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Ukraine war – the Nazi factor

Make Nazism Great Again   https://www.opednews.com/articles/Make-Nazism-Great-Again-by-Pepe-Escobar-Azov-Battalion_Nazis_War-In-Ukraine-220325-46.html

By Pepe Escobar  , 25 Mar 22,  

The supreme target is regime change in Russia, Ukraine is just a pawn in the game – or worse, mere cannon fodder.

All eyes are on Mariupol. As of Wednesday night, over 70% of residential areas were under control of Donetsk and Russian forces, while Russian Marines, Donetsk’s 107th batallion and Chechen Spetsnaz, led by the charismatic Adam Delimkhanov, had entered the Azov-Stal plant – the HQ of the neo-Nazi Azov batallion.

Azov was sent a last ultimatum: surrender until midnight – or else, as in a take no prisoners highway to hell.

That implies a major game-changer in the Ukrainian battlefield; Mariupol is finally about to be thoroughly denazified – as the Azov contingent long entrenched in the city and using civilians as human shields were their most hardened fighting force.

There’s no intention whatsoever in Washington to facilitate a peace plan in Ukraine – and that explains Comedian Zelensky’s non-stop stalling tactics. The supreme target is regime change in Russia, and for that Totalen Krieg against Russia and all things Russian is warranted. Ukraine is just a pawn in the game – or worse, mere cannon fodder.

This also means that the 14,000 deaths in Donbass for the past 8 years should be directly attributed to the Exceptionalists. As for Ukrainian neo-Nazis of all stripes, they are as expendable as “moderate rebels” in Syria, be they al-Qaeda or Daesh-linked. Those that may eventually survive can always join the budding CIA-sponsored Neo-Nazi Inc. – the tawdry remix of the 1980s Jihad Inc. in Afghanistan. They will be properly “Kalibrated” city and using civilians as human shields were their most hardened fighting force.

A quick neo-Nazi recap

By now only the brain dead across NATOstan – and there are hordes – are not aware of Maidan in 2014. Yet few know that it was then Ukrainian Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov, a former governor of Kharkov, who gave the green light for a 12,000 paramilitary outfit to materialize out of Sect 82 soccer hooligans who supported Dynamo Kiev. That was the birth of the Azov batallion, in May 2014, led by Andriy Biletsky, a.k.a. the White Fuhrer, and former leader of the neo-nazi gang Patriots of Ukraine.

Together with NATO stay-behind agent Dmitro Yarosh, Biletsky founded Pravy Sektor, financed by Ukrainian mafia godfather and Jewish billionaire Ihor Kolomoysky (later the benefactor of the meta-conversion of Zelensky from mediocre comedian to mediocre President.)

Pravy Sektor happened to be rabidly anti-EU – tell that to Ursula von der Lugen – and politically obsessed with linking Central Europe and the Baltics in a new, tawdry Intermarium. Crucially, Pravy Sektor and other nazi gangs were duly trained by NATO instructors.Biletsky and Yarosh are of course disciples of notorious WWII-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, for whom pure Ukrainians are proto-Germanic or Scandinavian, and Slavs are untermenschen.

Azov ended up absorbing nearly all neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine and were dispatched to fight against Donbass – with their acolytes making more money than regular soldiers. Biletsky and another neo-Nazi leader, Oleh Petrenko, were elected to the Rada. The White Fuhrer stood on his own. Petrenko decided to support then President Poroshenko. Soon the Azov battalion was incorporated as the Azov Regiment to the Ukrainian National Guard.

They went on a foreign mercenary recruiting drive – with people coming from Western Europe, Scandinavia and even South America.

That was strictly forbidden by the Minsk Agreements guaranteed by France and Germany (and now de facto defunct). Azov set up training camps for teenagers and soon reached 10,000 members. Erik “Blackwater” Prince, in 2020, struck a deal with the Ukrainian military that would enable his renamed outfit, Academi, to supervise Azov.

It was none other than sinister Maidan cookie distributor Vicky “F**k the EU” Nuland who suggested to Zelensky – both of them, by the way, Ukrainian Jews – to appoint avowed Nazi Yarosh as an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The target: organize a blitzkrieg on Donbass and Crimea – the same blitzkrieg that SVR, Russian foreign intel, concluded would be launched on February 22, thus propelling the launch of Operation Z.

All of the above, in fact just a quick recap, shows that in Ukraine there’s no difference whatsoever between white neo-Nazis and brown-colored al-Qaeda/ISIS/Daesh, as much as neo-Nazis are just as “Christian” as takfiri Salafi-jihadis are “Muslim”.

When Putin denounced a “bunch of neo-Nazis” in power in Kiev, the Comedian replied that it was impossible because he was Jewish. Nonsense. Zelensky and his patron Kolomoysky, for all practical purposes, are Zio-Nazis.

Even as branches of the United States government admitted to neo-Nazis entrenched in the Kiev apparatus, the Exceptionalist machine made the daily shelling of Donbass for 8 years simply disappear. These thousands of civilian victims never existed.

U.S. mainstream media even ventured the odd piece or report on Azov and Aidar neo-Nazis. But then a neo-Orwellian narrative was set in stone: there are no Nazis in Ukraine. CIA offshoot NED even started deleting records about training members of Aidar. Recently a crappy news network duly promoted a video of a NATO-trained and weaponized Azov commander – complete with Nazi iconography.

Why “denazification” makes sense

The Banderastan ideology harks back to when this part of Ukraine was in fact controlled by the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Russian empire and Poland. Stepan Bandera was born in Austro-Hungary in 1909, near Ivano-Frankovsk, in the – then autonomous – Kingdom of Galicia.

WWI dismembered European empires into frequently non-viable small entities. In western Ukraine – an imperial intersection – that inevitably led to the proliferation of extremely intolerant ideologies.

Banderastan ideologues profited from the Nazi arrival in 1941 to try to proclaim an independent territory. But Berlin not only blocked it but sent them to concentration camps. In 1944 though the Nazis changed tactics: they liberated the Banderanistas and manipulated them into anti-Russian hate, thus creating a destabilization force in the Ukrainian USSR.

So Nazism is not exactly the same as Banderastan fanatics: they are in fact competing ideologies. What happened since Maidan is that the CIA kept a laser focus on inciting Russian hatred by whatever fringe groups it could instrumentalize. So Ukraine is not a case of
“white nationalism” – to put it mildly – but of anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism, for all practical purposes manifested via Nazi-style salutes and Nazi-style symbols.

So when Putin and the Russian leadership refer to Ukrainian Nazism, that may not be 100% correct, conceptually, but it strikes a chord with every Russian.

Russians viscerally reject Nazism – considering that virtually every Russian family has at least one ancestor killed during the Great Patriotic War. From the perspective of wartime psychology, it makes total sense to talk of “Ukro-nazism” or, straight to the point, a “denazification” campaign.

How the Anglos loved the Nazis

The United States government openly cheerleading neo-Nazis in Ukraine is hardly a novelty, considering how it supported Hitler alongside England in 1933 for balance of power reasons.

In 1933, Roosevelt lent Hitler one billion gold dollars while England lent him two billion gold dollars. That should be multiplied 200 times to arrive at today’s fiat dollars. The Anglo-Americans wanted to build up Germany as a bulwark against Russia. In 1941 Roosevelt wrote to Hitler that if he invaded Russia the U.S. would side with Russia, and wrote Stalin that if Stalin invaded Germany the U.S. would back Germany. Talk about a graphic illustration of Mackinderesque balance of power.

The Brits had become very concerned with the rise of Russian power under Stalin while observing that Germany was on its knees with 50% unemployment in 1933, if one counted unregistered itinerant Germans.

Even Lloyd George had misgivings about the Versailles Treaty, unbearably weakening Germany after its surrender in WWI. The purpose of WWI, in Lloyd George’s worldview, was to destroy Russia and Germany together. Germany was threatening England with the Kaiser building a fleet to take over the oceans, while the Tsar was too close to India for comfort. For a while Britannia won – and continued to rule the waves.

Then building up Germany to fight Russia became the number one priority – complete with rewriting of History. The uniting of Austrian Germans and Sudetenland Germans with Germany, for instance, was totally approved by the Brits.

