TORPEDOH! Bungling Navy officer accidentally fired a torpedo into a nuclear dockyard while doing maintenance Seaman was given a ‘get well soon’ package to restore his confidence after he attempted spur-of-the-moment missile test without an instruction manual while moored in Plymouth , The Sun, UK By Jacob Dirnhuber 6th October 2017
A BUNGLING Navy operator accidentally fired a torpedo at a nuclear dockyard that flew across a jetty and smashed into a fence.
Amazingly no-one was hurt when the 9ft missile, which was not armed, was blasted out of HMS Argyll while the ship was moored in Plymouth’s Devonport Naval base.
A newly-released file shows the misfire occurred after the operator attempted the test without a mandatory list of safety precautions to hand in March 2014.
The unarmed Sting Ray torpedo flew over a jetty and into a heavy duty metal fence at the high-security dockyard, which services nuclear submarines. Nobody was hurt.
The investigation found that following the information card instructions would have averted the misfire during what was meant to be simulated testing.
It concluded: “The fact that the maintainer was not in possession of the JIC led to a lapse in correct procedure which in turn culminated in the jettison of the TVT [test variant torpedo].”
The heavily-redacted Royal Navy report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, also found that the experienced engineer had wanted to carry out an overdue test.
It reads: “It is assessed that he seized an opportunity to conduct an overdue serial whilst the system was live and available to him.
“This may be viewed as a deviation from the intended plan.”
Romandie 5th Oct 2017, [Machine Translation] Luxembourg on Thursday said it feared “unfair
competition” between nuclear and renewable energies, on the occasion of the
examination by European justice of the complaint lodged by Austria and the
Grand Duchy against the payment of public aid for the Hinkley Point plant.
“We want to avoid this nuclear renaissance because all this public money
will be blocked and will not be able to go into energy efficiency and
renewable,” explained to the press at the end of the hearing the Luxembourg
Minister of the Environment, Carole Dieschburg. The arguments of the
representatives of Austria and the European Commission on the United
Kingdom aid measure at Unit C of the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant were
held before the EU Court in Luxembourg on Thursday.
Support for the Republic of Austria, Luxembourg continued for ten minutes. For the Grand
Duchy, the outcome of the dispute will have an influence on the direction
of the EU’s energy policy. “Subsidizing could set an important precedent
and give the green light to a new model of state nuclear financing in
Europe,” Dieschbourg said.
“For us, the important thing is to avoid a
nuclear revival,” she insisted. At the heart of the dispute is the decision
of the European Commission in October 2014 to validate the price support
mechanism provided by London, which is deemed compatible in Brussels with
EU rules. Backed by Luxembourg, Austria filed an appeal on 6 July 2015
against that decision. This mechanism, also known as the “offset gap
contract”, guarantees stable revenues to the operator of the Hinkley Point
nuclear power plant, in this case EDF, for a period of 35 years.
In addition to the procedure initiated by Austria, Greenpeace Energy also
brought an action for annulment against the same decision of the European
Commission.
In collaboration with Areva and the Chinese companies CGN China
General Nuclear and CNNC China National Nuclear Corporation, EDF is building
a new nuclear power plant with two reactors in Hinkley Point, southwest
England, in March, a controversial an estimated cost of about 21 billion
euros. By 2025, the plant will produce 3.300 MWh of electricity, the
largest single-station power plant in the United Kingdom and 7% of total UK
electricity generation. https://www.romandie.com/news/850062.rom
Deutche Welle 5th Oct 2017,German authorities have measured an increase in radioactive material in the
air. Officials say there is no risk to human health whatsoever, but are
puzzling over its source. Since September 29, a slight increase in the
isotope Ruthenium-106 has been measured in the air in Germany, Italy,
Austria, Switzerland and France. http://www.dw.com/en/spike-in-radioactivity-measured-in-germany-other-european-countries/a-40825708
Telegraph 3rd Oct 2017, The Government is likely to scrap the complex funding arrangements used to
prop up the development of Hinkley Point C after an energy minister
admitted the deal is unlikely to be used for future nuclear projects.
