| 1.0 Editorial
The momentum towards a new reactor building programme in the
UK has been building over the past couple of months with the publication
of the Government's consultation paper on Energy Policy in May
and the Liabilities Management Authority White Paper in July.
The Energy Policy Consultation doesn't address the central question
of whether new nuclear power stations should be built or not.
Instead it asks 'what steps would be necessary to 'keep open the
nuclear option'? And what regulatory and/or other changes might
be desirable to reduce the risk and uncertainty for investors?
It completely side-steps the issue of nuclear waste as being 'dealt
with' by a separate consultation. In truth there is NO long-term
solution to what to do with nuclear waste and the Radioactive
Waste Management consultation is not due to be completed until
2007.
The document reports that the PIU recommended a 20% target for
renewables by 2020. But it doesn't ask what level renewable energy
targets should be set at, rather it asks whether there should
be any targets at all.
BNFL's latest Annual Report and Accounts (2001-2), make crystal
clear what the LMA means to the industry. The Company's Chief
Executive, Norman Askew says the LMA will "liberate the company"
to concentrate on building new reactors, designed by its subsidiary
Westinghouse, in Britain and around the world. Askew says "we
expect our expertise in new reactor design to pave the way for
our participation in the resurgent global nuclear energy market".
The LMA will fail to inspire the public confidence it requires
to tackle the nuclear waste crisis if one of its effects is the
re-start of a reactor building programme in the UK - even if this
is an unintended side-effect. BNFL should be concentrating on
building its business in clean-up and decommissioning, not adding
to the problems it has been so prominent in creating. BNFL's Westinghouse
division, for example, is ideally placed to supply nuclear waste
storage systems to nuclear utilities around the globe. Any new
UK reactor building programme, will create yet more nuclear waste,
whilst a solution to the problem of what to do with the waste
remains as far away as ever.
If the Government was really serious about tackling the waste
crisis in the UK it would have announced on 4th July an end to
reprocessing at Sellafield, and the closure of the remaining Magnox
reactors.
If the LMA is to successfully fulfil its role, it has to be separated
from government plans to keep the nuclear option open which will
mean the production of more nuclear waste for future generations
to deal with. Surely it is not beyond the intelligence of the
DTI to have come up with a structure which does not involve the
UK Government owning a company which is going to promote "the
resurgent global nuclear energy market". For example, why
not simply cancel BNFL's 'plc status'? Turn the Company into a
non-departmental government agency and order Westinghouse to concentrate
on designing and building storage systems for nuclear waste.
Tony Blair, Brian Wilson and their friends in the DTI want to
give failed nuclear technology a second wind because they lack
the ambition and the vision to see that renewable energy and energy
efficiency can easily meet our climate objectives.
Meanwhile the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
is expected to publish the final version of its discharge strategy
on Tuesday 23rd July, but you will initially only be able to find
it on the DEFRA website. The draft version of the document, can
be found at:-
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/radioactivity/discharg/strategy/pdf/strategy.pdf
It will be interesting to see if any of the targets proposed
in the draft document have changed.
The following limits were suggested in the draft document:-
2TBq by 2020 for the nuclear power generation sector (liquids
excluding tritium). BNFL says this level will make building new
reactors difficult with decommissioning going on at the same time.
[See BNFL submission to PIU]
0.02mSv limit = 20microsieverts (excluding historical) for anyone
living in the UK by 2020. [This is already double what the IAEA
and Euratom say is the limit for the 'justification principal'
kicking in - so logically anything above that would not be 'close
to zero']
30TBq for Sellafield liquids by 2020 (excluding tritium) which
the draft Strategy says would be enough for THORP to continue
operating.
The Environment Agency is expected to produce its proposals for
the Regulation of Sellafield's Discharges on 31st July. The consultation
on this ended on 3rd December 2001, and the documents are available
at
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/yourenv/consultations/145908/?lang=_e®ion=
A CD-Rom with the documents and supporting information is also
available. (For spare copies contact pete.roche@uk.greenpeace.org
and a copy of Greenpeace's full response to the consultation.)
2.0 Energy Review
Speak out: decision time on nuclear power and renewable energy
By the end of this year the Government will decide whether to
allow the building of a whole new generation of nuclear power
stations, or whether to commit to an ambitious programme to replace
old power stations with renewable energy. The Energy Policy consultation
document says the Government will produce an Energy White Paper
by the turn of the year, although next spring is probably more
realistic.
Environment groups want to see a high renewable energy target
in the Government's White Paper to allow it to displace all of
our dangerous and dirty nuclear power stations. Germany has already
committed to do this with a much smaller renewable energy resource.
By way of illustration, the entire UK nuclear energy output could
be replaced by wind farms at sea covering a square of seabed with
sides 32 miles by 32 miles.
The renewable option will only work if the Government makes a
serious commitment to it now - there is simply not the money or
the infrastructure to simultaneously build and run both nuclear
and renewable energy power stations.
The public consultation document on Energy Policy can be found
at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/industries_energy.html
The consultation ends on 13th September Unfortunately the document
fails to address central questions such as whether new nuclear
power stations should be built or not. Therefore, Greenpeace is
encouraging people to send views directly to the minister responsible
for energy policy - Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State
for Trade & Industry, DTI, 1 Victoria Street, London, SW1H
0ET.
3.0 Liabilities Management Authority
Despite being called a White Paper, the Government's Document,
"Managing the Nuclear Legacy" is a consultation document.
Responses should be send to:
Richard Griffin at the Department of Trade and Industry,
Nuclear Liabilities and BNFL Directorate, Room 146, 1 Victoria
Street, London SW1H 0ET, by 18th October.
The White Paper can be found at http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/nuclear/environment/liabilities/index.shtml
£44bn nuclear clean-up black hole revealed: New body will
take over task but cost will equal 1p tax rise for 20 years by
Paul Brown, July 5, 2002, The Guardian.
The staggering £44bn gap between the cost of cleaning up
old nuclear power stations and the money British Nuclear Fuels
has kept in the bank to pay for it was revealed yesterday for
the first time: the equivalent to a 1p rise in the income tax
for everyone for 20 years. A white paper setting out the biggest
shake-up in the nuclear industry yesterday outlined government
plans to set up a liabilities management authority to take over
and clean up Sellafield and the rest of Britain's civil nuclear
waste. Total civil liabilities were put at £48bn - a rise
of £5bn in a year and expected to continue to increase.
The money will come from government tax revenue. Loss-making
plants which are adding to the waste burden will be closed early
and some of the jobs of 11,000 people who work for BNFL may be
in jeopardy, but not until an audit of the business has taken
place. Also being swallowed up by the new body are the sites run
by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) but all its plants are
already closed and it already has a steady, publicly-financed
£270m a year clean-up programme under way.
The liabilities management authority will own the sites and assets
operated by BNFL and UKAEA and the Treasury will set up a central
fund to pay for the clean-up. The two organisations will become
management companies to run the sites and eventually this management
function will be put out to competitive tender. The armed nuclear
police force will be set up as a separate body.
BNFL's overseas assets, its reprocessing contracts and fuel making
business will remain with the company and the government will
consider privatising this part of the business in 2004-05.
The government conceded yesterday that one of its most urgent
tasks was to rebuild public confidence in the industry after years
of the government and BNFL apparently hiding the true state of
nuclear finances. Independent consultants Bechtel have been brought
in to advise a newly created liabilities management unit which
will hand over to the LMA when legislation is in place. This expert
opinion is believed to have led to the upward revision in the
liabilities in the last few weeks.
All the UK's first generation of Magnox nuclear power stations
will be closed by 2010, and the Magnox reprocessing works closed
by 2012. A question mark remains over the eight-year-old Thorp
reprocessing plant and the Mox fuel plant opened this year. The
government accepts BNFL's claim that these are still potential
money makers but this will be reviewed.
Roger Higman, at Friends of the Earth, said: "The revelation
of the staggering cost of cleaning up Britain's civil nuclear
waste legacy highlights once again that nuclear power is completely
uneconomic."
Brian Wilson, the energy minister, insisted yesterday there were
no plans to revive the nuclear industry by building new nuclear
power stations, but said the nuclear option was still being kept
open in the government's energy review. But new nuclear build
is unlikely to find favour as the cost of cleaning up existing
waste continues to rise.
FoE called on the national audit office and the House of Commons
public accounts committee to investigate the huge rise in the
estimated cost of tackling the waste legacy. BNFL's chief executive,
Norman Askew, welcomed having a long term strategy for the business
outlined in the white paper. He looked forward to the part-privatisation
of BNFL. He said: "I would now urge the government to enact
the legislation needed at the earliest available opportunity so
that we can drive forward the important work of dealing with UK's
nuclear legacy in a safe, efficient and cost-effective way."
John McKeown, chief executive of the UKAEA, which has already
dismantled 18 nuclear facilities including six reactors, commented:
"We are already at the forefront of nuclear environmental
restoration and I am delighted that the white paper gives us the
opportunity to stay there."
Taxpayers' £20bn bill for nuclear clean-up. By Michael
Harrison Independent 5th July 2002
The bill for dealing with the legacy of Britain's civil nuclear
programme had risen to £48bn and the final cost could be
much higher still, the Government said yesterday. Ministers also
said that taxpayers would have to part with £20bn over the
next fifteen years to fund the new body being created to take
charge of the clean-up of nuclear power stations, research establishments
and the Sellafield reprocessing site in Cumbria.
