Exposing UK government folly of investment in new nuclear https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/24/exposing-uk-government-folly-of-investment-in-new-nuclear
A new-build programme would create an intolerable burden on communities into the far future, writes Andrew Blowers; while Rose Heaney wonders why our abundant renewable energy sources are being overlooked
In 1976, Lord Flowers pronounced that there should be no further commitment to nuclear energy unless it could be demonstrated that long-lived highly radioactive wastes could be safely contained for the indefinite future. Ever since, efforts to find a suitable site for a geological disposal facility have been rejected by communities (Wanted: community willing to host a highly radioactive waste dump in their district, 22 January).
There is, therefore, little evidence to support the government’s claim that “it is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations”. Deep disposal may be the eventual long-term solution but demonstrating a safety case, finding suitable geology and a willing community are tough challenges and likely to take a long time. The search for a disposal site diverts attention from the real solution for the foreseeable future, which is to ensure the safe and secure management of the unavoidable legacy wastes that have to be managed. It is perverse to compound the problem by a new-build programme that will result in vastly increased radioactivity from spent fuel and other highly radioactive wastes which will have to be stored indefinitely at vulnerable sites scattered around our coasts.
The fact that the UK government is still going ahead with plans to construct new power stations, generating even more toxic radioactive waste, troubles and puzzles me immensely. Here, on the beautiful isle of Anglesey, where tidal, solar and wind energy production are all highly feasible alternatives and could also provide opportunities for well-paid employment, politicians appear to be happy for an area of outstanding natural beauty to be contaminated for further than the foreseeable future, not to mention the immense eyesore that will occupy acres of fertile land. It is an eye-wateringly costly venture that many fear will expose taxpayers to huge financial risk and will also leave future generations guarding the threat to their environment and health long after it ceases to function.
Future generations will doubtless wonder, when most of Europe is shutting down its nuclear power stations and not planning any more, why in the world the local population didn’t protest harder.
Rose Heaney
Holyhead, Gwynedd
A new-build programme would create an unmanageable and intolerable burden on communities into the far future. To suggest that a repository is the solution is in the realm of fantasy.
Prof Andrew Blowers
Member of the first Committee onRadioactive Waste Management
January 26, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
UK, wastes |
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MKG 23rd Jan 2018, The Swedish Environmental Court says no to the power industry’s Nuclear
Waste Company SKB’s license application for a final repository for spent
nuclear fuel in Forsmark, Sweden.
This is a huge triumph for safety and environment – and for the Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review
(MKG), the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), and critical
scientists who have been presenting risks of the malfunction of the
selected method. Now it is up to the Swedish government to make the final
decision. This is a triumph for us.
From now on, the work on evaluating safer disposal solutions will continue. The decision that will be made
concerns waste that will be hazardous for thousands of years. Several
independent researchers have criticized both the applied method and the
selected site. There is a solid documentation as base for the Environmental
Court’s decision. It is hard to believe the Swedish Government’s
conclusions will be any different from that of the Court’s, says Johan
Swahn, Director at MKG.
http://www.mkg.se/en/the-swedish-environmental-court-s-no-to-the-final-repository-for-spent-nuclear-fuel-a-triumph-for-th
January 26, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Legal, Sweden |
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East Anglian Daily Times 23rd Jan 2018, Drone footage shows off ‘huge impact’ Sizewell C could have on
landscape. Campaigners fighting proposals for a new nuclear power station
on the Suffolk coast claim drone footage of Hinkley Point shows what a
“massive, life-changing, countryside-destroying intrusion” Sizewell C
would be.
Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) says the film of work taking
place on the £19.6billion project to build Britain’s first new nuclear
plant for more than 20 years shows the dramatic scale and impact of the
project.
TASC chair Pete Wilkinson said: “The actual scale and impact of
the proposed development at Sizewell has never been fully explained to the
public and they have never been asked if they support it or oppose it.
“It has always been disingenuously described by politicians as an
inevitability which it is not: new nuclear is a choice not an imperative.
We can and should say ‘no’ and be given the opportunity to tell our
politicians that we reject this monstrous plan. “This footage gives us
the evidence on which to base an informed view about the Sizewell
development and shows the fate that awaits this area if EDF get their way.
This two minute film does what EDF and the government have been unwilling
to do for five years – to show us just how Sizewell C will utterly
devastate a huge area of Suffolk on a scale that we cannot even think about
tolerating.
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/drone-footage-shows-off-huge-impact-sizewell-c-could-have-on-landscape-1-5366719
January 26, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, UK |
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Bellona 24th Jan 2018, Bellona publishes groundbreaking report on the state of Ukraine’s nuclear
industry. It won’t come as a surprise that safety would be a critical
challenge still facing the nuclear industry in Ukraine, which inherited the
infamous Chernobyl plant when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Nearly as surprising has been the comparative lack of concise information on a
national industry that supplies more than half of its country’s
electricity in conditions of political and economic turmoil.
http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2018-01-bellona-publishes-groundbreaking-report-on-the-state-of-ukraines-nuclear-industry
January 26, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, Ukraine |
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France’s Areva rebrands to Orano in dire uranium market https://www.reuters.com/article/us-areva-strategy/frances-areva-rebrands-to-orano-in-dire-uranium-market-idUSKBN1FC25H, Geert De Clercq, PARIS (Reuters) 23 Jan 18,– French uranium mining and nuclear fuel group Areva rebranded itself as Orano on Tuesday, closing the book on a years-long restructuring but still facing an uncertain future, with uranium prices at decade lows and the nuclear industry in the doldrums.
Chief Executive Philippe Knoche said a new name and logo were necessary to start another chapter in the history of the state-owned company, which was split in two and recapitalized in 2017 after years of losses wiped out its equity.
“We had to change our name – we are a new company with a different perimeter, focused on the fuel cycle,” Knoche said at a presentation of the new brand.
Orano refers to uranium, the core of the firm’s business, and its new circular yellow logo references the yellowcake uranium concentrate that it extracts from the ore.
To mark the change – and reduce real estate costs by 10 million euros (8.78 million pounds) a year – Orano will move out of its prestigious Paris headquarters, a distinctive black-slab skyscraper inspired by the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
The move is part of a plan to cut costs by about 250 million euros in the 2018-2020 period. With its nuclear reactor building unit sold to fellow state-owned utility EDF last year, Orano goes back to being a pure nuclear fuel company, similar to its predecessor Cogema, before it was merged into Areva.
Orano has net debt of close to 3 billion euros and by 2025 plans to invest about 2 billion euros in its plants and a similar amount in its mines, Knoche said.
The company aims to be cash-flow positive from this year, but Knoche said nothing about profit targets and admitted that market prices for uranium are too low to invest in new mines.
He said long-term contract prices for uranium were about $10 per pound higher than spot prices, but declined to say what price Orano needed to operate profitably in the long run.
Uranium prices are down 80 percent from a decade ago as Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster has led to a slowdown in reactor newbuilds and countries such as Germany abandon nuclear.
Knoche said Orano was banking on nuclear growth in Asia. He expects the firm to earn 30 percent of its turnover there by 2020, up from 20 percent last year.
Talks about selling a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to China were “accelerating”, Knoche said, but would not give a deadline. Discussions about the project have been going on for a decade, while the price the firm hopes to get has fallen to around 10 billion euros from 15 billion euros.
He said the reprocessing plant deal was not essential for Orano’s survival. This month, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the operation could “save” the French nuclear industry.
With an order book worth nearly eight years of turnover and solid business in service and maintenance for a large part of the world’s more than 400 nuclear reactors, Orano faces the prospect of rebuilding a profitable operation.
“We will do it with humility. That is why the name is written in lower case,” Knoche said. Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Benjamin Mallet; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Dale Hudson
January 24, 2018
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France, spinbuster |
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Record radiation levels found in Swedish wild boar, https://www.thelocal.se/20180123/record-radiation-levels-found-in-swedish-wild-boar The Local, news@thelocal.se , @thelocalsweden, 23 January 2018
Even though it’s over 30 years since the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, radiation levels exceeding 39 706 Bq (becquerel) per kilo have been found in Swedish wild boar meat taken from the Uppland area.
According to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, this is the highest ever level measured in wild boar meat in Sweden, way exceeding the 1500 Bq/kg safe limit set by the Swedish Food Agency for meat consumption.
Back in October 2017, two other hogs tested had record-high levels too, but at 13,000 Bq/kg and 16,000 Bq/kg they were small fry compared to this latest measurement. What makes this new record even more surprising is the fact that in 1986 there were no wild boar roaming the areas most affected by the Chernobyl fallout.
Speaking to The Local, Paul Andersson of the Swedish Radiation Authority explained that “wild boar were practically non-existent outside the southern counties of Skåne and Sörmland, two Swedish counties unaffected by radiation. However, in the years since, the wild boar population has multiplied and migrated to northern areas of Sweden”, which is why the authority is keen to test wild boar meat.
