Guardian 2nd March 2018, The richest households should pay £410 a year more towards supporting
energy subsidies for wind farms, solar rooftops and home insulation
schemes, government-funded researchers have urged.
The UK Energy Research Centre (Ukerc) said that shifting environmental and social levies off
electricity bills and instead loading them on to general taxation would
reduce the cost of energy for more than two thirds of households. The
researchers argued the current approach to funding low-carbon power and
energy efficiency was regressive.
The poorest households spend 10% of their income on heating and keeping the lights on, compared to 3% for the
richest.
The report by Ukerc found that shifting the costs to taxation
would save the poorest 10% of households £102 a year, “a significant
difference for them”. Meanwhile the 10% of the country with the highest
income would pay an extra £410 a year, “a relatively small difference”
for such earners.
The two high income brackets below the richest group
would see rises of between £26 and £102 a year, while the remaining 70%
would see no change or a decrease.
John Barrett, professor of energy and climate policy, who worked on the analysis, said the status quo was hurting
the switch to greener energy. Subsidies for low-carbon power cost
billpayers £5.2bn in 2016-17 but are projected by the Treasury to rise to
£8.6bn in 2024-25 as new wind farms and other projects come online.
Campaigners have said for years that funding green energy subsidies through
energy bills is regressive because the poor are disproportionately
affected, but there has been little political appetite for a change. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/richest-uk-households-should-pay-more-to-fund-clean-energy
Greenpeace protesters jailed for fireworks stunt at French nuclear plant, The Local Fr.28 Feb 18A French court on Tuesday sentenced two Greenpeace activists to a minimum of two months in jail for breaking into a nuclear power plant and setting off fireworks last year.
Six other protesters were handed five-month suspended sentences for the October stunt at the plant in Cattenom, near the border with Luxembourg, which was intended to show the facility’s vulnerability to attack……..
Greenpeace said the fireworks were set off at the foot of a spent fuel pool — where nuclear plants store highly radioactive fuel rods that are removed from reactors after their use.
Santee Cooper execs get big bonuses, pay hikes, while nuclear debt mushrooms, The Nerve, February 27, 2018, By RICK BRUNDRETT
As state-owned utility Santee Cooper was racking up billions in debt – which ratepayers are expected to shoulder – for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project, the company’s top executives were raking in huge bonuses and salary hikes.
More than $4 billion in bonds that were sold to finance the biggest financial flop in the Berkeley County-based utility’s history will have to be paid back with interest over years – to the tune of $200 million to $300 million annually.
But those I.O.U.’s are only part of the company’s overall debt load, which company records show stands at more than $15 billion. That tab will be paid back over 40 years, starting last year with payments totaling nearly a half-billion dollars.
And that means Santee Cooper’s customers likely will face rate hikes – how much is unknown – in the coming years.
Meanwhile, from 2009 through 2016 as the V.C. Summer project costs were escalating and construction deadlines were missed, the utility paid out a total of $5.6 million in bonuses to 15 executives, company records show.
Of the total bonus pool, $70,648 over the eight-year period was directly tied to the nuclear project, more than half of which was paid to recently retired president and CEO Lonnie Carter.
Carter received the highest total annual bonuses; in 2015 and in 2016 he was paid more than $330,000 in bonuses, which represented more than 60 percent of his salary for those years. During the 2009-16 period in which the V.C. Summer project was active, his yearly salary jumped 34 percent, from $404,756 to $540,929.
Besides bonuses, Santee Cooper’s top executives also received, according to a company spokeswoman, annual car allowance and life insurance benefits, which made up their total compensation. The additional perks brought Carter’s total 2016 total compensation to $894,369, a hike of about $377,000 from his 2009 compensation.
The total compensation of seven other top executives in 2016 ranged from $282,811 to $552,133, with nearly all of them receiving increases from the previous year, records show.
And Carter also received a golden parachute with his retirement last year: In addition to receiving $344,572 for life from the state retirement system, he will be paid up to $455,192 annually for 20 years through a separate executive retirement plan with the company, plus had had $858,577 in a 401(k)-type retirement plan through Santee Cooper, according to media reports…….https://thenerve.org/santee-cooper-execs-get-big-bonuses-pay-hikes-while-nuclear-debt-mushrooms/
Fukushima makes anime to counter harmful rumors https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180228_28/Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture has produced animated films stressing the safety of its agricultural and fishery products to dispel overseas rumors about radioactive contamination from the 2011 nuclear accident.
