‘It’ll be a shortlist of one!’ Villagers in England fear nuclear dump proposal
Plans for a new wave of atomic power have not factored in local concerns over the safety of the waste sites the schemes entail.
Alex Lawson, Sun 3 Mar 2024 , https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/03/itll-be-a-shortlist-of-one-villagers-in-england-fear-nuclear-dump-proposal
When Ian Harrison returned to the Lincolnshire coast to care for his parents a decade ago, he didn’t expect to spend his own retirement fighting plans to dig a £50bn nuclear waste dump near the beaches of his childhood.
Harrison, 67, lives a mile from the village of Theddlethorpe, one of three sites in England being examined for a possible geological disposal facility (GDF) to handle decades of nuclear waste from the power and defence industries. The cavernous dump will feature a series of tunnels and vaults dug 200-1,000 metres underground, capable of holding high-risk nuclear waste.
“It’s just a terrible idea to put a nuclear dump next to a seaside resort,” says Harrison, a retired warrant officer. “The safety concerns are real – look at Chernobyl – but people are more worried about the tourism that comes to Mablethorpe and the impact on local businesses.”Map showing proposed and withdrawn sites for GDFs
After several sites fell out of contention, the former gas terminal in Lincolnshire is one of just three which remain, with two on the Cumbrian coast – Mid Copeland and South Copeland. There is speculation about another site on the north-west coast.
The search for a home for Britain’s nuclear waste underlines a problem at the heart of its energy ambitions. Politicians have extolled the virtues of low-carbon nuclear power, but little attention has been given to the question of where to put the resulting waste.
Allerdale in Cumbria was ruled out last September after the government body behind the GDF project, Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), said there was “only a limited volume of suitable rock”, meaning it was not safe for storage. Last month, councillors in East Yorkshire withdrew from a process to consider hosting a GDF at South Holderness, east of Hull. In 2021, a council leader in Hartlepool resigned in a similar GDF row.
“At South Holderness, the local population complained and the council listened and stopped it,” says Harrison. “Here, people are worried, but they are sugarcoating it and not taking into account local concerns. Eventually, this will end up with a shortlist of one: us.”
The GDF is forecast to cost between £20bn and £53bn. Work on the project could take decades to begin, and high-risk waste will not enter it until at least 2075. The cost will be met by taxpayers, the existing nuclear plants’ operator EDF, and future power station operators.
Work on the GDF is expected to 4,000 jobs in its first 25 years. It is not an unprecedented move – Finland is nearing completion of a 450-metre-deep cavern to store its waste. France, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden are making progress on similar projects.
Britain’s nuclear waste is largely generated by its ageing power stations, as well as by industrial and defence sectors. It is housed in more than 20 ground-level sites which can hold the waste for up to 100 years, meaning a permanent store needs to be found. Even more waste is expected to be generated from a new era of reactors, despite lengthy delays,starting with Hinkley Point C in Somerset, currently the only new UK station under construction.
The handling of nuclear waste in Britain was put in the spotlight last year when the Guardian published Nuclear Leaks, a year-long investigation into problems with cybersecurity, safety and a “toxic” culture at Sellafield. Most of the waste now at the Cumbria site will be sent to a GDF, probably between 2050 and 2125.
While it can be argued that the Copeland sites have communities familiar with nuclear waste, it is an alien industry for Theddlethorpe, where geologists are studying the clay rock under the seabed.
Proponents of a GDF at Theddlethorpe, where a facility would be built onshore and the store tunnelled under the sea six miles off the coast, argue it will bring not only jobs but investment – in flood defences, road improvements and rail links. Detractors say its largely retired community will barely contribute to the workforce, and its holiday parks will play host only to construction workers while tourism slowly dies. A government gaffe in which Skegness was wrongly spelled as “Skegross” on a map did little to engender local support.
Ken Smith, a retired former lecturer and chair of the Guardians of the East Coast pressure group, says: “People call us nimbys and tell us that we’re only interested in the impact on house prices, but that’s a red herring. It’s about the people who live here and the way this could change their lives.”
