The revelation that the main safety regulator, HSE (the Health and Safety Executive), cannot approve the current nuclear reactor designs which are central to the Government’s intended nuclear renaissancecarries enormous implications. The leading designs come from the French companies, which make the EPR reactor, Areva and EDF, and the US multinational power comapny, Westinghouse, which produces the AP1000 reactor. The HSE report identifies several safety concerns. One focuses on the non-separation of the safety protection system from the control system on the EPR reactor, such that a fault on one could disable the other as well. Second, the EPR has a concrete shell encasing the nuclear reactor where the steel cables are grouted over, preventing maintenance checks as the reactor ages, whereas British practice is that the steel cables should be able to be inspected and removed. Third, there are problems with the positioning and operation of fire doors and alarms. HSE also believes that the Westinghouse safety case has significant shortfalls, with questions also about the mechanical engineering and structural integrity. These are not minor points. The implications for the Government’s plans to have new nuclear plants up and running by 2017 are devastating.

I raised this issue with Ed Miliband, the DECC secretary, in the Commons on 9 November. I asked him: “As French, Finnish and UK regulators have all recently agreedthat the current control systems for the evolutionary EPR reactor are to be subject to architectural change – in other words, the reactor is still being designed – how can the Government possibly sanction the justification of nuclear plant before reactor design is finally decided?” His reply is worth quoting at length: “We are benefiting from the fact that other countries are constructing and using power plants – in the case of both Westinghouse and Areva – before they are constructed here. That and the generic design assessment represent precisely the advantage that we in this country have of being able to get the design right, so that we can stick to the timetable and avoid the cost overruns that would otherwise result”.
That answer now looks distinctly hollow in the light of the HSE objections announced a fortnight later on 26 November. The truth is it is now unlikely that the planned reactors can come on stream in 2017, and the Government’s programme to prevent an energy gap opening up then (and the lights going out) is now severely compromised. If the HSE resists the undoubted pressure that will be exerted from Government to pass these designs and delays approval for 2-3 years till it is fully satisfied, investors could well lose interest. Already Government has had to commit to hidden subsidies (contrary to its initial protestations), to offer insurance in the event of catastrophic breakdown, and to accept that nuclear viability is dependent on a high international carbon price (which Copenahgen seems unlikely to deliver), and now a spanner has been thrown into the whole safety case and justification process. The obvious solution is to switch investment instead to a much bigger and much faster build-up of renewable energy, but that is something New Labour will not do under any circumstances.

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