It aims, amongst other things, to identify any early warning signs and recommend areas for improvement. It therefore focuses on difficulties and weaknesses rather than strengths and progress. Continue reading →
The proposed Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk may not be feasible, EDF Energy’s UK boss told The Times, while the energy firm said it is discussing funding options with the government including using pension funds.
EDF Energy UK chief executive Simone Rossi told the newspapaer that the firm needs assurances from government that a “viable funding model exists” for Sizewell C this year. If EDF Energy believes the project is not feasible, it may stop its involvement in the project.
EDF Energy is currently in talks with the government over a funding model for the Suffolk nuclear power plant which would reduce costs for consumers. New Civil Engineer understands pension funds are being considered as a way to help finance Sizewell C.
Rossi told The Times: “This is the year where we need to understand whether this whole thing is really feasible or not.”
He added: “If we were to conclude that maybe it’s not feasible, then at that point maybe we say we are not in a position to continue the project.”
Rossi also said expected cost savings for Sizewell C could disappear if there is a “significant delay” between work on it and Hinkley Point C.
EDF Energy has said it expects construction costs for Sizewell C to be roughly 20% less than for the £19.5bn-plus Hinkley Point C plant. This is because the new plant would almost be a replica of Hinkley Point C, and because electricity grid connections are already in place at the Sizewell C site.
In June last year the National Audit office branded Hinkley Point C “risky and expensive”.
A spokesperson for EDF Energy denied Rossi’s comments were an ultimatum and said Sizewell C would benefit from an existing supply chain, while providing jobs for 5,600 construction workers.
The spokesperson added: “We are working with Government to look at alternative financing models because reducing the cost of capital can make a significant difference to the price for consumers. Financing models that create the conditions where institutional investors like pension funds can participate.”
Poisoned Door Handle Hints at High-Level Plot to Kill Spy, U.K. Officials Say, NYT, By ELLEN BARRY and DAVID E. SANGERAPRIL 1, 2018 LONDON— British officials investigating the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian double agent, believe it is likely that an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle at his home. This operation is seen as so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the early findings of the inquiry……..
Because the nerve agent is so potent, the officials said, the task could have been carried out only by trained professionals familiar with chemical weapons. British and American officials are skeptical that independent actors could have carried out such a risky operation or obtained the agent without approval at the highest levels of the Russian government .
…… Four weeks after the assassination attempt, British and American officials are turning to the question of whether President Vladimir V. Putin himself was aware of, or ordered, the attack.
They say there is no evidence so far of his direct participation, but the Russian president, a former K.G.B. officer, is skilled at hiding his communications.
Russia has denied involvement in the poisoning, and in the election hack.
……. Some experts have expressed caution about assuming that
Mr. Putin approved the attack. Its timing was awkward, coming too late to help him much in last month’s election, and casting a diplomatic shadow over Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup.
And the Kremlin’s embrace of proxy forces in recent years has opened the door to freelancing from other power centers, like security agencies or the country’s military intelligence, which may not share their plans in detail.
………Russia on Saturday also released a list of questions addressed to Britain, France and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Skripal poisoning.
The questions scrutinize the British claim that the nerve agent originated in Russia, noting that an antidote was provided to the Skripals within hours of their poisoning, and questioning whether British scientists had produced Novichok nerve agents in their own laboratories. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/world/europe/russia-sergei-skripal-uk-spy-poisoning.html
“Transporting nuclear waste is a risky business”. “It is disturbing to discover we are now using an extraairbase in heavily populated areas for a stop-off to transport nuclear waste”. “There is no truly safe way to move this nuclear waste from A to B”.
Top secret flights carrying NUCLEAR WASTE from Britain to US ‘to run until late next year’, Mirror UK, By JIM LAWSON 1 APR 2018
Four US Air Force flights carrying highly enriched uranium from Dounreay power station in the Scottish Highlands are said to have left Wick John O’Groats airport bound for South Carolina. Top secret fights taking nuclear waste between Britain and the US will reportedly continue until late next year.
Four US Air Force flights carrying highly enriched uranium from Dounreay power station in the Scottish Highlands are said to have left Wick John O’Groats airport bound for South Carolina.
Yet authorities have never confirmed any of the deliveries.
Dounreay, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Police Scotland, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and Wick Airport all refused to comment when asked.
Details of the flights apparently became public when Highland Council informed residents about road closures surrounding the airport – as it is legally obliged to do so. An order published last week was said to be code for “nuclear waste on the move”, suggesting the next consignment could be imminent.
