Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom

The history and development of the UK nuclear industry is covered in Appendix 1 to this paper, Nuclear Development in the United Kingdom. Currently, there are 16 operating reactors in the UK totalling 10 GWe capacity. The last operating Magnox reactor - Wylfa 1 - is due to shut down when its fuel runs out, in September 2014. This will leave seven twin-unit AGR stations and one PWR, all owned and operated by Electricite de France (EdF) subsidiary EdF Energy.

Power reactors operating in the UK

Plant	Type	Present capacity (MWe net)	First power	Expected shutdown
Wylfa 1	Magnox	490	1971	Sep 2014
Dungeness B 1&2	AGR	2 x 545	1983 & 1985	2018
Hartlepool 1&2	AGR	2 x 595	1983 & 1984	2019
Heysham I-1 & I-2	AGR	2 x 580	1983 & 1984	2019
Heysham II-1 & II-2	AGR	2 x 615	1988	2023
Hinkley Point B 1&2	AGR	2 x 610, but operating at 70% (430 MWe)	1976	2023
Hunterston B 1&2	AGR	2 x 610, but operating at 70% (420 MWe)	1976 & 1977	2023
Torness 1&2	AGR	2 x 625	1988 & 1989	2023
Sizewell B	PWR	1188	1995	2035
Total: 16 units	Â	10,038 MWeÂ	Â

 

EdF Energy is planning life extensions averaging seven years for the AGR units, and announced a 7-year life extension for Hunterston and Hinkley Point in November 2012. It will seek a 20-year life extension for Sizewell B, taking it to 60 years, as for similar US plants. The Office for Nuclear Regulation undertakes 10-year reviews of all reactors.

New nuclear policy and procedure

It was originally intended that the Sizewell B reactor would be the first of a fleet of PWRs but these plans were abandoned in the 1990s. Since then, the question of new nuclear build was effectively ruled out until 2006, when a review of energy policy reversed the government's opposition to new nuclear^a. Government policy in England and Wales^b has since been supportive of new nuclear plants, which should be financed and built by the private sector – with internalised waste and decommissioning costs as per the industry norm internationally. To facilitate new nuclear build, the government has begun implementing several measures, in particular:

• Streamlining the planning process.
• Carrying out strategic siting assessment and strategic environmental assessment processes to identify and assess suitable sites for new nuclear plants.
• Ensuring that the regulators are equipped to pre-license designs for new build proposals (the Generic Design Assessment process).
• Introducing legislation to ensure decommissioning and waste management liabilities will be met from operational revenue.
• Strengthening the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to build investor confidence in long-term carbon pricing.

Planning

A new planning regime was proposed to aid the installation of nuclear reactors as well as other significant new infrastructure projects such as railways, large wind farms, reservoirs, harbours, airports and sewage treatment works. Under the Planning Act 2008, the need for new infrastructure would be addressed through a National Policy Statement (NPS, see next section on Strategic siting assessment). Then, the local impacts of a particular development would be handled by an independent Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) rather than by Ministers or local planning authorities. The IPC was formed in October 2009, but the new coalition government that took office following the May 2010 general election has said it would replace the IPC with an advisory body and return decision-making power to the responsible Minister^c.  Under the Localism Bill, pending in July 2011, the IPC is to be abolished and its staff and functions integrated into the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Nuclear site licensing and authorisation 

Between July and November 2008, a consultation was carried out on a proposed strategic siting assessment (SSA) process for identifying sites which are suitable for new nuclear power stations to be built by the end of 2025.¹¹ Sites that have been found to be strategically suitable for new nuclear plants through the SSA would be listed in the Nuclear National Policy Statement (Nuclear NPS).

In its January 2009 response to the consultation¹², the government invited nominations for sites to be assessed for their suitability for the deployment of new nuclear power stations by 2025. Eleven sites were nominated and, following assessment of these sites, the government formed the "preliminary conclusion" that all of the nominated sites, with the exception of Dungeness, are potentially suitable^d. Three alternative sites – Druridge Bay in Northumberland, Kingsnorth in Kent and Owston Ferry in South Yorkshire – were not considered to be suitable for nuclear development before the end of 2025, although they were said to be worthy of further investigation. The ten sites included in the draft Nuclear National Policy Statement are: Hinkley Point, Oldbury, Sellafield, Sizewell and Wylfa, all of which are the subject of existing proposals (see below); as well as Bradwell, Braystones, Hartlepool, Heysham, and Kirksanton. In October 2010, the two greenfield sites near Sellafield – Braystones and Kirksanton – were removed from the list, and the other eight confirmed.

A consultation on six draft National Policy Statements for energy infrastructure, including the draft Nuclear NPS, ran from November 2009 to February 2010. Following the May 2010 general election, the new coalition government said that all National Policy Statements are to be ratified by Parliament. Following further public consultation they were approved by parliament in July 2011, confirming selection of the above eight sites and introducing planning reforms to allow plant construction to be expedited. The minister also announced regulatory justification of the AP1000 and EPR reactor designs according to EU law, due to their potential for increasing energy security and decreasing CO2 emissions outweighing any detriment.^e.

Late in July 2011 NNB Generation (EDF Energy 80%, Centrica 20%) submitted an application to the UK Health and Safety Executive's Office for Nuclear Regulation for a nuclear site license for two Areva EPRs at Hinkley Point C. ONR assessed the company's "suitability, capability and competence to install, operate and decommission a nuclear facility" and issued a licence in November 2012. Local government had given permission to prepare the site.

Generic Design Assessment 

In June 2006, the UK's Health & Safety Executive (HSE), which licenses nuclear reactors through its Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), suggested a two-phase licensing process similar to that in the USA^f The first phase, developed in conjunction with the Environment Agency (EA), is the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process^g. Considering third-generation reactors, a generic design authorisation for each type will be followed by site- and operator-specific licences. Phase 1 would focus on design safety and take around three years to complete; phase 2 is site- and operator-specific and would take around 6-12 months.

Initial guidance on the GDA process was issued by the HSE and EA in January 2007, and in July of that year, applications for four reactor designs were made:

• UK EPR, submitted by Areva and EDF.
• Westinghouse's AP1000.
• GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy's ESBWR.
• AECL's ACR-1000.

Although the initial assessments of the four designs found no shortfalls, AECL withdrew its design from the GDA process in April 2008. Later, in September 2008, assessment of the ESBWR was halted after GE-Hitachi requested a temporary suspension.

The HSE, through its Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), was on course to completed the initial GDA assessment for the two remaining designs by July 2011, although further processing was delayed pending an HSE evaluation of lessons from the Fukushima accident and approval of the reactor vendors' responses to those. In any case, a number of issues may still be outstanding at that point¹⁷.  The ONR and EA jointly issued interim design acceptance confirmations (iDAC), and interim statements on design acceptability (iSODA) for the two designs in mid December 2011. The full DAC and SODA were issued for the UK EPR in December 2012, but Westinghouse decided to request a pause in the GDA process pending customer input to finalizing it.

As the GDA has proceeded issues have arisen which are in common with new capacity being built elsewhere, particularly the EPR units in Finland and France. This has led to international collaboration and a joint regulatory statement on the EPR control and instrumentation among ONR, US NRC, France's ASN and Finland's STUK. More broadly it relates to the Multinational Design Evaluation Program and will help improve the harmonization of regulatory requirements internationally. 

In January 2013 Hitachi-GE applied for GDA for its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR), and the government approved the processing of this by ONR and EA, likely to take about four to five years. There are four operable ABWR units in Japan, while two more are under construction. Two more are being built in Taiwan and two are planned for Lithuania. The design is already licensed in Japan and the USA. It can run on a full-core of mixed-oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel.

In 2012 Rosatom announced that it intended to apply for design certification for its VVER-TOI reactor design of 1200 MWe, with a view to Rusatom Overseas building them in UK.
 

Funded decommissioning program 

The Energy Act 2008 stipulates that plant operators are required to submit a Funded Decommissioning Programme (FDP) before construction on a new nuclear power station is allowed to commence^h. The Funded Decommissioning Programme must contain detailed and costed plans for decommissioning, waste management and disposal. The government will set a fixed unit price for disposal of intermediate-level wastes and used fuel, which will include a significant risk premium and escalate with inflation. During plant operation, operators will need to set aside funds progressively into a secure and independent fund. Ownership of wastes will transfer to the government according to a schedule to be agreed as part of the FDPⁱ.

Emissions reductions

In its July 2006 energy review report, the government said that the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS, now referred to as the Emissions Trading System) must be strengthened in its Phase III (2013-2020) in order to "ensure that the EU ETS develops into a credible long-term international framework for pricing carbon."²² Should it be necessary to provide more certainty to investors, the government said it would "keep open the option of further measures to reinforce the operation of the EU ETS in the UK."

A range of measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions were introduced in the Climate Change Act 2008, which entered into force in November 2008. The act provided for legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets of 80% by 2050 (compared with 1990 levels) and 34% by 2020. The act also established the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to advise the government on setting and meeting carbon budgets.

In July 2009, the government published a white paper²³ setting out a "low carbon transition plan" designed to achieve the 2020 emissions reduction target. As one of the key steps, the plan reiterated the government's policy of facilitating the building of new nuclear power stations^j.

Since the May 2010 general election, which replaced the Labour government with a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, government policy on nuclear power has remained largely unchanged. One important difference is that, whereas the Labour government rejected the idea of guaranteeing a 'floor' price for carbon emissions, this is a policy of the coalition government^24 .

Electricity Market Reform 

In July 2011 the government issued a new Electricity Market Reform (EMR) white paper. Its four main proposals were: a carbon floor price; long-term contracts (involving feed-in tariffs with a 'contract for difference') to stabilise financial returns from low-carbon generation; a mechanism to ensure the provision of sufficient generating capacity nationwide; and an Emissions Performance Standard to prohibit the construction of high-carbon generation.

The carbon floor price has long been seen as fundamental to the economics of new UK nuclear power, with the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) not producing high enough prices to steer markets towards low-carbon power. Having legislated this in 2011, the UK government will ensure the price is a minimum of £16 per tonne CO2 from 2013, with this set to rise steadily to £30 per tonne in 2020 and accelerating to £70 per tonne in 2030. This then is essentially a carbon tax, with a longer time frame and higher level than the present UK Climate Change Levy on fossil fuel and nuclear sources (which continues to 2023).

Draft legislation was published in May 2012 to reform the UK's electricity market and thus secure the necessary investment for a low-carbon energy mix including new nuclear. The government estimates that £110 billion of new investment needs to be attracted to develop the low-carbon generating capacity required in the next ten years while meeting the country's climate change goals. New nuclear capacity, along with renewables and fossil fuels abated by carbon capture and storage (CCS) are recognised in the document as the three families of low-carbon generation with roles to play. All have high capital cost, so investors must have some assurance of commercial, or at least stable, returns. The draft bill elaborates the policy instruments in the 2011 White paper:

•   Feed-in tariffs (FIT), now relatively common in several countries, give particular low-carbon producers a predictable return per kWh over a set period regardless of prevailing market prices. The FIT here will replace the UK Renewables Obligation which requires retailers to buy a certain proportion of power from renewable sources, excluding nuclear, in 2017 (RO certificates in mid 2012 traded at 5.5 p/kWh). In UK the FIT will effected through contracts for difference (CfD) which remove long-term exposure to electricity price volatility. The FIT with CfD means that if the market price is lower that the agreed ‘strike price’, the government pays that difference per kWh, if the market is above the strike price the generator pays the government. They are long-term contracts which can be capped regarding quantity of power. The idea is that the carbon floor price will drive the market towards any FIT or strike price level applied to clean sources. The first strike prices will be published within the 2013-18 Delivery Plan in 2013, after consultation.
•   Capacity market measures remain to be defined by regulation, but will involve payments for dispatchable capacity maintained to ensure that demand can be met regardless of short-term conditions affecting other generators.
•   The Emissions Performance Standard is a 'regulatory backstop' to the other measures, setting 450 g/kWh CO2 as a limit under which new fossil-fuel plants must operate. This will allow gas but not coal without carbon capture & storage. 

The UK National Grid is the independent system operator that will be the delivery body for EMR and will administer the CfDs and the capacity market, with some involvement of the government regulator, Ofgem. The minimum price new nuclear power stations and renewables sources can receive for selling into the grid is to be published in June 2013 and will apply until 2017, when prices will be subject to revision.

The Energy Bill introduced into parliament at the end of November 2012 was designed to attract investment to bring about a transformation of the electricity market, moving from predominantly a fossil-fuel to a diverse low-carbon generation mix. It included:

• Contracts for Difference (CfDs) to stabilise revenues for investors in low-carbon electricity generation projects - renewables, new nuclear or CCS, helping developers secure the large upfront capital costs for low carbon infrastructure while protecting consumers from rising energy bills. Government will consult on the first set of CfD strike prices for renewables in mid-2013 and expects to be able to announce the 2013-2018 prices by the end of 2013.
• A new Government-owned company to act as a single counterparty to the CfDs with eligible generators; a two stage process is envisaged in which projects are able to apply for a CfD once they have cleared meaningful hurdles such as planning permission and a grid connection agreement, and then a small number of hurdles post CfD-award in order to retain the contract.
• Government is planning to introduce a Capacity Market, allowing for capacity auctions from 2014 for delivery of capacity in the winter of 2018-19, if needed. The Capacity Market is to provide an insurance policy against future supply shortages, helping to ensure reliable electricity supplies at affordable cost.
• A Final Investment Decision (FID) Enabling process will enable investment in low-carbon projects to come forward for early projects, guarding against delays to investment in energy infrastructure.
• Transitional measures will allow renewable investors to choose between the new system and the existing Renewables Obligation which will remain stable up to 2017.
• Government has already legislated to establish a Carbon Price Floor from April 2013, to underpin the move to a low-carbon energy future.

Public opinion

In the light of the above developments, public opinion in UK has remained positive regarding nuclear power, despite the Fukushima accident. In July 2012 a YouGov survey found that 63% of Britons supported the use of nuclear power, and only 22% opposed building new plants on brownfield sites. Twice as many supported electricity market reform as opposed it (35% and 18% respectively) and interest in global warming was low – 59% compared with 72% in 2008.

 A YouGov survey in October 2012 found that 40% of the 1734 people polled felt that the UK government should use more nuclear power than at present, up from 35% in November 2011. Maintaining current levels was preferred by 21%, while 20% felt that there should be less nuclear power than at present (down from 27% in 2011). 54% of men, and only 26% of women, felt that there should be more nuclear. Of women, 23% supported the status quo, 25% called for a reduction in nuclear and 25% were unsure. Apart from nuclear, 72% were in favour of increasing solar provision, 55% in favour of more wind farms, and 45% wanted less coal-fired power.

Plans for new nuclear plants

The government assumes there will be a requirement of 60 GWe of net new generating capacity by 2025, of which 35 GWe is to come from renewables. The Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation states that the expectation is for "a significant proportion" of the remaining 25 GWe to come from nuclear, although the government has not set a fixed target for nuclear capacity^k.

Since the government reversed its unfavourable policy towards nuclear in 2006, several utilities have begun planning to build new nuclear plants. The initial concern was that the most promising sites were owned by only two organizations: British Energy – which had recently completed restructuring following its financial collapse in 2002 (see section on British Energy in Appendix 1, Nuclear Development in the United Kingdom); and the government-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) – which had recently taken ownership of BNFL's and the UKAEA's nuclear sites in order to decommission them^l. Utilities wishing to build new nuclear plants in the UK therefore had to either acquire British Energy, or its sites; or acquire land from the NDA.

EDF Energy - Hinkley Point and Sizewell 

EDF successfully bid for British Energy, completing the £12.5 billion acquisition in January 2009. Later in 2009, Centrica bought a 20% stake in British Energy for £2.3 billion. Conditions attached to the acquisition of British Energy included the sale of land at Wylfa, Bradwell and either Dungeness or Heysham, as well as to relinquish one of the three grid connection agreements it held for Hinkley Point. Present plans are for four EPR nuclear reactors to be built by EDF Energy at Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley Point in Somerset. The company applied for consent to construct and operate the first two (3260 MWe) at Hinkley Point in October 2011, though the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process on reactor designs was not concluded (see section above on Generic Design Assessment). EDF plans to start up the first of these new reactors by the end of 2017 and have it grid-connected early in 2018.  By mid September 2010 EDF Energy had let £50 million in contracts for site works at Hinkley Point, and by February 2013 pre-development costs there had reached almost £1 billion..  In May 2012 EDF Energy said that it "remain[s] committed" to building the Hinkley Point reactors and was working toward a final investment decision by the end of the year, which would depend on having "the correct market framework [to] allow an appropriate return on the massive investment required."  A £1.2 billion civil engineering contract was deferred. It now appears that the decision will be in April 2013.

However, by the end of 2012 Centrica had expressed reservations about its investment in the new plant and EDF was discussing with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holdings (CGNPC) about buying out Centrica or in some other way taking equity in Hinkley Point. The two companies are partners in the Taishan nuclear plant being built in China, using EPR technology. Then in February 2013 Centrica said it would not proceed to invest in the new units, citing uncertainty re project costs and schedule. (It remains a 20% shareholder in EDF Energy’s current nuclear generation capacity.)

Horizon – Oldbury and Wylfa
 

Early in 2009, a 50:50 new-build joint venture of RWE npower with E.ON UK was established: Horizon Nuclear Power. Horizon bid for NDA land alongside old Magnox plants at Oldbury, Wylfa and Bradwell. Other bidders included EDF Energy and Vattenfall. The winning bids for Oldbury and Wylfa were from Horizon.  Including bids from EDF and NuGeneration, the auction raised £387 million for the NDA²⁸. 

By 2025, Horizon planned to have around 6000 MWe of new nuclear capacity in operation^m. For its site at Wylfa in Wales, Horizon was proposing constructing up to four AP1000 reactors or three EPR units. For its Oldbury site, it was considering either three AP1000 reactors or two EPRs. The planning application for Wylfa was envisaged in early 2012, that for Oldbury in 2014.  But early in 2012 German-based RWE and EOn announced that they wanted to withdraw from Horizon, following which there were several expressions of interest in buying it: first was Rosatom directly with a view to using VVER-1200 reactors, then China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) with Toshiba. (SNPTC brokered the acceptance of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor in China.) This became a Westinghouse - SNPTC bid with Exelon. An Areva-CGNPC bid was announced, using the EPR, but then withdrawn, and finally Hitachi Ltd bid with the GE-Hitachi Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR).  Rosatom subsequently said that it was prepared to build western-design reactors in UK initially, pending design certification of VVER types. Meanwhile some work continued on the two sites. In October 2012 the £696 million Hitachi bid was accepted. It plans to build two or three of the 1380 MWe (gross) ABWR units at each site, and has applied for Generic Design Assessment, which process will take four to five years.