A test of public support for the Theddlethorpe project is likely to be conducted in 2027. Jon Collins, the independent chair of the Theddlethorpe GDF Community Partnership, says only a small number of the 10,000 people who live in the search area have yet expressed an opinion. “There are a lot of people who have yet to engage. People deserve the opportunity to have a proper debate with all the facts before a decision is made.”
In Mid Copeland, David Moore, 70, a retired farmer, says local support for the project has increased in recent years. “Our community has been brought up handling radioactive waste,” says Moore, a representative on the Mid Copeland GDF community partnership. “We have a highly skilled workforce, and know it brings highly paid jobs.” Residents in nearby South Copeland are more circumspect, he claims.
A contentious element of the project has been the £1m a year in funds offered to prospective sites, handed out by NWS. Spending has included £382,067 for an adventure playground, garden and CCTV at the village halls; £49,981 on a project to reduce loneliness; and £26,102 to the Parrot Zoo Trust. Some locals see the taxpayer money as a “bribe”; others argue the money might as well be taken while the debate continues.
Collins says any final decision needs to take into account both local opinion and the best geological conditions for the site.
But Smith says: “A GDF is simply sweeping the problem under the carpet. My worry is that I want future generations to enjoy what I have I can take my grandchildren for a picnic on the beach: you can’t do that at Sellafield. I do not want the area to be torn apart. If they industrialise this coastline then all that enjoyment will be lost.”
NWS said: “A GDF will only be built where there is a suitable site and a willing community. This is a consent-based process and we are committed to giving local people all the information they need, listening to all voices and letting local people have their say on the topic.”
IT’S TIME TO CANCEL SIZEWELL C
https://action.stopsizewellc.org/its-time-cancel-sizewell-c 27 feb 24
In recent weeks, Hinkley Point C has been revealed to cost £46 billion, yet just hours before this was announced, the government DOUBLED the taxpayers’ money that had been paid into Sizewell C, to a staggering £2.5 billion. Stop Sizewell C described this as the epitome of insanity – to do the same thing over again and expect a different result.
Yet in fact Sizewell C is NOT an exact replica of Hinkley Point C. It is an 80% above ground copy, but the site and ground conditions are very different. And what’s worse is that while Hinkley C’s cost and schedule overruns are the responsibility of EDF, when Sizewell C overruns and overspends – as it inevitably will – it will fall on we consumers to pay.
Citizens Advice have told Ministers “the scope for material cost and time overruns [at Sizewell C] is very significant. Consumers need to be protected from those risks. They have no way to manage them and are reliant on [the government] to ensure they are not on the hook”.
It’s time to call a halt to this madness. Sizewell C is too slow, expensive and damaging to be the answer to our climate and energy security emergency. If you agree that Sizewell C is the wrong project in the wrong place, send a message to Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt and Claire Coutinho, telling them why they should cancel Sizewell C.
Fish v. electricity: Could Salem nuclear plant be shut down?
Delaware Live KARL BAKER FEBRUARY 16, 2024
A judge in an obscure administrative court in Trenton, N.J., is set to hand down a ruling that could end a challenge to the Salem nuclear plant’s ability to pump billions of gallons of water out of the Delaware River each day.
The case, which strikes at the heart of the mid-Atlantic electricity ecosystem, pits a tenacious environmental group against one of the region’s largest energy companies, and its ultimate resolution could impact electricity prices for Delawareans, the health of birds and fish in the Delaware estuary, and President Joe Biden’s most ambitious energy initiative to date.
In short, it’s the region’s biggest environmental battle that you’ve probably never heard of.
At issue is the way in which the Salem Nuclear Generating Station’s two reactors cool steam created by the heat of nuclear fission. Currently, the plant pumps cold water from the Delaware River through a system of pipes that lead it to the steam, which is then cooled back to a liquid form.
The river water then returns to the estuary, but at far higher temperatures than when it was pumped in.
In all, the process kills large numbers of fish and fish larvae, though the exact amounts are disputed.
In late 2016, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network , an environment group and active critic of heavy industry in the region – petitioned New Jersey to rescind a permit that allows the plant to pump water out of the river.
When filed, the challenge was the latest of more than a decade of petitions, disputes and complaints brought against the Salem facility by the environmental group and its outspoken leader Maya van Rossum, who calls the power plant the largest “predator” in the Delaware estuary.
Van Rossum claims that 3 billion adult fish are killed on average each year by the plant’s cooling operations, plus billions more eggs and larvae. Those include the bay anchovy, a species that has suffered a declining local population even as larger fish, eagles, herons, and even whales rely on it for food.
“The cause of the problem for the fish is that the Salem Nuclear Generating Station is sucking them in, cooking them, ripping them apart, destroying them,” she said.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which declined to comment for this story, suggested in their permit issued to Salem that the mortality figures cited by van Rossum and other critics are overstated.
Still, they do not appear to have presented current, counter estimate
During the early 2000s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules mandating that new large power plants use closed-cycle cooling…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://delawarelive.com/fish-v-electricity-could-salem-be-shut-down/
Locals oppose nuclear waste plant – parish council
Bob Cooper, Political reporter, BBC Radio Cumbria, 28 Feb 24 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jvjx8kn5xo—
Opponents of plans to seal some of the UK’s most lethal nuclear waste underground have called for communities to have more of say.
Whicham Parish Council in west Cumbria held a postal survey, in which more than three quarters of those who responded opposed the idea.
It is part of an area in which officials are exploring the possibility of siting a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).
Cumberland Council said there was “no reason” for parish councils to conduct ballots.
Nuclear Waste Services, the body that oversees the project, described a GDF as “a highly engineered structure consisting of multiple barriers that will provide protection over hundreds of thousands of years.”
High-level nuclear waste would be sealed up to 1km (0.62 mile) underground, or possibly under the seabed.
Searches for a potential place for the facility are taking place in three areas, including two in Cumbria and another in Lincolnshire.
‘Impact on communities’
The process of identifying a site is expected to take 10 to 15 years and it could be ready to start receiving waste in the 2050s.
The Whicham postal vote was carried out in 2023 and the parish council said 251 out of 400 parishioners replied, which was a 63% turnout.
The council said 77% were opposed to a GDF in the parish, 15% were in favour, 6% were neutral, while the rest of the forms were blank.
Richard Outram, from Nuclear Free Local Authorities, a group of councils opposed to nuclear developments, said other parish councils should follow Whicham and conduct polls.
“The geological disposal facility, or a nuclear waste dump, is a massive engineering project that’s going to impact on communities for tens of years,” he said.
“It’s important to regularly take the public temperature and one way of doing that is by each parish council holding a regular parish poll.”
‘Too early’
Cumberland Council is the authority with the power to withdraw local communities from the siting process, external.
It is also responsible for conducting a formal test of public support, external, such as a local referendum, before a site can be approved.
The Labour-led authority recently wrote to parish councils telling them they did not need to conduct polls because “detailed public opinion monitoring in the Search Areas is already carried out”.
It also said it was too early in the process to carry out an official test of public support.
Meanwhile, Nuclear Waste Services said surveys to monitor local opinion would be carried out by a professional polling company.
Locals campaign to oppose Hinkley Point C’s plans to build a saltmarsh on the Pawlett Hams
LOCALS to a village near Bridgwater have set up a campaign group to oppose
Hinkley Point C’s plans to build a saltmarsh on the Pawlett Hams. The
group, named Protect Pawlett Hams, describes the area of land as ‘a
treasured expanse of 320 hectares of vibrant fresh water wetland and
grazing land’. The saltmarsh, planned by EDF to facilitate the Hinkley
Point C nuclear power station, is currently under public consultation, and
comes as an alternative to a previously proposed acoustic fish deterrent
system, which would reportedly make noise louder than a jumbo jet, 24-hours
per day for the next 60 years.
Bridgwater Mercury 20th Feb 2024
https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/24130587.locals-campaign-hinkley-point-c-saltmarsh-plans
Somerset County Gazette 20th Feb 2024
Local environmental group says EDF’s plans for new salt marsh would be
an ‘ecological disaster’.
Burnham-on-sea.com 20th Feb 2024
Stop Sizewell C’s Response to Regulated Asset Base Licence Consultation
Stop Sizewell C’s Response to Regulated Asset Base Licence Consultation,
Modifications to Sizewell C Limited’s electricity generation licence.
It is entirely credible that the scenario of Hinkley Point C – where predicted
overnight costs have almost doubled, and completion time has slipped by 5
or 6 years since construction began – may be replicated at Sizewell C, with
the obvious conclusion that consumers would pay more, and for longer.
DESNZ should therefore revise the figures in the RAB impact assessment taking
this new information and inflation into account, and publish it to show how
bills would be impacted. We wish to highlight the conclusions of the
Science Information and Technology Committee which said of Sizewell C in
July 2023: “A headline lower cost than Hinkley Point C is not justified
if the value of the risk is too great”
Stop Sizewell C 29th Jan 2024
Touring South Korea to support opposition to US space warfare plans
Organizing notes, Bruce Gagnon, 19 Feb 24
https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2024/02/touring-south-korea-to-support.html
I’ve just landed in South Korea (ROK) where I will be on a speaking tour around the country for the next 10 days.
I was invited to come and talk about Washington’s push to entrap South Korea into the Pentagon’s space technology strategy aimed at North Korea, China and Russia.
Already at the US Osan AFB in South Korea the Space Force has set up operations with the ROK client state.
The US has pushed the right-wing Seoul government to massively expand their spending on military space tech. With the current US national debt now at $35 trillion, Washington can’t afford to pay for its expensive and ambitious plans to ‘control and dominate’ space. Thus the #1 job of the Pentagon and State Department is to get the allies to help pay for the space warfare infrastructure.
Currently the ROK government is building space R & D centers, satellite production facilities, new airfields likely to test hypersonic missiles and expanding ‘missile defense’ deployment sites.
One key goal the US has is to use ROK satellite production and launch facilities to hoist mini-satellites into Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) to help fill up the already crowded orbits before China and Russia can get there. Eyes and ears in LEO give a nation a decisive advantage in full scale war making.
Late last year the US hosted a big space industry conference in the capital city of Seoul in order to cement this expanding space warfare relationship. Dangling the promise of ‘lots of high-tech jobs’ the US has drawn the ROK into the trap.
The problem for the ROK (like all of Washington’s allies participating in this space warfare operation) is that they will have little to no input into how and when this Star Wars program will be used. Even though ROK will help pay for it (and host many of the bases) the Pentagon will remain in charge of the ‘tip of the spear’. Once becoming a colony of the US war machine, a nation loses their right to be full partners.
One sad thing about all of this is how Jeju Island (just off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula) is becoming further militarized via this new space tech operation.
Late last year the US hosted a big space industry conference in the capital city of Seoul in order to cement this expanding space warfare relationship. Dangling the promise of ‘lots of high-tech jobs’ the US has drawn the ROK into the trap.
The problem for the ROK (like all of Washington’s allies participating in this space warfare operation) is that they will have little to no input into how and when this Star Wars program will be used. Even though ROK will help pay for it (and host many of the bases) the Pentagon will remain in charge of the ‘tip of the spear’. Once becoming a colony of the US war machine, a nation loses their right to be full partners.
One sad thing about all of this is how Jeju Island (just off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula) is becoming further militarized via this new space tech operation.
Campaigners deeply concerned at Dr Thérèse Coffey’s support for Bradwell new nuclear power
A CAMPAIGNER group opposing new nuclear power in Bradwell-on-Sea said they
are “deeply concerned” following comments made by an MP. According to
the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG), former deputy prime
minister Dr Thérèse Coffey showed support for Bradwell as a “logical”
landfall site for a substation and converter linking East Anglian offshore
wind farms to the on-land national grid. BANNG have now refuted these
comments. A spokesman said: “National Grid has made it clear that
Bradwell is in the wrong place for the connection, would require upgraded
transmission infrastructure and faces environmental constraints from the
many designated areas on the Essex coastlands.
Maldon Standard 6th Feb 2024
History repeats — and radiation radiates
I look on with amazement after retiring from the university, at the same unproven scheme we had protested against in our college days, soon becoming a reality. We felt at that time a repository would ultimately host nuclear waste from around the world and I have no doubt this is what the future holds.
