BBC 27th June 2018 , Trawsfynydd A £40m facility to support the design of advanced nuclear technologies
will be developed in north Wales by the Welsh and UK governments. It is in
addition to a £200m UK government nuclear sector deal to be launched in
Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd. … The chief
executive of the company behind plans for Wylfa Newydd on Anglesey welcomed
the proposals.
The UK-wide deal funded by public and private money also
includes: Up to £56m for research and development for “advanced modular
reactors” £86m UK government funding for a national fusion technology
platform at Culham, Oxfordshire. £32m for an advanced manufacturing and
construction programme. £30m for a new national supply chain programme.
A commitment from industry to reduce the cost of new nuclear build projects
by 30% by 2030, and the cost of decommissioning old nuclear sites by 20% by
2030. A new review to look at ways to accelerate the clean-up of nuclear
‘legacy’ sites. A commitment to increasing gender diversity in the civil
nuclear workforce with a target of 40% women in nuclear by 2030.
Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said: “This sector deal marks an important
moment for the government and industry to work collectively to deliver the
modern industrial strategy, drive clean growth and ensure civil nuclear
remains an important part of the UK’s energy future.” Alun Cairns,
secretary of state for Wales, said Trawsfynydd has an “exciting future as
the potential site for the new generation of small reactors”. “Trawsfynydd
is ready to be transformed with little upgrade needed to the grid
infrastructure. “It’s in the right place with the right people and good
links to leading ac ademic research institutions in the nuclear sector,” he
said. Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Horizon Nuclear Power the company behind the
Wylfa Newydd plans, welcomed the proposals. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-44634580
Speaking ahead of the week-long World Gas Conference, Perry cited his experience with natural gas, saying he had “sung its praises for a long time,” the Washington Examiner reported.
According to a draft memo from the Department of Energy (DOE) that surfaced at the start of June, the Trump administration plans to direct the federal government to purchase electricity or generation capacity from coal and nuclear plants for two years. The DOE’s bailout package for at-risk generators remains unclear.
Dive Insight:
“We are looking at all the contingencies and different impacts,” Perry told reporters on Monday.
Perry’s comments echoed previous statements to the press made by Energy Undersecretary Mark Menezes earlier this month at an Energy Information Administration conference. Menezes said the DOE draft memo was being considered as one of several options.
Perry highlighted the importance of a bailout plan to keep coal and nuclear power plants open in competitive power markets. The DOE draft memo proposed using Perry’s executive authority under the Federal Power Act’s and the Defense Production Act’s emergency provisions to subsidize select plants.
Responding to criticisms that federal intervention would disrupt the electricity market and raise prices, Perry said, “The economics is secondary from my perspective. There is the potential to see some really chaotic attacks in this country. That is DOE’s responsibility to make sure that does not happen.”
Natural gas companies have opposed any market interference for coal and nuclear, joining renewable energy companies. Perry said those concerns won’t stop him from acting, to ensure people have access to electricity.
Regarding natural gas, the Trump administration has said pipeline infrastructure is vulnerable to physical and cyberattacks, thus increasing the need to ensure baseload generation options.
Daily Mail 26th June 2018 , A nuclear fusion experiment in Germany, dubbed the ‘star in a jar’, has
achieved a world record for plasma production, according to its creators.
Researchers were able to keep the device, technically known as Wendelstein
7-X, running for longer and at higher energy, than ever before. Its
performance is the best recorded for a stellarator type reactor and brings
the goal of producing limitless energy a step closer to reality,
researchers say. The new success was thanks to modifications made to the
walls of the reactor, which increase the temperature and efficiency of the
reaction.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5886603/Germanys-star-jar-fusion-reactor-comes-step-closer-producing-LIMITLESS-energy.html
This is the Fourth Installment of our series: The Springfields Archive. This was published in the Lancashire Evening Post in 2001. What the Post doesn’t mention is that Joe McMaster was a chemist at the Springfields Nuclear Fuel Manufacturing plant. CANAL BOSSES ARE URGED TO COME CLEAN OVER SILT “Furious protesters have asked bosses of […]
The extreme heat that is helping to fan severe western wildfires from California to Alaska is predicted to move eastward over the coming days. This shift is expected to set off high temperatures in the 90s and 100s from the Gulf Coast all the way to the Great Lakes and into the Northeast. Heat Index […]
It was a 12-year-old activist, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who silenced the world for six minutes at the first UN Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Twenty-five years later, young people across the globe are still fighting to save the planet. Wary of the repeated failure of adults to take decisive action on climate change, […]
“There is a nation, which in all its strength and virtue is in the grips of a group of ruthless men, preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride –unrestrained by law, by parliament, or by public opinion…” — Winston Churchill, 1934 Let us pray that we do not become such a nation. That we […]
Nucnet 25th June 2018, A full-scale in-situ system test for spent nuclear fuel disposal is
expected to begin this week at Posiva’s planned final deep geologic
disposal facility at Olkiluoto, Finland. Posiva’s owner Teollisuuden
Voima Oyj (TVO) said the test will be the first of its kind and means that
Posiva is making progress towards the operational test phase of its final
disposal system and technology.
