NEW DESIGNS FOR NUCLEAR POWER RECEIVE OUTLINE APPROVAL

The primary stage of the nuclear regulators’ (the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency) joint Generic Design Assessment (GDA) new nuclear power station has assessed four new plant designs and given provisional approval, finding "no shortfalls at this stage - in terms of safety, security or the environment - that would prevent any of them from ultimately being constructed on licensed sites in the UK". GDA allows the safety, security and environmental implications of new power station designs to be evaluated before an application is made to build that design at a particular site.
The four designs cleared to progress are:

• AECL's ACR 1000
• EdF/Areva's European Pressurised Reactor (EPR)
• General Electric-Hitachi's ESBWR
• Westinghouse's AP1000.

Dr Mike Weightman, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations and Head of the HSE's Nuclear Directorate, stated that:
"As new nuclear power stations are being considered for the UK, it is vital for regulators to get involved with potential designs at the earliest stage - where regulatory assessments can have most influence - so that we can ensure that the existing high standards of nuclear safety and security in the UK are being maintained and improved."
The GDA process commenced in August 2007 and, after an expected three and a half years, at the HSE and Environment Agency will make recommendations on the best designs to be permitted to be constructed.
This first preliminary stage consisted solely of a fundamental safety overview by the HSE and preliminary review by the Environment Agency. It will now make way for a detailed design assessment.
Environment Agency Head of Radioactive Substances Regulation, Joe McHugh, reminded firms submitting the designs that the process was a long way from being completed.
"We demand that any new nuclear power stations meet high standards of safety, security and environment protection," he reiterated.
"As we begin the detailed assessment step of GDA, the reactor vendors and the regulators have much work to do before we will be able to decide whether these designs can meet those high standards."
In the January 2008 Energy White Paper, the Government announced that if necessary it would run a prioritisation exercise to identify, in conjunction with reactor designers and operators, which of the four designs, subject to the regulators' initial assessment, is most likely to go through for licensing and construction.
Currently the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) is awaiting confirmation from all of the design companies that they wish to continue to the next stage of GDA.
If BERR does decide that it needs to undertake a prioritisation process, then at the end of that process the Secretary of State will make recommendations to HSE and the Environment Agency on the designs that should be given the highest priority for progressing through the next stage.