Macron dithers on nuclear power investment as issue divides France.
Macron dithers on nuclear power investment as issue divides France.
Emmanuel Macron has been a vocal supporter of nuclear power, insisting in December that the carbon emission-free energy was key to France’s green transition. But less than a year before presidential elections, the French leader is leaving the multibillion question of adding new reactors undecided as the issue becomes increasingly divisive.
An estimated €49bn by 2025 has been earmarked to extend the working lives of France’s 56 nuclear reactors, and Macron has yet to commit to any new reactor, beside the one that
state-owned company EDF is building in Flamanville, in the north-west.
FT 19th July 2021
https://www.ft.com/content/137841f9-1c34-4b43-bcad-5923e27c1515
The Green Jobs Taskforce
Just Transition**
The UK is currently not on track to deliver a commitment to host two
million green-collar jobs by 2030. But the economic recovery from Covid-19
presents a window to accelerate investment and build a robust skills
pipeline, according to the Green Jobs Taskforce report published this week.
The Taskforce was set up by the Government late last year, following
pressure from trade bodies, businesses and NGOs. Its purpose is to develop
recommendations for helping unemployed people into skilled jobs that
contribute to the net-zero transition and supporting those currently
working in high-carbon businesses to upskill and reskill.
Under an overarching call to ensure that the Net-Zero Strategy is published to time
ahead of COP26 and includes significant commitments on jobs and skills,
three themes are covered in the report: Scaling up investment in the
net-zero transition, building pathways into good green careers and
supporting a just transition for workers in the high-carbon economy.
Edie 16th July 2021
https://www.edie.net/news/11/Six-UK-green-policy-stories-you-need-to-know-about-this-week/
Green energy suppliers protest at UK government’s funding plan to promote nuclear power, with residents exposed to nuclear cost overruns.
Green energy suppliers oppose bills surcharge for new nuclear plants, Critics warn the UK government’s plans could expose households to cost overruns.
Ft.com Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh Green energy suppliers are protesting at the prospect of having to add a surcharge to household bills to pay for new nuclear plants in Britain when their customers purposely choose not to support the divisive technology.
UK ministers are aiming to introduce legislation in the autumn that would allow for a large nuclear power plant proposed for Sizewell on England’s east coast to be financed via a “regulated asset base” model. The scheme would see households help fund the construction of the £20bn plant via a surcharge on their energy bills, regardless of their supplier.
Households already pay for a number of policy costs via their energy bills, such as subsidies for wind and solar schemes, yet a nuclear surcharge would prove particularly difficult to stomach for companies that offer their customers “100 per cent renewable energy” deals, which do not include nuclear power.
Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity, the first company in Britain to have offered customers green electricity, told the Financial Times: “It’s bonkers we would all have to pay this subsidy for at least a decade of construction and not for power generated.”
“The government is reluctant to fund nuclear projects itself, so allowing Sizewell [C] to access the RAB [regulated asset base] system is simply dumping the cost on consumers — even those who have gone renewable, and that’s just unfair,” added Vince.
Kit Dixon, policy manager at Good Energy, the UK’s first supplier to offer customers 100 per cent renewable electricity, said that “we should be deeply concerned” by the nuclear industry potentially being offered such a deal to build expensive new plants “with little incentive to deliver on time or within budget”.
“We’ve got to stop seeing customers’ bills as a sort of cash machine for folly projects,” said another energy chief executive who asked not to be named.
…………………….Critics of the regulated asset base model warn that it would expose households to cost-overruns, which have proved common in the nuclear industry.
Environment groups oppose nuclear on the grounds that it is more expensive than technologies such as offshore wind and leaves a legacy of highly toxic waste that takes more than 100,000 years to decay.
Bulb, Britain’s seventh biggest supplier by market share, also warned in a response to a consultation on the regulated asset base model that using the financing mechanism for nuclear plants “doesn’t protect customers who choose to be on a renewable tariff but adds costs to their bills for a technology they won’t directly benefit from”……….. https://www.ft.com/content/a12bc937-a91f-4341-ba3e-25d7f7edc6d2
UK government’s pointless pursuit ofnuclear power, as renewable energy proving to be cheaper and faster.
