Britain’s nuclear power dreams melting away – with soaring costs, and political problems
U.K. Nuclear Fleet Plans Evaporating Amid Economic, Political Problems, https://www.enr.com/articles/50109-uk-nuclear-fleet-plans-evaporating-amid-economic-political-problems September 20, 2020, Peter Reina
The U.K.’s hopes for a fleet of new nuclear plants, potentially exceeding 13,000 MW, took another hit when Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. recently pulled out of a major project in Wales. With Chinese investment in two other projects alsolmore doubtful, only the 3,300MW Hinkley Point C project in Somerset, England, has so far progressed to construction
Having suspended development work on the Welsh two-unit plant at Wylfa Newydd in January 2019, Hitachi earlier this month announced that the already difficult investment environment had “become increasingly severe due to the impact of COVID-19.” The company wrote off $2.8 billion of investment in the Welsh plant last year.
Hitachi’s departure followed the Toshiba Corp.’s decision in late 2018 to quit the 3,400-MW Moorside plant, in Cumbria. It had failed to find co-investors for its Westinghouse powered project.
With uncertainty growing, Hinkley Point C is the only U.K. nuclear project o have started work, which is so far largely on schedule, according to Electricité de France (EdF), which controls 66.5% of the deal. China General Nuclear Corp. owns 33.5% of project, which will be powered by two French EPR pressurized water reactors.
Hitachi’s withdrawal from the U.K. market has alarmed supporters of the nuclear industry, since it also casts a cloud over the planned 3,340-MW Sizewell C project in Cumbria.
“For the first time in a generation the U.K has developed a world class nuclear construction and engineering supply chain. Without Sizewell C, we will not sustain it,” says Cameron Gilmour, spokesperson for the Sizewell C Consortium lobby group of key companies in the sector.
The Sizewell C plant would replicate Hinkley Point C and is “shovel ready” according to Gilmour. The U.K. Planning Inspectorate is considering an application for the project submitted this May. The agency’s recommendations will end up on the government’s desk for a final decision at some point.
However, general investment uncertainties and increasingly frosty relations between the U.K and Chinese governments bode ill for the deal, says Stephen Thomas, an energy policy specialist at the University of Greenwich, London.
Set up under a previous conservative administration, the Hinkley Point C deal included CGNC’s participation as a junior partner in Sizewell C. Also, CGNC would have full responsibility for a proposed 2,300 MW Bradwell plant in Essex.
Bradwell would be a global showcase for the technology as it would be the first plant in an industrialized country to use the Chinese Hualong One reactors, Thomas says.
However, the Chinese government was angered over the U.K.’s rejection this July of Huawei technology for the cell phone networks. At the same time, criticism by the country’s lawmakers of China’s participation in critical infrastructure is increasing.
Both developments make the Bradwell deal uncertain. And if Bradwell falls, the Chinese are unlikely to remain merely as passive, junior investors in Sizewell C, potentially scuppering the whole deal, says Thomas.
Investment uncertainties lie at the heart of the U.K.’s fading nuclear hopes. The government offered the Hitachi team a far less generous deal than the one secured by EdF for Hinkley Point C.
While the Hinkley deal protects U.K. electricity consumers from cost escalations, it comes at a high price, according to Thomas. The deal is based on a “contract for differences” which sets an index linked energy price of $120 per MWh at 2012 prices for 35 years. That is hugely more than the $51 per MWh now being bid for offshore wind contracts, he says.
For subsequent deals, the government last year turned to the Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) form of funding used by water and types of utilities. Rather than having a target energy price, electricity tariffs would be controlled by the regulator, which would consider factors such as need for investment and a fair rate of return on capital.
The government completed a review of the system this January but has yet to make a decision, adding to investment uncertainty, says Thomas.
Meanwhile, in the west of England, contractors recently placed the 170-tonne base of the second reactor’s steel containment liner at Hinkley Point on time, despite pandemic working restrictions.
EdF claims to have met critical path goals during the pandemic, but it has yet to reveal the extent of delays on other parts of the job. The site’s workforce is now back to its pre-pandemic level of 4,500 having fallen to 2,000 after February.
