Electricity privatisation and the nuclear industry
01 January 1991
Electricity privatisation and the nuclear industry
artdoc May=1992
Northern European Nuclear Information Group (NENIG)
February 1990
Last year, the British Nuclear Industry suffered a severe
attack on its credibility, with the announcement by the British
Secretary of State for Energy that the nuclear power stations
are no longer to be sold off to the private sector along with
the rest of the electricity generating industry.
The British Government has been steadily selling off all its
publicly owned industries to private shareholders, and the
electricity generating industry is soon to be sold. When the
plans for this were first announced, the sell off was to
include all the nuclear power stations. However, when the
costs and economics of the industry were examined by potential
investors, it became clear that nuclear power stations were not
a good buy, being expensive to run, with high waste disposal
costs, and even more expensive to decommission at the end of
their life. Earlier this year, the Government went some way
to recognise this, by withdrawing the older Magnox nuclear
power stations from the sale, and they have now accepted the
inevitable, and have withdrawn all the other nuclear stations
from the sale, including the most modern PWR station still
under construction. The nuclear power stations are now to be
run by separate state owned companies, one in Scotland and one
in England and Wales. The chairman of the company for England
and Wales is Mr John Collier, who is at present chairman of the
UKAEA.
The examination of the industry by potential investors has
forced the nuclear industry to accept that nuclear power is
much more expensive than electricity generated in coal and oil
burning stations. For many years nuclear industry has argued
that nuclear power was the cheapest way of generating
electricity. Anti nuclear groups have long argued that nuclear
power was expensive, but the industry has always rejected such
arguments as being untrue.
The fact that the nuclear industry has now been proved to be
wrong must mean that the industry was either incompetent, not
being able to assess costs correctly, or was deliberately
misleading the public. Whether they were incompetent, or were
lying, NENIG believes that they hive been shown to be unfit to
run so potentially-dangerous an industry.
The logic of the Governments announcement should be that no
more nuclear power stations should be built, and that those
that are in operation should be phased out as soon as possible,
but it would appear that the nuclear industry will fight for
its survival. The chairman (of the nuclear power company for
England and Wales, Mr Collier, has claimed that we need more
nuclear power, and that the future lies with new small PWR
reactors. Mr Collier is also known to be an enthusiastic
supporter of the fast breeder reactor programme, and he could
use his new position of influence to push for the planned run
down of the British fast breeder reactor programme to be
overturned, and for the work at Dounreay on the fast breeder
programme to be increased.
It is therefore clear that the British nuclear industry is not
going to allow itself to be closed down without a fight, and
it is therefore necessary for those opposed to its continued
development to continue to campaign against it. It should
always be remembered that the whole nuclear power industry is
interconnected, and that the British nuclear power stations
produce the spent fuel which is reprocessed at Sellafield to
produce plutonium for the fast breeder reactor programme. The
power stations therefore are not only a danger in themselves,
in that they could suffer accidents as at Chernobyl, but they
are associated with the reprocessing work which pollutes the
Irish and North Seas, and the North Atlantic, and they provide
fuel for the fast breeder programme at Dounreay, the continued
operation of which would<