The prefecture has been trying to expand the international markets for its farm produce and seafood. The main challenge is to refute the negative rumors that have persisted since the nuclear accident.
The 5 “anime” films, each lasting about 4 minutes, are aimed at promoting the safety and quality of local peaches, rice, beef and other items.
In the films, high school girls play the roles of the food items and work hard together to improve their taste.
The prefectural government also plans to make available English, Chinese, Spanish and French versions, which will be shown for the first time at an event in Hong Kong in March.
These versions will also be posted on the Internet.
A prefectural official says the films represent the aspirations of food producers in Fukushima and will convey the safety of their products on an affable note, mainly to younger generations abroad.
Japan’s Mitsubishi acquires 5% stake in French nuclear power firm Orano for $306m, Deal Street Asia, Mars Woo February 28, 2018 Tokyo-headquartered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has completed its acquisition of a 5 per cent interest in Orano, a French multinational group specialising in nuclear power and renewable energy, for €250 million ($306 million).
In a statement on Wednesday, MHI said the completion of the investment, which was agreed upon in March 2017, would enhance technological and business cooperation between the two companies and strengthen global value chain for nuclear energy…….
Orano primarily focuses on the fuel cycle business, including uranium mining, enrichment, and conversion and processing of spent fuel. MHI had in 1991, partnered with Areva, now an Orano subsidiary, to form a joint venture in the fuel cycle business for the manufacture and sale of a full range of reprocessing equipment. The company said it aims to play an important role in forging stronger links between the Japanese and French nuclear energy industries, as confirmed by the two countries’ governments in October 2015.
The company said it aims to play an important role in forging stronger links between the Japanese and French nuclear energy industries, as confirmed by the two countries’ governments in October 2015. “By strengthening the relationship between manufacturers in Japan and France, every effort will be made to expand and improve structurally as a comprehensive manufacturer capable of supporting the global nuclear power generation business in all aspects; from production of nuclear fuel to plant design, construction and maintenance, and reprocessing of spent fuel,” MHI said in a statement. https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/japans-mitsubishi-acquires-5-stake-french-nuclear-power-firm-orano-306m-93291/
The rate of contaminated water reaching the facility has slowed, but is still increasing
There are now more than 1,000 tanks of contaminated water at the site
One controversial option for dealing with the water includes decontaminating it as much as possible and then gradually releasing it into the ocean
Storage tanks for contaminated water at Fukushima nuclear plant
The water is being stored in hundreds of large and densely packed tanks at the plant.
Japanese Government officials have not figured out what to do with more than 1 million tonnes of radioactive water sitting at the site of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Just days shy of the seventh anniversary of the nuclear disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) revealed it successfully slowed the rate of contaminated water reaching the reactor facilities, but the amount was still increasing.
“A few years a go [the radioactive water was increasing by] 400 tonnes per day, but the increase per day has now gone down to around 100 tonnes per day,” said Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO’s chief decommissioning officer.
“A few years ago we had to create one new tank every two or three days but now we need to increase one new tank every seven to 10 days, so in that sense we think it is progress, to a certain degree, in the sense it is a more stabilised situation,” he said.
There are more than 1,000 tanks of contaminated water now at the site — and Government authorities have still not decided what to do with the water.
Aerial view of tanks of contaminated water at the Fukushima nuclear plant
Experts want a gradual release, but if the tanks break the water would slosh out.
Ice wall of limited effect
TEPCO revealed earlier this week that its underground frozen soil wall — what was expected to be the main defence against groundwater contamination — had only had a limited effect.
The 1.5-kilometre-long barrier is designed to keep groundwater from flowing into reactor buildings that were damaged by the disaster.
The wall cost more than $US300 million to build and costs $US10 million to operate.
Mr Masuda said it was important to note that the combination of the company’s measures to prevent contamination meant that the situation was less volatile overall.
So while the level of contaminated water is still increasing — albeit at a slower rate — the Japanese Government is yet to agree on what to do with it.
One controversial option includes decontaminating the water as much as possible and then gradually release it into the ocean.
Experts advising the Government have urged a gradual release of the water to the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Treatment can remove all the radioactive elements except tritium, which they say is safe in small amounts.
But local fishermen have balked at the idea, fearing a devastating impact to the reputation of their produce.
Satoru Toyomoto from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said a Government sub-committee was still considering its options.
“You may think after as many as seven years [this should be decided], but we have done our utmost and we have done all possible things and we have finally come to a stage where we can consider this,” he said.
“After the accident occurred [in 2011] it was like a field hospital on a battlefield — but finally we have reached a situation where we can calmly think about the long-term future.
