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China squeezed out of Sizewell C nuclear, in UK’s new funding plan.

Ministers moved yesterday to cut China out of involvement in Britain’s
nuclear power sector with a new funding model that will place the risk of
future projects on to consumers. Under plans announced by Kwasi Kwarteng,
the business secretary, investors in new nuclear power stations will see a
return on their money before the plants are even built.

The move will effectively mean that consumers take on the risk of delays and cost
overruns to projects and will start paying for the new plants through their
bills before the reactors are built.

 Times 27th Oct 2021

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-squeezed-out-of-sizewell-c-in-plan-to-fund-nuclear-power-mdf5rrvmk

October 28, 2021 Posted by | politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Greece will never turn to nuclear energy

Greece will never turn to nuclear energy, EURACTIV.gr, 25 Oct 21,

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said Greece would never switch to nuclear power because of frequent earthquakes in the region. However, he added that Athens would not oppose others using it.“Greece will never acquire nuclear energy because we are in an extremely seismic region,” Mitsotakis said after an EU summit on 22 October……..  https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/greece-will-never-turn-to-nuclear-energy/

October 26, 2021 Posted by | Greece, politics | Leave a comment

Britain’s expensive problem of marine animals clogging up cooling systems on nuclear reactors – drones might monitor this

UK ponders drone monitoring of coastal nuclear plant cooling intake systems, Drone DJ, Bruce Crumley – Oct. 25th 2021  Authorities in the UK are examining a request to take a test UAV project live. It would involve extending experimental drone use monitoring coastal nuclear power plants for marine life that risks getting sucked into their cooling tubes to a real, increasingly troubling example of that in Scotland.


The problem centers on the Torness nuclear power facility to the east of Edinburgh. Its ocean-sucking intake vents have been getting clogged by recurring blossoms of marine life like jellyfish and kelp. In addition to that being fatal to the life forms involved, the incidents can cause the station’s temperature to increase to the point where temporary – but very expensive – closure is required. In response, drone industrial services company RUAS has requested authorities to allow it to fly regular drone missions around the nuclear plant to keep watch for amassing sea creatures so preventive measures can be taken to usher them away.

“The issue is, on a regular basis, they are affected by either jellyfish blooms or marine ingress including microalgae, that are blocking the intake of the nuclear power plant,” says the RUAS in a report by the Herald Scotland. “As a result, the reactor overheats due to the lack of water intake which cools the reactor, creating the need for the reactor to be shut down entirely as an emergency procedure. This has implications when they need to reactivate the reactor, which is costly and time consuming.”

It’s unclear thus far just how officials will respond to that obviously business-generating RUAS proposal. But it would certainly fall within the logic of an almost identical project the UK has been testing since July.

The nuclear plant-specific effort was launched as part of the UK’s broader Drone Pathfinder Programme promoting the use of UAV technologies. Under that, researchers have begun assessing “the feasibility of using unmanned aerial systems for the early detection of marine hazards near to coastal industries, such as nuclear power stations.” 

That includes testing beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) missions to permit near-constant monitoring – a mode RUAS is also hoping to employ at Torness. ……………… https://dronedj.com/2021/10/25/uk-ponders-drone-monitoring-of-coastal-nuclear-plant-cooling-intake-systems/

October 26, 2021 Posted by | environment, safety, UK | Leave a comment

ULEZ expansion will improve Londoners’ health, but it will also reduce climate risks for all of us — Inside track

This post is by Varya Clark, co-founder of the Climate Acceptance Studios. Today, the London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expands dramatically. It will be eighteen times the size of the previous ULEZ, stretching all the way from the North to the South Circular roads. As Auto Express says: “If you’re unfamiliar with London, that’s most […]

ULEZ expansion will improve Londoners’ health, but it will also reduce climate risks for all of us — Inside track

October 26, 2021 Posted by | ENERGY, UK | Leave a comment

UK High Court Should Deny Extradition Because CIA Planned to Assassinate Assange

UK High Court Should Deny Extradition Because CIA Planned to Assassinate Assange,  BYMarjorie CohnTruthout October 24, 2021  

Why is Joe Biden’s Department of Justice continuing Donald Trump’s persecution of WikiLeaks founder, publisher and journalist Julian Assange?

Barack Obama, concerned about threats to the First Amendment freedom of the press, decided against indicting Assange for exposing U.S. war crimes. Trump did indict Assange, under Espionage Act charges that could garner him 175 years in prison. A district judge denied Trump’s request for Assange’s extradition from the U.K. to the United States because of the extremely high likelihood that it would lead Assange to commit suicide. Trump appealed the denial of extradition.

Instead of dropping Trump’s extradition request, Biden is vigorously pursuing his predecessor’s appeal against Assange, which the U.K. High Court will hear on October 27 and 28. At that hearing, the High Court should determine what effect the CIA’s recently revealed plan to kidnap and assassinate Assange will have on his fragile mental state in the event he is extradited to the United States.

Judge Baraitser’s Denial of Extradition

On January 6, U.K. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser issued a 132-page decision denying extradition. “Faced with conditions of near total isolation and without the protective factors which moderate his risk at HMP Belmarsh [where Assange is currently imprisoned],” she wrote, “I am satisfied that the procedures described by Dr. [Leukefeld] will not prevent Mr. Assange from finding a way to commit suicide.”…………………………..

The United States will be allowed to present “assurances” that if Assange is extradited, tried, convicted and imprisoned, he will not be subject to special administrative measures (SAMs) — onerous conditions that would keep him in virtual isolation — or be held at the ADX maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado. The U.S. intends to provide an additional assurance that it would not object to

Assange serving any custodial sentence he may receive in Australia. These so-called assurances, however, are conditional. The U.S. reserves the right to impose SAMs or hold Assange at ADX if his future behavior warrants it. Moreover, the U.S. cannot guarantee that Australia would consent to hosting Assange’s incarceration.

The High Court should give considerable weight to the way in which explosive new revelations of the Trump administration’s plot to kidnap and assassinate Assange will affect his mental health if he is extradited.

High Court Should Consider U.S. Plans to Kidnap and Assassinate Assange

The indictment against Assange stems from WikiLeaks’ 2010-2011 revelations of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo. They included 400,000 field reports about the Iraq War, 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians, and evidence of systematic torture, rape and murder after U.S. forces “handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad,” the documents reveal. They included the Afghan War Logs, 90,000 reports revealing more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had reported. And the Guantánamo Files contained 779 secret reports revealing that 150 innocent people had been imprisoned there for years and documenting the torture and abuse of 800 men and boys, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Perhaps the most notable release by WikiLeaks was the 2007 “Collateral Murder” video, in which a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship in Baghdad targets and fires on unarmed civilians. At least 18 civilians were killed, including two Reuters journalists and a man trying to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured. A U.S. Army tank then drives over one of the bodies, cutting it in half. The video depicts three separate war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual.

It was WikiLeaks’ publication of CIA hacking tools known as “Vault 7,” which the agency called “the largest data loss in CIA history,” that incurred the wrath of Trump’s CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Vault 7 materials revealed electronic surveillance and cyber-warfare by the CIA.

In 2017, Pompeo called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and CIA and government officials hatched “secret war plans” to abduct and kill Assange, according to a stunning Yahoo! News report. Some senior CIA and Trump administration officials requested “sketches” or “options” for ways to assassinate Assange. Trump “asked whether the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide him ‘options’ for how to do so,” according to the report.

Pompeo advocated “extraordinary rendition,” which the CIA used in the “war on terror” to illegally seize suspects and send them to its “black sites” where they were tortured. The scenario was that the CIA would break into the Ecuadorian Embassy in which Assange was staying under a grant of asylum and clandestinely fly him to the United States to stand trial. Others in the agency wanted to assassinate Assange outright by poisoning or shooting him to avoid the hassle of kidnapping him.

The CIA spied on WikiLeaks, and it aimed to sow discord among the group’s members and steal their electronic devices, according to the Yahoo! News report. The CIA also conducted illegal surveillance inside the Ecuadorian Embassy and spied on privileged attorney-client communications between Assange and his lawyers.

Concerned that the CIA might kidnap or kill Assange, which could jeopardize a potential criminal prosecution, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a secret indictment against him in 2018. To bolster the DOJ’s case for extradition, the FBI collaborated with informant Siggi Thordarson to paint Assange as a hacker instead of a journalist. Thordarson later admitted to the Icelandic newspaper Stundin that he lied about Assange being a hacker in return for immunity from prosecution by the FBI.

