La Hague is still threatened by wildfires Monday afternoon: firefighters mobilized on July 18 not far from the Orano nuclear site
by Christophe Meunier, After being mobilized all day Sunday July 17, 2022 on landage fires in Herquemoulin, the firefighters of the Channel had to fight against another fire this night, still in the sector of La Hague. The second fire regained strength during the afternoon on Monday. The nearby Orano La Hague site has significant means of protection if it were to be threatened by flames.
Up to 108 firefighters were mobilized this Sunday, July 17, 2022 on a landage fire in Herquemoulin, in the La Hague sector, which broke out around 3 a.m. It was only at the end of the evening, after 10 p.m., that the system was lightened. Thirty firefighters, three forest fire tanker trucks, a firefighters’ van, a water carrier and the command echelon remained on site to maintain surveillance of the site. This surveillance is maintained this Monday morning. But in the meantime, the means of the SDIS had to be mobilized on another fire……………….
It was shortly before midnight that a new brush fire broke out in the La Hague sector, this time in Vauville, at a place called Les Pierres-Poquelées. About sixty firefighters, from Saint-Lô, Carentan, La Haye, La Hague, Barneville, Granville, Cherbourg, Bricquebec, Canisy, St Pierre, Valognes but also from Calvados, were engaged in this new operation. Six tank trucks and a fire engine were deployed on site. A command post was set up in Beaumont-Hague at the RD 901/RD 403 roundabout. “The personnel faced unfavorable conditions linked to the topography, the night and the wind “, indicated the Departmental Service Channel Fire and Rescue……………………..
The two fires that have occurred since Sunday in the La Hague sector are both near the Orano waste reprocessing site. ………………………….
France3 18th July 2022
Money Pit: Zelensky govt signals intent to default on tens of billions in foreign debts
Despite countless billions flooding into Ukraine, Kiev can’t pay its debts.
Jordan Schachtel Jul 21, 22, The Dossier, Western governments have allocated well over $100 billion to prop up Ukraine in its war against Russia, with countless billions more flooding into the country at an increasing pace. Yet as each day passes, it’s becoming more and more clear that all of the money awarded and assigned to Ukraine continues to dissolve into a black hole of secrecy, corruption, deceit, and now, default.
On Wednesday, Ukraine finance ministry asked foreign creditors to accept a delay in its debt repayments, requesting a two year freeze on billions of dollars in Eurobonds. Per the Financial Times, “a rescheduling would amount to a Ukrainian default” on Kiev’s tens of billions in foreign debt.
Financial Times @FinancialTimes: Although western financial support has increased since May, Kyiv is still counting on Ukraine’s central bank to buy its debt by selling foreign reserves or printing money, at the risk of setting off an inflationary spiral.
….. Despite all of the money coming in from around the world, Ukraine’s budget deficit has spiraled out of control. Zelensky’s office now claims to have a $9 billion monthly budget deficit, up 80% from just last month.
……………………. In addition to the government as a whole, Ukraine’s state-owned infrastructure and national energy companies have also announced their intent to default on international bonds. Earlier this week, Kiev announced that it has sold some $12+ billion in gold reserves since the start of the war.
The Western government creditors of Ukraine released a joint statement in support of Ukraine’s debt freeze, adding that they “will continue to closely coordinate and assess the situation with the support of the IMF and the World Bank.”
Translation: Western governments will continue to print huge amounts of cash and launch it in the direction of the Ukraine operation. ……. https://dossier.substack.com/p/money-pit-zelensky-govt-signals-intent
The brutal reality of the US-UK ‘Special Relationship’, and the persecution of Julian Assange
In an exclusive article, the world’s leading public intellectual says the handover of global imperial power from Britain to the US is at the root of the UK’s continued persecution of Julian Assange.
Declassified UK, NOAM CHOMSKY, 21 JULY 2022,
The abject submission of British authorities to the Master in Washington in the case of journalist Julian Assange is painful to observe but – unfortunately – not difficult to understand.
