As the former Leader of Cumbria County Council, it was my Cabinet and I who rejected the last search process for a radioactive waste, Geological Disposal Facility in West Cumbria, orchestrated by the MRWS process, for a substantial number of reasons. including:
No statutory, enshrined Right of Withdrawal from the process.
No Sovereign Wealth Fund for Cumbria – in perpetuity.
Plethora of expert opinion against the geology – NOT rebutted by the NDA
No proposals for a Strategic Environmental Assessment
Allerdale ruled out nem con. by all Cabinet Members.
Copeland too small without infringing designated and protected areas.
Significant democratic deficit. No credible local or Cumbria-wide support.
Huge potential for planning blight/property devaluation
Received no commitment to invest in international standards of safe surface or sub surface storage (e.g. Sweden); the ‘twin-track’ approach, in effect.
The adverse findings of the NAO and the highly critical comments by the Public Accounts Committee (Margaret Hodge et al)
But, nonetheless, emphasising the County Council’s total commitment to urgent alternative investment in Sellafield and West Cumbria – not least, the infrastructure, but with no forthcoming guarantees from the government.
Nothing has changed, except for yet another rebranding exercise and a White Paper which seeks to sideline county councils.
I am now writing to you – ahead of the House of Lords debate on 6th September on the “Draft NPS for Geological Disposal Infrastructure” – as a Director of Cumbria Trust(cumbriatrust.org)
The conclusions reached by the House of Commons BEIS Committee on the Draft NPS for Geological Disposal Infrastructure should be a matter of great concern for those who value and respect the National Parks, and for Cumbrians in particular. The failure to exclude designated areas, including AONBs and National Parks, from the search process for geological disposal is both alarming and irrational, in that it demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the protection in law given to these areas.
Major developments can only be permitted in exceptional circumstances where it can be demonstrated that there are no alternative sites available outside the National Park (LDNPA Core Strategy CS12). The fact that other UK sites outside a National Park may not have volunteered is of no relevance. Voluntarism is not a concept recognised by planning law, and as such, should a site within a designated area be selected, there would be a requirement to survey the entire non-designated land area (around 91% of the UK) to demonstrate that no alternative exists. This highlights the absurdity of the failure to exclude designated areas, something which even Nirex understood three decades ago. This is not simply a matter of failing to learn from past mistakes, but of introducing new and significant mistakes as they go along, and Cumbria Trust believes it simply must not go unchallenged.
I would also refer you to the Sandford Principle – Section 62 of the Environment Act 1995 –enjoyment of the National Parks ‘shall be in a manner and by such means as will leave their natural beauty unimpaired for the enjoyment of this and future generations’. You will also be aware that as a World Heritage Site, the Lake District has adopted a Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, and that its inclusion in a search area will undoubtedly threaten that status, requiring notification to the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS.
We would encourage you to speak up strongly for the protection of our designated areas and for Cumbria in particular.
We know from the last process that Ennerdale (specifically the Ennerdale granite intrusion which runs from the shore of Buttermere in the north to Nether Wasdale in the south) was identified by the MRWS geologist, Dr Dearlove, as a potential site for geological disposal, as was a second site (in the Mercia Mudstone Group rocks) near Silloth. If we allow this Draft NPS to proceed unchallenged these areas are likely to find themselves back in the spotlight. If an area such as Copeland volunteers, no test of public support is required until around 20 years into the process, during which time 20-30 deep boreholes will be drilled over the course of a decade. LDNPA planning permission would not be required since they now come under NSIP (Planning Act 2008) legislation.
For all of these reasons, designated areas must be protected and any new search process should exclude them from the beginning. My colleagues and I would urge you to use the debate on 6th September to push for that exclusion. Thank you.
As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, his State Agency for Nuclear Project’s executive director, Robert Halstead, and other Silver State officials, have recommitted to yet another round of resistance in 2019 to the high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at them since the enactment of the “Screw Nevada bill” of 1987.
Ian Zabarte Principal Man of the Western Bands of Shoshone Indians, and secretary of the Native Community Action Council (NCAC), has achieved hard won legal standing, in opposition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of the Yucca dump, in the biggest proceeding in the agency’s history. (NCAC has also been appointed to the NRC’s Yucca Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel.) The 1863 “peace and friendship” Treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by the U.S. government with the Western Shoshone, is clear evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy lacks title to the land and water at the site, so cannot legally proceed with construction and operation of the $100 billion+ dump.
