BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Is the loss of wildlife habitats the price to pay for a new nuclear power station?
Some argue that nuclear power is an essential weapon in the battle against climate change. But the planned expansion of Suffolk’s Sizewell nuclear power station means concreting over rare wildlife habitats. Fiona Harvey asks, is that the price of sustainable energy?
The barbastelle bat has a distinctive look – its pug nose, tiny eyes and huge ears that meet in the middle distinguish it from all other
UK bat species. But though these creatures are easily recognisable, you’re unlikely to see one in England. Barbastelles are very rare, breeding in only a few places around the country.
One of those places is Suffolk, where a barbastelle colony is now facing a new threat that conservationists fear could wipe out the bats locally. Sizewell C power station will be only the second new nuclear power station to be built in the UK for decades, if its construction by the French energy company EDF goes ahead as planned. Viewed by the Government as an essential piece of national infrastructure – if we are to keep the lights on and meet the national target of net zero emissions by 2050 – Sizewell C is set for a coastal site close to the existing Sizewell B power station and is likely to take at least 10 years to build.
“It could cause huge disruption to the barbastelle bats locally,” says Ben MacFarland, head of conservation at Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
“We don’t even know where they roost in winter.” One of the issues is that the construction process will separate known habitats – for instance, dividing the bats from their feeding areas – and disturb the complex web of interrelated species across this coastal mixture of sand dunes, marshes, heathland and fen. Some of these landscapes are under threat around the UK, and of international importance. The UK has around 20% of the world’s heathland but, over recent decades, farming, urban development and invasive species have taken a toll; only about 15% of heathland that existed in 1800 remains.
Barbastelles are not the only cause of concern. An area of coast the size of 900 football pitches will be affected, part of which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and borders on RSPB Minsmere, a nature reserve home to 6,000 species. The site is also home to natterjack toads, barn owls, water voles, otters and kingfishers, while the local flora includes orchids, bogbean and bog pimpernel. Christine Luxton, chief executive of Suffolk Wildlife Trust, worries the habitats will not recover. “Sizewell C would destroy a vast swathe of the Suffolk coastline in one of the most beautiful natural parts of the UK. Nature is already in huge trouble and the sheer scale of this development will make a bad situation much, much worse.”
EDF acknowledges that the construction will affect wildlife, but says it is not only mitigating the impact but also setting aside 250 hectares of the Sizewell C estate just for wildlife, ensuring a 10% net gain in biodiversity overall from the project. This will be done by creating wetlands at nearby Aldhurst Farm, where 120,000 reed beds over 67 hectares have been established, and which have already been colonised by rare marsh harriers.
On the land where the Sizewell C estate borders RSPB Minsmere, EDF is creating another wet woodland habitat. “We have specific proposals for safeguarding wildlife, including bats and rare birds such as bitterns, avocets, marsh harriers and ground-nesting birds,” the company said. “Should Sizewell C be granted development consent, we intend to
establish an Environmental Trust to ensure the future Sizewell estate develops and thrives for many years to come. We envisage the Trust would manage the ongoing rewilding and biodiversity of the Sizewell estate.”
At a projected cost of close to £20bn, the power plant will be a mammoth project for EDF and its partner China General Nuclear (CGN). After funding problems and other setbacks, only one of eight other power stations originally planned is now likely to be completed this decade, at Hinkley Point near Bridgwater in Somerset. The two new nuclear reactors at Sizewell C alone will provide about 7% of the UK’s electricity needs.
In December, then-business secretary Alok Sharma published a long-awaited Energy
White Paper, the centrepiece of which was an announcement that the Government was entering final negotiations with EDF for investment into the site. Those negotiations will be tough. Many observers thought the price agreed for electricity from Hinkley was far too high. But Sharma made clear the Government’s determination to press ahead with Sizewell C. “[The energy white paper] establishes a decisive and permanent shift away from our dependence
on fossil fuels, towards cleaner energy sources that will put our country at the forefront of the global green industrial revolution,” he said. Sizewell C also has the backing of business groups and the Prospect trade union.
PREVENTING CATASTROPHIC CHANGE
The row over Sizewell C reflects much greater issues surrounding the UK’s national infrastructure, and the vital quest for a netzero economy. In 2019, the UK became one of the first in the world to enshrine in law a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Net zero means carbon dioxide emissions and its equivalents must be reduced as far as possible, with any remaining emissions cancelled out by growing trees and nurturing soils, peatlands and wetlands so that they absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Reaching net zero emissions globally around mid-century will be vital, according to the world’s leading climate scientists, to hold global heating within manageable limits. If temperatures are allowed to rise by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, changes to the world’s climate are likely to be catastrophic and irreversible. This will mean more droughts, floods, heatwaves and fiercer storms, as well as melting ice caps and rising sea levels, and will render swathes of the globe unsuitable for agriculture and uninhabitable.
For the UK to reach net zero, vast changes will be needed in the way we produce and use energy. We will no longer be able to drive petrol and diesel-fuelled cars, or heat our homes using gas. These changes will make us more reliant on electricity, but as we switch off coal and gas-fired power stations, and as the UK’s fleet of nuclear power stations reaches the end of its life, we will face difficult choices. New nuclear power stations, onshore and offshore wind farms may reduce greenhouse gases overall, but will also result in damage to local ecosystems.
As it stands, the Sizewell C project is still under debate. Local planning authorities sent EDF back to the drawing board after a Suffolk County Council committee found in October 2020 that the company was not doing enough to mitigate the impacts of construction. Planning issues for major UK infrastructure projects often take years to resolve, but if we are to cut emissions drastically in the next decade we will face similarly tough decisions on many more projects, with a much tighter deadline.