Spending watchdog warns £38bn cost of Sizewell C nuclear plant is ‘risky’
National Audit Office says potential benefits are ‘considerable but uncertain’ while risks are ‘immediate and substantial’
The cost of the government’s £38bn nuclear plant in Suffolk is subject to “significant uncertainty” and may outweigh the benefits for UK households until at least 2064, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that although the potential benefits of the Sizewell C nuclear plant are considerable, they remain uncertain. The risks, however, are “immediate, substantial and borne by the public”.
The government claims the nuclear reactor, expected to generate the equivalent of enough low-carbon electricity to power 6m homes when it begins operations in the late 2030s, could save £2bn a year from the electricity system compared with using other low-carbon technologies.
However, for households the overall savings could be outstripped by the cost of supporting its construction until almost halfway through its 60-year operational life. The project could take even longer to “break even” if there are cost overruns or delays, the NAO warned.
“Sizewell C is a project of exceptional scale, complexity and significance for taxpayers,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the public accounts committee, which oversees the work of the NAO. “Experience from comparable nuclear projects in the UK and overseas highlights their vulnerability to delays and cost overruns.”
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Stop Sizewell C said the risks surrounding the project “could easily turn Sizewell C into a financial disaster” while the funding model meant its investors were “the only ones who can’t lose”.
The NAO has urged the government to mitigate the risk by using “close monitoring, greater transparency to parliament, and by securing value for money from the significant public and private investment”.
A government spokesperson said investing in large-scale nuclear power was the “only way to get our country off the rollercoaster of volatile global gas markets”.
What about big renewable then e.g. generation from tides? We reliably have huge tides.