nuclear-news

Nuclear-free councils hit out at ‘mad delusion’ of new reactor

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 By Alan Hendry  alan.hendry@hnmedia.co.uk, 21 May 2024,   https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/nuclear-free-councils-hit-out-at-mad-delusion-of-new-react-351234/

Calls for a nuclear revival in Scotland – including the possibility of a new Dounreay reactor – have been dismissed as “folly” and a “mad delusion”.

Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs), a grouping of councils opposed to civil nuclear power, insisted that renewables “represent the only way forward to achieve a sustainable, net-zero future”.

The secretary of state for Scotland, Alister Jack, confirmed last week that he had asked the UK energy minister to plan for a new nuclear site north of the border as part of a nationwide strategy.

Dounreay had been put forward among the possible locations for a small modular reactor (SMR), a series of 10 power stations that engineering giant Rolls-Royce was planning to build by 2035.

Jamie Stone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, was quick to press the case for Dounreay to be considered. After a conversation with the Scottish secretary, Mr Stone claimed there was “all to play for”.

Dounreay is being decommissioned, with the end date for the nuclear clean-up now extended to the 2070s.

A proposal that Highland Council should sign up to NFLAs came to nothing in 2019 after some Caithness councillors condemned the idea. Scottish councils that are part of NFLAs are Dundee, East Ayrshire, Edinburgh, Fife, Glasgow, Midlothian, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Shetland Islands, West Dunbartonshire and Western Isles.

In a statement, Scottish NFLAs said a new focus on nuclear generation would put the UK government at odds with the Scottish Government as the SNP remains “implacably opposed” to the construction of any new nuclear fission plants in Scotland.

“To the NFLAs, an investment in any nuclear would not only be folly, but a lamentable diversion of effort from achieving the credible goal of supplying 100 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from renewables,” the group said.

“Nuclear power plants are enormously expensive to build and notorious for their cost and delivery overruns.”

Scottish NFLAs maintained that “none of the competing SMR designs has yet received the required approvals from the nuclear regulator to even be deployed in the UK” and “the necessary finance has yet to be put in place”.

It went on: “SMRs are estimated to cost £3 billion each, but cost overruns are notorious in the nuclear industry, and the earliest any approved and financed SMR would come onstream would be in the early 2030s.

“Nuclear plants are also incredibly expensive to decommission, and the resultant radioactive waste must be managed at vast expense for millennia.

“Instead of wasting cash and time on nuclear, the Scottish NFLAs believe the money and effort would first be far better spent insulating all domestic properties and public buildings to the highest standard to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption and minimise or eliminate fuel poverty, as well as investing in more renewable energy generating capacity and battery storage.”

Scottish NFLAs said Scotland could become “a powerhouse” with surplus renewable energy being exported to England and continental Europe via interconnectors.

It added: “To realise this, the Scottish NFLAs would like to see the Scottish Government recommit to establishing a state-owned renewable energy company to invest in this potential and to generate an income for the nation.

“The Scottish NFLAs believe that if the secretary of state for Scotland genuinely wants to see a sustainable, net-zero future for Scotland he should call for the British government to get behind the Scottish Government in backing this strategy, instead of maintaining his mad delusion for nuclear.”

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May 23, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, politics, UK