| Environment Agency latest: Very good nuclear performance | | Print | |
| Monday, 14 April 2008 | |
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The 2006 annual report on the environmental performance of the nuclear sector in England and Wales has been published by the Environment Agency. This report describes the environmental performance of the nuclear sector measured against the objectives and performance indicators set out in the Nuclear Sector Plan. "The Nuclear Sector Plan was developed by the Environment Agency following discussions with the nuclear industry," explained Environment Agency director of environment protection Tricia Henton. "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. "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: Natural resource usage reduced - sites used less water and energy in 2005. The nuclear sector used a total of 15.7 million cubic metres of water (4 per cent less than in 2005). It also used 27,080 Tj (7.5TWh) of energy (1 per cent less than in 2005). More waste produced but being managed - 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. 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 per cent of this waste was classified as inert. Integrated waste strategies were in place at 73 per cent of nuclear sites. Progress towards meeting targets for discharges to air and water - Reducing liquid radioactive discharges to meet the UK radioactive discharge strategy targets is one of the main environmental challenges facing the nuclear sector. 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 Environment Agency. 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. Contribution to reducing greenhouse gases - The nuclear sector releases a relatively small amount of greenhouse gases into the environment. In 2006, the sector generated 18 per cent of the UK’s electricity and released greenhouse gases equivalent to 0.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Working to restore sites and develop biodiversity action plans - In 2006 89 per cent 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 per cent of sites had implemented biodiversity action plans. Comments (0)
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