Starmer appoints ex-Office of Fair Trading chief to lead nuclear regulatory taskforce
The prime minister has appointed ex-Office of Fair Trading boss John Fingleton to head up the country’s nuclear taskforce
Energy Voice, By Jessica Mills Davies, 10/04/2025
The UK government’s nuclear taskforce will be led by John Fingleton, formerly the boss of the Office of Fair Trading, following his appointment to spearhead the unit.
The Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, which was set up to accelerate the development of new nuclear power stations across the country, is poised to embark on an overhaul of UK planning regulation.
In February, Keir Starmer moved to slash “red tape” in the industry to enable more nuclear power plants to be approved across England and Wales.
Those reforms are designed to enable small modular reactors to be built for the first time. That is the intended result of the government abolishing a set list of approved sites for nuclear development so that nuclear power stations can be built anywhere in the country.
The energy department said that contract negotiations to progress a competition for these small reactors, held by Great British Nuclear, are “currently underway”, and that a panel of nuclear experts will be appointed to the taskforce in due course.
In a controversial move, the government is also getting rid of expiry dates on nuclear planning rules, in an effort to avoid projects timing out.
These changes to nuclear planning rules were proposed after the pre-development stage Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk was taken to court by local activists.
The Department for Net Zero and Energy Security said that the government committed a further £2.7 billion in public funding to Sizewell C last month………………………..
The independent taskforce will seek to identify how nuclear power regulation can incentivise investment in new projects more quickly and cost efficiently, it said………….
Fingleton said he will “work closely with business, regulators and other interested individuals and groups to identify how regulation can better enable and incentivise investment in this area”…………………. https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/570966/starmer-selects-fingleton-to-head-up-nuclear-taskforce/
Declassified MoD document reveals US Visiting Forces across Britain are exempt from nuclear safety rules
CND 7th April 2025
At a time of heightened nuclear dangers, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has uncovered shocking evidence that US military bases across Britain are exempt from UK emergency radiation regulations.
This means that bases like RAF Lakenheath, which is being prepared to host deadly new US nuclear weapons, is under no legal obligation to have emergency radiation plans in case of nuclear accidents.
A declassified exemption order shows that the government is putting so-called ‘national security’ before people’s safety.
CND is calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to announce in Parliament that no US nuclear weapons will be welcomed in Britain and that the exemption on adhering to legally required safety standards is revoked.
A letter from CND’s lawyers Leigh Day has forced the Ministry of Defence to declassify a significant nationwide exemption certificate, issued in March 2021 by former Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, on the grounds of ‘national security’.
The certificate exempts Visiting Forces – primarily US military personnel – engaged in work with ionising radiations, from any legal enforcement of safety standards, using powers under Regulation 40 of the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 and Regulation 25 of the Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulation 2019. This means they are not legally bound to have in place plans and measures for emergency situations involving radioactive materials and nuclear weapons.
This is particularly dangerous given US preparations at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk for a new nuclear weapons mission. However, the exemption not only covers RAF Lakenheath but all US military bases across Britain.
There are at least 10,000 US Department of Defence personnel stationed at 13 RAF bases. Nuclear material for Britain’s own nuclear weapons programme is regularly transported through RAF Brize Norton and RAF Fairford regularly hosts the US B2 nuclear-capable stealth bomber.
The government’s exemption means that local councils will never be told about the presence of nuclear weapons at these bases – and are therefore not obliged to produce their own emergency plans for a radiological accident. This puts the British population at even greater risk.
CND is calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to announce in Parliament that no US nuclear weapons will be welcomed in Britain and that the exemption on adhering to legally required safety standards is revoked. The majority of the British public don’t want US nuclear weapons in this country.
CND is upping pressure on the government, supporting two weeks of protest actions from Monday 14 April, culminating in a blockade of the base on Saturday 26 April. The peace camp and actions are organised by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, of which CND is a member………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://cnduk.org/declassified-mod-document-reveals-us-visiting-forces-across-britain-are-exempt-from-nuclear-safety-rules/
Hartlepool Nuclear site moved into enhanced regulatory attention
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has moved Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station operated by EDF into enhanced regulatory attention for safety.
ONR has made the decision based on evidence gained from ongoing targeted engagements at the site which have identified areas where improvements are required.
The change in regulatory attention level does not relate to EDF’s recent decision to extend the operating lifetime of the station in County Durham, which is subject to ongoing safety standards being demonstrated.
The enhanced regulatory attention level reflects the effort ONR is using to influence improvements in areas including conventional health and safety, the number of site incidents and the production of nuclear safety cases.
