https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/business/sizewell-projections-message-on-nuclear-power-8768518

Sizewell night-time projections make their point to Boris

Sizewell B images against Sizewell C

Campaigners send their message to Boris Johnson by illuminating Sizewell B – Credit: Stop Sizewell C

Prime minister Boris Johnson is expected this week to meet the bosses of leading power and energy development companies to discuss ways of increasing Britain’s electricity and gas supplies.

Officials from EDF, developer of the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant, are expected to be invited to the talks.

Rolls-Royce and nuclear company Westinghouse are also understood to have been invited.

EDF and Sizewell C declined to comment.

Powerful messages were beamed onto Sizewell B by campaigners

Powerful messages were beamed onto Sizewell B by campaigners – Credit: Stop Sizewell C

But Stop Sizewell C said the Suffolk power project was not the solution to the energy crisis as it stepped up its campaign again at the weekend by projecting messages onto Sizewell B on Saturday night.

The illumination said: ‘The Energy Crisis is now, not 2035’; ‘Too Costly, Two Decades, Too Late’, and ‘Boris don’t bet on Sizewell C’.

Stop Sizewell C

Campaigners get their message across – Credit: Stop Sizewell C

Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C said: “If Sizewell C is the answer, it’s the wrong question. Even if it delivered on schedule, which with EDF’s track record is highly unlikely, it would not be generating until 2035 by which time our energy landscape will be transformed by solar, wind, storage and efficiency.

Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C

Alison Downes from the Stop Sizewell C campaign. – Credit: Sarah Lucy Brown

“If ministers insist that nuclear must be part of the long-term mix, they should dedicate tomorrow’s roundtable to advanced technologies such as Rolls Royce’s Small Modular Reactors, which have the potential to roll out in a shorter timeframe to Sizewell C and deliver a seventh of the power for a tenth of the cost.”

Mr Johnson promised a “colossal” investment in green energy and vowed to use the UK’s fast coronavirus vaccine rollout as motivation to build more wind farms in a bid to produce alternative power forms.

He said: “It is time to take back control of our energy supplies.

“After years of short-termism and hand-to-mouth solutions, we are setting up a British energy security strategy and we will make better use of our own naturally occurring hydrocarbons rather than import them for top dollar from abroad.”

The Tory leader said using Britain’s own fuel supply did “not mean in any way that we will abandon our drive for a low carbon future”, pledging to place “big bets” on nuclear power, including on small modular nuclear reactors.