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French finance minister and MPs clash over future of nuclear power

 to “all those who confuse reality with their fantasies […] nuclear power does not work”.

By Paul Messad | EURACTIV.fr | translated by Arthur Riffaud, Jul 29, 2022 

Left-wing MPs and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire came to heated debate in the French National Assembly over a reduction in nuclear power production during the vote on the rectifying finance bill.

On Tuesday night (26-27 July), French MPs adopted the rectifying finance bill, in which it was agreed the country’s public energy supplier EDF should be nationalised. At a minimum, it was agreed that the state will make a public offer to buy the remaining 16% of the company that it does not already own, a sum amounting to €9.7 billion……….

LFI MP Antoine Léaument said that the cost of the ‘Grand Carénage’ programme, aimed at extending the life of power plants, would represent the same budget as the construction of 33 to 76 offshore wind farms, which would produce more installed power than that of nuclear.

The themes of the discussion are not new. In June, LFI’s party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon revived debate over nuclear’s votality, saying that while this is not a “fact”, the current situation of climate breakdown is such that “what was not intermittent yesterday will become more and more so.”

He added that “France is now the country lagging furthest behind in its renewable energy objectives” within the European Union.

On renewable profitability

On 18 July, the French Energy Regulation Commission (CRE) unveiled its assessment of the public service costs of energy to be compensated by the state for 2023.

The report concludes that renewables will generate revenue for the State in 2023, due to the current very high price of megawatt hours (MWh). When prices are set higher than the feed-in tariff set by the state, operators pay the difference to public authorities.

This has prompted some observers to insist on the profitability of renewable energies, in particular wind power.

“France is reactivating its coal power plants while at the same time there are currently 4.7 GW of wind projects and 3 GW of solar projects being put on hold”, said Anne-Catherine Tourtier, president of the France Energie Eolienne association.

The government has already announced a bill to speed up the development of renewable energies for the autumn.  https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/french-finance-minister-and-mps-clash-over-future-of-nuclear-power/

However, the outcome was not easy to swallow, particularly for those on the left.

In reality, nuclear production is at half mast. France is significantly importing electricity: up to 10 GW on a single day, as the country’s transmission system operator RTE figures show, a noteworthy figure considering that the country is usually a net exporter.

Nuclear capacity

Currently, about thirty reactors are shut down, more than half of France’s fleet. Some are closed for maintenance, and 12 for problems with corrosion. Others have been impacted by the weather, with extreme temperatures endangering the cooling capacities of the plants.

EDF announced that it has lost €5.3 billion euros in the first half of the year, mainly associated with the forced closure of many of the nuclear plants.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) extended a temporary derogation to the shutdown rules for such situations on Friday (22 July) to “ensure the safety of the electricity network” during this critical period. The power plants of Golfech, Saint-Alban, Blayais and Bugey will thus be permitted to operate until 7 August 2022.

Heated debate in the National Assembly

During the debate on the draft rectifying finance law in the National Assembly, Green MPs and others from the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) condemned the government’s irresponsibility in its approach to nuclear energy.

Julien Bayou, Europe Écologie Les Verts (EELV) MP for Paris and party executive, repeatedly said: to “all those who confuse reality with their fantasies […] nuclear power does not work”.

July 30, 2022 Posted by | France, politics | Leave a comment

A new nuclear power station needs a vast supply of water. But where will Sizewell C get it from?

As one of the driest parts of the country, Suffolk is described by the Environment Agency as “seriously water stressed”. By 2043, eight years into Sizewell C’s 60-year operating life, the agency anticipates a water deficit in the county of more than 7m litres a day.

