NIA: Torness can be base of new Scots nuclear revolution

The Herald Scotland

18 hours ago

Torness Nuclear Power Station paints a picture of what our future could be like: clean, reliable, affordable energy, available when we need it, with good, stable long-term jobs on which our children can build a life and a family. The station is simply the single largest, cleanest and most reliable generator in the nation and the strongest engine of economic growth in East Lothian.
From first power in 1988, the station has generated enough clean, homegrown electricity to power every home in Scotland for 30 years. That will have saved nearly 120 million tonnes of carbon, the most of any station in Scottish history.
On top of that, Torness has added a colossal £16.1 billion in value to our economy. In that £16bn are the stories of generations, of fathers to sons and daughters and even grandchildren, who have found good work and new opportunities for themselves and their families.
In that story, are the local businesses and enterprises who have prospered from the growth of this station, and in it are millions of billpayers who have saved money because the station was always there, through the winter, through the dark and the cold, to prop up the nation's grid.
But Torness is due to retire in 2030. The question we should ask then is, why would we not replace it? Everything that Torness provides, we will need double in the years to come. We need reliable energy all the more, as bills rise, industry struggles, and the grid creaks. We need the clean power, to preserve our environment and our world against the threat of climate change. We need the jobs, to revive our economy and our communities.
A general view of Torness power station The site at Torness is primed for new nuclear, and the opportunity is immense. 40 years ago, land was plotted out, sea walls built, and cooling water connections prepared next to the existing station for a Torness B that was never built. The bedrock is sturdy, the grid connection right there, and the transport links unparalleled.
If we take advantage of all that, billions of pounds of investment could flow into Scotland with thousands and thousands of jobs. Look at Hinkley Point C: £5.3bn has been spent with local businesses in the South West and a thousand local apprentices trained on site. That is the kind of future we should want and cannot afford to squander.
READ MORE on the Future of Torness series:
There are those who say Scotland can have this future with 100% renewables. The facts prove them wrong. Despite a surfeit of renewable generation, Scottish grid decarbonisation has flatlined, unable to get rid of that last 10% of power from gas. As nuclear stations like Hunterston B retire, the nation still needs power that it always available whatever the weather.
Scotland also has most expensive transmission network in the country: baseload power close to demand is being replaced by variable power far from where it is needed, and that is not cheap. Scotland also has the highest balancing costs, the price of keeping electricity supply and demand amidst feasts and famines of power generation. All of that ends up on our bills.
In this context, nuclear, alongside and complementing renewables, is the right choice for nature and for our planet. It is the United Nations, not the nuclear industry, who found that nuclear has the lowest lifecycle carbon emissions, from uranium mining through station decommissioning, of any electricity source. Likewise, it is the UN who found that nuclear has the lowest mining use and the lowest land use of any electricity source. Torness in real life bears out the studies: 15% of the nation's power is generated on just one-tenth of a square mile, of the 30,000 we have in Scotland.
Tom GreatrexMoreover, nuclear is the only energy source, that tracks, manages and makes safe its own waste, with money in a dedicated money to address the cost of decommissioning. As the IAEA [ International Atomic Energy Agency] says, nuclear facilities are among the safest and most secure facilities in the world. Here again, Torness shows the way: visitors will be taken through a station so safe that pregnant women are able to work on top of reactors powering a million homes each.
The real challenge is can we learn from our experience to build nuclear faster and cheaper. The answer is yes, if we apply the known and proven model for deploying nuclear validated over and over again worldwide. Plan and design your projects well, replicate proven designs, and do not stop building.
Torness once more proves the point. It began construction after five other nuclear projects, and a 25-year period of continuous nuclear new build in the UK. Lessons from the previous projects were incorporated into the project, and construction was carefully planned, including the creation of a dedicated construction village to minimise temporary disruption to the surrounding community. The station was built in less than eight years, the best of that generation.
Scottish Government's anti-nuclear ideology means that inevitably, a Torness B could only start now after probably four other projects in England and Wales because of lost time, but that does mean we can learn, replicate and improve on construction further south so that Scotland benefits from all the lessons being learned at those projects. We can apply the tried and true formula across nuclear, wind, solar, civil infrastructure of any kind to deliver new energy and new opportunity to Scotland.
The alternative presented to us by the Scottish Government of an energy system with no clean, firm power is a fraud on the Scottish people.
Opponents of a Torness B propose that we have no new nuclear in Scotland, and when we are inevitably short of power that we import English power, including English nuclear, or European nuclear power, to pick up the slack.
In a word, jobs for England, not for Scotland. That ideology would leave Torness like Longannet coal station, the Ravenscraig steelworks, the Greenock dry dock, relics of an industrial past and a bitter reminders of a future foreclosed by a lack of vision.
We can choose a different way: long-term investment starting today, in jobs, in 24/7 clean power, in opportunity for our children and for coming generations. A bet not on the weather, but on the skill, ingenuity and commitment of the Scottish people to deliver. That is a bet I would take any day.