IPFM 20th Aug 2018, On 31 July 2018, Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) issued a new
policy paper, The Basic Principles on Japan’s Utilization of Plutonium,
which for the first time, stated that “Japan will reduce the size of its
plutonium stockpile.”
A similar statement was included in the new Strategic
Energy Plan (in Japanese) by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
(METI) that was adopted on 3 July by the Cabinet of the Japanese
government. Japan’s plutonium stockpile, according to the data released by
the JAEC at the same time as the new policy, is about 47.3 tons of
plutonium (as of the end of 2017), of which 36.7 tons is overseas (21.2
tons in UK and 15.5 tons in France) and 10.5 tons in Japan. The Rokkasho
reprocessing plant, with a design separation capacity of 8 tons of
plutonium per year, on which stated construction in 1993, is currently
planned to be completed in 2021. Plans call for the J-MOX plant to be
completed in 2022 to turn this plutonium into MOX fuel for light water
(LWR) nuclear power reactors. http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/08/japans_new_policy_on_its_.html
Energy Voice 20th Aug 2018,The site of Britain’s worst nuclear accident is to be dismantled as part
of the wider decommissioning of the Sellafield nuclear plant. The planned
demolition of the 360 foot structure will begin later this year. A giant
crane has been constructed to bring it down. The 152m crane is the tallest
structure ever built at Sellafield, just six metres shorter than the
Blackpool Tower. It will begin work this autumn, removing and lowering
chunks of the chimney cut out using diamond wire saws. Duncan Thompson, the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Sellafield Programme director, said:
“The complex task of decommissioning and demolishing the Windscale Pile
One Stack has reached an important stage. It is another example of the
ingenuity that goes into solving the UK’s decommissioning problems. https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/nuclear/179544/watch-sellafield-nuclear-chimney-to-be-demolished/
Finnish firms target Chinese radwaste market, WNN, 23 August 2018
Finnish utility Fortum and consulting engineering company AINS Group have signed a memorandum of understanding to provide radioactive waste management services to China’s rapidly expanding nuclear industry. Through the MoU, the companies will provide services for the management of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste in China. The agreement also enhances cooperation between the firms and other Finnish companies and organisations, including VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd and Posiva Solutions.
Based on expected installed nuclear generating capacity of 50 GWe by 2020, China’s annual used fuel arisings will amount to about 1200 tonnes at that stage, the cumulative total being about 14,000 tonnes then.
“As China becomes increasingly mindful of environmental integrity and reduces its use of fossil fuels, [its] zero-carbon nuclear energy solution requires enhanced focus on radioactive waste management,” the companies said in a joint statement. “Finnish expertise has an important role in disposing of Chinese radioactive waste and building a cleaner future together with shared respect for nature and the environment.”……….Finnish waste management company Posiva – jointly owned by Fortum and TVO – launched Posiva Solutions in June 2016. The business, it said, would “focus on the marketing of the know-how accumulated from the design, research and development efforts in the final disposal of used nuclear fuel, as well as on associated consulting services”. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Finnish-firms-target-Chinese-radwaste-market
The JAEA will launch actual fuel removal operations this month if it finds the work can be conducted safely. It was initially planned to begin late last month but was postponed after problems plagued the equipment test.
In the final exercise, control rods instead of real fuel assemblies will be removed from a container filled with sodium coolant by using the aforementioned equipment. The rods will be then packed in cans after the sodium is rinsed off and transported to a water-filled pool.
It has not been decided when the exercise will end, the agency said.
The decommissioning process for the glitch-riddled Monju is slated to take 30 years.
In the first phase, 530 assemblies in the reactor and a storage container outside the reactor will be moved to the water pool by December 2022. The JAEA has so far transferred only two fuel assemblies to the pool — one in 2008 and the other in 2009.
Navy, Civilian Nuclear Regulators Struggling Over How to Dismantle Former USS Enterprise, USNI News ,By: Ben Werner,
THE PENTAGON — A brewing regulatory fight between the Navy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over who should oversee a possible commercial contract to dismantle the hull of the former USS Enterprise (CVN-65) could ultimately cause the project’s price tag to balloon well above the current $1 billion estimate.
Controlling costs and preventing a log-jam of nuclear refueling and maintenance work on decommissioned nuclear surface ships and submarines were cited as reasons the Navy would consider using a private contractor to dismantle the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to an August Government Accountability Office report.
