The company building a new nuclear power plant in Somerset has been forced to spend £700m protecting marine life – including a “fish disco” which bombards animals with noise.
The cost of the measures at Hinkley Point C is more than the entire amount the Government spends on protecting nature in England each year, but they are forecast to save the life of only one salmon every 12 years.
The price tag for the “fish protection measures” at Hinkley is revealed in a new review of why it is so difficult and expensive to build nuclear power in the UK, commissioned by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Shorts
The review’s authors, who are pushing for a “radical” overhaul of nuclear regulation, highlighted it as a case study of the extreme costs imposed on companies trying to expand the country’s nuclear capacity – costs which are eventually passed on to customers in the form of higher energy bills.
