Hinkley Point C nuclear power plan – a Titanic folly
Why Hinkley Point is a nuclear folly of Titanic proportions https://www.newscientist.com/article/2099287-why-hinkley-point-is-a-nuclear-folly-of-titanic-proportions/ The French firm EDF has approved plans for a massive nuclear reactor in the UK, but the UK government is hesitating. Let’s hope it scuppers the project, says Michael Le Page, 26 July 17, It feels like watching Titanic. Despite numerous warnings of enormous icebergs ahead, French company EDF yesterday signalled full steam ahead for the plan to build a huge nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in the UK. No sooner had it done so than the ship hit an iceberg.
The UK was expected to sign the contract for Hinkley within days of EDF giving the go-ahead. The champagne was already on ice. But the new government surprised everyone by instead saying it will review the project by September. What’s not yet clear is whether this is a minor dent in the hull of RMS Hinkley, or a gaping hole that could sink it.
The Hinkley plant is important for many reasons. For starters, it’s a key part of the UK’s plans to cut greenhouse emissions, meant to supply a whopping 7 per cent of the country’s electricity. If completed, it will be the UK’s first new nuclear plant for decades, the most expensive built anywhere and the biggest construction project in Europe, creating tens of thousands of jobs.
It is not clear why the UK government is hesitating. Is Hinkley now seen as a trump card in the Brexit negotiations with France? Many analysts, however, say things have changed since Hinkley was first planned. The UK had to agree to pay a very high price for Hinkley’s electricity. Since then, the price of renewables has plummeted, making it look like a very bad deal for the UK.
Even if the UK signs the contract in September after the review is complete, the megaproject’s future looks doubtful. There are huge financial, legal, technical and safety-related icebergs lurking in the seas ahead.
Behind schedule
One reason why is that the two reactors planned for Hinkley are based on a new design. The EPR design is supposed to be safer and more efficient, but it has proved so difficult to construct that not one has yet been completed.
EDF started building the first EPR, at Olkiluoto in Finland, in 2005. It was supposed to start up in 2009. Work on the second, at Flamanville in France, began in 2007 and was due to be finished in 2012. Another two EPRs are being built in Taishan, China. All four projects are years behind schedule and have cost billions more than expected.
Worse still, weak spots have been found in the steel reactor core at Flamanville. If it has to be replaced, the still incomplete plant would have to be largely dismantled to replace it, at immense cost to EDF. And that’s not all. Earlier this year, it was reported that one of the companies supplying components to EDF had falsified safety certificates.
There are also worries about the fact that a state-owned Chinese company will be supplying some of the parts and workers for the project. The UK’s intelligence agencies are said to be concerned that a “back door” could be built into the control systems, allowing China to shut down the plant if it wanted to.
Last but not least, there are various legal challenges pending. The Austrian government, for instance, is appealing against the European Commission’s decision to approve state aid for the project, saying it breaches European laws. Meanwhile, French authorities are investigating possible financial misreporting by EDF.
So should the new UK government let RMS Hinkley sail on towards disaster, or scupper it now? The choice seems clear.
Catholic Church organising to support UN nuclear weapons ban
Vatican conference aims to build momentum for nuclear disarmament, Catholic News Agency, By Andrea Gagliarducci, 25 July 17, Nuclear disarmament will be the focus of a Vatican conference this Nov. 10-11, following recent progress toward international bans on nuclear weapons.
Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi told CNA that “the Holy See is working to create a public opinion convinced that the world is safer without nuclear weapons, rather than with them.”
The archbishop is delegate secretary to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, which is working to organize the disarmament conference.
The Holy See has invited Antonio Gutierres, Secretary General of the United Nations, to address the conference. It is not reported whether he has accepted the invitation.
Archbishop Tomasi said that the conference is conceived as a follow-up to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, passed July 7 at the United Nations.
Until the treaty, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not explicitly banned by any international document.
