UK Ministers losing enthusiasm for small nuclear reactors developed with China
DBD, a Cheshire-based engineering firm, was working with China’s Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology to build a fleet of gas-cooled small reactors, and had hoped to win government funds. However, ministers have awarded £10m each to three rival projects — including an experimental plan for a fusion reactor. A version of the DBD reactor has already been built in China. DBD declined to comment……. (subscribers only) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-cool-on-chinese-nuclear-reactors-k2m8j76qf
Britain’s nuclear future in trouble, aging reactors, and not enough money without China’s help
Britain’s Nuclear Future Uncertain as Relations With China Fray, https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/britains-nuclear-future-uncertain-as-relations-with-china-fray Rachel Morison and William Mathis, Bloomberg) 8 July 20, — Britain’s fraying relationship with China has the potential to undo a decade of mixed efforts to keep nuclear power flowing as an aging generation of plants drop out of service.
Once the heart of the U.K.’s energy plans, nuclear has been sidelined by spiraling costs and cheaper renewables. It also finds itself at the center of a diplomatic row spanning trade and human rights that threatens to undermine how the sector is financed.
Relations between China and the U.K. have been strained as the row over Huawei Technologies Co. intensified. When sweeping new national security laws were introduced in Hong Kong Prime Minister Boris Johnson offered its citizens the right to live and work in Britain.
China warned the U.K. Monday it’ll face “consequences” if it chooses to be a “hostile partner” after it emerged the government is planning to phase out the company’s equipment in the U.K.’s 5G telecommunications networks.
For nuclear, the sticking point has become the once-feted relationship with China General Nuclear Power Corp. that’s supposed to deliver the next generation of large nuclear plants. That link has come into sharp focus as the U.K. scrambles to find a funding model for projects that aren’t getting any cheaper.
Without CGN, its money and its technology, the U.K. will be left with a huge funding gap that other investors don’t seem willing to fill. It’ll also leave the country’s nuclear plans in disarray.
Equity funding for nuclear power stations is very difficult for private actors,” said Rob Gross, director of the U.K. Energy Research Centre. The risks are significant, timescales long and individual projects are very large. That’s why governments have always played a role in nuclear power, he said.
CGN’s involvement in Britain’s nuclear industry started in 2016 when a deal was signed with Electricite de France SA to cooperate on a trio of reactors totaling 8.7 gigawatts starting with Hinkley Point C in southwest England.
Nuclear remains important for the British government but it’s becoming increasingly pushed to the margins of energy policy as cheaper wind and solar have taken center stage.
Nuclear power has traditionally been seen as a low-carbon way of supplementing renewables — and as such a key part of the future energy mix envisioned in a net zero world.
Losing nuclear power probably wouldn’t pose a threat to the U.K.’s ability to generate enough power. The gap could be filled by gas, batteries or small modular reactors that can provide back-up to renewable energy and keep the lights on.
The sector is also important to the country as a way of building a large, skilled workforce and creating a supply chain using British companies.
False Starts
In 2017, ministers envisioned building 18 gigawatts of new projects but one by one each project folded, unable to negotiate the financing, leaving just EDF and CGN.
The government’s offer in 2018 to Hitachi to take a third of the equity at the Wylfa nuclear project wasn’t enough to keep the company interested.
How best to finance the technology, which costs billions, has become the latest hump in the road for policymakers. The Hinkley Point reactors – expected to start producing power by 2025 – have been hit by delays and cost overruns.
“The precise funding model for nuclear is up to the government to decide,” an EDF spokesman said.
That project will now cost as much as 22.5 billion pounds ($28.1 billion), taking into account inflation, and the guaranteed price of power is significantly higher than the latest round of offshore wind projects. Sizewell-C, still in the planning process, is slated to cost 20 billion pounds.
EDF is struggling and can’t afford to finance Sizewell on its own. The utility has cut costs and jobs, and pared investments setting out a plan to divest at least 10 billion euros of assets from 2015 to 2020 to help fund its share of Hinkley Point.
