‘We’re hunting them down and shooting them like pigs’: How the Ukrainians are taking brutal revenge on pro Russian collaborators.
By IAN BIRRELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL, 6 October 2022
When Russians took over the city of Balakliya, eastern Ukraine, they turned the central police station into a base for brutality.
During the six months it spent under enemy occupation, scores of local residents were locked in overcrowded cells in the basement. Survivors told of being dragged to a torture chamber where they were beaten, electrocuted and forced to endure mock executions.
The interrogations were carried out by officials from Russia’s Federal Security Service, according to documents retrieved after the town’s recapture last month during Ukraine’s stunning counter-offensive.
Yet the interrogators were helped by local stooges – such as Oleg Kalaida, the jobless former head of security at a chicken farm who found himself elevated to chief of police after agreeing to serve as a Kremlin henchman.
The horror stories emerging in liberated towns such as Balakliya, a railway hub of 30,000 people, have become hideously familiar in recent months: of Russian atrocities, mass graves, torture and war crimes. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that some Ukrainians have been assisting Vladimir Putin’s war crimes and theft of their land.
Videos from social media showed Russian troops lying face down in front of Ukrainian forces in amidst Ukraine counter-attack
Kyiv has already opened investigations into 1,309 suspected traitors and launched 450 prosecutions of collaborators accused of betraying their own nation and neighbours.
Others are being tracked down and slaughtered by resistance fighters. A list passed to this newspaper by a Kyiv government source identifies 29 such retribution killings, with 13 more assassination attempts that left some targets wounded.
‘A hunt has been declared on collaborators and their life is not protected by law,’ said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior ministry. ‘Our intelligence services are eliminating them, shooting them like pigs.’……………………………………………..
Such killings are presumed to be the work of the resistance movement. Orchestrated by Ukraine’s special forces, it has become increasingly well organised. Recent fatalities include Ivan Sushko, a wedding toastmaster appointed mayor of a town in the Zaporizhzhia region, who died in August after his car was blown up.
The partisans seek to spread fear through such killings while destroying arms dumps, devastating infrastructure for supply lines and threatening residents working with the enemy.
In one town, activists posted pictures online of a local graveyard with names of collaborators pasted on headstones. Their birth dates are correct, but dates of deaths have been left blank.
The message from Ukraine’s leaders as their troops continue advancing along the battlefront is similarly stark. As deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said this week: ‘I have personal advice for collaborators: run away.’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11284819/How-Ukrainian-intelligence-chiefs-tracking-collaborators-worked-Russians.html
Russia’s €200m nuclear exports untouched by EU sanctions
euobserver, By INVESTIGATE EUROPE, BRUSSELS, 8 October 22,
“Russian nuclear terror requires a stronger response from the international community [including] sanctions on the Russian nuclear industry and nuclear fuel.” Those were the words Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelensky tweeted in August, after the shelling of a nuclear power plant in the country.
Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the European Union has passed multiple sanctions packages aimed at hurting the Russian economy and reducing its ability to finance the war. Sanctions have included personalities, products of all kinds, and of course, fossil fuels.
But so far, nuclear sanctions were always left out.
On Wednesday 28 September, history repeated itself again. The European Commission proposed another sanction package against Russia, the eighth since the beginning of the invasion. It includes additional trade restrictions and an oil price cap for third countries. But still nothing on nuclear cooperation with Russia and imports of Russian uranium, even if many called for it.……………………..
Europe’s dependency
The reason for this resistance can be explained in one word: dependence. So far, an import ban on uranium or other sanctions on the Russian nuclear energy sector has only been discussed in EU circles, but never formally proposed.
“The European Commission never proposed it because the impact would be stronger for some Eastern member states, that are heavily-dependent on Russian infrastructure and technologies, than for Russia itself,” one diplomatic source told Investigate Europe…………………….
