Tim Probert, Power Engineering International
EDF is to submit an initial planning request on 2 August to build two reactors at the existing Hinkley Point nuclear site in Somerset, England, reports World Nuclear News.
The submission will be made to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), an independent secretariat created by the Labour government last October to make major projects less prone to lengthy public enquiries by keeping local enquiries concerned with local issues, not national energy policy. The new regime should avoid the farcical public enquiry seen in the 1980s - when the UK built its last nuclear reactor, at Sizewell in Suffolk - which took three years and a record 16 million words of evidence.
The IPC will effectively be instructed by the government’s National Policy Statement (NPS) for nuclear to give considerable weight to the need for new build nuclear when considering applications. The commission will work to strict deadlines to make a decision, meaning that Hinkley Point C could be given approval by mid-2011 and EDF will have a chance to meet its self-imposed deadline of 2017 to commission the plant.
However, the Conservative Party, favourites to win the upcoming General Election (odds-on to be on 6 May), wants to scrap the IPC. This is mainly because it takes the power to approve/reject planning applications out of the hands of the Secretary of State, and into the hands of a non-elected quango official.
Yet the Tories do like the government’s nuclear NPS, which is site-specific, and will abrogate local enquiries about the need for nuclear. The only snag is that the NPS has not been ratified by Parliament, meaning that nuclear opponents like Greenpeace, which are itching to disrupt progress, could mount a legal objection.
A vote is expected some time this year, but if the Tories are elected in May and scrap the IPC then there will still be a great deal of uncertainty over whether EDF Energy CEO Vincent de Rivaz will be able to roast his Christmas turkey with power from Hinkley Point C in 2017.
Tim Probert is conference director of Nuclear Power Europe.
