This figure includes an estimate for paying interest on borrowed money, but the financing arrangements for Hinkley C are so opaque that it is impossible to calculate exactly what the final cost will be.

And assuming the plant ever began generating its costly electricity, who would be responsible for the waste management costs, the size of which can only be estimated since the location, depth, technical details about cladding, inventory, or even if there will ever be a repository, remain stubbornly vague and could yet result in indefinite storage on site? Spent nuclear fuel from Hinkley C or Sizewell C would be on their respective sites for an estimated 160 years. Who will take title to hundreds of tonnes of spent nuclear fuel if, as is likely, within that time period, EDF disappears?

As usual, the public purse would be required to bail out a private venture. Rudd’s claim of “no liabilities” is as irresponsible as a short-term response to legitimate concerns as government’s energy policy will prove to be in the long term. Better to cancel Hinkley, Sizewell and all the other nuclear plans now while some semblance of energy policy credibility remains, than to see it unravel in the most embarrassing way over the coming decades, leaving communities like ours to carry the can for government obsession with a nuclear fix.
Pete Wilkinson
Chairperson, Together Against Sizewell C”

Giving a speech on the environment at the Elysee palace, Francois Hollande said he will publish a decree to start closing the nuclear plant of Fessenheim, located in east of France near the German border.

“Discussions are ongoing between the state and (operator) EDF on the conditions of this move,” Hollande said.

The German government earlier this month called on France to shut down the Fessenheim plant as soon as possible.

France passed a law last year to reduce the proportion of its power that comes from nuclear to 50 percent by 2025, from the current 75 percent, which is greater than in any other nation.”

The French electricity giant EDF has thrown the British government’s energy strategy into disarray by reportedly delaying – possibly until next year – a decision on whether it will build a new £18bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Jean-Bernard Lévy, the head of EDF, has bowed to pressure from unions and senior company engineers and agreed to seek a fresh opinion from the company’s union-management consultative council, the respected French newspaper Le Figaro reported.

EDF said it could not immediately confirm the report. Sources in the company told the French newspaper that the consultation process would take several months and that no decision on whether to go ahead with its involvement in Hinkley Point – expected to supply eight per cent of British slectricity by 2025 – would be made before next year.

An internal report to the EDF board warned in February that it would be impossible for technical reasons to complete the two “new generation” nuclear reactors at Hinkley within the nine-year timetable. The report also suggested that the project could be financially disastrous for EDF, despite a commitment by the UK government to pay double the market rate for Hinkley’s electricity.

Although China has agreed to invest £6.2bn in Hinkley Point, EDF has failed to find other backers, leaving it responsible for two thirds of the cost. Problems with the bulding of similar high-pressure water reactors in Finland and Normandy have led EDF unions and senior executives to recommed a three-year delay – until a new generation of technology become available.

But Paris and London are reported to have applied intense pressure on EDF to go ahead immediately.

The British government would face huge embarrassment if Hinkley Point, intended as the first of three new mega power stations, was abandoned or postponed. In October last year, China agreed, amid much fanfare in London and Beijing, to invest £6.2bn in the project.

In September, the Chancellor George Osborne said Hinkley Point was a central part of the government’s strategy to “make sure the lights stay on”. “The current generation of nuclear power stations are coming to the end of their life. That’s going to create a very big hole in our base electricity supply unless we do something about it,” he told a House of Lords committee.

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace, which has campaigned against the reactor, told The Independent: “Delays to EDF making a decision about whether to invest in Hinkley are nothing new. So much so that it’s been 14 months since it was first said that the decision would be coming imminently. But this latest delay from EDF is different.

“President Hollande, the French Economy Minister and EDF’s chief executive have all very publicly promised the UK government a final decision before the 12 May. Backtracking on this pledge now is symbolic of the utter mess that EDF is in.

“But even if they could agree a finance package, it could be declared illegal state aid by the European Commission. This may now be the sign that the entire project is coming to a grinding halt and the UK government urgently needs to back renewable energy as a more reliable alternative.”

