Hitachi renews interest in Wylfa nuclear project, wants government assurance on funding
Hitachi seeks to resurrect Welsh nuclear plant plans, Ft.com, 16 Aug 20,
Japanese industrial group wants clarity from UK ministers on financing model,
Hitachi is talking to the UK government about resurrecting plans for a nuclear power plant in north Wales, which were frozen at the start of last year.
£20 billion Sizewell C nuclear project ‘Costly and dangerous’- actress Diana Quick
why she opposes Sizewell C. Suffolk resident Diana Quick is perhaps taking
on one of her most important roles yet – as a leading campaigner against a
£20billion nuclear power station on the county’s coast. Having moved to
Suffolk in the 1980s, Ms Quick – also a writer and director – quickly took
an interest in plans for Sizewell B which, at that stage, were being
considered by a planning inspector.https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/diana-quick-sizewell-c-suffolk-1-6793919
Maldon District Council now to hold Nuclear Public meeting In Secret
Maldon Nub News 14th Aug 2020, THERE was turmoil at a Maldon District Council meeting yesterday (Thursday,
13 August) when it was abandoned during a row between councillors over whether some of the debate on plans for a nuclear power station at Bradwell should be held in public or private.
The virtual meeting had three major planning applications on the agenda – with a planned exclusion of the
public and press after the first while councillors heard ‘exempt information’ on the two applications listed last on the agenda –including the power station plan. Independent Councillor Chrisy Morris then objected to the exclusion of the public and press.
He argued that the entire discussion of the Bradwell plans should be heard in public and demanded a committee vote on whether to continue in private or not. Chair of the meeting, Deputy Leader and Conservative Councillor Maddie Thompson, did not agree and the discussion became heated before public and press access to the live stream was cut off.
The meeting was not resumed later as planned. A spokesperson for Maldon District Council said: ““Due to the
continued interruptions during the meeting, the Deputy Leader decided that the best option was to call a halt to the meeting.
Discussions are currently taking place as to when this meeting can be reconvened.” In a statement after the meeting, Cllr Morris said: “The councillors quite overwhelmingly refused these applications and we asked the officers to make
our objections watertight if the applicants were to appeal.
It appears that they instead decided to seek legal advice that would make our objections seem unreasonable at appeal in an attempt to change our minds – my personal opinion is this is bullying. “I am against hearing this advice in private as if an attempt to bully us is made – the public have a right to know. I believe that once there was a possibility that this bullying attempt was going to be in the public domain, they used it to shut the meeting. “I am
here to represent the wishes of the people and will not be bullied. The public has a right to know.”
Britain’s Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) demand closing of ageing dangerous nuclear reactors
Climate News Network 13th Aug 2020, Four of the UK’s ageing nuclear power reactors, currently closed for
repairs, should not be allowed to restart, in order to protect public health, says a consortium of 40 local authorities in Britain and Ireland.
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), the local government voice on nuclear issues in the United Kingdom, then wants all the rest of the country’s 14 ageing advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) shut down as soon as possible, with the power they produce replaced by renewables and a programme of energy efficiency.
The four reactors they want closed immediately are two at Hunterston in Scotland and two at Hinkley Point B in
Somerset in the West of England. Of the other five power stations (each with two reactors) which the NFLA wants shut down as soon as possible, one is at Torness, also in Scotland. Three more are in the North of England –
one at Hartlepool in County Durham and two at Heysham in Lancashire – and one at Dungeness in south-east England.
To protect the jobs of those involved, the NFLA calls in its report on the future of the AGRs for a “Just Transition”: retraining for skilled workers, but also an accelerated decommissioning of the plants to use the nuclear skills of the
existing workforce.
The report details the dangers that the reactors, some more than 40 years old, pose to the public. Graphite blocks, which are vital for closing down the reactor in an emergency, are disintegrating because of constant radiation, and other plants are so corroded that pipework is judged dangerous. If the two Hunterston reactors were restarted
and the graphite blocks failed, a worst-case accident would mean both Edinburgh and Glasgow would have to be evacuated, the report says.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/calling-time-on-uks-ageing-nuclear-power-plants/
Robots may be used for clean-up of highly radioactive areas of UK’s Dounreay nuclear complex
and taking apart the most highly radioactive areas of Dounreay. The nuclear
power complex on the Caithness coast near Thurso is being decommissioned.