The treaty passed with 122 votes in favor and one abstention, Singapore. However, 69 countries, namely all nuclear weapons states and all NATO members excepting the Netherlands, did not take part in the vote.
The U.N. decided to start negotiations for the treaty after a series of three conferences on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. The first conference took place in Oslo, Norway in March 2013. The second was held in Nayarit, Mexico in February 2014.
The third conference, held in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 8-9, 2014, was the first meeting on nuclear weapons attended by some nuclear weapons states.
At the end of the Vienna conference, 127 states formally endorsed a humanitarian pledge, with 23 more voting to approve a resolution in its favor. The endorsing states said they were aware that the risk of nuclear weapons use and their “unacceptable consequences” are avoidable only “when all nuclear weapons have been eliminated.”
The pledge called on all nuclear powers to take concrete measures to reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons and remove them from deployment. It called on nuclear powers to diminish nuclear weapons’ role in their military doctrines and to make “rapid reductions of all types of nuclear weapons.”
Archbishop Tomasi, who attended the Vienna conference in his former position of Holy See Permanent Observer to the U.N. in Geneva, told CNA that the Vienna conference is “particularly important, because it underscores that just being in possession of nuclear weapons is already not ethical.”
The November 2017 conference at the Vatican aims to be another step on the path towards nuclear disarmament.
It would build on the conference to negotiate the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, which took place in New York in March 2017……..http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-conference-aims-to-build-momentum-for-nuclear-disarmament-69412/
Pentagon says North Korea capable of nuclear missile strike on Australia, USA in 2018
Why it’s time to fear North Korea, The Australian July 26, 2017, CAMERON STEWART North Korea will be able to reliably launch a nuclear-armed long range missile at Australia and the United States as early as next year, according to a stunning new assessment by the Pentagon.
The prediction brings forward by around two years previous US intelligence assessments of the progress of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
It follows an analysis of recent missile tests by the hermit kingdom which found that scientists in Pyongyang have advanced their technology on the country’s missile testing program faster and more efficiently that was predicted by the west.
Senior US officials have told the Washington Post that the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un will be able to make a ‘reliable, nuclear-capable Intercontinental Ballistic Missile’ sometime in 2018.
In July 4, Mr Kim launched his country’s first missile with the range to strike the US state of Alaska and northern Australia.
The US intelligence assessment shows that the US now believes North Korea is closer than previously thought to having the know-how to miniaturise its nuclear weapons to arm its new ICBM……http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/north-korea-able-to-launch-nuclear-strike-on-australia-as-early-as-2018/news-story/6602ff2c8575b1cd5d7c8dcb93577096
France to set out options for nuclear power closures, in 2018
France to spell out nuclear closure options in 2018, (Montel) Aia Helena Brnic, aia@montel.no, 26 July 2017 The French government will next year spell out different scenarios on how to cut the share of nuclear in its power mix, as the nation looks to step up its renewable generation.
Energy minister Nicolas Hulot told parliament late on Tuesday that the different scenarios will be “put on the table” and debated at the government’s next multiannual energy programme (PPE) in 2018.
“I prefer that we put all the scenarios on the table in the PPE [next year] and look at what is realistic and what is not,” Hulot said at a hearing in the lower house of parliament, insisting that France will not be able to avoid nuclear reactors closures.
The minister had earlier said that France would need to close up to 25 out of its 58 operational reactors to achieve its nuclear objectives…..https://www.montel.no/StartPage/SubPage.aspx?id=815053
Google developing computer algorithm for nuclear fusion research
Google enters race for nuclear fusion technology. The tech giant and a leading US fusion company develop a new computer algorithm that significantly speeds up progress towards clean, limitless energy,Guardian, Damian Carrington, 26 July 17, Google and a leading nuclear fusion company have developed a new computer algorithm which has significantly speeded up experiments on plasmas, the ultra-hot balls of gas at the heart of the energy technology.
