Growing political opposition in Canada to Small Nuclear Reactors
 Hill Times -Political opposition growing to new nuclear reactors, https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/74740422/posts/3066856410By EVA SCHACHERL DECEMBER 9, 2020 The nuclear industry and Liberals have not only been laying the groundwork for government funding. It appears they have been ensuring that the framework for nuclear energy in Canada gets even more accommodating. Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan has been hyping so-called next-generation reactors for months, portraying the industry as a future utopia.
Many Canadians are anxious to see what our energy future will be. Politically, it’s a question that stirs passions from Alberta’s oil patch to Ontario’s cancelled wind farms. But political debate is picking up around our nuclear energy future. And with good reason. Government-funded expansion of the nuclear industry, and a simultaneous watering-down of regulations, could be the Liberal government’s toxic legacy.
Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan has been hyping so-called next-generation reactors for months. A recent nuclear industry summit—hosted with federal funding—portrayed nuclear energy expansion in Canada as a future utopia. The Green Party caucus, the NDP’s natural resources critic Richard Cannings, and the Bloc Québécois’s environment critic Monique Pauzé have all slammed O’Regan’s expected small modular reactor (SMR) “action plan.” They say it does not belong in a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency, wind, solar, and storage technologies are ready to build, and much cheaper, according to Lazard, a financial advisory and asset management firm. The prototype reactors will take years, if not decades, to develop, and could absorb hundreds of millions, even billions, in taxpayer subsidies, according to Greenpeace Canada.
That would mean opportunities lost for those dollars to build many times the amount of zero-emission energy with renewables and energy-efficiency projects. The latter would not create toxic radioactive waste for future generations to contend with. Independent research says that a nuclear solution for remote communities (as proposed by the government) is likely to cost 10 times more to build and operate than the alternatives. It seems inevitable that the Liberal action plan will soon be launched with generous handouts for the nuclear industry, whose aspiring players in Canada today include SNC-Lavalin and U.S. corporations like Westinghouse and GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy. Few Canadians are aware that “Canadian” Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is owned by a consortium of SNC-Lavalin and two U.S. firms, Fluor and Jacobs.
In recent years, the nuclear industry and Liberals have not only been laying the groundwork for government funding. It appears they’ve also been ensuring that the framework for nuclear energy in Canada gets even more accommodating. The biggest step was exempting most new reactors from the Impact Assessment Act, which, in 2019, replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. This was deemed so important to the nuclear industry’s future that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) lobbied the Liberal government to exempt small reactors—and won. So much for the CNSC, the regulator that’s supposed to oversee the industry, being seen as objective and “world class.”
The Impact Assessment Act was intended to create “greater public trust in impact assessment and decision-making.” But there will be no federal assessment of nuclear reactors up to 200 thermal MW in size, nor of new reactors built at existing nuclear plants (up to 900 MWth). Yet new tidal power projects, as well as offshore wind farms with 10 or more turbines, need an assessment under the regulations, as do many new fossil fuel projects.
Also exempted from federal assessment is the “on-site storage of irradiated nuclear fuel or nuclear waste” associated with small modular reactors. This will make it easier for SMRs’ radioactive waste to be potentially left in the northern, remote, and First Nations communities, where they are proposed to be built. The nuclear regulator has also been responsible for introducing a suite of “regulatory documents” on reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste that environmental groups have called “sham regulation.”
Meanwhile, the bureaucrats at the CNSC have been busy signing a memorandum of cooperation with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Small Modular Reactors. This agreement means that Canada can recognize U.S. reviews of reactor designs in order to “streamline the review process.” CNSC has also outlined its plan in a document called Strategy for Readiness to Regulate Advanced Reactor Technologies. In a nutshell, the document says that regulations for new reactor designs will have to be flexible. It notes that CNSC regulated the earlier generation of water-cooled reactors (such as CANDUs) at first based on “objectives” in the 1950s and ‘60s. Then, as experience with these reactors evolved, regulations became more detailed and prescriptive. It says the same may have to happen with the new next-gen reactor designs.
In the 1950s, there were indeed few “prescriptive requirements” for the newfangled reactors. In 1952, the NRX reactor at Chalk River, Ont., had a meltdown. It was the first large-scale nuclear reactor accident in the world and took two years to clean up—which, by 1950s standards, included pumping 10,000 curies of long-lived fission products into a nearby sandy area. Then in 1958, the NRU reactor at Chalk River—a test bed for developing fuels and materials for the CANDU reactor—had a major accident, a fuel-rod fire that contaminated the building and areas downwind. It took 600 workers and military personnel to do the top-secret clean-up. Let’s hope today’s regulators and lawmakers can learn from history. Does Canada really need or want to be the “leading-edge” testing ground for new experimental nuclear reactors? Canadians should have their say in a referendum—or at the ballot box. |
For safety the 40 year limit on nuclear reactor’s life should be kept
Limiting life of nuclear plants to 40 years should be continued, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13964250?fbclid=IwAR1_ti6_xxCiBWrXIU94MSDTh6c6mKSygmlV4FVvNORcpuAJU4Cn_QCn708 November 26, 2020 Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, new nuclear safety regulations were created to impose a 40-year limit on the operational lifespan of nuclear reactors in Japan.The rule was designed to ensure decommissioning of aging reactors that are more vulnerable to accidents and make Japanese society less dependent on nuclear power.
But a provision that allows one extension of the legal lifespan by up to 20 years in exceptional cases, introduced in response to concerns about a power shortage, has been widely exploited to gain permission to extend operations years or even decades beyond the 40-year cap.
This troubling trend should not be ignored. The original principle should be maintained.
The municipal assembly of Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, on Nov. 25 approved the restarts of the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s (KEPCO) Takahama nuclear plant, which first went into service in the 1970s.
The move came four years after the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), a government agency to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants, gave the green light to plans to extend operations of these aging reactors, which went offline in 2011 following the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
While the consent of the Takahama mayor, the Fukui prefectural assembly and the Fukui governor is still needed to bring the reactors back on stream, the municipal assembly’s approval is a first step toward operating a reactor that is more than 40 years old for the first time in Japan.
Behind the town assembly’s decision is the fact that the nuclear power plant has been supporting the local economy. But the move has raised the question of whether the assembly has given sufficient consideration to issues concerning the safety of local residents.
In a meeting to explain the plans to residents in Takahama held at the end of October, some attendees voiced concerns about the risk of multiple natural disasters disrupting traffic on the prefectural road designated to be used as part of the evacuation route in the event of serious accidents at the plant. There remain serious safety concerns as to the planned operations of the reactors.
Even more questionable is the government’s stance toward the issue.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration has vowed to reduce Japan’s reliance on nuclear power generation as much as possible by making all-out efforts to promote energy conservation and use of renewable energy sources.
But the Suga administration’s stance toward nuclear power generation is showing no notable difference from the policy of the previous government led by his predecessor, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Abe administration left decisions concerning reactor restarts to the NRA and the local governments involved and didn’t hesitate to bring reactors back online once the procedures for the step were completed.
In a sign that casts doubt on the administration’s commitment to reducing nuclear power generation, a senior official at the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, an industry ministry body, has repeatedly visited the local governments of the host communities in Takahama to seek their consent for the plans.
In Fukui Prefecture, another aging reactor, the No. 3 unit of KEPCO’s Mihama nuclear power plant in Mihama, located along the coast of the Wakasa Bay, has been cleared by the NRA for operation beyond the 40-year legal lifespan. The Mihama town assembly is expected to decide on the restart in December.
KEPCO, which has been operating 11 reactors in Fukui Prefecture, including those at its Oi nuclear plant in the town of Oi, has decided to decommission four reactors at the Mihama and Oi plants. But it will still have seven reactors in service in the prefecture if the lives of three reactors are extended beyond the 40-year limit.
This means the local communities will continue being threatened by the safety risks posed by a concentration of reactors, which were underscored in a graphic way by the Fukushima calamity.
The government should demonstrate a clear commitment to scrapping aging reactors while supporting private-sector investment in renewable energy sources. It also should work with the local administrations in areas that have been dependent on nuclear plants for their economic well-being to carve out futures not dependent on atomic energy and provide policy support to their efforts to achieve the visions.
It is time for KEPCO to change its business strategy.
The utility is still halfway to its goal of regaining the public confidence that has been deeply undermined by a series of scandals including one in which company executives received gifts from a former top official at the Takahama municipal government.
The utility has promised the prefectural government to find a location outside the prefecture for an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at its nuclear plants in Fukui Prefecture. But the outlook of this mission remains murky.
