Nuclear consultant’s fears over new power plants plan
ANUCLEAR consultant who has sat on a UK Government forum on the disposal of radioactive waste has raised security concerns about a new generation of power stations planned for Wales and the rest of the UK.
Dr David Lowry, who in the past has advised former Labour MPs Paul Flynn and Llew Smith and is currently a senior international research fellow with the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said there was a need for total transparency about the proposed small modular reactors (SMRs) proposed by a consortium led by Rolls-Royce.
Two sites in Wales – at the former nuclear power sites of Wylfa, Anglesey, and Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd – are among those being considered.
According to the consortium, they would pose no security problems.
But Dr Lowry, who has spoken of his concerns about SMRs at international academic conferences, said: “SMRs provide unique targets for terrorists to disrupt power supplies and destabilise the local community.
“Why so? Because the salespeople for SMRs like to show images of sleek shiny plants with no or virtually no site protection against malevolent ‘bad guys’.
“Anyone with a shoulder-held grenade launcher could fire a devastating high-energy deep-penetrator projectile into the heart of the reactor from just yards away. Astonishing, but true.”
Dr Lowry said it was important that communities close to the proposed sites, and those who represent them, asked detailed and tough questions of the consortium.
“As a result of a change in the planning process a few years ago, there is no longer the requirement for a full public inquiry.
“But that should not stop local communities and their representatives demanding full explanations about how the plants will be made wholly secure.
“A five- or six-feet-high wire fence is simply not good enough.”
A spokesman for the Rolls-Royceled consortium, said: “Our power station will incorporate protective measures against all of the current and future potential security risks laid out by the UK’s authorities.
“These measures will then have to be evaluated and approved by the UK nuclear regulator, on behalf of the public, for our consortium to be allowed to proceed to construction.”
The consortium is expecting to receive around £220m in public subsidy if the project goes ahead.
Altogether, it estimates that 46,000 jobs will be created, although it is unable at this stage to say how many would be in Wales.
The power stations would, if the planning process goes ahead without hitches, start to come on stream from 2029.
All the SMRs – which are significantly smaller than conventional nuclear power stations – would be built on sites where there have previously been nuclear installations.
They would have a lifespan of 60 years and waste would be stored on site for as long as the power stations were operating. Afterwards, the waste would be stored in Britain’s as yet unconstructed waste repository.