MaG welcomed members to the meeting.

Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.

Update on actions from previous meeting:

AHC to invite someone from Ministry of Defence / World Health Organisation to attend next CPG to discuss the health impacts of DARC

Colin McInnes has written on behalf of the Group but only recently received a response from the WHO Collaborating Centre Australia. Colin will be meeting with representatives in June & will feedback to the Group.

ACTION: MaG to write to Public Health Wales Health Impact Assessment Unit to ask what assessment has been done in relation to DARC & for their response to the development

PHW responded to this letter providing some information & contact details for their UK level counterpart who would be responsible for the DARC development. A letter has been sent to them & we are awaiting a response.

ACTION: MaG to write to Natural Resources Wales to ask for details of any Environmental Impact Assessment in relation to DARC & how to access this

We had a response to this letter advising that we should contact Pembrokeshire Planning Authority for further information.

ACTION: MaG to write to Pembs Planning Authority on behalf of the Group

MaG welcomed Professor Andy Stirling Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex to the meeting. Andy presented to the Group on Civil nuclear power stations & UK nuclear weapons programmes: Connections & Implications for Wales.

Sussex Energy Group at the University has researched nuclear policy for over 50 years. Andy & his colleague Phil Johnstone look at industrial links (supply chains/ research/training) between civil & military nuclear infrastructure. Their work has been published in peer reviewed papers, at Parliamentary Committees & some work has been funded by FCDO. Civil nuclear power would be obsolete (in favour of renewable energy) were it not for commitments that remain to subsidise military capabilities. It is clear that in comparing renewables with nuclear, renewables are 100% more favourable than nuclear in costs and other terms.

The actual costs of military/ defence are masked behind civil programmes. This is transparent in military/defence policy literature and a declared MoD strategy. It is easier to mask aerospace activity than nuclear activities. MoD costs are highly controversial but they represent only part of the actual cost due to the masking by civil industry (supply chains/ training) which keep companies like Babcock, BAE, Rolls Royce in operation. There is a net transfer from civil to military e.g. in US calculated as $266b per annum. Without civil nuclear, marine nuclear is unsupportable – this was made clear by Macron in France. UK Gov Dept of Energy deny this link but there are many references to cross linkages in the Civil Nuclear Roadmap. Conservative estimate of net flow from civil to military in the UK is £5b per annum.

MaG thanked AS for his presentation.

BJ asked about the planned 20MW Last Energy SMRs planned for Bridgend & that NATO supply has been mentioned in press documents.

AS said main problem is realising economies of scale. How can this technology be competitive? It is not credible.

HR asked about impact on carbon emissions.

AS worked with other academics to research evidence for this & published in Nature Energy They looked at global datasets of national carbon emissions and renewable and nuclear electricity production across 123 countries over 25 years to examine systematically patterns in how countries variously using nuclear power and renewables contrastingly show higher or lower carbon emissions. They found that larger-scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to associate with significantly lower carbon emissions while renewables do. 6 major nuclear teams demanded Nature to withdraw the paper.

There is a political discourse that misrepresents options on costs, performance & carbon savings. Similarly, on jobs – there is no comparison unit for unit of energy production.

SB asked how well parliamentarians understand this link.

Date of next meeting – tbc