Dounreay’s operator said they were working with Robotics and Artificial
Intelligence in Nuclear (Rain), a consortium of universities. Led by the
University of Manchester, they are exploring the potential for using robots
in the Fuel Cycle Area (FCA), which has the most contaminated parts of the
site.
most inaccessible”. A group of scientists from Rain carried out trials
earlier this year in the FCA laboratories of a small remotely operated
vehicle equipped with sensors, cameras and a manipulator “arm”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-53763880
UK: Nuclear site evacuated after chemical found
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UK: Nuclear site evacuated after chemical found Bomb disposal squad deployed after chemical found in small amounts at site, AA Karim El-Bar |14.08.2020 LONDONA nuclear power site in Britain has been evacuated and a bomb squad deployed after a chemical was found needing removal, local media reported on Friday.
The chemical is organic peroxide and was found in small amounts on the site, which underwent a controlled evacuation as a precautionary measure. The incident took place at the Magnox Reprocessing Plant, which is part of the Sellafield site. The plant was non-operational and will remain so until the chemical is disposed of. The plant is also segregated from the nuclear section, and as such as the incident was declared a conventional safety risk rather than a nuclear safety risk……….. Sellafield is Europe’s largest nuclear site, with over 200 nuclear facilities and 1,000 buildings covering an area of two square miles. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/uk-nuclear-site-evacuated-after-chemical-found/1942144 |
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UK offshore wind becomes cheaper than nuclear and gas
Das concluded: “Over the next few years, the offshore segment is expected to boom. More than 19GW of offshore wind projects are in the pipeline, either in the nascent or advanced stages of development. Players such as SSE Renewables, Scottish Power Renewables, Orsted, Engie and many more have flocked this space, trying to grab a piece of the pie. Many would be constructed as deep sea projects at more than 40km from the shore, at depths ranging from 20-70m – making the most of favorable wind speeds of 7-10m/s. Some of them are expected to have turbine capacities of more than 10MW, and rotor diameters ranging from a mere 113m to over 200m.
Extinction Rebellion’s protest demonstration against building of Sizewell nuclear plant
beach at Sizewell against the planned expansion of the nuclear power
station. The group laid out pairs of shoes in the form of its ‘XR’ logo
in the sand to represent what it says will be future lives devoid of
wildlife and a stable climate due to the planned construction of Sizewell C.
local environment, which includes an Area of Natural Beauty and a Site of
Special Scientific Interest surrounding nearby RSPB Minsmere.
took place on Sunday August 9 and Extinction Rebellion East of England
spokesperson Rachel Smith-Lyte said 15 members had taken part in the
action. “There were some members of the public on the beach who saw what
we were doing and some of them were genuinely interested in what we were
doing and why.”https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/extinction-rebellion-holds-beach-protest-against-sizewell-c-1-6784523
UK Chancellor evasive on the involvement of China in building Bradwell nuclear plant
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LBC 7th Aug 2020 The Chancellor refuses to rule out a U-turn on the involvement of China in
the building of the Bradwell nuclear power station in Essex. Tom Swarbrick asked Chancellor Rishi Sunak if the Government would still allow a Chinese state-owned nuclear power company to build a nuclear power plant at Bradwell, in Essex. Rishi Sunak said the Government’s position hasn’t changed adding “decisions haven’t been made” for the project. The
Chancellor said the Business Secretary would be the lead minister on this issue and he thought a paper would be published on it in Autumn. When LBC host Tom asked if the Chancellor thought Chinese president Xi Jinping was a “reliable partner,” Mr Sunak said he thought the UK should have an “eyes wide open relationship with China.” He added the country was “obviously
important to us in many ways” for supply of goods and as a trading partner. But, the senior Minister said, “we should be eyes wide open where we have different values and interests and we should be robust in standing up for those things.” The Chancellor cited Huawei as an example of the Government taking “quite strong, and significant action over time.”https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/tom-swarbrick/chancellor-says-uk-needs-eyes-wide-open-relationship-with-china/ |
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Conservative politicians in UK gathering opposition to China’s involvement in nuclear projects
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China tensions raise doubts over UK nuclear projects
After Huawei’s ban, rebel Tory MPs turn their sights on CGN and its plans to build a new plant Ft.com
Jonathan Ford and Jim Pickard in London and Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh AUGUST 6 2020 Flushed with their success at changing UK government policy towards Huawei, rebel Conservative MPs are now turning their attention to a proposed Chinese project to build a nuclear power station at Bradwell-on-Sea in the south-east of England.
