nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

The European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) is dragging nuclear company EDF into $billions of debt

Climate News Network 31st Dec 2019, The edifice already heading for the status of the largest and most expensive construction project in the world, the Hinkley C nuclear power station (above)  in the UK, is dragging its builder, the French giant EDF, into ever-deeper debt: the company’s flagship reactor is facing still more delay.

Although EDF is a vast company, owning 58 reactors in France alone,
and is 85% owned by the French state, it owes around €60 billion ($67bn),
a debt expected to increase by €3 billion ($3.35bn) a year.

This has led some city analysts, notably S&P Global, to downgrade the company’s prospects to “negative” − which is essentially a recommendation to
shareholders to sell.

Apart from the problem that EDF’s fleet of reactors in France is operating well beyond their original design life and are in constant need of safety and maintenance upgrades, the company’s main problem is its flagship, the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR), which is getting into ever-greater difficulties.

In Europe there are four EPRs under construction: the two barely begun at Hinkley Point in Somerset in the west of England; one in northern France at Flamanville (below) in Normandy; and the original prototype in Finland, known as Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) (above) . The extraordinary fact is that, although OL3 was due to start up in 2009, it is still incomplete, and its start date has just been put back again – until 2021.

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/flagship-reactor-launch-postponed-again/

January 2, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

Dangerous climate is now upon Australia- Michael Mann

Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now , Guardian,   Michael Mann  1 Jan 2020, I am a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains, watching climate change in action,

After years studying the climate, my work has brought me to Sydney where I’m studying the linkages between climate change and extreme weather events.

Prior to beginning my sabbatical stay in Sydney, I took the opportunity this holiday season to vacation in Australia with my family. We went to see the Great Barrier Reef – one of the great wonders of this planet – while we still can. Subject to the twin assaults of warming-caused bleaching and ocean acidification, it will be gone in a matter of decades in the absence of a dramatic reduction in global carbon emissions.

We also travelled to the Blue Mountains, another of Australia’s natural wonders, known for its lush temperate rainforests, majestic cliffs and rock formations and panoramic vistas that challenge any the world has to offer. It too is now threatened by climate change.

I witnessed this firsthand.

I did not see vast expanses of rainforest framed by distant blue-tinged mountain ranges. Instead I looked out into smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background. The iconic blue tint (which derives from a haze formed from “terpenes” emitted by the Eucalyptus trees that are so plentiful here) was replaced by a brown haze. The blue sky, too, had been replaced by that brown haze. ……

The brown skies I observed in the Blue Mountains this week are a product of human-caused climate change. Take record heat, combine it with unprecedented drought in already dry regions and you get unprecedented bushfires like the ones engulfing the Blue Mountains and spreading across the continent. It’s not complicated.

The warming of our planet – and the changes in climate associated with it – are due to the fossil fuels we’re burning: oil, whether at midnight or any other hour of the day, natural gas, and the biggest culprit of all, coal. That’s not complicated either.

When we mine for coal, like the controversial planned Adani coalmine, which would more than double Australia’s coal-based carbon emissions, we are literally mining away at our blue skies. The Adani coalmine could rightly be renamed the Blue Sky mine.

In Australia, beds are burning. So are entire towns, irreplaceable forests and endangered and precious animal species such as the koala (arguably the world’s only living plush toy) are perishing in massive numbers due to the unprecedented bushfires.

The continent of Australia is figuratively – and in some sense literally – on fire.

Yet the prime minister, Scott Morrison, appears remarkably indifferent to the climate emergency Australia is suffering through, having chosen to vacation in Hawaii as Australians are left to contend with unprecedented heat and bushfires.

Morrison has shown himself to be beholden to coal interests and his administration is considered to have conspired with a small number of petrostates to sabotage the recent UN climate conference in Madrid (“COP25”), seen as a last ditch effort to keep planetary warming below a level (1.5C) considered by many to constitute “dangerous” planetary warming.

But Australians need only wake up in the morning, turn on the television, read the newspaper or look out the window to see what is increasingly obvious to many – for Australia, dangerous climate change is already here. It’s simply a matter of how much worse we’re willing to allow it to get.

