Greens Party condemns as immoral UK government’s willingness for pre-emptive strike
Tories are ‘fanatics’ for saying they would start a nuclear war, Green Party says http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-nuclear-first-strike-war-green-party-fanatics-jeremy-corbyn-jonathan-bartley-a7700071.html Green co-leader Jonathan Barley attacked the Tories and Labour’s positions on Trident, Jon Stone Political Correspondent @joncstone, 25 Apr 17, The Green Party has accused the Conservatives of “fanaticism” after the Defence Secretary admitted that Theresa May could start a nuclear war.
Michael Fallon had said the Prime Minister could launch a nuclear attack against another country, even if the UK was not under nuclear attack, in “the most extreme circumstances”.
Speaking at St George’s Hospital in Tooting on Monday the Green co-leader pledged spend the cost of the weapon on the NHS.
“Voters are being offered a choice between Tory first strike fanaticisms and Labour’s HMS Pointless. What could be more immoral than considering a first use of nuclear weapons, knowing full well that it would lead to the death of countless civilians?” he said.
“And what could be more illogical that pledging to renew a multi-billion pound nuclear weapons system that will never be used? With people struggling to get by in Britain it’s inexcusable to be ploughing people’s money into this cold war relic.
“Instead of replacing this nuclear monstrosity the Green Party would give the NHS an emergency kiss of life. People are being treated in corridors while we flush money away on nuclear weapons. Cancelling Trident would give our NHS more than £3bn per year – which must be added to additional funding from raising taxes.
“Real security means having a world class health service, not locking ourselves into replacing these weapons we’ll never use. Imagine the impact on our NHS of employing 85,000 more nurses, midwives and health professionals – that’s what is at stake here.”
Speaking on Sunday Labour leader Mr Corbyn said he would try to de-escalate a nuclear war and said that “any use of nuclear weapons is a disaster for the whole world”. His party however says it is committed to maintaining a “nuclear deterrent” and would renew Trident.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4 this morning Mr Fallon, Ms May’s defence secretary, said: “In the most extreme circumstances, we have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike.
Asked in what circumstances, he replied: “They are better not specified or described, which would only give comfort to our enemies and make the deterrent less credible.”
The highest estimate of the cost of replacing Trident is £205 billion over its lifetime, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. One estimate collated from ministerial statement by Crispin Blunt, the Tory MP who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, pegged the cost at £167 billion.
The independent Trident Commission, which reported in 2014, pegged the cost at closer to £100 billion.
Theresa May would be willing to fire a pre-emptive nuclear strike
Theresa May would fire UK’s nuclear weapons as a ‘first strike’, says Defence Secretary Michael Fallon
‘We have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike’ Independent, Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor @Rob_Merrick , 24 Apr 17,
Theresa May would fire Britain’s nuclear weapons as a ‘first strike’ if necessary, the Defence Secretary has said.
Michael Fallon said the Prime Minister was prepared to launch Trident in “the most extreme circumstances”, even if Britain itself was not under nuclear attack.
The statement came as the Conservatives continued to exploit Labour divisions on the retention of the Trident deterrent, to warn of the“very dangerous chaos” if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister……..
“In the most extreme circumstances, we have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike,” Mr Fallon said.
Asked in what circumstances, he replied: “They are better not specified or described, which would only give comfort to our enemies and make the deterrent less credible.
“The whole point about the deterrent is that you have got to leave uncertainty in the mind of anyone who might be thinking of using weapons against this country.”
Mr Fallon also insisted that critics of Trident – including senior military figures who have ridiculed the idea that it is an effective deterrent – were “absolutely wrong”……..
“The Labour party is very clear we are committed to a credible nuclear credibility at the minimum end of the scale. That is Labour party policy and it will be in the manifesto,” Mr Gwynne said.
But he appeared to rule out a first strike, adding: “We would not be in a position where the first choice would be to press that red button. It is a deterrent because we have them.
“We believe in multilateralism, we believe in negotiating away our nuclear weapons system to create a nuclear weapon free world.”…….http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-nuclear-weapons-first-strike-michael-fallon-general-election-jeremy-corbyn-trident-a7698621.html
Russian warning: Britain would be ‘razed to the ground’if it launched a nuclear attack
Britain would be ‘literally erased from the face of the earth’ if it launched a nuclear attack, warns Russian MP Another translation says Britain would be ‘razed to the ground’ in a retaliatory strike, Independent, Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93, 24 Apr 17, Britain would be “literally erased from the face of the earth” in a nuclear war, a Russian MP has warned.
Franz Klintsevich, a retired colonel, was responding to comments from Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who said “in the most extreme circumstances, we have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike.”
Mr Klintsevich said if Britain were to launch a preemptive strike, then “not having the biggest territory, it will literally be erased from the face of the earth.” Another translation, carried by the Russian news agency TASS, says Britain would be “razed to the ground” in a retaliatory strike.
Sir Michael’s comments came in response to Labour divisions over retaining the Trident deterrent, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn suggesting renewal might not be in the party’s election manifesto — only to be corrected later by party colleagues.
Speaking to BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme, Sir Michael said Labour had left voters “completely unsure as to what would actually happen to our nuclear deterrent.”
He said Prime Minster Theresa May would be ready to use Trident as a “pre-emptive initial strike”…….
Mr Klintsevich, who is deputy chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament’s defence and security committee, called Sir Michael’s comments “disgusting” and said it “deserves a tough response”. He added: “In the best case this statement should be taken as an element of psychological war — which looks particularly disgusting in such a context.
“Otherwise, it sounds really bad, because a reasonable question arises: Against whom is Great Britain going to preemptively use nuclear weapons?”
If Britain intended to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, he added, “then probably English people desperately want to share the laurels of the USA who threw nuclear bombs at defenceless [Japanese cities] Hiroshima and Nagasaki [in 1945].”
“But those times have gone for good, as has the era of the greatness of the British Empire.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-nuclear-war-russia-warn-senator-frants-klintsevich-erased-face-earth-razed-ground-us-cold-war-a7701411.html
Millions funnelled to North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme through house in suburban London
KIM’S N-UK-E HQ Millions funnelled to North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme through this house in suburban London street https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3393185/millions-funnelled-to-north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-programme-through-this-house-in-suburban-london-street/
The Korea National Insurance Corporation’s (KNIC) assets have ‘now been frozen. By Jon Lockett 23rd April 2017,
If a nuclear bomb hit Coventry, UK ….
What would happen if a nuclear bomb hit Coventry? http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/what-would-happen-nuclear-bomb-12913136 The city centre would be turned into a 300m wide and 200m deep crater, JAMES RODGER, 23 Apr 17, Hundreds of thousands of people would be killed if a nuclear blast hit Coventry and Warwickshire.
Imagining the bomb went off at ground level in Broadgate, the city centre would be turned into a 300m wide and 200m deep crater, according to interactive data site Nukemap.
The map below shows the impact of a nuclear explosion in Coventry.
Fireball radius (orange)
Fatal levels of radiation would increase greatly if the nuke exploded at ground level.
The fireball radius (orange) would see the entire city centre including monuments such as the Cathedral, Broadgate and West Orchards Shopping Centre consumed by a nuclear fireball 3.2km wide.
This would stretch as far as the Ricoh Arena at one end, and Finham at the other.
The fatality rate is 100 per cent.
- Crater inside radius: 150 m (0.07 km²)
- Crater lip radius: 300 m (0.28 km²)
- Fireball radius: 0.71 km (1.56 km²)
- Air blast radius (20 psi): 1.67 km (8.8 km²)
- Radiation radius (500 rem): 2.26 km (16.1 km²)
- Air blast radius (5 psi): 3.52 km (39 km²)
- Thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns): 8.95 km (251 km²)
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Radiation radius (green)
Slightly wider than the fireball radius. Without medical treatment, expect between 50 per cent and 90 per cent mortality from acute effects alone. Dying takes between several hours and several weeks.
Air blast radius (red – 20psi)
The most intense air blast would have a radius of 4.75km and demolish heavily built concrete buildings in the University of Warwick campus, Binley Road, and Holbooks, among other areas. The fatality rate is still 100 per cent – or very close.
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Air blast radius (grey – 5psi)
A lesser air blast radius would still cause the collapse of all residential buildings within a 10km radius. That means houses would collapse all the way out in Fillongley, Bedworth, Kenilworth and Ryton.Injuries are universal and fatalities widespread.
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Thermal radiation radius (lighter orange)
The thermal radiation radius is 29.1km. This would mean third degree burns “throughout the layers of the skin”, which could cause severe scarring, disablement and even amputation. This radius covers Nuneaton, Hinckley, Sutton Coldfield, parts of Birmingham and Leamington Spa.