NuGeneration - Moorside 

A 50:50 joint venture of Iberdrola (which owns Scottish Power) with GDF Suez followed: NuGeneration. (Originally this was owned 37.5% each by Iberdrola and GDF Suez, and 25% by Scottish & Southern Energy, though SSE decided to sell out of it in 2011, giving the other partners 50% each.) NuGeneration bid unsuccessfully for NDA land alongside old Magnox plants at Oldbury, Wylfa and Bradwell. In October 2009, NuGeneration bought a 190 ha site on the north side of Sellafield from the NDA for £70 million, and announced its intention to build up to 3600 MWe of nuclear plant there, with the site now being called Moorside. Technology choice will be about 2013, and commitment to proceed or not around 2015.²⁹ 

Power reactors planned and proposed 

Proponent	Site	Locality	Type	Capacity (MWe gross)	Start-up
EDF EnergynÂ	Hinkley Point C-1	Somerset	EPRÂ	1670	2018
Â	Hinkley Point C-2	Â	EPR	1670	2019
EDF EnergynÂ	Sizewell C-1	Suffolk	EPRÂ	1670	2020
Â	Sizewell C-2	Â	EPR	1670	2022
HorizonÂ	Oldbury B	Gloucestershire	ABWR x 2 or 3	2760-4140	by 2025
HorizonÂ	Wylfa B	Wales	ABWR x 2 or 3Â	2760-4140	by 2025
NuGeneration (Iberdrola + GDF Suez)	Moorside	Cumbria	?	Up to 3600	2023
Total planned & proposedÂ	Â		Â	Up to approx 18,600 MWeÂ	Â

The WNA Reactor Database has 4 EPRs as 'planned' (6680 MWe) and 9 units (12,000 MWe) 'proposed' 

Fuel cycle facilities and materials

From the outset, the UK has been self-sufficient in conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reprocessing and waste treatment (see Appendix 1, Nuclear Development in the United Kingdom). Uranium is imported.

A 6000t/yr conversion plant is at the Springfields site, which is managed by Westinghouse on a long-term lease from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority^o. Early in 2005, Cameco Corporation bought ten years of toll conversion services from 2006, at 5000 tU/yr. Feed is from Cameco's Blind River refinery in Ontario, Canada.

Enrichment is undertaken by Urenco at Capenhurst in a 1.1 million SWU/yr centrifuge plant, the first part of which dates from 1976. Urenco’s shares are ultimately held one-third by the UK government, one-third by the Dutch government and one-third by the German utilities RWE and E.ON.

Urenco is planning to build a 7000 t/yr deconversion plant, or Tails Management Facility, at Capenhurst, with operation expected from 2014^p. It will treat tails from all three European Urenco sites: Capenhurst, Almelo in the Netherlands and Gronau in Germany. Depleted uranium will then be stored in more chemically stable form as U3O8.

Fuel fabrication of AGR and PWR fuel is at Springfields, and other PWR fuel is bought on the open market. Magnox fuel fabrication, also at Springfields, ended in May 2008 after 53 years of production.

Reprocessing activities at Sellafield are undertaken by Sellafield Ltd on behalf of International Nuclear Services, which is owned by the NDA. A 1500 t/yr Magnox reprocessing plant which opened in 1964 is due to close around 2016. The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) was commissioned in 1994 and, as of December 2012, had treated 7000 tonnes of used fuel for overseas and domestic customers. Of this, at least 2300 tonnes was domestic used AGR fuel. A further 6600 tonnes arising to the end of the AGR operating lifetimes will need to be treated or stored, depending on the outcome of a review of used oxide fuel management strategy^q. Less than 700 tonnes of fuel from overseas customers remains to be reprocessed.  In June 2012 the NDA said that Thorp will operate to 2018, and close after completing its existing reprocessing contracts, including those for the AGR fuel.

Sizewell B is running on reprocessed uranium, including blended-down reprocessed submarine reactor fuel from MSZ Elektrostal in Russia, part exchanged for UK reprocessed uranium.

Mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication for export has been at the Sellafield MOX plant (SMP, see section on Sellafield in Appendix 1, Nuclear Development in the United Kingdom). In 2010, the NDA and ten Japanese utilities agreed on a plan to refurbish SMP, and this work was being undertaken over three years by Sellafield Ltd, involving a new MOX fuel fabrication line using Areva technology. However, in August 2011 the NDA said it had reassessed the prospects for the plant following the Fukushima accident, and closed it. Only 32 fuel assemblies with 8.6 tonnes of heavy metal were produced over its lifetime, at a cost of some £700 million. About 15 tonnes of reactor-grade plutonium owned by the Japanese utilities is being held at Sellafield awaiting incorporation into about 270 tonnes of MOX fuel, but this may now be done in France or Japan. Consideration was being given to building a new MOX plant in the UK to utilize over 100 tonnes of stored UK plutonium. (MOX fuel costs about five times as much to fabricate as conventional uranium oxide fuel, which doubles the total fuel cost.)

A March 2011 report outlined options for using or otherwise dealing with the UK's civil plutonium^r. This comprises some 100 tonnes of separated reactor-grade plutonium in storage, and also that in 6000 tonnes of used AGR fuel from UK reactors - about half as much again if separated. Three of four options involved using the separated plutonium in MOX fuel, the main question is what to do with the AGR fuel - treat as waste, or reprocess at THORP. The report suggested that none of the options would be profitable, but some will have more economic and resource benefit than others. In essence, the report showed that it makes sense to produce MOX fuel from the plutonium. The question for the UK is whether it wants to offset this with extra savings and revenues from the potentially expensive return to the full nuclear fuel cycle that would come with a refurbishment of THORP and building a new MOX plant. A public consultation ended in May 2011, and the government later announced that it preferred a MOX option for as much of the plutonium as possible, rather than disposing of it as waste or continuing indefinite storage. 

A novel solution was then proposed by GE-Hitachi: building two 311 MWe units of their PRISM fast reactor at Sellafield and operating them initially so as to bring the material up to the highly-radioactive 'spent fuel standard' of self-protection and proliferation resistance. The whole stockpile could be irradiated thus in five years, with some by-product electricity and the plant would then proceed to re-use that stored fuel over perhaps 55 years solely for 600 MWe of electricity generation. GE-H is starting to develop a supply chain in the UK with Costain, Arup & Poyry to support the proposal and prepare for UK design certification.  In April 2012 an agreement was signed with the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) at Sellafield to investigate the proposal more closely.

An alternative solution was proposed by Candu Energy: building two or four of its EC6 reactors (a modern version of its Candu-6) to burn MOX fuel with about 2% plutonium. At about 100 t fuel each year, this would use 4 t/yr Pu in twin units. The company notes that the reactors could be fully built in the UK domestically.