However, civilian regulators with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) aren’t keen on overseeing the dismantlement of Enterprise.
Using a commercial shipyard to take Enterprise apart would potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars and shave as many as five years off the project completion time, according to the GAO.
Fierce debate sparked by ‘nuclear mud’ digging on Bristol Channel coast, Mud is being dug up and moved from Hinkley Point nuclear power station, Bristol Live By David Williamson, Daniel Chipperfield , 16 Aug 18
Plans to dig up mud from Hinkley Point nuclear sites on the Somerset coast and dump it in South Wales have been met with controversy.
Work will start next month dredging roughly 300,000 tonnes which will be moved to land near Cardiff, but protesters say there’s a chance the mud could be contaminated with radiation, making it unsafe…. Wale’s Online’s poltiical editor David Williamson has been investigating the issue as protesters call on Natural resources Wales to suspend the licence for the dredging.
Hinkley Point A Stopped Producing Electricity In 2000 After 35 Years Of Operations; Hinkley Point B Has Been Generating Electricity Since 1976.
EDF Now Wants To Take Mud And Sediment So It Can Drill Six Vertical Shafts For The Cooling Water System For The New Hinkley Point C Power Station.
The Energy Giant Claims The Material Is “No Different To The Sediment Already At The Cardiff Grounds” And Is “Not Classed As Radioactive Under UK Law”.
But Campaigners Do Not Believe Detailed The Tests That Have Been Carried Out Are Sufficiently Thorough…….Dr Richard Bramhall Of The Low Level Radiation Campaign – A Former Member Of The UK Government’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks Of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) – Has Voiced Worries About The Tests.
In A Letter To NRW He Raised Concerns The Tests Did Not Assess Whether Uranium, Plutonium And Other Alpha-Emitting Elements Were Present In Minute “Particulate” Form.
As Larger Fragments Break Up, Any Given Amount Of Particulate Matter Will Become More Mobile, Be More Easily Inhaled Into The Deep Lung And The Lymphatic System, And Will Emit More Radiation,” He Said.
Tim Deere-Jones, A Self-Employed Marine Pollution Consultant, Argues Years Of Discharges From The Existing Nuclear Stations Mean More Detailed Study Is Needed.
He Said: “Those Sediments Had Been In Receipt Of Discharges From The Hinkley A Nuclear Station And The Hinkley B Nuclear Station… If You’ve Got 300,000 Tonnes Of That Stuff Being Dredged And Dumped So Close [To South Wales] You Need To Know Exactly What You’ve Got In It In Terms Of Radioactivity.”
Tim Deere-Jones, A Self-Employed Marine Pollution Consultant, Argues Years Of Discharges From The Existing Nuclear Stations Mean More Detailed Study Is Needed.
He Said: “Those Sediments Had Been In Receipt Of Discharges From The Hinkley A Nuclear Station And The Hinkley B Nuclear Station… If You’ve Got 300,000 Tonnes Of That Stuff Being Dredged And Dumped So Close [To South Wales] You Need To Know Exactly What You’ve Got In It In Terms Of Radioactivity.”
FirstEnergy takes “unwelcome” step towards plant closures, WNN, 16 August 2018
FirstEnergy Solutions Inc (FES) has taken its next step towards the closure of three nuclear power plants, filing plans related to the decommissioning with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse and Perry plants are scheduled to close during the next three years unless legislative policy solutions can be found to keep them operating.
The company on 15 August said it had filed with the NRC details of the training programme for the professionals who will supervise the removal and on-site storage of fuel from the plants after their shut-down.
“Today’s NRC submission is a necessary milestone for us but not a welcome one,” Don Moul, FES president and chief nuclear officer, said………. A solution must be reached by mid-2019, when FES must either purchase the fuel required for Davis-Besse’s next refuelling or proceed with the shutdown. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/FirstEnergy-takes-unwelcome-step-towards-plant-clo
A community vote on the proposed nuclear waste dump on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has been delayed after an Aboriginal group won a court injunction.
Key points:
The Federal Government has shortlisted Kimba for Australia’s future nuclear waste dump
The Barngarla Aboriginal people have won an injunction to halt a community vote
The Supreme Court will hear the case next Thursday
The Barngarla people, the traditional owners of much of the Eyre Peninsula, applied for an injunction to halt the vote in South Australia’s Supreme Court, arguing it contravened the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
Lawyers for the Aboriginal group argued the District Council of Kimba did not have the power to conduct the postal ballot, which was due to begin on Monday.