By: Dave Taylor, https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2024/02/05/history-repeats-and-radiation-radiates
This year, a community will consent to host Canada’s first nuclear waste repository.
It will be hewn out of the granite in a shaft 500 metres underground and it will aspire to keep containers full of deadly radioactive spent fuel rods separated from the water that runs through it. The owners of the waste were federally appointed to convince a local population it would be safe for generations to come.
A massive PR campaign with a substantial financial hook has focused on two regions in Ontario, one adjacent to Ignace and the other near the South Bruce Peninsula. Nuclear waste is problematic for the industry and without some panacea for the spent fuel problem, building new reactors or refurbishing older ones would be untenable. Canada, along with 20 other countries, are desperate for any solution as they have called for the tripling of nuclear energy by 2050, and Ontario is planning a multibillion-dollar refurbishment of its 50-year-old reactors.
My first encounter with this bold and untested mineshaft proposal was 40 years ago in Lac du Bonnet, Man., where my parents had a small tract of land. Nestled on 10 acres and surrounded by towering pines, the farmhouse sat on a foundation of granite, part of the Pre-Cambrian Shield. It overlooked the Pinawa channel, a manmade tributary of the Winnipeg River dynamited out of the rock in the early 1900s to power a hydroelectric dam. The fishing and wildlife were abundant; great grey owls, bear and timber wolves often passed through the property.
The toings and froings of vehicles with Ontario licence plates navigating our dead-end gravel road became cause for concern. We knew that the nuclear research site near the town of Pinawa had been quietly conducting experiments since the ’60s, but were not aware that it had teamed up with Ontario Hydro to build an Underground Research Laboratory just down our road.
As a college student, I had been taught to be skeptical of biased literature, so when literature was distributed preaching nuclear power or extinction, and referring to those against nuclear power as “Kremlin inspired,” it raised my hackles.
We knew that this excavation in the rock had the potential to be easily transformed into an operating repository. A loose coalition of university students and local residents formed the Concerned Citizens of Manitoba in hopes of countering what we referred to as “Outhouse Technology” — digging a hole, throwing in the waste and covering it up for eternity. A hard-rock miner who knew first hand the permeability of the rock, a former disillusioned member of the U.S. nuclear industry who with his wife bought a cabin downstream from the site and eventually published a book entitled Getting the Shaft, as well as several keen and creative environmentalists formed a loose affiliation.
We sought to examine any relevant documents, but soon ascertained that the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), had an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act and many of their files were classified. The secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project, so brilliantly captured in the movie Oppenheimer, persisted in thwarting our pursuit of the truth.
We decided our best strategy was to follow the lead of Greenpeace and to reach the public and media through street theatre. We had many questions about the long-term plans for the shaft that we wanted straight answers to, as well as scantily referenced leaks at the reactor in Pinawa.
Using elaborate props, we re-enacted rolling a risky dice down the steps of the legislature, placed an outhouse in front of government hearings, and even demonstrated how nuclear salesmen were getting their feet in the door using an actual door frame. These protests were made for the age of television and drew the attention of viewers.
We became so effective at calling out secrecy and untruths that a public relations employee at AECL launched a defamation slap suit, based on a private email which was surreptitiously published on a chat page.
Our most effective demonstration occurred as we attempted to inform communities on or near the border that shipments of nuclear waste could be transported down their highways.
Using a borrowed flatbed truck and a number of painted barrels clearly marked Simulation, we donned our knock-off radiation suits and headed to small towns in North Dakota. Upon returning, the cameras were waiting for us at the Emerson border stop. We had filled the barrels marked “radioactive” with water and punched holes in them so they appeared to be leaking.
Thinking the coverage was done, we returned home with water spilling onto the road in front of our house. Before long, the sound of fire engines and emergency vehicles echoed through the neighbourhood.
An off-duty fireman had failed to see the simulation sign and had called the fire department assuming a radioactive spill had occurred.
Needless to say there was great consternation among the editorial writers who felt we should pay for the false alarm, however the public uproar persuaded the provincial government to enact the Manitoba’s High-Level Radioactive Waste Act with fines of up to $1 million a day for disposing of nuclear waste in the province.
Under the guise of research, the labyrinth of tunnels through the granite did get built but it was short-lived. The Underground Research Laboratory was eventually backfilled after a decade of running pumps 24-7 to rid the so-called “impermeable” shaft of groundwater. The Manitoba law we had fought so hard for, excluded our province from being considered a candidate for a repository.
Water, however, knows no boundaries and Ignace is on the Lake Winnipeg watershed.
I look on with amazement after retiring from the university, at the same unproven scheme we had protested against in our college days, soon becoming a reality. We felt at that time a repository would ultimately host nuclear waste from around the world and I have no doubt this is what the future holds.
An elder who testified at the Seaborn hearings years ago related that the rock of the Canadian Shield was sacred, the grandfather of the Earth, and he warned, “Don’t put poison in your grandfather.”
Forty years later blasting the shield will start again and a community will soon be getting the shaft.
Dave Taylor writes from Winnipeg. You can see his blog of published works on the subject at manitobanuclea.wordpress.com.
Strong opposition on plans to store nuclear waste in East Yorkshire
A consultation event took place in Patrington yesterday
Andy Marsh, 2nd Feb 2024
There appears to be very strong opposition to plans to store nuclear waste in East Yorkshire
A series of public pop-in centres will give people in the area more information about the proposals for Holderness.
We were at the first consultation event in Patrington yesterday.
Another is being held in Withernsea later.
There are some who were convinced by the plans but many weren’t.
I would oppose it 100 per cent
Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has called for a referendum.
Here are some of the views of people we spoke to:
“They don’t know exactly where the site is going to be.”
“Somebody has to have it – to be honest I’ll be dead before all the this takes place anyway.
“I would oppose it – 100 per cent – on behalf of my children, my grandchildren and my future great grandchildren.”
We feel like guinea pigs
“This is bad for this community.”
“The whole of Holderness – everybody involved in it – it can only lead to bad things.”
“I think it’ll be a positive thing for the area if it happens here.”
“There are terms such as may and could – that’s not absolute certainty.”
“It feels like we’re just guinea pigs.”……………………………………………… https://planetradio.co.uk/greatest-hits/east-yorkshire-north-lincolnshire/news/strong-opposition-on-plans-to-store-nuclear-waste-east-yorkshire/
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) firmly contradicts Therese Coffey, MP on Bradwell as a nuclear site.
Therese Coffey MP suggests Bradwell is a large brownfield site. In fact,
the site is occupied by the long closed Bradwell A power station now in the
process of decommissioning before being returned to greenfield land use.
Perhaps her most preposterous assertion is that ‘Bradwell has hosted
nuclear power and hopes to do so again in the future’. In fact, the
communities and Councils around the Blackwater estuary in Essex are
overwhelmingly against new nuclear development at Bradwell.
Many years ago, BANNG gathered 10,000 signatures face-to-face for a petition against new
nuclear development at Bradwell which was taken to Whitehall. Since then,
the Chinese developer, CGN, has withdrawn its proposals for a massive new
nuclear power station in the face of implacable hostility from the local
community.
‘Therese Coffey would do well to check her facts and look to
her own backyard and devote her campaigning against the destruction of the
Suffolk coast by the giant Sizewell C nuclear power station project, with
its long-term stores of radioactive wastes, rather than seek to impose
unwanted infrastructure on the precious marshlands of Essex.’
BANNG 31st Jan 2023
It’s not a done deal and you are not alone’: anti-GDF campaigners pledge solidarity with South Holderness over nuclear waste dump plan,
Last week’s surprise news that South Holderness is being considered as another
potential site for a Geological Disposal Facility, or in layperson’s
language a nuclear waste dump, will have been a great shock to many local
people. But residents can take heart because this is the fifth such
announcement by Nuclear Waste Services and residents in West Cumbria and
East Lincolnshire faced with similar news in previous years have mobilised
successful campaigns to fight similar plans in their areas.
NFLA 30th Jan 2024
1
MP calls for vote on Holderness nuclear site which local petition brands ‘hazardous waste dumping ground’
Graham Stuart has called for a public vote on whether a nuclear waste site
should be built in Holderness amid opposition from some living in the area.
‘Beverley and Holderness ‘ MP said Nuclear Waste Services, the Government
Agency which unveiled the waste site proposals last week, should be forced
to make their case directly to the public. Joanne Turner, whose Change.org
petition calls for the site to be rejected, said the beautiful south
Holderness area should not be turned into a dumping ground for hazardous
waste.
Hull Daily Mail 31st Jan 2024
2
UK government pours good money after bad, into failing Hinkley Point C nuclear boondoggle
The Stop Hinkley Campaign has reacted to the news that the cost of Hinkley
Point C has ballooned to £46bn and that the first reactor may not now be
open until 2031. Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said: “The
Government will have known for days if not weeks that this announcement was
coming – we certainly heard rumours. You would have thought it would have
provoked them into at least re-examining their nuclear roadmap.
Instead, on Monday they decided to waste another £1.3bn of taxpayers’ money on a
carbon copy of Hinkley Point C on the Suffolk Coast. Any sensible
Government would be urgently looking at the overwhelming case to provide
our power from 100% renewables.” “And it’s not just HPC’s costs
that are ballooning, the whole project is swirling around making a horrid
noise like a punctured balloon. And trying to cram 15,000 workers toe to
toe on the site to play catch up will mean H&S rules go out the window.”
Stop Hinkley 24th Jan 2024
http://stophinkley.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Press-Release-240124.pdf
CAMPAIGNERS opposing the development of nuclear power in Bradwell-on-Sea say they believe ‘new nuclear’ in the area “remains dead in the water”.
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) has been fighting its cause for 15 years.
On January 11, the Government released its Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050.
BANNG claims it means the original eight government-listed coastal sites, including Bradwell, are no longer the only sites earmarked for nuclear deployment.
They say new nuclear power stations will only be sited in “suitable locations” identified by developers based on a set of criteria.
BANNG chairman Professor Andy Blowers said: “This new approach to siting effectively rules Bradwell out of any further consideration.
“As we have strenuously demonstrated over the last 15 years, Bradwell is a most unsuitable site and the Blackwater communities are overwhelmingly opposed to nuclear development in such a fragile location, increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”
He added: “BANNG welcomes the effective delisting of the Bradwell site. Delisting is something we have insisted on since the list was first compiled more than a decade ago.
“We are at a loss to understand what ‘certain advantages’ can conceivably be attributed to the site.
“Rather as the myriad evidence accumulated and published over the years shows, Bradwell is a wholly unsuitable and unsatisfactory site for the development of nuclear power at whatever scale and capacity.”
A BANNG spokesman said: “A major problem is the vulnerability of the site to flooding, and to storm surges and coastal processes that are intensifying as the impacts of climate change begin to take hold on this fragile coastline
They added: “There are other significant reasons why Bradwell should be off the Nuclear Road Map.
“The Blackwater area has precious environments in land, sea and sky which are protected, conserved and significant.
“The intrusion of a mega power station or a cluster of smaller reactors would prove intrusive, polluting and detrimental to habitats and to human wellbeing.
“Further, there would be dangerous highly radioactive wastes stored on the site for future generations to cope with, along with all the other problems of climate change.
“Above all, the communities around the Blackwater have over the years overwhelmingly declared against new nuclear development at the Bradwell site.
“New nuclear is not welcome here.”
1 This Month
5 March -Online – Reversing nuclearization:
From nuclear weapons in Belarus and NATO host countries to a European-Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone
11am-12:30pm Eastern Time USA / 5pm-6:30pm CET
of the week – Advocating for a
nuclear free beach – https://www.samuellawrencefoundation.org/
The Samuel Lawrence Foundation advocates for a Nuclear Waste Free Beach at San Onofre, join us and take action!
10 March A LIVE WEBINAR THE REAL EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR POWER
What the Industry Isn’t Telling Us
1:00 PM Mountain, 2 pm Central, 3 pm Eastern. Live on the Keepers of the Water Facebook page
18 March Webinar @ 1 PM EST: An Assessment of SMR Projects: The Case of Canada
register for the zoom:
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of the week – STOP SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN CANADA
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