‘Odd’ Hinkley Point C salt marsh plan has Somerset locals up in arms
Anger at EDF proposals to flood wildlife-rich farmland as ‘compensation’ for killing millions of fish at nuclear site
Steven Morris, Guardian, 3 Feb 24
tanding in a field close to the Somerset coast surrounded by her flock of sheep, Juliet Pankhurst shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “They want to flood this land that has been farmed for generations. We’ve got great crested newts in the pond over there, water voles in the ditches, hares all over the place. They’ll be lost.”
Her partner, Mark Halliwell, shrugged. “But they’ll get their way – they always do. No matter what scheme they come up with.”
The “they” in question is EDF, the French company building the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station a few miles down the coast from the farm. The scheme is to create a salt marsh on the land as – its word – “compensation” for dropping an innovative plan to stop millions of fish from swimming into the plant’s cooling system and being killed.
“The whole thing sounds a bit odd,” said Pankhurst.
Usually, creating salt marshes – excellent wildlife habitats and carbon stores – is a positive story. This one has been greeted with anger and scepticism in the local area and farther afield.
It takes a bit of unravelling. As part of the Hinkley Point C project, EDF had said it would save millions of fish by installing an “acoustic fish deterrent” (AFD) system. The Bristol Channel and Severn estuary are hugely important habitats for species including salmon and eel.
Under the system, almost 300 underwater “sound projectors” would have boomed noise louder than a jumbo jet into the sea to deter fish from entering the plant’s water intakes, nearly two miles offshore.
But EDF has changed its mind, arguing that installing and maintaining the system would risk the lives of divers working in the fast-flowing, murky water and expressing concerns about the impact of the noise on porpoises, seals, whales.
According to the UK government’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, between 18 and 46 tonnes of fish will be lost a year if the AFD plan is abandoned.
So as “compensation”, EDF has proposed to create or enhance native oyster beds, kelp forest and seagrass habitat, and, contentiously, create about 313 hectares (773 acres) of new salt marsh along the River Parrett at Pawlett Hams, an area of wildlife-rich grassland managed by about 30 landowners, who face having to sell up and move on.
Scores of people, under the watchful eye of a police community support officer, turned up for a meeting at Pawlett village hall this week as part of EDF’s consultation on the proposal.
Scores of people, under the watchful eye of a police community support officer, turned up for a meeting at Pawlett village hall this week as part of EDF’s consultation on the proposal.
The proposal includes diverting a stretch of the King Charles III England coast path inland. One villager, Rachel Fitton, who walks at Pawlett Hams, was in tears at the prospect of the land being flooded. “It’s so sad for people who love that area,” she said. Her husband, Jason Fitton, said: “It’s insanity, disgraceful. Think of all the hedgerows and wildlife that will be lost.”
The Hampshire company Fish Guidance Systems, which had expected to provide the AFD system, is also unimpressed at EDF’s change of direction, saying it was like building wind turbines that would kill millions of birds and offering to build a nature reserve next door.
FGS says elver migration from the Atlantic is expected to be particularly hard, hit with eels “likely to be sucked into the Hinkley intakes” and only a few making it to the Somerset Levels and other habitats……………………….https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/02/odd-hinkley-point-c-salt-marsh-plan-has-somerset-locals-up-in-arms—
Hinkley C – don’t say I didn’t warn you!
In 2016, I called for Hinkley C to be scrapped. Now its commissioning has been pushed back to the end of the decade and its costs have ballooned to as much as £48 billion in 2024 money. I was right.
MICHAEL LIEBREICH, JAN 25, 2024
“The case for Hinkley Point C has collapsed: It’s time to scrap it.” This was the title of an article I wrote for City AM in July 2016.
The story so far
For those who have forgotten those heady days, a quick recap. July 2016 was one month after the UK voted for Brexit. Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne (whose pet project was Hinkley C, aided by energy minister in the previous Coalition government and currently LibDem leader, Ed Davey) had resigned. Theresa May had just taken over as Prime Minister.
The project already had a ghastly history. In the early 2000s, the nuclear industry, with French champion Areva in the lead (later driven into bankruptcy by cost overruns at Flamanville and Olkiluoto and rescued by EDF in 2017), announced a “Nuclear Renaissance” and was lobbying for a new build programme in the UK to replace aging plants set for retirement. In the absence of evidence, they claimed new plants would produce power for £24 per MWh (£39/MWh in 2024 money, or $50/MWh).