Tri Alpha Energy, which is backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has raised over $500m (£383m) in investment. It has worked with Google Research to create what they call the Optometrist algorithm. This enables high-powered computation to be combined with human judgement to find new and better solutions to complex problems.
Nuclear fusion, in which atoms are combined at extreme temperatures to release huge amounts of energy, is exceptionally complex. The physics of nuclear fusion involves non-linear phenomena, where small changes can produce large outcomes, making the engineering needed to suspend the plasma very challenging.
“The whole thing is beyond what we know how to do even with Google-scale computer resources,” said Ted Baltz, at the Google Accelerated Science Team. So the scientists combined computer learning approaches with human input by presenting researchers with choices. The researchers choose the option they instinctively feel is more promising, akin to choosing the clearer text during an eye test…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/25/google-enters-race-for-nuclear-fusion-technology
Wind farms subsidy-free and half the cost of Hinkley nuclear power station to build
Drop in wind energy costs adds pressure for government rethink https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/23/drop-in-wind-energy-costs-adds-pressure-for-government-rethink
Tories urged to look at onshore windfarms which can be built as cheaply as gas plants and deliver the same power for half the cost of Hinkley Point, says Arup, Guardian,Adam Vaughan, 24 July 17, Onshore windfarms could be built in the UK for the same cost as new gas power stations and would be nearly half as expensive as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, according to a leading engineering consultant.
Arup found that the technology has become so cheap that developers could deliver turbines for a guaranteed price of power so low that it would be effectively subsidy-free in terms of the impact on household energy bills.
France’s EDF was awarded a contract for difference – a top-up payment – of £92.50 per megawatt hour over 35 years for Hinkley’s power, or around twice the wholesale price of electricity.
By contrast, Arup’s report found that windfarms could be delivered for a maximum of £50-55 per MWh across 15 years.
ScottishPower, which commissioned the analysis, hopes to persuade the government to reconsider its stance on onshore windfarms, which the Conservatives effectively blocked in 2015 by banning them from competing for subsidies and imposing new planning hurdles.
Keith Anderson, the firm’s chief operating officer, told the Guardian that onshore wind could help the UK meet its climate targets, was proven in terms of being easy to deliver, and was now “phenomenally competitive” on price.
“If you want to control the cost of energy, and deliver energy to consumers and to businesses across the UK at the most competitive price, why would you not want to use this technology? This report demonstrates it’s at the leading edge of efficiency,” he said.
The big six energy firm believes that with a cap on top-up payments so close to the wholesale price, onshore windfarms would be effectively subsidy-free – but the guaranteed price would be enough to de-risk projects and win the investment case for them.
“What we are asking for is a mechanism that underpins the investment risk,” said Anderson.
The group believes that any political sting for Tory MPs concerned about public opposition to turbines in English shires would be removed because such a low guaranteed price would see only the windiest sites coming in cheap enough – which means windfarms in Scotland.
“You put these projects in the right place, you will get the correct level of resource out of them to keep the costs down and you will get public acceptance of people liking them,” Anderson said, citing the example of the company’s huge Whitelee windfarm near Glasgow.
Dr Robert Gross, director of the centre for energy policy and technology at Imperial College, said: “Onshore wind has been coming in at remarkably low prices internationally, so a contract for difference price of around £50-60 per MWh looks perfectly feasible for a good location in the UK, one of the windiest countries in Europe.
“Windfarms generally need fixed price contracts in order to secure finance, otherwise volatile electricity prices can make investing in wind risky.”
The Conservative manifesto was seen by some in industry as softening the party’s stance on onshore wind, saying that it did not believe “more large-scale onshore wind power is right for England” but not mentioning Wales and Scotland, which have some of the best potential sites.
The party also promised a review of the cost of energy which the Guardian revealed last week was likely to be led by the University of Oxford economist Dieter Helm, a critic of the cost of today’s renewable and nuclear power technologies.
However, Anderson said he saw the report, due in October, as a good opportunity.
“I would find it surprising if anybody else doing a costs review of the energy sector comes to a fundamentally different argument [to the Arup report],” he said.
Leo Murray, of climate change charity 10:10, said: “It looks increasingly absurd that the Conservatives have effectively banned Britain’s cheapest source of new power.”
Nuclear power: not compatible with human rights in Japan’s Constitution
Is nuclear power compatible with human rights in Constitution? Asahi Shimbun July 24, 2017 One year has passed since an evacuation order was lifted on July 12, 2016, for most parts of the Odaka district of Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, which lies within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Stores and schools in the district are gradually being reopened. Voices of high school students are heard echoing through the streets at times of the day when they go to school and return home. At the same time, though, many stores remain shuttered and grass is running wild in the yards of many houses.
City government figures show that Odaka was home to only 2,046 residents as of July 12, less than one-sixth of the corresponding figure at the time of the 2011 disaster at the nuclear plant, which is operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).
The nuclear disaster, triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, deprived many people of their “lives as usual,” which should have been guaranteed under the Constitution of Japan.
DISASTER HIGHLIGHTED ESSENTIALS OF CONSTITUTION
Katsuaki Shiga, a 68-year-old fisherman, has given up hope of returning to Odaka.
His home, which he had just built near the coastline, was inundated by the tsunami. The home went dilapidated while he was banned entry to the premises in the wake of the nuclear disaster, and Shiga had no choice but to have it dismantled.
“(The disaster) changed not just my life but also the lives of all people in our community,” Shiga said. “That made me think about the essentials of the Constitution, such as the right to life and fundamental human rights.”
The government of Minami-Soma in May last year distributed a brochure containing the entire text of the Constitution to all households in the city.
Yasuzo Suzuki (1904-1983), a scholar of constitutional law who hailed from Odaka, included an explicit mention of the right to life in a draft outline of Japan’s Constitution, which he worked out immediately after World War II ended in 1945.
“The people shall have the right to maintain wholesome and cultured living standards,” the draft said, in a prelude to Article 25 of the current Constitution.
Katsunobu Sakurai, mayor of Minami-Soma, wanted the city’s residents to cast their minds back to a starting point at a time when life had taken a sudden turn for the worse for many of them.
Several tens of thousands of inhabitants of Fukushima Prefecture remain evacuated either within or outside the prefecture’s borders. Countless people have lost their longtime livelihoods or dwellings, which means their freedom to choose and change their residences and to choose their occupations (Article 22), along with their right to own or hold property (Article 29), were severely violated.
Many children were no longer able to attend schools in their hometowns, which means their right to an education (Article 26) was also compromised.
And most importantly, the tragedy drove many people into “disaster-related deaths.”
“The nuclear disaster has made it impossible to maintain the sort of life that is described in the Constitution,” Sakurai said emphatically. “That is unconstitutional, isn’t it?”
CONSTITUTION AS PILLAR AND POST
The Fukui District Court in May 2014 issued an injunction against the planned restart of reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi nuclear plant in a lawsuit filed by residents living near the power-generating facility in Fukui Prefecture.
“The use of nuclear energy is meant to fulfill the socially important functions of generating electric power, but that is inferior in standing to the core part of personal rights in light of the Constitution,” the court said in its decision.
Akiko Morimatsu said she was given hope by that court decision, which based itself on the Constitution. The 43-year-old heads a group of plaintiffs from the Kansai region in a group lawsuit filed by evacuees from the nuclear disaster, who are demanding compensation from the central government and TEPCO.
Worried about her two young children’s exposure to radiation, Morimatsu fled to Osaka from Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, although the area she was from was not under an evacuation order.
Voluntary evacuees like her, who constitute a minority, have had to face unfriendly eyes both in and outside of Fukushima Prefecture, and have received little help from administrative organs and scanty damage payments from TEPCO.
She said she wondered if she had made the right choice, and she took a fresh look at the Constitution, which she had studied in her student years. She thereupon found such statements as “all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want” (preamble) and “all of the people shall be respected as individuals” (Article 13).
“This should be the pillar and post for me,” Morimatsu said she thought.
She argued that it is up to individual freedom to choose between evacuating and staying, and that all individuals, no matter which option they have chosen, should be granted assistance that allows them to realize the sort of life that is guaranteed under the Constitution.
Seventy years after the Constitution came into force, people are still turning to the supreme law of Japan as a weapon in their fight to win back their “lives as usual.” That reality should not be forgotten and should be taken seriously…… http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201707240022.html
Scientists play with ‘cocktail geoengineering’ as a climate change fix
Could ‘cocktail geoengineering’ save the climate?, Eureka Alert, 24 July 17 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE, Geoengineering is a catch-all term that refers to various theoretical ideas for altering Earth’s energy balance to combat climate change. New research from an international team of atmospheric scientists published by Geophysical Research Lettersinvestigates for the first time the possibility of using a “cocktail” of geoengineering tools to reduce changes in both temperature and precipitation caused by atmospheric greenhouse gases…….
So-called solar geoengineering aims to cool the planet by deflecting some of the Sun’s incoming rays. Ideas for accomplishing this include the dispersion of light-scattering particles in the upper atmosphere, which would mimic the cooling effect of major volcanic eruptions.
However, climate-modeling studies have shown that while this scattering of sunlight should reduce the warming caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it would tend to reduce rainfall and other types of precipitation less than would be optimal.
Another approach involves thinning of high cirrus clouds, which are involved in regulating the amount of heat that escapes from the planet to outer space. This would also reduce warming, but would not correct the increase in precipitation caused by global warming.
One method reduces rain too much. Another method reduces rain too little.
This is where the theoretical cocktail shaker gets deployed………
their simulations showed that if both methods are deployed in concert, it would decrease warming to pre-industrial levels, as desired, and on a global level rainfall would also stay at pre-industrial levels. But the bad news is that while global average climate was largely restored, substantial differences remained locally, with some areas getting much wetter and other areas getting much drier.
“The same amount of rain fell around the globe in our models, but it fell in different places, which could create a big mismatch between what our economic infrastructure expects and what it will get,” Caldeira added. “More complicated geoengineering solutions would likely do a bit better, but the best solution is simply to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”
Caldeira said that the international collaboration of scientists (including scientists from China and India) undertook this research as part of a broader effort aimed at understanding the effectiveness and unintended consequences of proposed strategies for reducing climate change and its impacts. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/cifs-cg072417.php
South Korea to move away from nuclear power – but still wants to sell nukes overseas!
Reuters 24th July 2017, South Korea’s new energy minister on Monday said he plans to support the
country’s push to sell nuclear reactors overseas, even as the nation curbs
nuclear power at home. State-run Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) is
building the first of four nuclear plants in the United Arab Emirates in an
$18.6 billion deal, and is scouting for more business in Britain and other
countries.
But that comes as South Korea, Asia’ fourth-largest economy, has
been looking to steer its domestic energy policy away from its current
heavy dependence on coal and nuclear, with large chunks of the public
skeptical about the safety of atomic power. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-nuclear-minister-idUSKBN1A90N6
Trump picks an advocate of pre-emptive nuclear strike for his defense team
Trump’s new nuclear defense pick once wrote, “America must be ready to nuke first.” New Republic, Emily Atkin, 21 July 17 The White House announced a slew of nominations earlier this week to fill some of the many open positions in the administration. The last on the list was Guy B. Roberts, whom Trump tapped to be the assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs at the Department of Defense. In this role, Roberts will “prevent, protect against, and respond to weapons of mass destruction threats,” according to the DOD website. He’ll also advise the secretary of defense in “matters concerning nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.” ……..
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