nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Nuclear power project Bradwell B public consultation to go live this week

Nuclear power project Bradwell B public consultation to go live this week, Maldon Standard , 4 Mar 20, By Pape Gueye  @PMGueye  “……… Proposals for Bradwell B were unveiled today as the first stage of consultation gets under way.

The consultation will run for 12 weeks until May 27, with exhibitions taking place at 15 venues across Essex…..

The proposals for Bradwell B will be developed over several years before the project submits an application to the UK Planning Inspectorate.

The final decision whether to grant permission will be taken by the Secretary of State.

A group campaigning against Bradwell B is urging residents to attend the EDF energy and Chinese General Nuclear stage one consultation events and make their views known.

Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) has been campaigning against the power station plan.

A spokesman said: “Any support will be gratefully welcome, ranging from just turning up to spending the whole time at a venue demonstrating your concern.”

The first consultation takes place tomorrow at Steeple Village Hall from 2pm until 8pm.

To see the other consultation dates, visit banng.info.   https://www.maldonandburnhamstandard.co.uk/news/18280459.nuclear-power-project-bradwell-b-public-consultation-go-live-week/

Visit bradwellb.co.uk.

March 5, 2020 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Radioactive wastes into River Clyde could have devastating effects on community and wildlife

March 2, 2020 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Is Cumbria about to become the world’s plutonium dump?

 February 24, 2020by https://cumbriatrust.wordpress.com/2020/02/24/is-cumbria-about-to-become-the-worlds-plutonium-dump/  During the last search process for a burial site for the UK’s nuclear waste, which ended in January 2013, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) offered repeated assurances that only the UK’s nuclear waste would be buried in a UK Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).  Many questioned at the time whether the NDA could be trusted to keep its word, and it became apparent in mid-2012 that it could not be trusted.  The NDA had accepted 4 tonnes of plutonium from Germany in a ‘commercially advantageous arrangement’ according to Charles Hendry, the UK’s Energy Minister at the time.  In other words the NDA had been paid to take ownership of the German plutonium.
                                                        ****
A half-hearted attempt was made to claim that there was no breach of trust, since plutonium did not form part of the UK’s nuclear waste inventory, which while technically correct at the time, it was widely understood that plutonium was expected to be reclassified as waste at a later stage.  So while the NDA claim was true in a literal sense, it was also entirely disingenuous.  It was clear at the time that the NDA were embarrassed by this, particularly as they were about to ask Copeland, Allerdale and Cumbria to vote to continue the search process for a GDF site.  That process ended in January 2013 when Cumbria County Council vetoed the decisions of the two borough councils which had voted to proceed.
                                                      ****
While there have been a few smaller transactions of this type, it now appears that the NDA is offering to take ownership of a much larger quantity – 19 tonnes (21 US tons) of plutonium from Japan, in exchange for a substantial payment.  The UK and Sellafield where it is stored will then be faced with the problem of what to do with it.  It is almost inevitable that it will be reclassified as waste at some point, but it generates too much heat to begin to be buried until the year 2136 according to the NDA.
                                                         ****
The UK’s search for a GDF site has failed on three occasions, with a lack of public trust being one of the key reasons for the failures.  With this latest move by the NDA, public trust is likely to be further diminished.  Any claim that a UK GDF is for UK nuclear waste is clearly not to be trusted.

February 25, 2020 Posted by | - plutonium, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear station Sizewell C will cause environmental damage on an unprecedented scale

Telegraph 23rd Feb 2020 Suffolk Wildlife Trust: We have serious concerns over the effect  upon wildlife of Sizewell C and, despite years of working closely with EDF, we are far from convinced that the electricity giant is taking the impacts seriously.

We also believe that it will be impossible wholly to mitigate or
compensate for much of the negative impact on wildlife. The current plans
suggest that we will lose between 20 and 30 acres of nationally important
land that is supposedly protected by its Site of Special Scientific
Interest status. This equates to covering roughly 10 football pitches of
rare fen habitat in concrete. Invariably there will be devastating habitat
loss for birds such as kingfisher and for rare mammals such as water vole
and otters. EDF has made little attempt to minimise these losses.

