Hitachi’s nuclear plans

Hitachi is to buy the Horizon programme from E.ON UK and RWE nPower, and build new nuclear power stations at Wylfa on Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire – all without subsidy, apart presumably from a favourable feed-in tarrif as reward for their low carbon emissions.

As a kid, my dad took our family for walks along the Severn to see the world’s first commercial nuclear power station at Berkeley (1962) the twin reactors of Oldbury (1967), the Aust Severn powerline crossing, upgrading the National Grid, and the M4 motorway construction.  But us children were more impressed by the first Severn bridge (1966).

We had no idea how nuclear power, and the motorway network, would transform our lives. Let’s hope the anti-nuclear brigade don’t scupper Hitachi’s plans.

Jim Thornton