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Nuclear waste group spends £4,600 on logo to show it IS listening to Theddlethorpe views.

 A probe has revealed that a group connected to plans
for an underground nuclear waste dump in Theddlethorpe spent £4,600 on a
new logo to demonstrate it is listening to residents’ views. The logo, with
two speech bubbles, signifying a conversation, has been created for the
Theddlethorpe GDF Community Partnership, which has been set up to help
locals understand why a GDF (geological disposal facility) might be
suitable for the area.

The former gas terminal at Theddlethorpe has been
identified as one of several potential locations in England for the dumping
of nuclear waste by the government agency, Nuclear Waste Services (NWS). It
would be stored beneath up to 1,000 metres of solid rock until its
radioactivity naturally decays.

Lincolnshire World 20th Sept 2024
https://www.lincolnshireworld.com/news/people/nuclear-waste-group-spends-ps4600-on-logo-to-show-it-is-listening-to-theddlethorpe-views-4790584

September 23, 2024 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

With US $billions and diplomatic support, Ukraine and Israel are destroying themselves.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 22 Sept 24

Joe Biden began his presidency doing a great thing for peace. Three years ago he ended America’s illegal, immoral, criminal war in Afghanistan.

But Biden is no friend of peace. He’s spent the last three years instigating and funding proxy war in Ukraine to weaken Russia, and funding and enabling Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.

Neither of these murderous wars could continue without America’s endless billions and fervent moral support in word and deed.

But both Ukraine and Israel have fallen for US support to head down the path to failed state status.

Ukraine is already there. A fifth of their land gone. Economy shattered. Military largely destroyed. Millions displaced internally or fled to o other countries. Dependent upon on massive, unrepayable loans from the US and NATO countries simply to function. Cancelled elections spell the end of Ukrainian democracy. It could hardly be worse.

This all could have been avoided had the US not demanded Ukraine join NATO to isolate Russia from the European political economy, and supported a coup toppling the Ukrainian president who sought economic relations with Russia. Nor would it have happened had Ukraine President Zelensky rebuffed Biden’s NATO membership overtures and provided regional autonomy to Donbas as promised under the 2015 Minsk II Accords.

While not the basket case Ukraine is, Israel appears hell bent to join it as a failed state. By exploiting the October 7 Hamas attack to initiate all out genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Israel is destroying itself as well. Outside of the Biden administration, it has lost worldwide support as a moral nation. It has greatly weakened Israel’s economy, overtaxed it military, irrevocably divided its populace, forced over 60,000 citizens to flee northern Israel, and embarked on a self destructive war it cannot win.

Make that 2 wars. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal campaign in Gaza has provoked blowback in northern Israel from both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Like Hamas in Gaza, neither of these two additional opponents can be defeated by Israel alone. Just like with Ukraine, endless billions from Biden will not turn the tide.

Both Zelensky in Ukraine and Netanyahu in Israel have one Hail Mary toss to fling….bring the US directly into the battle on their side. Zelensky has been promoting this explicitly since his losing war with Russia began 31 month ago. Netanyahu, is more discreet, simply taking provocative actions like bombing Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and Syria, engaging in terrorism using explosive cellphones and pagers, all designed to ignite regional war involving Iran that the US would feel compelled to join.

So far President Biden has resisted direct US involvement in both senseless wars. But either could blow up in his face at any moment, triggering direct US involvement. Should that occur, we’ll see much worse than Ukraine and Israel self destructing. America and the rest of the world’s 193 countries might well join them.

September 23, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Labour backs nuclear – but at what cost?

for the UK consumer, nuclear new building means expensive electricity and offers little in terms of addressing climate change.

With new funding announced for the prospective Sizewell C plant, the government seems committed to nuclear power.

However, the cost of nuclear newbuild in the UK is staggering and,
even if built, sufficient new capacity will not arrive soon enough to help
mitigate climate change.

UK electricity consumers should hope that the
target of 24 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050 slips into obscurity. “We
will ensure the long-term security of the sector, extend the lifetime of
existing plants, and we will get Hinkley Point C over the line.” That was
Labour’s manifesto commitment to nuclear power, and the government has
already put money on the line.

In late August, it announced additional
funding of up to £5.5 billion for the proposed Sizewell C plant, which
would be only the UK’s second nuclear construction project since the
completion of Sizewell B in 1995, if built.

However, for the UK consumer, nuclear new building means expensive electricity and offers little in terms of addressing climate change. The UK’s operable nuclear capacity declined
from 12.2 GW in 1996 to 5.8 GW in 2023. Only nine reactors are still
generating power and two are under construction. Eight of the operable
reactors came online between 1983 and 1989, making the youngest 45 years
old. Last year, the Hartlepool and Heysham 1 plants gained modest life
extensions to 2026, and operator EdF hopes to extend the lives of its other
Advanced Gas Cooled (AGRs) reactors to 2028.

However, there is little likelihood that the eight remaining AGRs can continue in service beyond these dates. They were initially designed to last about 30 years, with the
decision to decommission based on the deterioration of irreplaceable
components such as the graphite core and boilers. Three AGRs – two built
in 1976 and one in 1983 – are already defueling, a preliminary step to
decommissioning. As a result, by 2030 at the latest, all of the UK’s AGRs
will be out of service.

Decommissioning costs the consumer money, and the
Nuclear Liabilities Fund has not kept up with the cost of decommissioning.
In its third report of 2022-23, the House of Commons Committee of Public
Accounts noted that the government had already been forced to provide
additional funding of £10.7 billion and that there remained “a strong
likelihood that more taxpayers’ money will be required”.

In addition, despite the first nuclear reactors coming into service in the 1950s, there
is still no clear plan for the permanent storage of the most hazardous
forms of radioactive waste.

The government’s most recent energy and
emissions projections, published in November 2023, forecast the
volume-weighted wholesale electricity price in 2030 at between £36.6/MWh,
in a low fuel price scenario, and £58.5/MWh in a high fuel price scenario.
The UK’s latest licensing round for renewable energy, the results of
which were announced in September, returned CfD prices for solar projects
of £50.07/MWh, onshore wind at £50.90/MWh and offshore wind at
£58.87/MWh (2012 prices).

At over £100/MWh in today’s money, even
without a further five years of inflation, Hinkley Point C is a chronic
deal for the UK electricity consumers. EdF wants a new funding model for
both the construction of Sizewell C and the lifetime extension of Sizewell
B, indicating that even the large CfD strike price for Hinkley Point C is
not enough to build new nuclear in the UK. This will almost certainly mean
UK consumers bearing more of the risk. The adoption of the proposed
Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model would see consumers paying for nuclear
plants years before they actually generate electricity.

 Energy Voice 18th Sept 2024.

Labour backs nuclear – but at what cost?

September 22, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Biden’s Grand Alliance against Russia in Ukraine beginning to recognize the N word…Negotiations

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 20 Sept 24

The US 32 month long proxy war against Russia is not quite over. But everyone in America’s important NATO allies knows America’s Ukraine proxy is losing badly with its military near collapse. The two hundred billions the US and NATO have poured into Ukraine have made not a dent in achieving the ‘good guys’ war aims of taking back the Donbas and Crimea, receiving reparations from Russia, and gaining NATO membership.

While President Biden betrays nary a hint of that stark reality, his European NATO allies, greatly more affected by the economic consequences of this than America, certainly are.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently said, “I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace.” Scholz further stated that he will impose a limit on open ended aid to Ukraine and is working on a diplomatic settlement that will include Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.

A senior French diplomat recently told Le Figaro the same thing, citing that the Donbas and Crimea are beyond Ukraine’s military capability and that France lines up with Germany that only a negotiated settlement will end the war.

Insulated from the economic angst of its Western European allies, the US sees no need to deal with reality. For President Biden and his war cabinet including VP Harris, the words ‘negotiated settlement’ and ‘ceding territory’ dare not pass the lips of US diplomats acting more like war generals than statespersons.
Biden and company are still running around like Chicken Little, chirping ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, to take over Poland on their march to the English Channel.’

That includes presidential candidate Kamala Harris who repeated that delusional meme in her presidential debate.

The US proxy war against Russia, with Ukrainians doing all the dying and the country in ruins, is headed to a negotiated settlement in spite of President Biden’s intransigence.