“A taskforce two years ago considered various options including geological disposal, vaporisation, burial underground, hydrogen release or release into the sea.
“Of those five options, we are trying to make a comprehensive assessment looking at options, but also reputational measures.”
Rows of tanks holding contaminated groundwater are seen at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in February.
The “frozen soil wall” erected around the crippled reactor buildings at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant at huge taxpayer expense appears limited in keeping groundwater from flowing in.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said March 1 that 95 tons of radioactive water has been reduced a day on average between December and early February because of the underground barrier.
“Contaminated groundwater was cut in half due to the wall,” a TEPCO official said.
TEPCO estimated that the volume of polluted groundwater would have amounted to about 189 tons if the ice wall had not been in place during that period.
The utility also said the amount of polluted groundwater was reduced by about 400 tons a day now due to combined measures, such as the wall and wells pumping up water, compared with before such measures were taken.
But Toyoshi Fuketa, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has insisted that the wells, not the wall, are the “key” to controlling the groundwater, voicing skepticism about the role of the ice wall.
The utility is proceeding with work to reinforce the wells.
The 34.5 billion yen ($322 million) frozen soil wall project began in 2014 to lay out the 1,500-meter-long underground wall around the No. 1-4 reactor buildings.
A large number of pipes were inserted to a depth of 30 meters to circulate liquid with a temperature of minus 30 degrees through them to freeze the surrounding soil.
It was designed to prevent groundwater from flowing into the plant and mixing with highly radioactive water in the basements of the buildings.
TEPCO’s recent assessment of the effectiveness of the frozen soil wall came after temperatures around the structure dropped to below zero following work that began last August to freeze the remaining final section of the wall.
But experts pointed out that the utility’s assessment is based on figures only when there was little rain.
The water volume rose to 1,000 tons or so a day in late October when two typhoons struck the area.
TEPCO believes that the surge at that time is largely attributable to the downpours from the typhoons.
Heavy rain accumulated in the basement after flowing down holes in the ceilings caused by hydrogen explosions during the 2011 triple meltdown.
It costs more than 1 billion yen a year in electricity fees to keep the wall frozen.
The company plans to remove all the groundwater from the buildings by 2020 so that it can begin work to decontaminate the facilities later.
The gate of “Difficult-to-return zone” in Fukushima on March 11, 2014
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was believed to have only resulted in the release of gases. But seven years after one of history’s few radioactive disasters, scientists have found that uranium and other solid microparticles were also released into the surrounding parts of Japan.
“Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone,” said Gareth Law, one of the authors, of the University of Manchester.
The debris, which included uranium, caesium and technetium, was discovered in the nuclear exclusion zone, several kilometers from the epicenter of the disaster at the Fukushima plant.
Two locations were paddy oils, and an abandoned aquaculture center.
Uranium itself has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
The previously acknowledged radioactive materials were cesium and iodine, both taking the form of volatile gases. Other gases were released, as well.
But the new information about particles potentially means a longer, bigger cleanup, according to the latest study, led by Satoshi Utsunomiya of Kyushu University.
“Having better knowledge of the released microparticles is also vitally important as it provides much needed data on the status of the melted nuclear fuels in the damaged reactors,” said Utsunomiya. “This will provide extremely useful information for (The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s) decommissioning strategy.”
The March 2011 Fukushima disaster was triggered by a massive 9.0-scale earthquake, then a 15-foot tsunami. The Daiichi plant lost power, which prevented normal cooling operations – and caused the meltdown of all three cores at the plant within a few days. The removal of the melted fuel – which could take decades – is not going to begin until 2022.
Eighteen thousand people were killed throughout the whole incident, and 100,000 were displaced. The disaster has widely been considered the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
#7 Years of Fukushima Greenpeace Radiation Survey in Namie and Iitate towns.
Greenpeace radiation surveys of the Fukushima Prefecture area in September 2017 showed that while some of the area has levels close to the government decontamination target (0.23 micro-sieverts per hour) there were many areas which were higher, including above 5 microsieverts per hour.
Defense News, By: Mike Yeo , 2 Mar 18 MELBOURNE, Australia— One of China’s largest shipbuilders has revealed plans to speed up the development of China’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, as part of China’s ambition to transform its navy into a blue-water force by the middle of the next decade.
