Vogtle nuclear power plant construction – “Essential workers”, as the company wants to build in a hurry
Coronavirus could disrupt normal refueling practices for 
nuclear facilities as staffing concerns grow, Utility Dive, By Iulia Gheorghiu , March 26, 2020
“………Nuclear construction
Various states have included construction work in the categories of essential work when issuing directives to keep people at home.
With pandemic plans in place, Southern Company construction is continuing on the Vogtle units in Georgia. Vogtle construction has not encountered major changes from the novel coronavirus, CEO Tom Fanning told Bloomberg.
Southern announced a non-manual worker for the construction of Vogtle units 3 and 4 was being tested for coronavirus two weeks ago.
“I completely understand that [Southern] wants to finish as soon as possible,” Buongiorno said, given the delays and cost overruns of the construction. (Professor Jacopo Buongiorno, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems.)…https://www.utilitydive.com/news/coronavirus-could-disrupt-normal-refueling-practices-for-nuclear-facilities/574920/
Nuclear stations having difficulties with staffing; one station has workers positive for Covid19
Coronavirus could disrupt normal refueling practices for nuclear facilities as staffing concerns grow, Utility Dive, By Iulia Gheorghiu March 26, 2020, The nuclear sector has sprung into action to screen employees for signs of the novel coronavirus and prepare for potential disruptions to their typical refueling practices in light of pandemic-related travel restrictions……..
Government under pressure to suspend non-essential construction work (such as building nuclear plants)
“The judgment we have made is that in work, in many instances, the 2m rule can be applied,” he said.
However critics say public health should be prioritised over the economy during the coronavirus outbreak.
Former Tory cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith joined those calling for a temporary suspension of work. He told the BBC: “I think the balance is where we should delete some of those construction workers from going to work and focus only on the emergency requirements.”
The confusion over who is able to work came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announced a nationwide lockdown in a televised address on Monday night.
The PM said people should only leave their homes to shop for basic goods, fulfil medical needs, to exercise and to travel to work when “absolutely necessary”. However the types of work considered necessary has not yet been made clear….. https://www.cityam.com/government-under-pressure-to-suspend-non-essential-construction-work/
USA nuclear industry exploits coronavirus, seeking tax-payer funds
 Nuclear Industry Effort to Exploit Coronavirus Crisis for Backdoor Bailout Decried as ‘Disaster Capitalism at its Worst’ https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/23/nuclear-industry-effort-exploit-coronavirus-crisis-backdoor-bailout-decried-disaster
“The nuclear industry begged for a bailout last fall and is now using coronavirus to try and brazenly grab more cash,” warned Friends of the Earth. by Andrea Germanos, staff writer, Jon Queally, staff writer According to E&E News, which focuses on the energy industry, the request came in a letter sent to congressional leaders and White House officials on Friday by Nuclear Energy Institute president and CEO Maria Korsnick. In addition to other forms of aid—including sick leave for employees and “prioritized access” to testing and masks—the letter requested taxpayer-funded grants in the form of broad tax credits and waivers for existing regulatory fees. “Our member companies are anticipating—or are already experiencing—severe financial strain as product orders are delayed or canceled, as industrial electricity demand falls, and as workforce availability becomes increasingly constrained,” Krosnick wrote to in a letter sent to lawmakers, Treasury Sectary Steven Mnuchin, and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council. In reaction, Friends of the Earth senior policy analyst Lukas Ross called the request a bald effort to exploit the current outbreak and economic downturn to obtain the same kind of financial bailout it has repeatedly sought from the U.S. government in recent years. “Demanding a $23 billion gift from taxpayers during an unprecedented public health crisis sets a new low bar,” said Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth. “The nuclear industry begged for a bailout last fall and is now using coronavirus to try and brazenly grab more cash.” The industry proposal, added Ross, “would hurt ratepayers and the climate at a time when immediate need for people must be the first priority. The nuclear lobby should be ashamed. This is disaster capitalism at its worst.” |
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America’s economic plan for Covid19 directs money to big corporations
Democrats are balking at the Senate GOP’s version of the bill because it is far too top-heavy with financial assistance to corporations and lacks sufficient assistance for working families.