Suffolk Preservation Society: The proposed nuclear power plant at
Sizewell C will cause environmental damage on an unprecedented scale in a
highly sensitive location, much of which is designated an Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty. The construction phase will bring massive
disruption to communities in East Suffolk over many years and will
permanently change our landscapes. Suffolk’s environment is remarkably
undeveloped and is characterised by a sense of remote wildness. The
tranquillity provides a high quality of life for residents and is a major
draw for tourists. However, this isolation is fragile and could easily be
lost forever. The impact of a development such as Sizewell C upon heritage
sites – including an abbey, churches, farmhouses and other vernacular
buildings that contribute to the special qualities of Suffolk – will be
considerable. The intrusion of new roads to cope with a massive increase in
HGV traffic, spoil heaps, borrow pits, and accommodation for up to 3,000
workers will be felt across numerous locations. Development of the Sizewell
site cannot be at unlimited cost to the quality and character of our county
and its communities.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/02/23/letterstory-supporting-constituencies-wont-happy-see-hs2-completed/

February 25, 2020 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Outage’s at EDF’s Hinkley nuclear station extended until June

EDF Energy extends outages at Hinkley Point B nuclear plant   https://www.reuters.com/article/edf-energy-nuclear/update-1-edf-energy-extends-outages-at-hinkley-point-b-nuclear-plant-idUSL5N2AO3DT

February 25, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, safety, UK | Leave a comment

Extradition case for Julian Assange – how it will proceed

Julian Assange’s extradition case is finally heading to court – here’s what to expect  more   https://www.sbs.com.au/news/julian-assange-s-extradition-case-is-finally-heading-to-court-here-s-what-to-expe
February 24, 2020 Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, University of Western AustraliaThe extradition hearing to decide whether to send Julian Assange to the United States to be tried for publishing classified military documents on Wikileaks is expected to finally begin today in London.Assange is charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act, involving receipt, obtaining and disclosing national security information. He has also been charged with one count of conspiracy to assist Chelsea Manning to crack a US Department of Defense password to enable her to access classified information.

Assange has been in Belmarsh prison since his arrest in April 2019. He had been in solitary confinement in a prison medical unit, but was recently moved into a less isolated section of the prison due to concerns about his mental health.

From May to September of last year, Assange served a sentence for bail absconding, but since then has been waiting for the extradition hearing.

How will the process play out? Continue reading →

February 24, 2020 Posted by | civil liberties, Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Britain buying new nuclear warheads from USA: Pentagon knew about it, UK Parliament did not

February 24, 2020 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Huge rise predicted for Britain’s seas and tidal rivers

February 24, 2020 Posted by | climate change, oceans, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear Energy Agency’s “pretend transparency”

February 22, 2020 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Chinese-led nuclear company pretending that Sizewell project is a ‘fait accompli’ – no, it is far from it.

BANNG 1020, The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) has learned that GNSL, the Chinese-led company seeking to build a mammoth new nuclear power station at Bradwell, is preparing to launch its pre-application public consultation for planning permission later this year.

This will be long before detailed discussions with the nuclear regulators are concluded. There are major issues and challenges still to be confronted. ‘It seems that the Chinese developers are taking a risk in trying to present the public and politicians with an apparent ‘fait accompli’ well before major design
and environmental hurdles have been crossed’ said Prof. Andy Blowers,
Chair of BANNG.

GNSL greeted the announcement that the Generic Design
Assessment (GDA) for Bradwell B had begun Step 4 as a major milestone,
clearing the path for deployment of Chinese nuclear technology in Britain.

That is far from the case. Moving to Step 4 in the GDA is like reaching a
hurdle, not passing a milestone. It is at this stage that all the tricky
issues facing the Bradwell B project must be confronted, including the
cooling system, site suitability, security, coastal defence, impacts on
marine and terrestrial environments and so on.

Step 4 is a long and intensive process between the developer and the independent regulators, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA). It is not expected to be concluded for another two years. A pre-application should follow, not overlap, Step 4 of the GDA.

https://www.banng.info/news/press-release-18th-february-2020/

February 20, 2020 Posted by | politics, spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s new nuclear projects headed to be submerged due to climate change?

Speeding Sea Level Rise Threatens Nuclear Plants https://www.ecowatch.com/sea-level-rise-nuclear-plants-2645160125.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2   Climate News Network, Feb. 15, 2020  By Paul Brown

The latest science shows how the pace of sea level rise is speeding up, fueling fears that not only millions of homes will be under threat, but that vulnerable installations like docks and power plants will be overwhelmed by the waves.

New research using satellite data over a 30-year period shows that around the year 2000 sea level rise was 2mm a year, by 2010 it was 3mm and now it is at 4mm, with the pace of change still increasing.

The calculations were made by a research student, Tadea Veng, at the Technical University of Denmark, which has a special interest in Greenland, where the icecap is melting fast. That, combined with accelerating melting in Antarctica and further warming of the oceans, is raising sea levels across the globe.

The report coincides with a European Environment Agency (EEA) study whose maps show large areas of the shorelines of countries with coastlines on the North Sea will go under water unless heavily defended against sea level rise.

Based on the maps, newspapers like The Guardian in London have predicted that more than half of one key UK east coast provincial port — Hull — will be swamped. Ironically, Hull is the base for making giant wind turbine blades for use in the North Sea.

The argument about how much the sea level will rise this century has been raging in scientific circles since the 1990s. At the start, predictions of sea level rise took into account only two possible causes: the expansion of seawater as it warmed, and the melting of mountain glaciers away from the poles.

In the early Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports back then, the melting of the polar ice caps was not included, because scientists could not agree whether greater snowfall on the top of the ice caps in winter might balance out summer melting. Many of them also thought Antarctica would not melt at all, or not for centuries, because it was too cold.

Both the extra snow theory and the “too cold to melt” idea have now been discounted. In Antarctica this is partly because the sea has warmed up so much that it is melting the glaciers’ ice from beneath — something the scientists had not foreseen.

Alarm about sea level rise elsewhere has been increasing outside the scientific community, partly because many nuclear power plants are on coasts. Even those that are nearing the end of their working lives will be radio-active for another century, and many have highly dangerous spent fuel on site in storage ponds with no disposal route organized.

Perhaps most alarmed are British residents, whose government is currently planning a number of new seaside nuclear stations in low-lying coastal areas. Some will be under water this century according to the EEA, particularly one planned for Sizewell in eastern England. 

The agency’s report says estimates of sea level rise by 2100 vary, with an upper limit of one meter generally accepted, but up to 2.5 meters predicted by some scientists. The latest research by Danish scientists suggests judiciously that with the speed of sea level rise continuing to accelerate, it is impossible to be sure.

A report by campaigners who oppose building nuclear power stations on Britain’s vulnerable coast expresses extreme alarm, saying both nuclear regulators and the giant French energy company EDF are too complacent about the problem.

The report said: “Polar ice caps appear to be melting faster than expected, and what is particularly worrying is that the rate of melting seems to be increasing. Some researchers say sea levels could rise by as much as six meters or more by 2100, even if the 2°C Paris target is met.

“But it’s not just the height of the rise in sea level that is important for the protection of nuclear facilities, it’s also the likely increase in storm surges. An increase in sea level of 50cm would mean the storm that used to come every thousand years will now come every 100 years. If you increase that to a meter, then that millennial storm is likely to come once a decade.

Bearing in mind that there will probably be nuclear waste on the Hinkley Point C site [home to the new twin reactors being built by EDF in the West of England] until at least 2150, the question neither the Office of Nuclear Regulation nor EDF seem to be asking is whether further flood protection measures can be put in place fast enough to deal with unexpected and unpredicted storm surges.”

February 18, 2020 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Tortuous progress, ever-increasing costs for UK’s Sizewell and Hinkley Point C nuclear projectsy

February 18, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Climate change to continue hitting UK with bigger storms

February 18, 2020 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

The plutonium dilemma – Japan and UK

What should be done with Japan’s plutonium now stored in the UK? ~ Research trip report. BY   by Caitlin Stronell, CNIC

From September 11 to 21, Ban Hideyuki and Caitlin Stronell from CNIC visited the UK in order to survey opinions on what should be done with Japan’s 21.2 tons of plutonium  presently stored at the Sellafield facility in the UK. As Japan does not have an operating reprocessing plant, spent fuel was shipped to the UK and France for reprocessing and fabrication into MOX fuel from the late 1970s. Including Japan’s 21 tons, a total of approximately 140 tons of separated plutonium are held in the UK, which has offered to take ownership of foreign owned plutonium on its soil, subject to acceptable commercial terms. There have already been several such cases of ownership transfers of plutonium. (For example, in January 2017 the UK took ownership of 600 kg of plutonium previously owned by a Spanish utility and 5 kg previously owned by a German organization.)

Last year Japan’s Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced that a dialogue concerning plutonium between the UK and Japan had begun. Although the details of this dialogue have not been released, ownership transfer may well be one of the discussion points. If Japan does go through with the ownership transfer, it will be an admission that the plutonium, which it has spent vast sums on extracting from the spent fuel, is not a precious resource at all, but material that now has to be disposed of, again at large cost. This would be another heavy blow against Japan’s reprocessing policy. However, how do people in the UK feel about accepting 21 tons of Japanese plutonium? This was what we tried to find out on our research trip.

Closely related to the issue of plutonium in both Japan and the UK is the issue of nuclear waste and we also wanted to find out about how the UK is planning to deal with this issue, especially in terms of siting a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).  Plans to site the GDF in Cumbria were rejected by the Council in 2013 and since then the national government has introduced a new system where smaller communities are able to request that they be considered as a GDF site. We wanted to find out how people were reacting to this and what the prospects are for the government being able to successfully site a GDF under this system.

We spoke to a large range of people directly concerned with these issues, of course anti-nuclear activists, but also a scientist involved in research on direct disposal methods for plutonium, as well as a number of people who work at Sellafield and local councilors for the area. Their answers to the question of what to do with Japan’s 21 tons of plutonium were varied and, in some cases, a little unexpected. For example, I was expecting that Prof. Neil Hyatt of Sheffield University, who is conducting cutting edge research on plutonium disposal, would be more open to accepting Japan’s plutonium, but he expressed some hesitation, saying that if the UK government agrees to take ownership of such a large amount of plutonium, it will break trust with local people by increasing their waste burden.

Divided opinions

We also noticed a split opinion between the two Cumbrian Councillors we interviewed. Cumbria is the county where the Sellafield Site is located and the nuclear industry obviously plays an important part in the local economy and politics………

The NDA is also tasked with siting the GDF for radioactive waste, which has proved to be a difficult task indeed, as it is all over the world, including in Japan where little progress has been made. There have been three attempts so far in the UK to try to decide on a site for the GDF, none of which have yielded results and so a new process for finding a GDF site began in January 2019.  This process allows any community, no matter how small, to express an interest in starting a dialogue regarding hosting a GDF.  …….

These and many other campaigns led by local communities show that the authorities and industry claims of transparency and safety cannot be trusted and in this sense it was easy to understand comments by Cr. Celia Tibble regarding the public reaction if the UK government were to accept Japanese plutonium. It would be seen as another lie and breach of trust…….

Conclusion

I thought that there were many similarities between the situation in Japan and in the UK regarding nuclear fuel cycle policy. Both countries must deal with massive amounts of plutonium, extracted at huge cost and risk, which now has no apparent use. Both the governments of Japan and the UK try to convince themselves and the world that it can be used as MOX fuel, but without a fabrication plant or sufficient MOX reactors, this solution is totally unconvincing. In the UK, it seems at least some industry people are facing up to this reality. In Japan, however, the government, at least at a policy level, hasn’t even faced up to the reality that plutonium is not a resource. Transferring ownership of its 21 tons of plutonium held in Sellafield to the UK would be an important step in facing up to this reality and could open the door to more practical and constructive discussions on how to reduce the plutonium stockpile. These discussions will not be easy and require an honest and concerted effort on the part of local and national governments, industry, communities and citizens.    https://cnic.jp/english/?p=4681

February 17, 2020 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan, UK | 1 Comment

#WETOOARE PROTESTERS   FREE JULIAN ASSANGE

https://weetoo.home.blog/We are a group of mothers, fathers, teachers and students from all over the world, and we are extremely worried about the health condition, as well as the violations of the most basic human rights, of journalist and editor Julian Assange.

The award-winning journalist, in fact, has been held for months in isolation in the maximum security of Belmarsh Prison waiting for extradition to the United States where, confirmed by United Nations experts, it will be difficult for him to have a fair trial and where he risks up to 175 years in prison or even the death penalty.

The motive for the indictment was made mainly by his having published military documents confirming corruption and atrocious war crimes; in particular his website Wikileaks documents show how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have massacred millions of people were created by governments for economic interests and for the exploitation of resources. In these territories the number of terrorists has  increased exponentially. Not only that, Assange unveiled the conditions of Guantanamo prisoners, abuses of every type, and tens of thousands of civilian homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan by the American army, including the assassination of two Reuters journalists all documented in the chilling video, Collateral Murder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&t=59s

In Julian Assange’s long and frightening persecution, we witnessed seven years of systematic violation of his human rights. The right of citizens to question public interests was also completely ignored. Now, we refuse to participate in a further extension of psychological and physical torture perpetrated against the journalist, as reported by Nils Melzer, the special reporter of the United Nations, who found Assange in a condition of extremely troublesome health. Continue reading →

February 15, 2020 Posted by | civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »