nuclear-news

After two months, Nuclear Free Local Authorities receive vague response on Advanced’ Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs)

After a two month wait, the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities has just received a cryptic reply from Labour’s Nuclear Minister in response to our concerns about the future of Britain’s aging ‘Advanced’ Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) plants.

Four AGR plants – Hartlepool, Heysham-1, Heysham-2, and Torness – remain operational, each equipped with two gas cooled reactors. They first began generating in either 1983 or 1988, with an estimated operational life of 30 years. The plants are currently expected to cease operations by 2028, but in the Labour Party energy manifesto ‘Mission Climate’, the party pledged to ‘extend the lifetime of the existing plants until 2030’.

The AGR fleet has been operating for many years longer than intended. The NFLAs are concerned that the graphite moderators within each reactor are degenerating, compromising safety. We have previously raised our concerns with senior officials in the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). It is our view that it is this independent regulator which has the expertise and the legal responsibility to determine whether to further extend the operating dates that should do so, and that it is ‘frankly not the business of Ministers’.

Consequently in his letter to Nuclear Minister Lord Hunt, NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill posed the central question:

‘Can the Minister therefore please reassure me that Labour Ministers will not seek to apply pressure on EDF to make an application to operate these plants beyond 2028, unless they genuinely wish to do so, and more importantly will not apply pressure on the independent regulator ONR to automatically sign off on any application without rigorous scrutiny?’

In his reply, Lord Hunt says cryptically that:

‘Decisions regarding the future operation of the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor fleet or any nuclear power station in Great Britain would be for the operator, EDF Energy, (and) the ONR. The ONR would not allow a reactor to operate, return to service or extend its operating life if it judged that it was not safe to do so’.

We are hoping that the Minister means that it will fall to the operator EDF Energy to determine if it wishes to apply to the ONR for permission to extend the operating life of any, or all, of the AGR plants, but that it will be the responsibility of the ONR to decide if it can grant that permission based upon the safety case submitted.

This is a situation that the NFLAs shall continue to watch.

November 4, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, UK