NDA Strategy presented - NIA Decommissioning Working Group, 6 April 2006

NIA members had the opportunity to discuss the NDA's new strategy directly when Strategy Director Terry Selby presented it to the Decommissioning Working Group. Mr Selby set out the NDA's timetable for tendering the contract for its facilities between 2006 (Drigg) and 2012 (Sellafield). He also explained that there was also some uncertainty about tendering Capenhurst, Culham and Springfields as they were all operational and may continue to be so and also about the exact form of some of the later tier 1 contracts. This was particularly true of Sellafield where discussions were ongoing as to whether to tender Sellafield and Windscale separately or as a single contract. Commenting on recent rises in the estimates of the cost of dealing with the UK's legacy wastes, Mr Selby showed research that the NDA had done into international experience of this process which demonstrated that costs always rise as the scope of the work is accurately discovered and then falls back towards the original figure as competition finds more efficient ways to deal with it.

A lively extended question and answer session followed in which NIA members who are likely to be bidding for work at all levels were able to express concerns or ask for more details across all areas of the strategy.

The afternoon saw informative presentations from Derek Lacey of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on regulator aspects of decommissioning; Ken Powers of British Nuclear Group on his experiences of decommissioning down to greenfield in the US and how that can be applied in the UK; and Dick Harbert from CH2M Hill on the commercial response to the NDA Strategy. The next meeting of the group will focus on waste disposal following the publication of the CoRWM report due in July.

Topnux 2006, 21-23 March 2006

Members of the BNES Young Generation Network at the Topnux 2006 conference

March saw two important conferences for the nuclear industry. Firstly TopNux 2006 in London gave our Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks a platform to invite the industry to demonstrate to him how our proposals for planning and licensing regulation changes would work in practice. TopNux, a three day annual conference, organised by the British Nuclear Energy Society and sponsored by NIA among others, offered a very impressive line-up of speakers, such as former Finnish Prime Minister, Paavo Lipponen and Alec Erwin, Minister for Trade and Industry in South Africa. The event was well attended and a number of media journalists, including Channel Four, were present to interview speakers. NIA's New Build Working Group report, which was launched at the event, drew a good deal of interest.

European Nuclear Assembly, 28-29 March 2006

This was followed the next week by the bi-annual European Nuclear Assembly organised by the ENA in Brussels. The assembly, chaired by BNFL's Mike Parker, opened with Speeches from European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and European Parliament Energy Committee Chairman Giles Chichester MEP. Over the three day conference the large audience heard diverse presentations from representatives of industry, academia and the media on a wide range of subjects and how nuclear will be effected by developing EU legislation and policies.