Hurricane Ida threatens 2 nuclear power stations in Louisiana
Two Nuclear Plants In Ida’s Path As Storm Expected At Cat 4, Simply Info, [excellent pictures and maps]
Hurricane Ida is expected to hit the US as a category 4 storm. The Weather Channel projects Sunday night landfall and a direct hit on Louisiana. Storm surges in the area range from the Texas border to Mobile Alabama.
Two nuclear power plants are in the direct storm path. River Bend and Waterford. Waterford sits near the mouth of the Mississippi and in the zone of the highest expected storm surge. Current estimates have a 10-15 foot surge expected for that area. This could be potentially more severe as the storm pushes water up the Mississippi River. Waterford sits about 24 miles from the mouth of the river and is next to Lake Pontchartrain……………..more http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=19660
Nuclear and Climate Clash – Russia’s nuclear weapons centre threatened by wildfires.
The fires have reached the closed city of Sarov, which has been a center for nuclear research since the Soviet era and was the site of the first Soviet atomic bomb’s development.
Today, the research center makes nuclear warheads and is believed to be developing Russia’s strategic missiles, including its highly touted hypersonic arsenal.
Wildfires Near Russia’s Nuclear Research Center Spark State of Emergency https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/24/wildfires-near-russias-nuclear-research-center-spark-state-of-emergency-a74878 Aug. 24, 2021 Russian authorities have declared an interregional state of emergency as tough-to-contain forest fires threaten the country’s top-secret nuclear weapons research center, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing the emergencies ministry.
Wildfires have raged in the Nizhny Novgorod region and the neighboring republic of Mordovia, both roughly 500 kilometers east of Moscow, since early August.
The fires have reached the closed city of Sarov, which has been a center for nuclear research since the Soviet era and was the site of the first Soviet atomic bomb’s development.
Today, the research center makes nuclear warheads and is believed to be developing Russia’s strategic missiles, including its highly touted hypersonic arsenal.
Firefighters have struggled to contain the fires due to hard-to-reach terrain, dead wood that remained after the 2010 wildfires and poor weather conditions.
Several aircraft from the Emergency Situations Ministry and Defense Ministry have been deployed to fight the fires.
The emergencies ministry told Interfax that two helicopters and a Be-200ES aircraft will be deployed to the site of the fires on Wednesday.
Russia has been hit hard by an unprecedented wildfire season fueled by historic heatwaves and drought conditions exacerbated by climate change, particularly in Siberia.
Nuclear lobby miserable, but Friends of the Earth relieved, that nuclear industry is excluded from the Green Zone at COP26 Climate Summit.
We’re barred from COP26’: nuclear industry complains after rejected applications https://theferret.scot/were-barred-from-cop26-nuclear-industry-complains/ Paul Dobson, August 19, 2021
The international nuclear energy industry has complained about being excluded from the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow — prompting environmentalists to say it should have “no place” there.
In a letter to COP26 UK president, Alok Sharma, global trade body, the World Nuclear Association, said that every application made by nuclear groups for exhibits at the conference had been rejected.
This was “very disappointing”, the association told The Ferret. A Scottish environmental group, however, said that it was “right” to keep the nuclear industry out.
Nuclear power is seen by some as clean energy because they say it doesn’t emit greenhouse gases when producing electricity. But it has faced continual opposition from environmental groups due to high costs, complications with decommissioning and the need to dispose of radioactive waste.
The World Nuclear Association, which lists 183 nuclear companies as members, said it was “deeply concerned” that plans for nuclear exhibits in civil society’s Green Zone at COP26 had been turned down.
The Green Zone is billed as a space for organisations to host “workshops, panel discussions and keynote speeches” which “promote dialogue, awareness, education and commitments” on the climate crisis.
The Cabinet Office COP26 unit said it had received “a huge level of interest” from groups wanting to be in the Green Zone. “Discussions are still ongoing”, stressed a spokesperson, pointing out that “limited capacity” meant not all applicants could be accommodated.
Richard Dixon, Friends of the Earth ScotlandThe UK Government is managing the Green Zone, which will be located at the Glasgow Science Centre for the duration of the conference in November. Officials are determining which organisations will be granted space at the venue.
