World’s Largest Fusion Project Is in Big Trouble, New Documents Reveal
The ITER project formally began in 2006, when its international partners agreed to fund an estimated €5 billion (then $6.3 billion), 10-year plan that would have seen ITER come online in 2016. The most recent official cost estimate stands at more than €20 billion ($22 billion), with ITER nominally turning on scarcely two years from now. Documents recently obtained via a lawsuit, however, imply that these figures are woefully outdated: ITER is not just facing several years’ worth of additional delays but also a growing internal recognition that the project’s remaining technical challenges are poised to send budgets spiraling even further out of control and successful operation ever further into the future.
With each passing decade, this record-breaking monument to big international science looks less and less like a cathedral—and more like a mausoleum.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is already billions of dollars over budget and decades behind schedule. Not even its leaders can say how much more money and time it will take to complete
By Charles Seife on June 15, 2023. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-fusion-project-is-in-big-trouble-new-documents-reveal/?fbclid=IwAR3siLk4iSD43-SE6sBStfYeTIl9YNeZ5QcLz27JgQwMd85DcYV7kUmciw8
It could be a new world record, although no one involved wants to talk about it. In the south of France, a collaboration among 35 countries has been birthing one of the largest and most ambitious scientific experiments ever conceived: the giant fusion power machine known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
But the only record ITER seems certain to set doesn’t involve “burning” plasma at temperatures 10 times higher than that of the sun’s core, keeping this “artificial star” ablaze and generating net energy for seconds at a time or any of fusion energy’s other spectacular and myriad prerequisites. Instead ITER is on the verge of a record-setting disaster as accumulated schedule slips and budget overruns threaten to make it the most delayed—and most cost-inflated—science project in history.
ITER is supposed to help humanity achieve the dream of a world powered not by fossil fuels but by fusion energy, the same process that makes the stars shine. Conceived in the mid-1980s, the machine, when completed, will essentially be a giant, high-tech, doughnut-shaped vessel—known as a tokamak—that will contain hydrogen raised to such high temperatures that it will become ionized, forming a plasma rather than a gas. Powerful magnetic and electric fields flowing from and through the tokamak will girdle and heat the plasma cloud so that the atoms inside will collide and fuse together, releasing immense amounts of energy. But this feat is easier said than done.
Since the 1950s fusion machines have grown bigger and more powerful, but none has ever gotten anywhere near what would be needed to put this panacea energy source on the electric grid. ITER is the biggest, most powerful fusion device ever devised, and its designers have intended it to be the machine that will finally show that fusion power plants can really be built.
The ITER project formally began in 2006, when its international partners agreed to fund an estimated €5 billion (then $6.3 billion), 10-year plan that would have seen ITER come online in 2016. The most recent official cost estimate stands at more than €20 billion ($22 billion), with ITER nominally turning on scarcely two years from now. Documents recently obtained via a lawsuit, however, imply that these figures are woefully outdated: ITER is not just facing several years’ worth of additional delays but also a growing internal recognition that the project’s remaining technical challenges are poised to send budgets spiraling even further out of control and successful operation ever further into the future.
The documents, drafted a year ago for a private meeting of the ITER Council, ITER’s governing body, show that at the time, the project was bracing for a three-year delay—a doubling of internal estimates prepared just six months earlier. And in the year since those documents were written, the already grim news out of ITER has unfortunately only gotten worse. Yet no one within the ITER Organization has been able to provide estimates of the additional delays, much less the extra expenses expected to result from them. Nor has anyone at the U.S. Department of Energy, which is in charge of the nation’s contributions to ITER, been able to do so. When contacted for this story, DOE officials did not respond to any questions by the time of publication.
The problems leading to these latest projected delays were several years in the making. The ITER Organization was extremely slow to let on that anything was wrong, however. As late as early July 2022, ITER’s website announced that the machine was expected to turn on as scheduled in December 2025. Afterward that date bore an asterisk clarifying that it would be revised. Now the date has disappeared from the website altogether. ITER leaders seldom let slip that anything was awry either. In February 2017 ITER’s then director general, the late Bernard Bigot, discussed its progress with DOE representatives. “ITER is really moving forward,” he said. “We are working day and night…. The progress is on schedule.” The timeline he presented implied that everything was on track. Construction of the ITER complex’s foundation, which incorporates an earthquake protection system with hundreds of tremor-dampening rubber- and metal-laminated plates, should have been almost complete. From there, assembly of the reactor itself was planned to begin in 2018. At the time of Bigot’s remarks, two of its major pieces—a massive magnetic coil to wrap around the doughnutlike tokamak and a large section of the vacuum vessel that makes up the tokamak’s walls—were supposed to be ready to ship within the month and by the end of the year, respectively. Instead the coil would take almost three more years to complete, as would the vessel sector. The pieces were completed in January and April 2020, respectively. In fact, a large proportion of the big components of the machine were behind schedule by a year or two years or even more. Soon ITER’s official start of assembly was bumped from 2018 to 2020.
Then, in early 2020, the COVID pandemic struck, slowing manufacturing and shipping of machine components.
Continue readingHumza Yousaf vows to rid independent Scotland of nuclear weapons
First Minister wants to enshrine a nuclear-free Scotland in a post-independence constitution.
Mark Macaskill19 , Telegraph, June 2023
The removal of nuclear weapons from Scottish soil will be enshrined in a post-independence constitution, Humza Yousaf, the first minister, has said.
The plan is contained in the SNP’s latest blueprint to help the country meet future challenges in the event that the union is dismantled.
The nuclear pledge revives a call made almost a decade ago by Mr Yousaf’s predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, who questioned why Scottish taxpayers were funding “one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons in Europe on our doorsteps”…………………..