* CGN’s investment is in the planning and development stage only for Sizewell whereas it is involved in the construction of Hinkley.
The industry favors paying for the massive projects through a Regulated Asset Base model, a proven success on other infrastructure projects. The previous Conservative government was thought to back the financing option but the idea looks to be losing traction.
“If the Chinese pull out, then Sizewell will still go ahead but EDF will be unable to take on another major project,” Elchin Mammadov, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said “So, Bradwell will be dead or put on hold for another decade.”
The debate has gone quiet following a consultation on the RAB model which closed in October.
RAB likely wouldn’t transfer enough risk from the project’s backers — EDF and CGN. The government would have to offer some kinds of guarantee on the project in order to get private investors to finance it.
One option would be for the government to take either a majority or minority stake in Sizewell C..
I wouldn’t be surprised if what is adopted is either a model with many of the characteristics of RAB, or potentially consideration of a more direct stake. This is about reducing the cost of capital.” said Tom Greatrex, chief executive officer of the Nuclear Industry Association.
But despite the long delays, there’s no indication that the government’s made up its mind how it will proceed.
“We are currently considering responses to inform the best approach to the financing of future nuclear projects,” a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said.
As much as 80% of electricity will be produced from low carbon sources by 2030, according to scenarios modeled by the U.K.’s Committee on Climate Change.
“With all but one of the nuclear fleet set to retire by 2030, and uncertainty over the scale of the new build program, it is likely that more electricity from renewable sources will be needed,” said Jonathan Marshall, head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.
Fukushima radioactive reference layer found in Northern glaciers as they thaw
Terrawatch: unearthing snow’s ‘Fukushima layer’ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/30/terrawatch-unearthing-snows-fukushima-layer
Chinese glaciologists have found the freeze-thaw process has concentrated discharge from the disaster Kate Ravilious, @katerav Wed 1 Jul 2020 The Fukushima nuclear accident has added a distinctive signature to snow and ice across the northern hemisphere, new research published in Environmental Research Letters shows. Triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan on 11 March 2011, the disaster resulted in a month-long discharge of radioactive material into the atmosphere, ocean and soil.Feiteng Wang from the Tian Shan glaciological station in Lanzhou, China, and colleagues collected snow samples in 2011 and 2018 from a number of glaciers (spanning a distance of more than 1,200 miles (2,000km) in north-western China. They expected the Fukushima signature to have faded away by 2018, but to their surprise the freeze-thaw processing had made it more concentrated, creating a strong and lasting reference layer in the ice.
Many reference layers from the last 50 years (such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster) have melted away in recent warming events, making it difficult to date the upper layers of ice cores. “Reference layers are crucial and a prerequisite for telling the story of the ice core,” says co-author Jing Ming. “The Fukushima layer will be useful for dating ice in one or two decades when the snow transforms to ice,” he adds.
Many experts question Trump’s claim on China’s nuclear weapons buildup
- When negotiators from the United States and Russia met in Vienna last week to discuss renewing the last major nuclear arms control treaty that still exists between the two countries, American officials surprised their counterparts with a classified briefing on new and threatening nuclear capabilities — not Russia’s, but China’s.
….. Many outside experts question whether China’s buildup — assessed as bringing greater capability more than greater numbers — is as fast, or as threatening, as the Trump administration insists.
The United States conducted more nuclear tests during the Cold War than the rest of the world combined. Over decades of experimentation, and more than 1,000 tests, its bomb designers learned many tricks of extreme miniaturization as well as how to endow their creations with colossal destructive force. Compared with the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima, the nation’s first explosive test of a hydrogen bomb, in 1954, produced a blast 1,000 times as powerful.
Because of that history, many nuclear experts now argue that if Mr. Trump begins a new wave of global testing, it would aid American rivals more than the United States.