COP26, which stands for the UN’s 26th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, is being held at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in Glasgow between 1-12 November. It is widely viewed as the last chance for world leaders to reach an agreement which mitigates the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
As part of the application process, organisations interested in making use of space in the Green Zone were required to provide details of their “sustainability or environmental policies”.
Businesses looking to host Green Zone events also had to be signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative and the Race to Zero campaign. These are UN schemes aimed at ensuring companies have “credible” plans to achieve net-zero emissions.
The Green Zone will be open to the general public and successful applicants could present to audiences of 200 people at a time.
Friends of the Earth Scotland criticised the criteria for getting a platform in the Green Zone as too weak. “But if they are keeping the nuclear industry out then they are definitely getting that bit right,” said the group’s director, Richard Dixon.
“Having failed with the ridiculous claim that nuclear is cheap, the latest wheeze from the nuclear industry is to tell us that nuclear reactors are the answer to climate change.”
There was an “very urgent” need to reduce emissions, Dixon argued. “The nuclear industry’s disastrous history of cost and time overruns show very clearly that what they offer would be too little, too expensive and far too late.”
The World Nuclear Association, however, insisted that nuclear power could help “meet increasing demand for low-carbon electricity”. Nuclear reactors could also play a role in “eliminating the use of fossil fuels in the production of glass and steel”, it said.
The association’s rejected exhibits would have made these points. They were also going to showcase plans to use nuclear energy in the future production of green hydrogen, which the industry says could be used as fuel to help decarbonise the economy.
The association hoped that the exclusion of its exhibits was not “indicative” of the way it will be treated throughout COP26. “It is very disappointing that no nuclear exhibits were selected for the UK’s Green Zone exhibition,” said an association spokesperson.
“More and urgent action is needed to advance the use of a broad range of low-carbon technologies, including nuclear, if we are to avoid the catastrophe that runaway climate change would cause.”
The association also confirmed that two unnamed UK-based nuclear trade associations have applied to be included in side events taking place within the UN-managed Blue Zone at COP26.
The Blue Zone will be inside the SEC alongside the main negotiations at the conference. Access will be limited to national delegations and accredited businesses and activist groups.
The two UK nuclear associations hope to be involved in panel discussions with what they consider “fellow clean energy groups”, including the renewables industry.
The UN is set to publish a list of organisations participating in side events in the Blue Zone on 30 September.
In July, The Ferret revealed that 19 nuclear industry executives were among a host of companies, including major fossil fuel polluters, who were part of key UN climate negotiations in the lead up to COP26.
This story is the fourth of a series The Ferret is planning in the run-up to COP26 in November. Investigations have been supported by the European Climate Foundation, which cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained or expressed therein.
Bill Gates and the corporates behind the fake solutions to climate change
Gates: the interests behind the fake solutions to climate change, Navdanya International 02/04/2021 In Bill Gates’ vision, technology seems fated to fix every single damage that has been inflicted on our planet and climate change has recently been added to the list. But this is the same mentality that has taken us to the devastating stage we currently find ourselves in, while the only thing improving exponentially is the profits of the corporations taking advantage by selling these very technologies. It is necessary to step out of this technofix hysteria in order to reclaim a holistic vision based on real farmers, healthy and nutritious food, and on an agroecological model that does not impact on climate but, instead, helps to mitigate it. No fake burger can do that. The latest report from Navdanya International, “Bill Gates & his Fake Solutions to Climate Change“, details the reasons behind Bill and Melinda Gates’ attempts to focus the debate on miraculous technologies and the real interests behind its propaganda.
While Gates’ many investments are all seemingly justified by a noble humanitarian and environmental cause, the report shows that they actually allow him to impose his techno-solutionist strategy through direct influence over all types of global development protagonists.
But this game of billionaire profit-making and corporate partnerships is even clearer in one of Gates’ most prominent personal investment funds: Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The companies funded by Breakthrough are riddled with ex DuPont, Monsanto, PepsiCo, and Microsoft executives, revealing how the same corporations which precipitated our health and ecological crisis are now selling us back equally risky solutions to the problems they created in the first place……….. https://navdanyainternational.org/gates-the-interests-behind-the-fake-solutions-to-climate-change/
If children are to live with the climate crisis, we must green the curriculum
If children are to live with the climate crisis, we must green the curriculum, Guardian, Meryl Batchelder,
It’s clear to me when I teach that sustainability and the environment should be a thread running through every subject
Thu 19 Aug 2021 ”……………….. With so much focus on children – the ones who will have to live with the coming ecological disaster – the role of education is key. This summer has seen unprecedented wildfires and floods. Pupils see scenes of biblical devastation on the news, but in many schools they are not being given the required information or context and this can lead to misunderstanding or anxiety.
……………. There is still no mention of the climate crisis in the national curriculum for England in primary schools, and in key stage 3 science very little of the curriculum relates to climate education. Incredibly, the last major update to the national geography curriculum for England in 2013 saw the then education secretary, Michael Gove, attempt to drop climate change.
………….. So what needs to change? We need a green curriculum that starts in early years and extends through all key stages. Properly taught, climate change education should be a thread through all subjects – not just science and geography – from the food miles of the ingredients we cook in food technology to debates on humanitarian issues such as mass migration in religious education or personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education.
Working in a state school means I am duty bound to teach lessons within the confines of the national curriculum. As far as this allows, I have sought to enrich my pupils’ learning with fieldwork, hands-on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) challenges and even gardening. But not every school has the resources or expertise to bring climate education into the classroom. Earlier this year, the climate education campaign group Teach the Future reported that seven in 10 UK teachers say they have not received adequate training to educate their students on the climate crisis……….. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/19/children-climate-crisis-green-curriculum-sustainability-environment—
Dungeness area in England set to go underwater as global heating continues
The Kent beaches set to be wiped out in 30 years because of climate
change. New data suggests that large parts of Kent could regularly fall
below sea level by the year 2050. The southern side of Kent looks to be
greatly impacted, with the entire Dungeness area to be underwater.
Kent Live 15th Aug 2021
https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/kent-beaches-set-wiped-out-5789954
If nuclear power is adopted as the way ahead, the climate fight will be lost
We need to invest, and in terms of bangs per buck, we only have a certain amount, and nuclear eats up all the pies. Nuclear is so prohibitively expensive that it has the potential to undercut seriously our other more practical, economic, doable, viable climate response options.”
Climate change can be defeated. It can be defeated because this century has so far witnessed an extraordinary revolution in renewable energy and supporting technologies such as energy storage. As a new report from IRENA
pointed out,” The decade 2010 to 2020 saw renewable power generation becoming the default economic choice for new capacity.” So far this century, worldwide renewable power generation has increased three-fold.
Bear in mind that if in the year 2000 you had talked about the prospects of wind and solar, most experts would have laughed at you. This is because the costs back then were prohibitive. “Costs for electricity from utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) fell 85 per cent between 2010 and 2020,” states IRENA. That means the costs halved almost three times in a decade.
Of course, renewable cynics say that solar does not follow an exponential function, but if the price falls of the last decade and two decades can not be described by an exponential function, it is difficult to say what can. If we can rapidly move to net zero, we will create a staggering amount of wealth via more efficient use of energy, but if we
don’t do that, we will pay an enormous cost in terms of damage to the environment. there is a risk. If instead of renewables, we adopt nuclear, then the fight against climate change will be lost.
Paul Dorfman explained that nuclear is a very poor compliment to renewables. “Nuclear is very bad at ramping up and ramping down. So if the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, you need something to switch on. Now nuclear doesn’t switch on. So the very last thing you need to support so-called intermittent renewables is nuclear.” He added, “
We need to invest, and in terms of bangs per buck, we only have a certain amount, and nuclear eats up all the pies. Nuclear is so prohibitively expensive that it has the potential to undercut seriously our other more practical, economic, doable, viable climate response options.”
Techopian 10th Aug 2021
https://www.techopian.com/climate-change-good-news-rubs-shoulders-with-the-bad-news/
Urgency of the IPCC climate report makes it clear that new nuclear is not the answer
The urgency of the IPCC report highlights the need to prioritise renewables and decentralised energy, and move away from new nuclear, says NFLA
Like many organisations, the UK and Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) reads the new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with a sense of alarm, but also new motivation to highlight the urgency to reduce carbon emissions across the board.
The IPCC report published yesterday says there are no scenarios where a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in temperature in the world will now not be avoided, meaning some of the negative challenges of climate change will take place. This is now largely and almost entirely due to the actions of humanity in neglecting to reduce carbon emissions over previous decades, and not moving away from fossil fuels sooner.
In its analysis of the IPCC report, BBC Environment Correspondent Matt McGrath notes (1):
- Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying due to human actions (and inaction in preventing it).
- Extreme heat events, like that taking place presently across southern Europe, North America and northern Russia, will become more frequent.
- The 1.5C global temperature increase limit is now on ‘life support’. Keeping temperatures under this level was a key 2050 target, but the IPCC suggests the world will hit it possibly as early as 2030. The IPCC has previously said there are great advantages of staying under the 1.5C limit compared to a 2C temperature increase. To do that, it argued carbon emissions would need to be cut in half by 2030 and net zero emissions reached by 2050. Otherwise, the limit would be reached between 2030 and 2052.
- Under all likely scenarios, global sea levels will rise. The IPCC report shows that under current scenarios, the seas could rise above the likely range, going up to 2m by the end of this century and up to 5m by 2150. While these are unlikely figures, they cannot be ruled out under a very high greenhouse gas emissions scenario.
- There will be an increase in extreme rainfall, creating the types of serious flooding recently seen in the likes of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The core message of the IPCC report is the huge urgency in getting carbon emissions down as quickly as possible. For example, it notes the need to reduce methane emissions from oil, gas, agriculture and rice cultivation should be a core priority for all governments……………
For NFLA as well, the urgency of this report should now preclude the obsession from the UK Government to deliver new nuclear. It is in this decade when large carbon reduction is required, whilst any new nuclear development will be unlikely to be making any great impression until the 2030s at the very earliest. The billions being suggested to either bail out Hinkley Point C or back Sizewell C, or fund Rolls Royce’s ‘small’ modular nuclear reactor programme, would now be far better directed towards the cheaper, cleaner and more easily realisable renewable and energy efficiency programmes.
The IPCC report tells all of us to get real. NFLA agree. Our reports on best practice in delivering local decentralised energy solutions in carbon reduction show a positive way forward. (2) Our reports showing the heavy costs and technical challenges of new nuclear, as well as of the huge decommissioning and radioactive waste management costs of our existing nuclear legacy, emphasise as well that nuclear is not part of the solution to deliver a net zero response by 2050. (3) It is high time for radical change, and most Councils are ready for it – now it needs central government to respond to this highly alarming IPCC report………..
It is also clear to me and the NFLA that new nuclear is not the answer to this urgent emergency – it takes too long, costs too much and the existing nuclear legacy needs to be dealt with, not creating more radioactive waste that we still do not know what to do with. ,,,,NFLA UK & Ireland Steering Committee Chair Councillor David Blackburn ………… https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/urgency-ipcc-report-highlights-need-prioritise-renewables-and-decentralised-energy-move-away-from-new-nuclear/
NO SUPPORT for NUCLEAR in the new report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC).
10 Aug 21, The report is comprehensive on the present and future impacts of global heating, and on what needs to be done. But nuclear power as a method for action is not included.
Indeed, nuclear power is barely mentioned, and when it is, its negative effects on climate and environment are mentioned.
Page 236 line 39 – “Radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing (1940s–1950s) and urban smog (1950s– 1960s) first provoked widespread attention to anthropogenic aerosols and ozone in the troposphere”
Page 261 – reference to nuclear war and volcanic eruptions
Page 309 – another reference to impacts of nuclear weapons
Page 971 – line 23 – reference to a nuclear holocaust – in reference to future uncertainties
Page 1380 – line 33 discussion on 14C released from nuclear weapons uptake into the ocean
Page 3161 – line 15 – 17 “Thermal and nuclear electricity plants may be challenged when using warmer river waters for cooling or when mixing waste waters back into waterways without causing ecosystem impacts (Kopytko and Perkins, 2011; van Vliet et al., 2016; Tobin et al., 2018)
Why the nuclear lobby spruiks about climate change (when they really couldn’t care less) – theme for August 2021
It’s a breathtaking hypocrisy, in this month when we remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki – but the real purpose for new ”advanced”nuclear technology is simply support for nuclear weapons. ”Small nuclear reactors” have no hope of affecting global heating – quite the reverse – as they take funding and human energy away from genuine solutions.
Why does the nuclear lobby bang on about climate change?
Simply in order to get tax breaks and other financial incentives that go with being accepted as ”green” and ”sustainable”
This is why the nuclear industry, IAEA, and all the associated bodies and governments are bent on convincing everybody that the goal of nuclear power is to fight climate change.
The journalists buy their arguments, because those arguments are cleverly dressed up in technicaljargon – avoiding discussion of matters that journalists might understand better, (such as the costs, waste disposal problems, environmental and health impacts)
The essential connection with nuclear weapons is obscured, making everybody involved feel better.
Fire, floods ravage Russia, threaten nuclear research site
Fire, floods ravage Russia, threaten nuclear research site https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/fire-floods-ravage-russia-threaten-nuclear-research-site, BY GERMAN PRESS AGENCY – DPA MOSCOW EUROPE AUG 08, 2021 AAfter reports of over 250 fires ravaging through Russia, blazes now threaten a nuclear research center in the city of Sarov, prompting a state of emergency, officials said on Sunday.
The danger level was boosted as fires near Nizhny Novgorod are spreading and the change in status makes it easier to mobilize extra firefighting forces, according to city officials.
But it is only one of 250 fires Russia is currently trying to extinguish throughout the country. The Siberian region of Sakha, in the country’s northeast, has been hit particularly hard. Dozens of houses have burned down and residents have been evacuated to safety.
Meanwhile, state TV showed images of cities in the Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk regions enveloped in smoke.
Authorities said that, nationwide, about 3.5 million hectares are burning – about the combined area of Serbia and Montenegro. Weather experts and Greenpeace spoke of the worst fires in the history of Russian record keeping.
On the flip side, emergency crews in the Amur region, which borders China, are battling floods after heavy rainfalls. About 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) of streets and six bridges are underwater, with about 24 communities cut off from the outside world due to flooding along the Amur River said the regional transportation minister, Alexander Selenin.
Towards a clean and sustainable energy system: 26 criteria nuclear power does not meet
Towards a clean and sustainable energy system: 26 criteria nuclear power does not meet https://eu.boell.org/en/2021/04/22/towards-clean-and-sustainable-energy-system-26-criteria-nuclear-power-does-not-meet
By Jan HaverkampRead our dossier “Nuclear Power in Europe: 35 Years After the Chernobyl Disaster“. Nuclear energy has been brought back into the European energy debate due to populist power. Currently, a complex debate is taking place within the EU about whether nuclear power should be part of the Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. Nuclear energy does not meet a number of basic criteria that should be a requirement of technologies in a sustainable energy policy. It only became clear slowly after the introduction of the first nuclear power plants that nuclear energy does not meet these criteria. In the 1970s, however, this crystallised in a thorough nuclear energy critique on a technical, economic, social and political level. Over the last 50 years, the nuclear industry has not been able to overcome these problems. Certain ways of approaching them have changed, however: some risks have been counteracted by dint of expensive safety and security measures, so that the problem has shifted partly, but still not sufficiently, from risk to costs.
It is currently argued that we should keep existing nuclear power plants open longer to prevent a further exacerbation of the climate problem. It is also argued that we need to build new nuclear power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Work is currently underway on a few dozen new nuclear power plant designs that, according to protagonists of nuclear energy, should meet the criteria for a sustainable energy supply. However, these designs have not yet proven their worth in practice.
To determine whether nuclear energy can, or even should, play a role in future energy policy, it must fulfil basic criteria of sustainability.
Product detailsDate of Publication April 2021Publisher Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European UnionNumber of Pages 34Licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0Language of publication EnglishTable of contents
Introduction
Sustainability criteria that nuclear energy does not meet
A. Technical criteria
B. Economic criteria
C. Social and political criteria
Apocalyptic scenes hit Greece, as Athens besieged by fire
Little had prepared any of us on the Athens-bound flight for the sight of
the great fire-induced clouds that swept either side of the plane as it
made its descent on Friday. News of the extreme heat engulfing Greece had
spread beyond its borders all week, packaged in increasingly desperate
language.
Temperatures were breaking records few had ever imagined. If
Monday was bad, then Tuesday was worse. In some parts of the country, the
mercury had hit 47C (117F), with thermal cameras on drones recording the
ground temperature in downtown Athens at 55C.
By Wednesday, we were hearing
that entire tracts of suburban forest on the Greek capital’s northern
fringes had gone up in flames. Infernos seemingly redolent of Dante’s
hell had incinerated everything in their path; friends had lost homes;
thousands had been evacuated with residents and tourists fleeing blighted
zones by any means possible. Terraces, an Athenian’s respite against the
blazing heat, had been transformed into ash-laden no-go zones.
Guardian 7th Aug 2021
The world is getting “dangerously close” to running out of time to avert catastrophic climate change
The world is getting “dangerously close” to running out of time to avert catastrophic climate change, Cop26 President Alok Sharma has said. Mr Sharma – who is tasked with making a success of the upcoming climate talks in Glasgow – said failing to limit warming to 1.5C would be “catastrophic”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Sharma said a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be published on Monday, would be the “starkest warning yet” about what the future could hold. “You’re seeing on a daily basis what is happening across the world. Last year was the hottest on record, the last decade the hottest decade on record,” he said. He said Cop26 “has to be the moment we get this right”, adding: “We can’t afford to wait two years, five years, 10 years – this is the moment.”
Telegraph 8th Aug 2021
More Nuclear Power Isn’t Needed, So Why Do Governments Keep Hyping it?
the claim that the ‘latest nuclear technology will be up and running within the next decade’ is unconvincing.”
That’s a problem, given that Britain needs to reduce its emissions 78% by 2035 to stay on track with the Paris Agreement.
Indeed, according to the independent World Nuclear Industry Status Report, nuclear energy “meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”
The U.S. and France have openly acknowledged this military rationale for new civil nuclear build,” he told me. “U.K. defense literature is also very clear on the same point.
More Nuclear Power Isn’t Needed. So Why Do Governments Keep Hyping It?, Forbes, David Vetter 6 Aug 21,
.. …….Prime Minister Boris Johnson has consistently backed the development of “small and advanced reactors,” while last week the country’s Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, stated: “While renewables like wind and solar will become an integral part of where our electricity will come from by 2050, they will always require a stable low-carbon baseload from nuclear.”
This pronouncement, offered as a statement of fact, left some observers scratching their heads: here was a U.K. government minister claiming renewables would always require nuclear power to function. Was this true? And why do politicians like to use the word “baseload,” anyway?
………. many experts, including Steve Holliday, the former CEO of the U.K. National Grid, say that [the baseload] notion is outdated. In a 2015 interview Holliday trashed the concept of baseload, arguing that in a modern, decentralized electricity system, the usefulness of large power stations had been reduced to coping with peaks in demand.
But even for that purpose, Sarah J. Darby, associate professor of the energy program at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, told me, nuclear isn’t of much use. “Nuclear stations are particularly unsuited to meeting peak demand: they are so expensive to build that it makes no sense to use them only for short periods of time,” she explained. “Even if it were easy to adjust their output flexibly—which it isn’t—there doesn’t appear to be any business case for nuclear, whether large, small, ‘advanced’ or otherwise.”
In a white paper published in June, a team of researchers at Imperial College London revealed that the quickest and cheapest way to meet Britain’s energy needs by 2035 would be to drastically ramp up the building of wind farms and energy storage, such as batteries. “If solar and/or nuclear become substantially cheaper then one should build more, but there is no reason to build more nuclear just because it is ‘firm’ or ‘baseload,’” Tim Green, co-director of Imperial’s Energy Future Lab told me. “Storage, demand-side response and international interconnection can all be used to manage the variability of wind.”
Another vital issue concerns time. Owing to the well-documented safety and environmental concerns surrounding ionizing radiation, planning and building even a small nuclear reactor takes many years. In 2007, Britain’s large Hinkley Point C nuclear power station was predicted to be up and running by 2017. “Estimated completion date is now 2026,” Darby noted. “And Hinkley C was using established technology. Given the nuclear industry’s record of time delays and overspends, the claim that the ‘latest nuclear technology will be up and running within the next decade’ is unconvincing.”
That’s a problem, given that Britain needs to reduce its emissions 78% by 2035 to stay on track with the Paris Agreement.
Indeed, according to the independent World Nuclear Industry Status Report, nuclear energy “meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”
So if there isn’t a need for more nuclear power, and it’s too expensive and slow to do the job its proponents are saying it will do, why is the government so keen to back it?
Andy Stirling, professor of science and technology policy at the University of Sussex, is convinced that the pressure to support nuclear power comes from another U.K. commitment: defense. More specifically, the country’s fleet of nuclear submarines.
The U.S. and France have openly acknowledged this military rationale for new civil nuclear build,” he told me. “U.K. defense literature is also very clear on the same point. Sustaining civil nuclear power despite its high costs, helps channel taxpayer and consumer revenues into a shared infrastructure, without which support, military nuclear activities would become prohibitively expensive on their own.”
This is no conspiracy theory. In 2018, Stirling and his colleague Philip Johnstone published the findings of their research into “interdependencies between civil and military nuclear infrastructures” in countries with nuclear capability. In the U.S., a 2017 report from the Energy Futures Initiative, which includes testimony from former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in 2017, states: “a strong domestic supply chain is needed to provide for nuclear Navy requirements. This supply chain has an inherent and very strong overlap with the commercial nuclear energy sector and has a strong presence in states with commercial nuclear power plants”
In the U.K., bodies including the Nuclear Industry Council, a joint forum between the nuclear industry and the government, have explicitly highlighted the overlap between the need for a civil nuclear sector and the country’s submarine programs. And this week, Rolls-Royce, which builds the propulsion systems for the country’s nuclear submarines, announced it had secured some $292 million in funding to develop small modular reactors of the type touted by the Prime Minister.
In Stirling’s view, these relationships help to explain “the otherwise serious conundrum, as to why official support should continue for civil nuclear new build at a time when the energy case has become so transparently weak.”
Stirling and other experts say the energy case for nuclear is weak because there are better, cheaper and quicker alternatives that are readily available.
“When there is too little wind and solar, zero emissions generators which can flexibly and rapidly increase their output are needed,” said Mark Barrett, professor of energy and environmental systems modelling at University College London. “These can be renewables, such as biogas, or generators using fuels made with renewables such as hydrogen. But unlike nuclear, these can be turned off when wind and solar are adequate.”
Indeed, Barrett pointed out, renewables are becoming so cheap that energy surpluses won’t necessarily be that big a deal.
Renewable costs have fallen 60-80% in the last decade with more to come, such that it is lower cost to spill some renewable generation than store it, and predominantly renewable systems are lower cost than nuclear. Renewables can be rapidly built: U.K. wind has increased to 24% of total generation, mostly in just 10 years. And of course renewables do not engender safety and waste problems.”
Sarah Darby agreed, saying “a mix of energy efficiency, storage and more flexible demand shows much more promise for reducing carbon emissions overall and for coping with peaks and troughs in electricity supply.”
“The U.K. market for flexibility services is already delivering effective firm-equivalent capacity on the scale of a large nuclear reactor per year, at costs that are a small fraction of the costs of nuclear power,” Stirling told me. “With costs of flexibility diminishing radically—in batteries, other storage, electric vehicles, responsive demand, hydrogen production—the scope for further future cost savings is massive.”
“There is no foreseeable resource constraint on renewables or smart grids that makes the case for nuclear anywhere near credible,” he added. “That the U.K. Government is finding itself able to sustain such a manifestly flawed case, with so little serious questioning, is a major problem for U.K. democracy.”
In the U.K., both the incumbent Conservative party and the main opposition party, Labour, support the development of new and advanced nuclear power reactors. In an emailed response to questions for the U.K. government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, a government spokesperson categorically denied any link between the civil nuclear sector and the defense industry……..
I contacted the office of Labour’s shadow secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy Edward Miliband for comment, but no response has been forthcoming……..https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/08/06/more-nuclear-power-isnt-needed-so-why-do-governments-keep-hyping-it/?sh=285eb017ddda
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
Monday, June 22, 2026 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. CT
YouTube. Register here
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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