In a since-amended news release outlining the company’s future strategic direction in all of its business areas, the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, or CSIC, said the shipbuilding group will redouble efforts to achieve technological breakthroughs in nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, new nuclear-powered submarines, quieter conventionally powered submarines, underwater artificial intelligence-based combat systems and integrated networked communications systems………https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/03/01/china-to-develop-its-first-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier/
Japanese government forcing Fukushima evacuees back into radioactive areas by cutting their compensation. This Greenpeace video provides one story now seven years after the triple catastrophe.
Nearly seven years after the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, mrs. Kanno returns to her evacuated home, the highly contaminated exclusion zone of Namie, Fukushima prefecture. Includes interviews with Mrs. Kanno and Greenpeace radiation specialist Jan Vande Putte.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) asked a subsidiary in 2008 to underestimate the scale of tsunami that could hit the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant before tsunami devastated the facility in March 2011, a subsidiary employee told a court.
The worker at Tokyo Electric Power Services Co. (TEPSCO) appeared as a witness at the hearing of three former TEPCO executives under indictment on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury at the Tokyo District Court on Feb. 28.
The man played a key role in TEPSCO’s estimate of the scale of possible tsunami, which could hit the premises of the plant, between 2007 and 2008.
Based on a long-term evaluation by the government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, the employee estimated that tsunami up to 15.7 meters high could hit the atomic power station. In its evaluation, the quake research headquarters had warned that a massive tsunami could occur off the Sanriku region including Fukushima Prefecture. The area was later devastated by a massive tsunami triggered by the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, causing the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
In his testimony, the employee told the court that he briefed TEPCO headquarters of the outcome of TEPSCO’s estimate of possible tsunami in March 2008. An employee at TEPCO headquarters subsequently asked the witness whether the estimated scale of possible tsunami could be lowered by changing the calculation method.
In response, the employee recalculated the possible tsunami based on different movements of tsunami waves he assumed, but he obtained an all but identical figure, the employee told the court hearing. He added that in the end, the prediction was not accepted as the utility’s estimate of possible tsunami hitting the power plant.
The man testified that his estimation of up to 15.7-meter-high tsunami hitting the power plant was “within the scope of his assumption because the calculation was based on the 1896 Sanriku earthquake that triggered over 30-meter-high tsunami.”
During the hearing, court-appointed lawyers, acting as prosecutors to indict the three former TEPCO executives, said that TEPCO headquarters considered measures to protect the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex from tsunami after being briefed of the outcome of TEPSCO’s tsunami estimate.
Nevertheless, the lawyers asserted that those who were on the company’s board at the time postponed drawing up tsunami countermeasures by deciding to commission the Japan Society of Civil Engineers to look into the matter, eventually opening the door to the nuclear crisis.
Public prosecutors had decided not to indict the three former TEPCO executives. However, under the Act on Committee for Inquest of Prosecution, court-appointed lawyers prosecuted them after a prosecution inquest panel comprising members selected from among the public concluded twice that the three deserved indictment.
Bags of radioactive waste during radioactive decontamination process after the daiichi nuclear power plant irradiation, Fukushima prefecture, Iitate, Japan
Uranium and other radioactive materials, such as caesium and technetium, have been found in tiny particles released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors.
This could mean the environmental impact from the fallout may last much longer than previously expected according to a new study by a team of international researchers, including scientists from The University of Manchester.
The team says that, for the first time, the fallout of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor fuel debris into the surrounding environment has been “explicitly revealed” by the study.
The scientists have been looking at extremely small pieces of debris, known as micro-particles, which were released into the environment during the initial disaster in 2011. The researchers discovered uranium from nuclear fuel embedded in or associated with caesium-rich micro particles that were emitted from the plant’s reactors during the meltdowns. The particles found measure just five micrometres or less; approximately 20 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The size of the particles means humans could inhale them.
The reactor debris fragments were found inside the nuclear exclusion zone, in paddy soils and at an abandoned aquaculture centre, located several kilometres from the nuclear plant.
It was previously thought that only volatile, gaseous radionuclides such as caesium and iodine were released from the damaged reactors. Now it is becoming clear that small, solid particles were also emitted, and that some of these particles contain very long-lived radionuclides; for example, uranium has a half-life of billions of years.
Dr Gareth Law, Senior Lecturer in Analytical Radiochemistry at the University of Manchester and an author on the paper, says: “Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone. Whilst it is extremely difficult to get samples from such an inhospitable environment, further work will enhance our understanding of the long-term behaviour of the fuel debris nano-particles and their impact.”
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is currently responsible for the clean-up and decommissioning process at the Fukushima Daiichi site and in the surrounding exclusion zone. Dr Satoshi Utsunomiya, Associate Professor at Kyushu University (Japan) led the study.
