From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
The Government has also just announced the go-ahead for Sizewell C:
The £14.2 billion mentioned will be direct government investment in the project, which will still be owned by EDF. Private investors are still being sought, and a Final Investment Decision is expected next month.
The Telegraph comment:
The costs for Hinkley Point C, under construction in Somerset, have risen from around £20 billion to at least £42 billion with some experts warning the final bill will come close to £50 billion when it starts operating around 2031.
Such unpredictable construction costs have made it difficult for the Government to find any companies willing to invest in Sizewell C.
EDF, the French state energy company which is building Hinkley, has progressively reduced its stake in Sizewell C leaving the Government holding 84pc.
Officials have been seeking foreign state investment including from the United Arab Emirates.
Mr Miliband still refuses to divulge the estimated final cost of Sizewell C and negotiations with prospective partners are thought to still be under way. The best estimates to date suggest the power station will cost about £40 billion.
The money will come initially from the Treasury but it and other investors will recover the construction costs via a new levy, known as the Regulated Asset Base, to be added to consumer and business energy bills.
Kathryn Porter comments:
“It’s hard to imagine a “golden age” of nuclear power with EDF’s outdated and troubled reactor design. EDF in France is already looking to the next generation – building another of these older versions is a retrograde step. It’s also highly unlikely that Sizewell C would be built faster than Hinkley given the lengthening of supply chains.”
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The Sizewell C website assures us the British Government is the major shareholder.
If we are to learn lessons from history, construction of Hinckley Point C began in 2017 with a completion date of ~checks notes~ Oh! Yes, this year, 2025, but delays caused by (wait for it) Brexit (of course) and Covid have put that back to 2031. That’s a construction time of 14 years, 6 years over initial estimates.
The initial cost, entirely coincidentally, was £14Bn, but that’s soared to £40Bn+.
By comparison, the Japanese built their Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Unit 6 in 39 months.
S. Korea built their Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 3 in 49 months.
Francis Menton considers why the west is sooooo slooooow at building nuclear power plants:
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-6-7-defund-the-nas
Kathryn Porter makes a great point about the UK’s incompetent government investing in out of date nuclear plant. Not only that, the two plants of this design have been completed TWELVE years late and at FIVE times the original budget and Hinckley Point is going the same way.
Kathryn Porter knows nothing about building nuclear power plants. It’s not apparent that you do either.
She knows a lot more about it than you do. Check out her blog which has quite a few articles detailing aspects of nuclear. She started out with a Physics degree.
Mostly it is about the extortions made by ‘the private sector’ that the prices are so ridiculous in the UK. The UK is the absolute benchmark for proving that private interests do NOT serve societies, they only serve small subsets of shareholders.
rtj1211,
That undocumented assertion is malicious.
In my long career in the private sector in Australia, I encountered no such “extortions” caused by the private sector, even minor ones.
I do recall, however, adding my signature to enable a cheque for $50 million, payable to the public sector Taxation Department because they sent us an invoice out of the blue, with a note saying that they had adjusted their calculation method.
Then there was the matter of the public service, in collusion with the UN world heritage folk, doing a compulsory acquisition of our legal title to explore and mine a large area around our new discovery of a major uranium mine. Our Constitution requires just terms for acquisition, but our High Court found the matter too hard and declined a judgement. We lost, potentially, billions of $$$ in today’s terms.
These were but some spectacular extortions by the public sector. I could go on with several more examples, but will resist detailing the extortion demonstrated by public sector actions in the Covid-19 era.
Go away and study some history. Geoff S
The UK people will be double screwed.
What is the MW capacity of the plant?
Russia, China, South Korea and Japan typically build such plants for $6000/kW in 4 to 5 years.
What the hell is wrong with the West?
Is all the West anti-nuke? I only know USA. What are the anti- talking points overseas?
In USA we’re mostly waiting for the cold war era to age out. Even the president beloved in this comment thread is a stairwell hazard. “In 2025, the U.S. life expectancy at birth is 79.4 years, with men at 75.8”. On average, our last two leaders have already passed.