“What we will not see under these proposals, are nuclear weapons on the Clyde. This proposed constitution would ban nuclear weapons from an Independent Scotland.”
The drafting of a new constitution is outlined in a new strategy paper, Building a New Scotland………………………………………
In 2014, Ms Sturgeon, who at the time was deputy first minister, said that embedding a legal obligation to work for nuclear disarmament in a Scottish constitution would place a duty on Holyrood to strive for the removal of submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons.
In 2021, the Ministry of Defence reversed a 10-year-old disarmament plan by announcing the “ceiling” on the UK’s nuclear weapons stockpile would increase from 225 to 260 because of “technological and doctrinal threats”.
The same year, Nukewatch, which monitors the transport of nuclear weapons, claimed that the UK government had quietly boosted the number of Trident nuclear warheads stored on the Clyde in the previous five years. It estimated that 37 new warheads were delivered from England to Scotland between 2015 and 2020. Nine were added in 2019 and 13 in 2020. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/19/humza-yousaf-vows-to-rid-scotland-of-nuclear-weapons/
Royal Navy struggles to attract recruits for nuclear-armed subs
https://cnduk.org/royal-navy-struggles-to-attract-recruits-for-nuclear-armed-subs/ 20 June 23
The head of the Royal Navy has called for the service to “get bigger” as it struggles to attract new recruits for its vessels and nuclear-armed submarines.
Speaking to parliamentary magazine The House, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key said the Navy he joined over thirty years ago was 75,000 people. This has now dropped to about 36,000. “We are effectively in a war for talent in this country – there is no great secret in that,” Kay said noting that workplace expectations across generations have changed in recent years.
The lack of communication while submariners are at sea was raised as one of the concerns, with the desire for “permanent connectivity” with friends and family not possible while on patrol.
Another reason, according to Kay, was the lack of engagement with the nuclear question. “I think it is fair [to say] that this country is not very good about talking about…nuclear power as opposed to nuclear weapons,” he said, referring to the perceived significance of being a nuclear-armed ‘power’.
The Navy hopes to improve recruitment with a new drive to better explain what life on a submarine is like. The service is also looking at expand beyond its traditional base audience of those who come from Navy families, and showcase the variety of roles the Navy can offer such as accountants and doctors.
Kay’s comments comes as Britain’s nuclear-armed submarine crews are spending record amounts of time at sea, prompting concerns over the psychological pressure on crews spending up to five months at sea.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:
“Admiral Kay rightly points out the list of difficulties that life on a nuclear-armed submarine poses for potential recruits. Extended periods of time at sea out of contact with friends and family comes with serious psychological pressures, but so does the responsibility of carrying weapons that can kill millions of people. Scrapping the Navy’s nuclear-armed subs would go towards easing the the service’s recruitment problems and free up billions of pounds for other uses.”
Building nuclear plant would increase costs in the need for guards, police and rescue workers
If a nuclear power plant is to be constructed in Estonia, this would lead to an increased need for rescue workers and police officers, according to an analysis by the Ministry of the Interior on nuclear security and emergency preparedness. This is in addition to the specialists, who would be required to ensure all the necessary procedures are in place to safeguard against any potential risks involved.
Earlier this year, a sub-group on nuclear security and emergency preparedness was established under the Ministry of the Interior. The sub-group’s aim is to prepare an analysis and provide an expert assessment of the situation related nuclear security and emergency preparedness for the final Estonian national nuclear energy report.
Estonian Minister of the Interior Lauri Läänemets (SDE) said, that by the end of the year, the report would make it clear what the cost of a nuclear power plant would be for the country.
“In light of this expert assessment, it has to be said that, given the situation with the state budget, finding the money to build a nuclear power plant seems questionable, to say the least,” said Läänemets.
According to Läänemets, the one-off investment needed to build a nuclear power plant would be just shy of €100 million, with millions of additional euros needed each year to cover maintenance costs.
The minister noted, that unless Estonia’s population protection plans are developed, building a nuclear power plant will not be possible.
The issue of human resources would also become increasingly important. “We need experts and nuclear scientists. We need more police officers and Internal Security Service (Kaitsepolitsei) officers. We need to upgrade the rescue teams, and we need to be able to offer them salaries to match. Building a nuclear power station means hiring more staff within the Ministry of the Interior. A lot of money will also be needed when it comes to internal security,” Läänemets said.
Viola Murd, secretary general for rescue and crisis at the Ministry of the Interior, said that Estonia currently does have an emergency plan in case an accident involving nuclear power plant occurs in a neighboring country.
Murd explained, that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has regulated practically everything in advance. Therefore, it would be up to Estonia to abide by these rules and regulations. “As far as security risk management and accident prevention are concerned, the Ministry of the Interior’s would not be able to cope with the tasks foreseen today. Above all, these concern human resources and competences, which the agency cannot provide us with. We would need to create them ourselves and that takes time,” Murd said.
“The construction of a nuclear power plant will require the development of top specialists and experts but also staff throughout the program more broadly. This would include the need to ensure security by conducting background checks, the number of which will increase significantly as the program progresses,” added Murd.
There will also be a need to establish an independent national body with the power to assess license applications and make decisions on safety and security issues.
Ministry of the Interior advisor Aigo Allmäe said, that when it comes to security, Estonia’s main responsibility is to protect nuclear material from theft and sabotage. “We have to provide physical protection and control over the material. Physical protection means surveillance and control. The security of personnel also has to be guaranteed,” Allmäe said.
Allmäe stressed, that there are a number of safety aspects that must be considered when designing and constructing a nuclear power plant in order to minimize any potential risk of an accident taking place.
