The environmental impact assessment for the new reactor was approved at the end of last week. Unlike normal nuclear reactors, where the radioactive nuclear fuel is in the form of rods, the fuel in the PBMR is contained in graphite spheres the size of tennis balls. These balls are fed into the top of reactor and come out, highly radioactive, at the bottom. The nuclear reaction is used to heat helium gas which then drives a gas turbine (or at least that's the plan -- since it's never been done before.)

The new reactor is claimed to be much safer than existing designs. The reactor's supporters even claim that the graphite sphere around the fuel can take place of the concrete dome containment building which surrounds reactors like Sizewell B. However, graphite burned in both the 1957 Windscale fire (which led to BNFL's site being renamed Sellafield) and the Chernobyl catastrophe. It is not surprising, therefore, that the whole plan has been described as "a load of balls".

Indeed, an earlier attempt to build a full-size prototype pebble-bed reactor, the THTR Hamm-Uentrop in Germany, was a commercial failure, closed down early after a string of problems.

Already Exelon (the biggest nuclear utility in the USA), has pulled its investment out of the project. Yet BNFL has a reputation of stepping in where fools fear to tread. With UK taxpayer money behind it, it can afford to do so. Indeed, if it were not for UK taxpayer money, BNFL would have been bankrupt years ago following the scandal in which it falsified quality control data for Japanese nuclear fuel.

Earthlife Africa ( http://www.earthlife.org.za) is campaigning against the project. Click on "Campaign Issues" - the PBMR is listed under "Nukes".

The pro-PBMR website is at  http://www.pbmr.com