Home | Friday 3rd June 2011 | Issue 774
HINKLEY: GONE FRISSION
New nuclear rumblings are afoot as EDF put in a planning application to clear a site for Hinkley C, the first new nuclear development in the UK since Sizewell B in 1988.
The proposed works would clear more than 400 acres of grassland, woodland and hedgerows around the two existing nuclear sites at Hinkley in Somerset. This would involve diverting footpaths; laying drainage infrastructure; constructing car parks, haulage and access roads; the undertaking of massive earthworks, concrete reinforcing and putting in provision for the operation of plant and machinery. And all this before formal permission to actually build the power station has been granted.
Hinkley A was decommissioned and went out of service in 2000, with Hinkley B due to be retired in 2016. After the 2002 UK government moratorium on building any new nuclear facilities, it looked like the same fate would befall all operating nuclear power stations in the UK. However, in 2008 the government announced eight sites they thought suitable for new nuclear. Hinkley is the first to get works underway (see SchNEWS 763).
And it’s not just brand-new sites that are going to gobble the uranium. EDF have stated that they’re going to extend the lifespan of two of its UK-based nuclear stations by five years, Heysham 1 in Lancashire and Hartlepool power station in County Durham. Both plants were due to shut in 2014, but will now continue until 2019. The company is eyeing up the other five reactors it operates, with Sizewell B in Suffolk potentially being kept open for an additional 20 years.
In response to the application at Hinkley, Stop New Nuclear (an alliance of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop Nuclear Power Network, Kick Nuclear, South West Against Nuclear, Trident Ploughshares, Stop Hinkley, Shutdown Sizewell and Sizewell Blockaders) have announced a non-violent blockade of the site on 3rd October. Campaigners are heralding the action as the a definitive moment in the future of nuclear in the UK, stating “If [the industry] fails at Hinkley, it is unlikely the “nuclear renaissance” will have the momentum to continue.”
