After half a decade of promises to West Cumbrian communities that the first of three Westinghouse AP1000 reactors would be operational by 2024 – a claim repeatedly refuted by CORE – Moorside developer NuGen has today admitted that the first reactor will not be operating until 2026. The climb-down is revealed in the NuGen documents published today for its Stage 2 public consultation that will run from 14th May to 31st July. Unsurprisingly, the embarrassing delay of two years gets scant coverage in the reams of consultation documentation which fail to say whether the delay is a knock-on effect of a late construction start (originally 2020) or an extension to the unrealistic 4-year build time for the reactor itself. Either way, the delay will wreak havoc with the timetable for building the second and third reactor (the latter originally scheduled itself for completion by 2026). Whilst the ‘Proposed Scheme’ consultation document (Figure 1, page 32) shows Reactor 1 being ‘deployable by end of 2025’, it also identifies the timelines for Phased Fuel Loading – which extends to the end of 2027 – and for Phased Testing and Start of Operations which extends to the end of 2028.
CORE 14th May 2016 read more »
A couple of days ago, we revealed some of Nugens Plans for the area. Part of those plans include housing up to 4,000 contractors in Modular Housing, up to four storeys high next to Mirehouse Pond. Yesterday, we carried out a site visit to the pond and are extremely alarmed at the damage that could occur, visually and environmentally to the area. At a recent briefing with Councillors, Nugen put on display fancy, glossy literature along with bird-eye views of selected sites – but were less than helpful, when a request was made for ground level representations. So, we have put this mock-up together:
Read All About It Cumbria 14th May 2016 read more »