Le Monde 16th Sept 2018 , Le Monde 16th Sept 2018 [Machine Translation] The EPR, EDF’s nightmare. The European pressurized
reactor was to be the flagship of the French nuclear industry. For the
company it is now its survival and that of a whole sector that is at
stake, while the group is heavily indebted and its income is dwindling. 74
billion of debt … and with nuclear,that is not finished!
At the headquarters of EDF, avenue de Wagram, in Paris, the gigantic banner of
Greenpeace shows the color: we see the CEO of EDF, Jean-Bernard Lévy,
making two fingers of honor to passersby, under the mention “Thank you
Jean-Bernard”. This action of December 2016 marked a new stage in the
argument of nuclear opponents: it is not only to explain the risk of
accidents, but also the financial risk that would weigh on EDF.
NGOs are no longer alone in this field. In June, the then minister responsible for EDF
Nicolas Hulot, took up the argument. “One of the reasons why EDF finds itself
in difficulty is that the nuclear industry, sorry to say, leads us into a
drift. In a clear allusion to the expensive shipyard Flamanville (Channel),
he said: “It is clear that economically, there is a kind of golden rule
that is being established in this sector, it’s that in reality, we never
keep our promises. The minister is picking up a criticism that is becoming
more and more common: not only has nuclear become too expensive, but it
would also be a major strategic mistake for EDF.
https://abonnes.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2018/09/16/l-epr-le-cauchemar-d-edf_5355883_3234.html
Some nuclear blocks temporarily out of operation https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20916677/some-nuclear-blocks-temporarily-out-of-operation.html, 17 Sept 18
Several repairs and checks are expected to be carried out Slovenské Elektrárne (SE), the country’s main energy generator, has temporarily shut down the operation of several blocks of its nuclear power plants.
The second block of the Mochovce nuclear power plant was put out of operation on September 15. It is the last general temporary shutdown planned for this year, and will last until the end of October, the TASR newswire reported.
Moreover, SE temporarily shut down the fourth block of the Jaslovské Bohunice nuclear power plant due to plans to repair one of the steam generators. The work is expected to be finished by the end of this week, TASR wrote. SE’s spokesperson Miroslav Šarišský confirmed for the Sme daily that the work in Jaslovské Bohunice does not endanger anybody’s health.
In the case of Mochovce, a substantial amount of work is planned during the interruption of operation, including checks, exchanges and repairs of various components at selected devices of the nuclear block. A similar shutdown takes place every eight years.
The plan is also to remove the nuclear fuel from the reactor and the checking of the reactor’s pressure vessel and other components. Similarly to previous years, SE will replace part of the used nuclear fuels with a new one, TASR reported.
The work in both Mochovce and Jaslovské Bohunice is carried out by hundreds of employees and more than 700 people from supplying organisations.
After the planned maintenance and the replacement of nuclear fuel, the testing of the containment and primary circuit will be carried out, TASR wrote
Mediapart 14th Sept 2018 , Mediapart publishes a document that has never been made public: the list of all events increasing the risk of reactor core meltdown in French nuclear
power plants. Between 2003 and 2014, thirty-seven production units experienced more than ten. Cruas, Fessenheim, Gravelines and Tricastin are the most affected. It’s a list that has never been made public.
It was forwarded by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) to German MP Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, who herself sent it to Mediapart. It brings together the so-called “precursor” events, that is to say that increase the risk of reactor core meltdown occurring in French nuclear power plants between 2003 and 2014.
Global Chance 12th Sept 2018 [Machine translation] , Comment on the draft decision of the Nuclear Safety Authority authorizing the commissioning and use of the EPR reactor vessel of the Flamanville NPP (BNI No. 167) The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) has put into public consultation a draft decision authorizing the commissioning of the EPR reactor vessel under construction at Flamanville.
Actu.fr 13th Sept 2018 Australian nuclear waste in Cherbourg: court hearing between Greenpeace and Orano postponed 
Greenpeace requested from the judge the summary of the Cherbourg contract between ANSTO and Orano [formerly Areva] . The case was postponed until 25 September.
Greenpeace was authorized, this Thursday, September 13, to file an interim complaint against Orano, to obtain a summary of the contract between Orano and the Australian Agency for Nuclear Science and Technology (ANSTO).
The ship is expected this Friday. In the framework of an agreement between France and Australia signed in November 2017, the nuclear waste was loaded on board a cargo ship, BBC Austria, – 236 spent fuel assemblies, reprocessed in four TN-MTR containers. It left Sydney on July 29, the ship is expected Friday, September 14 in Cherbourg. Disguised storage? Greenpeace questions the legality of this contract. It could actually be a disguised storage in France France…… https://actu.fr/normandie/cherbourg-en-cotentin_50129/dechets-nucleaires-australiens-cherbourg-laudience-entre-greenpeace-orano-reportee_18591884.html
Glamorgan Gem 13th Sept 2018 , Greenpeace has complained that EDF Energy, which owns the power station at Hinkley Point, has misrepresented the Greenpeace position on the dredging of mud from the Hinkley site and its disposal off the south Wales coast.
EDF says the mud poses no risk and Natural Resources Wales says it is safe, but local campaigners are demanding more tests are done. Disposal of the
mud began on Monday, September 10.
On Wednesday this week Greenpeace released a statement demanding that EDF stops stating that Greenpeace accepts the mud isn’t ‘toxic’. A Greenpeace spokesman said: “We request in the strongest terms that EDF ceases from stating that Greenpeace accepts that the mud is not toxic as that is not our current view.
http://www.glamorgan-gem.co.uk/article.cfm?id=122935&headline=Greenpeace%20and%20EDF%20in%20%E2%80%98toxic%E2%80%99%20stand-off%20on%20Hinkley%20mud§ionIs=news&searchyear=2018
World Nuclear News 14th Sept 2018 , Consultants Frazer-Nash, in collaboration with Rolls-Royce, the National
Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), EDF Energy, Jacobsen Analytics, Lancaster
University, University of Bristol and University of York are set to deliver
a nuclear safety and security research contract. Frazer-Nash said yesterday
that, working on behalf of the Department of Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the GBP3.6 million (USD4.7 million), two-year
project, aims to deliver a “step change in the UK’s capability as the
country moves toward an era of new nuclear build and new technologies”.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-companies-to-deliver-safety-and-security-resear
The 73-year-old said he was held for 19 hours under the Explosives Act before being released with no further action………..
A cordon was set up around his home on Wednesday morning when the two officers complained of feeling unwell – which Dr Busby attributed to “psychological problems associated with their knowledge of the Skripal poisoning”.
The scientist said he was handcuffed and interviewed all night by police who suspected he was making a bomb, but the only substances found at his home were “innocuous chemicals for research into radiation”.
He returned home that night to find officers had searched his home laboratory and sealed off his home in Bridge Street.
“They destroyed my experiment. It was most irritating,” he said.
Dr Busby said he felt he was being targeted because of his criticism of the government’s current assessment of radiation risks.
The force said the affected officers were unharmed and there was no risk to the wider public.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-45516797
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But although the government’s broad commitment is secure, little remains of its original vision of a series-build approach that would cut costs and build a domestic industry. In practice, the UK has become something of a test bed for Asian reactor exporters, rather than a new rebirth for European nuclear, with Chinese and Japanese companies leading projects. The UK nuclear new-build programme has been a casualty of both global nuclear industry failures and a changing domestic power industry, which has seen dramatic falls in the cost of offshore wind and a boom in interconnection. Nuclear still has strong political backing – in fact, it seems that the government will have to take some kind of stake in future projects. That is partly because the projects are seen as so risky by investors, and partly because successive reports by parliamentarians and UK financial watchdogs, like the National Audit Office, have pointed out that the government’s insistence that it had transferred that risk to the private sector had been a major factor in raising costs, because the government could secure cheaper finance for the project than the private sector. Far from giving the go-ahead for a series, the influential National Infrastructure Commission said this year in its National Infrastructure Assessment that “Government should not agree support for more than one nuclear power station beyond Hinkley Point C before 2025.” Continue reading |
Business Green 14th Sept 2018 Companies have pledged to power their London-premises with 100 per cent
renewable energy,as Sadiq Khan announces first London Climate Action Week
Eleven leading businesses, including Tesco, Sky, and Siemens, have
partnered with London Mayor Sadiq Khan in support of plans to make the
capital a zero carbon city by 2050. The companies announced yesterday they
will work with the Mayor’s Office to cut levels of pollution and emissions
beyond current government targets, while also committing to power their
London premises with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020 and supporting
the transition towards zero-emission vehicles.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3062752/zero-carbon-capital-businesses-team-up-with-london-mayor-in-decarbonisation-drive
The curious looking Belgian motor-hopper Sloeber made her first round trip from Hinkley Point to the Cardiff Grounds – a mile off shore from Penarth. She then opened-up her belly underwater to disgorge thousands of tonnes of mud on one massive “bowel movement” – last night .
Although the Conservative-run Vale of Glamorgan Council has protested about the mud dumping scheme, not a single Labour Assembly member, councillor or MP has raised a so much as a peep of protest about what is easily the worst-ever case of deliberate pollution ever witnessed in Wales.
Last night the Belgian hopper MV Sloeber – loaded with 2,000 tonnes of mud dredged from the sea bed adjacent to 3 Somerset nuclear power stations – sailed around the far side of the Monkstone light and skirted the sandbanks. As night fell she turned to port and headed directly towards Penarth, pausing just a mile offshore to dump her controversial cargo into the shallow sea of the “Cardiff Grounds” – which up to now have only been used to deposit dredged mud from the approach channel to Cardif Docks .
Sloeber’s party trick is to split herself open from stem to stern with both halves of the ship opening up wide below the waterline to allow her cargo of mud to fall out of the ship under its own considerable weight .
In 3 months or so, when all the thousands of tonnes of mud from Hinkley Point have been dumped in the sea in Welsh waters, the French energy company EDF will be able to wash its hands of all responsibility for this material and whatever lurks within it.
…As of last night the first consignment of English ‘nuclear mud’ become Wales’s problem. The mud dropped from the belly of MV Sloeber last night will soon be washed ashore on the coastline between Penarth and Lavernock – and could permanently change the shoreline.
Experts say the consequences of this operation – which involves the dumping of over 320,000 tonnes of English nuclear mud in Welsh Waters – may not become apparent for generations.
Meanwhile Sloeber returned to Hinkley Point to load more mud for another visit to Wales later today.
Edward Snowden surveillance powers ruled unlawful https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45510662
Wales Online 11th Sept 2018 , EDF has confirmed it has started to dump mud from the Hinkley Point nuclear
power station in the Severn Estuary off Cardiff. The news came on the same
day that rock musician and anti-nuclear campaigner Cian Ciaran lodged
papers at the High Court seeking an injunction to stop the dumping. The
papers name NNB Generation Company (HPC) Ltd as the respondent in the
action. The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French energy company
EDF, which obtained a licence to carry out the dumping. More than 100,000
people have signed petitions against the dumping plans , which campaigners
say could pose health risks.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/radioactive-mud-dumping-begins-coast-15136164
Wales Online 12th Sept 2018 , Letter: It is hard for the layman to know whether or not the assurances
about the safety of the mud from Hinkley Point can be accepted at face
value. Other issues do arise as well, however. Will the addition of this
sizeable tonnage of waste at Cardiff Grounds have any effect on the flows
of sand and mud within the Bristol Channel?
We have all seen how the opposite process – dredging – has over the years changed the nature and
shape of various beaches, usually to their detriment. Also does any income
accrue to Wales from the use of this site for the receipt of waste material
from elsewhere? This is perhaps the least we might expect given the vast
sums of money which are being made available for this project.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/western-mail-letters-wednesday-september-15140781
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
