nuclear-news

It is only a matter of time before nuclear development at Bradwell falls by the wayside.

Energy and the role of nuclear power

7 January 2025, Andrew Blowers, Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences, Open University and Chair of BANNG considers this topic in the January 2025 column for Regional Life magazine

At the beginning of 2024, the Conservative Government published its Civil Nuclear: Road Map to 2050, proclaiming its commitment to recovering the UK’s global leadership in nuclear power. The Road Map was gung-ho for big nuclear at Hinkley Point C (still unfinished) and Sizewell C (still looking for investors just to get started); plus a fleet of Small (in fact rather large) Modular Reactors chosen by competition (still awaiting the winning design); and the (vanishingly) distant prospect of a raft of Advanced Modular reactors, including fusion (that tantalisingly evanescent Holy Grail of nuclear fulfilment)

It was the accompanying New approach to siting beyond 2025 which most attracted our attention. The Government proposed a developer-led approach, in effect a market free-for-all where developers are invited to find suitable sites for new nuclear power stations. At the same time, six sites identified back in 2011, including Bradwell, were carried forward as having ‘inherent positive attributes’ potentially suitable for consideration.

BANNG commented that developers would be unlikely to ‘identify sites beyond those that are being dangled in front of them already’. Yet again, we were at pains to stress that the Bradwell site is simply unsuitable and does not possess any of these ‘positive attributes’, least of all widespread public support. At a meeting with the then Minister for Energy, I made it crystal clear that there is widespread deep and extensive opposition from the local communities around the Blackwater.

A change of Government brought no change in nuclear policy; if anything Labour is even more effusive in its support for nuclear as essential in providing clean, stable and reliable power.

Once again, BANNG took up the challenge. With Stephen Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy at Greenwich University, I wrote a paper exposing the ‘Great British Nuclear Fantasy’ which formed the basis of a discussion with the Minister for Energy, Lord Hunt.

We stressed that any expansion of nuclear power would be ‘too expensive, unrealistic but above all, simply unachievable’. There were no sites yet available for nuclear projects, least of all Bradwell. In response Lord Hunt reassured us that we were not ‘blockers’ and had presented a reasoned, professional argument which, to give him credit, he listened to.

Climate Change
As the impacts of Climate Change (CC) are becoming more evident it is ever more obvious that sites like Bradwell are wholly unsuitable for major infrastructures like nuclear power stations or big transformers. During the year BANNG helped to lead a series of workshops with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), responsible for the safety of nuclear plants, on the implications of CC for nuclear regulation.

The ONR confirmed that our work had been a significant influence on its understanding of CC. BANNG asserted that CC makes Bradwell the least suitable of all the sites currently in the ring for nuclear development. BANNG has urged the Chief Executive of ONR ‘to resist the presumption that Bradwell is an acceptable site and to declare that it should be withdrawn from further consideration’.

BANNG ended the year with a further challenge, this time to Great British Nuclear
(GBN), the body responsible for pushing forward nuclear development, inviting
it to confirm that any proposals ‘will be subject to scrutiny and consultation through
the open, democratic and participative processes of public engagement.’

Our conclusion is that despite all the rhetoric, the nuclear programme is stuttering
and Climate Change may well seal its fate. It is only a matter of time before
nuclear development at Bradwell falls by the wayside.

January 23, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK