Govt must join Austria in legal action against proposed nuclear station - Costello

9 October 2014

by Cllr Joe Costello

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the decision by the EU Commission to give approval to the proposed £24.5bn (€31.2bn) nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset. This power plant is the first nuclear power plant to be approved in the U.K. for nearly 20 years, and it is located just 240 km from Ireland.

There are major concerns in relation to the environmental impact of this power plant and in relation to state aid that the British Government is providing for its construction and operation. The Austrian Government has indicated that it will bring legal action to the European Court of Justice against the EU commission’s judgement. The EU Commission’s decision could lead to a new generation of heavily subsidised nuclear plants across Europe.

This power plant will use the unproven EPR technology, which is not yet operational anywhere in the world. Moreover, there is still no satisfactory method for dealing with the huge quantities of radioactive waste that this plant will generate over its lifetime of 60 years.

Under the plan, the British Government would be allowed to offer EDF Energy, the company behind the project, a guaranteed power price of £92.50 per megawatt-hour for 35 years, more than twice the current market rate. EDF will also benefit from a State guarantee covering any debt which the operator will seek to obtain on financial markets to fund the construction of the plant. The new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station will require debt financing of £17 billion and will eventually have a capital outlay of about £34 billion.

Rather than these huge subsidies for nuclear energy, it would be more appropriate to support alternative renewable sources of energy. The scale of the subsidy being given to EDF is enormous, and it is hard to understand how such extensive support cannot be considered an illegal state subsidy.

I would ask the Minister to consider joining in the Austrian action against the EU Commission decision to support the nuclear industry at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.

While the Austrian action is a legal challenge to the EU approved subsidy, Ireland has a strong case to make on environmental grounds, particularly considering our close proximity to the proposed nuclear plant and the threat of an accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima to our people and our agricultural economy.