Representation by William EDDIS
- Date submitted
- 29 September 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am a local resident, living about 6 miles from the proposed site. I spent my childhood living in Aldeburgh and watched Sizewell A being built. My contact details are: William Eddis [Redacted] My relevant representation is as follows: • When Sizewell A was constructed in the early 1960s, we were assured that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter”. We now know this was a serious misrepresentation. For the design proposed here the 3 projects currently under construction in Finland, France and at Hinkley Point are all way over budget and increasingly late. We can have no confidence that the proposed time scale and costs associated with this project are realistic. The likely delays and cost overruns are such as to destroy the economic case for the station. • The Suffolk coast is notoriously unstable with the only thing known for certain from the experience of past centuries being persistent if intermittent coastal erosion. To the North, the town of Dunwich, once a major port of national significance, is now under the sea together with at least 8 churches, as is the village of Slaughden, South of Aldeburgh, which finally vanished only about 100 years ago. Added to this trend we now have climate change, increased surge tides and sea level rise which all together call into question the ability of the proposed site to avoid being inundated well before the end of the station’s useful life, not to mention the extended period after that before it can be safely dismantled. I was in Japan at the time of the earthquake and tsunami, and know from personal experience how devastating the inundation of the Fukushima nuclear power station was. • Renewable technologies are developing very fast, with major improvements likely in the conversion efficiency of photo-voltaic cells, while developments in storage technologies, both batteries and hydrogen, as well as related developments, in the next few years. These are likely significantly to reduce the attractiveness of nuclear power even before this station could start generating. • The Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB and associated nature reserves etc are very precious and special areas, internationally important, that need to be protected. The transport and housing infrastructure of the area, even with the modest proposed investment, is insufficient to support the traffic and employment that would be generated over the extended construction period, with the resulting risk of serious environmental degradation over a wide area.