Civil and building work is being handled by a joint venture of Paris-based Bouygues Travaux Publics and the U.K.’s Laing O’Rourke Plc. in a contract signed in late 2017, then valued at around $3.6 billion.
However, “challenging ground conditions” and additional design effort have contributed to an overall project cost rise to $29 billion from around $23 billion in 2016, reports EdF. The company still plans to commission the first unit in 2025, but the project has yet to enter its trickier nuclear component phase, officials concede.
Europe’s only two other projects using the same reactor design and involving Bouygues are hugely over schedule. Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 plant and EdF’s flagship French project at Flamanvile are both running about a decade late.
With this track record and future financing doubts, prospects for new projects around the world look bleak, says Thomas.
But nuclear power “has had a history of climbing out of the coffin,” he adds.
Julian Assange case: Witnesses recall Collateral Murder attack: “Look at those dead bastards,” shooters said
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Witnesses recall Collateral Murder attack: “Look at those dead bastards,” shooters said, WSWS, By Thomas Scripps and Laura Tiernan, 19 September 2020New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager testified in Julian Assange’s extradition hearing yesterday morning. Hager has extensive experience in reporting imperialist violence and intrigue. In 2017, he released the book Hit and Run with co-author Jon Stephenson exposing the killing of civilians by New Zealand and United States forces in Afghanistan. He worked with WikiLeaks in the release of US diplomatic cables from November 2010 and made use of other releases in his writing. Hager explained that serious journalists routinely make use of classified materials when reporting on conflicts and potential state crimes. This, he said, was “generally impossible … without access to sources that the authorities concerned regard as sensitive and out of bounds. Consequently, information marked as classified is essential to allow journalism to perform its role in informing people about war, enabling democratic decision making and deterring wrongdoing.” The Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and US embassy cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Hager said, were documents “of the highest public interest—some of the most important material I have ever used in my life.” Referring to the “Collateral Murder” video, which District Judge Vanessa Baraitser intervened to stop him describing in full, he said, “After the shooting, the pilot and the co-pilot were heard saying ‘Look at those dead bastards,’ with the other replying ‘Nice’ … My belief is … the publication of that video and those words was the equivalent of the death of George Floyd and his words ‘I can’t breathe.’ They had a profound effect on public opinion in the world.” The Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and US embassy cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Hager said, were documents “of the highest public interest—some of the most important material I have ever used in my life.” Referring to the “Collateral Murder” video, which District Judge Vanessa Baraitser intervened to stop him describing in full, he said, “After the shooting, the pilot and the co-pilot were heard saying ‘Look at those dead bastards,’ with the other replying ‘Nice’ … My belief is … the publication of that video and those words was the equivalent of the death of George Floyd and his words ‘I can’t breathe.’ They had a profound effect on public opinion in the world.”……………. Yesterday’s cross-examination centred on the scope of the Espionage Act, with US prosecutors making clear that journalists and media outlets are now a legitimate target—especially those which are deemed “non-conventional.” …….. Throughout the hearing, US prosecutors have claimed the “Collateral Murder” video is not part of their case against Assange. But as Fitzgerald argued, after taking instruction from his client, the “Collateral Murder” video is connected “indivisibly” from the Iraq Rules of Engagement published by WikiLeaks and named in the US indictment. It was on the basis of these Rules of Engagement that Apache’s crew member “Crazy Horse 1-8” fired on civilians, leaving 18 dead and horrifically injuring two children. The hearing continues on Monday. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/19/assa-s19.html |
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Extinction Rebellion exposes Zion Lights as yet another nuclear propaganda front
Extinction rebellion 16th Sept 2020, There have been a number of stories in the press in the last few weeks with criticisms about Extinction Rebellion by Zion Lights, UK director of the pro-nuclear lobby group Environmental Progress. It appears that Lights is engaged in a deliberate PR campaign to discredit Extinction Rebellion.
lobbyists such as The Global Warming Policy Foundation and the Genetic Literacy Project (formally funded by Monsanto). The founder of Environmental Progress, Michael Shellenberger, has a record of spreading misinformation around climate change and using marketing techniques to distort the narrative around climate science. He has a reputation for downplaying the severity of the climate crisis and promoting aggressive economic growth and green technocapitalist solutions.
Inadequate testing of Hinkley mud being dumped off Cardiff
testing of the sediment from the construction of Somerset’s Hinkley C
nuclear power station. EDF Energy has applied to dispose of the sediment in
the sea two miles from the South Wales coast.
without an agreed sample plan between them and NRW. But the Welsh
Government’s environmental watchdog has now backed those proposals.
and organisations opposing the dump had informed NRW that EDF’s sampling
plan does not meet international requirements set by OSPAR (Oslo-Paris
Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East
Atlantic), that there are too few samples in the cores collected by EDF and
the testing does not use procedures to detect the nuclear fuel
microparticles uranium and plutonium.
sampling is insufficient to meet the prerequisites of the Environment
(Wales) Act, 2016 and the Well-being of Future Generations Act, 2015. The
Environment (Wales) Act stipulates that wide consultation is always
required in light of uncertainties.
https://nation.cymru/news/national-resources-wales-under-fire-over-hinkley-point-mud-sampling-plan/
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ReplyForward
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UK government to subsidise Sizewell nuclear power station?
UK government could take stake in Sizewell nuclear power station, BBC, Simon Jack, Business editor@BBCSimonJackon16 September 2020
The collapse of a project to build a new nuclear power station at Wylfa, Wales may accelerate government approval of a new station at Sizewell, government and industry sources say.
The government is disappointed after Japan’s Hitachi pulled out but insists it is committed to new nuclear as way to decarbonise the UK power supply.
It is looking at options to replace China’s CGN as an investor in Sizewell.
That could include the government taking a stake in the plant.
Of six sites originally identified over a decade ago for replacements for the UK’s ageing nuclear fleet, only one is under construction, three have been abandoned and two are waiting approval.
One major sticking point over Sizewell has been the involvement of Chinese state-owned company China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) in the UK’s new nuclear plans.
CGN already owns a 33% stake in Hinkley Point C in Somerset, currently under construction by French firm EDF, which owns the other two thirds.
The Chinese firm also took a 20% stake in the development phase of Sizewell on the understanding it would participate in the construction phase and then land the ultimate prize of building a reactor of its own design at Bradwell in Essex.
State aid rules
If CGN are excluded the government may choose to take a direct stake in Sizewell, according to people familiar with the matter.
There was a time when a Conservative government would have been very reluctant to take a direct stake in a commercial development. That time has passed.
Industry sources and within the government say Chinese involvement in designing and running its own design nuclear reactor on UK soil “looks dead”, given revived security concerns and deteriorating diplomatic relations after the government’s decision to phase out Chinese firm Huawei’s equipment from a new generation of telecommunication networks.
It’s no secret that Boris Johnson’s powerful adviser Dominic Cummings is a big fan of the idea of small nuclear reactors and EDF are telling him that big nuclear is an important stepping stone to small.
EDF has also been very vocal about the advantages of reproducing the design of Hinkley at Sizewell. Although a similar design of reactor ran into major cost and time overruns in France and Finland, EDF says they UK is poised to benefit from the lessons learned from those mistakes. It also points out that the UK will benefit from transferring high skilled jobs from one site to another.
There was a time, not so long ago, that government ministers talked enthusiastically about “a new nuclear age”. A fleet of brand new reactors producing reliable, low carbon (but expensive) electricity for decades to come.
Hinkley, Moorside, Wylfa, Oldbury, Bradwell and Sizewell were identified as the sites for the most significant national wave of new nuclear power construction anywhere in the world.
Of those six, only one is under construction, three have been abandoned, and two are still waiting for the green light.
The next couple of weeks could tell us which way the wind is really blowing on the government’s appetite for both nuclear energy and new levels of direct state investment.
If a mobile network is considered too sensitive, it’s hard to argue that a nuclear power station is not.
The next couple of weeks could tell us which way the wind is really blowing on the government’s appetite for both nuclear energy and new levels of direct state investment. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54181748
Julian Assange aimed for ‘stringent redactions’, extradition court hears
Julian Assange aimed for ‘stringent redactions’, extradition court hears, SMH, Latika Bourke. September 18, 2020 London: Julian Assange was “insistent” on redacting the names of Iraqi informants and even deployed software to remove Iraqi words from WikiLeaks cables which he later published in full, a prominent NGO told the Australian’s extradition hearing.John Sloboda who founded Iraq Body Count, a London-based non-government organisation that tallies civilian casualties gave evidence at London’s Old Bailey, on behalf of the defence.
he US Department of Justice wants Assange extradited to the United States so he can face 18 charges of computer hacking and for publishing the names of informants.
Sloboda, who worked with Assange and the WikiLeaks team on the Iraq war logs in 2010, said the Australian was determined to scrub sources’ names from the documents before publishing.
“It was impressed upon us that the aim was a very, very stringent redaction of the logs before publication.
“That was the aim of Mr Assange and WikiLeaks,” he told Assange’s lawyer.
Sloboda said it would have taken an “army of people” “a very long time” to redact the files by hand and that it was his colleague who came up with the idea of developing software that would scrub non-English words from the documents.
He said redactions of occupations were also carried out to stop informants’ identities being guessed.
He said this laborious process created tensions between WikiLeaks and the media outlets they were partnering with at the time, as the news organisations wanted to begin publishing documents they had already redacted. ………..
Assange has spoken out in court to deny he put lives in harm’s way. He faces a combined sentence of up to 175 years if convicted of all counts in the US. His extradition hearing is expected to run until October. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/julian-assange-aimed-for-stringent-redactions-extradition-court-hears-20200917-p55ws5.html
Julian Assange was offered a pardon, if he would name a source
Trump ‘associates’ offered Assange pardon in return for emails source, court hears
WikiLeaks founder was asked to reveal source of leak damaging to Hillary Clinton, hearing told, Guardian, Peter Beaumont in London, Sat 19 Sep 2020 Two political figures claiming to represent Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a “win-win” deal to avoid extradition to the US and indictment, a London court has heard.
Under the proposed deal, outlined by Assange’s barrister Jennifer Robinson, the WikiLeaks founder would be offered a pardon if he disclosed who leaked Democratic party emails to his site, in order to help clear up allegations they had been supplied by Russian hackers to help Trump’s election in 2016.
According to a statement from Robinson read out to the court, the offer was made by the then Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Trump associate Charles Johnson at a meeting on 15 August 2017 at the Ecuadorian embassy in London where Assange was then sheltering. At the time he was under secret investigation by a US grand jury.
Robinson added: “The proposal put forward by Congressman Rohrabacher was that Mr Assange identify the source for the 2016 election publications in return for some kind of pardon, assurance or agreement which would both benefit President Trump politically and prevent US indictment and extradition.”
……….. The barrister added that Assange did not name the source of the emails.While Assange’s legal team first made the claim in February detailing a deal for a pardon in exchange for denying the source of the emails was Russia, Robinson’s statement – admitted as evidence by the court – provides substantial details of the meeting………
Robinson’s description of the offer suggests Trump was prepared to consider a pardon for Assange in exchange for information almost a year before a federal grand jury issued a sealed indictment against the WikiLeaks founder.
If it is confirmed that the approach did indeed have the approval of Trump, it would mark the latest in a number of interventions by the US president in relation to the investigation into Russian election interference.
In her statement, Robinson said Rohrabacher and Johnson “wanted us to believe they were acting on behalf of the president”.
“They stated that President Trump was aware of and had approved of them coming to meet with Mr Assange to discuss a proposal – and that they would have an audience with the president to discuss the matter on their return to Washington DC,” she said……
Appearing to confirm that the approach had been made, James Lewis QC, for the US government, said: “The position of the government is we don’t contest these things were said,” adding: We obviously do not accept the truth of what was said by others.” ……. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/18/trump-offered-julian-assange-pardon-in-return-for-democrat-hacking-source-court-told
Julian Assange exposed “a very serious pattern of actual war crimes”
Speaking on the significance of the WikiLeaks releases, Ellsberg said, “It was clear to me that these revelations, like the Pentagon papers, had the capability of informing the public that they had been seriously misled about the nature of the [Iraq and Afghan] war[s], the progress of the war, the likelihood that it would be ended successfully or at all, and that this was information of the highest importance to the American public.”
