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Britain’s electricity needs for winter cannot depend on France’s unreliable nuclear power

Dave Toke: Oliver Wright writes that National Grid planning “assumes that Britain will be able to import 5.7GW of electricity via interconnectors, including from France” (“Ministers vow to keep lights
on as winter power squeeze looms”, Aug 9).

However, the French electricity system is in crisis owing to the fact that about half of France’s nuclear power station fleet is offline because of corrosion and other problems. Ageing reactors need urgent repair. There seems little prospect that these problems will be fully resolved by this winter.

Indeed these problems are exacerbating European power problems, already severe because of the war in Ukraine. Apart from the fact that this causes potentially serious issues for the UK, it emphasises that nuclear power is by no means as reliable as may otherwise be assumed.

 Times 10th Aug 2022

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-conserving-energy-and-saving-money-wjrh0kcxn

August 9, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

President Biden’s new weapons package for Ukraine is the largest one yet, Pentagon says

President Biden has sent $9.8 billion in security aid to Ukraine since entering office, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-bidens-new-weapons-package-ukraine-largest-yet-pentagon By Anders Hagstrom | Fox News 10 Aug 22

The Pentagon unveiled its latest $1 billion weapons package to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion on Monday.

The Department of Defense says the massive delivery is the largest weapons package the U.S. has sent to Ukraine under President Joe Biden’s administration. The U.S. has sent a total of $9.8 billion in security assistance for Ukraine since Biden gained office, far eclipsing the $2 billion the U.S. sent between 2014 and 2021.

“To meet Ukraine’s evolving battlefield requirements, the United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities calibrated to make a difference,” the Pentagon wrote in a statement.

August 9, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Only 30% of the Weapons Are Even Making it to the Frontlines

all the people with their snouts in the trough are stealing billions of dollars of Western tax money.

the attention of the spook agencies, the politicians and the media will zero in on where there is the most money to be made stealing from the public coffers. Is there money to be made sending money to Taiwan for defense against China and stealing 70% of it with the help of local corrupt officials?

the attention of the spook agencies, the politicians and the media will zero in on where there is the most money to be made stealing from the public coffers. Is there money to be made sending money to Taiwan for defense against China and stealing 70% of it with the help of local corrupt officials?


 https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/only-30-of-the-weapons-are-even-making Rolo Slavskiy 8 Aug 22,

The new CBS documentary “arming Ukraine”, explores why much of the billions of dollars of military aid that the US is sending to Ukraine doesn’t make it to the front lines.

We talked about the topic of arms deliveries on the blog before.

There is a constant stream of videos coming out on Telegram of Ukrainian troops complaining that they have no weapons or have inferior weapons and that wages are going unpaid.

We were left with a dilemma last time: how do we square this with the information we have about billions of dollars being sent to arm the Ukrainian army?

Well, now we have yet more proof that indicates that the money is being stolen and the weapons being resold somewhere else.

Andrew Anglin thinks that the money could be being sent to arm terrorists in Europe.

He might be right and I’ve entertained similar ideas.

The key takeaway here for us though is that the West + Ukraine is too corrupt to fight an honest war against a peer or near-peer opponent. Stealing 70% of a war arsenal paid for by the Western taxpayers is a level of graft that makes winning wars impossible. I wrote an article musing that this war is bleeding the West dry and wondering whether or not the West was getting enough bang for its buck (dead slavs) for the obscene amounts of money they were spending and the damage that they were inflicting on their own countries with the sanctions

But a lot more money appears to be unaccounted for, or at least, not being put to use for the purpose that it was supposedly allocated for. It would be interesting to see an analysis, any analysis really, of the funds and the weapons to see where they actually ended up. More and more though, it seems that we have an Afghanistan 2.0 on our hands where Western taxpayer money is sent over in crate-loads, but very little of it actually seems to go towards either the war effort or state-construction or anything related to the supposed mission objectives.

I left the questions somewhat in the air then, but I’m going to have to revise that analysis now.

Put simply: the war is indeed bleeding the West dry.

Ukraine was supposed to be a quagmire for Russia, but it appears that it has become a quagmire for the West instead. The West, could, in theory, pull out of the Ukraine, which Russia cannot do, but the political will has to be there for that. The spook agencies are making a lot of money on this, as are their friends in the military industrial complex and the politicians and oligarchs who now have access to the Ukraine weapon slush fund. The media has whipped up a moral panic over Ukraine, making it difficult for the peasants to voice opposition to it, providing cover for the looting operation. Why the Deep State would put down this cash cow when the milk is flowing so abundantly is beyond me. There are no adults who care about balanced budgets and the national interests of Western states anymore. It’s all just non-stop looting and graft.

Ukraine, however, does appear to be fading out of the news cycle at the time of this writing. Zelensky’s view count is way down, as an example. He released a video a day ago about the Russians trying to cause a Chernobyl by firing at a nuclear plant that has only gathered 8500 Western audience views at the time of this writing:

This all indicates to me that the Western public is losing its enthusiasm and interest in this war and that perhaps the Ukraine psy-op won’t be renewed for another season.

So, on the one hand, ..They’re also damaging Russia, their Authoritarian mortal enemy. All opposition to this war has effectively become banned. All this seems to indicate that the West will continue its Ukraine operation.

On the other hand, enthusiasm and interest has dwindled to a trickle. I see this reflected in my own articles and other Russia bloggers’, as people are no doubt talking about monkeypox and COVID and the midterms and other topics now. Furthermore, the Pelosi stunt in Taiwan put the spotlight on China again.

I don’t know what to make of it all, but my gut instinct tells me that the attention of the spook agencies, the politicians and the media will zero in on where there is the most money to be made stealing from the public coffers. Is there money to be made sending money to Taiwan for defense against China and stealing 70% of it with the help of local corrupt officials? Sure.

But, Ukraine is quite unique in its ability to achieve new heights of excellence and innovation in the field of organized graft. The entire spook apparatus, government and military is completely committed to looting as much as possible and the West would be sad to see such a lucrative money-laundering operation go under.

Russia would no doubt liked to have knocked out Ukraine in the early days of the war with its push on Kiev and prepared covert operation, but, despite that failure, the unexpected runner-up prize of bleeding the West dry is starting to look quite good as well.

August 6, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, spinbuster, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Why investors should be wary of small nuclear reactors

NuScale has some big challenges.

NuScale announced that completion of the project would be delayed by three years to 2030 and estimated the cost had climbed from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion. This is a familiar old song in the nuclear energy sector: Big schedule delays and big cost-overruns.

M. V. Ramana, a physicist at the University of British Columbia who works on public policy was not surprised that so many utilities backed-out of the project. “They (utility companies) ought to be seeing the writing on the wall and getting out by the dozens.”

at least one study says that small nuclear power plants will generate more waste than conventional reactors.

NuScale: Finally Time For Small Module Nuclear Reactors?

Summary

  • Small module nuclear reactors have been discussed and researched for decades – going back to at least my college engineering days in the 1970s.
  • Yet for a variety of reasons, small module reactors (“SMR”) have never become a reality.
  • NuScale Power wants to change that and at the present time, the company appears to be the planet’s best chance to do so.
  • Today I’ll discuss my sense of NuScale’s chances of success and whether or not the stock is a good fit for an investor’s “speculative growth” bucket.

…………………………………………. My sense is that many of NuScale’s potential utility customers are waiting for – what I consider to be the “proof-of-concept” plant – to be built in Idaho.

Valuation

After a big jump in the stock price in July, NuScale currently has a $3.3 billion market cap (and a 13.7% short position):

……………… In June, NuScale gave a financial update re-affirming guidance for (only) $16 million in FY22 revenue. For the three-month period ending March 31, 2022, the company reported:

  • Total available capital was $383.7 million.
  • Revenue of $2.4 million and a net loss of $(23.4) million compared to revenue of $0.7 million and a net loss of $(22.7) million for the same period in 2021.
  • Research and development expenses of $24.4 million compared to $18.8 million for the same period in 2021.

Clearly the company is burning cash. However, even if the cash burn grew to, say, $30 million per quarter, the available capital would last more than three years.

Risks

However, NuScale has some big challenges. Back in 2020, several utility companies within the UAMPS group backed-out of the deal to build the first NuScale SMR power plant. Even with the infusion of U.S. federal dollars, NuScale announced that completion of the project would be delayed by three years to 2030 and estimated the cost had climbed from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion. This is a familiar old song in the nuclear energy sector: Big schedule delays and big cost-overruns. It was a big-blow: After all, the whole idea behind a small scale modular nuclear plant was to reduce the risk of both schedule and expense.

According to the previously reference source, critics of the project said it will be “untenably expensive.” M. V. Ramana, a physicist at the University of British Columbia who works on public policy was not surprised that so many utilities backed-out of the project. “They (utility companies) ought to be seeing the writing on the wall and getting out by the dozens.”

The Department of Energy (“DOE”) previously agreed to $1.4 billion in funding for the project. However, as I reported above, the cost estimate for the project now is $6.1 billion. That’s a big gap in funding. Further, at that price, investors need to question whether or not renewable solar and wind capacity would be better back-stopped by battery backup, and more wind and solar capacity additions, as opposed to an SMR.

Meantime, I personally would be much more supportive of the effort if NuScale had a partnership of some sort, or at least a well publicized plan, to re-process or store spent radioactive fuel. That’s especially the case given that at least one study says that small nuclear power plants will generate more waste than conventional reactors. The report said SMRs would create up to 30x more radioactive waste per unit of electricity generated as compared to conventional reactors. According to Reuters, Lindsay Krall – the study’s lead author – said:

Even if (the U.S.) had a robust waste management program, we think there would be a lot of challenges to deal with some of the SMR waste.

The study said NuScale’s reactor would produce ~1.7x more waste per energy equivalent than traditional reactors. NuScale countered that the study used “outdated design information and incorrect assumptions about the plants.”

Summary and Conclusions

In theory, small module nuclear reactors sound like a great idea. And they have been sounding like a great idea for decades. Yet despite all the technology available to man, and the pressing threat of global warming, no small module nuclear reactor has yet to be built in the United States. And that should tell the investor something.  https://seekingalpha.com/article/4530416-nuscale-time-for-small-module-nuclear-reacto

August 5, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

US regulators approve small nuclear reactors – BUT – costs, delays, too late for climate help

The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved by US Regulators, Singularity Hub, By Edd Gent-August 5, 2022

…………………………………… questions have been raised about whether SMRs will really live up to their billing as a cheaper, safer alternative to traditional nuclear power plants. A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May found that contrary to the claims of SMR makers, these smaller reactors are actually likely to produce more radioactive waste than conventional plants.

In an article in Counterpunch, nuclear power expert M.V. Ramana also points out that the cost of renewable energy like wind and solar is already lower than that of nuclear, and continuing to fall rapidly. In contrast, nuclear power has actually become more expensive over the years.

SMRs could cost more than bigger nuclear plants, he adds, because they don’t have the same economy of scale. In theory this could be offset through mass manufacture, but only if companies receive orders in the hundreds. Tellingly, some utilities have already backed out of NuScale’s first project over cost concerns.

Perhaps even more importantly, notes Ramana, SMRs are unlikely to be ready in time to contribute to the climate fight. Projects aren’t expected to come online until the end of the decade, by which time the IPCC says we already need to have made drastic emissions reductions.

The technology has some powerful boosters though, not least President Joe Biden, who recently touted NuScale’s “groundbreaking American technology” while announcing a grant for an SMR plant the company will build in Romania. Engineering giant Rolls-Royce also recently announced a shortlist for the location of its future SMR factory, which will be used to build 16 SMRs for the UK government by 2050.

Whether SMRs can deliver on their promise remains to be seen, but given the scope of the climate challenge facing us, exploring all available options seems wise. https://singularityhub.com/2022/08/05/the-first-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-design-was-just-approved-by-us-regulators/

August 5, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, climate change, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear energy for Colorado? The cost is one very big obstacle

Post Independent, Allen Best 6 Aug 22, A nuclear reactor might be a nice addition to the economy of Craig, the community in northwestern Colorado. But can Colorado afford nuclear power?

……………….Sen. Bob Rankin in the last legislative session tried to get fellow legislators to appropriate $500,000 (amended to $250,000) to study the potential for nuclear.

…………Conspicuously absent was support from the administration of Gov. Jared Polis. The bill failed 3-2 on a party-line vote.

Nuclear has a nagging problem, though. It’s expensive. Advocates rarely mention this. Costs of Georgia’s Plant Vogtle, the only U.S. nuclear power plant under construction, have ballooned from $14 billion to now $30 billion-plus. In South Carolina, investors pulled the plug on a nuclear power plant after spending $9 billion. It has become among the very costliest of energy sources, only slightly less than rooftop solar, according to Lazard, the financial analyst.

Modular nuclear reactors have been promoted as a way to shave costs. Specific projects have been conceived in both Idaho and Wyoming. Bill Gates is an investor in the latter. Maybe they will overcome this cost problem. We won’t really know for another 10, maybe 15 years.

State Sen. Chris Hansen remains skeptical. He has expertise unsurpassed among legislators. He set out to become a nuclear engineer after first laying eyes on a reactor when a high school junior from the farm country of Kansas. He got his degree but had already turned his attention to economics. He went on to earn degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, from Oxford, a Ph.D. in resource economics.

Nuclear, he told a county commissioner from Sterling in 2019, when I first heard him answer this question, simply does not compete in cost. Last week, when we talked, he offered more detail.

“I think those technologies will have to prove themselves,” he said of modular nuclear reactors. “Right now, in the best-case scenario it looks like they will deliver electricity at $60 to $70 per megawatt-hour. Wind and solar are coming in at less than $20.”

……….. Hansen suggests that reliability [of rennewables] may more economically be provided by less expensive alternatives. For example, he has pushed transmission and passed legislation to create organized markets that will allow electricity to be moved across broader geographic areas in response to consumer demands. Colorado is currently an island with limited bridges to other areas…………  https://www.postindependent.com/opinion/allen-best-nuclear-energy-has-obstacles-too/

August 5, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

Nuclear conditioning

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

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

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

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

High anxiety as Japan takes another step toward releasing wastewater from crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into sea.

China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) still have import bans in place.

concern about whether the discharge of enormous amounts of wastewater could set a bad precedent for dealing with future nuclear accidents.

CBS News BY LUCY CRAFT, 25 July 22, Tokyo — The fishing industry around Japan’s Fukushima coast expressed disappointment and resignation over the weekend as long-expected plans to start releasing treated wastewater into the ocean from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant moved one step closer to reality. The drastic measure has been adopted as the only practical way out of a dilemma that’s plagued the damaged plant for more than a decade……………………..

The unprecedented, controversial disposal operation is likely to take decades.

Since the massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns in three of the plant’s reactors, operator Tepco has struggled to manage the vast amount of contaminated water — a combination of reactor cooling water, rainwater and groundwater, all irradiated as it flows through the highly-radioactive melted reactor cores – accumulating at the facility.

As a stopgap, the grounds surrounding the damaged reactors have been converted into a giant tank farm, with more than 1,000 storage vessels holding 1,310,000 tons of wastewater.

Tepco has long warned that it will run out of storage space as soon as spring 2023, and that the structures are hampering the technologically challenging work of decommissioning the plant. The temporary storage solution is also highly vulnerable to any future natural disasters……………

Before construction of the undersea tunnel can even begin, however, Tepco’s proposal must win backing from the regional government in Fukushima Prefecture and the two affected towns of Okuma and Futaba. A Fukushima fish processing company representative told the Asahi newspaper, “to be honest, even if we oppose this, I don’t feel like we have any chance of overturning the decision.”

After years of painstaking efforts to convince the Japanese public and the rest of the world that their seafood is safe, the local fishing industry fears the ocean release will tarnish their brand anew. Tokyo has promised to buy catches if the industry suffers reputational damage.

Of the 55 countries and regions that imposed restrictions on imported Japanese food after the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe — including the U.S. — five (China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) still have import bans in place.

Regulators solicited public comment and said they had received more than 1,200 responses, including people voicing concern over whether the undersea tunnel would be earthquake-safe, and what was being done to protect workers.

Tokyo has said levels of tritium — the one isotope that can’t be filtered out — will be diluted to below 1/40th of the allowable level for discharge in Japan, and 1/7th the WHO ceiling for drinking water.

Still, some experts have called for greater transparency, fearing unintended consequences of the operation. There is also concern about whether the discharge of enormous amounts of wastewater could set a bad precedent for dealing with future nuclear accidents.  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japan-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant-wastewater-release-into-sea-approved/

July 25, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Fukushima continuing, oceans | Leave a comment

Nuclear giant EDF and waste company Veolia continue to do business with Russia – the nuclear industry gets uranium from Russia, and sends wastes there.

 Two utility giants raking in billions from British customers are STILL doing business with Russia — five months after Vladimir Putin ‘s forces invaded Ukraine.

Energy supplier EDF and waste firm Veolia have been accused of indirectly funding the war. Despite the death of 5,000 civilians, EDF Group’s contracts include a deal to source uranium from state-run nuclear power giant Rosatom. And Veolia – like EDF, French-owned – has a number of lucrative heating and waste supply contracts. Both firms insist they comply with international sanctions and that their activities are to provide essential public services.

But critics believe they should cut all ties immediately. Lib Dem energy spokesperson Wera Hobhouse said: “EDF should do the right thing by ending their business with brutal dictator Putin.”

 Mirror 23rd July 2022

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/two-energy-firms-earning-billions-27560187

July 25, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics international | Leave a comment

MidAmerican shouldn’t waste money studying small nuclear reactors

Small modular reactors and nuclear power represent a dangerous distraction from the changes needed to deal with global warming.  https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2022/07/24/midamerican-energy-small-nuclear-reactors-uneconomical/10104142002/ Dr. Maureen McCue and Dr. M.V. Ramana, Yet again, MidAmerican Energy has expressed an interest in studying nuclear reactors for Iowa. Earlier, between 2010 and 2013, MidAmerican studied the feasibility of nuclear power for Iowa and concluded that it didn’t make sense. This time around, MidAmerican does not even have to embark on the study. We know already that the newest offerings from the nuclear industry, Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs, carry the same economic and environmental risks as their larger predecessors and make no sense for Iowa, or anywhere else for that matter.

In 2013, the Wall Street firm Lazard estimated that the cost of generating electricity at a new nuclear plant in the United States will be between $86 and $122 per megawatt-hour. Last November, Lazard estimated that the corresponding cost will be between $131 and $204 per megawatt-hour. During the same eight years, renewables have plummeted in cost, and the 2021 estimates of electricity from newly constructed utility-scale solar and wind plants range between $26 and $50 per megawatt-hour. Nuclear power is simply not economically competitive. 

SMRs will be even less competitive. Building and operating SMRs will cost more than large reactors for each unit (megawatt) of generation capacity. A reactor that generates five times as much power will not require five times as much concrete or five times as many workers. This makes electricity from small reactors more expensive; many small reactors built in the United States were financially uncompetitive and shut down early. 

The estimated cost of constructing a plant with 600 megawatts of electricity from NuScale SMRs, arguably the design closest to deployment in the United States, increased from about $3 billion in 2014 to $6.1 billion in 2020. The cost was so high that at least ten members of Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems canceled their contracts. NuScale then changed its proposed plant configuration to fewer reactors that produce only 462 megawatts at a cost of $5.32 billion. For each kilowatt of electrical generation capacity, that estimate is around 80% more than the per-kilowatt cost of the Vogtle project in Georgia — before its cost exploded from $14 billion to over $30 billion. Based on the historical experience with nuclear reactor construction, SMRs are very likely to cost much more than initially expected. 

And they will be delayed. In 2008, officials announced that “a NuScale plant could be producing electricity by 2015-16.” Currently, the Utah project is projected to start operating in 2029-30. All this before the inevitable setbacks that will occur once construction starts.

Time is critical to dealing with global warming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emissions have to be reduced drastically by 2030 to stop irreversible damage from climate change. 

Small reactors also are associated with all of the usual problems with nuclear power: severe accidents, the production of radioactive waste, and the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. Indeed, some of these problems could be worse. For each unit of electricity generated, SMRs will actually produce more nuclear waste than large reactors. Whether generated by a large or small plant, nuclear waste remains radioactive and dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no demonstrated solution to permanently isolate this lethal waste, for both technical and social reasons. 

Most new nuclear reactor designs will rely on water sources for cooling. Nuclear plants have some of the highest water withdrawal requirements; in the United States, the median value for water withdrawal was calculated as 44,350 gallons per megawatt-hour of electricity generated, roughly four times the corresponding figure for a combined cycle natural gas plant. Renewables require little or no water because there is no heat production. Iowa’s lakes and rivers are already challenged by the warming climate, existing power plants, and polluting industries.

In medicine, a basic principle used to guide our decisions is “first, do no harm.” That principle will be violated if Iowa embarks on building SMRs. Small modular reactors and nuclear power represent a dangerous distraction from the changes needed to deal with global warming. Investing in these technologies will divert money away from more sustainable and rapidly constructed solutions, including wind and solar energy, microgrids, batteries and other forms of energy storage, and energy-efficient devices.  

July 22, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Money Pit: Zelensky govt signals intent to default on tens of billions in foreign debts

Despite countless billions flooding into Ukraine, Kiev can’t pay its debts.

Jordan Schachtel Jul 21, 22, The Dossier, Western governments have allocated well over $100 billion to prop up Ukraine in its war against Russia, with countless billions more flooding into the country at an increasing pace. Yet as each day passes, it’s becoming more and more clear that all of the money awarded and assigned to Ukraine continues to dissolve into a black hole of secrecy, corruption, deceit, and now, default.

On Wednesday, Ukraine finance ministry asked foreign creditors to accept a delay in its debt repayments, requesting a two year freeze on billions of dollars in Eurobonds. Per the Financial Times, “a rescheduling would amount to a Ukrainian default” on Kiev’s tens of billions in foreign debt.

Financial Times @FinancialTimes: Although western financial support has increased since May, Kyiv is still counting on Ukraine’s central bank to buy its debt by selling foreign reserves or printing money, at the risk of setting off an inflationary spiral.

….. Despite all of the money coming in from around the world, Ukraine’s budget deficit has spiraled out of control. Zelensky’s office now claims to have a $9 billion monthly budget deficit, up 80% from just last month.

……………………. In addition to the government as a whole, Ukraine’s state-owned infrastructure and national energy companies have also announced their intent to default on international bonds. Earlier this week, Kiev announced that it has sold some $12+ billion in gold reserves since the start of the war.

The Western government creditors of Ukraine released a joint statement in support of Ukraine’s debt freeze, adding that they “will continue to closely coordinate and assess the situation with the support of the IMF and the World Bank.”

Translation: Western governments will continue to print huge amounts of cash and launch it in the direction of the Ukraine operation. …….  https://dossier.substack.com/p/money-pit-zelensky-govt-signals-intent

July 22, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine | Leave a comment

EDF worried that its delays in building Hinkley Point C nuclear station might lessen the huge subsidies it gets from the UK government

 EDF pushes UK government to alter Hinkley Point C penalty clauses. EDF is trying to alter a key subsidy contract to avoid missing out on trillions of pounds in guaranteed revenue after the Covid-19 pandemic caused further delays to Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station under construction in the UK in almost 30 years.

The French utility is in negotiations with the British government over penalty clauses in a
controversial agreement struck in 2013 to finance the building of the plant in Somerset.

EDF started work on the 3.2 gigawatt plant in 2016 but has repeatedly pushed back its completion date while costs have spiraled. In the latest setback, EDF warned in May that the first of Hinkley’s two reactors would not be completed until June 2027, 18 months behind schedule. It attributed 12 months of the delay to Covid-related problems, when it had to reduce staff on site from 5,000 to 1,500.

But the company cautioned that there was the possibility of a further 15-month delay to September 2028,
adding that date could slip again if there was another wave of pandemic or there were knock-on effects from the war in Ukraine.

Penalty clauses in the subsidy agreement — which guarantees a price that is more than double
those offered to developers of rival technologies such as offshore wind — would reduce the 35-year term if Hinkley is not generating electricity by May 2029.

EDF would lose one year of guaranteed payments for every year of delay up to 2033. If the delays extended beyond that date the government has the option to terminate the subsidy contract. EDF has already pushed the construction budget of Hinkley up several times with the revision in May raising the total cost by a further £3bn to as much as £26bn in 2015 prices, compared to an estimate of £18bn in 2016. Crooks said about a third of May’s revision to the budget was Covid-related. About £500mn was down to performance being “less than we would expect”, he added. The other cost overruns were due to issues such as completion of some of the outstanding design work and a failure to accurately estimate the quantities of materials, such as the number of bolts needed, to complete the build.

 FT 21st July 2022

https://www.ft.com/content/cb715de2-1c95-4a13-8b48-33717b1dcc44

July 22, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

US Military Analyst: West Can’t Afford Ukraine Spending, Will Run Out of Ammo to Send to Kiev

Sputnik News 22 July 22…………………….What goals are the US and EU pursuing by pouring more money into the Ukrainian military?

Scott Ritter: The hope is to transform the conflict that is ongoing in Ukraine as a result of the Russian special military operation into a protracted conflict that can lead to a stalemate that would result in significant Russian costs, both in terms of manpower and military equipment, but also financial costs, and thereby weaken Russia. Ultimately what they are visualizing would be a Ukraine strong enough to evict Russia from its borders.

It’s not possible, this is fantasy in the extreme, but it’s politically inspired fantasy, meaning that the United States and its European allies have invested so much political capital into propping up the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian economy that even though most sound analysts understand that not only is Ukraine losing the conflict, but they can never win the conflict. Politically, Western politicians cannot divorce themselves from these policies. So in order to maintain a public perception at home of the chance of a Ukrainian victory, they will continue to squander the wealth of their respective nations.

Why are Western states prolonging the hostilities despite the growing discontent of their populations with economic problems?

Scott Ritter: There’s an old saying in the United States that I believe translates into most politics: “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” And right now, these politicians would have to explain to their constituents why they were wrong about Ukraine, why they were wrong about Russia. And especially here in the United States, we’re dealing with the lead-up to very critical midterm elections. No politician wants to be explaining anything to anybody. They want to be shaping perceptions that build upon past performances. This is all about domestic politics. This has nothing to do with reality.

Why are Western states prolonging the hostilities despite the growing discontent of their populations with economic problems?

Scott Ritter: There’s an old saying in the United States that I believe translates into most politics: “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” And right now, these politicians would have to explain to their constituents why they were wrong about Ukraine, why they were wrong about Russia. And especially here in the United States, we’re dealing with the lead-up to very critical midterm elections. No politician wants to be explaining anything to anybody. They want to be shaping perceptions that build upon past performances. This is all about domestic politics. This has nothing to do with reality. So it sounds good for a politician to be telling his or her constituents that we are providing the Ukrainians with the best equipment possible to include the top of the line fighter aircraft. What they really should be saying is we are guaranteeing that every Ukrainian pilot we train will die at the hands of the Russian Air Force, because that’s what the ultimate outcome will be.

The thing about, especially American, generals is that they are political animals. They didn’t get that fourth star necessarily because of their military competence. They got it because they impressed a politician with their political acumen. And so what we have is a general playing politics, a general who is saying what the politicians want to hear. And that’s not what his role is. His role is to provide sound military assessment, military advice to the politicians.

But if an American military officer did that today, they couldn’t agree with anything that the Biden administration or the US Congress was seeking to do in Ukraine, and therefore they would never get promoted. They would never get a good job. I don’t like to denigrate serving military officers, but this is a political decision, not a military decision, even though the man making it wears a military uniform.

Can the West collectively really afford such spending now, at a time of harsh polarization and soaring prices?

Scott Ritter: No, they can’t afford it. And we have some nations that are starting to realize this. The German defense minister, who is very hawkish against Russia, has acknowledged that Germany simply has no more weapons to give and they’re not in a position to build new weapons. They’re worrying about other economic realities. The same holds true with the United States.

At some point time in time, we are going to run out of materiel to give to Ukraine. I read somewhere that with all the HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems we’re providing to Ukraine, we’re also providing Ukraine with one third of the ammunition stockpiles for the HIMARS, meaning that we, the United States, only have two thirds of our ammunition stores available if we had to go to war, which means we will run out of ammunition.

This is insane, literally insane to be sacrificing the national security of the United States or of a European nation so that politicians can look and sound good for the next couple of weeks. But it will not change the equation on the battlefield in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Army is in an impossible situation. They literally cannot recover from the debacle that has befallen them.

The sad thing is that Ukrainian leaders are buying into the fiction provided by the West of if they just get more weapons, they can successfully defend against Russia. This means that more Ukrainian soldiers are going to die, more Russian soldiers are going to die, and tragically, more Ukrainian civilians are going to suffer.

Leaders of the Group of Seven recently pledged to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” How feasible is this pledge?

Scott Ritter: When the Group of Seven made that, one of the leaders was a guy named Boris Johnson. He’s not the leader anymore. The other guy was a gentleman whose last name was Draghi. He’s not the leader anymore. I think as the summer and the winter come along, more and more of these leaders are going to be removed from office because it’s an unsustainable policy. Politicians have a proclivity for saying things that have no basis in reality. It’s very inexpensive for a politician to say “we are going to support you forever.”

Forever in what sense? Boris Johnson is not supporting them forever – he’s out of power. Draghi is not supporting them forever – he’s out of power. And just about everybody who was on that stage at the G7 meeting will be out of power. Suddenly, we have a whole new definition of what “forever” means. It means “not now, not anymore.” https://sputniknews.com/20220721/us-military-analyst-west-cant-afford-ukraine-spending-will-run-out-of-ammo-to-send-to-kiev-1097671398.html

July 22, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

France’s costly nationalisation of the nuclear industry

 The French government is poised to pay nearly €10bn (£8.5bn) to fully
nationalise EDF as ministers attempt to tackle the European energy crisis.
The French finance ministry said on Tuesday it had offered €9.7bn or
€12 a share to buy the 16% of debt-laden EDF it does not already own. The
government of the French prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, government is
trying to shore up domestic energy supplies amid concerns over the finances
of the energy company, which is also building the Hinkley Point C nuclear
power station in Somerset.

 Guardian 19th July 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/france-to-pay-nearly-10bn-to-fully-nationalise-edf

July 19, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Employee shareholders to sue EDF over France nationising nuclear industry

 An association of EDF employee shareholders announced on Sunday their plan
to sue the French state regarding its nationalisation of the power giant.
“Today the state needs to explain itself for the management as
ultra-majority stakeholder of the company,” the association “Energie en
actions” said in a statement.

The association holds that the government’s
decision goes against the interest of the company and the minority
shareholders, the statement added. The government will announce details of
its plan to fully nationalise the EDF, which runs the nation’s nuclear
power plants, by July 19.

 Reuters 17th July 2022

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-employee-shareholders-poised-sue-france-over-nationalisation-plan-statement-2022-07-17/

July 19, 2022 Posted by | employment, France, Legal | Leave a comment

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