Quick & Easy nuclear approval

...which is meant to smooth things out for Nukes

 Today’s News at: http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/category/news/

 Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce

 Letter Dr Paul Dorfman: Reservations over a dash for nuclear. Earlier this
year Sir Keir Starmer set up an “independent” five-person Nuclear
Regulatory Taskforce, comprising three nuclear industry proponents, an
economist and a lawyer. Perhaps unfortunately, the announcement of its role
pre-empted its findings, with the headline to the press release saying:
“Government rips up rules to fire-up nuclear power.” Hence, the
possibility that regulation takes as long as it does because that was how
long it took to do the job to the required standard was discounted. The
Taskforce has just made 47 recommendations “to speed up building new
nuclear projects at a lower cost and on time, to unleash a golden era of
nuclear technology and innovation” — including the proposal that new
nuclear reactors should be built closer to urban areas and should be
allowed to harm the local environment (“Ministers urged to allow new
nuclear plants in urban areas”, Nov 24). Nuclear is a high-risk
technology. Blaming nuclear regulators for vast cost over-runs and huge
delays has always been a fallback position for the nuclear industry. This
is not the fault of safety and planning regulation, rather it is the nature
of the technology. De facto nuclear deregulation is a poor short-term
choice of the worst kind.

 Times 26th Nov 2025 

 https://www.thetimes.com/comment/letters-to-editor/article/times-letters-ending-culture-free-gifts-mps-zg28h25s8

 Prime Minister’s strategic steer to the nuclear sector following the 2025
Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce’s Review. Today, I am establishing a clear and
ambitious course to renew our nuclear sector, to accelerate the safe,
secure, and affordable delivery of nuclear projects across civil, defence,
and decommissioning. The UK is a nation with a proud history in sovereign
nuclear technology. The Civil and Defence nuclear sectors are investing
heavily in capabilities and infrastructure to deliver the ambition of the
Industrial Strategy for a Nuclear Nation. Nuclear technology is vital to
our country’s economic growth, energy security, and national defence. It
delivers reliable, low-carbon electricity and supports our nuclear
deterrent. It provides an extraordinary industrial opportunity, where UK
innovators and companies lead the world. We are building on this legacy
with clear commitments on the future of our nuclear deterrent, our
submarine programmes, Sizewell C and the SMR programme. Coupled with the
export potential, there is an enormous opportunity if the UK can seize it.
The findings of the independent Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce make clear
that radical change is needed and my government will act with urgency to
deliver that change. I warmly welcome it and endorse its approach, and
accept the principle of all the recommendations it has set out. We have
committed to complete implementation within two years, subject to
legislative timelines on elements requiring primary legislation.

 DESNZ 26th Nov 2025 

 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prime-ministers-strategic-steer-to-the-nuclear-sector/prime-ministers-strategic-steer-to-the-nuclear-sector-following-the-2025-nuclear-regulatory-taskforces-review

 Labour is reportedly pausing nuclear-sector reforms despite a sweeping
report urging planning and regulatory changes to cut costs and accelerate
new projects. Legal concerns raised by a government adviser have prompted
Reeves to withhold the recommendations from the upcoming Budget, delaying
growth-focused measures. Industry leaders, MPs across parties, and think
tanks argue that fully adopting the review is essential to lowering energy
costs, boosting investment, and reviving UK economic growth. The Labour
government is set to hold fire on pushing through sweeping reforms to
nuclear energy due to a legal adviser’s concerns over the “UK’s
environmental, trade and human rights obligations”, it has been reported.
The Innovate UK member John Fingleton published a damning report on red
tape blocking the expansion of the country’s nuclear industry on Monday.
His extensive report prompted calls from across the political spectrum for
Rachel Reeves to accept recommendations easing planning rules and lowering
costs for investors. But ITV News has now reported that the Chancellor will
not include the growth-focused recommendations in her Budget speech on
Wednesday. The broadcaster reported that the Chancellor will make reforms
“subject to further work and review” after a government adviser voiced
concerns about the legal crossovers in the paper with UK obligations.
Lawrence Newport, the head of campaign group Looking for Growth, told City
AM: “Such a significant shift would set Britain on a clear path towards
affordable energy and, consequently, economic growth. Indeed, reducing
energy prices is a prerequisite for any government hoping to reverse
decades of stagnation and decline. With cheaper energy, British businesses
could start and scale here uninhibited. “Rachel Reeves must make a
decision. If the Chancellor really is as serious about growth as she says,
if she actually wants to make our energy cheap again, she will accept all
of the Nuclear Regulatory Review’s recommendations.”

