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South Africa’s Jacob Zuma regime went all out for nuclear power, with secretive manipulations

Necsa’s financial fissures required dealing with the hangover of Zuma’s nuclear push, Daily Maverick, By Marianne Merten• 6 March 2019 

Preparing for the bonanza of a new nuclear build that never came emerged as a key reason for the financial ruptures at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation Ltd (Necsa), Parliament’s energy committee heard on Tuesday.

The impact of the push of former president Jacob Zuma’s administration for nuclear power was highlighted when the Necsa board and officials briefed MPs on its annual report – tabled months after the statutory September deadline in 2018, with 12 disclaimers and doubts over its status as a going concern.

The Jacob Zuma administration, and going big on nuclear with an extra 9,6 GigaWatts, are inextricably linked since his second term after the 2014 elections. And the opposition of National Treasury to the nuclear deal, widely costed at R1-trillion, is at the heart of the politics of State Capture, including the sacking of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December 2015 when he refused to endorse a nuclear deal with Russia.

As recently as 18 February 2019 the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture heard about the behind-the-scenes machinations when former National Treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile confirmed earlier testimony from two former finance ministers he had worked with – Nene, and Pravin Gordhan, who today is public enterprises minister.

At one meeting called to discuss the nuclear deal, Fuzile testified as to how Gordhan insisted that “every rule in the book” would have to be followed if the country were to proceed with a nuclear deal.

“He (Gordhan) told him (Zuma) this was important because failure to do that would turn the arms deal problems into a Sunday school picnic.”

But he added at a later stage: “It would seem that people had other interests.”………

At this stage, it is unclear how the Necsa board intents not only to cut the salary bill, but also turn the SOE’s fortunes around. The board has been given a two-month extension to submit its strategic plan by April 2019.

The reality is that there will be no new nuclear build. In July 2018, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, Ramaphosa told Russian President Vladimir Putin there would be no nuclear deal as South Africa could not afford it, as it was widely reported. Feathers were ruffled and smoothed back into place, for now, by all accounts.

But for Necsa, the hangover of the second Zuma administration’s nuclear push must now be dealt with. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-06-necsas-financial-fissures-required-dealing-with-the-hangover-of-zumas-nuclear-push/

March 7, 2019 Posted by | politics, South Africa | Leave a comment

The future of Britain’s Hinkley C nuclear project is in doubt

Bridgwater Mercury 5th March 2019 Roy Pumfrey, Cannington resident and Stop Hinkley spokesman has a number of
concerns about the new EDF Sedgemoor Campus off Bath Road.
The opening of ‘Barcode City’, the Bath Road hostel for Hinkley C workers (‘Hinkley Campus open’, Mercury, February 26) serves yet again to highlight the multiple problems with this project. Why is the ‘campus’ so small and so late on the scene? Rooms for 986 may sound a lot, but EDF have just announced that they want a 2,400 bed hostel at Sizewell in Suffolk. Oh, and  it is a hostel by the way, not a hotel as a recent BBC radio programme claimed.
If it’s only for Hinkley workers and the public can’t get a room, it’s a hostel! And why have we had to wait until the pressure on the local rental property market was so great before any EDF accommodation has appeared? One bedroom rents locally have risen from £380pcm 18 months ago to around £550 now. That’s a 45 per cent increase that people not
working at Hinkley simply won’t have been able to afford.
EDF is forever banging on about 25,000 Hinkley C jobs. It would be more honest of them if they admitted that they mean 24,100 notices of termination, as there are just 900 permanent jobs at HPC, if and when it is ever working. The prospect of that happening gets less by the week.
The French Government is taking nuclear back under state control, which makes Hinkley an oddity, and EDF can’t get Flamanville to work, which puts the vital UK Government loan guarantees for Hinkley C in danger of disappearing. The future fate of the Bath Road site was left hanging in your article. Let’s be in no doubt about what won’t be happening.
The nature of the blunt instrument that is a Development Consent Order means the only permanent legacy Bridgwater will
see is the power station and an enormous radioactive waste store, twice the size of what EDF originally proposed. All the temporary structures – the jetty, two hostel sites, park and rides, office blocks, freight lay-downs etc etc – have to be removed. EDF has already said its fantasy is to spirit the Bath Road units away to its improbable development at Sizewell.
As for the sites, acres of tumbleweed are all we have to look forward to.

https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/17478105.letter-what-will-become-of-barcode-city/

March 7, 2019 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

No nuclear power future for South Africa

State nuclear company needs to be ‘reshaped’ amid crisis, MPs hear. Business Live,  CAROL PATON,  06 MARCH 2019 

The Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA made a loss over the past two years, with the IRP unlikely to include nuclear -The Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa) group of companies are in crisis and must be “reshaped” now that the nuclear build programme looks likely to be pushed out into the distant future, Rob Adam, the new chair of the board of directors, told MPs on Tuesday………

Although the new Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), SA’s long-term energy plan, has not yet been finalised, drafts anticipate that no new nuclear energy capacity will be required in the foreseeable future. …… https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-03-05-state-nuclear-company-needs-to-be-reshaped-amid-crisis-mps-hear/ 

March 7, 2019 Posted by | politics, South Africa | Leave a comment

Texas-based Uranium Energy Corporation strongly lobbying Trump administration, and demonising Canadian company Uranium One

The Nuclear Energy Industry Goes MAGA to Win Over Trump

A U.S. uranium company set up shop at CPAC and started spreading Clinton scare stories.  The Daily Beast, Lachlan Markay, 03.03.19   A leading U.S. uranium producer is confident that President Donald Trump is going to crack down on its foreign competitors. But in the spirit of not taking any chances, the company rented space at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, enlisted a top Trumpworld public relations executive, and invoked a well-worn Trump attack line on his 2016 campaign opponent to try to nail down a policy win.

The Texas-based Uranium Energy Corporation posted up in the exhibition hall of the annual conservative confab this week, where it courted conservative activists, radio hosts, and at least one senior White House official with its pitch to crack down on foreign competition in the name of national security.

Specifically, the company is pressing the Department of Commerce to impose quotas on uranium imports that would carve out a quarter of the market purely for domestic producers. The department is scheduled to present its findings to President Trump in April, when he will decide whether to invoke his authority to impose “national security” trade restrictions.

UEC’s pitch isn’t just boilerplate national security or protectionist rhetoric. It has something most other companies vying for attention at this year’s CPAC do not: an opponent that’s been repeatedly called out and demonized by President Trump and his allies—Uranium One.

A Canadian company, Uranium One is a major uranium importer to the U.S., which pits it against UEC’s policy agenda. It is also a boogeyman for conservatives, who believe that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shepherded its acquisition by Rosatom, a nuclear energy company owned by Russia’s state atomic energy agency, after Uranium One’s chairman donated millions of dollars to her family’s foundation.

The conspiracy theory fails to account for the fact Clinton was just one of a board of nine federal officials who signed off on the deal. But that didn’t stop Scott Melbye, UEC’s executive vice president of Uranium Energy Corp, from warning about it while manning the company’s booth at CPAC……..

The UEC company’s presence at CPAC underscores the ways in which private interests frequently attempt to leverage the conference, and its influential attendees, often by tailoring communications and advocacy strategies to the pet issues and causes that animate the moment’s conservative voters, activists, and officials.

UEC wasn’t listed on the conference’s website as either a sponsor or an exhibitor. But a source familiar with its work there said it signed on late as an exhibitor—the lowest level of CPAC sponsorship—which comes at a $4,000 price tag.

Helping to organize UEC’s CPAC presence was Alexandra Preate, a public relations executive who works closely with former White House strategist and leading protectionist Steve Bannon, who formerly ran the pro-Trump website Breitbart. Also mulling about UEC’s exhibit was Matt Boyle, Breitbart’s political editor. ……….

UEC is using the access CPAC offers its sponsors and exhibitors to pursue a strategy tailor-made for Trump-era conservatives. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-nuclear-energy-industry-goes-maga-to-win-over-t

March 5, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Completely impractical to replace coal power with nuclear

Le Temps 3rd March 2019 [Machine Translation] Replace the fossil with fissile, is it really so easy? A small calculation will allow to quickly give the answer. This is
the rule of 3 x 10: 10 years of work before the commissioning of a nuclear
reactor, $ 10 billion per unit of production of 1000 MWe, 10% of
electricity production is nuclear in the world. 10 years of work: the
construction and authorization file, the preparation of the site, the civil
works, the installation itself, the tests. 10 billion, without the costs of
decommissioning (estimated at half of this amount) and waste management.
10% of the world’s electricity, which itself represents 20% of the global
energy mix, so it’s … 2%. The fossil represents about 75% of this mix,
the balance being biomass (wood …). These 2% are insured today by some
450 reactors.

To even double this share, from 2% to about 5% (assuming a
stabilization of consumption, which is unfortunately far from being
achieved), it would take 10 years, spend 4500 billion … for an effect
condemned to remain very limited.

Unless … as some pronuclearaires do not
hesitate to claim it, we accelerate the pace. Thus, the German newspaper
Die Welt, published on February 27th, stated that 115 reactors a year
should be built in the world!

The strategy of developing decentralized
renewable energies, geothermal, wind, solar, hydraulic, biomass combined
with a real desire to achieve an economical use of energy is infinitely
more realistic. It is clearly better in terms of efficiency in terms of
output, commitment of resources and resilience of the energy system,
including in terms of diversified and local jobs.

https://blogs.letemps.ch/rene-longet/2019/03/03/squattant-le-debat-climatique-lhydre-nucleaire-releve-la-tete/

March 5, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics | Leave a comment

No way to get rid of spent nuclear fuel (but they still keep making it anyway!)

U.S. still has no place for spent nuclear fuel, so Maine Yankee’s owner gets millions

The award will help pay for the roughly $10 million per year to maintain the repository at the closed nuclear plant in Wiscasset. PressHerald,  BY TUX TURKEL STAFF WRITER 3 Mar 19, For the fourth time since 1998, a federal judge has awarded the owners of three closed nuclear power plants, including Maine Yankee, millions of dollars for the federal government’s failure to remove spent nuclear fuel.

According to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., Yankee Atomic Electric Co., and Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., the owners won a partial summary judgment last week totaling $103.2 million. Maine Yankee’s share is $34.4 million.

The award will help offset the roughly $10 million per year cost of operating an interim spent fuel storage site on plant property in Wiscasset. It will indirectly benefit ratepayers, who otherwise foot the bill. The actual financial impact hasn’t been determined, but is expected to be minimal.

In 2016, for instance, Maine Yankee was awarded about $24.6 million. Roughly $3.6 million of the total award was returned to utilities, including Central Maine Power. The balance, $21 million, went to operate the spent fuel storage site…….

Wayne Norton, president of the three companies  urged Congress to authorize funding for a pilot program to remove and consolidate spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste from closed reactor sites, and to complete a review for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Maine Yankee operated from 1972 to 1996. Although activists fought for years to close the plant, it was the company’s board that ultimately voted to pull the plug rather than fix expensive, safety-related problems.

Yankee, in Rowe, Massachusetts, closed in 1992. Connecticut Yankee shut down in 1996.

By law, the federal government is charged with coming up with a long-term solution for disposing of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. It was supposed to begin removing waste in 1998. Facing ongoing public and political opposition, that process hasn’t happened.

Plans to build a permanent waste repository in the Nevada desert were scrapped in 2009 by President Obama. The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about whether it supports reviving Yucca Mountain.

For the foreseeable future, highly radioactive fuel rods are being stored in 60 airtight steel canisters and housed in concrete casks in Wiscasset. Another four canisters hold radioactive steel from the decommissioning process. Maintaining them costs roughly $10 million a year, according to Maine Yankee.

The current award is for a period from 2013 to 2016, and the three companies are seeking an additional $1.2 million in costs. The federal government has 60 days to appeal the award.

Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:

tturkel@pressherald.com    https://www.pressherald.com/2019/02/25/judge-awards-34-million-to-offset-costs-of-storing-spent-fuel-rods-in-wiscasset/

March 4, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | 2 Comments

New defects, after a series of problems and delays, in France’s supposed “nuclear flagship” Flamanville

France Info 1st March 2019  Machine Translation] Cracks, failed welds … How the site of the EPR Flamanville has turned into a fiasco to nearly 11 billion euros.

The third generation nuclear reactor, which was to take office in 2012, will finally be operational only in 2020 after the discovery of new defects. Back on those days when the yard slipped. It was to be the flagship of the French nuclear industry, the EPR of Flamanville (Manche) is today its ball.

The construction site of the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) experienced numerous delays, the last of which occurred on July 25, 2018, after the discovery of poorly made welds. Originally scheduled for 2012, its entry into service is (for the moment) postponed to 2020. And nothing says that the yard will be spared by new counter-time. The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) thus pinned EDF on Wednesday (February 27th) for a lack of “traceability” of certain equipment qualification operations on the EPR.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/fissures-soudures-ratees-comment-le-chantier-de-l-epr-de-flamanville-s-est-transforme-en-un-fiasco-a-pres-de-11-milliards-d-euros_2874077.amp 

March 4, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics, safety | Leave a comment

Major presidential candidate in USA running on climate action policy

Think Progress 1st March 2019 , For the first time in history, a major presidential candidate is putting
climate change center stage in their campaign. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
(D) announced on Friday he will seek to challenge President Donald Trump in
2020. “This is our moment, our climate, our mission — together, we can
defeat climate change. That’s why I’m running for president,” Inslee
said on Twitter. In a video announcing his presidential campaign, he called
climate change “the most urgent challenge of our time,” adding,
“we’re the first generation to feel the sting of climate change. And
we’re the last that can do something about it.”

https://thinkprogress.org/washington-governor-jay-inslee-running-for-president-climate-change-6cd8755ed1d7/

March 4, 2019 Posted by | climate change, politics, USA | Leave a comment

New report highlights the inability of USA to deal with nuclear waste

March 2, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

UK’s Radioactive Waste Management cancels nuclear waste meeting in Swansea – opts for webinar instead

Nuclear waste meeting in Swansea is cancelled and replaced with an online event Wales Online, By Robert DallingSenior Reporter 1 MAR 2019

It was one of a series of meetings taking place across the country to discuss where to bury the country’s most dangerous radioactive waste.

The organisation that had planned a meeting in Swansea about where to store nuclear waste has cancelled it, and said it’s staging an online event instead.

Government-run Radioactive Waste Management was behind the meetings in Swansea and Llandudno to discuss where to create a geological disposal facility for burying the UK’s stockpile of the most dangerous radioactive waste.

No details of any potential sites were made public and it was understood that the body was seeking “a willing host community” where radioactive waste could be stored hundreds of metres underground.

The Swansea meeting was planned for Tuesday, March 1

A statement from the firm read: “Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) respects the views expressed by Swansea Council in their proposed motion (for consideration on 28 February) about hosting a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in their area.

“RWM also reaffirms that none of its regional events, including the one for Swansea , is linked in any way to where a GDF might be sited and no site anywhere in England or Wales has been targeted, proposed or chosen.  A GDF can only be sited in Wales if a community is willing to host it…….

It is expected that the process of selecting an underground site and going through the planning and construction process will take decades with any chosen site first receiving waste in the 2040s.

The Government said communities interested in hosting a GDF could receive up to £1m a year initially and up to £2.5m a year if deep borehole investigations took place.

Swansea Lib Dem councillor Peter Black criticised the move to cancel the physical meeting.

He said: “I think we should have met them face to face so as to get some clarity as to what exactly they were proposing.

“A webinar means that many people who might want to contribute to this debate, who are not on the internet, will now be excluded.”

Leader of Swansea Council, Rob Stewart said: “I’m pleased that RWM has listened to the very strong representations that we have made and cancelled this meeting in Swansea.

“We note that they have replaced it with an online event so I will make it clear that we will not let up on in our fight until the Swansea Bay area is ruled-out as a potential location for a dump for radioactive waste.

“The reaction of most councillors, our local residents and businesses is clear – nuclear waste is not and never will be welcome here and we will not allow it.” https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nuclear-waste-meeting-swansea-cancelled-15901315

March 2, 2019 Posted by | politics, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Imran Khan to consult nuclear chiefs after India’s first air strike on Pakistan in decades

ABC News 28 Feb 19 Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan will stage an emergency parliamentary session and meet with the body in control of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal in response to India’s first air strikes on Pakistan since 1971.

Key points:

  • Indian fighter jets struck an area 50 kilometres into Pakistan on Tuesday
  • India said the strike was in response to a terrorist attack that killed 44 Indian police
  • Pakistan said its own warplanes had scattered Indian jets, forcing them to drop their payload over uninhabited areas

The two nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars since partition in 1947, and the majority of them have been over Kashmir — a territory both India and Pakistan claim in full…….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/imran-khan-stages-meetings-response-to-indian-air-strikes/10853290

March 2, 2019 Posted by | Pakistan, politics | Leave a comment

Japan’s long-drawn out nuclear “comeback” – safety and cost issues

THE BIG PICTURE: Japan’s Nuclear Comeback [excellent graphic on original] https://www.powermag.com/the-big-picture-japans-nuclear-comeback/

03/01/2019 | Sonal Patel After the Great Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, and ensuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011, Japan issued stringent safety regulations and reviews that affected its entire 50-reactor fleet. It meant that as each Japanese nuclear reactor entered its scheduled maintenance and refueling outage, it could not returned to operation until restart was approved by both Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) and the central government. Nuclear operators also need consent from governments of local prefectures.

Between September 2013—when Ohi 3 and 4 were shut down—and August 2015, when Sendai 1 and 2 restarted, Japan’s entire reactor fleet went black. In 2013, though there was no consensus on how long the approval process could take, some industry observers forecast reactors under NRA review could be back online within a year. As of December 2018, only nine reactors had restarted. Sixteen others were under review by the NRA, where average review duration stretched beyond 1,000 days, owing to staffing issues. Japan’s fleet of operable reactors, meanwhile, has dwindled to 38, owing to announced retirements.

According to Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, safety investment costs for the current fleet were estimated at 4.4 trillion yen ($39 billion today) as of April 2018. “Given that detailed designs are still left undecided for severe accident management facilities at some plants, the estimated costs may increase further as safety examinations make progress.”

March 2, 2019 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Bipartisan pair of Michigan congressmen aim to limit any USA deal to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia

Levin, Amash say Saudi Arabia must not be allowed to build a nuclear bomb https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/03/01/saudi-arabia-nukes-andy-levin/3017833002/

Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press, March 1, 2019, WASHINGTON — A bipartisan pair of Michigan congressmen are proposing to limit any nuclear deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to make sure it doesn’t lead to a bomb. U.S. Reps. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township, and Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, introduced a resolution Thursday calling for any deal the Trump administration may be pursuing with the Saudis to include the highest nonproliferation standard possible.

“We cannot allow a civilian nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia to create a pathway to a nuclear bomb, period,” Levin said. “Recent events, including the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi, have made it all the more clear why we must insist on the highest possible nonproliferation standard.”

The House resolution mirrors one already introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jeff Merkley,  D-Ore. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.

In February, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a report indicating that Trump administration officials had pushed for a plan to build nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia despite concerns that doing so could violate federal law.

The committee report suggested some people involved in the effort were interested in financial gain.

The transfer of nuclear technology is typically approved through a closely regulated process and a nuclear cooperation agreement signed off on by Congress.

Levin, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that if such a deal is developed, it must include rules that prohibit Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or separating plutonium or any other activities that could result in weapons-grade material.

March 2, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Political push for small modular nuclear reactors in Utah

March 2, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Utah politicians sucked in by “Small Modular Nuclear Reactor” lobbyists’ propaganda

March 2, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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