In 2019, after a new pro-U.S. president came to power in Ecuador, in order to facilitate the U.S.’s attempted extradition, London police dragged Assange from the embassy and arrested him for violating bail conditions. Assange remains in custody in London’s maximum security Belmarsh Prison pending Biden’s appeal of the extradition denial.

The High Court should give great weight to the U.S. plans to kidnap and assassinate Assange. The knowledge of those revelations will put even more mental stress on Assange, whom former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer described as having suffered “prolonged exposure to psychological torture” during his confinement. The High Court should affirm the district court’s denial of extradition.

A Window Into U.S. War Crimes and Threats to Investigative Journalism

“When Assange published hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the public was given an unprecedented window into the lack of justification and the futility of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Assange Defense co-chairs Daniel Ellsberg, Alice Walker and Noam Chomsky wrote at Newsweek. “The truth was hidden by a generation of governmental lies. Assange’s efforts helped show the American public what their government was doing in their name.”

Recent revelations of Pompeo’s threats against Assange that appeared in Yahoo! News have shed light on the dangers the national security state poses to investigative journalism and the public’s right to know. In light of these new disclosures, a coalition of 25 press freedom, civil liberties and international human rights organizations have intensified their call for dismissal of the DOJ’s charges against Assange.

Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said his committee has asked the CIA for information about plans to kidnap or assassinate Assange.

The High Court will decide whether to affirm or overturn district judge Baraitser’s decision denying extradition. If they affirm Baraitser’s ruling, the Biden administration could ask the U.K. Supreme Court to review the case. If the High Court overturns Baraitser’s decision, Assange could appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court and then to the European Court of Human Rights if the Supreme Court ruling goes against him.

Biden’s appeal of the denial of extradition should be dismissed. Julian Assange should be released and celebrated for his courage.  https://truthout.org/articles/uk-high-court-should-deny-extradition-because-cia-planned-to-assassinate-assange/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=d08c3b6b-b92d-4b47-92cb-3c964bf0bab4

October 25, 2021 Posted by | civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Campaign to get NatWest bank to stop investing in nuclear weapons


Campaign criticises Natwest nuclear arms firms’ investments, The National, By Greg Russell  @National_Greg  24 Oct 21
,   WITH the eyes of the world on Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference, a campaign group aimed at raising the profile of the health and humanitarian impacts of the use of nuclear weapons has highlighted a major sponsor’s investment in firms that produce nuclear weapons.

Scotland’s biggest bank, Natwest, is a major sponsor of the event, which will bring together representatives of almost 200 countries aimed at agreeing measures to address the global climate emergency.

However, Medact Scotland said the bank’s ongoing investments in companies that make nuclear weapons contradicts its climate and environmental commitments.

“The detonation of just one nuclear bomb would generate a fireball and shockwave that would destroy everything within the blast zone and spread radioactive contamination far beyond it”, said retired GP Dr Guy Johnson, of Medact Scotland.

“A nuclear exchange using less than 1% of the world’s nuclear weapons would alter the Earth’s climate, leading to widespread famine, while the climate impacts of a full-scale nuclear war could make human existence impossible.”

According to pressure group Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland, NatWest Group held investments worth £2 billion in 15 nuclear weapons producers over a two-year period, which included investments in major arms companies BAE Systems, Thales and General Dynamics.

Linda Pearson, from the campaign group, said: “NatWest Group cannot claim to be a leader in addressing climate change while continuing to finance the nuclear weapons industry.

“Nuclear weapons production is energy intensive and environmentally damaging.

“Ultimately, any efforts to address the climate crisis will be in vain if the world is destroyed by nuclear war.”

In March this year, Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland and its partners sent an open letter to NatWest CEO, Alison Rose, calling on the bank to comprehensively exclude nuclear weapons producers from investment.

The letter was co-signed by 42 organisations including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Church of Scotland, Unison Scotland and Friends of the Earth Scotland.

Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland is also encouraging individuals to contact the bank directly.

“We want NatWest to live up to its climate commitments”, Johnson said.

“That means the bank must recognise the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons and cut all financial ties with the companies that make them.”……….   https://www.thenational.scot/news/19669192.campaign-criticises-natwest-nuclear-arms-firms-investments/

October 25, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The very great risk that sea level rise poses to UK’s nuclear reactors

 The UK nuclear military complex is on the front-line of climate breakdown – and not in a good way. As if we already didn’t know, climate change is here, now. Widespread wild-fire and flooding has focused minds on the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) report which, perhaps unsurprisingly, confirms that as the world heats, ice stored at thepoles and in glaciers melt and sea levels rise.

In short, sea-level rise is significantly faster than previously thought. Meanwhile, predicted changes to storm patterns affecting ‘storm surge’ and river flow will drive ‘combined hazards’, making flood mitigation efforts increasingly
obsolete. Because all UK nuclear military installations began operationwell before global heating was considered in design or construction, near-term climate change risk to nuclear is very great.

 Ecologist 22nd Oct 2021

https://theecologist.org/2021/oct/22/things-fall-apart

October 25, 2021 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce being urged to do nuclear testing in UK, not in Italy

Rolls-Royce being urged to carry out nuclear testing in UK after it emerged company was considering using site in northern Italy, This Is Money, 

By ALEX LAWSON, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY 24 October 2021 Rolls-Royce is being urged to carry out nuclear testing in the UK after it emerged that the company was considering using a site in northern Italy. 

The engineering giant has shortlisted the SIET institute in Piacenza for testing work as part of its plan to build small nuclear reactors. 

Domestic options for the tests include a proposed site on Anglesey, north Wales. 

MPs and unions have spoken out since The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that some of the work could take place in Piacenza. Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect trade union, said: ‘To justify taking these jobs offshore there should be a high bar and proof that there is not sufficient capacity or time to do the work indigenously. 

‘You would hope that it is not just about cost. In the current climate any major UK corporate should be asking questions about what would look like offshoring.’ 

The Conservative MP for Anglesey, Virginia Crosbie – a nuclear advocate known as the ‘Atomic Kitten’ – hopes to persuade the Government to fund a thermal hydraulic testing facility on the island. 

She said: ‘We should absolutely see this work done here. It is clearly in our national interest.’ 

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said: ‘We have committed to source 80 per cent of this project by value in the UK and the priority for this business is to maximise UK content.’ … https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-10123765/Rolls-Royce-urged-carry-nuclear-testing-UK.html

October 25, 2021 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Jellyfish causing a Scottish nuclear power station to close down its reactors

Jellyfish causing a Scottish nuclear power station to close down its reactors? It’s no flight of fancy  https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19669564.jellyfish-causing-scottish-nuclear-power-station-close-reactors-no-flight-fancy/
By Ron McKay   You think that those darned jellyfish are just a holiday problem in the Med? It turns out they’ve been getting in and clogging up the water-cooling intake pipes at Scotland’s sole active nuclear power station at Torness, outside Dunbar, resulting in the reactor having to shut down in an emergency procedure.

A commercial drone company called RUAS has asked the Civil Aviation Authority for what’s called a Temporary Danger Area to be applied around the site so that its pilots can fly spotter drones out to sea to log the

 invaders and sea kelp in an early warning system, so that the station’s water intake can by reduced and expensive total closure averted.

If this is granted it will apply from December until the end of February, and lots of drones will be buzzing about like hornets.

The application says:

“The issue is on a regular basis they are affected by either jellyfish blooms or marine ingress including microalgae, that are blocking the intake of the Nuclear Power Plant.

“As a result, the reactor overheats due to the lack of water intake which cools the reactor, creating the need for the reactor to be shut down entirely as an emergency procedure. This has implications when they need to reactivate the reactor which is costly and time consuming.”

This doesn’t sound at all healthy to me. The company also wants permission to fly the drones, or BVLOS, the acronym for beyond visual line of site, meaning that the pilots on the ground will be playing with their joysticks and watching they don’t hit seagulls or boats on a video screen.

Just the kind of task you could do from the pub.