Capacity 3200 MW costing 16.2 x 1.25 = $20.25 BILLION, about $6500/ kW.
No way, Jose
Britain to build new nuclear plant for $19 billion. LONDON – The British government said on Tuesday that it would spend as much as £14.2 billion ($19 billion) on constructing a nuclear power station
The cost of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project, capacity 3200 MW, in the UK, has significantly increased, with the latest estimates suggesting a final price tag of over £40 billion (about $57 billion), or 57,000,000,000/3200 MW = $17800/kW
Original estimate was 50% less!
NUCLEAR PLANTS TOO EXPENSIVE?
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/nuclear-plants-too-expensive-1
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In France, the turnkey cost of the 1,600 MW Flamanville plant was $13.7 billion, or $8,563/installed MW
Plants built by Russia, China and South Korea are about $5,500/installed MW
Expensive nuclear plant building is strictly a “rules-based” Western thing.
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Nuclear Plants by Russia
According to the IAEA, during the first half of 2023, a total of 407 nuclear reactors are in operation at power plants across the world, with a total capacity at about 370,000 MW
Nuclear was 2546 TWh, or 9.2%, of world electricity production in 2022
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/batteries-in-new-england
Rosatom, a Russian Company, is building more nuclear reactors than any other country in the world, according to data from the Power Reactor Information System of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA.
The data show, a total of 58 large-scale nuclear power reactors are currently under construction worldwide, of which 23 are being built by Russia.
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In Egypt, 4 reactors, each 1,200 MW = 4,800 MW for $28.75 billion, or about $5,990/kW,
As per a bilateral agreement, signed in 2015, approximately 85% of it is financed by Russia, and to be paid for by Egypt under a 22-year loan with an interest rate of 3%.
That cost is at least 40% less than US/UK/EU
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In Turkey, 4 reactors, each 1,200 MW = 4,800 MW for $20 billion, or about $4,200/kW, entirely financed by Russia. The plant will be owned and operated by Rosatom
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In India, 6 VVER-1000 reactors, each 1,000 MW = 6,000 MW at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant.
Capital cost about $15 billion. Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 are in operation, units 5 and 6 are being constructed
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In Iran, Rosatom started site preparation for a nuclear power plant at the Bushehr site.
Phase 1: Unit 1 went on line in 2012.
Phase 2: 2 VVER-1000 units, each 1050 MW. Construction started March 2017. Units 2 and 3 to be completed in 2024 and 2026.
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In Bangladesh: 2 VVER-1200 reactors = 2400 MW at the Rooppur Power Station
Capital cost $12.65 billion is 90% funded by a loan from the Russian government. The two units generating 2400 MW are planned to be operational in 2024 and 2025. Rosatom will operate the units for the first year before handing over to Bangladeshi operators. Russia will supply the nuclear fuel and take back and reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooppur_Nuclear_Power_Plant
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Russia is the only country with nuclear powered ice breakers.
The biggest ones steadily go through up to 7 METERS of ice.
The west basically abandoned nuclear because they gave in to the communist funded hippies, so that decades later there is no efficient supply chain or experienced/affordable workforce. In fact any large infrastructure project is hugely more expensive than in the past, even allowing for inflation.
It had nothing to do with Communist hippies
Nuclear plants were no longer receiving financing when interest rates were 15% in the 1970s.
Then three mile island, designed by our company, occurred in 1979
Lots of plants were cancelled, or put on hold
Fracking for gas came to the rescue
I was in the business of designing and erecting nuclear power plants at that time
For one, the design is rubbish. EDF has had major cost and time overruns on all they have built of this very poor design.
If they weren’t completely backed by the French government they would have gone broke long ago.
When it comes to nuclear construction projects, you are ignoring a few inconvenient facts for your diatribe. First of a kind projects are always overbudget and delivered late. Japan’s KK NPP were nearly the last examples of BWRs built in Japan.
The NAS is irrelevant from a global perspective. What is highly relevant is the plague of US-funded antinuclear groups emboldened by explicit permission to harrass and halt by lawfare any NPP in the world.
Change.
