UK’s reliance on China’s nuclear tech poses test for policymakers, Britain risks alienating Beijing if it scraps power deals over security concerns, Ft.com, 15 Feb 19,
The UK has no easy way to block China’s ambitions to export nuclear reactor technology to Britain on security grounds, despite growing public anxiety about Chinese involvement in sensitive infrastructure, according to people familiar with the situation. The government’s willingness to permit the state-owned utility, CGN, to participate in the UK’s nuclear power generation programme has raised eyebrows in recent months as Chinese investment has come under hostile scrutiny, both in Europe and the US.
In October, an assistant US secretary of state, Christopher Ashley Ford, even warned the UK explicitly against partnering with CGN, saying that Washington had evidence that the business was engaged in taking civilian technology and converting it to military uses. More recently, concerns about the Chinese telecoms company Huawei and cyber security have also prompted calls for the government to back away from closer energy ties. But government policies requiring nuclear projects to be “developer-led”, and interlocking commitments given to Chinese investors by David Cameron’s government in 2014, make it awkward for the government to reverse course………..
Is Chinese involvement really a problem? Opposition to the deal ranges from the strategic to the practical. Economist Dieter Helm said he finds it astonishing that an independent nuclear military power should be “complacent about allowing potential enemies into the core of its nuclear technologies”. Some critics also worry about the availability of fuel and spares in what will be a 60-year plant should Britain and China fall out………..
The bigger risk to CGN’s ambitions may be the UK’s waning appetite for more nuclear reactors, and the lack of competitive tension among developers in seeking new deals. A report last summer from the National Infrastructure Commission warned against “rushing” to support more nuclear stations and suggesting only one more be agreed before 2025, preferring to place bigger bets on renewable energy.
The government has been lobbied by EDF to consider a new form of financing for nuclear, known as the regulated asset base model, which would impose a charge on consumers during the construction phase, helping to reduce the project’s cost of capital, and potentially unlocking private sector investment. This could make the highly geared French group less dependent on Chinese capital to proceed with Sizewell C. According to one civil servant, the business department, BEIS, is considering these proposals “very seriously”.
In the meantime, CGN, which declined to comment on its UK operations, continues to invest heavily in the UK. The total is £2.7bn and counting on Hinkley, the design assessment for the Bradwell reactor and 340 megawatts of renewables plant. According to a source close to CGN: “This is an important year and it is important to remember that the company is a utility, not a bank.” “The Chinese see this UK deal as a strategic imperative and seem intent to do what it takes to make it happen,” said the consultant. “If the UK has changed its mind, it is going to be hard to let them down gently.” https://www.ft.com/content/7734e3be-2f6f-11e9-8744-e7016697f225
The National 11th Feb 2019 ACCIDENT reports and safety reviews into nuclear weapons and atomic energy programmes in Scotland are among hundreds of documents to have been suddenly withdrawn from public view.
According to a report on the Sunday Post website, following a “security review” the files at the National Archives in Kew were removed so that they can no longer be accessed by the public.
The move has been described as “very concerning” by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The documents relate to a range of topics on Britain’s nuclear weapons and atomic energy programmes, including the nuclear power plant in Dounreay, Caithness, as well as Chapelcross in
Dumfries and Galloway and the Hunterston A and Hunterston B power stations which are located in Ayrshire. https://www.thenational.scot/news/17423745.scotlands-nuclear-history-suddenly-disappears-from-public-archive/
Wylfa Newydd: Nuclear plant talks to continue, says May BBC 13 Feb 19, The UK government will continue talks with the company behind plans for a new nuclear power station in Anglesey, Theresa May has said.The prime minister told MPs that ministers will “support” discussions with Hitachi.
Last month the company announced it would suspend work on the £13bn Wylfa Newydd project because of rising costs.
Western Telegraph 12th Feb 2019, RADIOACTIVE waste could one day be stored deep beneath the Pembrokeshire
countryside. Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) – set up by the government
– is on the look-out for a suitable site in which to dispose of radioactive
waste. England and Wales have been divided into sub-regions, three of which
include parts of Pembrokeshire, which could potentially house an
underground geological disposal facility (GDF). St Davids and its
surrounding coastline, up to North Wales, and an area starting at St Brides
Bay and leading south-east to Swansea are among the regions being assessed
for their suitability. https://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/news/17427410.pembrokeshire-is-on-the-list-of-potential-nuclear-waste-storage-sites/
Guardian 12th Feb 2019, Labour is to set out how the UK can move swiftly to a decarbonised future
to tackle the unfolding climate crisis and put “meat on the bones” of its
promise to create hundreds of thousands of high-skilled, unionised green
jobs. Trade unionists and industry leaders will come together with
academics, engineers and public institutions to build detailed regional
plans setting out the challenges and opportunities ahead.
The proposal, due to be outlined on Wednesday by Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business
secretary, will involve a national call for evidence and a series of
regional events to build “a detailed action plan” to maximise the benefits
of moving to a zero-carbon future. A future Labour government would oversee
an economic revolution to tackle the climate crisis, using the full power
of the state to decarbonise the economy and create hundreds of thousands of
green jobs in struggling towns and cities across the UK. “We’re launching
an unprecedented call for evidence about what this means for your town,
your city, your region,” she said. “We want to bring unions, industry,
universities, the public sector and others together to build this vision
out into a practical reality.”
Labour says a key plank of its plan will be
to ensure a “just transition” to high quality green jobs for those
currently working in carbon-emitting industries. To do that it will have to
persuade its trade union backers, who represent people in high-carbon
industries, that there is a viable economic alternative. The party hopes
that once the evidence has been collected it will form the basis of a green
paper to be published in autumn 2019 at party conference, with plans for
how each region might move to a decarbonised future. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/12/labour-plan-decarbonise-uk-green-jobs-climate-crisis
Scotland’s nuclear history suddenly disappears from public archive, The National, 11 Feb 19, ACCIDENT reports and safety reviews into nuclear weapons and atomic energy programmes in Scotland are among hundreds of documents to have been suddenly withdrawn from public view.
According to a report on the Sunday Post website, following a “security review” the files at the National Archives in Kew were removed so that they can no longer be accessed by the public.
The move has been described as “very concerning” by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
The documents relate to a range of topics on Britain’s nuclear weapons and atomic energy programmes, including the nuclear power plant in Dounreay, Caithness, as well as Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway and the Hunterston A and Hunterston B power stations which are located in Ayrshire.
It is not entirely clear why the files have been removed.
All that is known at this point is that Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) ordered a security review and that a decision will be made on whether or not the documents should remain public……….
“Just before Christmas all the files were withdrawn from the National Archive without any explanation or communication,” said Jon Agar, professor of science and technology studies at University College London
“It was replaced with a message that if you need to see this, you have to put in an FOI request.
“Almost everything we would want to know on the public record which allows us to trace the history of nuclear establishments across the country have been essentially withdrawn from public sight…….. Ian Chamberlain of CND described the withdrawal of the files as “very concerning”.
There are also meetings in eight areas of England as the government hunts for a single location to bury the lethal waste.
The waste, which has been accumulating from nuclear power stations over the last 60 years, is to be transferred from specially-engineered containers where it is currently building up to a subterranean Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) where it can be left forever.
The government’s official line is that no location has been chosen and that any site will only be picked if a community is willing.
Experts at the RWM (a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) have been scouring Wales for suitable regions and this is what they have to say about the area in which you live:
1. North Wales offshore including the Vale of Clwyd……….
2. North Wales Coalfield, comprising Wrexham and north to Prestatyn…….
3. From St Brides Bay to the Severn Estuary, extending north to Welshpool……
4. 20 km offshore strip along the Bristol Channel – from Carmarthen Bay to Cardiff…..
5. Most of North Wales and West Wales – from St Davids to Bangor……
It is one of five sites in Northern Ireland under consideration as possible stores for the waste and among 45 being examined across the UK as whole.
An area of granite bedrock near Newry may be suitable for a geological disposal facility (GDF), according to a recent preliminary report by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), a UK State-owned company.
The area of rock stretches from Slieve Gullion to the Mourne mountains. Geological disposal sites hold radioactive waste hundreds of metres underground, and there are no current facilities in Northern Ireland.
Future policy decisions on nuclear disposal in Northern Ireland rest with the Stormont executive, where power-sharing has been collapsed for more than two years.
The British government’s current preference is that one facility would service the entire UK, a spokesman for RWM has said. Any future facility would need the support of the local community before it could be approved.
Nuclear waste is stored at about 30 sites across Britain, but predominantly at ground level at the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria.
Bill Kidd will be at the Global Peace Forum in Pyeongchang to renew calls for Scotland to become a nuclear-free zone.
He will be among parliamentarians, anti-nuclear campaigners and experts in the field from the USA, Belgium, Japan and the Philippines, who are joining together to discuss the development of the UN’s Agenda for Disarmament by 2030.
Mr Kidd, co-president of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament group in Scotland, said: “At a time of such grave uncertainty across the world, Scotland is a leading voice on nuclear disarmament – leaving the UK looking badly out-of-touch with the vast majority of nations.
