Current Actions

Petition

Please sign this new petition: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop the Re-development of Nuclear Power Stations throughout the United Kingdom.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NuclearNo

Consultation

The draft Justification decision and the draft Nuclear National Policy Statement (NNPS) – along with a range of other energy-related national policy statements were published on 9th November 2009, and are open for consultation until 22nd February 2010.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband gave a statement to the House in which he said that energy companies have announced intentions to build 16GW of new nuclear power, and that of the 11 sites nominated for new nuclear power stations, 10  have been judged as potentially suitable and included in the draft Nuclear Policy statement. The consultation proposes that the 11th site, Dungeness, is not included in this National Policy Statement. The Draft National Policy Statements for Energy Consultation Pages are available here: https://www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk/home/

He also said that the Government is consultating on the proposed regulatory justification for two different reactor designs - the AP1000 and EPR reactors. The consultation document are available here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/consultations/reg_just_cons/reg_just_cons.aspx

For more info about the history of these see “Justifying the Unjustifiable” and for the NNPS “Strategic Siting Assessment”.

It is vitally important that people campaigning on nuclear understand that Justification and the NPS are different.

Justification

• Justification is a high level strategic assessment in which the disadvantages of a 'practice' involving releases of ionising radiation (in this case new nuclear power and all associated activities e.g. spent fuel storage and disposal) are weighed against its potential benefits (economic, CO₂ emissions etc).  The principle is that no practice involving exposures to radiation should be adopted unless it produces sufficient benefit to the exposed individuals or to society to offset the harm caused from exposure.

• Justification is a regulatory requirement under EU law – it must be done before reactors can be “first approved.”

Nuclear National Policy Statement

• The draft NPS is the latest iteration of the Government's policy on new build and is primarily for planning purposes.

• The draft Nuclear NPS covers matters initially consulted on as part of the Strategic Siting Assessment (SSA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) which took place from mid-2008 to early 2009.

• The NPS contains a statement of “national need” for new nuclear.

• Though a policy statement the Nuclear NPS is also subject to legal requirements e.g. a SEA

• Of immediate interest to most people is the fact that the draft Nuclear NPS will contain a list of sites 'recommended' for new build (that is sites which can have new build deployed by 2025). Because of this the draft Nuclear NPS has received a lot of media and public attention.

What does this mean for us all?

• It is worth remembering what a paper from law firm (who were advising the nuclear industry) said last year about the importance of Justification:

1.4.5 Once the Justification decision has been taken it will be difficult if not impossible for objectors to reopen the major issues of policy in relation to particular nuclear practices wherever they are proposed to be sited.
(See http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/nuclear/government-legal-advice.pdf)

• Issues of alternatives to nuclear power, the hazards of spent fuel and waste creation etc might not be readily open to challenge – if at all – once Justification has been officially signed off.

It is vital that campaigners don't lose sight of the importance of Justification!

• It is like an umbrella under which all the other regulatory decisions and policies sit.  However, opportunity for further examination will also come during the NNPS consultation and decision.

• It is highly unlikely that the nukes NPS and its list of approved sites can be signed off before so-called “practice as a whole” (i.e. the entire life-cycle of a new plant including spent fuel storage and waste disposal) has been decided on under Justification. This is another reason why Justification is so important.

• It is highly likely Justification will be signed off before the election - the industry is desperate to see this happen as soon as possible.

• But it has been publicly stated by senior DECC officials that the Nuclear NPS, along with the other energy-related NPS, will not be signed off until after the election.

For a reminder of what the main issues are take a look at submissions made to the earlier Justiofication consultation.

• The Nukes NPS was published along with 5 other energy NPSs – these are:

1. Overarching Energy (under which all the others are framed)
2. Nuclear
3. Renewables
4. Gas pipelines
5. Electricity networks (formerly called Transmission – v. relevant to the debate on new power lines)
6. Fossil Fuels (including coal)

The nuclear section of the Energy NPS document is expected to be 70 pages long. The appendices to the nuclear documents may run to 800 pages. These will probably contain some information already in the public domain (e.g. nominations documents published on line in Feb-March) but also additional information gathered since.

We expect that Government will focus on getting Justification signed-off before the election, thus making it easier for those in any future administration to progress new build.