Critics of the nuclear industry said the figures were further
evidence that the Government should veto the building of any new
nuclear stations. However, a leaked Department of Trade and Industry
report suggested that ministers were looking for ways to go ahead
with up to eight new reactors by easing planning restrictions.
According to a White Paper published yesterday by the department,
Managing the Nuclear Legacy, the new Liabilities Management Agency
would need funding of at least £1.3bn a year between now
and 2017.
This is £500m more than the Government has earmarked at
present for dealing with "back end" costs of sites owned
by British Nuclear Fuels and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Whitehall
officials said that in the last year alone, BNFL's liabilities
had risen from £35bn to £40.5bn while the UKAEA's
liabilities now stood at £8.9bn.
But they also admitted that no-one really knew the true size
of the final bill that will have to be borne by the taxpayer for
a nuclear programme which dates back to the 1950s. BNFL, for instance,
has still not "bottomed out" the cost of decommissioning
and cleaning up the original Windscale reactor which was damaged
in 1957. "This is just one example," said a DTI official.
"There are still some major uncertainties around what has
to be dealt with and what the ultimate cost will be."
Friends of the Earth said the rising cost of Britain's nuclear
clean-up demanded an investigation by the parliamentary spending
watchdog the National Audit Office and the Commons Public Accounts
Committee.
"Today's revelation of the staggering cost of cleaning up
Britain's civil nuclear waste legacy highlights once again that
nuclear power is completely uneconomic," said Roger Higman,
FoE's nuclear campaigner. "The Government must address this
issue seriously by ruling out the building of new nuclear power
stations and concentrating on the development of renewable energy
instead."
Two options are canvassed in the White Paper for funding the
clean-up programme. The first is to set up a ring-fenced "segregated
fund".
This would be like a pension fund and would be separate from
other government finances. It would contain the £4bn already
sitting in BNFL's nuclear liabilities investment portfolio and
the annual payments to be made by government plus any cash surpluses
from the operation of Sellafield and the Magnox reactors. The
LMA would be free to invest the money to maximise returns.
The alternative proposal, and the one favoured by the Government,
is to have a "statutory segregated account" which would
contain the same pot of money but would be controlled by the DTI
and the Treasury and would be pooled with general government finances.
The White Paper says the segregated fund would offer few advantages
over a segregated account and would be complex to operate.
Although the new agency will be responsible for managing and
funding Britain's nuclear liabilities it will not be in charge
of disposing of the waste. It is the job of Nirex, which was formed
twenty years ago, to find deep sites capable of storing intermediate
and low level nuclear waste.
Nirex, which is owned by BNFL, the UKAEA and British Energy,
is pushing to be made independent but some say it ought to become
part of the LMA. The White Paper is non-committal on this.
Once the new liabilities agency has been set up and BNFL is shorn
of its £40bn in nuclear liabilities, the Government will
be free to privatise the remaining commercial operations of BNFL.
These consist of nuclear fuel manufacture and the clean-up of
contaminated sites in other parts of the world.
The move could prove controversial because the taxpayer would
be left to pick up the tab for BNFL's liabilities while shareholders
enjoy the profits from its privatised commercial activities. The
part-privatisation of BNFL is still a long way off, however. Ministers
had intended to go ahead with a partial sale of the company before
the last election until the scandal over the falsification of
safety records at Sellafield's Mixed Oxide Fuel plant. The earliest
that the Government intends to consider privatisation is 2004-05.
Even that may prove optimistic because it is unlikely necessary
legislation will be included in the next Queen's Speech.
END
4.0 Magnox Reactors and Reprocessing
On 21st June BNFL Announced the earlier than expected closure
of it Calder Hall (194MW) and Chapelcross (192MW) Magnox Power
Stations. BNFL said it is bringing forward the planned dates for
cessation of generation at Calder Hall and Chapelcross, to March
2003 and March 2005 respectively. The company blamed the continuing
low prices in the wholesale electricity market and relatively
high fixed overheads and operating costs. The income that the
power stations can generate no longer covers the costs of operation.
Chapelcross will operate longer than Calder Hall because of the
need to "complete work
under contract for the Ministry of Defence" - in other words
manufacture tritium for the UK nuclear weapons programme.
BNFL's announcement follows an economic review of the operation
of its whole Magnox reactor fleet. The review concluded that continued
operation of the larger Magnox stations has a sound economic basis
but that Calder Hall and Chapelcross, with their relatively low
output but high overheads, had become loss-making. All other Magnox
reactors (Dungeness A, Sizewell A, Oldbury and Wylfa) will operate
to their existing planned lifetimes, subject to them continuing
to remain safe and economic.
Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (http://www.corecumbria.co.uk/)
claimed that "the principal reason for closing Calder Hall
is clearly the costly and physically difficult problem of the tilted
'charge pans' discovered on three of the four reactors last year
and the company's technical inability to rectify it and provide
the requisite safety case to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
(NII). The same problem was discovered on one reactor at Chapelcross".
CORE said "The reactors, well beyond their sell-by date,
are clapped out and were unlikely ever to come back on line after
the discovery last year that charge pans on top of the reactors
had shifted due to graphite movement in the cores".
Earlier in June BNFL's Head of Sellafield Brian Watson told the
Local Liaison Committee that three Calder reactors were "unlikely
to return to operation until at least the back-end of the year"
because of the charge pan problems. No reference was made to low
electricity prices.
Magnox Reprocessing
BNFL's "commitment to cease reprocessing through the Sellafield
Magnox reprocessing plant by about 2012" is looking increasingly
difficult to achieve without further early reactor closures. (See
Safe Energy 23).Throughputs in B205 (the Magnox reprocessing plant)
since 1996 have averaged less than 500 tonnes per year. In 2001/2
the throughput was 786 tonnes, and a target has been set for the
current year of 800 tonnes. But the throughput needs to be above
1,000 tonnes if it is going to reprocess all the Magnox spent
fuel by 2012.
Doubling the throughput of B205 over the next decade, when compared
to 1998, is going to double the radioactive discharges into the
Irish Sea. This is hardly the 'progressive and substantial' reductions
which our neighbouring OSPAR states have been lead to expect.
It would be far better to close the remaining reactors down now.
The other reason why the Magnox reactors should close as soon
as possible is economic. In his latest report on BNFL Annual Report
and Accounts, (electronic copies available from the editor), Mike
Sadnicki concludes that "Cash is haemorrhaging from the Magnox
cycle at an alarming rate". As a result of issues raised
by Greenpeace, the Environment Agency, during its review of Magnox
station discharge authorizations , asked BNFL to seek an opinion
from independent financial experts. BNFL refused. The Agency described
this situation as not "fully resolved to its satisfaction".
Clearly the Environment Agency failed to assess the economic
case for continuing operation of the Magnox plants in the light
of all the information available and has failed to investigate
serious questions relating to Magnox Electric Accounts. This situation
needs urgent remedy, and cannot wait until the LMA is set up.
5.0 Oxide Reprocessing
Poor throughputs continue to plague the THORP reprocessing plant.
There is now serious doubt over the profit projections originally
used to justify THORP. THORP's justification should be urgently
reviewed.
The Sellafield Local Liaison Committee was told in June that
the throughput target for the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
(THORP) for the current year was just 500 tonnes. This represents
around 50% of the throughput required after BNFL admitted to their
overseas customers in 2001 that their baseload contracts would
require an additional year to complete - extending the original
baseload period from 10 to 11 years - by March 2005. Combined
with last year's throughput of only 736 tonnes, the 500 tonne
target for the current year will almost certainly extend the baseload
period to a further 12th year. A further extension may be necessary
if BNFL's performance in vitrifying the Highly Active Liquors
(HAL) from reprocessing does not significantly improve.
In January 2001, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate issued
BNFL with a specification requiring the current 1575m3 stock of
High Level Liquid Waste held in tanks, to be reduced by defined
annual reductions to a 'strategic stock' of around 200m3 by the
year 2015. Meeting the reduction targets will depend on the Waste
Vitrification Plant (WVP) working properly. The NII has confirmed
that THORP's reprocessing throughput is being severely limited
by poor performance in the Vitrification Plant.
In view of the substantial threat arising from the storage of
high-level waste, particularly in the post-September 11th security
environment, the LMA's priority should be to take urgent action
to reduce stocks much more quickly than the NII's 2015 deadline.
The quickest way to do this would be to end reprocessing.
6.0 Nuclear Waste Crisis
Britain's nuclear danger. Observer Website. By Pete Roche Sunday
June 30, 2002
We already know that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has almost
1600 cubic metres of extremely dangerous liquid high level waste,
which has to be constantly cooled, stored in tanks at its Sellafield
site in Cumbria. An accident or malicious act which caused just
50% of the radioactivity to escape would be equivalent to 44 Chernobyls.
We also know that Sellafield has a stockpile of around 70 tonnes
of weapons-useable plutonium, and that this could increase to
150 tonnes over the next decade or so. The House of Lords Science
and Technology Committee has called for the bulk of this to be
declared a waste, making a mockery of BNFL's main business which
is to separate plutonium from spent nuclear waste fuel.