A responsible utility would pull the plug on the operations of aging reactors whose viability is in doubt economically as well as technologically and reinvent its business strategy accordingly.
The new way to hide the money splurged on nuclear weapons – via Small Nuclear Reactors
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A military bromance: SMRs to support and cross-subsidize the UK nuclear weapons program, Industry and government in the UK openly promote SMRs on the grounds that an SMR industry would support the nuclear weapons program (in particular the submarine program) by providing a pool of trained nuclear experts, and that in so doing an SMR industry will cross-subsidize the weapons program. Such arguments are problematic for several reasons. Firstly, the weapons program is problematic and the UK’s compliance with its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations is questionable. Secondly, why subsidize an SMR industry to subsidize the weapons program ‒ why not simply invest more in the weapons program directly? Thirdly, there are strong reasons to firewall civil nuclear programs from military programs yet there is no longer any pretense of a firewall. The arguments are clearly stated in a 2017 report by Rolls-Royce.1 The company trumpets its role in powering and maintaining the UK Royal Navy submarine fleet. But its recent interest in civil SMRs isn’t a case of swords-to-ploughshares … it’s ploughshares-supporting-swords. The report states:1 “The indigenous UK supply chain that supports defence nuclear programmes requires significant ongoing support to retain talent and develop and maintain capability between major programmes. Opportunities for the supply chain to invest in new capability are restricted by the limited size and scope of the defence nuclear programme. A UK SMR programme would increase the security, size and scope of opportunities for the UK supply chain significantly, enabling long-term sustainable investment in people, technology and capability. “Expanding the talent pool from which defence nuclear programmes can draw from would bring a double benefit. First, additional talent means more competition for senior technical and managerial positions, driving excellence and performance. Second, the expansion of a nuclear-capable skilled workforce through a civil nuclear UK SMR programme would relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability. This would free up valuable resources for other investments.” So SMRs will relieve the Ministry of Defence of the “burden” of paying for its own WMD programs! Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone have carefully studied the links between the UK’s nuclear power program and the weapons program.2 They wrote in The Guardian in March 2018:
“Although unstated, by far the most likely source for such support is a continuing national civil nuclear programme. And this where the burgeoning hype around UK development of SMRs comes in. Leading designs for these reactors are derived directly from submarine propulsion. British nuclear submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls-Royce is their most enthusiastic champion. But, amid intense media choreography, links between SMRs and submarines remain (aside from reports of our own work) barely discussed in the UK press. “This neglect is odd, because the issues are very clear. Regretting that military programmes are no longer underwritten by civil nuclear research, a heavily redacted 2014 MoD report expresses serious concerns over the continued viability of the UK nuclear submarine industry. And Rolls-Royce itself is clear that success in securing government investment for SMRs would “relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability” for the UK’s military nuclear sector. Other defence sources are also unambiguous that survival of the British nuclear submarine industry depends on continuation of UK civil nuclear power. Many new government initiatives focus intently on realising the military and civil synergies. “Some nuclear enthusiasts have called this analysis a conspiracy theory, but these links are now becoming visible. In response to our own recent evidence to the UK Public Accounts Committee, a senior civil servant briefly acknowledged the connections. And with US civil nuclear programmes collapsing, the submarine links are also strongly emphasised by a former US energy secretary. Nuclear submarines are evidently crucial to Britain’s cherished identity as a “global power”. It seems that Whitehall’s infatuation with civil nuclear energy is in fact a military romance.” |
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With Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) Canada is back in the nuclear weapons business
Canada re-engages in the Nuclear Weapons Business with SMRs, December 3, 2020, WWW.HILLTIMES.COM/2020/12/03/CANADA-RE-ENTERS-NUCLEAR-WEAPONS-BUSINESS-WITH-SMALL-MODULAR-REACTORS/274591
Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan is expected to announce within weeks his government’s action plan for development of “small modular” nuclear reactors (SMRs).
SMR developers already control the federally-subsidized Chalk River Laboratories and other facilities owned by the crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Canada is now poised to play a supporting role in the global nuclear weapons business, much as it did during World War II.
Canada was part of the Manhattan project with the U.S. and U.K. to produce atomic bombs. In 1943 the three countries agreed to build a facility in Canada to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Researchers who trained at the Chalk River Laboratories went on to launch weapons programs in the U.K. and France. Chalk River provided plutonium for U.S. weapons until the 1960s.
