National Policy Statement
The government will today identify further sites around Britain that could be suitable for building a nuclear plant, as part of a scheme to fast track a new generation of reactors. Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, will unveil a series of national policy statements setting out the need for new energy infrastructure including renewables, fossil fuels and gas, as well as an overarching energy statement which will include climate change policy. A separate strategy statement on the nation’s ports will also be published. Miliband will stress what the government believes to be the importance of a diverse energy supply. But the most detail will given in the nuclear policy statement, which will include a forensic assessment of the 11 sites already nominated by energy firms as well as identifying alternatives.
Guardian 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Independent 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Daily Mail 9th Nov 2009 more >>
FT 9th Nov 2009 more >>
PA 8th Nov 2009 more >>
ITN 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Irish Independent 9th Nov 2009 more >>
According to the Government’s own Low Carbon Transition Plan, published in the summer, just eight years from now there will be unmet demand in UK generating capacity of 3,000 megawatt – the equivalent of blacking out a city the size of Nottingham for 24 hours. The Government has only itself to blame for this lamentable state of affairs. No industry is more strategically important than energy, yet ministers dithered for 10 years before authorising a new generation of nuclear plants.
Telegraph 9th Nov 2009 more >>
A “majority” of the 11 shortlisted sites already announced are expected to be given the go-ahead by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, including those beside existing plants at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk. Two locations near to Sellafield in Cumbria are also expected to receive the green light.
Telegraph 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Planning is not the only obstacle. Energy firms are now suggesting that the economics of new build don’t work. They believe that without a stable energy policy, which delivers a stable carbon price for low-carbon generation, they could be forced to scale back their plans in the UK. There is also the thorny issue of how to deal with radioactive waste. Tomorrow’s big announcement is expected to fudge the issue. Britain will face a serious energy crisis without nuclear. Demand is set to outstrip supply by the middle of the next decade as North Sea oil and gas dwindles and old power stations are decommissioned. However, it is no good just playing lip service to atomic energy. The renaissance won’t happen unless the Government gets the policy right.
Daily Express 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Hinkley
Energy giant EDF will launch the next-generation nuclear power programme this month with the first public consultation into a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, with the aim to submit a planning application for the UK’s first new nuclear plant next summer.
This is Money 8th Nov 2009 more >>
Oldbury
The firm behind moves to build new nuclear reactors near Bristol said up to 800 permanent jobs could be created through the massive project, with thousands more involved in the construction phase. But Horizon Nuclear Power, the name given to the joint venture created by power firms Eon UK and RWE npower, will only be able to press ahead with its proposals if the Oldbury-on-Severn and Shepperdine area, near Thornbury, is included in the Government’s nuclear national policy statement.
Bristol Evening Post 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Radwaste
Radioactive waste from a new generation of British nuclear power stations will be buried deep underground in a storage facility that could cost up to £18 billion to build, under plans to be announced by the Government today. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, will give the formal green light to a plan to construct a “deep geological repository” for permanent disposal of the 200 tonnes of high-level waste produced annually by the ten new reactors planned for Britain. The Government’s announcement today that it is satisfied with the arrangements it has created for handling Britain’s nuclear waste stockpile will form part of a series of six National Policy Statements on British energy policy designed to fast-track big energy projects including nuclear power stations.
Times 9th Nov 2009 more >>
Planning
The risk is the IPC will soon move on from creating infrastructure in the public interest to fast tracking commercial development. It is disturbing that it wants to process 50 or 60 applications a year. It was certainly wrong to publish a list of schemes it wanted to work on before the first departmental national policy statement had been published. That mocks the process laid down in law. The test of the IPC will be whether it ever says no. If it ticks through all applications – a bypass here, 60 miles of pylons there – with the arrogance of some colonial administrator trying to modernise a backward land, it must go.
Guardian 9th Nov 2009 more >>
US
New nuclear power plants are currently far and away the most expensive form of carbon free power you can (try to) buy assuming you could find a nuclear vendor today that was actually willing to guarantee a price for their product in a Public Utility Commission hearing, which you can’t.
Climate Progress 7th Nov 2009 more >>
