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Germany the first major economy to phase out coal and nuclear

Germany is first major economy to phase out coal and nuclear, Economic Times, 3 July 20

The plan is part of Germany’s ‘energy transition’ – an effort to wean Europe’s biggest economy off planet-warming fossil fuels and generate all of the country’s considerable energy needs from renewable sources…….

Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some 40 billion euros ($45 billion) to help affected regions cope with the transition.

The plan is part of Germany’s ‘energy transition’ – an effort to wean Europe’s biggest economy off planet-warming fossil fuels and generate all of the country’s considerable energy needs from renewable sources…….

Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some 40 billion euros ($45 billion) to help affected regions cope with the transition.The plan is part of Germany’s ‘energy transition’ – an effort to wean Europe’s biggest economy off planet-warming fossil fuels and generate all of the country’s considerable energy needs from renewable sources.

“The days of coal are numbered in Germany,” Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said. “Germany is the first industrialized country that leaves behind both nuclear energy and coal.”……
Schulze, the environment minister, said there would be regular government reviews to examine whether the end date for coal can be brought forward. She noted that by the end of 2022, eight of the country’s most polluting coal-fired plants will have already been closed………

This week, utility companies in Spain shut down seven of the country’s 15 coal-fired power plants, saying they couldn’t be operated at profit without government subsidies.

But the head of Germany’s main miners’ union, Michael Vassiliadis, welcomed the decision, calling it a “historic milestone.” He urged the government to focus next on an expansion of renewable energy generation and the use of hydrogen as a clean alternativ ..

July 4, 2020 Posted by | climate change, Germany | Leave a comment

European Council stands firm on excluding nuclear power from energy transition money

European Council resists calls for Just Transition Fund cash to be available for gas and nuclear generation   https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/07/01/european-council-resists-calls-for-just-transition-fund-cash-to-be-available-for-gas-and-nuclear-generation/

The heads of state of the 27 EU member states agreed to resist calls from a reported eight countries to expand the nature of projects eligible for energy transition support beyond renewables.

JULY 1, 2020 MAX HALL  An EU spokesperson has confirmed the heads of the bloc’s 27 member states have announced an intent to block any of the European Commission’s proposed €40 billion energy transition money being spent on gas or nuclear power facilities.

The commission has proposed pulling together a Just Transition Fund (JTF) to be spent helping regions dependent on fossil fuels transition to clean energy as part of its much-vaunted Green Deal for Europe. The fund would comprise €30 billion from the bloc’s coronavirus recovery fund and €10 billion from the EU budget for 2021-27, both of which are yet to be ratified.

Reports late last week suggested the 27 heads of state who make up EU joint legislative body the European Council had agreed to resist calls from eight EU states to permit the proposed JTF to be spent on gas and nuclear facilities, as well as clean energy generation.

An EU spokesperson has told pv magazine the council wants to ensure the cash is spent only on renewables and confirmed the plans will now be negotiated with the other EU legislative body, the European Parliament, with the commission mediating.

“We would hope for an agreement as soon as possible, certainly this autumn,” said the spokesperson, indicating a hoped-for resolution by December 20.

July 2, 2020 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Julian Assange’s father calls on Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison to help this Australian citizen

Assange’s father calls extradition process ‘disgrace’  https://telanganatoday.com/assanges-father-calls-extradition-process-disgrace?fbclid=IwAR1a7bQ0W_Xcgc9EIeGaAHVP7Zmm2cM6nNV65ZXtkhCwNUlarqIYTJVw6xo1 July 20, The 80-year-old is organizing public events in Australia despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and hopes to travel to London in August to support Assange during his extradition trial.  

Sydney: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton, is fighting tirelessly for the release and return of his son, who is facing an extradition trial in London for publishing classified information, a process he described as abuse.

“We maintain that the extradition request is a fraud in the English court… It’s a fraud in the English legal system, it’s a case of abuse of process, it is a disgrace,” Shipton, who travelled from Melbourne to Sydney to campaign for his son’s release, told Efe news in an interview.
The 80-year-old is organizing public events in Australia despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and hopes to travel to London in August to support Assange during his extradition trial which, he says, is being carried out under “dire” circumstances.

In May 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, said, after visiting Assange in the Belmarsh prison along with two medical experts, that he showed “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma”.

