nuclear-news

Is it “Hello” or “Goodbye” to Great British Nuclear Power?

13 August 2023  https://www.banng.info/news/regional-life/hello-or-goodbye-great-british-nuclear/

Andrew Blowers contemplates this question in the BANNG column for Regional Life, August, 2023

The frenzied relaunch of Great British Nuclear (GBN) as the vehicle to produce 24GW of nuclear power (i.e. a quarter of Britain’s electricity) was long on rhetoric and short on commitment. The prospect of low carbon nuclear power sometime in the future – albeit costly, slow, accident-prone and with a legacy of dangerous wastes – seemed a soothing distraction from the present reality of heatwaves, wildfires, warming oceans and rapidly melting ice.

But, nuclear power cannot escape the reality of an insecure and unsafe future with global warming and sea-level rise. In the immediate future, individual nuclear stations will be affected by floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts. Increasing temperatures will affect cooling systems reducing power output as thermal efficiency decreases. In the longer-term, nuclear power may face an existential crisis especially where stations, like Bradwell, are sited on coasts prone to flooding, erosion and storm surges as sea-level rises.

One day this summer my grandson and I built a fortified sandcastle on West Mersea beach. With a willing suspension of disbelief, it can be imagined as a nuclear power station, let’s call it Bradwell B. My grandson is standing on the ‘nuclear island’ which is ringed by a high wall to protect it from the sea.

But, as time goes by, the sea rises (by as much as 3 or 4 metres in the next century) and surges threaten the doomed station, until the walls are breached, the island invaded and power station and highly radioactive wastes are cast into the waters. The station, like our sandcastle, will eventually be no more.

Despite the long-term risks from climate change, developers seem still to be eyeing up the prospects for building at Bradwell. By a process called ‘adaptive management’ they envisage increasing the height of the walls, to the point where the nuclear island becomes, literally, an island. If such an idea sounds crazy, that’s because it is.

In 1953 The Great Tide surged down the East Coast, flooding the Essex coastlands, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Back then, the floods receded and the land was reclaimed. Under climate change there will be no turning back and the land and all that is upon it will be gone for ever.

Sooner or later, GBN will signify “Good-Bye” Nuclear.

August 15, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, UK