The schedule for the UK’s nuclear future could be in trouble, it seems. The Health and Safety Executive’s half-way report on the Generic Design Assessment for Areva’s EPR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors, which looks at the designs’ safety cases and assesses whether they are fit to be built in the UK, has revealed some concerns over the amount of information the companies have made available, and revealed that initially, the HSE was faced with a shortage of qualified people to assess the designs.
Although the HSE itself makes clear that there’s no reason to assume that the GDA won’t be completed on time, by June 2011, UK newspapers have pinpointed specific concerns about the reactors which the executive has said will need to be addressed, and said that there is still a ‘significant amount of detailed assessment work to do.’
Every setback in the nuclear sector is magnified by the press — it’s one of the problems specific to this industry, and it’s one which it is still trying to come to terms with. And it doesn’t take the Futurescope crystal ball to see the potential pitfalls here. The government puts pressure on the HSE to hurry up the GDA, design problems go unaddressed, and a delay results on the building of the reactors. More bad press, with the nuclear industry once again accused of complacency over safety issues. It would be the 70s and 80s all over again.
But the HSE calling attention to the problems it has – and what it needs from the design companies – isn’t a return to the bad old days of nuclear secrecy. Quite the opposite — it shows an openness that’s actually rather encouraging. And if Areva and Westinghouse respond in kind, that’ll be even more encouraging.
The pessimism of the press is a worrying development, though. It seems to indicate a knee-jerk damning of anything associated with nuclear. We on The Engineer are naturally inclined to be optimistic about technology, and one of the big milestones that the Futurescope shows us is the long-awaited outcome of the investigations into nuclear fusion energy. But if fusion works, the crystal ball shows us something rather worrying. There’s that word ‘nuclear’. Nuclear optimism hasn’t been borne out before — critics still bring up the old 1950s claims that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter. We can only hope that the next generation of nuclear fission is trouble-free, so the cynicism and doubts that still cling on in the public perception of nuclear are dispelled, and fusion — if it happens — doesn’t have to fight the tide of pessimism.
Stuart Nathan
Special Projects Editor
My dad was a metering engineer in Yorkshire. One day in the mid 50’s, I would guess, he came home and said they would all be out of a job. Every house would have a nuclear generator and the electricity would be too cheap to meter. As a 10 year old I said, how will we manage? My dad said I will get a job changing the nuclear things when they wear out. What we need is what my dad showed, optimism. God bless him.
We must protect and secure the countries energy supplies, something not done under the current administration, so any processes which allow us to do so must be conducted as quickly as possible.
I have a similar tale, Don.
In 1959 at a school presentation, a chap named Calder(one of the scientific chatterattie of the day) thought he would start of his speech with a little joke. So he said that Calder Hall was not named after himself. He then came out with the same optimism as your dad, concerning nuclear power. I often wonder what would have happened if one of us school kids had interrupted him and said; you have it wrong, old son, when I come up to collect my old age pension we will still be arguing about the use on nuclear, and what’s more we will be building wind turbines – and siting them in the North Sea !
Nuclear power has some greatly toxic elements connected to it, we can all remember chenoble. If the concrete floor did not stop the melt down and held the fuel rods, we would still be filthy with radiation poison.
There are environmental alternatives to carbon and nuclear. Political and economic reasons mean they are just left to gather dust.
I had an association with the UK nuclear industry 1958-1965 and always thought the predicted cost of power and use of it in small units were, at that time, overly optomistic.
The safety issues are very real and the protagonists of nuclear energy need to keep this right at the front of their minds. I suspect that in the past this may not always have been the case. The cost of safety my be one of the most expensive components of providing nuclear energy. But if France can make a success of if then surely we all can?
At least in UK there seems sensible discussion even if the press is tempted to perhaps sensationalise. Here one cannot obtain any discussion without being howled down by those who do not understand the nuclear process or are just agin it.
It seems to me that electricity generation from nuclear power has to be one of the potential solutions to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans, which I believe is essential, irrespective of one’s views on climate change.
What I would love to read is an evaluation of the UK’s projected energy consumption and an appraisal of the solutions that may turn around our reliance on fossil fuels over 25 years. I was enlightened by Saul Griffith’s lecture ‘Climate Change Recalculated’ where the reality of fulfilling the 16TW global consumption whilst maintaining a sub 350ppm CO2 concentration is explained in simple engineering terms and leaves me thinking this just isn’t going towork unless wide adoption of nuclear as the only wholesale energy solution is cloven a very clear path forward.
Nuclear provides a mere 6% of our global power, clean tech solutions are not going to fill the gap, the rate of construction and land area required is untenable, notwithstanding the inevitable political procrastination and finance problems.
Does anyone know of such studies? I struggle to understand who is the UK authority here and where the policy makers obtain advice. Please can someone advise.
And who is championing our energy crisis from the engineering sector? Where are the engineering institution campaigns? The public are not given enough authoritative information on the energy issue. It seems to be left to individuals and the media and there is no clear strategy despite the abundance of information.
It takes web research to discover facts about our energy future and the reality of each solution; this is a beguiled issue.