Labour donor Dale Vince urges ‘rigorous financial scrutiny’ of Sizewell C costs
The government’s new value for money tsar has been challenged to examine the costs of a nuclear power station to be given final approval next year, as ministers attempt to shore up private investment for the project.New nuclear plants are a key part of the government’s plan to have clean power by 2030.The Sizewell C reactor, billed as generating enough energy to power 6m homes, is expected to be given the final go ahead in June’s review of public spending.Its projected costs are in excess of £20bn.However, Labour donor and green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince has written to the chair of the governments’ new Office for Value for Money (OVfM), David Goldstone, arguing that a nuclear plant already being built has seen spiralling costs.
He also warns the construction of Sizewell C “will saddle consumers with higher bills long before it delivers a single unit of electricity”,The government and the French state-owned company EDF will fund about 40% of the Sizewell C project, with ministers currently rounding up private investors to meet the rest of the costs,In his letter, Vince claims that billions have already been spent on the project, even “before a final investment decision has been made”,He also raises concerns about the ballooning costs and delays of Sizewell C’s sister project, Hinkley Point C, in Somerset,“If Hinkley Point C is anything to go by, Sizewell C really should have rigorous financial scrutiny,” he writes.
“Originally priced at £18bn, the cost of Hinkley has ballooned to £46bn and then there’s the delays,Back in 2007, the then EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said that by Christmas 2017 we would be using electricity generated from atomic power at Hinkley,We’re now in Christmas 2024 and Hinkley isn’t due to be completed until 2031,“Due to a novel funding method, a lengthy construction timeline for Sizewell will saddle consumers with higher bills long before it delivers a single unit of electricity at a time when there is clear evidence that we can secure a cleaner, cheaper energy future without nuclear,”It comes after a similar warning by Citizens Advice earlier this year.
The charity warned that the Suffolk project may offer “poor value for money” and called for greater clarity on its funding, in a letter to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero,It has warned that the project’s funding model could expose households to cost overruns,Vince, whose Ecotricity business owns a series of renewable energy projects, also raised concerns about the money being invested in carbon capture technology,The government recently committed almost £22bn over 25 years to fund carbon capture and storage projects,However, some campaigners question the technology and argue the money could be better spent eliminating the production of carbon emissions in the first place.
“Carbon capture has not been proved to work at scale anywhere in the world today and the announced £1bn a year for almost a quarter of a century shows it’s not expected to be working any time soon,” Vince writes.“I’m just not convinced that it’s worth the money.The 4,000 jobs to be created in the first year will be costing £250,000 each – not exactly good value in my opinion.”Sign up to ObservedAnalysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotionVince calls on Goldstone, who oversaw the government’s £9.3bn investment for the 2012 Olympics, to examine the two projects should his remit allow him to do so.
“I’d like to formally request you start a process and please let me know how we can take part,” he writes.A government spokesperson said: “Nuclear and carbon capture are key to our ambitious target of delivering clean power by 2030.The £2.7bn settlement for Sizewell C provides the required funding for 2025-26, and work will begin this coming year on major carbon capture, usage and storage projects in the north-east to harness this gamechanging technology – helping to protect bill payers and secure thousands of good, skilled jobs across the country.”
Kieran Culkin on pranks, parenting and why his famous family doesn’t need therapy: ‘Us siblings, we’re already cooked’
He’s been on screen since he was seven – but only prepares for a scene 10 minutes before. Yet somehow the mischievous Succession star is now tipped for an Oscar. How did the chaotic, charismatic actor do it?Kieran Culkin tries the upright chair first, the one opposite me, high-backed and leather. But no, that’s no good. He can see his reflection in the wall mirror, he’ll be catching himself all interview, thinking how tired he looks with his hooded eyes and beard, how jet lagged
From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025
New work from Zadie Smith, memoirs from Jacinda Ardern and Bill Gates, plus the third instalment in Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy series - here’s the biggest fiction and nonfiction for the year aheadNonfictionThe Bright Side: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World by Sumit Paul-Choudhury (Canongate)The science journalist, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, investigates the potent emotional forces that drive us on in the face of great hardship. Why do we have this capacity for optimism, and what distinguishes it from wishful thinking?Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Ageing as a Woman by Brooke Shields (Piatkus)The former child actor looks back at her decades-long career under a frequently harsh spotlight and reflects that, despite her industry’s obsession with youth, age brings autonomy and freedom.Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard (Allen Lane)Professor of philosophy and a public intellectual for the internet age, Callard shows how Socrates can inform the way we live our lives – from romance to politics – nearly two and a half thousand years after his death.Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis (Viking)Pope Francis planned to release this memoir only after his death, but apparently “the needs of our times … have moved him to make this precious legacy available now”. It will be the first ever papal autobiography
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to The Traitors: a complete guide to the week’s entertainment in the UK
Sonic the Hedgehog 3Out now Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) becomes a paid-up member of the school of thought that says if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, teaming up with former adversaries Sonic, Tails and Knuckles against new kid on the block Shadow the Hedgehog, voiced by Keanu Reeves.Better ManOut now One of the buzziest and most outlandish propositions for a film this year, this is that Robbie Williams film you’ve heard about where the erstwhile Take That star is depicted by an ape, or, to be more precise, a chimpanzee. The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey directs.The OrderOut now Jude Law stars as Terry Husk, a real-life FBI agent who went undercover with a white-supremacist group led by the neo-Nazi Bob Mathews, in this timely drama from the talented director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram).La CocinaOut now Based on the 1957 stage play The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker and written and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, this new version reimagines the kitchen in question as belonging to a Times Square tourist trap restaurant where white waitresses take orders for a staff of mostly undocumented migrants
Our readers on their pick of 2024’s best films, music, TV shows and podcasts
Welcome to the last Guide of 2024! I hope you all are enjoying your festive break, and have a better handle on which day it is than I do. As is tradition, after our own roundup of the year’s best culture, we are turning things over to you this week. Here are the films, TV shows, music, performances, and podcasts that wowed you in 2024.Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions and sorry if we weren’t able to include yours. Enjoy the rest of your Christmas break, and see you on the other side of the new year, for our 2025 preview next Friday!Film“I’m not sure it will get the recognition it deserves when awards season rolls around, but Love Lies Bleeding was the best film I saw in 2024
The best songs of 2024 … that you haven’t heard
“Strumming in opposition to the towers” is how the Bhutan-born, US-based guitarist Tashi Dorji describes his abstract, improvised music. His song and album titles are equally poetic evocations of resistance and decay – his new album is called We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit and contains songs such as Meet Me Under the Ruins and Flowers for the Unsung – and the brusque, clanging strums of his acoustic guitar resound with turmoil and determination. The album opens with Begin From Here, his strings sounding rusted, his attack frenzied. But, gradually, a bass motif emerges from the static – cool-headed and clear of purpose. Laura SnapesMichael Berdan, frontman of US post-hardcore band Uniform, wrote an essay this year on living with bulimia, in which he explained the title of their album American Standard is “the name of a ubiquitous plumbing fixture company
Camila Batmanghelidjh remembered by Lemn Sissay
1 January 1963 – 1 January 2024 The poet tells of his relationship with the founder of Kids Company, who was the ‘embodiment of integrity’ in her work for children in needI first became aware of Camila Batmanghelidjh through the disrupting influence of Kids Company. It was on the frontline of childcare in London, and everybody will remember the strong, vivacious, articulate woman at its head. There was something about her – how she dressed and the words she spoke – that showed me she wasn’t your average founder of a children’s charity. And then there were the stories that radiated out from her. She had a meeting with the queen, and during that meeting she got a call from a child in a panic, and she took the call, left the meeting and went to that child
Murdoch, Musk, water firms … Here are the ‘winners’ in another torrid year for business
Labour donor Dale Vince urges ‘rigorous financial scrutiny’ of Sizewell C costs
‘All people could do was hope the nerds would fix it’: the global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on
‘Godfather of AI’ shortens odds of the technology wiping out humanity over next 30 years
Now Paris party is over, what does new year hold for GB’s Olympians?
Australia’s tenacious tail defies India to set up thrilling final day of fourth Test