In economic terms, the EU countries paid around €210m for raw uranium imports from Russia in 2021 and another €245m from Kazakhstan, where the uranium mining is controlled by Russian state-owned company Rosatom.
Raw uranium imports from Russia to EU utilities were 2,358 tonnes last year, almost 20 percent of all EU imports. Only Niger (24.3 percent) and Kazakhstan (23.0 percent) were bigger uranium trade partners, according to the 2021 annual report from the EU body, Euratom Supply Agency (ESA)………
France is the EU nation most reliant on nuclear energy…
Europe works closely with Russia for its nuclear energy production……..
The role of France
Many governments, first and foremost the French, have pushed for Germany to break their dependence on Russian natural gas. But its own dependency on Russian uranium is shrouded in silence.
France imports on average around 20 percent of the needed raw uranium from Kazakhstan, where the uranium mining is controlled by Rosatom, according to Le Monde.
Green MEP Michèle Rivasi, a strong opponent of nuclear energy, exemplifies the French-Russian nuclear connection by citing Henri Proglio, the former CEO of EDF, the French semi-public main electricity company, who sits on the international advisory board of Rosatom.
“If Macron had asked Proglio to resign, he would have done so of course,” she told Investigate Europe. French dependence is not only on uranium imports, but also on nuclear waste treatment and many other activities, she said.
MEP Christophe Grudler, of the Renew Europe party, supports the exclusion of nuclear activity from the EU sanctions. In his view, one cannot impose sanctions against Russian gas (there is no embargo planned yet, unlike for crude oil) and then against Russian uranium. Unless we want a general blackout, he says.
“We must not forget that the nuclear business is not only about the power plant,” Grudler told Investigate Europe. “It is also about steam turbines. One of the world’s leading players, if not the leading one, is the French technology [company] Arabelle. However, we should not forget that two thirds of the turbines are sold… to Rosatom.”
According to some French media reports at the start of the year, Rosatom was set to acquire a 20 percent stake in GEAST, the manufacturer of the Arabelle turbine for nuclear power plants………………………………………..
In the meantime, Europe will continue to feed Russia’s finances — while adopting sanctions to drain the Kremlin’s treasury. https://euobserver.com/world/156226
Britain’s new Energy Secretary suffering from the ‘nuclear fusion delusion’
In his speech to the 2022 Conservative Party Conference, the Britain’s
newly-appointed Energy Secretary has shown that, like those in office
before him, he too is suffering from the ‘fusion delusion’.
To the Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), the condition represents a mistaken
belief in someone in high political office that fusion can address the
nation’s future energy needs by providing access to cheap, green power in
defiance of the reality that the technology is far from being
scientifically certain, far from being economically viable, potentially
unsafe, too costly, and still comes with a legacy of nuclear waste – and
that it will in any case come decades too late to address Britain’s
immediate energy / cost-of-living crisis or the urgent need to curb carbon
emissions to arrest the worsening climate emergency.
In his first conference speech as Energy Secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg lauded the merits of
fusion energy and announced that a new pilot plant will be established on
the site of the former West Burton A coal-fired power plant in
Nottinghamshire describing it as a ‘beacon of bountiful green
energy…proving the commercial viability of fusion energy to the world’.
NFLA 6th Oct 2022
Crops growing 30 miles outside of Chernobyl are still contaminated with dangerous levels of strontium .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/20/does-russia-sell-nearly-1-billion-uranium-us-year/ 7 Oct 22, Crops grown near Chernobyl are still contaminated, more than three decades after the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Almost half the grain analyzed by scientists in Ivankiv, about 30 miles from the power plant, showed levels of strontium 90 far above recommended levels.
It was also present at unsafe levels in firewood and wood ash used to fertilize crops.
The Ukrainian government stopped testing goods for strontium 90 in 2013.
A radioactive isotope, it collects in the teeth, bones and marrow like calcium, and can cause numerous kinds of cancer.
Black pigmentation in Chernobyl’s Eastern Tree Frogs
Chernobyl is spawning MUTANT frogs: Bizarre black amphibians are spotted near the nuclear plant – 36 years after its catastrophic meltdown
- Eastern tree frogs are meant to have bright green skin
- But scientists working near Chernobyl have found many with black skin
- They think the dark skin may have helped them to survive the exclusion zone
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11290735/Chernobyl-spawning-MUTANT-frogs-Bizarre-black-amphibians-spotted-near-nuclear-plant.html By SHIVALI BEST FOR MAILONLINE and MICHAEL HAVIS, 7 October 2022
Mutant black frogs are spawning near the Chernobyl power plant, 36 years after its catastrophic meltdown unleashed one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.
Eastern tree frogs are meant to have bright green skin but scientists working near Chernobyl have found many with darker or black pigmentation.
In 1986, the site in northern Ukraine – then under Soviet rule – witnessed the largest release of radioactive material into the environment in human history.
Now scientists think the mutated frogs’ darker skin may have helped them survive in the exclusion zone, which today restricts access to 1,0000 sq miles around ground zero.
Germán Orizaola, a researcher at Spain’s University of Oviedo, who co-authored the new study, said: ‘We become aware of these frogs the very first night we worked in Chernobyl.
‘We were looking for this species near the damaged power plant and we detected many frogs that were just black.
‘We know that melanin is responsible for dark or black colouration in many organisms, including frogs.
‘At the same time, we know that melanin protects from the damage caused by different types of radiation, from UV to ionizing radiation – the kind at Chernobyl.’
For their study, Dr Orizaola and his co-author, Pablo Burraco, collected more than 200 male frogs from 12 different breeding ponds with different levels of radiation.
They found that frogs within the exclusion zone were much darker than those from outside it.
And though there was no correlation between the darkest frogs and the most irradiated places today, there was a correlation with the worst-affected places from the time of the accident.
In other words, the darker frogs had stood a better chance of survival when disaster struck in 1986, making them more numerous today.
Dr Orizaola said: ‘With this species it’s possible to find, under normal circumstances, a small percentage of frogs with unusual colouration.
UK government sees energy conservation measures as making Britain a ‘nanny state’
Liz Truss blocks energy saving campaign ‘on ideological grounds’.
Minister says government views public information campaign as ‘nanny
state’. Liz Truss has blocked plans for a public information campaign
asking people to save energy over the winter, reportedly because she is
“ideologically opposed” to the idea.
Ministers on Friday morning claimed
the idea was “nanny state” and confirmed that they would not be urging
people to keep an eye on their usage despite warnings from National Grid of
possibly rolling blackouts. Business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg is said to
have been keen on a £15 million campaign as a relatively cost-effective
way of reducing the UK’s energy usage at a time of surging prices and
scarcity.
Independent 7th Oct 2022
Zaporizhzhia on the brink: How deteriorating conditions at the nuclear power plant could lead to disaster
Bulletin, By Zakhar Popovych, Denys I. Bondar, M.V. Ramana | October 7, 2022, Soon after it started its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Russian military occupied the southern part of the Zaporizhzhia region. The occupied area includes the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the largest in Europe. During the summer, the area around the Zaporizhzhia NPP was hit multiple times by missiles and artillery. These affected all high-voltage electric power lines that connect the facility to the grid, so the plant was forced to work for some time in island mode, using the minimal power produced by one of the reactors to maintain functions essential to the plant’s safety. After the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, conducted its inspection on September 1st, Ukrainian maintenance teams were allowed by the Russian military to repair the power lines and refill the diesel fuel storage tanks needed for emergency power generators. This made it possible to supply the facility with external power for the reactor cooling and other maintenance systems.