The authority’s notice, published in two local newspapers, said: “The order has been made by reason that the council, as highway authority , is satisfied that traffic on the road should be restricted due to the likelihood of danger to the public.” It adds: “The purpose of the order is to enable abnormal load movements”.
The order will run from yesterday to September 30, 2019 with up to seven more flights expected during the period, it was reported.
A deal to transport highly enriched uranium – the basic building block for making a nuclear bomb – to be flown from Wick to the US was trumpeted by then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2016.
……..Highlands and Islands MSP John Finnie said: “Transporting nuclear waste is a risky business. By using two airports you are doubling the take-offs and landing in this country, which doubles the risk.
“It is disturbing to discover we are now using an extra airbase in heavily populated areas for a stop-off to transport nuclear waste”.
…….. Dr. Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth, said flatly: “There is no truly safe way to move this nuclear waste from A to B”.
A spokesman for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: “Our priority is to comply with the regulations governing the safety and security of nuclear material. Compliance with the regulations includes protecting information about the routes, times, dates and location”.
Nuclear Weapons Transport, Nukewatch 29th March 2018
A nuclear weapons convoy left AWE Burghfield on Thursday March 22. It was
later seen on the A1 at junction 49 near Dishforth (15 miles north of
Wetherby).
The following day it was spotted crossing over to the west on
the A66 and then on the M74 just south of Lesmahagow. It then continued
around the east of Glasgow on the M73 and past Cumbernauld on the M80 to
take a break at DSG Stirling mid-afternoon.
It then took the M9, A811 andA82 to RNAD Coulport. On Monday March 26 this convoy left Coulport to
return south. Taking a route through Balloch and Stirling then onto the M9
and M8 to the Edinburgh bypass it then took a break at Glencorse Barracks
in Penicuik.
After continuing south on the A1 passing Berwick on Tweed it
passed through Newcastle and after an overnight stop it then continued down
the A1. It crossed country to the A34 travelling around Oxford and getting
back to Burghfield around 5pm. http://www.nukewatch.org.uk/?p=809
After repeated attempts to find a site to bury the UK’s nuclear waste, the last of which ended in 2013 when Cumbria County Council voted to halt the process, the Government are about to restart the search process. Ahead of this launch, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have released a consultation document, Working With Communities.Cumbria Trust has examined the proposal in detail and we have some very serious concerns about this consultation and its implications for areas which volunteer.
BEIS are proposing to open the search process to allow anyone to volunteer, even a member of the public, a farmer or a business. They can do this behind closed doors, with no requirement to make public their expression of interest during the first few months. A process being presented as ‘open and transparent’ appears to fall a long way short.
In stark contrast to the flexible approach by which areas can enter the process, if they later wish to withdraw, they are obliged to follow a much more complex and convoluted procedure in order to be allowed to leave.
However the most alarming aspect of the proposal is that the first and only test of public support does not happen until some 20 years after the process starts. During this time the community will have to endure a programme of borehole drilling and other intrusive investigations lasting a decade or more. The last time this borehole programme happened was in the 1990s with Nirex, and that led Jamie Reed, MP at the time and prominent nuclear advocate, to declare in 2006
“The experience of Nirex endured by my community in the mid-1990s was so wretched that I was minded to entitle this debate fear and loathing”.
He continued
“As long as I have anything to do with it Nirex will never dig another sod of turf in West Cumbria”.
What BEIS are proposing will again potentially expose a community to this experience, and with no mechanism for the public to halt the process. Instead any right of withdrawal rests with a defined Community Partnership. Without regular tests of public support, the Community Partnership appears not to be answerable to the public.
For all the talk of an ‘open and transparent’ process, what BEIS are actually proposing is nothing of the sort, and seems likely to create an early breakdown of public trust. Cumbria Trust has responded to the consultation and would urge our members to read this and consider making their own submissions. The deadline is 19th April and we hope to publish some guidance notes to assist with this within the next few days.
Dave Toke’s Blog 1st April 2018, The media is awash with stories of the imminent emergence of ‘subsidy free’
wind and solar power in the UK, but the reality is that the uncompetitive nature of the British electricity market mostly undermines that prospect.
In theory onshore wind power and maybe some solar power projects would be able to generate power to sell at competitive prices on the British
wholesale electricity market.
In practice most of the potential buyers of energy from new renewable energy projects will not be interested in buying
the energy even at cheap prices simply because it conflicts with their own generation portfolios. True, there is a limited possibility for some very
large corporate consumers who are interested in buying green electricity to fund new projects by issuing corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs).
