Austria has filed a legal case against European Union’s inclusion of nuclear and gas as “clean” in the EU “taxonomy”
Staunchly anti-nuclear Austria said on Friday it had followed through on a
pledge to file a legal challenge to the European Union’s inclusion of
natural gas and nuclear energy in a list of “green” investments. At issue
is the European Union’s so-called taxonomy, a rulebook defining which
investments can be labelled climate friendly and designed to guide
investors toward green projects that will help deliver the bloc’s
emissions-cutting targets.
Reuters 7th Oct 2022
US comments on Zelensky’s ‘preemptive strike’ appeal
Washington has no plans to attack Russian forces in Ukraine, the State Department has said
https://www.rt.com/news/564292-us-zelenskys-preemptive-strike-russia/ 8 Oct 22,
The US is not about to get directly involved in the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, a State Department spokesman said on Friday, after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had urged the West to conduct “preventive strikes” against Russia.
When asked about the Ukrainian leader’s latest appeal to the West, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the administration of US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of taking part in the fighting.
“As long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we are not going to get directly engaged in this conflict either by putting American troops to fight in Ukraine or attacking Russian forces,” he reiterated, adding that Washington’s message on this matter has been “very clear.”
On Thursday, Zelensky, speaking at an online conference at the Australian Lowy Institute, called for “preventive strikes” against Russia so that Moscow knew what to expect should it resort to nuclear weapons.
Later, Zelensky’s press secretary attempted to clarify these remarks, arguing that they should not be interpreted as a request for NATO to attack Russia. The Ukrainian leader himself also stepped in, telling BBC on Friday that he had meant “preventive kicks, not attacks.” The UK outlet also clarified that Zelensky was “referring to sanctions.”
The comments made by the Ukrainian president sparked a backlash from Moscow, which accused him of attempting to spark a world war, which would lead to “unforeseeable disastrous consequences.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went so far as to describe him as “a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet.”
Russia has repeatedly stated that a nuclear war should never be fought, while Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in August made it clear that Moscow is not considering a nuclear strike on Ukraine, given that there are no targets warranting such drastic measures.
Ukraine’s ZNPP Must Be Urgently Protected, IAEA’s Grossi Says After Plant Loses All External Power Due to Shelling
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/ukraines-znpp-must-be-urgently-protected-iaeas-grossi-says-after-plant-loses-all-external-power-due-to-shelling 8 Oct 22, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has lost its last remaining external power source due to renewed shelling and is now relying on emergency diesel generators for the electricity it needs for reactor cooling and other essential nuclear safety and security functions, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today.
The ZNPP’s connection to the 750 kilovolt (kV) power line was cut at around 1am local time today, Director General Grossi said, citing official information from Ukraine as well as reports from the team of IAEA experts present at the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
Sixteen of the plant’s diesel generators started operating automatically, providing its six reactors with power. After the situation stabilised, ten of the generators were switched off, leaving six to provide the reactors with necessary electricity.
“The resumption of shelling, hitting the plant’s sole source of external power, is tremendously irresponsible. The Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant must be protected,” Director General Grossi said. “I will soon travel to the Russian Federation, and then return to Ukraine, to agree on a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant. This is an absolute and urgent imperative.”
All the plant’s safety systems continue to receive power and are operating normally, the IAEA experts were informed by senior Ukrainian operating staff at the site. Although the six reactors are in cold shutdown, they still require electricity for vital nuclear safety and security functions. The plant’s diesel generators each have sufficient fuel for at least ten days. ZNPP engineers have begun work to repair the damaged 750 kV power line.
Lasting peace in Europe only possible with Russia’s input – Angela Merkel
Rt.com 7 Oct 22,
The Cold War won’t really be over until Russia has contributed to European security architecture, the former German Chancellor said.
Sustainable peace in Europe may only be achieved if Russia is part of it, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
Speaking during the 77th anniversary of the German newspaper ‘Suddeutsche Zeitung,’ Merkel explained that while the West has been adamant in its support for Ukraine as the nation remains locked in conflict with Russia, it should also keep its mind open about what might seem as “unthinkable” now – Moscow’s future role in Europe’s affairs.
She stressed that “a future European security architecture within international law will meet the requirements” only if it involves Russia. “As long as we haven’t achieved that, the Cold War is not really over either,” she added.
Merkel described February 24 – the day Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine – as a “turning point,” adding that statements made by various parties to the conflict should be taken “seriously and not to be classified as a bluff from the start.”………………………..
She also noted that former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who before his death, was widely regarded as her political mentor, would have kept an open mind about “how relations to and with Russia could one day be redeveloped” after hostilities in Ukraine end.
Such a stance, however, did not sit well with Ukrainian officials. Last week, Andrey Melnik, Kiev’s outgoing ambassador to Berlin, called Merkel’s attitude towards Russia and its role in European security “almost perverse.” https://www.rt.com/news/564203-merkel-peace-europe-ukraine-russia/;/
Scotland government will double down on opposition to new nuclear power stations north of the border.
JOHN Swinney is set to renew the Scottish Government’s opposition to new
nuclear power stations being built north of the border. The Deputy First
Minister will double down on his Government’s stance when he delivers his
keynote speech to SNP conference today.
Energy policy is reserved to Westminster, but the Scottish Government can effectively veto proposals
north of the border through devolved planning rules.
Since becoming Prime Minister last month, Liz Truss has repeatedly called for the Scottish
Government to change its tune on nuclear power. But the Scottish Government
has insisted it has no intention of doing so, when its delayed updated
energy strategy is published later this year.
Mr Swinney is expected to tell the SNP conference: “Scotland is a nation rich in energy resources
– we have a plentiful supply of clean, green, affordable renewable
energy. “The equivalent of almost 100 per cent of our electricity demand
is from renewable sources.
Not only is Scotland self-sufficient in natural
gas, we are a huge exporter. “Scotland is secure in energy.
So, we need no lectures from Liz Truss about security of energy supply. It is the UK
that has failed to achieve energy security, with the National Grid warning
of possible power cuts this winter. “And Scotland is not going to put up
with a new round of nuclear power stations to make up for the failure of
energy policy in the United Kingdom.” He will add: “Despite our huge
strength in energy, 150,000 more people in Scotland will be forced into
extreme fuel poverty as a result of the UK Government’s increase to the
energy price cap in September. “We are an energy rich nation, but 35% of
our citizens live in fuel poverty. Why is that? Because, while Scotland has
the energy, Westminster has the power. And how Westminster chooses to use
its reserved power has consistently, and deliberately, disadvantaged
Scotland.”
Herald 9th Oct 2022
Truss call for Scottish nuclear power is to make up for UK mistakes
Truss call for Scottish nuclear power is to make up for UK mistakes –
Swinney. The Prime Minister previously said she wanted to see nuclear power
stations built in Scotland.
Evening Standard 8th Oct 2022
25 years ago Australia’s Paul Keating warned against expanding NATO
25 Years ago, I warned expanding NATO ranked with the errors that led to WWI and II
Expanding NATO’s military demarcation point to the very borders of the former Soviet Union was an error which may rank with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system at the beginning of this century.
Paul Keating said these things twenty-five years ago in a major address to the University of New South Wales, 4 September 1997:
“Partly as a result of the reluctance of current members to move faster in expanding EU membership, I believe a great security mistake is being made in Europe with the decision to expand NATO. There is no doubt this was seen by some in Europe as a softer option than EU expansion.
NATO and the Atlantic alliance served the cause of western security well. They helped ensure that the Cold War finally ended in ways which serve open, democratic interests. But NATO is the wrong institution to perform the job it is now being asked to perform.
The decision to expand NATO by inviting Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to participate and to hold out the prospect to others – in other words to move Europe’s military demarcation point to the very borders of the former Soviet Union – is, I believe, an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system at the beginning of this century.
The great question for Europe is no longer how to embed Germany in Europe – that has been achieved – but how to involve Russia in a way which secures the continent during the next century.
And there was a very obvious absence of statecraft here. The Russians, under Mikhail Gorbachev, conceded that East Germany could remain in NATO as part of a united Germany. But now just half a dozen years later NATO has climbed up to the western border of the Ukraine. This message can be read in only one way: that although Russia has become a democracy, in the consciousness of western Europe it remains the state to be watched, the potential enemy.