ONR 7th April 2025, https://www.onr.org.uk/news/all-news/2025/04/nuclear-site-moved-into-enhanced-regulatory-attention/
Disconnection of nuclear plants during severe space weather highlighted as risk to grid stability
08 Apr, 2025 By Tom Pashby
Nuclear power station operators’ reactions to severe space weather could negatively impact the stability of the electricity transmission grid, a space weather expert has told NCE……………….
New Civil Engineer 8th April 2025 https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/disconnection-of-nuclear-plants-during-severe-space-weather-highlighted-as-risk-to-grid-stability-08-04-2025/
Unsafe for Russia to restart Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, says Ukraine energy chief
Energoatom CEO, Petro Kotin, says ‘major problems’ need to be overcome before it can safely generate power
Guardian, Dan Sabbagh in Kyiv, 7 Apr 25
It would be unsafe for Russia to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and would take Ukraine up to two years in peacetime if it regained control, the chief executive of the company that runs the vast six-reactor site has said.
Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said in an interview there were “major problems” to overcome – including insufficient cooling water, personnel and incoming electricity supply – before it could start generating power again safely.
The future of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear reactor, is a significant aspect of any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Seized by Russia in spring 2022 and shut down for safety reasons a few months later, it remains on the frontline of the conflict, close to the Dnipro River.
Russia has said it intends to retain the site and switch it back on, without being specific as to when. Alexey Likhachev, head of Russian nuclear operator Rosatom, said in February it would be restarted when “military and political conditions allow”.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has expressed an interest in taking control of it, though this possibility is considered very remote.
Kotin said Energoatom was prepared to restart the plant but it would require Russian forces to be removed and the site to be de-mined and demilitarised.
He said such a restart by Ukraine would take anywhere “from two months to two years” in an environment “without any threats from militaries”, while a Russian restart during wartime “would be impossible, even for one unit [reactor]”.
Kotin said the six reactors could only be brought online after the completion of 27 safety programmes agreed with Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, including testing the nuclear fuel in the reactor cores because it had exceeded a six-year “design term”.
That raises questions about whether Russia could restart the plant after a ceasefire without incurring significant risk. The plant was already unsafe, Kotin said, given that it was being used as “a military base with military vehicles present” and there were “probably some weapons and blasting materials” present as well.
Russia has acknowledged that it has placed mines between the inner and outer perimeters of the plant “to deter potential Ukrainian saboteurs” while inspectors from the IAEA nuclear watchdog have reported that armed troops and military personnel are present at the site.
Last month, the US Department of Energy said the Zaporizhzhia plant was being operated by an “inadequate and insufficently trained cadre of workers”, with staffing levels at less than a third of prewar levels.
The US briefing said Ukrainian reactors, though originally of the Soviet VVER design, had “evolved differently” from their Russian counterparts and “particularly the safety systems”. Russian-trained specialists acting as replacements for Ukrainian staff were “inexperienced” in operating the Ukrainian variants, it said.
Kotin said an attempt to restart the plant by Russia would almost certainly not be accepted or supported by Ukraine. It would require the reconnection of three additional 750kV high-voltage lines to come into the plant, he said.
A nuclear reactor requires a significant amount of power for day-to-day operation, and three of the four high-voltage lines came from territories now under Russian occupation. “They themselves destroyed the lines,” Kotin said, only for Russia to discover engineers could not rebuild them as the war continued, he added.
Only two lines remain to maintain the site in cold shutdown, a 750kV line coming from Ukraine, and a further 330kV line – though on eight separate occasions shelling disrupted their supply of energy, forcing the plant to rely on backup generators.
Experts say a pumping station has to be constructed at the site, because there is insufficient cooling water available. The June 2023 destruction by Russian soldiers of the Nova Kakhova dam downstream eliminated the easy supply of necessary water from the Dnipro river………………………………………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/06/unsafe-for-russia-to-restart-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-energoatom-says
‘We thought it was the end of the world’: How the US dropped four nuclear bombs on Spain in 1966
Myles Burke https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250404-how-the-us-dropped-nuclear-bombs-on-spain-in-1966 7 Apr 25
In 1966, the remote Spanish village of Palomares found that the “nuclear age had fallen on them from a clear blue sky”. Two years after the terrifying accident, BBC reporter Chris Brasher went to find what happened when the US lost a hydrogen bomb.
On 7 April 1966, almost 60 years ago this week, a missing nuclear weapon for which the US military had been desperately searching for 80 days was finally found. The warhead, with an explosive power 100 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was carefully winched from a depth of 2,850ft (869m) out of the Mediterranean Sea and delicately lowered onto the USS Petrel. Once it was on board, officers painstakingly cut into the thermonuclear device’s casing to disarm it. It was only then that everyone could breathe a sigh of relief – the last of the four hydrogen bombs that the US had accidentally dropped on Spain had been recovered.
“This was not the first accident involving nuclear weapons,” said BBC reporter Chris Brasher when he reported from the scene in 1968. “The Pentagon lists at least nine previous accidents to aircraft carrying hydrogen bombs. But this was the first accident on foreign soil, the first to involve civilians and the first to excite the attention of the world.”
This terrifying situation had come about because of a US operation code-named Chrome Dome. At the beginning of the 1960s, the US had developed a project to deter its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, from launching a pre-emptive strike. A patrol of nuclear-armed B-52 bombers would continuously criss-cross the skies, primed to attack Moscow at a moment’s notice. But to stay airborne on these long looping routes, the planes needed to refuel while in flight.
On 17 January 1966, one such bomber was flying at a height of 31,000ft (9.5km) over the Almería region of southern Spain, and attempted a routine air-to-air refuelling with a KC-135 tanker plane. “I believe what happened was the bomber was closing at a too-high rate of closure speed and he didn’t stabilise his position,” US Maj Gen Delmar Wilson, the man in charge of dealing with the catastrophic accident, told Brasher, “with the result that they got too close and collided.”
The B-52 bomber’s impact with the refuelling plane tore it open, igniting the jet fuel the KC-135 was carrying and killing all four of the crew onboard. The ensuing explosion also killed two men in the B-52’s tail section. A third managed to eject, but died when his parachute did not open. The other four members of the bomber’s crew successfully bailed out of their burning plane before it broke apart and fell to earth, raining down both flaming aircraft fragments and its lethal thermonuclear cargo onto the remote Spanish village of Palomares.
Everyone kept talking about a ‘broken arrow’. I learnt then that ‘broken arrow’ was the code word for a nuclear accident – Capt Joe Ramirez
The huge fireball was seen a mile away. Thankfully, it did not trigger a nuclear explosion. The bomber’s warheads were not armed and had built-in safeguards to prevent an unintended atomic chain reaction. But the thermonuclear devices did have explosives surrounding their plutonium cores as part of the triggering mechanism. In the event of an accident, the bombs had parachutes attached to them designed to cushion the impact on landing and prevent radioactive contamination. And indeed, one undetonated bomb did land safely in a riverbed and was recovered intact the following day. Unfortunately, two of the plummeting nuclear bombs’ parachutes failed to open.
That morning, Spanish farmer Pedro Alarcón was walking to his house with his grandchildren when one of the nuclear bombs landed in his tomato field and blew apart on impact. “We were blown flat. The children started to cry. I was paralysed with fear. A stone hit me in the stomach, I thought I’d been killed. I lay there feeling like death with the children crying,” he told the BBC in 1968.
Devastation and chaos
The other hydrogen bomb also exploded when it hit the ground near a cemetery. These dual blasts created vast craters and scattered highly toxic, radioactive plutonium dust across several hundred acres. Burning aircraft debris also showered the Spanish village. “I was crying and running about,” a villager called Señora Flores told the BBC in 1968. “My little girl was crying, ‘Mama, Mama, look at our house, it is burning.’ Because of all the smoke I thought what she said must be true. There were a lot of stones and debris falling around us. I thought it would hit us. It was this terrific explosion. We thought it was the end of the world.”
Once the news that the bomber had come down with nuclear weapons aboard reached US military command, a huge operation was launched. At the time of the disaster, Capt Joe Ramirez was an US Air Force lawyer stationed in Madrid. “There were a lot of people talking, there was a lot of excitement in the conference room. Everyone kept talking about a ‘broken arrow’. I learnt then that ‘broken arrow’ was the code word for a nuclear accident,” he told BBC’s Witness History in 2011.
US military personnel were scrambled to the area by helicopter. When Capt Ramirez arrived in Palomares, he immediately saw the devastation and chaos wrought by the accident. Huge pieces of smoking wreckage were strewn all over the area – a large part of the burning B-52 bomber had landed in the school’s yard. “It’s a small village but there were people scrambling in different directions. I could see smouldering debris, I could see some fires.”
Despite the carnage, miraculously no one in the village was killed. “Nearly 100 tonnes of flaming debris had fallen on the village but not even a chicken had died,” said Brasher. A local school teacher and doctor climbed up to the fire-scarred hillside to retrieve the remains of the US airmen who had been killed. “Later still, they sorted the pieces and the limbs into five coffins, an act that was to cause a certain amount of bureaucratic difficulty when the Americans came to claim only four bodies from that hillside,” said Brasher.
