TODAY. The California wildfires and the unmentioned threat of nuclear radiation
Australian Independent Media, https://theaimn.net/the-california-wildfires-and-the-unmentioned-threat-of-nuclear-radiation/ 12 January 2025
So far, the corporate media is not mentioning the potential threat of the Los Angeles horror fires to the Santa Susana Field Nuclear Laboratory.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) is located approximately 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Hollywood and approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. The Field Lab was the site of a nuclear meltdown in 1959, and its area is radioactively contaminated. Many locals and doctors condemn inadequate cleanup efforts, and link them to high cancer rates which are 60% higher for those people living within a 2 mile radius of the SSFL.
In 2018 the Woolsey Fire, devastating swathes of Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties, started at the SSFL. The fire burned 96,949 acres (39,234 hectares) of land, destroyed 1,643 structures, and caused the evacuation of over 295,000 people.
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control said sampling by multiple agencies found no off-site radiation or other hazardous material attributable to the fire. But another study, using hundreds of samples collected by volunteers, found radioactive microparticles in ash just outside of the lab boundary and at three sites farther away that researchers say were from the fire. Here was a case of a wildfire that started at a nuclear facility, with the danger of ionising radiation affecting surrounding areas.
The Woolsey fire started in a nuclear laboratory, but what about wildfires that start elsewhere and spread to nuclear facilities?
In Texas in February 2024, the largest wildfire in Texas history came within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the Pantex Plant, the nation’s primary nuclear weapons facility. A 2000 wildfire burned to within a half mile (0.8 kilometers) of a radioactive waste site. the 40-square-mile Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Also in 2000, a wildfire burned one-third of the 580-square-mile (1,502-square-kilometer) of the plutonium-contaminated Hanford nuclear site in Washington
Across the United States there are 94 operating nuclear power reactors, 54 nuclear power plants operating, 42 permanently shut-down ones, and 31 operating research reactors. Also there are nuclear military facilities, including government-owned sites, military bases, and laboratories.
So far, the corporate media is not mentioning the potential threat to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, so here’s hoping that SSFL is not going to be impacted by the current wildfires raging in the Los Angeles area, – with the danger of widespread radioactive fallout.
But how long can the authorities and the media pretend that wildfires, that climate change, are not a huge danger to nuclear sites? For how long is the public supposed to believe the fairy tale that nuclear power is the solution to climate change?
The Los Angeles wildfire is a frightening and dramatic example of the new type of fire – an idea that people have not come to grips with. Our former view of wildfires, bushfires, was that they happen in forests. We’re not used to big grassfires. We’re not used to huge fires that travel at a much greater speed than before, that fling embers for great distances, that themselves create greater wind strength.
California has, over the past few years, experiencing drought, and big wildfires, In 2024 a total of 8,024 wildfires burned a cumulative 1,050,012 acres (424,925 ha). While many structures were destroyed, the current fire is a new development- with the shocking revelation that now, not only grassy areas, but cities can be wiped out.
For Australia -what a warning! It could all happen here. Much of Australia’s southeast coast has similarities with coastal California.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is opening his electoral campaign, with the Liberal Coalition’s plan for a nuclear Australia. And the Labor government in concert with the Opposition, is all for the AUKUS nuclear submarine project, with its nuclear problems of terrorism risks, and waste disposal. Neither political party seems aware of Australia’s great opportunity to be the almost completely nuclear-free continent, avoiding the dangers that global heating brings to nuclear sites.
Drone Warfare Has Exploded the Myth of Nuclear Reactor Safety
There are eight atomic power plants in the Russo-Ukrainian war zone: six at Zaporizhzhia, two at Kursk. A wide range of hostile acts and basic incompetence continually threaten their security.
If severely damaged, or deprived of cooling water, or cut off from back-up power supplies, any one of them could melt or explode. Each could blanket large swaths of the Earth and many of Europe and Asia’s largest cities with deadly radiation, inflicting enormous human and permanent ecological devastation.
by Harvey “Sluggo” Wasserman, January 8, 2025, https://freepress.org/article/age-drone-warfare-reactor-safety-myth
Terrifying reports from the Ukraine-Russia front underscore an inescapable new nuclear reality: In the age of drone warfare, the myth of atomic reactor safety has been exploded.
No matter how thick the containment domes, or how vehement the industry denials, a quantum leap in the killing power of weaponized drones has completely blown past official atomic safety assurances.
The unwelcome new reality has been brought home by two recent features in the New York Times.
A devastating, Pulitzer-level dispatch from C.J. Chivers in the Times Magazinecovering the Ukrainian killing fields seems to announce a total transformation in trench warfare. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/31/magazine/drones-weapons-ukraine-war.htm
In excruciating detail, Chivers documents the new-found ability of remote drone operators to overcome with lethal force virtually any defensive barrier or evasive maneuver.
From safe bunkers sometimes miles away, Ukrainian operators now send small un-manned devices worth as little as $400 to destroy tanks and heavy artillery pieces worth multi-millions. They’re also killing terrified Russian soldiers in open fields or dense underbrush even as they desperately try to escape. The Ukrainians are even flying their drones deep into buried bunkers, obliterating whoever’s in there.
Amidst a campaign to deploy a million drones per year, the vastly outnumbered Ukrainians have been able to overcome with astonishing ease highly complex, sophisticated defensive barriers as well as frenzied, desperate attempts at evasion.
Many of the operators are young and lightly trained. Their weapons are essentially cheap household toys.
The Russian adversaries they target often know the drones are coming. Yet the Ukrainians inflict brutal, lethal, hugely expensive damage with shocking ease.
There are eight atomic power plants in the Russo-Ukrainian war zone: six at Zaporizhzhia, two at Kursk. A wide range of hostile acts and basic incompetence continually threaten their security.
If severely damaged, or deprived of cooling water, or cut off from back-up power supplies, any one of them could melt or explode. Each could blanket large swaths of the Earth and many of Europe and Asia’s largest cities with deadly radiation, inflicting enormous human and permanent ecological devastation.
Such a horror could far exceed what followed the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl Unit Four, which contained significantly less core radiation than at Kursk and Zaporizhzhia, which have operated far longer.
Reactor containment domes are often constructed with thick, reinforced concrete. But they’re very far from invulnerable. The routes to major catastrophe are far too numerous to delineate or discount. They plague in various forms all the 400+ nuclear power plants licensed worldwide, including the 90+ in the United States.
A second Times piece warns that weaponized drones have become part of a “hybrid” global conflict operating in an amorphous “Gray Zone. The ability to wreck lethal, unimaginably costly havoc is virtually unlimited. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/world/europe/nato-attacks-drones-exploding-parcels-hybrid.html
With easily deployed drones like those now ravaging Eastern Europe… hostile nations, rogue armies, tiny terror groups or even a lone psychopath could handily turn any number of commercial reactors into lethal engines of a radioactive apocalypse.
Atomic technology has been in civilian use since the 1957 opening of Pennsylvania’s Shippingport reactor. The US Congress at the time promised the public that the “Peaceful Atom” would have comprehensive liability insurance within fifteen years.
But nearly seven decades later, no commercial US atomic power plant has blanket private accident insurance against a major catastrophe. Homeowners policies nationwide specifically exempt a nuclear disaster. When push comes to shove, you will pay for your own irradiation.
All atomic power plants emit radioactive Carbon 14, expand global CO2 levels in the mining and fuel fabrication process, burn at 540+ degrees Fahrenheit, bathe their neighborhoods in “low level” radiation, create unmanageable wastes, cost far more than renewables by factors of 2-400% and more while producing inflexible “baseload” power that clogs the grid.
They have always been vulnerable to explosion due to natural disasters (as at Fukushima), mismanagement (Chernobyl) or military/terror attacks.
The advent of drone warfare has taken all that to a terrifying, uninsurable new level. ,
Yet in servitude to a new generation of nukes, Congress has approved a 40-year extension of the original Federal insurance exemption. Thus by the 2060s the industry could have operated an entire century while unable to obtain the basic private insurance necessary to protect the public from a major radiation release.
A whole new level of terror is now being inflicted in the Ukraine-Russian war zone by drones barely beyond neighborhood toys.
The nuke industry’s insistence that we have nothing to fear from military or terror attacks on its un-insured fleet has lost any residual credibility.
Given the horrific new reality of drone warfare, generating hyper-expensive radioactive power and waste from hot, dirty, decrepit reactors is more insane than ever.
Harvey Wasserman co-hosts the Green Grassroots Emergency Election Protection zoom (www.grassrootsep.org) most Mondays at 5pm Eastern Time. His 20 books include The People’s Spiral of US History, & The Last Energy War.
U.S. politicians want transparency about the radiation risks of the fire afflicted Santa Susana nuclear site.
Public Risks from the Woolsey Fire and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory: A Letter to DTSC https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/11/20/18819268.php, by Bradley Allen Nov 20th, 2018
Radioactive nightmare: A community’s fight for survival amid soaring cancer rates
PIKETON, Ohio — Pike County, Ohio, is facing a severe health crisis that’s attracted national attention. The region has some of the highest cancer and premature death rates in the U.S. This alarming trend is linked to decades of uranium enrichment and ongoing demolition at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
A study by Joseph J. Mangano, an epidemiologist with the Radiation and Public Health Project, sheds light on the impact of radioactive contamination on Pike County. Released last summer, the study shows significant increases in cancer, infant mortality, and premature deaths in areas downwind of the plant.
From 2021 to 2023, Pike County’s premature death rate for those under 74 years old was 107% higher than the national average, up from 85% between 2017 and 2020. Over 750 premature deaths occurred in this period in a county with a population of just over 27,000.
Cancer rates in Pike and six neighboring counties—Adams, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Scioto, and Vinton—were 17.5% above the national average from 2015 to 2019. Infant mortality rates in the region were 31.9% higher than the U.S. average from 1999 to 2020, and middle-aged adults saw mortality rates more than double the national average.
In 2019, concerns about radioactive contamination peaked when Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon was permanently closed after radioactive isotopes, including enriched uranium and neptunium-237, were found inside. The school district later sold the building to a Christian ministry, which plans to reopen it as a STEM academy, raising safety concerns.
The Portsmouth plant, operational from 1954 to 2001, enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and reactors, releasing radioactive particles into the environment. Despite ceasing uranium enrichment in 2001, the plant remains active with demolition and decommissioning projects, raising concerns about further contamination.
The Guardian spoke with local activist Gina Doyle. Gina heads the group, Don’t Dump On Us. When asked about the study, Doyle said that in both of Dr. Mangano’s reports, the rate of cancer deaths and other related illnesses has a direct link to the Portsmouth plant. “The contamination is growing, too. It is in everything and everywhere in the surrounding communities. Past instances at the Portsmouth plant show not only human error but deaths of workers. DDOU has a compiled list of cancer victims from the community that grows every single day. I add to that list names of cancer victims; the stories are heartbreaking and infuriating.
The push for nuclear in our country is growing and that will most definitely cause more sickness and deaths. Transparency has been called for by activists and we still don’t know the whole truth because all of the information is kept hush-hush by the DOE. We do know that other agencies like the OEPA, DOH, and NRC who are supposed to be working to protect our communities have also turned their backs. Questions are never answered; we are kept in the dark by our government. Why? In my opinion, because of money and power. It is time to put people first and stop the lies and covering up the truth. The truth is they are killing innocent people and children. Remediation without any chance of bringing it back to background is not possible. We are forever contaminated. Forever the community will be affected.”
Families in Pike County and neighboring areas have experienced high rates of rare cancers and aggressive diseases, believed to be linked to exposure to radioactive materials from the plant. The closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School and the deaths of students and staff have become a grim symbol of the crisis.
Emily Stone, another resident, told the Guardian “that when you have world-renowned, out-of-state epidemiologists and scientists who are all saying there is a major problem in Piketon, then that should be taken with the utmost priority and urgency. It is not normal for so many people in one area to be sick and die from some of the rarest cancers and illnesses to exist. For the cause of all of those sicknesses to have a direct link to radioactive materials is truly unreal. When will someone care that an entire community, and its surrounding counties, are all being harmed by this one place and do something to stop it? How many more kids and adults have to die before enough is enough?”
Despite the health risks, the Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed new projects at the Portsmouth site, causing further concern among residents. Advocates are calling for independent investigations and comprehensive public health monitoring for affected communities to prevent further harm.
The fight for accountability and action to address the region’s toxic legacy continues for Pike County residents.
Independent testing of radiation levels in air- Woolsey Fire and Santa Susana Field Lab Site.
WOOLSEY FIRE: ARE YOU BREATHING TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE AIR? http://lancasterweeklyreview.com/woolsey-fire-radiation-toxic-testing by fdr | Nov 14, 2018 Preliminary Independent Radiation Test Results from US Nuclear Corporation from The Woolsey Fire and Santa Susana Field Lab Site
After various complaints and talking with numerous concerned parents The Lancaster Weekly Review has ordered a commission in a preliminary study in order to finally answer some of the community’s concerns regarding potential toxic materials released from the Woolsey Fire as well as radiation from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The Field Lab was the site of a nuclear meltdown in 1959 with many locals and doctors condemning subpar cleanup efforts that point to high cancer rates which are 60% higher for those people living within a 2 mile radius of the SSFL. A lingering effect of the various toxins within the Field Labs vicinity.
It appears that the recent Woolsey Fire which has devastated swathes of Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties, originated at the Santa Susa Field Lab and Testing Site with varied reports to the damage to the facility as well as the contamination area of the nuclear meltdown. The Southern California Edison Chatsworth Substation which is on the SSFL site shut down 2 minutes prior to start of the Woolsey Fire.
An independent study of air testing was conducted by US Nuclear Corporation of Canoga Park on Tuesday, November 13, five days after the Woolsey fire began. The owner, Mr. Bob Goldstein, was more than happy to help with the study and dispatched David Alban and Detwan Robinson to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory on Tuesday, November 13th at 3PM. They took two types of measurements for radiation with the US Nuclear Fast-Cam Air Monitor and another with a filter air tape. Twenty minute samples were taken at high flow rate of 40cfm at the Lab Entrance, which is up wind from the Lab. Another 20 minute sample was taken on the down wind side, which is North of the Lab. Given the proximity of the company’s headquarters to the Woolsey Fire US Nuclear Corporation’s team also took indoor samples at their office in Canoga Park.
It appears that many of the preliminary tests are picking up increased levels of Radon. Mr. Goldstein of US Nuclear Corporation commented, “Ordinary background radiation from minerals in the soil (and also from the solar wind and from cosmic rays) gives a dose rate of 0.015mR/hr (milliRem per hour) in the San Fernando Valley. But at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory background levels were found to be elevated to 0.040mR/hr. which is 0.025mR/hr higher than expected.”
Mr. Goldstein also stated, “The radioactivity collected on the filters decayed down to undetectable levels within 3 hours, leading us to conclude that this radioactive material is from Radon gas which decays after a short half life.” Overall, the tests that were conducted found that the area’s Radon levels are about 3 times higher than the surrounding San Fernando Valley.
Additional independent testing of other contaminants and toxins will take place in the coming days and will be published as soon as testing has taken place.
CANDU reactors release WASTE HEAT as well as RADIOACTIVITY
Inside a CANDU reactor there are three cooling circuits of water.
The “primary coolant” goes in a loop through the core of the reactor and it is filled with heavy water.
The “secondary coolant” goes in a loop through the “steam generator” (boiler) and it is made of ordinary “light” water.
The “tertiary coolant” is taken from the environment and returned to the environment at a hotter temperature Because it is used to “condense” the hot steam back into liquid water (all of it in the secondary loop).
Only 1/3 of the nuclear energy is turned into electrical energy. The other 2/3 is rejected back into the environment as “hot water” from the condenser. So 600 megawatts of electricity at Point Lepreau can only be achieved by dumping 1200 megawatts of heat into the environment.
However this has nothing to do with the use of heavy water.
The heavy water is all on the “nuclear side” of the generating station, not on the “conventional side” (where the Electricity is produced by using steam to turn the blades of a turbine to generate electricitiy.)
Beside the primary cooling loop being made of heavy water, the entire core of the reactor sits in a huge vessel called the “calandra” which is also filled with heavy water — this large inventory of heavy water is called the “moderator” and it is not used to cool the fuel, but simply to slow down (“moderate”) the speed of the neutrons
That are flying around inside the reactor core, splitting uranium atoms and releasing nuclear energy.
Heavy water molecules are a bit heavier than ordinary water molecules (H2O) because the hydrogen atoms (H) are twice as heavy as normal. These “heavy hydrogen” atoms are called DEUTERIUM (D). So heavy water is D2O instead of H2O. Deuterium is very hard to collect and so it is very expensive, but it is not radioactive. At Least, not to start with.
However, inside a CANDU reactor, some of those heavy hydrogen atoms D are transformed into radioactive Tritium atoms T. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Each tritium atom T is three times heavier than a Normal hydrogen atom H, and these T atoms are UNSTABLE or RADIOACTIVE. That means they will all eventually “disintegrate” (explode) giving off harmful beta radiation.
Year after year, the concentration of tritium builds up higher and higher in the heavy water, and so in that sense the heavy water has become “radioactive”. It would be more correct to say that the heavy water has become radioactively contaminated by the build-up of tritium. Inevitable, some of that tritium gets out into the environment.
Tritium is released into the environment in the form of radioactive water molecules — as radioactive steam (Into the air) or radioactive liquid water (into the terrestrial environment.) Tritium is by far the biggest radioactive release from CANDU reactors into the environment, amounting to about 150-300 TRILLION becquerels per year from each operating CANDU reactor.
A becquerel denotes one radioactive disintegration every second, or 60 disintegrations each minute, 3600 disintegrations each hour, etc.) These “radioactive releases” are entirely separate from the “thermal (hot water) releases” discussed above.
Point Lepreau releases about 300 trillion becquerels of tritium annually. It is the worst tritium emitter in Canada.
Trump’s war on wind power: Plans to stop windmill construction nationwide
In a recent conference held at his Florida resort, US President-elect
Donald Trump announced his intention to halt the construction of wind
turbines across the country. “We are going to have a policy where no
windmills will be built,” Trump declared, reiterating his long-standing
opposition to this form of renewable energy.
Review Energy 8th Jan 2025
https://www.review-energy.com/otras-fuentes/trump-s-war-on-wind-power-plans-to-stop-windmill-construction-nationwide
Is the Haverigg wind project once more under a nuclear threat?
NFLA 8th Jan 2025
Standing alongside the perimeter of the old RAF Millom are eight wind turbines generating clean energy for the nation, and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities fear they may be threatened by the latest plans to bring a nuclear waste dump to Haverigg and Millom.
A private company with fifty shareholders, Windcluster, owns and operates four of the turbines, whilst the remainder are run by Thrive Renewables, which has over seven thousand investors.
Windcluster was established in 1988 as a private company. The company first installed five 225 Kw Vestas V27 turbines near the abandoned airfield. This Haverigg I project was a groundbreaker being only the second commercial wind project in the UK. Commissioned on 5 August 1992, it was formally opened that December by Environment Minister, David Maclean MP, at a ceremony hosted by the Haverigg Primary School. Windcluster has continued its relationship with the school, having established a community fund to sponsor its activities.
The V27 turbines were dismantled in 2004 and replaced in 2005 by four larger V52 turbines, with a total rating of 3.4 MW, as the Haverigg III project. This had an expected generating lifespan of 20 years; however, after 15 years, the company secured permission from the landlord, the Craghill family, and from the planning authority, Copeland Council, to continue operations until 2040.
8th January 2025
Is the Haverigg wind project once more under a nuclear threat?
Standing alongside the perimeter of the old RAF Millom are eight wind turbines generating clean energy for the nation, and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities fear they may be threatened by the latest plans to bring a nuclear waste dump to Haverigg and Millom.
A private company with fifty shareholders, Windcluster, owns and operates four of the turbines, whilst the remainder are run by Thrive Renewables, which has over seven thousand investors.
Windcluster was established in 1988 as a private company. The company first installed five 225 Kw Vestas V27 turbines near the abandoned airfield. This Haverigg I project was a groundbreaker being only the second commercial wind project in the UK. Commissioned on 5 August 1992, it was formally opened that December by Environment Minister, David Maclean MP, at a ceremony hosted by the Haverigg Primary School. Windcluster has continued its relationship with the school, having established a community fund to sponsor its activities.
The V27 turbines were dismantled in 2004 and replaced in 2005 by four larger V52 turbines, with a total rating of 3.4 MW, as the Haverigg III project. This had an expected generating lifespan of 20 years; however, after 15 years, the company secured permission from the landlord, the Craghill family, and from the planning authority, Copeland Council, to continue operations until 2040.
Alongside Haverigg I, Windcluster secured consents to install four more wind turbines on the airfield. Initially financed and developed by The Wind Company UK Ltd and The Wind Fund, this Haverigg II project was brought online by the end of July 1998. This is now owned outright by Thrive Renewables. Haverigg II is equipped with four Wind World W4200 turbines, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Thrive has also developed a Community Benefit Programme which has awarded energy-efficiency grants to the Millom Baptist Church and Kirksanton Village Hall. Like the Windcluster project, Thrive has secured permissions to extend its operations to 2032.
Together the two wind projects generate enough renewable electricity, approximately 16 GW annually, to power around 4,100 homes. Windcluster has published an estimate that Haverigg II saves 4,430 tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 443 people in the UK. The smaller Thrive project will save an additional two-thirds of that.
Nuclear Waste Services are now looking to identify ‘Areas of Focus’ in each of the three Search Areas where investigations are ongoing to find a prospective site for a surface facility for the Geological Disposal Facility that would receive regular shipments of high-level radioactive waste from Sellafield.
In each ‘Area of Focus’ NWS will conduct ‘further investigative and technical studies’. The NFLAs have been advised by Simon Hughes, NWS Siting and Communities Director, that ‘NWS will publish an update on Areas of Focus early next year, and the community engagement teams will be out in the community to explain our findings, listen to their feedback, and consider next steps’.
The NFLAs have already written to NWS to request that the major local employer, HMP Haverigg, and tourist and heritage sites be excluded from consideration in the South Copeland Search Area.
As supporters of renewable energy generation, we are also worried that the future of these wind turbines might also be jeopardised if the site is selected as an ‘Area of Focus’, and becomes subject to intrusive borehole investigations in the future.
This is not the first time the turbines have been threatened by a nuclear project………………………………………….. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/is-the-haverigg-wind-project-once-more-under-a-nuclear-threat/
LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn
The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US
history, with losses already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn). In a
preliminary estimate, private forecaster Accuweather said it expected
losses of between $135bn-$150bn as the blazes rip through an area that is
home to some of the most expensive property in the US.
The insurance industry is also bracing for a major hit, with analysts from firms such as
Morningstar and JP Morgan forecasting insured losses of more than $8bn.
Fire authorities say more than 5,300 structures have been destroyed by the
Palisades blaze, while more than 5,000 structures have been destroyed by
the Eaton Fire.
BBC 9th Jan 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07g73p4805o
Campaigners accuse government of ‘lack of transparency’ over Sizewell C value.
A campaign group has urged the NAO to review the UK government’s
spending assessment for the nuclear power project in Suffolk. A campaign
group has written to the National Audit Office (NAO) calling for a review
of the government’s value assessment for the controversial Sizewell C
nuclear power station.
Campaign group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC)
has written to the audit office calling for a review of the government’s
value-for-money assessment, which underpinned £8bn of public spending on
the nuclear power station. It claims there has been a lack of transparency
over the government’s audit of spending on the nuclear project, which
unlocked billions of pounds of subsidies before a final investment decision
(FID) has been made.
“It is worth recalling that when EDF first proposed
Sizewell C, they budgeted the costs to get to FID to be £458 million,”
the campaign group said in its latest letter to the NAO. “With a £2.5
billion spend by the previous Tory government, £5.5 billion authorised by
this government under the Devex Scheme and an estimated £700 million
invested by EDF, the cost of getting to FID is approximately 1,900% of the
original budget.”
TASC called the underbudgeting by French energy
supplier EDF “staggering”. According to its registration document in
2020, EDF had “planned to pre-finance the development up to its share of
an initial budget of £458 million”. “There has been no explanation as
to why these costs are so astronomically higher than the original estimate,
how such increases have been justified and how much more public funding is
likely to be assigned to what many observers are calling ‘Labour’s
HS2’,” it said in the letter.
Energy Voice 8th Jan 2025 https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/565210/campaigners-accuse-government-of-lack-of-transparency-over-sizewell-c-value/
EDF delays salt marsh consultation for Hinkley Point C
EDF has delayed a formal public consultation over the proposed location of
a new salt marsh which would act as an environmental mitigation for the
Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant. The consultation was due to commence
in January but will now be delayed to later in 2025 to “carefully
evaluate the best approach.” Four possible locations have been proposed
for a salt marsh along the River Severn, including Kingston Seymour,
Arlingham, Littleton, and Rodley.
Bridgwater Mercury 8th Jan 2025,
https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/24842339.edf-delay-salt-marsh-consultation-hinkley-point-c/
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