Renewable energy, mainly wind and solar, is rising on the back of rapidly falling costs. So much so that the International Energy Agency, which has in the past been rather guarded about their potential, has switched over to seeing them as the main way ahead, supplying 90% of global electric power by 2050.
| Dave Elliott: No room for nuclear. As noted in an article in Regional Life, a local conservation e-magazine linked to a local anti nuclear group, the flat landscape of the Dengie peninsula in Essex is punctuated by a line of tall wind turbines, slowly turning and the massive grey-blue hulk of the former Bradwell ‘A’ nuclear power station. These two features it says graphically express the contrast between rise of renewable energy and the demise of nuclear power, the past and the future of electricity generation. Renewable energy, mainly wind and solar, is rising on the back of rapidly falling costs. So much so that the International Energy Agency, which has in the past been rather guarded about their potential, has switched over to seeing them as the main way ahead, supplying 90% of global electric power by 2050. That is actually quite conservative compared to some projections for the UK: renewables are supplying over 43% of UK power at present and the Renewable Energy Association says that reaching 100% is possible by 2032 – indeed Scotland is already almost there. All of which raises thequestion of why we are still pursuing nuclear power- which just about everyone agrees is very much more expensive than wind and solar. The recent BBC TV documentary series on construction work at Hinkley Point C in Somerset made stunningly clear the massive scale and environmental footprint of nuclear projects like this. Especially notable was the vast amount of concrete that had to be poured- the production of which involves significant release of carbon dioxide gas. That is one reason why nuclear plants are not zero carbon options, another being the fact that mining and processing uranium fuel are energy and carbon intensive activities. By contrast, renewable energy systems like solar cells and wind turbines need no fuel to run, and, although energy is needed to make the materials used in their construction, the net carbon/energy lifetime debt is less than for nuclear- one study suggested nuclear produces on average 23 times more emissions than onshore wind per unit electricity generated. The Government’s stated aim is to generate ‘enough electricity from offshore wind to power every home by 2030’. That means many more offshore wind farms, off the East coast and also elsewhere around the UK. With the other renewables also added in and more of them planned (we have 14 GW of solar capacity so far) it is hard to see what the nuclear plants are for – the 9 GW or so of old plants and the new 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C plant, much less any other proposed new ones. The nuclear lobby sometimes argues we need more nuclear to replace nuclear plants that are being closed and also to back up renewables. It is hard to see how that could work, unless the new plants were flexible, and able to compensate for the variable output of the 30GW or so of wind and solar capacity we have at present. As yet there are no plans to run the Hinkley Point C plant that way, or for that matter, the proposed 3.2 GW Sizewell C. In which case, adding more nuclear will mean that, at times of low demand, some cheap renewable output, or some low cost flexible gas plant output, would have to be curtailed. What a waste! All of this to keep the £22bn Hinkley Point, and any that follow, financially viable. Renew Extra 17th July 2021 https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2021/07/no-room-for-nuclear.html |
A new problem for France’s nuclear company EDF threatens to further delay its plans for new model European Pressurised Reactor (EPR2)
EPR2**
In a discreetly published notice in March, the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) – the technical office of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) – asks the State-owned company EDF to identify the origin of the vibrations affecting the circuit primary water from EPRs, already built or under construction.
And to find a solution to this problem, so that it does not reproduce on its new model of reactor, called EPR 2.
Passed under the radar, the news is yet another hard blow in a story with twists and turns. Indeed, EDF has to date no idea how to solve it.
Consequently, we can already anticipate new years of additional delay inthe development of a technology, supposedly easier to produce and therefore more competitive, on which the group led by Jean-Bernard Levy plays very heavily.
Blast 17th July 2021
Nuclear colonialism
An Australian artist has accused a group of Conservative councillors of
using “bullying strategies” to silence and censor her work after an
installation she created to highlight Britain’s “identity as a colonial
nuclear state” was removed from a park in Essex. The councillors
threatened to “take action against the work” if it was not removed,
according to Metal, the arts organisation that commissioned and then
removed the installation from Gunners Park in Southend.
Guardian 17th July 2021
21
Costly dismantling of France’s Brennilis nuclear power plant continues, 35 years after shutdown.
The dismantling of the Brennilis nuclear power plant, in the Monts
d’Arrée (Finistère) will be completed by 2040 and will have cost 850
million euros, the departmental council of Finistère said on Thursday.
These operations began over 35 years ago.
France Bleu 15th July 2021
USA keen to market nuclear reactors to Poland (and indeed – to anybody)
Bechtel, Westinghouse join forces to pursue Polish nuclear power plant project, July 16, 2021, RESTON, Va., July 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Bechtel and Westinghouse Electric Company, two leading U.S. companies in the global nuclear industry, today announced they’ve formed a team to pursue new nuclear power plant projects in Poland…….
