Britain badly needs a dose of nuclear realism. If it remains a strategic necessity, the UK must find a way to win more bang for its buck, Ft.com , JONATHAN FORD , 21 Jan 19
One thing British politicians have never lacked when making nuclear policy is optimism. When it comes to atomic energy, they leave Dr Pangloss in the shade. Take the last big nuclear programme back in the 1960s, whose purpose was to meet a fifth of the UK’s electricity needs. Rather than using proven (if US made) reactor technology, the government bet instead on a homegrown gas-cooled type. The minister of power, Fred Lee, confidently predicted the experimental design would be a world beater. Britain had “hit the jackpot”, he declared. The UK certainly hit something. But it wasn’t pay dirt. The AGR programme dragged on for more than two decades and was, in the words of the man who commissioned it, Arthur Hawkins of the Central Electricity Generating Board, “a catastrophe that must not be repeated”. ………
Once again, there is plenty of wishful thinking. Indeed, policy has been driven largely by a series of optimistic guesses. These include not just the cost of new reactors, but also the willingness of private capital to fund them without assistance from the state. …….
again there are multiple reactor types. Repurposing often almost untested equipment for UK safety rules means that each starts from scratch with its own prototype, learning as it goes along. Add the need to fund these “first of type” schemes with private capital and it’s not surprising that projects have been falling by the wayside. Toshiba pulled out in November and, last week, Hitachi shelved plans to install its boiling water reactor technology at a promising site in Anglesey, having spent £2bn just getting to the start line.
The result is that a decade in, Britain has just one project under way — at Hinkley Point in Somerset — for which the government has struck an eye-wateringly expensive contract. The owner, EDF of France, is now saying it could do subsequent projects cheaper, because it will have the Hinkley experience to draw on. But given the absence of competition (the only other participant left in is CGN of China, EDF’s partner at Hinkley), the government faces the unpalatable prospect of a series of potentially disadvantageous bilateral deals. The UK originally set a target of about 18GW of electricity coming from nuclear by the 2030s. This has since been reduced to about 12GW. With only Hinkley and an ageing Sizewell B likely to be in operation, just 4.4GW of that target is likely to be met. ……….
Removing complexity (and wishful thinking) doesn’t come without cost. The government would have to acquire the necessary sites and assist bidders to get them to the start line. (Abu Dhabi cut some corners the UK might balk at, such as accepting the supplier’s home country safety accreditation). It means the government acting as owner, committing to fund construction itself rather than going through complex contortions to attract just a sliver of risk-bearing equity. There may not be the political willpower.
Of course, Britain does not have to go ahead with nuclear. It can run the risk of relying on other zero-carbon technologies, such as renewables, and other countries by building interconnectors. It can legislate to change the carbon targets it has set itself. But if nuclear power remains a strategic necessity, the UK needs a realistic programme to meet it. Otherwise the country will end up building vanishingly little new capacity, and doing so only at extortionate cost.
https://www.ft.com/content/5bc23eec-1caa-11e9-b2f7-97e4dbd3580d
January 22, 2019
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Business Green 21st Jan 2019 New York has embraced the campaign for a ‘Green New Deal’, with Governor
Andrew Cuomo declaring last week he will launch a major programme to build
a zero carbon economy for the state.
New York’s Green New Deal was hailed
as a “nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda” by the Governor’s
office, as it pledged to “aggressively put New York State on a path to
economy-wide carbon neutrality”. The plan includes doubling the state’s
solar capacity by 2025 and quadrupling its offshore wind capacity by 2035,
as part of a legally binding goal to deliver 100 per cent zero-carbon power
for the state by 2040.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3069581/new-york-unveils-green-new-deal-with-plan-to-build-net-zero-economy
January 22, 2019
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How Direct Democracy Went Nuclear in Taiwan, A contentious vote on Taiwan’s nuclear future showed how the country’s public referendums went haywire. The Diplomat , By Nick Aspinwall, January 18, 2019 It only took one month for Huang Shih-hsiu, a 31-year-old nuclear energy advocate, to upend a core energy policy of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The policy, prior to its downfall, stated that Taiwan would decommission its three active nuclear power plants by 2025.
……….. all in a social media-crazed society that can struggle to
separate online truth from fiction.
It makes for an entangled web of policy which, ideally, a direct democracy would sort out through a patient and measured process of public debate, consultation with experts, and consensus-building to avoid polarization and finger-pointing. Everyone does seem to agree on one thing, however: This did not happen in Taiwan.
Will the World Learn From Taiwan?
Matt Qvortrup, a professor of political science at Coventry University and leading referendum expert, has watched referendums surge in popularity throughout Europe and, gradually, to corners of the world like Taiwan, whose large-scale plebiscites provided lessons for global democracies in what, or what not, to do.
Qvortrup is a believer in referendums, but with conditions. “Democracy is discussion and deliberation,” he says, and that does not happen when voters are rushed to the polls. “To have meaningful democracy,” he says, “you need to have time to debate things.” Taiwan’s CEC-sanctioned TV debates were held in a cramped three-week window – five public forums each for 10 referendum questions.
He noted that debate on the high-interest issue of same-sex marriage dominated much of Taiwan’s already congested pre-referendum discourse, drowning out interest in the intricacies of energy policy. “That’s bad, because people will be voting on things they haven’t had the opportunity to talk about,” Qvortrup says.
Chao of RSPRC agrees, saying there was far from enough time for voters to have an informed debate. Shortly after the referendum, his center published a study showing that voters were not informed on nuclear power – most were unaware of the details of Tsai’s phaseout proposal, and 44 percent believed nuclear power provides most of the island’s energy. (It produces just over 8 percent, far behind coal-fired power.)
“For democracy to work, it has to be limited to relatively few issues,” says Qvortrup. “If you have too many issues on the ballot, people just get saturated. They turn off, they can’t be bothered. You need to save up your civic reserves.”
Taiwan’s nuclear power plebiscite was not even the only energy-related measure on the ballot: Two separate measures, both successful, called for Taiwan to reduce thermal power and stop expansion of coal-fired power plants. A measure to maintain Taiwan’s ban on food imports from the Fukushima disaster area also passed, angering Japan.
The team at Cofacts, a collaborative social media fact-checking platform that monitored online discussion leading up to the referendums, says it observed a combination of disinformation and voter apathy ahead of the energy plebiscites. “In comparison to other issues, nuclear power was one of the less popular topics,” writes Rosalind, a Cofacts editor, in an open response to questions from The Diplomat. “Even when people talked about it, they were actually talking about air pollution, reducing thermal power generation plants, new alternative energy, and polluted foods.” This did not allow voters to consider the nuances of the issues, such as whether Taiwan does in fact face a looming electricity shortage, says Rosalind.
“The people wanted to be on the ‘winning’ side of these yes/no questions, even though most of them did not know the referendum topics until the day of the election,” says Cofacts founder Johnson Liang. He notes that online discussion on nuclear power paled in comparison to talk of the same-sex marriage referendums. “There were way too many topics to vote [on] within a timespan that is too short, and they did not have time to follow the television debates.”
It takes a resonant message to cut through an overload of information and mangled discourse, and Huang Shih-hsiu had one: Nuclear Mythbusters ran with the slogan “Nuclear energy is green energy,” sizing it up against a future coal-fired dystopia and dismissing the present-day viability of affordable renewables, all while cutting through the opposing stance that nuclear power is an environmental crisis waiting to happen.
This approach has always been effective, but it’s especially potent in the digital age, says Dion Curry, senior lecturer of public policy at Swansea University. Public figures with “little political power, but immense media power” – he cites Brexit’s Nigel Farage as an example – can strategically reach voters through targeted Facebook ads and participation in social media “echo chambers,” he says………. https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/how-direct-democracy-went-nuclear-in-taiwan/
January 21, 2019
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Plans to sell nuclear plants overseas derailed, Japan Times, 20 Jan 19, With the decision by Hitachi Ltd. to “freeze” its plan to build two nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, all of the overseas nuclear power plant projects pursued by Japanese firms — with the backing of the government seeking to promote export of nuclear power technology as a key pillar of its efforts to boost infrastructure sales in overseas markets — have now effectively been derailed.
……… Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long taken the initiative to promote the overseas sale of Japanese nuclear power plants through top-level diplomacy. However, the nuclear power plant business cannot be a part of the nation’s growth strategy if its business feasibility is in doubt. The government and related industries need to face up to the situation surrounding the nuclear power business — which continues to face difficulties domestically as well — and reassess the way forward.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster, triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, has radically changed the global nuclear power market landscape. The cost of nuclear power, which had been promoted as a relatively inexpensive and “clean” source of energy that does not emit carbon dioxide, spiked as additional safety investments inflated plant expenses.
The cost of Hitachi’s project to build the two reactors in Anglesey, Wales, which began in 2012, has ballooned from the initial estimate of ¥2 trillion to ¥3 trillion. Another project pursued by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to build four reactors in Turkey has also been hampered by the swelling cost — which reportedly shot up from an initially estimated ¥2.1 trillion to ¥5 trillion. Toshiba Corp. has pulled out from the overseas nuclear power business after the huge losses incurred by its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. in its nuclear power plant projects in the United States.
Even with a spike in plant construction costs, the nuclear power business would make economic sense if the expected earnings surpass the investments. But Hitachi reportedly decided to halt the U.K. project after it became clear that even with public support from the British government it could not possibly realize profits………
Behind the government’s drive to promote the sale of nuclear power plants overseas has been the domestic market’s bleak business prospects. While the government and the power industry have pushed for restarting the nation’s nuclear power plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, once they have cleared the tightened plant safety standards, only nine reactors at five plants have been put back online. The additional costs of safety investments required under the new Nuclear Regulation Authority standards to make the plants more resilient to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami — estimated to range from ¥100 billion to ¥200 billion for each reactor — have prompted power companies to decide to decommission 23 aging reactors so far (including the six at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant).
As popular opposition in Japan remains strong against reactivating the idled plants, there is no prospect that the construction of new plants will be approved in the foreseeable future. The drive to promote the export of nuclear power plants may have been intended to make up for the loss of demand in the domestic market. But earlier plans for Japanese makers to build plants in Lithuania and Vietnam were canceled, while a civil nuclear cooperation pact signed with India in 2016 — which was aimed at paving the way for Japanese nuclear plant exports to the country — has not resulted in any deal. Along with Hitachi’s decision to halt the U.K. project, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reportedly set to abandon its plan in Turkey.
Even without construction of new plants, there will be demand for maintaining Japan’s existing nuclear power plants, and for decommissioning its aging plants. What to do with the spent nuclear fuel and the high-level radioactive wastes from the plants will also be among the challenges that confront Japan’s nuclear power business. There will be plenty of work for the industry, and it will be crucial to develop and maintain the technology and manpower to deal with the tasks. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/01/20/editorials/plans-sell-nuclear-plants-overseas-derailed/#.XETUVtIzbGg
January 21, 2019
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Nuclear’s Bleak Odds in a Green New Deal
Ocasio-Cortez won’t rule out inclusion of nuclear, but some see sector as incompatible with ‘100% renewable’ focus Morning Consult , January 14, 2019 Lawmakers embracing a transition to 100 percent renewable energy under a Green New Deal have largely left out mention of whether nuclear energy should be included in such a policy package. While Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Green New Deal’s biggest proponents, said she hasn’t ruled out nuclear energy from the platform, other advocates on the left hold long-running concerns that appear to lessen nuclear’s chances of inclusion in the deal.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) is one of over 40 lawmakers who have issued their support for Green New Deal concepts championed by the freshman Democratic representative from New York, who has floated a draft resolution that calls on lawmakers to work toward supplying 100 percent of U.S. power demand from renewables, building a national smart grid and putting money toward a drawdown of greenhouse gases.
“I think on nuclear energy, we all have a general resistance to it,” Pingree said, because of the unsolved quandary of how to deal with nuclear waste, along with remaining environmental and safety issues. “We all think of Japan.”……..
The Sunrise Movement, an environmental group formed in 2017 that has taken up the Green New Deal cause and staged climate protests last year outside the office of now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is still “working on a policy outline for what a Green New Deal includes and are consulting with experts and other organizations to develop that,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, who handles communications for the group, in an email. That plan will be ready soon, he said.
If the rest of the environmental community is any indication, nuclear’s outlook in a Green New Deal is even grimmer. The Green Party of the United States’ Green New Deal calls for a full phaseout of U.S. nuclear power. And on Thursday, hundreds of environmental groups wrote an open letter in support of a Green New Deal that supports transitioning completely away from nuclear, along with biomass resources and large-scale hydropower.
Mike McKenna, a Republican strategist who worked on President Donald Trump’s Energy Department transition team, said there is “zero chance” of nuclear getting into a Green New Deal…….
January 21, 2019
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Times 18th Jan 2019 , One thing that all these new power plants had in common was a reliance on foreign money. The same is true for proposed plants at Bradwell B and Sizewell C. Hitachi, too, was involved in a proposed plant in Gloucestershire, which is now unlikely to progress.
Such is the vast cost of nuclear projects that few companies in the world can afford to finance them alone, and even governments struggle.
In today’s money, Hinkley C is expected to cost twice as much as the Channel tunnel. George Osborne, as
chancellor, guaranteed a return of £92.50 at 2012 prices per megawatt hour (Mwh) generated. For context, one Mwh of offshore wind power, once thought ridiculously expensive, guarantees suppliers £57.50.
Britain now finds itself with a headache. With many already regarding the Cameron government’s trust in Chinese involvement as a potential compromise of national security, it is unlikely that there would be further appetite for
a replacement Chinese partner, even if one could be found.
The French may also consider themselves already overcommitted to British projects.
Ministers will be wary, at any rate, of offering guarantees as expensive as Hinkley. Greg Clark, secretary of state for business and energy, confirmed yesterday that the government planned an energy white paper in the summer
to propose new methods for attracting nuclear financing. Pressing ahead without new nuclear capacity is plausible, but not without a considerable expansion of renewable energy and its storage capabilities. Customers may need to pay more for energy at busier times or invest in domestic storage of their own.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/02d3fb2c-1a9d-11e9-944c-54b267eb465b
January 19, 2019
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Hitachi to Cease Work on Nuclear Power Plant in North Wales, NYT, Stanley Reed, Jan. 17, 2019, Hitachi said on Thursday that it was suspending work on a 15 billion pound, or $19.3 billion, nuclear power project in North Wales after failing to agree on financial terms with the British and Japanese governments.
“The decision was made from the viewpoint of Hitachi’s economic rationality as a private enterprise,” the company, based in Japan, said.
Ben Russell, a spokesman for Hitachi’s British venture, Horizon Nuclear Power, said that discussions with the governments would continue but that its staff, currently around 300 people, would be cut to “a minimal handful.”
Hitachi will also stop planning work on a second project, in Oldbury, England. The company said it planned to take a write-off of 300 billion yen, or $2.75 billion, on the projects.
The decision by Hitachi is a blow to the British government, which is betting heavily on nuclear installations to help meet the country’s electric power needs in the coming decades.
The big question is whether Hitachi’s move will be a death knell for Britain’s campaign to build nuclear plants, which so far has resulted in only one project under construction.
While there are signs that the government is rethinking its energy policy, it was willing to go a long way toward trying to keep Hitachi on board.
In a statement to Parliament on Thursday, Greg Clark, the secretary of state for business and energy, said the government had been willing to consider providing one-third of the equity financing for the project and to take on all of the construction debt. When Hitachi continued to balk, Mr. Clark said, “I was not prepared to ask the taxpayer to take on a larger share.”
…….For Hitachi, though, the announcement could mark the end of a long and expensive saga. The company acquired the Horizon sites from two German utilities in 2012 for £697 million, or about $900 million, and wound up spending around £2 billion in total on design approvals, staff and other matters. It has been hiring apprentices, who have been training at a technical college on the island and going to Spain and Japan for work experience. At times in recent months more than 100 archaeologists were on the site, excavating and recording ancient structures that the construction would have destroyed.
Hitachi hoped Britain would prove to be an international showcase for its reactor designs. Ultimately, the company lost patience with the high level of spending required to land such a project there.
Hitachi had sought to arrive at a financial arrangement that would attract long-term investors like pension funds to the project and reduce its own exposure. But the offers of support from both the British and the Japanese sides were not enough………https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/business/energy-environment/hitachi-horizon-wales-nuclear-plant.html
January 19, 2019
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Jim Green Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia shared a link. 19 Jan 19
UK Secretary (Minister) for energy and business on the staggering subsidies offered to Hitachi to build reactors in Wales … and the project collapsed anyway!
Mr. Speaker, while negotiations were ongoing, I am sure the House will understand that the details were commercially sensitive, but following Hitachi’s announcement I can set out in more candid terms the support that the government was willing to offer in support of the project.
Firstly, the government was willing to consider taking a one third equity stake in the project, alongside investment from Hitachi and Government of Japan agencies and other strategic partners.
Secondly, the government was willing to consider providing all of the required debt financing to complete construction.
Thirdly, the government agreed to consider providing a Contract for Difference to the project with a strike price expected to be no more £75 per megawatt hour.
I hope the House would agree that this is a significant and generous package of potential support that goes beyond what any government has been willing to consider in the past. Despite this potential investment, and strong support from the government of Japan, Hitachi have reached the view that the project still posed too great a commercial challenge, particularly given their desire to deconsolidate the project from their balance sheet and the likely level of return on their investment. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/
January 19, 2019
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Why is the government cooling on nuclear?, BBC News, Simon JackBusiness editor17 January 2019
January 19, 2019
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 Dave Toke’s Blog 14th Dec 2019 There’s a bunch of highly misleading statements that the Government is to adopt so-called ‘Regulated Asset Base’ (RAB) financing of nuclear power projects.
Yes, some of the mechanisms that are being proposed are also used in RAB, but the term is being grotesquely distorted to hide the fact that this is a cover for the Government risking very large sums of money to be lent to nuclear power developers.
Put simply, if the nuclear power projects are as expensive as they usually are the electricity consumer will lose an awful lot of money and prices will be jerked upwards. Either that or the
taxpayer takes a hit and funding of public services suffer big time. You can see the cover up printed in the Sunday Times yesterday where, we are told that ‘Ministers are expected to accelerate plans to introduce regulated asset base (RAB) financing, which is popular in the water and infrastructure sectors, for nuclear plants including the Horizon project’.
Under such schemes the developers are allowed to charge consumers in advance for the capital building projects. What Ministers are not emphasising of course, is that in industries such as water the Government does not lend lots of money to the privatised companies. They raise this on private markets. But in the case of nuclear power plants the bulk of the money needed to build them will be borrowed from the Government.
So if the nuclear plant has very big delays and cost overruns (as has happened to ALL nuclear power plant built in the West this century), the Government loses shedloads of money. The Treasury is likely to insist that this gets paid for by adding the (large) sums to electricity consumer bills. RAB has been used to try to finance nuclear power plant in the USA, in the states of Georgia and South Carolina recently.
The result was disaster and the developing company, Westinghouse, went bust. But this was ‘normal’ RAB where the developer takes the risk of cost overruns. But in the proposed UK
nuclear version it will be the electricity consumer who goes bust when the almost inevitable cost-overruns set in!
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January 17, 2019
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Fukushima Residents Return Despite Radiation Eight years after the nuclear meltdown, wary citizens are moving back to contaminated homesteads—some not by choice, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, BY JANE BRAXTON LITTLE JANUARY 16, 2019
“………. LACK OF PUBLIC TRUST
In the year after the accident Koriyama was one of 12 communities where the ongoing radiation rate measured between 3 and 5 mSv above background, but the town had not been evacuated. Today’s levels have stabilized at 1.5 mSv, but doubts remain. Skeptical of the government’s readings, Shigeru Otake, 49, takes his own. A slim man who wears a Dollar Store rope belt to give him “strength like a samurai,” he says he has measured radiation spikes at 15 mSv in Koriyama, where his family has lived for generations. Sakuma walks her sons, now eight and 10 years old, to school past a government monitoring post that she claims reads six times lower than her own dosimeter does.
Misgivings about government assurances of safety drove Hiroshi Ueki, 48, to move his family to Nagano Prefecture, where he is now growing “the best grapes in the world.” His parents stayed behind in Fukushima Prefecture. Ueki says he will never move back. “The prime minister says the accident is over but I won’t ever feel safe until the Daiichi plant itself is finally shut down. That will take 100 years.”
In spite of these concerns, Japan has continued to showcase repatriation as a barometer of progress toward recovery. By April 2017, the government had lifted all evacuations except for the most contaminated places closest to Daiichi. That decision also ended rent-free housing provided to people who were forced to leave as well as to some 26,600 people like Ueki who vacated voluntarily. Left without the $10,000 monthly subsidy provided by Tokyo Electric Company, some people have been forced to return home despite their safety concerns. They have no other economic options, says Hajime Matsukubo, general manager of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center. Some 16,000 people who refuse to return have been financially abandoned, according to the center.
Scientists generally agree on a few basics: The risks of getting leukemia or other cancers are higher for children than adults, and the risks for everyone increase significantly with exposure above 100 mSv annually. Various national agencies have set 20 mSv per year as a maximum for occupational exposure. Public exposure should be no more than 1 mSv per year above background levels, according to the International Commission for Radiological Protection. That raises questions about Japan’s 2011 emergency declaration of 20 mSv per year as the allowable exposure. …….
The public perception is that the Daiichi nuclear accident continues to pose health risks and, significantly, nuclear power is not safe. More than 80 percent of the Japanese public wants to phase it out, according to an October 2018 study by Suzuki, the former Japan Atomic Energy commissioner. He calls the erosion of public trust “the most unfortunate impact of the accident.”
Sakuma, the Koriyama mother, is using the Daiichi accident as a lesson in radical civic involvement. She intends to keep her sons in Koriyama despite radiation concerns. “I want them to grow up here so they can learn what the government does. I want them to tell other people about how it is to live with radiation,” she says. “This accident is not over.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fukushima-residents-return-despite-radiation/
January 17, 2019
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Morning Consult 14th Jan 2019 , Lawmakers embracing a transition to 100 percent renewable energy under a Green New Deal have largely left out mention of whether nuclear energy should be included in such a policy package. While Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Green New Deal’s biggest proponents, said she hasn’t ruled out nuclear energy from the platform, other advocates on the left hold long-running concerns that appear to lessen nuclear’s chances of inclusion in the deal.
https://morningconsult.com/2019/01/14/nuclears-bleak-odds-in-a-green-new-deal/
January 17, 2019
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ANSTO nuclear waste to compromise safety and security in 
SA, https://www.foe.org.au/ansto_nuclear_waste_to_compromise_safety_and_security_in_sa David Noonan, 17 Jan 19 The federal government intends shipments of irradiated nuclear fuel waste to be imposed through Whyalla or Port Pirie to go onto indefinite above-ground storage at a nuclear dump site at either Kimba or Hawker ‒ all of which is illegal under state law in South Australia.
Two shipments of reprocessed nuclear waste ‒ arising from the reprocessing of fuel irradiated in
research reactors operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) ‒ are intended in the first two years of nuclear store operations in SA. A shipment is due from Sellafield in UK in the early 2020s, and ANSTO plans a shipment of nuclear waste that was reprocessed in France then shipped to ANSTO’s Lucas Heights site (south of Sydney) in 2015.
Some 100 B-Double truckloads of federal government Intermediate Level Wastes (ILW) ‒ predominantly ANSTO waste from Lucas Heights ‒ are also to be trucked into SA in the first four years of nuclear store operations in SA.
SA communities face decades of potential accident and terrorist risks and impacts from ongoing ANSTO nuclear waste transports, with all of the next 40 years of ANSTO reactor waste also to be shipped and trucked to SA for indefinite above-ground storage.
The federal nuclear regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), states that nuclear fuel wastes and other ILW require radiation shielding and require isolation from the environment for over 10,000 years. Yet the current plan is to store this waste in SA in a fancy shed for indefinite storage described as “interim” and as “long term above-ground storage (approximately 100 years)”.
After 60 years, ANSTO still has no nuclear waste disposal capacity, while ANSTO’s nuclear waste production is set to increase to more than double waste stockpiles over the next 40 years.
The government’s April 2018 ‘Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework’1 reports total ILW at 1,770 cubic metres (m3), with 95% by volume arising as federal government wastes.
The federal government plans to produce a further 1,960 m3 of ILW over next 40 years, with 95% (1,850 m3) arising from ANSTO’s reactor operations – all to be trucked into SA for indefinite above-ground storage at either Kimba or Hawker.
All of these federal government nuclear waste plans face serious obstacles and community opposition. They are illegal under state law in SA; are in breach of formal advice of the Nuclear Safety Committee to the federal regulator ARPANSA2; and do not represent International Best Practice.
The import, transport, storage and disposal of ANSTO nuclear fuel wastes were prohibited by the SA Liberal government in 2000; then in 2002‒03 the incoming SA Labor government extended the legislation to cover other radioactive wastes. Yet the federal Coalition government intends to override state law to impose nuclear wastes onto South Aistralia.
Advice provided to the CEO of ARPANSA by ARPANSA’s ‘Nuclear Safety Committee’ in Nov. 2013 states that:
“International best practice points to the need to have in place a policy and infrastructure for final management and ultimate disposal of waste before activities generating waste commence.”
“[T]he dual handling and transport process associated with interim storage does not represent international best practice”
“Dual handling also has implications for security.”
More recently, in Nov. 2016, the Nuclear Safety Committee advised the CEO of ARPANSA on the “ongoing requirement to clearly and effectively engage all stakeholders, including those along transport routes” and the Committee said that such engagement is “essential”.3
However, in an arrogant, flawed process, the federal government named port cities in SA as required ports to take shipments of nuclear waste in a report4 posted on the internet but failed to even inform the targeted communities and their local councils.
The story broke on Southern Cross TV on Aug. 6. The next day the ABC quoted Port Pirie’s Mayor saying Council was “blind-sided” by the federal government position to potentially require Port Pirie as a nuclear waste port. On Aug. 9 the story ran on p.1 of the Whyalla News, with the Whyalla Mayor saying Council won’t accept this.
Communities in Whyalla or Port Pirie ‒ and in Port Augusta which was named on a number of potential required nuclear waste transport routes ‒ face “complete shutdown” in transport of nuclear wastes through their cities but have been excluded from having a say by this federal government.
The federal Coalition government must stop this untenable nuclear waste threat to compromise safety and security in SA and accept extended storage of ANSTO nuclear fuel waste and ILW at Lucas Heights.
As the alternate federal government, the ALP is yet to say what they may do if elected in 2019.
More information: www.nuclear.foe.org.au/noonan
References:….
- www.radioactivewaste.gov.au/sites/prod.radioactivewaste/files/files/Australian%20Radioactive%20Waste%20Management%20Framework.pdf
- www.arpansa.gov.au/sites/default/files/legacy/pubs/nsc/nsc_iwsadvice.pdf
- www.arpansa.gov.au/sites/default/files/legacy/pubs/nsc/nrwmf-stakeholder-engagement.rtf
- https://prod-radioactivewaste.industry.slicedtech.com.au/sites/prod.radioactivewaste/files/60565376_NRWMF%20Site%20Characterisation%20Technical%20Report_Wallerberdina_20.07.2018_FINAL_Optimized.pdf
Published in Chain Reaction #134, December 2018. National magazine of Friends of the Earth Australia. www.foe.org.au/chain_reaction
January 17, 2019
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Koizumi says Japan must say ‘no’ to nuclear energy, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, January 17, 2019, When he was prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi championed the use of atomic power to generate electricity.
Then the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster struck, triggering a crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
Koizumi, in office from 2001 to 2006, and widely regarded as one of Japan’s most popular postwar leaders, started reading up on the nuclear issue, and had a change of heart. Koizumi, 76, published his first book by his own hand titled “Genpatsu Zero Yareba Dekiru” (We can abolish all nuclear plants if we try) in December. It is available from Ohta Publishing Co.
In it, he lambasts consumers for lacking a sense of crisis and simply believing a serious accident like the Fukushima disaster will never happen again in Japan during their lifetime.
In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Koizumi said it was “a lie” to claim that nuclear power is “safe, low-cost and clean,” although that is precisely what he espoused when he held the reins of power.
Excerpts from the interview follow.
…….. Q: Is it really possible to replace all the nuclear reactors with other sorts of power plants?
A: No reactors were operated for two years after the Fukushima disaster. But no power shortages were reported during the period. That means Japan can do without nuclear plants. It is a fact……. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201901170010.html
January 17, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Japan, politics |
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