The Federal Government has shortlisted two sites near Kimba as possible locations for a low-level radioactive waste storage facility, along with four other sites around Australia
The lawyer representing the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation, Daniel O’Gorman SC, told the court his clients had no issue with the vote going ahead, they just wanted to be included in it.
“That’s all they want, they just want to be included, they don’t want to be treated any differently because their rights are Aboriginal rights,” he said.
The court heard the majority of the 211 native title holders lived outside the boundary of the Kimba District Council and that excluding them from the vote had the effect “of nullifying or impairing their rights”.
But Michael Burnett, representing the District Council of Kimba, told the court its power to conduct the postal vote came from the Local Government Act.
He said the council wanted to conduct the vote in a fair manner and decided the fairest manner was to comply with “the statutory procedure that applies in the case of elections”.
“It’s not a vote that has direct consequences … it’s part of a range of consultations that will be taken into account,” he said.
Mr Burnett said there were direct consultations taking place with native title holders about the proposed sites, a claim which Mr O’Gorman rejected.
“They’re getting two bites of the cherry and therein lies the exclusion, [the native title holders are] only getting one,” Mr O’Gorman said.
Mr Burnett questioned why the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation had waited until August to seek an injunction when they had known about the vote since May.
But Mr O’Gorman said the corporation had written to the District Council of Kimba on six occasions seeking to be included in the postal vote and council had only made its final decision on July 27.
The vote of around 800 residents who live in Kimba will be delayed until after a full court hearing next Thursday.
State lawmakers maintained they will have a say in a proposed facility to store high-level nuclear waste near Carlsbad and Hobbs, despite an opinion issued by New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas suggesting New Mexico will have a limited role in licensing the project.
New Mexico Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-36), who chairs the New Mexico Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee said Balderas’ opinion was informative but did not preclude lawmakers from preventing the facility from operating.
The committee convened in May to study the project proposed by New Jersey-based Holtec International, and held its third meeting on Wednesday at University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.
Opposed to the project, Steinborn said state lawmakers owe their constituents a full review of the proposal.
More: Who is Holtec? International company touts experience in nuclear storage
“I think it’s kind of a troubling deficiency in the government if the state doesn’t have to give consent to have something like this foisted upon it,” he said. “The State of New Mexico owes it to the people to look at every aspect of it.”
In Balderas’ response to multiple questions asked by Steinborn, he cited numerous past cases that Balderas said created a precedent that state governments have almost no role in federal licensing for nuclear facilities.
More: Attorney general: New Mexico has little say in Holtec proposal
He said the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has the sole authority to license the facility, and the state’s authority would likely begin once it went into operation, providing some recourse if something goes wrong.
“While it is abundantly clear that the state cannot license or otherwise directly regulate interim storage facilities, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that state tort law can provide a remedy for injuries suffered as a result of nuclear plant operation,” Balderas wrote.
But Steinborn said he and the committee intended to make their voices heard well before the plant could go into operation.
He said even if the federal NRC does issue Holtec the needed license, the state could fight back by blocking utilities and infrastructure such as water and transportation access – cutting off the facility’s ability to operate. Continue reading →
Thousands of tonnes of material needs to be dredged from the Hinkley Point C building site in Somerset.
The developer wants to dispose of 300,000 tonnes of mud across the Bristol Channel in the Cardiff Grounds, a little over a mile out to sea from Cardiff Bay.
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) will monitor it, but it has been delayed.
We were initially told by the licence holder, NNB Genco, that they intended to begin the dredging/disposal operations on 16 August,” said NRW’s John Wheadon.
“We were subsequently informed that, due to external constraints, the dredging is now expected to begin in early September, although no specific date has yet been provided.”
An enormous floating dock given to Russia by Italy has been put to use transferring a radioactive barge from the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk to safe storage at the Sayda Bay facility near Murmansk. by Charles Digges
An enormous floating dock given to Russia by Italy has been put to use transferring a radioactive barge from the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk to safe storage at the Sayda Bay facility near Murmansk.
The radioactively contaminated barge, called the PM-124, was built in 1960 and used as a floating dock for servicing nuclear submarines in the Soviet Northern Fleet. Slated for use until 1985, it continued collecting fuel assemblies for another 20 years. Since 2005, the fuel assemblies have been removed, but but for a time the barge was used used for storing other forms of solid radioactive waste at Zvezdochka.
While nearly all decommissioned submarines from the Soviet Northern Fleet have been dismantled by a variety of international agreements, a number of other military nuclear hazards still lurk on Russia’s Kola Peninsula, and the PM-124 was one of them.The Itarus is one of two nuclear-waste transport vessels that Italy provided for Russia under its Global Partnership obligations. The other, called the Rossita, a €70 million container ship, is now engaged in ferrying spent nuclear submarine fuel away from Andreyeva Bay, another major radioactive hazard left over after the Cold War.
For its part, the Itarus, which arrived in Russia in 2016, was designed specifically for shuttling reactor compartments from dismantled nuclear submarines to Sayda Bay, a facility run by SevRAO, the northern branch of RosRAO, one of Russia’s state nuclear waste handling contractor.
Rosatom has also billed it as a valuable tool in retrieving nuclear reactors and other radioactive debris intentionally scuttled in Arctic waters by the Soviet Navy.
No storage site for these underwater nuclear artifacts has yet been selected, but the Russian government has promised for years to raise them, and Rosatom’s submarine decommissioning chief, Anatoly Zakharchyov, has often suggested the Itarus, with its submersible dock features, would be handy for this endeavor.
In 2014, the Russian government revealed that the sunken waste in the Arctic includes 17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radioactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.
Joint Russian and Norwegian expeditions to the K-27 and another sunken sub, the K-159, suggest neither pose imminent contamination risks. But experts on both sides agree it’s better to get them out of the water sooner than later, before radioactive leakage becomes an urgent problem.
Zakharchyov has said the reinvigoration of the Gremikha naval nuclear waste storage facility could be a critical storage site for undersea nuclear hazards eventually netted by the Itarus.
Mersea Life August 2018 ,Andy Blowers: It’s interesting to see how government works. The other day I was invited to give evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. They were pondering the Draft National Policy Statement for Geological Disposal Infrastructure. Arcane, perhaps, but undoubtedly important and a riveting topic for anyone concerned with the future of our environment.
Although I said what I wanted to say, I felt my words went into a void, rather like the geological void that was the topic of debate. Recently the Government published its policy for the development of a deep geological repository in which to bury all the most dangerous nuclear wastes created by its military and civil nuclear programmes.
That something needs to be done is not in doubt but a repository must be in suitable geology, safely engineered and must achieve public support – conditions unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future.
The problem of managing the wastes that already exist will be difficult enough. But, the idea that a repository can also be used to accommodate the unknowable quantity of dangerous wastes from a new build programme is surely preposterous.
Yet this is what the Government proposes, stating its belief that ‘effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste from new build power stations’.
How can they possibly know? There is no foreseeable solution to the problem of wastes from new nuclear power stations, other than leaving them in stores scattered around our coasts at vulnerable, low-lying sites like Bradwell for the indefinite future.
If Bradwell B is ever built these wastes will be left, according to the Government’s own estimates, until at least the turn of the twenty-third century, that is seven generations from now. The future physical conditions on the site and the state of society so far away is simply undefinable. It is unethical and should be unthinkable to present such an intractable problem to our children, grandchildren and generations beyond.
New build wastes take a very long time to cool before they can be ready for disposal. On current evaluations it could require between 60 and 140 years before disposal. So, let’s assume that Bradwell B starts generating in 2030 and continues for 60 years until 2090. It will then be between 2150 and 2230 before all its wastes could be disposed of, assuming,of course, there is a repository available. The simple truth is we have absolutely no idea how to estimate, let alone manage, the spent fuel and other dangerous wastes that will arise from a new nuclear power station at
Bradwell.
Herald 11th Aug 2018, Police Scotland is expecting a £4 million windfall from external
organisations for protecting nuclear waste shipments and policing sporting
events. The force has made almost £1 million this year so far for
providing logistical support for nuclear waste transfers and policing
football matches. The ongoing logistical support — known as Operation
Ailey — is understood to involve traffic management and public order
protection for nuclear waste travelling from the decommissioned Dounreay
nuclear plant for reprocessing at Sellafield in Cumbria. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16412532.nuclear-convoys-and-sports-give-police-4m-windfall/
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