Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560
- 565)
WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2010 (afternoon)
MR PETER
LANYON, MS
VARRIE BLOWERS
AND MR
BARRY TURNER
Q560 Dr Whitehead:
On a slightly different topic, how far above sea level is the
Bradwell site? Mr Turner and Ms Blowers, you mentioned in your
evidence that it is a low-lying site.
Mr Turner: It is.
Q561 Dr Whitehead:
Are you aware of any work that has been done by Essex County Council
on coastal protection or policy for future coastal management
relating to that site or its environment?
Mr Turner: They admit that work
will be needed to protect it. In actual fact, if I can find it
(and it is in our report), there is one of the stupidest statements
that I have ever come across regarding the site. The Environment
Agency said this, "It is potentially reasonable to conclude
that a nuclear power station could potentially be protected against
flood risks throughout its lifetime." The trouble is nobody
knows what the sea level rise is going to be. That seems to be
an unreasonable statement to claim as something that should be
relied on. To go back to your question, I have not got the figures
in front of me. I will have them in my volumes of information.
It is certainly one of the lowest-lying sites. There is only a
small part of it which is in flood level two, the rest is all
in flood level three.
Ms Blowers: One of the problems
too is that projections of sea level rises only go up to about
the next 100 years, if that, and, as you know, there is a proposal
to store highly radioactive spent fuel on sites for 160 years,
or even longer. Of course, no-one has any idea what will be happening
then.
Mr Lanyon: May I add to that,
please? In EN6 on page 53 there is a statement that it is not
practicable to consider beyond 2100 at this stage about the defences
against sea level rise and flood risk, and, as Varrie Blowers
says, the station, or the waste store at least, is likely to be
there close on 2200. If you take it from 2025 and go on for 160
years you get very close to that. It is bad enough that we are
being asked to cope with a waste store there for 100 years when
we do not know whether the coast is going to be there to support
it, but far worse than that is that we have not been able to find
anywhere in any of these 2,000 pages any reference to the exacerbating
effects of offshore aggregate dredging, which is going on nearer
and nearer to Sizewell every year. The new proposed zone 430 is
directly opposite the Sizewell sandbanks, 11 miles offshore, and
it is well-known that the effects of dredging off-shore increases
the rate of coastal erosion to such an extent that when, a few
years ago, the people who support dredging—this is a scientific
report on the effects of dredging—said that the beach might
erode a little bit by 2060, in fact, it has eroded already only
five years later to that extent; so they were 12 times wrong.
Of course, that is the Pro-dredging Lobby and their scientific
advisers. We fear that one of the problems behind this is that
the Crown Estates make a tremendous amount of money flogging licences
and they do not undertake any research, which we insist is necessary
in order to make sure what is going to be the state of the coast,
but here in the NPS itself it says beyond 2100 we have not a clue.
What sort of a basis is that?
Q562 Dr Whitehead:
Previous witnesses to our inquiries have made the statement that
it is rather easier to protect a nuclear power station than it
is to protect an entire coastline. Is it your view that such sites
would be protectable for the next 100 years? I have the image
in my mind of a nuclear site surrounded by water out to sea. Is
that your view, or do you think there are circumstances under
which such sites could be protected?
Mr Lanyon: British Energy or the
Met Office got Halcrow to do the assessment of what effectively
would be needed at Sizewell two years ago now, and they were the
people who got it 12 times wrong. You are absolutely right about
the surrounding water, because the fluvial risk to Sizewell from
the Minsmere River coming down from inland and the low-lying country
behind Sizewell will make it an island, and God knows what will
happen to the 10-metre high bump on which the Sizewell stations
at the moment sit and just to the north of there where they propose
to put the new station. What, in fact, they are hoping to be allowed
to do is to produce this vast new access road which will, they
think, provide a bund which will keep the water out of that low-lying
land, but they have got to have a bridge under there to let the
water out and in, and so that will be the first thing to go if
the sea level rises. As you know perfectly well, every time the
International Panel on Climate Change reports it gets worse and
worse, and the only certainty about this is that it is going to
be a darned sight worse than we think already.
Ms Blowers: I would say it is
possible to protect anything if you throw enough money at it,
and, as we know, the nuclear industry has lots of money to throw
at everything. We can envisage the Bradwell site ending up as
an island and also that the amount of protection that will be
required for that will have quite a devastating effect on the
rest of the coastline.
Mr Turner: We are a bit puzzled
as to how this will be funded. If an operator is operating his
power station and subsequently decommissioning it, I can understand
he would be expected to pay for that, but if that waste store
has to be defended, let us say, for another 100 years beyond against
who knows what risk, how is that funded? Who pays for that? The
taxpayer, I suppose, against who knows what expense.
Q563 Sir Robert Smith:
Nuclear companies have gone bust in the past.
Mr Turner: In this case it might
be the French Government, might it not? I do not think they will
cough up!
Ms Blowers: EDF is in dire straits
apparently.
Mr Lanyon: By engineering, if
you oppose the sea's energy in one place, that energy has to go
somewhere. It will merely deflect it up and down the coast, and
up the coast you have got Minsmere, Dunwich, Walberswick and Southwold,
down the coast you have got Orford and Aldeburgh. The energy is
going to go there, so protecting Sizewell for any length of time
will damage all these other places. You cannot win; you cannot
mitigate those sorts of things.
Mr Turner: I still find it difficult
to get my mind round this. If British Government sponsored surveys
have said something is achievable economically to a potential
site operator and those predictions prove to be at fault and,
therefore, the site operator finds himself investing far more
into protection, who would be liable then? The operator might
legitimately say, "You told me this was defendable and actually
it is not." Who does it then?
Dr Whitehead: I think that is an interesting
question. I am conscious that we are running out of time this
evening.
Judy Mallaber: I am sure you have already
covered the question as to whether the groups concerned are opposed
to nuclear power in principle or whether it is specifically about
the particular proposals and the specific sites. I do apologise
for not having been able to be here earlier. I am sorry to have
missed the session.
Q564 Dr Whitehead:
I think we have received evidence that by no means all the members
of such organisations are necessarily to be regarded as anti-nuclear
power but have made representations about these particular sites.
That is my understanding.
Mr Lanyon: We were formed as a
consequence of the Chernobyl disaster to do everything we could
to make sure it could not happen at Sizewell, and we have been
going for 24 years.
Q565 Dr Whitehead:
I think we will have to end our discussions at that a point. Thank
you very much, Mr Lanyon, Ms Blowers and Mr Turner, for your evidence
this afternoon and thank you also to all the witnesses who I know
have travelled very considerable distances to be here today. We
are grateful for your evidence and, I repeat my suggestion that,
should you have any further information that you wish this Committee
to have drawn to its attention, it will be very much welcomed
by us in the course of our inquiry.
Ms Blowers: Thank you very much
for giving us the opportunity to come here.
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