The words used to explain NATO’s expansion have been nuanced, and the dangers have been acknowledged. But however careful the words are, whatever the window dressing of the Permanent NATO-Russia Joint Council, everybody knows that Russia is the reason for NATO’s expansion.
The decision is dangerous for several reasons. It will fuel insecurity in Russia and strengthen those strains of Russian thought, including the nationalists and former communists in the parliament, which are opposed to full engagement with the West. It will make more likely the restoration of military links between Russia and some of its former dependencies. It will make arms control, and especially nuclear arms control, more difficult to achieve.
And NATO expansion will do much less to strengthen the new democracies of eastern Europe than would enlargement of the EU.”
The above from Paul Keating was posted earlier in Pearls and Irritations. See extract from an earlier post John Menadue.
Zelensky aide attempts to walk back call for ‘preemptive strike’
It’s not clear what Zelensky meant by a “pre-emptive strike”. He might not have meant that NATO/USA should use a nuclear weapon.
But – he might well have meant that USA/NATO should strike at Russian nuclear sites
And that would indeed mean a Nuclear Pre-emptive Strike
https://www.rt.com/russia/564204-zelensky-no-nuclear-strike/ 7 Oct 22, The Ukrainian president didn’t urge NATO to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, he pointed out.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s call for a preemptive NATO strike against Russia should not be interpreted as a request to attack the country, his press secretary has insisted.
“Colleagues, you have gone a bit too far with your nuclear hysterics and hear ‘nuclear strikes’ where there are none,” Sergey Nikoforov wrote on Facebook on Thursday, responding to widespread alarm over the president’s words.
The press secretary pledged that Ukraine will never resort to nuclear threats, calling it something only the “terrorist state Russia” would do.
Moscow has denied that its senior officials were threatening anybody when they described the country’s official nuclear posture, in the context of warning NATO members against attacks on Russia.
Hours earlier, Zelensky told the Australian Lowy Institute that NATO should carry out preemptive strikes against Russia so that it “knows what to expect” in the event that it uses atomic weapons.
Such an attack would “eliminate the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons,” the Ukrainian leader claimed. He urged the US and its allies to make a show of force, recalling how he appealed to other nations for preemptive measures against Russia before Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in late February.
“I once again appeal to the international community, as it was before February 24: preemptive strikes so that they [Russians] know what will happen to them if they use it, and not the other way around,” he said.
His press secretary also noted that before the hostilities started, “the only measures we talked about were preemptive sanctions”.
Russian officials have accused Zelensky of trying to provoke a global nuclear war. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described him as “a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet,” after being pumped with Western weapons.
The Russian military doctrine allows the use of nuclear weapons in a conventional conflict, if Moscow believes that the existence of the country is under threat. Russian officials have repeatedly warned against escalating the crisis in Ukraine, stating that it could spiral out of control and result in a global nuclear exchange.
TODAY. Folie a deux? – Liz Truss and Emmanuel Macron – besties, in going all out for nuclear power
What a pair! They have so much in common. Especially their glorious abandon in going back on previous promises. Macron promised to phase out nuclear power. Truss wanted Britain to stay in the European Union. Then – hey presto! Macron’s all for the nuclear industry, and Liz all for “Brexit” – UK getting out of the EU.
But now, Liz and Emmanuel are besties again, as both go hell for leather for the dangerous, weapons-proliferation, environment-damaging and – oh dear! unaffordably costly nuclear power!
Is this some sort of subconscious Folie à deux – a strange political suicide wish?
They’re committed to work together to get EDF’s Sizewell C nuclear station project happening.
For France – by the end of this year, EDF’s net debt is already forecast to swell to about €60bn, while its French construction programme alone could cost another €52bn.
For Britain – not counting the astronomic cost , ( up to £30 billion, to be paid sort of upfront by the odious Regulated Asset Base ) Sizewell C will be foreign owned, and years to build, with dangerous, hazardous waste and horrendous decommissioning costs – not to mention a potential target for terrorists. Located on low-lying Suffolk coast – vulnerable to rising seas due to global heating.
One point of difference. Liz Truss opposes the idea of Britons conserving energy, whereas the Macron government is promoting energy conservation. Macron’s a bit less nutty?
2022 Nobel Peace Prize award violates the purpose of the prize
2022: Nobel Committee Gets Peace Prize Wrong Yet Again, https://davidswanson.org/2022-nobel-committee-gets-peace-prize-wrong-yet-again/ 7 Oct 22,
The Nobel Committee has yet again awarded a peace prize that violates the will of Alfred Nobel and the purpose for which the prize was created, selecting recipients who blatantly are not “the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.”
With its eyes on the news of the day, there was no question that the Committee would find some way to focus on Ukraine. But it steered clear of anyone seeking to reduce the risk of that thus-far relatively minor war creating a nuclear apocalypse. It avoided anyone opposing both sides of the war, or anyone advocating for a ceasefire or negotiations or disarmament. It did not even make the choice one might have expected of picking an opponent of Russian warmaking in Russia and an opponent of Ukrainian warmaking in Ukraine.
Instead, the Nobel Committee has chosen advocates for human rights and democracy in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. But the group in Ukraine is recognized for having “engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population,” with no mention of war as a crime or of the possibility that the Ukrainian side of the war was committing atrocities. The Nobel Committee may have learned from Amnesty International’s experience of being widely denounced for documenting war crimes by the Ukrainian side.
The fact that all sides of all wars have always failed and always will fail to engage in humane operations is possibly why Alfred Nobel set up a prize to advance the abolition of war. It’s too bad that prize is so misused. Because of its misuse, World BEYOND War has created instead the War Abolisher Awards.
Are Putin’s nuclear threats really likely to lead to Armageddon?
The realities underlying the menacing vocabulary are a grey area – it is far from certain that Putin would be prepared to use nuclear weapons
Guardian, by Julian Borger in Washington, Sat 8 Oct 2022
The past week has seen a rapid escalation in nuclear rhetoric, beginning with Vladimir Putin’s threat to use “all forces and means” to defend newly seized territory in Ukraine and ending with Joe Biden’s warning of “Armageddon” if Russia crosses the nuclear Rubicon.
However, the realities underlying the menacing vocabulary are a far greyer area than the bluster suggests. It is far from certain that Putin would be prepared to be the first leader to use nuclear weapons in wartime since 1945, over his territorial ambitions in Ukraine. If his primary goal is to stay in power, that could be exactly the wrong way of going about it.
Even if he did issue the launch order, he has no guarantee it would be carried out. Nor can he be absolutely sure that the weapons and their delivery systems would work.
On the US side, despite the US president’s apocalyptic language at a private fundraiser on Thursday night, it is not at all inevitable that Washington would respond to Putin’s nuclear use with nuclear retaliation. Past wargaming suggests there would be vigorous debate within the administration to say the least.
Like US presidents, Putin is normally accompanied by an aide carrying a briefcase with codes used to authorise a nuclear launch. In the US it is called the football, in Russia it is the cheget. In the Russian system, the defence minister and the chief of the general staff have their own chegets but it is believed that Putin can order a launch without them.
However, the cheget is relevant for the strategic nuclear forces, the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched from land or sea, or long-range bombers. Because they need to be launched within minutes in case of enemy attack, the warheads need to be deployed, mounted on the delivery systems.
Any nuclear use in Ukraine would be likely to involve non-strategic, or tactical, weapons with shorter-range delivery systems, and which are usually (but not necessarily) less powerful than strategic arms, though on average they are many times more powerful that the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs.
The US only has one kind of tactical weapon, the B61 gravity bomb, of which there are about a hundred in Europe and a similar number in the US, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
FAS estimates Russia has 2,000 tactical weapons, in very many shapes and sizes for use on land, sea and air. The weapons are not deployed on missiles or aircraft, but kept in bunkers in storage sites dotted around Russia. There are 12 national storage sites, known in Russian military parlance as “Object S”, one of which is in Belgorod, right on the Ukrainian border.
There are also 34 “base-level” sites, closer to the delivery systems. In a time of crisis, warheads would be moved from national to base-level sites – and up to now western intelligence agencies say no such movement has been observed.
Any such movement would be carried out by the 12th main directorate of the Russian armed forces, which has the job of storing and maintaining the warheads and then delivering them in specialised trains or trucks to base-level sites, or directly to the unit designated to launch them.
Pavel Baev, a military researcher who worked for the Soviet defence ministry, said that Putin cannot count on these weapons actually working.
“Most of these warheads stored there are very old,” Baev, now a professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said. “Without testing it’s really hard to say how suitable they are because many of them are past their expiration date.”
Baev added that it was also far from clear that the Russian can successfully pair old warheads with the much newer delivery systems that would have to be used, possibly 9K720 Iskander or Kinzhal hypersonic missiles……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The key question is more likely to be whether the US and its allies should respond with devastating conventional firepower, as Poland’s foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, and the former CIA director David Petraeus have suggested. But that would transform the war into one between Russia and Nato, in which escalation to a nuclear exchange could become hard to stop.
According to Eric Schlosser, the author of a book about the nuclear establishment, Command and Control, the Pentagon’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) conducted another war game in 2019 focused on Russian nuclear use in Ukraine. That wargame appears to have been updated, suggesting it is in constant use. The results in 2019 are top secret, but as Schlosser wrote in the Atlantic, one of the participants told him: “There were no happy outcomes.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/07/biden-putin-nuclear-threats-tactical-strike-us-response-analysis
Liz Truss and Emmanuel Macron get together on promoting nuclear power, especially Sizewell C
Sizewell C nuclear plant between Aldeburgh and Southwold will see joint
support from Liz Truss and Emmanuel Macron. Liz Truss and Emmanuel Macron
have agreed joint support for Sizewell C nuclear power plant. The pair
pledged to work closer on nuclear power and declared their cooperation for
the project, which is to be developed by French company EDF and will see
the plant built on the Suffolk coast between Aldeburgh and Southwold.
Suffolk News 7th Oct 2022
The UK prime minister and France’s president have confirmed joint support
for Sizewell C nuclear power plant. Liz Truss and Emmanuel Macron issued a
joint statement in which they said they were keen to advance cooperation,
on energy in particular. They pledged “full support” for the station set
for Suffolk’s coast, to be developed by French energy company EDF. The
leaders said they expected the “relevant bodies to finalise arrangements in
the coming month”.
BBC 6th Oct 2022
Liz Truss blocks a plan for UK citizens to reduce their energy use
How Liz Truss blocked Jacob Rees-Mogg’s energy-saving public information campaign.
Liz Truss is reported to have blocked the launch of a publicminformation campaign aimed at conserving energy, despite warnings that blackouts could be imposed in the UK if gas imports fall short this winter.
Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg is understood to have backed a £15m “light touch” initiative, according to The Times, encouraging households to reduce their use of gas and electricity by taking a series of simple measures. However, Ms Truss is said to be “ideologically opposed” to such an approach as it could be too interventionist.
iNews 7th Oct 2022
https://inews.co.uk/news/liz-truss-jacob-rees-mogg-energy-saving-campaign-1899019
As France’s nuclear power production is failing, the government aims to cut the nation’s electricity consumption
France launched a national energy savings plan on Thursday, banking on a
push to turn off lights and lower thermostats to avoid power and gas cuts
over the winter. Although the country is less dependent on Russian gas than
eastern neighbours like Germany, French nuclear power production has
slumped as the sector struggles to bring more of its aging reactors online
out of forced maintenance. The government has set a target of cutting
France’s energy consumption 10% by 2024 from 2019 levels, a first step in a
longer-term plan to become carbon neutral by reducing energy use 40% by
2050.
Reuters 6th Oct 2022
No nuclear power ‘renaissance’ as Europe wrestles energy crisis
“Most efforts right now are based on developing renewables, that’s what you can see in the European strategy in response to the Russian crisis,” “Nuclear is still not a shared solution in Europe.”
Russian invasion of Ukraine sparks incremental shifts in divisive issue, but no major pivot seven months into fighting.
Aljazeera, By Joseph Stepansky 6 Oct 20226
Nuclear power, and the heavy safety baggage it carries, has long divided European opinion, with individual countries charting vastly divergent paths on the industry’s role in future energy sustainability and security plans.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has again brought the atomic question to the fore, as nations scrambled for short-term solutions before winter sets in, as well as longer-term safeguards, to avoid similar energy upheavals in the years ahead.
But after eight months of fighting in Ukraine, and an energy crisis compounded most recently by the alleged sabotage of the arterial Nord Stream 1 and 2 Russia-to-Europe pipelines in the Baltic Sea, European governments long opposed to nuclear power have shown only incremental shifts in their attitudes, which have been informed by years of concerns about nuclear waste and safety.
A wider pivot has remained absent…………………..
Mark Hibbs, a Germany-based non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “I don’t see a major [nuclear power] watershed from what’s happening in Ukraine.”
Instead, the situation has reinforced some trends among countries already bought into nuclear energy, he said, while slowing some opponents’ phase-outs of the technology.
Europe’s nuclear hesitancy
Opposition to nuclear power, coupled with other factors, has created a 25 percent overall decline in electricity produced by splitting atoms in the 27-country European Union from 2006 to 2020, according to the bloc’s executive wing, the European Commission.
By 2020, the EU produced 24 percent of the bloc’s overall electricity from nuclear plants, with 13 countries operating nuclear reactors: France, Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Countries that already have nuclear power capacity, according to Hibbs, are likely to face the greatest demands in light of the conflict in Ukraine, particularly as typically 30- to 40-year power plant licences begin to expire.
“There will be pressure on European governments and industry to continue operating their nuclear power plants,” he said, adding that pressure will grow as the conflict stretches on…………………………………….
More recently, Greenpeace, an organisation that has long opposed nuclear power, has pointed to fighting around the Russian-seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine as an example of the ever-present danger of relying on nuclear as an energy source.
Denmark, Ireland and Serbia, countries that do not have nuclear power industries, have longstanding bans on developing the technology. Others, such as Greece, have avoided the technology for fear of natural disasters……………………………………………………………………………………..
No short-term solutions
Still, a more immediate pivot has been widely constrained by the reality that nuclear power’s ability to address Europe’s short-term energy challenges is “fairly limited”, according to Cobb.
“And the reason for that is, in most countries, nuclear operates in a baseload mode. So, it is already the case that nuclear plants tend to operate full-time,” he said. “They’re not like gas plants that operate at a peaking load, producing electricity, when demand is at the highest. They’re always operating”.
Meanwhile, developing new nuclear facilities remains a daunting, costly and years-long ambition, with a high barrier of entry, IDDRI’s Berghmans said.
“It’s a complex industry,” he said. “You need big infrastructure. You need to plan where you can put these facilities. You need nuclear know-how, which is not as widespread as it used to be in Europe.”
Proponents of new generation small modular reactors (SMRs), which can be built off-site and transported, have said the new technology could offer more efficient and cheaper development, although the plants are still years away from operating and have raised their own unique safety concerns.
And while nuclear power analysts have said the nuclear supply chain is generally more stable and easier to reroute than that of many fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, it does not come without its own Russia problems.
In 2020, EU utilities imported about 20 percent of their natural uranium, the fundamental resource needed to produce nuclear energy, from Russia. The bloc also received 26 percent of its enrichment services, the required process of altering uranium’s makeup before it can be used to create energy, from Russia, according to the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine also currently operate Russian-made nuclear reactors, raising questions about their long-term needs for specific Russian-made parts and services, according to an analysis by Matt Bowen and Paul Dabbar of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
To date, Russia’s nuclear industry has broadly escaped Western sanctions.
Recent outages at French power plants, because of maintenance, corrosion problems and heat stresses, have also reinforced longstanding hesitancy towards nuclear power, according to Carole Nakhle, the founder of the Crystol Energy consulting organisation.
“Mind you, one of the problems that the EU faced that made the current crisis even worse were the nuclear outages in France,” she told Al Jazeera. “France, which usually exports electricity, had to import this year because its power plants couldn’t keep up.”
Given the myriad challenges that continue to surround nuclear, governments are more likely to see renewable energies, such as wind and photovoltaic energy, as “more economical” alternatives to energy security and sustainability, according to Berghmans.
“Most efforts right now are based on developing renewables, that’s what you can see in the European strategy in response to the Russian crisis,” he said. “Nuclear is still not a shared solution in Europe.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/6/europe-sees-shift-in-attitudes-no-nuclear-power—
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of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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