But then came the Polish problem. When Germany invaded Poland, France and Britain stood on the sidelines. That placed Germany on the border of Russia, and Germany and Russia divided up Poland. That’s exactly what Britain and France wanted. Britain and France had promised Poland that they would invade Germany from the west while Poland fought Germany from the east.

In the end, the Poles were double-crossed. Churchill even praised Russia for invading Poland. Hitler was advised by MI6 that England and France would not invade Poland – as part of their plan for a German-Russian war. Hitler had been supported financially since the 1920s by MI6 for his favorable words about England in Mein Kampf. MI6 de facto encouraged Hitler to invade Russia.

Fast forward to 2022, and here we go again – as farce, with the Anglo-Americans “encouraging” Germany under feeble Scholz to put itself back together militarily, with 100 billion euros (that the Germans don’t have), and setting up in thesis a revamped European force to later go to war against Russia.

Cue to the Russophobic hysteria in Anglo-American media about the Russia-China strategic partnership. The mortal Anglo-American fear is Mackinder/Mahan/Spykman/Kissinger/Brzezinski all rolled into one: Russia-China as peer competitor twins take over the Eurasian land mass – the Belt and Road Initiative meets the Greater Eurasia Partnership – and thus rule the planet, with the U.S. relegated to inconsequential island status, as much as the previous “Rule Britannia”.

England, France and later the Americans had prevented it when Germany aspired to do the same, controlling Eurasia side by side with Japan, from the English Channel to the Pacific. Now it’s a completely different ball game.

So Ukraine, with its pathetic neo-Nazi gangs, is just an – expendable – pawn in the desperate drive to stop something that is beyond anathema, from Washington’s perspective: a totally peaceful German-Russian-Chinese New Silk Road.

Russophobia, massively imprinted in the West’s DNA, never really went away. Cultivated by the Brits since Catherine the Great – and then with The Great Game. By the French since Napoleon. By the Germans because the Red Army liberated Berlin. By the Americans because Stalin forced to them the mapping of Europe – and then it went on and on and on throughout the Cold War.

We are at just the early stages of the final push by the dying Empire to attempt arresting the flow of History. They are being outsmarted, they are already outgunned by the top military power in the world, and they will be checkmated. Existentially, they are not equipped to kill the Bear – and that hurts. Cosmically.

March 28, 2022 Posted by | history, politics, Reference, Ukraine | Leave a comment

France’s nuclear energy output continues to slump

 Falling nuclear output in France has spurred gas demand in the country and
is hampering EU moves to cut dependence on Russian supplies, according to
some analysts. “The underperformance of French nuclear power in the
Ukraine crisis is completely underestimated. The orders of magnitude are
dizzying” one analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, told Montel.

France, with 56 reactors – the world’s second-biggest nuclear
production capacity – has long been viewed as Europe’s powerhouse,
exporting output across the bloc. Now, that picture has changed with the
country’s nuclear availability plunging in recent months to its lowest
level in over 30 years.

Since 2015 France’s annual nuclear output has
slumped by around 100 TWh, TSO figures showed. In 2015, French reactors
generated 417 TWh. This year atomic output is forecast to drop to 295-330
TWh.

 Montel 25th March 2022

https://www.montelnews.com/news/1308826/french-nuclear-slump-hinders-russian-gas-exit–analysts

March 28, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for UK nuclear power should raise huge red flags for Scotland


Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for UK nuclear power should raise huge red flags for Scotland,  BY DOUGLAS CHAPMAN, 27th March  ONLY last week we had the UK Government Energy Minister Greg Hands use the suffering of the Ukrainian people to encourage the Scottish Government to reconsider their opposition to nuclear power as a way of bolstering our UK energy security.