“French utility EDF (EDF.PA) has delayed the final investment decision for its Hinkley Point nuclear project in Britain until after its May 12 shareholders’ meeting to allow time to consult its works council, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Greenpeace has written to George Osborne warning him not to allow the Hinkley Point C nuclear project to proceed until the European commission approves further planned support from the French state.

The letter, which is signed jointly with the energy supplier Ecotricity, follows legal advice that plans for state help from France’s government to enable EDF to continue with the reactor scheme could break European competition rules.

The legal opinion was given to Greenpeace by three competition barristers from Monckton Chambers in London and came as EDF held a board meeting on Friday in Paris to discuss once again the controversial £18bn project in Somerset.

“The only way Hinkley can be kept alive is on the life support machine of state aid. EDF, if it is to stay in business, needs a new vision which is not looking backwards,” said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK.

“The UK government needs to stop penalising the UK renewable energy industry in favour of propping up an ailing state-owned nuclear industry in France.”

Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity, said it was time for everyone to realise that it was the end of the road for Hinkley Point.

“Illegal state aid is one thing, and we’ll work with Greenpeace to challenge that if it happens, but it’s not just financial issues, there are technical problems with Hinkley Point too – EDF are yet to build one of these reactors and their first two attempts are, between them, 16 years late and billions over budget,” he added.

The letter was also sent to Amber Rudd, the energy and climate change Secretary. Rudd and Osborne have been key figures in trying to steer investment into new nuclear plants.

EDF, which is 85% owned by the French state, is struggling against a mountain of debt and has told ministers it will not build Hinkley unless it obtains help from France’s government.

The country’s economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, has talked about taking future dividends in shares rather than cash and a range of other options to lessen the financial burden on EDF.

It is these proposals that the London barristers believe would need clearance from Brussels, a process that would subject Hinkley to further delays.

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the area covering the plant, said: “The numbers for the Hinkley deal have never stacked up and it is clear that the commercial case for this white elephant is dead. We have now a political battle where the stakes for both the UK and France are just too high to admit failure. But we cannot let this override EU rules on state aid or fair competition.”

The UK’s energy secretary has admitted for the first time that the lights would stay on if new nuclear reactors at Hinkley were cancelled or delayed.

Amber Rudd has previously said that “energy security has to be the number one priority” and that new gas and nuclear power would be “central to our energy-secure future”.

But in a letter released on Tuesday in reply to MPs on the energy and climate change select committee, which asked what contingency plans were in place if Hinkley is delayed or cancelled, she said: “While we have every confidence the deal will go ahead, we have arrangements in place to ensure that any potential delay or cancellation to the project does not pose a risk to security of supply for the UK. I am clear that keeping the lights on is non-negotiable.”

She also said that delays to the troubled plant could risk the UK missing its targets to cut carbon emissions, and that alternatives could cost more but would not represent a “significant increase” in cost in the short term.

The final decision by French-state owned company EDF to go ahead with Hinkley has been repeatedly delayed and the billion of pounds of state subsidies and the feasibility of the giant project have been widely criticised. Last week one of the UK’s major investors, Legal and General, called Hinkley “a total waste of money”.

EDF, their Chinese partners and the UK and French governments have insisted Hinkley will be built, with French economy minister Emmanuel Macron saying on Sunday the project would go ahead.

In Rudd’s letter, she says: “Macron has publicly provided assurances that ‘the decision must be agreed ahead of EDF’s shareholder meeting [12 May]’.” In March, EDF’s finance director resigned and its trade unions have warned the Hinkley project could severely damage the company.

Rudd said that without Hinkley, energy security would come from the capacity market, where the government offers subsidised contracts for guaranteed electricity supply. The Institute for Public Policy Research has called the capacity market “unfit for purpose”.

Rudd said there was also “detailed monitoring and governance arrangements to ensure we have sufficient intelligence and foresight on any issues that might delay construction further down the line, so that alternative capacity can be put in place.”

She said alternative sources of supply “would be unlikely to present a significant increase” in energy bills for delays known about before 2021. But she also warned: “There is also a risk though that any delay could put at risk our decarbonisation targets – one of the key reasons the government is supporting Hinkley Point C in the first place.”

