Back to list The Sizewell C Project

Representation by Mark Goyder

Date submitted
27 September 2020
Submitted by
Members of the public/businesses
  1. The proposal is unsafe in the light of the latest scientific understanding of the rate of climate change. By 2050, says the International Panel on Climate Change, extreme sea events will be happening every year. Before the end of the century Sizewell power station may have become Sizewell Island. The best-laid plans for 200-year storage of nuclear waste may be looking less robust. Recent evidence about the acceleration in the melting of the polar icecaps, extreme weather events, and a compounding effect in global warming render EDF's current assumptions about the stability of the site unsafe. 2) It is simply imprudent to propose any new power station, let alone a nuclear one, on this fragile and fast-eroding coast. The proposal is unsafe because, unlike the land under sites A and B, there is not the same solid foundation. 3) EDF has admitted it may walk away. EDF is proposing this development without guaranteeing that it will continue to own the site. In addition to the current named investors it has admitted under questioning that it envisages selling out to other investors who may take a different view of their obligations. We have no idea what entity or entities will control this site. No permission should be considered unless there is a guarantee from EDF that it will be continue to be the majority owner and that it will accept responsibility for the impacts of the site for at least the first 10 years following completion and it will only be allowed to reduce its stake below 51% with explicit UK government permission after a further public inquiry 4) EDF's Pledge 5 about preserving the Suffolk Coast and minimising impact is misleading. The mining company Rio Tinto promised ‘Net Positive Impact’ when developing a mine in Madagascar, but abandoned its plans in the face of falling commodity prices. There is a critical size of major construction or extraction projects beyond which it becomes impossible to restore biodiversity and natural ecology and this project is well beyond that critical size. Minsmere as we know will be lost for ever and with it will go a major plank of the platform for the tourist economy. The fact that ownership of Sizewell C may change hands makes EDF's promises even more unachievable. 5) Not only is the storage of renewable energy now becoming possible - thus eliminating the imperative for large quantities of nuclear energy in the energy mix. We are entering an age where miniaturisation of nuclear energy ('pocket nuclear' ) becomes possible. Under questioning, EDF admits this, but feels unable to stop this now-obsolescent proposal because it has taken so long to get to this point. That is not an acceptable reason for continuing.