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Sizewell C Fiasco Part 4. Much more expensive than renewables- Unknown cost or period for Investors

Sizewell C Fiasco Part 4 Much more expensive than renewables- Unknown cost or period for Investors

Sizewell C was given the go ahead against the advice of the Planning
Inspectorate by politicians who have since mainly been discredited. They do
not have the finance in place yet – a staggering £30 billion plus?

Yet the Government have been chucking hard pressed taxpayers’ money at the project
and Sizewell C Project have started massive pre-construction works. If they
can cause this much Eco/ Landscape devastation even now, what will they do
if they get the go ahead on construction?

Sizewell C would be a disaster
for the Environment and the Landscape. Taxpayers and Investors will be
financing a bottomless pit. Locked in for decades to paying much more than
the cost of wind or solar energy. Even if finished on time – which is very
unlikely – it would be far too late for any energy crisis. Which would be
caused by the current bad or lack of – planning and management for energy
production and a hopeless so-called National Grid (run for shareholders not
UK Taxpayers).

If built Sizewell C would be too late to contribute to net
zero and its construction would produce vast amounts of carbon and other
pollution for well over a decade at least. Not to mention the much more
radioactive waste from this unproven EPR type of reactor which is too hot
to move until the next century – so has to be stored on site on an eroding
coastline! The whole thing is bonkers!
Stop Sizewell C 8th April 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4ICw23iYY0

April 16, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

J.D. Vance – New York Times: The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up

The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. 

Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical.


J.D.Vance, The New York Times, Fri, 12 Apr 2024 , https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/jd-vance-ukraine.html

President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong.

Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.

The Biden administration has applied increasing pressure on Republicans to pass a supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war. Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.

The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. This $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.

Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that the country’s base-line requirement for these shells was over four million per year but that it could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.

Just this week, the top American military commander in Europe argued that absent further security assistance, Russia could soon have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage over Ukraine. What didn’t gather as many headlines is that Russia’s current advantage is at least 5 to 1, even after all the money we have poured into the conflict. Neither of these ratios plausibly leads to Ukrainian victory.

Proponents of American aid to Ukraine have argued that our approach has been a boon to our own economy, creating jobs here in the factories that manufacture weapons. But our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests.The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict.

The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system — our premier air defense weapon. It’s of such importance in this war that Ukraine’s foreign minister has specifically demanded them. That’s because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 every year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but that’s still less than a third of what Ukraine requires.

These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.

If that sounds bad, Ukraine’s manpower situation is even worse. Here are the basics:Russia has nearly four times the population of Ukraine. Ukraine needs upward of half a million new recruits, but hundreds of thousands of fighting-age men have already fled the country. The average Ukrainian soldier is roughly 43 years old, and many soldiers have already served two years at the front with few, if any, opportunities to stop fighting. After two years of conflict, there are some villages with almost no men left. The Ukrainian military has resorted to coercing men into service, and women have staged protests to demand the return of their husbands and fathers after long years of service at the front. This newspaper reported one instance in which the Ukrainian military attempted to conscript a man with a diagnosed mental disability.

Many in Washington seem to think that hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have gone to war with a song in their heart and are happy to label any thought to the contrary Russian propaganda. But major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting that the situation on the ground in Ukraine is grim.

These basic mathematical realities were true, but contestable, at the outset of the war. They were obvious and incontestable a year ago, when American leadership worked closely with Mr. Zelensky to undertake a disastrous counteroffensive. The bad news is that accepting brute reality would have been most useful last spring, before the Ukrainians launched that extremely costly and unsuccessful military campaign. The good news is that even now, a defensive strategy can work. Digging in with old-fashioned ditches, cement and land mines are what enabled Russia to weather Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. Our allies in Europe could better support such a strategy, as well. While some European countries have provided considerable resources, the burden of military support has thus far fallen heaviest on the United States.

By committing to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence. But this would require both the American and Ukrainian leadership to accept that Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical.

The White House has said time and again that it can’t negotiate with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. This is absurd. The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace.

April 15, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why you probably shouldn’t become a Community Interest Company

  by preorg,  https://preorg.org/why-you-probably-shouldnt-become-a-community-interest-company/

Imagine you have sacrificed hundreds of hours of your volunteering time to a non-profit organisation doing good work. After years of effort, often exhaustion, you discover that the directors don’t care that much about whether you succeeded in helping those people you intended to help. They care mostly about how much time they can spend at the swimming pool at their second home in Spain. Your volunteer hours have helped fund that lifestyle.

How could such a situation arise? Aren’t charities supposed to have boards of governors that keep the organisation on track? But wait, it wasn’t a charity! It was a Community Interest Company. Now, I should say that I don’t currently know of any such dramatic betrayals of people’s goodwill. But what I will argue here is that this situation arising in some CICs is bordering on inevitable, given the operating parameters of CICs. Given the weakness of regulation of the companies, almost boasted about by the CIC Regulator, it’s only a matter of time.

Why would I think that? Most people seem happy with CICs; Community Interest Companies are a success story, we are told. There are now many thousands of CICs in the UK, all having appeared within the space of ten years. This rapid rise in fact means that many people have chosen a form the long-term resilience of which has yet to be tested. It would be exciting to write an article about all the horribly failed CICs littering the social economy landscape. But I don’t know of any; I can only do a much less exciting job: pointing out what’s wrong with CICs before they start to fail. My contention is that, with the help of an FOI request to the CIC Regulator, we can see that certain types of failure are predictable. As for why we haven’t seen the failures yet, it is largely because CICs are young and in most of them the founders are still in charge.

The CIC was designed for organisations with social goals. It must operate in the ‘community interest’, which is defined in the articles of the organisation. It is also chosen over charities as an organisation that can more easily buy and sell commercially. But among the people I have asked, the main reason for opting for a CIC has been that it is easy. It is a lightweight structure, it is unencumbered by bureaucracy. It can be set up in a couple of days and can adapt quickly to changing conditions since it doesn’t have long lists of rules in its constitution. More like a standard profit-making company then, but with social objectives built in. Supposedly. More on that later.

By comparison both charities and co-operatives or community benefit societies (BenComs) have a lot more rules. Rules! How annoying! How limiting! But hang on a moment, why, if rules are so tedious, do those other organisations bother with them? The answer is that most of the rules are about accountability. In the case of a charity, the board of trustees, who must be consulted on significant matters, exist to keep the charity in line with its social aims. In co-ops and BenComs it is the membership who must constantly be consulted, and who choose who leads the organisation. Democracy certainly can be quite annoying.

By comparison a standard CIC is at the mercy of its directors, who needn’t even be many in number. That’s fine, I hear some say, I am the director, and I trust myself to make good decisions. Perhaps, but do you intend to lead the organisation forever? Even if you plan to live forever, what happens if you get ill, or leave through some other reason beyond your control? The purpose behind many accountability mechanisms is that they transcend the ideals of one particular person. They embed the ethics and goals into the DNA of the organisation, whoever may be running it at a given time. So how long do you want your organisation to last?

There is one supposed accountability mechanism in CICs: the government regulator. In theory the Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies has a lot of power to force CICs to stick to their aims. In practice it appears to do very little, priding itself on being a ‘light touch’ regulator. When I contacted the Regulator, they explained that in the last year they received 57 complaints, only 3 of which resulted in an intervention by the regulator. None of these 3 were related to the community benefit requirements. The Regulator has so far never wound up a CIC or stripped one of its CIC status. The Regulator has no records of intervening in a CIC on the basis of the standard paperwork submitted each year, which in part reports on the organisation’s performance under its community benefit requirement. That is to say, there appears to be no pro-active monitoring of whether CICs are operating for community benefit.

Even Social Enterprise UK, a fan of the CIC form, has raised questions over the strength of the Regulator. This accountability mechanism begins to look weak, to say the least. I’m not sure it will ever improve either. I doubt the regulator will ever be well enough funded to investigate what is going on in tens of thousands of organisations. We should not look for accountability in the CIC regulator.

Let’s move on to another question, a special case of the accountability problem: what profits can be made from a CIC, often presented as a non-profit structure? There is a CIC limited by shares that is allowed to make a profit. Previously there was a dividend cap of 20% of share value in any given year. This was considered by the government to be ‘inhibiting investment’ so in 2014 they removed the cap. Say that again? Annual 20% profits inhibiting investment?

Let’s leave that aside. In fact the majority of CICs are limited by guarantee and are more genuinely non-profit in form. There are, however, a couple of massive catches. The directors of a CIC can pay themselves whatever they can argue could reasonably be seen as necessary, as long as they are still fulfilling their social objectives. As determined by the aforementioned ‘light touch’ regulator. A CIC with a turnover of some millions a year could in theory pay the directors a million a year, if they could argue that without the salary they couldn’t retain the talent they need. Is it still a non-profit? This raises the aforementioned scenario of people putting in hundreds of volunteer hours for a supposed non-profit while the directors are buying holiday homes in the Mediterranean.

The second problem is that nobody is paying any attention to who CICs contract out work to. If a CIC pays huge ‘management fees’ or overpays on a cleaning contract to a company that happens to be owned by, say, the partner of a director, any money in the organisation can very easily be siphoned out to profit-making enterprises. In a charity the board and regulator would keep a sharp eye on this type of activity; the CIC regulator barely seems to glance at the paperwork.

You, the current director, might not abuse your position so, but can you be so sure of your successors? We only need to look at Housing Associations for a case study in organisational mission drift, in part driven by the high salaries CEOs have been able to pay themselves.

A word too on putting an informal democratic structure on top of an undemocratic CIC: I’m told that the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales acted for years like a co-operative, and those involved assumed that’s what it was. But it never took a co-operative legal form, so when it ran into trouble, new leadership bulldozed aside the democracy people had assumed was one of the core values of the organisation. CAT is at least a charity, but the lesson is that informal structures can be dispensed with any time the CIC directors get tired of them.

But surely there must be a right situation for a CIC? Perhaps. A CIC could be right for an organisation that is mostly a trading organisation and is for a short-term project which won’t exist for long. If the project is intended to run long-term, I don’t believe the CIC is a reliable form. It is at the mercy of the leadership that follows you, if not your own leadership. The CIC Regulator is not the safety net you need. For most people it would be worth choosing an organisational type that seems more ‘difficult’ in the short term, but will almost certainly be more sustainable and accountable in the long run.

For existing successful CICs, why would they bother to change if they are doing well as they are? Let’s remember they are still young organisations. Do we want to wait twenty years to see the emergence of accountability and mission-drift problems that are, I am suggesting, rather predictable? Mission-drift that the Regulator will never pick up on unless someone reports it?

There are a few ways to mitigate the risks here. The best option for many would be to convert into a co-operative CIC. Co-ops UK offers one set of model rules for this, and the Somerset Rules can also convert a CIC into a multi-stakeholder co-op. It will cost time and money, it is true, to change the rules, but it will surely not be as painful as the organisation going off track in a few years’ time after the founders have retired.

The second best option is to add democratic rules to the CIC. It is a benefit of CICs that they are very flexible. The CIC Regulator offers model rules of a participatory organisation of large membership, though it is still very much director-controlled. It is theoretically possible to set up a more democratic membership structure without being a co-operative. While this method may miss out on embedding some of the checks and balances that co-ops have developed over the years, it could make the organisation more accountable. But remember, rules that can be added can be taken away. Only co-ops and their cousins, community benefit societies, lock democracy in permamently.

Finally, if actual democracy seems too great a task, it is at least possible to simply install more directors onto the CIC board, preferably those affected by what the organisation does, and so establish a strong democratic culture among the CIC directors. It’s not a perfect fix, but increased collective decision-making will mitigate the problems of a top-down culture reliant on the goodwill of two or three people.

For those who haven’t started their organisation yet, this is a plea to consider that a sustainable organisation is an accountable one, and democracy is one of the best ways to ensure accountability. Thankfully others, in the form of the co-operative movement, have already paved the way for us.

April 14, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR BRITAIN’S WEAPONS EXPORTS

WEAPONS MADE ON MY DOORSTEP ARE HELPING TO KILL PEOPLE IN GAZA

Amy Hall, 10 Apr 24,  https://newint.org/arms/2024/weapons-made-my-doorstep-are-helping-kill-people-gaza?utm_source=ni-email-whatcounts%20&utm_medium=1%20NI%20Global%20Master%20List1%20-%20enews%20-%20International%20AND%20North%20America&utm_campaign=2024-04-12%20enews

British voters want to stop arming Israel, so why are spineless politicians ignoring them, asks Amy Hall.

This week, Foreign Secretary David Cameron confirmed that the UK government will not join the handful of Western countries that have stopped sending arms to Israel. Weapons exports from the UK will continue. The majority of voters are in favour of a ban and three British aid workers were among the seven killed by an Israeli air strike last week. But for Cameron and his cronies, it’s business as usual.

Britain has a long-standing commitment to arming the violence of the Israeli state and its occupation of Palestine. According to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Britain licensed around $556 million worth of arms to Israel between 2015 and 2022.

Those of us in Britain who are devastated and incensed by the endless death and destruction in Gaza are apparently to take reassurance from Cameron’s insistence that government ministers have ‘grave concerns around the humanitarian access issue’ there.

But these concerns appear not to be grave enough to challenge Britain’s own arms industry and its role in Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign on Gaza. The weapons manufacturing taking place in my city assures me of that. 

NO BOMBS FROM BRIGHTON’ 

Just a few kilometres from where I live in Brighton & Hove, on the South Coast of England, locals have set up a protest camp near to a factory that has been oiling the global war machine for many years. L3Harris makes bomb release mechanisms for F35 and F16 fighter jets, used by government armies including the Israeli Defence Forces.

Since 15 March, Brighton Peace Camp has been welcoming visitors, hosting everything from storytelling for kids to workshops on topics ranging from local antifascist history to Dabke, a Palestinian folk dance. The camp has also hosted an Iftar/Shabbat meal organized by Brighton and Hove Jews Against the Occupation.

‘We need to take every action in our power to stop the genocide in Gaza,’ said Sarah, from the group Brighton Against the Arms Trade. ‘We need to look at where the weapons are produced and disrupt the production and supply chain. L3Harris in Brighton is a critical part of that.

‘We demand a just transition towards the development of renewables, which must and can start now. Production at the factory must stop immediately and all components must be decommissioned.’

Local people have been campaigning against L3 Harris (formerly EDO MBM Technology Ltd) for decades. The company is now seeking to further solidify its mark on the city by making permanent an extension to its factory that was built in 2018. But thanks to intense opposition from local people, including some members of Parliament and city councillors, Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) has been under pressure not to grant planning permission. Nearly 650 objections were submitted to the application.

The local campaign against the arms factory, StopL3Harris, is asking people to call on their political representatives to join the calls to refuse the planning request. It was due before BHCC’s planning committee in March but was delayed as the Council seeks legal advice. Two out three of the city’s MPs: the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas and Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle have submitted objections. The third MP, Labour representative Peter Kyle, has not.

Brighton is not the only British city where this kind of manufacturing is taking place. CAAT estimates that British industry makes 15 per cent of every F35 combat aircraft that Israel uses in its assault on Gaza. The campaign has mapped UK companies involved in manufacturing components for the F35 and estimates that the value of Britain’s supplies to be worth at least $422 million since 2016. 

EXPORTS TO ISRAEL CAN BE STOPPED

In response to growing pressure, a number of countries have already stopped sending arms to Israel. ‘Denmark and Canada have both recently ruled to halt arms sales to Israel – so why not the UK?’ said Marnie, a Brighton & Hove resident who is taking part in the Peace Camp.

In February, a court of appeal in the Netherlands ordered the Dutch government to stop arms exports to Israel within the F35 programme, stating that it would violate the EU Common Rules for Arms Exports and the UN Arms Trade Treaty.

The UN welcomed the decision and called for arms exports to Israel to ‘stop immediately’, as any transfer of weapons or ammunition that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law.

More than 600 lawyers have also warned the British government that arms exports to Israel risk legal violations. A senior MP for the leading Conservative party has said that the government has kept under wraps advice from its own lawyers that Israel has broken international law.


Too many of our elected representatives seem to be living in a parallel universe, dismissive of international law and apparently unperturbed by the suffering of the Palestinian people.  Yet those of us who support a weapons ban, continue to watch in horror the endless stream of  videos of crying children carrying their dead siblings, images of skeletal children starved to death, and the massacres of civilians and aid workers in the simple act of delivering food.

Cameron should be more than ‘concerned’ about the six children killed each day during the current offensive in Gaza. If our politicians were serious about the humanitarian situation, our politicians would be pushing for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to the blockade of the Gaza strip, and an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Until then, as the money keeps flowing and the bombs keep dropping, we will continue to march, boycott, protest, donate, camp and cry until Palestine is free.

April 13, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C joins Community Interest Company “Passion for Somerset”

MNR Journal, By Jacob Manuschka, AI Assisted Reporter, 11th April

A NUCLEAR power station that will provide zero-carbon electricity has joined a not-for-profit Somerset organisation as a principal partner.

Hinkley Point C, the first in a new generation of nuclear power stations providing electricity for around six million homes, has teamed up with Passion for Somerset.

Passion for Somerset is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company that works with individuals, communities and businesses throughout the county.

Stacy Walker, Hinkley Point C stakeholder relations manager, said: “Britain’s new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C has seen another year of incredible engineering from under the seabed to the top of the world’s largest land-based crane, Big Carl…………………………………  https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/24246032.hinkley-point-c-joins-passion-somerset-organisation/

April 13, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce misses out on government funding for their small nuclear reactors

Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC shares faced a blow as X-energy and Cavendish
Nuclear were awarded £3.34 million from the government to build
mini-nuclear reactors in Hartlepool. These funds will aid X-energy and
Babcock International PLC owned Cavendish’s plans to build 12 mini nuclear
generators, known as small modular reactors, in the County Durham town by
the early 2030s.

Proactive Investor 5th April 2024

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1044518/ora-banda-mining-progresses-riverina-and-sand-king-underground-gold-mines-1044518.html

April 9, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

America’s crazed proxy war on Russia is destroying Ukraine’s economy

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL  7 Apr 24

I’m no economist. But you don’t need to be one to figure out the economic catastrophe the US has imposed on its Trojan Horse Ukraine in its lust to weaken Russia.

Most opponents of this endless US debacle focus on the hundreds of thousands dead Ukrainian soldiers without a single US death to weaken, isolate Russia.

But we should not ignore the economic basket case Uncle Sam has created, essentially degrading life for every Ukrainian not yet killed.

Since goading Russia into invading 26 months ago, Ukraine has ceased to exist as an economically independent nation. Its exports have largely vanished, its imports have exploded. Ukraine has gone from a surplus exporter to a massive importer. That dries up foreign currency making the paying for further imports, even the national debt, increasingly problematic.

Exports plummeted by 17% and 30% respectively in ’22 and ’23. Imports? More than doubled since America’s disastrous, losing proxy war crossed the Red Line to invasion.

Ukraine now spends half its GDP on defense that’s accomplishing nothing but more soldier cemeteries and spiraling economic collapse. Its borrowed over $40 billion in last 2 years, a 200% increase compared to the previous 10 years. Its external debt is now 90% of GDP and heading north to 140% by 2026 according to EU estimates.  

All this could have been avoided had the US realized 33 years ago that the Soviet Union’s demise meant the true end to the Cold War. Now, having turned the Cold War into a Hot War destroying Ukraine, America’s crazed leaders, including most Democrats and Republicans, lust for another $61 billion in weapons that will prolong the flow of red blood and red ink.

And the Big Fool in the White House just says ‘Push on.’ 

April 8, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Dounreay workers vote to strike

Workers at the Dounreay nuclear power complex in Caithness have voted to
strike after long-running pay talks stalled. The GMB union said members at
the plant had overwhelmingly backed industrial action including strikes,
working to rule and an overtime ban. It comes after a pay offer was
rejected. GMB said its vote delivered a “crushing majority” on a
turnout of 85%. Other unions, Unite and Prospect, are also balloting
members.

Press and Journal 4th April 2024

Dounreay workers vote to strike

April 7, 2024 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

The cost of Europe’s new nuclear power plants.

By Paul Messad | Euractiv France, 5 Apr 24

An alliance of 15 pro-nuclear EU member states said the EU needs an additional 50 GW of nuclear power by 2050 to meet energy transition targets, requiring the construction of more than 30 new reactors.

The additional 50 GW of nuclear capacity is estimated to cost between €5 and €11 billion per GW, a range that “shows a great deal of uncertainty and a big difference in the assumptions”, energy economist Professor Jaques Percebois told Euractiv.

Basic assumptions

When costs are expressed in terms of electricity production (measured in kWh, GWh), they take into account the total cost of generating unit of power: investment in construction, operation (day-to-day running, maintenance, etc.) and fuel (loading, life cycle, etc.). This is the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE).

However, estimates often focus on the investment costs required to construct the plant (measured in kW, GW)

“Because it represents around 70% of the cost of a new reactor while operating costs represent only around 15% and fuel costs around 15% of the total amount,” explained Percebois.

Different estimates may include or exclude costs associated with decommissioning plants and treating the waste. Cost figures can also be strongly impacted by assumptions about external factors like future inflation rates………………………………..

Any country wishing to subsidise nuclear plant construction needs to navigate EU State aid rules. A number of member states are also calling for the possibility of dipping into European funds to finance nuclear power, or even to set up new dedicated funds.

Support for financing from publicly-backed banks, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB), can also prove decisive………………………………………………………………………………………………..

More clarity needed

This mix of factors explains the wide variations in cost estimates for new nuclear. However, at some point it will be necessary “to have figures” warns Percebois, if only to estimate funding requirements………….  https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/nucleaire-comment-definir-le-cout-des-futurs-reacteurs-en-europe/

April 6, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Inside Sellafield behind the razor wire gun- toting guards and blast barriers at the toxic nuclear site

 The 700-acre Sellafield complex means different things to different
people. To UK authorities it is a decommissioning hub being used to
spearhead the clean-up of Britain’s early nuclear industry mistakes, made
before the issue of long-term waste disposal was a priority.

In Ireland,
about 180km away, Sellafield is mostly seen as a potential hazard, a byword
for danger. A former reprocessing site for lethal spent nuclear fuel rods,
it was also known for a now-defunct power plant that was tacked on, Calder
Hall, but this was only ever a minor part of it. Reprocessing was the main
activity.

These days, Sellafield is seen as more of a nuclear dump for the
most radioactive material from all over the UK, with work ongoing in a
100-year, £134 billion (€156 billion) decommissioning project.

Yet another view of Sellafield: in the eyes of one nuclear industry source, the
site is a “gravy train” for well-paid staff and big contractors. Sellafield Ltd, the site’s UK state-owned operator whose mission is to make it safe, spends more than £2.5 billion each year on the clean-up strategy. It is also a bustling 24-hour workplace for 11,000 people paid an
average of €91,000 each annually.

The site’s critics, including the UK academic and radioactivity adviser to the Irish State, Dr Paul Dorfman, warn that the nuclear industry tries to dazzle outsiders with glossy public
relations. Sellafield, meanwhile, says it is only trying to be honest and
open about what it does.

The company, which answers to the UK government
through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), confirms that The
Irish Times is the first media outlet from the Republic to be granted
recent access to the site and its inner sanctum, where the most dangerous
nuclear material is handled. Thirty years after U2′s Bono landed on a
nearby beach in a Greenpeace protest, and almost 20 years after the
Republic last tried to sue the UK over its safety risks, its existential
relevance to Ireland remains.

Sellafield hasn’t gone away, you know. The battle to keep it safe goes on.

 Irish Times 30th March 2024

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2024/03/30/inside-sellafield-behind-the-razor-wire-gun-toting-guards-and-blast-barriers-at-the-toxic-nuclear-site/

April 5, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Ireland, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Russia’s state-owned energy company Rosatom is drumming up new nuclear business in Africa

 As the sabre-rattling over possible sanctions against Russia’s nuclear
industry intensifies, the country’s state-owned energy company Rosatom is
busily drumming up new business in Africa.

Last month, speaking at the
African Energy Indaba in Cape Town, Rosatom’s chief executive for central
and southern Africa, Ryan Collyer, urged the continent’s most
industrialised country, South Africa, to press go on its nuclear programme
to ensure “stable, affordable and environmentally friendly” power. It
was a message that resonated with South Africa’s energy minister Gwede
Mantashe, who said the country, which has been battling electricity
blackouts for the past 16 years, expects nuclear energy to be part of the
fix.

“The proposal to develop 2,500MW of nuclear power is not a dream —
there’s already an agreement, and the procurement capacity is being
worked on. We’re going to be investing in that capacity,” he told the
conference. While nuclear power provides about 10 per cent of electricity
generated globally, according to the Paris-based International Energy
Agency, the Koeberg plant in Cape Town is the only nuclear power station on
the African continent. Yet a number of African countries have announced
plans to build nuclear power plants in the past year — including Uganda,
Rwanda and Kenya.

 FT 2nd April 2024

https://www.ft.com/content/4f1d0d1d-3a98-4b03-8771-54d88ed0a023

April 4, 2024 Posted by | AFRICA, business and costs, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

United Arab Emirates in talks to invest in European nuclear power infrastructure

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is exploring opportunities to invest in
nuclear power infrastructure across Europe, including in Britain, Reuters
has reported.

The state-owned Emirates Nuclear Energy Company (ENEC) is
considering becoming a minority investor in several nuclear power assets.
ENEC, which is owned by Abu Dhabi’s investment fund, the Abu Dhabi
Developmental Holding Company, has ambitions to expand its international
footprint by acquiring minority stakes in nuclear projects.

The company has
been in discussions to invest in the UK, specifically in the Sizewell C
nuclear project, which is currently seeking additional private investment
following the exit of a Chinese investor. Alongside Saudi Arabia, the UAE
is looking to diversify its economy beyond oil, while Britain is actively
seeking private investment to support its nuclear energy ambitions.

 Power Technology 2nd April 2024

https://www.power-technology.com/news/uae-invest-european-nuclear-infrastructure

April 4, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

United Arab Emirates signals interest in European nuclear energy investments, sources say

ENEC has ambitions of becoming an international nuclear energy company holding minority stakes in nuclear power infrastructure of other nations, without managing or operating them.

A lack of investment, cost overruns and delays have also plagued recent projects.

It could also face political opposition to an investment in such a sensitive area.

29/03/2024 , By Alexander Cornwell and Maha El Dahan,  https://uk.investing.com/news/commodities-news/uae-signals-interest-in-european-nuclear-energy-investments-sources-say-3408307

DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates has approached European nations including Britain to gauge their interest in the Middle Eastern state investing in their nuclear power infrastructure, according to three sources familiar with the talks.

As part of its outreach, the UAE has discussed the idea of state-owned Emirates Nuclear Energy Company (ENEC) becoming a minority investor in European nuclear power assets, the sources said. They requested anonymity because the discussions are private.

ENEC has ambitions of becoming an international nuclear energy company holding minority stakes in nuclear power infrastructure of other nations, without managing or operating them, the sources told Reuters.

ENEC, owned by Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, has been holding talks to invest in the United Kingdom, the sources who have been briefed on the discussions added, without elaborating. Cash-rich oil producers United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are seeking to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, Britain is looking for additional private investment in the Sizewell C large-scale nuclear project being built by French energy giant EDF (EPA:EDF) in southeast England after buying out a China backer.

The UAE and Britain in December signed a so-called memorandum of understanding on civil nuclear cooperation at the U.N. climate summit in Dubai, where more than 20 countries agreed a pledge to treble nuclear capacity by 2050.

“Sizewell C is a crucial part of the UK’s agenda for new nuclear power, which is central to our plans for achieving a low cost, clean and secure electricity system,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told Reuters.

“The commercial structure of the project is subject to ongoing development and commercially sensitive discussions,” the spokesperson said, adding they could not comment further.

As part of “international growth and investment plans, ENEC is working with a multitude of partners to explore collaboration opportunities in both new civil nuclear projects and civil nuclear technologies and related clean energy technologies such as clean hydrogen,” ENEC said in a statement to Reuters.

EDF declined to comment.

The UK and EDF are ‘on track’ to raise 20 billion pounds ($25.2 billion) for Sizewell C by end of year, a UK energy security minister told the Financial Times in January, without naming the investors. UK ministers have been lining up Abu Dhabi investors for Sizewell C, the Times of London reported last year.

The sources told Reuters that, among the proposals, ENEC could also be a partner in the development of new nuclear energy infrastructure in European countries given its relatively recent experience in building a facility.

ENEC oversaw the construction of the UAE’s sole nuclear power plant, which was constructed in Abu Dhabi by Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), and started commercial operations in 2021.

Several European countries are pushing to expand nuclear – a low-carbon energy source – in an effort to meet ambitious climate goals and develop alternatives to Russian energy supplies.

But European Union states are divided over nuclear energy use, which fell out of favour over safety concerns following Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011.

A lack of investment, cost overruns and delays have also plagued recent projects.

ENEC’s backing by a wealthy Gulf state could potentially help overcome investment challenges. However, it could also face political opposition to an investment in such a sensitive area.

Emirati state investments have recently raised concerns in Britain, which has blocked a state-linked acquisition of prominent conservative newspaper the Telegraph.

Britain’s government also determined that a recent investment by UAE state-linked telecommunications company E& posed national security concerns, although approved the deal.

($1 = 0.7925 pounds)

April 2, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

UK’s ever more expensive nuclear submarines will torpedo spending plans for years to come.

Jasper Jolly and Alex Lawson,  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/31/uks-ever-more-expensive-nuclear-submarines-will-torpedo-spending-plans-for-years-to-come

Whoever wins the next election, a reckoning is overdue on the costs of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

When Rishi Sunak visited Barrow-in-Furness on Monday he said the Cumbrian town was “mission critical for our country” because of its role building four new nuclear submarines to carry the UK’s nuclear weapons. If you believe Sunak’s erstwhile ally, Dominic Cummings, then that mission faces serious problems.

Cummings, once Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, said this month – in characteristically aggressive terms – that spiralling costs were making a mockery of the government’s budget plans. He wrote on X: “the nuclear enterprise is so fkd [sic] it’s further cannibalising the broken budgets and will for decades because it’s been highly classified to avoid MPs thinking about it.”

But the scale of the issue makes it hard to ignore. The government re­iterated last week that the four new Dreadnought class submarines would cost £31bn plus a £10bn “contingency”. But the Nuclear Information Service (NIS), a monitoring group, said in 2019 that the full cost of the nuclear weapons programme between 2019 and 2070 could be £172bn, when including new warheads and running costs.

Costs are also increasing rapidly, as the government has prioritised replacing the existing Vanguard submarines on time rather than on budget. (The Vanguard boats launch Trident nuclear missiles – like the one that crashed into the sea during a test last month.)

The Ministry of Defence puts the cost of the programme to replace the UK’s nuclear weapons at £118bn over the next decade. That is already £8bn more than the Treasury has forecast, suggesting something may have to give elsewhere.

The National Audit Office, a government watchdog, found in December that forecasts of costs of the MoD’s Defence Nuclear Organisation had risen by £38.2bn in the past year.

However it is counted, hugely costly delays and overruns, plus inflation, mean a reckoning is overdue on the costs of Britain’s nuclear submarines.

“They don’t have very many good options,” said David Cullen, director of the NIS. He said the problems appeared so intractable that it could affect the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrence – the longstanding policy of always having a nuclear-armed submarine gliding silently under the waves in case of attack.

“It would be much better for them to make a conscious decision to stop having constant patrols, rather than having it forced on them,” he said.

Nuclear submarines are among the most complicated machines ever built. They sustain 132 humans deep beneath the oceans,  needing to surface only when its crew runs out of food – or runs out of patience during months without daylight.

The Labour party, eyeing power in an imminent election, has a decision over whether to confront the problem head-on – and add billions to already constrained budgets – or to continue with the sticking-plaster approach.

One thing Labour has said it will not do – to the chagrin of campaigners particularly aligned with the left of the party – is accept the UK’s diminished role in world affairs by scrapping the nuclear deterrent. David Lammy and John Healey, shadow foreign secretary and defence secretary respectively, wrote in September that “with Keir Starmer, our commitment to Nato and the UK’s nuclear deterrent – maintained on behalf of Nato allies – is unshakeable”.

Some in the defence industry believe Labour could, if elected, choose to launch an inquiry into the entire nuclear defence enterprise – which might allow it to blame the current government and help ease the blow from a big hit to its budget. However, a Labour source said the lack of visibility into classified plans meant it was not yet able to work out a detailed strategy.

One way to help government finances might be to share costs. Under the new – and increasingly controversial – Aukus alliance, Australia will receive nuclear weapons technology from the UK (with the blessing of the US, which originally bestowed the city-destroying abilities on Britain).

The Aukus programme is split into two “pillars”. Pillar one is centred on helping Australia acquire conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. The second part is more techy, focusing on speeding up cooperation of specific technologies – including artificial intelligence, cyber work, quantum computing and hypersonic weapons.)

In 2022, the second pillar of the pact was extended to allow the trilateral partners to develop hypersonic weapons in response to Russia’s use of the deadly high-speed missiles in airstrikes in Ukraine.

The French defence giant Thales, a supplier of sonar and light-sensing masts, is expected to pick up work as the “eyes and ears” of the submarines. Its UK boss, Alex Cresswell, told the Observer: “Pillar one of Aukus is a once-in-a-generation event that is extremely significant for the industry as a whole. I recruit graduates on the basis of it.”

Cresswell adds: “The rate of the submarine part is being driven by the design work on the submarine after Dreadnought … that early design work is being placed now and we’re involved in it.”


Yet it is unlikely that Aukus will help to fill the Dreadnought black hole. Immediate manufacturing problems appear to be the problem there, which will not be helped by the promise of future work for submarines built after Dreadnought, according to NIS’s Cullen.

Meg Hillier, a Labour MP who heads the public accounts committee, said that budgets have been blown because of the government’s “stop/start approach to defence procurement” and “a lot of optimism bias” in plans. She said the nuclear submarine budget is one of the “big nasties” lying in wait for a future government. It is an ominous threat lurking under the surface for the next prime minister.

April 1, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

TODAY. The nuclear lobby’s new “prime wheeze” – Community Interest Companies

The UK, famous for comedy, had a great character, Bertie Wooster, who kept thinking up wonderful (useless and silly) new ideas, that he called “Prime Wheezes”. In true Bertie Wooster tradition, the nuclear lobby does the same.

They usually go for “registered charities” – and there’s any number of these, that the industry creates, really nuclear front groups, that pose as genuinely working for the public good.

So why is the nuclear lobby now going for the non-profit Community Interest Companies (CICs)?

Some of the reasons:

  •  The nuclear industry can get approval and respectability,  “piggy-back” on a lot of genuinely positive and popular businesses in an existing CIC.
  •   The CIC business model can incorporate a wider range of social aims than are allowed for charities. This is because the definition of community interest within the test applied to a CIC is broader than the Public Benefit Test for charities. 
  • easier to set up than is a charity..   
  •  murkiness of funding – relatively easy from private donors, grants or community development finance  
  • can more easily buy and sell commercially.  
  •   It is a lightweight structure, it is unencumbered by bureaucracy. It can be set up in a couple of days
  • it  is  like a standard profit-making company then, but with social objectives supposedly built in.   
  • it avoids the accountability mechanisms that charities have, e.g a CIC can have just one director. It does have a (poorly funded) government regulator, Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies, but  there appears to be no pro-active monitoring of whether CICs are operating for community benefit.
  •  Directors and functioning can change overtime, not encumbered by  rules that ensure its social aims. The directors of a CIC can pay themselves whatever they can argue could reasonably be seen as necessary. 
  • any money in the organisation can very easily be siphoned out to profit-making enterprises. 
  • No legal requirement to have a democratic structure   

In Somerset UK, where there is community anxiety about the development of Hinkley Point C nuclear station, and its effect on the environment – what better prime wheeze for the nuclear lobby, than to join an existing reputable Community Interest Company?

Hinkley Point C, has teamed up with the CIC Passion for Somerset. as a principal partner.

April 1, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Christina's notes, spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

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