Andersson noted that wild boar may be particularly susceptible to radiation for a number of reasons: ”Wild boar forage for wild mushrooms and have the ability to find truffles in the ground, which may explain why this particular wild hog had such high levels of radiation.”
In contrast, he said elk meat’s radiation levels have consistently gone down since 1986, rarely exceeding the safety limit for meat consumption of 1500 Bq/kg.
The authority is encouraging hunters to send them wild boar meat samples for testing.
January 24, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
environment, radiation, Sweden |
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Guardian 21st Jan 2018, The government is expected this week to begin a nationwide search for a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste dump to store highly
radioactive material for thousands of years.
Britain has been trying for years to secure a site with the right geology and local communities which would volunteer to host a £12bn geological disposal facility (GDF), as a
long-term solution for the most dangerous waste from nuclear power
stations.
The last effort hit a brick wall in 2013 when Cumbria county
council, the only local authority still in the running as a host for the
dump, rejected it.
Now, ministers are to relaunch their mission to win over
a community to host the GDF. The task has taken on heightened importance
now that a nuclear power plant is under construction in Somerset, with
plans to build four others.
Radioactive Waste Management, the government
body tasked with building the facility hundreds of metres underground, said
it had made significant progress since 2014 in “developing the offer” to
interested communities. Consultations on the planning process and how the
government will work with communities will be launched this week, said two
sources close to the process. “I hope to God they get it right this time,”
said one. “The mess they made in the past can’t be repeated. It’s
outrageous it became a victim of local politics last time.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/21/search-area-willing-host-highly-radioactive-waste-uk-geology
January 24, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
UK, wastes |
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Swedish regulators disagree on safety of nuclear waste plan https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-nuclear-regulator/swedish-regulators-disagree-on-safety-of-nuclear-waste-plan-idUSKBN1FC21P, JANUARY 24, 2018 , Lefteris Karagiannopoulos, OSLO (Reuters) JANUARY 24, 2018 – Sweden’s radiation safety authority (SSM) and an environmental court issued diverging recommendations to the government on Tuesday on whether to allow the construction of a nuclear waste repository.
While the SSM said the nuclear fuel and waste management company SKB should be allowed to go ahead with the plan, which may take 10 years to complete, the Land and Environmental court said it was not certain of the proposed repository’s safety.
“There is still uncertainty about the ability of the capsule to contain the nuclear waste in the long term,” the court said, adding that further documentation was required.
The final decision to approve or reject the facility, designed to store up to 12,000 tonnes of spent fuel from Sweden’s nuclear plants, will be in the government’s hands.
In a statement to Reuters, Environment and Energy Minister Karolina Skog said no decision would be made this year.
SKB, controlled by Sweden’s nuclear plant operators, applied in March 2011 to build the repository at Forsmark in southwest Sweden.
Eva Hallden, SKB’s director, said the firm would produce additional documentation, which it was confident would allay the safety concerns of the environmental court.
Sweden currently stores its spent nuclear fuel in an interim facility near the Oskarshamn nuclear plant. Editing by Kevin Liffey
January 24, 2018
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politics, Sweden, wastes |
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Reuters, Shadia Nasralla, VIENNA -23 Jan 18, Austria is planning to sue the European Commission for allowing Hungary to expand its Paks atomic plant, it said on Monday, not viewing nuclear energy as the way to combat climate change or as being in the common European interest.
The country, which shares a border with Hungary, prides itself on supporting environmentally sound energy. It has for decades opposed nuclear power, which triggers huge disagreements about cleanliness, safety, and renewability.
The anti-nuclear position was reiterated in a coalition agreement struck last month between Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives and the far-right Freedom Party.
“We in the government have agreed that there are sufficient reasons to sue (the Commission),” a spokesman for Austrian Sustainability Minister Elisabeth Koestinger said.
“EU assistance is only permissible when it is built on common interest. For us, nuclear energy is neither a sustainable form of energy supply, nor is it an answer to climate change. ……. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-hungary-eu-nuclearpower/austria-to-sue-eu-over-allowing-expansion-of-hungary-nuclear-plant-idUSKBN1FB1FJ
January 24, 2018
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EUROPE, Legal |
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Guardian 21st Jan 2018, Finance aside, renewables will be nuclear’s real foe in the future. The
new chief executive of EDF Energy admitted last week that it had been a
“monstrous job” drumming up the backing for the UK’s first new
nuclear power station in decades.