Hands must have missed the memo entitled “Scotland Has Options” detailing the far safer and cheaper alternatives than nuclear power that we have. We are not dependent on Russian gas because we are already self-sufficient in domestic gas. In fact, we supply the rest of the UK with gas from the North Sea. Then there’s the not so small matter of the pillaging of oil and the vast profits that we have lost as Scots thanks to Tory policy. And now, as we accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, we also produce almost 100% of our own electricity from renewables…. (subscribers only)  https://www.thenational.scot/politics/20023807.boris-johnsons-enthusiasm-uk-nuclear-power-raise-huge-red-flags-scotland/

March 28, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Saskatchewn ponders new small nuclear reactors, but opposition unsure about safety and environmental impacts

‘Will be changed very shortly’: Premier confident nuclear energy generation will be coming to Sask.  Wayne Mantyka, CTV News Regina Video Journalist, 25 Mar 22, ”…………………………..  In 2019, Saskatchewan signed an agreement with Ontario and New Brunswick toward evaluation of new SMR technology. On Monday, SaskPower will announce the next steps in the decision making process and will also now assess reactors on the market and consider possible locations.

The opposition NDP would like to see more public discussions before any final decisions are made.“We’ve been clear about where we’re at on the opportunity and the challenges that SMRs may provide in Saskatchewan,” NDP MLA Aleana Young said. “Of course energy security is of massive concern to everyone in Saskatchewan as is the condition of our grid and the necessity for clean base load power, but there are going to be a huge number of people in the province who have questions and who have concerns.”

“We’re not like Ontario. We don’t have existing nuclear power facilities and this needs to be a real conversation with people in Saskatchewan, not just about the business case and dollars and cents but about the environment and all of the implications for our communities,” Young added.

SaskPower has not made a decision about generating nuclear energy. If the idea wins public support and proves feasible, a small modular reactor could be operating in the province as early as 2030……………….   https://regina.ctvnews.ca/will-be-changed-very-shortly-premier-confident-nuclear-energy-generation-will-be-coming-to-sask-1.5833828

March 26, 2022 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

As UK government touted ”media freedom”, Julian Assange in high security Belmarsh Prison was an embarassment

JULIAN ASSANGE POSED PR PROBLEM FOR UK GOVERNMENT’S MEDIA CAMPAIGN  https://declassifieduk.org/julian-assange-posed-pr-problem-for-uk-governments-media-campaign/

UK officials were worried about public reaction to their hosting a media freedom event a few miles from Belmarsh prison, where Assange is incarcerated. The Foreign Office monitored activity online, developed ‘lines to take’ and warned ‘we should be ready’, emails show.

JOHN MCEVOY23 MARCH 2022  The UK’s treatment of Julian Assange posed a public relations problem for the Foreign Office’s media freedom campaign, files seen by Declassified UK show.

In July 2019, the UK co-hosted a Global Conference for Media Freedom, a first-of-its-kind event where 50 countries gathered to form a Media Freedom Coalition.

Costing £2.4 million, the event was hailed as “a major milestone” in the UK government’s “campaign to protect journalists doing their job”.

The conference was held just months after WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. 

He was transferred to Belmarsh prison, “the closest comparison in the United Kingdom to Guantánamo”, as a UK parliamentary report has described it.

Addressing the media conference, then foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt declared: “If we act together, we can shine a spotlight on abuses and impose a diplomatic price on those who would harm journalists or lock them up for doing their jobs”.

‘We should be ready’

The hosting of a media freedom event within miles of Belmarsh prison in southeast London was seen as a public relations problem. Internal Foreign Office emails show UK officials monitored online behaviour accordingly.

After Hunt announced plans for the conference in February 2019, one official complained about “a few individual crazy responses to the FS’ [Foreign Secretary’s] tweet”.

By June, officials were requesting “Lines to Take on how best to respond to questions we expect to be raised on this occasion about the UK handling of the case of Julian Assange”.

In particular, “Icelandic criticism of UK handling of [the] Assange case” was seen to be “affecting messaging on media freedom”. 

This email was likely related to former Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson, who had asserted in June that the Assange case put “the British justice system…on trial”

On 8 July, two days before the conference began, an unnamed official wrote about “a ramp up in activity by Assange campaigners”. 

One cause for concern was Assange’s mother Christine, who had “joined calls for a tweetstorm during the conference”, as well as “accounts [which] are small scale or are run by active trolls and provocateurs”.

The official outlined rules for engagement, noting “our current approach is right and we shouldn’t engage…However, we should be ready. I’m keen that we agree ahead of time how and when our approach would evolve”.

In an email with the subject line “Media Freedom Conference – online register of interest form”, one official even questioned: “what if someone like Assange applied to attend?”

The Foreign Office emails discussing Assange remain heavily redacted for reasons of “national security”.

‘No communications strategy can make this go away’

According to a recent academic study, Julian Assange “was by far the most frequently discussed individual on Twitter” with regards to the Media Freedom Coalition.

“Numerous tweets highlighted the apparent irony that the UK was establishing and leading an international initiative on media freedom, while simultaneously undermining free media…in their handling of Assange”, the researchers found.

Since 2019, the UK has nonetheless continued to use the Global Conference for Media Freedom as a vehicle through which to claim it supports press freedom.

Rebecca Vincent, the Director of International Campaigns for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), commented:

“It is disappointing that rather than looking to address the very serious substantive concerns about the case of Julian Assange, the UK Foreign Office seems to have treated the matter as only a public relations inconvenience as it prepared to host the Global Media Freedom Conference and launch the Media Freedom Coalition. 

“But the truth is that no communications strategy can make this go away. As long as Assange remains detained in the UK and as long as the US continues to seek his extradition and prosecution for publishing information in the public interest, this case will serve as a thorn in the sides of both governments and the Media Freedom Coalition itself.”

She added: “They should instead lead by example by dropping the charges, releasing Assange, and putting an end to his persecution once and for all”.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | civil liberties, media, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Sceptism over Boris Johnson’s plan for ”Britain carpeted in mini-nukes

Amid this seismic structural shift, it is reassuring to know that our
Prime Minister has lost none of his world-renowned vision. According to
reports, Boris Johnson wants to see Britain carpeted in so many mini-nukes
that he foresees “not quite everyone having their own small modular
reactors in their gardens, but close to it”.

Those were the words of one government aide, who sensibly chose to remain anonymous, following a summit between the Prime Minister and nuclear industry figures on Monday as
ministers ramp up plans for greater domestic production. Like much of what
comes out of Boris’s mouth, it’s genuinely hard to know where to start
with such a statement, other than to say surely he can’t be serious?

New energy schemes are a bit like higher taxes – people are in favour of them
until they are asked to bear the cost. So in a country where an application
for a new conservatory is likely to provoke a flood of letters to the
council from angry neighbours and a lengthy planning row, does anyone
genuinely believe that the average homeowner is going to allow the
Government to build a mini nuclear plant at the bottom of the garden?

It might help produce those elusive prize tomatoes, but the likelihood is
Boris’s nuclear plans will prove too radioactive for Britain’s army of
Nimbys.

It’s not as if the average small modular reactor (SMR) is
actually that small. Rolls Royce says one of its SMRs will be roughly the
size of two football pitches.

Good luck fitting that into a shed. Like any
major infrastructure project that has Boris’s name on it, it sounds like
it was dreamt up at a No 10 lockdown party. Remember the Garden Bridge,
one of many hare-brained schemes Boris dreamt up as mayor of London? It was
scrapped in 2017 at a cost of £53m.

Reported plans for a fivefold increase
in nuclear capacity by 2050 imply the construction of at least half a dozen
big new nuclear stations in that time, but how exactly? Hinkley C,
Britain’s first new nuclear plant in three decades, will soon be nine
years overdue and £7bn over budget. Toshiba has scrapped plans for a new
plant in Cumbria, Hitachi has mothballed two new plants at Wylfa, Anglesey,
and Oldbury, Gloucestershire, and the future of Sizewell C and Bradwell are
both in doubt because they were too reliant on the Chinese.

 Telegraph 23rd March 2022

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/23/boriss-new-nuclear-plans-will-radioactive-britains-nimby-army/

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | 1 Comment

Some Brits not very impressed with their government’s newbound love affair with nuclear power.

Nuclear energy push is not powered by sense  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/23/nuclear-energy-push-is-not-powered-by-sense  Readers fail to see the logic behind the government’s drive to go for the nuclear option to generate electricity

There is much about this government’s – and, to its shame, Labour’s – newfound love affair with nuclear power that makes no sense (Johnson announces aim for UK to get 25% of electricity from nuclear power, 21 March).

First, you cannot just turn off a nuclear power station. If we have 25% of our electricity generated by nuclear, then on days when all our needs can be met by renewables we will have to turn off 25% of our much cheaper renewable feed while using expensive, taxpayer-subsidised nuclear generation.

Second, we have no way of dealing with the mountains of dangerous high-level and intermediate-level waste that has been accruing since the 1950s. To generate more is sheer madness.

Third, nuclear power stations are vulnerable to the elements and to hostile attack – cyber, terrorist, state actors etc. Recent events in the Ukraine make this very real.

Fourth, the old argument about what we do when the wind isn’t blowing and the skies are overcast over the whole of the UK, which doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny now, falls away completely if we were to invest just a small amount of the taxpayer money that will go to the nuclear industry into research and development of electricity storage.

Finally, given the nuclear industry’s track record of bringing in plants well over budget, decades late, the proposed programme is not going to be realised until 2060 at the earliest. Why on earth are we contemplating it?
John French
Brockweir, Gloucestershire

Your report states that “electricity demand is expected to rise steadily in the next decade”. The same justification was used in 2006, when the Labour government first committed to further nuclear power stations. Based on the official forecasts issued in 2006, we should by now be consuming at least 15% more electricity than we were then.

But we are not. UK electricity consumption has in practice gone down by more than 15% since 2006. In the interim, no new nuclear power stations have been added to the system. It hasn’t collapsed, and is far less carbon-intensive.

Surely we aren’t getting fooled again by the same spurious rhetoric about endless consumption growth? In that immortal phrase of the 1970s: “Save it. You know it makes sense.”
Andrew Warren
Chairman, British Energy Efficiency Federatio

 The dash to fossil fuels is not the environmental disaster set out by António Guterres (Ukraine war threatens global heating goals, warns UN chief, 21 March). It is, at worst, the replacement of existing hydrocarbons purchased from Russia. In the longer term, it is clear that alternative renewable energy sources will displace fossil fuels and most countries will wish to do this as quickly as possible.

he government’s desire, supported by Labour, for increased nuclear power generation is bizarre. A wind turbine capable of producing 15MW can be installed offshore for £10m. Sizewell C is expected to cost £20bn and produce 3.2GW of electricity – this does not include decommissioning costs. To generate 3.2GW would need 214 turbines costing £3.2bn, albeit some money would need to be spent on storage capacity. The government plans to invest £1.7bn in Sizewell C. How is spending more than five times as much on a controversial power source that takes 10 years to build a good idea?
John Blanning
Canterbury

March 24, 2022 Posted by | public opinion, UK | Leave a comment

UK Tories split over nuclear power.

Boris Johnson’s energy strategy delayed AGAIN as top Tories ‘split over
nuclear power’. It is the second time the Prime Minister’s much-hyped
long-term energy strategy in the wake of the Ukraine-Russia war has been
delayed. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are thought to be at loggerheads
over investment UK nuclear production. The Government has admitted the
strategy will not be published this week as previously planned.

 Mirror 21st March 2022

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnsons-energy-strategy-delayed-26518640

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson government to put limits on local community opposition to nuclear power

Boris Johnson prepares planning overhaul to speed up nuclear power plants.
Prime Minister considering reforms that would make it easier to build new
reactors after meetings with industry.

At a meeting with senior energy executives in Downing Street, ministers indicated that they were
considering reforming rules to make it more difficult for residents and officials to object to the construction of new nuclear sites.

Mr Johnson has previously pledged to put “big bets on nuclear power” as a way of
shoring up UK energy security following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and
concerns about the cost of imported fossil fuel.

Local people may have their ability to oppose new plants stripped away under proposals being
considered by ministers, but industry bosses are more concerned about the
Environment Agency and Marine Management Organisation wrapping their
projects in red tape and slowing them down, The Telegraph understands.

 Telegraph 21st March 2022

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/21/johnson-prepares-planning-overhaul-speed-nuclear-power-plants/

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson’s splashy style still avoids the costs, lack of financial commitments for nuclear power development

Garden bridges, routemaster buses, oven-ready Brexit deals…Prime
Minister Boris Johnson is no stranger to eye-catching pledges and, in
fairness, he occasionally achieves them. His latest media-friendly
commitment for “big new bets” on nuclear is typical Johnsonian
politics: brash, bold and intentionally vague.

This is reflected in the UK’s nuclear strategy – which is powered by enthusiasm but weakened by
a lack of details. On the one hand, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has
brought in the Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) model to power the construction
of projects with public money.

The government has also encouraged
Rolls-Royce’s plan to build small modular reactors (SMRs) across the
country, and has approved plans for light water reactor Sizewell C, while
the much-delayed Hinkley Point C is expected to open in 2026.

However – there remains no specific target for the UK’s nuclear capacity – and
the financial commitments remain threadbare. Its net zero ten-point plan
published last October only includes up to £385m for an Advanced Nuclear
Fund, and £170m for research and development on next-gen technology such
as Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) that could unlock hydrogen and
synthetic fuels. For context, Hinkley Point C is estimated to have cost
£23bn. The hesitancy from the Chancellor raises a key question: is bulking
up nuclear power to ensure supply security even a feasible goal?

 City AM 22nd March 2022

Going Nuclear: Can Boris Johnson really ramp up nuclear power?

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s Green Party calls for big effort on energy efficiency and renewables – nuclear is an ”expensive distraction”

Nuclear power is a distraction from cleaner, cheaper solutions, say
Greens. Responding to the announcement by the government that it plans for
the UK to get 25% of its electricity from nuclear power, co-leader of the
Green Party, Adrian Ramsay, responded: “Nuclear energy is an expensive
distraction at a time when we face the dual challenges of spiralling energy
costs and concerns over energy security.

“Our focus needs to be on
developing renewable energy technologies and a big push on energy
efficiency. Both are cleaner and cheaper solutions that can be delivered
far quicker than nuclear ever can. “That’s why we are calling for a
£250 billion investment plan for a nationwide home retrofit scheme and
renewables in tomorrow’s Spring statement.

 Green Party 22nd March 2022

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2022/03/22/nuclear-power-is-a-distraction-from-cleaner-cheaper-solutions-say-greens/

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Greenpeace scathing about Boris Johnson’s plan for nuclear power.

 In response to reports that the Prime Minister wants to generate 25% of
the UK’s electricity from nuclear power, Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist
for Greenpeace UK, said –“Aside from the still-unresolved hazards
particular to nuclear power, the Prime Minister’s plan for 25% of power
from nuclear suggests some short memories – both Thatcher and Blair had big
plans for nuclear which ran into the sand because the technology was
expensive, slow, and prone to mishaps.

This initiative will result in lots
of time, effort and ministerial bandwidth being spent on things that
don’t deliver whilst the real solutions to our energy and climate crisis
languish with inadequate support.” Greenpeace 22nd March 2022https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/press-centre/

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Greens firm on Scotland’s opposition to nuclear power.

THE Greens have hit back at claims the Scottish Government should rethink
its opposition to building new nuclear power stations. Greg Hands, the UK
energy minister, insisted in an interview this morning he hoped the war in
Ukraine had given Scotland a “pretext” to get behind nuclear power and be
part of its development.

 The National 21st March 2022

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20008191.greens-say-no-building-new-nuclear-power-stations/

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear Information and Resource Servic calls upon the Biden administration to sanction the Russian nuclear industry

This week, the Energy Transition Coalition, an alliance of Ukrainian
environmental and climate organizations, appealed directly to President
Biden to expand US sanctions to Russia’s nuclear energy sector.

The US nuclear industry initially lobbied President Biden not to do so, but in
recent days they have shifted their stance, at least publicly. We will say
more soon about why expanding sanctions to Russia’s nuclear industry
neither entails significant hardships on people in the US nor necessitates
greater investment in domestic nuclear infrastructure.

But today we focus
on why NIRS stands in solidarity with our Ukrainian counterparts and we
call on President Biden to sanction the Russian nuclear industry.

NIRS 18th March 2022  https://www.nirs.org/nirs-joins-ukrainian-calls-for-sanctions-on-russian-nuclear-industry/

March 24, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson determined to show ‘leadership’ on nuclear power

Johnson announces aim for UK to get 25% of electricity from nuclear power. PM meets industry bosses to discuss new power stations, with several reactors slated for closure as energy demand rises, Guardian,   Jasper Jolly and Rob Davies 22 Mar 22, 

Boris Johnson has told nuclear industry bosses that the government wants the UK to get 25% of its electricity from nuclear power, in a move that would signal a significant shift in the country’s energy mix.

Johnson on Monday met executives from major nuclear utilities and technology companies including the UK’s Rolls-Royce, France’s EDF, and the US’s Westinghouse and Bechtel to discuss ways of helping to speed up the development of new nuclear power stations.

The UK generates about 16% of its power from nuclear power stations, but several reactors are slated for closure, while electricity demand is expected to rise steadily in the next decade. That would mean large investments in new power stations would be required just to keep the share of nuclear constant, let alone increase it to a record level of just over a quarter of electricity use.

Also present at the meeting were a series of big pension companies and insurers, including Aviva, Legal & General and Rothesay Life, alongside major foreign investors including Australia’s Macquarie and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Ministers have wrestled for years with how to attract private capital to invest in nuclear – but companies have balked at putting pension and insurance cash at risk.

The government is considering changes to insurance rules set by the EU and copied by the UK to make it easier for insurers and pensions to invest. The UK is switching to a “regulated asset base” model, which it hopes will give long-term investors more certainty on returns, a change it hopes will address limitations to the current rules, known as Solvency II.

The government wanted to show the nuclear and investment industries that it had a “clear ambition for more nuclear” in part to balance out intermittent renewable power sources, according to a government source briefed on the discussion.

………………..According to an aide who was present at the meeting, Johnson told industry heads and financiers that there had been a “chronic absence” of leadership by successive British governments on nuclear energy and that the country was “being left for dead” by other nations, such as France, on the issue.

Speaking after the meeting, Tom Greatrex, the chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), said: “Accelerating nuclear projects is absolutely essential to keep energy costs down, cut expensive gas imports and strengthen our energy security as we move towards net zero.

“That means urgently investing in a fleet of large and small nuclear stations, alongside renewable investment, to deliver the clean, sovereign power we need.”

The UK has struggled to build new nuclear power stations in recent decades, with the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi in 2020 pulling out of plans to build a new reactor at Wylfa, north Wales, and geopolitical tensions making the government less keen on attracting Chinese investment to Sizewell C on the Suffolk coast.

Meanwhile the existing nuclear fleet has been in steady decline, with Hunterston B in Scotland retiring earlier this year, Hinkley Point B in Somerset due to follow suit in the summer, and Heysham I and Hartlepool I due to shut down in 2024.

At that point, nuclear capacity is expected to fall as low as 3.6GW.A cross-party group of MPs that campaigns on nuclear issues has called for the government to increase its annual nuclear power capacity to 15GW by 2030 and 30GW by 2050, far above the 12.7GW installed at nuclear power’s peak in 1995.

Major obstacles include difficulty in securing funding from private investors and a ban on new nuclear projects, which was among the factors that scuppered the Wylfa project in north Wales.projects in Scotland, imposed by the devolved government, which prevents Hunterston B being replaced.

The government is examining a plan to revise the financing model for major projects, which was among the factors that scuppered the Wylfa project in north Wales.

Under plans for Sizewell being discussed by Whitehall officials and EDF, the government could take a stake in a development company that will push it through various stages of planning and bureaucracy, sharing the costs with EDF.

Private sector investors such as the insurance funds L&G and Aviva would then be lured in at a later stage in return for a government-backed funding model called the regulated asset base (Rab), diluting the taxpayer and EDF.

Legislation on Rab funding – the same model used to fund airports such as Heathrow and water companies – is due to progress through parliament next month.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/21/johnson-announces-aim-for-uk-to-get-25-of-energy-from-nuclear-power

March 22, 2022 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

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