PLANS BY the British government to press ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations, including two proposed sites near Sellafield, have been criticised by Irish environmental groups and anti-nuclear campaigners.
A list of 11 potential sites earmarked by companies interested in building the power plants was published yesterday. Nine have previously been home to nuclear reactors – including Dungeness in Kent and Sizewell in Suffolk – while two others are near Sellafield.
Britain’s department of energy and climate change said the sites could be operational by 2025. The public has been asked to give their views during a month-long consultation period. The process, known as Strategic Siting Assessment, does not guarantee power stations will be built at all 11 sites and a shortlist will be published in 2010.
Oisín Coghlan, director of the Irish branch of Friends of the Earth, said the plans were “misguided”. Nuclear power is not the solution and “offers too little, too late, at too high a price and too high a risk”, he argued.
British energy secretary Ed Miliband has described the proposals as “another important step towards a new generation of nuclear power stations”.
Mr Miliband said nuclear power had the potential to generate thousands of jobs in the UK and provide multimillion pound opportunities to British businesses. “Nuclear power is part of the low-carbon future for Britain,” he declared.
Friends of the Earth disagreed. “Even doubling the UK’s nuclear plant would only reduce carbon emissions by less than 10 per cent,” Mr Coghlan said.
“Nobody in Ireland trusts the UK government to handle the plants and the waste responsibly.”
Dr David Hutchinson Edgar, chairman of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said the plans were a cause for concern. “These concerns are heightened by the fact that five of the sites are on or near the Irish Sea coast, and three are in Cumbria, where Sellafield’s poor record on safety and discharges into the Irish Sea are well-known,” he said.
“In the event of either an accident at a nuclear site, or a deliberate terrorist attack, Ireland . . . could not escape the impact of the fallout . . . Billions invested in prolonging the use of nuclear power could well yield better long-term results through investment in genuinely sustainable and renewable energy sources, such as wind, wave, hydro and biomass.”
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the Government was “engaging” with the UK authorities “as part of the broader dialogue on nuclear safety and radiological protection issues in general”. He said: “While it is the right of countries to decide their own energy mix, we insist that the highest safety standards are met. In our engagement with the UK authorities . . . we will continue to emphasise nuclear safety and environmental protection.”