Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 379)
WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 2010 (afternoon)
MR KEITH
PARKER, MR
SIMON JAMES,
MR RICHARD
WAITE AND
MR BRUCE
MCKIRDY
Q360 Chairman:
Richard, you have just promised to write us a note on the planning,
and about the rationale behind it as well would be helpful.
Mr Waite: Yes,
we will make that clear.
Q361 Chairman:
Keith and Simon, you have had the opportunity to listen to colleagues
from the NDA. Is there anything you disagree with, which I think
is unlikely, or that you want to add to?
Mr Parker: No, I do not think
so. We are confident that the arrangements are now in place for
a satisfactory resolution to the waste issue and the Government
is pushing it forward and we have confidence in the NDA being
able to implement it.
Chairman: Let us turn to the site specific
nature of the nuclear NPS. Its unusual sites we talked about.
Q362 Dr Turner:
Indeed. The Nuclear NPS obviously is the only NPS which is site
specific. Is that something you welcome and are happy with?
Mr Parker: Yes, I think the reasons
for that are clearly stated, that given the level of interest
in nuclear it is important that the Government has undertaken
the strategic siting assessment and looked at a range of issues
relating to each of the nominated sites, so I think it is important
in terms of, again, accountability, public confidence in the process
of this and this has been done.
Q363 Dr Turner:
But Dungeness is not in that list, which I think you are not happy
with?
Mr James: Yes, we do have an issue
with Dungeness being excluded. I think the key issue is that the
NPS clearly states that nuclear should be free to contribute as
much as possible up to 25GW of new capacity on the central scenario
and it could actually be more, depending on the overall demand
scenario rises, which with decarbonisation of transport is possible,
but even so if nuclear is supposed to be unconstrained in providing
as large a proportion of that as possible then this actually constrains
that by reducing the number of sites and it is removing the Dungeness
site on a discretionary criteria. There are other issues under
discretionary criteria, for instance, on other sites, which the
Government clearly says could be mitigated against. On Dungeness
they say they believe it cannot. I think from our point of view
there are two existing stations at Dungeness and a third one would
not significantly cause further impact on the site; indeed some
of the measures that are taken on site in terms of coastal protection
actually serve to protect the shingle beach and the issue which
English Nature has had on the site is around the shingle beach.
Now, that shingle beach is largely protected because there are
two nuclear power stations at Dungeness, so the mitigation methods
likely to be employed can potentially be beneficial. Also, the
percentage of the Sites of Special Scientific Interest that is
within the boundaries is tiny, according to Shepway District Councilit
is 0.3 per cent of the site, and indeed most of that site would
not actually have a power station on it, so (a) it is a very tiny
proportion, and (b) mitigation methods do exist, so it seems to
us premature, to say the least, to exclude the site at this time.
That is not to say if someone had an application in on this site
the IPC would not have to spend a considerable amount of time
looking at those mitigation methods and actually ensuring itself
that mitigation is possible. Of course that would have to happen,
but to exclude at this stage we think is singularly premature.
Q364 Dr Turner:
What mitigation do you view is appropriate in terms of the sites
that are in the NPS as a general view? What sort of mitigation
would you envisage would be a reasonable arrangement as far as
a nuclear power station siting agreement was concerned?
Mr Parker: I think it might vary
from site to site, but the environmental regulations surrounding
the development of new nuclear sites are pretty extensive and
each of them will need to be examined in terms of how any impacts
can be avoided or mitigated. You can envisage, for example, the
visual impact of sites having to be addressed in the design of
the power station. Noise impact, for example, during construction
would have to be addressed. So there is a wide range of environmental
requirements which will have to be looked at on a sort of case
by case basis, but the developers will abide by those regulations
and ensure that the mitigating measures are taken to ensure that
the environmental and other impacts are reduced as far as possible.
Q365 Dr Turner:
Would mitigation, in your view, include protection against the
danger or the likelihood over the life of the site that it would
flood due to rising sea levels?
Mr Parker: Yes. I think that is
a requirement that would have to be looked at and I think it is
identified in the appraisal of sustainability assessments that
were done for each of the sites, which are published in the NPS.
Q366 Dr Turner:
But are you confident—which I am not sure has been completely
concluded prior to those sites being included in the NPS—that
those sites are protectable at reasonable cost and with reasonable
measures from flooding over what would be the next hundred years,
particularly, as I would understand it, in terms of the surface
storing of future waste material, those stores that you presently
have built, the NDA, and which are to be built in the future,
will all be within those sites. So presumably we are talking about
100 years guaranteed floodproofing?
Mr Parker: Yes.
Mr Waite: Absolutely. Those arrangements
will be made, as indeed they are today for existing stations and
existing storage, and predictions are available from the Environment
Agency and the Met Office as to what might happen in the next
hundred-odd years. Conservatisms are added to those before they
are then built into the designs to make sure there is enough headroom
as it were, in the design to cope with any impact of climate change.
Q367 Dr Turner:
If the strategic planning body decided they did not agree with
you on the ability to do that, you would then have no other sites
to go to inasmuch as because the NPS is site-specific there is
no plan B in it, is that right; i.e. if any of those sites were
to be rejected on planning grounds because there was concern,
for example, about flooding, they would then presumably go the
way of Dungeness, i.e. they would be excised from within the NPS
for future reference and no other sites can be brought in?
Mr James: Well, they would not
technically be taken out of the NPS, they would still be there.
In terms of there not being a plan B, it is technically possible
that you could submit an application for a site which is not one
of the ten listed sites. The IPC would not be able to take a decision
on it. They could hold the hearings on that and they could make
a recommendation to the Secretary of State, but they could not
take a formal decision on those. So theoretically there is a plan
B, but I think the chances of all of the sites being ruled out
on those grounds are very small indeed, not least of which all
but two of them are existing sites which have existing flood management
measures in place, which have been through a public inquiry and
have been found to be sound, and they already look 100 years plus
hence. So from that point of view, I think the chances of that
happening are very small indeed. Of course, the ability to protect
one small location on the coast is a different issue from the
point of view of trying to protect an entire coastline. If what
we were faced with was having to protect the whole of the Suffolk
coast, for example, then yes, that would be an enormous cost and
technically a difficult challenge. Depending on one point on the
coast, however, is certainly technically possible. It is done
now and those measures are in place.
Mr Parker: I think it is worth
pointing out that all of these sites that were nominated in the
NPS have undergone a Strategic Siting Assessment, which the Government
carried out, which is fairly extensive, and they looked at all
of these issues. I think the view the Government has taken is
that these sites are suitable for new nuclear development.
Q368 Dr Turner:
As far as repositories are concerned—this is a question
to Mr McKirdy and Mr Waite—you have mentioned the question
of buying from the communities concerned and therefore the presumption
that such repositories would be dealt with by the flood or planning
authorities. It has been suggested to us that one of the issues
which might be involved there is, as it were, not to put too fine
a point on it, the showering of benefits on such communities as
a quid pro quo for accepting the existence of a repository
in that community. Do you see that as a potential planning hurdle
inasmuch as it is not normal to take into account the showering
of benefits within planning applications?
Mr Waite: I think the Government
in the White Paper recognised the potential need for, as I think
they call it, the community benefits package to recognise the
national importance of the role that the host community would
have in serving the nation, if you like, with this facility. What
that looks like over and above the benefits of having it there
in the first place in terms of jobs, economic activity, and so
on, is yet to be determined and that is something which certainly
further downstream in the process the host communities would want
to have that discussion with the Government to understand what
exactly is meant by "community benefits package". I
think that can probably fit in within the existing planning framework
or indeed the IPC framework, but it is certainly something that
is brought up in the White Paper.
Q369 Colin Challen:
I note the NIA's disappointment over Dungeness and perhaps you
will be fighting a rearguard action to get it onto the list, but
I wonder if you could characterise the nature of your discussions
with Government ministers and officials in the creation of this
list generally speaking?
Mr Parker: We did not have any
direct discussions with officials or ministers on this list. The
developers were invited to nominate sites into the strategic siting
assessment process and that is what was done. EDF Energy, British
Energy, nominated all its sites, the NDA nominated sites into
the process. The NIA as an organisation did not have any part
in that.
Q370 Colin Challen:
As part of the nuclear industry generally, were you aware of discussions
going on in the creation of this list?
Mr Parker: No, other than I think
it has always been the view generally of the nuclear industry
that the existing sites, because of the advantages they have,
would be suitable for further nuclear development. That has been
a sort of presumption on our part, that they would be suitable.
Q371 Colin Challen:
I can understand why that is, but I also recall that ministers
have said that there is no limit, at least the market is putting
no limit on the number of new nuclear power stations that could
be built, and yet just looking at this list, which is one less
site than already exists, that seems to be putting a limit on
the range of new nuclear power stations that could be built, albeit
that some of those new power stations could have a higher capacity
than their predecessors. Is that how you see it?
Mr Parker: I think it goes back
to the question of urgency, if you like, the need to get new nuclear
capacity on the system, and the judgment was made in the NPSs
that the nuclear stations would be those which had the potential
to come on stream to address security of supply and climate change
objectives in a relatively short period of time. So we are looking
at a period between sort of 2018 and 2025 and building on these
existing sites would fulfil that requirement. I agree, however,
that if there was seen to be a need for additional or expanded
nuclear capacity beyond that timescale then you would need to
be looking at potentially new sites.
Q372 Colin Challen:
So here we have what is effectively a course of least resistance,
either technically because you have the skills in certain locations
and sites set up with certain facilities already available, and
in terms of public opinion I know that the NIA thinks that at
Dungeness public opinion is so much in favour of a new build that
that could possibly trump the dangers which climate change poses?
You might not agree with the characterisation of that. What other
sites do you have in mind, apart from these 10 or 11?
Mr James: Deciding on Dungeness
is not just us saying that, Shepway Council, the local council
in the area, is also very keen to point out the backing of the
local community for it. It is not that it has been ruled out on
climate change grounds, it is around the issues of the protection
of the beach, which, as we were saying earlier, is something we
believe is technically possible.
Q373 Colin Challen:
Have you got a longer list, and what is that list?
Mr Parker: We do not have a longer
list. The Government did look at alternative sites as part of
the NPS process. There is Druridge Bay, for example, in Northumberland.
Kingsnorth was also looked at. There was one other which I cannot
remember. So there were three sites which the Government regarded
as potentially suitable, although they came to the judgment that
they would not be able to be developed within that timeframe I
mentioned earlier, up to 2025.
Q374 Colin Challen:
To what extent does the choice of site constrain the development
of new nuclear power?
Mr Parker: There would certainly
need to be requirements, for example, around cooling water, which
is why most of the stations—all of the stations—are
on the coast. So it needs adequate supplies of cooling the water.
Of course one of the advantages of the existing sites is that
they already have the grid connections available. It would help
if those were available to any potential new sites. So there is
a range of issues, but I do not think in principle there are any
additional challenges to developers in moving to sites which do
not already have nuclear facilities on them.
Q375 Colin Challen:
So we could look at new nuclear taking place on existing power
station sites, Didcot, or Drax? That would not be a problem?
Mr Parker: Well, cooling water
might be an issue.
Q376 Colin Challen:
How much of an issue is that?
Mr Parker: I think it is quite
a significant issue. I believe Richard has more technical knowledge
of these issues than I do.
Mr Waite: There are examples in
the States where cooling water is supplied not by coastal facilities
but by rivers or very large lakes, or cooling towers, but generally
speaking the coastal facilities are better given security of supply
and so on. It is not technically impossible to put cooling tower
structures in place, but I think the regulators certainly prefer
to see static bodies of water. Those are more reliable means of
providing that facility.
Mr James: Peak demand is increasing
year on year as more people, for instance, use air conditioning.
The problem with using rivers is that, yes, you can using cooling
towers but you are still dealing with the water which is going
back into the river and in the middle of summer that can be an
issue in terms of that becoming too large and that is, for example,
what has happened on a couple of summers in France where they
do have inland power plants and the inland power plants have had
to reduce output in the summer for exactly that reason, whereas
the coastal plants do not have to. That is another reason why
the coastal sites are preferred.
Q377 Colin Challen:
Just finally, could I ask how long will it be, do you think, before
we get these extra three or four sites coming into the system
before that become necessary? These are coastal sites, I understand,
obviously, but how long is it before these extra three or four
sites come into this planning process—
Mr Parker: It is difficult to
predict at the moment because a lot of it will be down to the
commercial decisions of the operators and, if you like, the perceived
demand for new nuclear on the system. At the moment I think we
are confident that the development of the 10 or potentially 11
sites will get us up to a reasonable contribution from nuclear
to the mix, but beyond that I think it is very difficult to predict
because we do not know what the demand requirements are going
to be or, for example, the success of developing renewables or
carbon capture and storage. That will all become clearer, I think,
in several years' time.
Q378 Dr Turner:
If I could go back to Dungeness because it is a site I know quite
well because I used to be a member of the Dungeness Local Liaison
Committee and visited it quite regularly at one time in my chequered
career. Firstly, I find the reason for its exclusion somewhat
surprising because I would not have thought that an additional
station would have any significant impact on the Site of Scientific
Interest, and in fact the footprint of the current site is so
large that I think it could comfortably accommodate a third station
within it without going outside the boundaries. So it makes me
wonder about the validity of that assessment and it also makes
me then wonder about the validity of the assessments which have
included some of the other sites, because if we are going to have
a nuclear station Dungeness is a good place because it is pretty
remote, and so on and so forth, much more remote from centres
of population than many of the other sites, so it slightly makes
me question my faith in the selection process.
Mr James: I think we would agree
with you on the fact that it is a suitable place for a new nuclear
facility. In terms of why that site has been excluded, the nature
of the vociferousness of the objections from English Nature have
obviously played very heavily in that decision. You would probably
have to ask them why they particularly objected so strongly to
that site on those grounds, because those are the grounds on which
they have been excluded. I think the site assessments are very
thorough on all the sites and if you actually look at what has
been gone into on those sites—and it does include the population
criteria, for example, and you can see that in some of the sites,
how that would play on the sites and possibly change the footprint
of new reactors within those sites. So I think they have been
thoroughly assessed and I think that is a question you could probably
legitimately ask of English Nature, as to why English Nature particularly
has an issue with this site, it seems more so than they did with
other sites.
Q379 Dr Turner:
But it was not English Nature who actually excluded it. It was
not English Nature who made a judgment on the other sites.
Mr James: No, it was not. However,
it was on the basis of their representations that that decision
has been made. If you look through the Strategic Siting Assessment
review of Dungeness, you can see the discussions that have been
had between the site owner and DEC and English Nature around that
site, so it is difficult for us. We can read those discussions
as well as you can. It is difficult for us from outside the process
to know the decision making process within that.
Chairman: If we could move on fairly
quickly, please, Simon. A couple of questions from Charles and
then we will talk about the appraisal of sustainability, and then
you will be relieved to know that we have finished!
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