Assange has spent almost a decade in confinement, first under house arrest in a British town and then at the Ecuadorian embassy in London between 2012 until 2019, when Ecuador withdrew his political asylum status.

Shipton has urged the Australian government to mediate with the UK administration for the release of his son, who is wanted in the US on 18 charges of espionage and computer intrusion, for which he could be sentenced to prison for up to 175 years.

“I believe the government can, if it wishes to, assist us in bringing Julian home. I believe that (it) is very simple for the Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) to pick up the phone and ring (his UK counterpart) Boris Johnson and say Julian Assange is an Australian citizen in dire circumstances.

“This will resolve this immediately and that’s easily possible,” he told Efe news during the interview.

July 2, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties, legal, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Russia’s nuclear imperialism in Africa

Russia’s nuclear play for power in Africa, DW 2 July 20,

Russia is pushing nuclear technology to African nations to both turn a profit and expand its political might on the continent.  Rwanda’s parliament has just approved a plan for Russia’s state-owned Rosatom nuclear conglomerate to build it a nuclear research center and reactor in the capital, Kigali.

The Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies, planned for completion by 2024, will include nuclear research labs as well as a small research reactor with up to 10 MW capacity.

Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia have signed similar deals with Rosatom, while countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Sudan and DRC have less expansive cooperation agreements.

Rosatom has been aggressively wooing African nations since the mid-2000s and the nuclear deals are seen as part of Russia’s push turn a profit and also gain influence in Africa.

Western sanctions first imposed on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of the Crimea in the Ukraine have forced Russia to seek alternative sources of incomes and also new friends.

Nuclear technology instead of trade

“For Putin to remain relevant in Russia, he really has to ensure that Russia has a big influence,” said Ovigwe Eguegu, a geopolitics analyst with the international affairs platform, Afripolitika. “That’s why he is looking at African markets so he has more parties to partner with when it comes to international issues.”

African nations constitute the largest voting bloc in the United Nations.

While the Soviet Union had a close relationship to various African states during the Cold War, Russia’s trade balance with Africa is one tenth of that of China, meaning it needs to look for other means to get a foothold on the continent.

“Russia is using the tools that they have to expand their influence and right now, Russia has lots of experience in the nuclear energy area,” Eguegu said in a phone interview from Abuja.

Rosatom nuclear leader

Rosatom is the world’s biggest nuclear company by foreign orders. While it has projects in developed countries such as Finland and Hungary, it’s mainly involved in developing regions.

The Rosatom packages are popular because the corporation’s sheer size means it can offer all-in-one deals, from training local workers to developing nuclear science curricula, supplying uranium for the plant’s life time and dealing with nuclear waste — with the added plus of Russian state loans for the projects.

The cost and financing of Rwanda’s nuclear research center is still undisclosed. But Russia is extending a $25 billion (€22.23 billion) loan to Egypt to cover 85% of the cost of the El Dabaa nuclear power plant, which Rosatom is constructing.

Rosatom has come to dominate nuclear exports to developing countries because of their generous financing and worker training,” according to the 2018 Center for Global Development policy paper, Atoms for Africa.

Additionally, Russia is itself a major player in the nuclear market, responsible for some 8% of uranium production worldwide as well as 20% of uranium conversion and 43% of uranium enrichment (conversion and enrichment are stages of processing uranium so it can be used by commercial nuclear power reactors)………….

many experts, including Gatari, believe that nuclear technology doesn’t yet make sense for African countries. They lack the highly skilled local workforce required to run the technological intricacies of such reactors. Plus, nuclear facilities are vastly expensive and take years to build.

Gatari warns of countries becoming locked into costly projects that end up being “white elephants”.

“Such a project can only be driven by strong and educated local human resources,” the nuclear researcher said. “That knowledge isn’t possible by rushing young students through training for a short time.

And the cost of maintaining that kind of installation can cripple the budget of a country for a long, long time.”

Doing the smooth sell

Currently, South Africa is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with a functioning nuclear power plant, while Nigeria and Ghana have research reactors, which are primarily used for studying and training and to test materials, such as minerals.

In Europe, safety concerns around nuclear technologies have already caused countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland to vote to phase out nuclear power.

These concerns are compounded in Africa, given the the political instability of certain regions and the threat of sabotage or terrorist attacks.    This hasn’t stopped Rosatom, and Russia, from doing a soft sell of nuclear technologies on the continent.

Rosatom funds scholarships for students from sub-Saharan Africa to study nuclear sciences and engineering in Russia. As of January 2020, around 300 students from more than 15 African countries were studying nuclear specialties there.

It runs an online video competition, Atoms for Africa, where participants stand a chance to win an all expenses paid trip to Russia for a video dedicated to innovative nuclear technologies.

In 2019, it even held an international fishing competition near the Leningrad nuclear power station, Russia’s largest, to demonstrate the safety of nuclear power for water bodies. (The competition was won by an Egypt team).

“There is good money if you can sell a research reactor,” said nuclear scientist Gatari. “Unfortunately, the convincing capacity of [Rosatom’s] marketing is very high, and the understanding of those  who are buying is low.”  https://www.dw.com/en/russias-nuclear-play-for-power-in-africa/a-54004039

July 2, 2020 Posted by | AFRICA, marketing, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Radiation particles leak may have come from Russia’s super nuclear weapons, rather than from commercial reactor

Russia’s New Super Weapons May Be Cause Of Radiation Leak https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2020/07/01/russias-new-super-weapons-may-be-cause-of-radiation-leak/#7acff8725f8c  H I Sutton   A recent nuclear leak may be related to new nuclear-powered strategic weapons Russia is developing. These are part of a range of new ‘super weapons’ unveiled by President Putin on March 1, 2018. Russia is testing a nuclear-powered mega-torpedo called Poseidon and a nuclear-powered cruise missile called Burevestnik. If either are to blame, then it would not be the first radiation spike caused by testing one of these weapons.On June 23, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) revealed that scientists in Sweden had detected higher than usual levels of radiation. Based on analysis of the weather, the origin was projected to be in Northern Russia. Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo tweeted that they had detected “3 isotopes; Cs-134, Cs-137 & Ru-103 associated w/Nuclear fission.” He went on to say that “These isotopes are most likely from a civil source.” and that it is “outside the CTBTO’s mandate to identify the exact origin.”

Russia’s nuclear energy body has denied that the radiation originated from its two nuclear power stations in the region. However, it is not only civilian power stations that use nuclear reactors. Tom Moore, a nuclear policy expert and former senior professional staff member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, believes that these military reactors cannot be ruled out:

“CTBTO radionuclide monitoring is intended to discriminate explosive events and to complement seismic monitoring. Not to effectively rule in or rule out a source of radionuclides as being civil or military reactors.”

Possible Cause: Burevestnik Cruise Missile

The first military system under development which comes to mind is the Burevestnik cruise missile. Its name means ‘Storm Bringer’ in Russian, after the Petral sea bird. It is more formally known by the designation 9M730 and NATO code name Skyfall. This is a nuclear-armed cruise missile that is designed to use a nuclear engine to give it virtually unlimited range. Burevestnik is the natural candidate because it is airborne, so any accident would likely release radioactive material into the sky.

This may have previously happened on August 9, 2019. There was a fatal radiation incident at the State Central Navy Testing Range at Nyonoksa. This is near to Severodvinsk in Russia’s arctic north, the same area that the CTBTO has pointed towards this time. Then it was caused by an explosion in a rocket engine. Many analysts believe that this was most likely related to the Burevestnik missile.

Possible Cause: Poseidon Drone-Torpedo

The other weapon in the frame is Poseidon. This is a massive nuclear-powered torpedo that is intended to be launched from specially built submarines. At 60-78 feet long it is about twice the size of a Trident missile. Its designation is believed to be 2m39 and it is known in NATO as Kanyon. Its virtually unlimited range and high autonomy would make it hard to classify. The U.S. government has described it as an intercontinental, nuclear armed, undersea autonomous torpedo. It is a weapon worthy of a Bond villain that would literally go underneath missile defenses. Its threat is slow but inevitable doom to coastal cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

While Poseidon probably doesn’t have very much shielding on its reactor, it is normally underwater, so any radiation leak may not reach the atmosphere. But it would be lifted out of the water after a test launch, so there is room for an incident that could get detected hundreds of miles away in Scandinavia.

Open Source Intelligence On The Suspects

Open source intelligence analysts have been following these weapons. Evgeniy Maksimov noted that flight tests of Burevestnik were probably being conducted. He noted two no-fly zones closed for June 22-27 at a missile test range. But the launch site was far south of where the radiation is believed to originate.

A better candidate may therefore be Poseidon. Vessels believed to be associated with its tests were active in the region at the time. The special support vessel Akademik Aleksandrov was at sea around June 18 to 23, in the area of interest. This ship is suspected of being involved in retrieving Poseidon weapons. Twitter user Frank Bottema found a matching vessel using radar satellite imagery.

We may never know for sure the cause of the heightened radiation levels. But Russia’s denials that it was from a civilian power plant, combined with the ongoing tests, point a finger at the nuclear-powered weapons. This reignites the debate about how safe these projects are, even in peacetime.

July 2, 2020 Posted by | radiation, Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Radioactive particles in atmosphere: Russia tells IAEA it has had no nuclear incidents

Russia Tells IAEA It Is Incident-Free After Nuclear Particle Increase, https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/30/world/europe/30reuters-nuclear-particles-baltic-russia.html  By Reuters
June 30, 2020  VIENNA — Russia has told the U.N. atomic watchdog there have been no nuclear incidents on its territory that could explain elevated but still harmless levels of radioactive particles detected on the Baltic Sea last week, the U.N. agency said on Tuesday.

A separate body, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which watches for nuclear weapon tests, said on Friday a monitoring station in Sweden had found higher-than-usual levels of caesium-134, caesium-137 and ruthenium-103. The CTBTO said they were produced by nuclear fission.

CTBTO chief Lassina Zerbo posted a borderless map https://twitter.com/SinaZerbo/status/1276559857731153921?s=20 online showing where the particles might have come from in the 72 hours before they were detected – an area covering the tips of Denmark and Norway as well as southern Sweden, much of Finland, Baltic countries and part of western Russia including St. Petersburg.

All those countries except Denmark, which has no nuclear power plants http://www.ensreg.eu/country-profile/Denmark, and Russia, which has a history of not fully explaining incidents that emitted radioactive particles, told the International Atomic Energy Agency by Monday that there were no events on their territory that could explain the increase.

On Tuesday evening, however, the IAEA issued a statement https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/more-countries-provide-radioisotope-information-to-iaea-reported-levels-very-low saying the list of countries that had declared themselves incident-free had grown to around 40 and now included Denmark and Russia.

“Apart from Estonia, Finland and Sweden, none of the other countries which have so far provided information and data to the IAEA said they had detected elevated radioisotope levels,” said the IAEA, which asked member states for information over the weekend after the CTBTO announcement.

Asked on Monday if Russia was the origin of the elevated particle levels, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had detected no sign of a radiation emergency.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

July 2, 2020 Posted by | radiation, Russia | Leave a comment

UK Labour says state-owned Chinese firm CGN should be excluded from Hinkley nuclear project

Labour Questions ‘Aggressive’ China’s Involvement In UK 5G And Nuclear Energy Deals
Shadow foreign secretary signals tougher stance on Huawei and Hinckley Point amid Hong Kong crisis.   Huffington Post, By Rachel Wearmouth, 2 July 20 China’s involvement in the UK’s 5G network and nuclear energy programme should be questioned after “aggressive” actions towards the UK, Labour has said.

Signalling a much tougher stance on Beijing from Labour, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy told Times Radio Britain needs “far greater strategic independence” and should not be “handing over large chunks” of infrastructure to companies with links to the Chinese state. …….

Nandy said the UK should dump the 5G deal and said state-owned Chinese firm CGN should also be excluded from plans to finance nuclear energy plant Hinckley Point, in Somerset.

Speaking to Times Radio presenter John Pienaar, Nandy said: “We need far greater strategic independence from China, which means that we need to have home-grown alternatives for our 5G network and our nuclear power.”

She went on to say: “I don’t think we should be handing over large chunks of our energy infrastructure, especially our nuclear energy infrastructure, to a country that’s behaved in such an aggressive way towards the UK and the people of Hong Kong in recent weeks.”  …………. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bar-aggressive-china-from-5g-and-nuclear-energy-deals-in-uk-says-labour_uk_5efcb53bc5b612083c55d19e?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAATQSZ7H9fv_HgI3hWPha0plWMLUzrUnPUbrBmIuuNrwU_Rjr1Nt

July 2, 2020 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

France’s oldest nuclear power plant at Fessenheim finally shut down

Fessenheim closes down, NEI Magazine,  1 July 2020  France’s oldest nuclear power plant at Fessenheim was finally shut down on 29 June with the closure of the 880MWe pressurised water reactor at unit 2. Fessenheim 1 was shut down in February.

The two reactors at Fessenheim began operation in 1977 and 1978 and were already three years beyond their projected 40-year life span.

Although there is no legal limit on the operating life of French nuclear power plants, EDF had envisaged a 40-year lifetime for all second-generation PWRs.

Fessenheim had become a focus for anti-nuclear campaigners after the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan, prompting then President Francois Hollande to promise its closure. However, it was not until 2018 that his successor Emmanuel Macron finalised the decision.,,,….. https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsfessenheim-closes-down-8004216

July 2, 2020 Posted by | decommission reactor, France | Leave a comment

Russia’s environmental groups protest nuclear waste imports

Russia is not a dump!

Stories of solidarity under coronavirus  http://www.foeeurope.org/covidsolidarity-russia

25 June 20    Coronavirus hasn’t affected everyone equally. We’re sharing stories from across our European and global network of what lockdown and life under coronavirus look like around the world. Hearing from those who are among the worst affected, and how they are taking action.

I’m with Russia

Russia and Germany have taken advantage of the coronavirus crisis to resume shipping radioactive waste to dump in the Urals and Siberia in northern Russia.

When Russian environmental groups discovered, in autumn 2019, that Germany was exporting radioactive waste from it’s nuclear power stations to Russia, via the harbor of Amsterdam, they directly organized protests in the three countries.

Those protests had success, and the transport by rail and sea of uranium – a waste product of nuclear fuel production by Urenco Germany – was put on hold. That was before the coronavirus crisis hit.

But in March 2020, when Covid-19 lockdowns restricted people’s right to protest in Russia even further, the shipments of radioactive waste were set to resume.

BBC news reports that twelve rail cars carrying 600 tonnes of depleted uranium left Germany bound for Russia earlier this week.

Vitaly Servetnik from Russian Social–Ecological Union/Friends of the Earth Russia said:

“This radioactive waste is being sent to the Urals and Siberia. There it will be stored in containers above ground posing a direct danger to the environment and people living in the area. Disguised as a commercial transaction between Rosatom and Urenco, Germany exports its radioactive waste problem.”

Olaf Bandt, chair of BUND / Friends of the Earth Germany said:

“The federal government stands by while part of the unresolved nuclear waste problem moves quietly and secretly to Russia. German nuclear waste should not be disposed of in other countries, putting lives of people in danger. Germany must finally complete the nuclear phase-out.”

In response, the Russian Social–Ecological Union/Friends of the Earth Russia and other environmental and human rights groups organised a digital action. Images of activists holding signs reading “No uranium tails!” and “Russia is not a dump!” flooded social media.

June 30, 2020 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Russia, wastes | Leave a comment

France’s EDF in a financial pickle over huge costs of UK’s Hinkley C nuclear project

Dave Toke’s Blog 27th June 2020, The chickens are coming home to roost for EDF for their questionable decision to go ahead with building Hinkley C -a decision they took despite the lack of certainty over whether they would get enough backing from the British Government.

Originally EDF was publicised as being offered UK Treasury loan guarantees that had been widely touted as a vital basis for building Hinkley C. But now the French Financial Markets Regulator has
sanctioned EDF for not flagging up how conditional such loan guarantees were. These loan guarantees have never materialised.

Essentially, EDF is now continuing to build Hinkley C using money borrowed on its own balance
sheets – borrowings which are much more costly than UK Government backed guarantees and which reduce its own (EDF) profitability.

The Finance Officer of EDF actually resigned at the time EDF decided to go ahead with building Hinkley C. Of course all this is happening at the same time when we are being asked to believe that the next EPR (at Sizewell C) is going to be delivered at low cost to the consumer if the risk of building the plant is transferred from EDF to the British taxpayer and consumer!

