View on the ground

Strategic Siting Assessment (SSA)

The SSA is the process for identifying and assessing sites which are considered potentially suitable for new nuclear reactors. A consultation on the draft SSA process and criteria was launched in July, and ran until 11 November 2008.

The Government produced its response to the consultation in January 2009, and announced that it was giving the nuclear industry two months until the end of March 2009 to nominate sites for new reactors. A list of the 11 nominated sites was published on April 15th 2009 and the public had just one month to comment up to May 14th 2009.

The final list of nominated sites was issued on 9th November 2009 as part of a consultation on the National Policy Statement on nuclear power (Nuclear NPS). The draft Nuclear NPS is part of a wider document on Energy Infrastructure. The consultation is open until 22nd February 2010. The finalised Nuclear NPS is not now expected to be published until after the General Election expected in May 2010. Under the new Planning Act the Nuclear NPS will establish the ‘need’ for new reactors, so the subsequent planning process will only deal with site specific issues.

Submissions from several groups to the SSA consultation are available here:

Bradwell for Renewable Energy

Nuclear Free Local Authorities

Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group

Stop Hinkley Expansion

Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates response

Greenpeace response

Professor Blowers says power, profit and pragmatism are dictating the siting criteria and a return to the ‘decide-announce-defend’ approach to decision-making. Professor Blowers says the criteria amount to nothing less than a means of trying to justify putting a new generation of mega power stations and spent fuel waste stores on existing coastal sites most of which are likely to become submerged during the next century under the impact of sea level rise and storm surges. His paper, published in the TCPA’s distinguished monthly Journal, Town & Country Planning, is reproduced with kind permission.

Nominated Sites

The list of sites published by the Government on 15 April 2009 were:-

• Hartlepool nominated by EDF Energy
• Heysham nominated by EDF Energy
• Dungeness nominated by EDF Energy
• Sellafield nominated by NDA
• Kirksanton nominated by RWE
• Braystones nominated by RWE
• Wylfa Peninsula nominated by NDA and RWE
• Oldbury nominated by NDA and EON
• Hinkley Point nominated by EDF Energy
• Bradwell nominated by NDA
• Sizewell nominated by EDF Energy

The Guardian published an interactive map.

For further information see New Nuclear Monitor No.16

The consultation on the Nuclear NPS is proposing to drop Dungeness from the list.

Green Field Sites

All the nominated sites were adjacent to existing nuclear sites apart from two which were nominated by RWE. The two coastal, green-field, sites in Cumbria were at Braystones, about 3.5km from Sellafield near Egremont, and Kirksanton, near Millom, about 23km from Sellafield.

Sham Consultation

Many people’s views on the Government’s nuclear sites consultation were captured by Sarah Thompson who lives near Oldbury. Writing in the Bristol Evening Post she said:-

“Most people I have spoken to perceive this as a foregone conclusion and therefore a waste of time making their views known. Those that have tried to comment on the DECC website have found it almost impossible. The nomination documentation is lengthy and complex and comments are invited on very specific issues which most 'lay' people like myself will be unable to do. This makes a sham of the so-called public consultation. If they want expert comments why bother consulting the public?”

Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group response to the nominated sites consultation.

Sites Changing Hands

A consortium of Germany’s E.On and RWE was successful in its bid for two sites at Oldbury and Wylfa, which were auctioned off by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), while EDF acquired land at Bradwell. E.On and RWE say that they will now push ahead with plans to develop at least 6GW of new nuclear build in the UK.

EDF Energy plans to build 6.4 gigawatts, at Hinkley and Sizewell. The Eon and RWE announcement takes the total declared plans to 12.4 gigawatts. This would be enough to meet a quarter of UK electricity demand, and would exceed the UK’s existing nuclear capacity.

As part of its deal with competition authorities to buy British Energy, EDF Energy agreed to sell land at either Dungeness or Heysham. Now that Dungeness has been dropped from the list, it will presumably have to sell Heysham.

A consortium of GDF Suez, Iberdrola and Scottish and Southern Energy has agreed an option to purchase land from the NDA at Sellafield taking the potential new reactor capacity up to 16GW.

EDF may also sell off land it owns at Bradwell, even though it has only just bought some of it from the NDA. The company owned land adjacent to the land it has purchased from the NDA. Any potential nuclear developer would need both parcels of land.
 

Last Updated 10th November 2009

This section of the website has been developed thanks to funding from Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation, and the Andrew Wainwright Reform Trust.