Three of the B-52 crew who managed to eject landed in the Mediterranean several miles off the coast and were rescued by local fishing boats within an hour of the accident. The fourth, the B-52 radar-navigator, ejected through the plane’s explosion, which left him badly burned, and was unable to separate himself from his ejection seat. Despite this, he managed to open his parachute and was found alive near the village and taken to hospital.
However, this still left the problem of locating the plane’s deadly nuclear payload. “My main concern was to recover those bombs, that was number-one priority,” Gen Wilson told the BBC in 1968.
One of our nuclear bombs is missing
“The first night, the Guardia Civil [the Spanish national police force] had come to the little bar in Palomares, and that was about the only place that had electricity. And they had reported what they considered to be a bomb, so we immediately despatched some of our people to this riverbed which is not far from the centre of town, and, in fact, it was a bomb, so we placed a guard on that. And then the next morning, at first daylight, we started conducting our search, and I believe it was something in the order of 10am or 11am the following morning, we located two other bombs.”
This accounted for three of the nuclear bombs, but there was still one missing. By the next day, trucks filled with US troops had been sent from nearby bases, with the beach in Palomares becoming a base for some 700 US airmen and scientists urgently trying to contain any radioactive contamination and locate the fourth warhead.
“The first thing that you could see as the search really got underway in earnest was Air Force personnel linking up hand-by-hand and 40 or 50 people in a line. They would have designated search areas. There were some people with Geiger counters who started arriving, and so they started marking off the areas which were contaminated,” said Capt Ramirez in 2011. When US personnel registered an area contaminated with radiation, they would scrape up the first three inches of topsoil and seal it in barrels to be shipped back to the US. Some 1,400 tonnes of irradiated soil ended up being sent to a storage facility in South Carolina.
Both the US and Spain, which at the time was under the brutal rule of Francisco Franco’s military dictatorship, were keen to downplay the devastating accident. Franco was especially worried that radiation fears would hurt Spain’s tourism industry, a major source of revenue for his regime. In an effort to reassure the local population and the wider world that there was no danger, the US Ambassador to Spain, Angier Biddle Duke, would end up taking a swim in the sea off Palomares coast in front of the international press just weeks after the accident.
But despite hundreds of US personnel conducting an intensive and meticulous search of the surrounding area for a week, they still couldn’t find the fourth bomb. Then Capt Ramirez spoke to a local fisherman who had helped rescue some of the surviving airmen who had splashed down in the sea. The fisherman kept apologising to Capt Ramirez for not being able to save one of the US flyers, whom he thought he had witnessed drifting down into the depths.
Capt Ramirez realised that the fisherman could have actually seen the missing nuclear bomb. “All the bodies had been accounted for, I knew that,” he said. The search then quickly shifted to the Mediterranean Sea, with the US Navy mobilising a flotilla of more than 30 ships, including mine-sweepers and submersibles, to scour the seabed. The exploration of miles of ocean floor was both technically complicated and a very slow process, but after weeks of exhaustive searching, a newly developed deep-diving vessel, Alvin, finally located the missing bomb in an underwater trench.
Nearly four months after it was first lost, the warhead was finally made safe and back in US hands. The next day, despite the secrecy with which the US military had surrounding its nuclear arsenal, it took the unusual step of showing the bomb to the world’s press. Ambassador Duke reasoned that unless people saw the bomb for themselves, they would never feel certain that it had actually been recovered.
How Many Nuclear Bombs Has The US Air Force Lost?
https://simpleflying.com/nuclear-bombs-us-air-force-lost/ 3 Aug 24 [excellent tables on original]
Summary
- 3 US nuclear bombs lost, never found
- Possible unknown lost nuclear bombs worldwide
- The Soviets lost nuclear torpedoes and missiles
According to a 2022 BBC article, the United States has lost at least three nuclear bombs that have never been found – they are out there somewhere, and the military has given up looking for them. In total, there have been at least 32 so-called US Force ‘broken arrow’ accidents since 1950. The United States is not just one of the foremost nuclear powers; it operates the unique Boeing E-4B Nightwatch (aka Doomsday) planes to serve as emergency flying command centers for the President and Joint Chiefs in case Washington comes under nuclear attack.
32 Broken Arrow accidents
These broken arrow incidents occur when an aircraft has jettisoned a nuclear bomb in an emergency or by mistake, or the aircraft carrying them crashes. A bad time for nukes was at the height of the Cold War between 1960 and 1968 when Operation Chrome Dome kept nuclear-armed airplanes in the air at all times.
“But three US bombs have gone missing altogether – they’re still out there to this day, lurking in swamps, fields and oceans across the planet.” – BBC
In January 1966, a B-52G bomber carrying four B28 thermonuclear bombs collided midair with a KC-135 tanker over Palomares, Spain. The three bombs that fell on the land were swiftly recovered, but one fell into the Mediterranean Sea. However, this 1.1-megaton warhead bomb was eventually retrieved by a robotic submersible. However, the Air Force was not always so fortunate, and bombs were not always found.
Sometimes, it is only by sheer luck that nuclear bombs haven’t exploded in accidents. In 1961, a B-52 broke up over Goldsboro, North Carolina, and dropped two nuclear bombs. While one was largely undamaged, investigations found that three of the four safeguards on the other bomb had failed.
Incidentally, the B-52H bomber remains one of the three strategic nuclear bombers of the US Air Force, and Congress wants to restore more of them to carry nukes again
The three American nuclear bombs lost
Tybee Island mid-air collision
On February 5, 1958, an F-86 fighter plane collided with a B-47 bomber carrying a 7,600-pound Mark 15 nuclear bomb. The bomb was then jettisoned to help prevent the B-47 from crashing and the bomb exploding. The bomb fell around Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia. After a number of unsuccessful searches, the bomb was eventually declared lost in Wassaw Sound, and to everyone’s understanding, it remains there to this day.
Philippine Sea A-4 crash
In 1965, a US Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft was armed with a nuclear weapon when it fell off the Essex-class aircraft carrier, the USS Ticonderoga. This occurred around 68 miles from Japan’s Kikai Island near Okinawa. The aircraft, pilot, and the B43 thermonuclear bomb were never recovered (despite 10 weeks of searching) and remain in the ocean depths today. The pilot was Lieutenant Douglas M. Webster and the ocean depth is around 16,000 feet.
Thule Air Base crash
The third known nuclear loss came in January 1968 when a US B-52 bomber carrying four B28FI thermonuclear bombs crashed. A cabin fire forced the aircraft’s crew to abandon it before they could make an emergency landing at the Thule Air Base. Six of the seven crew ejected safely, while the seventh perished while attempting to bail out.
Pilotless, the zombie bomber crashed into sea ice in North Star Bar, Greenland; the crash triggered a conventional explosion that caused the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse (the area was left radioactively contaminated). After extensive Danish-American clean-up efforts, one secondary stage of one of the warheads was never found.
Unknown nukes lost from other powers
If it is unsettling to know there are three known American nuclear bombs out there, take a pause to think the ones known to the public are all American. The British, French, Pakistanis, Indian, Chinese, and likely the North Koreans and Israelis all have nuclear weapons – these countries could have lost nuclear bombs and never disclosed them.
But most terrifying were the Soviets and, later, the Russians. The Soviets and Russians have had many nuclear accidents, from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant disaster to the early K-9 number submarine meltdown to the later Kursk explosion. All that’s known of lost Soviet/Russian nukes are the ones lost on at least three submarines (the K-8. K-129, and K-278).
No one knows how many nukes were lost on Soviet aircraft (but it’s more likely a question of how many and not if they lost any). The Soviet Union amassed the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, reaching a mind-boggling 45,000 in 1986
Nuclear site given more time to fix safety breach
Jason Arunn Murugesu, BBC News, North East and Cumbria, 4 Apr 25,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgkgxdddmlyo
A nuclear site which breached hazardous substance regulations has been given more time to figure out how best to protect workers.
Last year, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) served two improvement notices on Sellafield Ltd, near Whitehaven, Cumbria, after it “failed to manage the risks of working with nickel nitrate and to prevent or adequately control exposure of workers to this hazardous substance”.
The breaches did not compromise either nuclear or radiological safety, the ONR said.
Sellafield Ltd said it had completed one improvement notice and “significant progress” had been made on the other. It has until September to come up with a solution.
Used in the treatment of effluent, nickel nitrate is not radioactive but is a hazardous substance and could cause harm to the health of a worker exposed to it.
To mitigate these risks, operations involving the chemical should be conducted in a glovebox to protect workers from any harmful health effects.
However, contamination was found outside the glovebox area at a Sellafield facility, which resulted in workers potentially being exposed to the chemical, the ONR previously said.
A poorly designed and maintained glovebox appeared to have contributed to the situation, it added.
‘Technical challenges’
Sellafield Ltd was required to complete a nickel nitrate risk assessment by the end of October, and to “prevent or adequately control” the exposure of workers to nickel nitrate by March.
However, the ONR said “technical challenges” had come to light regarding the exposure of workers to the material and it would now give the nuclear plant until 30 September to come up with a solution.
Hygiene controls would remain in place in the facility, monitored by an occupational hygienist, until full compliance with both improvement notices was achieved, the ONR explained.
Pearl Harbor update brings nuclear risk
Star Advertiser March 30, 2025, Lynda Williams
Kevin Knodell’s recent article highlights the significance of Dry Dock 5 at Pearl Harbor, but omits a critical detail: this facility is set to host the U.S. Navy’s most lethal nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines (“‘An emphasis on lethality,’” Star-Advertiser, March 23).
This will likely transform Hawaii’s role in the U.S. nuclear arsenal by accommodating Ohio-class and, eventually, Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, each capable of carrying Trident missiles with multiple nuclear warheads.
The detonation of even a single modern warhead could result in millions of deaths and potentially trigger a nuclear winter, devastating the global biosphere.
An accident on such a submarine near Pearl Harbor would be catastrophic and could cause widespread contamination across Hawaii. Hawaii’s residents were not consulted about housing nuclear-armed submarines in Honolulu. Please do not whitewash or sugarcoat the dangers associated with housing these submarines in our community……………………………………….. https://lyndalovon.blogspot.com/2025/03/my-op-ed-in-honolulu-star-advertiser.html?m=1&fbclid=IwY2xjawJYOxdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXmnePII2HU6StRh1n7LgFionyc9TcmHIMLXETxISQeaZWtElxJvUl_axg_aem_RhuD_LZZLNNZDjuYWl-yGg
Risks posed by hole in protective shell over Chernobyl
Lilia Rzheutska, DW, March 29, 2025,
When it was erected in 2019, the giant shell over the damaged nuclear reactor in Chernobyl was one of the biggest structures ever moved by humans. In February a Russian drone put a hole in it.
For weeks, the Ukrainian authorities have been looking for ways to repair a large hole in the protective shell that covers the fourth reactor of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant. On February 14, a Russian drone hit the structure, which is called the New Safe Confinement, or NSC, because it is meant to “confine” the reactor’s radioactive remains. The drone started a fire that caused considerable damage and was only extinguished three weeks later on March 7.
“The main mission is to close the hole, which is about 15 square meters [around 162 square feet] in size, but also the more than 200 small holes that the State Emergency Service of Ukraine drilled into the shell during firefighting operations,” said Hryhoriy Ishchenko, the head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management, which is responsible for the area around the Chernobyl power plant.
He told DW that experts would soon be arriving on site to examine the structure and that “preliminary recommendations on the repair work should be available within a month.”
A €1.5 billion megaproject
The NSC was erected over a pre-existing protective shell called the sarcophagus, which is there to prevent the release of radioactive contaminants from the reactor, which exploded in 1986. The NSC was built after 45 donor countries came together and gathered around €1.5 billion for the project. Eventually 10,000 people from 40 countries would play a part in the shell, which took 12 years, from the signing of contracts to the moment the NSC was ready in 2019. …………………………
Although experts say the drop in pressure in the NSC does not pose any immediate threat, there are other dangers. Dmytro Humeniuk, a safety analysis expert at Ukraine’s State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety said it was currently impossible to dismantle the old sarcophagus. The NSC was built in part to replace the old shell but inside the old shell, there are still 18 unstable beams. Three of the main beams could reportedly collapse at any time. If this were to happen under the new-but-now-damaged protective structure, radioactive dust could be stirred up and radioactivity released, Humeniuk said. “The protective shell is currently not fulfilling its function, which is to contain the nuclear fission products beneath it.”………………………….
For Jan Vande Putte, a nuclear expert at Greenpeace Ukraine, there are very few options. “Due to the high radiation levels above the sarcophagus, the entire Chernobyl protective shell will probably have to be moved back to the place where it was built on rails before the expensive repairs can be carried out,” he said adding that the costs of doing this were completely unknown.
Representatives of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development visited Chernobyl on March 18 and spoke with the power plant’s directors, according to a report on the power plant’s website. They also inspected the technical units of the NSC and the area under the protective shell.
After the meeting, €400,000 from the International Chernobyl Cooperation Account, which the European Bank manages, was approved for a specialist-led damage assessment. https://www.dw.com/en/risks-posed-by-hole-in-protective-shell-over-chernobyl/a-72078360?fbclid=IwY2xjawJV0VZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfhIgvFmxHhPebzUFjc8wxY4HEGBSRbgMxQdAOL2rCSoRY-S4A1j5U8wvw_aem_qeZu8AA
Russia rules out transferring control over Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine
the plant being jointly operated, including with the participation of international organizations,
“In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage.
Transfer of the facility or control over it to Ukraine or any other country is ‘impossible,’ says Foreign Ministry
Burc Eruygur 26.03.2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/russia-rules-out-transferring-control-over-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-to-ukraine/3520006#
Russia on Tuesday rejected transferring control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to Ukraine or any other country, saying it is “impossible.”
US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the situation surrounding energy supplies to Ukraine and the country’s nuclear power plants during a phone call last Wednesday.
Trump told Zelenskyy that the US could be “very helpful in running the plants with its electricity and utility expertise” and that “American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure,” according to a White House statement.
Zelenskyy told journalists at a briefing later that he and Trump did talk about the restoration of the ZNPP and that Ukraine is ready to discuss the modernization of the plant but they did not discuss the issue of ownership of the plant.
A statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the plant is a “Russian nuclear facility,” saying the transfer of the facility or control over it to Ukraine or any other country is “impossible.”
“All the station’s employees are citizens of the Russian Federation. Their lives cannot be played with, especially considering the atrocities that Ukrainians have committed and continue to commit on the territory of our country,” it said.
The statement also denied the possibility of the plant being jointly operated, including with the participation of international organizations, describing this as having “no such precedents in world practice.”
“In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage.
The statement also denied the possibility of close cooperation between NATO intelligence services with Ukraine, which have impressive sabotage potential, makes it impossible, including with the participation of international organizations, describing this as having “no such precedents in world practice.”
“In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage.
“An important aspect is that close cooperation between NATO intelligence services with Ukraine, which have impressive sabotage potential, makes it impossible to even temporarily admit representatives of these states to the ZNPP,” the statement added.
The situation around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest and one of the world’s 10 biggest, particularly remains tense as concerns persist over a possible nuclear disaster involving Moscow and Kyiv, both of which have frequently accused each other of attacks around the facility.
Since Sept. 1, 2022, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) personnel have been present at the plant, which has been under Russian control since March 2022.
What is the fate of Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after Trump talks?
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is one of the world’s 10 largest and Europe’s biggest
Hanna Arhirova, Friday 21 March 2025, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-power-plants-trump-putin-b2719353.html
President Donald Trump suggested a potential transfer of Ukrainian power plants to US ownership during a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to a US statement.
The discussion, later clarified by Zelensky, centred on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), currently under Russian occupation.
While the plant remains connected to Ukraine‘s grid, it is not producing electricity, raising questions about the feasibility and nature of any future US involvement.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is one of the world’s 10 largest and Europe’s biggest.
Who controls the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Located in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces occupied it shortly after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.
While Russia declared the region annexed in Autumn 2022, its largest city, Zaporizhzhia, remains under Ukrainian control.
Ukraine has accused Russia of stationing troops and weapons at the plant and using it as a launchpad for attacks across the Dnipro River. Russia denies this, accusing Ukraine of shelling the facility.
How many nuclear power plants does Ukraine have?
Besides Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine operates three active nuclear power plants, which generate the majority of the country’s electricity following sustained Russian attacks on thermal and hydroelectric plants.
These facilities are located in southern, western and northwestern Ukraine, away from frontline areas.
What did Trump and Zelenskyy discuss and are there negotiations over Zaporizhzhia’s fate?
During their call on Wednesday, Trump suggested that Zelensky should consider giving the US ownership of Ukraine’s power plants to ensure their long-term security, according to a White House statement from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
“American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure,” Trump suggested, according to the statement.
Zelensky later told journalists their conversation focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the following day, made it clear that “the issue of ownership” of the other three plants was never discussed.
“All nuclear power plants belong to the people of Ukraine,” he said.
Zelenskyy said that when they discussed Zaporizhzhia, the US leader had inquired about the facility’s future. “Trump asked my thoughts on the plant,” Zelensyy said. “I told him that if it is not Ukrainian, it will not operate. It is illegal.”
Even though ZNPP is a state-owned plant, Zelenskyy acknowledged that if the US were to claim it from Russian control, invest in it and modernise it, Ukraine might consider it. “That is a separate question, an open one,” he said.
What is the current state of Zaporizhzhia’s nuclear plant?
Since falling under Russian control, the plant’s conditions have deteriorated. While its six reactors have been shut down for years, they still require power and qualified staff to maintain cooling systems and safety features.
Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, said that after Russian forces took over, Ukrainian personnel were forced to sign contracts with Russian authorities and take Russian citizenship. Those who refused faced abduction or threats, forcing thousands to flee, leaving the facility understaffed and harder to manage.
The collapse of a dam in June 2023 further jeopardised the plant’s cooling systems, which relied on water from the reservoir. In response, plant administrators dug wells, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Zelensky said extensive repairs would be needed before the plant could operate again, estimating the process could take at least two years.
The IAEA has repeatedly warned the war could cause a radiation leak. While the plant no longer produces electricity, it still holds large amounts of nuclear fuel, requiring constant cooling.
Regular blackouts caused by the fighting have disrupted the facility, though power has been quickly restored each time.
IAEA experts permanently stationed there still face restricted access, with Russian authorities blocking some inspection requests, according to IAEA head Rafael Grossi.
Is any kind of deal imminent?
Zelensky said the discussions with Trump on restoring Zaporizhzhia were a positive step, but cautioned that no one would work at the plant if Russian forces remained stationed nearby.
Control over the plant is likely to remain a legal and logistical challenge, intertwined with a highly divisive issue for both warring sides: control over the land itself.
Russian troops hold the area, while Ukrainian forces are separated from it by the Dnipro River and more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) of terrain.
Leak is Sellafield’s ‘biggest environmental issue’
BBC 21st March 2025,
The head of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) called the silo “Britain’s most hazardous building” He said it was the “single biggest environmental issue” facing the nuclear plant
A longstanding leak at “Britain’s most hazardous building” is a nuclear plant’s “single biggest environmental issue”, a select committee has heard.
The leak in the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) – built more than 50 years ago at Sellafield in Cumbria – started in 2019 after first occurring in the 1970s.
Labour MP Luke Charters told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday that every three years the silo leaked enough material to fill an “Olympic-sized swimming pool”.
Sellafield head Euan Hutton said the leak did not “pose a detriment to the public”.
The silo contains Magnox fuel cladding, mostly made up of magnesium, which was removed from nuclear fuel rods.
It was built in the 1960s, with three further extensions built in the 1970s and 1980s.
The leak is being caused by a crack in the underground portion of the silo, Mr Hutton told the committee.
He said the team had “excellent ground modelling and monitoring” which showed the activity was staying in the ground beneath the facility.
The head of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) called the silo “Britain’s most hazardous building” and said the best way to the stop the leak was “to empty the silo as efficiently and quickly as we can”.
He said it was the “single biggest environmental issue” facing the nuclear plant
Mr Hutton said the team hoped to empty the silo by about 2059……………………………… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgy77y21djo
House Of Commons Public Accounts Committee: Decommissioning Sellafield – Seafield is the most dangerous place in the U.K
House Of Commons Public Accounts Committee: Decommissioning Sellafield.
Admissions that Seafield is the most dangerous place in the U.K. and an
accident involving the high activity waste storage tanks would be
catastrophic. Witness(es): Clive Maxwell, Second Permanent Secretary,
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; Lee McDonough, Director
General, Net Zero, Nuclear and International, Department for Energy
Security and Net Zero; David Peattie, Group Chief Executive Officer,
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority; Kate Bowyer, Chief Financial Officer,
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority; Euan Hutton, Chief Executive, Sellafield
Ltd
Parliament TV 20th March 2025 https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/7f124fa5-c2e2-4c68-bce8-557763429471
In the shadow of a nuclear bargaining chip, Ukrainians fear disaster.
Russia occupies Zaporizhzhia power plant and knows its importance to
Ukraine. While its fate is debated, engineers say the danger is rising.
Since Russia occupied the region’s nuclear power plant, Europe’s
largest, three years ago, millions of potassium iodide tablets have been
handed to locals. Officials in anti-radiation masks and suits have enacted
ominous drills where they treat and hose down volunteers in preparation for
the worst.
When President Trump announced that he would discuss the “big
question” of Ukraine’s “land” and “power plants” with President
Putin in a phone call on Tuesday, he did not name Zaporizhzhia directly.
But shortly afterwards, Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Ukrainian MP, claimed that
the Trump administration was “really talking about the return of the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, has
hinted that the plant could be a bargaining chip for Russia. “There is a
nuclear reactor that supplies quite a bit of electricity to the country of
Ukraine. That’s got to be dealt with,” he told CBS on Sunday,
ostensibly referring to Zaporizhzhia, which before the war produced 20 per
cent of the nation’s power. The war has created instability in the supply
of two key ingredients for running the plant and averting disaster: water
and electricity.
With all six of its nuclear reactors running in a “cold
state”, in an attempt to limit the fallout of a disaster, it still
requires regular maintenance and inspections by observers from the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog. The situation
remains precarious. “In these three years, there has been a degradation
in the quality of the equipment and personnel,” said Taras, a senior
engineer at the plant who escaped occupied Ukraine with his family in 2023.
Times 17th March 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/in-the-shadow-of-a-nuclear-bargaining-chip-ukrainians-fear-disaster-mpck2vzpz
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