No to Nuclear, Yes to Renewables for Wales

28th October 2025, Nuclear Free Local Authorities

Anti-nuclear campaigners meeting last weekend in Wrexham (25 October) issued a declaration calling on politicians representing Welsh constituencies in parliaments in Cardiff and Westminster to work for a nuclear free, renewables powered Wales.

Attendees at the screening of the award-winning film SOS: The San Onofre Syndrome organised by PAWB (Pobol Atal Wylfa-B, People against Wylfa B) hosted at the Ty Pawb Arts Centre in Wrexham also saw a special video message sent by the Californian filmmakers and heard from Stephen Thomas, Emeritus Professor in Energy Policy at Greenwich University and Richard Outram, Secretary of the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities, who both joined the meeting online.

Welsh campaigners are working with US, Canadian and other UK activists to establish a Transatlantic Nuclear Free Alliance to campaign on issues of common concern. The film (https://sanonofresyndrome.com/) highlights the impact of the decommissioning and the legacy of managing deadly radioactive waste faced by the neighbours of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California.

The film’s messages resonate with international audiences faced with identical threats and challenges. Commenting Professor Thomas said:

“The nuclear industry tries to assure us the radioactive waste disposal and reactor decommissioning are established processes with easily affordable costs. The truth is that we are three or more decades away from permanent disposal of waste and of carrying out the most challenging stages of decommissioning. The cost will be high, and the failure of previous funding schemes means the burden will fall on future taxpayers, generations ahead”.

28th October 2025

No to Nuclear, Yes to Renewables for Wales

Joint Media Release

The film’s messages resonate with international audiences faced with identical threats and challenges. Commenting Professor Thomas said:

Despite this, the UK Government will introduce developer-led siting plans, permitting nuclear operators to apply to locate new plants in sites throughout Wales, and intends to reduce regulation in the nuclear industry. A recent Memorandum of Understanding was also signed with the United States which could lead to British regulators being obliged to accept US reactor designs not currently approved for deployment in the UK. Great British Energy – Nuclear has also acquired land at Wylfa in Anglesey (Ynys Mon) as a potential site for the deployment of one or more so-called Small Modular Reactors being commissioned from Rolls Royce and the US company Westinghouse has also expressed interest in constructing a larger nuclear plant there. The Welsh Government specifically created Cwmni Egino to develop a new nuclear plant on the Trawsfynydd site at the heart of the beautiful Eryri National Park. And in South Wales, US newcomer Last Energy is seeking permission to deploy multiple micro reactors on a former coal power station site at Llynfi outside Bridgend.

Now eight leading campaign groups have backed the Wrexham Declaration which denounces the continued political obsession with the pursuit of nuclear power as a ‘fool’s errand’.

NFLA Secretary Richard Outram explains why: “Nuclear is too slow, too costly, too risky, contaminates the natural environment compromising human health, and leaves a legacy of nuclear plant decontamination and radioactive waste management lasting millenia that is ruinously expensive and uncertain. And nuclear plants represent obvious targets to terrorists and, as we have seen in Ukraine, to hostile powers in times of war”.

Campaigners are also convinced that nuclear will worsen fuel poverty or climate change……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/no-to-nuclear-yes-to-renewables-for-wales/