Mark Townsend's story now focuses on the problems associated with
Intermediate-Level Waste (ILW), which, although it doesn't generate
its own heat like high-level waste, is still extremely dangerous,
and requires very careful stewardship. The current nuclear programme
will generate some 215,000 cubic metres of this category of waste,
74,000 cubic metres of which are already stored at sites around
the UK - more than half at Sellafield. Surprisingly 5,000 cubic
metres are located in Oxfordshire at Harwell, 2,000 cubic metres
at Aldermaston, and the rest spread around the nuclear station
sites and Royal Dockyards.
What is particularly worrying about the Observer revelations is
that 88% of the ILW is not stored in, what is called a 'safe,
passive Form'. In other words it is in a dangerous condition.
The Government's Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee,
in a classic understatement, call this 'unsatisfactory'. This
is a committee made up of pro and anti-nuclear voices that has
published its findings in a consensus report. So for 'unsatisfactory'
read 'outrageous'.
Some 28,000 cubic metres of the waste not stored safely is described
by the nuclear industry's waste management agency, Nirex, as 'challenging'.
These are wastes which are difficult to 'immobilise', in other
words may easily leak out of their packaging; wastes which could
spontaneously combust in contact with normal air; wastes which
are far too heterogeneous or mixed to be safely packaged in their
current form.
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), the Government's
nuclear regulator, reported in 1997 that these wastes may be poorly
'characterised' - in other words we don't really know what's there;
they are 'potentially mobile' so may leak out into the groundwater
or wider environment, and they are in a physically and chemically
degraded condition, in '40-50 year old facilities that fall below
current standards and are subject to further deterioration'. In
other words, unknown waste, which could easily leak, stored in
buildings which are falling down.
Since then the NII has become increasingly concerned at the lack
of progress in addressing the problem, and on several occasions
recently it has had to resort to using its legal powers to persuade
BNFL "to target areas on the Sellafield site where waste
management practice or progress has not been acceptable".
One of the biggest problems seems to be British Nuclear Fuels'
reluctance to spend money 'characterising' the waste it has built
up over the past five decades. We have got to know the chemical
and physical properties of the waste and the radiation content
before we can decide how best to package and store the waste as
safely as possible. The company recently spent £400 million
building a plant known as 'Drypac' on the Sellafield site. But
the plant has still not been commissioned. According to the company
'Drypac is taking a breather'. BNFL is having to re-examine the
way it deals with its ILW before it can open the plant. A source
close to the industry told me that, BNFL was basically hoping
to package its ILW on the cheap, without characterizing the waste
first. Now it has wasted £400 million on a new plant, it
has realized that the cheap option won't work.
With an announcement about the setting up of a new Liabilities
Management Authority which will take over the running of Sellafield,
Harwell and Dounreay, expected on Thursday (4th July), we can
only hope that the issue of putting our nuclear wastes into a
form that allows it to be stored as safely as possible, will be
a top priority, and that there are no disasters in the meantime.
But one thing is certain, we cannot let this industry build, yet
more nuclear power stations adding to Britain's growing mountain
of dangerous waste which we have no idea what to do with.
Nuclear stores 'on verge of exploding' by Mark Townsend Sunday
June 30, 2002
The Observer
Almost 90 per cent of Britain's hazardous nuclear waste stockpile
is so badly stored it could explode or leak with devastating results
at any time. An alarming government report into Britain's beleaguered
nuclear industry - obtained by The Observer - reveals that medium-level
radioactive waste with the equivalent mass to 725 double-decker
buses is being stored in a dangerous state.
The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee found that
88 per cent of Britain's intermediate-level nuclear waste had
not been treated for safe storage at up to 24 UK locations.
Experts last night warned the potentially volatile waste represented
a toxic time-bomb and warned of a 'disaster waiting to happen'.
A source at Nirex, the firm in charge of disposing of Britain's
nuclear waste, admitted the situation was 'outrageous'.
Peter Roche of Greenpeace said much of the material remained acutely
unstable until it was properly treated. Billions of pounds of
taxpayers' money will be required to tackle the growing mountain
of unstable nuclear waste.
The report, received by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett
and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon last week, reveals that volatile
material can spontaneously combust in air, explode on contact
with water or leak in liquid form can be found at nuclear sites
across Britain.
It expressed concern that most of the UK's medium-level nuclear
material was kept in 'ageing' facilities.'The nuclear industry
likes to give the impression that all its waste is safely stored,
but the truth of the matter is these findings prove there are
disasters waiting to happen at nuclear sites across the country,'
added Roche. The findings increase fears that nuclear sites are
tempting terrorist targets .'A malicious attack, power failure
or a building collapsing could have awful consequences for society,'
said Roche. Michael Meacher, Environment Minister, denied the
material was unsafe but conceded there was a serious problem over
waste storage. 'The nuclear industry has to face up to this. It
has to be conditioned before it is stored and there remains no
satisfactory agreement on how this should be done,' he said.
The medium-level nuclear waste stockpile is spread among the major
nuclear plants, including Sellafield in Cumbria, Dounreay in Caithness
and Harwell in Oxfordshire, as well as nuclear power stations
and Royal Dockyards such as Devonport in Plymouth and Rosyth,
Fife. During their 14-month investigation, officials from the
advisory committee found 65,208 of Britain's 74,100 cubic metres
of medium-level nuclear waste had yet to be treated to be stored
safely. A source at Nirex said: 'It's outrageous that most of
Britain's nuclear waste is still not properly conditioned and
is lying in its raw state.'
Intermediate-level nuclear waste involves radioactive material
taken from a nuclear reactor and equipment from the reprocessing
of spent nuclear fuel. Workers require protective shielding and
suits when handling the waste which is highly toxic to humans.
The report also reveals frustration over British Nuclear Fuels
handling of the waste crisis. It says the Government's Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate has resorted to using its legal powers
to force BNFL 'to target areas on the Sellafield site where waste
management practice or progress has not been acceptable'.
Fred Barker, chairman of the working group that compiled the report,
said: 'It's important to cast a spotlight on what needs to be
done on the level of untreated waste.' An announcement on Thursday
will confirm BNFL is to be broken up because it cannot afford
the clean-up costs of the nuclear waste stockpile. Estimates place
the clean-up bill at £1.8 billion a year for the next 20
years. The announcement is also expected to unveil details about
the setting up of a new Liabilities Management Authority to take
over the running of Sellafield, Harwell and Dounreay in order
to tackle the waste mountain. Governments have postponed a decision
on what to do with medium-level waste that has accumulated since
Britain began its nuclear programme in the early 1950s.
Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, said: 'We are now
at a point when tough decisions on safety have to be made. We
can't afford to duck out any longer. 'There has to be an independent
body whose sole goal is the long-term management of nuclear waste.'
Watchdogs reveal Britain's leaking nuclear waste stores, The
Sunday Herald, 30th June 2002 By Rob Edwards
Huge amounts of highly dangerous radioactive waste are stored
in leaky, crumbling facilities at half a dozen nuclear sites in
the UK, according to a damning critique by government advisors.
But the government has no policy for dealing with the crisis.
A new report by two high-powered official committees lambasts
the government and the nuclear industry for failing to keep more
than 65,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste safe. Most of it
is at the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria, although there
are large stockpiles at Dounreay in Caithness and at the nuclear
stations at Hunterston in Ayrshire and Chapelcross in Dumfries
and Galloway.
Some waste stores have already begun to leak radioactivity into
the environment. Others contain especially hazardous materials
which could ignite on contact with air, spontaneously heat up
or even explode. They are 'disasters waiting to happen', say environmentalists.
The report comes from the government's two main advisory committees
on the nuclear industry: the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory
Committee and the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee. For the last
two years, 10 experts from both committees have been investigating
the arrangements for looking after Britain's medium-level radioactive
waste.
In the measured language characteristic of official advisers,
they have concluded that it is 'unsatisfactory' that only 12%
of the 74,100 cubic metres of accumulated waste has been properly
packaged. Much of the rest 'may be poorly characterised, physically
and chemically degraded and held in old facilities subject to
deterioration'.
'We are concerned that national policy regarding the conditioning,
packaging and storage of intermediate level waste is effectively
being set by default -- and in a potentially fragmented fashion
-- by the waste producers, the regulators and Nirex (the waste
company).'
The advisers are most worried about the 28,000 cubic metres of
waste branded as 'challenging'. These include the sodium, potassium,
plutonium and uranium thrown down a deep shaft at Dounreay, which
exploded in 1977 and may be to blame for the potentially lethal
particles that have leaked into the sea and on to nearby beaches.
Waste graphite from the core of one of Britain's first nuclear
reactors, at Sellafield -- which provided plutonium for bombs
-- is proving particularly tricky to deal with. It contains trapped
energy which could cause it to burst into flames. There are drums,
tanks and other stores containing undisclosed material where it
will be impossible to immobilise the wastes and where there are
'inherent hazards'. One old fuel storage building at Sellafield,
known by the workforce as 'dirty thirty', is constantly leaking
radioactivity into the environment.
'A wide range of hazardous waste streams remains untreated in
ageing facilities at a number of nuclear sites,' said Fred Barker,
the nuclear consultant who chaired the expert group set up by
the two advisory committees. 'Although site managers have been
making plans for dealing with this waste, a huge amount remains
to be done. The government needs to provide a clear policy framework
for decision-making on how to move forward. Our new report provides
advice to ministers on the policy issues that need prompt attention.
These include how to meet short-term safety needs while keeping
open long-term management options.'
