Hitachi pulls the plug on plans for nuclear power plant in the UK

Hitachi have announced their decision to shelve plans to build a nuclear power plant in the UK due to rising costs.

The £16 billion power plant was planned for the Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant on Anglesey in North Wales.   

The Japanese company revealed they have had discussions with the UK Government over how to fund the project.

Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Horizon Nuclear Power, said: “We have been in close discussions with the UK Government, in cooperation with the Government of Japan, on the financing and associated commercial arrangements for our project for some years now.  I am very sorry to say that despite the best efforts of everyone involved we’ve not been able to reach an agreement to the satisfaction of all concerned.”

Today, in parliament, the Secretary State for Business, Energy and Industrial strategy spoke of the decreasing cost of renewable energy. This was met with approval from environmentalists groups.

Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “The government’s thinking seems to have finally caught up with reality. If the UK’s ageing energy policy is at last opened up to scrutiny, we must ensure that the main question is not how best to make the taxpayer cough up for new nuclear. There is little justification for spending our money on this outdated technology when even the government now acknowledges that renewables are cheaper, quicker to build and cleaner.”

This news follows a new study that found that there needs to be an immediate phase out of all fossil fuels to ensure that global temperature rise keeps below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Photograph: Horizon Nuclear Power

17 January 2019

Rachel Cooper