- The city would be dependent on outsiders and national agencies for help after the blast. In the fallout survivors would find dozens of hospitals and medical facilities would have been destroyed. A dozen fire stations would also have been wiped out.At the same moment around 200 schools and hundreds of churches, mosques, gurdwaras and temples could have been levelled or badly damaged.
Doubts on whether UK Labour will back Trident nuclear weapons programme Trident
Jeremy Corbyn does not guarantee the Labour manifesto will back Trident nuclear weapons
Jeremy Corbyn was grilled on pushing the “nuclear button” and killing the leader of ISIS in his first big TV interview of the general election campaign, Mirror, DAN BLOOM 23 APR 2017
Jeremy Corbyn has thrown Labour’s controversial support for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme Trident into question by failing to guarantee it will be in the party’s manifesto.
The Labour leader swerved the question in a TV interview today by saying the document was still being drawn up.
That has caused ructions in the 18 months since he became Labour leader and the party split three ways on whether to back renewal last year. In a testy interview Mr Corbyn also did not guarantee he would push the so-called “nuclear button” to launch a pre-emptive strike.
And he did not guarantee he would authorise a strike to kill ISIS’ leader, instead saying any killing must support a “political solution”.
Pressed on whether killing ISIS’s leader would help that solution, Mr Corbyn said: “I think the leader of ISIS not being around would be helpful and I’m no supporter or defender in any way whatsoever of ISIS.”
But he added the bombing campaign had killed innocent civilians.
Labour later attempted to clarify Mr Corbyn’s remarks in a statement saying: “The decision to renew Trident has been taken and Labour supports that.”
Mr Corbyn clashed with the BBC’s Andrew Marr in his first major broadcast interview of the 2017 general election campaign……..http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-not-guarantee-labour-10278663
1950s UK dummy nuclear bomb fiasco
Dorking narrowly avoided ‘nuclear bomb drop’ fiasco, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-39684216, 23 Apr 17, Scientists working on the UK’s first atom bomb narrowly avoided a fiasco when they nearly dropped a five tonne replica on Dorking, it has emerged.
The dummy device was being flown to Orford Ness, a top secret military test site in Suffolk, in the early 1950s.It came loose in the bomb bay while over the Surrey town, about 20 miles from London, but the bomb doors held.An engineer who worked on the device said it was then dropped in the Thames estuary, where it remains to this day.
Fortunately, the device contained no explosives or nuclear material.
The revelation is made in a BBC Four documentary, Britain’s Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story. Reg Milne, of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, told the programme: “One flight to Orford Ness, a bomb came loose over Dorking. It fell off its hook. “Luckily the bomb doors were strong enough to hold it.” He revealed: “The pilot took the aircraft over the Thames estuary, opened the bomb doors, and the bomb fell out.” He said the huge splash that resulted nearly drowned a couple of sailors nearby.
“They never found it – it’s still in the Thames somewhere,” he added.
The programme features interviews with military veterans and scientists who took part in the atomic bomb programme, some speaking for the first time, plus newly released footage of the British atomic bomb tests.
At the time, with the UK excluded from the US nuclear programme, scientists were scrambling to make a British bomb and seemingly cutting a few corners in the process. According to the programme, highly radioactive plutonium was also frequently transported in a lead-lined box by car from the research reactor in Cumbria to a testing site in south London.
On one occasion, the vehicle broke down and the driver had to knock doors to get help. As a result, the dangerous material allegedly spent several hours in the boot of a Vauxhall stranded in a pub car park. Britain’s Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story will be broadcast on BBC Four on 3 May.
Hitachi still interested in Wylfa nuclear station, while others waver over NuGen nuclear project in Moorside
Hitachi set for talks with business secretary Greg Clark over Welsh nuclear plant, http://www.cityam.com/263354/hitachi-set-talks-business-secretary-greg-clark-over-welsh Mark Sands City A.M’s political reporter, 23 Apr `17 . Bosses at Japanese energy giant Hitachi are due to meet business secretary Greg Clark for talks just weeks after the firm applied for approval to build its Wylfa nuclear project in Anglesey.
Hitachi chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi will meet with Clark this week as government planning continues over the creation of a fleet of new nuclear projects in the UK.
It comes as Hitachi’s Japanese rival Toshiba continues to consider its options over the NuGen nuclear project in Moorside, Cumbria.
French utility firm Engie revealed in early April that it would withdraw from the project, while Toshiba has been wracked with its own problems after revealing dramatic writedowns on its Westinghouse US nuclear unit.
Toshiba’s financial woes – a bad omen for UK nuclear programme: is Moorside dead?
Toshiba’s US nuclear problems provide cautionary tale for UK Experts say construction delays and cost problems at two plants are due to lack of experience and absence of supply chains, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 14 Apr 17,
The roots of Toshiba’s admission this week that it has serious doubts over its “ability to continue as a going concern” can be found near two small US towns.
It is the four reactors being built for nuclear power stations outside Waynesboro, in Georgia, and Jenkinsville, South Carolina, by the company’s US subsidiary Westinghouse that have left the Japanese corporation facing an annual loss of £7.37bn.
Construction work on the units has run hugely over budget and over schedule, casting a shadow over two of the biggest new nuclear power station projects in the US for years.
Events came to a head last month when Westinghouse was forced to file for bankruptcy protection to limit Toshiba’s losses……..
Toshiba’s losses stem from Westinghouse’s acquisition in 2015 of the nuclear construction business CB&I Stone & Webster, which it hoped would solve the delays on the two sites. That deal has now backfired spectacularly, pushing Westinghouse and its parent company to the brink of financial collapse.
The regulator for one of the projects, Plant Vogtle, in Georgia, has said Westinghouse’s bankruptcy means the project will require more “time and money”.
Nephew said: “This experience may push the US into a different model, perhaps focused on smaller modular reactors, or less complicated designs.”
The US energy secretary, Rick Perry, signalled the Trump administration’s support for nuclear this week, issuing a statement at the G7 summit in which he said the US backed “advanced civil-nuclear technologies”. That suggested support for next-generation reactors rather than the sort being built by Westinghouse.
Richard Morningstar, chairman of the Global Energy Centre at the international affairs thinktank Atlantic Council, said: “What is happening to Westinghouse and Toshiba only emphasises the need to double down on research on new, safe, nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors. If we do not do so in the US, leadership will be ceded to other countries.”
One such aspiring atomic leader is the UK, where the government wants to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to help satisfy the country’s power needs for decades to come.
But there are obvious parallels between the two countries on the issues of recent experience and supply chains. The UK has not completed a new nuclear power station since Sizewell B on the Suffolk coast started generating power in 1995………
The EPR reactor design for Hinkley is the same as that for the reactors it is building in Finland, and at Flamanville, in France, though both of those are running late and over budget.
The other new nuclear projects proposed around the UK, all by foreign companies, look less certain and all are still years from construction starting in earnest.
Toshiba said this week it would consider selling its shares in the consortium behind another plant planned at Moorside, in Cumbria, which would utilise three of the same AP1000 Westinghouse reactors being built for the two crisis-hit US plants.
The South Korean power company Kepco last month expressed an interest in buying into the project, and the business secretary , Greg Clark, went to South Korea last week for talks on collaboration on nuclear power.
However, any rescue by Seoul is far from certain. The two leading candidates in South Korea’s elections in May said this week that they favoured rowing back on nuclear power and switching to renewable energy. Kepco would also face a regulatory delay of several years if it wanted to use its own technology at Moorside……..
While the government has argued that it has plans in place to keep the lights on if new nuclear projects do not materialise, others said the deepening crisis at Toshiba this week showed the need for ministers to consider a new energy policy.
“It’s time to come up with a new plan A,” said Paul Dorfman, of the Energy Institute, at University College London, who believes the Moorside project is dead. “It’s time for a viable strategy that talks about grid upgrades, solar, energy efficiency, and energy management.”
A report published on Thursday highlighted another alternative: a U-turn on the Conservative party’s manifesto commitment to block new onshore windfarms. Analysis for the trade body Scottish Renewables suggested wind turbines on land had become so cheap they could be built for little or no subsidy, compared to the lucrative contract awarded to EDF for Hinkley. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/14/toshiba-us-nuclear-problems-uk-cautionary-tale
UK’s Ministry of Defence brings in nuclear bigwig to run the £41bn programme for Dreadnought nuclear missile submarines
MoD appoints nuclear chief to help keep Dreadnought submarines on course, Telegraph UK, industry editor 14 APRIL 2017 A Treasury troubleshooter has been brought in to run Britain’s military nuclear programmes with a remit to keep the massive Trident replacement submarine programme on track.
Civil servant Julian Kelly will join the Ministry of Defence in May in the new position of director-general nuclear, where he will be responsible for Britain’s nuclear submarines, nuclear warheads and day-to-day policy.
Top of his to do list in the £200,000-a-year role will be ensuring the £41bn programme to build the next generation of Dreadnought nuclear missile submarines for the Royal Navy stays on track. A key task will be working with the soon-to-be appointed head of the Submarine Delivery Authority (SDA), an arm’s-length body created to ensure the Dreadnought programme meets its targets.