This is the so-called RAB mechanism, something that could well just turn out to be an
almost unlimited cash facility for EDF to park their financial black hole in the centre of British finances (as well as those of the French).

https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2020/06/edf-sanctioned-by-french-regulators-for.html

June 30, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Hitachi- no plans to sell Wylfa nuclear site to China

Hitachi has said it has no plans to sell a Welsh nuclear power site to a
Chinese corporation after comments by Donald Trump. The US president was
quoted by the Sunday Times warning it not to sell Wylfa, on Anglesey, “to
China”.
Work on the £13bn project was put on hold last year because of
rising costs after Hitachi failed to reach a funding agreement with the UK
government. A Horizon Energy spokesman said: “We don’t comment on
speculation. “Our focus remains on securing the conditions necessary to
restart this crucial project, which would bring transformative economic
benefits to the region and play a huge role in helping deliver the UK’s
climate change commitments.”
Horizon is owned by Hitachi and was set to
lead the project to build the site. “We are not aware of any plans to sell
the project to China,” Hitachi told the Reuters news agency.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53212790

June 30, 2020 Posted by | politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Donald Trump intervenes in Wylfa nuclear project discussions

North Wales Live 28th June 2020, Donald Trump is understood to have intervened in discussions about the next generation of nuclear power on Anglesey. According to reports, the US
president’s administration has warned Hitachi, the company behind the site,
not to sell it on to the Chinese government. The intervention is a sign of
escalating tensions between the Americans and the Chinese, according to the
Times. It reports today that the White House is heaping pressure on Hitachi
– which is a Japanese-owned company – not to sell on its interest into the
site to Beijing.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/donald-trump-intervenes-anglesey-nuclear-18502362

 

June 30, 2020 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

New nuclear disaster plans sent to thousands of homes in Plymouth

June 30, 2020 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Hungary to apply for nuclear plant expansion licence

Hungary to apply for nuclear plant expansion licence on Tuesday, BUDAPEST, June 29 (Reuters) – Hungary will on Tuesday submit licensing paperwork to the state atomic agency to expand its sole nuclear power plant and fast-track the first phase of its construction, the earth works at the reactor site, the government said on Monday.

Hungary is planning to double the capacity of its 2-gigawatt Paks nuclear power plant with two Russian-made VVER reactors.

The project, awarded in 2014 without a tender to Russian state nuclear giant Rosatom, is often cited as a sign of the exceptionally warm ties between Hungarian premier Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a connection that has unnerved Western allies.

Budapest has requested and received European Union approval for the fast-track process which will allow it to start construction at the site in January 2021, Minister Janos Suli, who is in charge of the expansion, told parliament.

In response to a question from an opposition lawmaker, he denied sweetening the process for Russia. ……..

Experts have warned that approval for the reactor hole, a massive project to remove 8 million cubic metres of earth and build a 2,500 metre (8,200 ft) concrete wall more than a metre thick, could make the project much more difficult to abandon……https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N2E62VR

June 30, 2020 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Sizewell nuclear plant – untried, costly, environmentally damaging, and no electricity for 10 years or more!

the government is exploring novel ways in which to lay the burden for financing a dangerous and costly nuclear venture on you, the consumer. 

‘The Sizewell C plans are an insult to the people of Suffolk’  https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/pete-wilkinson-together-against-sizewell-c-campaign-1-6718925   27 June 2020, Pete Wilkinson, Together Against Sizewell C

Chairman of Together Against Sizewell C, Pete Wilkinson, has described it is a “battle for the soul and integrity of East Suffolk”. Here he explains why he is opposing the nuclear project.

Anyone new to Suffolk, ignorant of EDF’s nuclear plans, would be forgiven for laughing out loud.

An untried reactor, labelled ‘technically complicated to construct’ by its own designers, a cost of £20billion-plus, taking at least 10 years to build, producing waste which is not only lethal to living tissue but which remains so for thousands of years and for which there is no agreed or proven disposal or management route, to be built in the middle of a community of 5,000, which will not produce electricity for at least 10 years by which time its output will be redundant to needs, built on an eroding coast? Yeah, sure: pull the other one.

You really couldn’t make it up.

