Sunday Times 6th Aug 2017, Serious concerns about the environmental and safety record of the Dounreay
nuclear plant have been raised by Scottish environment secretary Roseanna
Cunningham. In a letter to UK energy minister Richard Harrington, she
complained of a disappointing lack of progress across a range of projects
in the past year that sat oddly with the planned reduction in workforce at
the site.
Her concerns come after shortcomings in safety performance at
Dounreay were identified in the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s annual
report, and criticism of the environmental management at the plant by the
Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
She said: “It is troubling that site management, despite repeated efforts, do not seem able to break the
pattern of incidents. Local stakeholders have told me that they cannot
understand why the substantial voluntary redundancy programme is in place,
when there is still so much work to complete.”
Local SNP MSP Gail Ross echoed the minister’s concerns. She said: “The Dounreay site is a vital
employer in Caithness and North Sutherland. Surely the most sensible route
to ensure safe operation would be to retain as many highly skilled and
experienced staff as they are able. Nuclear waste is not something that can
be dealt with on the cheap, regardless of the location. The UK government
must support Dounreay to ensure that the decommissioning process is as safe
as it can be, regardless of cost.” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/dounreay-safety-concerns-raised-by-cunningham-sf7nd5d9b
August 7, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, UK |
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Guardian 2nd Aug 2017, Until recently, few of us were familiar with the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), the international organisation that governs many aspects of nuclear energy activity in member states. Brexit, and the rapidly retracted “leak” that Britain may seek “associate membership” of Euratomhas suddenly brought Euratom to the fore.
The precise legal situation regarding the UK’s continued membership of Euratom is contested, but there is much to learn from the history of this relationship: over the past six decades the UK has attempted to become an associate member or full member of Euratom five times.
Since joining in 1973, any nuclear treaties with other nations (including any signed before that date) were placed under the aegis of Euratom. This means that if Britain leaves Euratom, all its complex nuclear treaties with the United
States, the rest of Europe and many other nations across the world will need to be re-ratified in national legislatures before Britain is no longer a member.
This is a large international legislative task, and requires quick action before the Article 50 process ends in just over a year. If the treaties are not re-ratified by national parliaments, then, depending on the treaty, the UK could be in breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and a worst-case scenario could have a variety of very serious consequences
including: stopping work on Hinkley C, halting the movement of nuclear fuel, and even ending the import of medical isotopes for cancer treatments. https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2017/aug/02/our-60-year-relationship-with-euratom-offers-hard-lessons-for-brexit-negotiators
August 4, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, politics international, UK |
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Get Reading 1st Aug 2017, Something has gone seriously wrong’ at AWE Aldermaston, says nuclear expert. Government inspectors raised serious concerns when the warhead factory failed to produce a plan for dealing with high activity radioactive waste.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) says the factory will continue to be “subject to an enhanced level of regulatory attention”. AWE Aldermaston, which has been run by AWE Management Limited since 2000, was first placed under special measures by the Government regulator in 2013. http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/something-gone-seriously-wrong-awe-13390531
August 4, 2017
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UK, wastes |
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In Cumbria 2nd Aug 2017, Toshiba, the owner of the company with plans for a £10bn Cumbrian nuclear new build, has been demoted to the second tier of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Japanese giant- which has taken full control of NuGen, which is behind proposals for a power station at Moorside, near Sellafield – has also seen its share price drop following the move. It will no longer feature in the Nikkei 225 index of Japan’s top public companies also faces the prospect of being delisted from the stock exchange altogether.
This switch has happened because Toshiba’s liabilities exceeded its assets by several billion yen
following a write-off for its American nuclear division Westinghouse Electric, due to provide three AP1000 reactors for Moorside. http://www.in-cumbria.com/Cumbria-nuclear-backer-Toshiba-sees-stock-exchange-demotion-82f05225-a586-4022-adf6-90d8e015c62b-ds
August 4, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, Japan, UK |
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Dear Royal Institute of British Architects and Landscape Institute,
Nuclear Beautifying Competitions –Endorsing the Safety of New Nuclear Reactors?
