Oldbury Nuclear Viewpoint

Key questions

The proposal to build a new nuclear power station raises many questions for the local population. Here we take a very quick look at a few of them.

Waste

The long term solution to waste is completely uncertain. The current plan is for a community to "volunteer" to host the storage facility for ALL of the UK's nuclear waste.

In the interim, the nuclear plants will have to store their own waste. At the meeting, the DECC refused to define any time-frame for moving the long term solution forward or to provide a guarantee that a long term solution would in fact be achieved.

However, the website states "Government suggests that it is likely to be around two to three decades from the beginning of the site selection process to a facility becoming operational and ready for waste emplacement."

According to the Government's own estimates, high level nuclear waste, including spend fuel, will be stored on site at Oldbury for at least 150 years.

For details of DECC plans see DECC Waste Management website.

Cooling towers

There was a lot of concern about the visual impact of the cooling towers. Oldbury is the only proposed site that will need cooling towers, as the others are all next to deep water. Unbelievably, it seems that the Severn does not have enough water to cool the proposed reactors.

Horizon's "preferred" solution, after meeting much local opposition is to opt for hybrid cooling towers. The proposal reactor will need 4 x 70m towers, which will consume some 3% of the plants output. The alternative are 200m natural draft towers. These are nearly as high as Canary Wharf (235m) and there will be 4 of them!

Flooding

The site is in a level 3 flood plain, as are 2 of the other proposed sites. Whilst the site itself can be "probably" be protected from flooding, according to the Environment Agency, it is unclear what the knock-on effect will be on the flood defences of the rest of the locality.

The fact that the site is probably a medium term waste storage site raises possible consequences from flooding very significantly.

Your questions

We would like to know what questions you would like answered. Please email questions@oldburynuclearviewpoint.org.uk with your questions and we will try to answer them.

Food for thought

Below are some other questions that might help your thinking.

Understanding the proposal

What is Horizon planning? How big is the new power station compared to the old one? Can the site cope with the increase? Is a smaller version viable?

The affect on us

What impact will there be on the community during development from 5,000 construstion workers over 5 years (education, housing, crime), a massive increase in heavy traffic, noise etc? How will that impact be managed? What will happen when the development phase finishes and how will that impact be managed? Will it create a micro-climate that will affect the locality and if so, how?

Visual impact

How big will the new site be and with how many 200m cooling towers? Will there be new pylons and cabling? If so, where will it run?

The nuclear decision

Is nuclear a good choice? How much will it reduce the carbon footprint? How will the waste be managed? What is the risk of contamination? What are the health implications of living near a nuclear power station? What can we learn from other countries?

Nuclear waste

Is it true that waste will be stored onsite for 150 years after the site is de-commissioned? What are the risks associated with that? Does the flood plain effect this risk? What about terrorist action against the repository?

Costs

What will it cost? Who will pay for it? Does it rely on public funding? Is carbon trading required?

Alternatives

What alternatives are there? Is renewable viable? Or combined heat and power (CHP)? What will happen to the site if the proposal is rejected?

Answers

If you have the answers to any of these questions, please share them with us. We are more than aware of how little we know about this, which is exactly why we started the site. We want everyone to understand the issues. Email questions@oldburynuclearviewpoint.org.uk now is you have any answers or information that will help. Thank you.