For years, some Republicans have urged preparations for a test and poured money into the effort. One instrument now being prepared for the Nevada complex costs $800 million; it would test the behavior of plutonium.
Today, Republicans are still urging more upgrades and speedups, including at the Nevada complex. This month, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, offered an amendment to a defense bill that would add at least $10 million to “carry out projects related to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test.”
Top Democrats in the House told the Pentagon and the Energy Department in a recent letter that the idea of a renewal in nuclear testing was “unfathomable,” as well as “shortsighted and dangerous.”
But Mr. Billingslea thinks he succeeded in getting the Russians to think about what is happening in China, not in the Nevada desert. During his meeting last week, the Russians were taking copious notes on China’s buildup, while reviewing classified slides. He insists they want to sit down and talk more later in the summer.
They will do so without the Chinese….https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/trump-russia-china-nuclear.html
FAIR exposes the false claims about China and COVID-19
Debunking Trump and Corporate Media’s WHO/China Coverup Conspiracy Theories FAIR
The Trump administration suspended funding to WHO in April—the UN’s primary infectious disease–fighting body—accusing it of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” and of taking China’s allegedly deceptive claims about its handling of Covid-19 at “face value.” But corporate media had already been boosting these same talking points.
The Wall Street Journal’s “The World Health Organization Draws Flak for Coronavirus Response” (2/12/20) effectively accused WHO of being “too deferential to China in its handling of the new virus,” and criticized WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus for “bending to Beijing” after lauding China’s unquestionably effective swift quarantine of 60 million people, and for declaring that “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response” and identifying the virus in “record time.” The Journal further expounded the conspiracy theory of a seemingly omnipotent China having WHO under its thumb:
Over its decades of battling epidemics, the WHO has rarely had to deal with an entity as politically and economically powerful as China today. It can’t afford to alienate the country’s leadership, whose clout and financial largess it aims to attract to global health causes. It needs Beijing’s cooperation in preventing a full-blown pandemic—and this may not be the last time. China is the source of many emerging pathogens, which jump from animals to humans in its teeming live markets and can cause deadly epidemics.
According to the Journal’s logic, when WHO praises China for an effective response containing Covid-19 and giving the rest of the world ample time to take health precautions, it is “compromising its own epidemic response standards, eroding its global authority, and sending the wrong message to other countries that might face future epidemics.” When Dr. Bruce Aylward—a Canadian medical expert with 30 years of experience combating polio, Ebola and other global health emergencies—concluded that he “didn’t see anything that suggested manipulation of numbers,” after leading a team of experts visiting China for WHO, that can’t be an accurate observation. For corporate journalists, it can only be because he was duped by the devious Chinese government “underreporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease” (Bloomberg, 4/1/20).
The Journal flimsily explained that China wields such formidable control over the WHO because China is a “future source of funds and a partner with which to tackle the biggest global health problems,” and not as a “current donor.” That would be because a cursory examination of WHO’s funding would reveal that the US donated more than 10 times more money to WHO ($893 million) than China ($86 million), despite the US having almost $200 million in arrears before suspending payments (Axios, 4/15/20).
Neither does the Journal explain how or why WHO could possibly withhold information from Western nations even if it wanted to, when its leadership is stacked with Americans and Europeans, and 15 US officials were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, given that the US is the most “politically and economically powerful” nation on Earth. This makes the Trump administration’s declaration of the US terminating its membership in WHO after threats to permanently cut funding especially egregious.
Nor can the Journal explain the source of China’s fearsome influence over independent and prestigious medical journals like Nature (5/4/20), Science (3/28/20) and the Lancet (3/7/20), which also credited the effectiveness and transparency of China’s response for saving thousands of lives (CGTN, 5/1/20, 5/10/20). Does China’s mysterious and awe-inspiring influence extend over Western medical journals as well?
When Foreign Policy (5/12/20) reported on the exclusive scoop of a leaked dataset of coronavirus cases and deaths from the Chinese military’s National University of Defense Technology, it confirmed that the leaked information “matches” the publicly available numbers the Chinese government posts online—which poses an inconvenience to those spouting conspiracy theories of a Chinese government coverup. Corporate media accounts of Chinese deception and fake statistics also fail to explain how the Chinese government possesses the fantastical ability to deceive governments and independent medical experts around the world, even if it wanted to. As FAIR’s Jim Naureckas (4/2/20) pointed out earlier:
The reality is that it’s very hard to hide an epidemic. Stopping a virus requires identifying and isolating cases of infection, and if you pretend to have done so when you really haven’t, the uncaught cases will grow exponentially. Maintaining a hidden set of real statistics and another set for show would require the secret collusion of China’s 2 million doctors and 3 million nurses—the kind of improbable cooperation that gives conspiracy theories a bad name…. If China is merely pretending to have the coronavirus under control, the pathogen will rapidly surge as people resume interacting with their communities. Once international travel is restored, it will be quite obvious which countries do and don’t have effective management of Covid-19.
Countries revising their figures upon receiving new information is to be expected, and is not necessarily evidence of deceit, as plenty of nations besides China revise their data upwards. Yet only China is singled out as being exceptionally deceptive. For example, in the same week New York revised its death toll upwards by nearly 3,800, China’s adding almost 1,300 dead to its Wuhan data was presented as a possible coverup (Politico, 4/14/20; Guardian, 4/17/20). The Moon of Alabama blog (4/1/20) explained some of the complexities in reporting numbers during a pandemic in real-time:
Does one include co-morbids or not in the count? What about casualties of a car accident that also test positive for Covid-19 when they die? What about those who died with Covid-19 symptoms but could not be tested for lack of test kits? Are the tests really working reliably?… What about asymptomatic cases that test positive. Are these false positives, or do these people really have the virus? One can only know that by testing them a month later for antibodies………
this manipulation of public opinion by the US government and corporate media appears to be working. According to a recent Ipsos survey, more than 30% of Americans have witnessed someone blaming Asian people for the coronavirus pandemic (even though new research indicates that travel from New York City was the primary source of the US outbreak, with New York’s outbreak originating in Europe). Pew Research (4/21/20) found that around two-thirds of Americans have an unfavorable view of China, which is the most negative rating for the country since Pew began asking the question in 2005. This suggests that public opinion has been turned against China, despite it being the first to detect the virus, alert the world and provide a model for containing it.https://fair.org/home/debunking-trump-and-corporate-medias-who-china-coverup-conspiracy-theories/
Explaining the India-China conflict
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Nuclear powers, a disputed border and an uneasy truce: Explaining the India-China conflict A border clash between the two nuclear armed neighbors has drawn the world’s gaze to a disputed region in the Himalayas NBC News, June 20, 2020, By Saphora Smith High up in the Himalayas, Indian and Chinese armed forces warily eye each other across a disputed border region that has become the scene of a tense standoff between the two nuclear powers. The conflict in the remote Galwan Valley that spans their shared border sparked into life Monday with the killing of 20 Indian soldiers, the first reported deaths in 45 years. China has not disclosed whether its forces suffered any casualties, according to a report in its state-run newspaper, the Global Times. The deaths have drawn the world’s gaze to a region that the two most populous countries have been contesting for decades. The implications go far beyond the lonely snowcapped mountains of this geopolitically complex region.
………Thousands of troops have been camped either side of the Galwan Valley, in the mountainous region of Ladakh, for weeks.
The tense standoff started in early May, when Indian officials said Chinese soldiers crossed the boundary in Ladakh at three different points, erecting tents and guard posts and ignoring verbal warnings to leave, according to The Associated Press. That triggered shouting matches, stone-throwing and even fistfights between the two sides, much of it replayed on television news channels and social media, the news agency reported……. Among the reasons raised by analysts include China’s objection to India’s construction of a road through the Galwan Valley connecting the region to an airstrip, New Delhi’s increasing close alliance with Washington, and Beijing’s support for Pakistan in its dispute with India over the Kashmir region. ……… https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nuclear-powers-disputed-border-uneasy-truce-explaining-india-china-conflict-n1231310 |
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U.S. – China talks may cover North Korea nuclear issue
North Korea nuclear issue may be on the agenda at US-China SCMP, 17 June 20Stephen Biegun, the US special representative for North Korea, will join the talks in Hawaii on Wednesday.
, suggesting the stalemate in nuclear disarmament negotiations with Pyongyang could be on the agenda.
and threatened military action against the South……….
The Hawaii meeting comes as relations between the world’s two largest economies are at their lowest point in decades and facing off on many fronts – from trade and technology to Hong Kong and the South China Sea. US officials, including President Donald Trump and Pompeo, have blamed Beijing for the coronavirus pandemic, while Beijing has accused Washington of trying to pass the buck to hide its own failings in dealing with Covid-19 in the US.
t also comes as tensions on the Korean peninsula are again escalating after Pyongyang demolished a four-storey liaison office set up near the border with South Korea in 2018 after the first summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. A major setback for the detente in the region, observers said the move reflected Pyongyang’s growing frustration over its stalled nuclear talks with Washington.
Chinese Foreign Ministry urges US to avoid nuclear testing
BEIJING, June 8. /TASS/. China urges the United States to abide by its international obligations and abandon plans to carry out nuclear tests, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a briefing on Monday.
“We insist that the United States should strictly abide by its obligations to end nuclear testing… and we hope that it will listen to the international community,” the Chinese diplomat pointed out. “The US should abandon plans that could undermine global stability and strategic order,” she added……… https://tass.com/world/1165339
China is reconsidering building nuclear reactors in Britain
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China poised to pull plans for UK nuclear plants https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/china-poised-to-pull-plans-for-uk-nuclear-plants 5 June 20 LONDON (BLOOMBERG) – China’s ambassador to the UK said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to seek alternatives to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in the 5G network could spoil plans for Chinese companies to build nuclear power plants and the HS2 high-speed rail network, the Sunday Times reported.Mr Liu Xiaoming signalled that Beijing is viewing the decision over Huawei as “a litmus test of whether Britain is a true and faithful partner of China”, the newspaper reported the ambassador telling business leaders, saying that the words were “interpreted as a threat by those listening”.
China General Nuclear Power Corp plans to build its own nuclear reactor at Bradwell in Essex, according to the newspaper report. China has a minority share in nuclear power plants at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell C in Suffolk, both in partnership with EDF of France. |
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China’s nuclear power ambitions face delays, waste problems, and the growing success of renewables
It’s a pity that nuclear energy is so easily described as “climate-friendly”. Yes, the actual nuclear reactor can be said to be cutting carbon emissions. But why does everyone ignore the huge carbon emissions from the entire nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining through to burial of radioactive wastes? Why ignore the emissions of ionising radiation, another unseen, but dangerous pollutant?
And why ignore climate change’s effects on nuclear power? Far from nuclear energy stopping global heating, it’s more likely that global heating will stop nuclear power. Nuclear is highly water-guzzling, so most reactors are perched neat the sea, or near rivers – meaning in danger of sea level rise, as well as other extremes such as hurricanes. The water requirements mean that nuclear is affected by extreme heat – and plants have to cut down, or even shut down.
China to Dominate Nuclear as Beijing Bets on Homegrown Reactors
China probably won’t hit its nuclear energy target this year, but that’s unlikely to derail a broader ambition to become the planet’s chief proponent of the climate-friendly [what!!] fuel
Bloomberg, 1 June 20
Chinese involvement in Sizewell nuclear plant the ‘next Huawei
Telegraph 27th May 2020, Chinese involvement in Sizewell nuclear plant the ‘next Huawei’, MPs warn.