The Labour Party, long dead set against nuclear power, were convinced. In January 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared, in the preface to a White Paper on nuclear power entitled “Meeting the Energy Challenge” that “nuclear should have a role to play in the generation of electricity, alongside other low carbon technologies.” The White Paper estimated the total cost of building a 1.6GW nuclear plant at £2.8 billion – which would translate into £5.6 billion for Hinkley C’s 3.2GW (£9.0 billion or $11.5 billion in 2024 money).
EDF’s UK CEO Vincent de Rivaz was cock-a-hoop, predicting that Brits would be cooking their turkeys with power from Hinkley C by Christmas 2017. But remember that figure – £9.0 billion for 3.2GW.
By October 2013, Osborne and Davey had agreed a Contract for Difference with EDF for electricity production at a strike price of £92.50/MWh in 2012 money (£132/MWh in today’s money or $169/MWh) – rising with inflation for 35 years, but dropping to £87.50 (£125/MWh in today’s money or $173/MWh) if a second EPR were to be built. That EPR is Sizewell C – of which more later.
At that point, Hinkley C was expected to cost £16 billion in 2015 money (£22 billion in 2024 money or $28 billion). It was due to come online in 2023 and continue cooking Christmas turkeys for 60 years.
Since then, on five separate occasions EDF has announced that costs have increased, and the commissioning date pushed back. The only delay which was not fully in the control of EDF and it suppliers in the nuclear and construction industries was Covid – which can be blamed for around a year of delay and a couple of billion of cost increase, but not more.
Last week – yet another delay and cost increase
……………………. Now, I know that supporters of the project and hard-core nuclear fans will be bursting blood vessels at this point, desperate to jump in an explain that most of the difference between £9 billion and nearly £50 billion is down to financing cost resulting from the use of the CfD mechanism, regulatory cost, delay in government decision-making and so on. But I’m going to say it: I don’t care……………………………
How big things (don’t) get done
It is not like cost over-runs in nuclear projects are a big secret. The world’s leading academic expert on project management is Danish Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, author of How Big Things Get Done, who joined me on Cleaning Up last year. Having build a huge database of projects of different sources, he can definitively show that nuclear plants are worse only than Olympic Games in terms of cost over-runs. On average they go 120% over the budget, with 58% of them going a whopping 204% over budget.
The common trope among nuclear fans is that it is only in the western world that nuclear new build is either problematic or exorbitantly expensive, and this is driven by excessive regulation.
While excessive delays in emerging nuclear powers are certainly less common, there is no transparency over how this is achieved. There are ample examples of problems: the use of fake certification documents, the sealing of deals for reactor sales by military inducements, cutting corners on safety, failure to maintain control of the fuel supply chain, failure to disclose problems and accidents; unexplained accidents on aging plants.
There is also no transparency over the real cost of their plants. Put simply, these are are whatever their leaders say they are: it is they who decide the cost of capital, state guarantees, whether safety standards meet or exceed international standards, whether safety standards are enforced, the environmental standards applied to the supply chain, the speed projects proceed through licencing, the need or not to provision for decommissioning costs, the diversion of costs to military, energy or industrial budgets, and so on.
Back to 2016
Now let’s get back to Hinkley C, and 2016. One of the first things Theresa May did when she took over from David Cameron was to ask her security advisors to review the wisdom of allowing state-owned China General Nuclear to invest £6 billion in the project. In the end May backed down and allowed the investment to go ahead, but that is the background to my piece: the project’s future was in doubt, and it was the last realistic chance to kill it before tens of billions of pounds had been invested. And this is what I wrote: The case for Hinkley Point C has collapsed: It’s time to scrap it.
………………………………………………………………. It is worth remembering that while construction costs are in the £42 to £48 billion range, the 35 years of electricity at £87.50 or £92.50/MW in 2012 money, adjusted for inflation will cost UK energy users a gargantuan £111 or £116 billion over the next 35 years. Could we use that money better? You bet.
Summary
So there you have it. 2016 was a missed opportunity, most likely the last opportunity to scrap the benighted project, one of the worst blunders in the history of public procurement and of the UK’s energy industry.
Does that mean we should scrap it now? It’s almost certainly too late. EDF has probably spent so much on the project, that the net present value of its revenues exceeds the remaining cost to bring the project to completion
What I do know is that the UK must resist the French government demands that it put its hand in the public pocket for yet more money to support the project. The whole point of the structure put in place, with its super-generous and inflation-protected CfD strike price, was that EDF was to bear the risk of cost over-runs. These will come back to bite UK energy users in the form of higher power costs from Sizewell C, should that project go ahead. If the UK taxpayers have to bear the cost of cost over-runs, let’s just nationalise and be done with any pretence that the market bears any risk from nuclear power projects.
I know many will say I am just being anti-nuclear.
No, I’m pro-nuclear……..
………………… to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “if Hinkley C, Flamanville, Olkiluoto and Vogtle are the way the nuclear industry treats its projects, it does not deserve to have any”. https://mliebreich.substack.com/p/hinkley-c-dont-say-i-didnt-warn-you
French firm EDF shows its power over the UK govt – no judicial review now required over fish protection from Hinkley nuclear cooling system.
In 2021, EDF was formally told it must fit an acoustic fish deterrent
(AFD) system to the massive seawater intakes of the cooling system. It was
considered necessary to “protect the marine life of the Severn Estuary
catchment area and its nine great rivers: Parrett, Avon, Severn, Wye, Usk,
Ebbw, Rhymney, Taff, Ely and their tributaries where many fish species go
to breed”.
Without AFD it is estimated that 22 billion fish would be
ingested over the planned 60-year life of the plant, of which half would be
killed in the process.
Not so final. EDF appealed against this but in 2022
the then environment secretary, George Eustice, refused the appeal in
definitive terms: “The decision on this appeal is final [and] can only be
challenged in the courts by judicial review.”
Final? EDF, which has been
running rings around the government and bullying ministers (Eyes passim)
since it bought the British nuclear fleet in 2008, simply went
regulator-shopping on the basis that energy ministers are more likely to be
sympathetic. And so it proves: the Department for Environment, Food & Rural
Affairs (Defra) has been reduced to the role of consultee on the “final
final” decision, which will now be taken elsewhere – with no judicial
review required.
Private Eye 2nd Feb 2024
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?issue=1616§ion_link=columnists
EDF’s Hinkley Point woes pile pressure on global nuclear push.
When in 2016 France’s EDF signed up to build Britain’s first new
nuclear power plant in two decades, defenders of the costly Hinkley Point C
project included Emmanuel Macron, then economy minister. “If we believe
in nuclear power, we have to do Hinkley Point,” France’s now president
told a parliamentary enquiry, rejecting some lawmakers’ concerns that
state-backed EDF, which was already struggling to deliver a new French
prototype plant in Normandy, may not have the financial bandwidth to take
on the British site, originally estimated to cost £18bn.
Eight years on, with cost overruns surging at Hinkley due to repeated delays and EDF on the
hook for at least another £5bn on top of previous budget revisions,
Macron’s government is on a mission to ensure the French nuclear operator
can indeed withstand the fallout — and keep on top of ballooning
investments and orders at home.
French ministers are trying to get the British state to stump up some support for the soaring Hinkley bill, which could reach a total of £46bn at today’s prices for the two reactors,
people close to the talks have said.
That would be roughly double the original budget in 2015 prices, compared with an EDF project in Finland that ended up costing more than twice what it was supposed to and a plan
for one reactor at Flamanville in France that is running four times over
budget, at €13.2bn.
But the Hinkley setbacks have also revived a core
strategic question that is becoming more pressing than ever for EDF, a
former French electricity monopoly that operates Europe’s biggest fleet
of 56 domestic reactors: whether it is equipped to handle multiple projects
at once, internationally and at home, and financially as well as from an
industrial perspective. Already an issue in 2016, when French labour unions
at the group opposed the Hinkley plans on the basis that the financial
set-up was risky, this tension now has a different edge to it.
FT 29th Jan 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/d401e42b-d953-4ef0-b3ea-ed80e974249a
How not to go nuclear: Hinkley and Sizewell
by DAVID HOWELL
David Howell: This is not just a matter of finding the cash to meet the
enormous budget overrun. The Chinese payments halt at Hinkley leaves a
growing gap. Love or hate them nowadays, they have already been edged out
of the Sizewell plan (they were actually paid £100m to leave), so the very
large Chinese contribution there will also have to be found from elsewhere.
But EDF has no more money, and the French think the British Government
should open its chequebook. HM Treasury thinks no such thing. So, to
repeat, who is going to fill the gap?
Copying Hinkley, and certainly copying its financial story, looks less attractive by the day. The British hope is that at Sizewell a new financial model, requiring consumers and
customers to pay extra for years in advance for their electricity, will
entice in investors, to replace the Chinese. One allegedly interested
“private investor” is said to be the not-so-private United Arab
Emirates government. But is that the kind of swap — the very non-aligned
UAE in place of the Chinese — that we need?
The Article 29th Jan 2024
https://www.thearticle.com/how-not-to-go-nuclear-hinckley-and-sizewell
Hinkley Point shambles shows why UK must scrap disastrous nuclear strategy.
Energy spokesperson Mark Ruskell is accusing Tories and Labour of wasting billions of pounds on nuclear technology
The UK government must scrap its disastrous nuclear strategy in light of the shambolic saga of the Hinkley Point power station, says the Scottish Greens climate spokesperson, Mark Ruskell MSP.
The call follows revelations that the Hinkley Point project has been hit by yet another delay of up to four more years, and that it could cost an eye watering £46 billion.
This month the UK government announced plans for the biggest expansion on nuclear energy for 70 years.
Mr Ruskell said: “Hinkley Point C has been a shambolic money pit. It’s been hit by delay after delay and the costs are escalating at an alarming rate. Nobody can say with any confidence when it will go live or how much money will have been wasted on it.
“Yet, the UK government wants to throw even more time and money into an unsafe, unreliable and eye-wateringly expensive energy source that will leave a terrible legacy for future generations.
“The climate crisis is happening all around us. We don’t have time to waste on a disastrous nuclear strategy. Renewable energy is the cleanest, greenest and cheapest energy available, that is what all governments should be focusing on.
“That is what we are doing with Scottish Greens in government in Scotland. Yet the Tories and Labour are committed to wasting billions of pounds on nuclear technology.”
International Court of Justice rejects most of Ukraine’s terror financing and discrimination case against Russia
PBS, Wed, 31 Jan 2024
The United Nations’ top court on Wednesday rejected large parts of a case filed by Ukraine alleging that Russia bankrolled separatist rebels in the country’s east a decade ago and has discriminated against Crimea’s multiethnic community since its annexation of the peninsula.
The International Court of Justice ruled that Moscow violated articles of two treaties — one on terrorism financing and another on eradicating racial discrimination — but it rejected far more of Kyiv’s claims under the treaties.
It rejected Ukraine’s request for Moscow to pay reparations for attacks in eastern Ukraine blamed on pro-Russia Ukrainian rebels, including the July 17, 2014, downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that killed all 298 passengers and crew.
Comment: Russia was not responsible. This point is all the more glaring considering how, in just the last few days, Ukraine shot down a plane carrying 65 of its own troops…………………………………………………………………………….
This is hugely significant because effectively, Ukraine and its Western backers poured enormous time, energy, and money into proving everything Western media/governments were saying about the Maidan government’s brutal Donbas crackdown for eight years was true. And they failed.
…………………………………………more https://www.sott.net/article/488433-International-Court-of-Justice-REJECTS-most-of-Ukraines-case-against-Russia
Sellafield nuclear plant: Cancer fears raised by Scottish MP.
By Hamish Morrison The National, 1st Feb 2024
CANCER fears have been raised amid fresh concerns about the level of nuclear waste found in Scottish waters.
As delays and costs mount on Britain’s new flagship nuclear project, SNP MP Allan Dorans has unearthed research showing the environmental impact of atomic energy – and has
raised fears it could cause cancer. Dorans has previously raised concerns
about the Sellafield nuclear waste processing plant in Cumbria, which pumps
waste out into the sea, reaching as far as the Ayrshire coast in his
constituency. While the levels of radiation remain within what the UK
authorities consider safe, Dorans has repeatedly raised fears these
assessments may be underplaying the health risks of exposure to
radioactivity.
Now he has highlighted research from Manchester University
which examined how the sea bed conditions around the Sellafield site
effectively contain radioactive waste which is then distributed around the
coast to Scotland and disturbed by fish, including haddock. Dorans said:
“While most Government advisors insist that this radioactivity only
inches down is safe from transmission into the food chain, the activity of
bottom-feeding species and the disturbance that storms and flooding must
cause in the sediment suggests to me complacency.”
The National 1st Feb 2024
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24091797.sellafield-nuclear-plant-cancer-fears-raised-scottish-mp
Britain plans ‘robocop’ force to protect nuclear sites with paint bombs
AI-powered drones are being designed to cut labour costs and boost
security at Sellafield. Britain’s nuclear sites could soon be protected
by a “robocop” style police force made up of AI-powered drones equipped
with paint bombs and smoke guns.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
(NDA), which runs high-security nuclear sites such as Sellafield and
Dounreay, wants to build a robotic police force to cut costs and boost
security across sites containing radioactive waste. It has offered £1.5m
to security and defence companies for initial designs of a robotic defence
system, with a view to commissioning a fully-fledged version in the future.
The NDA’s document for the project says that a key aim is to cut labour
costs by reducing the number of armed police. Currently, the Civil Nuclear
Constabulary employs nearly 1,600 people, with its cost bill rising to
£130m in 2022/23 – up from £110m in 2018.
The procurement document
said: “The NDA covers 17 nuclear sites, 1,000 hectares of land and over
800 buildings. We are interested in innovative ways to ensure our sites
remain safe and secure in a resource-constrained environment.” A
spokesman for the NDA confirmed the “roboforce” plans, claiming that
police officers will be able to control the technology without being
exposed to danger. “They will be able to override the system, or
investigate and deal with intruders from a control room,” the spokesman
said.
Telegraph 1st Feb 2024
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) firmly contradicts Therese Coffey, MP on Bradwell as a nuclear site.
Therese Coffey MP suggests Bradwell is a large brownfield site. In fact,
the site is occupied by the long closed Bradwell A power station now in the
process of decommissioning before being returned to greenfield land use.
Perhaps her most preposterous assertion is that ‘Bradwell has hosted
nuclear power and hopes to do so again in the future’. In fact, the
communities and Councils around the Blackwater estuary in Essex are
overwhelmingly against new nuclear development at Bradwell.
Many years ago, BANNG gathered 10,000 signatures face-to-face for a petition against new
nuclear development at Bradwell which was taken to Whitehall. Since then,
the Chinese developer, CGN, has withdrawn its proposals for a massive new
nuclear power station in the face of implacable hostility from the local
community.
‘Therese Coffey would do well to check her facts and look to
her own backyard and devote her campaigning against the destruction of the
Suffolk coast by the giant Sizewell C nuclear power station project, with
its long-term stores of radioactive wastes, rather than seek to impose
unwanted infrastructure on the precious marshlands of Essex.’
BANNG 31st Jan 2023
International Court of Justice Rules Against Ukraine on Terrorism, MH17
In a blow to Ukraine, the World Court ruled Russia didn’t finance terrorism in Donbass and the court refused to blame Moscow for the downing of Flight MH17.2
Joe Lauria, in The Hague, Netherlands, Consortium News, https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/01/icj-rules-against-ukraine-v-russia-on-terrorism-mh17/
The World Court ruled on Wednesday that Russia did not finance terrorism in its defense of separatists in Ukraine and the court refused to find Russia guilty of downing Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 as Ukraine had asked.
The case was brought to the ICJ by Ukraine in 2017, three years after the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev overthrew the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych.
When Russian speakers in Donbass rebelled against the unconstitutional change in government that they had voted for, the coup leaders in 2014 launched what it called an “anti-terrorist” military operation to put down the rebellion.
Russia responded by helping ethnic Russians with arms and other military equipment. Ukraine claimed to the court that that was in breach of a treaty barring terrorism financing.
But the ICJ ruled on Wednesday that the treaty only covered cash transfers made to alleged terrorist groups. This “does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps,” the Court said in its judgement.
“Consequently, the alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine… fall outside the material scope” of the anti-terrorism financing convention, the Court ruled. The Court also said it had no evidence to show that any of the armed militias in Donbass fighting against the government could be characterized as terrorist groups.
The ICJ found only that Russia was, “failing to take measures to investigate facts… regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offense.” It added that the court “rejects all other submissions made by the Ukraine.”
The ruling is highly significant in undermining Kiev’s claim to be fighting a war against terrorists in Donbass, an essential part of the Ukraine’s and the West’s narrative in justifying its brutal operation that left more than 10,000 civilians dead.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 amid indications that Kiev was beginning a new offensive against Donbass. Ukraine and the West had failed to implement two peace agreements negotiated in Minsk and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.
Western and Ukrainian officials later admitted they never had any intention of implementing the deal and pretended to to buy time to build up its forces against Russia.
Rejected MH17 Claim
In its complaint to the Court, Ukraine had also claimed that Russia was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014, killing all 298 civilian passengers and crew on board. Kiev wanted Russia to pay compensation to the victims.
But the court refused to rule whether Russia was responsible and to order compensation. This ruling appears to contradict the results of the official investigation into the incident.
The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and a Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) concluded in 2016 that the plane was shot down by ethnic Russian separatists using a missile supplied by Russia. Moscow has denied involvement in the incident.
The ruling on MH17 came two weeks after the European Court of Justice decided that the Dutch government was not required to release information it has about the incident. The Dutch news outlet RTL Nieuws had brought the case before the ICJ.
It wanted to know what reports the Dutch government had received about Ukrainian airspace before the plane was shot down. The government refused to release that data and the European court ruled it did not have to divulge information regarding aviation safety.
No Discrimination
Ukraine was also denied compensation for what it said was discrimination against ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The court only agreed that Russia failed to adequately protect Ukrainian language education in Crimea. This complaint came as Ukraine passed laws discriminating against the Russian language in the country.
US Judge Votes Against Russia
Joan Donoghue, the American judge who is president of the Court, voted to protect Ukraine against several of the measures of the judgement.
For instance, she voted (in a 10-5 vote) against rejecting “all other submissions made by Ukraine with respect to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.” She only voted for the point criticizing Russia for not properly investigating the charge and against rejecting Ukraine’s demands for compensation.
Donoghue also voted (in another 10-5 vote) against rejecting Ukraine’s charge regarding discrimination against Ukrainians and Tartars in Crimea.
France’s ASN nuclear safety authority warns of fraud risk in nuclear industry
ELISE WU, Montel Paris, 31 Jan 2024
Montel) The head of France’s ASN nuclear safety authority has revealed that it found 43 cases of fraud and forgery in the French nuclear industry last year, warning that the threat of corruption is growing.
“There are a fairly constant 40 or so situations reported to us each year,” said ASN chief Bernard Doroszczuk.
The cases were related to materials used in nuclear reactors as well as false certificates from welders and inspectors, he added.
“Inspections of the supply chain of materials used in the nuclear sector reveal recurring weaknesses: mainly a lack of knowledge among suppliers of safety requirements, a lack of…….. (Subscribers only) ……………………………..more https://www.montelnews.com/news/1536520/french-asn-warns-of-fraud-risk-in-nuclear-industry—
Britain will test fire Trident nuclear missile for the first time since 2016 as fears of World War Three grow
- HMS Vanguard is reported to have sailed into the Atlantic earlier this week
- It is expected to test-fire a Trident missile 3,500 miles from the US
Daily Mail, By CHRIS JEWERS, 2 February 2024
Britain is primed to test a Trident nuclear missile for the first time since 2016 amid growing fears of a global conflict, according to reports.
Officials are said to have issued a warning to shipping in the region of the test as nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard sailed into the Atlantic earlier this week.
The test will be the first time the UK has test fired a Trident missile since a botched launch in 2016 on sister sub HMS Vengeance which left the navy red-faced.
HMS Vanguard has undergone a seven-year refit in Plymouth since then, and is now set to fire an unnamed missile, The Sun reports.
The tests are understood to be the final hurdle the £4 billion submarine must clear in order to re-enter service as part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent force. ……..
HMS Vanguard has been hailed as a 491-foot ‘colossus’ that can patrol under the surface of the seas for months at a time.
On board, she can carry up to 16 Trident 2 D5 missiles, a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), built by American firm Lockheed Martin.
They also share the name with the UK’s nuclear programme (the Trident nuclear programme) the purpose of which is to ‘deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means,’ according to the mission statement by the Ministry of Defence.
Each missile is armed with British-made thermonuclear warheads that are 20 times more powerful than the Oppenheimer-developed weapons dropped during the Second World War on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The warheads are delivered by multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), or – in other words – exoatmospheric ballistic missiles.
Citing a Royal Navy source, The Sun said Britain’s nuclear submarines can carry more explosive power than was dropped in the entirety of the Second World War.
In the coming test, HMS Vanguard is expected to launch a single missile that will not be armed with nuclear warheads, about 55 miles off the US coast……………………
The missiles are designed to blast to the edge of space and track their position against the stars, before re-entering the atmosphere (hence exoatmospheric), plummeting to earth and raining warheads down on its target.
The maximum range of the missile is 12,000km (7,400 miles), which is roughly the distance from London to Indonesia one way, or Hawaii the other.
A warning was issued by the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency to shipping that could cross the missile’s expected course, The Sun said.
The ‘hazardous operations’ warning also plots areas closer to the launch site where debris is expected to fall into the ocean…………………………….
Reports of the test come amid rising fears that Britain and her allies could be pulled into a conflict in the coming years.……………………………………………………………………
The test also comes after it was reported last year that a Royal Navy nuclear submarine and its crew were mere moments from being crushed after its depth gauge suddenly failed.
Reports said the Vanguard class sub, which had been carrying 140 crew and Trident 2 missiles, suffered the huge malfunction while on a mission in the Atlantic.
It caused a frantic scrabble with engineers managing to stop the submarine and its nuclear reactor from plunging further and being crushed by underwater pressure just minutes before disaster struck. …………………………………………………… more https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13034029/Britain-test-fire-Trident-missile.html
France limits its investment in Britain’s Sizewell C, as the global nuclear industry requires massive government subsidies
Why are nuclear power projects so challenging? Increasing nuclear energy
capacity is not easy. Projects across the globe have been fraught with
delays and budget overruns, with the Financial Times revealing last week
that France is pressing the UK to help fill budget shortfalls at the
Hinkley Point C project in England, being built by EDF.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says nuclear projects starting between 2010 and 2020
are on average three years late, even as it forecasts nuclear power
generation will hit a record high next year and will need to more than
double by 2050. Technical issues, shortages of qualified staff,
supply-chain disruptions, strict regulation and voter pushback are the key
factors developers and governments are grappling with. In the US, Georgia
Power is scheduled to complete work within weeks on the second of two
gigantic new nuclear reactors that are at the vanguard of US plans to
rebuild its nuclear energy industry.
But the expansion of Plant Vogtle is
seven years late and has cost more than double the original price tag of
$14bn due to a series of construction problems, highlighting the complexity
of nuclear megaprojects. These complexities, high costs and long build
times — as well as strict regulation due to risks of nuclear accidents
— make nuclear power a daunting prospect for many investors.
As a result, the sector is heavily subsidised by governments. Many reactor suppliers for
large-scale projects are state-owned, working alongside the private sector
to build the full plant. But countries also have a limit on how much they
are willing to spend. EDF, now fully owned by the French state, will limit
its stake in its next planned UK plant, Sizewell C, to 20 per cent.
FT 1st Feb 2024
https://www-ft-com.ezproxy.depaul.edu/content/6d371375-b7be-4228-a3d5-2ad74f91454a
Campaigners Warn Return of US Nukes to UK Would ‘Make Britain a Guaranteed Target’
The U.S. is reportedly planning to deploy nukes “three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb” to an air base in Suffolk.
JAKE JOHNSON, Feb 02, 2024, Common Dreams
Nuclear weapon abolitionists sounded alarm Friday in response to fresh evidence that the United States is planning to station nukes in the United Kingdom for the first time in more than 15 years, a move that opponents said would only heighten the risk of an atomic war.
The U.S. removed more than 100 nuclear bombs from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, in 2008 following sustained protests from the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and other nonproliferation advocates.
CND warned in a statement Friday that the redeployment of nukes to Lakenheath would “make Britain a guaranteed target in the event of any war between NATO and Russia.”
Nuclear weapon abolitionists sounded alarm Friday in response to fresh evidence that the United States is planning to station nukes in the United Kingdom for the first time in more than 15 years, a move that opponents said would only heighten the risk of an atomic war.
The U.S. removed more than 100 nuclear bombs from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, in 2008 following sustained protests from the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and other nonproliferation advocates.
CND warned in a statement Friday that the redeployment of nukes to Lakenheath would “make Britain a guaranteed target in the event of any war between NATO and Russia.”
“We encourage both the media and the public to increase pressure on the British government to be honest about this deployment,” said Kate Hudson, CND’s general secretary.
The Telegraphreported last week that “procurement contracts for a new facility at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk confirm that the U.S. intends to place nuclear warheads three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb at the air base.”………………………………………. more https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-nuclear-weapons-uk
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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