Environmental performance of nuclear sector praised, but more work needed
The environmental performance of the nuclear industry in England and Wales was "very good" in 2006, according to the latest annual report on the industry from the Environment Agency. However, it said there were certain areas which could be improved.
The environmental performance of the nuclear industry in England and Wales was "very good" in 2006, according to the latest annual report on the industry from the Environment Agency (EA). However, it said there were certain areas which could be improved.
The report describes the environmental performance of the nuclear sector measured against the objectives and performance indicators set out in the Nuclear Sector Plan, which was developed by the EA following discussions with the nuclear industry. The 'nuclear sector' refers to sites which are licensed by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) under the Nuclear Installations Act (1965), or sites that would be licensed if the Act applied to the Ministry of Defence.
Director of environment protection at the EA, Tricia Henton, said: "It sets out eight main environmental objectives and indicators of performance that we and the industry have agreed. These cover statutory responsibilities, but go further by including voluntary activities the industry has agreed to undertake. The plan also addresses areas where we have agreed to improve our work as an environmental regulator. We are pleased that the industry is supporting the sector plan and has agreed to use the plan to monitor and report on the impact of its activities." She added, "Overall, the performance of the sector compared its environmental objectives was very good during 2006, with improvements being made in a number of areas. Of course, we will need to monitor performance over a number of years to identify trends."
The report shows that the nuclear sector in England and Wales consumed a total 15.7 million cubic metres of water in 2006, some 4% less than in 2005. It also used 27,080 Tj (7.5TWh) of energy in 2006, which was 1% less than in 2005.
The EA said that progress with packaging intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) varied from site to site, with Sellafield, Trawsfynydd and Windscale all making good progress. Nevertheless, packaging radioactive wastes into a form fit for long-term storage and disposal is a significant future challenge for the industry. According to the report, the sector produced 257,000 tonnes of non-radioactive waste in 2006, more than in 2005, although a significant proportion of this came from decommissioning work. More than 75% of this waste was classified as inert. Integrated waste strategies were in place at 73% of nuclear sites, the EA said.
The reduction of liquid radioactive discharges to meet the UK radioactive discharge strategy targets is one of the main environmental challenges facing the nuclear sector, according to the report. However, it said that good progress is being made. Sellafield met a "challenging" target of reducing technetium-99 discharges from 190 terabequerels (TBq) in 1995 to less than 10TBq a year by the end of 2006 as a result of changes required by the EA. The general trend in recent years has been for discharges to reduce. Some discharges increased in 2006 following the return from outage of plant at Sellafield, and due to increased output at some Magnox power stations.
In 2006, the sector generated 18% of the UK’s electricity and released greenhouse gases equivalent to 0.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
In 2006, 89% of nuclear sites had a contaminated land management plan in place to characterise contamination on sites and, if needed, to implement remediation work. By the end of 2006, 70% of sites had implemented biodiversity action plans.
The EA said that although overall performance was good in 2006, there are areas where work is needed to further improve performance. These areas include: making better use of resources at some sites; packaging and conditioning ILW in a form suitable for disposal; sharing best practice on recycling conventional waste; continuing to make good progress in reducing discharges; making progress in
delivering improvements in integrated waste management; and, operators and the EA should track and share numbers of lower categories of incidents and breaches to provide early warning of trends.
The EA said: "We are pleased that the industry is supporting the sector plan and has agreed to use the plan to monitor and report on the impact of its activities."
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