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Hinkley Point C nuclear could go £28bn over budget, and tax-payer takes larger stake in Sizewell C nuclear.

The Chemical Engineer, by Adam Duckett, 28 Jan 24

EDF SAYS its Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant could be delayed to as late as 2031, with costs rising to £46bn (US$58bn).

The project, which includes building two 1,630 MW nuclear reactors in Somerset, was estimated to cost £18bn when it was first agreed in 2016 and had been scheduled to begin operations in 2025. The project has since struggled with a series of delays and cost hikes. The firm has now outlined three scenarios that push operations back until the end of the decade at the earliest.

The first reactor could begin operations in 2029, or, under a base case scenario that assumes delays in the electromechanical work and testing start-up, could fall back to 2030. Under a third scenario, there could be a further delay to 2031.

In a letter to staff, Stuart Crooks, managing director of Hinkley Point C, said: “Like other infrastructure projects we have found civil construction slower than we hoped and faced inflation, labour and material shortages on top of Covid and Brexit disruption.”

He added that EDF has been required to substantially adapt its reactor design to satisfy British regulations, requiring 7,000 changes that have added 35% more steel and 25% more concrete.

EDF says the delays and extra work will hike costs to between £31-35bn in 2015 values meaning under the worst case scenario the price could reach £46bn.

Hinkley Point C is key to the government’s target to almost quadruple nuclear power output from 6.5 GW today to 24 GW by 2050. To meet this goal, it published a plan earlier this month that includes building at least one other plant the size of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C that EDF is planning in Suffolk, along with suites of smaller modular and advanced nuclear reactors…………….

News of the delay prompted further criticism from nuclear opponents who argue that governments should invest in renewables instead. There are also concerns that with the Chinese junior partner in Hinkley Point C refusing to contribute any more money to the project that the UK government will be called up on to help meet the climbing costs. A government spokesperson told the Financial Times that any additional costs “will in no way fall on taxpayers”.  

Government takes larger stake in Sizewell C

Earlier this week, the UK government announced it would make an extra £1.3bn available to support EDF’s construction of Sizewell C so that construction work can continue ahead of a final investment decision being made later this year. Sizewell will use the same design as Hinkley Point C.

The government’s investment further consolidates its position as the majority shareholder in the project. Last year, it bought out the project’s Chinese state-owned partner China General Nuclear as part of efforts to limit Beijing’s involvement in critical infrastructure.

The government has now invested £2.5bn in Sizewell C and the project is being funded by a so-called regulated asset base model under which surcharges on consumer energy bills help fund the project while it’s being constructed. Last year, the government opened up a bidding process to attract external investors in a bid to raise an estimated £20bn to construct the plant.  https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/hinkley-point-c-could-go-28bn-over-budget-as-edf-predicts-further-delays/

January 29, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK government pours good money after bad, into failing Hinkley Point C nuclear boondoggle

The Stop Hinkley Campaign has reacted to the news that the cost of Hinkley
Point C has ballooned to £46bn and that the first reactor may not now be
open until 2031. Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said: “The
Government will have known for days if not weeks that this announcement was
coming – we certainly heard rumours. You would have thought it would have
provoked them into at least re-examining their nuclear roadmap.

Instead, on Monday they decided to waste another £1.3bn of taxpayers’ money on a
carbon copy of Hinkley Point C on the Suffolk Coast. Any sensible
Government would be urgently looking at the overwhelming case to provide
our power from 100% renewables.” “And it’s not just HPC’s costs
that are ballooning, the whole project is swirling around making a horrid
noise like a punctured balloon. And trying to cram 15,000 workers toe to
toe on the site to play catch up will mean H&S rules go out the window.”

 Stop Hinkley 24th Jan 2024

http://stophinkley.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Press-Release-240124.pdf

January 29, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Campaigners call on Science Minister to back citizen science with funding

Nuclear Free Local Authorities, 25 Jan 24

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have been joined by campaigners from six local groups opposed to nuclear power in calling on the Science Minister to provide funding for citizen science projects to test levels of radioactivity near to civil nuclear power plants.

The partners have used the birthday of American ornithologist Wells Cooke (25 January), considered to be the founder of modern citizen science, to make their appeal to Michelle Donelan, who is the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.

From 1881, Cooke engaged amateur birding enthusiasts in collecting information about bird migration. His program evolved into the government-run North American Bird Phenology Program supported by volunteers across the nation. More recently, even BBC television programmes, like Nature / Springwatch, have enrolled citizens in observing and reporting on wildlife in their gardens and communities.

Although citizen science has the virtue of engaging laypeople in research, making science more relevant and ‘immediate’ to the general population, for campaigners in West Cumbria sampling for radioactivity has not been a mere academic exercise for it highlighted radioactive ‘hotspots’ where exposure could be prejudicial to human health.

For almost ten years, volunteers at Radiation Free Lakeland have been taking soil and sand samples at various sites along the coast of West Cumbria from Whitehaven to Barrow-in-Furness, including beaches frequented by many tourists, and sending these to the United States for testing at a professional institute.

Due to a lack of available funding, the group could only afford to commission the institute to test for two isotopes – americium and caesium [1]. In 2018, undergraduate nuclear science students from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts compiled the results into an initial report:

‘Of the 36 samples tested 10 (28%) were found to be over the safety limit for cesium-137 and 14 (39%) were found to be over the safety limit for americium-241.’

Some of these adverse findings were from coastal sites near to St Bees and Ravenglass, which attract many seasonal tourists.

Americum-241 is highly radioactive and chemically toxic if absorbed, with deposits accumulating in the liver and bones, remaining there for twenty and fifty years respectively, or in the sexual organs, where its residence is permanent. In all these organs, americium promotes the formation of cancer cells through its radioactivity.

Caesium-137 is soluble in water and if ingested is soon uniformly distributed within the body and remains there for up to 70 days. Based on the findings of animal experiments and autopsies performed on children exposed to radiation in the Chernobyl accident, absorption can lead to the development of pancreatic cancer.

Former US nuclear industry regulator Arnie Gunderson, touring West Cumbria at the invitation of Radiation Free Lakeland, said that some of the samples were as radioactive as those found at Fukushima, where a major nuclear accident occurred in 2011.

Gunderson was in no doubt that it was only the dedication, rigour and persistence of citizen scientists that brought these findings to light:……………………………………………………….. more https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/campaigners-call-on-science-minister-to-back-citizen-science-with-funding/

January 29, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

MP wants public vote on nuclear waste disposal

Richard Madden, BBC News, 26 January 2024 more https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crg7nlwnz59o

People in part of East Yorkshire should be given a referendum on a proposal to bury nuclear waste, the area’s MP has said.

Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), a government agency, has identified South Holderness as having potential for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).

Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart said any development would need public consent.

Officials behind the scheme said on Thursday that if the community did not express support the disposal facility would not be built.

‘Toughest test’

Mr Stuart said: “Everyone is right to be concerned about the possibility of a nuclear waste facility in our area.

“They are required to get local consent and I want that to be the toughest available test, a referendum of residents in the affected area”, he said.

A working group has been formed to look at the proposal and a series of public meetings will take place.

Drop-in sessions

  • 1 February – Patrington Village Hall
  • 2 February – Withernsea, The Shores Centre
  • 8 February – Aldbrough Village Hall
  • 9 February – Easington Community Hall
  • 12 February – Burstwick Village Hall

All sessions run from 11:30 – 18:00 GMT.

Officials from NWS said the project could create thousands of jobs and investment in local infrastructure in South Holderness.

But campaigners in other areas have raised concerns about the impact on tourism, house prices and the environment, leading to protests.

The GDF would see waste stored under up to 3,280ft (1000m) underground until its radioactivity had naturally decayed.

Other proposals have been put forward in Cumbria and at Theddlethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast.

January 29, 2024 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

UK’s Ministry of Defence has continued to allow critical parts of the nuclear weapons infrastructure to rot

Dominic Cummings said amongst other things the MoD has: continued to allow
critical parts of the nuclear weapons infrastructure to rot creating
further massive secret budget nightmares as well as extremely serious
physical dangers (cf. the recent near disaster with a submarine),

UK Parliament 24th Jan 2024

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-01-24/debates/1F1CF40C-91E6-4C9B-A9BB-32A7EB43DAC4/NuclearDefenceInfrastructureParliamentaryScrutiny

January 29, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Ukraine uncovers another $40 Million in weapons fraud


SOTT, Melanie Sun, The Epoch Times, Sat, 27 Jan 2024

he war-torn nation has announced a clean-out of its weapons procurement process amid ongoing corruption.

Ukraine’s National Police and Security Service on Ukraine (SBU), alongside the country’s Ministry of Defense, announced on Saturday they have uncovered an insider network that has been charged with embezzling almost $40 million in funds marked for weapons purchases.

Five individuals who formed a suspected criminal organization have been served “notices of suspicion” — the first stage in Ukrainian legal proceedings — for “appropriation, embezzlement of property, or possession of it by abuse of official position,” the SBU said.

Four of the suspects are current or former employees of the Ministry of Defense, including the head of the Department of Military and Technical Policy, Development of Weapons and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense, and the head and commercial director of the Lviv Arsenal company.

Another suspect is an ex-official from the ministry, who has been detained while trying to leave the country at a border crossing point.

A businessman representing a foreign company, presumed to be the arms supplier, has also been charged………………………………………………………………………………

To date, the United States has provided more than $44 billion in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022. But the Pentagon has run out of funds to replenish its stocks, so most military aid to Ukraine, for the time being, has halted.

Congress is currently debating a $105 billion supplemental spending package, proposed by the Biden administration in October 2023, that packages together defense funding for Israel, Ukraine, and the U.S. southern border.

Analysts previously told The Epoch Times that Ukraine doesn’t have a viable pathway for victory without foreign arms shipments and monetary support amid the waning U.S. support, as the Pentagon spreads its resources over increasing threats to the international rules-based order in the South China Sea as well as the Middle East.

Without international arms shipments, Ukraine would most likely be forced into a brutal stalemate with Russia and, at some point, would need to cede some of its territory to its aggressor, analysts say.

Comment: It brings to mind the old saying: “A fish rots from the head down”. So perhaps they should take a closer look up to uncover their “problems”. When a country’s leadership is completely corrupt, we can’t be shocked when more corruption is found lower down the ranks.

See also:

January 29, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Growing mountain of wasted money is a radioactive prospect

Alistair Osborne: Growing mountain of wasted money is a radioactive
prospect. Rishi Sunak’s apparent determination to press ahead with
mammoth investment in new nuclear reactors, whatever the cost, might not
prove to be the best solution.

It’s only a week since he set off — again — with his uncosted “nuclear road map”: a plan to have 24 gigawatts of new reactors by 2050, or seven more Hinkley Point Cs. On
Monday, the government sank another £1.3 billion into Sizewell C, so it
could “steam ahead” with that project, too, as Andrew Bowie, the
minister for nukes, put it.

Listen to him and investors are queueing up. So
what better news to encourage them than this jaw-dropper from EDF, the
state-backed French outfit behind both schemes? Hinkley Point’s costs
have shot up by as much as £10 billion to a top-end £35 billion, in 2015
prices.

And, instead of firing up in 2027, the first of the Somerset
nuke’s twin reactors could in an “unfavourable scenario” (the likely
outcome) be delayed until 2031. This is what comes with Hinkley’s
European pressurised reactor tech, as EDF has also proved at France’s
Flamanville, Finland’s Olkiluoto and China’s Taishan.

Indeed, two years after the Chinese nuke became operational, one unit had to be taken offline for a year’s repairs. So why is the government hellbent on a re-run with
Sizewell in Suffolk? Alison Downes from the Stop Sizewell C campaign is no
neutral voice. But she’s right to say the project “epitomises the
definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a
different result”. With Sizewell, though, things would be far pricier.
Under the contracts-for-difference regime, EDF is on the hook for
Hinkley’s costs. Repeat the trick at Sizewell and, under the new
regulated asset base model, consumers would find £10 billion added to
their bills — before the nuke’s even operational.

 Times 25th Jan 2024

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/24osborne-hzs6r76nf

January 28, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Don’t be surprised if the UK tax-payer, not France, ends up paying the astronomic costs of Hinkley C nuclear power station .

Should we be bothered that Hinkley C nuclear power station has run even further over
budget (the latest estimate is £35 billion, nearly twice that quoted when
the project was given the go-ahead in 2016) and that its completion date
has been put back yet further, to 2031?

After all, the whole point of offering French energy giant EDF a guaranteed ‘strike price’ at the then juicy rate of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (at 2013 prices, rising with
inflation) was supposed to be to transfer financial risk to EDF and its
financial backers. ‘It is important to say that British consumers won’t
pay a penny, with the increased costs met entirely by shareholders,’ EDF’s
managing director of the Hinkley project state this morning.

I wouldn’t be so confident. Yet more delays to Hinkley C punch a huge hole in the
government’s net zero plans, which include the full decarbonisation of the
national grid by 2035 (Labour says it will do it by 2030). By 2028, all but
one of the UK’s existing five nuclear power stations are due to close – and
the other one, Sizewell B, is due to be gone by 2035. From generating
nearly a third of the UK’s power at its peak in 1998 the nuclear industry
could be down to virtually nothing by the time Hinkley C eventually opens.


No-one should be surprised if, before we get to 2031, EDF goes cap in hand
to the government, and the government offers it some kind of deal which
transfers risk back onto the taxpayer.

Spectator 24th Jan 2024

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hinkley-c-and-the-rising-cost-of-net-zero/

January 28, 2024 Posted by | politics international, UK | Leave a comment

The War On Journalism In Belmarsh, The War On Journalism In Gaza

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JAN 26, 2024,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-war-on-journalism-in-belmarsh?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=141058691&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email—

I haven’t written much about Julian Assange lately because I’ve been so fixated on what’s been happening in Gaza, but we should all be acutely aware that the 20th and 21st of February may be the WikiLeaks founder’s final chance to avoid extradition to the United States to face persecution for the crime of good journalism. 

Assange and his legal team will face two High Court judges during the two-day hearing in London, who will then determine whether or not the UK will allow the Australian journalist to be dragged to the US in chains for a crooked show trial and cast into one of the world’s most draconian prison systems for exposing the war crimes of the world’s most powerful government. 

Some US lawmakers are attempting to block the extradition from the other end with House Resolution 934, which asserts that “regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.” If charges were dropped it would not only prevent the extradition but allow for Assange to be freed from the Belmarsh maximum security prison, where he has been jailed by the British government since 2019.

The fight to free Assange is a fight to protect press freedoms around the world, since the US is using the case in an attempt to set a legal precedent for extraditing and imprisoning any journalist or publisher anywhere in the world who shares information with the public that the US doesn’t want shared. 

And it’s worth mentioning that this fight is not actually separate from the fight against Israel’s efforts to keep journalism out of Gaza by assassinating reporters and blocking the press from entering the enclave. It’s also not separate from humanity’s overall struggle to build a truth-based civilization, nor ultimately from our greater struggle to become a conscious species.

All throughout humanity there are pushes toward truth and seeing and pushes toward secrecy and darkness. In the press we see both: the authentic journalists like Assange who want all that is hidden to be made transparent, and the propagandists of the mainstream media who work to obfuscate and distort the truth. Those who seek the emergence of a harmonious and truth-based society want as much visibility into what’s really happening as possible, while tyrannical power structures like the US empire and Israel are constantly working to dim the lights.

Wherever you see domination and abuse, you see efforts to limit perception and keep human minds from seeing and understanding what’s going on. It’s true of empires, it’s true of governments, it’s true of cult leaders, it’s true of abusive spouses, and it’s true of the unpleasant dynamics within our own psyches that we would rather not look at. The less seeing there is, the more abusiveness is possible; the more seen things become, the closer we get to freedom.

I’m no prophet, but I strongly suspect that our future as a species will be determined by the outcome of this struggle. If the impulse toward truth and seeing wins out, we are probably headed toward a world of health and harmony. If the impulse to keep everything confused and hidden and unconscious wins, we are probably headed for dystopia and extinction.

In any case, all we can do is fight to make things more visible so that health and harmony become possible. Fight to make things conscious within ourselves. Fight to keep journalism legal in the shadow of the empire. Fight to spotlight Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Fight to make the unseen seen. Fight to bring humanity into the light of consciousness.

January 28, 2024 Posted by | Legal, media, UK | Leave a comment

More time needed for safety statement on Finland’s planned used fuel repository: no safety case has been made

COMMENT: The story below, from a pro-nuclear source, puts the best possible spin they can muster on the delays in the review of the Finnish nuclear waste burial proponent’s application for a deep geololgical repository for nuclear fuel waste. Here’s the straight story: the review period is being extended for another year (for now) because the regulator is waiting for missing information from the proponent, Posiva. No safety case has been made. 

In comparison, the application by the Swedish proponent SKB was submitted in 2011, there have been repeated delays and extensions while the regulator waited for additional information, and while the Swedish government issued a political approval last year the Land and Environment Court has not issued the necessary approval.

23 January 2024,  https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsmore-time-needed-for-safety-statement-on-finlands-planned-used-fuel-repository-11456534

Finland’s Radiation & Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK – Säteilyturvakeskus) in its monitoring report from the last third of 2023 indicates that Posiva Oy, which is responsible for the final disposal of used nuclear fuel, is progressing without major problems, but at a slightly slower pace than was previously anticipated. Posiva is constructing the world’s first final used nuclear fuel disposal facility in Olkiluoto in Eurajoki. However, before it can start the operation of the facility it needs a permit from the Government. The permit decision requires a statement from STUK.

The Ministry of Labour & Business (TEM Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö) had requested STUK’s opinion by the end of 2023 but, as the processing of the licence application data is still ongoing at STUK has requested additional time from TEM for issuing the statement until the end of 2024.

STUK says in its third-year report that the material to be inspected for the safety assessment for the operating licence is very large. Furthermore, STUK has not always been able to make its assessments based on the materials first submitted by Posiva and has required updates. Therefore, the processing of the material has taken longer than expected.

Posiva, owned by Teollisuuden Voima Oyj’s Olkiluoto NPP and Fortum Power & Heat Oy’s Loviisa NPP, applied for a construction licence application to TEM in December 2013. Posiva investigated the rock at Olkiluoto and based its licence application on results from the Onkalo underground laboratory, which will be expanded to form the basis of the repository. The government granted a construction licence in November 2015 and work began in December 2016. The site for the repository was selected in 2000 and parliament approved the decision-in-principle for the project in 2001.

Posiva has been preparing for the disposal of used nuclear fuel for more than 40 years. Its encapsulation plant is located above ground, and the fuel repository of the underground disposal facility is located in the bedrock at a depth of approximately 400-430 metres. Once it receives the operating licence, Posiva can start the final disposal of used fuel generated by the two NPPs, which were hoping to use the facility between 2024 and 2070. The facility will operate for about 100 years.

By the end of 2023, STUK had not only prepared a safety assessment, but also continued to supervise Posiva and its work. The matters to be monitored include the installation of equipment in the encapsulation plant, test runs and test run plans, as well as the ongoing rock construction work in the underground final disposal locations. It is also monitoring and inspecting the security arrangements of Posiva’s final disposal facility, the safety culture of the organisation and Posiva’s readiness to start final disposal operations.

January 28, 2024 Posted by | Finland, safety | Leave a comment

Brexit blamed for delays to nuclear power project

EDF’s former CEO had pledged christmas turkeys would be cooked by the plant by 20172

i By Ben Gartside, 24 Jan 24

The UK’s premier nuclear power project could be delayed by another four years as costs continue to balloon, with Brexit cited as a major factor………………According to EDF, the French firm in charge of developing the site, issues on the project had been caused by Brexit, the Pandemic and inflation…………………………………………………….

How has Brexit affected construction costs?

Developers have been hit hard by both the Covid pandemic and soaring energy prices. Tim Heatley, co-founder of Manchester-based Capital&Centricm, said Brexit had also been a “major factor”.

He previously told i: “On the surface there doesn’t seem as much jeopardy in construction as car manufacturing – you can’t outsource building new homes to Asia.

“But, I’d argue, we’re facing even bigger economic consequences if we don’t get things under control.”

