The report of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce could be a watershed moment for the nuclear industry.
For 50 years there has been, in the words of the taskforce, “a one-way ratchet” with “complex, duplicative and often excessive regulation. This leads to high costs, long delays and disproportionate ‘gold-plated’ solutions. The costs are enormous and borne by the taxpayer and consumer.”
Elsewhere, they were more blunt: these outcomes are “bad for our energy security, bad for the environment, and bad for the consumer.”
In the face of this, the taskforce offers a “radical reset” of our approach to regulation of nuclear power:
- A strategic direction for the government to all involved, setting “the single imperative of ensuring faster and lower cost delivery without lower standards.”
- Redefining the Tolerability of Risk, especially in light of “the societal demand for its outputs across energy, decommissioning and defence.” This is especially critical to ensure that what the country wants from its nuclear power is reflected in regulatory decisions that have been made.
- Issuing instructions to the regulators that actions to mitigate risks have to be proportional to the nature, likelihood and impact of the hazard, as well as whether or not they would “prevent a desirable activity from occurring.” Again, this would embed the social benefits of nuclear power into decisions.
- Modernise the outdated population density restrictions that prevent good sites like Heysham from being used.
- Modernising the default Outline Planning Zones for emergencies around nuclear reactors.
- Eliminating the requirement to undertake Regulatory Justification as a separate process.
- Modifying the Habitats Regulation to:
- Remove the requirement for developers to prove that their project will have no impact on specific protected species. Instead, the regulators must show positive evidence of any impact.
- Compensatory measures should “expressly exclude need for like-for-like compensation”.
- De minimis effects do not adversely affect site integrity.
- No requirement for separate Habitats Regulation Assessment for different regulators and different stages.
These are all very welcome, and if implemented swiftly, would create a step-change reduction in the cost and time of nuclear projects across the lifecycle.
Fundamentally, however, the report is more than that. It is a challenge to all of us in the sector, government, industry and regulators, to look up from the weeds and see our work through the lens of the huge strategic objectives that the country needs to see delivered: lower energy prices, economic competitiveness, and environmental sustainability. We must remember that the country has an interest in every hour of reactor operation, in every penny spent on the new build programme and decommissioning, in every order won to export abroad. We must remember especially how much public money goes into nuclear, and that every extra solution, ends up on taxpayers’ tab or on their energy bills.
It is tempting of course to demand these changes to the way regulators conduct their business, but we have to look at ourselves as an industry. The report makes tough reading about an industry culture of risk aversion, process over outcomes, and lack of strong incentives to control costs and maximise benefits to society. It identifies a culture of defeatism that accepts that nuclear projects are slow and costly.
It strikes me that if we want reforms on regulation, we must also accept our share of the responsibility for what has gone wrong, and the responsibility for making improvements and proving that we can deliver.
Two recommendations on that theme stand out to me: the first is for all boards in the industry to drive cultural change to deliver their strategic objectives with “radical efficiency and effectiveness” and reduce unnecessary complexity and procedure. The second is for the Chancellor to write to industry to ask what we are doing to reduce gold plating, increase risk appetite and drive that right through organisations, and get new contractual arrangements to sharpen the incentive to deliver.
We will play our part in that, and I am sure the whole industry will, to demonstrate that regulatory reforms will make a difference because the industry, as well as the law, will change, and that we appreciate in full our duty to the country. In part they have entrusted energy security, national security, sustainability and prosperity to us, and in honouring that trust, we must not fail.
Read the taskforce’s full report here.
Tom Greatrex is Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association