Richard Harrington, who joined the Business and Energy department as a
junior minister earlier this year, said nuclear “absolutely” had a role
to play in the future energy mix, but appeared to bow to Hinkley’s
critics by admitting the financing model was “unlikely” to be used
again. Speaking on the fringes of the Conservative Party conference, he
said he believed that a “third model” existed between the complex deal
agreed with EDF Energy on Hinkley, and the suggestion that Government
should be the main financier behind nuclear projects in order to drive
costs lower. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/10/03/government-rethink-hinkley-point-funding-model-future-projects/
Les Echos 4th Oct 2017 [Machine Translation]Members of the board of directors of EDF and the
executive committee – met Tuesday in Hinkley Point, south-west England, for
a “delocalized strategic seminar” and to visit the site of the two EPRs.
Because of its location, project governance is much more complex than that
of the EPR project in Flamanville (Manche). Three teams are at work, with
about 700 people in Montrouge (France), 850 in Bristol (Great Britain) and
construction teams in Hinkley Point.
It is also necessary to integrate
Areva’s teams into Edvance, the new engineering structure resulting from
the restructuring of the nuclear industry. “There are many issues to be
discussed on the connection between EDF and NNB units in England,” said a
member of EDF’s board of directors before the summer. A site for Simone
Rossi, who will take over the management of EDF Energy on November 1, to
replace Vincent de Rivaz. https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/030655436090-edf-une-nouvelle-direction-pour-les-epr-anglais-2119323.php
Whitehaven News 3rd Oct 2017,Cumbria’s £10bn nuclear new build will not be delivered on schedule,
according to the man in charge of the company behind it. Tom Samson, the
chief executive of NuGen, which has plans for a power plant in Moorside,
near Sellafield, has said it will not be up and running by the 2025 target.
He has also said he expects a new investor in the project in the early part
of 2018 and confirmed the company has been speaking to the Government about
possible support. Mr Samson made these comments in an interview with
in-cumbria, where he also said he was “115 per cent” confident the scheme
would go ahead.
Doubts have surrounded the Moorside project – designed to
supply up to seven per cent of the UK’s electricity and create up to 10,000
jobs – all year because of issues affecting NuGen’s owner, Toshiba. Toshiba
has always insisted that it remains committed to the Cumbrian project
though it has long term plans to sell its stake. Korea Electric Power
Corporation (Kepco) and China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) have
both expressed an interest in buying into NuGen.
Both Kepco and CGN have
their own reactor designs, which would need regulatory approval if they
were to be used by NuGen. Mr Samson said: “When we are in a partnership
with different technologies and shareholders it is inevitable that that
would change schedules. We will have a new plan which we will need to
create with any new owner and that will take us beyond 2025. “It is very
difficult to pin down a date but I would expect it will be operational
within the 2020s.” He added that there were several “credibly buyers” but
did not discuss which companies these were but did say: “There is a high
likelihood that there will be a new reactor technology.”
ITV 4th Oct 2017,The Prime Minister has told ITV Border she understands concerns in Cumbria
over uncertainty about a new nuclear power station in the county. Theresa
May said her government remains committed to new nuclear but she didn’t
commit to funding the Moorside project. The Prime Minister’s refusal to
give financial backing to Moorside comes as the company in charge of
developing the project has admitted for the first time that the project
will be delayed. http://www.itv.com/news/border/update/2017-10-04/pm-refuses-to-give-financial-backing-to-moorside-project/
On 29 September 1957 at 16 o’clock on the territory of the chemical plant “Mayak”, which was in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozersk), was the first in the USSR radiation accident — an explosion of capacity to store radioactive waste. The catastrophe was called the Kyshtym accident — the name closest to Chelyabinsk-40 by city.
The blast occurred in containers, of a capacity of 300 m? because of the failure of the cooling system. In the tank contained a total of about 80 m? highly radioactive nuclear waste. At the time of construction in 1950-ies the strength of the structure is not in doubt. She was in the pit, in a concrete shirt thickness meter.
Cover the container weighed 560 tons, over it was laid a two-meter layer of earth. However, even this failed to contain the explosion.
According to another, unofficial version, the accident occurred due to human error of the plant that in the tank-evaporator with hot plutonium nitrate solution by mistake added a solution of plutonium oxalate. The oxidation of oxalate nitrate allocating a large amount of energy, leading to overheating and explosion of the tank.
During the explosion in the atmosphere were about 20 million curies of radioactive substances, some of which rose to a height of up to two miles, and formed an aerosol cloud.
Over the next 11-12 hours of radioactive fallout on the territory with a length of 300-350 km on northeast from the explosion.
In the area of radioactive contamination got 23 thousand km2 with a population of 270 thousand people in 217 settlements of the Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions. During the liquidation of consequences of the accident were required to relocate 23 villages with a population of 10-12 thousand a man, all the buildings, property and livestock were destroyed.
Liquidators were hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians
Only in the first ten days the number of deaths from radiation have gone on hundreds, during the works in varying degrees, suffered 250 thousand liquidators.
According to the international scale of nuclear testing accident was estimated at six points. For comparison, the seventh level, the maximum was rated accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima-1.
To avoid scattering of radiation by government decision was established the sanitary-protective zone in which economic activity was banned. In 1968 this territory was formed of the Eastern Ural state reserve.
It is forbidden to visit — the level of radioactivity is still too dangerous for humans.
October 6, 1957 in the newspaper “Chelyabinsk worker” appeared devoted to his note, in which, however, about the accident not a word was said:
On Sunday night… many residents of Chelyabinsk watched the special glow of a starry sky. It’s pretty rare in our latitudes, the glow had all the signs of the Aurora. Intense red, time moves to slightly pink and light blue glow first covered a large part of the South-Western and North-Eastern surface of the firmament. About 11 o’clock it was possible to observe in the North-Western direction… In the sky appeared a relatively large colored area and the quiet lanes that had at the last stage of lights North-South direction. The study of the nature of the Aurora, has begun Lomonosov continues in our days. Modern science has confirmed the basic idea of the University, that the Aurora occurs in the upper layers of the atmosphere by electrical discharges of the Aurora…… can be observed in the future at the latitudes of the southern Urals”.
Kyshtym accident has long been a state secret. For the first time openly about her was said in a shot at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, the film Director and biologist Elena Sakanyan, dedicated to the fate of Soviet genetics and biologist Nikolai Timofeev-Ressovsky.
The films were shown on television only after Sakanyan directly asked about the show to Boris Yeltsin.
But in the foreign press leaked the information in April 1958. For the first time about the accident said one of the Copenhagen Newspapers. Subsequently, information about the accident appeared in the report of the National laboratory, USA, biologist Zhores Medvedev dedicated incident book entitled “Nuclear disaster in the Urals”, published in the US, an analysis of the causes of the accident and its causes held by a group of American scientists from the atomic center at oak ridge.
“About the explosion at the “Mayak” for long periods of time, the public knew almost nothing. Later, for some reason, the accident was replicated in the media as the “Kyshtym accident”.
In Kyshtym on this occasion, even recently, was the obelisk, although the city to this event is irrelevant.
And the East-Ural radioactive trail, formed after 1957, did not affect Cistema and its residents,” — said in an interview in 2009, one of its liquidators.
Only the “Lighthouse” there were more than 30 incidents of radioactive emissions and human victims.
Ft.com 2 Oct 17Within the next month Simone Rossi will take over as the chief executive of EDF Energy in the UK. With the job comes responsibility for Britain’s first (and according to one of the energy industry’s leading players, perhaps last) new nuclear plant, Hinkley Point C. The plant is set to be one of the most expensive structures ever built, with the costs estimate pushed up again in July to £19.6bn. HPC is least eight years behind schedule (it was originally supposed to be providing the power to cook our Christmas turkeys this year) but is not expected to be commissioned before 2025, with the possibility that even that target won’t be met. Mr Rossi could be thought to have the most thankless job in the world. HPC is unloved and unwanted, a project which gives dinosaurs a bad name. That is true in Britain where the decision to proceed last year was only taken because the prime minister’s staff could not identify an alternative source of power – they should have asked more widely and not relied on those already fully committed to one outcome. Instead they gave EDF the go-ahead but placed the entire construction risk on EDF. Since the company is state owned the ultimate burden rests with French taxpayers. Unsurprisingly HPC is as unpopular in Paris as it is in the UK.
At an intriguing conference on the “Global Positive Future” held under the “high patronage” of President Emmanuel Macron at the beginning of September there was no mention of nuclear power. If Mr Macron accepts the tighter financial discipline implied by the proposed eurozone reforms, repeated payments to EDF will become impossible. Many in EDF, once a great company at the heart of the post-1945 reconstruction of France, see the project as an albatross. Control over EDF’s activities in the UK has been moved back to Paris.
Despite all this Mr Rossi could still emerge as a hero. As a new arrival he can look again at the project and decide that instead of throwing good money after bad, it is time to call a halt and look for lower cost solutions. Price has become the key issue since the original deal on HPC was agreed in 2013. A price of £92.50 per megawatt hour, index linked for 35 years from whenever the project is commissioned, was ridiculous then and is even more so now. Given the inflation we have seen since 2013 that starting price is now over £100 per MWh. The deal symbolised the inability of well intentioned but inexperienced ministers and civil servants to negotiate complex commercial deals. The deal involved no competition and no provision for review if market circumstances changed. The decision demonstrated the unaccountable power of well funded lobbyists.
Circumstances have changed. Over the last four years the price of every available alternative has declined. The cost of offshore wind has fallen to below £60 per MWh in the UK and to just €43 per MWh in Spain. Gas is plentiful and there is no reason to think that a balanced mixture of wind power and natural gas cannot meet future energy needs. …….
When did nuclear disarmament become such a dirty word for the Tories? Guardian, Emily ThornberryUnlike her Conservative predecessors Theresa May won’t commit to the principle of a nuclear-free world – just so she can attack Jeremy Corbyn’s position
On this day, 65 years ago, near a remote island off the Australian west coast, a bomb was exploded in the hull of the empty navy frigate HMS Plym, its blast two-thirds more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima. At that moment, Britain officially became the world’s third nuclear power.
Both Winston Churchill, who authorised the test, and Clement Attlee, who initiated it, believed its true significance lay not in increasing Britain’s military capabilities, but in further deterring the threat of nuclear war between Russia and the west, and ultimately in eradicating that threat.
Since that day in October 1952, 17 general elections have been held in Britain, and – while debates have often raged about a unilateral versus multilateral approach – the principle that the British government should always be working towards global disarmament has never seemed in doubt.
Until now, that is. Theresa May’s manifesto earlier this year was only the third by a sitting government since Britain got the bomb that made no mention at all of nuclear proliferation and the importance of arms control. And – unlike the two others – she had no excuse.
The previous exceptions to the rule were in February 1974, when Ted Heath tried to reduce his snap election to the single question “Who governs Britain?”; and 1997, when a fag-end Tory administration was barely going through the motions against New Labour.
But in every other case, the prime minister and government of the day treated it as almost a moral responsibility to make clear their long-term commitment to disarmament, often alongside a statement of their short-term plans to retain and renew Britain’s nuclear arsenal…….
So the question for the prime minister and her party is: “When did disarmament become such a dirty word?” Why are Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party now derided for advocating policies that Tory governments once considered perfectly commonplace?……..
Look at the situation today, especially this summer’s volatile and unresolved standoff between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, and it is clear that the threat of nuclear conflict is definitely no less severe than in previous decades, and is arguably at its highest level since the early 1980s.
For past governments of all parties in Britain, that was the cue to step up their efforts on nuclear diplomacy, and commit to progress on disarmament. But from May, Boris Johnson and Michael Fallon, we hear the opposite, and the explanation is as depressing as it is straightforward.
They know that Corbyn – along with me and others – is a long-standing proponent of disarmament. They know that this issue has caused tension in the Labour party over the past two years. And they therefore regard any discussion of nuclear weapons simply as a chance to misrepresent Labour as soft and divided on defence.
In that context, the silence of the last Tory manifesto makes total sense; any commitment to make progress on arms control would have made it impossible for May’s attack dogs to tear holes in Labour for saying the same.
