Earlier this year, the Scottish Parliament voted by 63 to 58 to reject nuclear power as a future provider of power to the Scottish, or indeed, UK energy network. This put the Scottish position on future nuclear generation poles apart from that announced one week earlier, in which PM Gordon Brown committed the UK Government to a new generation of such stations.

"But energy is a matter reserved to Westminster" came the cries. True, however, and crucially, the Scottish Ministers hold the real power through being the ultimate decision maker in planning matters.

So, what are the legal issues? Any application to build a new nuclear or any other type of power station over 50MW in the United Kingdom must be made under s.36 of the Electricity Act 1989. By regulation 2 of the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc) Order 1999, in Scotland, any such application is made to, and determined by the Scottish Ministers. In addition to this, if a local authority was to formally object to an application under s.36, this may trigger a public inquiry. Quite apart from the time and cost element of any such an inquiry, the final decision will still rest with the Scottish Ministers.

Politically, the current Scottish ethos is heavily reliant on renewables. Scotland, as part of the United Kingdom, must be seen to be doing its part in the war on carbon emissions. It is accepted across the political divide that nuclear power generation is a low carbon base load technology and will at least assist in reducing overall carbon dioxide emissions. Under current industry estimates, the present stock of nuclear generation centres in the UK will have closed by 2023. Ironically, the last of these will be the Torness plant in East Lothian.

07 October 2008

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