The roots go back to the Second World War, when Britain handed the mantle of world domination over to its former colony. The US had long surpassed the UK as an economic power and had displaced it from “our little region over here,” as Secretary of War Henry Stimson described the Western hemisphere. But it had not yet become a truly global power.
At the time, British officials were well aware that the UK was becoming a “junior partner” to the US, now subject to its will, which was often exercised crudely.
Given their own ample experience with imperial arrogance, brutality and hypocrisy, British diplomats could easily read between the lines when their American counterparts protested that US global domination is “part of our obligation to the security of the world…what was good for us was good for the world”, as Abe Fortas, a leading figure in the New Deal administrations, put it.
The British Foreign Office, parsing this apparent altruistic concern, concluded that Washington was, in fact, guided by “the economic imperialism of American business interests” and was “attempting to elbow us out…under the cloak of a benevolent and avuncular internationalism”.
UK officials continued that their American counterparts believe “that the United States stands for something in the world – something of which the world has need, something which the world is going to like, something, in the final analysis, which the world is going to take, whether it likes it or not.” What true believers in the historical profession call “Wilsonian idealism”.
From then, Britain takes it, whether it likes it or not. Things could have gone a different way at various points in modern history, recently if Jeremy Corbyn hadn’t been destroyed by a vicious media campaign. But today’s British authorities just take the orders and Julian Assange is one of the victims.
Intricate handover
While Britain had become the “junior partner” by 1945, the handover process had played out in an extended and intricate way.
One of the reasons why the now-famous Second Amendment of the US Constitution called for “a well regulated militia” was fear that “the Brits are coming”. The first foreign policy goal of the new Republic, apart from cleansing what became the national territory, was to take Cuba.
The British Navy was in the way. But, as the great grand strategist John Quincy Adams explained, over time British power would decline while that of the US would increase and Cuba would then fall into US hands by the laws of “political gravitation”.
This did happen in 1898 when the US intervened to prevent Cuba’s liberation from Spain and turn it into a virtual colony. This is called “the liberation of Cuba” in preferred doctrine…………………………………………..
The vast gap between law and practice is illustrated by the Assange case. Here Britain, adopting its usual role of “junior partner,” has been savagely supporting the effort of the inheritors of the Framers to infringe radically on freedom of the press. The media response has ranged from tepid to cowardly.
The precedent is all too clear. If the states that claim, with some justice, to be in the forefront of defence of freedom are granted licence to crush it when it interferes with state power and violence, the limited freedoms that have been won by popular struggle suffer a severe blow everywhere. https://declassifieduk.org/the-brutal-reality-of-the-us-uk-special-relationship/—
Time for the UK government to tell the truth about nuclear power
Targeting scarce public resources at ailing nuclear initiatives flies in the face of all known data, says Prof Andy Stirling
The UK is sadly becoming habituated to an officially sponsored attrition of truth about nuclear power. Despite intensifying propaganda, even government data shows this military-backed technology to be, in reality, an expensive, slow, unreliable, risky and unpopular way to deliver affordable, secure, zero-carbon energy.
The gap in efficacy and competitiveness between nuclear and other options is continually growing. Supporting nuclear, rather than energy efficiency, wind and solar, slows down climate action, bleeds taxpayers, forgoes jobs and forces unnecessarily large and regressive burdens on consumers.
BEIS says: “Nuclear is the only form of reliable, low-carbon generation
which has been deployed at scale to date.”
The] manifest falsity of this starkly unqualified statement is extraordinary. As the government’s own
data also shows, the costs of managing variable supply are rapidly diminishing and are already far smaller than the competitiveness gap between nuclear and renewables.
Current renewable contributions to UK electricity far surpass the peak achieved by nuclear. When did it become acceptable in British public life that a supposedly democratic government should so seriously misrepresent reality in a formal policy document?
In a period when stakes are unprecedentedly high for climate, economy, energy security and hard-pressed households, it is time to renew reasoned scientific and democratic debate in this field and prevent this national self-harm by unaccountable special interests.
Guardian 21st July 2022
EDF worried that its delays in building Hinkley Point C nuclear station might lessen the huge subsidies it gets from the UK government
EDF pushes UK government to alter Hinkley Point C penalty clauses. EDF is trying to alter a key subsidy contract to avoid missing out on trillions of pounds in guaranteed revenue after the Covid-19 pandemic caused further delays to Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station under construction in the UK in almost 30 years.
The French utility is in negotiations with the British government over penalty clauses in a
controversial agreement struck in 2013 to finance the building of the plant in Somerset.
EDF started work on the 3.2 gigawatt plant in 2016 but has repeatedly pushed back its completion date while costs have spiraled. In the latest setback, EDF warned in May that the first of Hinkley’s two reactors would not be completed until June 2027, 18 months behind schedule. It attributed 12 months of the delay to Covid-related problems, when it had to reduce staff on site from 5,000 to 1,500.
But the company cautioned that there was the possibility of a further 15-month delay to September 2028,
adding that date could slip again if there was another wave of pandemic or there were knock-on effects from the war in Ukraine.
Penalty clauses in the subsidy agreement — which guarantees a price that is more than double
those offered to developers of rival technologies such as offshore wind — would reduce the 35-year term if Hinkley is not generating electricity by May 2029.
EDF would lose one year of guaranteed payments for every year of delay up to 2033. If the delays extended beyond that date the government has the option to terminate the subsidy contract. EDF has already pushed the construction budget of Hinkley up several times with the revision in May raising the total cost by a further £3bn to as much as £26bn in 2015 prices, compared to an estimate of £18bn in 2016. Crooks said about a third of May’s revision to the budget was Covid-related. About £500mn was down to performance being “less than we would expect”, he added. The other cost overruns were due to issues such as completion of some of the outstanding design work and a failure to accurately estimate the quantities of materials, such as the number of bolts needed, to complete the build.
FT 21st July 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/cb715de2-1c95-4a13-8b48-33717b1dcc44
US Military Analyst: West Can’t Afford Ukraine Spending, Will Run Out of Ammo to Send to Kiev
Sputnik News 22 July 22…………………….What goals are the US and EU pursuing by pouring more money into the Ukrainian military?
Scott Ritter: The hope is to transform the conflict that is ongoing in Ukraine as a result of the Russian special military operation into a protracted conflict that can lead to a stalemate that would result in significant Russian costs, both in terms of manpower and military equipment, but also financial costs, and thereby weaken Russia. Ultimately what they are visualizing would be a Ukraine strong enough to evict Russia from its borders.
It’s not possible, this is fantasy in the extreme, but it’s politically inspired fantasy, meaning that the United States and its European allies have invested so much political capital into propping up the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian economy that even though most sound analysts understand that not only is Ukraine losing the conflict, but they can never win the conflict. Politically, Western politicians cannot divorce themselves from these policies. So in order to maintain a public perception at home of the chance of a Ukrainian victory, they will continue to squander the wealth of their respective nations.
Why are Western states prolonging the hostilities despite the growing discontent of their populations with economic problems?
Scott Ritter: There’s an old saying in the United States that I believe translates into most politics: “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” And right now, these politicians would have to explain to their constituents why they were wrong about Ukraine, why they were wrong about Russia. And especially here in the United States, we’re dealing with the lead-up to very critical midterm elections. No politician wants to be explaining anything to anybody. They want to be shaping perceptions that build upon past performances. This is all about domestic politics. This has nothing to do with reality.
Why are Western states prolonging the hostilities despite the growing discontent of their populations with economic problems?
