Four former heads of Friends of the Earth issued a last-ditch plea to prime minister David Cameron not to sign off on new nuclear until the risks have been publicly reviewed.
With an investment agreement imminent for EDF’s proposed Hinkley Point C plant, they said the plans expose the economy to “exceptional levels of risk”. The project cleared another hurdle today as the Environment Agency approved its environmental permits.
The letter from Jonathon Porritt, Tom Burke, Tony Juniper and Charles Secrett followed one a year ago setting out concerns about the deal, of which they said nine out of 10 had materialised.
The four correctly predicted that Centrica would pull out of the new nuclear partnership and warned that EDF would adopt an aggressive bargaining position.
They said recent reports EDF would require a guaranteed power price of close to £100/MWh for between 30 and 40 years implied a bill for British customers of up to £50 billion over the deal’s lifetime.
If shale gas or improved renewables technology succeed in cutting power prices, the subsidy to EDF will increase, they warned. “There are inevitably doubts about whether a commitment now to expenditure of this magnitude for so long on a single project represents good value for money.”
The Department of Energy and Climate Change should publish a comprehensive risk register, they said, which should be scrutinised by the Public Accounts Committee before any deal is signed.