Australia is experiencing a climate emergency. It is literally burning. It needs leadership that is able to recognise that and act. And it needs voters to hold politicians accountable at the ballot box.

Australians must vote out fossil-fuelled politicians who have chosen to be part of the problem and vote in climate champions who are willing to solve it.

January 2, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, climate change, politics | 2 Comments

Germany To Close All Nuclear Plants By 2022

Germany Aims To Close All Nuclear Plants By 2022,  https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Germany-Aims-To-Close-All-Nuclear-Plants-By-2022.html, By Tsvetana Paraskova – Dec 30, 2019, Germany is going forward with its plan to phase out nuclear reactors by 2022 as another nuclear power plant is going offline on December 31.Power company EnBW has said that it would take the Philippsburg 2 reactor off the grid at 7 p.m. local time on New Year’s Eve.

This leaves Germany with six nuclear power plants that will have to close by 2022.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, Germany ordered the immediate shutdown of eight of its 17 reactors, and plans to phase out nuclear power plants entirely by 2022.

The Philippsburg 2 reactor near the city of Karlsruhe in southwestern Germany has provided energy for 35 years. The Philippsburg 1 reactor—opened in 1979—was taken offline in 2011.

Over the past few years, nuclear power generation in Germany has been declining with the shutdown of its nuclear plants, while electricity production from renewable sources has been rising.

In January this year, Germany became the latest large European economy to lay out a plan to phase out coal-fired power generation, aimed at cutting carbon emissions—a metric in which Berlin has been lagging in recent years.

A government-appointed special commission at Europe’s largest economy announced the conclusions of its months-long review and proposed that Germany shut all its 84 coal-fired power plants by 2038.

Germany, where coal, hard coal, and lignite combined currently provide around 35 percent of power generation, has a longer timetable for phasing out coal than the UK and Italy, for example—who plan their coal exit by 2025—not only because of its vast coal industry, but also because Germany will shut down all its nuclear power plants within the next three years.

The closure of all nuclear reactors in Germany by 2022 means that Germany might need to retain half of its coal-fired power generation until 2030 to offset the nuclear phase-out, German Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier said earlier this year.

January 2, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, decommission reactor, Germany, politics | 1 Comment

Russia extends license for remote nuclear power plant

World’s most remote nuclear-power plant gets extended operational license, https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2019/12/worlds-most-remote-nuclear-power-plant-gets-extended-lifetime

One of the reactors at Bilibino NPP has got permission for another five years despite the nearby new floating nuclear power plant now is in operation. By Thomas Nilsen– December 29, 2019

Just one week after “Akademik Lomonosov” started to produce electricity to the grid in Pevek, one of the three remaining reactors at Bilibino nuclear power plant (NPP) got a renewed five-years permission until December 31st, 2025.

Bilibino NPP is located in the far remote Bilibinsky District in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia’s northeastern corner. The power plant provides electricity to the same Pevek-Chaun-Bilibino grid currently under construction as the new floating nuclear power plant.

One of the four reactors at Bilibino is already shut-down, while the other three were to follow as soon as the grid and the “Akademik Lomonosov” came in place. That would likely not happen before earliest by the end of 2021.

The license was issued by Rosteknadzor, Russia’s Federal Agency for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision and is valid for reactor No. 2.

It is operator of the plant, state nuclear corporation Rosatom, that informs about the renewed license.

Bilibino nuclear power plant started operation in 1974 with reactors supposed to run for a 30-years period. In 2004, the plant’s operational lifetime was prolonged with 15 years, and now, another five years is added to one of the reactors.

Bilibino NPP, which is located some 240 kilometers from Pevek, would need a prolonged license even if shut down by 2022, since the spent nuclear fuel most likely will stay in the reactors for a much longer period before decommissioning work can start.

Russian nuclear news-site Seogan reports that work is underway aimed at prolonging the lifetime of reactor No. 3 and No. 4 as well.

The reactors are of the EGP-6 type, a scaled down version of the Chernobyl-type RBMK light-water cooled graphite reactors. The plant is both the world’s smallest and most remote located onshore nuclear power plant.

In August this year, Rostechnadzor made a scheduled audit at the plant and discovered 19 violations of norms and rules for operating a nuclear power plant. 3 of the violations were fixed on spot, while the 16 others resulted in administrative protocols and sanctions, the agency reports on its own portal.

January 2, 2020 Posted by | politics, Russia | 1 Comment

Germany’s nuclear phase-out enters final stretch

Germany shuts down atomic plant as nuclear phase-out enters final stretch, DW, 1 Jan 2020, The Philippsburg power station is one of the only plants still operating in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg. Germany has vowed to start decommissioning every nuclear power facility by the end of 2022.Operators began shutting down the Philippsburg nuclear power plant in southern Germany on Tuesday, as the country puts into motion its plan to begin decommissioning all 17 of its atomic energy facilities by the end of 2022. …..

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan led to widespread anti-atomic-power protests across Germany. Two months after the accident, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that all plants would be closed over the next decade, making Germany the second country after Italy to shut down all of its atomic energy stations.

The German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) welcomed the news. A BUND spokesman said the group hoped to see the end of nuclear power being “conjured up again and again as a supposed healing charm and climate savior.”

However, Wolfram König, who heads the German government’s office for the nuclear phase-out, warned that the country still faced the great “challenge” of trying to phase out both coal and atomic energy at the same time.https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-down-atomic-plant-as-nuclear-phase-out-enters-final-stretch/a-51845616

January 2, 2020 Posted by | decommission reactor, Germany, politics | Leave a comment

The Green New Deal: Not Insanity, but an Investment.

Triple Pundit 27th Dec 2019,The Green New Deal: Not Insanity, but an Investment. Among the many new stories that marked 2019, the Green New Deal was one ongoing discussion that exemplified a deeply divided America.
Proponents saw this massive plan as a way to wean America off of fossil fuels, avoid ruinous climate change and also create new jobs. Critics viewed the concept as one that would disrupt the economy, and not for the better.
While much of the U.S. public is supportive of at least some of the Green New Deal’s goals, political reality has sidelined the proposal for now. On the heels of COP25, which for the most part analysts have described as a flop, one study has come out suggesting that kickstarting the Green New Deal into high gear, and scaling it worldwide, could be well worth the investment for citizens and
businesses alike.
Last week, a Stanford University researcher published the
results of his number crunching and concluded that while the implementation
of a worldwide Green New Deal during a seven-year span would cost a
whopping $76 trillion dollars, the global economy would recoup that massive
sum relatively quickly by reaping annual savings of about $11 trillion –
not to mention the fact that citizens would benefit from reduced climate
action risks, cleaner air, fewer blackouts and more reliable sources of
energy and power.

https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2019/green-new-deal-not-insanity-investment/86036

December 30, 2019 Posted by | climate change, ENERGY, politics | Leave a comment

Missouri lawmaker pushes for helping nuclear companies to charge customers in advance

December 30, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Hawaii’s law-makers very worried about the nuclear coffin at the Marshall Islands

How A Nuclear Waste Site 2,800 Miles Away Became A Hawaii Priority  https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/12/how-a-nuclear-waste-site-2800-miles-away-became-a-hawaii-priority/

The Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands is cracked and in danger of spilling its radioactive contents into the Pacific Ocean.  By Nick Grube    / December 26, 2019  WASHINGTON — A concrete dome built decades ago by the U.S. government on a Marshall Islands atoll 2,800 miles from Hawaii has the state’s federal lawmakers worried.

The Runit Dome is a relic of America’s atomic past. It’s home to 3 million cubic feet of radioactive waste that was buried there as part of the government’s effort to clean up the mess left from dozens of nuclear tests in the 1940s and ’50s that decimated the atoll.

A warming climate and rising sea levels now threaten the integrity of the saucer-shaped structure, which, if it fails, could spill its radioactive contents into the Pacific, a scenario that would threaten both people and the surrounding environment.

Members of Hawaii’s federal delegation, led by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, recently secured a provision in the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to study what it would take to repair the dome.

It was among the top priorities for Hawaii, at least in the House. Hawaii Congressman Ed Case, who is a founder of the Pacific Islands Caucus, said the Runit Dome is of critical importance, not only for the islands but the U.S. as a whole.

“This is a concern on a number of levels,” Case said. “The basic one being: Is the Runit Dome capable, especially in a time of rising sea levels, of containing the very deadly radioactive waste that we deposited into that dome? The short answer is we’re not sure.”

Columbia University researchers published a study in July that found that the amount of radiation on Enewetak atoll, where the dome is located, and other parts of the Marshall Islands rival what’s been detected around Chernobyl and Fukushima, two locations synonymous with nuclear catastrophe.

The NDAA provision calls on the Secretary of Energy to submit a report to Congress within 180 days that includes a detailed plan to repair the Runit Dome and ensure that it “does not have any harmful effects to the local population, environment, or wildlife.”

The report should include an assessment of the current structure, cost analysis for the repair and a summary of discussions between the U.S. government and Marshall Islands regarding the dome.

In addition, the report will analyze how rising sea levels will affect the ability of the dome to contain the radioactive contents.

Case said the U.S. has an obligation to the Marshall Islands to at least analyze whether the Runit Dome is in danger of failure after it absolved itself of any responsibility through the execution of a Compact of Free Association, a treaty that effectively settled any claims related to past nuclear testing.

“The Marshall Islands obviously does not have the financial or human resources or expertise to effectively manage any issues that might be arising at the Runit Dome,” Case said.

“I think we owe it not only to the Marshalls but to the other islands of the Pacific to be sure we’re comfortable with what’s happening there, and, if we’re not comfortable with it, to determine what exactly we need to do to secure that waste.”

Case’s concerns about being a good ally come as the U.S. attempts to renegotiate its Compacts of Free Association with the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.

The compacts give the U.S. military control over the countries’ land, airspace and surrounding waters, and are strategically important to American interests, especially as China tries to exert more influence in the region.

Gabbard did not respond to a Civil Beat request for an interview about the NDAA or the Runit Dome.

In June, Gabbard issued a press release stating that she was successful in including the provision for a public study in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the NDAA.

She also noted that she was a co-sponsor of legislation named after former Hawaii Congressman Mark Takai that aimed to make it easier for veterans involved in the clean-up at Enewetak atoll to seek treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Takai died in 2016 of cancer.

“The Marshallese people are gravely concerned about environmental threats to the integrity of the storage site and the impact on their country,” Gabbard said in the statement. “The U.S. government is responsible for this storage site and must ensure the protection of the people and our environment from the toxic waste stored there.”

December 28, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Germany’s next nuclear reactor closure on December 31st

December 28, 2019 Posted by | Germany, politics | Leave a comment

U.S. Congress votes $billions of tax-payers’ money for a new nuclear weapon for Trump

December 28, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Philippines prone to natural disasters, but still contemplates nuclear power

Philippines seeks to relaunch nuclear power ambitions, Country prone to natural disasters eyes potential suppliers including Russia and US, Ft.com 27 Dec 19. The Philippines plans to revive its long-discontinued nuclear energy programme to combat the threat of a future power supply crunch — a prospect likely to raise safety concerns in a country prone to typhoons and earthquakes. The country is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet the UN watchdog’s safety and other requirements, and investigating potential suppliers from Russia, South Korea, China and the US, said Alfonso Cusi, the energy secretary.  

The Philippines built a nuclear plant on the Bataan peninsula near Manila during the rule of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, but it faced public opposition and the project was shelved when successor Corazon Aquino took power in 1986.
Any nuclear plant would probably face popular opposition. Critics say the Bataan plant sits on a dormant volcano in a region prone to earthquakes, a notion that the government, which has played down safety concerns, rejects.
 “Wherever you build nuclear plants, it is doubly risky. You could have the danger of nuclear contamination which could be worsened by the geological conditions of the country,” said Lea Guerrero, country director for Greenpeace. “We are in the Ring of Fire,” he added, referring to the circle of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean.
In a sign of its renewed interest, the country’s president Rodrigo Duterte signed a letter of intent with Russia’s state nuclear company to co-operate on reactor technology during a trip to Moscow in October. Mr Cusi said the Philippines was also considering rehabilitating the Bataan plant with South Korean help. Westinghouse, which has its headquarters in the US, built the original plant, which was completed but never put into operation, and could also build a new facility, he said, but there was “nothing definite” on this front.
 ……. Some analysts voiced scepticism over the Philippines’ ability to execute a nuclear project because of the cost, as well as delays other big infrastructure projects have faced.  “The Philippines struggles to get far less technically complicated and far less politically controversial infrastructure projects through its bureaucracy and completed,” said Jon Morales of the Singapore-based Vriens & Partners consultancy.
“Seven years to nuclear power is overly optimistic.”  Andrew Harwood, Asia-Pacific research director for the consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said the Bataan plant required “quite a bit of investment to restart”, and that coal and renewables were the cheapest available option.   https://www.ft.com/content/4e5c8d72-20a8-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b

December 28, 2019 Posted by | Philippines, politics | Leave a comment

Kyrgyzstan bans uranium, thorium mining

Above – radioactive tailings mountain in Central Asia

December 21, 2019 Posted by | ASIA, environment, politics, thorium, Uranium | Leave a comment

Yet more delay – Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor already 12 years behind schedule

December 21, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Finland, politics | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson’s overhaul of govt departments. Will it really be good for the environment?

Times 16th Dec 2019, Boris Johnson wants an overhaul of Whitehall that would merge departments and make it easier to fire civil servants and bring in experts from outside. Climate change would again become a separate department, allowing Mr Johnson to claim that he has a commitment to the environment.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prime-ministers-cummings-plan-for-civil-service-zv85vxd8z

December 17, 2019 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Call to postpone a  decision on Suffolk’s new nuclear power station bid

East Anglian Daily Times 16th Dec 2019, An MP has called on the Secretary of State for Energy to postpone a  decision on Suffolk’s new nuclear power station bid – accusing developers  of failing to address community concerns.

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Dan Poulter told Andrea Leadsom that EDF Energy’s latest consultation on Sizewell C still failed to provide enough information for consultees to make an informed response. EDF is expected to make its ‘Development Consent Order’ to the Planning Inspectorate early next year – after finishing its stage four consultation in September.

But Dr Poulter, said the company’s stage four consultation still left too many unanswered questions. EDF said its consultation had engaged with thousands of people across East Suffolk, providing updates on its plans as they evolved. It said it held regular meetings with parish councils and had provided funding to offer themindependent and free guidance during consultation.

But it faced regular criticism over the level of detail supplied in each stage of consultation. Dr Poulter said EDF’s lack of detail was a “common theme”. “There was some hope among interested parties in East Suffolk that EDF would use the stage four consultation to address the numerous calls for better information, but a review of the responses indicates EDF has missed this opportunity,” Dr Poulter wrote.

He said the collective response from the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB was “particularly damning”. The response said the consultation failed to pay proper regard to the purposes of the AONB – “despite comments made in previous consultations”. Dr Poulter said the information called for should be provided in EDF’s DCO but he had “serious reservations” of its ability to do so, given its failings so far.

Even if EDF was able to provide the information, Dr Poulter said the amount of data consultees would need to go through would be “substantial” – meaning their ability to make proper responses would be “severely limited”. Explaining his letter, Dr Poulter said: “EDF are behaving in a disdainful and unacceptable way towards many of the communities in East Suffolk. They should engage
properly and consult with local communities so the very real concerns of
residents about what the construction of Sizewell C means for them can be
properly considered and addressed.”

https://www.eadt.co.uk/business/suffolk-mp-dan-poulter-calls-for-delay-to-edf-energy-s-sizewell-c-submission-1-6424742

December 17, 2019 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »