Growing mountain of wasted money is a radioactive prospect
Alistair Osborne: Growing mountain of wasted money is a radioactive
prospect. Rishi Sunak’s apparent determination to press ahead with
mammoth investment in new nuclear reactors, whatever the cost, might not
prove to be the best solution.
It’s only a week since he set off — again — with his uncosted “nuclear road map”: a plan to have 24 gigawatts of new reactors by 2050, or seven more Hinkley Point Cs. On
Monday, the government sank another £1.3 billion into Sizewell C, so it
could “steam ahead” with that project, too, as Andrew Bowie, the
minister for nukes, put it.
Listen to him and investors are queueing up. So
what better news to encourage them than this jaw-dropper from EDF, the
state-backed French outfit behind both schemes? Hinkley Point’s costs
have shot up by as much as £10 billion to a top-end £35 billion, in 2015
prices.
And, instead of firing up in 2027, the first of the Somerset
nuke’s twin reactors could in an “unfavourable scenario” (the likely
outcome) be delayed until 2031. This is what comes with Hinkley’s
European pressurised reactor tech, as EDF has also proved at France’s
Flamanville, Finland’s Olkiluoto and China’s Taishan.
Indeed, two years after the Chinese nuke became operational, one unit had to be taken offline for a year’s repairs. So why is the government hellbent on a re-run with
Sizewell in Suffolk? Alison Downes from the Stop Sizewell C campaign is no
neutral voice. But she’s right to say the project “epitomises the
definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a
different result”. With Sizewell, though, things would be far pricier.
Under the contracts-for-difference regime, EDF is on the hook for
Hinkley’s costs. Repeat the trick at Sizewell and, under the new
regulated asset base model, consumers would find £10 billion added to
their bills — before the nuke’s even operational.
Times 25th Jan 2024
US nuclear agency isn’t consistent in tracking costs for some construction projects, report says
Daily Mail, 26 Jan 24, PHOENIX (AP) – The U.S. agency in charge of maintaining the nation´s nuclear arsenal is not consistent when it comes to tracking the progress of small construction projects, making it difficult to prevent delays and cost overruns, congressional investigators said in a report released Thursday.
The Government Accountability Office warned in the report that even fewer projects will go under the microscope if officials raise the dollar limit for what qualifies as a small project. Congress has raised that threshold numerous times, reaching $30 million during the last fiscal year after having started at $5 million in 2003.
Without collecting and tracking information on minor projects in a consistent manner, National Nuclear Security Administration officials may not have the information they need to manage and assess project performance, the investigators said…………………………………………………
Greg Mello with the Los Alamos Study Group said large projects often are split into two or more smaller ones as a way to avoid federal and congressional oversight and accountability. He said better reporting after the fact won’t necessarily help NNSA do a better job of managing projects going forward.
“There are too many contractors and subcontractors in the value chain, too many profit opportunities and too few penalties for poor performance to expect high-quality results,” he said.
Mello pointed to the contracts to run Los Alamos and other sites that are part of the complex, saying they are worth tens of billions of dollars and are among the largest contracts in the federal government………………………..
Between 2019 and 2023, the congressional investigators documented 414 minor construction projects worth more than $3 billion at NNSA sites across several states. Most of that spending was done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and at Sandia and Los Alamos labs in New Mexico.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-13008399/US-nuclear-agency-isnt-consistent-tracking-costs-construction-projects-report-says.html
Ukraine to start building 4 new nuclear reactors this year
By Pavel Polityuk. January 25, 2024
KYIV, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Ukraine expects to start construction work on four new nuclear power reactors this summer or autumn, Energy Minister German Galushchenko told Reuters on Thursday, as the country seeks to compensate for lost energy capacity due to the war with Russia.
Two of the units – which include reactors and related equipment – will be based on Russian-made equipment that Ukraine wants to import from Bulgaria, while the other two will use Western technology from power equipment maker Westinghouse.
All four reactors will be built at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in the west of Ukraine, Galushchenko added.
The timeline is more aggressive than previously outlined by Kyiv, which has spoken of starting work in some time in 2024 and without specifying that all four reactors could be developed simultaneously.
“I think (we’ll start construction) in summer-autumn,” Galushchenko said in an interview. “We need vessels,” he added, referring to the reactor pressure vessels that will have to be imported. We want to do the third and fourth units right away.”
Construction of the 3rd and 4th reactors at Khmelnytskyi began in the 1980s but was frozen.
Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has built three new nuclear reactors – one each at Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power plants…………………
In parallel with the construction of the Soviet-era VVER-1000 units, Ukraine wants to start preparatory construction work to accommodate two modern Western AP-1000 units, also at Khmelnytskyi.
“We need to pass (parliamentary) legislation and we have draft laws on the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th units. This is VVER-1000s, while the 5th and 6th we want to build the AP-type. This is a parallel process,” he said.
In December, Ukraine’s nuclear power firm Energoatom and Westinghouse signed an agreement on the purchase of equipment for Khmelnytskyi’s 5th power unit.
Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Nick Macfie https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraine-start-building-4-new-nuclear-reactors-this-year-minister-2024-01-25/
Hinkley Point C could be delayed to 2031 and cost up to £35bn, says EDF
As nuclear plant is hit by further delay, real cost will be far higher after inflation is included, as project uses 2015 prices
Guardian, Alex Lawson, Wed 24 Jan 2024
The owner of Hinkley Point C has blamed inflation, Covid and Brexit as it announced the nuclear power plant project could be delayed by a further four years, and cost £2.3bn more.
The plant in Somerset, which has been under construction since 2016, is now expected to be finished by 2031 and cost up to £35bn, France’s EDF said. However, the cost will be far higher once inflation is taken into account, because EDF is using 2015 prices.
The latest in a series of setbacks represents a huge delay to the project’s initial timescale. In 2007, the then EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said that by Christmas in 2017, turkeys would be cooked using electricity generated from atomic power at Hinkley. When the project was finally given the green light in 2016, its cost was estimated at £18bn…………
Crooks said: “Running the project longer will cost more money and our budget has also been affected by rising civil construction costs. It is important to say that British consumers or taxpayers won’t pay a penny, with the increased costs met entirely by shareholders.”
EDF had previously said that the first reactor unit at the nuclear site would be due to be complete by June 2027, with a 15-month buffer period which was likely to be used – putting its completion at September 2028, and a further year for the second unit. It costs were estimated between £25bn and £26bn, and this was later revised up to £32.7bn in February 2023
EDF gave three scenarios, ranging from becoming operational is 2029, to delays pushing this back to 2031.
It said that the cost of completing Hinkley will be between £31bn and £34bn, although if completion is delayed to 2031 costs would rise to £35bn.
In December it emerged EDF’s partner in the project, China General Nuclear, had halted funding for Hinkley. The move came after the government took over CGN’s stake in Hinkley’s proposed sister site, Sizewell C in Suffolk, stripping the Chinese state-owned company of its role in the project.
The latest financial estimates are based on accounting in 2015 figures, meaning the total cost of the project could be far higher when inflation over the last decade is factored in. Hinkley’s ballooning costs have proved controversial with French taxpayers, which are picking up the tab.
Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C are expected to herald a new era of nuclear plants touted by the government.
Last year the government launched a delivery body, Great British Nuclear, with the aim of accelerating the development of new nuclear projects. Earlier this month ministers set out plans for out for the “biggest nuclear power expansion in 70 years”.
However, the Hinkley Point C delay will add to concerns over project delays and costs, as well as skills in an industry earmarked to deliver a quarter of the national electricity demand by 2050………………..
EDF said in January it would delay the shutdown of four of its UK nuclear reactors for at least two years and increase investment in its British nuclear fleet. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/23/hinkley-point-c-could-be-delayed-to-2031-and-cost-up-to-35bn-says-edf—
EDF’s UK Hinkley Nuclear Costs Balloon as Plant Delayed Again – an “unmitigated disaster”?
A government spokesperson said the new plant is “not a government project” and as such “any additional costs or schedule overruns are the responsibility of EDF and its partners and will in no way fall on taxpayers”.
The government has also just doubled its own investment into Sizewell C to £2.5bn and is in the process of raising capital from private investors.
A government spokesperson said the new plant is “not a government project” and as such “any additional costs or schedule overruns are the responsibility of EDF and its partners and will in no way fall on taxpayers”.
The government has also just doubled its own investment into Sizewell C to £2.5bn and is in the process of raising capital from private investors.
Hinkley C: UK nuclear plant price tag could rocket by a third.
By Simon Jack, Business editor
The final cost of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant being built in Somerset may soar by about a third, according to the French firm developing it.
EDF now estimates that the cost could hit £46bn, when taking price rises into account.
The completion date could also be delayed by three years………………………………
The French state-owned firm manages all five nuclear power stations that are currently generating electricity in the UK, along with three that are defueling, the first stage of winding down operations.
In 2022, the cost of the UK’s first new nuclear plant since the 1990s was estimated at £26bn, with a target date for completion of June 2027.
Previous cost estimates have been expressed in 2015 prices for easy comparison over time.
But taking inflation into account, the previous estimate on final costs of £26bn works out at £34bn today. The updated estimate of £31-35bn, could see costs hit £46bn in today’s prices – an increase of about a third.
In a letter to staff, seen by the BBC, Stuart Crooks, the managing director of Hinkley Point C, said there were 7,000 substantial design changes required by British regulations that needed to be made to the site, with 35% more steel and 25% more concrete needed than originally planned.
The revised estimates come after the government recently announced ambitions for the biggest expansion in nuclear power for 70 years.
The UK government has said in the past it wants nuclear to provide up to 25% of the UK’s electricity needs by 2050 as part of its plans to combat climate change.
A government spokesperson said the new plant is “not a government project” and as such “any additional costs or schedule overruns are the responsibility of EDF and its partners and will in no way fall on taxpayers”…………………………………….
Stuart Crooks, the managing director of Hinkley Point C, pointed out, however, that UK bill payers will not be directly affected by those building and cost time overruns.
The French firm EDF agreed to shoulder the risk and pay the full cost of construction, including any increases. This was in return for an agreed electricity price that was substantially higher than the average price in 2015 and would only rise in line with inflation.
“It is important to say that British consumers or taxpayers won’t pay a penny, with the increased costs met entirely by shareholders,” Mr Crooks’ letter read.
However, this price shock comes at a sensitive time for the UK government, which has agreed to allow construction costs for a new plant at Sizewell in Suffolk to be added to customers’ bills gradually over the decade which it will take to build.
The government has also just doubled its own investment into Sizewell C to £2.5bn and is in the process of raising capital from private investors.
Last week, the government triggered a “development consent order” that allows early-stage construction to begin in Suffolk despite several legal challenges from local and national opponents who have taken their fight to the Supreme Court.
Alison Downes of the campaign group Stop Sizewell C said that the announcement of additional funding was”inexplicable” following news of delays to one of the government’s key nuclear projects.
She described the Hinkley and Sizewell projects as an “unmitigated disaster”.
“The government should cancel Sizewell C instead of handing over scarce billions that could be used instead for renewables, energy efficiency or – in this [general] election year – schools and hospitals,” she added……………….. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68073279
UK’s flagship nuclear plant could cost up to $59 billion, developer says
A major nuclear plant that Britain’s government hopes will generate affordable, low-carbon energy could cost up to 46 billion pounds, or $59 billion, and the completion date could be delayed to after 2029
abc news, By SYLVIA HUI Associated Press, January 25, 2024
LONDON — A major nuclear plant that Britain’s government hopes will generate affordable, low-carbon energy could cost up to 46 billion pounds ($59 billion), and the completion date could be delayed to after 2029, the firm developing it said Wednesday.
The U.K. government says nuclear projects like the Hinkley Point C plant are a key part of its plans to ensure greater energy independence and achieve its “net zero” by 2050 strategy.
But a re-evaluation showed that the final bill for the plant, being built in Somerset in southwest England, could soar to up to 34 billion pounds in 2015 prices — or 43 billion pounds in current value, French energy giant EDF said…………………………………. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/uks-flagship-nuclear-plant-cost-59-billion-developer-106635464
Chris Hedges: The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse
Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded.
Blinken, along with Biden, lobbied for the invasion of Iraq
Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, and McGurk, are consummate opportunists, Machiavellian bureaucrats who cater to the reigning centers of power, including the Israel lobby.
Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East.
By Chris Hedges ScheerPost 21 Jan 24
Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza.
In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous.
Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded. He built his political career by catering to the distaste of the white middle class for the popular movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He joined Southern segregationists to oppose bringing Black students into Whites-only schools. He opposed federal funding for abortions and supported a constitutional amendment allowing states to restrict abortions. He attacked President George H. W. Bush in 1989 for being too soft in the “war on drugs.” He was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill and a raft of other draconian laws that more than doubled the U.S. prison population, militarized the police and pushed through drug laws that saw people incarcerated for life without parole. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayal of the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He has always been a strident defender of Israel, bragging that he did more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other Senator.
“As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because… you protect our interests like we protect yours,” Biden said in 2015, to an audience that included the Israeli ambassador, at the 67th Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington D.C. During the same speech he said, “The truth of the matter is we need you. The world needs you. Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.”
The year before Biden gave a gushing eulogy for Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and general who was implicated in massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and others in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon — as well as Egyptian prisoners of war — going back to the 1950s. He described Sharon as “part of one of the most remarkable founding generations in the history not of this nation, but of any nation.”
Continue readingUK nuclear plant hit by new multiyear delay and could cost up to £46bn.
Britain’s flagship Hinkley Point C nuclear plant has been delayed until
2029 at the earliest, with the cost spiralling to as much as £46bn, in the
latest blow to a project at the heart of the country’s long-term energy
plans.
The surging bill and slipping schedule, announced on Tuesday by the
French state-owned operator and constructor EDF, will put pressure on the
UK government to provide extra financial support for the project.
EDF, which has also experienced long delays on recent parallel projects in
Finland and France that use the same reactor technology, blamed the latest
problems at Hinkley in Somerset on the complexity of installing
electromechanical systems and intricate piping. Hinkley was previously
delayed due to construction disruption during Covid pandemic.
Under EDF’s latest scenario, one of the two planned reactors at Hinkley Point C could
be ready in 2029, a two-year hold-up compared with the company’s previous
estimate of 2027. But it could be further delayed to 2031 in adverse
conditions, EDF said. It did not give an estimate for the second reactor.
EDF said the cost would now be between £31bn-£35bn based on 2015 prices,
depending on when Hinkley Point C was completed.
In today’s prices, the cost would balloon to as much as £46bn. The initial budget was £18bn, with a scheduled completion date of 2025. Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C, a
campaign group opposed to the planned Suffolk nuclear plant, said EDF was
an “unmitigated disaster”. She added the UK government should cancel
Sizewell C, saying state funding for the project could be better spent on
“renewables, energy efficiency or, in this election year, schools and
hospitals”.
FT 23rd Jan 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/1157591c-d514-4520-aa17-158349203abd
UK Government’s nuclear power plans a roadmap to a dead-end – CND
“The debate and investment into trying to develop new nuclear energy projects divert funds and political motivation away from further developing truly renewable energy sources, which is the real solution.”
Sara Medi Jones, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), assesses the government’s latest nuclear power announcement m https://labouroutlook.org/2024/01/23/governments-nuclear-power-plans-a-roadmap-to-a-dead-end-cnd/
It’s only mid-January and we have already had two major nuclear power announcements in 2024. A long-awaited “roadmap” of nuclear power expansion was unveiled earlier this month, with the government promising to accelerate new nuclear projects. And this week we’ve just heard that construction of the Sizewell C nuclear station in Suffolk should be a step closer.