The Telegraph understands that final interviews for this role took place in past fortnight, with top engineers and executives being lined up as the MoD looks to tap industry for its experience in running huge projects on time and budget.
The £500,000-a-year job as SDA chief executive is one of the highest paid public roles, reflecting the immense importance of the Trident programme to the UK’s security, with the Navy tasked with keeping one submarine armed with nuclear missiles at sea at all times.
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has repeatedly warned how critical Britain’s nuclear programmes are, saying delivery of the new submarines “cannot and must not slip”.
Suppliers including BAE Systems, which is leading overall programme, and Rolls-Royce, which is building the submarines’ nuclear powerplants, have been warned of a “pain and gain” regime to contracts. This will mean they will share the results of coming in under budget but cost over-runs and delays will result in heavy penalties.
“We will absolutely challenge BAE and other suppliers such as Rolls-Royce,” the Defence Secretary has warned. “They are going to be incentivised to keep the targets and they will suffer if they don’t.”
Building the four new Dreadnought submarines is seen as the biggest financial risk the MoD faces. Although the work has been costed at £31bn, a £10bn contingency was added on reflecting the huge complexity of the task and vital importance on being on time, with the current Vanguard class missile submarines coming to the end of their lives in the 2030s…… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/14/mod-appoints-nuclear-chief-help-keep-dreadnought-submarines/
Toshiba to dump UK Moorside nuclear project, in effort to stay afloat?
Toshiba considers sale of Moorside nuclear project in Cumbria as own survival in doubt in wake of £7bn losses http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/11/toshiba-questions-survival-warns-losses-could-hit-7bn/ 11 APRIL 2017
Toshiba is considering selling a stake in its nuclear project in Cumbria after warning it could struggle to remain in business as a result of expected annual losses of more than 1trn yen (£7bn).
The Japanese conglomerate, which makes everything from flash memory drives to laptops and semiconductors, admitted it is considering selling some or all of nuclear specialist NuGeneration to keep itself afloat.
NuGen currently owns 100pc of the Moorside site, after buying 40pc back from France’s Engie for $138.5m (£111m) earlier this month.That sale followed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Westinghouse, another Toshiba-owned company which is set to provide reactors for Moorside.
Asked what it would do with NuGeneration, a Toshiba spokesman said while no final decisions have been made “we would like to explore alternatives, including the sales of shares.”
He went on to explain that Toshiba is “carefully monitoring the situation in consultation with other stakeholders including the British Government.”Separately NuGeneration said it had been looking for investors prior to Westinghouse’s troubles and emphasised that the construction of Moorside was always going to be done by a third party.
But a spokesman acknowledged “there is no certainty” with regards to Westinghouse’s involvement in the development stage of the project.
Theoretically, Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors, which have received regulatory approval, remain attached to the project but if a new investor were to come on board, it is unclear if different reactors may be proposed, potentially delaying the already behind schedule project yet further.
Samira Rudiga an energy fund manager at Guinness Asset Management, said the news was another nail in the coffin for the UK’s nuclear hopes.
“Nuclear does not make sense in the UK,” she said. “It takes 10 years to build and can take as long if not longer just to come to a decision to build a plant.”However, she expects the Government to still consider nuclear projects and thought there would be companies in Europe and Asia able to take on Toshiba’s stake in Moorside.
Greg Clark, the Business secretary, travelled to South Korea earlier this month in a bid to save the project, appealing to Korean nuclear giant Kepco to invest.
“For the reasons stated above, there are material events and conditions that raise the substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Toshiba said.
At the end of 2016, the impending multi-billion-dollar write down triggered one of the worst-ever share fallsfor a major Japanese company, with ratings downgrades and investor pessimism erasing almost all of its 87pc rally so far that year. Toshiba delayed publication of its annual results twice prior to publication, and the company took the unusual step of publishing its accounts without sign-off from its auditor, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Aarata.
Toshiba said that while it had not yet fully determined the full cost of restructuring Westinghouse, its calculations suggested net income would fall by roughly 620bn yen.
Action on Climate Change has Benefited the British Economy
Climate change action is good for the economy – and Britain is the proof, Guardian, Michael Howard,10 Apr 17 When John Major set up our global warming strategy, the doom-mongers said it would ruin living standards. New research shows how wrong they were.
Just before the Rio Earth summit 25 years ago, John Major, in whose cabinet I then served as environment secretary, made a bold prediction: reducing Britain’s carbon emissions in line with recommendations of climate science would not, he said, harm our economy: “Our initial measures … will bring a worthwhile economic payoff to the country, to business and to ordinary people.”
This was a controversial statement at a time when solar energy, for example, was a costly technology better suited to spacecraft than British rooftops. And indeed the argument can still be heard that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will ruin our economies – even that it will return us to a pre-industrial living standard.
A quarter of a century later, the approach that we took has been richly vindicated. As research published on Monday by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unitdemonstrates, in that period the average Briton has grown richer faster than citizens of any other G7 nation; at the same time, his or her carbon footprint has fallen faster than in any other G7 nation. While it would be stretching reality to argue that Britain’s economic success has been driven by its climate change policies, no one can seriously argue any more that our climate policies have generated economic harm……..
Since 1992 science has shown us ever more clearly what “dangerous” climate change looks like. Meanwhile, evidence has been growing that a transition to a low-carbon economy is economically feasible, and will bring added benefits such as cleaner air in major cities. These two factors drove all governments to conclude the Paris agreement in 2015.
Globally, carbon emissions have remained flat for the past three years, even as the world economy has grown by 7.5%. China and India are fast reversing their previous policies of building greater fleets of coal-fired power stations. Replacing our own use of coal with gas and renewable energy has brought UK carbon emissions down to a level last seen during the general strike of 1926.
Yet neither these remarkable developments nor the Paris agreement will secure a stable climate. The latest science tells us that greenhouse gas emissions need to start declining by 2020 at the latest in order to give reasonable confidence that global warming will stay well below the 2C limit, the target governments adopted in Paris. So, having halted the once unstoppable tide, the next logical step is to reverse it – and quickly. This is the mission on which a new initiative launched by Christiana Figueres, until recently the UN’s top climate official, will embark this coming week.
Figueres is to be commended for her vision. The rationale remains exactly that which the British government put forward 25 years ago: thatunchecked, climate change presents unacceptable risks for the future. Fortunately these are not risks that we have to take. Britain has proved the doom-mongers wrong: economies can thrive while emissions fall. Now let us put our collective weight behind the Figueres initiative, and finish the job. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/09/climate-change-good-for-economy-britain-john-major-global-warming
UK approves USA military strike on Syria, but not committed to military action
But Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said the decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis.
“The US missile attack on a Syrian government airbase risks escalating the war in Syria still further,” he said. “Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account.”
Syria airstrikes: UK offers verbal but not military support to US Defence secretary backs US response to gas attack but says Britain is not committed to military action against Assad, Guardian, Anushka Asthana, 7 Apr 17, The British
government was not asked to provide military support to the US attack on Syria but believes it was a “wholly appropriate” response to the deadly use of chemical weapons on civilians, the defence secretary has said.
Sir Michael Fallon said the UK would not get directly involved in action with combat troops or aircraft in Syria without parliamentary approval. But while he made clear that the decision to launch dozens of missiles on to a Syrian airbase in the early hours of Friday was a US one, he said Britain believed it was the right move. “We fully support this strike, it was limited, it was appropriate, and it was designed to target the aircraft and the equipment that the United States believe were used in the chemical attack and to deter President [Bashar al-]Assad from carrying out future chemical attacks,” Fallon said.
He urged Russia to learn a lesson from the action, suggesting President Vladimir Putin was the key figure to end the war. “It is Russia that has the influence over the regime that can … bring this slaughter to a stop.”
He said his American counterpart, James Mattis, had phoned him to share the US assessment of the regime’s culpability, and that the UK was later informed of Trump’s final decision to take action.
The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, also expressed his support on Twitter, writing: “Fully support US action after deplorable chemical attacks.”
The position was supported by a number of Conservative backbenchers and the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, who wrote in the Guardian that the UK “cannot shy away from proportionate military intervention”
But Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said the decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis.
“The US missile attack on a Syrian government airbase risks escalating the war in Syria still further,” he said. “Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account.”
Corbyn said there was a need to “urgently reconvene the Geneva peace talks and unrelenting international pressure for a negotiated settlement of the conflict”. Any intervention ought to be judged on its contribution to the outcome, he said.