The Virus of Capitalism Has Infected the COVID-19 Fight, William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, 23 Mar 20, …….. Under vastly different circumstances, perhaps it would have been possible to argue for a different path of action than dramatic physical-distancing measures, following from the idea that to develop a herd immunity to COVID-19, a certain number of people have to contract it and recover (assuming we are even capable of developing an immunity, which is not yet confirmed). To even countenance this idea, however, we would need a robust and fully functional health care system to aid in the recovery process.
Why? Money.
And then there is the currently stalled $1.8 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which hit the reef in Congress over the weekend. Democrats are balking at the Senate GOP’s version of the bill because it is far too top-heavy with financial assistance to corporations and lacks sufficient assistance for working families.
Natch. These fellows never, ever, ever miss an opportunity to loot the till.
And therein lies the rub. The priority of the people (for the most part) is to stay safe, to get well if they fall ill, and to do what must be done to eventually return to some semblance of a normal life. The priority of the capitalists is to get the money machine going again, to take full advantage of the crisis in the name of profit, and to defend their well-staked financial turf from any reforms that may be proposed in the aftermath.
U.S.-style capitalism is also a virus, and it has infected every aspect of this situation. Worker safety, insurance coverage and costs, medical preparedness, and vital supplies — even the bill intended to rescue the country from some final financial calamity: All have been perverted and disrupted by the profit motive that never, ever, ever sleeps. https://truthout.org/articles/the-virus-of-capitalism-has-infected-the-covid-19-fight/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=e1200502-b139-4a26-8fdd-b7207fc3df68
Canada pushing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, but the outlook for uranium/nuclear industry is bleak
Nuclear power, and Canada’s uranium industry, are struggling to find their place in a green energy future, CIM Magazine, 23 Mar , 2020 NuScale Power submitted its small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) design to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for a pre-licensing vendor design review. This came just over a month after the leaders of three Canadian provinces – Ontario premier Doug Ford, New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe – signed a memorandum of understanding to develop SMRs in their respective provinces.
UK’s nuclear regulated asset base (RAB) financing passes all financial risks to electricity customers
Times 15th March 2020 David Lowry: I read with incredulity the claims of Horizon nuclear chief Duncan Hawthorne that his company, which is really a Japanese shell company with no products, could build nuclear plants offering power at half the currently projected cost from the Hinkley Point C plant being built.Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan on March 11, 2011 — costs $250bn
(£200bn) and rising — suggests Horizon has not learnt the full lessons
of that. The regulated asset base (RAB) financing mechanism Horizon
advocates transfers all financial investment risk to electricity customers
before a single unit is delivered to a home, allowing the foreign nuclear
company to build plants without having to pay attention to keeping costs
under control. This is an extraordinarily one-sided proposal. Surely even
this nuclear-friendly government cannot fall for it.
Proponents of Small Nuclear Reactors need a reality check – about the STAGGERING COST
a reality check is in order. A handful of small reactors is under construction but they have been subject to huge cost overruns and delays. William Von Hoene, senior vice-president of Exelon ‒ the largest operator of nuclear power plants in the US ‒ says that no more large reactors will be built in the US and that the cost of small reactors is “prohibitive”.
Rolls-Royce sharply reduced its small-reactor investment to “a handful of salaries” in 2018 and is threatening to abandon its R&D altogether unless the British government agrees to an outrageous set of demands and subsidies.
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Supporters of nuclear need a reality check: it’s staggeringly expensive, https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/supporters-of-nuclear-need-a-reality-check-it-s-staggeringly-expensive-20200308-p547wv.html, By Jim Green March 10, 2020 The NSW Parliament’s State Development Committee released its report into nuclear power last week. Conservative committee members recommended repeal of state laws banning uranium mining and nuclear power, while Labor members want to retain the legal bans.