“Poland is taking steps to transition to a clean energy economy while retaining its energy independence and security. The Westinghouse-Bechtel team offers proven technology and hands-on experience in nuclear project delivery and is ready to immediately support Poland’s transformative vision.”……
This news follows the U.S. Trade and Development Agency announcement on June 30 providing a grant for a front-end engineering design (FEED) for a plant in Poland using proven Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. The FEED is expected to be delivered in 12 months. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bechtel-westinghouse-join-forces-pursue-170100809.html
Expert opinion: why nuclear energy should not be included as sustainable in Europe’s green taxonomy financing
BASE comments on the JRC report https://www.base.bund.de/SharedDocs/Stellungnahmen/BASE/DE/2021/0714_base-fachstellungnahme-jrc-bericht.html Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung) 14 july 21
Expert opinion on the report of the Joint Research Center “Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the‛ do no significant harm ‛criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852‛ Taxonomy Regulation ‛”
There are numerous reasons why the use of nuclear power is not ecologically sustainable and why this form of energy generation is therefore not part of the taxonomy regulation of the European Union ( EU ) – this is the conclusion of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management ( BASE ).
The basis for this is a specialist opinion for the Federal Environment Ministry, in which the Federal Office for Radiation Protection was also involved.
BASE statement is a reaction to the report of the Joint Research Center.
The reason for this statement is the report of the so-called Joint Research Center, an EU directorate-general whose origin was nuclear research. This came to a positive assessment of nuclear power in March 2021:
According to this, the catalog of criteria of the so-called “do no significant harm” principle is met – an assessment that evaluates forms of energy production according to their environmental balance.
If the EU Commission followed this evaluation by the JRC and rated nuclear energy as an ecologically sustainable form of economic activity, it would also appear attractive as a corresponding form of financial investment and would be equated, for example, with renewable energies.
BASE statement is a reaction to the report of the Joint Research Center
The reason for this statement is the report of the so-called Joint Research Center, an EU directorate-general whose origin was nuclear research. This came to a positive assessment of nuclear power in March 2021:
According to this, the catalog of criteria of the so-called “do no significant harm” principle is met – an assessment that evaluates forms of energy production according to their environmental balance.
If the EU Commission followed this evaluation by the JRC and rated nuclear energy as an ecologically sustainable form of economic activity, it would also appear attractive as a corresponding form of financial investment and would be equated, for example, with renewable energies.
Serious nuclear accidents were not adequately assessed in the JRC report
Background: The evaluation of nuclear power is controversial at the European level. A group of technical experts came to the conclusion in 2020 that a decision in favor of the use of nuclear power as part of the taxonomy should not be made. Thereupon the Joint Research Center of the EU was commissioned to evaluate the atomic energy.
In its report, BASE now points out the following points that should be assessed negatively with regard to nuclear power:
- failure to take into account the risk of major accidents,
- unresolved repository – or disposal problems and
- an insufficient consideration of subsequent loads for future generations.
As a result, the report comes to the following assessment:
“The JRC report only incompletely considers the consequences and risks of the use of nuclear energy for people and the environment as well as for subsequent generations or omits them in its assessment. Insofar as it deals with them, the principles of scientific work are sometimes not correctly taken into account. The JRC report thus provides an incomplete contribution with which the sustainability of the use of nuclear energy cannot be comprehensively assessed. “
Expert opinion (German)
Expert Response (English)
UK government plan – residents on the hook in advance for costly Sizewell nuclear plan that will be useless to combat climate change
A remote area on England’s east coast, halfway between the seaside towns of Felixstowe and Lowestoft, is set to become the centre of debate about Britain’s future energy security. UK ministers are aiming to bring
forward legislation in the autumn to support the financing of a 3.2 gigawatt nuclear power station in Sizewell, East Suffolk….
Ministers have been in formal negotiations with EDF about how to fund the proposed £20bn Sizewell C
plant since December, and the government and the French state-backed utility have had discussions about replacing Britain’s ageing nuclear reactors for years.
However, the question of whether Britain should build more large plants took on added urgency last month, when EDF closed the 1.1GW Dungeness B station in Kent seven years early. It also raised the prospect that other reactors may also be decommissioned ahead of schedule, owing to problems with their graphite cores……….
“If there was [a capacity issue], what good is Sizewell going to do given it won’t come on line until 2034
according to EDF?” asks Stephen Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich. Nuclear sceptics have long argued that money would be better spent on clean energy technologies, such as
offshore wind, and reducing electricity demand through measures including insulation.
Under a RAB model, consumers would pay towards a new plant through their energy bills long before any electricity is generated. Opponents of the model warn that consumers would also be on the hook for
cost overruns.
