Nuclear New Build moves closer

The Whitehaven News is reporting this week that plans for a new nuclear power plant at Sellafield are moving closer and the team behind a proposed multi-billion-pound nuclear new-build will be carrying out surveys in the area by August.
 
A team from NuGen will begin to carry out geographical surveys at Moorside that, it is hoped, will pave the way for a new power station with three reactors being built.

There is a strong consensus emerging both nationally and locally that Britain needs new nuclear build, with both the Coalition Government and Labour MPs in favour.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) says the project would bring at least £10billion of investment and create up to 21,000 jobs over the construction, including peak on-site employment of more than 6,000. Once operational, the reactors would employ 1,000.

A recent event to promote the benefits of new nuclear build, organised by the Sellafield Workers’ Campaign (SWC), heard from John McNamara, NuGen’s head of corporate communications, who accepted that recent progress on site has been slow, but “momentum will build” starting with the surveys that begin in August.

Mr McNamara added that it is hoped that site suitability will be determined next year, planning permission and licensing granted in 2018, allowing for construction to begin in 2020. The first reactor would go on stream in 2024 and all three, with a combined 3.4GW capacity, operational by 2026.

It was revealed in January that Toshiba has joined the NuGen consortium, having acquired, in principal, the 50 per cent stake of Spanish energy company Iberdrola and 10 per cent of the stake owned by the French energy company GDF Suez. GDF retains the remaining 40 per cent.

Craig Dobson, SWC’s secretary, said: “Nuclear is the best option we have to tackle climate change; It can no longer be business as usual and we must act now.

“SWC’s single purpose is to make nuclear new-build happen sooner rather than later.”

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