He added: “Having better knowledge of the released microparticles is also vitally important as it provides much needed data on the status of the melted nuclear fuels in the damaged reactors. This will provide extremely useful information for TEPCO’s decommissioning strategy.”
At present, chemical data on the fuel debris located within the damaged nuclear reactors is impossible to get due to the high levels of radiation. The microparticles found by the international team of researchers will provide vital clues on the decommissioning challenges that lie ahead.
Tokyo Electric on Friday said it had spotted what is almost certainly fuel debris in reactor 2 at the Fukushima No. 1 plant that shows its fuel assembly likely dropped through the pressure vessel.
While Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. got a peek at lava-like objects that looked like melted fuel in reactor 3 last year, this is the first time it has located similar debris in reactor 2.
Tepco inserted a 13-meter pipe-shaped device with two cameras on its tip into a 12-cm utility hole in the primary containment vessel to capture images of the area directly beneath the pressure vessel, which holds the core.
One camera spotted a handle for the fuel rod assembly lying at the bottom of the PCV, surrounded by sediment.
This means “there must have been a hole big enough to let the fuel rod assembly fall out of the reactor, so we are almost certain that the sediment around it is fuel debris,” Tepco spokesman Takahiro Kimoto explained at a news conference at the utility’s headquarters in Chiyoda Ward.
Kimoto also said the image shows pebble-like objects that look similar to the fuel debris witnessed at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania after its partial core meltdown in 1979.
The fuel melted after the mega-quake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, knocked out all power to the Fukushima No. 1 plant, crippling its vital cooling systems.
As a result, some of reactor 2’s fuel rods apparently melted and penetrated the bottom of the 20-cm-thick pressure vessel before dropping to the bottom of the PCV.
Locating the fuel debris is crucial to decommissioning the crippled plant, which is expected to take more than three decades. Tepco plans to decide on a plan for removing the fuel in fiscal 2019.
This is the first internal probe of reactor 2’s primary containment vessel since February last year, when it inserted a rod about 10 meters long to capture images of the interior.
At that time, Tepco found some black sediment stuck to the steel grating beneath the pressure vessel but could not tell what it was.
Last July, the utility sent a robot inside reactor 3’s PCV, where it found what was believed to be melted fuel debris.
Nuclear waste has been an intractable problem since nuclear power was invented more than 50 years ago, and for many countries it is becoming an ever more expensive and politically embarrassing issue.
Not that politicians would admit this: many still argue that nuclear power is an answer to climate change, forgetting that they are passing the waste buck to future generations.
To those in power the solution to the waste problem is always just around the corner, conveniently just beyond their term of office. But the history of the industry over the last four decades, across the globe, is of dozens of failed schemes.
Currently the United States, France and the UK are yet again wrestling with the problem of repeated failed attempts to find a solution, as scientists warn that continued neglect of the issue is placing citizens in increasing danger.
Getting an honest overall situation report from the Russian government or from China seems unlikely, since many of their nuclear sites remain closed territories.
Long-lived radioactivity
The problem is that civil nuclear industries, especially when they are combined with a weapons programme, produce plutonium and other by-products in spent fuel that take as long as 100,000 years to decay.
Identifying somewhere to put these wastes where they could be safe for that length of time requires stable geological formations that are very hard to find anywhere. Since international law requires the state that produced the waste to dispose of it within its own boundaries, this is even more difficult.
If democracy is added into the mix, and people are given the right to object to a deep depository being built in their backyard, then in some countries the problem appears to be insoluble.
Two countries are close to solving the issue of their waste mountains, Swedenand Finland, although there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome.
Both are building deep depositories for their biggest problem, spent nuclear fuel. Fortunately spent fuel is less complex than the waste generated by the UK, France or the US, because it has no highly dangerous detritus remaining from nuclear weapon manufacturing.
For these three states, which have all reprocessed spent fuel to extract weapons grade plutonium, the situation is far more difficult. Despite this, all three countries are continuing to build nuclear power stations, potentially making the problem even worse for future generations.
The prime example is the UK, which wants to build a new generation of ten nuclear stations, but has just started its sixth search for a nuclear waste dump site in 42 years.
Various governments have gone through many proposals, some of them surviving through years of public consultations, planning inquiries and geological investigations, only to be finally rejected.
One favoured site, at Sellafield in Cumbria, next to the country’s two vast reprocessing facilities, was rejected on geological grounds – the rock it was to be built into has too many cracks to keep the waste from leaching into the water supply.