FT 14th July 2021
https://www.ft.com/content/3f2bfc76-5b74-437c-8b18-67f9cde991af
British court ruling heightens danger of Assange extradition to the US
British court ruling heightens danger of Assange extradition to the US, WSWS, Oscar Grenfell, 12 July 21, Last week’s ruling by the British High Court allowing prosecutors to appeal an earlier judgment blocking Julian Assange’s extradition, poses the very real danger that the WikiLeaks publisher will be dispatched to his American persecutors in the not-too-distant future.
The ruling is a microcosm of the Assange case as a whole. As they have for the past decade, the British courts have thrown aside the WikiLeaks founder’s legal and democratic rights. They have granted a US appeal that is both duplicitous and irregular under conditions in which the entire attempt by the American state to prosecute Assange has been exposed as an illegal frame-up.
The US appeal is a damning refutation of those, including among Assange’s own supporters, who have peddled dangerous illusions that the US administration of President Joe Biden may drop the prosecution if a sufficient number of moral pleas are addressed to the new occupant of the White House.
The appeal was first issued in the dying days of the Trump administration but it was continued, honed and argued for by Biden’s Justice Department. Assange remains in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison and faces the prospect of lifetime incarceration in the US because Biden is determined to press ahead with the prosecution of a journalist and publisher for exposing American war crimes, human rights violations and illegal spying operations.
That is because the Assange prosecution is viewed as a crucial precedent by the imperialist powers for the suppression of dissent and anti-war opposition amid a ratcheting up of the preparations for military conflict, including the Biden administration’s threats and provocations against China, and the first signs of a resurgence of working-class struggle.
The appeal also confirms the warnings made by the World Socialist Web Site about January’s British District Court decision that barred extradition.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser accepted all the substantive arguments of the US prosecutors, including their right to try a publisher under the Espionage Act. Her ruling, prohibiting extradition, was framed in the narrowest terms. Its purpose was to defuse a groundswell of opposition to the prospect of Assange’s extradition and to provide the US with ample scope for appeal.
Baraitser ruled that extradition would be “oppressive.” Assange’s compromised health and the conditions of his imprisonment in the US would likely result in his suicide.
The deliberate consequence of that judgment was that there was only a legal sliver between Assange and extradition.
The US has exploited this with its appeal claiming that the conditions of imprisonment would not be so oppressive. It has proposed worthless assurances that Assange would not be held under Special Administrative Measures (SAM), regulations that impose almost total isolation on a prisoner, and that he could serve out his sentence in Australia.
The extradition hearing had heard harrowing testimony about the dire psychological consequences of SAMs and conditions at the supermax ADX Florence prison where they are frequently imposed.
The US arguments, accepted as a legitimate basis of appeal by the British court, were demolished by Stella Moris, Assange’s partner and an international human rights lawyer.
In a statement issued on Friday, Moris wrote: “Reports about US undertakings are grossly misleading. On any given day 80,000 prisoners in US prisons are held in solitary confinement. Only a handful are in ADX/under special administrative measures. ADX is just one of dozens of self-described supermax prisons in the United States. The US government also says it may change its mind if the head of the CIA advises it to do so once Julian Assange is held in US custody.
“With regard to the supposed concession of allowing Julian to serve jail time in Australia, it was always his right to request a prisoner transfer to Australia to finish serving his sentence because he is an Australian. It is no concession at all. There are existing agreements between the US and Australian authorities. What is crucial to understand is that prisoner transfers are eligible only after all appeals have been exhausted. For the case to reach the US Supreme Court could easily take a decade, even two.
“What the US is proposing is a formula to keep Julian in prison effectively for the rest of his life. The only assurance that would be acceptable would be for the Biden Administration to drop this shameful case altogether, once and for all. He should not be in prison for a single day, not in the UK, not in the United States, not in Australia—because journalism is not a crime.”
As Moris noted, the US appeal itself reserved the “right” to impose SAMs once Assange is on US soil. Testimony at the extradition hearing, including from a former US prison warden, established that the imposition of SAMs is essentially extra-judicial, often being introduced at the say-so of the intelligence agencies, and with no genuine means of appeal.
“What the US is proposing is a formula to keep Julian in prison effectively for the rest of his life. The only assurance that would be acceptable would be for the Biden Administration to drop this shameful case altogether, once and for all. He should not be in prison for a single day, not in the UK, not in the United States, not in Australia—because journalism is not a crime.”
As Moris noted, the US appeal itself reserved the “right” to impose SAMs once Assange is on US soil. Testimony at the extradition hearing, including from a former US prison warden, established that the imposition of SAMs is essentially extra-judicial, often being introduced at the say-so of the intelligence agencies, and with no genuine means of appeal.