 Oil Price 26th Nov 2025 

 https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Britains-Nuclear-Reform-Set-to-Stall-Over-Legal-Concerns.html

 In the spring of 2025, the government set up a Nuclear Regulatory
Taskforce to make it easier to build new nuclear projects. Their final
report has just been published and its recommendations threaten some of the
hard-won measures we have to protect our countryside and nature. The
taskforce was made up of figures working for the nuclear industry.
They’re proposing two measures in particular that we’re worried about.
First, it proposes that new nuclear as a whole would get an opt-out of both
the Habitats Directive and the mitigation hierarchy. This is a mechanism
whereby developers first need to seek to avoid harm and then try to
minimise the harm. Only when they cannot do this, they should compensate
for the harm by improving the natural environment elsewhere. Secondly, it
calls for the scrapping of the duty on public bodies to further the
statutory purposes of National Parks and National Landscapes, which came in
in 2023. The report says the duty ‘has caused confusion, and will likely
delay, and add cost, to nuclear development.’

 CPRE 24th Nov 2025 

 https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/nuclear-body-urges-scrapping-nature-protections-for-new-projects/

 As things currently stand, the Wylfa SMR looks set to become another
pioneering one-off prototype, repeating much of the stop-start 70-year
history of nuclear in Britain. For the reasons why the government will
struggle to escape this dismal loop, see the report of the Nuclear
Regulatory Taskforce, published this week. The taskforce, appointed by the
prime minister in May, uncovered a regulatory and legal framework which
could have been designed to frustrate investment in nuclear infrastructure
- or at least ensure it was the most expensive in the world. Examples in
the report include the notorious £50 million ‘fish disco’ at Hinkley
Point: any criticism, it stresses, should ‘focus on the system’ rather than
regulators or the plant’s developer. Elsewhere we have the
over-enthusiastic application of the ALARP doctrine – the requirement for
risks to be ‘as low as reasonably practicable’, regardless of
proportionality. Then there is the risk, under the well-meaning Aarhus
Convention, of crowd-funded protest groups throwing spanners into the works
by challenging holes in project plans with no risk of adverse consequences.
See, for example, the two years of litigation over the provision of
drinking water at Sizewell C.

 Law Gazette 26th Nov 2025 

 https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/just-start-nuclear-heres-how/5125212.article

 EN7

 The new National Policy Statement (NPS) for Nuclear Energy Generation
(EN-7) published recently expands the types of nuclear power projects that
can be consented under the DCO planning regime and allows for nuclear
development in new locations in England and Wales. In this Insight we
discuss some of the key changes introduced by this new policy, particularly
how it relates to EN-5, the national planning policy for electricity
networks infrastructure. Following a consultation last year, the final
draft of the new EN-7 NPS has now been published (with no substantial
departures from the consultation proposals) and sets out the UK
Government’s new national planning policy for nuclear power projects.
Reflecting advances in technology and the Government’s view that new
nuclear power generation is a critical national priority for meeting net
zero and energy security targets, this new policy establishes the ‘needs
case’ for an extended range of nuclear technologies beyond those covered
in the current nuclear NPS, EN-6, which is limited to traditional
gigawatt-scale nuclear plants in defined locations.

 JDSupra 26th Nov 2025 

 https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-nuclear-nps-en-7-and-its-interface-8840934/

 Hinkley

 How environmentalists forced a nuclear plant to go on a £700m fish rescue
mission. Hinkley Point C developers pushed to spend ‘indefensible’ sum
on protecting local wildlife. How much are the lives of endangered fish
worth? This was the confounding question posed to developers of the Hinkley
Point C nuclear power plant, as they sought to address concerns that it
would pulverise unsuspecting marine life as it drew cooling water from the
Bristol Channel. The answer they reached, after years of tortured
discussions with environmental quangos, was £700m. This included special
intake pipe mouths costing £500m, a fish recovery and return system for
£150m and finally an “acoustic fish deterrent” costing another £50m,
according to a damning government report published this week. All in all,
these measures are expected to save the lives of 0.083 salmon per year,
0.028 sea trout, six river lamprey, 18 Allis shad and 528 twaite shad,
according to modelling. In the case of the shad, the estimate was later
revised to “possibly fewer than 100”, making it equivalent to spending
around £280,000 per fish over a period of 25 years.

