The nuclear power station at Oldbury is due to stop generating electricity at the end of next year. Then the decommissioning starts. Taking the station apart will be a major task taking many years. Plans are already being drawn up and decisions being made. The Site Stakeholder Group (SSG) has been asked its views on some of these decisions. I represent Friends of the Earth on the SSG.

When Oldbury stops operating, the fuel will be removed and taken to Sellafield in Cumbria. This will take two years and will remove all the high level radioactive waste. Most of the buildings and equipment around the reactors will then be demolished. This will take around twenty years.

One decision yet to be taken is how quickly to demolish the reactors themselves. They are highly radioactive, and it would be too dangerous to go in there. The original idea was to leave the reactors in 'care and maintenance' for about a hundred years; the reactor building would be maintained to keep it safe, but not demolished. In a hundred years much of the radioactivity will have decayed, and it will then be relatively safe for workers to go inside the reactors.

There are now robots that could go into the reactor and start demolition right away. This is an attractive option because in 100 years there will probably be no-one left who has actually worked with such radioactive matrial. It will also be fairer - our generation had the benefit of the electricity, so we should clear up the mess. But it is not clear whether this would be more expensive, and whether the government is willing to pay for it.

There is also the question of how the site should be left by the nuclear industry when they finally move out. This was the subject of a public consultation in the Oldbury and Thornbury area. The result was clearly in favour of returning the site to farmland or a nature reserve.

However there are buildings and facilities at Oldbury that may be of use. There is a good argument for keeping these rather than demolishing them. For example, there is a well-equipped training centre and workshops. One option would be to build renewable power generation there, such as tidal power, wind power, bio-mass or some combination of these. The access road is good and there is a national grid connection. Friends of the Earth will be promoting this option.

Alan Pinder

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