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Hinkley Point C was finally rubber stamped yesterday despite concerns over Chinese control and eye-watering long-term costs likely to run into the billions.

China’s communist regime will cough up a third of the costs for the UK’s first nuclear power station in 20 years.

Prime Minister Theresa May gave the £18 billion energy plan – the biggest and most costly in British history – the thumbs up after a “comprehensive review”.

But a cyber security firm boss has warned of major security issues in allowing China to have a major stake in the critical energy project.

Robert M. Lee, CEO of cyber security company Dragos Inc, said the recent cyber attack on the Ukraine’s energy grid – which resulted in mass blackouts – could be replicated in the UK.

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He told Daily Star Online: “It's good to seek international cooperation but critical national infrastructure is not the place to do it.

“Hinkley Point and sites like it need to be owned and operated by the UK or its companies and protected as sensitive infrastructure.

“Cyber attacks have proved able to target such facilities to cause outages and damage.

“This was the case in Iran in 2010, and again in Ukraine in 2015 when an adversary remotely blacked out three regions of Ukraine.

“The cyber security of our infrastructure is paramount and allowing foreign countries to operate it makes securing it more difficult.”

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Lee said the ability to “tamper” with the power grid of enemies is considered to be a powerful tool in “conflict scenarios”.

From an espionage and military perspective, this could present major security “challenges” if relations between the UK and Beijing were to break down, Lee says.

He said: “Tampering with energy supplies both from an espionage perspective as well as a military objective have long been considerations for conflict scenarios.

“Foreign owned infrastructure can introduce challenges in this area.”

Nick Timothy, Prime Minister Theresa May’s chief of staff, has previously said experts believe China could exploit the deal to tamper with Britain's energy production.

But not all security experts agree that China’s stake in the giant deal could lead to a major cyber attack.

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Alan Woodward, visiting professor at the University of Surrey’s Department of Computer Science, told Daily Star Online he thinks the Chinese pose minimal threat to Hinkley Point.

That’s because he believes Beijing will have limited influence in the design of the building as they are only investors.

And even if they were involved in the process, the UK government is working with intelligence agency GCHQ to put procedures in place to scrutinise “every nut and bolt”.

He said that model is already in operation with Huawei – a Chinese company supplying large amounts of equipment to the BT infrastructure.

He said: “Personally I think the UK government have adopted a very pragmatic approach.

“Unlike, say, Australia who banned Huawei from supplying their national telecoms infrastructure, the UK has realised that investment and technology will come from all sorts of places in the world.

“We’re part of a global village now. But the UK government are not being naïve – the policy is one of trust.”

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Woodward warned the greater risk is actually financial, not cyber, adding: “China could pull the funding if we all fall out, and it will take many years to build so a lot can change in that time.”

No further tweaks will be made to the Hinkley deal, which will see £30 billion of taxpayer funds used to buy back energy from the plant at double current wholesale prices.

At almost £100 a unit, this cost will ultimately be passed on to bill payers.

Theresa May slammed the breaks on the project after replacing David Cameron as PM in July.

China weren’t happy, warning further delays – following eight years of painstaking negotiations – may lead to a breakdown in relations between the two nations.

But after a review of the project, May stuck up a 'new agreement' with French energy giant EDF – which means the planet will be delivered with Chinese funding.