What the conservatives and other supporters of nuclear power ignore is that it has priced itself out of the energy debate. Its costs are staggering and the worldwide pattern for the industry is one of stagnation and decline. In the US, the cost of the only two reactors under construction has skyrocketed to between $20.4 billion and $22.6 billion for one reactor. In 2006, Westinghouse said it could build a reactor for 10 times less than that amount. Another project in the US, a twin-reactor project in South Carolina, was abandoned in 2017 after the expenditure of at least $13.4 billion. Over in New Mexico, the world’s only deep underground nuclear waste repository was closed for three years following a chemical explosion in an underground nuclear waste barrel in 2014. In Britain, the estimated cost of the only two reactors under construction is $25.9 billion each. In the mid-2000s, the estimated cost was almost seven times lower. The British National Audit Office estimates that taxpayer subsidies for the project will amount to $58 billion. The cost of the only reactors under construction in France and Finland has nearly quadrupled and now stands at $17.7 billion to $20 billion per reactor. Both projects are 10 years behind schedule. Tomorrow, Japan will commemorate the ninth anniversary of the meltdowns, fires and explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The Japanese government’s estimate of clean-up and compensation costs is over $300 billion, and rising. Insiders and lobbyists freely acknowledge that the nuclear power industry is in crisis and that worldwide decline is certain. But its Australian supporters are unfazed. Their only sideways nod to reality is to argue that even if large, conventional reactors are too expensive, the emerging “small modular reactors” would be a good fit for Australia. Continue reading |
A sceptical look at NuScam’s small nuclear reactor plans
The Smaller Is Better Movement in Nuclear Power, Are miniature reactors 
really safer? Mother Jones LOIS PARSHLEY, 8 Mar 20,
Huge computer screens line a dark, windowless control room in Corvallis, Oregon, where engineers at the company NuScale Power hope to define the next wave of nuclear energy. Glowing icons fill the screens, representing the power output of 12 miniature nuclear reactors. Together, these small modular reactors would generate about the same amount of power as one of the conventional nuclear plants that currently dot the United States—producing enough electricity to power 540,000 homes. On the glowing screens, a palm tree indicates which of the dozen units is on “island mode,” allowing a single reactor to run disconnected from the grid in case of an emergency.
Government advisers warn Britain against costly new nuclear reactors
Times 7th March 2020, Net Zero Report. Plans for nuclear plants in Britain face fresh uncertainty after government advisers warned against backing costly new reactors. The nuclear industry wants the government to commit to a funding system to back the construction of reactors, including EDF’s proposed Sizewell plant in Suffolk.
However, the National Infrastructure Commission, set up in 2015 to provide impartial advice to the government, reiterated concerns in a report about backing more nuclear plants. It noted that there had been cost reductions in renewable power technologies such as wind and solar over the past ten years, but “costs of building and running nuclear power stations have not
fallen consistently, even in countries that have built fleets of similar reactors”. Given the potential for other non-intermittent technologies to complement renewables, it said that this “weakened the case for committing to a new fleet of nuclear power stations”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/advisers-raise-doubts-over-new-nuclear-plants-8hd85cr6d
Deceit and Dark Money -Ohio’s nuclear subsidy saga
Dark money dominated Ohio’s nuclear subsidy saga ENERGY NEWS NETWORK, Kathiann M. Kowalski, March 5, 2020
FirstEnergy Solutions paid nearly $2 million to at least one group, but 
most other data remains hidden.
After-the-fact filings show that FirstEnergy’s generation subsidiary paid nearly $2 million to Generation Now, one of the special interest groups that orchestrated ads, political donations and other efforts behind Ohio’s nuclear and coal bailout.
But legal loopholes make it harder to find out the total spent and who else was behind xenophobic advertising, dueling voter petitions, alleged intimidation and other claims of foul play. And none of those actions fully disclosed who was behind them.
The scant public filings that are available show additional connections to FirstEnergy Solutions (now Energy Harbor), as well as the law firm of an outspoken legislator who has long fought the state’s clean energy standard, and others with high-level political influence.
House Bill 6 gutted Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards while putting ratepayers on the hook for nearly $1 billion in subsidies for nuclear power plants, plus an additional amount for aging coal plants. Multiple groups spent heavily to promote HB 6 and prevent a referendum on the law following its passage.
In some cases, nonprofit and for-profit organizations funded each other or shared the same spokesperson. Groups active in the HB 6 campaign also had links to some of the same lobbyists and consultants who acted for companies that stood to benefit from HB 6, or unions with workers at their plants. But only limited amounts of funding could be traced.
ON ORIGINAL – INTRIGUING INTERACTIVE DIAGRAM HERE _ shows interrelationships of individuals and groups Continue reading
Westinghouse nuclear reactors – a very poor deal for India
Pushing the wrong energy buttons, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/pushing-the-wrong-energy-buttons/article30965454.ece?fbclid=IwAR1ymOL6TLlSxlUKkVVSL6_ukPPeiSzDlI_JM-He3CMG2qBD4HaBU0vezog, M.V. Ramana, Suvrat Raju, MARCH 03, 2020
The idea of India importing nuclear reactors is a zombie one with serious concerns about their cost and safety
Red flags in the U.S. deal
Because of serious concerns about cost and safety, the two organisations should have been told to abandon, not finalise, the proposal.
Indeed, it has been clear for years that electricity from American reactors would be more expensive than competing sources of energy. Moreover, nuclear reactors can undergo serious accidents, as shown by the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Westinghouse has insisted on a prior assurance that India would not hold it responsible for the consequences of a nuclear disaster, which is effectively an admission that it is unable to guarantee the safety of its reactors.
The main beneficiaries from India’s import of reactors would be Westinghouse and India’s atomic energy establishment that is struggling to retain its relevance given the rapid growth of renewables. But Mr. Trump has reasons to press for the sale too. His re-election campaign for the U.S. presidential election in November, centrally involves the revival of U.S. manufacturing and he has been lobbied by several nuclear reactor vendors, including 
Westinghouse, reportedly to “highlight the role U.S. nuclear developers can play in providing power to other countries”. Finally, he also has a conflict-of-interest, thanks to his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, who accompanied him during the India visit.
In 2018, the Kushner family’s real-estate business was bailed out by a Canadian company that invested at least $1.1-billion in a highly unprofitable building in New York. Earlier that year, Brookfield Business Partners, a subsidiary of that Canadian company, acquired Westinghouse Electric Company. It violates all norms of propriety for Mr. Kushner to be anywhere near a multi-billion dollar sale that would profit Brookfield enormously.
What renewables can offer
Analysts estimate that each of the two AP1000 units being constructed in the U.S. state of Georgia may cost about $13.8 billion. At these rates, the six reactors being offered to India by Westinghouse would cost almost ₹6 lakh crore. If India purchases these reactors, the economic burden will fall upon consumers and taxpayers. In 2013, we estimated that even after reducing these prices by 30%, to account for lower construction costs in India, the first year tariff for electricity would be about ₹25 per unit. On the other hand, recent solar energy bids in India are around ₹3 per unit. Lazard, the Wall Street firm, estimates that wind and solar energy costs have declined by around 70% to 90% in just the last 10 years and may decline further in the future.
How safe?
Nuclear power can also impose long-term costs. Large areas continue to be contaminated with radioactive materials from the 1986 Chernobyl accident and thousands of square kilometres remain closed off for human inhabitation. Nearly a decade after the 2011 disaster, the Fukushima prefecture retains radioactive hotspots and the cost of clean-up has been variously estimated to range from $200-billion to over $600-billion.
The Fukushima accident was partly caused by weaknesses in the General Electric company’s Mark I nuclear reactor design. But that company paid nothing towards clean-up costs, or as compensation to the victims, due to an indemnity clause in Japanese law. Westinghouse wants a similar arrangement with India. Although the Indian liability law is heavily skewed towards manufacturers, it still does not completely indemnify them. So nuclear vendors have tried to chip away at the law. Instead of resisting foreign suppliers, the Indian government has tacitly supported this process.
Starting with the Tarapur 1 and 2 reactors, in Maharashtra, India’s experiences with imported reactors have been poor. The Kudankulam 1 and 2 reactors, in Tamil Nadu, the only ones to have been imported and commissioned in the last decade, have been repeatedly shut down. In 2018-19, these reactors produced just 32% and 38%, respectively, of the electricity they were designed to produce. These difficulties are illustrative of the dismal history of India’s nuclear establishment. In spite of its tall claims, the fraction of electricity generated by nuclear power in India has remained stagnant at about 3% for decades.