Call for energy policy and how the UK interacts with China to be reviewed.
Chinese involvement in the Sizewell C nuclear power station will be the
“next Huawei,” MPs have warned, as they called for an entire overhaul
of the energy policy.
It comes after EDF, the French energy company on
Wednesday submitted an application to build the next nuclear power plant in
Suffolk, which it intends to develop with the state-owned energy company,
China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN).
However Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the
former Conservative leader, warned the power plant was “the next
Huawei”. “It is another major manifestation of the problem we face
having set out on the wrong path with China years ago,” Sir Iain told The
Daily Telegraph.
The way that China plans its nuclear weapons strategy
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The role of nuclear weapons in China’s national defence, The Strategist,
27 May 2020, Fiona S. Cunningham At the end of April, two upgraded Chinese Type-094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) reportedly went into service. But China’s SSBN capability is a far less important component of its nuclear deterrent than its land-based missile force. And that nuclear deterrent plays an important but limited role in China’s national defence. Absent major strategic change, the role of nuclear weapons in China’s national defence strategy is unlikely to expand. And absent major technological change, the relative importance of China’s sea-based deterrent is also unlikely to grow.
Although the commander of US Strategic Command, Admiral Charles A. Richard, recently stated that he could ‘drive a truck through China’s nuclear no first use policy’, that policy has played a critical role in China’s nuclear force development since 1964. China’s nuclear force structure is optimised to ride out an adversary’s nuclear strike and then retaliate against an adversary’s strategic targets, rather than credibly threaten first use. China’s operational doctrine for its nuclear forces doesn’t include plans for the first use, or threat of first use, of nuclear weapons in a conventional conflict. While Chinese leaders and strategists have debated changes to the no-first-use policy from time to time, there’s no sign that China plans to abandon it. The policy was most recently reaffirmed in China’s 2019 defence white paper.
China’s top leaders in the politburo and Central Military Commission exercise strict control over both the formulation of nuclear strategy and the authority to alert or use nuclear weapons. To ensure they’re not used accidentally, mistakenly or without authorisation, nuclear weapons are kept off alert in peacetime and warheads are stored separately from delivery systems in a central depot deep in the country’s interior. There are two potential changes to the threat environment that could prompt Beijing to rethink its restrained nuclear posture: a dramatic increase in the intensity of the US threat China faces and a radical technological change that weakens its retaliatory-only policy.
If Chinese leaders concluded that a future conflict with the US posed an existential threat rather than a limited war, they could look to nuclear weapons as insurance against a conventional defeat that eliminated the Chinese state. But such a change is by no means a given. Chinese strategists stress a number of reasons for the country’s restrained nuclear strategy, including the difficulty of controlling nuclear escalation and geography. China’s large size provides it with non-nuclear options for defeating a conventional military threatening its survival. An increase in US hostility wouldn’t remove these incentives for restraint.
A breakthrough in the development of counterforce technology is also unlikely to change China’s retaliatory nuclear posture, unless it were so radical that it made that posture unviable. Those changes would have to enable the US to credibly threaten to destroy most of China’s retaliatory force. It would also have to render China’s other options for ensuring a survivable nuclear force futile, such as expanding its arsenal size or shifting to a launch-on-warning alert status. Such radical technological change is unlikely, despite persistent US efforts to improve its counterforce capabilities. Regardless of whether either of these situations come to pass, China’s land-based missile force is unlikely to be displaced by its sea-based deterrent as the primary leg of its retaliatory nuclear capability, for four reasons………..