—
NATO arsenals ‘empty’ – Stoltenberg
Continued support for Ukraine will require more industrial production, the military bloc’s chief has said.
https://www.rt.com/news/578307-nato-stoltenberg-arsenals-empty/ 19 June 23
NATO needs a “more robust” industry in order to refill the stocks of weaponry and ammunition emptied by a year of supplying Kiev, the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, at an industrial conference in Germany.
The US-led military bloc “must continue to support Ukraine” as it has done since 2014, Stoltenberg insisted at the Day of Industry in Berlin, hosted by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
“We also need a more robust defense industry,” the secretary general argued. “Our weapons and ammunition stocks are depleted and need to be replenished. Not just in Germany, but in many countries across NATO.”
He added that he met with representatives of the military industry last week and discussed how best to ramp up production and streamline supply chains, adding that this was “key to sustain our support for Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg also repeated his argument that only a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield can result in a just and lasting peace. Kiev’s forces had attempted a large-scale offensive on the southern front over the past week, with heavy losses in manpower, as well as in weaponry provided by the West.
The US and its allies have sent over $100 billion worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Kiev in the last year, after the conflict escalated. They insist this does not actually make them a party to the hostilities with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the West of direct involvement, not just with the weapons deliveries but also by training Ukrainian troops in the UK, Germany, Italy and elsewhere.
Kiev has complained that a lot of the weapons coming in are in such poor condition they have to be cannibalized for parts. At least a third of Ukraine’s military potential is undergoing repairs at any given time, according to the New York Times.
Central Europe’s nuclear plans – fraught with problems
CENTRAL EUROPE’S NUCLEAR PLANS: HOT STUFF
Claudia Ciobanu, Edit Inotai, Tim Gosling and Nicholas Watson, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, BIRN. June 20, 2023 https://balkaninsight.com/2023/06/20/central-europes-nuclear-plans-hot-stuff/
Since the war in Ukraine, CEE countries have stepped up efforts to build more nuclear power plants and reduce nuclear supply chain dependency on Russia’s Rosatom. Yet the disposal of waste remains an issue and could impact financing of new reactors.
Central Europe has put nuclear power at the forefront of efforts to quit Russian oil and gas and decarbonise economies, yet breaking the region’s dependency on Russia’s giant nuclear holding company Rosatom – for fuel, financing and waste disposal – promises to complicate those efforts.
The region’s reliance on Rosatom is historic. Until last year, all 14 reactors operating in Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia were built by Russia (Slovakia’s third reactor at Mochovce, of Soviet design but not built by Rosatom, started up this year). Furthermore, Rosatom is building two more reactors in Hungary.
That latter project, thrown into some disarray by the war in Ukraine, epitomises this longstanding dependency. Rosatom dominates the global nuclear industry because of its ability to act as a “one-stop nuclear shop”, which is attractive to countries because it can finance the plant; build the plant; provide training, support and maintenance for the plant; dispose of the nuclear waste produced at the plant; and finally decommission the plant.
While Europe is taking steps to reduce its 30 per cent reliance on Russian nuclear fuel – Czech energy company CEZ has signed contracts with US-based Westinghouse Electric Company and French company Framatome – waste disposal will be a much harder nut to crack.
Nuclear energy produces mainly low-level radioactive waste, while high-level radioactive waste, which includes the hot spent fuel, accounts for about 1 per cent of total nuclear waste. Most of this spent fuel – over 60,000 tonnes stored across Europe – is kept in cooling pools located within or near the plants that generated it.
Last year’s EU taxonomy of what it considers green energy makes having existing disposal facilities for low-level waste and a detailed plan to have in operation by 2050 a disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste strict requirements for any new nuclear energy projects to qualify as sustainable investments – a definition needed to keep down the huge financing costs of new reactors. In addition, the technical screening criteria for nuclear energy prohibit the export of radioactive waste for disposal in third countries.
While there are many existing disposal facilities for low-level waste dotted around Europe, Finland is the only country currently constructing a permanent disposal facility for used fuel, the deep geological repository (DGR) under construction at Olkiluoto, which is scheduled to be operational around 2025.
From Rosatom with love
Hungary is pretty much stuck with Rosatom, most experts in Hungary believe. They tend to praise the technology and cooperation provided by Russia, though most are aware that political realities have significantly changed since the war in Ukraine. Yet restructuring the current Paks 1 power plant (four VVER440 reactors) and replacing Rosatom as the main contractor for Paks 2 (two VVER1200 reactors) is regarded as a non-starter by most industry experts. If the EU slaps sanctions on Russia’s nuclear industry, a move currently being debated, it would cause major difficulties for Hungary.
Rosatom is Hungary’s sole provider of nuclear fuel, which since the war in Ukraine began has had to be airfreighted to Hungary across Belarusian and Polish airspace. “The fact is that Russian nuclear fuel is both technologically and economically excellent,” Tamas Pazmandi, head of the Radiation Protection Department of the Centre for Energy Research, tells BIRN.
Pazmandi admits that diversification of the nuclear supply chain is probably necessary, but warns it will take longer than many might hope or expect. “Replacing Rosatom with another supplier would require years, due to the complicated process of development, production and licensing. In a best-case scenario, it would be possible around 2026-2027,” he explains.
Others point out that currently no alternative fuel is even available for the VVER440-type reactors, dismissing speculation that Westinghouse or Framatome could offer an immediate alternative to Rosatom.
Even for the Paks 2 project, where construction work has not started, a switch to a different company would mean starting again from scratch. “If you want to buy a Mercedes, you don’t ask Volvo to manufacture it – it is an entirely different car,” Pazmandi says by way of example. “It is the same with nuclear power plants. This is a Russian-designed plant, with all its licenses. On the supplier level there are possibilities for diversification, but the main design and the main contractor cannot be replaced or you will have a completely different project.”
Government-close experts like Otto Toldi from the Climate Research Institute have argued that Rosatom holds another unique advantage: it takes care of the nuclear waste, which none of its rivals can do. Yet this, it turns out, is not actually true: although the original contract between Hungary and the Soviet Union in the 1980s included a paragraph about the repatriation of nuclear waste, that ceased in the mid-1990s on Russia’s request. When Hungary joined the EU in 2004, it came under Euratom regulations, which basically forbids the export of nuclear waste. Spent fuel is now stored for five years in a cooling pond on-site, and then put in a dry storage facility. Last year, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts reported that, “Hungary is moving ahead in the development of a deep geological disposal facility for high level waste.”
Media friendly to the government, however, have been speculating that Rosatom could offer in the case of the Paks 2 project to take back some of the spent fuel and recycle it. Remix technology, which was tested in the Balakovo nuclear power plant in southwest Russia, is based on extracting uranium and plutonium from spent fuel and converting it into new fuel rods. The recycled fuel rods could then be used for nuclear fuel, with the remaining waste sent back to Hungary. Western companies can offer similar technology, called MOX fuel (mixed oxide fuel, consisting of plutonium blended with uranium), with France being one of the pioneers in Europe.
Hungary’s only real alternative to Russian-built reactors would be small modular reactors, or SMRs. Though touted as the future of nuclear energy, the technology is still in its infancy: there are only three SMRs operational in the world – in Russia, China and India – with three under construction and another 65 in design. Hungarian Energy Minister Csaba Lantos said recently SMRs are a viable option for the future.
“In an ideal situation, one-third of Hungary’s electricity demand would be covered by a regular nuclear power plant, one-third by SMRs and one-third by renewables,” Pazmandi says.
Czech nuclear problem: Where to store toxic waste?
Prague wants to accelerate plans to store nuclear waste underground, but is running into strong local resistance.
Politico, BY TIM GOSLING, JUNE 16, 2023
PRAGUE — The Czech Republic is betting big on nuclear as part of a shift away from polluting fossil fuels. But it’s struggling to find the answer to a key question: Where will it dump all of that radioactive waste?
The government’s new long-term energy strategy involves adding up to four new reactors to the six aging units that currently provide around 35 percent of the country’s electricity. The government hopes to finalize a tender for the first in 2024.
“It is vital” for the Czech Republic “or any country expanding its nuclear fleet, to have a comprehensive strategy for managing the radioactive waste,” said Miluš Trefancová, a spokesperson at the ministry of industry and trade.
Spent fuel from its existing reactors is currently stored at the country’s two nuclear power plants, Dukovany and Temelín. But with the country building out its nuclear fleet, it will need to find a new solution.
Prague is now racing to speed up highly ambitious, decades-old plan to build a deep geological repository that would see the high-level detritus buried half a kilometer underground for the next 100,000 years. Finland hopes to launch the world’s first such facility in the next year or two.
Time is running out for the Czechs, though, with new EU rules on what counts as a sustainable investment demanding that new nuclear projects secure a building permit by 2045 and file detailed plans for storing high-level radioactive waste by 2050 in order to qualify for a green label.
Those deadlines have focused minds in Prague, which lobbied hard alongside like-minded EU countries to have nuclear technology included in the EU’s list of sustainable investments.
The Czech government is already struggling to find a financing model to build new nuclear units, the first of which is widely expected to cost significantly more than the original estimate of €6 billion. A failure to qualify such projects as sustainable investments under the EU rules would make them unfeasible.
Building a deep geological repository is “an essential component” of the country’s energy strategy, said Trefancová. Plans are in place “to accelerate the preparation by 15 years,” she added.
Prague vs. the NIMBYs
Selecting a site has proved to be a major headache. Not only do countless geological, hydrological and other tests need to be undertaken, but the government has run into strong resistance from locals, who are wary of hosting the waste facility.
If the technical evaluation process was the only issue, plans could easily be sped up, but the social dimension is trickier, said Lukáš Vondrovic, head of the state’s Administration of Radioactive Waste Repositories.
The government is now favoring locations close to existing nuclear power plants in the hope that local resistance there will be lower. But the four municipalities shortlisted in 2020 are also putting up a fight, accusing the government of poor planning and a lack of communication. They also say their concerns about the likely impact on the environment, house prices or tourism are being ignored.
“The municipalities are not anti-nuclear,” said Hana Konvalinková from the Platform Against Deep Storage NGO, a group that involves three of the four municipalities. “They understand that the waste must be dealt with, but they want full transparency and participation.”
As part of a bill aimed at accelerating the plans, presented to parliament in May, the government pledged to give municipalities a greater say in the process.
But the NGO is highly skeptical of the move, saying the bill is vaguely worded and has too many loopholes, according to Konvalinková. The municipalities want the right to veto any nuclear waste project, pointing to Finland as the example to follow………………………
the Czech authorities are wary of allowing the localities the option of blocking decisions. Trefancová said the government “cannot guarantee the right to veto.”
Prague appears determined to push ahead: The ministry now says it hopes a site will be identified by the end of the decade. All of the preparatory and construction work would then likely need to be completed by 2050 to meet the EU’s taxonomy requirements.
Trefancová pointed out that Finland’s Onkalo project took 27 years to build, but suggested that Prague continue its push to convince Brussels to offer flexibility on the deadline. https://www.politico.eu/article/czech-republic-nuclear-power-problem-where-store-toxic-waste/
Putin warns NATO over being drawn into Ukraine war
By Zahid Mahmood, CNN, June 17, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned there is a “serious danger” of NATO being drawn further into the Ukraine war if members of the alliance continue to supply military weaponry to Kyiv.
“NATO, of course, is being drawn into the war in Ukraine, what are we talking here,” Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.
“The supplies of heavy military weaponry to Ukraine are ongoing, they are now looking into giving Ukraine the jets.”
The comment appeared to be a reference to the F-16 fighter jets some members of the NATO alliance are making plans to supply Ukraine with.
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in the aftermath of World War II to defend Western nations from the Soviet Union [despite USSR being their ally in WW2 !]and the alliance contains a mutual defense clause where an attack on any one member is considered an attack on all. While Ukraine is not a member of NATO, some NATO members have been supplying Kyiv with tanks, armored vehicles and other weaponry – prompting threats of retaliation from Russia.
German Leopard 2 tanks, British Challenger 2 tanks and American Bradley and Stryker vehicles are among the Western equipment that has been sent to Ukraine.
In late April, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO allies and partners had delivered more than 1,500 vehicles and 230 tanks to the country.
During his speech in St. Petersburg, Putin said Russia had destroyed tanks “including Leopards” at the front lines.
“And if they are based abroad, but used in fighting we’ll see how to hit them, and where we can hit those means that are used against us in fighting,” Putin said.
“This is a serious danger of further drawing NATO into this military conflict,” he added………………………….. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/17/europe/nato-danger-ukraine-war-putin-intl-hnk/index.html
“Nuclear is CLEAN” Trumpets Westinghouse’s Uranium Fuel in Cumbrian Press Adverts
Name: Anita Stirzaker Ad type:Brand/product: Westinghouse Electric Company
Your complaint:
Advert in the Whitehaven News (and other regional papers?) for Westinghouse “Shaping Tomorrow’s Energy to deliver a carbon-free future in the UK. Westinghouse is shaping the future of clean energy in the UK.”
The advert talks about the AP1000 “ready for deployment in the UK” – this is not the case – the AP1000 has not been given licence approval for any sites in the UK as far as I know and there are no operational AP1000 reactors anywhere in Europe as far as I know. The AP1000 would not be “carbon free” as the uranium fuel requires fossil fuel at every stage from mining to looking after the wastes. The Westinghouse plant at Springfields itself uses enormous amounts of gas to manufacture uranium fuel and has I believe its own dedicated gas pipeline into the site. Sellafield is where the fuel from Springfields ends up and this has its own gas plant on site called Fellside. Westinghouse itself in its 2022 Sustainability report (https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/Portals/0/about/Westinghouse%202023%20ESG%20Report.pdf) says it has a “net-zero” carbon emissions target by 2050″ note this is the more slippery accounting of “net-zero” which is definitely not “carbon free” as the advert in the Whitehaven News claims.
The advert claims that Westinghouse is shaping “clean energy”. this is not the case – the Springfields site itself uses lots of freshwater in all its processes – far more I believe than the fracking industry would have done in the Preston area. The fresh water use is enormous especially if the leaching of uranium fuel from the grounds of foreign countries is included along with cooling the hot nuclear wastes at Sellafield.
The nuclear industry cannot legitimately claim to be clean while radioactive and chemical emissions are routinely dumped to the environment. Then there is the possibility of catastrophic accident. What other industries have such large Emergency Zones in the case of accident ? At the lancaster canal alongside the Springfields plant there are Westinghouse notices saying “if you hear a loud, continous siren (like an air-raid siren) you should leave this area as quickly as possible”.
There is another conflicting notice saying “Go inside your boat and stay inside until instructed otherwise. Close all windows and doors. Switch off all heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. Tune to the local radio station and listen for announcements telling you what to do.”
That is not a “clean” industry!
From Springfields Westinghouse site there are a cocktail of radioactive an chemical wastes going into the landfill at Clifton Marsh – the latest plan is to open an incineration plant on the Westinghouse Springfield site to take in nuclear waste (including intermediate nuclear wastes) from Europe and burn it there.
That is not a “clean” industry.
If Shell has been taken to task for its “clean” claims then the nuclear industry cannot be allowed to get away with this greenwashing of its fossil fuel use alongside its radioactive and chemical emissions to land, rivers,sea and air. The nuclear industry is not fully insured for good reason – it is uninsurable.
Zelensky admits that there was an ongoing civil war prior to the Russian invasion, claims Russia will attack a NATO member
Zelensky Slams Trump for Saying He Would End the War in Ukraine
The Ukrainian leader admitted that there was an ongoing civil war prior to the Russian invasion.
By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar June 18, 2023
In an interview with NBC News, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attacked former President Donald Trump’s pledge to end the war. He argued that if Kiev does not defeat Moscow, Russia will attack a NATO member state and force the US into a direct conflict.
Zelensky was asked about Trump’s claim he would immediately engage the Kremlin in talks and bring the war to a negotiated settlement. “Are they ready to start a war to send their children? Are they ready to die?” he said in the interview that was published on Thursday. “If Russia occupies Ukraine, they will move on to the Baltic countries, to Poland, to any NATO country, and in that particular case the U.S. will have to choose between dismantling NATO or fighting.”
Kiev and hawks in Washington have asserted that Ukraine is a bulwark, protecting members of NATO from Moscow’s expansionist ambitions. However, there is no evidence that the Kremlin eyes attacking another country. Russian President Vladimir Putin views Ukraine as a unique security threat to his county and says seizing territory protects Moscow against the expanding NATO alliance.
Ukraine hopes to be added as a member of the alliance once the war is over. “We need an invitation, and it needs to be clear that after this war, if we are ready, and if the Ukraine army is ready to NATO standards, then after the war we will be invited to join.” Zelensky continued, “It’s very important to hear the truth and not tell us lies.”
In 2008, Ukraine was told it would one day receive full NATO membership. At the time, Moscow denounced the proposal, saying it violated red lines and, from the Russian perspective, would create a significant security threat.
Despite the Russian objections, NATO maintains its doors are open to new members, but Ukraine does not currently meet the requirements. As Kiev is currently at war with Moscow, admitting Ukraine into the alliance will put NATO in direct confrontation with Russia.
At times, Kiev appears to be frustrated with NATO refusing to make a formal commitment to Ukraine. Zelensky is threatening to sit out a coming meeting of the North Atlantic alliance in July because Ukraine will not receive a pledge to become a member at the end of the war.
Zelensky went on to slam Trump, claiming he was unable to end the war in Ukraine while he was in office. “Why didn’t he do that earlier? He was president when the war was going on here,” he explained. “I think he couldn’t do that. I think there are no people today in the world who could just have a word with Putin and end the war.”
The statement appears to be an admission from Zelensky that the war in Ukraine began before the Russian invasion in 2022. Prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine was embroiled in an eight-year-long civil war. Washington and NATO justify their support for Kiev by saying the Russian invasion was “unprovoked.”
The Minsk Accords were agreed to by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France with the intention of ending the civil war. However, Zelensky was unable to get neo-nazi paramilitaries fighting for Ukraine to comply with the agreement. In the days before the Russian invasion, there was a surge in fighting between Ukrainian forces and rebels in the Donbas region.
Ukraine’s “spring counteroffensive not making progress: will NATO resort to deploying tactical nuclear weapons for Ukraine?
Since the initiation of the United States’ multitrillion-dollar nuclear weapons buildup in 2016, the US has been working to create smaller and lower-yield “usable” nuclear weapons.
Are nuclear weapons the next red line NATO will cross in Ukraine?
Andre Damon @Andre__Damon, 16 June 2023, WSWS
Nearly two weeks in, it is clear that Ukraine’s “spring counteroffensive,” promoted for months by the US media, has made no significant headway, while the Ukrainian armed forces have taken devastating physical losses.
Ukrainian officials claim to have retaken 38 square miles since the start of the offensive. These scraps of territory have been purchased with as many as 1,000 casualties per day, putting the total at up to 12,000 since the start of the offensive. Russian officials have released video of armored vehicles being destroyed by missiles, drones and long-range artillery, including over one dozen advanced Leopard 2 tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
For the first year and a half of the conflict, the US and NATO powers have operated on the premise that they could prosecute the war by sending ever more advanced weapons to Ukraine, while letting Ukrainians serve as cannon fodder on the battlefield.
With cold indifference to the catastrophic loss of human life, the Biden administration has sought to fight the war to the last Ukrainian. But the problem with this strategy is that NATO is running out of Ukrainians to send to their deaths.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured so far. This is a substantial portion of the fighting-age population, leading the Zelensky government to more desperate measures to find new bodies to throw at the front lines.
Against this backdrop, the defence ministers of NATO countries concluded a two-day summit Friday aimed at finalizing plans for a military alliance between NATO and Ukraine. On Thursday, a Biden administration official told CNN that they are “open” to an accelerated plan for Ukraine to join NATO.
This will be the content of the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, whether through Ukraine directly joining NATO or in the form of the provision of “security guarantees.”
The real issue, however, is not Ukraine entering NATO, but NATO “entering” Ukraine through a vast escalation of its involvement in the war. The only reason for accelerating Ukraine’s entry into NATO is to create the framework for such an escalation.
The entire credibility of NATO has been staked on an effort to hurl the Russians over the border, generating a crisis that would lead to the collapse of the Putin government. The logic of escalation leads inexorably to direct NATO intervention in the conflict.
Every time the US and NATO powers have claimed they would not do something in Ukraine, they have gone ahead and done it, from the provision of battle tanks and fighter jets, to weaponry that has been used to attack Russian soil.
What will be the next “red line” that NATO will cross in response to the deteriorating military situation in Ukraine? There are several possibilities:
First, the creation of a “no-fly zone” and the direct engagement of Russian forces by NATO aircraft.
Second, the direct deployment of NATO troops into the war zone.
And third, the deployment or even use of tactical nuclear weapons by NATO to prevent a Russian victory in the conflict.
It is worth noting that during the Cold War, the US geopolitical strategist Henry Kissinger, recently the subject of media adulation on the occasion of his 100th birthday, once described the use of tactical nuclear weapons to avert a disaster precisely like that faced by Ukrainian forces.
In his 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Kissinger argued for the deployment of nuclear weapons in frontline combat and their use on the battlefield by the United States in the struggle to prevent advances by conventional forces.
“Limited nuclear war,” that is, nuclear war that does not lead to global annihilation and “Mutually Assured Destruction,” Kissinger argued, “is in fact a strategy which will utilize our special skills to best advantage, and it may be less likely to become all-out than conventional war.”
He argued that such a war would be “improvised in the midst of military operations [and] would be undertaken under the worst possible conditions, both psychological and military,” i.e., precisely the conditions now developing in Ukraine.
Rather than targeting “the largest centers of population,” Kissinger argued, nuclear weapons could be used as part of warfare “based on small, highly mobile, self-contained units” aimed at “depriving aggression of one of its objectives: to control territory.” He continued, “Small, mobile units with nuclear weapons are extremely useful for defeating their enemy counterparts or for the swift destruction of important objectives.”
There was one overwhelming flaw in Kissinger’s strategy. It assumed that those targeted by US nuclear weapons would restrict their own responses and that escalation would be contained. But for all their evident insanity, Kissinger’s doctrines have, in fact, been a major inspiration for the current US nuclear strategy.
Since the initiation of the United States’ multitrillion-dollar nuclear weapons buildup in 2016, the US has been working to create smaller and lower-yield “usable” nuclear weapons.
A 2015 paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted, “The scenarios for nuclear employment have changed greatly since the ‘balance of terror’ between the two global superpowers.” As a result, the “second nuclear age” involves combatants “thinking through how they might actually employ a nuclear weapon, both early in a conflict and in a discriminate manner.”
In 2019, Foreign Affairs published an article entitled “If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War” by Elbridge Colby, one of the principal authors of Trump’s 2018 National Defense Strategy. Colby wrote, “The risks of nuclear brinkmanship may be enormous, but so is the payoff from gaining a nuclear advantage over an opponent.
“The best way to avoid a nuclear war,” Colby continued, “is to be ready to fight a limited one.”
The 2022 US Nuclear Posture Review makes clear that the US reserves the right to use nuclear weapons to achieve any kind of national objective. It declares, “Although the fundamental role of US nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack, more broadly they deter all forms of strategic attack, assure Allies and partners, and allow us to achieve Presidential objectives if deterrence fails.”
The US and NATO powers have staked their entire credibility on the objective of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia……………. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/17/bwxw-j17.html
Ukraine sustains massive single-day losses – Russian MOD
https://www.rt.com/russia/578244-ukraine-heavy-casualties-mod/ 19 June 23
Kiev’s forces have lost over 1,000 soldiers and 20 tanks in a single day across the frontlines, the Russian Defense Ministry claims
Ukrainian military forces have sustained heavy casualties across the frontlines during the last 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. Russia’s Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions have seen the most intense fighting, with Kiev losing more than 800 soldiers in those regions.
“Over the past day, enemy losses in the Southern Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions amounted to more than 800 Ukrainian servicemen, 20 tanks, four infantry fighting vehicles, [and] 15 armored fighting vehicles,” the military stated on Sunday during a daily media briefing. The ministry did not elaborate on whether its figures for casualties includes those killed and injured or fatalities exclusively.
As well as these setbacks in personnel and equipment, Ukrainian troops also lost two US-made M777 howitzers and several Soviet-made artillery systems, the military added.
The immediate vicinity of Donetsk city has also seen intense fighting, with Ukrainian forces losing over 200 soldiers on this axis, according to the ministry. The Russian military has destroyed multiple soft and armored vehicles on the outskirts of Donetsk, it also said, as well as two major ammunition stockpiles to the northwest of the city.
The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has intensified after Kiev launched its long-heralded counteroffensive in early June. Thus far, the Ukrainian military has failed to make any major gains, sustaining heavy losses in the process and losing large amounts of Western-supplied hardware. According to the estimates of Moscow’s military, some 7,500 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded amid the counteroffensive effort.
The absurdity of Western reporting on the war in Ukraine – Schrodinger’s Offensive
JULIAN MACFARLANE. JUN 17, 2023
Ukraine is mounting Schrodinger’s Offensive. If it succeeds, it has already started. If it fails, then it hasn’t even begun. Clint Ehrlich.
Schrodinger’s famous paradox as applied to the “counter-offensive” Ukraine
“…this is what I like to call “Schrodinger’s War Effort,” in that we’re meant to believe that Ukraine is simultaneously easily winning and also desperately needs gear because it’s on the brink of catastrophic collapse.
Similarly, Russia is simultaneously comically weak and incompetent and able to conquer Europe if they are not stopped in Ukraine.”
….. Zelensky met with Justin Trudeau in Kiev…Zelensky finally acknowledged that there was indeed a “Counteroffensive”…. Trudeau gave him half a billion dollars ……. Schrodinger’s box had been opened.
But….the cat was still both alive and dead— the offensive both a failure and a success. While the Counteroffensive has officially begun, it has…well…not started in actuality since Kiev has instructed its single source media to refer only to “probing attacks”.
The UAF suffered losses of perhaps 10,000 men in its counteroffensive inthe first ten days along with substantial amounts of equipment including Leopard tanks, Bradleys and mine clearing vehicles—at least 160 tanks, mostly irretrievably damaged and hundreds of other vehicles, according to most sources. By the time you read this, the numbers will be higher, roughly a thousand men every day and 10 tanks, plus AFVs.
Yet, the UAF has been unable to breach Russian minefields to get to Russia’s real, multilayered fortifications 20 km beyond…………………
Right now, 10 Ukrainians die for every Russian, far in excess of the 3:1 ratio expected in assaults against defended positions.
The majority of the UAF losses of armor are not actually tanks blown to pieces but many damaged or abandoned on the battlefield — “irretrievable” losses.
Russia had 54 tanks put of action in the first 10 days but perhaps 30 of these could be can be salvaged or repaired.
Here too the UAF / RF loss is ratio is lop-sided.
$ilk purses out sow’s ears
Failing in the Zaporozhe region, the Ukrainians attacked in southern Donetsk , Zelensky first claimed to have taken three uninhabited villages in the Vremevka “gray zone”.
These villages are tiny — one had only five buildings. But here too, the UAF has suffered losses all out of proportion to any tactical benefits…………………………………………………………………….
General Milley recently acknowledged that the US is no longer the only military superpower. Russia and China are super powers too. Then he went on to promise the Ukraine more weaponry to commit national suicide.
Contradictions? Schrodinger lives.
What exactly is going on?……………………………………………………………….
The Absurdity of a “Big Splash”
For the UAF to overcome Russian defenses and cut the land bridge they would need:
- Roughly 5 as many troops as they have
- Full SEAD, which means full air superiority, advanced AD and EW.
- 5 to 10 times their current force of armor,
- A massive improvement in logistics.,
- A huge increase in ammo.
- 10 times more artillery
- Upgraded coordination, communications and command structures without ideological (Nazi) and political interference.
- An efficient logistics system
- An engineering corps capable of providing bridges and mine-clearing
- Battlefield medical
Yeah — it’s a lonnnnnnnnnng list. And incomplete at that…………………………………………………………….
Always follow the money. Cui Bono?
As I have suggested it’s MICIMATT—the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex that calls the shots. When the USSR disappeared, they were faced with the awful fact that there was no major threat to them to support their huge budgets. How, oh how, could they afford new BMWs for each of the kids and the dog, too?
In this topsy turvey world, American military industrial companies are now profiting from the failure of Germany’s wunderwaffen Leopard 2s in the CounterOffensive — which almost guarantees providing Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The US has already said it will supply DU munitions — which the Russians will presumably blow up in Western Ukraine, polluting Europe to the West.
…………………………………….. In the meantime, absurdity has to be managed. The cat has to be fed.
But how does one handle the Unbelievable?
Magicians do it through misdirection. People believe what they see — which is unfortunately also what they don’t see. Which was Schrodinger’s point, of course.
So, the UAF attacked the Kakhovka Dam. That re-directed attention from Ukrainian military failures……………………………………………..
In the meantime, absurdity has to be managed. The cat has to be fed.
……….The event was trumped in the Western Press as yet another proof of a.) Russian desperation b.) Russian Evil.
So if the “Counteroffensive” fails, it’s because the Russians play dirty and to not care about the environment or human life. Russian “success” and Ukrainian failure therefore become somehow irrelevant.
……………………………………………….. the West insists that Russia is collapsing. Yet also preparing to conquer Europe. The Ukrainians will keep on coming……………………………………………… https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/schrodingers-offensive
Safety issues for 9 French nuclear reactors make their lifetime extension doubtful
Up to nine French nuclear reactors (9 GW) may not be suitable for lifetime
extensions beyond their 50-year operating stint due to safety issues, said
the country’s ASN nuclear regulator.
The safety body – which would make a
final decision by late 2026 on plans by operator EDF to extend the lives of
as many if the country’s 56 reactors to 60 years or more – was particularly
concerned about certain pipe bends in the primary circuit of five reactors,
it added in a report late on Wednesday.
The reactors were Blayais 3,
Dampierre 4, St Laurent 2, Tricastin 4 (around 900 MW each), and Paluel 2
(1.3 GW). Meanwhile, in southeastern France, the 3.7 GW Cruas nuclear plant
could also be shut down if a fault line was discovered where the unit was
sited, said the ASN. Investigations were underway following an earthquake
that occurred 15km away in November 2019.
Montel News 15th June 2023
https://www.montelnews.com/news/1505270/9-french-reactors-may-not-be-suitable-for-extensions–asn
Pension funds and investment managers are not willing to take the risks on the dying nuclear industry
With their costs falling, the UK is aiming to get most of its power from renewables, but the British Energy Security Strategy also includes an ambition for the UK to produce ‘up to 24 GW’ of civil nuclear power by 2050, which might mean that nuclear energy would provide up to 25% of the UK’s electricity. The government wants it to be mainly private sector funded, but this major expansion programme has not been going very well.
Despite government encouragement and some seed corn cash, pension fund and investment managers have not been keen to face the risks and uncertainties, for example of the proposed large new EPR plant at Sizewell. Even NEST, the government’s workplace pension scheme, the National Employment Savings Trust, says it will not invest in nuclear projects like this, despite government policy directives
Some remain hopeful that smaller modular reactor (SMR) projects will be more attractive to investors, but SMRs are some way off yet. Rolls Royce had been promoting the development of an SMR with some government support, but the head of the project at Rolls was a casualty of a management change recently. Its whole SMR project might soon also be one. An aviation industry expert told the Telegraph: ‘it will inevitably get more expensive than you expected, they always do. And meanwhile, renewables are still getting cheaper.’ Maybe Rolls should just stick to aero-engines. …………………………………
Meantime, Germany has finally closed the last three of its nuclear plants, and, although some think that may have be premature (they should perhaps have got rid of coal first), it’s now a done deal and does not seem to have caused major problems. The 4GW or so of lost capacity is well on the way to being replaced by renewables, as their cost fall and they accelerate ahead. So, although reliance on Russian gas has been problematic, that seem now to have been faced, with some now seeing Germany as pioneering a nuclear- free way forward.
Of course not everyone sees it that way. Despite the dire financial state of EDF, France has defended nuclear strongly and challenged the German phase out. It even tried to hijack the EU Renewables Directive. And there is no shortage of pro-nuclear propaganda around the world. Some of it arguably is rather odd. For example, what are we to make of Oliver Stone and his ‘Nuclear Now’ film? He has been quoted as saying ‘in the face of climate change, nuclear isn’t only an option it’s the only option,’. And also that ‘Russia is doing a great job with nuclear energy’. Well, tell that last bit to the G7 group countries, 5 of whom have just tried to undermine Russia’s grip on global nuclear power supplies by shutting it out of a new alliance. Or for that matter, those in Ukraine (and elsewhere) who worry about nuclear plant security in war zones.
……………………… the US Department of Energy recently said that the US domestic nuclear industry has the potential to ‘scale from ~100 GW in 2023 to ~300 GW by 2050 – driven by deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.’
Would that scale of expansion be wise? Energy Intelligence thought not. Indeed, challenging the US DoE projection, it said it was ‘beyond absurd – it’s irresponsible. It’s absurd because the US no longer has the supply chain needed for large-scale nuclear projects- it can’t even forge a pressure vessel; it’s irresponsible because the cost of building 200-300 new reactors would be more than $3 trillion. Resources devoted to rescuing a dying industry are resources that wouldn’t be available for viable, less-costly strategies to achieve net-zero emissions in the power sector. More than that, the report reflects an energy agency still dominated by a nuclear-centric culture, and badly out of step with the times’. Quite so. A worryingly backward looking approach. But there is a lot of it about… https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2023/06/nuclear-update-its-still-with-us.html
-
Archives
- May 2026 (62)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 