The hearings, moreover, heard evidence of a case in which similar assurances were immediately thrown out the door once extradition was secured……………
Thordarson has now admitted, however, that almost all his testimony consisted of lies proffered in exchange for immunity from US prosecution. The American government thus submitted a false indictment to the British courts……….https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/12/assa-j12.html?pk_campaign=assange-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
French nuclear company EDF struggles with increasing debt and poor prospects for its nuclear fleet.
Telegraph 11th July 2021, Macron’s battle to rewire EDF. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to restructure EDF and separate the costly nuclear power arm from the rest of the business. Jean-Bernard Lévy has developed a remarkable level of patience in his role leading utilities giant EDF. The French state-controlled company oversees some of the longest-running infrastructure projects in the world, operating 73 reactors globally.
But even Lévy is bound to have grown frustrated by the lack of progress in the French government’s effort to improve the company’s prospects. In what has been code-named Project Hercules, France wants to overhaul competition rules and separate EDF’s costly nuclear power arm from other areas of its business.
It is hoped the move could allow EDF to double its growth target in renewable energy to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and help it manage its debts. Brussels must first give approval for EDF’s reorganisation, but talks appear to have stalled and time is running out before France’s general election in April.
Its expensive nuclear fleet is one reason for its heavy net debt of €42bn. Multi-billion euro investment is needed in coming years to decommission, maintain and build new plants. S&P Global says nuclear projects “represent the highest risk to the group’s credit quality”.
It expects net debt to rise to €50bn-€52bn by the end of 2023. EDF argues it is disadvantaged by rules in France allowing competitors to buy a quarter of the electricity generated by its nuclear fleet at a fixed price of €42 per MwH, to make up for its monopoly in themarket. The price is too low and inflexible, EDF argues.
Meanwhile, EDF’s spending grows. The company is building several large assets without yet getting paid, including the £22bn-23bn nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C Somerset. For its next planned nuclear power station in the UK, Sizewell C in Suffolk, a different funding mechanism is being discussed with the
Government that would allow EDF to recoup costs from household bills during construction, rather than having to wait until the plant is generating.Ministers are believed to be preparing to introduce legislation this
autumn.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/11/macrons-battle-rewire-edf/
Green party makes gains in East Suffolk Council by-election – area that includes planned Sizewell nuclear station
The Green Party has taken one of two seats up for grabs in the Aldeburgh and Leiston ward in Thursday’s East Suffolk Council by-election – and came within two votes of winning the other.
Tom Daly is the first Green councillor elected in the area which includes much of the site of the proposed new Sizewell C power station. He will be joined on the council by Conservative Russ Rainger – who was a county councillor for the area before standing down in May.
The second Green candidate, Matt Oakley, came only two votes behind Mr Rainger. Suffolk Coastal Green Party chairman Julian Cusak said on Facebook: “Great result for the Green Party last night.
Aldeburgh and Leiston now has its first Green councillor on East Suffolk Council.
East Anglian Daily Times 9th July 2021
France’s government helps settle the debts of bankrupt nuclear company AREVA (which is now resuscitated as ORANO)
French state helps Areva settle Finnish EPR liabilities. To settle a new additional cost of 600 million euros, the State will buy back from the company, for 994.1 million euros, part of the shares it holds in the capital of Orano, the group responsible for managing the fuel cycle.
Le Monde 8th July 2021
UK residents face higher electricity bills, paying in advance, for the construction of new nuclear reactors
Consumers face higher energy bills to pay for new nuclear power. EDF wants to recoup some of the £20bn cost of the new Sizewell C plant in Suffolk before it starts producing electricity. Households face higher energy bills to help pay for the planned £20bn Sizewell C plant in Suffolk as the Government seeks to replace the UK’s ageing nuclear power stations.
Ministers are preparing to introduce legislation so that nuclear developers can recoup some of their costs through energy bills while a new plant is being built, rather than having to wait until it has been developed, the Financial Times reported. Supporters stress the so-called regulated asset base model can help cut the huge costs of nuclear power because it reduces risk for developers, although critics argue it unfairly heaps risk onto consumers. EDF has been in negotiations with the Government since December over a funding deal for its proposed Sizewell C plant amid public debate about the role nuclear power should play in the energy ecosystem.
It was estimated in 2019 that energy bills could rise by about £6 a year if the regulated asset base model is used for Sizewell. The financing model is used for other infrastructure projects such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel
but not yet for power generation, meaning new legislation is needed. The nuclear industry has been increasingly vocal in recent months about the importance of replacing the UK’s nuclear plants, most of which are due to close by the end of the decade.
Telegraph 7th July 2021
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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