So this most unprincipled of prime ministers chooses to ignore the issue of disarmament simply for short-term political gain, something no sitting government has done since that massive blast 65 years ago on HMS Plym………
at least up until now, every government since Churchill’s has believed that – whatever the arguments that nuclear weapons are a necessary short-term deterrent – the only long-term and absolute guarantee of safety is to eliminate them entirely from the planet.
It should hardly be a surprise therefore for Labour’s leader to state that as his ambition, just as it was for Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher, Major and Cameron. Indeed, the fact that Theresa May continues to attack Jeremy Corbyn for holding that principle is not just a massive departure from the standards of her postwar predecessors, but one of the many reasons she is not fit to stand in their – or his – company.
These tablets also don’t eliminate all risks of nuclear disaster. Other radioactive substances, like cessium or plutonium, can be released in a nuclear disaster, and the iodine tablets will do nothing against that.
DUTCH GOVT. DISTRIBUTES IODINE TABLETS IN PROVINCES NEAR NUCLEAR PLANTS https://nltimes.nl/2017/10/03/dutch-govt-distributes-iodine-tablets-provinces-near-nuclear-plantsBy Janene Pieters on October 3, 2017 From this week the Dutch Ministry of Public Health is distributing iodine tablets in provinces located near nuclear plants. The pills are intended to protect against a certain type of radiation should there be a nuclear disaster. According to the Ministry, around 3 million people in large parts of the regions of Oost-Nederland, Noord-Nederland, Noord-Brabant, Zuid-Holland, Zeeland and Limburg will receive a packet of pills in the mail by the end of next week, the Volkskrant reports.
Iodine pills wil be sent to all children under the age of 18 who live within 100 kilometers of a nuclear plant. Within a radius of 20 kilometers from a plant, all people up to the age of 40 will get a packet of pills. Pregnant women can buy them from a pharmacy. If a nearby nuclear plant leaks radioactive material for any reason, the people living around it will receive a notification telling them to drink the iodine tablets.
The pills are intended to protect against a form of thyroid cancer, to which young people are particularly vulnerable during a nuclear disaster. The cancer develops when the thyroid gland absorbs radioactive iodine. By drinking the iodine tablets first, the thyroid absorbs all the iodine it can from the tablets and has no more room for radioactive iodine. Any iodine absorbed from the nuclear cloud will simply pass through the body.
While there are international guidelines for distributing iodine tablets around nuclear plants, each EU country can decide for itself how and whether they distribute the tablets. A few years ago Belgium decided to distribute iodine due to citizens’ concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants Doel and Tihange. In 2014, the Dutch government decided to “harmonize” the policy so that Dutch citizens can have the same protection as German and Belgian people living near nuclear power plants, according to the newspaper. This measure is taken as a precaution, and not in response to a threat of nuclear disaster.
These tablets also don’t eliminate all risks of nuclear disaster. Other radioactive substances, like cessium or plutonium, can be released in a nuclear disaster, and the iodine tablets will do nothing against that.
According to Wim Turkenburg, atomic physicist and energy professor at Utrecht University, the best thing to do after a nuclear disaster is to stay inside until the nuclear cloud dissipated. “Don’t go get your children from school, but leave them there”, he said to the Volkskrant. He also stressed that nuclear disasters are very rare, especially in the reactors located close to the Netherlands. “The nuclear plants here are more striclty checked than in Fukushima and Chernobyl.”
Brexit Threatens U.K.’s Nuclear Renaissance Dream, Tories Told, Bloomberg, By Jess Shankleman, 3 Oct 17,
Rolls-Royce says government may annnounce nuclear winners soon
Tight migration policies after Brexit may hold back industry
Britain’s plan to spend billions of pounds on a fleet of new nuclear reactors could be stopped in their tracks if Prime Minister Theresa May ends the rights of skilled European migrants to work in the nation after it leaves the European Union.
That’s the warning delivered on Monday by Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc and other nuclear energy experts to Conservative Party members at their annual conference in Manchester, northwest England. The company also outlined plans to invest in new modular atomic power plants.
In the coming month, ministers are due to announce the results of a 250 million-pound ($213 million) competition for funding to research and develop small modular nuclear plants, said David Orr, Senior Vice President of Nuclear at the British manufacturing icon. Rolls-Royce is bidding to participate, he said…….
But the future of both the modular and traditional reactors like the ones being built by Electricite de France SA at Hinkley Point in western England is at risk from the U.K. exiting the EU, he said. That’s because the industry relies on engineers from overseas and because there is still a question mark over whether and how the U.K. could leave Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community regulator that oversees the industry.
CEZ Can’t Fund New Czech Reactors on Its Own, Minister Says, By Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova
State support necessary for reactors to replace aging stock Czech utility CEZ AS can’t invest billions of dollars in new nuclear reactors without government assistance, in spite of what the nation’s prospective leader says, according to the government’s industry minister.
The Prague-based utility, while profitable, must protect the interest of minority shareholders by offering some form of state guarantee in any nuclear project, according to Industry and Trade Minister Jiri Havlicek. He rejected the view of billionaire Andrej Babis, whose ANO party is poised to win this month’s general election, that CEZ should finance new reactors on its own.
“Without the participation of the state –- whether in the form of taking over CEZ’s nuclear assets or some form of indirect state support –- there won’t be any new nuclear units,” Havlicek said in an interview…..
The Social Democrat-led government, which controls about 70 percent of CEZ, has repeatedly called for new nuclear capacity as aging coal-fired power plants and Soviet-era reactors are retired in the coming decades.
Chinese firm behind Essex nuclear plant refuses to reveal security information,Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 2 Oct 17 ,State-owned company refused disclosure of security arrangements for Chinese plant the Bradwell nuclear station could be modelled on. The Chinese state-owned company planning a nuclear power station in Essex refused to share the security arrangements for a Chinese nuclear plant with the British authorities, it has been revealed.
A green light from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) would be a huge boost for China’s aspirations for exporting nuclear technology and Bradwell would be the first Chinese reactor to be built in a developed country.
Overall the ONR welcomed the “high level of expertise and commitment” shown by the Chinese, according to a report of the visit on 13-16 March, released to the Guardian under freedom of information rules.
However, CGN said it could not share material about security measures to protect its nuclear plant in Fangchenggang, China, which Bradwell could be modelled on.
“With regard to the sharing of information, such as the security plans for FCG [Fangchenggang] Unit 3, CGN stated that these were protected documents under Chinese regulations,” the UK authorities wrote, in a glimpse of UK nuclear regulation rubbing up against Chinese state secrecy.
But the ONR insisted that it was commonplace for foreign nuclear companies not to share sensitive documents around national security during the UK nuclear approval process, known as the Generic Design Assessment (GDA). It added that it was the arrangements for Bradwell that were relevant, not Fangchenggang………
CGN put up a third of £18bn cost towards EDF’s project to build French-designed reactors at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, in return for developing its own plant at Bradwell in Essex. The Bradwell B project is two thirds owned by CGN and one third EDF.
Brian Cox is a very personable and knowledgeable TV star and particle physics expert. He is also a promoter of the nuclear industry. He is a big fan of plutonium -powered space travel. He’s to tour Australia in November,.
Currently, Cox is in Cumbria, UK, addressing schoolchildren groups, and revving up enthusiasm for science and technology. All good, yes. He enthuses about the opportunity for top jobs in high tech in Cumbria. Good? Yes, but – where are these future jobs? Well – in the nuclear industry,which is desperately trying to get a new nuclear power station built.
Whitehaven News 29th Sept 2017, Television star Professor Brian Cox says Cumbria has a world-leading industry which warrants talent – but there’s a shortage of scientists and engineers. But he hopes to change that by helping to bring the prestigious Infinity Festival to the area and inspiring hundreds of teenagers to follow their dreams. Professor Cox was the star speaker at today’s festival which was held at West Lakes Academy in Egremont. More than 200 schoolchildren, aged 13 and 14, attended the event from schools across the whole of the county. http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/Professor-Brian-Cox-visits-Egremont-and-declares-Cumbria-is-a-world-leading-high-tech-industry-941aa057-9b77-46a5-8eac-6e92f0341783-ds
Famous scientist argues for ‘stable’ forms of energy, The famous scientist Professor Brian Cox has told guests at the opening of a new exhibition in Whitehaven that nuclear power should be an important source of energy in the UK.