The idea of importing nuclear reactors is a “zombie idea” that, from a rational viewpoint, should have been dead long ago. In fact an earlier plan to install AP1000s in Mithi Virdi, Gujarat was cancelled because of strong local opposition. In 2018, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani declared that the reactors “will never come up” in Gujarat. The Prime Minister should take a cue from his own State and make a similar announcement for the rest of the country.
The world’s Big Oil giants now turn to plastics to grow their industries
PLANET PLASTIC, How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades, Rolling Stone, By TIM DICKINSON, MARCH 3, 2020
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As the world begins to wean itself off of fossil fuel for transportation, Big Oil giants from Texas to Saudi Arabia are turning to plastic to support future growth. The International Energy Agency predicts that “oil demand related to plastic consumption overtakes that for road-passenger transport by 2050,” and its top executive warns plastics are “one of the key blind spots in the global energy debate.” The industry is counting on a tidal wave of new demand from emerging economies. A 2018 IEA report underscores that advanced economies use up to 20 times more plastic per capita than consumers do in India or Indonesia. And it warns that increased recycling and single-use bans in places like Europe and Japan “will be far outweighed by developing economies sharply increasing their shares of plastic consumption (as well as its disposal).” Global plastics production and incineration currently creates the CO2 pollution of 189 coal plants. By 2050, that’s expected to more than triple, to the equivalent of 615 coal plants. At that rate, plastics would hog about 15 percent of the world’s remaining “carbon budget,” or what can be emitted without crossing the 2-degrees Celsius threshold in global temperature rise that scientists warn can trigger calamity. The plastic industry’s damage to the planet is vast, but not immeasurable. In fact, the industry has published a detailed accounting that reveals its pollution is on pace to cause trillions in environmental harm by midcentury……… “The environmental cost to society of consumer plastic products and packaging was over $139 billion in 2015,” the report reveals. Without a dramatic change in course, Trucost predicts, that annual figure will soar to “$209 billion by 2025.”……… Much of the world is waking up to the plastics crisis. As China has shut its doors to the global plastic-waste trade, the European Union, Canada, and India are stepping up bans on single-use plastics like cutlery, plates, straws, and ear swabs. “How do you explain dead whales washing up on beaches across the world, their stomachs jam packed with plastic bags?” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked, introducing his country’s initiative. “As a dad, it is tough trying to explain this stuff to my kids.” But under President Trump, the United States is lurching in the opposite direction, promoting the plastic industry’s aggressive expansion. “It’s war,” says Puckett of BAN, “between policies that are totally at odds with each other — of making more plastics and banning plastic.” American fracking is literally fueling the global surge in plastics. The glut of cheap natural gas here has sparked an explosion in new plastics infrastructure. Since 2010, according to the ACC, U.S. companies have ramped up “334 chemical and plastics projects cumulatively valued at $204 billion.” Europe has built new plastics plants fed by fracked U.S. exports. Environmentalists warn that these facilities will lock in demand for fossil-fuel consumption for a generation. Trump is an unabashed booster of plastics — in keeping with his service to the fossil-fuel industry. The former CEO of Dow led Trump’s manufacturing council. And last July, the president visited a new Shell plastics complex outside Pittsburgh. “This facility will transform abundant natural gas — and we have a lot of it — fracked from Pennsylvania wells into plastic,” Trump said. That material, he boasted, would be embossed with “that very beautiful phrase: ‘Made in the USA.’” With the president championing its interests in Washington — and even triggering the libs with Trump 2020 campaign-branded plastic straws — the plastics industry is working to undermine grassroots activism in cities and states across the country. The Plastics Industry Association, or PLASTICS, is a top trade group headquartered on K Street in Washington, D.C. Hiding its handiwork inside a nesting doll of front groups, PLASTICS has worked to thwart state and municipal bans on single-use plastics. PLASTICS has gotten an assist from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which pushes right-wing state legislatures to pass nearly identical bills. In 2013, the plastic trade group wrote a pitch to ALEC members, arguing a ban on plastic “results in the picking of winners and losers in a ‘not-so-free’ marketplace.” By 2015, ALEC began advocating state laws best known for “banning bans” on plastic bags, but which are often far more sweeping, prohibiting limits on styrofoam and “auxiliary containers” — a catchall term for to-go packaging. PLASTICS obscures its involvement in these state fights through a “special purpose” front group called the Progressive Bag Alliance, which rebranded in January as the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance. The organization runs public relations through another front group, Bag the Ban, which touts plastic as “the most environmentally friendly option at the checkout.” (The bag alliance claims it is self-funding, but PLASTICS employs its director, per IRS filings, and the groups share offices and overhead.)