October 25, 2021 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Swedish authorities delay permission for nuclear waste dump operation, due to concerns over corrosion of copper in containers

 The Environmental Organizations’ Nuclear Waste Review (MKG), which has the
Friends of the Earth and the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation as
members, welcomes the fact that the Nuclear Waste Council has concluded
that there is a need for more copper corrosion research before a nuclear
fuel repository can be put into operation.

In a statement to the Government
on 21 October, the Council proposes that more research on copper corrosion
in a repository environment be conducted after the Government has given
permission to build the repository, and that a separate government decision
be made before the repository is taken into use. MKG believes that it is
already prepared for research within the LOT trial that can yield important
results before the government makes an admissibility decision on the
nuclear fuel repository. Waiting with research until after construction
starts means problems.

 MKG 22nd Oct 2021

https://www.mkg.se/pressmeddelande-fran-mkg-lot-forsoket-kan-ge-viktiga-resultat-innan-ett-regeringsbeslut-om

October 25, 2021 Posted by | safety, Sweden, wastes | 3 Comments

Close security on village where France’s nuclear waste inquiry commission works

The nuclear product burial project at Bure (Meuse) has been under study
for twenty years. Highly sensitive, this site is subject to several
controversies. The material will remain radioactive for several hundred
years.

The village of Soudron (Haute-Marne) is placed under close
surveillance. The small town of 40 inhabitants has almost as many
gendarmes, who came to ensure the safety of the public inquiry commission,
which collects the opinion of the inhabitants on the project of burying
radioactive waste 500 meters underground. A laboratory was built for the
occasion in a layer of clay, at great depth.

 France TV 21st Oct 2021

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/environnement/dechets-nucleaires-a-bure/nucleaire-un-chantier-d-enfouissement-controverse_4816577.html

October 25, 2021 Posted by | France, secrets,lies and civil liberties, wastes | Leave a comment

France: public inquiry into disposal of nuclear waste

Cigeo project: the public inquiry into the burial of radioactive waste
ends. More than 3,000 contributions were collected, mainly on the digital
register, for this stage prior to a possible declaration of public utility.
The commission of inquiry is expected to report in December 2021.

 Ouest France 23rd Oct 2021

https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/projet-cigeo-l-enquete-publique-sur-l-enfouissement-des-dechets-radioactifs-se-termine-

October 25, 2021 Posted by | France, wastes | Leave a comment

Growing movement to stop the dumping of radioactive wastes into the Severn Estuary

Save the Severn Estuary is a non-partisan coalition of scientists,
experts, individuals and organisations calling on the Marine Management
Organisation (MMO) to revoke the license granted to EDF (Électricité de
France) which allows for the dumping of sediment contaminated by the
Hinkley nuclear power stations in the Severn Estuary near Portishead.

This is a consequence of building a water intake for the new power station which
in itself will kill millions of fish when operational. Please also make a
donation towards the costs of legal action we are taking. We have set up a
company for this purpose in order to make the fundraising easier. We are
represented by Leigh Day, and the legal case seeks the quashing of EDF’s
license. In order to proceed with a judicial review against the MMO, we are
aiming to raise £60,000 to cover all of the costs associated with the
legal action. We need your support: please contribute and share this page
now!

 Crowd Justice (accessed) 22nd Oct 2021

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-severn-estuary/

October 25, 2021 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

France may have hidden agenda in promoting small nuclear reactors


Countries that are clinging on to nuclear power are often nuclear weapon states — such as the UK, the US and France,” he explained, and pointed to a speech by Macron in December 2020.

“Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power; and without military nuclear power, no civil nuclear power,” the president had said

Do France’s plans for small nuclear reactors have hidden agenda?  DW, 22 Oct 21,

Although France plans to invest in small modular nuclear reactors, experts doubt that this is ecologically and economically sensible. Yet it may be more about geopolitical strategy than energy.”…… 
A French law says the country will have to reduce its share of nuclear energy from currently roughly 70% — the highest in the world — to 50% in 2035, a goal President Emmanuel Macron has in the past called unrealistic. 

But in pursuing small modular reactors (SMRs), some experts believe France may have a hidden agenda.

€1 billion planned investment

Recently, the president announced plans to invest in so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) “to lead the sector with groundbreaking innovations.” The new reactors are ostensibly to help France reduce its CO2 emissions.

The announcement came when Macron unveiled his France 2030 investment strategy of €30 billion ($35 billion) at the Elysee Palace.

“We have a decisive competitive advantage — our historical model, the existing nuclear power plants,” the president said during the ceremony.

The strategy allocates €8 billion to the development of hydrogen power and only €1 billion to SMRs, yet Macron declared the plans to develop the small plants “goal No. 1.”

The country’s SMRs will have a capacity of 50 megawatts to 500 MW each – considerably less than France’s current reactors with their capacity of up to 1,450 MW. SMRs are to be built in clusters to increase sites’ total capacity.

But nuclear champion France is not the frontrunner in the SMR race — the US is……

France’s first demonstration plant is only scheduled to be completed in 2030.

And yet, Nicolas Mazzucchi, of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, thinks the country could take the lead in the sector………

A discussion based on ‘hot air’

But Mycle Schneider thinks nuclear energy is inefficient in the fight against the climate emergency — “too expensive, too slow,” he says. He’s the editor of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), which assesses trends in the global nuclear power industry.

“Last year, more than 250 GW of renewable energy capacity has been added to the grid and only 0.4 GW of net nuclear capacity — nuclear power has become irrelevant,” he asserted.

Schneider says nuclear power plants only appear to be more reliable than renewables: “France’s nuclear reactors, on average, had to be switched off during one-third of the time in 2020, mostly due to maintenance, also as they now have been running for a long time, on average more than 35 years.”

“The discussion around SMRs is orchestrated hot air and has become hugely hyped,” he explained to DW.

He added that renewables had to be seen as a bouquet of different energies. Through demand response management, one type of energy could offset the temporary unavailability of the other. Environmentalists also often point out that construction of nuclear power plants has a significant carbon footprint.

“It takes ages to build new nuclear power plants,” Schneider added. French utility EDF and Siemens started to develop EPRs, a third-generation pressurised water reactor design, after the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986, he explained. “And 35 years on, there’s still no EPR in Europe up and running.”

EDF is building a 1.6 GW EPR in Flamanville in northern France. But constructing the plant will exceed €11 billion, instead of the initially planned €3.3 billion, and the EPR is only scheduled to be completed next year — 10 years later than initially intended.

Nevertheless, President Macron could soon announce plans to build six additional EPRs in France.

Nuclear very capital-intensive

Such delays have Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of environmental and energy economics at Yale University in the US, wondering if investing in nuclear makes economic sense.

“The safety requirement for new nuclear plants are that strict, that constructing them becomes very costly and capital-intensive,” he told DW.

“I don’t really see why you would spend money on SMRs, especially as you don’t know if they will work in the end,” he said.

Philip Johnstone, a research fellow at the University of Sussex School of Business in southern England, thinks that SMRs turn the logic of economies of scale on its head.

Ulterior motives behind investment in SMRs

“We were told all along that building bigger nuclear plants would help us save money through the scale effect, and now it’s supposed to suddenly work the other way around?” Johnstone told DW.

He believes that France has other reasons for continuing to invest in nuclear energy.

“Countries that are clinging on to nuclear power are often nuclear weapon states — such as the UK, the US and France,” he explained, and pointed to a speech by Macron in December 2020.

“Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power; and without military nuclear power, no civil nuclear power,” the president had said, praising a sector that employs 220,000 people in France.

“The investment in SMRs seems first and foremost a strategic decision, even though it means wasting a lot of time and money,” Johnstone said.

Time and money that could instead be more effectively invested in climate protection.

According to the United Nations, global CO2 emissions will need to be reduced by more than 7% percent each year until 2030 — based on the year 2019 — to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). https://www.dw.com/en/do-frances-plans-for-small-nuclear-reactors-have-hidden-agenda/a-59585614

October 23, 2021 Posted by | France, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Stop Sizewell C anti nuclear campaigners taking their fight to London, and the UK government

Campaigners fighting to stop a new nuclear power station being built on
the Suffolk coast have taken their battle to Number 10 Downing Street.
Ahead of the Chancellor’s spending review and Budget, the Stop Sizewell C
group visited key locations in the capital with its message and campaign
video on a digital Advan.

 East Anglian Daily Times 20th Oct 2021

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/stop-sizewell-c-campaign-visits-downing-street-8428226

October 23, 2021 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment