It aims, amongst other things, to identify any early warning signs and recommend areas for improvement. It therefore focuses on difficulties and weaknesses rather than strengths and progress. Continue reading →
The proposed Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk may not be feasible, EDF Energy’s UK boss told The Times, while the energy firm said it is discussing funding options with the government including using pension funds.
EDF Energy UK chief executive Simone Rossi told the newspapaer that the firm needs assurances from government that a “viable funding model exists” for Sizewell C this year. If EDF Energy believes the project is not feasible, it may stop its involvement in the project.
EDF Energy is currently in talks with the government over a funding model for the Suffolk nuclear power plant which would reduce costs for consumers. New Civil Engineer understands pension funds are being considered as a way to help finance Sizewell C.
Rossi told The Times: “This is the year where we need to understand whether this whole thing is really feasible or not.”
He added: “If we were to conclude that maybe it’s not feasible, then at that point maybe we say we are not in a position to continue the project.”
Rossi also said expected cost savings for Sizewell C could disappear if there is a “significant delay” between work on it and Hinkley Point C.
EDF Energy has said it expects construction costs for Sizewell C to be roughly 20% less than for the £19.5bn-plus Hinkley Point C plant. This is because the new plant would almost be a replica of Hinkley Point C, and because electricity grid connections are already in place at the Sizewell C site.
In June last year the National Audit office branded Hinkley Point C “risky and expensive”.
A spokesperson for EDF Energy denied Rossi’s comments were an ultimatum and said Sizewell C would benefit from an existing supply chain, while providing jobs for 5,600 construction workers.
The spokesperson added: “We are working with Government to look at alternative financing models because reducing the cost of capital can make a significant difference to the price for consumers. Financing models that create the conditions where institutional investors like pension funds can participate.”
Nasdaq 29th March 2018,French uranium mining and nuclear fuel group Orano, formerly called Areva, said its 2017 revenue fell 11 percent to 3.9 billion euros ($4.80 billion) and core earnings fell 30 percent to 946 million euros as demand for nuclear fuel remains low.
Orano’s order book, while still representing nearly eight years of revenue, fell to 30.8 billion euros at the end of 2017 from 33.6 billion euros at the end of 2016 and the company expects revenue will fall again this year. The company continued to burn cash, with a negative cash flow of 1.06 billion euros compared to minus 915 million euros in 2016, but Orano said it targets positive net cash flow from company operations this year. https://www.nasdaq.com/article/nuclear-group-orano-earnings-slide-in-grim-uranium-market-20180329-00098
Poisoned Door Handle Hints at High-Level Plot to Kill Spy, U.K. Officials Say, NYT, By ELLEN BARRY and DAVID E. SANGERAPRIL 1, 2018 LONDON— British officials investigating the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian double agent, believe it is likely that an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle at his home. This operation is seen as so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the early findings of the inquiry……..
Because the nerve agent is so potent, the officials said, the task could have been carried out only by trained professionals familiar with chemical weapons. British and American officials are skeptical that independent actors could have carried out such a risky operation or obtained the agent without approval at the highest levels of the Russian government .
…… Four weeks after the assassination attempt, British and American officials are turning to the question of whether President Vladimir V. Putin himself was aware of, or ordered, the attack.
They say there is no evidence so far of his direct participation, but the Russian president, a former K.G.B. officer, is skilled at hiding his communications.
Russia has denied involvement in the poisoning, and in the election hack.
……. Some experts have expressed caution about assuming that
Mr. Putin approved the attack. Its timing was awkward, coming too late to help him much in last month’s election, and casting a diplomatic shadow over Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup.
And the Kremlin’s embrace of proxy forces in recent years has opened the door to freelancing from other power centers, like security agencies or the country’s military intelligence, which may not share their plans in detail.
………Russia on Saturday also released a list of questions addressed to Britain, France and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Skripal poisoning.
The questions scrutinize the British claim that the nerve agent originated in Russia, noting that an antidote was provided to the Skripals within hours of their poisoning, and questioning whether British scientists had produced Novichok nerve agents in their own laboratories. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/world/europe/russia-sergei-skripal-uk-spy-poisoning.html
Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan to launch Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, ABC News, 3 Apr 18 The leaders of Russia and Turkey are scheduled to launch the start of the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant as ties between the countries deepen.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, on his first foreign visit since re-election on March 18, arrived in Ankara on Tuesday for talks with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The two will remotely launch the construction of the Russian-made Akkuyu nuclear plant on the Mediterranean coast.
On Friday (30 March), the Belgian government approved a new energy pact that will see the country phase out atomic power between 2022 and 2025.
Belgium’s federal government signed off on an agreement that will see the country’s seven nuclear reactors shuttered by 2025.
As part of a package of other measures, Doel and Tihange nuclear power stations will be closed and more investment will be pumped into renewable energy capacity building, particularly offshore wind farms………
Micro-cracks were discovered in reactors at both power plants in 2013 and were closed until 2015 while extensive safety checks were carried out. Environmental groups were outraged when their licences were extended until 2025, by which time they will nearly be half a century old.
Utility Dive 29th March 2018. French national utility EDF says it plans to spend 8 billion euros ($9.8
billion) by 2035 in a move to become “the European leader” in energy
storage. EDF’s goal is to develop 10 GW of storage around the world by that
same timeframe. The company already operates 5 GW of storage facilities. In
particular, EDF is targeting the residential sector in France and Europe
with a variety of self-consumption services that use batteries, as well as
Africa where the utility company hopes to develop a portfolio of 1.2
million off-grid customers by 2035 through local partnerships. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/edf-to-invest-nearly-10b-in-energy-storage-by-2035/520212/
Russia Almost Brought Back a Terrifying Weapon: Nuclear ICBM’s on Trains, National Interest Robert Beckhusen, 3 Apr 18,
In October 1987, the first rail ICBM became operational in the form of the “Moldets,” a train armed with a 77-foot-long RT-23 — a type of ICBM which was also stored in silos — carrying 10 multiple-reentry warheads with 550 kilotons of explosive power each. In the 1990s and 2000s after the START II treaty, Russia decommissioned these missiles, which NATO referred to as the SS-23 Scalpel. The Kremlin produced 12 of these trains.
In 2013, the Russian military announced it would bring back rail-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. In other words, trains with big nukes crammed inside, capable of darting around Russia, raising their launchers and firing at a moment’s notice. It was called Barguzin and would begin testing in 2019.
That was the idea. In December 2017, the Russian government put the Barguzin project on hiatus, saving the world from the specter of doomsday trains roaming Siberia. The ostensible reason — the weapon is too expensive, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the government’s paper of record.
The Barguzin project was a revival of a retired leg of the Soviet Union’s ground-based nuclear “triad.” While the Soviets had nuke-equipped submarines and nuclear-armed bombers, its ground-based component had nuclear missiles mounted on huge trucks, inside underground silos and on trains. The Soviet military first signed the order for the creation of rail-mobile ICBMs in 1969, but the launchers came later.
In October 1987, the first rail ICBM became operational in the form of the “Moldets,” a train armed with a 77-foot-long RT-23 — a type of ICBM which was also stored in silos — carrying 10 multiple-reentry warheads with 550 kilotons of explosive power each. In the 1990s and 2000s after the START II treaty, Russia decommissioned these missiles, which NATO referred to as the SS-23 Scalpel. The Kremlin produced 12 of these trains.
And that was the end of Russia’s rail-mobile missiles until the Kremlin announced in 2013 that it would create a new nuke-armed train under the moniker Barguzin, or BZhRK, this time equipped with the more advanced RS-24 Yars ICBM.
The RS-24 has a similar range to the RT-23 but is three meters shorter and weighs half as much — a considerable advantage for mobile missiles. The RS-24 is also, by the way, road-mobile.
……….During peacetime they require a network of bases for storage and maintenance, where international treaties require them to stay, and extensive security detachments to protect the missiles when they move during wartime. And they’re still stuck on railroad tracks — so U.S. spies have a general idea of where to look.
Which also begs the question as to whether the nuclear-war trains could even make it out of their bases in time before incoming missiles hit in the opening minutes of a nuclear war. Sure enough, the Pentagon studied the issue during the Cold War, and even built two prototype train cars intended for the Peacekeeper ICBM, but found them to be not worth the cost and rather vulnerable……. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russia-almost-brought-back-terrifying-weapon-nuclear-icbms-25193
“Transporting nuclear waste is a risky business”. “It is disturbing to discover we are now using an extraairbase in heavily populated areas for a stop-off to transport nuclear waste”. “There is no truly safe way to move this nuclear waste from A to B”.
Top secret flights carrying NUCLEAR WASTE from Britain to US ‘to run until late next year’, Mirror UK, By JIM LAWSON 1 APR 2018
Four US Air Force flights carrying highly enriched uranium from Dounreay power station in the Scottish Highlands are said to have left Wick John O’Groats airport bound for South Carolina. Top secret fights taking nuclear waste between Britain and the US will reportedly continue until late next year.
Four US Air Force flights carrying highly enriched uranium from Dounreay power station in the Scottish Highlands are said to have left Wick John O’Groats airport bound for South Carolina.
Yet authorities have never confirmed any of the deliveries.
Dounreay, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Police Scotland, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and Wick Airport all refused to comment when asked.
Details of the flights apparently became public when Highland Council informed residents about road closures surrounding the airport – as it is legally obliged to do so. An order published last week was said to be code for “nuclear waste on the move”, suggesting the next consignment could be imminent.
The authority’s notice, published in two local newspapers, said: “The order has been made by reason that the council, as highway authority , is satisfied that traffic on the road should be restricted due to the likelihood of danger to the public.” It adds: “The purpose of the order is to enable abnormal load movements”.
The order will run from yesterday to September 30, 2019 with up to seven more flights expected during the period, it was reported.
A deal to transport highly enriched uranium – the basic building block for making a nuclear bomb – to be flown from Wick to the US was trumpeted by then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2016.
……..Highlands and Islands MSP John Finnie said: “Transporting nuclear waste is a risky business. By using two airports you are doubling the take-offs and landing in this country, which doubles the risk.
“It is disturbing to discover we are now using an extra airbase in heavily populated areas for a stop-off to transport nuclear waste”.
…….. Dr. Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth, said flatly: “There is no truly safe way to move this nuclear waste from A to B”.
A spokesman for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: “Our priority is to comply with the regulations governing the safety and security of nuclear material. Compliance with the regulations includes protecting information about the routes, times, dates and location”.
Irish Times 29th March 2018, Irish Government and public urged to comment on Hinkley facility before April
17th. The UK’s nuclear power expansion programme, including the building
of the Hinkley Point C facility in Somerset, poses an unacceptable risk to
the island of Ireland, according to an alliance of political parties and
environmental groups.
Green Party Senator Grace O’Sullivan said the
Government “has been dozing at the wheel… and essentially failed the
Irish people because we have not had timely opportunity to be consulted”
about Hinkley, which is located less than 250km from south east Ireland.
Speaking at a press conference in Dublin, she said the UK government was
found to have failed to consult neighbouring states under the UN Espoo
Convention. After a five-year legal battle, in which Irish environmental
groups – An Taisce, Friends of the Irish Environment and the
Environmental Pillar – fought to uphold the rights of the Irish public,
“a long overdue consultation” began on February 20th. “People can
make their submissions to their relevant local authority. We strongly
encourage them to do so before April 17th.” https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/government-dozing-at-wheel-over-uk-nuclear-power-plans-1.3445065
Nuclear Weapons Transport, Nukewatch 29th March 2018
A nuclear weapons convoy left AWE Burghfield on Thursday March 22. It was
later seen on the A1 at junction 49 near Dishforth (15 miles north of
Wetherby).
The following day it was spotted crossing over to the west on
the A66 and then on the M74 just south of Lesmahagow. It then continued
around the east of Glasgow on the M73 and past Cumbernauld on the M80 to
take a break at DSG Stirling mid-afternoon.
It then took the M9, A811 andA82 to RNAD Coulport. On Monday March 26 this convoy left Coulport to
return south. Taking a route through Balloch and Stirling then onto the M9
and M8 to the Edinburgh bypass it then took a break at Glencorse Barracks
in Penicuik.
After continuing south on the A1 passing Berwick on Tweed it
passed through Newcastle and after an overnight stop it then continued down
the A1. It crossed country to the A34 travelling around Oxford and getting
back to Burghfield around 5pm. http://www.nukewatch.org.uk/?p=809
After repeated attempts to find a site to bury the UK’s nuclear waste, the last of which ended in 2013 when Cumbria County Council voted to halt the process, the Government are about to restart the search process. Ahead of this launch, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have released a consultation document, Working With Communities.Cumbria Trust has examined the proposal in detail and we have some very serious concerns about this consultation and its implications for areas which volunteer.
BEIS are proposing to open the search process to allow anyone to volunteer, even a member of the public, a farmer or a business. They can do this behind closed doors, with no requirement to make public their expression of interest during the first few months. A process being presented as ‘open and transparent’ appears to fall a long way short.
In stark contrast to the flexible approach by which areas can enter the process, if they later wish to withdraw, they are obliged to follow a much more complex and convoluted procedure in order to be allowed to leave.
However the most alarming aspect of the proposal is that the first and only test of public support does not happen until some 20 years after the process starts. During this time the community will have to endure a programme of borehole drilling and other intrusive investigations lasting a decade or more. The last time this borehole programme happened was in the 1990s with Nirex, and that led Jamie Reed, MP at the time and prominent nuclear advocate, to declare in 2006
“The experience of Nirex endured by my community in the mid-1990s was so wretched that I was minded to entitle this debate fear and loathing”.
He continued
“As long as I have anything to do with it Nirex will never dig another sod of turf in West Cumbria”.
What BEIS are proposing will again potentially expose a community to this experience, and with no mechanism for the public to halt the process. Instead any right of withdrawal rests with a defined Community Partnership. Without regular tests of public support, the Community Partnership appears not to be answerable to the public.
For all the talk of an ‘open and transparent’ process, what BEIS are actually proposing is nothing of the sort, and seems likely to create an early breakdown of public trust. Cumbria Trust has responded to the consultation and would urge our members to read this and consider making their own submissions. The deadline is 19th April and we hope to publish some guidance notes to assist with this within the next few days.
Dave Toke’s Blog 1st April 2018, The media is awash with stories of the imminent emergence of ‘subsidy free’
wind and solar power in the UK, but the reality is that the uncompetitive nature of the British electricity market mostly undermines that prospect.
In theory onshore wind power and maybe some solar power projects would be able to generate power to sell at competitive prices on the British
wholesale electricity market.
In practice most of the potential buyers of energy from new renewable energy projects will not be interested in buying
the energy even at cheap prices simply because it conflicts with their own generation portfolios. True, there is a limited possibility for some very
large corporate consumers who are interested in buying green electricity to fund new projects by issuing corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs).
But in reality this market is small, and I have heard this estimated to be no larger than 100 MW a year. That means it would take around 20 years for
not quite 1 per cent of electricity to be supplied this way. PPAs are needed for new renewable energy projects that offer the generators the
certainty that they can be paid a minimum amount for each MWh that they produce for the long term. The UK Government’s PPAs, called contracts for
differences (CfDs), last 15 years. However they are no longer available for onshore wind and solar.
The problem is that most of the market for offering PPAs that can fund new renewable energy projects comes from the big
electricity suppliers, who have been known in the past as the ‘Big Six’.
Only PPAs offered by really large companies will be usually taken seriously enough by banks and and other institutions to enable renewable energy
projects can obtain long term loans or equity. The trouble is that the Big Energy suppliers will usually have little interest in offering long term
PPAs to new renewable energy projects since. For a start they can buy in power at much the same price as the renewable energy generator can offer
without needing to commit themselves to long term agreements.
Russia just tested its ‘Satan’ nuclear missile amid Putin and Trump taunting an arms race, Business Insider, ALEX LOCKIEMAR 30, 2018, Russia says it has tested a new nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile; Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the missile can defeat any US missile defences.
Russia on Friday said it had tested a new type of nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile known by NATO as the “Satan 2.”
The country’s president, Vladimir Putin, has said the missile can defeat any US missile defences amid growing talk of an arms race with the US and President Donald Trump.
And the feeling of nuclear inadequacy may be mutual.
This is how you get an arms race Putin’s nuclear chest-thumping “really got under the president’s skin,” according to a White House official cited by NBC News on Thursday.
On a recent phone call between the two leaders, which made headlines for Trump’s decision to congratulate Putin on his less-than-democratic reelection, Trump and Putin reportedly butted heads.
“If you want to have an arms race, we can do that, but I’ll win,” Trump told him, according to NBC.
Putin said in his address that Russia was working on more and more-varied nuclear weapon delivery systems than the US. Trump has also planned a few new nuclear weapons for the US, but they show a very different philosophy.