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/27/nuclear-power-station-sizewell-c-water-suffolk William Atkins  28 Jul 2022 Plans for the site have got the go-ahead. The knock-on effect for Suffolk’s rivers and seawater will soon be clear

Last week, the government gave the go-ahead for a new nuclear power station to be developed on the Suffolk coast. Providing low-carbon electricity for about 6m homes, Sizewell C will stand alongside two existing stations, Sizewell B and the decommissioned Sizewell A. I live close enough to see the 60-metre tall, white dome of Sizewell B almost every day. When I want to torture myself, I look at developer EDF’s “construction phase visualisations” of the 1,380-acre building site, with its towering spoil heaps and forest of cranes, and wonder if this is what it will take to save the planet.

What might not have been immediately obvious in the coverage of the government’s decision was that the Planning Inspectorate, tasked with assessing such projects, had recommended that permission be refused. The problem, the examiners explained, was fairly simple: EDF couldn’t say exactly where it would obtain one of the main substances needed to make a nuclear power station work, that substance being water.

As well as uranium, a reactor of the kind EDF plans to build needs water in very great volumes. Saltwater will do for part of the process, which is one reason why nuclear power stations are usually built beside the sea. But fresh or “potable” water will also be needed – first, to cool the two reactors, and then, just as importantly, to cool the irradiated fuel once it has been removed from the reactors. For this, absolutely pure water is essential. Sizewell B uses about 800,000 litres of potable water per day; Sizewell C, with its twin reactors, will need more than 2m litres per day, and as much as 3.5m litres per day during construction.

Last September, during the closing hearings of the six-month public planning examination, the question of just where the developer was going to get the water to run Sizewell C, let alone build it, was becoming urgent. Those who had raised concerns about precisely this issue more than 10 years earlier would have been forgiven for feeling frustrated. As one of the driest parts of the country, Suffolk is described by the Environment Agency as “seriously water stressed”. By 2043, eight years into Sizewell C’s 60-year operating life, the agency anticipates a water deficit in the county of more than 7m litres a day. Northumbrian Water, which operates locally as Essex and Suffolk Water, had made it clear to EDF that there was not enough local groundwater for either construction or operation. EDF’s plan, therefore, was to build a pipeline to bring water from the River Waveney, 18 miles away on the Norfolk border. During at least the first two years of construction, while the pipeline was being built, EDF planned to install a temporary desalination plant on the site to turn saltwater from the sea into fresh.

Then, in August, the water company broke the news that its abstraction licenses dictating how much water it could extract from the Waveney, granted by the Environment Agency, were likely to be reduced by up to 60% to safeguard downstream levels. It subsequently confirmed that the Waveney did not, after all, have the capacity to supply water for for any of the 10-year construction phase.

Desalination, opponents of the project noted, was a solution EDF itself had discounted in January 2021 “due to concerns with power consumption, sustainability, cost and wastewater discharge”. And yet, desalination, with all the problems it had set out (including discharging millions of litres a day of saline concentrate and phosphorus into the North Sea), remains EDF’s “fallback” solution for running the station, as well as building it, if another source can’t be found. Northumbrian Water has since confirmed that: “Existing water resources (including the River Waveney) will not be sufficient to meet forecast mains water demand, including the operational demand of Sizewell C.”

Then, in August, the water company broke the news that its abstraction licenses dictating how much water it could extract from the Waveney, granted by the Environment Agency, were likely to be reduced by up to 60% to safeguard downstream levels. It subsequently confirmed that the Waveney did not, after all, have the capacity to supply water for for any of the 10-year construction phase.

Desalination, opponents of the project noted, was a solution EDF itself had discounted in January 2021 “due to concerns with power consumption, sustainability, cost and wastewater discharge”. And yet, desalination, with all the problems it had set out (including discharging millions of litres a day of saline concentrate and phosphorus into the North Sea), remains EDF’s “fallback” solution for running the station, as well as building it, if another source can’t be found. Northumbrian Water has since confirmed that: “Existing water resources (including the River Waveney) will not be sufficient to meet forecast mains water demand, including the operational demand of Sizewell C.”