…… The success of blue states, from Hawaii to New York, in banning plastic bags has been countered by the industry-led push. PLASTICS says it has parted ways with ALEC, but some 15 red states now have laws pre-empting local plastic bans, with Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Tennessee joining the pack in 2019. (ALEC did not respond to questions from Rolling Stone.) For now, the state bans on bans are holding up in court……. As the global plastics crisis grows — and photos of albatross chicks decomposing around the indigestible plastic waste that killed them go viral — the industry is quietly agonizing over backlash from the metal-straw and Hydroflask-toting members of Generation Z. “The [plastic] water bottle has, in some way, become the mink coat or the pack of cigarettes,” a senior sustainability manager for Nestlé Waters confessed at a conference last year. “It’s socially not very acceptable to the young folks, and that scares me.” In contrast to climate change, the plastics crisis has not been met with corporate denial. The companies of Big Plastic are instead seeking to convince consumers and regulators that — despite having unleashed this torrent of pollution on the planet — they can be trusted to pioneer solutions that will make plastic use sustainable. They’re touting a “circular economy,” in which used plastic doesn’t become waste but, instead, a feedstock for new products. A cynic might translate the concept into: Recycling, but for real this time. “There are a lot of different corporate commitments,” says Shilpi Chhotray, a leader of the Break Free From Plastics movement. While some show promise, others “are just greenwashing,” she insists, with the intent of giving the industry cover for its true aim: “growth.”……… The industry’s voluntary actions to curb plastic pollution are driven by two clear motives: One is protecting the environment, the other is protecting profits from regulation…….. In Washington, the plastics industry is asking government, and American taxpayers, to foot the bill to revitalize the moribund recycling industry. The RECOVER Act — backed by both PLASTICS and the ACC — would offer $500 million in federal-matching funds for investment in new infrastructure……. For Sen. Tom Udall, our involuntary ingestion of plastic waste is proof that the country can’t wait decades for plastic polluters to reform their own practices, or rely on half-measures to bolster the current recycling system. “We are beyond the crisis point on plastic waste,” he says, “and people are starting to wake up.” Udall wants consequences for an industry that has sloughed its environmental harms onto the rest of us for long enough. Washington is late to the game when it comes to plastics regulation, and Udall’s strategy is to adopt best practices from across the globe. . The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act would mimic Europe in banning commonly polluted single-use plastics, including plastic bags, styrofoam cups and carry-out containers, and plastic utensils. Plastic straws would be allowed only by request. The bill would expand the market for recycled plastics by creating a minimum recycled content for beverage containers, while also imposing a 10-cent deposit on each container sold — roughly nationalizing the models of Michigan and Oregon, where residents return nearly nine in 10 containers for recycling. The bill would create “extended producer responsibility” — making the industry responsible for the waste it creates by requiring that producers “design, manage, and finance programs to collect and process waste that would normally burden state and local governments.” Udall emphasizes that today’s industry is hardly trying, often slapping an unrecyclable label on an otherwise recyclable bottle….. The companies of the plastics industry, Lowenthal says, are ultimately “going to have to deal with the sticker shock that they are now responsible and they’re going to have to pay” to keep plastics out of the environment. The alternative, he insists, has become untenable: “What we have in plastic is something that has made our lives more convenient and easier. But unless we figure out how to keep this out of the waste stream, it’s just going to kill us.” https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling-myth-big-oil-950957/?fbclid=IwAR2i19CqoMXj7HMbvmzM6uGkEx02ESd69vjlxVVgpUZV-VMbhPQJ_iZ3o3w
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USA desperately pushing the fantasy of Small Nuclear Reactors to India
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“………Ahead of Trump’s recent visit to India, officials of the US Department of Energy were quoted as saying that they are strongly encouraging Westinghouse Corporation to ensure further progress on the nuclear projects already in the pipeline.
