Sir David King says industry is geared towards decommissioning and must be restructured if coalition's plans are to go ahead
The UK's nuclear industry is in no shape to cope with a large-scale reactor building programme and must be overhauled if the coalition wants to push ahead with its nuclear expansion plans, according to the former government chief scientist.
The industry is better equipped to manage the decline and decommissioning of existing nuclear plants, rather than set up new ones, a study led by Sir David King has concluded. If Britain is to deal with its nuclear waste, as well as build new reactors, then more waste must be recycled.
But this would mean keeping open and even expanding the controversial Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield, which was shut down for more than two years, from 2005 to 2008, because of a serious, though contained, leak of radioactive liquid inside the plant. That was the longest of several shutdowns in recent years at the plant, which has been dogged with problems and has never run at full capacity.
"The structure of the UK nuclear industry, having been designed to address the rundown of nuclear power in the UK, is not well suited to the changed situation involving new nuclear build and an expanded UK nuclear role, and there is a need for realignment of policy across the sector," the report found.
The study came against a backdrop of continuing problems at the Fukushima power station in Japan, where a partial meltdown of the nuclear core may have occurred. The report entitled A low carbon nuclear future: Economic assessment of nuclear materials and spent nuclear fuel management in the UK, was delayed by two weeks because of the Japanese accident, but was not rewritten in the light of those events.
Greenpeace last night. "Previous governments failed experiments at Sellafield mean that producing this sort of highly radioactive fuel has already cost the British taxpayer billions," said Doug Parr, the green campaigning group's chief scientist.
"By reprocessing nuclear waste and turning it into fuel, you create even more nuclear waste than you would otherwise have to deal with anyway. Reprocessing would also lead to increased multi-billion pound taxpayer handouts to the nuclear industry, and that's before you consider what it would mean for our ability to constrain nuclear weapons proliferation around the world."
Parr added: "A recent study by McKinsey and Imperial College showed that it's completely possible for more than 80% of Europe's power to come from clean, renewable sources. It simply isn't necessary to take on the risks inherent with using plutonium. If ministers choose to meet our energy needs through efficiency and renewable resources, it would spark a clean tech jobs boom which would help boost our economy and protect our environment."
Sir David was a vocal advocate of nuclear power during his tenure as the government's chief scientist, arguing that the power source would be vital in generating low-carbon electricity to replace fossil fuels.
After examining various scenarios including continuing to store the UK's spent fuel and other waste, the report's authors found that expanding Thorp would be the least risky and least costly way to deal with the problem and provide fuel for a new generation of reactors.
Continuing to store all of the waste would be potentially costly, as the procedure would have to be underwritten by the government. But if some of it could be reprocessed, and more reactors are built to replace those aging stations that must be shut down, then the UK would have a readymade market for recycled fuel.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/29/nuclear-industry-uk-expansion-king
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