This piece was produced as part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy: Undersea Deterrence Project, undertaken by the ANU National Security College. This article is a shortened version of chapter 7, ‘The role of nuclear weapons in China’s national defence’, as published in the 2020 edited volume The future of the undersea deterrent: a global survey. Support for this project was provided by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-role-of-nuclear-weapons-in-chinas-national-defence/
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Government-owned Chinese company wants to build Sizewell nuclear plant
 State-owned Chinese company bids to build second UK nuclear plant, SMH, By Latika Bourke May 27, 2020 —A Chinese state-owned company blacklisted in the United States has applied to build a second nuclear plant in Britain amid growing concern in the UK government’s ranks about Chinese investment in critical infrastructure.China General Nuclear Power Group’s application creates a new headache for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is already facing a backbench revolt over his approval of Chinese firm Huawei to supply Britain’s 5G networks.
The UK does not have an investment review process like Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board. However, Johnson has flagged a tightening of foreign investment rules in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent alarm about dependence on China. CGN, on Wednesday, submitted its planning application to build the Sizewell reactor in Suffolk, England with its French partner EDF. The project, estimated to cost at least £20 billion ($A37 billion) would be financed through private investment and construction would begin by the end of 2021 if approvals are given. CGN’s initial stake in the project would be 20 per cent compared to EDF’s 80 per cent. The same consortium was approved to build Britain’s Hinkley Point power station in 2016. The then prime minister Theresa May temporarily halted the project over concerns about Chinese investment in critical infrastructure but eventually gave the project the go-ahead. However, in August last year the Trump Administration placed CGN on the US entity list accusing it of acting contrary to the United States’ national security. The US has accused the Chinese company of stealing US nuclear technology for military use.
Sizewell’s approval process is expected to take at least 18 months at the same time as the government is being urged to tighten foreign investment rules. Former Conservative party leader and backbench MP Iain Duncan Smith told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that China must not be allowed to make any further inroads into the UK’s critical infrastructure. “We simply cannot go further down the road of becoming more dependant on China,” he said…….. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/state-owned-chinese-company-bids-to-build-second-uk-nuclear-plant-20200527-p54x37.html |
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Increased tensions between USA and China, as U.S. accuses China of secret nuclear tests
Times 17th April 2020, Relations between China and the United States have plunged to a new low
after the release of a report that suggests Beijing may have conducted
secret nuclear tests, in contravention of arms treaties. Compiled by the US
state department, it says that extensive excavations have been carried out
in the desert of Lop Nur, northwest China, along with the construction of
“explosive containment” chambers. The work coincided with the blocking
of transmissions from sites that monitor levels of radiation and seismic
activity, it added.
Daily Mail 16th April 2020, China accuses the U.S. of ‘confounding black and white’ with a ‘fabricated’
report after State Department warned Beijing might be conducting small
nuclear bomb tests.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8224941/China-accuses-U-S-confounding-black-white-fabricated-nuclear-test-claims.html
Nuclear power plant shut down by host of tiny shrimp clogging filters
Masses of tiny shrimp shut down nuclear power plant in southern China twice in one week, 1 Apr 2020,The Star, By Holly Chik The Power-Generating Units Of A Nuclear Plant In Southern China Were Shut Down Twice Last Week After Its Water Filters Were Blocked By Masses Of Small Shrimp, The Safety Regulator Said.
Big shoals of the tiny acetes – krill-like shrimp that are just a few centimetres long – flooded the seawater diversion channel and circulating water pumping stations of the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station in Guangdong on March 24, the National Nuclear Safety Administration said in a statement.
They crippled the water pumping stations and caused one of the nuclear plant’s six power-generating units to go into automatic safe shutdown, while the other five units ran at 80 per cent of capacity. The unit that shut down was powered up again the next day after station staff cleared the acetes and cleaned the filters.
But soon after on March 25, the same thing happened, with large shoals of acetes again finding their way into the pumping stations and causing four power-generating units to shut down automatically. The station shut off the other two units for safety reasons. …….
The Hong Kong Nuclear Society also noted that similar incidents had happened before.
“Similar events have occurred at nuclear power plants using seawater as a coolant for their power-generating units [including non-nuclear ones] throughout the world, including China,” said Luk Bing-lam, chairman of the society.
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