Shutting down Sellafield would be "the most irresponsible option of all" because of the vast legacy of nuclear waste held there, the British Energy Minister, Mr Brian Wilson, said in Dublin yesterday.
In an interview with The Irish Times prior to a debate on the issue at the Literary and Historical Society in UCD last night, he said people in Britain and in Ireland were entitled to answers on the waste issue before any further nuclear power stations were built.
The British government will publish a White Paper on energy options early next year and one of the key questions it will address is whether there should be a new generation of nuclear power stations to replace plants that are reaching the end of their lifecycle.
"The terms of the debate have changed radically because of the whole climate change agenda," Mr Wilson said. "At a time when we're committed to creating a much lower carbon energy mix, can we allow the rundown of a valuable non-carbon energy source?"
He pointed out that Britain's 15 nuclear power stations currently generate 25 per cent of its electricity supply. "The issue is whether we allow that to evaporate to just 4 per cent by 2020, because most of these plants are coming to end of their lives."
Mr Wilson conceded most people were anti-nuclear. "But if you pointed out that the consequence of losing it [the nuclear industry] would mean missing climate change targets and becoming massively dependent on imported gas, you would get a different answer."
Without a new generation of nuclear power stations to replace existing plants, he said Britain would become 70 per cent dependent on gas, of which 90 per cent would be imported - from Norway, Russia, Azerbaijan and Algeria - and this raised issues of fuel security.
Though known to be pro-nuclear, Mr Wilson said that while he had "no scientific or emotional attachment" to the industry, he could not see "how we can meet the great challenge of climate change by getting rid of nuclear" power or shutting down reprocessing at Sellafield.
He said the financial crisis at British Energy, which runs the existing nuclear plants, was due to the current low price of electricity. "Nobody wants to invest, so there will have to be some mechanism to recognise the non-carbon character of nuclear and other energy sources.
"I don't dispute the right of Irish people to express concerns, but a moment's consideration would show that the most irresponsible option of all would be to shut Sellafield. It is the responsibility of government to ensure that it is managed as safely as possible," he declared.
Mr Wilson said the vast majority of what Sellafield dealt with were "legacy issues" involving a stockpile of nuclear waste. Its operator, British Nuclear Fuels, was providing a service "but it must done on the basis that it doesn't cause problems for us or neighbours."
If more nuclear power stations were built, this would add "modestly" to the existing stockpile. "I fully agree that there has to be progress on the waste issue before new-build [nuclear power stations] will be a possibility.
"Public opinion will quite rightly demand answers on that."
Mr Wilson said Ireland was entitled to bring its legal case in The Hague seeking full disclosure of reports on the MOX plant at Sellafield.
But both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth had failed in their legal challenges in London, as did Ireland in Hamburg last year.
Commenting on the latest case, which Ireland has taken under the OSPAR Convetion, he said Ireland's criticisms of Britain were "seriously misleading" as only "a minimal amount of information" had been withheld from the two reports for reasons of commercial confidentiality.