The original plan for medium-level radioactive waste was to dump
it in a deep hole in the ground. But this was abandoned after
the government rejected plans for an underground repository at
Longlands Farm near Sellafield in 1997 -- with no clear alternative
in sight. Although ministers have launched a big consultation
exercise on the long-term options for disposing of waste, the
advisory committees concluded that there was a 'policy deficit'
on how it should be looked after in the mean time. Dounreay pointed
out that its facilities were regulated and monitored, and that
a new £250 million plant was being planned to treat waste
over the next 15 to 20 years.
Environmentalists, however, took a different view. 'The nuclear
industry likes to give the impression that all its waste is safely
stored, but the truth of the matter is that there are disasters
waiting to happen at nuclear sites across the country. This industry
cannot be allowed to start producing yet more waste in new nuclear
stations,' said Pete Roche from Greenpeace.
There is growing evidence that the government in Westminster
is in fact planning to push forward with a programme of new nuclear
power stations despite the conclusion of a Cabinet review in February
that this should only be a last-ditch option. The Department of
Trade and Industry (DTI) is known to be lobbying hard for up to
10 new stations to replace those that are shut down.
This week the ruling bodies in Westminster and Edinburgh are
planning to announce a new UK-wide strategy to cut discharges
of radioactive waste into the sea. This follows mounting pressure
from other European countries following an international agreement
to cut such pollution to 'close to zero' by 2020. But the Sunday
Herald has learned that the DTI and the state-owned company British
Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) are both fighting fierce rearguard actions
to keep the discharges high. They are worried that cutting them
as much as the department of the environment has suggested would
make it impossible to build new stations.
BNFL argued: 'If the current draft regulatory guidelines which
give primacy to the progressive reduction in radioactive discharges
are pursued, this would make any proposal for new or replacement
nuclear-generating capacity in the UK unsustainable.' This infuriates
Roche. 'BNFL and their friends at the DTI have been fighting to
keep radioactive discharges high since the [pollution] agreement
was signed in 1998. Their aim is to keep the pointless activities
at Sellafield running and to remove another hurdle to building
new nuclear power stations,' he said.
The government is also due this week to announce its plans for
a new public-sector Liabilities Management Agency which will assume
responsibility for cleaning up the massive £40 billion mess
created by the development of nuclear power. The intention is
that the agency will take over Sellafield, currently run by BNFL,
as well as Dounreay, run by the UK Atomic Energy Authority. One
aim is to make BNFL's remaining fuel and power business more amenable
to eventual privatisation. At the same time as the new agency
is outlined, the company will publish its annual report and accounts
that will confirm that as long as it retains its historic liabilities
it is technically bankrupt.
GOVERNMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEES SEE NEED TO GET ON WITH THE
TASK OF TREATING INTERMEDIATE LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT UK NUCLEAR
SITES. Press release 27 June 2002
Two national Government advisory committees today published their
joint view of the current state, and arrangements for managing,
the UK's stock of intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW).
The two national committees are the Radioactive Waste Management
Advisory Committee (RWMAC) and the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee
(NuSAC).
This waste was to have been buried in the deep underground repository
that UK Nirex plc had been given responsibility for developing
during the 1980s and 1990s. The company's programme collapsed
in March 1997 when it failed to gain planning approval for a Rock
Characterisation Facility - an underground laboratory - at Longlands
Farm near Sellafield.
Government is currently considering how it will deal with the
UK's solid radioactive waste in the longer-term under its "Managing
Radioactive Waste Safely" consultation programme. In the
meantime the waste needs to be suitably processed and managed.
The Committees conclude as a result of their joint study:
that it is now unsatisfactory that only a small proportion of
ILW has been treated from its original form, particularly when
much of it is now held in ageing facilities;
there is now a need for plans and arrangements that carry forward
treatment of some of the older legacy wastes held on the UK's
nuclear sites more vigorously than has been the case in the past,
in a manner that not only meets short-term safety needs but will
also allow the waste to be appropriately managed in the longer-term;
existing Government policy statements need to be developed to
give an appropriate lead on this. There are ways in which current
regulatory arrangements could also be improved to deliver such
policy. The radioactive waste owners must also recognise their
obligations to get on with the job;
what needs to be done as a priority is to process the many forms
of mobile waste into a passively safe storable form: the Committees
believe it would be helpful to have appropriate and easily understandable
indicators to help demonstrate to the public that the problem
is being suitably and effectively addressed;
the Government is in the process of setting up a Liabilities
Management Authority (LMA), which will assume financial responsibility,
in a year or two's time, for most of the UK's publicly-owned nuclear
liabilities. The two Committees welcome this development. With
a liabilities responsibility of over £40 billion, the LMA
must be provided with both the capability and the appropriate
policy and regulatory framework to be able to get on with its
nuclear site clean-up work.
Notes for editors
1. The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC)
is the independent body that advises United Kingdom (UK) Government,
including the Devolved Administrations for Scotland and Wales,
on the technical and environmental implications of major issues
concerning the developing and implementation of policy for the
management of civil radioactive wastes. The Nuclear Safety Advisory
Committee (NuSAC) advises the Health and Safety Commission (HSC)
and, when appropriate, Secretaries of State, on major issues affecting
the safety of nuclear installations, including design, siting,
operation, maintenance and decommissioning, which are referred
to it or which it considers require attention. It also advises
the HSC on the adequacy and balance of its nuclear safety research
programme.
2. Radioactive wastes are divided into four categories according
to the nature and quantity of the radioactivity they contain and
its heat generating capacity. The categories are high level waste
(HLW), intermediate level waste (ILW), low level waste (LLW) and
very low level waste (VLLW). This ordering broadly reflects the
decreasing radioactivity content of the waste. ILW covers a multitude
of waste types, activities and half lives. It consists principally
of materials that have been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (for
example, fuel cladding and reactor components), and equipment
and materials that have arisen from the reprocessing of spent
reactor fuel (for example, ion exchange resins and filters). ILW
requires radiation containment and/or shielding to protect the
workers who deal with it.
3. The Committees agreed to undertake this study in early 2001,
reflecting a common interest in the management of ILW from the
point of view of both the safety of its more immediate on-site
handling through to the potential impacts of its longer-term management
on the wider UK environment and the public.
4. The Government announced its intention to set up a Liabilities
Management Authority (LMA) to assume responsibility to managing
public sector civil nuclear liabilities in November 2001. A White
Paper setting out the Government's LMA proposals in greater detail
is expected shortly. It is likely to be 2003/4 at the earliest
before the LMA is fully in place to commence its work.
5. Copies of this RWMAC report are available from: DEFRA Publications,
Admail 6000, London SW1A 2XX (e-mail defra@iforcegroup,com, price
£10. The full text of the report will be available on the
RWMAC website at www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/index.htm Press enquiries
should be made (not before 27 June 2002) to the RWMAC Secretariat,
4/E4, Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London SW1 6DE (telephone
0207 944 6262/62540 or the NuSAC Secretariat at 4NW Rose Court,
2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HS (telephone 0207-717-6887).
Highlights of Chapter 7. - The situation at Sellafield:
"NII has become increasingly concerned at the lack of progress
in addressing the accumulations of legacy ILW and other radioactive
material on the site. As a consequence, NII has engaged BNFL in
high level discussion, and has pressed for the development of
comprehensive and integrated strategies that cover the whole site,
and that take into account the full extent of the retrieval, packaging
and storage facilities that are required. ... NII added that there
have been recent instances where it has judged it necessary to
issue legal instruments to BNFL to target areas on the Sellafield
site where waste management practice or progress has not been
acceptable.
7.6 Nonetheless, whilst acknowledging such progress, it is difficult
to escape the overall conclusion that provision for, and progress
with, the conditioning and packaging of the UK's ILW remains at
a relatively early stage. Although there are various reasons for
this - including previous policy presumptions against early treatment,
and consequent ability to defer expenditure on new ILW conditioning
and storage facilities - RWMAC/NuSAC consider that it is now unsatisfactory
that only a small proportion of ILW has been treated.
'Challenging' Wastes
7.7 A substantial proportion of untreated ILW can be described
as 'challenging'.
Nirex informed the joint study that challenging ILWs can include:
- Historic mixtures with uncertain properties. These are associated
with facilities that have accepted wastes from a number of different
processes and sources. They include the Sellafield B41 silo, B38
silo, and Miscellaneous Beta/Gamma store, the Dounreay shaft and
wet silo and the Harwell B462 facility. Such wastes require facilities
to undertake retrieval, characterisation, and where necessary
segregation, prior to conditioning.
- Materials where effective immobilisation is difficult. These
include: soft low density and/or absorbent wastes such as plastics;
wastes with restricted access and or small porosity such as HEPA
filters, filter beds and ion exchange columns; and wastes which
are containerised or wrapped such as drummed vault wastes, bagged
waste items and supercompacted hard wastes.
- Materials with inherent hazards. These include wastes containing
accessible Wigner Energy (such as low temperature irradiated graphite),
reactive metals, wastes containing pyrophoric materials such as
uranium hydride, and wastes with high fissile content.
7.8 Nirex points out that these types of ILW are not mutually
exclusive. It estimates that approximately 28,000m of highly heterogeneous
waste streams - just under 38 per cent of holdings as of 1 April
1998 - could be described as challenging wastes. Nirex has also
warned that the actual scale and distribution of these wastes
is being unfolded through the LoC process, so that accurate figures
cannot currently be predicted.
7.9 NII has focussed considerable attention on "historic"
wastes* on the Sellafield, Dounreay and, to a lesser extent, Harwell
sites. Such wastes may be poorly characterised, potentially mobile,
physically and chemically degraded, and in 40-50 year old facilities
that fall below current standards and are subject to further deterioration.
Attention was drawn to such wastes in NII's review of ILW storage
arrangements, undertaken following the 1997 RCF decision. In its
report, NII identified a number of specific wastes and facilities
that it wished to see addressed.
The main civil waste producers were asked whether the implementation
of the UK's OSPAR commitments to reduce discharges to sea, would
cause any significant difficulties for the conditioning, packaging
and storage of ILW. Although BE and UKAEA did not anticipate that
they would, BNFL expressed strong concerns about EA's current
proposals for the regulation of discharges from Sellafield. In
particular, the company raised concerns that the proposals would
severely restrict its ability to treat historic wastes:
"As and when historic waste is processed, it inevitably causes
some small discharges. There is no allowance for any new activity
in EA's current proposals - in theory, not even for any investigative
work. BNFL has suggested that the concept of a reserve authorisation
is appropriate where additional discharges are permitted up to
agreed levels for specific purposes."
7.13 In response, EA outlined its position that normally operators
should be able to plan conditioning programmes in such a way as
to proceed within authorised limits (hence the importance of operators
developing well formulated strategies and programmes for legacy
wastes). However, in circumstances where there is a short term
"sudden" problem (e.g., unexpected discharges during
the retrieval of sludges),
EA would use its powers to vary an authorisation promptly, without
public consultation if necessary. EA stressed that in the latter
case, there must be compelling reasons for such a course of action.
CONCERN OVER B30 RADIATION, Whitehaven News 6th June 2002.
RADIATION from a primitive open-air nuclear fuel storage pond
at Sellafield known by the workforce as "Dirty Thirty"
is escaping on to and off the site. And Sellafield's regulation
enforcers, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, is so worried
about the deterioration of B30 that it has ordered BNFL to come
up with a plan to either clean out the plant or put up another
building over it to stop radiation getting out.
Radiation levels from B30 are so high that anyone working in
the plant or its open compound have to wear face masks. After
the Seascale pigeon scare which saw countless "radioactive"
birds having to be culled, there is also great concern about seabirds
landing on B30 and other Sellafield open ponds and carrying contamination
into local villages. But the NII believes that certain amounts
of activity are leaking off the site into "the general environment"
and until the pond is cleaned out or sealed the release will be
constant. Even though BNFL said yesterday "B30 had no significant
impact off site" it was considering options for reducing
the activity levels close to the ponds. The Inspectorate, which
has power to close down any plant, has also ordered BNFL to carry
out monitoring to see exactly how much radiation is escaping,
even though at this stage there is no suggestion that the off-site
leaks are any danger to public health. However, B30 workers have
to wear the face masks otherwise they would exceed their permitted
radiation doses.
Despite an apparent BNFL reluctance, the NII would like the company
to cover the open pond which is filled with huge quantities of
corroded fuel and radioactive sludge giving off radiation. The
Inspectorate feels the pond can be covered by the construction
of an over-building to shield radiation and has instructed BNFL
"to carry out a feasibility study to show why it can't be
done".
Under an improvement notice served last year, BNFL has to produce
a detailed programme of work for emptying and decommissioning
the old fuel handling building. It was due two months ago but
time has been extended.
The NII want 90 per cent of the sludge taken out by 2009. At
first BNFL promised it would do the job two years earlier but
this is no longer possible due mainly to the higher than normal
radiation levels and the need to ensure the protection of workers.
There is a catch-22 - once the pond water is disturbed by decommissioning
it will spew out even more radiation.
The situation is a major headache to BNFL's bosses because whether
they entomb the plant or clean it out the cost will run into many
millions of pounds. The big worry is that the pond itself will
start leaking on to the site posing a major risk to workers and
public outside. Only two weeks ago, Sellafield held an emergency
exercise based on a worst case scenario of the B30 pond failing
and also on an assumption that at some time it will start leaking
and get into the site drainage system en- route to the environment.
The exercise envisaged Sellafield plants being evacuated and
people living downwind of the leak having to shelter in their
homes. David Moore, of Seascale, chairman of the Sellafield Local
Liaison Committee, which acts as a community watchdog on Sellafield
operations, said: "We are looking for some prompt action
from BNFL but in a safe manner. The safety of workers and the
public is paramount. The condition of the B30 pond is deteriorating.
and we would like to see it closed off and maybe that could be
done reasonably quickly. It is a vicious circle looking after
the legacy of radioactive waste but whatever the cost the money
has to be spent, there is no cheap way round it. We have raised
our own concerns about seagulls picking up contamination on the
ponds, migrating in and out all the time, especially after what
happened with the pigeons at Seascale."
BNFL say: "Monitoring and assessment work shows that seagull
access to Sellafield poses no health concerns beyond the conventional
hygiene issues. We are considering methods of controlling access
to the open pond such as netting and bird scaring."
Sellafield waste tanks 'pose an undue risk' Paul Brown July
3rd, 2002 The Guardian
Two sets of tanks at Sellafield, containing nuclear waste in
sludge and liquid form, are so old and in such dangerous condition
that British Nuclear Fuels has been told they pose an unacceptable
risk. BNFL has been warned by the nuclear installations inspectorate
that neither the structural integrity of the tanks, nor the building
containing them, could be guaranteed beyond 10 years and that
the tanks "must be emptied as soon as possible".
BNFL has already put up a steel building around the tanks - in
case they collapse completely and lead to a "catastrophic
failure". The firm is also commissioning specialist machinery
to empty the tanks. Laurence Williams, the NII's chief inspector,
said yesterday that one lot of tanks was built in the 1940s to
house medium-active radioactive waste. Unless another solution
for processing the waste could be found, planning and building
new tanks had to start soon since such construction took a long
time, Mr Williams said.
There are increasingly strict limits on how much radioactivity
can be discharged into the sea, and systems for turning liquid
wastes into glass blocks have not been working properly. The NII
confirmed yesterday that the giant £1.8bn Thorp nuclear
fuel reprocessing works at Sellafield had reduced production because
high level waste tanks were in danger of being filled to above
the maximum legal level. Tomorrow the government is to announce
details of a new authority to deal with nuclear waste.
7.0 Radiation & Health
Resort near nuclear plant is worst cancer cluster by Mark Townsend,
Sunday July 14, 2002
The Observer
Cancer rates in a Somerset town close to a nuclear power station
are up to six times higher than average.
Burnham-on-Sea will be named this week as the most significant
'cancer cluster' so far discovered near a British nuclear plant.
The revelation will provide fuel for anti-nuclear campaigners
who say the industry pollutes the environment and is potentially
lethal for people living nearby.
The residents of Burnham, which lies five miles downwind of the
Hinkley Point plant, have demanded an official inquiry into the
figures, which were compiled by Dr Chris Busby, a government radiation
adviser.
The study will be presented to locals on Thursday - the first
anniversary of the death of Burnham resident Jo Corfield from
breast cancer. Corfield's mother, Geraldine Trythall, 86, who
survived breast cancer five years ago, said yesterday: 'We want
to know exactly what is causing all these cancers. We have a right
to know.'
Some residents are even moving away from the area. The parents
of 18-year-old David Lidgey, who contracted leukaemia three years
ago, strongly suspect the power station is to blame for his illness.
Susan and Rob Lidgey said they are in the process of moving a
mile inland from Burnham in a move to avoid further health effects.
Campaigners believe that radioactive discharge from Hinkley Point
into the sea could explain the resort's high cancer rate. Busby,
also a member of the Government's committee on depleted uranium,
believes dangerous material from Hinkley Point is contaminating
tidal sediment around power stations.
When the mudflats off Burnham are exposed at low water, he believes
that radioactive particles are carried away on the wind and inhaled
by residents. Of the 95 people diagnosed with cancer in Burnham
since 1989, more than half took part in sea-based activities such
as watersports or bait-digging. Only one in five cancer sufferers
was a smoker.
'We have known since the 1960s the mechanism by which radioactive
particles come ashore, and we will be worrying about this problem
for a few hundred years to come,' said Dr Vyvyan Howard, senior
anatomy lecturer at Liverpool University and an expert on the
effects of toxins on human tissue.
The study, which investigated cancer cases in Burnham since 1998,
found residents are 5.95 times more likely to get kidney cancer.
The probability that this is coincidental is just one in a thousand.
It also found that cases of cervical cancer are 5.6 times higher
than the national average, while leukaemia rates are more than
four times above the norm. Women from Burnham have more than double
the risk of breast cancer, with a one in 2,500 probability the
figures are chance, according to cases over the past six years.
It is the first time both adults and children living near a nuclear
plant have been examined for such a broad range of cancers and
the first attempt to examine the incidence of the illness rather
than deaths.
'We see a picture confirming my fears that Hinkley discharges
are responsible for severe health problems. All the epidemiology
points to that conclusion,' said Busby, who is a member of the
Independent Advisory Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation
in the Environment. Busby urged similar research to be carried
out at sites across the UK.
The range of cancers examined in the report have all been linked
to the effects of radiation from studies on Hiroshima survivors.
However, no scientific link has yet been established between low-level
radioactive discharge of the type from Hinkley Point and cancer.
Last year Busby identified a leukaemia cluster near Chepstow on
the banks of the Severn near Oldbury power station, north of Burnham.
Another study in Seascale, close to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing
plant in Cumbria, observed cases of leukaemia in children under
14 between 1950 and 1983.
A Department of Health spokesman said: 'No known health effects
have been shown to be associated with radioactive discharges from
current nuclear sites.'
BNFL, which is decommissioning one of the reactors at the Hinkley
site, dismissed Busby's findings, adding that his previous work
had been 'heavily criticised' by health experts.
Fathering cancer, New Scientist June 20 2002, by Rob Edwards
WORKING at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria may have
been harmful after all. Children of men who had been exposed to
radiation while working at the plant have twice the normal risk
of leukaemia and lymphoma, according to a major new study sponsored
by the nuclear industry.
Arguments have been raging for 12 years over whether radiation
from Sellafield is to blame for a local cluster of childhood cancers.
The suggestion that there was a link between the doses of radiation
received by fathers and the incidence of leukaemia among their
children was first made in 1990 by the late Martin Gardner, an
epidemiologist from the University of Southampton.
But his hypothesis has since been heavily criticised. Many experts
have argued that large numbers of people moving in and out of
the area, which is thought to spread infections that might increase
the risk of cancer, can explain all the extra leukaemia cases
seen around Sellafield.
Now, in the biggest and most comprehensive study to date, scientists
from the University of Newcastle have refocused the debate. "Gardner
may have been right," says Heather Dickinson from the university's
North of England Children's Cancer Research Unit. She and her
colleague Louise Parker compared the fates of 9859 children fathered
by men exposed to radiation at Sellafield with those of 256,851
children born to other fathers in Cumbria between 1950 and 1991.
Throughout the whole of Cumbria, they found that the incidence
of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was twice as high among
the Sellafield children. The incidence was 15 times as great in
Seascale, a small village next to the nuclear plant. Crucially,
they also discovered that the risk to children rose in line with
the radiation dose received by their fathers.
Because a lot of people have moved in and out of Seascale, the
researchers found that population mixing did account for most
of the extra risk in that village. But for Sellafield children
throughout the county, mixing couldn't explain the two-fold increase
in risk.
There is growing evidence from human and animal studies that
radiation damage can be passed from one generation to the next
(New Scientist, 11 May, p 5). But Dickinson and Parker point out
that the risks are small: only 13 children of Sellafield workers
contracted leukaemia over the 41 years. And because workers now
receive much lower doses than in the past, there are unlikely
to be implications for the current workforce. The research was
part-funded by the Westlakes Research Institute, which is sponsored
by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), the state-owned company that
runs Sellafield. "This study is very reassuring for our workforce
and confirms that the excess risk of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma, particularly in Seascale, can be largely attributed
to population mixing," says BNFL's health director Paul Thomas.
But local anti-nuclear campaigners see it differently. "BNFL
has tried to discredit Gardner's hypothesis for years," says
Janine Allis-Smith from Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment.
"This study vindicates him and it is irresponsible of BNFL
to ignore it."
More at: International Journal of Cancer (vol 99, p 437)
8.0 BNFL Accounts
BNFL in record £2bn loss: Decommissioning of oldest
Magnox plants means massive dive into red. Oliver Morgan, Sunday
July 14, 2002
The Observer
Atomic energy giant British Nuclear Fuels will this week announce
a loss of £2 billion for last year - the largest in its
history - which will add to rising fears about the cost of cleaning
up Britain's obsolete radioactive sites.
Most of the loss will be caused by a huge increase in the state-owned
company's nuclear decommissioning liabilities, which it revised
upwards by £1.9bn last year.
On top are two charges of between £150 million and £200m
arising from BNFL's recent decision to close its two oldest Magnox
power stations - Calder Hall in Cumbria and Chapel Cross in Scotland
- three years early.
Both these sets of figures are 'discounted', meaning that they
represent the amount of money BNFL has to set aside on its balance
sheet now to meet its commitments to clear up nuclear sites in
future. For this reason, they are charges against profits this
year.
The undiscounted figures are much higher. BNFL last year carried
out an investigation of its liabilities, which include the costs
of cleaning up its Sellafield site in Cumbria, along with decommissioning
its Magnox reactors. This saw the undiscounted figure rise to
£40.5bn, up from £34.8bn the previous year - an increase
of 16 per cent.
Despite the record loss, BNFL's chairman Hugh Collum and chief
executive Norman Askew will claim the company is performing its
day to day tasks well. They will point to a pre-tax profit of
about £20m, although there is likely to be an operating
loss.
They argue that this proves the company can exist commercially
and that the Government should press ahead with its much-delayed
plans for a public-private partnership of the group.
A source said: 'This will be the biggest BNFL loss ever, but they
will say this is due to two hefty exceptional items which have
obliterated an otherwise decent performance.'
However, this masks wide variations across the company's divisions.
Magnox made a pre-tax loss of £100m, thanks to operating
difficulties and a low electricity price, while reprocessing and
engineering made £30m, and the two remaining divisions pushed
the company into the black.
Any future upwards revision to BNFL's liabilities may no longer
be borne by the company. The Government has plans to create a
Liabilities Management Authority, which will ensure that taxpayers
foot the bill, whether or not BNFL is privatised.
The LMA will take all nuclear liabilities - which total £48bn
- into the nation's accounts.
The key commercial part of the company will be reactor design
and fuel manufacture, which would benefit from any decision by
the UK or other governments to build new nuclear reactors to replace
ones that have closed. BNFL is lobbying hard for this to happen.
BNFL would not comment yesterday on its results.
Taxpayers bail out bankrupt nuclear plants Sunday Herald 14th
July 2002. by Rob Edwards.
British Nuclear Fuels, which runs the Sellafield nuclear complex
in Cumbria and the Chapelcross nuclear power station in Dumfries
and Galloway, has made a £2.1 billion loss because of the
huge cost of managing its radioactive waste business. According
to a report leaked to the Sunday Herald, the state-owned company
is technically bankrupt, with more liabilities than assets. But
the Blair government is planning to bail it out by removing £20bn
worth of nuclear liabilities -- and giving them to the taxpayer.
This, says its chief executive, Norman Askew, will 'liberate the
company'.
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) is to publish its annual report
for 2001-2002 on Tuesday, when it will disclose a loss of £2bn
last year compared to a loss of just £46 million in 2000-2001.
The main reasons for such an enormous increase were 'significant
lifetime cost increases' of £1.9bn identified by a review
of how to deal with large stockpiles of dangerous radioactive
waste.
These stockpiles consist of all the medium-level wastes created
by more than 50 years of civil and military nuclear activities
at Sellafield, Chapelcross and elsewhere. It is estimated that
there are currently 44,100 cubic metres of nuclear waste in storage,
plus another 67,300 cubic metres to come from decommissioning
defunct nuclear facilities. BNFL also incurred an 'adverse accounting
charge' of £375 million because of its recently announced
decision to bring forward the closure of its two oldest nuclear
stations: Chapelcross and Calder Hall, next to Sellafield. In
addition, the rest of BNFL's worldwide nuclear reprocessing and
dec ommissioning business made an operating loss of £68m.
'While we achieved our own budgetary targets, it is obvious that
our performance is still significantly short of where it needs
to be,' said Askew. Last year's huge loss has pushed BNFL's overall
long-term debt -- the amount by which its future costs exceed
its current assets -- to £1.85bn. The company's group finance
director, John Edwards, said: 'Whilst it is our belief that we
have adequate financial resources to meet our obligations in the
short to medium term, it is evident that the group in its current
form would not generate sufficient cash to meet these now increased
longer-term liabilities.'
BNFL is eagerly anticipating the establishment of a new agency
that the government has promised will take over its expensive
liabilities. These include all the radioactive waste, all the
shut-down facilities and all the ageing nuclear reactors -- which
amount in total to £20bn worth of liabilities.
The new agency, named the Liabilities Management Authority (LMA),
will be entirely bankrolled by the government. Details were announced
in a White Paper on July 4, causing BNFL to postpone plans to
publish its annual report that day.
"The UK government's decision to establish the LMA was
the most important BNFL-related decision for many years,"
said Askew. "It will remove a substantial proportion of our
net liabilities from the balance sheet. We therefore stand on
the threshold of fundamental change within our company."
BNFL's plan now is to concentrate on building new reactors, designed
by its subsidiary Westinghouse, in Britain and around the world.
"Specifically we expect our expertise in new reactor design
to pave the way for our participation in the resurgent global
nuclear energy market," Askew predicted.
BNFL is promoting two new reactors, known as AP600 and AP1000,
as replacements for existing stations such as those at Hunterston
in Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian. In the leaked annual
report, BNFL chairman Hugh Collum urges the government to fast-track
the establishment of the LMA so that BNFL can become a profitable
business and be privatised. "Only when legislation has been
passed and the new liabilities structure established can the company
truly start to take shape."
Environmentalists last night savaged the nuclear industry for
incurring such mammoth debts. Greenpeace's Peter Roche said: "This
report gives the lie to the government's claim that the LMA has
nothing to do with a new reactor programme. Clearly it will free
BNFL to go and create yet more nuclear waste that we have no idea
what to do with"
9.0 MOX Back in Court?
Sellafield's Japanese nuclear cargo could be blocked Herald on
Sunday 16th June 2002.
By Rob Edwards.
