Open Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
House of Lords,
London,
SW1A 0PW

Dear Archbishop Rowan,

Re: Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs).

I have written to you on 2 previous occasions about LFTRs, but the replies made clear that the letter contents were not appropriate for your attention. However, in September of last year, I wrote to many of the Lords Spiritual, including the Bishop of Hereford,  and in May of this year was most gratified to see in Hansard, several written LFTR-questions posed by the Bishop  and written replies from Lord Marland. 

It is virtually certain that the Government's future nuclear policy and any prospects of considering thorium technology, will be 100% influenced by the NNL's report due for publication imminently (late summer). I have a letter from Professor Paul Howarth, Managing Director of NNL, which completely rules out the thorium fuel cycle for use in any form of future UK reactor.

Were you to study the Bishop of Hereford's questions and the platitudes of Lord Marsland's replies, you might conclude, as I did and the Bishop probably does, that the NNL is locked into the existing uranium-fuel lobby and therefore lacks independance. The Government will accept their recommendations and thorium technology could be in stasis for decades.

There should be a Christian perspective on the lack of independance of a commercial operation as influential as the NNL. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" "Heaven will direct it".

Would you please have your energy advisors get under the political skin of this unsavoury situation?

Yours sincerely,

Colin Megson.

The Rt Revd Lord Bishop of Hereford - Batting for LFTRs

Lord Bishop of Hereford, Rt Revd Anthony Priddis   

Written Answers

       Tuesday 24 May 2011                   

Energy: Nuclear Reactors

Questions

Asked by The Lord Bishop of Hereford

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Marland on 4 May (WA 157) on liquid fluoride thorium reactors, what assessment they have made of the independence of the assessment undertaken by the National Nuclear Laboratory, given the involvement of Nexia Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels.[HL9194]

Written Answer By: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland): Nexia Solutions was a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which focused on research and development. In 2008, it was transferred out of BNFL under the Energy Act Transfer Scheme to form the National Nuclear Laboratory, which is an independent company, owned wholly by Her Majesty's Government and is operated as a commercial entity under the management of a consortium led by Serco. The assessment referred to in (WA 157) was a position paper produced entirely by the NNL at its own initiative. While it is assumed that the technical expertise retained by the NNL from Nexia has underpinned the opinions in the paper, no assessment of the paper has been undertaken by my department.           

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To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the independent assessment undertaken by the National Nuclear Laboratory, what plans they have to undertake further independent work to address issues associated with liquid fluoride thorium reactors.[HL9195]

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the readiness of the Government of China to undertake research and development work on liquid fluoride thorium reactors, whether they will commit to more work, either nationally or with international partners, on this source of energy.[HL9197]

Written Answer By: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland):

As noted in the Answer to your Question of 26 April 2011, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has asked the NNL to conduct further analysis of the wider benefits of next generation reactor designs and to compare the use of thorium and uranium fuels in them. This study includes assessments of safety, radio-toxicological hazard, scale, economics, and outstanding technical barriers. Molten salt reactors, within which category liquid thorium fluoride reactors fall, are one of the reactor designs being considered. We are expecting the findings of this study to be available by the end of the summer.                                                     ----

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To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will commission independent work specifically on the safety, cleanliness, scale and economics of liquid fluoride thorium reactors and any particular advantages they may offer in the United Kingdom context. [HL9196]

Written Answer By: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland): The Government support relevant R&D into nuclear technologies through a range of mechanisms and organisations, including universities and research councils, the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and others. Any future R&D on liquid thorium fluoride reactors would be done through these organisations. Findings of the NNL's forthcoming study and the position of potential international partners on this technology would be expected to inform any decision to support any new R&D.