In their sights is an agreement forged by the government of David Cameron, that would allow the Chinese nuclear group CGN to build its own nuclear plant in return for backing two giant French-led nuclear projects in Britain. The first of those French projects — a plant at Hinkley Point in the south west of England that could cost £22.5bn — is well under way and CGN has already pumped billions into the scheme.
“There are an awful lot of Tory MPs who will use their summer break to get their heads around the CGN situation,” said one person close to the rebel MPs. “Bradwell will be the focus of attention.” Just as with the decision to remove telecoms company Huawei from Britain’s 5G mobile phone networks by 2027, they are being encouraged by a US administration vocal in its opposition to China’s involvement in Britain’s nuclear programme.
In 2018, the US assistant secretary for international security and non-proliferation, Christopher Ashley Ford, warned the UK against partnering with the company, saying Washington had evidence it was taking civilian technology and converting it to military uses. CGN declined to comment.
At a private meeting with MPs last month, the subject of CGN’s activities was raised by US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, according to one person in the room. The senior Tory MP, Iain Duncan Smith has called for a review of nuclear contracts on the grounds that China is not a “trusted vendor”, and has likened Britain’s commercial dealings with Beijing to 1930s appeasement.
The closer scrutiny of China’s role in Britain’s nuclear programme comes at a crucial moment. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change has said that the country might need 38 per cent of its power from non-weather-dependent sources to help achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. Supporters of nuclear say it is the only proven technology capable of delivering that target. Yet despite this, plans to build a fleet of new reactors using private sector funding have stalled. ……..
Some MPs believe that Britain no longer needs CGN’s money because Boris Johnson’s government may be willing to contemplate public subsidies. The government last year launched a consultation on an alternative funding model, Regulated Asset Base (RAB), which is used for other infrastructure such as the Thames Tideway “super sewer” and would see consumers pay for nuclear plants upfront via their energy bills. Some experts have also floated the idea of the state taking direct stakes in schemes. …….
So far CGN has invested £3.8bn in the UK, the majority in Hinkley. CGN is funding a third of the construction costs for Hinkley and 20 per cent of the development costs of Sizewell C in Suffolk. ………
Ministers are yet to deliver their verdict on the RAB funding model and have continuously delayed a white paper on energy, originally expected last year, and which nuclear industry executives hope will emerge in October.
Last week the managing director of Hinkley Point C, Stuart Crooks, said the UK government “needs to decide if it wants nuclear or not.” ……..
environment groups such as Greenpeace insist there are far cheaper, greener ways of meeting the future country’s energy needs, such as offshore wind power. …… https://www.ft.com/content/9d0d3a75-d3f4-4cab-9176-be582140987c
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Grim financial news for weapons maker Magnox/Babcock
Times 5th Aug 2020, One of Britain’s main defence contractors has delivered more grim news
for investors after axing its dividend for last year. Babcock said that it
was cancelling the payout for the financial year that ended in March in an
attempt to preserve cash.
In June the company suspended the final dividend
until it had “greater certainty” on the impact of the pandemic.
Yesterday it laid bare the cost of the Covid-19 slump, revealing that
underlying revenues in the three months to the end of June had fallen by 11
per cent.
Underlying operating profit for the first quarter fell by 40 per
cent from last year’s level. Babcock attributed half of the lost profits
to a slide in productivity as the coronavirus outbreak forced it to change
working practices. The remainder was down to the loss of a contract with
Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to clean up 12 Magnox reactor
sites and weakness in South Africa and at its land division. Shares in
Babcock fell by 29p, or 10 per cent, to 260p last night.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/dividend-sunk-by-babcocks-profit-woes-dz6qc872f
Ballooning by $billions – UK’s costs for its nuclear weapons
The Ferret 2nd Aug 2020 The cost of UK programmes to replace Trident and nuclear submarines on the
Clyde increased by over £1 billion in a year, according to data released
by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The construction of new reactor cores,
replacement submarines and major new facilities at the Faslane and Coulport
bases in Argyll are also facing prolonged delays, with growing doubts over
whether some projects can be successfully delivered.
Most of the delays are
unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic. Four major nuclear projects have
been officially rated as “amber” or worse, meaning that they have
“significant issues”. Two have been “rebaselined” by the MoD,
meaning that costs have risen significantly and timescales lengthened.
https://theferret.scot/trident-nuclear-submarine-costs-1bn-delays/
The continuing and ever more expensive saga of Britain’s Hinkley Point C nuclear project
Times 3rd Aug 2020, The first thing you notice as you approach Hinkley Point C is the sea of
cranes. There are dozens of them, jutting into the Somerset sky from the
site where EDF, of France, and CGN, the Chinese state nuclear group, are
building Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation. One stands
out: a 250 metre-tall yellow beast known as “Big Carl”. It is the
world’s largest crane and is central to the companies’ battle to
deliver the project successfully.
£18 billion, the plant was slated to generate its first power before the
end of 2025. Four years on, the budget has risen to between £21.5 billion
and £22.5 billion and EDF says that there is a risk that first power may
be delayed until 2027, adding £700 million in costs; thanks to disruption
from Covid-19, that risk is now “high”.
another big risk, with EDF warning last week that productivity at the site
and in supply chain factories were still being affected. The company said
that it had done what it could to minimise delays, from bringing in extra
buses to transport workers to sending contractors to France to bring back
parts from a factory laid low by the pandemic. EDF believes that it can
catch up on Covid-19 delays by the end of next year, so long as operations
and its supply chain are back to normal by the end of 2020. How confident
was Mr Crooks that the plant would start up in 2025 as planned?
“There’s a long way to go yet. It is a big, complex project.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-let-up-in-heavy-lifting-at-hinkley-point-plant-3s02wmscp
UK is lobbying USA for a controversial new warhead for Trident missiles
UK lobbies US to support controversial new nuclear warheads
Letter from defence secretary seen by Guardian draws Britain into debate pitting Trump administration against many Democrats, Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington, 2 Aug 20,
The UK has been lobbying the US Congress in support of a controversial new warhead for Trident missiles, claiming it is critical for “the future of Nato as a nuclear alliance”.
A letter from Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, seen by the Guardian, urged Congress to support initial spending on the warhead, the W93.
The letter, sent in April but not previously reported, draws the UK into a US political debate, pitting the Trump administration against many Democrats and arms control groups over whether the the $14bn W93 programme is necessary. The US navy already has two warheads to choose from for its submarine-launched Trident missiles.
The close cooperation on the W93 casts further doubt on the genuine independence of the UK deterrent – parliament first heard about it when US officials accidentally disclosed Britain’s involvement in February – and the commitment of both countries to disarmament.
The UK is also supporting the administration’s efforts to speed up work on the warhead and its surprise $53m request for initial weapon design work in the 2021 budget, two years ahead of the previous schedule.
Sceptics believe the rush is intended to lock in funding before the election. A Biden administration would be likely to review or even cancel the W93 programme……..
The demand for funding for the W93 is particularly controversial in the US as the W76 and a higher-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead, the W88, have already been subject to multibillion-dollar upgrades.
“This is excess on top of excess,” Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said. “We already have two SBLM warheads. The W76 just went through a major life extension programme and is slated to be good into the early 2040s, and the W88 is going through a major alteration.
“The US can continue to assist the UK’s arsenal without rushing the development of an unnecessary, at least $14bn new-design, third SLBM warhead,” Reif added.
The total cost of the US nuclear weapons modernisation programme is expected to be far in excess of $1tn.
The US and Russia, which is also upgrading its arsenal and developing new weapons, together account for more than 90% of all the nuclear warheads on the planet, and both countries are putting increasing emphasis on them in their rhetoric and defence postures.
Under Donald Trump, the US has now left three nuclear agreements and his administration is reluctant to extend the last major arms control deal with Russia, the 2010 New Start treaty, which is due to expire in February.
The bonfire of nuclear accords, combined with the huge amounts spent on weapons like the W93, are a threat to the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the fundamental bargain by which countries without nuclear arms pledged not to acquire them on condition the recognised nuclear powers (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) took steps to disarm, under article six of the treaty………
Alexandra Bell, a former state department official and now senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the US-UK special relationship had shown greater solidarity in promoting new weapons than in arms control. ………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/01/uk-trident-missile-warhead-w93-us-lobbySun
French company EDF fined – it spread false information on cost of Hinkley nuclear power project
Bunham-on-sea.com 1st Aug 2020, The French market watchdog has levelled a £4.5m fine against energy giant
EDF for misleading investors about the cost of the Hinkley Point C nuclear
project. Regulators say the French state-owned energy company spread
“false information” about its agreement with the Government to build
the nuclear plant near Burnham-On-Sea.
AMF, France’s financial markets
authority, says the company may have set EDF’s share price “at an
abnormal or artificial level” by claiming in a news release dated October
2014 that the terms of its deal with the UK government were “unchanged”
from the 2013 agreement.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
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
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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