But the problem is – nuclear is a dead-end technology that is not the answer to our climate or energy needs.
Plans for eight new nuclear sites laid out in 2011 have largely stalled, with the only two projects to have got off the ground – Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C – beset with problems. Costs at Hinkley Point have spiralled by 30% to £33 billion, and the start date has repeatedly been pushed back. Sizewell C is struggling to attract private financing, and despite building permission finally being granted now, there are still many hurdles to clear.
The nuclear roadmap’s main aims are to “explore” another nuclear site, develop small modular reactors, secure more investment, and engage the private sector more
But we are unlikely to see any meaningful progress because nuclear power in its very essence is a dangerous and economically unsustainable technology. It burdens future generations with a potential human and environmental disaster that is not compensated for by the expensive electricity provided.
Any new nuclear projects would take decades to build. But we need an answer to our cost of living struggle and to climate change now. Even if nuclear power capacity was doubled worldwide by 2050 (a hugely ambitious ask in itself), it would only result in a 4% reduction in emissions.
The debate and investment into trying to develop new nuclear energy projects divert funds and political motivation away from further developing truly renewable energy sources, which is the real solution.
We must also bear in mind the main reason this government is so in favour of nuclear power: it helps to ensure the infrastructure and skilled personnel is in place to maintain and manufacture Britain’s nuclear weapons system, Trident. During this time of global instability and increased nuclear risk, Britain would do well to forget about propping up their weapons of mass destruction and instead focus on delivering the things that people in this country need, including a functioning and sustainable energy system.
Nuclear lobby “kills” nomination of regulator who cares too much about safety
“We killed this nomination,” said Ted Nordhaus, executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based climate think tank that advocates for more nuclear energy.
Biden Drops Nuclear Regulator Nominee After Senate Backlash
Alexander C. Kaufman, Tue, 23 January 2024 https://au.news.yahoo.com/biden-drops-nuclear-regulator-nominee-190521226.html
President Joe Biden is dropping his pick to fill the open seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after a handful of Democrats joined Senate Republicans to block the nomination last year, HuffPost has learned.
Jeff Baran had held a seat on the five-person federal panel overseeing atomic energy and radiation safety since former President Barack Obama first named to the position in 2014. The Democratic commissioner easily won Senate approval when former President Donald Trump renominated him in 2018.
But pro-nuclear advocates angry over what they saw as Baran’s unwillingness to overhaul the regulatory process in favor of building new types of reactor technologies launched a campaign against the commissioner last year. With Republicans opposed to the nomination, the Biden administration needed almost every Democrat in the Senate to vote for Baran ― or leave the NRC without a tie-breaker for party-line votes between the four current commissioners.
The White House had wanted the Senate’s narrow Democratic majority to reconfirm Baran before his term ended last July. But as many as four senators on the Democratic side, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), either planned to come out against Baran or refused to pledge their votes, according to a source with knowledge of the process. Neither senator’s office immediately responded to emails requesting comment on Monday.
When the Senate ended 2023 last month without a vote, the nomination automatically went back to the White House.
The NRC directed HuffPost’s questions about when the administration would name its nominee for the open commission seat to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment.
But three sources with knowledge of the plans confirmed to HuffPost that the Biden administration does not plan to nominate Baran again. Two spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The third claimed Baran’s loss as a victory.
“We killed this nomination,” said Ted Nordhaus, executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based climate think tank that advocates for more nuclear energy.
He was among the most vocal opponents of Baran’s nomination, and helped drum up votes against the Democratic commissioner. Nordhaus had cast Baran as a holdover from an earlier era of liberal regulators who saw their job primarily as safeguarding the public against the atomic energy industry.
“It is my job to focus on nuclear safety and security,” Baran said in 2017 at his reconfirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee. “It is not my job to weigh in on the pros and cons of the merits of nuclear power.”
That view, Nordhaus said, was common among Democrats for decades. But a modern outlook on nuclear safety has to consider not only the threats of using atomic energy, but the risks that not doing so increases pollution from fossil fuels that damages lungs and traps heat in the planet’s atmosphere.
“Everyone went into this just assuming everybody would line up behind Baran, that this is just the kind of guy Democrats put on the commission,” Nordhaus said.
“The fact that enough Democratic senators were willing to say we’re not going to vote for this guy,” he added, “it’s pretty clear that for the first time in maybe ever a bunch of Democrats now recognize that we need reform at the NRC, that something has to change, that the technology can’t succeed if the NRC continues to approach this in the way it historically has.”
But Baran had defenders. The progressive pro-nuclear group Good Energy Collective previously told HuffPost Baran had a strong record of fighting for environmental justice and building relationships with communities saddled with radioactive pollution from the past.
Top Nuclear Regulator Faces Tough Reconfirmation Battle In The Senate
Biden wants to keep Jeff Baran on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the GOP and pro-nuclear activists say he’s holding back an atomic renaissance.
Huff Post, By Alexander C. Kaufman, Jun 27, 2023
When President Barack Obama first named Jeff Baran to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2014, the Democratic majority in the Senate confirmed the former congressional staffer in a 52-40 vote. When President Donald Trump renominated the Democrat for another five-year term in 2018, the GOP-led Senate approved Baran by a simple voice tally.
But President Joe Biden’s plan to give Baran a third stint on the federal body responsible for the world’s largest fleet of commercial reactors has already hit the rocks, as Republicans move to block a commissioner critics paint as an “obstructionist” with a record of voting for policies nuclear advocates say make it harder to keep existing plants open and more expensive, if not impossible, to deploy advanced next-generation atomic technologies.
Last Friday, the Senate went on break for the next two weeks, all but guaranteeing that Baran’s current term ends on June 30 without a decision on whether he will rejoin the five-member board, creating a vacancy that could cause gridlock on some decisions and mark a return to the partisan feuds of a decade ago…………
The White House and the Democrats who control the Senate hope to reinstate Baran in a vote next month, casting the regulator as a sober-minded professional with an ear to the woes of those living in polluted or impoverished communities. The battle highlights growing tensions over nuclear energy in the United States, the country that built the world’s first full-scale fission power plant nearly seven decades ago but all but ceased expanding atomic energy in the 30 years since the Cold War ended…………………………………………………………….
“His voting record shows he’s been a consistent obstructionist, a defender of a regulatory system that has basically presided over the long-term decline of the nuclear sector in the U.S.,” said Ted Nordhaus, executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based environmental think tank that advocates for nuclear energy. “There’s a broad view at a pretty bipartisan level that we need nuclear energy. If Democrats are serious about it, they have to stop putting a guy like Jeff Baran at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”
The Breakthrough Institute was among five pro-nuclear groups that signed on to a June 12 letter urging the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to reject the White House’s nomination of Baran for a third term.
The NRC declined HuffPost’s request to interview Baran…………………………………………………
The Case Against Baran
Baran came to power right as the last attempt at a “nuclear renaissance” fizzled…………………
As governments scrambled to keep operating reactors from going out of business, Baran voted last July to increase the frequency of federal safety inspections on existing nuclear plants, arguing that it would allow for “more focused inspections” that would “provide the staff flexibility to take a deeper dive into different areas of high safety importance” as the reactor fleet ages.
Baran also came out against measures that supporters of new reactor designs say would have helped tailor the regulatory process to the specific needs of novel technologies…………………
Baran issued the NRC’s sole vote against three recent proposals to make it easier to build an SMR at a former coal- or gas-fired plant, to tailor the size of the emergency preparedness zone to the size of the reactor, and to update the environmental permitting requirements for new reactors to account for the dramatic difference in water use between traditional and new designs…………..
While outnumbered by the other four commissioners, Baran’s hard-line view against easing regulations mirrors the Fukushima era in which he came to power, when Democrats Gregory Jaczko and Allison Macfarlane chaired the NRC and delivered on Reid’s efforts to block key nuclear projects. Nordhaus described Baran as a holdover from that period…………………..
The Case For Baran
Baran is not without his defenders among atomic energy advocates.
“It’s not as though he’s anti-nuclear,” said Jackie Toth, the Washington-based deputy director of the Good Energy Collective, a progressive pro-nuclear group headquartered in California. She noted that Baran’s critics often paint him as having the same views as Jaczko and Macfarlane. “To pool them together without looking at the full breadth of his record and what he’s done is unfair.”
“He prioritizes safety and not simply taking industry at its word,” Toth said. “It’s critical to have on the commission someone who understands both the need for increased nuclear capacity on our grid for climate, communities and energy security, but still wants to make sure the industry is putting its best foot forward.”
In particular, she said, Baran has been a crucial supporter of efforts to make it easier for poor and polluted communities — which, thanks to the U.S. history of racist legal and cultural norms, tend to be populated by Black, Latino or Native Americans — to participate in the public regulatory process. While she said she “did not have concerns regarding” the other commissioners’ dedication to environmental justice, Baran’s focus on the issue served to “complement” the other four regulators.
“We feel it’s an asset to have someone like him at the NRC who gets the climate imperative for new reactors but also upholds the agency’s mission to be a trusted regulator that prioritizes public health and safety,” Toth said.
‘Rolling The Dice’
But as Congress presses ahead with legislation to boost nuclear power, Baran’s opponents see him as a potential hurdle to implementing the laws.
In 2018, Congress passed the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, which directed the NRC to establish a novel regulatory framework for new technologies that takes into account the differences between advanced reactors and traditional ones. Baran consistently voted against adjusting the size of a new nuclear plant’s emergency planning zone to align with the size of the reactor, or insisted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should decide even though the NRC is the regulator with the technical expertise to make the final call.
Over the past two years, Congress earmarked billions of dollars for new reactors in the landmark infrastructure laws Biden signed. And the same Senate committee that narrowly voted along party lines to confirm Baran’s renomination for another term overwhelmingly passed a new bill known as the ADVANCE Act to speed up deployment of new reactor technologies earlier this month………………………..
Nuclear start-up Newcleo drops plans for British factory in favour of France
COMMENT. This is a very interesting article. For one thing, it shows that these “advanced” nuclear reactors require plutonium to get the fission process happening. It also claims that these advanced nuclear reactors can solve the problem of plutonium wastes. That is not true. The wastes resulting from this process are smaller in volume, but more highly toxic. That means that they require the same area/voume of space for disposal as the original plutonium. On another angle, it does indicate the confusion that the British government is in about the way ahead in their highly suspect “Civil Nuclear Roadmap”. And on another angle again, it shows how Macron’s France is putting all its eggs into the one nuclear basket. When we look at the extreme costs, and the extreme climate effects, Macron’s French nuclear obsession is likely to result in political suicide.
Matt Oliver, Sun, 21 January 2024, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nuclear-start-drops-plans-british-131702123.html#:~:text=A%20British%20nuclear%20startup%20has,lobbied%20personally%20by%20Emmanuel%20Macron.
A British nuclear startup has dropped plans to build a pioneering power plant in Cumbria and will invest £4bn in France instead, after it was lobbied personally by Emmanuel Macron.
Newcleo, which is headquartered in London, is developing a type of mini nuclear power plant, known as an advanced modular reactor (AMR), that will use nuclear waste for fuel.
The company had hoped to tap into the UK’s vast stockpile of waste at Sellafield, where it wanted to invest £2bn in a waste reprocessing factory and AMR that would have created around 500 jobs.
It was also planning a similarly-sized facility in France.
But Stefano Buono, Newcleo’s chief executive and founder, said the company has now dropped the UK plans after the Government ruled out giving private companies access to the Sellafield stockpile in a nuclear industry “roadmap” published this month.
Instead, Newcleo is planning an enlarged development at an undisclosed location in the south of France, where it now plans to spend £4bn and create around 1,000 jobs, he said.
As part of that scheme, it will buy nuclear waste from French state energy giant EDF.
The company is also currently in the middle of a €1bn (£860m) fundraising.
The decision comes after the company was blocked from participating in the UK’s design competition for mini nuclear reactors.
By comparison, France has eagerly supported Newcleo and Mr Buono was lobbied repeatedly for investment by President Macron in face-to-face meetings.
Newcleo, which was also invited to last year’s “Choose France” business summit at the Palace of Versailles, has never been offered an in-person meeting with a British prime minister.
Mr Buono told The Telegraph: “Our plan initially was to use one factory in France and one in the UK.
“Now, we will double the capacity of France and we are not investing in the UK.”
He added that the company had hoped to pioneer its technology in Britain but added: “In two years, we were not able to even locate the site, so we have decided to accept the offer from France.
“We can proceed with our business model there.”
Newcleo’s decision to build its first plant abroad comes amid growing frustration within the British nuclear industry over the slow progress the Government has made towards identifying sites for new power plants.
The loss of significant investment to France will also be seen as the latest sign that Downing Street’s efforts to attract business investment are being outshone by President Macron, who has launched a charm offensive to lure companies across the Channel since Brexit.
He was the only G7 leader to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, while he has rolled out the red carpet for business leaders including Tesla boss Elon Musk and JP Morgan banker Jamie Dimon at his annual Choose France event.
Last year’s summit resulted in major deals, with Taiwanese car battery maker ProLogium unveiling plans for a €5.2bn plant at the port of Dunkirk and Verkor, a French company, pledging a €1.6bn battery factory there too.
In the UK, six SMR developers including Rolls-Royce have been shortlisted for support under a competition run by Great British Nuclear.
Newcleo was not considered because of the AMR’s lead cooling system and unusual fuel, Mr Buono has claimed.
The company’s novel design would run on processed plutonium, helping countries such as the UK dispose of the dangerous waste, which is expensive to manage. [Ed. This ignores the fact that this process results in a smaller volume of more highly toxic waste]
At Sellafield, the UK has amassed 140 tonnes of plutonium – the world’s biggest stockpile – as a result of historic nuclear weapons programmes and abandoned efforts to develop so-called fast breeding reactors that would have used it as fuel.
A massive effort is currently under way at the Cumbrian site to safely store the waste, but Mr Buono and his colleagues have argued it could be put to better use as reactor fuel.
The entrepreneur made his fortune selling cancer treatment developer AAA to Novartis for $3.9bn (£3.2bn) in 2017, reportedly earning him $420m.
His company has the backing of the Agnelli industrialist family, which made its money from Fiat and Ferrari.
The French government is expected to confirm a deal with Newcleo later this year.
The UK Government did not respond to requests for comment.
Even Britain’s ruling Tory party fear that their “Nuclear Roadmap” plan will end up on the scrap heap.
More nuclear power is the obvious solution to our energy security and Net Zero dilemmas. That doesn’t mean it is ever going to happen. Conservative Home, 19 Jan 24
Last week, Claire Coutinho published the Government’s “nuclear roadmap”. Sticking with Boris Johnson’s target of having a quarter of our electricity from nuclear by 2050, this attempts to explain how we achieve the quadrupling of nuclear capacity required to achieve the necessary 24 gigawatts (GW).
Rishi Sunak calls nuclear the “perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain”. ………………………..
But the Government’s nuclear ambitions face an immediate stumbling block. At present, our nuclear capacity stands at 5.9GW, produced by five power stations. These are all owned by EDF, the French state energy group. Four of those plants – producing 4.7GW – are set to close in 2028.
EDF has floated keeping them open for longer. Yet even that would require Britain to massively ramp up its nuclear capacity in the next three decades to for us to have any hope of achieving the Government’s aim to come over a bit Doctor Manhatten. Following this, Coutinho has established an ambition to invest in new nuclear capacity of between 3GW and 7GW every five years from 2030 to 2044.
Work is already in progress. Hinkley Point C in Somerset is under construction. Sizewall C is planned for Suffolk, with a final investment decision due to be made by the end of this year. The Government is considering approving the construction of a third similarly sized power station. Additionally, ministers want to build a fleet of “small modular reactors” alongside these larger plants.
………………………………….. Johnson’s tongue-in-cheek vision of an SMR in “every Labour seat” remains as much of a fantasy as any of his mooted grands projets. Putting so much faith in SMRs to deliver our nuclear dreams is wishful thinking by Coutinho. But that is true of her whole “roadmap” and the ambitions behind them.
As Sam Dumitriu points out, when Hinkley opens in 2028, it will not only be the first nuclear power station built in Britain for over three decades, but the second most expensive nuclear power station built in history on a pound-per-megawatt basis. Having been due to open in the early 2020s, it is now expected to cost £32 billion. Some expect its construction could be further delayed into the 2030s.
This bodes poorly for Coutinho’s touted “nuclear awakening”. ………….
Capital costs make up around 60 per cent of nuclear’s levelised cost of energy. The average has been estimated at $6041-per-kilowatt – over 50 per cent more than coal and 500 more than gas. Factoring in that building a nuclear power station in Britain usually takes around 13 years, and it becomes obvious why investing in nuclear remains unattractive. Financing Hinkley involved the Government agreeing to a wholly uncompetitive deal…………………………….
The Government hopes an overhaul of planning rules could allow SMRs to be approved in a variety of locations, especially brownfield sites, away from areas with population densities of more than 5,000 people per square kilometre. However, there is still plenty of opportunity for applications to be denied based on natural beauty, ecology, cultural heritage, size, or flood risk. To combat NIMBYism, we would need to stuff a few mouths with gold.
Britain’s nuclear ambitions are also hampered by our current reliance on EDF. From leading the world in nuclear technology in the 1950s, our long lag since last constructing a plant has seen a loss of know-how, leaving us reliant on EDF for larger plants. Not only has this left us having signed an expensive deal for Hinkley, but it has entrusted our energy security to a company with a record of costly delays.
This is of a piece with our long tradition of nuclear short-sightedness. As Peter Franklin has pointed out, Johnson and Sunak follow Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair in making grand pronouncements of a fleet of new British nuclear reactors. Little has good came of any of them. Amidst some substantial competition, we can count Hinkley as one of Blair’s most ignominious legacies.
We can expect Coutinho’s proposals to end up on a similar scrapheap. Labour says they are keen on more nuclear. But they will face the same problems of regulation, construction costs, and political volatility. It might take only another Fukushima for the public to go all German on our nuclear future…..
The Last Flurry: The US Congress and Australian Parliamentarians seek Assange’s Release
January 19, 2024 : Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/the-last-flurry-the-us-congress-and-australian-parliamentarians-seek-assanges-release/
On February 20, Julian Assange, the daredevil publisher of WikiLeaks, will be going into battle, yet again, with the British justice system – or what counts for it. The UK High Court will hear arguments from his team that his extradition to the United States from Britain to face 18 charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 would violate various precepts of justice. The proceedings hope to reverse the curt, impoverished decision by the remarkably misnamed Justice Jonathan Swift of the same court on June 6, 2023.
At this point, the number of claims the defence team can make are potentially many. Economy, however, has been called for: the two judges hearing the case have asked for a substantially shortened argument, showing, yet again, that the quality of British mercy tends to be sourly short. The grounds Assange can resort to are troublingly vast: CIA-sponsored surveillance, his contemplated assassination, his contemplated abduction, violation of attorney-client privilege, his poor health, the violation of free-speech, a naked, politicised attempt by an imperium to capture one of its greatest and most trenchant critics, and bad faith by the US government.
Campaigners for the cause have been frenzied. But as the solution to Assange’s plight is likely to be political, the burden falls on politicians to stomp and drum from within their various chambers to convince their executive counterparts. In the US Congress, House Resolution 934, introduced on December 13 by Rep. Paul A. Gosar, an Arizona Republican, expresses “the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.”
The resolution sees a dramatic shift from the punishing, haute view taken by such figures as the late Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was one of the first political figures to suggest that Assange be crucified on the unsteady timber of the Espionage Act for disclosing US cables and classified information in 2010. The resolution acknowledges, for instance, that the disclosures by WikiLeaks “promoted public transparency through the exposure of the hiring of child prostitutes by Defense Department contractors, friendly fire incidents, human rights abuses, civilian killings, and United States use of psychological warfare.” The list could be sordidly longer but let’s not quibble.
Impressively, drafters of the resolution finally acknowledge that charging Assange under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for alleged conspiracy to help US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning access Defense Department computers was a fabled nonsense. For one, it was “impossible” – Manning “already had access to the mentioned computer.” Furthermore, “there was no proof Mr Assange had any contact with said intelligence analyst.”
Ire is also directed at the espionage counts, with the resolution noting that “no other publisher has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act prior to these 17 charges.” A successful prosecution of the publisher “would set a precedent allowing the United States to prosecute and imprison journalists for First Amendment protected activities, including the obtainment and publication of information, something that occurs on a regular basis.”
Acknowledgment is duly made of the importance of press freedoms to promote transparency and protect the Republic, the support for Assange, “sincere and steadfast”, no less, shown by “numerous human rights, press freedom, and privacy rights advocates and organizations”, and the desire by “at least 70 Senators and Members of Parliament from Australia, a critical United States ally and Mr Assange’s native country” for his return.
Members of Australia’s parliament, adding to the efforts last September to convince members of Congress that the prosecution be dropped, have also written to the UK Home Secretary, James Cleverly, requesting that he “undertake an urgent, thorough and independent assessment of the risks to Mr Assange’s health and welfare in the event that he is extradited to the United States.”
The members of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group draw Cleverly’s attention to the recent UK Supreme Court case of AAA v Secretary of State for the Home Department which found “that courts in the United Kingdom cannot just rely on third party assurances by foreign governments but rather are required to make independent assessments of the risk of persecution to individuals before any order is made removing them from the UK.
It follows that the approach taken by Lord Justices Burnett and Holroyde in USA v Assange [2021] EWHC 3133 was, to put it politely, a touch too confident in accepting assurances given by the US government regarding Assange’s treatment, were he to be extradited. “These assurances were not tested, nor was there any evidence of independent assessment as to the basis on which they could be given and relied upon.”
The conveners of the group point to Assange’s detention in Belmarsh prison since April 2019, his “significant health issues, exacerbated to a dangerous degree by his prolonged incarceration, that are of very real concern to us as his elected representatives.” They also point out the rather unusual consensus between the current Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and his opposition number, Peter Dutton, that the “case has gone on for too long.” Continued legal proceedings, both in the UK, and then in the US were extradition to take place “would add yet more years to Mr Assange’s detention and further imperil his health.”
In terms of posterity’s calling, there are surely fewer better things at this point for a US president nearing mental oblivion to do, or a Tory government peering at electoral termination to facilitate, than the release of Assange. At the very least, it would show a grudging acknowledgment that the fourth estate, watchful of government’s egregious abuses, is no corpse, but a vital, thriving necessity.
Military interests are pushing new nuclear power – and the UK government has finally admitted it
……………… the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, - in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.
French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.
Andy Stirling Professor of Science & Technology Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Philip JohnstoneResearch Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex, January 19, 2024 https://theconversation.com/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power-and-the-uk-government-has-finally-admitted-it-216118
The UK government has announced the “biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years”. This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.
Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budget.
So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?
…………………………………………………………………………….. A document published with the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, is also more about affirming official support than substantively justifying it. More significant – in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.
These pressures are acknowledged by other states with nuclear weapons, but were until now treated like a secret in the UK: civil nuclear energy maintains the skills and supply chains needed for military nuclear programmes.
The military has consistently called for civil nuclear
Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.
For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be “back with a vengeance”. Widely criticised for resting on a “secret” process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) effectively warning that the UK “industrial base” for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.
A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be “masked” behind civil programmes. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.
In repeated parliamentary hearings, academics, engineering organisations, research centres, industry bodies and trade unions urged continuing civil nuclear as a means to support military capabilities.
In 2017, submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce even issued a dedicated report, marshalling the case for expensive “small modular reactors” to “relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability”.
The government itself has remained coy about acknowledging this pressure to “mask” military costs behind civilian programmes. Yet the logic is clear in repeated emphasis on the supposedly self-evident imperative to “keep the nuclear option open” – as if this were an end in itself, no matter what the cost. Energy ministers are occasionally more candid, with one calling civil-military distinctions “artifical” and quietly saying: “I want to include the MoD more in everything we do”……………………………………………………………………………………..
This is even more evident in actions than words. For instance hundreds of millions of pounds have been prioritised for a nuclear innovation programme and a nuclear sector deal which is “committed to increasing the opportunities for transferability between civil and defense industries”.
An open secret
Despite all this, military pressures for nuclear power are not widely recognised in the UK. On the few occasions when it receives media attention, the link has been officially denied.
Other nuclear-armed states are also striving to maintain expensive military infrastructures (especially around submarine reactors) just when the civilian industry is obsolescing. This is true in the US, France, Russia and China.
Other countries tend to be more open about it, with the interdependence acknowledged at presidential level in the US for instance. French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.
This is largely why nuclear-armed France is pressing the European Union to support nuclear power. This is why non-nuclear-armed Germany has phased out the nuclear technologies it once lead the world in. This is why other nuclear-armed states are so disproportionately fixated by nuclear power.
These military pressures help explain why the UK is in denial about poor nuclear performance, yet so supportive of general nuclear skills. Powerful military interests – with characteristic secrecy and active PR – are driving this persistence.
Neglect of this picture makes it all the more disturbing. Outside defence budgets, off the public books and away from due scrutiny, expensive support is being lavished on a joint civil-military nuclear industrial base largely to help fund military needs. These concealed subsidies make nuclear submarines look affordable, but electricity and climate action more costly.
The conclusions are not self-evident. Some might argue military rationales justify excessive nuclear costs. But history teaches that policies are more likely to go awry if reasons are concealed. In the UK – where nuclear realities have been strongly officially denied – the issues are not just about energy, or climate, but democracy.
The Conversation asked the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to comment but did not receive a reply before the publication deadline. https://theconversation.com/military-interests-are-pushing-new-nuclear-power-and-the-uk-government-has-finally-admitted-it-216118
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