“Both construction material and labour costs have rocketed here way more than EU countries, so Brexit must be a major factor.”

A report published in 2023 found that between 2015 and 2022 the cost of construction materials including cement, timber and steel increased by 60 per cent in the UK compared to 35 per cent in the EU……………………..  https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit-blamed-delays-nuclear-power-lower-energy-bills-2871548—

January 28, 2024 Posted by | politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Plan to store nuclear waste under Holderness for 175 years

Nuclear waste from across the UK could be stored below an area of East Yorkshire for up to 175 years.

Government agency Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) announced proposals today to build a storage facility beneath South Holderness.

A group has been set up to examine the proposals, but the agency’s chief executive Corhyn Parr said the scheme would only go ahead with residents’ approval.

She said: “This is a consent-based process, meaning if the community does not express support… it won’t be built there.”

Ms Parr added that the new geological disposal facility would bring benefits to the area, including thousands of jobs and transport improvements.

Two similar working groups are already established in Cumbria and at Theddlethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast.

Dr David Richards, independent chair of the South Holderness working group, said the aim was to work with local communities to discuss the potential of a series of vaults and tunnels being built deep underground, or under the sea, where the material would be buried.

He added: “My role as chair is to make sure local communities have access to information and to understand what people think.”…………………………

Graham Stuart, the MP for Beverley and Holderness, said that he will be meeting with Dr David Richards to discuss the plans.

He wrote on Facebook: “I’ll be asking for a copper bottomed guarantee that nothing would happen without public consent…………………………. https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2024-01-25/plan-to-store-nuclear-waste-under-east-yorkshire-for-175-years

January 28, 2024 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

EDF a total basket case, weighed down by its 50 Billion pound nuclear turkey at Hinkley point

Jonathon Porritt,   https://www.jonathonporritt.com/edf-a-total-basket-case-weighed-down-by-its-50-billion-nuclear-turkey-at-hinkley-point/ 25 Jan 24

EdF’s bosses must be thanking their lucky stars that President Macron decided to take complete control of EdF back in 2022. Otherwise, its latest announcements about further delays and cost increases for its new reactors at Hinkley Point would have sent any remaining investors running for the hills.

The scale of those announcements is staggering:

  • The price tag for Hinkley Point C has now been reset at £31-34 billion (in 2015 prices), twice the original £18 billion.
  • In today’s money, that’s around £46 billion – with further delays and cost hikes (rising to at least £50 billion) all but inevitable.
  • EdF’s shortfall in completing Hinkley Point has risen substantially, and could now be as high as £25 billion on its balance sheet.
  • EdF has admitted that 2029 is now the earliest Hinkley Point will come online. Fat chance of that.

Which makes Hinkley Point C even more of a bust than EdF’s current worst reactor construction nightmare at Flamanville in France. And significantly worse than its plant at Olkiluoto in Finland, which it just managed to get over the line last year.

So, watch out for the fallout.

Hinkley Point C was meant to be coming online in 2027. All neutral commentators now reckon 2031 (EdF’s so-called ”unfavourable scenario”) is the earliest that will happen. That’s a further four-year delay before its low-carbon electrons (providing 7% of the UK’s electricity) will be available to help the UK meet its various decarbonisation targets.

Add to that the knock-on impact of this on the Government’s/Labour’s hopes for a Hinkley Point look-alike (really!) at Sizewell C. The sales pitch to investors for that has now become even trickier than it was before: “Just look at this beautiful £50 billion turkey: another one just like it could be all yours at a bargain-basement price of, say, £40 billion”.

Which leads to the following conclusions:


  1. EdF is even more screwed than it was before, deeper in debt, with further delays for rolling out its look-alike plant at Sizewell C now inevitable.
  2. The Tory Government is screwed, with no chance of Hinkley Point C (let alone Sizewell C) making any serious short-term contribution to its decarbonisation strategy.
  3. Labour is screwed – for exactly the same reasons.
  4. The UK’s Net Zero strategy by 2050 looks less and less viable. And that will soon be tested, again, in the courts.
  5. All this because of the nuclear obsessions of the UK’s entire political establishment – Labour just as much as the Tories.

