BANNG

With little fanfare the Government has finally declared in its National Policy Statement on Nuclear Energy, that Bradwell is one of eight sites, ‘potentially suitable for the deployment of new nuclear power stations in England and Wales before the end of 2025.’  Note that this is not a green light, merely an indication of a possibility within the next fifteen years. Far from bringing the project closer there are good reasons for thinking it is now further away than ever.

In the first place the site doesn’t even have a potential developer.  The land is currently owned by EDF who, under the rules of competition, are precluded from developing it since they already own and intend to develop land at Sizewell just up the coast. EDF have also placed an embargo on development at Bradwell until they get the go-ahead at Sizewell. Complicated? Yes, so it’s not surprising that Bradwell still awaits a so-called ‘credible nuclear operator’ willing to purchase a site which has no immediate prospects for development.

In any case the financial risks for any developer are extremely high.  Nuclear energy suffers from ‘appraisal optimism’ whereby costs routinely outrun estimates (as current projects in Finland and France demonstrate), it is prone to delays and the returns on high capital investment, if they occur at all, are several decades away. Tighter safety standards are also pushing cost further into the stratosphere. Without subsidies and price guarantees over a very long term a mega nuclear power station of the type contemplated for Bradwell is a project dead in the water. Only a nuclear fantasist could possibly contemplate taking on such a high risk project.

There are also a number of very specific reasons why the Bradwell site looks like a very poor potential investment. The site is very low lying with a high risk of flooding and conditions deteriorating as sea levels rise and storm surges batter the coast from climate change. Spent fuel and other dangerous wastes are likely to remain on the site for 130 years or more in conditions that can only be guessed at. In conditions of such uncertainty the Government still feels able to pronounce that the site ‘can potentially be protected from flood risk throughout its lifetime’.  To which the reply is, ‘How can they possibly know?’

Then there’s the question of cooling water. With one mega reactor, direct cooling from the estuary would be at its limits.  With more than one reactor (and for the risk to be worthwhile a developer would want to achieve the scale economies that come from two or three reactors) massive cooling towers, perhaps four and each three times the height of the present station, would be necessary.  Even the Government recognises that the mass and plumes from cooling towers would have massive impact on the amenity of the Blackwater. It might be argued that it would desecrate the estuary turning it into an industrial complex, utterly destroying its tranquil character.

There are a raft of other issues which have been highlighted in depth and detail by BANNG in its many responses to government consultations.  Among these are: the impact of cooling water on the ecology of the estuary, its fishing and oyster industries; the impossibility of dealing with a major emergency evacuation of people stretching as far away as Colchester and beyond, let alone getting people safely away from Mersea Island: and the latent threat posed to present and far future generations by the presence of dangerous wastes for which there is, as yet, no place to go.

But, there is another factor that could prove ultimately fatal to the whole nuclear project, let alone Bradwell. It is Fukushima. This tragedy is still unraveling. What we do know is that over 200,000 people have been displaced, and may never return certainly not for some time; reactors have been shut down permanently; and costs have risen. Governments around the world have become more cautious and public opinion everywhere has turned against nuclear energy.  Even before Fukushima BANNG gathered first hand from 10000 people locally that they do not want new nuclear power at Bradwell.

The latest Government statement talks about ‘potential’, not actual development.  And it strikes a rather more cautious note than before. ‘The fact that a site is identified as potentially suitable ..does not prevent the impacts being considered greater than the benefits’. In the case of Bradwell it is patently clear that the negative impacts far outweigh any potential benefits from a new nuclear power station. It may only be a matter of time before Bradwell, like the coastline on which it would be situated, sinks into the sands.

Andy Blowers

Chair of BANNG

28 June 2011

Government issued the final versions of the National Policy Statements (NPSs). As expected Bradwell is confirmed as one of the eight sites potentially suitable for new nuclear development. BANNG is disappointed that the Government has failed to recognise the many problems with the site which have been pointed out in our numerous responses to consultations (see consultations).

The Government is well aware of the strength of opposition to the proposed Bradwell site. In March BANNG presented its petition of 10,000 signatures against the proposal which had been gathered face to face around the Blackwater estuary.

This is not the green light for Bradwell. There is a long way to go before any power station could be developed on the site. The site is not owned by a potential developer, it cannot be developed until Sizewell goes ahead, and there is no indication of potential developed interest at this time. BANNG believes this proposal can be stopped, and we urge all supporters to continue the campaign.

A new nuclear power station at Bradwell – and there may be two or three – is a totally different proposition to what went before.  If built, each new reactor would be much larger (five times the capacity of the previous station) and the wastes produced, including highly radioactive spent fuel, would be stored on site until the end of the next century. Whatever your views about nuclear energy, the idea of mega nuclear power stations and radioactive wastes on the site of the now defunct, former Magnox station is wrong for the following reasons:

• the low-lying site at Bradwell is increasingly liable to flooding as a result of sea-level rise and storm surges. It will become increasingly difficult to manage vast amounts of spent fuel together with other wastes on a site where direct inundation is a possibility;

• it will be difficult to provide the massive volumes of cooling water required from the shallow Blackwater estuary for even one reactor. If more than one is built 200m high cooling towers will be needed dominating the estuary;

• the cooling water intake and the predicted rise in water temperature of the estuary could harm the marine environment and severely damage the oyster and fishing industries;

• the Government admits that adverse effects on the internationally- and nationally-designated environmental conservation sites of the Blackwater ‘cannot be ruled out’;

• in the unlikely but possible event of a major nuclear incident, it would prove very difficult to evacuate local communities.