But in reality this market is small, and I have heard this estimated to be no larger than 100 MW a year. That means it would take around 20 years for
not quite 1 per cent of electricity to be supplied this way. PPAs are needed for new renewable energy projects that offer the generators the
certainty that they can be paid a minimum amount for each MWh that they produce for the long term. The UK Government’s PPAs, called contracts for
differences (CfDs), last 15 years. However they are no longer available for onshore wind and solar.
The problem is that most of the market for offering PPAs that can fund new renewable energy projects comes from the big
electricity suppliers, who have been known in the past as the ‘Big Six’.
Only PPAs offered by really large companies will be usually taken seriously enough by banks and and other institutions to enable renewable energy
projects can obtain long term loans or equity. The trouble is that the Big Energy suppliers will usually have little interest in offering long term
PPAs to new renewable energy projects since. For a start they can buy in power at much the same price as the renewable energy generator can offer
without needing to commit themselves to long term agreements.
As the nuclear option looks less and less sensible, it becomes harder to explain Whitehall’s enthusiasm. Might it be to do with the military? Guardian, Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone, 29 Mar 18,
The depth of this Whitehall bias creates a challenging environment for reasoned debate over British energy policy. To many, it seems scarcely believable that UK plans are so massively out of sync with current trends. The sheer weight of UK nuclear incumbency has successfully marginalised the entirely reasonable understanding that – like many technologies before it – nuclear power is simply going obsolete.
With direct reasons for the UK’s eccentric national position still unstated, we should pay attention to body language. Here, clues may be found in the work of the National Audit Office (NAO). Its 2017 report of 2017 points out serious flaws in the economic case for new nuclear – highlighting “unquantified”, “strategic” reasons why the UK still prioritises new nuclear despite the setbacks and increasingly attractive alternatives. Yet the NAO remains uncharacteristically unclear as to what these reasons might be.
An earlier NAO report may shed more light. Their 2008 costing of military nuclear activities states: “One assumption of the future deterrent programme is that the United Kingdom submarine industry will be sustainable and that the costs of supporting it will not fall directly on the future deterrent programme.” If the costs of keeping the national nuclear submarine industry in business must fall elsewhere, what could that other budget be?
So why does the UK debate on these issues remain so muted? It is now beyond serious dispute that nuclear power has been overtaken by the extraordinary pace of progress in renewables. But – for those so minded – the military case for nuclear power remains. In a democracy, it might be expected that these arguments at least be tested in public. So, the real irrationality is that an entire policy arena should so comprehensively fail to debate such crucial issues. In the end, all technologies become obsolete. If we are not honest about UK civil nuclear policy, the danger is that British democracy may go the same way.
In 2017 Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions also fell 3% as coal use dropped and renewables climbed, Guardian, Adam Vaughan , 30 Mar 18
Windfarms and solar panels produced more electricity than the UK’s eight nuclear power stations for the first time at the end of last year, official figures show.
Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions also continued to fall, dropping 3% in 2017, as coal use fell and the use of renewables climbed.
Energy experienced the biggest drop in emissions of any UK sector, of 8%, while pollution from transport and businesses stayed flat.
Energy industry chiefs said the figures showed that the government should rethink its ban on onshore wind subsidies, a move that ministers have hinted could happen soon.
Utility Week 28th March 2018, Half nuclear safety team recruited for post-Brexit Euratom role. The
government has recruited just over half of the staff it will need to police
the UK’s nuclear safeguarding regime once the UK leaves Euratom. The
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS] department published its
first quarterly update on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU umbrella nuclear. https://utilityweek.co.uk/half-nuclear-safety-team-recruited-post-brexit-euratom-role/
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG), 29 Mar 18, BANNG despairs at the lack of mention of potentially serious problems atBradwell B cheerleading event hosted by Maldon District Council.
Reports in the local press of Maldon District Council playing host to the recent
annual meeting of the New Nuclear Local Authority Group (NNLAG) have been
met with amazement by the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG).
The location was chosen because of the proposals for a new nuclear power
station and the meeting included a visit to the proposed Bradwell B site.
Stephen Speed of the Civil Nuclear and Resilience Directorate at the
Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and John
Devine from the Department for International Trade attended the meeting.
‘Not a whisper of the environmental problems at this utterly quite
unacceptable site is contained in the media reports – but they do talk of
the huge potential envisioned for the region from a new nuclear power
station. It is as if gold dust is being rained down on innocent citizens
and wildlife and landscape.
But it is gold dust that could quickly turn to
radioactive rain, polluted air, contaminated land and radioactive
discharges into the Blackwater estuary’, said BANNG’s Chair, Professor
Andy Blowers. ‘No word is spoken that this massive engine of radioactive
risk with its inevitable cargo of spent fuel and dangerous radioactive
wastes will be left on the site for way over a century.
And what will the territory be like then – if it exists at all? ‘No mention is made of the
fact that the site is only designated until 2025. Beyond that there is no
site at Bradwell. The site does not exist. So, to overcome this, the
Government is busily undertaking a deceptive consultation on siting
criteria, re-running the same ideas of a decade ago when Bradwell was
deemed a potentially suitable site for new nuclear development that could
be operational by 2025 – of course, it will not be.
If Bradwell was a poor site then, it is an impossible one now. And the case for nuclear
energy has, in the meantime, all but disappeared. By the time the Chinese
could build their reactors at Bradwell, a new nuclear power station will be
as dead as a dodo.
‘It’s scandalous that BEIS which is running the
consultation should be supporting this latest jamboree. It gives
credibility to the project, suggesting it is a foregone conclusion. But it
is not and the Government should insist it is neutral as to whether the
site should be designated. ‘BANNG and its supporters feel badly let down
by the biased approach being taken. Essex County and Maldon District
Councils appear to have totally ignored the fact that Colchester Borough
and West Mersea Town Councils do not support the new power station.
The environmental, public health, security and safety issues and the
indefinite, long-term storage on-site of radioactive wastes are not
mentioned – yet the public is overwhelmingly opposed to the project on
these grounds.’ BANNG has set out the case against the project in its
response to the consultation on siting criteria (see BANNG Paper 34 at banng.info) and will shortly be meeting with the developers, EDF and China
General Nuclear Power Corporation. https://www.banng.info/category/news/
U.K. Weighs Tidal Power Contract Aping Hinkley Nuclear Deal, Bloomberg ,By Alex Morales,
Swansea Bay plan could open up 40 billion pounds of spending
U.K. and Welsh ministers seek to forge deal to enable project
U.K. officials are in intensive talks with their Welsh counterparts to kick-start a tidal power plan by copying the controversial contract awarded to Electricite de France SA for its Hinkley Point nuclear power project.
Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd.’s Swansea Bay project would tap the ebb and flow of the tides to generate electricity. It’s been in limbo for 15 months since a government-commissioned review recommended giving it the go-ahead. The delay reflects a reluctance by ministers to accept costs for consumers that were once estimated at double the power price EDF will get.
Amid pressure from more than 100 backbench lawmakers who want the tidal plant to move ahead, ministers are grappling with how to make it palatable. The developer had proposed an initial power price a third higher than Hinkley’s. But an offer of assistance from the Welsh government has changed the game. Officials are now debating a deal on the same terms as Hinkley, according to Richard Graham, a lawmaker with the ruling Conservatives who chairs Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Marine Energy. ……..https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-27/u-k-weighs-tidal-power-contract-matching-hinkley-nuclear-deal
Nuclear watchdog raises Hinkley Point C concerns Management failings could affect safety at EDF power station if unaddressed, says inspector, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 26 Mar 18,
The UK nuclear regulator has raised concerns with EDF Energy over management failings that it warns could affect safety at the Hinkley Point C power station if left unaddressed, official documents reveal.
Britain’s chief nuclear inspector identified several shortcomings in the way the French firm is managing the supply chain for the £20bn plant it is building in Somerset.
Environmental Research Web 24th March 2018, Dave Elliott: Nuclear plants are designed to run flat out, in part to
recoup their large construction costs. Their output can be varied a bit,
but this entails thermal stresses and potential safety issues with the
build up of active Xenon gas that is released when fission reactions are
reduced. It needs time to decay. That limits how often and how quickly the
plant can be ramped down and then back up- so as to match changes in energy
demand (‘load following’) and the varying output of renewables.
So basically nuclear plants are inflexible. So do they have any role for
balancing variable renewables? Renewables will continue to expand of
course- by 2035 there might be 45GW.
But just in case you though that balancing some of that with nuclear might be possible in future, the
Hinkley nuclear EPR plant is not scheduled to load follow. And it seems
unlikely if any of the other proposed new large nuclear plants (Wylfa,
Olbury, Moorside, Sizewell, Bradwell) would do – it would undermine their
already precarious economics. Though as now, they may be added to the
capacity market, to be there for background support, if that makes any
sense. A more cynical view is that, as now, this inclusion is just a way to
provide nuclear with an extra subsidy, which, like the rest of the
contracted capacity, is paid for by a surcharge on consumers bills. http://blog.environmentalresearchweb.org/2018/03/24/can-nuclear-be-use-to-balance-renewables/
nuclear-news 