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British MPs cast doubt on nuclear power plans

The MPs’ report also cast doubt on current plans to make sure there is a deep hole for disposing of radioactive waste within 110 years. It called on the Government to insist that there are sufficient interim ways of storing the material before allowing new plants to be built…….. it argued Britain remains unlikely to get the £200bn of investment in new generation that it needs…

MPs ‘sceptical’ that nuclear power stations will be built on time,  Telegraph UK, 26 Jan 2011, Energy companies are unlikely to build all the UK’s planned nuclear power stations on time, according to an influential committee of MPs. By Rowena Mason

The Energy Committee said it was “sceptical” that Britain’s target of switching on two nuclear power stations a year between 2020 and 2025 would be reached.

The UK needs a huge number of new nuclear power stations to make up for the coal-fired stations being switched off over the next decade. However, the committee warned that the Coalition’s new planning system did not appear to be capable of making sure the 12 new stations are located in the right places to be linked up to the electricity grid.

“Hooking up this amount of nuclear and other generation to the national grid poses an unprecedented challenge,” said Tim Yeo, its chairman. “Two plants a year is a very high target to reach. The [system] lacks any real framework for coordinating the process of siting and linking up the new power stations.”

The MPs’ report also cast doubt on current plans to make sure there is a deep hole for disposing of radioactive waste within 110 years. It called on the Government to insist that there are sufficient interim ways of storing the material before allowing new plants to be built…….. it argued Britain remains unlikely to get the £200bn of investment in new generation that it needs…

MPs ‘sceptical’ that nuclear power stations will be built on time – Telegraph

January 27, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK