UK government’s proposed ‘Regulated Asset Base’ (RAB) financing – a cover-up for a nuclear bailout
  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! The nuclear RAB is really a cover for a nuclear bailout. So let’s call it a ‘nuke bailout RAB’.
https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2019/01/government-spreads-big-lie-about-rab.html |
Japanese people losing trust in government, as the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe still poses health risks
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/
It is unlikely that nuclear power will be included in America’s Green New Deal
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/
Australian govt to impose dangerous nuclear dump, despite State law prohibiting this
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
Japan must say NO to nuclear power, says former Prime Minister
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
UK’s ‘nuclear renaissance’ collapsing, as Hitachi ponders exit from Wylfa project
FT 13th Jan 2019 Nick Butler: Who could blame the board of the Japanese company Hitachi if
its members decide at their meeting this week to scrap plans for a new nuclear power station at Wylfa on the North Wales island of Anglesey?
Hitachi has invested more than £840m in the project over the past six years. The technology has passed all the tests set by the UK’s nuclear regulator. But the company has been unable to get the government to put in place the clear and credible financial structure necessary to underpin the investment.
That failure has already led other investors to abandon the new plant planned at Moorside in Cumbria. Talk of scrapping the Wylfa project could be a bargaining tactic on the part of Hitachi but the reality is probably much simpler. Hitachi’s doubts have been well signalled during the
past few months and the company’s purchase of ABB’s power grid business at the end of last year gives it a range of investment choices.
Given Whitehall’s chronic indecision, the company is ready to use its capital elsewhere. Hitachi’s withdrawal would mark the collapse of the energy policy adopted in 2013 by the UK’s coalition government. Facing what were believed to be ever-rising energy prices the policy plumped for new nuclear, promising that 35 gigawatts of new capacity would be on stream by the mid 2030s – more than replacing the first generation of nuclear plants, which would by then have reached the end of their useful lives.
Because the price of gas seemed doomed to keep rising, new nuclear would come to look highly competitive over time as well as reducing dependence on imports. Since then much has changed, and the assumptions which underpinned the old policy now look laughably wrong.
The costs of all forms of energy (apart from nuclear) have fallen dramatically and there is no shortage of supply. Electricity demand is down thanks to efficiency gains and new technology.
The contract for the first new nuclear station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which enjoys a guaranteed index-linked price for 35 years from the moment the plant is commissioned, looks exorbitant. The demise of Wylfa forces the need for a comprehensive review of energy policy.
Since the UK government is too busy preparing for Brexit to focus seriously on any other issue, the review should be conducted independently. Advances in energy technology offer more
possibilities each year. But those options will never be taken up unless the old outdated policy is scrapped and a more realistic approach put in place.
https://www.ft.com/content/7b33e9fa-1648-11e9-9e64-d150b3105d21
Covert nuclear development in Taiwan was stopped, because a senior scientist feared danger
Colby Cosh: How Canada almost left the door to the nuclear club ajar … again, National Post, 14 Jan 19,
Covert nuclear development in Taiwan was finally stopped cold because a senior scientist became convinced nukes were dangerous
In November, historians David Albright and Andrea Stricker published a new book called Taiwan’s Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand. The book pulls together the previously sketchy story of Nationalist China’s covert nuclear research, which had its roots in the postwar exodus of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party (KMT). Albright and Stricker describe decades of effort by the offshore Republic of China on Taiwan to play a double game with nuclear weapons. ………
The key to the story is the 40-megawatt uranium-fuelled Taiwan Research Reactor (TRR), supplied, like CIRUS, by Canada. TRR was very similar to CIRUS in design and capability. The pile went critical in January 1973, giving Taiwan an indigenous source of plutonium. Under the sales agreement, the reactor was to be “safeguarded” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), answering to its inspectors and accounting for the whereabouts of its fuel. But Taiwanese nuclear agencies immediately began to behave suspiciously, talking to some of the slimier European industrial concerns about buying reprocessing equipment that would allow weapons manufacture
……….Covert nuclear development in Taiwan was finally stopped cold because one of the Republic’s senior scientists, Chang Hsien-yi, became convinced that nukes were dangerous to the existence of the Republic………. Email: ccosh@postmedia.com | Twitter: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-how-canada-almost-left-the-door-to-the-nuclear-club-ajar-again
Drop in output of France’s nuclear reactors, due to delays and outages
French nuclear output drops to 52 GW on maintenance, outage, delays, S and P Global,
Andreas Franke , EditorJonathan Dart , 14 Jan 19 London — French nuclear output peaked at 52 GW Monday as an unplanned outage, delays to scheduled returns and planned maintenance kept availability below expectations, data from grid operator RTE and nuclear operator EDF show.
The 910-MW Blayais 2 reactor suffered an outage Sunday afternoon due to turbine failure in the non-nuclear part of the plant, EDF said. The reactor is due to return Monday at 8:00 pm local time (1900 GMT).
The 1.3-GW Penly 1 reactor is also scheduled to return Monday night following a three-month maintenance break.
The 1.3-GW Flamanville 1 unit is scheduled to return late Wednesday following a 10-year overhaul that began in April 2018 and extended for four months more than expected.
Flamanville 2 started its own 10-year-overhaul last week.
EDF has warned of a “particularly dense and complex maintenance schedule” this year, with seven reactors undergoing 10-year-overhauls.
Another two reactors are scheduled to go offline this weekend for annual maintenance. ……–Andreas Franke, andreas.franke@spglobal.com
–Edited by Jonathan Dart, newsdesk@spglobal.com https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/011419-french-nuclear-output-drops-to-52-gw-on-maintenance-outage-delays
UK to use Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) funding for Wylfa nuclear plant, exposing consumers to financial risk?
Times 13th Jan 2019 Ministers will be forced to pioneer a new way of financing nuclear power after Hitachi walked away from a £16bn plant in north Wales. The suspension of the Japanese giant’s Horizon project on Anglesey, expected to be confirmed at a board meeting tomorrow, will force the government to lure investors with a financing method that would pile costs on to consumers, even before a plant has been built.building the £20bn Hinkley Point power station in Somerset, and CGN has ambitions to build its own reactors on the Essex coast at Bradwell-on-Sea. Industry insiders said state-controlled CGN could swoop on Anglesey if Hitachi puts the project up for sale. Kepco of South Korea would also be interested.
megawatt hour for Hinkley Point’s electricity for 35 years. The Horizon deal would have guaranteed about £75 per megawatt hour, falling to the £50s for future reactors on the site.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fce4e714-169e-11e9-9e09-701e9f424b2e
Collapse of UK’s nuclear power plans as Hitachi Exit Follows Toshiba
U.K’s Nuclear Future Fades as Hitachi Exit Follows Toshiba, Bloomberg, By Lars Paulsson and Mathew Carr January 11, 2019,
EDF’s atomic plants need to be replaced by new generation
Offshore wind could be the winner from withdrawal, RBC says
…….Japanese conglomerate Hitachi Ltd. will halt work on the Wylfa project and take a one-time charge as negotiations with the British government over funding stalled, the Nikkei newspaper reported. After Toshiba Corp.’s withdrawal from its Moorside plant in November, it leaves the nation with just Electricite de France SA’s Hinkley Point project underway and that’s been mired in controversy because of delays and the cost to the U.K. consumer.
……..The Nikkei report said the company’s board will make a decision next week and cited an unidentified executive saying the project isn’t being abandoned entirely and could be restarted in the future.
Toshiba said in November it planned to liquidate NuGeneration Ltd., its U.K. nuclear power developer, after failing to find a partner or a buyer for the Moorside project. In September, China General Nuclear said it may give upthe chance to operate a nuclear plant at Bradwell amid political sensitivities over Chinese investments, the Financial Times reported.
As the U.K. is running out of nuclear options, other technologies stand to benefit.
“We see offshore wind as increasingly viable,” said John Musk, utilities analyst at RBC Europe Ltd. Natural gas power will probably provide a significant amount of the baseload power not met by renewables……..https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-11/u-k-s-nuclear-future-fades-as-hitachi-exit-follows-toshiba
Bipartisan support for Green New Deal in USA
Green New Deal Has Broad Bipartisan Support (Though Most Voters Haven’t Heard of It), DESMOG, By Justin Mikulka • Wednesday, January 9, 2019 A version of the Green New Deal (GND) — an FDR-style plan to address climate change by shifting America to a just and renewably powered 21st century economy — is widely popular with American voters of both parties, according to a recent survey.Perhaps unsurprisingly, this proposal has stronger support among Democrats but still polls well with Republicans. The survey found that 81 percent of registered voters said they either “strongly support” or “somewhat support” a rapid transition to 100 percent renewable electricity and other green technology initiatives.
However, the poll, conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YCCC), also found that very few voters were aware of the Green New Deal: 82 percent said they “knew nothing” of the proposal. Notably, the poll’s language focused on renewable electricity and job creation, but made no mention of the full decarbonization and social overhaul of the American economy that also are central tenets of the full Green New Deal.
In reporting the results, the YCCC noted the likelihood that once Republican voters became aware that the Green New Deal is being championed by Democrats, their support for the idea will decrease. This survey asked respondents about support for some of the basic concepts of the Green New Deal without associating it with either major political party.
Even though polls have shown that the majority of Republicans believe in climate change, research shows that if a proposal is made by the Democrats, Republican voters are less likely to support it. The same was true of Democratic voters and proposals made by Republicans.
Naturally, climate deniers and right-wing media like Fox News and The New York Post already are attacking the concept and its most visible champion, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), foreshadowing the GND‘s slide into the partisan.
What Exactly Is the Green New Deal?
Many in the climate and energy media sphere already have attempted to pin down what exactly the Green New Deal is and how it came to be, with David Roberts at Vox going deep and long, and Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone diving in this week because “The Green New Deal is suddenly on everyone’s lips.”
In the Yale survey, however, respondents were told that members of Congress say the Green New Deal “will produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.”
Survey respondents were given some specifics for how this would be accomplished, which included generating 100 percent of America’s electricity from renewable sources within 10 years, upgrading the nation’s energy grid, focusing on energy efficiency, and training for jobs in the new green economy.
While this is a good general description of the GND, there is much more detail in a draft bill from Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, which even has an FAQ section………… https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/09/green-new-deal-bipartisan-support-yale-survey?utm_source=dsb%20newsletter
Problems for introducing permit changes at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Permit changes at WIPP face challenges https://www.abqjournal.com/1267913/permit-changes-at-wipp-face-challenges-ex-new-governor-urged-to-reconsider-predecessors-decision.html, BY MARK OSWALD / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall is encouraging Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s new administration to reconsider a state government decision made just before she took office Jan. 1 that changes how radioactive waste volume is measured at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in effect allowing more waste to placed in the underground repository near Carlsbad.
Udall said last week that limits on how much waste WIPP can hold were critical to federal-state negotiations that led to WIPP’s creation “and were a major reason New Mexico agreed to this mission in the first place.”
“I am encouraging the new administration to take a hard look at this action, and hopeful that it will pause and reconsider this last-minute change that has major ramifications for our state,” the senator said in an email statement.
The controversial state permit modification for WIPP, approved by then-New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Butch Tongate on Dec. 21, changes the way waste volume is calculated to exclude empty space inside waste packaging. With the alteration, WIPP becomes only about a third full instead of 50 percent full.
And there have been indications that the federal Department of Energy – which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons operations – wants to bring new kinds of waste to WIPP, which the additional space could accommodate. That’s one reason activists opposed the volume calculation change.
In May, DOE Secretary Rick Perry said in a letter to a key member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that 34 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium was headed to WIPP. Perry at the time was pulling the plug on a troubled, costly and long-delayed effort at the DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina turn the plutonium into fuel rods for nuclear power plants.
Perry confirmed that DOE is removing plutonium from South Carolina, adding, “We are currently processing plutonium for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and intend to continue to do so.”
“I certify that the Department will work with the state of New Mexico to address the capacity issues related to receipt of the full 34 metric tons at WIPP,” Perry wrote in his letter to U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.
Udall said at the time he had serious questions about whether there was enough room at WIPP to store additional waste from Savannah River, given “the clear legal limits” in the 1992 federal act creating WIPP that resulted “following a lawsuit New Mexico won against DOE when I served as Attorney General.”
Udall added: “If DOE is asking New Mexico to take on additional waste missions beyond what is authorized by current law, unilateral action (by DOE) is absolutely not an option.”
WIPP now takes transuranic waste, largely contaminated items and material leftover from plutonium work, including protective clothing. Changing what kind of waste WIPP can hold would require another permit change.
Udall said last week, “If New Mexico is being asked to take on additional waste missions beyond what is authorized by current law, New Mexicans need to have a say – and we should only agree to a new agreement that is in the overall best interest of New Mexico. There needs to be ample time for public input and awareness, and we must ensure that the safety of workers and the public is protected long into the future.”
James Kenney is Lujan Grisham’s recently dubbed secretary-designate of the state environment department. He said in an interview last week that he needs more time to analyze the previous administration’s decision on WIPP volume measurements before speaking on it, but the topic remains “high on (his) list” of priorities.
The change in how the volume of waste is measured came after a request by DOE and WIPP operating and managing contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC. There was public comment period and a three-day public hearing in Carlsbad.
The plutonium that had been slated for conversion to fuel in South Carolina would likely be first diluted with an inert, cement-like material, essentially turning it into waste, an idea called “dilute and dispose” that was conceived by the Obama administration as cheaper than trying to make the excess weapons plutonium into fuel rods.
UK will have to pile on costs to consumers, if new nuclear power is to go ahead
Energy ministers eye new formula to pay for Britain’s nuclear power plants
Japanese withdrawal leaves UK energy policy in tatters Times, John Collingridge, January 13 2019, Ministers will be forced to pioneer a new way of financing nuclear power after Hitachi walked away from a £16bn plant in north Wales.
UK’s nuclear energy renaissance derailed, as Japanese companies step back from nuclear investment?
Japan’s nuclear rethink could derail UK energy plans, https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/01/09/japan-uk-nuclear-plans-go-awry/, Doug Parr, 11 Jan 19, Reports in the Japanese press claim Hitachi is set to suspend all work on Wylfa, its nuclear power project in Wales.
Hitachi looks certain to cancel its plans for a £16bn nuclear power station in Wales
Hitachi set to cancel plans for £16bn nuclear power station in Wales Guardian, Adam Vaughan@adamvaughan_uk-12 Jan 2019
Move by Japanese firm would be blow to UK plans to replace coal plants and ageing reactors The Japanese conglomerate Hitachi looks certain to cancel its plans for a £16bn nuclear power station in Wales, leaving Britain’s ambitions for a nuclear renaissance in tatters.
An impasse in months-long talks between the company, London and Toyko on financing is expected to result in the flagship project being axed at a Hitachi board meeting next week, according to the Nikkei newspaper.
The company has spent nearly £2bn on the planned Wylfa power station on Anglesey, which would have powered around 5m homes.
Another Japanese giant, Toshiba, scrapped a nuclear plant in Cumbria just two months ago after failing to find a buyer for the ailing project.
Withdrawal by Hitachi would be a major blow to the UK’s plans to replace dirty coal and ageing reactors with new nuclear power plants, and heap pressure on ministers to consider other large-scale alternatives such as offshore windfarms.
It would also mark an end to Japan’s hopes of exporting its nuclear technology around the world.
Hitachi and the UK and Japanese governments have been negotiating over a guaranteed price of power from Wylfa and a potentially £5bn-plus UK public stake in the scheme.
Talks have proved “tricky to find a solution that works for all parties”, industry sources said.
Unions said the prospect of Wylfa being cancelled was extremely worrying and losing two projects in such a short period “should set alarm bells ringing” about the government’s commitment to nuclear………
an insider said: “There has been a serious rift in Hitachi, and the group that said this is too large and risky an investment of Japanese capital have won out. They pointed to the uncertainty created by Brexit to say this was another reason to pull the plug.” ……….
Nuclear critics said a collapse of the scheme was not a disaster but an opportunity for a policy shift. Doug Parr, the chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, said: “We could have locked ourselves into reliance on an obsolete, unaffordable technology, but we’ve been given the chance to think again and make a better decision.”
Sara Medi Jones, the acting secretary general of CND, said: “With offshore wind now cheaper than nuclear it’s clear there is a clean and workable alternative. We just need the political will to make it happen.”
Just one new nuclear power station, EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C in Somerset, has been given the green light and begun construction. The French company and Chinese firm CGN both want to build more. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/11/hitachi-cancel-plans-nuclear-power-station-angelsey-wales
1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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