---

Energy: Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation (EN-6)

My Lords, I wish to talk about three topics: the legacy of radioactive waste, the timescale for building our new nuclear power stations, and the possibilities of re-establishing the UK industrial base in nuclear technology. Before doing so, however, and following the precedence set by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I should like to start with a compliment and say how it pleases me that we are at least getting on with the planning of new nuclear capacity. I was clearing out my office over the recent Recess and found a copy of an interview that I gave to the Times in 2003 when I was president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In the interview, I strongly advocated the adoption of nuclear power. What response there was from the Government at the time was negative, which was quite depressing. It is a great relief now that minds have been changed and that we are at least getting on with the planning process. Returning to my three topics, first, I wish to confirm that we are dealing competently with the legacy waste that sits, for example, in the concrete tanks, B30 and B38, at Sellafield. Paragraph 3.8.12 of EN-6 tells us that the NDA estimates that a UK facility for geological disposal could be operational in 2040. Indeed, the Minister and the chairman of CoRWM confirmed this on 9 February while giving evidence to the Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry into this matter. This is the fifth inquiry that we have conducted and I happen to be chairing it. The same paragraph points out that it will be only intermediate level waste that can be stored in 2040. We will have to wait until 2075 before the disposal of high level and spent fuel waste will be possible, and 2130 before the storage of legacy waste is complete and we can begin to store new-build waste. These are long timescales, even by the standards of this House, and it would seem to me far longer than the water tanks in Sellafield can possibly survive. I am assured by engineering colleagues that these water tanks are regularly inspected and declared to be safe, but to a layman they appear to be seeping and in need of repair. Without knowing more about the final geological storage, however, it is not possible to plan efficiently for the progressive storage of this waste. It is clearly inefficient and expensive to have repeatedly to restore the material in a format that is compatible with the next stage of storage, all the time being ignorant of the final format. In other words, we really have to get on with the task of deciding on the whole sequence of storage, including the final stage of geological storage. At present, progress is painfully slow. Extracting the waste from the tanks is very expensive and, presumably because of budget cuts, the NDA appears to be proceeding at reduced pace until better times return. Can the Minister tell us where we are in implementing safe intermediate storage of our legacy waste? Is any of this waste stored in a dangerous manner, and how long will it be before we know that our legacy waste is to be stored in a manner that will be satisfactory for at least the next 65 years, in other words until geological storage is available? My second point relates to the timescale on which our new power stations are to be built. Paragraph 2.5.6 states that: ""France has already demonstrated that it is technically feasible to build nuclear power stations at a rate that would be needed in the UK if new nuclear power stations were to be constructed on all 10 sites"—" although perhaps there are only six to be built, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, suggests— ""listed in this NPS by 2025"." Paragraph 2.5.6 goes on to encourage the IPC to grant consent to sites at a rate consistent with this timetable. I find this encouraging and very much hope that it can be achieved, but I point out that this is not the most aggressive target that one can imagine. The average time that the Chinese have taken to build their last 10 reactors has been 6.3 years, and some of their new stations, such as the one at Ningde, which was started in February 2008, are scheduled to be completed in 2012—a build time of some four years. I am not suggesting that it will be possible for us to match the Chinese in the speed with which we can grant assent to sites, although it is clear that our slowness disadvantages us internationally. Will the Minister reassure us that those planning our build programmes have assessed how the Chinese achieved these short construction times and that we will be able to match them when we finally come to break ground and start to construct our own nuclear power station? My third topic concerns the need for us to rebuild our strength in the nuclear industry. It is 15 years since Sizewell B was completed. Since then, the activities of our companies that have remained active in the nuclear industry have been concerned only with the disposal of radioactive waste and the servicing of our naval nuclear propulsion plants. Little remains in civil nuclear engineering and what remained at the beginning of 2006, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, mentioned, was virtually eliminated by the untimely sale of BNFL-owned Westinghouse to Toshiba, as part of what appeared to be a general government policy to approve the sale of any available assets in an attempt to contain the ballooning current account deficit, not to mention the public debt. We now need to recover from the underinvestment in civil nuclear engineering and rebuild at least the supply chains that will support the reactor vendors in building our new nuclear power stations. There have been some positive actions, such as the setting up of the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield, taking advantage of the strong manufacturing expertise already established in Sheffield by the University of Sheffield and Boeing at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre. This is the ideal location for this work, but, regrettably, the research funds for nuclear energy are small. There is the risk that, as with the National Nuclear Laboratory at Sellafield, little use may be made of the new facility. It may be too late to enter the competition to build reactors, but it is still within our grasp to re-establish our strength in the supply chain industries. If they are to succeed, we will need to provide for them a strong research base. Will the Minister reassure us that the Government are doing all they can to support our research and industrial development efforts in nuclear technology, so that we can re-establish the UK’s indigenous capability to support the building of our new plants? This will not only bring employment to the UK but ensure that we can deliver our nuclear programme on time and to budget.