nuclear-news

The Welsh dragon is getting ready to roar.

Citizens of Wales are gearing up for another assault on their right to a safe, clean and healthy environment

March 8, 2026 by beyondnuclearinternational

Anti-nuclear campaigners meeting in Wrexham last 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.

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 new initiative came in conjunction with a screening of the award-winning film SOS: The San Onofre Syndrome, which highlights the impact of the decommissioning and the legacy of managing deadly  radioactive waste faced by the neighbors of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California. 

The film’s messages resonate with international audiences faced with identical threats and challenges. At the screening, the audience heard from the filmmakers Marybeth Brangan and the now sadly late Jim Heddle as well as from Professor Stephen Thomas, Emeritus Professor in Energy Policy at Greenwich University and Richard Outram, Secretary of the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities.

“The nuclear industry tries to assure us the radioactive waste disposal and reactor decommissioning are established processes with easily affordable costs,” Thomas said. “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”.

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 that 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 Môn) 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.

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 millennia 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 power will worsen fuel poverty and climate change. As Welsh people face spiraling energy costs, with many in fuel poverty, while a new nuclear levy is to be added to all customers’ energy bills to help pay for the construction of the eye-wateringly expensive Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk. Further, nuclear generation costs much more than generation from renewables, meaning more expensive electricity for consumers……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Read the Declaration. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/03/08/the-dragon-is-getting-ready-to-roar/

March 11, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, UK