On September 10, the three of us had a conversation via Zoom with Pavlo Oleshuk, a representative of Atomprofspilka, the nuclear energy and industry workers’ union of Ukraine. Oleshuk is an experienced member of the team that operates the Rivne NPP in northwest Ukraine. As an organizer with the union, he has been in close and constant contact with the employees who directly operate the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
Oleshuk’s descriptions gave us new insight into the working and living conditions of his colleagues at the beleaguered plant. Such details have been otherwise difficult to get as plant operators have avoided talking in public ever since Russian forces seized the plant. Our discussion with Oleshuk lasted for more than two hours, and we offer here the main insights.
At the time we talked to Oleshuk, one of the reactors at the Zaporizhzhia NPP was still operating. However, shortly after our conversation, EnergoAtom, the Ukrainian state nuclear power plant operator, decided to shut down all reactors there. Despite this decision, there is a continued risk of a major nuclear incident as the plant requires permanent cooling. Furthermore, as our discussion with Oleshuk reveals, other factors exacerbate the fragility of the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
Context. Oleshuk began with a description of Zaporizhzhia NPP and the city of Energodar, which means literally “the gift of energy.”………………………………………………….
Working under threats and intimidation. The Zaporizhzhia NPP, the city of Energodar, and the surrounding areas have all been under Russian occupation for the past few months. According to Oleshuk’s sources at the plant, Russian armed forces first took control of the nearby territory and peacefully approached the personnel of the power plant claiming that they would not intervene with the operations of the plant. But once the armed forces entered the plant’s premises, so did personnel from the FSB—Russia’s principal security agency and successor to the old KGB—and a couple of experts from Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation. …………………
For their part, the FSB personnel, unlike regular soldiers, violated the rules about who can access different areas of the plant and went everywhere within the premises, including inside radiation-controlled zones. But rather than taking control over the plant’s operations, the FSB agents seem to have been tasked with finding the so-called “ringleaders” who are organizing protests against the occupation ………………..
Over time, many more nuclear power plant workers have left Energodar for other cities that are still under the control of the Ukrainian government, creating a shortage of personnel at the Zaporizhzhia NPP. Even though some nuclear power plant maintenance functions can be carried out remotely, most cannot. As a result, there are concerns about the safety of these reactors and their associated systems.
Living without supplies. Because it is in Russian-occupied territory, residents of Energodar can no longer get their supplies from Ukraine-controlled territories, although they are located just across the Dnipro River. Instead, they must get them from other occupied territories—which means that even the supply of basic groceries is intermittent, with some food products simply no longer available………………….
Another major problem for the residents of Energodar is the collapse of utilities. ………………………
The supply of water supply has also become a problem since it relies exclusively on electric pumps and there are no water towers in Ukraine because the electricity supply was always considered to be reliable and abundant. ……………….
Outlook. With winter coming, the future is grim for the workers of the Zaporizhzhia NPP who still live in Energodar. Like other satellite cities, Energodar relies on the Zaporizhzhia NPP for most of its energy needs, including for heating……………………..
If both nuclear and thermal power plants cannot resume operation, then Energodar’s inhabitants will not be able to heat their living premises. The Ukrainian winter is cold with temperatures often being less than 20 degrees Celsius below zero (-4 degrees Fahrenheit). Plant workers don’t know how they will survive the winter.
Making an already desperate situation worse, there has been a loss of leadership and governance. The mayor of Energodar, Dmytro Orlov, was initially arrested by the Russians, but later managed to flee the city. The occupying forces did try to take over the city hall, but effectively the local authority has largely collapsed. The inhabitants are now left on their own.
According to Oleshuk, the situation is simply no longer tenable for the plant workers who are exhausted and stressed out. …………………more https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/zaporizhzhia-on-the-brink-how-deteriorating-conditions-at-the-nuclear-power-plant-could-lead-to-disaster/
First containers sealed into Dounreay low level waste vaults
First containers sealed into Dounreay low level waste vaults. Dounreay’s
waste team is carrying out the first in a series of campaigns to seal the
waste into place in the low level waste vaults.