Early in 2012 the NDA invited expression of interest in alternatives to simple MOX use, describing this as "the most credible and technologically mature option" but adding that it "remains open" to other ideas should they "offer better value or less risk for the taxpayer." It said it wanted to "gather more data on other options" and that it was talking with the government and third parties to review "whether alternative technologies may represent credible options" over a timescale of about 25 years. In June PRISM was shortlisted along with Candu’s EC6 reactor.  A feasibility study is due to be completed about the end of 2012.

Radioactive wastes

Most UK radioactive wastes are a legacy of the pioneering development of nuclear power, rather than being normal operational wastes arising from electricity generation – though there is a significant amount of these. Until 1982, some low- and intermediate-level wastes were disposed of in deep ocean sites. In 1993, the government accepted an international ban on this.

Solid low-level wastes are disposed of in the 120 ha Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) at Drigg in Cumbria, near Sellafield, which has operated since 1959. Intermediate-level waste is stored at Sellafield and other source sites, pending disposal.

High-level waste (HLW) arising from reprocessing is vitrified and stored at Sellafield^s, in stainless steel canisters in silos. A dry cask storage for used fuel is being built at Sizewell B for operation from 2015. All HLW is to be stored for 50 years before disposal, to allow cooling.

A consultation on regulations relating to wastes was carried out from March 2010. A Waste Transfer Pricing Methodology consultation document in the light of this was issued by the government in December 2010, setting out how a price will be determined for the transfer to government of new-build higher-activity waste and its disposal in the UK's planned Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). This includes setting a cap on waste transfer price to provide operators with some price certainty. The cap will be high - perhaps £1100 million per 1350 MWe PWR, which is three times current cost estimates, and the actual price - including contribution to disposal facility - will be set 30 years after the reactor starts operation, not earlier. Operators will need to make credible and secure provision for funding the waste transfer. Used fuel will be priced in £/tU, not p/kWh as earlier proposed, and as common elsewhere.

The NDA has set up a Radioactive Waste Management Directorate (RWMD) to develop plans for a deep geological repository for high- and intermediate-level wastes and evolve into the entity that builds and operates it. The Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) is expected to cost around £12 billion undiscounted^t from conception, through operation from about 2040, to closure in 2100. Site selection was expected to be in around 2025. The government has invited communities to volunteer to host the GDF, with three expressions received so far, representing two areas of Cumbria: Allerdale and Copeland. The next steps are to undertake a 4-year geological study; surface research lasting ten years; and finally a 15-year period of underground research, construction and commissioning. In these steps the NDA will seek to find an 11-year saving to enable operation from 2029. However, plans were stalled early in 2013 when Cumbria County Council voted to halt the project.

The government is planning for the GDF to accommodate waste from new build as well as legacy waste (which includes committed waste from existing operational facilities and those undergoing decommissioning). Operators of new plants would be charged a fixed unit price for disposal of intermediate-level wastes and used fuel in the GDF (see section above on Funded decommissioning programme). See also section on Geological disposal facility in Appendix 1, Nuclear Development in the United Kingdom.

Regulation and safety

The principal regulating provision in the UK is the Nuclear Installations Act 1965, which governs the construction and safe operation of nuclear plants. This is administered by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)^u which regulates the safety of all nuclear installations independently of government departments, and licenses them. Under HSE, nuclear safety regulation is carried out by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR); nuclear security regulation is carried out by the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS); and nuclear safeguards functions are carried out by the UK Safeguards Office (UKSO)^u. Regulatory responsibility for the transport of radioactive materials moved from the Department for Transport to ONR in October 2011.

The Nuclear Installations Act is supported by the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999, which require employers to keep radiation exposure of workers and the public as low as practicable and within specified limits. The Nuclear Generating Stations (Security) Regulations 1996 and the Radioactive Material (Road Transport) Act 1991 are also relevant. Waste management and discharges to the environment are regulated by the Radioactive Substances Act 1993.

Regarding nuclear third party liability, in 1994 the limit was increased to £140 million for each major installation, so that the operator is liable for claims up to this amount and must insure accordingly. The government is running a public consultation (finishing at the end of April 2011) that would increase the liability to €1.2 billion (£1 billion), in line with amendments agreed in 2004 to the Paris Convention on nuclear third party liability and Brussels Supplementary Convention³⁴.

Non-proliferation

The UK is a nuclear weapons state, party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which it ratified in 1968 and under which a safeguards agreement has been in force since 1972. The Additional Protocol in relation to this was signed in 1998. International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards are applied on all civil nuclear activities. (The UK undertook 45 nuclear weapons tests over 1952-91 – most in the 1950s in Australia).

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Further Information

Notes

a. The Labour government of 1997-2010 and nuclear policy 

Over the three parliamentary terms from 1997 to 2010 that the Labour party was in office, the government went from opposing new nuclear power plants to being in favour of them. The February 2003 energy white paper, Our energy future – creating a low carbon economy¹, stated that the government had no current plans to expand the use of nuclear power. According to this white paper, the "current economics" of nuclear power "make new nuclear build an unattractive option and there are important issues of nuclear waste to be resolved." The government therefore did not propose to support new nuclear build, although it added: "But we will keep the option open." The white paper went on to promise that, before any decision to proceed with new nuclear build was made, "there will need to be the fullest public consultation and the publication of a further white paper setting out our proposals." Alongside the rejection of new nuclear build and without any hint of irony, the white paper set out the government's "ambition" to cut greenhouse gases by around 60% by 2050 (compared with 1990 levels).

By 2006, government policy on nuclear had completely changed, with the report of its energy policy review stating: "We have concluded that new nuclear power stations would make a significant contribution to meeting our energy policy goals."² However, this conclusion was successfully challenged in the High Court by Greenpeace on the basis that the promise made in the 2003 white paper for "the fullest public consultation" had not been kept. In his decision of February 2007, Mr. Justice Sullivan concluded: "There was a breach of the claimant's legitimate expectation to fullest public consultation; that the consultation process was procedurally unfair; and that therefore the decision in the Energy Review that nuclear new build 'has a role to play...' was unlawful."³Â 

Following the High Court decision, in May 2007 the government's Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) published a new white paper, titled Meeting the Energy Challenge⁴ in which the government stated its "preliminary view that it is in the public interest to give the private sector the option of investing in new nuclear power stations." Alongside the white paper, a new consultation on the future of nuclear power, as well as parallel technical consultations on a justification process and siting, was launched⁵. This extensive consultation process led to the 10 January 2008 publication of Meeting the Energy Challenge – A White Paper on Nuclear Power, the foreword (by Prime Minister Gordon Brown) of which stated: "The electricity industry should, from now on be allowed to build and operate new nuclear power stations."⁶ In stark contrast to the 2003 energy white paper, the foreword also acknowledged: "Nuclear power can and will make a real contribution to meeting our commitments to limit damaging climate change."

The target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions was increased to 80% by 2050 (compared with 1990 levels) and made legally binding in the Climate Change Act 2008, which entered into force in November 2008.⁷ The Act also provides for a reduction of 34% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The legally binding targets for emissions reductions set out in the Climate Change Act have put nuclear at the centre of national energy strategy. In July 2009, the government set out its policy on nuclear power in a document titled The Road to 2010: Addressing the nuclear question in the twenty first century⁸. It states that nuclear power is "an essential part of any global solution to the related and serious challenges of climate change and energy security." Furthermore, the document continues: "Nuclear energy is therefore vital to the challenges of sustaining global growth, and tackling poverty." [Back]

b. Legal power to consent onshore electricity generating stations with a capacity of over 50 MWe is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Given that the Scottish Government "is clear that new nuclear power is not wanted or needed in Scotland,"⁹ this effectively means that no new nuclear plants are likely to be built in Scotland. The main objective of the Scottish Government's energy policy is "to progressively increase the generation of renewable and clean energy, to migrate Scotland away from a dependence on nuclear energy."⁹ [Back]

c. The Conservative-led coalition government is expected to introduce legislation to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) in late 2010. The IPC would be replaced with a Major Infrastructure Planning Unit within the Planning Inspectorate to provide advice on new infrastructure projects to Ministers¹⁰. [Back]

d. The 11 sites nominated for the strategic siting assessment (SSA) process were: Bradwell, Braystones, Dungeness, Hartlepool, Hinkley Point, Heysham, Kirksanton, Oldbury, Sellafield, Sizewell and Wylfa. (Braystones and Kirksanton are greenfield sites near Sellafield.) The government came to the preliminary conclusion that all of the the nominated sites except Dungeness are potentially suitable for new nuclear power stations by the end of 2025. The government also commissioned Atkins Ltd to identify other possible sites worthy of further consideration¹³. The government's preliminary conclusion for the three alternative sites identified in this study – Druridge Bay in Northumberland, Kingsnorth in Kent and Owston Ferry in South Yorkshire – was that they are not potentially suitable for the deployment of new nuclear power stations by the end of 2025. The draft Nuclear National Policy Statement (Nuclear NPS) therefore listed ten potentially suitable sites for new nuclear plants to be built by 2025. A consultation on this draft Nuclear NPS, along with five other draft National Policy Statements for energy infrastructure, ran from November 2009 to February 2010.¹⁴ 

Information on the draft Nuclear NPS can be found on the website for the Consultation on draft National Policy Statements for Energy Infrastructure (www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk) [Back]

e. A consultation on six draft National Policy Statements for energy infrastructure, including the draft Nuclear NPS, ran from November 2009 to February 2010. A formal response, together with the final National Policy Statements, had been expected later in 2010 but, following the May 2010 general election, the new coalition government decided to make changes to the Appraisals of Sustainability of the NPSs. (An Appraisal of Sustainability assesses the environmental, social and economic impacts of implementing a policy, and includes comparison with reasonable alternatives to the preferred policy.) As the draft NPSs were revised, the government considered it necessary to launch a further consultation on them¹⁵. This consultation¹⁶ commenced in October 2010 and the government presented the finalised statements to Parliament for ratification in June 2011. (Along with the decision to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission – see Note c above – the new coalition government said it would ensure that NPSs are to be ratified by Parliament.) [Back]

f. At the end of June 2006, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published an expert report to the Government’s 2006 energy policy review (see Note a above). The report was informed by responses received between March and April 2006 to a discussion document, HSE review of the pre-licensing process for potential new build of nuclear power stations, posted on the HSE website. The HSE's response to The Energy Review and associated documents can be found on the HSE website (www.hse.gov.uk). [Back]

g. Information on the GDA process can be found on the New nuclear power stations section of the HSE website (www.hse.gov.uk). [Back]

h. The government's proposals for the management and disposal of nuclear wastes arising from future new plants¹⁸ were published in February 2008 alongside the Energy Bill 2008, which became the Energy Act 2008 when it received Royal Assent in November 2008. [Back]

i. A consultation on regulations relating to FDPs, including measures to verify and define the content of an FDP, was carried out between March and June 2010.¹⁹ A further FDP consultation document in the light of this was issued by the government in December 2010.²⁰. Running alongside these consultations have been related consultations on determining a price for the transfer to government of new-build higher-activity waste and its disposal²¹. [Back]

j. Soon after the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan white paper was published, the government set out its policy to "develop a more coherent global strategy to harness peaceful nuclear power, and to establish the conditions where we can consider a world free of nuclear weapons" in a document titled The Road to 2010: Addressing the nuclear question in the twenty first century (see Reference 8 below). [Back]

k. In October 2008, Malcolm Wicks MP, the then Special Representative on International Energy Issues, was asked to carry out an independent review of international energy security and how developments internationally were likely to affect the UK’s energy security in the coming decades. In his August 2009 report, Energy Security: A national challenge in a changing world²⁵, he stated: "A range between, say, 35-40 per cent of electricity from nuclear could be a sensible aspiration, beyond 2030." In its response to Wicks' report²⁵, the government said it considered it unnecessary to set a target or 'aspiration'. However, the government reiterated the statement made in the Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation referring to new capacity required by 2025: "New nuclear power should be free to contribute as much as possible towards meeting the need for 25 GW of new non-renewable capacity."²⁶ (The 25 GW figure is based on the assumption that 60 GWe of net new capacity is required by 2025, of which 35 GWe could come from renewables, and the remaining 25 GWe coming from conventional generation capacity.) [Back]

l. The 2002 white paper, Managing the Nuclear Legacy – a Strategy for Action²⁷, posed the question: “Is the creation of the Liabilities Management Authority a backdoor route to more nuclear power?” (At the time, the ‘Liabilities Management Authority’ was the name given then to the organization that was to become the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.) To this, the answer given was: “No. There is no direct link between the creation of the Liabilities Management Authority and any future proposals for new nuclear capacity. The LMA will focus on dealing with the consequences of the past.” Furthermore, the Energy Act 2004 states that the principal function of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is decommissioning (as well as operation of installations pending their decommissioning). [Back]

m. The Horizon Nuclear Power Horizon Nuclear Power website (www.horizonnuclearpower.com) contains information on the joint venture's sites at Wylfa and Oldbury. [Back]

n. British Energy Group delisted from the London Stock Exchange in February 2009 following its acquisition by EDF and has been integrated into the EDF Energy subsidiary. In addition to its plans at Hinkley Point and Sizewell, EDF Energy has grid connection agreements for Bradwell, Dungeness, and Heysham – about 1650 MWe each.  However, in 2012 EdF cancelled the agreement for Heysham grid connection.

Bradwell

Under an agreement with the UK government, if both Hinkley Point and Sizewell are included in the Nuclear National Policy Statement and planning consent is obtained for two EPR units at Sizewell, then the potential development land at Bradwell – consisting of land already owned by British Energy (prior to its acquisition by EDF) and land acquired from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority at auction – will have to be sold. It is therefore unlikely that EDF Energy will build a new nuclear plant at Bradwell. If it were to go ahead, the earliest commissioning date would be 2022.

Dungeness

One of the conditions imposed by the European Commission regarding the acquisition of British Energy by EDF is that EDF is required to dispose of potential development land at either Dungeness or Heysham³⁰. Expressions of interest were invited in May 2009 but no agreement has been reached to date. However, since Dungeness is unlikely to be included in the National Nuclear Policy Statement (see section on Strategic siting assessment), new nuclear deployment at Dungeness is highly unlikely.

Heysham

As noted in the paragraph above on Dungeness, EDF is required to dispose of potential development land at either Dungeness or Heysham, and expressions of interest were invited in May 2009. Both EDF and Iberdrola sent letters of support for the nomination of Heysham to be included as a suitable site within the Nuclear National Policy Statement. Whereas EDF Energy estimates that 2022 is a feasible early deployment date for commissioning of a new unit, Iberdrola considers 2019/2020 possible, with potentially an additional unit following two years later.

[Back]

o. When the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) took ownership of the Springfields site on 1 April 2005, BNFL subsidiary Westinghouse continued with the management and operation (M&O) of the site through its Uranium Asset Management Ltd (UAM) business. This arrangement continued with the sale of Westinghouse to Toshiba. The M&O contract expired at the end of March 2010 and, from April 2010, Westinghouse leased the site on a long-term basis from the NDA. Responsibility for the commercial fuel manufacturing business and the workforce was transferred to Westinghouse. At the same time, UAM was replaced by a 60:40 Toshiba-Westinghouse joint venture, Advance Uranium Asset Management Ltd. [Back]

p. Tails from Capenhurst have been sent to Tenex in Russia since the mid-1990s for re-enrichment. The product at about 0.7% U-235 was returned to Urenco, the tails from that process remaining in Russia, and are considered a resource for future fast reactors there. This arrangement concluded at the end of 2009. [Back]

q. Earlier, it had been planned to operate Thorp until 2011 to meet contractual commitments for AGR and overseas LWR fuel. However, following the April 2005 feed clarification cell event (see section on Sellafield in Appendix 1, Nuclear Development in the United Kingdom) and a subsequent period offline, Thorp has since been operating on reduced capacity due to constraints over evaporator capacity. A review of the strategy for the management of used oxide fuel is underway³¹, the outcome of which will affect the projected closure date for Thorp. [Back]

r. The default position, as outlined in the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) document NDA Plutonium Topic Strategy – Credible Options Summary³², is as follows: "Plutonium – of which 100 tonnes is located at Sellafield and two tonnes at Dounreay – is treated as a zero value asset. The default plan is to store the material until 2070 at Dounreay and until 2120 at Sellafield."

In May 2010, a plutonium storage facility was completed after five years construction. It is the Sellafield Product and Residues Store, with 100-year design life, and all plutonium and plutonium residues at Sellafield will eventually be consolidated there. [Back]

s. By mid-2009, the Sellafield vitrification plant had produced its 5000th canister of vitrified high-level waste, representing 3000 m³ of liquor reduced to 750 m³ of glass. The plant fills about 400 canisters per year, each about 1.2m high. Some 1850 canisters of vitrified waste will be returned to overseas customers from 2010 under the Vitrified Residue Returns (VRR) program. This will take about ten years to complete. [Back]

t. The government plans for waste from new nuclear build to be disposed of alongside NDA-owned waste in the planned Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). The NDA estimates that the total undiscounted cost of the GDF will come to £11,790 million. Of this, the NDA estimates that its share of the GDF would come to £10,493 million (undiscounted). A further £2 billion undiscounted would be required if existing stocks of separated plutonium and uranium were required to be disposed of³³. Disposal costs for waste arising from new nuclear plants are expected to be borne by the waste producers.

More detailed figures on the total cost of the planned GDF are given in the Department of Energy & Climate Change's December 2010 Consultation on an updated Waste Transfer Pricing Methodology for the disposal of higher activity waste from new nuclear power stations (see Reference 21 below). This quotes NDA estimates of the total fixed costs of the GDF as £4401 million and total variable costs for legacy and committed waste of £7751.6 million. The consultation document estimates that the total variable costs for the disposal of new build waste (based on a "generic" 1350 MWe PWR) would be £217.2 million per reactor. Operators of new plants would also contribute towards the fixed costs of the GDF. The consultation document estimates that this contribution towards the fixed costs of the GDF would come to £132.9 million per reactor including a financing charge. (Costs are given in September 2008 money values.) [Back]

u. The UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) comprises the Office for NUclear Regulation (ONR) www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear - formerly the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) and the UK Safeguards Office (UKSO). The ONR is the nuclear safety regulator for the civil and defence related nuclear sites in the UK. The OCNS is the security regulator for the UK’s civil nuclear industry, including both on site and the security of sensitive nuclear material in transit. The UKSO oversees the application of international safeguards measures in the UK.

The OCNS and the UKSO formerly came under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) but in April 2007, the security activities of the OCNS and operational safeguards work of UKSO transferred from the DTI to the HSE. At that time, the Nuclear Safety Directorate became the Nuclear Directorate, which disappeared in 2011 when ONR was created.

