Speeches by Collinge.

“We are collaborating with Japan on a high-temperature gas reactor design—”

“Yes, I have a quick follow-up on the advanced nuclear framework. Is it clear what criteria the vendors and technologies will be assessed on under that framework? Is it clear to them what would be prioritised in the sifting of those technologies?”

“Please do.”

“My question continues on the theme of proportionality. The UK nuclear sector is meant to operate under the “as low as reasonably practicable” principle, but we have heard evidence that the practicable bit sometimes gets a bit lost. I want to start on the environment with you, Andy. The Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce foun…”

“That is part of it, yes. Are you limited by current regulation in the balance that you can give to different costs and benefits?”

“Yes, three minutes on waste management, great. I am too obsessed with graphite cracking. When we build nuclear reactors, they are meant to look at the whole lifecycle, including defuelling and decommissioning. Is that being effectively interpreted and applied today? Given that we do not have a GDF, and that we do not k…”

“Mustafa, I want to talk about both safety and environmental risk. The public obviously have views about safety, risk and environmental benefits, and they do not necessarily have a huge amount of knowledge about the nuclear sector in particular. Are you concerned that reduction or changes to regulatory control could pot…”

“The taskforce identified regulatory duplication across the myriad regulators we have in the nuclear space. Have the regulators started working on that and on trying to harmonise processes to avoid duplication? Is that work already in process, or is it yet to start?”

“We keep being told that there is a lack of skilled workforce in the nuclear sector and that there is a concern that people will move from decommissioning into new generation, or will not move from new generation into decommissioning, because of the pay gaps and cultural aspects, to be honest. Do you think that regulato…”

“What are the costs of safe storage while we do not have a GDF, and how do they compare with getting on with a GDF?”

“Does that cover the regulatory route as well?”

“I want to move on to advanced technologies, and this is mainly for Gareth. Advanced modular reactors require uranium at a higher enrichment level than conventional reactors, and this is known as high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU. Given that the Government have an ambition to deliver a UK capability for HALEU by…”

“I want to talk about decommissioning and waste. Over the lifetime of nuclear energy, we have seen the nature and type of waste change quite a lot, from the very problematic stuff at the beginning to a much better picture now for the defueling of, for instance, Heysham 1 and 2 in my constituency. I want to know whether …”

“So essentially, we already have a problem or a thing that we need to do, and your view is that this does not materially add to it.”

“Heysham is lovely.”

“If it does turn out to be harder to deal with or costlier, where should the accountability for that lie?”

“The modularity, the fleet production and the lower capital costs are meant to offset the fact that you produce less energy in an SMR and AMR than you do in a gigawatt plant. But we have seen projects that have not gone ahead, such as NuScale in Idaho and EDF Nuward in France. Do we have any real-world evidence that thi…”

“Vanessa, do investors hold the view that we are in a good position for this to work? Obviously Government investment is one thing, but private investors are looking to make a profit.”

“We have heard evidence that quite a lot of waste already in the UK could be reused for various things; for instance plutonium could be used as a fuel in a mixed oxide reactor, and it could also be used in nuclear medicine or in space batteries for long-term space exploration. But the Government policy—certainly for plu…”

“I will try to be brief. I want to talk about my favourite subject, the semi-urban population density criteria. Leon, you touched on the new technologies and how they are different from the older technologies. How do you think the difference in the new technologies should affect how the semi-urban population density cri…”