The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group questioned the real purpose of the Environment Agency’s public consultation on its assessment of the HPR1000 nuclear reactor. Alongside the Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Environment Agency assesses the acceptability of new nuclear power station designs in a process called Generic Design Assessment. This process helps ensure that any new nuclear power stations built in the UK meet high standards of safety, security, environmental protection and waste management. But a BANNG spokesman said: “The EA’s role would seem to be to protect what little is left of the environment once it has been trashed by a grotesque nuclear development. “We believe this consultation is more to do with giving the developer a passport to develop its reactor at a generic site, rather than specifically at Bradwell. “The EA claims the developer has provided an acceptable waste strategy for all waste streams within the scope of this design assessment but BANNG does not share this confidence, pointing out radioactive spent fuel will have to be stored safely on-site until the end of the next century in unknowable but certainly deteriorating conditions. “A long-term waste strategy is presently more fantasy than fact. In conditions of uncertainty, such a strategy is unacceptable and, therefore, the project should not proceed.
Maldon Standard 22nd April 2021 read more »