 Telegraph 25th Nov 2025 

 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/25/environmentalists-nuclear-plant-pay-280000-save-each-fish/

 Oldbury

 Oldbury nuclear reactor plans spark safety concerns at Lydney meeting.
Residents gather at a public meeting in Lydney to discuss the safety
implications of proposed Small Modular Reactors at Oldbury, highlighting
flooding risks and renewable energy alternatives. STAND (Severnside
Together against Nuclear Development) held a public meeting in Lydney on
October 17th to look at the prospect of Small Modular (nuclear) Reactors
(SMRs) being built at Oldbury. There were four speakers including two from
STAND, Sue Haverly and John French. who have been sharing information about
the two nuclear installations at Oldbury and Berkeley since the 1980s and
monitoring safety since the two stations were decommissioned. The other
speakers were former Friends of the Earth director Sir Jonathan Porritt and
renewable energy expert Dr David Toke.

 The Forester 25th Nov 2025 

 https://www.theforester.co.uk/news/oldbury-nuclear-reactor-plans-spark-safety-concerns-at-lydney-meeting-854643

 Wylfa

 Rachel Reeves’ Budget, which unveiled a series of tax rises, has been met
with a mixed reaction by business leaders in Wales. They welcomed news of
AI growth zones and support for the Welsh semiconductor industry and the
small nuclear reactor project at Wylfa, but raised concerns about
additional costs for businesses and the so-called Mansion Tax. Details of
the Budget were inadvertently revealed early by the Office for Budget
Responsibility (OBR) in what the Chancellor said was a “deeply
disappointing and a serious error on their part”.

 Insider Media 27th Nov 2025 

 https://www.insidermedia.com/news/wales/despite-all-the-pain-there-was-some-good-news-mixed-reaction-to-rachel-reeves-budget

 Dounreay

 A dangerous fragment of radioactive debris was found outside of a
decommissioned nuclear facility in Scotland. The BBC reported that a
radioactive fragment categorized as “significant” was discovered around the
Dounreay nuclear facility on April 7. Radioactive particles can be
classified as minor, relevant, or significant. This is the first
“significant” particle found near Thurso since March 2022. The Dounreay
facility was an experimental nuclear site until particles of irradiated
nuclear fuel contaminated the drainage system. Now, the shores and seabed
around Dounreay are heavily contaminated. According to the BBC, the
decontamination of the site is expected to be complete by 2333. The
significant fragment serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of
responsible radioactive waste management. According to the BBC, these
radioactive particles and fragments around Dounreay are not a threat to
people. Highly contaminated areas are not used by the public. Nearby public
beaches have not contained any significant or large particles that would
cause concern for people. In this instance, the U.K. government’s Nuclear
Restoration Services and other entities are taking proper action to
decontaminate the site.

 TCD 26th Nov 2025 

 https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/dounreay-nuclear-facility-scotland-radioactive-waste/

 New Nuclear

 The writer is director-general of the World Nuclear Association: It has
become popular to talk of a new dawn for nuclear energy. Statistics back
this up. Last year, nuclear reactors generated more electricity than ever,
surpassing the previous high-water mark set in 2006. Rising power demand
has increased support for further nuclear energy supply. But to achieve
this, capacity must be rebuilt. To triple global nuclear capacity by 2050,
annual investment in nuclear energy must reach between $150bn and $250bn.
In many western countries, large nuclear projects are viewed as
“unbuildable”. That perception must be challenged. Financing remains
the central hurdle. The costs involved cannot be justified on policy,
technical or environmental grounds alone. Without the appropriate business
case, private sector capital will not see a reason to invest and taxpayer
investment will not be seen as good value for money. To raise investor
appetite and turn it into necessary flows of capital, nuclear projects must
be demystified. There is nothing inherently unique about nuclear facilities
that make them more difficult to finance than any other complex,
capital-intensive infrastructure. Upfront capital requirements are high but
the facilities are built to generate power for at least 60 years, meaning
they offer a long lifecycle of financial returns.

 FT 26th Nov 2025 

 https://www.ft.com/content/0f18721b-5460-4cab-8b36-dc254129241a