Canada’s Nuclear Schizophrenia describes a long tradition of nuclear cooperation with the United States: “For example, in the early 1950s, the U.S. Navy used Canadian technology to design a small reactor for powering its nuclear submarines.” C.D. Howe, after creating AECL in 1952 to develop nuclear reactors and sell weapons plutonium, remarked that “we in Canada are not engaged in military development, but the work that we are doing at Chalk River is of importance to military developments.”
The uranium used in the 1945 Hiroshima bomb may have been mined and refined in Canada. According to Jim Harding’s book Canada’s Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System, from 1953 to 1969, all the uranium mined in Saskatchewan went to make U.S. nuclear weapons. Canada remains the world’s second-largest producer of uranium. North America’s only currently operating uranium processing facility is owned by Cameco in Port Hope, Ontario.
Canada built India’s CIRUS reactor, which started up in 1960 and produced the plutonium for India’s first nuclear explosion in 1974. Canada also built Pakistan’s first nuclear reactor, which started up in 1972. Although this reactor was not used to make weapons plutonium, it helped train the engineers who eventually exploded Pakistan’s first nuclear weapons in 1998.
In 2015 the Harper Government contracted a multi-national consortium called Canadian National Energy Alliance – now comprised of two U.S. companies, Fluor and Jacobs, along with Canada’s SNC-Lavalin – to operate AECL’s nuclear sites, the main one being at Chalk River. Fluor operates the Savannah River Site, a South Carolina nuclear weapons facility, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Jacobs also has contracts at DOE weapons facilities and is part of a consortium that operates the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment.
Joe McBrearty, the president of the consortium’s subsidiary that operates Chalk River and other federal nuclear sites, was a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine commander and then chief operating officer for the DOE’s nuclear laboratories between 2010 and 2019.
All three consortium partners have investments in SMRs and are ramping up research and development at AECL’s Chalk River facility. Some SMR designs would use uranium enriched to levels well beyond those in current reactors; others would use plutonium fuel; others would use fuel dissolved in molten salt. All of these pose new and problematic weapons proliferation risks.
Rolls Royce, an original consortium partner that makes reactors for the U.K.’s nuclear submarines, is lead partner in a U.K. consortium (including SNC-Lavalin) that was recently funded by the U.K. government to advance that country’s SMR program.
A military bromance: SMRs to support and cross-subsidize the UK nuclear weapons program, says “Industry and government in the UK openly promote SMRs on the grounds that an SMR industry would support the nuclear weapons program (in particular the submarine program) by providing a pool of trained nuclear experts, and that in so doing an SMR industry will cross-subsidize the weapons program.”
The article quotes a 2017 Rolls Royce study as follows: “expansion of a nuclear-capable skilled workforce through a civil nuclear UK SMR programme would relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability.”
The SMR connection to weapons and submarines could hardly be clearer – without SMRs, the U.S. and U.K. will experience a shortage of trained engineers to maintain their nuclear weapons programs.
With the takeover of AECL’s Chalk River Laboratories by SMR developers, and growing federal government support for SMRs, Canada has become part of a global regime linking nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Uranium Film Festival 2020 – a huge success under difficult circumstances
 Uranium Film Festival 2020 – a huge success under difficult circumstances https://www.icbuw.eu/uranium-film-festival-2020-a-huge-success-under-difficult-circumstances/
(Manfred Mohr)5. Dezember 2020 The Berlin event marked the tenth anniversary of the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF). The fact that it took place at all in the times of Corona and that there was such a great response from the public, as well as high-quality content was a huge success that one could not have expected. ICBUW was there from the beginning as we were „promoted“ to be co-organizer this year and were even more involved than before, also in the form of the ICBUW team (Eliah Buchholz, Ilia Kukin, Arina Shpanova).
ICBUW spokesman Prof. Manfred Mohr opened – alongside IUFF producer Jutta Wunderlich – the Berlin festival and proceeded to the opening film “Vom Sinn des Ganzen” (English: „Of the sense of the whole“), which had its world premiere at the festival. This was followed by a conversation about the film, which focused on the researcher Hans-Peter Dürr. Among other things, there was a question of whether our new, younger generation is ready to replace the older one (the one of e.g.Biegert and Mohr) in peace and disarmament matters. The answer was affirmative… There was another moderation from the side of ICBUW for the film „The Beginning of the End of Nuclear Weapons“. An intensive conversation developed with the present producer Tony Robinson, ICAN, and IPPNW representatives. Among other things, it concerned whether there is – in addition to or in connection with the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty – an international law ban on the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. This could be derived from customary international law, as expressed in the 1996 International Court of Justice opinion on nuclear weapons. As expected, a highlight of the festival was the performance and discussion of the film “Balentes”, which was awarded as the best documentary film. It led to an exciting, stimulating panel discussion with the director Lisa Camillo and the Sardinian ICBUW friend Pitzente Bianco. The central issue was whether and in what way the specific, culturally and traditionally shaped commitment of the Sardinian population to the protection of the island’s homeland must be strengthened through external structures and networking. ICBUW spokesman Mohr pointed out the potential of UN human rights complaints procedures for protecting depleted uranium and environmental victims. The end phase of the festival, which the ICBUW special event on October 18 in Marienstrasse 19/20 belonged to, was marked by the award-winning film “Valley of the Gods” by Lech Majewski. In his short closing speech as well as in his festival greeting, the ICBUW spokesman expressed the hope that the IUFF will continue: „… It is essential in its bringing together of the public, artists and civil society actors concerning existing, unsolved humanity issues. We’ll stick with it in any case.“
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Iran’s President Rouhani ready to restore the nuclear deal
Rouhani: ‘No negotiations’ needed to restore Iran nuclear deal https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/9/iran-rouhani-no-negotiations-on-nuclear-deal
President Rouhani says Iran will return to its commitments that were part of the deal if other signatories do the same. By
Maziar Motamedi, 9 Dec 2020, Tehran, Iran – Iran’s nuclear deal can be restored without negotiations despite recent escalations following the assassination of a top nuclear scientist, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has told world powers.
Rouhani said United States President Donald Trump “scribbled on a piece of paper” in May 2018, unilaterally withdrawing from the nuclear deal.
“The next person can put up a nice piece of paper and sign it and it just needs a signature, we’ll be back where we were. Ittakes no time and needs no negotiations,” Rouhani said in a televised cabinet speech on Wednesday.
“And it’s not just about the US. The P4+1 can return to all their commitments and we will do the same,” he said in reference to France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia, the other signatories of the nuclear deal.
US President-elect Joe Biden and Europe have signalled that while they wish to restore the nuclear deal, they believe it needs to be renegotiated and extended.
Exactly a year after the US pulled out of the landmark deal and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran, Tehran gradually scaled back its commitments under the deal in five steps that it said are reversible.
Following the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh outside Tehran last month, the Iranian parliament, dominated by conservatives and hardliners, quickly passed a bill that aims to increase uranium enrichment and expel inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Rouhani administration has explicitly said it opposes the legislation and was not consulted in its drafting.
Rouhani said all the new advanced centrifuges that are being installed at the Natanz underground nuclear facilities can be switched off once all the signatories of the nuclear deal start fully implementing their commitments.
Earlier this week, France, Germany and the UK – together known as the E3 – issued a joint statement saying Iran’s plans for a further reduction of nuclear commitments are “deeply worrying” and go against the spirit of the accord.
Opponents of the Ohio bailout of nuclear industry want more than just a freeze on this law
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Opponents of HB6 Say Nuclear Bailout Freeze is not Enough https://www.wksu.org/government-politics/2020-12-08/opponents-of-hb6-say-nuclear-bailout-freeze-is-not-enough
The Statehouse News Bureau | By Andy Chow December 8, 2020, New charges are set to appear on everyone’s electric bills in Ohio to support a nuclear power plant bailout. While that bailout is linked to an alleged bribery scheme, House Republicans seem poised to freeze the law rather than repeal it. House leadership is signaling a freeze to the bailout, HB798, will be the vehicle used to address the energy laws created through HB6. The energy law allows for new charges of up to $2.35 a month on electric bills for nuclear, coal, and solar subsidies. Rachael Belz with Ohio Consumers Power Alliance says a freeze on the new charges doesn’t truly help the ratepayers. “It’s more like pushing something off that you never intend to get back to,” Belz said. Talk of an HB6 repeal began after House Speaker Larry Householder was arrested about five months ago accused of a bribery scheme that helped him rise to leadership and HB6 become law. It’s believed FirstEnergy funneled millions of dollars into the alleged scheme. HB6 accomplishes several things on the company’s legislative agenda. The nuclear and solar subsidies amount to a $0.85 monthly charge on electric bills. That new charge generates $150 million a year for two nuclear power plants in Ohio and $20 million for existing solar farms. HB798 would not repeal the provisions in HB6 that cuts renewable energy standards and eliminates energy efficiency standards. |
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Thieves steal equipment from Russia’s nuclear war ‘doomsday’ plane.
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Thieves target Russia’s nuclear war ‘doomsday’ plane. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/08/thieves-target-russia-nuclear-war-doomsday-plane
Radio equipment stolen from Ilyushin-80 aircraft designed to protect Putin and top officials, Andrew Roth in Moscow, Thieves have targeted a Russian “doomsday” plane, the military aircraft that would be used by top officials, including Vladimir Putin, in case of a nuclear war.The robbery of the Ilyushin-80, a mobile command post specially designed to keep officials alive and in command of the military during a nuclear conflict, took place at an airfield in southern Russia, state media reported. The thieves managed to open the highly classified aircraft’s cargo hatch and make off with 39 pieces of radio equipment. They have not been caught. Interior ministry officials in the city of Taganrog confirmed that a plane at Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex was robbed, although they did not specify which one. Ren-TV, a Russian television station, reported that police had found shoe and fingerprints aboard the aircraft. Russia has just four Ilyushin-80 planes, modified Il-86s that are specially equipped to protect those aboard in the event of a nuclear war. The plane does not have any passenger windows, to prevent passengers from being blinded by atomic explosions. The planes also carry specialised communications equipment to maintain contact with the country’s armed forces, including missile forces capable of launching nuclear strikes. A miles-long retractable antenna dragged from the rear of the aircraft can maintain communications with ballistic-missile submarines. In the event of a conflict, it is expected that Putin and other political and military officials would board the planes and command the country’s defences while remaining airborne, possibly for several days (with refuelling). Some of the details of the Ilyushin-80 are kept secret by Russia. It is not yet clear how sensitive the radio equipment that was stolen may be. The planes have been in service for 15 years and are due to be replaced by an aircraft with greater range – the Il-96-400M. The new planes, designed to withstand electromagnetic pulses released by nuclear explosions, and include better shielding have updated electronics and communications systems. The US maintains four Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Posts, modified Boeing 747-200s that would be carry the US president and other top officials in case of a nuclear war. |
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Iran hastens nuclear legislation in response to the assassination of its nuclear scientist
Iran vows to build two new nuclear facilities, alarming observers https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/iran-vows-build-two-new-nuclear-facilities-alarming-observers By Richard StoneDec. 8, 2020,
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Iran’s possible responses to the assassination of a prominent nuclear scientist go well beyond boosting uranium enrichment and expelling weapons inspectors, two provisions of a law passed by Iran’s parliament that alarmed nonproliferation experts last week. Equally worrisome are new facilities the law requires, which could enable Iran to make plutonium and fashion uranium into bomb components. The legislation had been in the works for months, but parliament fast-tracked it after the 27 November killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, director of a Revolutionary Guard research unit who had previously led a secret nuclear weapons program shuttered in 2003, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran’s powerful Guardian Council last week approved the law. The potential limits on IAEA monitoring are of particular concern, says a European diplomat involved in negotiations with Iran. “IAEA would go blind in many areas of Iran’s nuclear establishment.” Posing a fresh proliferation risk are the new facilities the bill mandates: a lab for working with uranium in metal form—a vital skill if Iran were to make nuclear weapons—and a heavy water reactor that could accumulate plutonium in its spent fuel. “If either was to proceed, that would stand out as a major proliferation concern,” says Richard Johnson, senior director for fuel cycle and verification at the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s administration opposed the legislation. However, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told an international forum last week, “We will implement it. We have no other choice.” But Zarif noted the law is reversible. “The remedy is very easy,” he said: Iran would shelve the law if the United States returns to the 2015 nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restrained Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions. The Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018; President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin it. The JCPOA, proponents say, lengthened the time Iran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for a bomb, from several weeks to at least 1 year. A key provision is a cap on uranium enrichment at 3.67% of the fissile isotope uranium-235 (U-235), which is a level sufficient for civilian nuclear reactors. One year after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, and after Europe’s failure to deliver promised economic relief, Iran began to breach the pact, including increasing enrichment to 4.5%. A hike to 20%—which last week’s law requires—is a big step toward weapons-grade uranium, which is generally defined as greater than 90% U-235. A heavy water reactor would pose another headache. Before the JCPOA, Iran was building a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor in Arak to produce radioisotopes for medicine. As originally designed, the reactor would have accumulated one or two bombs’ worth of plutonium each year in its spent fuel. The JCPOA required that the facility, not yet complete, be redesigned as a 20-megawatt reactor that largely eliminates plutonium production. But the redesign stalled after the U.S. Department of State in May canceled sanction waivers permitting import of necessary equipment and technology. The new law orders the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to complete the 40-megawatt reactor—apparently the configuration originally planned at Arak—and design a second 40-megawatt heavy water reactor; a timetable for completion of both projects is due in early January 2021. The law also mandates that AEOI inaugurate a “metallic uranium factory” in Isfahan within 5 months. Iran had agreed under the JCPOA to a 15-year moratorium on uranium and plutonium metallurgy. Any provocation from the West could spur the Iranian government to implement the law even faster. “Many things could go wrong in the next several weeks,” the European diplomat says. And a U.S. return to the pact would not be instantaneous. “We can’t just snap our fingers and say, ‘We’re back in,’” Johnson says. The Biden administration would have to rescind sanctions that run contrary to the JCPOA, while Iran would have return to compliance by mothballing advanced centrifuges, for example, and steeply reducing a growing stockpile of enriched uranium. |
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Greenhouse gas emissions transforming the Arctic into ‘an entirely different climate’
Guardian 8th Dec 2020. The Arctic’s rapid transformation into a less frozen, hotter and
biologically altered place has been further exacerbated by a year of
wildfires, soaring temperatures and loss of ice, US scientists have
reported. The planet’s northern polar region recorded its second hottest
12-month period to September 2020, with the warmest temperatures since 1900
all now occurring within the past seven years, according to an annual
Arctic report card issued by the National Ocean and Atmospheric
Administration (Noaa). The Arctic is heating up at a rate around double
that of the global average, due to the human-caused climate crisis.
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Nuclear power industry stunned by Osaka District Court canceling central government approval for reactor restarts.
Japan Times 9th Dec 2020, A ruling Friday by the Osaka District Court canceling central government
approval for the operation of two reactors at the Oi nuclear plant run by
Kansai Electric Power Co. (Kepco), saying its calculations for standards
involving earthquake safety were flawed, has stunned the nuclear power
industry. The decision, which is the first of its kind, is likely to be
appealed and could still be overturned. But the result has resurrected
fundamental questions about nuclear power safety and the future role of the
energy source.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/12/09/national/oi-restart-ruling/
Significant problems for UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent ,if U.S. Congress refuses to fund a next-generation warhead.
   Guardian 8th Dec 2020, Britain’s most senior defence official admitted there would be “very significant implications” for the future of the Trident nuclear deterrent if Democrats in the US Congress refused to fund a next-generation warhead. Sir Stephen Lovegrove, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, saidthat the UK was monitoring the US standoff closely but could not say what impact a refusal to start work on the new W93 warhead would have – or how many billions it would cost.British politicians and officials have, until now, had little to say about the long-running US row over the W93, crudely estimated to be twice as explosive as the ageing Trident warhead now usedby the UK. Prior to the US presidential election, Democrats in the House ofRepresentatives had refused to fund a $53m (£40m) development programme for the first year of the W93 despite lobbying from both the White House and the UK.
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Four organisations join in legal action aimed at stopping the Flamanville nuclear power project
  EPR DE FLAMANVILLE: FOUR ORGANIZATIONS SEEK JUSTICE TO SUSPEND ITS PARTIAL START-UP, TRANSPORT OF FUELAND RADIOACTIVE TESTS, http://crilan.fr/epr-de-flamanville-quatre-organisations-saisissent-la-justice-pour-suspendre-son-demarrage-partiel-le-transport-de-combustible-et-les-essais-radioactifs/ “Sortir du nuclear” Network, Greenpeace France, CRILAN, Stop EPR Ni at Penly Ni Ailleurs For the past two months, EDF has been authorized to deliver nuclear fuel to the Flamanville site and to conduct tests with radioactive gases on the facilities, although the state of the site absolutely does not justify it. On October 26, the first transport of enriched uranium was carried out from Romans-sur-Isère to Flamanville. Pending the judgment of the appeal, a summary suspension has also been introduced today to prevent any new deliveries and to minimize contamination of facilities that may never come into service.
The numerous anomalies and security flaws affecting the EPR site make partial commissioning unjustifiable. Greenpeace France and Mediapart revealed on Sunday December 6 that thousands of pages of confidential documents relating to the site’s security are in circulation outside EDF and its subcontractors. The partial commissioning of the EPR poses unnecessary risks to workers, the public and the environment. Moreover, EDF’s request for partial commissioning of the EPR dates from 2015. ASN had a maximum of two years to decide on this request, which it did not do. In this area, failure to reply from ASN equates to rejection and obliges EDF to submit a new request. This was not done: this is yet another demonstration of ASN’s lax attitude towards EDF. Finally, the environmental impact of this partial commissioning has not been examined. However, European Union law requires, when a project has been the subject of an impact study when a first authorization is issued, that the question of its updating be asked for each of the authorizations issued subsequently. . Taken together, the setbacks of the EPR demonstrate EDF’s industrial inability to carry out this project. At a time when the French government is considering the construction of new EPRs, the proof has been made that this option would be a dangerous and costly impasse. If Emmanuel Macron, who is scheduled to visit the Framatome plant in Le Creusot tomorrow, says he needs nuclear power, the planet does not need it. |
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Botches and crisis in France’s nuclear energy system
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Sueddeutsche Zeitung 7th Dec 2020, Group therapy with President. In the industrial forge in Le Creusot, components for nuclear power stations were tampered with. Now the French President wants to give the nuclear industry new impetus. Le Creusot, important components for France’s nuclear power plants and nuclear weapon systems are manufactured. In a country that gets 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear fission and believes in its status as a nuclear power, Le Creusot can see itself as a critical infrastructure. Emmanuel Macron is going there this Tuesday.
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The critical branch of the nuclear industry is itself in a critical condition after costly breakdowns and scandals. So the President wants to give encouragement to the industry that, after the Second World War, contributed more than any other to theFrench self-image.
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Macron will assure the top managers of the energy company EDF, the power plant builder Orano and the military shipyard Naval
Group, who have gathered in Le Creusot, that they are still “a trump card”, as it is called in Macron’s environment. And: the man who rules France’s nuclear button will announce the construction of a new nuclear submarine. **************
Nevertheless, French nuclear power is in crisis. A few days ago, the network operator RTE warned that electricity would be scarce in winter: Many of the 56 reactors in the country, which once knew an abundance of nuclear power, urgently need maintenance and are therefore shut down. The shutdown of the breakdown-prone power plant in Fessenheim, Alsace, in the summer, which was also carried out under pressure from Germany, is less significant. The shortage is exacerbated by the abandonment of coal-fired
electricity in recent years and the slow expansion of renewable energies. Macron wants to drive that forward. **************
At the same time, the life of the old nuclear power plant is to be extended – and up to six new, more powerful
reactors are likely to be built. Even if the prototype of these reactors, which is currently being built in Normandy, costs more than twelve billion euros instead of the originally estimated 3.5 billion euros. The botch in Le Creusot is also to blame for the rise in costs.https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/atomkraft-macron-frankreich-1.5140488 |
European Commission excludes nuclear power from the EU’s proposed green finance taxonomy,
  Energy Transition 8th Dec 2020, As we approach the end of a tumultuous 2020, with the UK finally to leave the European Union on 31 December after its transition period expires, the EU – primarily the Commission – itself has continued to refine the parameters of its sustainable energy strategy, which has been constructedvery much in the face of the pressures of the unprecedented global pandemic.David Lowry has the details. One big issue has been whether nuclear power should have any role, and if so, what? This debate has had a long gestation period. For example, the green taxonomy, which some see as the most sensitive part of a European Commission plan on sustainable finance – which aims at shifting financial flows towards the decarbonisation of the economy – were presented in May 2018 by then Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, who underlined that financing the energy transition could not be financed with public money alone.
Then, on 28 March 2019, the European Parliament voted on the proposed classification for sustainable assets, which would have excluded nuclear power from receiving a green stamp of approval on financial markets. The text voted in Parliament also excludes fossil fuels and gas infrastructure from the EU’s proposed green finance taxonomy, which aims to divert investments away from polluting industries into clean technologies.
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1.This Month
Peace movement leader Bruce Gagnon talks about his trips to Russia and addresses the demonization of Russia.
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