Nevertheless NuGen has confirmed that it expects to make a final investment
decision at the end of 2018 and that one of the three reactors to be built at
Moorside will be operating by 2024 and all three by 2026. If this were so this
would mean that Moorside would leap-frog Sellafield as being the first new
UK nuclear power station to come on stream since Sizewell B in 1997.
However the timetable seems pretty unrealistic, only giving two years to get
through the GDA and to find the investment, workers and contractors required
to start building and then less than six years to build the first Moorside reactor.
The Hinkley C debacle shows just how difficult to finance the building of
nuclear power stations in the UK.
Most astonishing of all is how much these GDAs are costing. As stated in the
update, the cumulative cost for the Hitachi ABWR design is over £17.5 million
and that for AP100 over £30 million.
The pictures below show pictures of the Hitachi ABWR and the Toshiba
AP1000 (artist’s impression).
The monthly mailing of Kick Nuclear and the Nuclear
Trains Action Group of London Region CND.
Editor: David Polden
(late) March 2016
NEXT NUCLEAR TRAIN STALLS AND LEAFLETTING
Saturday April 2nd, 11am-1pm: stall and leafletting outside Brixton
underground Station to protest against the nuclear trains that go on an adjacent
bridge over Brixton High Street. Help very welcome.
REGULAR FRIDAY SOLIDARITY VIGIL
Every Friday (since August 2012) 10am-noon, leafletting outside Japanese
Embassy, 101-104 Piccadilly (Green Park tube); then go on to new Tokyo
Electric Power Company offices near Chancery Lane tube to leaflet there too.
In solidarity with anti-nuclear movement in Japan. Organised: Kick Nuclear
and Japanese Against Nuclear UK (JAN UK)
NEXT JOINT KN/NTAG PLANNING MEETING
Mondays 7th March & April 4th, 7pm, At CND Office. Address in masthead.
FUTURE ACTIONS
Wednesday April 20th: “10th Nuclear Newbuild Forum” at One Whitehall
Place SW1, with leading representatives from the DECC, EDF, Horizon, and
Hitachi speaking. Kick Nuclear, JAN UK and South-West Nuclear will take
action to protest at this event, probably including leafletting delegates going in
from about 8.15 to 9am, when the forum starts.
Wednesday July 23rd: national action against nuclear trains – see below.
NUCLEAR TRAINS DAY OF ACTION
BEYOND HINKLEY C
On July 23 , the company that runs nuclear trains in the UK, “Direct
Rail Services” (DRS) is holding its annual “Open Day” at its Crewe
depôt.
With the Hinkley C project seemingly dead in the water, sunk by inability to
build the EPR nuclear power station design intended for Hinkley, inability to
achieve the necessary investment and EDF organisational conflict over
whether to go ahead with the project, it seems a good moment to turn to the
other plans for nuclear power stations in the UK.
rd
The crowds of train spotters and families that flock into this event will
be leafletted to tell them of the dangers posed by nuclear trains and
nuclear power generally.
Also some of us meeting at the Beyond Nuclear Fukushima/Chernobyl
anniversaries conference “campaigners day” in Manchester on the 20th
May decided to organise a day of action on or around July 23rd at as
many stations “served” by nuclear trains as possible as well as at the
Open Day itself.
To this end we formed an action group (provisionally called “the
Nuclear Trains 23rd July Group”) to organise and coordinate such
actions.
So far on the group we have representatives of: Kick Nuclear (London &
Liverpool), NTAG (London), South-West Against Nuclear, Stop Hinkley C,
Close Capenhurst Campaign, NW Labour CND, Wallasey CND, Nuclear-Free
Lakeland, Edinburgh Council and Highlands Against Nuclear Transport.
We are hoping representatives from other groups and individuals will want to
join our July 23rd group. If you do let me know.
With such a well-scattered group obviously we won’t be organising any full
face-to-face meetings, but will organise and coordinate largely by e-mail.
So if you are interested in joining the group, e-mail me your name, e-mail, the
group or groups you represent (if any) and which town or area you live in.
We haven’t discussed ideas for actions on the 23rd or thereabouts, but the main
aim I think would be to have as many stations served by nuclear trains as
possible covered, even if it’s only by one or two leafletters. Where we have
larger numbers we might think of banners and posters, perhaps an information
stall. We have plenty of leaflets of different sorts available.
So do let me know if you want to join our group e-mail list to receive from and
contribute information to the e-mail list.
David Polden
The only other plans being currently progressed are:
1) Horizon’s (now owned 100% by Japanese firm Hitachi-GE) is
planning to build two or three Hitachi “Advanced Boiling Water
Reactors” (1.35 GWe each) each at Wylfa in Anglesey and at Oldbury
in Gloucestershire;
2) NuGeneration Ltd. (NuGen) is planning to build three
Westinghouse/Toshiba AP 1000 reactors at Moorside (with a joint
capacity of 3.4 GWe) next to the Sellafield site. NuGen is now owned
60% by Japanese firm Toshiba and 40% by French company GDF
Suez (recently renamed “Engie”)
Both designs of reactor are going through the “Generic Design Assessment”
GDA) carried out by the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ODR) and the
Environment Agency to see if the designs are safe.
As a comparison, the EPR design intended for Hinkley C passed its GDA as
long ago as December 2012.
How is this process getting on? We can look at ODR’s latest quarterly update,
issued 21/3/16.
In relation to the Hitachi ABWR design the update said, "Overall, the
regulators consider that the project is stable and progressing as we would
expect at this stage…There is a great deal to do but we remain encouraged by
Hitachi-GE's commitment and responsiveness."
The assessment is clearly going less well with the AP1000. The update says,
“There have been closure program slippage and a lack of technical
convergence in some areas. This means that we have still to agree with
Westinghouse the full extent of the work required to close out all of the GDA
issues…This lack of progress and agreement on the way forward in specific
areas is disappointing so far into the closure phase." The update pushes back
the projected completion date of the ODA for the AP1000 to March 2017