“The SNP, the Scottish Parliament and the people of Scotland firmly reject the hosting of weapons of mass destruction on Scottish soil, and Westminster should heed those calls.
“By taking a stand on immoral nuclear weapons, we can set a powerful example to the world, influence others and help shape the global agenda.”
He added that in an independent Scotland the SNP would remove all nuclear weapons “as quickly and safely as possible”.
Dave Toke’s Blog 9th Feb 2019 Why Hunterston B Nuclear Powe Station should not be Restarted.Presentation made to Paul Wheelhouse,Minister for Energy Connectivity and the Islands by Dr Ian Fairlie and Dr David Toke.
In our view, Hunterston B nuclear power station needs to be
closed for safety reasons, but this should not be lamented because there is
presently a surplus of electricity generation in Scotland, and more is in
the pipeline.
Indeed there is so much renewable energy capacity being built
that Scottish electricity exports to England and Wales will continue to
increase, there will be no significant job losses in Scotland, and Scottish
energy security will be improved as Hunterston B’s operation results in
many Scottish wind farms being turned off at certain times and periods. https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2019/02/scottish-minister-pressed-to-back.html
The Louth representative has called on the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, Richard Bruton, to answers questions on the possible development.
It is understood that the former Sinn Fein leader wrote to the minister inquiring as to whether the Government is “aware of or was consulted about a proposal by the British state’s Radioactive Waste Management group to store waste nuclear material deep underground in the Mournes and Slieve Gullion area?”
Report
The region, in the Mourne Mountains, Co. Down, is noted in a report by the UK government group focusing on a national geological screening exercise for a Geographical Disposal Facility (GDF) in the six counties.
Although the report specifically outlines that there are no plans to site a GDF in Northern Ireland, it states that any future policy decision on geological disposal in Northern Ireland would be a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive and “would be subject to community agreement, planning and environmental consents”.
As a result of the Northern Ireland Executive being currently suspended; the report also states that geological screening outputs will only be used “initially for England and Wales”.
However, Adams is not satisfied with such assurances.
In a statement on the Sinn Fein website the TD said: “The Irish Government must ensure that the British government knows that it will not tolerate any nuclear waste facility being constructed on the island of Ireland.
“The British government is currently investigating sites which could potentially become storage dumps for thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste being produced by the British nuclear industry.
Specifically, the group has examined the Mourne Mountains and the Slieve Gullion region, which have ‘higher strength rock’, as potential sites for what they call a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).
The TD noted that, in the report, the Radioactive Waste Management group identified that granites and similar strong rocks around Newry may be suitable for a GDF.
Referencing a separate report, by environmental group Greenpeace on the matter, Adams added: “A recent extensive report by Greenpeace – The Global Crisis of Nuclear Waste – has provided a stark warning of the dangers involved in dumping nuclear waste underground.”
He noted that the Greenpeace report dismisses the storing of waste material deep underground as having “shown major flaws which exclude it for now as a credible option”.
“In 2018 the British government commenced an attempt to persuade a community willing to host a radioactive dump. This is their sixth such attempt over the last four decades. So far none have agreed.
“Currently Britain has what Greenpeace has described as ‘one of the largest and most complex nuclear waste problems in the world’,” deputy Adams claimed.
Its nuclear waste legacy has been made “dramatically more dangerous and expensive by its decades long plutonium-reprocessing program based at Sellafield.
“While the Nuclear Waste Management group cannot at this stage construct a nuclear dump in the Mournes or south Armagh without local agreement, that may not always be the case,” deputy Adams warned.
“The Government should also express its opposition to the current construction of a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. This is another nuclear facility just across the Irish Sea.”
UK pupils to join global strike over climate change crisis, Thousands of pupils to walk out of lessons amid growing concern over global warming, Guardian, Matthew Taylor, Sat 9 Feb 2019
‘I feel very angry’: the 13-year-old on strike for climate action The school climate strikes that have led to tens of thousands of young people taking to the streets around the world over recent months are poised to arrive in the UK next Friday.
Thousands of pupils are expected to walk out of lessons at schools and colleges across the country amid growing concern about the escalating climate crisis.
The movement started in August when the 16-year-old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg held a solo protest outside Sweden’s parliament. Now, up to 70,000 schoolchildren each week are taking part in 270 towns and cities worldwide.
Individual protests have been held in the UK, but next week a coordinated day of action is expected to result in walkouts in more than 30 towns and cities – from Lancaster to Truro, and Ullapool to Leeds.
Jake Woodier, of the UK Youth Climate Coalition, which is helping to coordinate the strikes, said Greta’s message about the need for radical, urgent change had struck a chord with hundreds of thousand of young people in the UK. ……..
Irish News 5th Feb 2019 THE British government-owned company tasked with finding sites for disposing of radioactive waste has said it cannot progress any plans for a nuclear dump in Northern Ireland while Stormont is suspended. Radioactive
Waste Management (RWM) said the north is the “region least likely” to house
a nuclear waste disposal facility because the project requires the approval
of the devolved administration, as well as those living near a potential
site.
Concern about the company’s plans was triggered by an online video
showing prospective locations for a nuclear dump. The video shows Amy
Shelton, a senior research manager with RWM, outlining the geological
conditions that make certain areas suitable for the disposal of radioactive
waste.
The presentation, which divides the north into four geological areas
– or sub-regions – is similar to corresponding videos produced by RWM
that cover England and Wales. Scotland does not feature as its devolved
government adopted a policy of ‘near surface disposal’, according to RWM.
The video sparked a response from political representatives in south Down
after the granite-rich area around Newry was earmarked by Ms Shelton as a
potential location for a “geological disposal facility”. She said more work
was needed to establish whether conditions are suitable. But Sinn Féin MP
Chris Hazzard said any proposal to locate a site in parts of Co Down and Co
Armagh was “totally unacceptable”.
Whitehaven News 5th Feb 2019 , CALLS are growing to make Calder Hall the first nuclear reactor in the UK
to be decommissioned. Nuclear officials say that if decommissioning is
delayed, the asbestos in the reactor will pose a risk to workers, while
maintenance costs will become ‘unsupportable’.
Council bosses are ramping up the pressure on the Government to fast-track the dismantling of the world’s oldest industrial-scale nuclear power station based at
Sellafield. The authority’s nuclear board will be asked today to delegate
authority to council chief executive Pat Graham and the nuclear
portfolio-holder councillor David Moore to develop a detailed case for
accelerated decommissioning.
Councillors agreed at the end of last year
that the UK’s first industrial-scale power station to be built should
also be the first to be cleaned up. Calder Hall is one of 11 reactor sites
around the country and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is now
reviewing the “timing and sequence” of its nationwide clean-up
operation.
At present the defuelling of Calder Hall is due to be finished
in 2019/20, and would not enter a care and maintenance (C&M) status until
2034. The argument for tackling the Sellafield-based reactor first includes
the continuing risk it poses to workers and the public. The report said:
“As the oldest Magnox reactor, the deterioration of the building fabric
and the potential for significant quantities of asbestos to be present pose
risk to workers. The cost borne by the taxpayer associated with maintaining
the building in a safe state for a long period of care and maintenance
could be significant and could increase over time to meet future regulatory
requirement.”
A VETERAN claims Britain sparked an “Armageddon” for the future after running secret nuclear weapons tests between 1957 and 1958. By CALLUM HOARE
Operation Grapple was the name given to a series of four nuclear weapons tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs carried out at Malden Island and Christmas Island. Nine nuclear explosions were initiated, making Britain the third recognised possessor of thermonuclear weapons, and restoring the Nuclear Special Relationship with the US. However, veteran Dave Whyte, 82, who worked on the project, claimed they made a mistake by testing the weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Whyte said he suffered sterility and genetic damage through radiation exposure at the cost of the technology being leaked to other countries.
He exclaimed in 2017: “I witnessed the hydrogen bombs Grapple Y, Flagpole and Halliard and atomic bombs Pennant and Burgee in 1958.
“I found the bombs very interesting, it was wonderful to view two suns shining in the sky at the same time, our usual golden sun and the red glow of fire from the nuclear bombs.
“Great Britain has a nuclear arsenal, but at what cost?”
Mr Whyte went on to claim: “The veterans who helped in the nuclear experiments are cast aside, and are still waiting for a court to hear their case.
“There is a blood test which shows the level of radiation a person has received.
“Nuclear veterans are denied this test, even the offer of paying for the test is denied.
“Documents showing the true levels of radiation individuals received are hidden from view, and directions given by the judge to release them are ignored.”
Mr Whyte also claimed the action of Britain over 60 years ago could now be to blame for the end of the world – should nuclear war break out. He continued: “It is said, by many, that nuclear bombs should be abandoned.
“Unfortunately, the technology is now available, and any rogue state can develop their own nuclear weapons.
“North Korea is a good example, they have the weapons now, and will be prepared to use them.
“Sadly, we have nuclear weapons and we cannot dispose of them now. I foresee an Armageddon in the future.”
nuclear-news 