The next nuclear plants will need to be built for a much cheaper, subsidised price
of power than the generous one awarded to EDF’s Hinkley Point C, Whitehall has warned.
So those who undertake construction will need every possible weapon at their disposal to
defeat their biggest enemy: financing.
Public finance is the magic sword that some think could slay the Godzilla-sized challenge facing Japanese
firm Hitachi, which wants to build a plant on the island of Anglesey.
Japanese press reports recently put the capital cost of the project at
£19.5bn, with more than £14bn to come from loans from the UK and Japanese
governments. The rationale for Tokyo is clear. The big question is why the
UK would want to shoulder the risk of such a huge scheme.
The idea of taxpayers taking on any of the construction risk of building new nuclear
plants has been political anathema for years. It has become a government
mantra that the subsidy cost promised to EDF is justified because the
public is not bearing the risks of building Hinkley.
January 24, 2018
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Japan, politics, UK |
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Zambia establishes an Interim Secretariat on Nuclear Science and Technology, Lusaka Times, January 23, 2018, Government has established an Interim Secretariat on Nuclear Science and Technology (ISNST) constituted by senior officers from various Government Ministries and Institutions. The Units under the ISNST include Nuclear Applications, Public Awareness and Consultation, Economics Assessment, Legal and Regulatory, and Programme Development.
The ISNST will spearhead implementation of Zambian’s nuclear energy programme as well as the development of the Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology (CNST). The officers have since commenced work, which among others, will involve public awareness and consultations……..Government is hopeful that the nuclear energy programme will transform the country into an industrial hub in the region. A group of students have already been sent to Russia to study in various areas of nuclear science, who upon completing their studies would work in the CNST.
Government has since signed various agreements with the Russian Federation that have culminated into the implementation of the nuclear energy programme………
The ISNST has embarked on a robust public sensitisation programme beginning with Members of the Cabinet and Members of Parliament. https://www.lusakatimes.com/2018/01/23/zambia-establishes-interim-secretariat-nuclear-science-technology/
January 24, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AFRICA, marketing, Russia |
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Cumbria Trust 22nd Jan 2018, Cumbria Trust notes with interest that a source close to the process is
quoted as saying: “The mess they made in the past can’t be repeated.It’s outrageous it became a victim of local politics last time.”
Let us not forget that this was supposed to be a voluntary process, where local
councils had the right to withdraw their interest. How could it be
considered outrageous to exercise that right to withdraw? The new process
starting this week is also based on voluntarism and councils are supposedly
free to withdraw at will. Are we to assume that once a council has
volunteered, it will be made increasingly difficult to withdraw? Is this
voluntarism or coercion?
https://cumbriatrust.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/here-we-go-again/
January 24, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, UK |
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Abandoning Hinkley Point C now could save consumers almost £1.5bn per year for 35 years from 2027 http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/news/ 19 Jan 18 Stop Hinkley Campaign submits response to the Helm ‘cost of energy’ review.
The Stop Hinkley Campaign has submitted a joint response, with the Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), to the UK Government’s call for evidence on Professor Dieter Helm’s review of the UK energy market and the financial costs of energy to consumers and businesses. (1)
The joint submission argues the best way for the Government to keep electricity costs to consumers as low as possible over the coming decades, while reducing carbon emissions, and providing secure electricity supplies, is to cancel Hinkley Point C, scrap the new nuclear programme, launch a much more comprehensive energy efficiency programme and expand renewable energy ambitions.
The response also notes:
• Cancelling Hinkley Point C now might incur a cancellation cost of around £2bn, but consumers could save around £50bn over its lifetime. (2)
• Offshore wind is already approaching half the cost of nuclear power and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicts costs will drop a further 71% by 2040.
• Removing the current block on onshore wind could save consumers around £1bn.
• Solar power is expected to be the cheapest source of energy (not just electricity) anywhere in the world by 2030 or 2040.
• Cost-effective investments in domestic energy efficiency between now and 2035 could save around 140 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy and save an average of £270 per household per year at current energy prices. The investments would deliver net benefits worth £7.5bn to the UK.
• Renewables could soon be producing enough electricity to power the grid from April to October. If the Government continues with the nuclear programme then Ministers will have to explain to consumers why they are having to pay for expensive nuclear electricity when cheap renewables are being turned off.
• The UK has the technology to match green power supply and demand at affordable cost without fossil fuels – by deploying the ‘smart grid’, using ‘green gas’ made from surplus power, and raising energy efficiency.
• Baseload is not helpful in balancing a variable energy supply – it simply leads to further overproduction of energy at times when renewables can meet demand on their own.
Just before the Christmas holidays the two organisations also submitted a joint response to the UK Government’s Clean Growth Strategy. (3)
Instead of funding R&D on new nuclear technology and Small Modular Reactors to the tune of around £460m, this called for more funding for low carbon heat and energy efficiency. In particular the Government should be investigating power-to-gas (P2G) technology which can produce renewable hydrogen, using surplus renewable electricity, which could then be fed into the gas grid for storage or used for producing renewable heat.
Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said:
“The cost of renewables is declining rapidly, and it is becoming increasingly clear that there are lots of ways of dealing with intermittency issues. It now looks as though Hinkley Point C won’t be online before 2027. Several financial institutions have predicted that large centralised power stations are likely to be obsolete within 10 to 20 years, because they are too big and inflexible, and are “not relevant” for future electricity. (4) So Hinkley Point C and the rest of the UK’s ill-conceived new nuclear programme will be too late, too expensive and too problematic. Wind and solar are cheaper more flexible and much quicker to build. It is time to cancel Hinkley Point C now before consumers are saddled with a needless bill for £50bn not to mention the nuclear waste which we still don’t know what to do with.”
Notes
(1) The Stop Hinkley and NFLA joint submission on the Government’s call for evidence on the Helm Review is available here.
(2) See Time to Cancel Hinkley Point C by Emeritus Professor Steve Thomas available here.
(3) The Stop Hinkley and NFLA joint submission on the Government’s Clean Growth Strategy is available here.
(4) See Stop Hinkley Press Release 28th August 2014
January 20, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, UK |
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Sputnik News, 19 Jan 18 The submarines have already been withdrawn from operational status in the Russian Navy as their further use is unprofitable.
The two largest nuclear-powered submarines of Project 941 (the Akula code) Arkhangelsk and Severstal are planned to be decommissioned, a source in the shipbuilding industry told RIA Novosti.
“Their further operation is unprofitable: they have already been withdrawn from the Navy, Rosatom is to decommission them after 2020,” the source said.
Now the only Project 941U submarine remaining in the Navy is Dmitry Donskoy, used to test the Bulava ballistic missile……..https://sputniknews.com/military/201801191060883176-nuclear-submarines-utilization-russia/
January 20, 2018
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Russia, weapons and war |
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British defence spending and capabilities are in the middle of a bitter review in which the potential threat from Russia is frequently invoked, whether that means cutting ocean-bottom internet cables, flying bombers into our airspace, or invading Nato territory.
Russia is – to use a word of the day – being weaponised in the name of particular service interests and justifying big-ticket new systems. Nonetheless, given that Russia is the most serious aggressor the UK might have to face, it is striking how little discussion there has been about what kind of British military capabilities genuinely concern Russian soldiers and planners.
Insofar as one can glean lessons from their military writings, and courtesy of my own conversations with Russian officers, both serving and retired, I can see three definite concerns of theirs and one glaring omission.
The suggestion that the UK merges and shrinks its special and intervention forces would no doubt be roundly cheered in the Russian general staff’s massive building on Znamenka Street, Moscow. As a recently retired officer from its planning directorate once said to me, with more enthusiasm than originality: “Britain has always had the best light infantry in the world, and the bastards get places faster than we would like.”…….
In a way, the Russians have a similar perspective on the Royal Navy. What bothers them is not our massive new aircraft carrier, which one naval officer said would make a great “missile magnet” in time of war. Rather, the concern is about smaller, lighter forces. …..
Thirdly, it is not just specific forces and units that the Russians believe gives the UK its edge, but training and morale. Russian successes in Crimea and Syria partly represent an unfamiliar new emphasis on the human side of their military. Britain’s problems of having to scrimp on training and overstretch its forces have not gone unnoticed…….
if deterring the Russians is a major concern, then it is worth paying attention to what might really deter them: a flexible, fast-moving and versatile force of true professionals. Not necessarily with the heaviest kit, the biggest ships or the priciest aircraft, but able to get where they are needed, when they are needed. Dr Mark Galeotti is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and head of its Centre for European Security. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/19/nuclear-weapons-uk-defence-review-russia
January 20, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
UK, weapons and war |
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