A bitterly contested government scheme to ship enough plutonium
for 50 nuclear warheads around the globe is facing an 11-hour
legal hitch, the Sunday Herald can reveal. As a result, the plan
by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to bring 255kg of plutonium back
from Japan to the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria over the
next couple of months could be delayed, or even cancelled. This
would be deeply embarrassing -- and expensive -- for the state-owned
company.
The Environment Agency, the government's green watchdog in England,
launched an urgent investigation late last week into whether BNFL's
planned shipment was illegal. The agency is trying to find out
whether the plutonium should be defined as radioactive waste.
If it is, it will have to be authorised by the agency under Europe's
Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste Regulations 1993.
The problem is that BNFL has not even applied to the agency to
make the shipment. Yet the two armed BNFL boats that are due to
bring the plutonium back from Japan arrived there on Friday. They
are scheduled to load eight plutonium fuel assemblies from the
Takahama nuclear plant in the next few weeks.
The plutonium was originally sent from Sellafield in mixed oxide
fuel known as MOX to be burnt in a reactor at Takahama three years
ago. But it was rejected by the Japanese power company, Kansai
Electric, following a scandal over the falsification of MOX safety
data at Sellafield which led to a clear-out of BNFL's senior executives.
The Japanese have insisted that the plutonium be sent back to
Britain, though this has been opposed by environmental groups
alarmed that it would become a 'floating target for terrorists'.
Last week the Environment Agency wrote to BNFL requesting details
of what will happen to the plutonium when it arrives in Britain.
T he agency is demanding answers by Wednesday.
'We need to determine the status of the material. Is it fuel or
is it nuclear waste?' said a spokeswoman for the Environment Agency.
European regulations define radioactive waste as 'any material
which contains or is contaminated by radio-nuclides and for which
no use is foreseen'. The environmental group, Greenpeace, argued
that this is precisely what the plutonium from Japan is. BNFL,
however, said the plutonium is not waste. 'The eight fuel assemblies
will be placed in storage at Sellafield pending a decision on
their future use,' explained a company spokesman.
Doesn't that mean it's waste? 'No, we most definitely do not consider
it to be waste. It has a future use but that has not been decided.
'
In a legal letter to Greenpeace on Friday, BNFL said it could
not discuss the future use of the plutonium in detail 'for reasons
of commercial confidentiality'. It added: 'No authorisation is
required under the 1993 regulations for the shipment of the MOX
fuel to the UK .'
This is fiercely disputed by Greenpeace, which has pressed the
government to halt the shipment while its legality is under examination
by the Environment Agency. But this was rejected late on Friday
by the energy minister Brian Wilson.
Pete Roche, of Greenpeace, welcomed the Environment Agency's investigation
but was dismayed that the government had not acted to delay the
shipment. 'We will certainly be taking legal advice on this,'
he said. 'To send highly radioactive materials on a six-week trip
on the high seas was a stupid idea before September 11. In today's
context it can only be described as insane. It would be a floating
target for terrorists.'
The planned nuclear shipment is being opposed by nations along
its route, and could be greeted by protest boats in the Irish
Sea. Security for the trip has been described by the respected
Jane's Foreign Report as 'totally inadequate'.
A report from the British government's Office for Civil Nuclear
Security disclosed 'deficiencies' in security at nuclear plants,
including the new MOX plant at Sellafield. This week the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna will warn that thousands of radioactive
sources around the world that could be made into 'dirty bombs'
are inadequately controlled.
Environment Agency Press Release
AGENCY DECISION ON MOX FUEL SHIPMENT FROM JAPAN. 1 July 2002
The Environment Agency has decided that a shipment of MOX (mixed
oxide -plutonium/uranium) fuel due to be returned to the UK from
Japan is not radioactive waste.
This decision follows a careful investigation into claims by
Greenpeace that the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) cargo needs a
transfrontier shipment (TFS) authorisation from the Agency under
the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste Regulations 1993.
BNFL is of the view that the fuel is not waste and, as a result,
BNFL has not applied for a TFS authorisation. BNFL has told the
Agency that it intends to recover and reuse the plutonium and
uranium in the MOX fuel, and has provided information on the options
available to recover these materials.
Having reviewed BNFL's options for recovery and reuse, the Agency
has found them to be technically feasible and credible. Last year,
the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
and for Health decided that the manufacture of MOX fuel was justified.
They stated that "it is clear that there is a significant
demand from a range of countries for the manufacture of MOX fuel."
The Agency's Chairman, Sir John Harman, said:
"The Environment Agency has made its decision principally
on the grounds that a use is foreseen for the fuel".
Radioactive waste is defined in the 1993 Regulations as "any
material which contains or is contaminated by radionuclides and
for which no use is foreseen."
While the fuel is not subject to the Transfrontier Shipment of
Radioactive Waste Regulations, this does not mean its safety is
not being regulated. The highest levels of supervision, safety,
control and security of this shipment have been specified for
this shipment. The Department for Trade and Industry's Office
for Civil Nuclear Security and the Department for Transport are
actively engaged in ensuring arrangements for its safe passage.
On arrival in the UK the MOX fuel will be subject to regulatory
control under the Nuclear Installations Act as well as international
controls under the Safeguards regime.
Ends
Media enquiries: 020 7863 8710 (5 lines) or outside normal office
hours,
please contact the National Duty Press Officer on pager no 07654-264
384.
All Environment Agency news releases, both national and regional,
can be
found at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
Notes To Editors
In 1999 BNFL supplied a batch of eight MOX fuel assemblies to
Kansai Electric, a Japanese utility, for use at its Takahama reactor
site. The Japanese rejected them because of concerns over falsification
of quality control data at BNFL. BNFL, Kansai and the UK and Japanese
governments have negotiated compensation and return agreement.
The MOX fuel will shortly be loaded on two ships for return to
the UK.
Ends
Thursday, 4 July, 2002, 07:28 GMT 08:28 UK BBC On-Line UK plutonium
shipment to leave Japan
Greenpeace claims the ships are a terror risk. Two British freighters
are preparing to leave a Japanese port with a cargo of used nuclear
fuel, amid a legal challenge from environmentalists.
Greenpeace has applied to the High Court in London to prevent
the consignment of weapons-usable plutonium being shipped to the
UK on Thursday. Two British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) ships were due
to leave Takahama on a six-week trip to Sellafield, where the
fuel was first processed.
In 1999 the 250kg of fuel, known as MOX, caused a diplomatic
incident between Japan and Britain when it emerged that BNFL workers
had falsified safety data. The Japanese rejected the shipment
and insisted it had to go back to the UK before they buy more
fuel from BNFL's new £470m Sellafield MOX plant. Lawyers
for Greenpeace were applying for an injunction to stop the shipment,
which the group described as a "floating target for terrorists",
leaving Japan. And they were also seeking permission to apply
for a judicial review of the Environment Agency's decision not
to treat the material as radioactive waste and not to follow the
required procedure for nuclear waste imports. But by the time
of the High Court hearing, at 1030 BST, the ships may already
have left, a Greenpeace spokesman conceded.
But he added they would still seek the judicial review if that
was the case. An Environment Agency spokesman said it would defend
its decision. The BNFL vessels, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific
Teal, are equipped with naval guns and guarded by anti-terrorist
police. BNFL has told the Environment Agency it intends to recover
the plutonium and uranium within the MOX.
Greenpeace and local environmental groups have staged protests
at the port against the shipment, which they claim could be made
into 50 nuclear weapons. They want the MOX to be classed as radioactive
waste, because no use has been forecast for it and Britain has
huge stockpiles of uranium and plutonium. Greenpeace nuclear campaigner
Pete Roche said the ships would be a "floating target for
terrorists". He added: "To send highly radioactive materials
on a six-week trip on the high seas was a stupid idea before 11
September. "In today's context it can only be described as
insane.
"British vessel leaves Japan for Sellafield despite safety
objections from 37 countries, By Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo.
THE INDEPENDENT 05 July 2002
A British ship set out from Japan yesterday carrying a shipment
of nuclear fuel for Sellafield yesterday, despite claims by green
activists that it was dangerously corroded and could split open.
Protesters gathered in the port of Takahama in central Japan,
where the Pacific Pintail began its two-month journey, escorted
by a sister ship, the Pacific Teal, and some 30 coast guard vessels.
So far, 37 countries have condemned the shipment or barred it
from their waters, also fearing that the cargo is vulnerable to
hijacking by terrorists.
Last week, the Labour backbencher David Chaytor wrote to the Transport
Secretary, Alistair Darling, asking for documents relating to
the two ships operated by British Nuclear Fuels.
Leaks from BNFL revealed that excessive corrosion found on a nuclear
transport ship of the same fleet had also been found on the two
that set sail yesterday. "It seems clear that any significant
corrosion of plates will weaken the vessel's infrastructure,"
Mr Chaytor wrote.
The ships will sail south through the Pacific and the Tasman Sea
between New Zealand and Australia, west across the Southern Ocean
and past the Cape of Good Hope.
Shaun Burnie, of Greenpeace, said: "The ships will be going
into the Southern Ocean during the worst of the winter months.
The ship could founder and break in half, and in weeks radioactivity
would enter the sea. It would have a devastating effect on the
maritime environment, and tourism in these countries would be
finished."
A spokesman for BNFL described the claim as "a particularly
ugly piece of propaganda. We can categorically state there are
no concerns regarding the condition of the hulls."
Yesterday, Greenpeace abandoned an attempt to obtain an injunction
against BNFL stopping the shipment, which it says should be reclassified
as radioactive waste.