Another addition to the nuclear bucket list this time are the Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which the industry has been fervently pushing both within and outside the United States. While US-based corporations have individually attempted to introduce their SMR business in India in recent years, this is the first time these reactors have been formally introduced as part of the official US-India nuclear dialogue. Globally, nuclear lobbies have promoted SMRs as an innovation that will help address the perennial problems of cost, feasibility, environmental impacts, and scalability associated with conventional large reactors.
However, as independent experts in the field suggest, SMRs are an old and discredited idea – a make-believe renaissance after the Fukushima accident thwarted dreams of building massive-sized nuclear power parks across the globe. SMRs are neither cheap nor innovative nor green, as a number of leading experts in the field have pointed out. In particular, SMRs will be disastrous in densely populated countries like India, which already has an electricity surplus, and whose problems in the power sector owe more to its people’s lack of purchasing power, messy regulatory frameworks that do not allow it to take advantage of renewable energy sources despite their increasing efficiency and competitiveness, and the larger questions surrounding its neoliberal growth model. India has also been desperately trying to position itself as an exporter of SMRs, and the reaffirmation of US support for India’s accession to the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) “without any delay” in the joint statement is expected to boost this ambition.
However, much like the other projections made by the Indian nuclear establishment, the pipedream of India becoming a nuclear exporter reflects its postcolonial aspirations of becoming a big player internationally, rather than being grounded in any realism. India does not have much to offer beyond the sub-300MWe capacity Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) that it mastered in the 1970s by reverse engineering the Canada-imported reactors called CANDUs. Invariably these reactors had huge cost and time overruns, and India is now building their larger versions, 700MWe each, at sites such as Gorakhpur, Chutka, and Kaiga. The smaller designs are evidently unattractive for potential SMR buyers for reasons of cost, safety and reliability. However, simply pitching them in the foreign market will bring to India the tag of a major nuclear player, which is enough international recognition for the chest-thumping present regime. Despite the hype that Trump’s recent visit generated – of an upgrade of US-India relations to a ‘Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership’ and so on – there is very little that India stands to gain. In the absence of any new meaningful and people-centric cooperation on trade, environment, education or technology, this nuclear tango will only remain a farcical buildup at the cost of the safety and livelihoods of Indian citizens.
Not long ago, Modi’s own home state of Gujarat had rejected a US-imported nuclear project labeling it unacceptably risk-prone, especially in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident. This leaves the Modi government with no moral right to impose the US reactors on people in other parts of the country. Kumar Sundaram is founding editor of DiaNuke.org, an international platform for nuclear-related discussions and campaigns. https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/6/18388/Namaste-Nukes-Trumps-Toxic-Sales-Pitch-for-the-Stalled-Westinghouse-Nuclear-Project-in-India
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Trump’s toxic nuclear sales pitch to India- undermining India’s nuclear liability law
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In a rush to please the Americans, no matter the cost The recently concluded US President’s visit to India was marked by the odious displays of pomposity for which both Modi and Trump are known to have a soft spot. Even as Delhi burned, with deadly riots engineered and unleashed by majoritarian mobs backed by the ruling party, Modi and Trump continued their photo-ops around the Taj Mahal and Gandhi Ashram. What risks being ignored amid this deafening cacophony are crucial issues concerning the US-imported nuclear reactor project in India, to which both the media and civil society have not paid adequate attention, perhaps due to the fact that these nuclear negotiations have been in the pipeline for more than twelve years now and their mention in bilateral summits and statements appears little more than ceremonious. However, there are additional twists to the India-US nuclear story that deserve our attention. To recap, in 2008, in exchange for the American heavy-lifting of the decades-long nuclear embargo that India faced internationally for testing atomic weapons, a massive contract for a 6-unit nuclear power park was signed with the US nuclear giant, Westinghouse. In a reciprocal gesture for this diplomatic favour, India announced the project without any cost-benefit calculation, safety or environmental impact analysis, and in the stark absence of dialogue, negotiations or the consent of the local communities in Kovvada, a site on India’s eastern coast in Andhra Pradesh. Although the Indian government, in a rush to please its American counterpart, has already pushed through land acquisition in Kovvada, bulldozing grassroots dissent and even resolutions passed by democratically elected local bodies, the project has been stalled by a number of other factors, including the global decline of the nuclear industry post-Fukushima, which led Westinghouse to first sell its stakes to Toshiba and then eventually, declare itself bankrupt.