The more I look at those mock-ups of the building site, the more they seem like a metaphor for another kind of despoilment. Given the government’s stated intention to build a fleet of new nuclear power stations across the country, it’s not just people who live in Suffolk who have reason to wonder what the secretary of state’s decision to wash his hands of Sizewell C’s water problem says about the resilience of the systems we entrust with safeguarding our environment. Still, the foundations will be laid, I suppose, and the cranes will rise, and after 10 years and £20bn (by EDF’s reckoning), Sizewell C will be built. And when the time comes for its reactors to go critical, there will be water, because if there isn’t, Suffolk will have a new tourist attraction to rival Framlingham Castle: the most expensive white elephant in human history.

What this fait accompli means for Suffolk’s rivers and seawater, let alone for the county’s householders and farmers, are not questions that will be answered before building begins. It’s enlightening, in this context, to consider that the past six months have been the driest in Suffolk for more than a quarter of a century, and the driest in England since 1976.

“The secretary of state disagrees with the examining authority’s conclusions on this matter,” Wednesday’s decision letter states, “and considers that the uncertainty over the permanent water supply strategy is not a barrier to granting consent to the proposed development.” During last year’s planning hearings, two stories kept coming back to me: the biblical account of Moses in the desert, making water gush from a rock by striking it with his staff; and the Brothers Grimm tale in which a giant clasps a stone in his fist, and crushes it until, finally, water is forced out.

 William Atkins is the author of The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places and The Moor

July 30, 2022 Posted by | UK, water | Leave a comment

SC nuclear fuel plant gets 40-year operating license – a ”license to pollute”

“It has been clear from the start of the license renewal process that the NRC was going to do what Westinghouse requested in spite of a long list of incidents at the facility and even an admission by the NRC that release of contaminants in the future was reasonably foreseeable,”

 The State, BY SAMMY FRETWELL, JULY 29, 2022 ”…………………….. Federal regulators approved an environmental study that recommends the Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory southeast of Columbia receive a new 40-year license, virtually assuring that the license will be issued this fall. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had considered issuing only a 20-year license because of the safety mishaps and pollution that have occurred at the Westinghouse plant on Bluff Road. But in a federal notice Friday, the NRC said its staff had reviewed a list of environmental issues associated with Westinghouse and determined the new license was warranted.

Westinghouse has tried for eight years to gain a new operating license for the plant, which sits on a 1,156-acre site in eastern Richland County about four miles from Congaree National Park. Groundwater contamination and spills of nuclear material are among the environmental problems Westinghouse has had, particularly in recent years — and neighbors have voiced displeasure with how the factory has operated in the predominantly Black community. Federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, added weight to the chorus of concerns, saying last year the license should not be approved unless an array of environmental problems were resolved. The Interior Department even recommended a 20-year license, instead of 40, in part because of multiple leaks and spills that have polluted the ground and groundwater. The department oversees Congaree National Park.

Westinghouse’s troubles were pronounced enough that the NRC took the unusual step of conducting two major environmental studies to determine how the plant’s future operation might affect the environment. A first environmental study, which initially recommended continued operation, was deemed inadequate. The second study that was approved Friday, known as an Environmental Impact Statement, looked more deeply at the potential effect the plant would have on the surrounding environment if it continues to operate during the next 40 years.

The question has been whether the license should be for 40 years, as Westinghouse has said it should be, or for a lesser amount of time because of the environmental and safety concerns, many of which have surfaced in the past five years. Some environmentalists and people who live near the plant have said the license should be for 10 or 20 years —if issued at all. Westinghouse has said it is working to make improvements, and records indicate it has had fewer mishaps in the past two years. The company said it is happy with the NRC’s decision…………..

The NRC’s next step is to issue a safety review before the final licensing decision is made, the agency said. In a news release, the NRC said the final environmental study found that the plant would have only small to moderate impacts on the environment if the license is renewed. The department said the impacts in issuing a 20-year license would be similar to the impacts from issuing a 40-year license. The NRC last issued a license for Westinghouse in 2007. The biggest environmental impacts from continuing to operate the plant would be on groundwater and surface water, the final environmental impact statement said. Past operation of the plant has had a “noticeable effect’’ on groundwater quality, as well as the quality of surface water, such as creeks and ponds. Uranium, for instance, exceeds federal standards in the mud of Mill Creek, the report said. Even so, groundwater contamination is not forecast to spread offsite, the report said…………………………

Virginia Sanders, a Lower Richland environmental activist and Sierra Club official, said the plant’s continued existence threatens the environment, particularly as more intense rains related to the changing climate pound the Columbia area. The concern is pollution from the site could wash into the surrounding community. “That plant is over 50 years old. That plant should never have been put there in the first place,’’ Sanders said. “Anything in Lower Richland is on low land. And with the number of flooding events on the East Coast and other climate change events, that plant should not be operating there. I’m just waiting for the day when a catastrophe happens.’’

Tom Clements, a nuclear safety watchdog from Columbia, said he’s disappointed in Friday’s decision, but not surprised. He called on the NRC to reconsider its decision. “It has been clear from the start of the license renewal process that the NRC was going to do what Westinghouse requested in spite of a long list of incidents at the facility and even an admission by the NRC that release of contaminants in the future was reasonably foreseeable,” he said in an email to The State. “The 40-year license extension guarantees the risk of accidents and releases that will impact the environment and possibly human health over 40 years. Unfortunately, I now anticipate that careful behavior shown by Westinghouse during the period of the EIS preparation will be relaxed as Westinghouse is essentially now being given a license to pollute.’’

The Westinghouse plant’s environmental and safety challenges emerged within years of the plant opening in 1969. Many of the problems have centered on the company’s failure to handle materials so that they would not create small nuclear accidents that could endanger workers. Many of those concerns can be traced to the early 1980s. The problems continued until 2020. Since 1980, federal and state regulators have discovered more than 40 different environmental and safety problems at the plant, according to newspaper clippings and government records reviewed by The State.. In some cases, the NRC repeatedly told the company to make improvements, but Westinghouse did not move quickly enough to suit the agency. Two of the biggest incidents in the past 20 years involved the buildup of uranium, a nuclear material, in plant equipment — deficiencies that could have endangered workers. The NRC fined Westinghouse $24,000 in 2004 after learning uranium had accumulated in an incinerator to unsafe levels over eight years. The company had assumed the uranium levels were safe, but the problem was discovered in 2004 by an employee. The excess uranium could have caused a nuclear accident that could have injured or killed workers. In 2016, Westinghouse discovered that uranium had accumulated in an air pollution control device — known as a scrubber — to levels that were three times higher than a federal safety standard. Under pressure to explain why the buildup occurred, Westinghouse’s internal inspectors told the NRC that the company had not done enough to ensure employees knew enough about safety in the air scrubber. The company inspectors also said Westinghouse didn’t have strong enough procedures to keep uranium from building up and had a “less than questioning’’ attitude about procedures to prevent a nuclear accident. Two years later, a leak of uranium through a hole in the plant floor brought a barrage of complaints about Westinghouse, a major problem that led to the discovery that some groundwater pollution on the site had been known by the company for years but never reported to federal or state regulators.  https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article263833217.html

July 30, 2022 Posted by | environment, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Western states join New Mexico in resisting nuclear waste storage without state consent

Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 29 July 22

A group of governors from across the American West signaled their disapproval of storing spent nuclear fuel in their states without their consent, as two companies plan to do so in New Mexico and Texas despite opposition voiced by both states.

In southeast New Mexico, Holtec International proposed building a temporary storage site near Carlsbad and Hobbs known as a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) to hold up to 100,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste transported from reactors around the country………………………………………………………………………………………………….

the governors of Texas and New Mexico – one Republican and one Democrat – stood staunchly opposed to the projects, arguing they could imperil nearby fossil fuel and agriculture operations.

A bipartisan group of congresspeople from Texas and New Mexico also questioned the projects, introducing legislative bills that would bar such activities by the federal government without the state consent.

The Western Governor’s Association recently passed a resolution demanding the federal government require host states to support CISF projects before they can be built.

The resolution, passed June 30, argued no CISFs should be sited, built or operated within a state without written consent from that state’s governor………………………………

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made similar statements regarding the project in his state, and Texas lawmakers passed a bill last year against the proposals.

“No consolidated facility for nuclear waste, whether interim or permanent, or privately or federally owned and operated, shall be located within the geographic boundaries of a western state or U.S. territory without the written consent of the current Governor in whose state or territory the facility is to be located,” read the resolution from the Western Governors Association.

It also called on the federal government to devise regulations that include state consent when siting and licensing facilities to store nuclear waste.
 https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/2022/07/29/western-states-new-mexico-resisting-nuclear-waste-storage-texas-radiation-federal-fuel-energy-holtec/65382940007/

July 30, 2022 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

How professional lobbyists have worked to generate enthusiasm in Washington for a long proxy military conflict in Ukraine

Kiev’s influence blitz in Washington is exposed as revealing Foreign Agent registration figures emerge

Rt.com.By Slobodan Kolomoets.29 July 22,” …………………

On July 11, Washington DC-based public affairs consultancy Ridgely Walsh registered as a Foreign Agent on behalf of Ukrainian interests with the US Justice Department.

The company – which typically advises Silicon Valley big hitters such as eBay, Google, Snapchat, SpaceX, and Uber – is just the latest Beltway operator to enlist under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA)

Last July, just 11 US-based firms were registered as lobbyists for Ukrainian clients under FARA. Over the course of 2021, these influencers attempted to pressure Washington to kill the Nord Stream 2 project, increase lethal aid shipments to Kiev, and post ever-more US and NATO forces along Russia’s border.

In the process, they amassed over 10,000 contacts with lawmakers, think tanks, and journalists. This is a staggering figure when one considers the Saudi lobby – one of the largest and most influential in the US – had just 2,834 interactions with these elements in the same timeframe.

Lobbying activity on behalf of Kiev over 2022 will inevitably dwarf even that vast total. Now, the number of registered pro-Ukrainian agents in Washington stands at an unprecedented 24, with six being compelled to register in June alone. Strikingly too, many of these companies are providing their services free of charge – to the extent pro bono lobbying for Zelensky’s government has been dubbed the ‘hottest trend’ in Washington DC political circles.

This phenomenon cannot be attributed to generosity of spirit, or altruism. Some lobbyists work for the Ukrainian government without remuneration for a positive PR boost, others to rehabilitate their reputations and remain in favor with US clients after enthusiastically representing Russian corporations prior to the February 24 invasion. As we shall see, there are potentially other, more spectral factors at work in some cases, too.

It is likely many more firms are effectively representing Ukrainian interests than are officially recognized under FARA. Ridgely Walsh only registered in July, after Vox documented its work chaperoning two Ukrainian pilots around Washington, meeting with journalists, senators and representatives, and Defense and State Department representatives. It had been working for the Ukrainian government for over five months by that point.

The FARA filing indicates that Ridgely Walsh engages directly with Yury Sak, adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, and Lieutenant Colonel Denis Smazhny, and an appendix in the document sets out the terms of Ridgely Walsh’s work for Kiev.

It states that the company “provides public relations and media relations support to Ukraine, including by engaging with US media representatives, government officials, NGOs, educational institutions, think tanks, investors, and foreign policy experts; arranging media interviews; developing and pitching op-eds; [and] organizing events.” The firm also creates “opportunities for Ukrainians to interact” with journalists, politicians, pundits, and “other sections of the US public.”…………………………..

The constellation of troublemaking initiatives funded by Ribachuk also received significant financing from American oligarch Pierre Omidyar, and US intelligence agency fronts USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which were fundamental to supporting the 2014 Maidan in Kiev. 

Writing in February 2014, veteran journalist Bob Parry noted that the NED had over the previous year funded 65 projects in Ukraine totaling over $20 million, amounting to “a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.”

…………………………………………………  the vast majority of Western media coverage of the conflict has amounted to simply regurgitating Ukrainian statements, without any attempt at fact checking. 

………………………….. Evidently, Washington and Kiev are preparing for a very long war indeed. And a vast army of lobbying firms are ready, willing, and able to make that happen, by deluging the media and legislative chambers the world over with eminently suspect narratives to maintain inexorable and ever-increasingly vast Western arms shipments to Kiev…. https://www.rt.com/russia/559386-foreign-agent-registration-document/ 

July 30, 2022 Posted by | media, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Undersea nuclear waste dump off Cumbria would imperil marine life, experts warn

UK looking for storage site for world’s biggest stockpile of untreated waste, including 100 tonnes of plutonium

Guardian, Mattha Busby, Fri 29 Jul 2022 

Plans to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste beneath the seabed off the north-west coast of England risk seriously harming marine life including mammals such as dolphins and whales, experts have warned.

Seismic surveys in the Irish Sea near Cumbria get under way on Saturday to explore whether the area is suitable for a proposed facility. The UK government is seeking a location for a deep underground repository to store the world’s largest stockpile of untreated nuclear waste.

Officials have said that a decades-long accumulation of materials including more than 100 tonnes of plutonium – which could create thousands of nuclear bombs – cannot sustainably be stored above ground for ever and they are therefore searching for a site to “keep it safe and secure over the hundreds of thousands of years it will take for the radioactivity to naturally decay”.

In 2019, radioactivity leaked into the soil beneath Sellafield, in Cumbria, which saw a serious leakage in the 1970s and was not built with decommissioning in mind. There are 20 surface facilities that store highly radioactive waste across the UK. About 750,000 cubic metres, equivalent to 70% of the volume of Wembley stadium, is earmarked for “geological disposal”.

But impacts related to noise exposure from seismic gun blasts have been linked to vastly reduced sightings of whales, whose primary sense is acoustic. There is also concern over storing nuclear waste underwater, with just a handful of such sites globally.

The Zoological Society of London’s cetacean strandings investigation programme manager, Rob Deaville, said that seismic blasts can cause habitat avoidance, risk excluding mammals from an area, and raise the risk of decompression sickness. “Potential impacts can also include direct physical effects ranging from temporary or permanent threshold shifts in hearing to direct blast trauma,” he told the Guardian.

There are also concerns that the blasts may drown out mating calls and even cause deaths, after more than 800 dolphins washed ashore in Peru in 2012 after seismic tests. On the Cumbria survey, Deaville added that the area is a known habitat for porpoises, dolphins and other species. “Our teams are very much on standby, in the event we receive increased reports of live/dead strandings over this period.”

In a letter to campaigners shared with the Guardian, an official from the Marine Management Organisation, a public body, acknowledged “the potential disturbance to certain cetacean species” but noted that the plans were largely exempt from regulations.

Critics also suggest it may be impossible to predict the consequences of storing heat-generating nuclear waste beneath the sea in perpetuity.

The chair of Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), David Blackburn, also leader of the Green party group at Leeds city council, told the Guardian: “The waste would be left in situ for millennia and, no matter how effective the barriers, some of the radioactivity will eventually reach the surface. The rate at which radioactivity would leak from a [geological disposal facility (GDF)] can be poorly predicted and is likely to remain so for an indefinite period.

“Rather than solving a problem for future generations, it could be leaving them a legacy of a nuclear waste dump gradually releasing radioactivity into the environment and cutting off their options for deciding how to deal with this waste.”

The NFLA prefers the idea of a “near surface, near site storage of waste” to allow for monitoring and management, and action in the event of a leakage. “Further scientific research may yield advancements that could mean that radioactive waste can be treated such as to make it less toxic in a shorter time period,” Blackburn added. “Chucking it in a hole in the ground or under the seabed precludes this possibility……………………………..  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/29/undersea-nuclear-waste-dump-off-cumbria-risks-harm-to-marine-life-experts-warn

July 30, 2022 Posted by | oceans, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear reactors: Engie’s demands are prerequisites to any further extension of nuclear power in Belgium.

 https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium-news/264186/nuclear-reactors-engies-demands-are-prerequisites-to-any-further-extension,30 July 2022 By Lukas Taylor

Having agreed to extend their nuclear reactors by 10 years, Engie has confirmed that the Federal Government will meet the French energy company’s conditions.

On 21 July, the Federal Government and Engie reached an ‘agreement in principle‘ to extend two nuclear reactors until 2035. In reality, this agreement is a letter of intent upon which further negotiations will be held.

In a press statement announcing that their profits had more than doubled in the last six months, Engie maintained that the terms outlined in the letter are ‘intrinsic’ to the extension.

Nuclear conditioning

Engie set three prerequisites for extending Doel 4 and Tihange 3 reactors. Firstly, that the extension will begin within five years of the agreement’s signature.

They then stated that they want a shareholding company to be founded with a 50/50 involvement of the Belgian State and Electrabel, so that the government can play a role in strategic matters concerning the extension.

Finally, the letter of intent set a cap on Engie’s expenses of decommissioning the reactors, as well as the management of fissile materials and radioactive waste. This will come in the form of a fixed amount to be determined by the Nuclear Provisions Commission and the National Organisation for Radioactive Waste and Fissile Materials (Ondraf).

July 30, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear Waste Cleanup: Hanford Site Cleanup Costs Continue to Rise, but Opportunities Exist to Save Tens of Billions of Dollars

 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105809 GAO-22-105809Published: Jul 29, 2022. 

Fast Facts

One of the largest, most expensive cleanup projects in the world is at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington State. This report describes the status of DOE’s efforts to clean up 54 million gallons of hazardous and radioactive waste stored at the site.

We found that DOE’s plans for addressing the waste assume significant funding increases in the next 10 years.

This report notes that our prior recommendations could save tens of billions of dollars and reduce certain risks if implemented. For example, Congress could consider clarifying DOE’s authority to manage and dispose of some of this waste in a less costly way.

Highlights

What GAO Found

We found that the Department of Energy (DOE) continues to face cost increases and delays in its efforts to address 54 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington State. We also found that Congress and DOE could take steps now that could potentially save tens of billions of dollars in cleanup costs for this waste.

Why GAO Did This Study

The Hanford Site is home to one of the largest and most expensive environmental cleanup projects in the world. After decades of research and production of weapons-grade nuclear materials at the 586-square-mile campus ceased in the late 1980s, DOE began cleanup of hazardous and radioactive waste created as a byproduct of producing nuclear weapons. This waste must be retrieved and treated—or immobilized—before disposal, according to legal requirements and agreements made with federal and state environmental regulators. The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is DOE’s current planned approach to treating Hanford’s tank waste.

Senate Report 117-39 includes a provision for us to continue periodic briefings on the treatment of waste at the Hanford Site. This report describes the status of DOE’s cleanup efforts at the Hanford Site, focusing particularly on the approaches, costs, and alternatives for the tank waste cleanup mission.

For more information, contact Nathan Anderson at (202) 512-3841 or andersonn@gao.gov.

July 30, 2022 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Pickering nuclear station is closing as planned, despite calls for refurbishment

Nationa lObserver , By Jessica McDiarmid | News | July 29th 2022 The Ontario government will not reconsider plans to close the Pickering nuclear station …………

In a report released this week, a nuclear advocacy group urged Ontario to refurbish the aging facility east of Toronto, which is set to be shuttered in phases in 2024 and 2025. The closure of Pickering, which provides 14 per cent of the province’s annual electricity supply, comes at the same time as Ontario’s other two nuclear stations are undergoing refurbishment and operating at reduced capacity.

Canadians for Nuclear Energy, which is largely funded by power workers’ unions, argued closing the 50-year-old facility will result in job losses, emissions increases, heightened reliance on imported natural gas and an electricity deficit.

But Palmer Lockridge, spokesperson for the provincial energy minister, said further extending Pickering’s lifespan isn’t on the table…………………………

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance, however, obtained draft documents from the electricity operator that showed it had studied, but not released publicly, other scenarios that involved phasing out natural gas without energy shortfalls, price hikes or increases in emissions.

One model suggested increasing carbon taxes and imports of clean energy from other provinces could keep blackouts, costs and emissions at bay, while another involved increasing energy efficiency, wind generation and storage.

“By banning gas-fired electricity exports to the U.S., importing all the Quebec water power we can with the existing transmission lines and investing in energy efficiency and wind and solar and storage — do all those things and you can phase out gas-fired power and lower our bills,” said Jack Gibbons, chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/07/29/news/pickering-nuclear-station-closing-despite-calls-refurbishment

July 30, 2022 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

U.N. nuclear conference to start Monday as Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya plant in “alarming” state, watchdog says

BY PAMELA FALK, JULY 29, 2022 / CBS NEWS United Nations — On Monday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres will be among those expected to gather at United Nations headquarters in New York for the tenth annual review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The meeting comes as the IAEA is being denied U.N. help to access Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, which has been occupied by Russia since the early days of the war, and which the watchdog agency says is in an “alarming” state.

“It is urgent,” Grossi said in the latest IAEA report. “I’m continuing my determined efforts to agree and lead a safety, security and safeguards mission to the site as soon as possible.”

Ukraine’s nuclear power facilities at risk

Alarm bells went off, figuratively, in early March at the Vienna offices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, an autonomous agency within the U.N. system, when Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhya plant and Ukraine informed the agency that Ukrainian staff was operating the plant under Russian command………………………………………….

Most of the Russian delegation has received their visas to attend the conference, and a Ukrainian delegation will be present. Analysts say it will be an ideal time to map out a safety plan.

Ukraine’s nuclear power plants are a priority and “the range of bad scenarios is unnerving,” Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group think-tank, told CBS News.

“Nuclear plants getting hit by missiles or artillery, nuclear material going missing, key workers unable to service the plants, it’s a long list,” Gowan said. “The fact that you have nuclear power stations right in the middle of a large-scale conventional war of attrition is unprecedented.”

On Monday, Grossi will be at U.N. Headquarters for two days to open the month-long conference, which will also deal with North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the stalled Iran nuclear deal.  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/un-nuclear-conference-ukraine-zaporizhzhya-plant/

July 30, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, safety | Leave a comment

TODAY. From France – a statement that symbolises the primacy of the nuclear industry over the environment

The plants, insects, the fish, the frogs, crabs, …… they don’t get a say in these decisions.

 “we should rethink the temperature thresholds of rivers” – says the chief inspector of France’s nuclear safety authority.

In these simple, seemingly innocuous words, we get a clear look at what the powers that be in our modern world think is important, and what is not..

If the big boys decide to let hotter water into the rivers, and ruin the habitat of so many plants and animals – well, the people aren’t going to get a vote on this, and the other species sure don’t get a say.

Western culture has evolved from a world-view that Man is superior to all creation. And we’re still well and truly in that world view. Indigenous cultures might have a different view – but hell – they don’t matter, do they? After all, they’ve never invented anything really clever – like nuclear technology, with the power to kill us all.

July 30, 2022 Posted by | Christina's notes | 2 Comments