That was the tag line to Labour’s campaign at the last election, and the reality is that many projects and policy initiatives that were initiated by the (very left-leaning) Tories are being “re-announced” as Labour triumphs – and er, evidence’ of that change. Two-tier and frenz really are that unimaginative. Miliband might be trying to do/wreck more, but then, so did the Tories. Boris even reminded us that the climate crisis – via the Industrial Revolution – was all our fault and the clock is ticking.
Sizewell C was first proposed ~2008 just as the financial world went into meltdown. It, like all large projects of this nature, has been bogged down by endless objections and legal actions…
“6 June 2025
A legal challenge against the planned Sizewell C nuclear power station has been lodged at the High Court.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgqdxrlqd5o
This is why nuclear ends up being so expensive and takes so very long.
What we in the UK have is effectively government by gaslight. It is well known north of the border that the rate of green job creation is well below half the number of jobs being lost in the North Sea and associated industries around Aberdeen etc. The brothers are less than impressed.
“Scots are losing their jobs as the Just Transition goes backwards”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24820783.scots-losing-jobs-just-transition-goes-backwards/
A just transition?
They seem to think so.
I believe Portugal found that for each “green job” they “created,” they lost THREE real jobs. Give it time…
They’ve got until 2029 to make a pig’s ear of everything. They’re ahead of the game on that score.
Yes the planning system in the UK is in need of a complete overhaul (Just ask the people who tried to build HS2) However the EDF design is way out of date and as Hot Scot says the South Koreans have a proven design. They have built 13 reactors since 1996 with an average build time of 4.5 years. Sticking with EDF is stupid!
Couldn’t agree more.
Change, as in we need change. Seen it over and over again in US politics.
Funny, what the nature of the change is is never discussed.
So when the politicians get in office they can change whatever they wish and fulfill their campaign promise.
10,000 jobs will be created? And once construction is complete, how many return to the soup lines?
Meanwhile, in the real world, the government are backing Rolls Royce for their SMRs, which is a much, much better option overall.
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/rolls-royce-smr-wins-government-backing-to-build-three-mini-nuclear-reactors-10-06-2025/
And i would guess that would be turbocharged if the UK feels the need to invest in new nuclear submarines..
SMR’s are not a panacea, they come with their own problems.
As I mention above, the first RR SMR (of 16 already identified brownfield and former nuclear sites) was supposed to begin construction in 2030. That’s now sometime in the 2030’s. 2039 here we come.
UK planning and regulatory systems need to be sorted out. It’s all very well claiming to roll SMR’s off a production line, but that’s not much use if planning for each one takes 10 years.
And whilst conventional nuclear is great for baseload power, they must still be supplemented by CCGT. SMR’s are much the same, except their varied locations bring their own problems with peak demands.
Here is the key point in the story:
The money will come initially from the Treasury but it and other investors will recover the construction costs via a new levy, known as the Regulated Asset Base, to be added to consumer and business energy bills.
So first we install lots of wind in places where there is no demand. We then levy surcharges of various sorts to pay for transmission to where its needed. We then notice that wind is intermittent, so we pay these guys not to generate, while paying gas plants in the south to generate what they have, but what we could not use. Then there is the problem of calms, so we pay more to generate from gas during calms. Not all this is added to the electricity bills, but a big chunk is, and the total subsidies amount to £450 per household per year. Source, Paul Homewood. Or Kathryn Porter on Net Zero Watch.
Finally however it dawns on us that this is not going to work. Because there is no way of storing the power, so there is no seriously possible way of meeting demand in the calms, at least not on our present track. Recall that our present track will lose the gas plants, because they are end of life, and it will lose the remaining nuclear also.
The smart thing to do at this point would be to give up and install lots of new gas very fast. But we know better, we are leading the world and saving the planet. So what will we do?
Build nuclear, and add yet another surcharge on the bills, to pay for it.
And then, deeply puzzled by the fact that we have the highest electricity prices in the world, how can that be when wind is free, and so is the sun, we will collect all the subsidies together, take them off the bills, and put them on taxes.
This is going to solve all our problems. Bills will fall, EVs and heat pumps will be cost effective. Why did we not think of that earlier.