Happily, there’s no need to panic: the case for the “renewables + efficiency + storage + smart grids” option just got a whole lot stronger, both economically and politically. We just need the donkeys in Whitehall to give up on their nuclear turkeys. Finally!

January 27, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

The Post Office Scandal, Nuclear Waste and The Bransty Tunnel – Off Limits for Nuclear Luvvies at Britain Remade?

 https://www.lakesagainstnucleardump.com/post/the-post-office-scandal-nuclear-waste-and-the-bransty-tunnel-off-limits-for-nuclear-luvvies-at-br?fbclid=IwAR1KpP9iidhPdh6hyL3dhFAkUvOaXSla84RLykZttBRu4lOlokQIVRUjOvc 24 Jan 24

Trudy Harrison MP and wannabe MP Josh MacAlister have joined forces under the banner of “Britain Remade”. Their dream of building a nuclear prefab “faster” and “cheaper” next to the worlds biggest stockpile of plutonium is within our grasp they breathlessly tell us. “There could be new nuclear power in Cumbria, delivering jobs for the region, and clean energy for the whole country”.

Hot and dangerous Nuclear wastes from their “clean energy” trundles through the Bransty Rail Tunnel under the town of Whitehaven EVERY week enroute to the Sellafield site already bursting at the seams with radioactive crapola. The Bransty Rail Tunnel has served Network Rail and the nuclear industry well. It is a fine piece of old Victorian engineering which extends for a full 1km directly under homes and businesses in Whitehaven. Only recently it has become unstable. Network Rail are rather worried about the impacts of reactivated old mine water water bubbling up into the tunnel and even putting pressure on the sides of the tunnel (as we can see from Network Rail’s own video taken recently).

Rather than gushing about building untried untested nuclear prefabs (euphemistically called “Small Modular Reactors” actually pretty large at half the size of Calder Hall reactors), the MP and wannabe MP should be putting EVERY EFFORT into protecting the safety of the folk of Whitehaven by CLOSING THIS TUNNEL certainly to Nuclear Waste Transports and possibly to passenger and other freight trains. Ceasing nuclear waste production in Scotland and the North wouldn’t make a huge difference to electricity as nuclear’s contribution to the UKs electrcity capacity has been minimal according to National Grid with wind producing many times more capacity in the recent cold weather.

The most urgent question for Whitehaven is:

Why is heavily polluted mine water is still gushing into the nuclear waste route of the Bransty Tunnel over one year on and into Queens Dock, Whitehaven and what are Trudy Harrison MP and Josh MacAlister wannabe MP doing to address this?

Another equally urgent and topical question given the Post Office scandal is:

Are the MP and prospective MP happy that all nuclear waste consignments including those travelling a few times a week through the Bransty Tunnel are monitored and tracked by the same company, Fujitsu, responsible for the Post Office scandal. Fujitsu’s “Accountancy and Tracking Of Material” ATOM was contracted by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 2001. “Fujitsu chose a combination of Microsoft and Oracle systems with web portal technology to make this possible, i.e. to successfully design and implement a package to process, update and report on nuclear and radioactive materials throughout the supply chain.” As Dik Third of UKAEA says, “We believe that there is no other system in the world capable of dealing with such complexity and breadth of plant operations and regulatory accounting requirements.” Does Whitehaven feel lucky? Britain is being Remade into what? A Nuclear Sacrifice Zone?

January 27, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

US plans to store nuclear weapons in UK: report

Examiner  January 27 2024 –

The US is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid a growing threat from Russia, according to a report.

Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, The Telegraph reported.

The US previously placed nuclear missiles at RAF Lakenheath, removing them in 2008 when the Cold War threat from Moscow had receded.

Pentagon documents seen by the UK newspaper reveal procurement contracts for a new facility at the airbase.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “It remains a longstanding UK and NATO policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.”

………………………….. Downing Street defended the government’s spending on defence, saying Britain has been Washington’s “partner of choice” in its strikes against Houthi rebels in the Red Sea because of its “military strength”.  https://www.examiner.com.au/story/8500518/us-plans-to-store-nuclear-weapons-in-uk-report/—

January 27, 2024 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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