In addition, the Radioactive Materials Transport Team (RMTT), in the Dangerous Goods Division of the Department for Transport (DfT), is the regulator for the safety of the transport of radioactive material (including nuclear material) by road and rail. The Transport Security and Contingencies Directorate (TRANSEC) of the DfT is the regulator for the security of the transport of non-nuclear radioactive material by road and rail. [Back]

References

1. Energy white paper, Our energy future – creating a low carbon economy, Cm 5761, Department of Trade and Industry (February 2003) [Back]

2. The Energy Challenge, Energy Review Report 2006, Cm 6887, Department of Trade and Industry (July 2006) [Back]

3. Greenpeace Ltd., R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, [2007] EWHC 311 (Admin) (15 February 2007) [Back]

4. Meeting the Energy Challenge, A White Paper on Energy, Cm 7124, Department of Trade and Industry (May 2007) [Back]

5. The Future of Nuclear Power – the role of nuclear power in a low carbon UK economy, Consultation Document, Department of Trade and Industry (May 2007), published on The future of nuclear power: the role of nuclear power in a low carbon UK economy consultation website [Back]

6. Meeting the Energy Challenge – A White Paper on Nuclear Power, Cm 7296, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (January 2008), published on the Nuclear white paper 2008: 'Meeting the energy challenge' website [Back]

7. See the Department of Energy & Climate Change website on the Climate Change Act 2008 [Back]

8. The Road to 2010: Addressing the nuclear question in the twenty first century, Cm 7675, Cabinet Office (July 2009) [Back]

9. Energy Policy: An Overview, The Scottish Government (September 2008) [Back]

10. Major infrastructure stays on fast-track as planning quango closes, Department of Communities and Local Government news release (29 June 2010) [Back]

11. Towards a Nuclear National Policy Statement: Consultation on the Strategic Siting Assessment Process and Siting Criteria for New Nuclear Power Stations in the UK, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (July 2008) [Back]

12. Towards a Nuclear National Policy Statement: Government response to consultations on the Strategic Siting Assessment process and siting criteria for new nuclear power stations in the UK; and to the study on the potential environmental and sustainability effects of applying the criteria, Office for Nuclear Development, Department of Energy & Climate Change, URN 09/581 (January 2009) [Back]

13. A consideration of alternative sites to those nominated as part of the Government’s Strategic Siting Assessment process for new nuclear power stations, Prepared by Atkins for the Department of Energy & Climate Change (November 2009) [Back]

14. Consultation on draft National Policy Statements for Energy Infrastructure, Department of Energy & Climate Change (November 2009); Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation (EN-6), Presented to Parliament pursuant to section 5(9b) of the Planning Act 2008, Department of Energy & Climate Change (November 2009) [Back]

15. Consultation on draft national policy statements for energy, Department of Energy & Climate Change press release (15 July 2010) [Back]

16. Consultation on revised draft National Policy Statements for Energy Infrastructure, Planning for new energy infrastructure, Department of Energy & Climate Change (October 2010), available on the website for the Consultation on the revised draft National Policy Statements for Energy Infrastructure on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk) [Back]

17. Time getting tight for UK assessment, World Nuclear News (25 August 2010) [Back]

18. The Consultation on Funded Decommissioning Programme Guidance for New Nuclear Power Stations, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (February 2008) and The Government Response to the Consultation on Funded Decommissioning Programme Guidance for New Nuclear Power Stations, Office for Nuclear Development, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (September 2008) are available on the website for the Consultation on funded decommissioning programme guidance for new nuclear power stations [Back]

19. Consultation on The Financing of Nuclear Decommissioning and Waste Handling Regulations, Department of Energy & Climate Change (March 2010), available on the website for the Consultation on funded decommissioning programme guidance for new nuclear power stations on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk) [Back]

20. Consultation on revised Funded Decommissioning Programme Guidance for New Nuclear Power Stations, Department of Energy & Climate Change (December 2010), available on the website for the Consultation on revised Funded Decommissioning Programme Guidance for new nuclear power stations on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk) [Back]

21. Consultation on a Methodology to Determine a Fixed Unit Price for Waste Disposal and Updated Cost Estimates for Nuclear Decommissioning, Waste Management and Waste Disposal, Department of Energy & Climate Change (March 2010), available on the website for the Consultation on a methodology for determining a Fixed Unit Price for waste disposal and updated cost estimates for nuclear decommissioning, waste management and waste disposal on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk).
Consultation on an updated Waste Transfer Pricing Methodology for the disposal of higher activity waste from new nuclear power stations, Department of Energy & Climate Change (December 2010), available on the website for the Consultation on an updated Waste Transfer Pricing Methodology for the disposal of higher activity waste from new nuclear power stations on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk). [Back]

22. The Energy Challenge, Energy Review Report 2006, Cm 6887, Department of Trade and Industry (July 2006) [Back]

23. The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan: National strategy for climate and energy, HM Government (July 2009) is published on The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan website on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk) [Back]

24. The Coalition: our programme for government, HM Government (May 2010) [Back]

25. The August 2009 report by Malcolm Wicks, Energy Security: A national challenge in a changing world and the Government Response to Malcolm Wicks’s Review of International Energy Security, ‘Energy Security: A national challenge in a changing world’, Department of Energy & Climate Change (April 2010), are available on the Energy Security: A national challenge in a changing world website on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk) [Back]

26. Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation (EN-6), Presented to Parliament pursuant to section 5(9b) of the Planning Act 2008, Department of Energy & Climate Change (November 2009) [Back]

27. Managing the Nuclear Legacy – A strategy for action, Department for Trade and Industry (July 2002) [Back]

28. Winning bidders in NDA land auction announced, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority news release (29 April 2009) [Back]

29. GDF Suez, Iberdrola And Scottish And Southern Energy To Acquire Site From Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, ScottishPower press release (28 October 2009); Sellafield land sale agreed, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority news release (28 October 2009) [Back]

30. Case No COMP/M.5224 - EDF / BRITISH ENERGY, Eur-Lex document number 32008M5224, European Commission (22 December 2008) [Back]

31. Oxide Fuel Strategy, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority news release (16 March 2010) and Oxide Fuel Topic Strategy discussion paper, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (March 2010) [Back]

32. NDA Plutonium Topic Strategy – Credible Options Summary, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (30 January 2009) [Back]

33. Geological Disposal: Steps towards implementation, NDA Report no. NDA/RWMD/013, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (March 2010) [Back]

34. Implementation of changes to the Paris and Brussels Conventions on nuclear third party liability: a public consultation, Department of Energy & Climate Change (January 2011), available on the website for Implementation of changes to the Paris and Brussels Conventions on nuclear third party liability: a public consultation on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website (www.decc.gov.uk) [Back]