Additionally, certain other India-specific factors have stalled the nuclear power projects which corporations in the US, France and Russia have been eyeing in order to resurrect themselves. Nuclear liability tops the list here – foreign vendors have been wary of the 2010 liability law enacted by the Indian parliament, which they view as overly restrictive, even as civil society activists and safety experts consider the legislation extremely weak. The Indian law provides for a ‘right of recourse’ in Clause 17(b) under which, in case of a future nuclear accident, the nuclear operator can demand liability from the equipment suppliers.
The nuclear industry lobbies have found this provision to be an anathema and the US government has taken the lead in pressuring successive Indian governments to do away with it.
Despite his party’s vociferous criticism of such moves
 by the earlier Singh-led government when in opposition, Modi’s unabashed dalliance with the US has barely remained under wraps – he and Obama jointly declared in 2015 that India would actively take steps to limit liability in the case of a nuclear accident.However, Modi didn’t stop at that. Not only did his government ensure that the liability rules were dubbed ‘ultra vires’ and against the spirit of the law by former Solicitor-General Soli Sorabjee, entered into force in 2016, it also went on to ratify the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) – an international template promoted by the nuclear lobbies to ensure a liability-free market, thereby deliberately creating a contradiction between India’s domestic law and its international commitments. Ever since it assumed power, the Modi government has consistently undermined nuclear liability provisions meant to safeguard the interests of the Indian people.
If the recent utterances of senior officials from the US Department of Energy offer any clues, the American nuclear vendors do not want to settle for anything short of amending the original Nuclear Liability Act – “to be clear, there are still open issues around the liability issue,” the US DoE Assistant Secretary is reported to have said in a Reuters report published last week. As the street protests by indignant survivors of Bhopal’s gas accident during Trump’s recent visit suggest, Indian citizens have had an agonising experience due to the apathy of governments and judicial processes, with the most vulnerable sections having been denied both compensation and justice in the case of the world’s worst industrial disaster. Successive governments in both the US and India have managed to ensure that concerned corporations remain unscathed and that their owners go unpunished.
Neither the routine exhortations of India-US summits being spaces for a rendezvous between two democracies, nor Modi’s much celebrated cleanliness drive, have translated into an open dialogue with the victims of the Bhopal disaster, or the detoxification of the accident site even three decades after the horrific chemical industrial accident.
Trump’s domestic energy policy and budget allocations disproportionately favour the nuclear industry, and exporting American nuclear reactors to developing countries is also a key part of this policy shift. The US under Trump has concluded nuclear deals with the UAE despite massive proliferation concerns………. Despite the hype that Trump’s recent visit generated – of an upgrade of US-India relations to a ‘Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership’ and so on – there is very little that India stands to gain. In the absence of any new meaningful and people-centric cooperation on trade, environment, education or technology, this nuclear tango will only remain a farcical buildup at the cost of the safety and livelihoods of Indian citizens.
Not long ago, Modi’s own home state of Gujarat had rejected a US-imported nuclear project labeling it unacceptably risk-prone, especially in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident. This leaves the Modi government with no moral right to impose the US reactors on people in other parts of the country. Kumar Sundaram is founding editor of DiaNuke.org, an international platform for nuclear-related discussions and campaigns. https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/6/18388/Namaste-Nukes-Trumps-Toxic-Sales-Pitch-for-the-Stalled-Westinghouse-Nuclear-Project-in-India |
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