Call for Scottish Government to reject plans to build nuclear plants at freeports
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
NORTH campaigners have called on the Scottish Government to reject plans to build nuclear plants at the country's two new Green Freeports.
The plea has come from Highlands Against Nuclear Power (HANP) and Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) which do not want to see small modular reactors built at the freeports in the Cromarty Firth and the Forth. Instead, they would like to see the ports become hubs for renewable technologies.
The campaign groups have also urged the government to make sure Scotland’s nuclear communities do not lose out by ensuring workers and businesses can access the new opportunities from the freeports once operations at nuclear power stations end.
The NFLA and HANP have written a joint letter to Scotland's Net Zero Minister Michael Matheson to express their views.
HANP chairman, Tor Justad, argued the Freeports have the potential to create skilled employment and supply-chain opportunities for workers and businesses in nuclear communities which lose out when power plants close.
He said: "The NFLA and HANP recognise that when all nuclear operations end in Scotland, workers and local businesses will require new opportunities to source an income. There has been a lot of talk of a ‘just transition’ for oil industry workers as we move away from fossil fuels, but we want to see a ‘just transition’ for nuclear communities too.
Mr Justad added: "We believe that the Freeports can provide skilled and high-paid alternate employment and business opportunities in the renewable energy technologies that we need for workers and sub-contractors once they are displaced from nuclear operations at Dounreay, Torness, Chapelcross, or Hunterston, and we shall continue to lobby the Scottish Government to ensure that they are able to access them".
Scotland NFLA convenor, councillor Paul Leinster, criticised the idea of nuclear energy being part of a Green Freeport: "The NFLA and HANP cannot see how any genuinely Green Freeport with an aspiration to create green jobs and forge a green energy future for Scotland can incorporate the manufacturing of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
"This is not a green technology. It is simply a nuclear fission reactor made smaller, but it is still reliant on uranium dug from the ground, which is processed, transported many miles, enriched and manufactured into fuel rods; it still contaminates the environment around the site on which the plant sits; and it still generates radioactive waste that must be managed for generations at great expense."
He added: "Nuclear is a faux-green technology and locating nuclear manufacturing facilities in a Green Freeport or using nuclear power to support its operations would represent ‘greenwashing’".
Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport and Forth Green Freeport were selected by the Scottish and UK governments to become Scotland’s first Green Freeports.
The two winning bids will be supported by up to £52 million in start-up funding and will benefit from tax reliefs and other incentives through a combination of devolved and reserved powers.