Scott Ritter: There’s an old saying in the United States that I believe translates into most politics: “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.” And right now, these politicians would have to explain to their constituents why they were wrong about Ukraine, why they were wrong about Russia. And especially here in the United States, we’re dealing with the lead-up to very critical midterm elections. No politician wants to be explaining anything to anybody. They want to be shaping perceptions that build upon past performances. This is all about domestic politics. This has nothing to do with reality. So it sounds good for a politician to be telling his or her constituents that we are providing the Ukrainians with the best equipment possible to include the top of the line fighter aircraft. What they really should be saying is we are guaranteeing that every Ukrainian pilot we train will die at the hands of the Russian Air Force, because that’s what the ultimate outcome will be.
The thing about, especially American, generals is that they are political animals. They didn’t get that fourth star necessarily because of their military competence. They got it because they impressed a politician with their political acumen. And so what we have is a general playing politics, a general who is saying what the politicians want to hear. And that’s not what his role is. His role is to provide sound military assessment, military advice to the politicians.
But if an American military officer did that today, they couldn’t agree with anything that the Biden administration or the US Congress was seeking to do in Ukraine, and therefore they would never get promoted. They would never get a good job. I don’t like to denigrate serving military officers, but this is a political decision, not a military decision, even though the man making it wears a military uniform.
Can the West collectively really afford such spending now, at a time of harsh polarization and soaring prices?
Scott Ritter: No, they can’t afford it. And we have some nations that are starting to realize this. The German defense minister, who is very hawkish against Russia, has acknowledged that Germany simply has no more weapons to give and they’re not in a position to build new weapons. They’re worrying about other economic realities. The same holds true with the United States.
At some point time in time, we are going to run out of materiel to give to Ukraine. I read somewhere that with all the HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems we’re providing to Ukraine, we’re also providing Ukraine with one third of the ammunition stockpiles for the HIMARS, meaning that we, the United States, only have two thirds of our ammunition stores available if we had to go to war, which means we will run out of ammunition.
This is insane, literally insane to be sacrificing the national security of the United States or of a European nation so that politicians can look and sound good for the next couple of weeks. But it will not change the equation on the battlefield in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Army is in an impossible situation. They literally cannot recover from the debacle that has befallen them.
The sad thing is that Ukrainian leaders are buying into the fiction provided by the West of if they just get more weapons, they can successfully defend against Russia. This means that more Ukrainian soldiers are going to die, more Russian soldiers are going to die, and tragically, more Ukrainian civilians are going to suffer.
Leaders of the Group of Seven recently pledged to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” How feasible is this pledge?
Scott Ritter: When the Group of Seven made that, one of the leaders was a guy named Boris Johnson. He’s not the leader anymore. The other guy was a gentleman whose last name was Draghi. He’s not the leader anymore. I think as the summer and the winter come along, more and more of these leaders are going to be removed from office because it’s an unsustainable policy. Politicians have a proclivity for saying things that have no basis in reality. It’s very inexpensive for a politician to say “we are going to support you forever.”
Forever in what sense? Boris Johnson is not supporting them forever – he’s out of power. Draghi is not supporting them forever – he’s out of power. And just about everybody who was on that stage at the G7 meeting will be out of power. Suddenly, we have a whole new definition of what “forever” means. It means “not now, not anymore.” https://sputniknews.com/20220721/us-military-analyst-west-cant-afford-ukraine-spending-will-run-out-of-ammo-to-send-to-kiev-1097671398.html
EDF seeks guarantees from UK government to keep its big subsidies
EDF is seeking to amend the controversial subsidy contract for its £26
billion Hinkley Point C nuclear plant so that it will not be penalised even
if the plant does not start to generate power until 2030.
Hinkley was
supposed to start up in 2025 but EDF has pushed this back to mid-2027,
primarily blaming Covid disruption, and warned of the risk of a further
15-month delay. Stuart Crooks, managing director of Hinkley Point C, said
at least some of this delay was now “likely” to materialise as the
project battles issues including labour shortages.
He revealed that EDF was
seeking extra leeway in the already contentious subsidy contract to protect
its revenues even if the plant suffers additional delays and does not start
up this decade. Further delays would also raise the prospect of additional
increases in costs, which have risen from £18 billion when it got the
go-ahead in 2016 to as much as £26 billion at 2015 prices.
Times 22nd July 2022
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/edf-seeks-hinkley-delay-guarantees-2g6tqt522
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) condemns ludicrous Sizewell C planning approval.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has expressed its
disappointment that “ludicrous” plans for a nuclear power plant near the
internationally-important RSPB Minsmere reserve have been approved. RSPB
chief executive Beccy Speight said: “The RSPB is extremely disappointed to
learn that the government has approved plans for Sizewell C, the proposed
new nuclear power station that will affect our nature reserve at Minsmere
in Suffolk.
East Anglian Daily Times 20th July 2022
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/business/rspb-condemns-ludicrous-sizewell-c-planning-approval-9157422
New failure on the Flamanville EPR, the reactor control system’s malfunction
After problems with concrete, steel or welds, the reactor under
construction experienced a new malfunction.
Part of the installation’s control systems is out of order. The structural failure, known since 2019,
is now recognized by EDF. Flamanville and its EPR reactor, umpteenth
episode.
We thought we knew everything about the setbacks of the calamitous
EDF project which has been dragging on for fifteen years now on the nuclear
power plant in the Manche department and whose bill has gone in seventeen
years from 3.3 billion to 12.7 billion euros ( and even 19 billion with
interest and launch costs according to the Court of Auditors ).
Well no !
After the concrete problems during the construction of the reactor
building, the poorly forged steel of the bottom and the cover of the
nuclear vessel or the poorly made welds on the reactor piping, EDF has a
new problem on its hands.
And a big one: two essential systems which make
it possible to control the reactor are victims of a problem problem for the
start of the EPR. A tile known for several years by the operator and the
Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), but which has not been the subject of any
publicity and has still not been resolved, according to information from
Liberation . We already knew that this powerful 1,650 MWe nuclear reactor
would not enter service before the end of 2023, more than ten years behind
the date initially planned.
Liberation 19th July 2022
Ukraine Defense Minister Offers Ukraine as a ‘Testing Ground’ for NATO Weapons
Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine is ‘inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here’ https://news.antiwar.com/2022/07/19/ukraine-defense-minister-offers-ukraine-as-a-testing-ground-for-nato-weapons/ by Dave DeCamp
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov on Tuesday openly offered Ukraine as a venue to test NATO weapons against Russia in an online conversation with the director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
Reznikov said that Ukraine “is essentially a testing ground” for the advanced weaponry the US and its allies are pouring into the country. “Many weapons are now getting tested in the field in the real conditions of the battle against the Russian Army, which has plenty of modern systems of its own,” he said.
The Ukrainian military chief made the offer in a fresh pitch for more Western arms. “We are interested in testing modern systems in the fight against the enemy and we are inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here,” he said.
One weapons system that is getting its first use on the battlefield in Ukraine is the Polish Krab artillery system that was provided by Warsaw. “So, I think for our partners in Poland, in the United States, France, or Germany, it’s a good chance to test the equipment. So, give us the tools. We will finish the job and you will have all the new information,” Reznikov said.
The Western response to the war in Ukraine has been a boon for US arms makers, who are making money sending weapons into the war zone, replenishing NATO stockpiles, and selling arms to European countries that have decided to boost military spending.
Kyiv has been asking for more advanced arms than it has been sending, including F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. Ukrainian pilots would need to be trained to fly the US aircraft, and the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes $100 million to go towards that training, although the massive spending bill has not yet been finalized.
Macron facing NUCLEAR nightmare as scorching heatwave cripples SIX reactors.
THE RAGING heatwave that currently engulfing Europe has threatened to worsen France’s energy crisis, as six nuclear power plants have been crippled this month.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1643201/emmanuel-macron-france-facing-energy-nightmare-six-nuclear-reactors-scorching-heatwave By ANTONY ASHKENAZ, Jul 20, 2022 , Experts have warned that parts of France are currently facing a “heat apocalypse” as temperatures reach record levels across Europe. Aside from triggering horrifying forest fires, these scorching temperatures are now also threatening to worsen France’s energy crisis. As a result of higher temperatures, rivers like the Rhone and Rhine, which are used by nuclear power plants for cooling, have become too warm to be used in the energy generation process.
Without cooler water supplies, six nuclear power plants in France have been forced to reduce their output drastically.
Without cooler water supplies, six nuclear power plants in France have been forced to reduce their output drastically.
EDF’s nuclear plants along these rivers use the waters to regulate the temperature of their reactors, discharging warm water back into the waterway.
Regulations are in place that limits reactor production during times of high heat to prevent the process from damaging local wildlife.
However, these rules could soon be scrapped at the cost of regional flora and fauna, as France’s nuclear safety authority green-lighted “temporary modification” of regulations for Blayais, Golfech and St Alban nuclear power plants.
Energy expert Thibault Laconde tweeted: “To state the obvious, it also highlights the vulnerability of #nuclear power to climate change, in particular the vulnerability of ‘French-style’ nuclear power, with its large reactors, large power plants and therefore large cooling needs.
“Climate change has to be factored in nuclear projects.
“Especially as France is preparing to renew its fleet, it would be unimaginable to build reactors if we cannot demonstrate that they will be able to operate with the #climate they will experience throughout their lifetime”
The heatwave crippling nuclear power plants could be devasting for Mr Macron, as France has already been suffering a major energy crisis after half of EDF’s ageing nuclear power plants were forced to shut down recently over safety concerns.
Experts have previously warned Mr Macron of significant corrosion safety problems in EDF nuclear power plants in France as cracks were detected in some nuclear reactors.
Speaking to Express.co.uk, Dr Bernard Laponche, the co-author of a recent study on EDF’s reactors warned that cracks in the cooling systems of many of these reactors could result in horrifying disasters that are only comparable to events like “Three Mile Island or Fukushima”.
As a result of these corrosion problems, four 1500 MW, seven 1300 MW and one 900 MW reactors are shut down.
As a result of these reactor shut downs, EDF has been forced to lower its power output this year, amidst fears of a disastrous winter where fears grow Vladimir Putin could cut Europe off its gas supply.
Dr Laponche also warned that more reactor shutdowns could happen in the future, as EDF power stations are currently under investigation for similar reactor flaws.
Evacuation of site in France , as wildfires rage near nuclear power plant being decommissioned
The EDF site in Brennilis, consisting of a nuclear power plant being deconstructed and a thermal power plant in operation, was evacuated around 1 p.m., due to the fumes stinking the air. It’s 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
The swirling fire, fanned by a wind blowing at 40 – 45 km/h, plays hide and seek with the firefighters. Claire Maynadier, sub-prefect of Châteaulin, has just hung up with the director of the Brennilis nuclear power plant . The evacuation of personnel is therefore not envisaged. “The fire front
is not near. Nevertheless, it remains uncontrolled. We remain vigilant,” she explains.
Le Telegramme 19th July 2022
Against advice of the Planning Inspectorate the UK’s interim government gives go-ahead to Sizewell C nuclear power plant.
UK government gives go-ahead to Sizewell C nuclear power plant, Decision goes against advice of Planning Inspectorate, which rejected project owing to impact,
Guardian, Alex Lawson Energy correspondent, Thu 21 Jul 2022 ,
The UK government has given planning consent to the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk.
The decision by the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, which had been repeatedly delayed, was finally announced on Wednesday and went against the advice of the independent Planning Inspectorate.
French energy company EDF wants to build the 3.2 GW, two-reactor plant next to its existing site at Sizewell B, which began operating in 1995.
However, the proposals have faced fierce opposition from local campaigners, who have argued against the project because of the environmental impact and the cost to energy billpayers. Campaigners now have six weeks to decide whether to appeal against the decision.
Planning permission was seen as a key hurdle for the project which remains subject to a further final investment decision, expected next year. It is hoped the plant can generate enough power for six million homes.
The approval process for Sizewell C has so far included four rounds of public consultation which began in 2012 and has involved more than 10,000 East Suffolk residents.
The Planning Inspectorate rejected the scheme because of concerns over the plant’s impact on protected species and habitats, and the long-term water supply at the site.
EDF worked with Chinese state-backed nuclear specialist CGN on the first phase of the project. However, it is understood the UK government is keen to ease CGN out amid concerns over Chinese involvement with sensitive assets.
Bankers at Barclays have been hired to secure new financial backing for the project alongside EDF and the UK government.
Boris Johnson’s government put £100m of funding behind the project in January to support its development………………………………………………..
Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C campaign, said: “The wrong decision has been made but it’s not the end of our campaign to Stop Sizewell C. Not only will we be looking closely at appealing this decision, we’ll continue to challenge every aspect of Sizewell C, because – whether it is the impact on consumers, the massive costs and delays, the outstanding technical questions or the environmental impacts – it remains a very bad risk.”
Beccy Speight, the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: “The construction of the proposed development will be damaging and it has been granted with insufficient consideration for the effects on nature as described by the government’s own experts. This is a ludicrous decision for an interim government to make.”
Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, called the project a “red herring energy solution” as the UK attempts to move towards a low-carbon energy system……………………
The French government said on Tuesday it was prepared to pay €10bn (£8.5bn) to fully nationalise EDF amid concerns over its finances. Ministers in France want to keep a handle on soaring energy bills.
Johnson has set a target of making investment decisions on eight new nuclear projects by the end of the decade. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/20/uk-government-gives-go-ahead-to-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-plant
VIDEO: Germany criminalizes journalist for exposing Ukrainian war crimes
Ed. note . This video is blocked by both Twitter and Facebook. Corporate media censorship is taking over social media too.
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/07/13/video-germany-criminalizes-journalist-for-exposing-ukrainian-war-crimes/ MAX BLUMENTHAL·JULY 13, 2022
Independent Donetsk-based journalist Alina Lipp of Germany details her prosecution by the German state for violating new speech codes through her reporting in the Donetsk People’s Republic.
As the only German reporter on the ground in Donetsk, Lipp has exposed Ukrainian forces shelling civilians, attacking a maternity ward, mining harbors, and bombing a granary filled with corn for export. She faces three years in prison if she returns to her home country.
Russia says Ukrainian drone struck nuclear plant, but caused no damage.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-occupation-official-says-ukrainian-drone-struck-nuclear-plant-caused-no-2022-07-20/ July 20 (Reuters) – Russia on Wednesday accused Ukraine of firing two drones at a nuclear power station in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia on Monday but said the reactor was undamaged.
Reuters could not independently verify the report and Ukrainian officials had no immediate comment. The facility is the largest nuclear plant in Europe.
“Ukrainian nationalist formations used two kamikaze drones to attack facilities at the Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant – one drone was destroyed on approach to the plant,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement.
“It was only by sheer luck that this did not lead to damage to the plant’s equipment and a man-made disaster.”
Ukraine has previously accused Moscow of basing troops and storing military equipment on the grounds of the power station.
Earlier in the day Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-installed regional administration, wrote on Telegram that three Ukrainian “kamikaze drones” had struck the plant.
Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, whose employees still run the plant despite the area being under Russian control, issued a statement later accusing Russian forces of demanding access to the machine halls of three reactors at the plant in order to store tanks and equipment there.
Energoatom said, without providing evidence, that Russian troops were doing so for fear of “presents” from Ukraine’s armed forces, an apparent reference to targeted strikes. The company did not comment on the alleged drone impact.
Reporting by Reuters Editing by Peter Graff, Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Oatis
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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