nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

The true cost of the nuclear weapons industry

The CND responds to Starmer’s growing militarism with a ‘Tour of the bases’ protest. TONY STAUNTON reports from Plymouth 


 Morning Star 6th June 2025 https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/true-cost-nuclear-weapons-industry

 NE of the most outrageous elements of Starmer’s offensive Strategic Defence Review is the suggestion of a “Defence Dividend.” Our demand for “Welfare not Warfare” is acutely illustrated by the reality of life for working-class communities surrounding military nuclear sites.

Plymouth Devonport, with the Trident nuclear submarine base situated at its heart, is one of the poorest electoral wards in southern England.

The Devonport nuclear naval base is managed by Babcock International plc, the arms manufacturer with an annual turnover of £4.5 billion, profits mostly contrived out of taxpayers’ hefty payments.

That the nuclear weapons are in the hands of private corporations for profit surely undermines the concept of national security — Babcock is the main benefactor of the local freeport, deregulating its secret nuclear enterprise.

Plymouth’s Establishment constantly reminds the population that the nuclear facility is responsible for 10 per cent of the city’s economy. This alone is a fabrication. The highly paid nuclear engineers and scientists at the base live outside the infrastructure-poor city and take their incomes with them.

It’s been like this for 40 years. There has been no “Plymouth dividend.” One in three children in Devonport and neighbouring wards live in poverty, surely impossible were the dockyard to really be a “jobs magnet.”

In fact, a total of 5,500 people work there, half as naval service personnel with little local connection. The wages of many of the rest are nothing to shout about.

Meanwhile Devonport’s local index of social deprivation according to the Public Health Service is 44, twice the annual average. Nuclear weaponry does not produce social wealth and prosperity.

Investment in arms industries take the money away from social infrastructure. Plymouth has the huge regional hospital, Derriford, now in a financial meltdown, making cuts to the 11,000 staff and standards of service.

The hospital is reliant upon the addition of medical staff from the Royal Navy, offering a false-propaganda device for Babcock as the city’s benefactor.

Plymouth University is in financial crisis, with over 5,000 staff easily competing with the dockyard as an income generator for the city (students live in the city centre), now making 200 redundancies.

Babcock funds nuclear research and training at the Uni and FE College, making them beholden, uncritical, and pro-nuclear across the curriculum.

Plymouth’s Labour Council, combating potential bankruptcy and absurd debt levels, has always supported the nuclear dockyard, championing the military nuclear cause, the status of nuclear weaponry, and the nationalism it projects.

The council has half the workforce of 20 years ago. Our schools are crumbling, all “academised’ with the continuous shedding of staff.

Meanwhile, there have been at least 10 serious accidents at the dockyard including spills of radioactive waste in the past 30 years, Babcock was fined over £600,000 in 2022 for breaches in health and safety regulations (H&S). Human-made toxic radioactive elements are identifiable in our sea, rivers, soil and air.

Plymouth is the decommissioning centre for nuclear vessels, 15 rotting nuclear submarines bobbing at anchor and costing £30 million a year to “keep safe,” their nuclear cores needing constant cooling and the rusting hulks routinely patched to prevent leaks.

The subs are the subject of stalled decommissioning, the authorities not sure what to do with these hulks of radioactive waste. Were the UK’s nuclear weapons to be cancelled tomorrow, there is at least 100 years of work here, just to decommission and clean up the contamination.

Yet now they’re going to build more. Plymouth Devonport nuclear dockyard is receiving £1 billion to refit the dry docks in order to service the Dreadnought super-submarines carrying nuclear warheads up to 300 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The contract will suck-up 600 construction workers much needed for house building and home-retrofitting, the city is littered with half-finished buildings lost to skill shortages.

We all can list what £1 billion could do for the city if invested in social infrastructure and climate jobs.

Plymouth, our coastline dramatic and beautiful, could long have been a centre for construction of wind and wave electricity generators, our geography predisposed, but those industries are not nearly as profitable as the tax-funded nuclear blank-cheque cash cow.

Nuclear weapons are not just illegal weapons of mass destruction, they represent the impoverishment of working-class lives.

Join us on Saturday to send a powerful message to the government to shift its disastrous direction and invest in Peace not Nukes! March and rally. Meet at 12 noon at the Guildhall Square, Armada Way, Plymouth and from 2pm at Devonport MoD Naval Base, Camels Head.

Tony Staunton is CND vice-chair and Plymouth resident.

June 7, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

UK government has already allocated £6.4bn to the Sizewell C nuclear project!

 The Sizewell C Development Expenditure Subsidy Scheme (DEVEX Scheme) has
been made for £5.5bn for the Sizewell C company. Under this scheme to
date, £3.9bn has been awarded to the company, in two tranches, one of
£1.2bn and one of £2.7bn. Prior to these awards, the Department had
awarded £2.5bn to the project since the Government Investment Decision in
November 2022 under the SZC Investment Funding Scheme. Hence, in total, the
Department has to date allocated £6.4bn to the project under both subsidy
scheme.

 Hansard 2nd June 2025

UIN 54121, tabled on 21 May 2025
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-05-21/54121

June 5, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Trump’s executive orders could endanger America’s nuclear renaissance  

Downscaling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff, curtailing its political independence, compromising its technical integrity, scaling back its community engagement role or avoiding the commission outright introduces more uncertainty than inspires confidence in a nuclear renaissance.  

The Hill, by Toby Dalton and Ariel E. Levite, 05/28/25

On May 23, President Trump signed four executive orders designed to dramatically expand and accelerate U.S. development and construction of nuclear power plants, with emphasis on advanced reactors.

The stated rationale for the administration’s action is a combination of a domestic energy emergency and a desire to win the geopolitical competition against China and Russia. However, if implemented as written, these orders could undermine the very objective they intend to promote.

The new orders assert that the failure of the U.S. to develop the nuclear energy sector in recent decades is primarily attributable to a myopic and misguided approach to nuclear regulation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the commission licenses the design, construction and operation of domestic nuclear and radiological facilities, including commercial nuclear power plants.  

The orders lay out a series of radical steps to scale back, reorient and even bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by having the Departments of Energy or Defense license non-commercial reactors to be built on their federal sites. In total, they aim to achieve rapid development of new nuclear designs and expedited construction of advanced nuclear power plants. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also ordered to effect a “wholesale revision of its regulations and guidance” within nine months.   ………………………

Three flawed premises guide the new executive orders. First, they see the future of nuclear energy as fundamentally similar to that of other energy sources — whereby innovation in design and fast deployment are seen as inherent net positives, and bugs, if any, can be fixed later. 

The orders downplay or ignore the special magnitude of nuclear risks, the series of traumatic accidents suffered by leading nuclear power nations and the unique environmental and multi-generational footprint of nuclear waste and spent fuel.

Second, nuclear regulation is mostly viewed as unduly burdensome, expensive, time-consuming and an outright drag on efficiency. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is explicitly blamed for “throttling nuclear power development” in the U.S. In this regard, the orders fail to recognize a central purpose of regulation: to build and maintain trust in nuclear energy. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not presented the key obstacle to nuclear development in the U.S. And it is the key instrument to earn and keep trust in nuclear energy both nationally and internationally.

Third, the executive orders grossly exaggerate the delays to new deployment legitimately attributable to excessive nuclear regulation. They underestimate the addition of time to market due to limitations on workforce availability, supply chain, financing, specialty fuels and community buy-in……………………………..

the net result of these executive orders, coupled with the additional impact of other administration actions to reform governmental regulatory processes to align with White House policies, is to risk public trust in nuclear energy.  

Downscaling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff, curtailing its political independence, compromising its technical integrity, scaling back its community engagement role or avoiding the commission outright introduces more uncertainty than inspires confidence in a nuclear renaissance.  

It would shatter the commission’s credibility, nationwide and worldwide, to lower the risk standards it has been credibly using for years to minimize adverse radiation effects from nuclear power plants……………………………………………………………………..

June 1, 2025 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Nuclear has highest investment risk; solar shows lowest, say US researchers

Nuclear power plants exceed construction budgets by an average of 102.5%, costing $1.56 billion more than planned, according to a study by Boston University’s Institute for Global Sustainability.

May 21, 2025 Pilar Sánchez Molina, https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/05/21/nuclear-power-carries-highest-investment-risk-solar-shows-lowest-say-us-researchers/

A new study by the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University found that energy infrastructure projects exceeded planned construction costs in more than 60% of cases. Researchers analyzed data from 662 projects across 83 countries, spanning builds from 1936 to 2024 and totaling $1.358 trillion in investment.

The study covered a wide range of project types. These included thermoelectric power plants fueled by coal, oil or natural gas, as well as nuclear reactors, hydroelectric facilities and wind farms. It also examined large-scale PV and concentrated solar installations, high-voltage transmission lines, bioenergy and geothermal plants, hydrogen production sites, and carbon capture and storage systems

Researchers modeled projects with minimum thresholds: power plants with more than 1 MW of installed capacity, transmission lines over 10 km, and carbon capture systems processing more than 1,000 tons of CO₂ per year.

In the study, “Beyond economies of scale: Learning from construction cost overrun risks and time delays in global energy infrastructure projects,” published in Energy Research & Social Science, the authors found that energy infrastructure construction takes 40% longer than planned – on average, a delay of roughly two years.

Nuclear power plants had the highest cost overruns and delays, with average construction costs exceeding estimates by 102.5%, or $1.56 billion. Hydroelectric projects followed at 36.7%, then geothermal (20.7%), carbon capture (14.9%), and bioenergy (10.7%). Wind projects averaged a 5.2% cost increase, while hydrogen projects came in at 6.4%.

By contrast, PV plants and transmission infrastructure recorded cost underruns of 2.2% and 3.6%, respectively.

Construction delays also varied by technology. Nuclear, hydro, and geothermal projects experienced average delays of 35, 27, and 11 months, respectively. PV and transmission builds had the best performance, typically completing ahead of schedule or with only minimal delays – averaging one month if delayed at all.

The study concluded that projects exceeding 1,561 MW in capacity face significantly higher cost escalation risks, while smaller, modular renewable builds may lower financial exposure and improve forecasting. Once construction delays surpassed 87.5%, cost increases rose sharply.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, renewable | Leave a comment

Top nuke officials admit staffing challenges after DOGE layoffs, hiring freeze

Testifying to a Senate committee, National Nuclear Security Administration leaders acknowledged staffing woes after DOGE-led reductions.

Davis Winkie. USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/21/nuclear-weapons-leaders-describe-workforce-woes-doge/83770727007/

Key Points

  • During May 20 testimony, top acting officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration acknowledged the risk and impact of workforce vacancies caused by Elon Musk’s DOGE.
  • A USA TODAY investigation published May 18 detailed the potential impact of endemic federal staffing shortages at NNSA recently exacerbated by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce.

WASHINGTON − Top leaders of the agency responsible for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile admitted to DOGE-related staffing challenges at a Senate hearing.

Asked by Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, if a hiring freeze, resignations and attrition could bring “some pretty important vacancies,” acting National Nuclear Security Agency defense programs head David Hoagland said, “That’s very true.” Hoagland said at the May 20 hearing that his office had “shifted people around” to meet “critical needs.”

Hundreds of NNSA staff were fired by Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year, amid a $1.7 trillion nuclear weapons upgrade, in a chaotic wave of layoffs. Most were later rehired. Other critical staffers agreed to leave their jobs under DOGE’s “fork in the road” resignation offer.

King said NNSA claims that staffing shortages hadn’t placed agency’s mission at short term risk “strikes me as implausible.”

The NNSA struggled with staffing and talent pipeline issues for decades before the new Trump administration, a recent USA TODAY investigation found. Then Musk launched efforts to reduce the federal workforce, which further destabilized the NNSA workforce, experts said.

The agency currently faces a near-total hiring freeze and lost more than 130 of its 2,000 federal employees to the DOGE deferred resignation program. More than 300 more employees were fired and reinstated in February damaging morale.

NNSA’s acting principal deputy administrator, James McConnell, said told senators on a subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee the agency could handle the losses “in the short term,” but he said the NNSA needs to “make sure that our resources are adequate.”

Experts told USA TODAY sustained staffing shortages could cause further delays and cost overruns on the agency’s beleaguered portions of the nation’s broader $1.7 trillion nuclear arsenal modernization effort. USA TODAY documented billions of dollars in overruns, as well as safety issues, at NNSA facilities that were attributed to staffing shortages.

Marv Adams, Hoagland’s Senate-confirmed predecessor atop NNSA’s defense programs, said in an interview that during his tenure, “our federal [warhead] program offices struggled to keep up and not get behind because of understaffing.”

The agency’s field offices faced similar strain, according to David Bowman, a retired civil servant and former manager of the NNSA’s Nevada Field Office. From 2020 until his retirement in the fall of 2024, Bowman oversaw operations at the expansive Nevada National Security Site.

NNSA field offices must review and approve much of the work the agency’s massive contractor workforce does on the nuclear arsenal, as well as safety management plans. In an interview, Bowman said such review “requires … technical experts who are feds.”

“If the field offices or the safety experts are short staffed, the work is going to back up,” he said.

Bowman described finding qualified staff for his far-flung office northwest of Las Vegas as “the big challenge we had.”

Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY

May 24, 2025 Posted by | employment, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons woes: Understaffed nuke agency hit by DOGE and safety worries

The consequences of DOGE’s disruptions at the National Nuclear Security Administration could be far-reaching, experts say.

Davis Winkie and Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY, 18 May 25

  • For decades, the NNSA has struggled with federal staffing shortages that have contributed to safety issues as well as delays and cost overruns on major projects.
  • Experts fear that the Trump administration’s moves to reduce the federal workforce may have destabilized the highly specialized federal workforce at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
  • USA TODAY reviewed decades of government watchdog reports, safety documents, and congressional testimony on U.S. nuclear weapons.

In 2021, after a pair of plutonium-handling gloves had broken for the third time at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, contaminating three workers, and after the second accidental flood, investigators from the National Nuclear Security Administration found a common thread in a plague of safety incidents: the contractor running the New Mexico lab lacked “sufficient staff.”

So did the NNSA.

The agency, whose fewer than 1,900 federal employees oversee the more than 60,000 contractors who build and maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal, has struggled to fill crucial safety roles. Only 21% of the agency’s facility representative positions – the government’s eyes and ears in contractor-run buildings – at Los Alamos were filled with qualified personnel as of May 2022.

Now, President Donald Trump’s administration has thrown the NNSA into chaos, threatening hard-won staffing progress amid a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade. Desperately needed nuclear experts are wary of joining thanks to chaotic job cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, experts say.

The disruption of NNSA’s chronically understaffed safety workforce is “a recipe for disaster,” said Joyce Connery, former head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.

Los Alamos is not the only facility with staffing shortages in crucial safety roles.

As of May 2022, less than one-third of facility representative roles at NNSA’s Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas were held by fully qualified employees, according to a USA TODAY review of nuclear safety records.

At Pantex, where technicians assemble and disassemble nuclear weapons, only a quarter of safety system oversight positions had fully qualified hires, and only 57% of those safety positions had qualified employees at Y-12.

Nuclear weapons workers don’t grow on trees, nor do the federal experts who oversee them. Many of the jobs require advanced degrees, and new hires often need years of on-the-job training. Security clearance requirements limit the most sensitive jobs to U.S. citizens.

America’s nuclear talent crisis isn’t new, but its consequences have grown as tens of billions of dollars pour into the NNSA annually in a broader $1.7 trillion plan to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons.

Congress ordered the cramped, aging plutonium facility at Los Alamos – called PF-4 – to begin mass production of plutonium pits, a critical component at the heart of nuclear warheads, for the first time in more than a decade.

Enter Elon Musk and DOGE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What’s at stake

The struggle for staff has been NNSA’s Achilles heel for decades – and the stakes have only grown.

But despite efforts to develop talent, watchdogs said in February of this year the NNSA was “understaffed” and struggling to execute key oversight requirements.

Then came DOGE…………………………………………………………………………………….

Connery fears the strain and staffing problems could combine to disastrous effect.

“When you take an inexperienced or an understaffed workforce and you combine it with old facilities and a push to get things done – that is a recipe for disaster,” Connery said. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/18/nuclear-weapons-woes-nuke-agency-hit-by-doge-and-safety-worries/83621978007/

May 21, 2025 Posted by | employment, safety, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Airlines update nuclear war insurance plans as escalation threats grow.

COMMENT. The airlines are insane to want to keep flying in the case of a “small” nuclear war.

Airlines are taking steps to ensure that they can keep flying even after the outbreak of a nuclear war.

Jets could continue to fly following an atomic blast under special insurance policies being drawn up to address the possibility of conflicts escalating in Ukraine and Kashmir.
Current policies that date back to the 1950s would force the grounding of all civil aircraft worldwide in the event of a single nuclear detonation, assuming that this would lead to the outbreak of a third world war.

However, with the deployment of nuclear weapons now regarded as more likely to involve so-called tactical warheads used in a limited role on the battlefield, the insurance industry has developed plans to allow flights to continue in regions removed from conflict zones.

Gallagher, the world’s largest aviation insurance broker, began working on the scheme when Vladimir Putin threatened to deploy Russia’s atomic weapons against Ukraine in 2022.
Its plans have been given fresh impetus by the recent clash between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, where hostilities reached a level not seen for decades.

Nigel Weyman, senior partner at Gallagher, said the Ukraine conflict had revived interest in nuclear-related insurance policies.

He said: “Back when the wording was drawn up, it was assumed that any hostile detonation meant that it would all be over, Armageddon. But what they didn’t have in those days was tactical nuclear weapons that vary in size and impact and which are, ultimately, very usable.”
The latest generation of the American B61 air-launched gravity bomb carries a nuclear warhead with a yield as low as 0.3 kilotons, for example.

That compares with 15 kilotons for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and 100 kilotons for a single Trident II missile warhead.

While Britain retired its last tactical nuclear weapons in 1998, Russia is believed to have almost 2000. North Korea unveiled what it claimed was a tactical weapon in 2023, while Pakistan’s Nasr missile can also carry a battlefield nuclear warhead.

Weyman said, “Why should Air New Zealand, for example, be grounded in the event of a nuclear detonation in Europe that was quite minor, albeit not for the people near it?”

“Airlines find workarounds for whatever challenges they face, safe corridors, minimum heights so that ground-to-air missiles can’t reach them.

“Volcanic ash clouds affect big areas, but the world keeps flying. Yet a few words on an insurance policy can ground every jet there is.”

Threat management
The broker has come up with a plan that would see a select number of insurers evaluate where airlines should be permitted to fly after a nuclear detonation, aided by analysis from security experts at risk-management specialists Osprey Flight Solutions.
The 15-strong group, which includes Allianz, the world’s largest insurer, would meet within four hours of a detonation and evaluate the threat to airlines on a country-by-country basis.
The plan would provide each carrier with $US1 billion ($1.56 billion) per plane of war cover for passengers and third parties, compared with $US2 billion or more under existing policies.

Weyman said the cost of the scheme would amount to less than the price of a cup of coffee per passenger, if ever triggered, something “easily passed on in ticket prices”.

Airlines spent about $3.1 billion on insurance premiums last year to cover slightly over 4 billion passenger journeys, indicating a current cost of around 33 cents per customer.

About 100 airlines have so far signed up to the plan, out of the 500 or so worldwide. About 60 in Europe have joined, though low-cost operators are proving reluctant, Weyman said.

Airlines could yet be grounded by other insurance stipulations, including a “five powers war clause” that terminates cover in the event of a military clash between any of the UK, US, France, Russia and China.

That could be invoked in the event of any British or French troops sent to Ukraine being fired on, according to some industry experts.

May 19, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, safety | Leave a comment

French nuclear company Orano explores sale of Niger uranium assets

 French state-owned nuclear fuel company Orano is exploring the sale of its
uranium assets in Niger after the breakdown of its relationship with the
west African country’s military rulers. Orano operates three mines in
Niger in a joint venture with the Russian-backed government that seized
power in a coup two years ago, but was stripped of its rights over one
project in June and forced to stop work at another soon after because of
financial pressures. It said at the time that Niger had blocked uranium
exports and halted payments of its obligations as joint venture partners
since the 2023 coup that toppled the country’s pro-western government.
This has forced Orano to look at a possible sale of its Niger assets,
according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

 FT 18th May 2025
https://www.ft.com/content/e0d5c62f-3794-4148-95e2-31deecbc7717

May 19, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Niger | Leave a comment

The US buried millions of gallons of wartime nuclear waste – Doge cuts could wreck the cleanup

Guardian, Andrew Buncombe in Richland, Washington. 16 May 25

Hanford made the plutonium for US atomic bombs, and its radioactive waste must be dealt with. Enter Elon Musk

Andrew Buncombe in Richland, WashingtonThu 15 May 2025 23.00 AESTShare

In the bustling rural city of Richland, in south-eastern Washington, the signs of a nuclear past are all around.

A small museum explains its role in the Manhattan Project and its “singular mission – [to] develop the world’s first atomic bomb before the enemy might do the same”. The city’s high school sports team is still known as the Bombers, with a logo that consists of the letter R set with a mushroom cloud.

Richland lies just 30 miles from the Hanford nuclear site, a sprawling plant that produced the plutonium for America’s atomic weapons during the second world war – and later the bomb dropped over Nagasaki. Over the decades, thousands of people in the Tri-Cities area of southern Washington worked at the plant, which shuttered in 1989.

Residents have long spearheaded an operation to deal with 56m gallons of nuclear waste left behind in dozens of underground tanks – a cleanup that is expected to cost half a trillion dollars and may not be completed until 2100. The government has called it “one of the largest and most expensive environmental cleanup projects worldwide”.

In recent weeks, what has already been a costly and painstakingly slow process has come under renewed scrutiny, following an exodus of experts from the Department of Energy (DoE) that is overseeing the cleanup being executed by thousands of contract workers.

According to local media, several dozen staff, who reportedly include managers, scientists and safety experts, have taken early retirement or been fired as part of a broader government reduction overseen by Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency”. The government has refused to provide a specific figure for how many people involved with cleanup efforts have left. The top DoE manager at the Hanford site, Brian Vance, who had many years of experience, resigned at the end of March without giving a reason.

The changes have thrown the communities around the Hanford plant into limbo. And while the Department of Energy has said that only six staff have been fired, and reiterated its commitment to the cleanup, that hasn’t managed to assuage locals’ concerns.

Those raising the alarm include politicians from both parties, environmental activists, and Indigenous communities who have historically owned the land on which the 560 sq mile (1,450 sq km) site sits.

The US senator for Washington Patty Murray said workers were already understaffed, and that cutting further positions was “reckless”.

“There is nothing ‘efficient’ about indiscriminately firing thousands upon thousands of workers in red and blue states whose work is badly needed,” the Democrat said.

Dan Newhouse, the local Republican congressman is similarly concerned. “A strong, well trained federal workforce is essential,” he wrote in a weekly newsletter to constituents.

Concerns have also been raised by some over the difficulty former workers face in making medical compensation claims to the government for everything from cancer to acute pulmonary disease linked to their time at the plant.

Taken together, there is fresh anxiety in a community, where many are still living with the health and environmental effects of Hanford.

Richland, part of the Tri-Cities, was obtained by the army in 1943 to house workers engaged in top-secret efforts to produce plutonium used in the world’s first nuclear explosion – the-so-called “Trinity” device tested near Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1945. Though the city was returned to the public a decade later, it can still feel like a company town.

To get anywhere near what is known as Hanford’s B-reactor, the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor, you need to sign up for an official tour. Yet a view of its grey, single tower, looming from the hillside, can be seen from state route 24, close to the Columbia River.

Those expressing concern about the federal government downsizing include local Indigenous groups who historically owned the land where the site is located and were pushed off it by the government. The Hanford plant area contains the location of several sacred sites, among them Gable Mountain, which were used for ceremonies, and the area of Rattlesnake Mountain, or Lalíik, which has for centuries been used to hunt elk.

The site is also located close to the Yakama Indian Reservation, home to 11,000 people, and the tribe has long pushed to be central to decisions about the cleanup and what it is eventually used for. The tribe recently signed a deal to carry out their first elk hunt in the area for seven decades.

“One of the biggest fears is that without proper manpower, there might not be a very good crew for the cleanup of the property,” says Gerald Lewis, chairman of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. “Without this cleanup, that’s been happening for a number of years, we’re afraid of a nuclear mishap.”

Dr Elizabeth McClure, a health data specialist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, is currently conducting research in the communities around Hanford. She says there is a history of government-led cover-ups over the years at the site, including what is known as “the Green Run”, the intentional release of 8,000 so-called curies of iodine-1 into the atmosphere in 1949……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/15/us-government-nuclear-waste-doge

May 18, 2025 Posted by | employment, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

What does the Cour des Comptes Report mean for Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C?

29 Apr 2025, Stephen Thomas, University of Greenwich, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5195981

Abstract

The January 2024 report by France’s Cour des Comptes on the future of the European Pressurised Reactor sheds light on the prospects for the UK’s Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C projects. It shows that the main contractor and a key financier, the state-owned Electricité de France does not have the human and financial resources to complete these projects without compromising its ability to fulfil its primary obligations in France.

I argue that the Hinkley Point C project, under construction since 2016, should be scaled back to no more than one rather than two reactors. The Sizewell C project, yet to reach a final investment decision despite the expenditure of at least £3.7bn of UK taxpayer money, should be abandoned. 

May 17, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, safety | Leave a comment

Conflicts of interest in the Trump group’s push to sell nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia.

May 12, 2025 Posted by | marketing, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Ontario’s Darlington SMR project to cost nearly $21-billion, significantly higher than expected

Matthew McClearn, May 8, 2025

The Ontario government approved Ontario Power Generation’s plan to spend $7.7-billion to construct the first small modular reactor in a G7 country – a price far greater than independent observers deem necessary to spark widespread adoption.

On Thursday, the government announced its wholly-owned utility can spend $6.1-billion to build the first BWRX-300 reactor adjacent to OPG’s existing Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. In addition, it can spend another $1.6-billion on common infrastructure such as administrative buildings and cooling water tunnels the new reactor will share with three additional BWRX-300s to be built later.

Those remaining units are expected to cost substantially less: all told, the 1,200-megawatt plant‘s estimated cost is $20.9-billion, expressed in 2024 dollars and including interest charges and contingencies.

Those costs are far higher than what independent observers argue are necessary for widespread adoption of SMRs. For comparison, a recently-completed 377-megawatt natural gas-fired power station in Saskatchewan cost $825-million.

High costs, overruns and delays contributed to the decline of nuclear power in advanced economies such as the U.S., France and Canada, all former leaders in reactor construction. The global reactor fleet‘s collective generating capacity has been largely flat since the 1990s, around the same time Canada’s newest reactor (Darlington Unit 4) was built. Most reactors under construction today are of Chinese and Russian design. Only one reactor is currently under construction in the Western hemisphere, and two in Western Europe, according to Mycle Schneider Consulting.

OPG’s project, known as the Darlington New Nuclear Project, is being watched closely by utilities around the world. The BWRX-300 is a candidate for proposed projects in the U.S., U.K., Poland, Estonia and elsewhere.

Thursday’s announcement marks a significant milestone for major capital projects. Proposals and memorandums of understanding for nuclear power plants abound, but very few advance to this stage.

Construction was scheduled to wrap up in 2028, but OPG has pushed that back by one year. It attributed the delay to a construction licence the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission granted in April, later than expected; the scheduled months between breaking ground and completion remain unchanged.

OPG’s costs are several times greater than Wilmington, N.C.-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy originally promised. Early in the BWRX-300’s development, GE Hitachi emphasized it was designing to achieve a specific cost: US$700-million per reactor, or US$2.25-million per megawatt, low enough to compete with natural gas.

OPG said the government is not funding the project: the utility will pay for it using its own funds, including cash on hand, cash flow from generating stations and debt.

Ontarians will pay OPG back over time through their electricity bills.

Officials estimated the average cost of power from the four reactors at 14.9 cents per kilowatt hour, contingent on the federal government providing investment tax credits.

The IESO said an alternative would be to build between 5,600 and 8,900 megawatts of wind and solar generators supported by batteries. Their capacity would need to be far greater, it reasoned, to account for the intermittent nature of wind and sunlight, and they would also require far more new transmission infrastructure. The IESO estimated the costs for all that at between 13.5 and 18.4 cents per kilowatt hour. Building the BWRX-300, the IESO concluded, is the lower-risk option.

Clean Prosperity, a Canadian climate policy think tank, said in a report last year that the final construction cost of the first BWRX-300 will be influential in determining how many other utilities will be interested in building their own. A cost of $3-billion, or $10.16-million per megawatt, would encourage rapid adoption of SMRs – a level some countries have achieved.

“Russia, India, South Korea and Japan have had average construction costs of $3.4-million to $4.6-million per megawatt since 2000,” the report said.

“In contrast, France and the U.S. built reactors for $12.5-million and $17.5-million per megawatt, respectively, over the same time frame.”

In a January report, the International Energy Agency said costs must come down; SMRs need to reach US$4.5-million per megawatt by 2040 to enjoy rapid uptake, far less than OPG’s estimated costs.

OPG said it‘s confident it will stick to its schedule and budget. The utility pointed to its ongoing $12.8-billion refurbishment of Darlington’s existing four reactors, a complex project it said remains on schedule and on-budget and is scheduled to wrap up next year. But if overruns do occur on the Darlington SMR, OPG and its partners (which include GE Hitachi, architect/engineer AtkinsRéalis and constructor Aecon) will share those costs.

The utility added that 80 per cent of its spending on the project will go to Ontario companies; just 5 per cent goes to U.S. companies, primarily GE Hitachi for its design and development work.

Last fall, the Ford government passed legislation dubbed the Affordable Energy Act, which committed to prioritizing nuclear power to meet future increases in electricity demand. The province plans up to 4,800 megawatts of new nuclear capacity at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, and as much as 10,000 megawatts at Wesleyville, a proposed new OPG station in Port Hope.

May 11, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

Google agrees to fund the development of three new nuclear sites

 Nuclear developer Elementl Power said Wednesday it’s signed an agreement
with Google. to develop three sites for advanced reactors. It’s the
latest example of tech giants teaming up with the nuclear industry in an
effort to meet the vast energy needs of data centers. Google will commit
early-stage development capital to the three projects, although the exact
terms of the deal remain private. Each site will generate at least 600
megawatts of power capacity, and Google will have the option to buy the
power once the sites are up and running. The proposed locations remain
private, but Elementl said Google’s funding will be used for things like
site permitting, securing interconnection rights to the transmission
system, contract negotiations and other early-stage matters.

 CNBC 7th May 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/07/google-agrees-to-fund-the-development-of-three-new-nuclear-sites.html

May 11, 2025 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Ontario signs up for a huge financial and security risk

Ontario Clean Air Alliance 9 May 25

1 Yesterday the Ford Government announced it is rolling the dice on building four untested, first-of-their-kind nuclear reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Station. 

It’s an expensive and risky roll. The government claims these four reactors will cost $20.9 billion and will take 10 years to build. A much more realistic cost estimate based on real-world experience says these reactors will cost at least $27 billion. 

Of course, these American-designed reactors will also depend on enriched uranium imports from the United States. So much for sending Donald Trump a message and protecting Canada’s national security.

Today we released a report which compares the costs of these never-before-built reactors with much lower cost, safer and more climate effective options such as solar and wind power.

It finds that power from these new nuclear reactors will cost up to 8 times more than power from onshore wind turbines; almost 6 times more than power from solar farms; and up to 2.7 times more than Great Lakes offshore wind power.

That’s according to the highly respected Energy Futures Group, not the nuclear insiders the government is depending on for its estimates. While they used data from Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), the Energy Futures Group made realistic estimates about the capital costs of new reactors and their performance based on real-world data that the IESO chose to pass over in favour of assumptions with little grounding in reality.

Why would we spend many, many times more for power from risky reactors rather than doing what the rest of the world is doing and fully develop low-cost renewable power? Remember, Ontario has not contracted for a single kilowatt-hour of new wind and solar electricity during that last 7 years while use of solar, in particular, has skyrocketed in much of the rest of the world.

The Ford Government doesn’t want to talk about the real costs and alternatives to its nuclear fantasy plans. But we can’t afford to live in a fantasy world, especially now. We need to get real about the best way to control energy costs and to protect our province. Splashing out on unproven nuclear reactors is not a good choice when we can save billions with reliable, already available and proven renewable options.

See our report for all the fine print on the Energy Futures Group’s calculations. Then tell the Ford Government that it’s time to get real and invest in our lowest cost power options, not expensive nuclear pipe dreams.

May 10, 2025 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

EDF seeks joint financing for UK projects

April 30, 2025, https://www.neimagazine.com/news/edf-seeks-joint-financing-for-uk-projects/?cf-view&cf-closed

DF is seeking to consolidate financing for the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C NPPs under construction in the UK. French Energy Minister Marc Ferracci told the Financial Times that they should be treated as one financial venture in negotiations. He said he had discussed the issue with UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband on the sidelines of a conference in London.

“France and EDF are very committed to deliver the projects but we have to find a way to accelerate them, and we have to find a way to consolidate the financial schemes of both projects,” he said.

Both projects started out with equity stakes from Chinese state-owned nuclear development corporations but the UK government cancelled the arrangements because of “security issues”. The UK government partly replaced the funding and is seeking support from institutional investors.

Ferracci denied that the French government intended to use Sizewell as “leverage” against the financial troubles at Hinkley. “It is not a discussion about leverage, it is a discussion between friends and allies. . . So there is a way through, and I hope we will be able to find it in the next few months.”

He also called for a global solution that would result in a deal that benefitted EDF’s returns across both schemes. “It is a good approach to have a global approach to our relationship,” Ferracci said, adding more “grid connections between France and the UK” could come into the negotiations.

Meanwhile, workers at the Hinkley Point C NPP construction site are complaining about a significant rat infestation, raising health and safety concerns. In early April, the Unite and GMB trade unions at Hinkley Point C told EDF that the facility was overrun with rats. The unions said immediate action was needed as the rodents were “everywhere”. In recent months, workers have also complained about poor working conditions and low pay. In addition, hundreds of project staff went on strike in November over the inadequate security access to the site.

May 4, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »