Guest: Mike Reader, MP for Northampton South and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infrastructure.
Interviewed by: Antony Oliver

In episode we are seeking a new year parliamentary progress update to discover how 18 months of government infrastructure ambition is actually being turned into real economic and social growth potential.

To help me with this I am joined once again by Mike Reader, MP for Northampton South, the newly re-elected chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Infrastructure and Construction.

Engineers and site teams building HS2’s tunnel beneath the Chiltern Hills have completed construction work on two huge portal extensions at its northern end.

The structures, known as 'porous portals', are specially engineered to eliminate the possibility of trains creating ‘sonic boom’ when they enter the tunnel at 200mph. Built near Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, they are identical to a pair completed earlier this year that are 10 miles away at the tunnel’s southern portal.  

Construction works on HS2’s longest tunnel have been completed – marking an important civil engineering milestone for the new high-speed railway.  

HS2 Ltd said that close of work at two of the line’s Chiltern tunnel vent shafts at Chesham Road and Little Missenden brings to an end a project that began almost five years ago.

Once fitted out with tracks and overhead electrical equipment as part of later phases of the project, the tunnel will carry trains travelling at 200mph, enabling them to traverse its 10 miles in just three minutes.  

Record solar, onshore wind, and tidal projects - building on last month’s offshore wind success - deliver Britain’s biggest-ever clean energy auction.

Britain has taken another significant leap towards energy independence and lower bills as it announces record levels of new solar and onshore wind projects as part of its latest renewables auction.

Almost 200 containers of low-level radioactive waste that once formed part of Britain’s experiment with fast breeder nuclear reactors are being entombed.

Almost 200 containers of low-level radioactive waste that once formed part of Britain’s experiment with fast breeder nuclear reactors are being entombed in a purpose-built underground vault at Dounreay.

The containers are stacked 4 high and the spaces filled with grout before being covered by a steel reinforced concrete slab. This slab will become a floor to support more containers going to the vault for disposal.

Sellafield awards £45 million contract to LTi Metaltech to supply products, supporting safe plutonium storage and progress toward long‑term disposal.

The Sellafield Product and Residue Store Retreatment Plant on the Sellafield site

A key contract has been placed to support the continued safe storage of plutonium as the UK works toward the permanent disposal of its plutonium legacy.

Sellafield’s Remote Technologies Group is the first to use an innovative contamination swabbing tool for quadruped robots, developed through the RAICo collaboration.

Sellafield Ltd and the Robotics & AI Collaboration (RAICo) have successfully completed the first trial of a specially designed, patent-pending contamination swabbing tool, mounted on a quadruped robot, in an area containing radioactive material.

A familiar feature of the Sellafield skyline has disappeared as major progress is made in the demolition of redundant boiler units at Fellside, the Combined Heat and Power plant.

Sellafield Ltd has completed an important milestone in the demolition of redundant infrastructure at the Fellside Combined Heat and Power Plant. Two waste heat recovery boiler units and their associated gas turbines have now been safely removed.

NDA group puts decommissioning at the forefront of the agenda at Nuclear Week in Parliament

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group put decommissioning at the forefront of the agenda at this year’s Nuclear Week in Parliament, as the essential foundation underpinning the Government’s ambition to become a clean energy superpower.

Guest: Neil Hyatt, Chief Scientific Advisor and Malcolm Orford, Head of Major Permissions and at Nuclear Waste Services
Interviewed by: Antony Oliver

In this week's podcast we’re talking about the tricky challenge of safely managing and disposing of the UK’s expanding stock of nuclear waste. Creating a Geological Disposal Facility.

For more than 70 years, the UK has benefited from nuclear technology - generating low-carbon electricity, advancing medicine, supporting industry, and contributing to national defence.

Alongside those benefits comes responsibility.

US nuclear waste disposal company Deep Isolation says that a two-year research project that subjected its Universal Canister System to the kinds of conditions found thousands of feet below the surface has shown materials used in its fabrication perform reliably and remain resistant to corrosion over time.

Hinkley Point B has been declared fuel free, on time and on budget, marking the second AGR defuelling milestone achieved by the NDA group and EDF.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) confirmed Hinkley Point B nuclear power station in Somerset is officially fuel free, meaning the site has been successfully defueled on time and on budget.

It’s the second AGR station to achieve fuel free verification, with a total of seven stations due to transfer from EDF to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for decommissioning.