78 African, Caribbean and Pacific Nations call for immediate halt
to nuclear shipments. Greenpeace
International Press Release. Fri 19 July 2002, Nadi, FIJI
Japan and the UK were condemned and isolated for their shameful
nuclear waste MOX shipment by the 78 nations of the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific
(ACP) Summit in their final Declaration today.
The Nadi Declaration of the Third Summit of ACP Heads of State
and Government says:
"We express our strong objection to the transport of nuclear
and other hazardous materials through the waters around ACP states.
We call for the immediate cessation of such practice, in order
to prevent any occurrence of accidents that could seriously threaten
their sustainable development and the health of their peoples."
"Greenpeace congratulates and applauds the African Caribbean
and Pacific Governments for taking this courageous and strong
stance on this issue," said Nuclear campaigner, Angenette
Heffernan. "We recognise that many of these countries have
donor aid relationships with the shipping nations, but they have
gone ahead and expressed their strong opposition, prioritising
their concerns over the devastating health and environmental consequences
of allowing these shipments to continue. Japan, the UK and Australia
can no longer use their aid to force countries into accepting
these lethal shipments through their waters."
"This is a huge set-back to British Nuclear Fuels and the
Japanese nuclear industry," said Greenpeace International
nuclear campaigner, Simon Boxer. "This unequivocal statement
by a huge block of nations effectively closes off all their existing
shipping routes for nuclear materials. The shipping nations, including
Australia, must now recognise that they have to cease their unjustifiable
nuclear trade."
Pacific Governments opposed to the shipments are now looking
to the Pacific Islands Forum to further their opposition. The
Government of Vanuatu has just released a statement, which "condemn(s)
future plans to use the Pacific Ocean as a highway for nuclear
waste shipments and will be calling on the Pacific Island Leaders
Forum in Fiji next month to adopt a stronger position on this
critical matter".
"The strong stance taken at this meeting must be translated
into effective action at the South Pacific Forum next month,"
said Heffernan. "The double standards of Australia within
the Pacific Islands Forum, as a nuclear waste shipping nation
must not be allowed to undermine the resolve of Pacific Island
nations at the Forum."
The two ships, Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, carrying 255
kgs of weapons-usable material were found today by Greenpeace
well within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of New Caledonia,
at coordinates 20 degrees, 31 minutes South and 163 degrees, 10
minutes East at around 12noon Fiji time [23.22 GMT]. In the last
week they have also breached the EEZs of the Federated States
of Micronesia, the Solomons, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea".
Greenpeace International website on the MOX return shipment can
be found at:
www.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/bnfl
Flotilla stops nuclear shipment in its tracks Joint Greenpeace
International & Nuclear Free Seas Press Release Sun 21 July
2002
For almost a week 11 small yachts have been heading across the
Pacific to demonstrate the huge public opposition to the shipment
of highly dangerous nuclear cargo that is being transported across
the Pacific en route from Japan to the UK. Now they are in position
on the route of the shipment. But the two armed nuclear freighters
seem reluctant to face the full glare of publicity. Having halted
their passage through the Tasman Sea it appears that the two vessels
are trying to avoid the Nuclear Free Seas Flotilla and they are
expected to continue their journey by sneaking through under cover
of darkness.
The ships have drastically reduced their speed for the first
time since leaving Japan. Their presence across the tiny strip
of international waters has caused a stand-off between public
opinion and the arrogance of the nuclear industry.
"BNFL are on the run, they ran away from Takahama Bay in
Japan three hours before a court hearing in London which could
have stopped this shipment from taking place, they are now running
away from our eleven small yachts. They know about the huge opposition
they have created in the Pacific and this protest is humiliating
for them," said Richard Allen of the Nuclear Free Flotilla.
The flotilla boats arrived at their meeting point two days ago
and have been preparing to meet up with the boats in order to
deliver their protest message. The flotilla boats have more than
50 people from 10 different countries on board. The crews range
in age from three to sixty years.
"As an elected member of the New South Wales Parliament,
representing many Australians who have expressed strong anti-
nuclear sentiment it is an honour to join the 50 people from other
nations who are participating in the Nuclear Free Flotilla at
their own expense and considerable risk to help create a safe
nuclear free future" said Ian Cohen, member of the New South
Wales Parliament with the flotilla.
The shipment of faulty nuclear fuel is being returned to the
UK because its producers, the government-owned British Nuclear
Fuels (BNFL), falsified critical safety data on the fuel and the
Japanese refused to use it.
"The UK, Japan and France's attempts to keep the plutonium
industry alive are completely irresponsible and show a dangerous
disregard for the real proliferation risks," said Stephen
Campbell, Greenpeace Nuclear Campaigner.
"The Pacific Nations have called for an immediate stop to
the transport of nuclear shipments through their waters. The UK
and Japan can no longer ignore their demands. The fact that the
ships have stopped where they are shows that they will avoid breaching
the Exclusive Economic Zones of Australia and New Zealand at all
costs, yet they blatantly stormed through the EEZs at least 6
Pacific Nations. This shows their arrogant double standards to
the region," said Angenette Heffernan, Greenpeace Nuclear
Campaigner
10.0 Tritium
Nuclear power flounders: The discovery of radioactive fish in
the Severn estuary might yet break Britain's nuclear industry.
Independent on Sunday, By Severin Carrell, 16 June 2002
The nuclear industry is facing a multi-million pound increase
in its clean-up costs after it emerged that some of its radioactive
waste was more dangerous than thought.
The Environment Agency (EA), the government regulator, is to impose
tougher discharge limits on firms such as British Nuclear Fuels
(BNFL), nuclear engineering company Devonport Management and British
Energy, cutting their releases of radioactive tritium.
The clampdown began after safety studies around the Severn estuary
close to medical-equipment company Amersham's radio-isotope plant
near Cardiff discovered tritium in flounder and shellfish several
hundred times higher than expected.
Tritium, a mildly radioactive by-product of industry production
lines, is the most heavily discharged waste across the nuclear
industry. BNFL's Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria and
Chapelcross nuclear power station in south-west Scotland discharge
millions of litres of tritiated water and air every year. The
agency's crackdown began after a report by specialists from the
National Radiological Protection Board and St Bart's Hospital
in London disclosed that tritium was at least twice as dangerous
to humans as previously thought.
Organically bound tritium - the more dangerous form of tritium
which was found in large quantities in the Severn estuary fish
samples - can be up to 12.5 times more dangerous for infants.
The International Commission on Radiological Protection is now
expected to raise health limits for tritium two-fold for adults
and four-fold for children.
Amersham was the first firm hit by the revised figures. Ordered
by the EA to make an 85 per cent cut in tritium discharges, it
has halted all releases of organically bound tritium as part of
a £20m programme to cut discharges.
Devonport Management, which refits Royal Navy nuclear submarines
in Plymouth, is planning to spend up to £5m building a new
undersea pipeline to carry its tritiated water further out into
the Tamar estuary. The pipeline was ordered by the EA after it
granted Devonport a five-fold increase in its tritium discharge
authorisations in February.
But the heaviest bills are likely to be born by BNFL, which has
already spent £2bn on cutting its radioactive discharges
over the last 20 years. The EA is expected to ask for a deep cut
in its tritium releases this summer, when it gives Michael Meacher,
the environment minister, a revised discharge authorisation for
Sellafield.
BNFL was unable to predict how much a cut would cost, but its
finances are already fragile. The company said it expected to
reduce radioactive discharges as part of an international convention.
But Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace, claimed:
"These new estimates will be a major headache for the industry.
It will make their dreams of building new nuclear power stations
even more unrealistic and hasten the end to reprocessing at Sellafield."
11.0 Planning U-turn
Planning system put on fast track by Peter Hetherington, Friday
July 19, 2002
The Guardian
Measures driven by the Treasury to fast-track England's planning
system and encourage the growth of new industries in special business
planning zones were unveiled by the deputy prime minister, John
Prescott.
But in signalling that county councils would be sidelined, he
announced that the government had backed down over plans to let
parliament make the final decision over projects such as airport
terminals and nuclear power stations.
Bruised by accusations that local democracy and a well established
public inquiry process would be the loser, Mr Prescott said it
would be possible to speed up the process without side stepping
inquiries.
Downing Street had been arguing for a faster regime to decide
on projects of national importance after a five year inquiry into
Heathrow's terminal five.
The reforms follow a discussion paper published last December
and a public consultation which ended in March and attracted a
record 16,000 responses. "For too long, people have been
alienated by a planning system which has acted in the community's
name but without its support," Mr Prescott said.
County councils will lose powers to prepare structure plans. Strategies
will be undertaken by non-elected regional planning bodies prompting
claims from Conservatives of planning passing from councillors
to quangos.
Mr Prescott stressed the government would not remove the right
of objectors to be heard at public inquiries. Compulsory purchase
would be made simpler, quicker and fairer by improving compensation
and speeding up procedures.
Mr Prescott has embraced the chancellor's plans for special business
planning zones (BPZs), where entrepreneurs, overseas investors
and - in the case of Cambridge and other southern "hot spots"
- bio-technology companies and other enterprises will be encouraged
to locate or expand. Depressed northern areas could also benefit.
Gordon Brown believes the local planning process often holds up
potentially big projects, although it is not yet clear whether
he will give developers in BPZs tax incentives. To speed up planning,
Mr Prescott has also promised councils an extra £350m to
employ more specialists.
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