As part of the waste disposal process, the spaces between the containers in the low level waste
vault are being filled with grout. The team undertook a series of trials to
confirm that the grout would readily flow between the containers and also
tested the membranes that will be used to seal the grout shutters. A first
campaign of grouting has now been completed within the vault and 16 waste
packages have been sealed into their final positions. Further grouting
campaigns of increasing size are planned.
NDA 5th Oct 2022
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-containers-sealed-into-dounreay-low-level-waste-vaults
The government’s price isn’t right for plutonium-contaminated land in Palomares (Almeria)
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/10/07/the-governments-price-isnt-right-for-plutonium-contaminated-land-in-palomares-almeria/By Linda Hall • 07 October 2022
FIFTY-SIX years on, Palomares is still suffering the effects of its infamous “nuclear incident.”
This occurred on January 17 in 1966 when four unarmed thermonuclear bombs were released after two US aircraft crashed in mid-air over the Mediterranean.
One bomb was found far out to sea but three fell on Palomares, releasing plutonium and contaminating an area of two square kilometres. The US army decontaminated some of the land but much remains untreated.
Spain’s central government announced in early October that it would soon be completing its estimate of the value of the plutonium-affected properties it intends to acquire.
“This would appear to be the first step in the clean-up plan drafted more than 10 years ago,” provincial media sources said.
Buying up the land was in the public interest “to safeguard residents’ health and permit a close watch on the land”, the government said, allocating €345,127 for the compulsory purchase of 324,073 square metres of land.
According to the same sources, the 30 owners involved, who include developers and agricultural growers, dismissed the €1 per square metre compensation as “laughable.”
They maintained that this was particularly risible after Spain’s Energy, Environmental and Technological Research Centre (CIEMAT) recommended a price of €17 per square metre of rural land and €83 for building land in a 2007 report to the Nuclear Safety Council.
Most of the land in question is located within the Cuevas del Almanzora boundaries although five properties belong to Vera.
France’s nuclear energy strategy — once its pride and joy — faces big problems this winter
CNBC Sam Meredith, @SMEREDITH19 5 Oct 22,
- Deep-rooted problems with France’s nuclear-heavy energy strategy are raising serious questions about its winter preparedness.
- A long-standing source of national pride, France generates roughly 70% of its electricity from a nuclear fleet of 56 reactors, all operated by state-owned utility EDF.
- In recent months, however, more than half of EDF’s nuclear reactors have been shut down for corrosion problems, maintenance and technical issues.
…………………….. more than half of EDF’s nuclear reactors have been shut down for corrosion problems, maintenance and technical issues in recent months, thanks in part to extreme heat waves and repair delays from the Covid pandemic. The outages have resulted in French power output falling to a near 30-year low just as the European Union faces its worst energy crisis in decades.
“I find the France nuclear relationship really interesting because it just bluntly shows you all of the pros and cons of nuclear,” Norbert Ruecker, head of economics and next generation research at Julius Baer, told CNBC via telephone.
“Yes, it’s low carbon but it’s not economic. You need to nationalize EDF to make it happen. Yes, it offers baseload but wait a second, sometimes a whole plant disappears for weeks and months, so that baseload promise is not really there,” Ruecker said.
……………………………………………… A ‘winter of discontent’?
French power prices climbed to a string of all-time highs this summer, peaking at an eyewatering level of around 1,100 euros ($1,073) per megawatt hour in late August. Analysts fear the country may struggle to produce enough nuclear energy to support both its own needs and those of its neighbors in the coming months.
Underlining the structural problems in the country’s nuclear fleet, France not only lost its position as Europe’s biggest exporter of electricity this year but also, remarkably, actually imported more power than it exported.
Data from energy analysts at EnAppSys that was published in July found that Sweden clinched the top spot as Europe’s largest net power exporter during the first six months of 2022. Prolonged outages in France’s nuclear fleet saw the country’s exports halve from the same period last year, and analysts at EnAppSys warned the situation showed “no signs of improving any time soon.”
To compensate, France imported expensive electricity from U.K., Germany, Spain and elsewhere.
“Thanks to the market, thanks to the power lines that we have, Europe saved France from a big blackout” this summer, Julius Baer’s Ruecker said.
“It was the U.K., Germany, Spain and to some extent Switzerland that all stepped in. So, for me, the past month really has just uncovered some of the political talk which was not always objective,” he added, referring to talk of nuclear energy as a climate solution among politicians…………………………………………………….
What does it mean for Europe?
France’s ailing power output has renewed criticism of its nuclear-heavy energy strategy at a time when many others in Europe are turning to atomic power as a replacement for a shortfall in Russian gas.
Germany, which initially planned to shutter its three remaining reactors by the end of the year, decided to delay its nuclear phaseout to shore up energy supplies this winter. The U.K., meanwhile, is seeking to ramp up its nuclear power generation, and the EU has listed nuclear energy among its list of “green” investments.
“It is important to say that if France has a nuclear problem, Europe has a problem as well in terms of electricity,” Alexandre Danthine, senior associate for the French power market at Aurora Energy Research, told CNBC via telephone.
“They are, in general, a big exporter, but in winter they need energy from neighboring countries in order to satisfy demands — whatever the situation,” Danthine said.
In France, Eurasia Group’s Rahman noted, Macron reacted angrily last month to suggestions, including from outgoing EDF boss Jean-Bernard Levy, that his “stop-start approach” to nuclear power in the last five years was partly responsible for the crisis.
In what was widely seen as a policy U-turn, Macron announced in February his intention for France to build at least six new nuclear reactors in the decades to come, with the option for another eight. At the start of his presidency, Macron had committed to reducing the share of nuclear power in the country’s energy mix.
The reversal controversially placed atomic power at the center of France’s bid to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of the century.
Advocates of nuclear power argue it has the potential to play a major role in helping countries generate electricity while slashing carbon emissions and reducing their reliance on fossil fuels.
To critics of the energy source, however, nuclear power is an expensive distraction to faster, cheaper and cleaner alternatives. Instead, environmental campaign groups argue technologies such as wind and solar should be prioritized in the planned shift to renewable energy sources. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/05/frances-nuclear-heavy-energy-strategy-faces-big-problems-this-winter.html
Poland suggests hosting US nuclear weapons- ‘nuclear sharing’
Poland suggests hosting US nuclear weapons amid growing fears of Putin’s threats, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/05/poland-us-nuclear-wars-russia-putin-ukraine Julian Borger in Washington, 6 Oct 22, Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, in September. He said there was ‘a potential opportunity’ for Poland to take part in ‘nuclear sharing’.
Poland says it has asked to have US nuclear weapons based on its territory, amid growing fears that Vladimir Putin could resort to using nuclear arms in Ukraine to stave off a rout of his invading army.
The request from the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, is widely seen as symbolic, as moving nuclear warheads closer to Russia would make them more vulnerable and less militarily useful, according to experts. Furthermore, the White House has said it had not received such a request.
“We’re not aware of this issue being raised and would refer you to the government of Poland,” a US official said.
Duda’s announcement appears to be the latest example of nuclear signalling as the US and its allies seek to deter Putin from the first nuclear use in battle since 1945, while preparing potential responses if deterrence fails that would have maximum punitive impact while containing the risk of escalation to all-out nuclear war.
Ukraine War Exposes Risks to Deploying Small Nuclear Reactors
- Small modular reactors are seen as the future of atomic energy
- Russian seizure of atomic plant exposes safety vulnerabilities
By Jonathan Tirone, October 6, 2022, The Russian army’s seizure of the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe isn’t just exposing Ukrainians to the risk of an atomic accident but may also undermine plans to install new miniature reactors in far-flung places. ……… (subscribers only) more https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-05/ukraine-war-shows-new-risk-to-nuclear-power-s-next-small-thing#xj4y7vzkg
Will Sizewell C nuclear really go ahead? EDF’s €60bn debt, and €52bn costs for French nuclear build.
When EDF board members joined a video call in late August to discuss a landmark UK nuclear project, they were instead treated to a stand-off between the utility’s outgoing boss and the French state. Rather than signing off the Sizewell C plant in Suffolk as Jean-Bernard Lévy had pushed for, the biggest French power producer’s controlling shareholder demanded more time to finish new audit reports and the meeting descended into acrimony, according to people familiar with the discussions.
“Some people didn’t understand what they were doing there and why there wasn’t going to be a decision on anything,” one of the people said. “It was messy.” The episode, one of several clashes at the company to have spilled into the open in recent months, will provide little comfort to Lévy’s successor, Luc Rémont, who is due to take over as chief executive and chair just as Paris executes a plan to buy out the 16 per cent of EDF it does not already own.
While the nationalisation clarifies the ownership structure, the company could still be subject to demands from the French state that have not always been in its immediate interest, including that it shield consumers from soaring energy prices. Big strategic questions on everything from Sizewell to renewable energy investments, meanwhile, still loom large.
Rémont, currently a senior executive at industrial conglomerate Schneider Electric, will need to solve
the group’s short-term problems while also preparing EDF to take on some of France’s biggest nuclear construction projects in two decades — a period when it has struggled to complete any on time or on budget.
The company’s electricity output is on course to reach all-time lows this year, after corrosion problems at the company’s nuclear plants added to maintenance stoppages and led to the outage at one point of more than half the French fleet of 56 reactors. That has strained supplies across Europe just as the region pivots away from Russian gas, while also turning France into a net power importer for the first time.
French officials have so far insisted that the Sizewell C plant in Britain will go ahead, adding that the state had commissioned extra audits simply to calculate the financial consequences of removing a Chinese state-backed company from the project.
But the government may eventually want to revisit some of its choices, bankers and union representatives close to EDF said, particularly as the group grapples with costly investments. 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.
FT 5th Oct 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/559ce578-fa0d-4bbe-9860-9d512b1510e1
Macron’s nuclear dream means attacking environmental law, and is no help to the climate
Attacking environmental law to accelerate the construction of new nuclear reactors: Macron’s assumed project.
On September 22, on the occasion of the inauguration of the St Nazaire maritime wind farm, and once again anticipating the public debate supposed to be held on the EPR projects in Penly, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his project of a “deployment of a forced-march nuclear strategy” (sic!). On this occasion, he announced an acceleration of the procedures supposed to make it possible to start the first reactors even earlier than planned.
Barely a week later, the dedicated bill reached the National Council for Ecological Transition, summoned to make a decision within an extremely short time. This forced passage and the assumed deconstruction of environmental law presented in this text are quite simply shameful.
But trampling on the law and democracy will not make the problems of a sector undermined by a lack of skills, and of a technology that is too slow and too cumbersome to respond to the climate emergency, disappear with a magic wand.
Sortir du Nucleaire 28th Sept 2022
https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Attaquer-le-droit-de-l-environnement-pour
State ministry reports leak at German nuclear plant, experts investigating
State ministry reports leak at German nuclear plant, experts investigating | Reuters
BERLIN, Oct 5 (Reuters) – A leak occurred during flushing measures on a discharge line at the nuclear power plant in Brunsbuettel, northern Germany, on Sept. 28, the energy ministry of Schleswig-Holstein said on Wednesday.
The defective line is part of the concentrate treatment system and is located in the restricted area of the reactor building of the nuclear power plant, a statement said, adding that a small radioactive contamination was detected.
The reactor safety authority has tasked experts with conducting further supervisory reviews in the matter.
The Brunsbuettel nuclear power plant has already been permanently shut down since 2007. The decommissioning permit was issued at the end of 2018 and dismantling of the plant has begun.
Writing by Rachel More, Editing by Miranda Murray
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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