The latest scheme launched by the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy involves finding a community somewhere in Britain willing to take the waste in return for a very large bribe in the form of cash to develop schools, roads, industries and anything else that takes their fancy—as long as they host the nation’s nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years. It remains to be seen whether there are any takers.
Pledge ignored
The problem for the government is that it has frequently pledged not to build any more nuclear power stations until it has solved the problem of the waste, something it has patently failed to do. Meanwhile ever larger quantities of waste are being stored, much of it in unsatisfactory and sometimes dangerous conditions. Just keeping it safe costs £3bn (US$4.2bn) a year.
In the US, where the situation is as bad or worse, President Trump has re-opened the long-running saga of Yucca Mountain nuclear depository. This is a scheme that has been fought over for decades and abandoned because of local opposition.
The problem is that the waste stored in numerous US nuclear facilities is dangerous and urgently needs to be packaged and found a final resting place.
One of the most critical places is Hanford, once a place for making nuclear weapons that now has stores of unstable waste. The tanks full of liquid waste alone will cost an estimated $111bn to package and make safe. Trump’s reaction to this has been to slash Hanford’s budget by 10 per cent.
Meanwhile the answer from Nevada state officials to Trump’s proposal to re-open the Yucca Mountain depository scheme was to approve a $5.1mn legal contract to fight the proposal. It seems unlikely the situation will be resolved soon.
Eviction criticised
In north-eastern France hundreds of riot police were employed this month to evict 15 protestors living in tree houses to protect a zone in the forest of Lejuc, near Meuse.
The use of 500 armed gendarmes to evict 15 people has been strongly criticised, not least because the government has not yet finally agreed that this is the right site to bury 85,000 cubic metres of waste that will remain dangerous for 100,000 years.
The problem for these three governments—and others in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and many other states that built nuclear power stations in the last century—is the growing urgency of finding a solution.
In Britain, France and the US there are “swimming pool-size tanks” of high-level waste which are unstable and need work without delay.
With one third of Europe’s operating nuclear power stations due to be shut down by 2025, and European utilities short of €118bn (US$145bn) in decommissioning and waste management funds to pay for the work, it looks as though taxpayers will be left to foot this enormous bill.
Knowing this, companies are queuing up to get into the nuclear waste business, confident that governments will sooner or later be forced to step in and provide the money to keep their citizens safe.
nuclear-news 
As state-owned utility Santee Cooper was racking up billions in debt – which ratepayers are expected to shoulder – for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project, the company’s top executives were raking in huge bonuses and salary hikes.
More than $4 billion in bonds that were sold to finance the biggest financial flop in the Berkeley County-based utility’s history will have to be paid back with interest over years – to the tune of $200 million to $300 million annually.
But those I.O.U.’s are only part of the company’s overall debt load, which company records show stands at more than $15 billion. That tab will be paid back over 40 years, starting last year with payments totaling nearly a half-billion dollars.
And that means Santee Cooper’s customers likely will face rate hikes – how much is unknown – in the coming years.
Meanwhile, from 2009 through 2016 as the V.C. Summer project costs were escalating and construction deadlines were missed, the utility paid out a total of $5.6 million in bonuses to 15 executives, company records show.
Of the total bonus pool, $70,648 over the eight-year period was directly tied to the nuclear project, more than half of which was paid to recently retired president and CEO Lonnie Carter.
Carter received the highest total annual bonuses; in 2015 and in 2016 he was paid more than $330,000 in bonuses, which represented more than 60 percent of his salary for those years. During the 2009-16 period in which the V.C. Summer project was active, his yearly salary jumped 34 percent, from $404,756 to $540,929.
Besides bonuses, Santee Cooper’s top executives also received, according to a company spokeswoman, annual car allowance and life insurance benefits, which made up their total compensation. The additional perks brought Carter’s total 2016 total compensation to $894,369, a hike of about $377,000 from his 2009 compensation.
The total compensation of seven other top executives in 2016 ranged from $282,811 to $552,133, with nearly all of them receiving increases from the previous year, records show.
And Carter also received a golden parachute with his retirement last year: In addition to receiving $344,572 for life from the state retirement system, he will be paid up to $455,192 annually for 20 years through a separate executive retirement plan with the company, plus had had $858,577 in a 401(k)-type retirement plan through Santee Cooper, according to media reports…….https://thenerve.org/santee-cooper-execs-get-big-bonuses-pay-hikes-while-nuclear-debt-mushrooms/