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Conflict of interest concerns over EDF’s Hinkley nuclear project approval
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/01/hinkley-nuclear-project-edf
Conflict of interest concerns over EDF’s Hinkley nuclear project approval
Experts involved in safety review were receiving company’s pensions, documents reveal
Katie McQue and Terry Macalister
The Guardian, Wednesday 1 October 2014 12.19 EDT
Nuclear experts receiving EDF pensions were involved in the official safety review of the company’s planned Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, sparking concerns about a conflict of interest over the approval of the project.
The involvement senior executive grade officers at the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) made it “very difficult” for the regulator to take a critical eye, warned another independent industry consultant.
The revelations, obtained via a series of freedom of information (FoI) requests, raise wider concerns about the use of consultants due to a lack of experienced staff inside the ONR and come a week after the Hinkley project got a go-ahead from the European competition directorate for a proposed UK subsidy scheme.
<snip>
“The ONR bypassed a number of safety issues with the rationale of ‘although it is not solved we think it will be solved by the time we need’,” said nuclear industry consultant John Large. “I suspect the political pressure was on them. The government was putting the pieces in place to give an announcement [that Hinkley Point C had been approved] in January 2013.”
<snip>
Large is not the only one concerned with the speed at which the ONR’s safety assessment was carried out. “I don’t know how it is feasible,” said Mika Johansson, a senior inspector at STUK, the Finnish nuclear regulator which is overseeing the construction of another EPR reactor in its own country. “I don’t know how they [the ONR] did it so fast.”
<snip>
Conflict of interest concerns over EDF’s Hinkley nuclear project approval
Experts involved in safety review were receiving company’s pensions, documents reveal
Katie McQue and Terry Macalister
The Guardian, Wednesday 1 October 2014 12.19 EDT
Nuclear experts receiving EDF pensions were involved in the official safety review of the company’s planned Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, sparking concerns about a conflict of interest over the approval of the project.
The involvement senior executive grade officers at the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) made it “very difficult” for the regulator to take a critical eye, warned another independent industry consultant.
The revelations, obtained via a series of freedom of information (FoI) requests, raise wider concerns about the use of consultants due to a lack of experienced staff inside the ONR and come a week after the Hinkley project got a go-ahead from the European competition directorate for a proposed UK subsidy scheme.
<snip>
“The ONR bypassed a number of safety issues with the rationale of ‘although it is not solved we think it will be solved by the time we need’,” said nuclear industry consultant John Large. “I suspect the political pressure was on them. The government was putting the pieces in place to give an announcement [that Hinkley Point C had been approved] in January 2013.”
<snip>
Large is not the only one concerned with the speed at which the ONR’s safety assessment was carried out. “I don’t know how it is feasible,” said Mika Johansson, a senior inspector at STUK, the Finnish nuclear regulator which is overseeing the construction of another EPR reactor in its own country. “I don’t know how they [the ONR] did it so fast.”
<snip>