Sweden, France strengthen cooperation on nuclear
EurActive, By Paul Messad | Euractiv France | translated by Daniel Eck 20 Dec 23
France could soon build several nuclear reactors in Sweden, according to a letter of intent signed by the two countries’ energy ministers on the sidelines of the EU’s Energy Council on Tuesday (19 December).
The agreement comes after French President Emmanuel Macron and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed a joint declaration in January to give nuclear energy a prominent place in bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
On the domestic front, the French government has decided to build six new reactors by 2035 and a possible eight more by 2050, while Sweden also has plans to revive its nuclear industry.
Sweden’s new right-wing government has managed, by a very narrow majority in parliament, to give the go-ahead for the construction of two new reactors by 2035 and 10 more by 2045.
…………………………………………………………….. Lobbying in Brussels
“Nuclear power is back in Europe,” said Pannier-Runacher after signing the letter on Tuesday (19 December).
In this context, France and Sweden reiterated the importance of the “technological neutrality” principle “with the objective of strengthening Europe’s sovereignty and energy security”.
To convey this message, the two governments are counting on the Nuclear Alliance launched in Stockholm in February 2023, which now brings together more than 10 EU countries, including France and Sweden. https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/france-and-sweden-strengthen-cooperation-on-nuclear/
Time to shelve Hinkley Point C?
Alan Debenham: December 19, 2023, https://somersetapple.co.uk/news/time-to-shelve-hinkley-point-c
SEASONAL old TV films could well remind us of the 1990s popular sit-com Drop the Dead Donkey about a fictional national newspaper’s forever squabbling journalists, where it was imperative to drop all stories past their sell-by date. Very much like the growing absurdity of the little-mentioned massive overspend and time delay over the enormous Hinkley C nuclear power station construction project on the Severn estuary. Would be good if last week’s putting a roof on the first reactor was matched with putting a roof on nuclear nonsenses.
The arguments against Hinkley C, from all sides of the media, NGOs and professional experts, definitely have been loud and sustained enough to label it a ‘dead donkey’ which should have ‘died’ at reviews in 2012 and 2015. The enormous cost overrun, going from an original £16bn in 2012 to double that figure announced recently, and an enormous completion time delay, going from first forecast 2017 to now only a single reactor operating by 2027 – both reactors a year later – should have killed off the whole project long time ago.
However, as we all know, big billions of investment have colossal lobbying power – especially with this millionaire-led Tory government regarding its daft nuclear mania around proven existential linkage between nuclear bombs and nuclear power. With our essential public services collapsing around hardworking families now driven to food banks, Tory spending hundreds of billions on maintaining our so-called submarine-based nuclear deterrent and planning to build eight new nuclear power stations – with Labour not far behind – it’s as obscene and broken as parliamentary democracy gets.
Sadly, if ever Hinkley C satisfactorily operates – unlike EDF’s other wonky EPR reactors – it’s likely to be both a miracle and another very big increase in electricity prices for us consumers because of 2013 Coalition’s agreeing far too high an index-linked “strike price” ( £92.50 Mw/hr, uplifted 2022 to £128 ) likely to be 50% above the then ‘global market’ price, unless reduced by some big hidden ‘nuclear levy’ put on all bills.
However, it’s not too late to scrap Sizewell C etc, PLUS join GREEN LEFT policies for: no nuclear, new wealth taxes, funded public services, democracy reform ( inc. PR voting ), de-growth for climate help etc.
European nuclear Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) may be unworkable – analysts
CAROLINE PAILLIEZ, Paris, France, SOPHIE TETREL, Paris, 18 Dec 2023
(Montel) Plans by France’s EDF to sell rights to its nuclear capacity to industrials across Europe via long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) while attractive may be unworkable, French analysts warned.
“If nuclear power is offered tomorrow in France at EUR 70/MWh, the whole of Europe will be interested,” said Peter Claes, head of Belgium’s Febeliec industry lobby, in light of a year of record high energy prices.
Yet the analysts, and even EDF itself, have warned that, in practice, the contracts were complex and potentially costly.
The PPAs were open to any big European power consumers wanting to…………………………..(Subscribers only) more https://www.montelnews.com/news/1533543/european-nuclear-ppas-may-be-unworkable–analysts
Documents Reveal Hidden Problems at Russia’s Nuclear Powerhouse
- Flagship reactor had unusual safety event in February 2022
- Rosatom said its reactors all meet highest safety standards
By Alberto Nardelli and Jonathan Tirone, December 18, 2023
As Russian troops poured into Ukraine at the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February last year, alarm was rising at a flagship Kremlin nuclear project in neighboring Belarus, just a short distance from the European Union’s border.
Engineers at Rosatom Corp. preparing a new 1,200-megawatt reactor, which was not yet connected to the power grid, to generate electricity at the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant detected a mysterious and exceedingly rare problem. Resin was seeping into the primary circuit, threatening to seize up critical components, according to internal documents of the Russian state nuclear……………………….(Subscribers only) more https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-18/documents-reveal-hidden-problems-at-russia-s-nuclear-powerhouse
The danger of rising tides to the Dungeness nuclear site, and to planned small nuclear reactors for Sussex
suggestions that Dungeness might become the site of a new nuclear power station featuring Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The UK’s energy infrastructure, as noted by Peter Frankopan, is highly exposed to danger by even modest rises in sea levels, with all 19 of the country’s nuclear reactors located in coastal regions
As climate change increases the frequency and severity of storms, the inhabitants of low-lying Sussex coastal towns face potential danger
Rising Tides and Nuclear Solutions: the urgent call for coastal protection, byChris Wilmott, 16-12-2023
Born in the coastal town of Hastings, I was lucky to grow up in Sussex by the Sea. I recognise that being able to enjoy the proximity of the sound of the waves, with the many wild and warm variations of weather, was a fantastic benefit during my childhood. However, in recent years, my gaze has shifted somewhat towards a looming threat – the peril that coastal towns now face from climate change and the relentless rise of the tides and adverse weather.
I’ve been doing some research on this and according to NASA there is the potential for lunar cycles to start creating higher tides as soon as 2030, leaving low-lying areas vulnerable to the unforgiving turmoil and rage of the sea. This makes me very concerned for Dungeness, just across from Hastings in Kent, an iconic region situated in a famously low-lying area. In a recent article published by Sussex Bylines, Susan Kerrison posed the question The rising costs of sea defences – how prepared are we? In my opinion, we’re not prepared at all.
…………………………………………….Dungeness B is a nuclear power plant that even as far back as 2014 caused serious concerns over its safety and is now closed and in the process of de-fuelling. EDF privately acknowledged to the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) that the shingle bank protecting the reactors from the sea was “not as robust as previously thought.” This revelation sparked worries among environmentalists, with Greenpeace’s Doug Parr highlighting the lack of transparency about serious safety concerns over flooding.
My interest in this site is heightened by suggestions that Dungeness might become the site of a new nuclear power station featuring Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The UK’s energy infrastructure, as noted by Peter Frankopan, is highly exposed to danger by even modest rises in sea levels, with all 19 of the country’s nuclear reactors located in coastal regions – the UK Office for Science has acknowledged this threat.
Apart from the potential fall out of power stations failing, one must consider the localised impact of families having to relocate and businesses losing their premises, potentially at short notice. Hastings has suffered two floods so far this year, with sandbags a common sight and businesses forced to close.
Onwards and Upwards for the sea
Ocean scientist Eelco Rohling warns that the combination of global sea-level rise and increased storm intensities could spell doom for exposed coastal regions. The threat of flooding extremes looms large, even with a sea-level rise of 20 centimetres. Twenty centimetres may seem like a modest rise, the corresponding storm surge of two metres would cause considerable damage. Picture then a sea-level rise of say, 80 centimetres, and one can only imagine the destruction that would be caused by a corresponding storm surge of eight metres. ……………………………………………more https://sussexbylines.co.uk/news/environment/rising-tides-and-nuclear-solutions/—
French nuclear submarine visits Scotland
French nuclear submarine Suffren visited Faslane naval base near Glasgow in
Scotland this week. The visit isn’t the first time a French nuclear
submarine has visited Scotland, not by a long shot, as the increasing
number of visits by the French and U.S. Navy in recent years reflects the
enhanced security posture in the North Atlantic.
