The option to build some 50 new nuclear power stations emerged from a submission to the Department of Energy and Climate Change by the government’s advisory body nuclear waste management the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CRWM).
In its response to DECC’s consultation on the siting of geological disposal facilities for nuclear waste, CRWM queried a DECC estimate of waste generated that was based on 16GW of new build nuclear. The committee wrote: “Whilst CoRWM understands why the government has given the example of new build wastes arising only from developed proposals where information on the waste types is known, 16GWe is only the ‘first tranche’ figure and substantially below the 75GWe upper limit being examined in DECC. There is a need for clarity that any data given for, for example, 16GWe, are an example rather than either an expectation or a limit.”
DECC told The Guardian newspaper that it wanted nuclear to be “part of the energy mix” and added: “We haven’t set any targets for the amount of new nuclear to be developed.”