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Environmental performance of the nuclear industry

Read our sector report on the nuclear industry and see how they've performed over the past 20 years.

Over the past 20 years the nuclear sector has reduced its impact on the environment, particularly its' radioactive discharges to air and water.

But the industry still faces serious challenges. We are working with the industry to continue improving their environmental performance through implementation of a sector plan.

Nuclear sector plan performance reports

The nuclear sector plan is supported by annual reports on performance. These describe the performance of the sector against the objectives and performance indicators set out in the nuclear sector plan.

2010 performance

Overall the environmental performance of the sector was good again during 2010 and has continued to perform and progress well. Despite this there are aspects of environmental performance that the sector needs to improve on and we are working with industry to address these, particularly with making real progress in the conditioning and packaging of legacy wastes.

The Nuclear Sector Plan - 2010 Performance Report shows the environmental performance of the nuclear sector continues to be good compared to other industry sectors in a number of key areas:

  • There were no serious breaches of permits or pollution incidents
  • Greenhouse gas emissions remain low
  • The sector is using fewer resources year on year
  • Discharges of radioactive pollutants to the environment are falling
  • The industry avoided sending 78 percent of its low level radioactive waste to the Low Level Waste Repository by use of other management techniques.

The report also outlined a number of areas where continued focus is required to improve environmental performance including:

  • Improving the efficient use of natural resources at some sites, for example, through water saving initiatives
  • Continuing to improve understanding and management of contaminated land to enable progress into clean-up when appropriate
  • Making real progress on the conditioning and packaging of intermediate level wastes, so that it is in a form which is suitable for disposal, or for safe and secure storage
  • Minimising discharges of greenhouse gases by improving the identification and targeting of significant sources

Nuclear sector plan

The Nuclear sector plan was developed with the nuclear industry. We published a revised version of the plan in 2009. It builds on the successes of the first sector plan (originally published in 2005) and it looks ahead to forthcoming challenges and reflects important changes in the nuclear industry. The plan details environmental objectives and indicators of performance that will help ensure environmental impacts are minimised and managed responsibly.

The plan includes:

  • an outline of the eight environmental objectives for the nuclear sector
  • voluntary activities which will be carried out by the industry, over and above their statutory responsibilities
  • areas where we've agreed to improve our work as an environmental regulator.

We will continue to report annually against the plan’s objectives. We are very pleased that the industry is continuing to support the sector plan and will continue to use it to monitor and report on the environmental impact of its activities.

We are currently reviewing the 2009 sector plan and are planning to issue a revised sector plan (Issue 3) in 2012, which will reflect continuing progress and the on-going changes in the nuclear industry

Further information

Case studies