nuclear plant gets go-ahead with £14.2bn of government funding

BBC News

19 hours ago

Update:
Date: 08:29 BST
Title: Sizewell C should be generating electricity by mid-2030s, Miliband confirms
Content: Miliband is then asked if he can provide a target date for Sizewell C to start providing electricity to the UK's power grid.
The energy secretary says that it will take "about a decade", and should start supplying power in the mid-2030s.
Update:
Date: 08:27 BST
Title: China will not be able to invest, Miliband insists
Content: Although the government is investing at least £14.2bn in Sizewell C, there will also be other investors.
Miliband is asked whether China will be able to invest in the new power station.
"No," he tells Justin Webb - but declines to go into the details on who private bidders might be.
"It's majority public investment in Sizewell C," he says, adding that there will be "some" private investment but all bidders will go through national security checks.
Update:
Date: 08:26 BST
Title: Why not just invest in 'green' renewables?
Content: Miliband continues, saying some people may be wondering why the government doesn't just invest in renewables.
We do want renewables, he says, "but we also need nuclear".
Electricity demand will double by 2050 as we move away from fossil fuels, he adds, and "most of our nuclear fleet is retiring".
"This is absolutely the right thing to do" in terms of value for money and for the taxpayer, he says.
Update:
Date: 08:23 BST
Title: Sizewell is already approved - so what's different this time?
Content: After again being pressed on the government's U-turn on winter fuel payments, Miliband is asked by Justin Webb on the Today programme what is different from previous announcements on Sizewell C.
(As a reminder, regulators approved Sizewell C during the previous government.)
Miliband says the difference is "that we're funding it - we're putting forward the money to make it happen".
He says this is the biggest investment in nuclear in half a century.
"We are doing this because we want long-term energy security," he adds.
Update:
Date: 08:12 BST
Title: Ed Miliband speaking to Today - watch live
Content: The energy secretary is now speaking to our colleagues on BBC Radio 4's Today programme - you can watch live at the top of the page.
We'll have all the key lines here.
BBC Radio Suffolk's breakfast show with Wayne Bavin is live from the neighbouring Suffolk town of Leiston this morning.
Update:
Date: 08:09 BST
Title: This is state-sponsored ecocide, claims campaign group
Content: Alice CunninghamBBC News, Suffolk
Campaign group, Together Against Sizewell C, says it is "outraged" by the funding announcement.
Chris Wilson from the group says initial works on the power plant have already harmed the local environment.
'Sizewell
C's preparatory works have caused the loss of thousands of trees and
miles of hedging as well as covering hundreds of acres with concrete and
tarmac, much in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths National Landscape," he says.
"Together with
the hundreds of millions of fish that will be killed annually in its cooling
water system during its 60 years of operation, in our eyes, the Sizewell C
project is state-sponsored ecocide."
Update:
Date: 08:02 BST
Title: New investment but work has already begun
Content: Ben ParkerBBC News, Suffolk
Thousands of tonnes of soil are being moved ahead of construction of the power station
Despite today's announcement of fresh government investment, work on Sizewell C started some time ago, which includes:
Update:
Date: 07:57 BST
Title: Government determined to 'go big' on nuclear
Content: Henry ZeffmanChief political correspondent
Sizewell was first
formally identified, external as a potential site for a new nuclear power plant in
2009 by the then Labour government and its energy secretary - Ed Miliband.
Sixteen years, seven prime ministers, and 10 energy
secretaries later, the new energy secretary - Ed Miliband - believes the
£14bn extra investment in Sizewell C will end the "years of delay" over
the project.
Government sources say they are determined to "go big" on
nuclear power. While Miliband himself has long believed nuclear power is a key
way to combat climate change, the government also views it as a reliable power
source in a new age of energy insecurity.
Yet even if the government's new commitment is the crucial
final piece of the puzzle, it's important to stress that Sizewell C is still
likely to take at least a decade to complete.
Update:
Date: 07:55 BST
Title: A huge task that will take at least a decade to complete
Content: Simon JackBusiness editor
Building a nuclear power station is a colossal engineering and financial undertaking.
The government has committed to spending £14bn of public money over the next four years on a project it insists will:
But it will take at least a decade to complete and the plant of which it is a copy, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, will switch on in the early 2030s - over a decade late and costing billions more than originally planned.
The project has faced opposition at local and national level from those who believe Sizewell C will prove to be a costly mistake.
But the government insists that nuclear provides enormous amounts of low carbon, non-intermittent energy that will form a crucial part of the UK's energy future.
There is also funding to develop smaller reactors and money for research into fusion. This is not the first government to enthusiastically usher in a new nuclear age and realising it will take ages yet.
Update:
Date: 07:52 BST
Title: The history of Sizewell
Content: Nuclear power has been produced from Sizewell since the 1960s
Sizewell is no stranger to nuclear energy.
In 1955, Sizewell A was first proposed as part of the government's post-war White Paper titled A Programme of Nuclear Power.
It wanted to build a number of nuclear power plants across the country and Sizewell A, a Magnox plant, was fully operational by 1966.
Sizewell A was eventually decommissioned and shut down in 2006, with work still ongoing to demolish the site.
Plans for Sizewell B, a pressurised water reactor, were first announced in 1969. After a lengthy planning process, it started generating electricity in 1995.
It is still in operation and produces 3.1% of the UK's energy needs. It is the UK's only pressurised water reactor.
Update:
Date: 07:48 BST
Title: We'll learn from Hinkley C to build Sizewell C, says Miliband
Content: BBC Breakfast's Jon Kay further presses Miliband on the timetable for Sizewell C.
Kay says he remembers as a young reporter when Hinkley C - a power plant in Somerset - was being talked about, and it still isn't completed.
He asks Miliband what lessons can be learned from that plant.
Miliband says they are "replicating Hinkley at Sizewell", and says lessons from the Somerset plant will help Sizewell built more easily.
The government is "confident it can be built quicker and cheaper" than Hinkley, he adds.
Update:
Date: 07:46 BST
Title: Is this the final go-ahead?
Content: Vikki IrwinBBC Suffolk political reporter
I do not think you can say definitely just yet, but I think this is a major step forward in terms of getting the money and attracting investors to this project.
The final investment decision will be in July and obviously it is a lot of money.
That is what some of the detractors say about this project say - that it is way too expensive.
Update:
Date: 07:45 BST
Title: When will the plant actually deliver electricity?
Content: The energy secretary is now asked when the plant will actually begin providing energy.
As a reminder, the plant is expected to take at least a decade to build.
Miliband declines to give a precise timetable, but says the government is making "long-term decisions for the future of the country" - adding that's what they were elected to do "and that's what Sizewell C is about".
Update:
Date: 07:43 BST
Title: We're investing in the future, says Miliband
Content: After being pressed on Labour's U-turn on winter fuel payments - which was confirmed yesterday - Miliband stresses that expanded investment in nuclear will deliver "clean energy".
Sizewell C "shows what we will see this week from the chancellor - a commitment to invest in the future," Miliband says.
As a reminder - Chancellor Rachel Reeves is delivering her Spending Review tomorrow
Update:
Date: 07:32 BST
Title: Ed Miliband about to speak - watch live
Content: Our colleagues on BBC Breakfast are about to interview Energy Secretary Ed Miliband - watch live at the top of the page.
Update:
Date: 07:29 BST
Title: Trade unions welcome 'good, skilled, unionised jobs'
Content: Trade unions have so far welcomed this morning's news.
The GMB union's regional secretary Warren Kenny says that "without new nuclear, there can be no net zero".
He also says Sizewell C will provide "thousands of good, skilled, unionised jobs" - a sentiment echoed by Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union.
"New nuclear is essential to achieving net zero, providing a baseload of clean and secure energy, as well as supporting good, unionised jobs," he says.
The plant's construction is expected to create 10,000 jobs, according to the Treasury. Thousands more are expected to be created in firms supplying the plant.
Once operational, Sizewell C is expected to employ 900 people.
Update:
Date: 07:19 BST
Title: Come clean on the total cost, says pressure group
Content: As we reported earlier, the cost of building Sizewell C has been estimated at £20bn - and builders EDF have rejected claims that the true cost could double to £40bn.
Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C pressure group, said ministers had not "come clean" about the full cost of the project.
"There still appears to be no final investment decision for Sizewell C, but £14.2 billion in taxpayers' funding, a decision we condemn and firmly believe the government will come to regret, " she says.
"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 just like Hinkley C?
"Ministers have still not come clean about Sizewell C's cost and, given negotiations with private investors are incomplete, they have signed away all leverage and will be forced to offer generous deals that undermine value for money.
"Starmer and Reeves have just signed up to HS2 mark 2."
Alison Downes
Update:
Date: 07:15 BST
Title: What is Sizewell C?
Content: Sizewell B's single white dome on the blue building is to the left of the proposed double-reactor plant (on the far right). Sizewell A is the grey building on the far left of the picture, casting a shadow on to the beach
French energy company EDF wants to build a new two-reactor nuclear power station that could generate 3.2 gigawatts of electricity.
It is estimated it could power the equivalent of six million homes and operate for 60 years.
It would sit immediately to the north of Sizewell B, which began generating electricity in 1995.
Sizewell A opened in 1967 but it stopped generating power in December 2006 and the lengthy decommissioning process is ongoing.
Update:
Date: 07:10 BST
Title: Investment will deliver 'golden age of clean energy' says Miliband
Content: Energy Secretary Ed Miliband says the £14.2bn investment is necessary "to deliver a golden age of clean energy abundance".
He says that the plant is "he only way to protect family finances, take back control of our energy, and tackle the climate crisis".
In comments to the Guardian newspaper, Miliband adds that it will get the country "off the fossil fuel rollercoaster".
As a reminder, Miliband will speak live to the BBC at 07:30 and 08:10 - you'll be able to watch live on this page.
Update:
Date: 07:07 BST
Title: How much has already been invested?
Content: Various different funding announcements have been made over the years by different governments.
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security confirmed that with today's announcement, a total of £17.8bn of taxpayers' money had been put towards the project.
This included some funding from a subsidy scheme called Devex.
The project is still looking for private investors before building work can get under way.
Visitors to the area, and to the RSPB's Minsmere nature reserve will have already seen that some preparatory work has taken place to the north of the existing Sizewell site.