More Nuclear Power in the UK?


The UK Government today officially invited private contractors to bid for the construction and operation of new nuclear power stations in the UK. Before the House of Commons, Business Secretary John Hutton today informed MPs that the government hopes for the first new nuclear power plant to be up and running before 2020. The Government’s plans are that private contractors will build and run the nuclear power stations without any public assistance in form of subsidies or other financial assistance. Instead, the Government plan to attract interest by smoothing the planning system, in order to make it easier to build the plants.

The reasons behind the Government’s strong interest in nuclear power are to be found in the Government’s commitments to lowering emission of greenhouse gasses in order to curb global warming (nuclear power emits very little CO2) and rising electricity prices in the UK. However, the plans, which are supported by the Tories and opposed by the Liberal democrats, have already been met with strong opposition from environmentalists. Greenpeace, who successfully challenged an earlier Government review supporting nuclear power in the courts, has vowed to fight against any new plants and argues that even the building of 10 new nuclear power plants would only cut the UK’s CO2 emission by four per cent.

In addition, the placing of any nuclear power plants might cause the UK Government headaches. Although no sites for the possible plants have yet been identified, and although Hutton indicates that there are no plans to place any in Scotland, the situation remains that issues relating to energy policy are not devolved to the Scottish Parliament whereas issues relating to planning are. It is not difficult to imagine how this might lead to some interesting legal and political discussion Holyrood and Westminster in between.

However, building new power plants was always going to be a “hot potato” for the Government. No nuclear power plant has been built in the UK for more than 20 years. In addition, no permanent facility for storage of the highly radioactive waste has yet been identified and currently waste is stored in “temporary facilities”. Also, no definite solution as to do with the waste exists today. It is widely agreed that the most viable option is to store the waste deep underground. Add to this the differences in perceptions of risks associated with the production and storage of nuclear materials. Although engineers have undoubtedly become better at building nuclear power plants, they are conventionally strongly opposed and thought to be a risky business by the public (while scientists generally consider it a safe option). Furthermore, attitudes towards nuclear power vary significantly across Europe with Sweden and Germany planning to phase out their plants whereas Finland is the only country currently building new nuclear power facilities. What is more, the estimates of what the production of nuclear power actually costs, once the plant is up and running, varies considerably. Traditionally nuclear power is thought to be cheaper than renewable sources but capital costs for new nuclear power plants are gigantic.

No doubt today’s decision will lead to some interesting times ahead.

You can read more about today’s news here and here plus a very good article written by Prof. Peter Cameron, University of Dundee, on the legal issues of nuclear energy from Journal of environmental Law here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Constitutional Right to Female Sexual Pleasure?

Movie: HOT FUZZ

Head of State: Legal Debat About The UK's Election. Legal Research Society. 22 April 2010