According to TVO, the test will last for
several years. It aims to prove that the prototype processes for geological
storage at Posiva’s repository are “all working concepts”. The test
has been in preparation since December 2017, TVO said. The processes
include placing fuel assemblies packed in copper-steel canisters inside
holes drilled in the bedrock tunnels. This is followed by backfilling the
tunnels with bentonite clay and sealing them with a cast plug. Two test
canisters will be equipped with thermal resistors simulating the residual
temperature of spent nuclear fuel, TVO said. A TVO official said the
temperature and pressure in the canisters, test holes and the surrounding
bedrock, and the behaviour of the backfill of the tunnels, will be
monitored by some 500 sensors over several years. https://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2018/06/25/finland-s-posiva-to-begin-world-s-first-in-situ-system-test-at-final-repository-site
https://apnews.com/dc5e3c60042741c696dd062462a03cca– 28 June 18, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Advocates for New Mexicans who many believe were sickened by U.S. uranium mining and nuclear weapons testing have urged Congress to acknowledge their sacrifice and authorize compensation for them.
Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez and the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium testified during a hearing Wednesday in Washington on a compensation measure.
Sponsored by U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, it proposes expanding eligibility for payouts under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990, which currently covers claims from areas in Nevada, Arizona and Utah that are downwind from a different test site.
Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa consortium, said many who lived in the area weren’t told about the dangers of the Trinity Test on generations of residents.
They could benefit from the proposal, along with post-1971 uranium mine workers in Northwestern New Mexico.
Morning Star 27th June 2018,A PIONEERING new report argues that thousands more engineering jobs could
be created by stopping the renewal of the Trident missiles system. The
report, Defence Diversification: International Learning for Trident Jobs,
was published today by the Nuclear Education Trust.
Unearthed 26th June 2018 ,This week national governments will meet in Brussels to vote on a deal –
part of the EU’s clean energy package – that would recognise the right
of people and communities to produce their own energy. It could represent
possibly the biggest systematic change to Europe’s electricity market in
a generation. Unearthed has got hold of the final text of the renewable
energy directive, which could boost the take-up of renewable energy from
households and small producers in the EU. The UK appears unsure as to
whether it will integrate the policies into national law after Brexit. https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/06/26/eu-makes-it-a-right-for-people-to-sell-renewable-energy-here-are-5-things-you-need-to-know/
Guardian 27th June 2018 Letter Gideon Amos: When I and my fellow planning inspectors spent the best
part of a year examining and reporting on both the principle and the detail
of the project in Swansea, it was clear that this pathfinder project had
important environmental, cultural and regeneration benefits.
Vitally, itwould provide baseload generation capacity to complement our welcome but
increasing reliance on wind energy. In addition, while being “first of a
kind” presents big investment and consenting headaches for a promoter, the
potentially infinite lifespan of the generating station means these early
upfront costs need to be discounted over a much longer timeframe than other
projects.
Failing to weigh these benefits and costs in the Treasury
economist’s balance sheet is a major mistake and one that misses a massive
opportunity to put the planet back at the centre of our nation’s future.
NFLA 27th June 2018 The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) is hugely disappointed in the
decision announced on Monday by UK Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark
to cancel potential financial support for the Swansea Tidal Lagoon scheme.
This is a retrograde step for a nascent and exciting technology, and
compares negatively with the billions being offered to prop up new nuclear
reactor schemes like Wylfa B. http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/cancellation-support-swansea-tidal-lagoon-scheme-error-uk-energy-industrial-strategy-policy/
Russia’s Rosatom and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Rwanda have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The document was signed on 22 June by Rosatom Deputy Director General Nikolay Spassky and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Rwanda to the Russian Federation Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya……
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