“There are an awful lot of Tory MPs who will use their summer break to get their heads around the CGN situation,” said one person close to the rebel MPs. “Bradwell will be the focus of attention.” .

The closer scrutiny of China’s role in Britain’s nuclear programme comes at a crucial moment. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change has said that the country might need 38 per cent of its power from non-weather-dependent sources to help achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. Supporters of nuclear say it is the only proven technology capable of delivering that target. “Nuclear economics are very sensitive to the cost of capital, and the RAB or an equivalent funding mechanism would cut this dramatically,” said Tim Stone, chairman of the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association. “Direct funding by the state with interest rates so low would cut it a great deal more.” “

"The big question is: if CGN were chucked out of Bradwell, whether they would walk from Hinkley,” said Stephen Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at University of Greenwich. “They are contractually obliged but good luck suing the Chinese government.” Aside from the financing questions, this could potentially increase the construction risk at Hinkley. “The Chinese have an engineering role in the project,” said one nuclear expert. “It would be a blow if they took away that know-how.” Ministers are yet to deliver their verdict on the RAB funding model and have continuously delayed a white paper on energy, originally expected last year, and which nuclear industry executives hope will emerge in October.

https://www.ft.com/content/9d0d3a75-d3f4-4cab-9176-be582140987

Isn't this the whole point about why it doesn't make sense to build Sizewell C on this coastline? "Mr Dolphin said that while Cefas does look far ahead into the future, it is generally only possible to predict detailed changes to the coastline over the next 10 years. “We can try and predict as much as we like, but almost every prediction in the very long-term has no certainty around it,” he added.

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Tony Dolphin, senior coastal scientist at Cefas said “extreme climate change and an extreme storm, with the biggest possible waves” would only lead to a “very small amount of water” coming over the defences planned to keep the station safe, and that was “nothing the station can’t handle”.

And although he said that other places - such as Minsmere Sluice and Dunwich cliffs - are more at risk, there would be no danger to the operations of the nuclear power station if surrounding areas did flood.

Such assurances have failed to persuade opponents, with Paul Collins, from Stop Sizewell C and Minsmere Levels Stakeholder Group, saying: “We will take a lot of convincing that Sizewell C’s twin reactors and spent fuel will be secure on Suffolk’s ‘soft and erodible’ coastline for 200 years, especially as climate change and sea level rise may affect coastal processes in unpredictable ways.”

Opponents say the unpredictability of future flooding makes building a nuclear site with a lifespan of more than 100 years risky, with Mr Collins saying: “The Sizewell sea defences cannot be fully assessed because EDF has not published a complete design, so it is not clear how any ‘adaptive’ approach could - Canute-like - keep the sea from their door.

“The potential of a hard coastal defence accelerating erosion at Minsmere to the north and Thorpeness to the south cannot be ruled out.”

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/cefas-sizewell-c-coastal-erosion-1-6779300

"The world’s offshore windfarm capacity could grow eightfold by the end of the decade powered by a clean energy surge led by China, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

A new industry report has revealed stronger than expected growth for the offshore wind industry, which could reach 234GW by 2030, from a global tally of just over 29GW at the end of last year.

The council revised its forecasts up by 15GW in its latest annual report on offshore wind power after the fastest ever growth in 2019, when new wind farms around the world added an extra 6.1GW to the global tally.

Ben Backwell, the chief executive at GWEC, said offshore wind was “truly going global” as governments around the world “recognise the role that the technology can play in kickstarting post-Covid economic recovery”.

The report found that the offshore wind industry could create 900,000 jobs globally over the next decade, or even more if policymakers use post-pandemic economic stimulus packages to accelerate the sector’s growth.

As well as a green economic recovery, the report found that every 1GW of offshore wind helped to avoid 3.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere and contributing to the climate crisis."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/05/china-poised-to-power-huge-growth-in-global-offshore-wind-energy

Sir John Armitt, Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, interviewed by Utility Week

Q: What are the big policy decisions that need to be made?

A: The energy mix still remains the big challenge. We can see that at the moment the government has a policy, which is some 10 years old, involving a reliance on nuclear. But arguably it’s a policy which at the moment would appear to be undeliverable, because the basis of the investment by any potential nuclear investor requires the government to take some of the risk, and they haven’t in the last two or three years been able to reach a conclusion on how that might be handled."

https://utilityweek.co.uk/build-back-better-government-needs-get-armitt/