28th April 2008

Greens condemn plans released today for a new nuclear power station at Oldbury (pictured): 16 miles from Stroud

Update with latest from Stop Hinkley added - click on 'Read more' 

An American-Japanese consortium is bidding to construct two new £2.8 billion nuclear power stations at Oldbury in Gloucestershire and another in Essex on land owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the government agency responsible for cleaning up Britain's existing nuclear facilities. Energy Solutions, a nuclear services firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is working on the plans with Toshiba-Westinghouse, a supplier of reactor technology (i).

See also below press release from Stop Hinkley

Cllr Philip Booth, a Stroud District councillor and campaigner for renewable energy, commenting on the proposals to build a new nuclear power station at this site, said: "This is an astonishingly foolish move. We haven't sorted out the existing nuclear waste which remains dangerous for up to a million years, let alone all the new waste that will be produced. Nirex, Britain’s nuclear waste management agency, has said Oldbury is at “high risk of flooding”(ii). Climate change can only add to future problems. It will also establish new targets for terrorists, keep the threat of a reactor accident and risk the proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium. The economics also don't stack up and no reactors has been built on time or on budget."

Philip Booth, a Stroud District Green party spokesperson said: "The government's own advisors say nuclear reactors simply won't deliver the urgent emissions cuts needed to tackle climate change nor provide secure future energy supplies. Even the most optimistic estimates suggest that a new generation of nuclear powers stations will only reduce our emissions by four per cent by 2024: far too little, far too late, to stop global warming or address the predicted energy gap."

Greatest threat of nuclear

Philip Booth said: "But the most imminent threat that a new nuclear age poses is to the real energy solutions to climate change. Investment in nuclear energy is a dangerous and expensive distraction from the real solutions: energy efficiency, renewable technology and decentralised energy. By decentralising our energy system and producing energy locally, the UK can meet its energy needs in a much cheaper, cleaner and safer way, cutting our climate change contributions."



News:

(i) See The Times:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article3827898.ece
(ii) Nirex, Britain’s nuclear waste management agency, reports in its summary of ‘Climate and Landscape Change’ that seven out of eleven current nuclear reactor sites are not viewed as fit for new nuclear reactors or nuclear waste sites. Four will be vulnerable to flooding and three others vulnerable to coastal erosion. Berkeley and Oldbury are cited as having a “high risk of flooding”, while Hinkley is at risk of “flooding and erosion”.

Shut Oldbury/Stop Hinkley press release Bid to build unproven reactor at Oldbury Shut

Corrected press release
 
Shut Oldbury campaigners reacted with dismay at proposals (1) to build an unproven nuclear reactor at the Oldbury site in South Gloucershire.
 
A consortium of two companies is bidding to build a Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor at the site where the existing corroded reactor core is due to close at the end of this year. The deal follows the government-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's announcement to sell its nuclear sites to potential investors in nuclear new build, thereby competing with British Energy which is also attracting bidders for its existing nuclear sites.
 
The NDA's motive for the move is widely thought to be its cash-strapped situation due to the poor performance of ageing reactors at Oldbury and Wylfa on Anglesey, together with the THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The NDA asked the government for £400 million earlier this year to support its decommissioning of old nuclear sites such as Hinkley A. The original forlorn expectation was that operating the old non-privatised reactors and reprocessing plants would bring in sufficient revenue to decommission the defunct UK nuclear sites.
 
But the Westinghouse has far to go before it gets a go-ahead in the UK. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has a three year timetable to establish the safety of four potential reactor designs, including the AP 1000. The AP1000 may suffer problems in this process due to its novel cash-saving design known as 'Advance-Passive'. Much of the safety pipework and cabling has been 'stripped out' (2) compared to previous Westinghouse designs such as Sizewell B in Suffolk, with only half as much protective concrete.
 
On the issue of safety 'containment' in the event of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) the high pressure and temperature steam and hydrogen liberated during the reactor primary circuit failure is contained within the first of two large domes. The first containment dome is surrounded by a second cooling dome. Following a LOCA the inner containment dome is cooled by allowing outside air to circulate up between the two domes, naturally convecting and exhausting through a chimney-like hole in the top of the outer dome - this natural process supposedly provides a failsafe means of 'passively' cooling the reactor fission products trapped inside the first containment dome.
 
"All very well in theory" says Nuclear Consultant John Large, "but if the initial LOCA is sufficiently violent, as it might be if triggered by a terrorist attack, so that the inner containment dome fails then this chimney arrangement will then act to efficiently suck out and throw the radioactive release into the atmosphere for subsequent dispersion and fall-out."
 
Westinghouse hope it will operate for 90% of the time for 60 years but no Westinghouse nuclear power  plant has operated for more than 58% of the time for more than 34 years.
 
Jim Duffy spokesman for Shut Oldbury, a Stop Hinkley campaign, said: "It's a great matter of concern that bids are going in to build this untested reactor with its odd and potentially dangerous, money-saving design. The Government needs to decide whether terrorism is an active threat or not. If it is then reactors like this shouldn't be allowed to go any further."
 
"The regulators admit they are badly understaffed so it's doubtful they will have the resources to fully test and licence these reactor designs in such a short period. Putting terrorism aside, does the UK want to buy the first of a kind and be exposed to all the gliches? It's a pity the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are departing from their remit to clean up the radioactive legacy of the UK's first folly into nuclear power by entering into plans to create even more nuclear waste for future generations to clean up."
 
Jim Duffy
Shut Oldbury Campaign, Stop Hinkley   07968 974805  www.stophinkley.org 
Nuclear Consultant John Large contactable on 0208 317 2860.
 

Notes:
 
(1) Today's Times article:

Energy Solutions and Toshiba-Westinghouse consortium nuclear bid

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy and Environment Editor, The Times 28th April 2008

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An American-Japanese consortium is bidding to construct two new nuclear power stations at sites in Gloucestershire and Essex as the race to build a new generation of reactors intensifies.

Energy Solutions, a nuclear services firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is working on the plans with Toshiba-Westinghouse, a supplier of reactor technology. They are already collaborating on a proposed new nuclear station at Wylfa in Anglesey, North Wales.

The Times has learnt that the consortium has tabled a bid to build and operate a reactor at Bradwell in Essex and one at Oldbury in Gloucesterhire.

All three sites are on land owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the government agency responsible for cleaning up Britain's existing nuclear facilities, and are seen as the most attractive NDA-owned sites for new nuclear power stations.

The group has held talks with British and European utilities, who could be potential partners in the new reactors, which the Government estimates will cost about £2.8 billion each to build.

The site at Bradwell covers 20 hectares and its nuclear power station was retired from service in 2002. The Oldbury site covers more than 51 hectares and still has an operating nuclear reactor, which is due to be retired from service this year.

News of the consortium's interest comes ahead of a mid-May deadline for bids for British Energy, which owns eight other nuclear sites across the UK, including several that are considered very attractive for new stations - Sizewell, Dungeness and Hinkley Point.

 

(2) The Westinghouse website 'boasts' the following cash-saving features on the "innovative" AP1000. Stop Hinkley/Shut Oldbury suggests that reactors fare better with more not fewer safety features.


•     50% fewer safety-related valves
•     80% less safety-related piping
•     85% less control cable
•     35% fewer pumps
•     45% less seismic building volume

http://www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/ap1000_glance.html