Characterising the wars that WikiLeaks exposed, Ellsberg explained, “The Iraq war was clearly recognisable, even to a layman, as a crime against the peace, as an aggressive war.”
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Assange exposed “a very serious pattern of actual war crimes,” Daniel Ellsberg tells extradition hearing https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/17/ells-s17.html, By Thomas Scripps, 17 September 2020Daniel Ellsberg gave powerful testimony to the Julian Assange extradition hearing yesterday, speaking via videolink to London’s Old Bailey. Ellsberg’s release of the top-secret Pentagon Papers in 1971 exposed the US government’s lies and criminality in the Vietnam War. “[T]he Afghan war was immediately recognisable as what might be called ‘Vietnam-istan.’ It was a rerun of the Vietnam war despite the great differences in terrain, in religion, in language … [T]he basic nature of the war, as basically an invasion and occupation of a foreign country against the wishes of most of its inhabitants, was the same. And that meant the prospects were essentially the same, which were for an endless stalemate which we’ve now experienced in Afghanistan for 19 years. And it might have gone on that long in Vietnam had not truths that the government was trying to withhold been made public.” Referring to the brutality of these occupations which the WikiLeaks releases uncovered, Ellsberg said, “I saw for the first time in virtually forty years … since the Pentagon papers, the release of a sufficient quantity of documentation to make patterns of decision making [in the war] very evident, to show that there were policies at work and not merely aberrant incidents.” He drew special attention to how the documents had exposed “a very serious pattern of actual war crimes. … In the Afghan case the reports of torture and of assassination and death squads were clearly describing war crimes. I would have, by the way, been astonished to see such reports in Secret level communications [as opposed to Top Secret] in 1971 or 1964 in the Pentagon. They would have been much higher in classification. What these reports revealed was that in the intervening years, in the Iraq War and the Afghan War, torture had become so normalised, and death squads and assassination, that reports of them could be trusted to a network at the Secret level available to … people with low-level clearances.” Ellsberg said of the Iraq “Collateral Murder” video, “We were watching somebody pursue with his machine gun an unarmed man, wounded, crawling for safety. … I was very glad that the American public was confronted with this reality of our war.” Speaking on the significance of the WikiLeaks releases, Ellsberg said, “It was clear to me that these revelations, like the Pentagon papers, had the capability of informing the public that they had been seriously misled about the nature of the [Iraq and Afghan] war[s], the progress of the war, the likelihood that it would be ended successfully or at all, and that this was information of the highest importance to the American public.” Characterising the wars that WikiLeaks exposed, Ellsberg explained, “The Iraq war was clearly recognisable, even to a layman, as a crime against the peace, as an aggressive war.” Continue reading |
Hitachi pulls out – halting two big UK nuclear projects. Renewables would be a fraction of their costs
With the Japanese conglomerate this week walking away from two new nuclear plants in the United Kingdom, project 
developer Horizon Nuclear Power has confirmed all activities at both sites will cease. The facilities had struggled to secure funding despite offers from government. Horizon said it will ‘keep lines of communication open’ regarding the future of the sites. PV Magazine, SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 MARK HUTCHINS The former Wylfa nuclear power station was decommissioned in 2015. Plans for a new reactor on an adjacent site have been abandoned with the withdrawal of Hitachi from the project.
Japanese conglomerate Hitachi has pulled out of the construction of two U.K. nuclear projects with a total 5.8 GW of generation capacity, citing ongoing delays and an increasingly tough investment environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The projects, on the Welsh Isle of Anglesey and at Oldbury on Severn, near the English city of Bristol, were taken on by Hitachi in 2012. Construction was suspended in January last year as funding could not be secured for the reactor at Wylfa Newydd, on Anglesey, and Hitachi’s U.K. subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power has confirmed it will cease development at both sites, though it still hopes to revive the projects.
Hitachi said it would coordinate with government and other stakeholders as holder of the license to build nuclear reactors at the sites. The company posted losses last year from the suspended projects and said it does not expect the decision to further affect its finances……….
Renewables
Critics of nuclear power are likely to view the Hitachi decision as further evidence of the inherent cost and complexity problems associated with the technology, and will repeat arguments the U.K. and other regions would be better served by an energy transition focusing on renewables.
Mycle Schneider, lead author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report told pv magazine: “Nuclear power plant projects frequently get abandoned even after construction has started. One in eight construction sites have been abandoned at various stages of advancement of construction. Some have been completed and never switched on, and there is absolutely no guarantee that Hinkley Point C will ever generate power,” said Schneider, in reference to a third planned nuclear plant in the southwest of England.
“It has become obvious that renewables, even unsubsidized, come in at a fraction of the cost of new nuclear power. In the U.K., onshore and offshore wind are less than half the cost of nuclear. If the U.K. government keeps planning for nuclear power plants, it’s not because there was no choice, and it has nothing to do with market-economy driven energy policy.”
Solar industry representatives also called on the government to recognize renewables’ potential to fill in gaps left by abandoned and delayed nuclear projects and to implement supportive policies, as well as an auctioning system to boost large-scale projects. “The UK is facing a significant low-carbon energy gap in the 2030s, resulting from the abandonment of new nuclear projects,” said Chris Hewett, Chief Executive of the Solar Trade Association. “Solar PV is well-positioned to help plug a significant portion of this, but the Government must step in to bring down the numerous barriers that are holding growth back, such as punitive business rates and a lack of prioritization of grid capacity for the technology.” https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/18/hitachi-halts-5-8-gw-of-uk-nuclear-plans/
Nuclear waste transport , and legal action – UK
Due to numerous safety issues with storage of high-level waste at Biblis, the BUND Hessen has filed a lawsuit saying it will take legal action against the now reinstated transport licence. With last Sunday’s local German elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the Greens achieved a record result with 20% and there will be green mayors in the former capital Bonn, Münster and the anti-nuclear stronghold Aachen.
http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Plain-sailing.docx
The revolving door between government members and the nuclear industry
New nuclear role for former Cabinet minister, News and Star , By Federica BedendoReporter A former Cabinet minister has been appointed as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s social value specialist.18th September
Hazel Blears will provide advice to the whole of the NDA group on how to increase the social, economic and environmental impact of its work to decommission and clean up the UK’s oldest nuclear sites.
She is a nationally recognised expert in this field and is chairman of the Social Investment Business and a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation. Ms Blears is also a former cabinet minister and, during her time as an MP, was one of the authors of the Social Value Act……. https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/18725570.new-nuclear-role-former-cabinet-minister/
Plutonium in Hinkley nuclear mud dumping, but National Resources Wales’ call for full testing is ignored
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Campaigners claim NRW has been ignored as mud sampling from nuclear plant gets underway, https://nation.cymru/news/campaigners-claim-nrw-has-been-ignored-as-mud-sampling-from-nuclear-plant-gets-underway/
17th September 2020 EDF Energy has commenced taking samples of mud from the construction of a new nuclear power plant without the agreement of National Resources Wales, according to the group opposing plans to dump the sediment in the sea off Cardiff Bay.In February NRW received an application from EDF, who want to dump 800,0000 tonnes of mud dredged as part of building work for the new plant at Hinkley Point, the site of the disused Hinkley Point A facility near Bridgwater in Somerset. Two years ago, EDF were given permission to dump 300,000 tonnes of mud from the site off the Cardiff coast, despite protests and following a Senedd debate. GeigerBay, a coalition of scientists, experts, individuals and organisations formed to oppose the plans, are pressing for extensive testing of the sediment following what they say is evidence of plutonium contamination, a claim that Westminster’s Environment Agency (EA) denies. A notice published last month confirmed sedimentation survey sampling is now underway despite the lack of an agreement on the scope and location of the testing. In a letter to the Expert Committee set up by the Welsh Government to examine the issues around the proposed dump, GeigerBay say: “EDF have proceeded with the sampling (core extraction) operations by the Jack up Barge Excalibur, disregarding the lack of approval. “They apparently think they can ignore NRW as the operations are in English waters and approved by the Marine Management Organisation (the government body that regulates and plans marine activities in the seas around England). “With uncertainties surrounding the planning, licensing and scoping we reiterate our point that testing must include at the very least toxicity testing, a full assessment of the nuclides present in the sediment, and a full exploration of the likelihood of transfer of nuclear pollutants onto land because of the risk to humans and wildlife. “Is the Expert Committee aware that sampling has commenced, and considered everything that that entails?” A petition against the dumping has secured over 10,000 signatures, triggering another debate in the Senedd. |
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As Hitachi exits the project, UK government to announce funding for Wylfa nuclear project next month
Hitachi Abandons $26 Billion Nuclear Power Project in U.K. Bloomberg Green, By Stephen Stapczynski and Rachel Morison16 September 2020,
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U.K. due to make statement on financing model next month
- U.K. government says still committed to building new nuclear
Hitachi Ltd. exited a long-planned U.K. nuclear power project despite the most generous support package for an atomic station in Britain, a bad omen for future projects.
The Japanese company announced Wednesday that it decided to withdraw from the Wylfa power project in Wales, citing a worsening investment environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Work has been suspended on the 20 billion-pound ($26 billion) venture since January 2019 after the company failed to reach a financing agreement with the U.K. government.
The decision is the latest setback for nuclear’s revival, which supporters promote as the carbon-free solution for reliable power at a time of growing climate change concerns. Cost overruns and cheaper competition is stifling projects and developers in Japan, the U.S. and the U.K.
Britain is one of a handful of developed countries still building nuclear reactors, with the government putting them at the middle of an effort to attract billions of pounds of investment in new low-carbon power plants and create thousands of jobs. However, financing these prohibitively expensive infrastructure projects has become a hurdle, especially in the face of cheaper natural gas and renewables.
A financing package offered to Hitachi in 2019 wasn’t enough to attract additional private investor interest. The U.K. has been considering a funding model that would have seen the state shouldering more of the construction risk. The outcome of that consultation has been delayed.
The U.K. said it had offered a package that “went well beyond what any government has been willing to consider in the past.” Atomic energy still forms a key plank of energy policy including in small and advanced modular reactors.
A financing package offered to Hitachi in 2019 wasn’t enough to attract additional private investor interest. The U.K. has been considering a funding model that would have seen the state shouldering more of the construction risk. The outcome of that consultation has been delayed.
The U.K. said it had offered a package that “went well beyond what any government has been willing to consider in the past.” Atomic energy still forms a key plank of energy policy including in small and advanced modular reactors.
Prospects for the Wylfa plant looked more optimistic last month when Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd., Hitachi’s subsidiary developing the project, said it was engaged with the U.K. government on reviving the project.
The future of how the U.K. finances new nuclear is expected to be announced in the government’s long anticipated energy white paper next month……… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/hitachi-abandons-u-k-nuclear-power-project-in-blow-to-industry
Huge costs of decommissioning Britain’s ”Magnox” nuclear failities just keep going up
UK spending watchdog warns on costs of cleaning up old nuclear plants
Decommissioning charge has risen by £3bn since 2017 and there remains ‘inherent uncertainty’ over final bill, NAO finds, Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh, SEPTEMBER 11 2020, Estimates of the cost to clear up 12 of the UK’s earliest nuclear power sites have increased by nearly £3bn since 2017 and there remains “inherent uncertainty” over the final bill, the country’s public spending watchdog has warned.
Long nuclear convoy near Glascow
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Nuclear convoy passes near Glasgow ‘laden with six warheads’ A 26-vehicle convoy passed through Balloch and by Loch Lomond this morning, a Nukewatch UK campaigner told Glasgow Live
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/nuclear-convoy-passes-near-glasgow-18940177 ByCraig Williams 15 SEP 2020 A nuclear weapons convoy passed near Glasgow this morning carrying what is believed to have been six Trident nuclear warheads. Nukewatch UK claims the convoy left RNAD Coulport this morning on its way to Atomic Weapons Establishment Burghfield near Reading – taking a route which saw it travel over Haul Road to the A82 near Cameron House, before passing through Balloch on the A811 to Stirling. Including an estimated 26 vehicles, the unmarked convoy is then said to have travelled along the M9 towards Edinburgh, taking the Edinburgh Bypass and then the A68 towards Jedburgh. Nukewatch UK Campaigner Jane Tallents followed the convoy from the Edinburgh Bypass onto the A68. She told Glasgow Live: “The convoy took the Haul Road and travelled onto the A82 before passing through Alexandria and Balloch. It was then spotted in Drymen as it made its way along the A811 towards Stirling.” Having studied convoys like it for the last 30 years, Jane believes it was travelling with approximately six nuclear warheads to AWE Burghfield for the weapons to undergo repair works prior to being returned to RNAD Coulport and put back on the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines. “The convoy, which numbered around 26 vehicles, included huge lead-lined lorries carrying the nuclear warheads, along with a fire engine in case of a fire, a moving workshop, a decontamination unit, tow truck and loads of MOD police. “The journey is usually made six times per year when they take the warheads down to refurbish them and then transport them back up again.” Nukewatch UK tracks and monitors the convoys that transport the UK’s Trident nuclear warheads by road from Burghfield to Coulport. Campaigner Jane believes that more people show know of the convoys that travel from Scotland to England via motorways and on small country roads. She added: “We campaign for an end of nuclear weapons. The fact there is such a risk taken with these convoys is reason enough to get rid of them. The convoys travel on small roads at various points of the journey and pass peoples’ houses – today it went through the village of Buchlyvie (around 18 miles north of Glasgow). “Residents in the village could stand on their doorsteps and the nuclear convoy travels about four feet by their doors.” |
1.This Month
Saskatchewan First Nations Targeted for Untested Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Candyce Paul http://nuclearhotseat.com/2020/09/03/480-saskatchewan-first-nations-targeted-for-untested-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-candyce-paul/?fbclid=IwAR3CtbqMu3BPrHUOCAoUueMqfSD0un5NNp2WkVmv7X7Zb1pkaMBtulSYsF8
by Libbe HaLevy | Sep 3, 2020
Join my fight to free Julian Assange and stop US extradition
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/julianassange/
of the week
The Santa Susana Nuclear Catastrophe Continues
https://www.enviroreporter.com/2020/08/nasas-last-stand-investigation/
Committee for Future Generations
Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Co-operative (ICUCEC)
https://climatetippingpoints.info/
Antarctica Nuclear Power Plant Cancer Disaster on Day 1 Says Navy Shipmen
Antarctica nuclear reactor caused many cancers. Several countries insisted the US to clean up the nuclear waste via treaty. 5 On Your Side Investigation in March 2011 revealed at least “438 malfunctions from 1964 through 1972.” Our report found “leaking water surrounding the reactor” as well as “hairline cracks in the reactor liner” and prompted two federal hearings that upheld our report’s findings. The plant was eventually shut down and dismantled in 1972, but in the decades that followed, repeated cancer claims for service-connected disability filed by veterans were routinely turned down or ignored by the Veterans Administration. “There is no question that the water was contaminated,” said Wilborn, who was granted a service-connected disability after a hearing before the Board of Veterans Appeals. The appeals board also found that Wilborn’ s exposure was “grossly underestimated” and “evidence strongly suggests that others may have been exposed to higher levels” as well. Source Ron Reagan http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-ne…
McMurdo has attempted to improve environmental management and waste removal over the past decade in order to adhere to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, which was signed October 4, 1991, and entered into force January 14, 1998. This agreement prevents development and provides for the protection of the Antarctic environment through five specific annexes on marine pollution, fauna, and flora, environmental impact assessments, waste management, and protected areas. It prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific. A new waste treatment facility was built at McMurdo in 2003, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo…
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