A report from the government’s National Infrastructure Commission in March found that “smart power – principally built around three innovations, interconnection, storage, and demand flexibility – could save consumers up to £8bn a year by 2030, help the UK meet its 2050 carbon targets, and secure the UK’s energy supply for generations.”

Angus MacNeil, chair of the energy and climate change committee, said: “[Rudd’s] letter shows the government has had to finally concede the need for a Plan B on Hinkley, although the detail is sketchy. New capacity must be brought online in a way that is compatible with our decarbonisation targets. That means limiting the role of fossil fuels and maximising the use of smarter low carbon options to meet demand.”

The shadow energy and climate secretary, Lisa Nandy, said: “This letter is new evidence that ministers have lost control over the future of this project. We now need to see a detailed plan B that protects billpayers and ensures we achieve legally binding pollution goals.”

Rudd was also asked by the select committee what liabilities taxpayers would face if the project was cancelled at this stage. She said: “At this stage, as no contracts have yet been signed, there are no liabilities which would fall to the UK taxpayer or consumer.”

But she said, once the contracts are entered into, there were small risks of compensation payments if the project was cancelled, though these are “almost entirely within the control of the UK government”. In March, the Guardian reported that the Hinkley deal contains a “poison pill” which could leave taxpayers with a £22bn bill if a future UK government closed the plant before 2060.

John Sauven, Greenpeace’s UK director said: “There is absolutely no reason that the UK could not meet our decarbonisation targets if the government dropped Hinkley and gave renewable energy businesses a fraction of political and financial support that nuclear and fossil fuel companies enjoy.”

… The public revelation of the discovery comes amid renewed concerns over the possibility of members of the so-called “Islamic State” terrorist organization obtaining access to nuclear weapons. Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama spoke at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, where he called on world leaders to ensure nuclear security in the face of a growing international terrorist threat. …”

No, came the answer. The new features are all manageable. The basic design is similar to the previous generation. We are very confident we can build it.

The problem is that, as the EDF Board prepares to make its final investment decision, there is not yet a single example that anyone can point to of the reactor actually working.

And its development has become something of a saga which not only involves huge questions about finance and politics but also about technology.
Simon Jack has highlighted the concerns about the forging of the reactor’s housing – what’s known the pressure vessel, a tower of steel that houses the actual process of nuclear fission.

This acts as the beating heart of the power station and, in the EPR’s case, would help generate more power than was ever possible with earlier designs.

But tests last autumn rang an alarm bell.

This could potentially undermine the vessel’s strength. The intense radiation generated within the reactor bombards the pressure vessel and, over the decades, makes the metal as brittle as glass.

Bizarrely, in a world of gleaming high technology, this area of excess carbon in the dome is referred to as a ‘carrot’ because of its shape.

This makes it sound rather innocent. In fact, it’s forced a major pause. The dome in Normandy is now undergoing detailed investigations.

And the domes that had already been built for the first of Hinkley’s reactors – one for the top of the vessel and one for the bottom – have been returned to their makers, the troubled French nuclear firm Areva.

Replacements have been ordered from a specialist Japanese steelmaker.
So will this add yet more delay to the project at Hinkley? No, we were told.

One line, above all, is being determinedly pushed: that lessons have been learned from Finland, Normandy and China.

Contractors are lined up. The 3D modelling has ironed out potential log-jams. The sequencing of concrete pouring and deliveries and electrical work and host of other jobs has been carefully choreographed.

And many of the engineers who lived through the challenges of the other EPR projects will be on hand at Hinkley. ‘Veterans’, as Simon Jack, calls them.
That could mean they have plenty of useful experience.

Or they really know just how uncertain a task they face.”

The study by the Intergenerational Foundation think tank states that once long-term subsidies for the project near Burnham-On-Sea are taken into account, solar and wind alternatives would offer significant savings.

It has added that these green energy sources do not come with the added burden of nuclear waste, and would allow the UK to live “within its economic and environmental means.”

The figures are based around the expected cost of building the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which is currently £24bn, plus the Government subsidy of £92.50 per megawatt hour generated in its first 35 years.

Compared with the projected costs of renewable technologies over this period, the group claims that onshore windfarms would cost £31.2bn less than Hinkley, and solar photovoltaic power £39.9bn less, while generating the same amount of energy.”