September 22, 2024 Posted by | politics, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling on Ukraine sounds different this time

Christian Science Monitor, By Fred Weir, Special correspondent, September 19, 2024, Moscow

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has drawn several “red lines” – with ostentatious references to Russia’s huge strategic nuclear arsenal – only to seemingly do nothing when these lines are crossed by Ukraine or its Western backers

Red lines:

But when Mr. Putin warned last Thursday that Moscow will consider it a direct act of war by NATO if British, French, or U.S.-made missiles are used by Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia, he said this time is different.

Why We Wrote This

The Kremlin has had little success invoking its nuclear arsenal to deter Ukraine and the West from deploying new tactics and modern equipment to stop Russia’s invasion. But that may be changing.

Many Russian experts agree. And for now, Washington seems to be heeding his threat and holding off on permitting Ukraine to use the weapons.

“Russia’s frustration has been growing because the West appears to have lost all fear of nuclear war. Deterrence is absent,” says Sergei Strokan, an international affairs columnist with the Moscow daily Kommersant. During the Cold War, he says, that fear drove both sides to the bargaining table, aiming to limit conflicts and control nuclear weapons.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/Europe/2024/0919/putin-ukraine-war-russia-nuclear-war-ww3?fbclid=IwY2xjawFZl3RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTcSiRBIOeirIFfIogP4ISJt2uGrRaPn6u1PExNVwAUriNd55aENjnbTHw_aem_YYAKI4JyPWZbXh1b5xaDcw

September 22, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Putin ally warns West of nuclear war over Ukraine

By Reuters, September 20, 2024, Reporting by Reuters; writing by Mark Trevelyan and Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by William Maclean

Summary

Russian missile ‘could hit Strasbourg in minutes’

Volodin says Russia will use ‘more powerful weapons’

Lawmaker reinforces Putin warning

MOSCOW, Sept 19 (Reuters) – A close ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Western governments on Thursday that a nuclear war would ensue if they gave the green light for Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of Putin’s Security Council, was responding to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to give such approval to Kyiv.

“What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons,” Volodin wrote on Telegram.

His message was entitled “For those who didn’t get it the first time” – an apparent reference to a warning by Putin last week that the West would be directly fighting Russia if it let Ukraine fire the long-range missiles onto Russian territory.

The Ukraine war has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which is considered to be the time when the two Cold War superpowers came closest to intentional nuclear war.

The outgoing head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, told The Times this week that the Kremlin leader had declared “many red lines” before but not escalated conflict with the West when they were crossed. Putin’s spokesman said his comment was dangerous and provocative.

In a non-binding resolution adopted on Thursday, the European Parliament asked EU countries to “immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against legitimate military targets on Russian territory.”

Volodin wrote: “If something like this happens, Russia will give a tough response using more powerful weapons. No one should have any illusions about this.” He said it appeared to Moscow that the West had forgotten the vast sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in World War Two.

He said Europeans should understand that it would take Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, known in the West as Satan II, just 3 minutes and 20 seconds to strike Strasbourg, where the European Parliament meets.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Miliband urged by US nuclear giant to abandon large reactors in favour of mini-nukes

GE-Hitachi Nuclear boss says investors have ‘scars’ from large projects’ cost overruns

Matt Oliver, Industry Editor

An American nuclear power giant has urged
Ed Miliband to focus on building a new generation of mini reactors instead
of vast megaprojects such as Hinkley Point C. Andrew Champ, the UK country
director for GE-Hitachi Nuclear, said small modular reactors (SMRs) offered
“the best route” to expanding Britain’s nuclear capacity as the
Energy Secretary draws up plans to overhaul the power grid.

By comparison, many investors have “scars” from budget overruns and delays with bigger
nuclear projects and view them as too risky, he claimed. Mr Champ pointed
to the large cost of Hinkley Point C in Somerset as an example. The
project’s budget has ballooned from £20bn to as much as £46bn when
inflation is included.

His comments come as the Government is reconsidering
proposals to build a large-scale nuclear power station in Wylfa, a
taxpayer-owned site on the Welsh island of Anglesey.

GE-Hitachi, which also builds larger-scale reactors, is among those currently trying to
commercialise SMR technology and is vying to secure funding from the UK
under the Government’s current mini-nuke development competition. SMRs
have been hailed as a potential breakthrough for nuclear power because they
would be built in chunks by factories and then assembled rapidly on site,
potentially meaning they can benefit from economies of scale.

So far the technology remains unproven on a commercial basis and no such reactors are
in operation. He also said the UK’s current target to build out 24
gigawatts of nuclear capacity was likely to prove too conservative, partly
due to the huge growth in power demand from data centres being used to
develop artificial intelligence software.

 Telegraph 16th Sept 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/15/miliband-urged-ge-hitachi-prioritise-mini-nukes/

September 20, 2024 Posted by | politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Dounreay nuclear wastes : new snake like robot to access off limits areas

A new robot has been trialled at Dounreay in order to reach “severely
restricted” areas at the former experimental nuclear plant. During
decommissioning of the reactor, engineers have had to come up with
innovative solutions to access parts of the plant that are off limits to
humans.

 John O’Groat Journal 17th Sept 2024

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/dounreay-new-snake-like-robot-to-access-off-limits-areas-361399/

September 20, 2024 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Ukraine hits Russia with “massive drone attack” on military depot in Toropets, causing huge explosion

“If we make no effort to change direction, we will end up where we are heading.”

         — Chinese Proverb

 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-hits-russia-drone-attack-toropets-military-depot-explosions/ 18 Sept 24

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian drones struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia overnight, causing a huge blaze and prompting the evacuation of some local residents, a Ukrainian official and Russian news reports said Wednesday. The strike came after a senior U.S. diplomat said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recently announced but still confidential plan to win the war “can work” and help end the conflict that’s now in its third year.

Ukraine claimed the strike destroyed military warehouses in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region about 240 miles northwest of Moscow and 300 miles from the border with Ukraine.

The attack was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service, along with Ukraine’s Intelligence and Special Operations Forces, a Kyiv security official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the operation. According to the official, the depot housed Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells. He said the facility caught fire in the strike and was burning across an area 4 miles wide.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted regional authorities as saying air defense systems were working to repel a “massive drone attack” on Toropets, which has a population of around 11,000. The agency also reported a fire and the evacuation of some local residents.

There was no immediate information about whether the strikes had caused any casualties.

Successful Ukrainian strikes on targets deep inside Russia have become more common as the war has progressed and Kyiv developed its drone technology.

Zelenskyy has been pushing for approval from his Western partners, including the U.S., for Ukraine to use the sophisticated weapons they’re providing to hit targets inside Russia. Some Western leaders have balked at that possibility, fearing they could be dragged into the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last week that a decision by the U.S. or its NATO allies to allow Ukraine to use Western missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia would be viewed as “nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries, in the war in Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s targeting of Russian military equipment, ammunition and infrastructure deep inside Russia with drones and other weapons it already has — as well as making Russian civilians feel some of the consequences of the war that is being fought largely inside Ukraine — is part of Kyiv’s strategy.

The swift push by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk border region last month fits into that plan, apparently seeking to compel Putin to back down.

Putin has shown no signs of doing that, however, and has been trying to grind down Ukraine’s resolve through attritional warfare, while also trying to sap the West’s resolve to support Kyiv by drawing out the conflict. That has come at a price, however, as the U.K. Defense Ministry estimates the war has likely killed and wounded more than 600,000 Russian troops.

On Tuesday, Putin ordered his country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million by Dec. 1.

Zelenskyy said last month that his plan for victory included not only battlefield goals but also diplomatic and economic wins. The plan has been kept under wraps but U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said during a news conference Tuesday that officials in Washington had seen it.

“We think it lays out a strategy and a plan that can work,” she said, adding that the United States would bring it up with other world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week. She did not comment on what the plan contains.

September 20, 2024 Posted by | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C must deploy mandated protections for fish

For Hinkley Point C to deliver on its environmental claims, the project must install its mandated Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD) system, writes Fish Guidance Systems’ Lewis English.

Can we truly call energy “clean” if it
causes significant environmental harm? This question becomes particularly
pertinent when examining the situation at Hinkley Point C, a new generation
nuclear power plant under construction in Somerset.

For nearly eight years,
EDF Energy has been working to remove a vital environmental protection at
Hinkley Point C, the Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD). The AFD system is
designed to protect aquatic life by deterring fish from entering the
cooling systems of the power plant, and was included in the initial design
plans of Hinkley Point C. Despite its importance, the removal of the AFD
has been a contentious issue.