Yet this is what residents up and down the East Suffolk are facing. They have been led to believe that the destruction of their environment on a massive scale, the compulsory purchases, the roads, the workers’ campuses, the borrow pits, the huge water demand in the driest county is inevitable – and to make the best of it.

When did anyone ask YOU, resident of East Suffolk, if you wanted your tranquil, culturally rich and peaceful rural environment urbanised and anonymised, requiring six new roundabouts on the A12 and up to 1,000 vehicle movements a day along our country roads to ferry the material required for our own white elephantine carbuncle on our heritage coast, light, noise and dust pollution 24 hours a day, seven days a week or a decade of accommodating 4,000 workers? Of course you were not asked. They knew the answer. The new nuclear policy has not been subjected to anything like forensic public or Parliamentary scrutiny.

Democratic deficit runs through all aspects of this programme like the letters in a stick of rock and is presented by its advocates as ‘inevitable’. The National Policy Statement process renders what government calls ‘national infrastructure projects of over-riding importance’ inviolate, untouchable and – yes – inevitable unless the planning authorities have the courage or unless the Secretary of State has the guts to do what they should – throw the EDF plans out as an insult to the people of Suffolk. Sizewell C is important to no-one other than EDF.

But just how ‘over-riding’ is the need for Sizewell C? The French-made film, ‘The Nuclear Trap’ makes it clear that Hinkley C in Somerset and Sizewell C are more critical to the survival of the French nuclear industry than they are to providing electricity to UK consumers.

There has been a huge reduction in electricity demand since 2013 – over 16% – making earlier predictions of an increase of 15% by 2020 an overestimation of more than 30%.

Renewables out-compete nuclear on every front – cost, waste, jobs, CO2 and time for deployment. If ever Sizewell was built, it would be at least a decade, probably more like 15 years given the history of cost and time over-runs of its flagship plant at Flamanville, before it turned one kilowatt hour of electricity.

In 15 years, we will – one can only hope – have grown out of our obsession with nuclear and invested at suitably high levels in realising the huge job potential in micro-technology, decentralisation, efficiency and conservation of energy, and look back on our nuclear infatuation with a shake of the head.

The current National Policy Statement which covers the nuclear component of the energy policy, EN6, is entirely unfit for purpose as it gives policy authority only to those nuclear plants which can be deployed before 2025 – i.e. not, Hinkley, not Sizewell and not Bradwell, none of which will be generating electricity by that date.

Therefore the EN6 policy document is null and void. Its replacement is still undergoing review and will depend heavily on the financing arrangements the government can agree to in order to remove the need for EDF to fork out for it.

Instead, the government is exploring novel ways in which to lay the burden for financing a dangerous and costly nuclear venture on you, the consumer. 

So much for ‘no subsidy’ nuclear, but in policy terms, it is legally questionable for Hinkley C to continue to be built, for Sizewell C’s planning application to be submitted or for CGN/EDF to consult on plans to build Bradwell B when there is no policy architecture to justify and legitimise any of this work or progress.

EN6 has fallen as a legitimate policy statement for new nuclear build but that does not seem to have any effect on the way the French and Chinese backers of new nuclear in the UK are required to act nor the complacency and indifference with which the government seems to take these gaping legal inconsistencies.

The waste problem that nuclear generates is probably the most intractable. In the 15 years of the existence of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, it has failed to secure a site, a volunteer community or to satisfactorily solve many of the dozens of technical and engineering problems associated with burying 500,000 cubic metres of legacy waste while ensuring that the estimated 78,000,000 units of radioactivity remain underground.

While new build waste such as that from Sizewell C is likely to be less bulky, its high burn up in the reactor means that it will be far hotter than even Sizewell B’s waste and will generate much more radioactivity – up to five times that contained in the legacy waste. How can any government or industry knowingly embark on a development programme which will create such a mountain of waste when a repository for its safe disposal is still more a matter of hope over expectation?

The only legacy Sizewell C will leave for Suffolk is a degraded environment and a radioactive waste mountain which future generations will have to deal with. Please tell your councillor to vote to remove the support for Sizewell C at the full council meeting on July 7, please write to the planning inspector to voice your concerns and please urge your MP to tell the Secretary of State to put EDF’s planning application where it belongs – in the bin.

June 29, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, climate change, environment, politics, UK | Leave a comment

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