The curious looking Belgian motor-hopper Sloeber made her first round trip from Hinkley Point to the Cardiff Grounds – a mile off shore from Penarth. She then opened-up her belly underwater to disgorge thousands of tonnes of mud on one massive “bowel movement” – last night .
Although the Conservative-run Vale of Glamorgan Council has protested about the mud dumping scheme, not a single Labour Assembly member, councillor or MP has raised a so much as a peep of protest about what is easily the worst-ever case of deliberate pollution ever witnessed in Wales.
Last night the Belgian hopper MV Sloeber – loaded with 2,000 tonnes of mud dredged from the sea bed adjacent to 3 Somerset nuclear power stations – sailed around the far side of the Monkstone light and skirted the sandbanks. As night fell she turned to port and headed directly towards Penarth, pausing just a mile offshore to dump her controversial cargo into the shallow sea of the “Cardiff Grounds” – which up to now have only been used to deposit dredged mud from the approach channel to Cardif Docks .
Sloeber’s party trick is to split herself open from stem to stern with both halves of the ship opening up wide below the waterline to allow her cargo of mud to fall out of the ship under its own considerable weight .
In 3 months or so, when all the thousands of tonnes of mud from Hinkley Point have been dumped in the sea in Welsh waters, the French energy company EDF will be able to wash its hands of all responsibility for this material and whatever lurks within it.
…As of last night the first consignment of English ‘nuclear mud’ become Wales’s problem. The mud dropped from the belly of MV Sloeber last night will soon be washed ashore on the coastline between Penarth and Lavernock – and could permanently change the shoreline.
Experts say the consequences of this operation – which involves the dumping of over 320,000 tonnes of English nuclear mud in Welsh Waters – may not become apparent for generations.
Meanwhile Sloeber returned to Hinkley Point to load more mud for another visit to Wales later today.
Edward Snowden surveillance powers ruled unlawful https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45510662
Wales Online 11th Sept 2018 , EDF has confirmed it has started to dump mud from the Hinkley Point nuclear
power station in the Severn Estuary off Cardiff. The news came on the same
day that rock musician and anti-nuclear campaigner Cian Ciaran lodged
papers at the High Court seeking an injunction to stop the dumping. The
papers name NNB Generation Company (HPC) Ltd as the respondent in the
action. The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French energy company
EDF, which obtained a licence to carry out the dumping. More than 100,000
people have signed petitions against the dumping plans , which campaigners
say could pose health risks.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/radioactive-mud-dumping-begins-coast-15136164
Wales Online 12th Sept 2018 , Letter: It is hard for the layman to know whether or not the assurances
about the safety of the mud from Hinkley Point can be accepted at face
value. Other issues do arise as well, however. Will the addition of this
sizeable tonnage of waste at Cardiff Grounds have any effect on the flows
of sand and mud within the Bristol Channel?
We have all seen how the opposite process – dredging – has over the years changed the nature and
shape of various beaches, usually to their detriment. Also does any income
accrue to Wales from the use of this site for the receipt of waste material
from elsewhere? This is perhaps the least we might expect given the vast
sums of money which are being made available for this project.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/western-mail-letters-wednesday-september-15140781
Cumbria Crack 11th Sept 2018 , The Government has rejected a plea by Workington MP, Sue Hayman, to save
the Moorside nuclear power station project, as the developer, NuGen,
confirms the loss of 70 jobs. Sue, the co-chair of the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy, wrote to the Secretary of State for
Business, Greg Clark MP, at the end of July, when NuGen announced it was
consulting on job losses, calling on him to guarantee Government support
for the project.
Mr Clark said in June that he “will consider direct Government investment” in the proposed Wylfa
nuclear power station in Wales, but he has refused to make any similar
commitment to Cumbria. In a response to Sue’s letter, energy minister
Richard Harrington MP said: “The Secretary of State and I understand the
potential importance of the Moorside project to the local area. However
(…) the proposed sale of NuGen is principally a commercial matter for
Toshiba and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on those ongoing
negotiations.”
https://www.cumbriacrack.com/2018/09/11/government-rejects-mps-plea-to-save-nuclear-new-build/
Carlisle News & Star 12th Sept 2018 , Business chief blames Government policy for “frightening off” Moorside
investors. Cumbria Chamber of Commerce boss urges ministers to change tack
to save £15bn project. Rob Johnston, chief executive of Cumbria Chamber of
Commerce, told in-Cumbria that the Government’s use of a regulated asset
base (RAB) model to finance Moorside was a risk of killing the
transformation project. Repeating previous calls for the Government to
invest directly in Moorside to ensure it happens, he placed the blame for
the delays squarely at the door of its Nuclear Sector Deal published back
in June.
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/business/Business-chief-blames-Government-policy-for-frightening-off-Moorside-investors-47c201f1-f162-4f96-b702-629bb2ff41a3-ds
Building 12th Sept 2018 , The company behind the £10bn Moorside nuclear power station in Cumbria is
cutting more than 60 of its 100 staff as its parent Toshiba continues its
struggle to sell the company. NuGen was originally a joint venture between
Toshiba and French multinational Engie but ran into trouble last year when
Toshiba’s US subsidiary Westinghouse – which had been due to supply the
nuclear reactor for Moorside – filed for bankruptcy.
Eureka 10th Sept 2018 , The cover story of Eureka’s September issue looks at the programme to
decommission the UK’s legacy nuclear power plant, with particular
emphasis on the opportunities this creates for engineering innovation. The
reasons for this are clear: radioactive environments represent some of the
most challenging engineering scenarios possible, with extended human
presence in them simply not feasible. This means that robotics have a
massive role to play and it is these solutions that are attracting much
investment.
What many may not understand is just how massive an undertaking
this decommissioning programme is. Decommissioning across 17 nuclear sites
will take more than a century and involve the expenditure of an estimated
£118 billion pounds over that period. Clearly this offers considerable
scope for investment in and applications of new technologies. The Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority currently offers significant funding for the
right solutions. With that in mind, it would seem a good time for the
UK’s design engineers to step up.
http://www.eurekamagazine.co.uk/design-engineering-blogs/the-decommissioning-dividend-1/182843/
Plans for new Cumbria nuclear power station on verge of collapse,Toshiba’s plan to sell plant in disarray over government’s ‘risky’ financing plan, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 11 Sept 18 Plans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria are on the verge of collapsing after the Toshiba-owned company behind it laid off 60% of its workforce and embarked on a final effort to sell the project.Toshiba was due to sell the NuGen consortium to South Korea state-owned firm Kecpo in early 2018, as the Japanese firm exits international nuclear projects and looks to recoup some of the £400m it has spent on the Moorside plant.
However, Kepco has been delaying a final decision, due in part to the UK government signalling a new approach to financing nuclear power stations.
That forced NuGen to cut 60 of 100 jobs on Tuesday, following a six-week consultation with staff.
Unions said the the project’s problems showed the need for the government to take a stake in Moorside. Justin Bowden, the GMB national secretary, said: “The looming collapse of this vital energy project has been depressingly predictable for months.”
The skeleton NuGen team is now focused on clinching a deal with Kepco by the end of the year before Toshiba writes the unit off entirely at the end of March 2019………..
A team of about 30 government officials is being assembled to work on new nuclear financing, the Guardian understands. The government’s feasibility study on using RAB for new nuclear is expected in January. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/11/toshiba-plans-for-new-cumbria-nuclear-power-station-on-verge-of-collapse
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Global Warming Policy Foundation 10th Sept 2018 An important new briefing paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that the government has kicked a key nuclear programme into the long grass.
This follows an announcement last week by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on its small modular nuclear (SMR) competition, which outlined new funding for feasibility studies into a range of new nuclear technologies.
The report, by nuclear industry expert Andrew Dawson, shows that while this might appear to represent progress, in reality it is likely to be the end of the SMRs in the UK: “When George Osborne announced the SMR competition in 2015, it was about identifying SMR technologies that could be deployed in the near-term. But in its announcement last week, BEIS made it clear that it would only back “blue-skies” projects, some of which are not SMRs, and
none of which have any hope of breaking ground in the next few decades……
https://www.thegwpf.org/who-killed-the-small-modular-nuclear-programme/
Radiation Free Lakeland 10th Sept 2018 , Springfields** This is from the 1990s. “You and Yours” BBC Radio 4 programme
describing the “biggest in the UK” radioactive discharges The
Springfields plant discharges directly into the River Ribble and has done
so since 1948. What has changed? Nothing, apart from the fact that any
mention of cancer and radioactive discharge by eminent doctors is now a
taboo subject.
https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/6th-installment-of-the-springfields-archive-prestons-radioactive-river/
Radiation Free Lakeland 9th Sept 2018 Last week a ‘debate’ on the implementation of the plan for dangerous
geological dumping of nuclear waste took place in the House of Lords.
So few Lords were there. Anyone would think this plan to impose one or more
high level waste dumps underneath our feet is an issue of so very little
importance and no interest to them. The cat is now out of the bag that the
ONLY reason a geological dump is being implemented (over decades) is to
“support a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK by
providing a safe and secure way to dispose of the waste they produce.
This is key to the future new nuclear build” There we have it. The key to new
nuclear build is to have “a plan” for the “final disposal” of high
level nuclear wastes. No matter that the plan in question is going to
poison us into eternity. The push for Geological Disposal is MAD BAD AND
DANGEROUS on many levels.
I happened to be on the train coming back from
London on the day before the Lords debate and saw Lord Melvyn Bragg
hightailing it from London to Cumbria. If this had been a debate on wind
turbines he would have been there with brass knobs on full of vim and
emotion “this will destroy the place as a natural habitat for human
beings, and replace it with what will be seen as an industrial landscape”
but hey as its only one or two high level nuclear wastes dumps (with the
places in the frame most likely to be Cumbria or under the beleaguered
Irish Sea), who cares a damn if we damn the future? If you can bear to read
it – here below is the debate.
BBC, 10 September 2018, Opponents to a controversial scheme to dump mud from a nuclear plant off the coast of Cardiff have launched a last-minute legal challenge.
NuClear News, Sept 18 The Stop Hinkley Campaign wrote to the Office for Nuclear Regulation at the end of July to express increasing concern about the number of reports from climate researchers who believe sea levels could rise by as much as 6 metres as a result of substantial melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets caused by climate change.
Some researchers say sea levels could rise by six metres or more even if the 2 degree target of the Paris accord is met. Sustained warming of one to two degrees in the past has been accompanied by substantial reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and sea level rises of at least six metres – several metres higher than what current climate models predict could occur by 2100. (1)
In the light of these recent higher estimates of sea level rise the group wanted to know whether ONR has revisited and perhaps revised its view on the future safety of the Hinkley Point C site. Stop Hinkley was particularly interested to know whether ONR is confident that the site will be suitable for the interim storage of spent fuel until at least the year 2140.
ONR responded by saying that “the primary protection against coastal flooding for HPC is the height of the site platform (14m above sea level). The site characterisation has demonstrated that the platform is not vulnerable to a design basis coastal flood, including reasonably foreseeable climate change. The HPC site licensee (NNB GenCo) will monitor this hazard via Periodic Safety Reviews (including the interim spent fuel store) and if the assumptions in the safety case regarding climate change are shown to no longer be valid; they will be reconsidered. If necessaryy, further preplanned flood protection measures will be put in place through a managed approach.”
The 14m above sea-level makes it sound like quite a large margin. But the Hinkley Point C Stress Test report shows an extreme flooding level of 9.52m (with no waves). Taking into consideration “wave effects” of 2m this gives a margin of 2.48m. (2)
Latest study suggests that rapid melting in Antarctica could begin within the next century, before HPC is decommissioned and before spent fuel is removed. (3) The Antarctic ice sheet contains enough ice to raise sea level by approximately 57 metres (187 feet), about half the length of a soccer pitch. (4) While it is unlikely that enough ice would melt to raise sea-levels by 57 metres, Antarctica is so massive that just a small fraction of this ice melting would be enough to cause huge problems for people and infrastructure on the coast.
ONR says it “maintains a constant review of scientific thinking on climate change, and is guided by relevant good practice. This includes UK and international guidance, UK Climate Projections 09 (UKCP09) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To support efficient and effective regulation, ONR has established an independent expert panel on meteorological hazards to provide advice. ONR’s expert panel is a collection of competent consultants with expertise in this technical area. This panel has provided advice on the HPC external flooding safety case and will continue to provide advice on the potential impacts of climate change.”
“ONR is content that a suitable managed adaptive approach can be adopted, in the event that sea level rise is more than predicted.”
Perhaps the next question to ONR is how long will it take to move 60 years’ worth of spent fuel if the thinking on flood risk and the likelihood of a tsunami were suddenly to become out-dated? http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NuClearNewsNo110.pdf
Times 8th Sept 2018 , Plans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria are set to move closer toNuClear News Sept 18
Jeremy Leggett, former Chair of SolarCentury, has used 30 pictures and charts to show why the UK nuclear renaissance plan is doomed to failure. It’s a great way to get a point across. But sometimes it’s useful to have it written down too.
The UK’s first ever National Infrastructure Assessment says at least half of all UK power should be renewable by 2030, and can be at no extra cost. It urges the Government to grab the golden opportunity to ditch nuclear and go with cheaper solar and wind. Solar Power Portal 10th July 2018 No2NuclearPower nuClear News No.110, September 2018 19 https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/grab_the_golden_opportunity_to_go_green_uk_urged_to_ditch_nuclear_in_favour
EDF is in deep financial trouble: The utility upon which the UK Government’s plans for a nuclear renaissance depend faces an existential threat with no obvious escape route.
On 25th July 2018 there was yet more bad news for EDF. 33 welds need repairing. Nuclear fuel now to be loaded Q4 2019. EDF says costs up €0.4bn to €10.9bn FT 25th July 2018 https://www.ft.com/content/1b2473c8-8fdd-11e8-b639-7680cedcc421
In august 2016 a major reversal in opinion on nuclear power amongst business leaders was reported. There was a big majority for new nuclear in 2015. In 2016 only 9% strongly agree. 75% of IOD members support strong solar and wind policies. Guardian 19th August 2016 http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/19/businesschiefs-attack-uk-government-failure-to-secure-energy-supply
In a remarkable U-turn the UK Government agrees to a £5bn public stake in welsh nuclear power station. The total cost of Wylfa to be shared with Hitachi and the Japanese Government is estimated at £16bn. The price of power is expected to be £75-77/MWh – more than solar and wind. Guardian 4th June 2018 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/04/uk-takes-5bn-stake-inwelsh-nuclear-power-station-in-policy-u-turn
. · It seems that Whitehall’s obsession with civil nuclear is in fact a military romance. So argue researchers at the Science Policy Research Unit. They find evidence of desperation to keep expertise for submarine reactors alive. Guardian 29th March 2018 http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/mar/29/why-is-ukgovernment-so-infatuated-nuclear-power
And then there is global warming. If governments do not shut down residual nuclear programmes it seems climate change impacts will at some point – in the case of the many reactors on coasts and rivers – do the job for them.
This summer’s heatwave forced 3 Nordic reactors to be curbed and 1 to close. EDF may close 4 reactors. Seawater off Sweden and Finland was too warm for reactor cooling. Reuters 1st Aug 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nordics-nuclearpowerexplainer/in-hot-water-how-summer-heat-has-hit-nordic-nuclear-plantsidUSKBN1KM4ZR Reuters 1st Aug 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-francenuclearpower-weather/frances-edf-may-halt-four-nuclear-reactors-due-to-heatwavestatement-idUSKBN1KM56C
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
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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