UK Defence Journal 16th Dec 2023
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/french-nuclear-submarine-arrives-in-scotland-2/
400,000 Ukrainians Killed In Action Explains A Whole Lot
U.S. intelligence contacts have expressed shock as to just how far from reality the narrative being pushed by the Biden administration is from what’s happening in Ukraine and its real war losses.
BY TYLER DURDEN, FRIDAY, DEC 15, 2023
Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times,
How many casualties has Ukraine suffered?
How many causalities has Russia suffered?
Answering these questions is critical to determining the best and most moral path forward for Ukraine and the United States.
Estimates of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) range from a low of just over 30,000 to a high of over 400,000.
Obviously, these two estimates can’t be reconciled. And it really, really matters to the people of Ukraine which one is closer to the truth. While 30,000 deaths is tragic, anything approaching 400,000 KIA and the accompanying hundreds of thousands of causalities is a humanitarian catastrophe that makes talks of continuing offensive operations next year, or even believing in a stalemate, wishful thinking that will result in even more fruitless Ukrainian deaths.
Unsurprisingly, since the war began, the United States and its allies have unswervingly pushed the narrative that Russia is incurring far more casualties than Ukraine. This casualty narrative was critical to maintaining any plausibility that Ukraine could defeat a country that has four to five times more men of military age and that was recently rated as having the world’s most powerful military. Hence, given the need to maintain the plausibility of a Ukrainian victory, it isn’t surprising that NATO intelligence asserted that the battle of Bakhmut saw Russia losing at least five soldiers KIA for every one of Ukraine’s.
However, since the fall of Bakhmut to Russia, the failure of the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive, and signs that Ukraine’s military is nearing collapse, we’re no longer hearing about five-to-one casualty rates. Still, the most recent estimates from United States and British officials claim that Russia has suffered 120,000 KIA while Ukraine has suffered “only” 70,000 KIA (more than the United States suffered in over 10 years of the Vietnam War).
But not everyone agrees with U.S./British casualty estimates for an army that started the war by mobilizing early 1 million men in arms and, over the course of the war, mobilized another estimated 1 million. Among the growing number of those who don’t agree is the former director of the Joint Operations Center at Supreme Headquarters Europe and one of the key leaders in achieving the legendary victory in the mass tank battle of 73 Easting, retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor.
In a recent interview with myself, Col. Macgregor agreed that while estimates putting Russian KIA at as high as 50,000 to 60,000 are defensible, most estimates for Ukrainian KIAs are not.
In what many will undoubtedly find shocking given the countless stories disparaging Russia’s military skills and capabilities while uncritically fawning over Ukraine’s military prowess, Col. Macgregor puts Ukrainian KIA at over 400,000 out of the 2 million Ukraine has mobilized.
Col. Macgregor arrived at this shocking number using a wide variety of sources, including contacts within U.S. intelligence and contacts on the ground in Ukraine and Poland who have intimate knowledge of what’s really happening in Ukraine.
In particular, he noted that his U.S. intelligence contacts have expressed shock as to just how far from reality the narrative being pushed by the Biden administration is from what’s happening in Ukraine and its real war losses.
Likewise, Col. Macgregor’s Ukraine contacts relayed to him accounts of thousands of wounded Ukrainians being left to die on the battlefield, growing numbers of Ukrainian commanders and troops refusing orders to conduct suicide attacks against heavily fortified Russian positions, Ukrainian soldiers surrendering en masse to Russia, hospitals overflowing with Ukrainian wounded, and many other accounts that testify to horrendous casualty rates that contradict the narrative pushed by Western media.
Additionally, Col. Macgregor’s contacts have analyzed satellite imagery showing a massive expansion of Ukrainian cemeteries and countless tens of thousands of fresh graves. Other open-source intelligence analysis has also documented in detail Ukraine’s massive expansion of cemeteries that will soon allow Ukraine to reportedly bury 1.5 million more people. And a Russian analyst using death notices and other open-source intelligence has come up with Ukrainian KIA estimates of over 300,000.
But for Col. Macgregor, it’s the totality of the reports he has seen, his understanding of historical casualty rates, his personal military experience, and information from his sources that has brought him to the conclusion that Ukraine’s KIA is a magnitude greater than what’s commonly being reported.
These numbers, coupled with the fact the war could have been avoided had President Volodymyr Zelenskyy been knowledgeable and wise enough to understand that U.S./NATO promises of victory were completely unrealistic and couldn’t be relied upon, have led Col. Macgregor, who has fond memories of growing up in a Ukrainian immigrant neighborhood, to believe that the war is an absolute disaster for Ukraine that could have and should have been avoided.
“In humanitarian terms, this tragedy has resulted in the Ukrainian nation being destroyed in a war that never needed to be fought,” Col. Macgregor said…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Given the strong evidence that Ukraine is suffering country-destroying casualties, talk of a stalemate, much less of successful offensive territory-gaining operations, is more about face-saving than any realistic chance of Ukraine avoiding losing.
Hence, the only moral path forward for the United States is to tell President Zelenskyy it’s well past the time to sue for peace and that he must accept neutrality and the loss of the regions that seceded from Ukraine in 2014.
This is a bitter pill to swallow for Ukrainian nationalists and those in the United States who hoped Ukraine would do far more damage to Russia, but the alternative is accelerating Ukraine’s diminishing chances of remaining a viable nation-state, a whole lot more fruitless Ukrainian deaths, and peace terms substantially worse than those that can be negotiated today. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/400000-ukrainians-killed-action-explains-whole-lot
Theddlethorpe nuclear waste site: Informed decision needed, says council.
Residents must be clear about plans to build a nuclear waste site in their
village before deciding on them, a council leader has said.
A former gas terminal in Theddlethorpe, near Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, was announced
as a possible location for an underground disposal facility in 2021. A
public vote on whether to approve the plans may not take place until 2027.
Craig Leyland of East Lindsey District Council said it was “critical”
voters made an “informed decision”. The proposal by Nuclear Waste Services
– formerly known as Radioactive Waste Management – for a Geological
Disposal Facility (GDF) would see nuclear waste from the UK being stored
underneath up to 1,000m of solid rock until its radioactivity had naturally
decayed.
The plans have “had a detrimental effect on physical and mental
health” of residents, according to Travis Hesketh, an Independent Group
councillor at East Lindsey District Council. He called for a review into
residents’ views on the GDF at a meeting on Wednesday, the Local Democracy
Reporting Service said.
BBC 14th Dec 2023
Sad Clown with the Circus Closed Down*: Zelenskiy’s Demise
When it comes to love for the limelight and delusions of grandeur, Zelenskiy outstrips most politicians and not least of all Putin. Almost all politicians are egoistic, but Zelenskiy is narcissistic.
Zelenskiy’s inexperience and ego likely played pivotal roles in his disastrous decision-making.
Zelenskiy himself remained mired in personal corruption as the Pandora Papers demonstrated
Zelenskiy’s failures also have made him eminently expendable
by GORDONHAHN , December 11, 2023, https://gordonhahn.com/2023/12/11/sad-clown-with-the-circus-closed-down-zelenskiys-demise/—
Introduction
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zeleneksiy appears to be at the end of the line politically and perhaps biologically. Portraying himself as a fighter for peace, anti-corruption, and full democratization when he ran for and won the presidency in 2019, he proceeded to lead the country into war, further corruption, and de-republicanization (authoritarianization).
On both a personal and global level this is high tragedy. A superb comedian and actor stars in a television fictional series as the president of Ukraine, rises in popularity, wins the country’s presidency on a peace platform, and leads the country into a catastrophic, easily avoidable war that threatens the survival of his country and himself.
The unreality of Ukraine refracts in our century of simulacra and disinformation through this icon moved from the television screen to real life politics, and the tragedy of it all is sold as a heroic triumph on the road to universal democracy, peace, and brotherhood.
In the real world, however, there is a rub. The country is historically divided along every conceivable line (ethnic, linguistic, cultural, political, ideological, economic, and social), an almost accidental state cobbled together by communists but claimed by hapless republicans and determined ultra-nationalists. Thus, Zelenskiy becomes president of a fundamentally divided country further riven by schism as a result of two ‘revolutions’ – really revolts – and a civil war compounded by foreign (Russian) intervention.
****************************
Zelenskiy’s emergence and victory are as surreal as the Maidan regime of which he assumed leadership.
Continue readingFrance scores diplomatic wins on banks and nuclear in new EU rules
Paris successfully pushed for weaker due diligence reporting by lenders and state-backed funding for nuclear power plants
Alice Hancock in Brussels, 15 Dec 2, Ft.com
France has secured a partial carve-out for banks from new EU rules to make companies responsible for environmental impacts in their supply chains. Paris also won, in separate negotiations, assurance that state-backed funding for its nuclear power plants will be possible under a reform of the EU electricity market, the culmination of a concerted effort to champion the low-carbon fuel in the face of opposition from Luxembourg, Austria and Germany.
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, French energy minister, hailed the decision as “excellent news”. “It gives us the means to ensure long-term financing for the transformation of our electricity system,” she said……………………………
France, backed by countries including Italy and the Czech Republic, has succeeded in making sure that banks, asset managers and investment groups will only have to report on upstream activities such as purchasing office equipment. They will not have to undertake due diligence on the activities of clients to whom they are offering loans — something that the European parliament had pushed for in the talks.
In a note circulated among negotiators earlier this month, the European Central Bank also warned that “excluding the financial sector would be counterproductive to the intention of the [law], as it would allow the EU financial sector to continue to fund activities detrimental to the EU [environmental and social governance] agenda”.
Arianne Griffith, corporate accountability lead at the NGO Global Witness, said that it was “shocking” that EU countries had “sunk plans to ensure that banks stop investing in environmental and human rights abuses”. Eelco Van der Enden, chief executive of the Global Reporting Initiative, said that it was “disheartening” to see that the French effort had watered down the application of the rules to the financial sector but that a review clause in the agreement could offer the opportunity to include them at a later stage………………………………………..
Both the energy market reform and the due diligence rules must be formally approved by the European parliament and member states in votes due to take place early next year. Once the due diligence directive is approved, EU governments will have two years to introduce the rules in national legislation. https://www.ft.com/content/a4f7c547-1a58-482f-889e-f6400c44bbf7
EDF told not to expect UK to step in to fund Hinkley Point C flagship nuclear project
Cost overruns a ‘commercial issue’ for Hinkley Point C’s French
developer after CGN halts payments, says British official.
The UK government has signalled it will not step in to help France’s EDF fund
Hinkley Point C after its Chinese partner CGN halted payments to cover
mounting cost overruns on Britain’s flagship nuclear power project. The
reluctance of the British government to intervene comes as the price tag
for the power plant under construction in south-west England is likely to
exceed the revised £32.7bn estimate EDF put on it earlier this year,
according to people close to discussions.
CGN, EDF’s partner in Hinkley Point C, had agreed to finance 33.5 per cent of the original £18bn cost of the plant in 2016, with the French group responsible for the remainder. But
after paying its contracted share, CGN has not made payments linked to the
overruns in recent weeks, three people familiar with the matter said.
The French group warned earlier this year that the Chinese group could refuse
to pick up the extra costs. One UK government official said there were no
plans to step in to fill the gap left by CGN, suggesting EDF could pull in
other investors. “It is a commercial contract which we obviously don’t
play a part in financing,” the official said, adding: “It would first
be a matter for the shareholders.”
One industry source said pulling other
investors into the project at this stage would be “complicated”. The
French economy ministry said it was in contact with London over the issue.
“We’re working with the British government to ensure the rollout of the
UK nuclear programme, including on the financing front,” an official in
Paris said.
FT 14th Dec 2023
https://www.ft.com/content/2bccd67f-a3c6-48d1-baa5-8ef9d54cdf67
German nuclear plant to be replaced by Europe’s biggest battery.
PreussenElektra, operator of the decommissioned Brokdorf nuclear power
plant in northern German state Schleswig-Holstein, which was taken offline
at the end of 2021, wants to transform the site into a power storage
facility, reports NDR.
Initial plans could see a 100-megawatts (MW) battery
plant operating on a site close to the nuclear power station in 2026. A
second phase would add 700-megawatts of capacity, hosted on the 12-hectare
site of the nuclear power plant itself. (No storage duration was cited).
The company hopes to have the entire project online in 2036, but is waiting
for authorisation to begin dismantling the decommissioned reactor.
Renew Economy 15th Dec 2023
Why Zelensky’s ‘Fantasy’ of Building Military-Industrial Hub in Ukraine is Doomed
Sputnik, 12.12.2023
While in Washington DC, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with executives of US defense companies and outlined his plan to create an industrial defense hub in Ukraine. Will the plan fly?
Volodymyr Zelensky met top executives of BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, AeroVironment, and other companies of the US military-industrial complex at Ukraine House on his on-going visit to the US.
He told them that Ukraine is ready to jointly produce ammunition and weapons on its soil but needed their support. “We are ready to act quickly, and we have already started to do so, since we have no other way to change the system as we are at war,” the Ukrainian president said, offering US companies a stake in Ukrainian defense firms.
However, it’s unlikely that US defense contractors will rush to jump at the opportunity, said retired Colonel Anatoliy Matviychuk, a Russian military expert, who has experience in combat operations in Afghanistan and Syria.
“I think that everything that Zelensky told them was his fantasies and his attempt to come up with something,” Matviychuk told Sputnik. “Who in their right mind would now invest money in a country that is practically non-existent? It’s gone. It lives as a subsidy fund of the budget of the United States of America.”
“Can Ukraine produce anything? I doubt it very much, because the production facilities are completely in tatters. I suppose there may be something there in Western Ukraine, but Western Ukraine has always been subsidized, there has never been heavy industry there. There are no industrial areas [in Western Ukraine], like there once were in Donetsk, Donbass, or like Yuzhmash [in Dnepropetrovsk]. I think Zelensky is simply detached from reality,” the expert continued.
It’s not the first time that Zelensky has lauded Ukraine’s non-existent industrial capacity: in August, the Ukrainian president announced that Kiev had increased its weapons and ammunition production. Commenting on the statement, military expert Alexei Leonkov explained to Sputnik that Ukraine’s production sites, which are largely focused on assembling drones, are routinely detected and destroyed by the Russian military. Leonkov added that most of Ukraine’s production prowess was destroyed soon after the collapse of the USSR due to the endemic corruption and power struggle in the Eastern European nations.
To complicate matters further, lots of Ukrainian engineers and rocket scientists fled the country after the beginning of the Russian special military operation in February 2022, noted Matviychuk, while many others have been mobilized and thrown into battle………………………………………………….
US and Poland Don’t Need Industrial Hub in Ukraine
The development of Ukraine’s industrial sector fits into a new strategy considered by American and Ukrainian officials. American decision-makers want Kiev to go on the defensive, dig in and replenish its weapon storages.
According to Matviychuk, Zelensky’s attempts to go in line with the proposed strategy stem from his fear to lose both the Ukrainian presidency and the West’s support………………………………………………. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231212/why-zelenskys-fantasy-of-building-military-industrial-hub-in-ukraine-is-doomed-1115539804.html
Cumbrian councils urged to poll public over controversial nuclear dump plan
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities have sent a joint letter to the parish and town councils located in the West Cumbria search areas under consideration for a Geological Disposal Facility urging them to consider polling their parishioners over the controversial plan.
The co-signatories are the NFLAs English Forum Chair, Councillor David Blackburn, Councillor Jill Perry, Green Party Group Leader on Cumberland Council and Jan Bridget, co-founder of Millom against the Nuclear Waste Dump.
Nuclear Waste Services, a division of the taxpayer-funded Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, is engaged in long-term investigations to determine the suitability of locating the GDF on the West Cumbrian coast. The facility would have a surface site to receive regular shipments of high-level radioactive waste from Sellafield and this waste would then be transported along tunnels out under the Irish Sea, before the GDF once filled is sealed.
Two search areas have been designated Mid-Copeland and South Copeland, with their boundaries drawn in conformity with Cumberland Council electoral wards, and NWS has established a Community Partnership in each, which provide some limited oversight to the process. Members of the Community Partnerships include elected members from Cumberland Council, deemed the Relevant Principal Local Authority under the guidance established for the plan, and representatives from each of the parish and town councils encapsulated in the search areas.
The UK Government and NWS are adamant that the final selection of the site will be determined by two factors – the suitability of the geology and the acceptance of the plan by the local host community.
Geological investigations may take up to 15 years to complete, with desktop, aerial and seismic surveys being augmented in the second stage by deep exploratory boreholes for rock sampling. NWS are expected to periodically sense check public perceptions of the plan until in the final stages a Test of Public Support is conducted to determine if local people are willing to see their area taken forward.
The so-signatories are unhappy that there is no mechanism built into the plan to conduct interim opinion polls to identify public feeling over time, and they are disappointed that most local councils have yet to conduct their own polls to determine if their appointed representatives to the Community Partnership are reflecting the opinions of their parishioners. They would like parish and town councils to follow the lead shown by Whicham which took the initiative, independently of NWS, and did so./………………………………………………….
more https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/cumbrian-councils-urged-to-poll-public-over-controversial-nuclear-dump-plan/
Ukraine asking US for military aid that doesn’t exist – New York Times
https://www.rt.com/russia/588944-ukraine-us-military-aide/ 13 Dec 23
Kiev has “unrealistic expectations” about what Washington can provide, American officials told the outlet
Ukrainian commanders and civilian officials overestimate the ability of the US to supply the country with weapons and ammo amid the conflict with Russia and are asking for things that simply don’t exist, American officials have told the New York Times.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has provided Kiev with $111 billion in military and economic assistance since Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. However, the White House recently warned that funds for the government of Vladimir Zelensky had almost run out, with hardline Republican lawmakers blocking the approval of another $106 billion ‘national security package’ for Ukraine and Israel.
Many in Kiev still “do not realize how precarious continued US funding for the war is,” the NYT said in an article on Monday. The unnamed US officials, who talked to the paper, insisted that “Ukraine will have to fight on a tighter budget.”
Some Ukrainian decision-makers have “unrealistic expectations about what the US will supply,” the sources said. “They are asking for millions of rounds of artillery, for example, from Western stockpiles that do not exist.”
After the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive, the US and Ukraine are currently trying to work out “a new strategy,” the implementation of which is expected to begin in early 2024 in order to “revive Kiev’s fortunes,” the officials said.
According to the report, they are unable to find common ground so far. Washington wants Kiev to just focus on holding onto the territory it still controls, while building up forces and supplies over the course of the next year.
However, the Ukrainian military appears eager to continue to attack the Russian army on the ground or through airstrikes in order to “score symbolic victories” that they believe would attract more attention to the conflict around the globe, the sources explained.
“The stakes are huge” because “without both a new strategy and additional funding … Ukraine could lose the war,” the officials warned.
Amid discussions on the new strategy, the Pentagon has decided that Lieutenant General Antonio A. Aguto Jr, who oversees aid to Ukraine from a base in Germany, is going to spend lengthy periods of time on the ground in Kiev, they added.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of weapons to Ukraine by the West will only prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO. Russian officials have also argued that the provision of arms, intelligence-sharing, and training Ukrainian troops means that the US and its allies have already become de facto parties to the conflict.
Speaking about the dependence of Kiev on Western aid, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops were “running out of [everything]” because “they don’t have their own base.”
“When you don’t have your own base, don’t have your own ideology, don’t have your own industry, don’t have your own money, don’t have anything of your own, then there is no future,” Putin stated.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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