A nuclear spring

Nuclear power is right back on the agenda. In his speech to the Labour party conference last month, Tony Blair announced the launch of an energy review that would examine “all options including civil nuclear power”. A white paper endorsing the principle of a new generation of nuclear power stations should follow by the end of next year.

The time is ripe for a nuclear renaissance. The government has been re-elected with a sizeable majority. The Kyoto carbon reduction commitments, global warming, diminishing North Sea oil supplies, instability in alternative supply markets, rising fuel prices and the perceived shortcomings of alternative power technology are all playing on public consciousness. Only California–style power cuts are missing.

Against rising electricity consumption and Kyoto commitments to cut fossil fuel combustion, the UK will lose close to 50% of its current generating sources by 2025.

Carbon-gushing coal-burners, which are due for closure by 2020, presently meet 30% of UK demand. Nuclear generation contributes 23%. By 2024, according to the DTI, the only nuclear plant still generating will be Sizewell B, which is responsible for only 10% of current nuclear capacity. By 2035, even that is due to close.

If nuclear plants are the answer to the need for carbon-free power – a big “if” to green campaigners – and if the planned closures go ahead, can the government provide consents for reactors to be ready by 2025?

The precedents look gloomy. Sizewell B was the last civil power reactor built in the UK. The government decided to pursue the pressurised water reactor option for nuclear power in 1978, but Sizewell did not start contributing power to the National Grid until 1996. It’s construction alone took eight years.

Those looking to build nuclear power stations must first get past public controversy surrounding them and secure a bundle of consents. The key one is under the Electricity Act; this embraces principal land use planning considerations and consent to link up to the National Grid. There are others under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 and the Radioactive Substances Act 1993, covering design, safety, operation and waste management.

In the past, single site consents packages have been debated at public inquiries alongside national energy policy and safety and design issues generic to the whole nuclear programme. Very long inquiries resulted. Twenty years ago, the Sizewell B public inquiry took 341 sitting days over two years. In the UK only Heathrow Terminal 5 has taken longer (525 days at a cost of £80m over four years).

Aren’t things simpler now? No. Since Sizewell B, the system has become more complex. Applicants must address environmental impact assessments, the Human Rights Act, strategic environmental assessments, the Aarhus Convention (a UN Economic Commission for Europe agreement on public participation in decision-making on major projects) and the European commission’s directives on habitats and wild birds.

Members of the public are more politicised, less acquiescent and better informed, too. The internet gives objectors access to a vast knowledge bank and enables them to distribute huge documents at the press of a button.

The modern emphasis is on more public participation, not less.

Procedures for consenting on major projects are therefore time consuming and expensive, but any failure to observe the correct procedures opens the door to High Court proceedings and further delay.

A spokesperson for the Nuclear Industry Association recently suggested that one of the preconditions of an “environment in which private investors would feel comfortable” is for the government to change the rules so that planning permission can be granted more swiftly.

In theory the government did something like this with the new procedures for planning inquiries into major infrastructure projects, published last July. But the proposed expansion of Stansted airport may yet suggest otherwise.

Aren’t things simpler now? No. Since Sizewell B, the system has become even more complex. Applicants must now consider environmental impact assessments, the Human Rights Act, strategic environmental assessments …

Further rule changes are not the solution. To deliver increased nuclear capacity quickly, government and industry must first win over the public and then use efficiently the system they have now.

Tasks for government

For ministers, these are the priorities:

• The government must lead strongly in its promised white paper and beyond. New nuclear capacity can be delivered only if ministers hold their nerve across several administrations.
• Transparent stakeholder consultation on the optimum mix and locational criteria for renewable energy (including nuclear) facilities is essential. The promised energy review and white paper should do this.
• Issues relating to power supply and the overall nuclear programme (such as alternatives to atomic power, reactor design and safety, security and operational safeguards) must be taken out of the realm of repeat hearings and debate. Preliminary approval of reactor types and the publication of unequivocal national nuclear policy would help with this.
• The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority must deliver early, robust, reassuring solutions to the industry’s long-term waste management and legacy challenges.
• The public will require absolute reassurance that private sector delivery and management are safe, that Chernobyl-style disasters cannot happen and that reactor technology is foolproof and future-proof.
• Although putting reactors on or close to the sites of existing facilities may be “obvious” and attractive – even to local communities – alternatives must be exhaustively considered.

If they are not, legal challenges will follow.

• Early strategic environmental assessments are essential. The more thorough they are, the quicker site-specific investigations and environmental assessments will be achieved.

Tasks for nuclear promoters

Promoters should already be assembling professional teams (including lawyers) for the long haul to consents. They should also consider the following points:

• Design, landscape, community and ecological considerations will be more important than before. Brutalist utilitarian hangars will no longer suffice.
• Real community engagement will be needed on a project’s specifics before they are finalised. As many local concerns as possible should be settled before applications are made using mediation, consultation and agreement.
• For public inquiries, the major infrastructure projects procedures provide opportunities to save time, such as using teams of inspectors to hear several issues simultaneously.
• Funding legal and technical representation for objectors is counter-intuitive but may save time overall. It can minimise misinformation and repetition and ensure that proceedings comply with the Human Rights Act.

Some final thoughts. The UK has a history of long inquiries but in a democratic society, trying to ramrod through difficult decisions is counter-productive. Inquiries and consultation are essential to public acceptance and further system change will not help. The answers lie in decisive government, preparation before promotion, eradicating avoidable delay and imaginative use of collaborative procedures.

The first task of government and nuclear promoters is to win the macro argument that atomic energy is clean, green, safe and necessary. Only by doing so before consents are applied for can the nuclear option fill the looming power gap by 2025.