Issues and Non-Issues

Abstract

We are embarking on a three-day examination of the nuclear power programme. We shall be studying it from a particular point of view — irradiated nuclear fuel arising, perhaps, in Sizewell, transported through urban areas such as London, on its way to the reprocessing plant in Cumbria. This is an important aspect, but one that has received comparatively little public attention so far. The point at which irradiated fuel arises is a nuclear power station, and there has been a great deal of discussion about that. The Sizewell inquiry taking place at present is examining the proposal to introduce a reactor system into Britain — the pressurised water reactor or PWR — which is commonplace elsewhere, but new to us. A great deal of information is available about the design of such plants and about their operation. Much of it is being paraded before us and critically examined at Sizewell. It is not our task to conduct an independent inquiry into the PWR. If anyone has views about that, let him express them before the Sizewell inspector. Similarly the point of treatment of the waste is the plant in Cumbria, and that was thoroughly investigated in the Windscale inquiry a few years ago.