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Environmental groups slam Hinkley Point nuclear power plant deal

Britain gives final approval to the project, but with new conditions to address security concerns.

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However, Business Secretary Greg Clark told MPs yesterday: “We will introduce a series of measures to enhance security and ensure Hinkley can not change hands without the Government’s agreement”.

“We have chose to proceed with the first new nuclear power station for a generation”, he said.

“This will ensure that significant stakes can not be sold without the Government’s knowledge or consent”.

There had been issues with financing the £18 billion project by EDF, which seemed to have been finally solved when the French government, which owns 85% of EDF, provided fresh financial backing.

Under the deal, Beijing’s state-run China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN) is set to finance £6 billion of the costs, with EDF providing the remainder.

The Chinese state-backed firm that is investing in Hinkley, CGN, intends to take a majority stake in another reactor at Bradwell, in Essex.

“The benefits of restarting the new nuclear supply chain and experience from Hinkley Point C is expected to lead to lower costs for following United Kingdom nuclear projects”. The power plant, when complete, is expected to provide Britain with 7 percent of its electricity generation.

But Labour’s shadow energy secretary Barry Gardiner said: “The Government created a commercial crisis, sent shockwaves through the industry and unions alike and risked a diplomatic dispute with one of our key future trading partners”.

The choices the United Kingdom has for the supply and use of energy have changed considerably since this it was first conceived.

A Downing Street spokesman said that Prime Minister Theresa May spoke by phone with French president Francois Hollande before the announcement was made, while Mr Clark spoke with his counterparts in France and China.

According to a former colleague, ex-business minister Vince Cable, May had expressed wariness at the “gung-ho” attitude that Cameron took towards courting Chinese investment.

It said it would also impose “significant new safeguards” on future foreign investment in Britain’s critical infrastructure, including nuclear power.

In October 2015 EDF and CGN signed a strategic investment agreement for Hinkley, as well as heads of terms on a wider United Kingdom partnership for the joint development of nuclear power stations at Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex. Bradwell would be a Chinese-led project, using Chinese reactor technology.

It will be “a huge boost to the economy”, he said. “It’s more of a safety net, a backstop, than anything else”.

“Had the programme gone under, all sides were to lose dearly, while China-Britain relations could have been tossed into uncertainty”, it said, while warning that future problems are inevitable as Hinkley Point is built.

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Horizon, a nuclear new build group in Britain owned by Japan’s Hitachi’s, said it was “entirely comfortable” with the new approach.

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