Hello? Hello Rachel? Rachel? This is the bond market calling, they say its an urgent call from the bond market….
“a new levy”
There’s always one – at least. Reeves next budget will reveal the real scope of what is what in the Autumn. It isn’t going to be good.
This must be a new meaning of the word ‘reveal’ that I wasn’t previously aware of
I’m intrigued. What did you understand by it?
I’m just implying that nothing important will actually be revealed, but merely obscured.
I may well be cynical, but I’m not sure that I’m cynical enough.
The very smart thing, as you say, would be to begin building CCGT plants right now using North Sea and fracked gas to run them.
And that, many years ago, was the plan. To use gas to transition to nuclear. Then Chernobyl happened (old technology, badly operated post Soviet era) and the anti nuclear/green lobby went nuts and scared off politicians. Then Fukushima (bad design and the meltdown had nothing to do with the reactor itself) and the renewables ‘perfect solution’ bandwagon was rolling.
Now we’re back to good old British political knee jerking.
Fukushima was/is a good design of reactor,
problems were –
-bad placement (built low down to reduce pumping costs !! );
-the 6 units were built below a previous tsunami high water line;
-the backup pumps & 10 gen-sets were situated in the basement 7–8 m below ground level & 2 air-cooled gen-sets at ground level, all went underwater;
-the outside fuel tanks were washed away;
-a 3rd air-cooled gen-set on higher ground was ok until it ran out of fuel;
-The sea wall was overtopped by about 5m & then it prevented the water draining back;
Off Topic: The quest to utterly infantilise people.
“The Met Office has issued three days of yellow thunderstorm warnings for parts of England, Northern Ireland and Wales. “
A warning for a bog standard thunderstorm? Really?
“From midnight tonight almost the entire of Wales, plus Devon and Cornwall will be under the warning until at least 1am, and from 6am until 9pm on Thursday June 12 there is also a similar yellow alert in place for Northern Ireland. Going into Friday and the whole of the south east of England is blanketed by a thunderstorm advisory from 3pm until 6am on Saturday June 14, with thunderstorms and torrential rain bringing a chance of “disruption”, the Met Office said.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/2067205/met-office-thunderstorm-warning
Look out for light breeze, Brian.
Be afraid. Be very afraid…
Just under 1 inch to just under 2 inches of rainfall over “several hours”?
That is a threat?
Those of us close to the political activities here in the UK see this latest headline grabbing throw money at it from the Labour government, as nothing more than a political gesture with no contracts signed or agreed as far as anyone can tell.
Even the RR SMR decision is a decision to explore the designs not a decision to construct something in the next ten years.
I think we can say this is a political gesture designed to attempt to give a failing government something to suggest their is hope in the future.
Time will tell.
My modelling – and models are always right – shows they will succeed…
…in trashing everything. Fish and Chagos – to go
“Labour’s ‘rising star’ MP Yuan Yang has apologised after eagle-eyed punters spotted that she pretended to eat at a constituency restaurant that was in fact shut.
https://order-order.com/2025/06/11/labour-rising-star-mp-apologises-after-pretending-to-eat-at-constituency-chippy/
Shurely, that should be Labour’s rising star liar…
David ‘calamity’ Lammy is also busy fixing the Spain/Gibraltar post-brexit EU deal, carefully timed to be buried under the spending review headlines.
Another cave-in dressed up as a ‘reset’.
Lammy is a diversity hire, evidence that people with an IQ of 90 can attain high political office.
You are more generous than me offering him 90, no doubt Marie Antoinette will be giving her Nobel Prize for Physics to Henry 7th as a token of his unique capacity to take over the throne from Henry 8th…. for those not up to speed google Lammy on Mastermind..
And chosen Rolls Royce as preferred supplier of SMRs (does this mean the end of windmills and photovoltaic panel installation?). Bad news for China with BYD going to the wall, slowly, the property market broken and indebted. Never mind questions about how do you indemnify your neighbour if you own an EV (likely to combust). The recent self-immolation of the ship, ‘Zodiac Maritime’, in the Pacific, the fire believed to have started in a hold loaded with EVs.
As well as selling off the UK’s gold cheap, Gordon Brown disposed of the UK’s nuclear energy expertise.
Good thing we still have Tony, right? Sarc :). Although, he seems to be keen on turning down Net Zero policies, likely to get his buddies’ surveillance state and tech computer centres running w clean, reliable energy ie, coal, gas and nuclear. Or maybe the combination of citizens’ energy consumption control running on the availability of wind and solar while keeping the good, reliable stuff for system stability in the tech/ state world. Devide and rule…
And of course coupled w digital IDs and CBDC.
Well they better get their skates on with the global warmening big freeze dooming coming-
Parts of Britain could plunge to -30°C if the Gulf Stream collapses, scientists reveal
I don’t make this stuff up. These people are experts and they go to university and have letters after their names.
“These people are experts and they go to university and have letters after their names.”
So what, I’m an ex-Burt … you can call me Mary;
my school was approved;
I have letters in the post box !!! (:-))
And Gretta quoted a line from Farewell Atlantis in the movie 2012.
Your freezing reminded me.
“I don’t make this stuff up.” Yes, but experts make this stuff up. Seriously, how old is Earth supposed to be?
6,000 yrs, according to some religious experts (;-))
Perhaps all the Blairites who once again control the Labour Party will inform the UK electorate as to why this was not initiated in 2002, which would have meant it would now have been in operation for a decade?
Trying to make out after 25 years of procrastination and being namby pamby energy-illiterate wordsmiths that suddenly they are the protectors of UK domestic interests really isn’t going to cut it.
They are doing this because they know that the UK is going to face blackouts if they don’t stop thinking that wind and solar can supply the baseline energy needs of a nation of 65 million people and more…..
Story Tip
And another one bites the dust …
https://renewablesnow.com/news/battery-storage-firm-powin-files-for-bankruptcy-in-new-jersey-1276731/?utm_edition=202506110305
While there seems to be some indication in the comments as to why the West is SOOOO bad at building nuclear I just cannot get my head around spending this much tax payer money on a technology that is 60 years old by now AND the length of time it takes us to build them.
I’ve been a huge proponent of nuclear for >40 years but NOT with tax payer money. Reduce the regulatory burden, fast track environmental studies, ensure legislation exists to co-opt the inevitable lawsuits and let private industry build and operate them.
And whether its an SMR or ‘standard’ size plant, no one will be able to convince me that every plant built has to be designed from scratch. The CANDU reactor is a proven, safe, reliable unit that doesn’t require a redesign every time one is to be built. Plus its been shown it can run with various amounts of Thorium in the bundles…and you can reprocess the bundles taking out all the ‘nasty stuff’ for burial and recycle the rest.
Ultimately nuclear power is the only way humanity will be able to power itself once we run out of easily procured petrochemicals…heck with nuclear we can make our own petrochemicals from feedstocks…it will be WAY more expensive to do so than today but if you have 0 in the ground to easily exploit the costs are ‘relatively cheap’ really.
The problem in the West is to be able to get rid of all the government blockades & nimby’s stopping reasonable expansion of the industry.
“I’ve been a huge proponent of nuclear for >40 years”
Imagine getting a nuclear engineering degree in the1980’s and not wanting to join the US Navy. People did that, thinking the industry would turn around 40 years ago.
Why not extract Government involvement in new nuclear builds?
Give the whole job to the private sector with an agreed bonus scheme for early completion?
Nuclear reactors have been built since the 1950s, so 7 decades of experience surely takes it from a “dangerous experimental” category to “humdrum”. There are more than 400 reactors globally for making electricity. It is NOT difficult engineering, despite massive propaganda to paint it as such. Geoff S
Geoff S
My guess is that government is responsible for the delays or anti nuclear organizations are and the government is in cahoots with them. I would like to see two demonstration projects. A well respected design will be chosen, both demonstrations will build the same plant. One project will go forward business as usual, government and anti nuclear interference is expected. The other project will go forward with all interference outlawed. The unhampered project will handle issues with the best people they can find. One project will finish near close to deadline and close to budget. The other won’t be finished.