The Welsh Government Commission has warned
that its absence could lead to the death of approximately 182 million fish
annually, including sensitive species like shad, sprat, Atlantic salmon,
and herring, which are crucial to local ecosystems, and Secretary of State
Kwasi Kwarteng ruled in a Public Inquiry that the measure must be applied.
Still, EDF continues to contest it, arguing that it would further delay the
completion of Hinkley Point C and hold up the UK’s net zero plans.

The Engineer 16th Sept 2024

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/opinion/hinkley-point-c-must-deploy-mandated-protections-for-fish

September 20, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

A Suffolk wildlife and conservation charity has called for “greater transparency” from Sizewell C in relation to its wildlife compensation schemes.

Earlier in September, developers of the new Sizewell C nuclear
power station announced a new partnership with the nature restoration
movement WildEast to promote the return of land to nature across the
region. In announcing the partnership, Sizewell C flagged up how it had
pledged to return a large part of the land to nature during the
construction of the new power station. Its involvement in leading on a
wildlife habitat scheme at Wild Aldhurst nature reserve in Leiston was
mentioned, along with plans for wetland habitat creation at three nature
reserves at Benhall, Halesworth and Pakenham.

However, in a joint statement
with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Suffolk
Wildlife Trust spoke of its “real disappointment” that Sizewell C had
included the work at the three nature reserves, which is part of its legal
duty to compensate for the impacts of the power station’s construction on
wildlife. The charities said the projects were a “minimum requirement,” but
were being “misrepresented” as examples of the developers going the extra
mile for nature.

East Anglian Daily Times 16th Sept 2024

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24585320.suffolk-wildlife-trust-rspb-speak-sizewell-c-nature/

September 20, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

The UK’s nuclear waste problem

“more nuclear power means more nuclear waste”

By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK, 16 Sept 24  https://theweek.com/environment/the-uks-nuclear-waste-problem

Safety concerns as ‘highly radioactive’ material could be buried in the English countryside

“Not in my backyard” is a term normally used in conversations about proposed new housing or rail lines, but a version of it could soon be heard about one of the most dangerous materials on the planet.

Nuclear power stations are filling up with radioactive waste, so “swathes” of the highly dangerous material are set to be “buried in the English countryside”, said The Telegraph. For local communities, it isn’t so much “not in my backyard” as “not under my backyard”, said the Financial Times.

‘100,000 years of hazard’

Sellafield, in Cumbria, is the “temporary home to the vast majority of the UK’s radioactive nuclear waste”, said the BBC, “as well as the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium”. It’s stuck there because no long-term, high-level waste facilities have been created to deal with it.

The “highly radioactive material” releases energy that can infiltrate and damage the cells in our bodies, Claire Corkhill, professor of radioactive waste management at the University of Bristol, told the broadcaster, and “it remains hazardous for 100,000 years”.

The permanent plan to handle the waste currently at Sellafield is to first build a designated 650ft-deep pit to store it. Although the contentious matter of its location has yet to be agreed, the facility will hold some of the 5 million tonnes of waste generated by nuclear power stations over the past seven decades. Then, in the second half of the century, a much deeper geological disposal site will be dug, which will hold the UK’s “most dangerous waste”, such as plutonium, said The Telegraph.

The problem is only going to get bigger because nuclear power is a central part of the government’s mission for “clean power by 2030” and “more nuclear power means more nuclear waste”, said the BBC.

With at least three new nuclear power stations planned, said The Telegraph, the country will quickly be “at odds with” the 1976 review of nuclear waste policy by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which warned the UK was amassing nuclear waste so fast that it should stop building reactors until it had a solution.

‘Poison portal’

Some believe part of that solution will be found overseas. Earlier this year, there were warnings that Australia could become a “poison portal” for the UK and US as a result of a new three-nation defence pact called Aukus. The original wording of the agreement would allow for facilities to be created to dispose of waste from “Aukus submarines”, which could have included UK and US vessels.

Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s nuclear free campaigner, warned at the time that Aukus partners could see Australia as “a little bit of a radioactive terra nullius”.

After pushback, the Australian government added a loophole to the legislation to “ensure Australia will not become a dumping ground for nuclear waste”, said The Guardian.

But the Australian Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said the changes did not go far enough. The amendment only addresses high-level radioactive waste, he said, and “still allows the US and UK to dump intermediate-level waste, and Australian high-level waste, anywhere in Australia”.

September 20, 2024 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

New logo for Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) represents a costly conversation

 ‘£4,600 excluding VAT’ was the answer to the query posed to Nuclear
Waste Services by NFLA Secretary Richard Outram who asked about the cost of
commissioning a new logo for the GDF Theddlethorpe Community Partnership.
With two speech bubbles signifying a conversation, the new logo was
conceived by House 337, who are ‘experts at building brands across many
sectors’. House 337 is an arm of NWS’s ‘contracted strategic delivery
partner’, MHP. Wags might suggest that a single speech bubble signifying
a one-sided conversation or a deaf ear signifying an inattentive NWS might
have been more appropriate.

 NFLA 16th Sept 2024

New logo for GDF represents a costly conversation

September 20, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Sizewell C now: from farce to drama

To ensure that the terrain of the site is strong enough to withstand the pressures and forces of such a mammoth construction and future climate change challenges, ground anchor trials have been ordered. The results of these trials are not yet known, but that has not deterred the Office of Nuclear Regulation from issuing a nuclear site licence.

Construction of Sizewell C is already under way in Suffolk. The promise is for cheap, clean and safe energy, but what is the reality?

by Peter Wilkinson,  17 September 2024, https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/energy/sizewell-c-now-from-farce-to-drama/

As time passes and the land is prepared for the Sizewell C development, the impact of this massive undertaking is finally and painfully revealing itself to residents.

Sizewell C: here we go again

Vegetation has disappeared from large tracts of land. A 100-year-old forest has been felled. Huge lay-down areas are being created to store the equipment required for construction work. The presence of large numbers of aggregate tipper lorries on the small roads around the site has become routine. Footpaths have been closed. Deer have been driven out of their traditional habitat and wander bemused onto roads. Worker campuses are appearing and already, some workers have been charged with driving offences, causing one resident who has seen it all before – and worse – during the construction of Sizewell B to comment, “And so it begins”.

EDF is stamping its imprint all over East Suffolk, making its intentions crystal clear. The trickle of inconvenience will quickly become the intolerability of an invasion of workers, noise, industrialisation and disruption over the next few years.

How do we define ‘safe’ when it comes to nuclear power?

Nuclear power is often cited as being ‘safe’. A quick search of the internet will disabuse anyone of that view. Many reported accidents are trivial, but some are significant and bring with them the contradiction of the term ‘safe’. It is difficult to quantify or qualify the level of safety we can expect from the operation of nuclear power plants, largely because the regulatory authorities – let alone the mere mortals in the communities who are required to host these nuclear facilities – are unaware precisely what those impacts are in relation to exposure to radioactivity.

The Environment Agency itself cannot give a figure on the volume of uranium dust particles that are routinely, and with regulatory knowledge, discharged from an operating nuclear power station and, therefore, cannot – or will not – calculate the associated health impact. These potentially lethal specks of alpha-radiation-emitting dust are dismissed by the regulators as ‘insignificant’. Their presence in the atmosphere and in the sea, however – from accidents such as Chernobyl, Fukushima, Windscale in the 1950s, from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing as well as from the routine operation of nuclear facilities – cannot be denied.

Future risks and threats

The more conventional aspects of threats to our safety presented by nuclear power plants should concern us too. At Sizewell, for example, the site is considered to be too small to accommodate the planned twin EPR reactor development and is also highly vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges. So great is this threat, that the entire site is to be surrounded by a curtain wall 14 metres high, requiring foundations 50 metres deep – deep enough to prevent sea water ingress from below as well as solid enough to resist another ‘Beast from the East’ as experienced in 2018.

To ensure that the terrain of the site is strong enough to withstand the pressures and forces of such a mammoth construction and future climate change challenges, ground anchor trials have been ordered. The results of these trials are not yet known, but that has not deterred the Office of Nuclear Regulation from issuing a nuclear site licence.

Sizewell C, like all nuclear plants, needs a daily supply of potable water (rather than salt water from the sea). Sizewell C needs an average of 2.2 million litres a day. Suffolk is the driest county in the country and dramatic reductions in domestic requirements have been suggested as ways in which to balance supply and demand, leaving the fate of water supply in the area uncertain and possibly at the mercy of energy-intensive, polluting and chemicals-reliant desalination plants.

Spent fuel

All nuclear plants are required to host nuclear fuel once it has been ‘spent’ or ‘fissioned’ in the reactor core. It emerges as intensely hot and lethally radioactive and is required to be stored for years in what is effectively an on-site swimming pool before being transferred – in the case of Sizewell B spent fuel – to an on-site dry fuel store where it awaits the identification, construction and transfer to a ‘geological disposal facility’.

EDF/SZC Co estimate that the amount of spent fuel generated by Sizewell C’s two EPR reactors over their lifetimes of a notional 60 years will amount to around 4,000 tonnes. The radioactivity associated with that fuel is unimaginable. As we have seen in the Ukraine with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in times of conflict the temptation for an adversary to ‘weaponise’ nuclear facilities is difficult to resist. The aspiration for the UK to treble its nuclear-generated electricity output will require, in addition to proposed ‘gigawatt-sized’ Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, the deployment of up to 50 ‘small modular reactors’ around the country, each of which is capable of being weaponised.

The hidden nuclear agenda

From the difficulty of crossing roads clogged with construction traffic, to the threat posed by a catastrophic accidental or malicious failure of nuclear containment, the impact of transforming Suffolk’s heritage coast to the energy coast without so much as a public debate about the wisdom or desirability of such a colossal change, is already arriving in many forms.

The questionable stability of the terrain upon which the development is designed to stand, and the need to renew the electricity grid pylon network – characterised by National Grid Electricity Transmission as being from “Norwich to Tilbury to reinforce the high voltage power network in East Anglia between the existing substations at Norwich Main in Norfolk, Bramford in Suffolk, and Tilbury in Essex” – add to the level of anxiety and uncertainty many express about the future of their county.

The actual justification for Sizewell C – not the one used by government of energy security – is to ensure the maintenance of the skills base, the material and the supply chain for Trident renewal. And the purpose of Trident is to maintain our security by threatening the murder of tens of thousands of men, women and children we will never meet.

We have to question what sort of world we are knowingly allowing to be created for future generations. And we have to question what right the government has to ignore what Keir Starmer recently said would be applied across all government departments – ‘a duty of candour’. But perhaps he has already forgotten he said that, or wishes he had not.

Postscript

On the afternoon of Friday 30 August, a popular time to release unwelcome news with the weekend approaching, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero announced that the government had allocated a further £5.5bn to the investment-averse Sizewell C (SZC) project, taking the total of public money sunk into this scheme to £8bn at a time when the new Labour administration is claiming a lack of public finances with which to help millions of pensioners and children with benefits to keep them warm and fed.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Scottish nuclear base staff using pagers adds to Trident fears

  https://www.thenational.scot/news/24594540.scottish-nuclear-base-staff-using-pagers-adds-trident-fears/

National security concerns have been raised about the use of the antiquated technology in sites where nuclear weapons are stored and maintained.

Two sources have confirmed to this paper that the use of pagers, which appear to have been tampered with to cause explosions across Lebanon in attacks which have injured thousands, remains common at bases in Coulport and Faslane.

Pagers, also known as bleepers, are almost entirely redundant in most walks of life having been superseded by mobile phones decades ago – but they are still used on Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites in Scotland and by the Islamist militant group Hezbollah, which has blamed Israel for the attacks.

NHS workers in England were told to stop using pagers in hospitals in 2019 though it is thought some still use them. 

Concerns about their use have been raised in light of Tuesday and Wednesday’s deadly attacks, which have killed at least 21 people including two children, in a move which threatens to escalate tensions between Israel and Lebanon into all-out war.

One source told The National that staff at a Scottish nuclear base who were on call or on duty used pagers.

Alba general secretary Chris McEleny, who previously worked at Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport where nuclear warheads are stored, told The National “people will be astounded that the safety of the UK’s nuclear deterrent is still supported by a network of 1980s and 1990s-style handheld pagers”.

He added: “The Hezbollah attack should result in the MoD now assessing the vulnerability of where the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons are stored because pager holders are highly likely to be in close proximity the most critical possible systems and materials on site but then the pagers go offsite overnight.”

The revelation will add to fears about the state of Britain’s nuclear fleet, which is believed to be “rotting”.

Former Tory special adviser Dominic Cummings last year lifted the lid on what he said was the “nightmare” issue of Trident.

He wrote that nuclear weapons infrastructure was “a dangerous disaster and a budget nightmare of hard-to-believe and highly classified proportions”.  

The UK Government was approached for comment.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

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