Bridgwater Mercury 14th Feb 2019 , MORE than 70 children from local primary schools headed to Hinkley C last week for the official naming ceremony of three enormous tunnel boring machines.
The competition gave 215 primary schools from across Somerset the
opportunity to name the three 1,200 tonne tunnel boring machines that will
soon begin the construction of the new power station’s water inlet and
outfall tunnels. After arriving safely at the construction site by sea and
road, the trio of tunnelling machines will soon be removing 370,000 cubic
metres of earth to enable 3.3 kilometres of tunnels to be built underneath
the seabed. The tunnels will carry seawater to cool the two reactors, the
first of which will see first operation in 2025. ttps://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/17433214.huge-hinkley-c-tunnel-boring-machines-named-after-inspirational-women/
Can offshore energy replace a failing nuclear industry? The Manufacturer, 12 Feb 2019 by Maddy White
The world’s largest offshore windfarm off the Yorkshire coast is to supply its first power to the UK electricity grid this week. Could it fill the gap left by a failing nuclear industry? When fully operational next year, Hornsea One will be the largest windfarm in the world. Its 174 Siemens 7MW turbines will generate enough electricity (1.2GW) to reportedly power more than one million homes.
The electricity generated by the turbines 120km off of the Yorkshire coast will pass through one of three offshore substations, before being carried by three high voltage subsea cables (245kV).
Danish developer Ørsted’s project propels the offshore wind power sector to a new scale; Hornsea One will cover 407 sqkm – almost eight-times the size of Norwich
Rapid growth for renewables
A clean and sustainable energy supply, and reducing the impacts of climate change has become priority for countries across the globe as part of the Paris Agreement. Climate change was also found, in the World Economic Forum’s global risks report, to be the biggest concern for business in 2019.
The UK committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels, but the question remains just how can this be achieved?
Offshore windfarms could help fulfill this. Additionally it could aid the low carbon power gap created as a result of Hitachi and Toshiba recently scrapping nuclear plant projects in Wales and Cumbria. Hitachi followed Toshiba’s move and halted work on the Welsh site earlier this year due to rising costs………
A failing nuclear industry
Last year renewable energy supplied a record 33% of the UK’s electricity, opposed to 19% from nuclear. As technology advances, renewable energy has become cheaper and the logical energy source.
Hinkley C, the nuclear power plant in Somerset is years behind schedule, and billions over budget. Alongside Hinkley, there were five other plants with nuclear proposals: Moorside (Cumbria), Wylfa (Wales), Oldbury (West Midlands), Bradwell (Essex) and Sizewell (Suffolk).
Three have been scrapped and two are yet to be approved. Of the eight sites currently generating power, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) report that only one is due to be in use by 2030…….
The renewable sector is rapidly growing, its technology advancing and its costs decreasing, while nuclear remains an expensive and complex option that is becoming less appealing.
Can renewable energy be created on the same scale as nuclear? As nuclear power plants shut down and reach their operational expiry date, their contributions to the UK’s energy mix becomes increasingly irrelevant.
School pupils call for radical climate action in UK-wide strike, Guardian, Matthew Taylor, Sandra Laville , Amy Walker , Poppy Noor and Jon Henley16 Feb 2019
Thousands of young people walk out of lessons in protest at political inaction over crisis Thousands of schoolchildren and young people have walked out of classes to join a UK-wide climate strike amid growing anger at the failure of politicians to tackle the escalating ecological crisis.Organisers said more than 10,000 young people in at least 60 towns and cities from the Scottish Highlands to Cornwall joined the strike, defying threats of detention to voice their frustration at the older generation’s inaction on the environmental impact of climate change.Anna Taylor, 17, one of the most prominent voices to emerge from the new movement, said the turnout had been overwhelming. “It goes some way to proving that young people aren’t apathetic, we’re passionate, articulate and we’re ready to continue demonstrating the need for urgent and radical climate action.”
Organisers estimated around 3,000 schoolchildren and young people gathered in London, with 2,000 in Oxford, 1,000 each in Exeter and Leeds and several hundred in Brighton, Bristol, Sheffield and Glasgow.
In London, the protesters held banners and chanted as police and onlookers watched. They blocked the roads outside parliament chanting “Turn off your engines” at passing cars, and “We want the chance for change now” before mounted police moved them away. There were three arrests in London in connection with the protests. A 19-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl were arrested for obstructing the highway, and a 17-year-old boy for a public order offence.
In Manchester, hundreds gathered outside the Central Library before marching to the Royal Northern College of Music with signs reading “Climate over capitalism” and chanting “Whose future? Our future.”
Matt Sourby, 18, said his journey from Queen Elizabeth school in Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, was worth it: “This is our future and this is making a difference. The government has to listen. I feel incredibly powerful just being here.”
The protests won the backing of a former UN climate chief, who said it was “time to heed the deeply moving voice of youth”.
Christiana Figueres, who led the historic 2015 Paris agreement, said the fact that children were so worried about their future they were prepared to strike should make adults sit up and take notice.
“It is a sign that we are failing in our responsibility to protect them from the worsening impacts of climate change,” she said.
The school strike movement started in August when Greta Thunberg, then 15, held a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament. Now, up to 70,000 schoolchildren each week hold protests in 270 towns and cities worldwide.
On Friday, tens of thousands marched again, some for the sixth week in succession, through towns and cities across Europe.
For the first time up to 1,000 pupils demonstrated in Paris chanting “Don’t go breaking my earth” and “One, two, three degrees – a crime against humanity”.
In Berlin, a large crowd gathered for the sixth week in a row. “We’re here now because we want to be able to be here in 50 years’ time,” read one banner……….
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. ……..
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
