UK Treasury’s new green savings bonds says YES to wind energy, NO to nuclear
the nuclear energy aspect had been scrapped in the process of working out suitable investments.
Yes to wind, no to nuclear: the green bonds investment planSavers can be part of £15bn scheme with just £100m
Sunday July 04 2021, The Sunday Times The money raised through the Treasury’s new green savings bonds will not be used to fund any nuclear energy projects, despite the power source being a crucial part of the government’s ten-point plan towards net zero.
The term net zero means achieving a balance between the carbon emitted into the atmosphere and the carbon removed from it.
Investors might be able to help fund the government’s plans to “build back better and greener” as early as September, when it is expected that the first tranche of bonds will be launched.
Farnam Bidgoli, the head of environmental, social and governance (ESG) solutions at HSBC, said that the nuclear energy aspect had been scrapped in the process of working out suitable investments. “When doing our market research,……….. (subscribers only) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/yes-to-wind-no-to-nuclear-the-green-bonds-investment-plan-9pcrz6rsw
United Kingdom will not finance any nuclear-energy related expenditures under its Green Financing Framework
Nuclear energy has been excluded from the UK government’s Green Financing Framework, while several EU Member States have written to the European Commission to oppose nuclear’s inclusion in the bloc’s green taxonomy.
The UK’s Green Financing Framework describes how the government plans to finance expenditures through the issuance of green gilts and the retail Green Savings Bonds that it says will be critical in tackling climate change and other environmental challenges. The framework, which was produced and published yesterday by the Treasury, sets out the basis for identification, selection, verification and reporting of the green projects that are eligible for such financing.
Under ‘exclusions’, the document says: “Recognising that many sustainable investors have exclusionary criteria in place around nuclear energy, the UK government will not finance any nuclear energy-related expenditures under the Framework.”
World Nuclear News 2nd July 2021
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-excludes-nuclear-from-green-taxonomy
Dounreay nuclear waste clean-up- an enormous job, for just a temporary solution.
| WORK to clean-up the radioactive waste in the shaft and silo at Dounreay is underway and has been described as “one of the most significant decommissioning projects” at the site. Radioactive waste was historically consigned to the 65-metre deep shaft and the silo, an underground waste storage vault, over several decades starting in the late 1950s. Now the higher activity waste must be retrieved and repackaged, suitable for long-term storage in a safe modern facility. John O’Groat Journal 27th June 2021 https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/shaft-and-silo-work-at-dounreay-is-underway-242653/ |
Bradwell anti-nuclear campaigners may face fight against nuclear fusion plan
CAMPAIGNERS battling proposals for a new nuclear power station at Bradwell
could have to fight on a second front. The UK Atomic Energy Authority has
put Bradwell on a ‘long-list’ of 15 possible sites for the UK’s prototype
fusion energy plant – STEP. Others include Sellafield, north Wales and
Dounreay, together with other nuclear and former coal-fired power station
sites. The UKAEA says the successful site will become a “global hub” for
fusion energy and associated, industries and create thousands of highly
skilled jobs during the construction and operation of the plant, while
attracting investment that will enable the development of a new UK science
and technology centre of excellence”.
Essex Gazette 28th June 2021
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/19399659.bradwell-earmarked-fusion-power-plant/
Magnox Silo Liquor “Crack Under Control.” note: it isn’t.
How does the Nuclear Industry get away with wanting to produce ever more and ever hotter nuclear wastes when they cannot contain the existing wastes. The Magnox Swarf silo is leaking – from an unknown point – part
of the silo is below ground. United Utilities are abstracting drinking water for West Cumbria from boreholes at South Egremont a short distance away.
This is just one of the tenders Sellafield has put out for help with “seepage.” Sellafield are asking contractors to help: The Key Questionis “Can We Stop This Leak Which Is In The Building” “Can We Identify The Location”.
Radiation Free Lakeland 25th June 2021
Magnox Silo Liquor “Crack Under Control.” note: it isn’t
French corporation EDF will close down all 7 of its advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power stations in Britain within the next decade.
French-based global power developer EDF Energy vowed to put all seven of its advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom into the defueling and decommissioning stages within the next decade.
The company’s agreement with the UK government calls for shutting down the AGR stations by 2030. At that point EDF’s generating capacitywill consist of Sizewell B, HPC, potentially Sizewell C (currently under construction) and renewables including solar, onshore and offshore wind.
Power Engineering 25th June 2021
French company EDF’s Plan A – Britain to legislate finance for Sizewell nuclear plant: there is no Plan B.
REUTERS EVENTS EDF calls for funding legislation for new UK nuclear power plant, Kate Holton LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) – France’s EDF (EDF.PA) called on the British government to deliver the legislation that would underpin the financing of a new nuclear plant, Sizewell C, saying it was now essential………
Asked if his company had a Plan B in the event the government did not advance with the legislation, Simone Rossi, the UK head of EDF, said: “We do not really. I have to say that would be for the UK government to consider.”………
China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) which holds a 20% share in the pre-construction phase of the Sizewell C project, is on a U.S. government list of companies Washington deems are acting contrary to U.S. interests………….https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/reuters-events-edf-calls-uk-produce-sizewell-funding-legislation-2021-06-23/
Britain facing a massive series of nuclear decommissioning
Britain prepares for new wave of nuclear decommissioning
Sceptics of the fuel argue the plans demonstrate why no new plants should be built, Ft.com Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh 23 June, 21, At Dungeness B nuclear power station on a remote stretch of the Kent coast in south-east England, workers are making preparations to carefully remove thousands of radioactive fuel elements from its reactors and transfer them to a purpose-built pond for at least 90 days for cooling. The spent fuel will later be packed into 53-tonne “flasks” fortified with 39cm-thick steel walls before being transported across country by train to Sellafield in Cumbria.
The nuclear facility in north-west England is host to most of the radioactive remnants of Britain’s civil nuclear programme that dates back to the 1950s. These include highly toxic waste that will remain there until a suitable site is found for an underground repository where it will have to be stored for more than 100,000 years to make it safe.
Preparations for the “defuelling” of Dungeness B started with “immediate effect” on June 7 when its majority owner, French state-controlled utility EDF, announced it would close the plant seven years early. It had not been operational since September 2018 as engineers tried to fix problems, including corrosion and cracks in its pipework.
The 1.1GW plant is the first of seven built in the UK between the mid-1960s and late-1980s using advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) technology to come out of service. It will kickstart a decommissioning process spanning generations, which sceptics argue strikes at the heart of why no new nuclear plants should be built.
The remaining six AGR plants are due to be retired by the end of this decade at the latest, leaving the more modern Sizewell B plant in Suffolk, which uses pressurised water reactor technology, as the only one operational out of the existing fleet
. “[Decommissioning of] many of these facilities will continue well into the 22nd century,” said Paul Dorfman of University College London’s Energy Institute. “The problem with decommissioning is it always turns out to be more complex than one had imagined.”
Critics also point out that the decommissioning of Britain’s 17 earliest atomic power sites has been extremely costly. The latest clean-up bill for those sites, which include a generation of nuclear plants known as the “Magnox” stations, is estimated at more than £130bn over 120 years. ……
Climate activists, such as E3G and Greenpeace, have long argued that the debate over building costly, complex new nuclear plants detracts from investment in cheaper, climate-friendly technologies……….
The exact arrangements for the decommissioning of Dungeness and the six other AGR plants are subject to negotiation between EDF and the government. It will be financed via a £14.5bn fund set up in 2005.
The French utility is expected to take at least three years to remove all fuel from each site and potentially carry out some early demolition work before handing them over to the UK state-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. EDF declined to comment. The next stage will probably involve the treatment and removal of waste and demolition of facilities that are no longer needed. Some facilities will be left untouched for 85 years — to allow residual radioactive materials to decay — before demolition. …….. https://www.ft.com/content/0381e567-d088-4802-a2e4-e125c8099605
New UK energy report – need for investment in wind and solar, no need for new nuclear.
The UK should grow its solar capacity to 210GW by 2050, unlocking a low
cost transition to net zero, a new report has found. Wind and solar will
need increased investment to grow to generate 98% of the electricity mix,
up from 27% in 2020, according to the report, published by energy provider
Good Energy with modelling from the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC).
Solar Power Portal 22nd June 2021
This will require over 200GW of solar, as well as 150GW of wind and 100GW of
lithium-ion battery energy storage, the Renewable Nation: Pathways to a
Zero Carbon Britain report has said. A substantial amount of that growth is
possible by the end of this decade, with 100GW of solar and 70GW of wind
needed to produce 84% of the country’s electricity by 2030.
The report – which is the first to use the ESC’s Storage and Flexibility model,
which itself combines long-term investment planning with hour-by-hour grid
balancing – found that no new nuclear beyond that under construction
currently was needed for net zero.
The dangersof transporting nuclear weapons and other nuclear materials
Nuclear Transports**
The UK & Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) today publishes a
detailed analysis considering the wide range and large number of transports
of nuclear materials around the UK and Europe, and from the UK to other
countries.
The report highlights nuclear transports are continuing to
increase and remain a concern from the perspective of an accident or
malicious incident taking place with one of them. Nuclear transport is of
particular concern to the NFLA as radioactive materials are at their most
vulnerable when they are being transported off site, as they are away from
dedicated safe storage facilities and are in an ‘uncontrolled’
environment where they face a greater level of risk.
The report considersin detail the following transports: The safety of nuclear weapon road
convoys – it considers recent reports by the Nuclear Information Service,
ICAN UK and Nukewatch Scotland. The future transport by road of vehicles
containing redundant submarine reactors from Rosyth and Devonport to
Capenhurst by road. The report highlights the sheer number of road
transports involving nuclear materials as well.
The transport by rail of spent nuclear fuel from existing and decommissioned reactors, with
particular focus on the rail transports of radioactive materials from
Dounreay to Sellafield. It also highlights learning points from recent
conventional rail transport accidents. The transport of radioactive
materials by sea around the British Isles and globally to fulfil
international contracts. The transport of highly enriched uranium materials
stored at Dounreay by air to a site in South Carolina, United States.
Thereis also reference to a historical list of accidents involving planes with
nuclear weapons.
NFLA 22nd June 2021
UK government’s fantasy of a nuclear fusion energy plant at Bradwell
**Fusion** The announcement by the Government that Bradwell is on the long list of
fifteen possible sites for the UK’s prototype fusion energy plant has
come out of the blue. Chair of the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group
(BANNG) Professor Andy Blowers, described the idea to develop fusion
(essentially the process that goes on inside the sun and in hydrogen bombs)
to produce electricity as ‘yet another nuclear fantasy, like the
philosopher’s stone full of golden promise but impossible to realise.
Bradwell is not a soft touch for such speculative and dangerous
experimentation’.The Government has committed £400M to the fusion
programme and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) put out a call for
sites to host STEP (the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), the
prototype fusion plant. The fifteen sites include the usual suspects –
Sellafield, North Wales, Dounreay – together with other nuclear sites,
former coal-fired power station sites and, at the end of the list, Bradwell
nominated by Belport Ltd., an entrepreneurial property and asset management
company.
BANNG 22nd June 2021
House-building plans thrown into doubt as doubts grow about Wylfa nuclear project
Councillor secures debate amid Welsh language fears Sunday, 20 June 2021 – by Gareth Wyn Williams – Local democracy reporter,
An extraordinary meeting of Gwynedd Council has been called regarding the second homes housing crisis and Welsh language fears.
Backbench members have triggered a mechanism to call a full council meeting amid concerns over the existing Joint Local Development Plan (JLDP).
The document proposes why and where up to 7,184 new homes should be built across Anglesey and Gwynedd over the period up to 2026.
The plan was ratified separately by both authorities in 2017, with a scheduled monitoring review set to take place this year.
But after reaching the minimum allowed threshold of five councillors to trigger an extraordinary meeting of all 75 members, one Llyn councillor has called for a debate on the plans.
Even when Gwynedd Council approved the plan, the knife-edge decision was only made thanks to the casting vote by the council’s chair, facing much opposition due to concerns it would lead to a drop in the number of Welsh speakers in both counties.
Cllr Gruffydd Williams, the unaffiliated member for Nefyn, believes there is a need to go further than the scheduled review and asked councillors to also consider 12 recommendations raised by Porthmadog academic, Dr Simon Brooks, in a recent report on second homes and their impact on Welsh speaking communities.
He said: “When you take into account Brexit, Covid-19 and Wylfa Newydd, so many things have changed since the plan was adopted, house prices are shooting up and the plight of Welsh speaking communities looking more perilous than ever.
“I wanted to called this meeting, having already spoken to around 30 councillors, as I feel it’s only right that all members of Gwynedd, and Anglesey councils in fairness, are given a chance to have their say rather than all the burden being placed on the few that sit on the JLDP committee”
Cllr Williams noted: “It would be desirable to give particular priority, going past what is noted as the usual monitoring period within the plan itself and to submit proposals which correspond to Dr Simon Brooks’ report “Second Homes – Developing New Policies in Wales” which was commissioned by the Welsh Government.”
Adding that with any prospect of a major nuclear development on Anglesey looking more uncertain than ever, he argued that this should be taken into consideration as it was a major cornerstone of the plan when first ratified.
While Wylfa Newydd had been earmarked for a site near Cemaes in northern Anglesey, Gwynedd Council had also made arrangements for increased demand on housing in the Arfon area.
Anti-Nuclear group PAWB has long argued that both the JLDP and the North Wales Growth Plan were drawn up on the assumption that Wylfa B “would happen and that it would be a good thing.”……….The extraordinary meeting will be held next Monday, 28 June https://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/article.cfm?id=136455&headline=Councillor%20secures%20debate%20amid%20Welsh%20language%20fears&searchyear=2021
We don’t need costly, slow, nuclear power: solar, wind, tidal and wave power can amply do the job
WHEN I visited Orkney in the 1970s, it was deeply involved in the North
Sea Oil boom. The Flotta oil terminal is still operating but renewable
energy – mainly wind and some tidal – generates up to 120 percent of the
electricity needed by Orkney’s 22,000 inhabitants.
The European Marine Energy Centre based in Stromness is trialling 48 tidal and wave power
projects. These include the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, Orbital
Marine Power’s O2 which from the air looks like a giant 250ft long rowing
boat off the isle of Eday. Its 2MW capacity means it could generate enough
clean, predictable electricity to meet the demand of around 2,000 UK homes
and offset approximately 2,200 tonnes of CO2 production per year.
It is just one of countless schemes around the world testing the potential of
renewables other than wind and solar to power the world and save it from
climate change. At an earlier stage of development and planned for near
Liverpool is the £3billion TPGen24, the brainchild of engineer Stuart
Murphy. Its promotional video says: “There is more than enough energy in
the UK’s tidal waters to satisfy the entire needs of the country, if only
it could be captured.
Does Britain need nuclear power to turn us green?
Yes, says Professor Ian Fells, Technical Director of Penultimate Power UK
Ltd which builds compact nuclear High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor Energy
Hubs.
NO Says Dale Vince Eco-entrepreneur Energy independence from clean,
green renewables is a prize well worth having – and perfectly feasible. We
have enough wind and sun to power this country many times over. Throw in
other sources, such as geothermal – heat from deep under the ground – and
marine power and there should be no need for the UK to waste £50billion a
year and rising on importing oil and gas.
Nuclear has many problems. It is hugely expensive. Nuclear power stations take 10 years to design, 10 years
to build and another 10 years to pay back their carbon debt. We don’t
have time. And at three times the cost of renewables, we don’t need to
pay for that. We can power the grid entirely from renewable energy, at a
fraction of the price in a fraction of the time and have real carbon
reductions almost straight away.
Express 14th June 2021
https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/1449592/Green-Britain-tide-turning-renewable-energy
Fire at Hinkley Point C building site
A fire broke out on the building site for Hinkley Point C this morning
(Tuesday, June 15). A pall of smoke was spotted in the sky over the power
station near Bridgwater in Somerset and reports of a blaze quickly began to
circulate on social media.
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue attended the
plant after one of the galleries used to run pipes and cables around the
station caught alight. Shortly after 9.30am, pictures of the smoke cloud
were uploaded to Facebook by people living nearby, in Burnham-on-Sea. A
spokesman confirmed that the Hinkley Point’s internal fire crew
extinguished the blaze and there were no casualties. He said the incident
was now being investigated and EDF energy will ensure “lessons are learned”
from the event.
Somerset Live 15th June 2021
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/hinkley-point-c-fire-confirmed-5530409
Chris Hedges: Julian Assange and the Collapse of the Rule of Law
“Lliving in truth in a despotic system is the supreme act of defiance. This truth terrifies those in power.”
Chris Hedges: Julian Assange and the Collapse of the Rule of Law — Rise Up Times Julian exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite.
Chris Hedges gave this talk at a rally Thursday night in New York City in support of Julian Assange. John and Gabriel Shipton, Julian’s father and brother, also spoke at the event, which was held at The People’s Forum. By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost
BY MODERATOR June 11, 2021 This why we are here tonight. Yes, all of us who know and admire Julian decry his prolonged suffering and the suffering of his family. Yes, we demand that the many wrongs and injustices that have been visited upon him be ended. Yes, we honor him up for his courage and his integrity. But the battle for Julian’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Julian and his family, but for us.
Tyrannies invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. Those, such as Julian, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence.
The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations.
I was in the London courtroom when Julian was being tried by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in Alice-in Wonderland demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration.
The U.S. government directed, as Craig Murray so eloquently documented, the London prosecutor James Lewis. Lewis presented these directives to Baraitser. Baraitser adopted them as her legal decision. It was judicial pantomime. Lewis and the judge insisted they were not attempting to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press while they busily set up the legal framework to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press. And that is why the court worked so hard to mask the proceedings from the public, limiting access to the courtroom to a handful of observers and making it hard and at times impossible to access the trial online. It was a tawdry show trial, not an example of the best of English jurisprudence but the Lubyanka.
Now, I know many of us here tonight would like to think of ourselves as radicals, maybe even revolutionaries. But what we are demanding on the political spectrum is in fact conservative, it is the restoration of the rule of law. It is simple and basic. It should not, in a functioning democracy, be incendiary. But living in truth in a despotic system is the supreme act of defiance. This truth terrifies those in power………..https://riseuptimes.org/2021/06/14/chris-hedges-julian-assange-and-the-collapse-of-the-rule-of-law/
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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