The UK government has announced that Wylfa on Anglesey has been selected as the favored location for a new nuclear power facility. The site was purchased by the government from Hitachi, which had previously abandoned plans for a new reactor in 2019. Talks with international energy companies are already underway to begin constructing the new Wylfa plant. According to UK Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, the project would create “thousands of well-paid jobs” and deliver “clean, reliable power” for millions of homes. Welsh Secretary David TC Davies declined to provide a timeline for when construction on the facility could begin, but he confirmed there was significant interest from several international energy firms.
The new power station would be equivalent in scale to the new plant at Hinkley in Somerset and the proposed development at Sizewell in Suffolk. Wylfa’s previous power station stopped generating energy in 2015. The UK government plans to quadruple nuclear power capacity by up to 25 gigawatts by 2050, with a new fleet of plants replacing older power stations as their operating lives come to a close. However, opposition group People Against Wylfa B (Pawb) has called the project “a dinosaur that should not be resurrected”. It has urged the government to instead invest in renewable energy schemes that make use of wind, solar and hydro power.
While news of the Wylfa project has been greeted positively by many, uncertainty remains surrounding both its cost and completion time frame. As Gareth Lewis, BBC Political Editor, has noted, such projects tend to look good in the lead-up to an election, but many more steps will need to be taken in the coming decades before any new reactor finally comes into operation. The UK government has promised to restore nuclear power to the Wylfa site, with Coutinho praising Anglesey’s “proud nuclear history.” The facility will provide a crucial part of the UK’s cleaner energy mix, whilst ensuring secure electricity supplies for decades to come
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