Corbyn’s call to “urge restraint on the Trump administration” was backed up by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, but contradicted by the party’s deputy leader. ….https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/07/syria-airstrikes-uk-offers-verbal-but-not-military-support-to-us
Nuclear Decommissioning makes every other disaster in the post-war period pale into insignificanc
nuClear News No.94 April 2017 The UK Government has been forced to pay nearly £100m in a settlement with two US companies – Energy Solutions and Bechtel – for mishandling the way it awarded a £6.1bn nuclear decommissioning contract. Ministers have ordered an inquiry headed by the former boss of National Grid to find out why the procurement process was so flawed. Labour said the payout showed “dramatic levels of incompetence”. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will also terminate the contract it awarded for cleaning up the UK’s old Magnox reactor sites nine years early. The sites include Bradwell, Chapelcross, Hinkley A and Hunterston A. (1)
The High Court ruled last summer that the NDA had “manipulated” and “fudged” the tender process. It meant that the wrong company won the work to decommission 12 UK nuclear sites (10 Magnox sites plus Harwell and Winfrith). The move opens the door for other bidders to attempt to reclaim their bid costs, which could run to an additional £50m. The contract was awarded in 2014 to Cavendish Fluor Partnership, a joint venture between the UK’s Babcock International and Texas-based Fluor. However, the consortium cannot be asked to take on the extra work because that could increase potential compensation claims by companies that wrongly lost out in the tender. Some industry sources have complained that the government plumped for an unrealistically low bid for the work at the outset. Another losing bidder, UK Nuclear Restoration Ltd, which is a consortium of Amec Foster Wheeler, Atkins and Rolls-Royce, said that the settlement “raises serious concerns” about the procurement process and that it has raised the implications of the judgment with the government and the NDA. (2)
Former National Grid chief executive Steve Holliday has been appointed to lead an independent inquiry into what went wrong. The inquiry will look at how the mistakes were made and by who, how the litigation was handled, and the relationship between the NDA and the government departments. Holliday will publish an interim report in October. The government now has the daunting task of starting a new tendering process for the 12 sites, as the deal with Cavendish Fluor Partnership (CFP) will end early, in September 2019 instead of 2028. (3)
Babcock said in a statement the CFP, in which it has a 65% stake, has come to a mutual agreement with the NDA to bring to an end the contract at the end of August 2019, having operated the contract for a full five years. Babcock said it had become apparent that the work that needs to be done is now materially different in volume from that specified in the NDA’s tender, and this puts the contract at risk of a legal challenge. What those material differences are remains a mystery.
The Business Secretary, Greg Clark, said: “It has become clear to the NDA through this consolidation process that there is a significant mismatch between the work that was specified in the contract as tendered in 2012 and awarded in 2014, and the work that actually needs to be done. The scale of the additional work is such that the NDA board considers that it would amount to a material change to the specification on which bidders were invited in 2012 to tender.” (4)
The failure of the contract award process was “inevitable” according to nuclear power expert Dr Paul Dorfman, from University College London’s Energy Institute. “They were set up to fail and have failed because the understanding of costs and complexity to nuclear decommissioning is changing all the time,” he said. “Magnox reactors were thrown up in a rush to give electricity too cheap to meter and create plutonium and there was no thought of how they would be decommissioned. Each Magnox reactor is bespoke so decommissioning each one is different with its own complexities and challenges. The more we learn about dealing with the ‘back end’ of nuclear power, the more we see how complex and costly it is.” (5)
Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said: “Why should anyone believe that this astonishing level of incompetence will suddenly end when we start to build new reactors? Just because Hinkley Point C is not a Magnox reactor doesn’t just suddenly make the industry competent.” (6)
The Daily Telegraph declared today “if we could, we would stop this madness … In committing to new nuclear, we seem to have joined a runaway train, with no hope of getting off. Has not the time finally arrived for a fully fledged rethink of the merits of Britain’s nuclear energy strategy?” (7)
Roy Pumfrey continued: “We agree – it is time to stop this madness. The UK’s nuclear decommissioning costs have increased from £55.8 billion in 2008 to £117.4 billion at the last count. Although EDF is required to set aside funds for decommissioning Hinkley Point C, this is only up to an agreed limit. The taxpayer will be on the hook for the all too predictable shortfall.”
Chris Huhne, former energy secretary for the coalition government, said the remit for the enquiry by Steve Holliday was not broad enough and it needed to look at the total cost of nuclear decommissioning. “It is a complete mess, it’s deeply embarrassing but it’s actually I’m afraid only the latest in a long line of embarrassments,” Huhne told BBC Radio 4. “We’re not even scraping the surface with the problem that this legal case has exposed.” Huhne, who was energy secretary between 2010 and 2012 and left the before the contract was awarded, said the cost of decommissioning the UK’s old nuclear fleet had increased £107bn in the last five years to £161bn. “In terms of industrial strategy this makes every other disaster in the post-war period pale into insignificance.” He said the problem stemmed from how early reactors stations were complex bespoke constructions made without consideration to how they would later be disassembled. “We ordered a whole series of Savile Row suits rather than a bunch of work-a-day Marks & Spencer suits… Every single one of those reactors is different. Even the fuel rods in every single one of those reactors are different – crazy.” (8) Huhne called on the government not to allow subsidies for new reactors. That was the coalition government policy. It should be the policy again but the government seems to be relenting – it’s opening the door to exactly a repetition of the sort of disaster that we see today. (9) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo94.pdf
Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B Nuclear – safety concerns
nuClear News No.94 April 2017 The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has published its assessment of the Periodic Safety Review (PSR) for Hunterston B (HNB) and Hinkley Point B (HPB). ONR has also accepted EDF’s revised graphite core safety case for both sites, but has included a number of recommendations as part of this acceptance. Acceptance of the safety case is reliant on a revised inspection and monitoring strategy. (1)
To comply with a nuclear site licence, a periodic review – a comprehensive study of plant safety – is carried out every ten years to justify continued safe operations. This requirement means that the site licence company regularly reviews and reassesses safety at nuclear sites, making improvements where necessary. The four Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B advanced gascooled reactors (AGRs) started up in 1976 are scheduled to close in 2023.
Graphite The graphite core of each of the reactors is made up of around 6000 graphite bricks – 3000 of these are the graphite bricks containing fuel channels – which are all connected together. Graphite ageing is one area used to determine the lifespan of an AGR nuclear power station. EDF says greater understanding of the ageing process by sampling and modelling can lead to them operating safely for longer.
In November 2015, EDF Energy said it had found cracks in three of the graphite bricks in one of the Hunterston B reactors. Similar cracks were found in October 2014 in two of the graphite bricks of the other reactor. A recent BBC Radio Programme revealed that the
ONR was considering doubling the limit it had set on the percentage of cracked bricks it is willing to accept from 10% to 20%. This has been a particularly controversial part of this process with people living near theses reactors finding it difficult to understand why the definition of “safe” seems to be changing. ONR has now agreed to this increased limit. It says:
“Continued operation of HPB/HNB reactors is now supported by NGL’s [EDF’s] safety case NP/SC 7716 which sets an operational limit of 20% cracking in the core. The justified period of operation of each reactor at HPB/HNB is therefore dependent upon the findings from the inspections at each outage.”
The ONR is also concerned about a very specific form of cracking. The keyway is a slot that holds each brick to the adjacent brick, the bricks underneath and the bricks on top. These keyways, which are acknowledged to be the limiting factor in the life of these reactors, are beginning to fracture. John Large points out that this will make the graphite blocks a very loose set of bricks. Seven of the keyways have been discovered to have cracks at Hunterston B. John Large believes the presence of keyway cracks casts doubt on the safety of the reactor in the event of an emergency like an earthquake. If the core becomes misaligned, and the fuel modules get stuck in the core, the fuel temperature will get raised and could undergo a melt. If the radioactivity gets into the gas stream and the reactor is venting because it’s over pressurised then you have a release to the atmosphere and you have dispersion and a contamination problem.
John Large says that if the cracks get any worse it could jeopardise the reactor’s stability in the event of a significant disaster – such as a small earthquake – and make it impossible to lower control rods to shut the reactor down. He said: “These keyways are beginning to fracture… that means the locking together – the way that force can be transferred from one brick to another – is lost, so it becomes a very loose stack of bricks.” Allan Jeffrey of Stop Hinkley added: “This weakness in the graphite core could end up distorting the channels the fuel and the boron control rods use. In cases of emergency there are sudden changes in temperature and pressure which could all end up starting to deform these channels. If you can’t get the control rod down then you can’t control the temperature inside the reactor and you’re heading for accidents – possibly even meltdowns.” (2)
ONR said that EDF had attempted to predict the rate of KWRC. Originally the first cracks were not expected to occur until 2019, but the first KWRC was observed at Hunterston B in 2015.
Inspection will “play a crucial role in supporting the period of safe operation of the reactor in later life,” the regulator said, adding that certain improvements are necessary, such as the development of a capability to measure the condition of control rod channels. EDF Energy should develop improved inspection and monitoring technology; in particular equipment capable of performing visual inspection and dimensional measurements of control rod channels, it said. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo94.pdf
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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