Amber Rudd the (then) Energy Secretary made statements in 2015 that new nuclear power stations must be designed to look beautiful in order to garner essential public support.
The RIBA and LI agreed to lend kudos and prestige to this unethical PR project by running competitions for the architecture and for the earth mounds (resulting from deep excavation for the foundations).
I would like to ask if you are endorsing the safety of the Moorside plan? If not will you please make a public statement clarifying that the design competition does not in anyway endorse the safety of Moorside. If you do not do this you are aiding and abetting the public being hoodwinked into embracing dangerous new untried untested reactors using “high burn” fuel next to Sellafield. Sellafield is widely acknowledged as the worlds most dangerous nuclear waste site, adding to an already intolerable risk is an abuse of the rights of all Europeans (and further afield) to expect a safe environment.
RED LIGHT SPELLS DANGER
Below are just a few of the many reasons why the RIBA and LI should make clear that their beautifying competitions do not in any way endorse the safety of the Moorside plan.
• Arnie Gundersen former US nuclear regulator has described the proposed Moorside AP1000 reactors as: Chernobyl on Steroids (1)
• Spent fuel arisings from Moorside would amount to 85% of the radioactivity contained in all existing legacy wastes from the UK’s nuclear power industry. (2)
• By applying the widely used fatal cancer risk factor of 10% per sievert we can calculate around 4 deaths will occur somewhere in the world for every year the station operates. Over 60 years the total would be 240 deaths. (3) (note this does not include accident or incident)
• The new reactors would be vulnerable to a very large release of radioactivity following an accident if there were just a small failure in the steel containment vessel.
In that event gases released from the reactor would be sucked through existing ‘pinhole’ containment flaws in the AP1000 Shield Building due to the ‘chimney effect’, potentially leading to the rapid venting huge amounts of radioactivity to the environment. (4)
• In 2013 Cumbria County Council suggested that a proposed low level radioactive landfill site should be located on or near the Sellafield site instead of at Keekle Head. The reply from the Keekle Head applicants, Endecom was that: it is not possible to site a low level nuclear dump at or near to Sellafield: there is insufficient space on the site ..and.. large areas of contaminated land would have to be excavated to develop a VLLW Facility ie deep excavation near Sellafield would disturb decades of nuclear seepage from the site. The Moorside Landscape Mounds would leach that contamination currently held underground to the nearby village of Beckermet which regularly floods. (5)
• According to the designers, the rainbow installation was inspired by a William Wordsworth poem remarking on the beauty of Cumbria, “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky”. The poem is actually about mans relationship with nature. Every aspect of nuclear power is an assault on the natural world from the ripping out of uranium in Greenland to the plan to dump high level nuclear wastes in Borrowdale Granite. No amount of beautification can hide the obscenity of nuclear.
Lending prestige to the Moorside plan is unethical at best an assault on human rights at worst. Radiation Free Lakeland ask both the RIBA and LI to make clear to the public that they are not in any way endorsing the safety of these three nuclear reactors on the greenfields and river Ehen floodplain next to Sellafield.
Yours sincerely,
Marianne Birkby,
Radiation Free Lakeland
Cumbria UK [many references supplied]
August 2, 2017
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safety, UK |
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NuClearNewsNo98, August 2017 The Government and Ofgem have published their strategy for a modernised, smart and flexible power system. The 32-page document by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) looks at how a smarter energy system will create opportunities to reduce energy costs, increase productivity and put UK businesses in a leading position to export smart energy technology and services to the rest of the world. The plan aims to facilitate a smarter grid through a series of technical and regulatory changes. (1)
A study by Imperial College and the Carbon Trust, which was commissioned by BEIS, estimates that between £17bn and £40bn could be saved by 2050 if technologies such as battery storage and demand side response become more widespread. New rules will make it easier for people to generate their own power with solar panels, store it in batteries and sell it to the National Grid. The rules are due to come into effect over the next year. They will reduce costs for someone who allows their washing machine to be turned on by the internet to maximise use of cheap solar power on a sunny afternoon. And they will even support people who agree to have their freezers switched off for a few minutes to smooth demand at peak times. They’ll also benefit a business that allows its airconditioning to be turned down briefly to help balance a spell of peak energy demand on the National Grid. Thanks to improvements in digital technology, battery storage and renewables, these innovations in flexibility are already under way with millions of people across the UK generating and storing electricity. So instead of predicting peak demand then building power stations to meet it, energy managers will be able to trade in Negawatts – negative electricity. (2)
The Government will invest £246m in battery technology that it says will be a key pillar in helping to power its industrial strategy. In its first major move to support the nascent battery revolution, the Government will set up a “battery institute” to award hundreds of millions of pounds to companies on the brink of major research and development breakthroughs. Greg Clarke underlined the importance of “cutting -edge energy plans”, which include battery power and electric, driverless vehicles.
The rapidly falling cost of battery power is expected to radically change the way Britain is able to make use of its renewable energy generation, by storing excess wind and solar for when wind speeds slip and sunshine wanes. Battery technology is already ushering in major upheaval for automotive industries and fuel retailers by accelerating the boom in electric vehicles. (3)
“You almost need to draw a line under what has come before [with energy markets] and start again” says Nick Boyle, the founder of Europe’s largest solar operator Lightsource. “There is no doubt that batteries completely and utterly metamorphose the market in that they make the uncontrollable controllable. It makes the arguments against renewable energy fall away,”
The new energy reality is not simply about consumers taking power from generators, but means the roles of producer and consumer will flip and, in some cases, merge. Lightsource is already pairing solar panels with battery packs to allow customers to effectively become their own energy market. Solar panels create energy which can be used at cheaper rates than electricity from the main grid, or stored in the battery to use later. If the battery and electric vehicle are both charged a Lightsource customer could sell their power back to the grid. By creating a network of households and businesses which can generate power and reduce demand, Lightsource could create a string of virtual low-carbon power plants.
“We’ve always said that we would like to equip a million homes with solar panels and batteries. If you use a 4kW panel that would be 4GW of capacity,” says Boyle. This is the equivalent scale of Hinkley Point C plus a gas-fired power plant, but only when the sun shines. “But if you add a 6kW battery you’ve created an extra 6GW of storable electricity which could be used to balance the grid.”
“It’s not about hardware anymore. It’s about software. And this can move at such an incredible pace and will only get quicker,” says Boyle. “It seems like we’re offering something impossible. But this is only because many are still using a yardstick of how they bought energy in the past. You almost need to draw a line under what has come before and start again.” (4)
“This government’s record on energy has been incompetent to the point of derision or despair, depending on how much you care about it” says Stuart Elmes, CEO of Viridian Solar. But finally the Government is showing signs that it gets it.
Greg Clarke. Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is talking about nothing less than the coming revolution in energy, one that has become evident to many working in the renewables sector, but has until now been just a little too far over the horizon for the politicians to ‘get’. A combination of key technologies – solar, wind, and energy storage coupled with a real-time energy market driven by information technology are maturing and the impact will be extraordinary.
Solar panels and wind turbines have a complementary output profile and a combination of both will even out seasonal energy production in northern climates such as the UK. Energy will be stored in and released from large batteries – including those in electric vehicles – to meet shorter term peaks in demand and troughs in supply. Real-time electricity pricing will allow internet enabled appliances to turn on or regulate down following pricing signals to smooth out demand to better match supply.
What we’re looking at is a fundamental shift from an energy system based on resources to one founded on technology. The inflexion point is coming and it’s now no longer a question of whether the oil age will end, but how soon it will come. So, two cheers for Greg Clarke, it looks like he’s got the vision, competent implementation to support a smart grid will now be the key to the UK taking advantage of the coming energy revolution. (5) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo98.pdf
August 2, 2017
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ENERGY, UK |
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Climate News Network 30th July 2017, Shares in major oil and gas companies are expected to plunge in value in
the next three to five years because of climate change-related financial
risks, meaning more investors will spurn fossil fuels.
This is the verdict of British asset managers who control billions of pounds of investments in
stock markets.
It could have serious consequences for many thousands of
people whose pension funds have invested in these companies, as well as
many institutions and charities which rely on dividends for their income,
according to a report by the Climate Change Collaboration (CCC), a group of
four UK charitable trusts.
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/more-investors-will-spurn-fossil-fuels/
July 31, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, climate change, UK |
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Scotsman 31st July 2017, A growing number of people in Scotland want to see stronger action on
climate change, according to a poll. Results from a survey by WWF Scotland
show an increase in the percentage of those calling for more investment,
renewable energy sources and a reduction in emissions.
The data comes as a new Climate Change Bill is out for public consultation, and around 1,000
Scots were surveyed in May and June for the WWF study. More than
three-quarters, 76 per cent, of respondents said the Scottish Government
should reduce climate change emissions by “investing more in improving the
energy efficiency of homes across Scotland”, up from 67 per cent in 2016.
Atotal of 68 per cent said they want the Government to invest in projects
that reduce emissions, up from 59 per cent in 2016. There were 72 per cent
who believe more should be d one to help people heat their homes from
renewable sources. Only 59 per cent thought so in the previous year.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/poll-finds-more-scots-want-stronger-action-on-climate-change-1-4517962
July 31, 2017
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climate change, UK |
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Serious Fraud Office launches probe into Amec Foster Wheeler,Telegraph, Alan Tovey , 11 JULY 2017 Amec Foster Wheeler is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over its dealings with Unaoil over possible bribery and corruption through payments to middlemen.
The energy support services group rushed out a regulatory announcement on Tuesday evening confirming the formal launch of a probe by the watchdog.
In May the company signalled it could be in the SFO’s sights in documents relating to its £2.2bn merger with peer Wood Group.
Circulars detailing risks to deal revealed that a Wood Group business “engaged Unaoil and that the joint venture made payments to Unaoil under agency agreements”.
Agency agreements are widely understood to mean payments to third parties which can be used to pay bribes, though there is no indication that this happened with Wood’s joint venture.
At the time Amec said it was co-operating with the SFO, but the regulator’s staff have now decided to launch a formal investigation as a result of what they have discovered.
Unaoil is at the centre of a global corruption scandal with allegations that it paid bribes to secure deals. Petrofac has already been dragged into the scandal with its executives questioned by the SFO, though the company has said previously it has not found any evidence of wrongdoing…..
If the investigations turn into full-scale prosecutions they could result in heavy fines which could deal a huge blow to the merged Amec-Wood business, as they would come after the tow had merged the companies could be liable for huge fines…..Both Amec and a spokesman for Unaoil declined to comment. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/11/serious-fraud-office-launches-probe-amec-foster-wheeler/
July 29, 2017
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secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK |
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NFLA 25th July 2017, The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) has written today to the Energy
Minister Greg Clark asking why his announced inquiry into the failings of
the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in having to pay as much as
£100 million of public money for a flawed contract process – over
cleaning-up Magnox nuclear reactors – is being done behind closed doors.
It is also asking when the inquiry will be completed and whether it will be
fully discussed in Parliament and further afield.
http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/why-inquiry-nda-magnox-contract-tendering-process-behind-closed-doors/
July 28, 2017
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secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK |
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Utility Week 25th July 2017,The UK requires more time than the two years withdrawal period outlined in
the Article 50 process to set up its own nuclear safeguarding arrangements,
a leading Liberal Democrat peer has warned.
Lord Wallace said in a debate last week in the House of Lords that it would take five years to train the
nuclear inspectors who will be required to staff up the UK’s replacement
of Euratom, the pan-European safeguarding agency that the British
government has pledged to withdraw from.
The peer, a former deputy first minister of Scotland, said that the nuclear industry required some form of
transitional arrangement. And he said in the long term, the government
needed to stop treating as a red line the continued jurisdiction of the
European Court of Justice in English courts. http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/UK-needs-five-years-to-replace-Euratom/1308222
July 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics international, UK |
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BMJ 25th July 2017, A group of leading doctors and healthcare professionals have called on
Britain to work towards multilateral nuclear disarmament. In a letter to
the Daily Telegraph published on 25 July, 15 doctors and health
professionals wrote that Britain should “take a lead in making the world
safer” by working towards multilateral disarmament. The letter’s
signatories include Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, Richard
Horton, editor in chief of the Lancet. http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3600
July 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
UK, weapons and war |
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Radiation Free Lakeland 27th July 2017, Peter Bullard the Director of Cumbria Wildlife Trust told campaigners:
“Cumbria Wildlife Trust has been holding this event on the beach at St
Bees for a number of years. You have been raising the issue of safety for a
number of years. The beach is considered a safe place for children to play
by the relevant authorities. We have carried out a risk assessment of the
event and will be holding the event again this year.”
On 30th July. Radiation Free Lakeland point out that the Sellafield Annual Report(pdf)
states that one of the last radioactive particles to be picked up from St
Bees was a tiny metal particle of Cobalt 60 which is a synthetic
radioactive isotope of cobalt with a half-life of 5.2714 years. It is
produced artificially in nuclear reactors.
CWT insist that all radioactive particles have been picked up from St Bees beach. However, Sellafield
themselves admit that their monitoring is limited, they do not pick up all
radioactive particles, monitoring stops over Easter, Summer and Christmas
in order not to frighten beach users. The tide comes in twice a day.
As well as the award Cumbria Wildlife Trust will receive a new report
commissioned by Radiation Free Lakeland and written by the Edinburgh Energy
and Environment Consultancy. The report focuses on the environmental impact
of nuclear reactors and states: “…scientific ignorance of the subject
was so great that eventually the nuclear industry was forced to admit that
sea disposal, particularly in the Irish Sea, had really been an enormous
experiment, but an unfortunate one.
In fact, both soluble and insoluble nuclides can travel for at least several hundreds of kilometres and both
are available for transport out of the sea area of their initial discharge.
Deposition of suspended sediments and their associated radioactivity occurs
(under the influence of a range of mechanisms) into estuarine and coastal
sub tidal sediments, estuarine and coastal fringing inter-tidal mud and
salt flats and offshore sub-tidal sediment deposits.
https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/the-last-radioactive-particle-has-been-removed-from-st-bees-cumbria-wildlife-trust-presented-with-award/
July 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
environment, UK |
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Telegraph 26th July 2017, Do we have enough power to deal with the growth in electric vehicles?
National Grid has warned that the boom in the number of people charging up
their cars could result in a surge in peak demand, requiring hundreds of
billions of pounds worth of investment in new power plants – unless the
electric vehicle revolution is properly managed.
In one scenario National Grid estimates that electric vehicles alone could cause peak power demand
to climb by 1.3 GW a year between 2025 and 2045. This would require the
UK’s shrinking generation capacity to grow by the equivalent of two large
gas-fired power units a year or one £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear plant
every three years. By 2030 the UK would need 8GW, almost three extra
Hinkley projects, to meet the need of drivers who choose to top up their
vehicles during peak hours.
Fortunately, there’s a better way to accommodate the charge-up demand which could cut the extra power needed by
more than half to a more manageable 3GW increase by the end of the next
decade while saving consumers money. Earlier this week Business Secretary
Greg Clarke fired the starting gun on a battery boom through a £246m
research and development competition, and a new plan to put home batteries
at the heart of its industrial strategy.
The support should help the electric vehicle drive, but also help the energy system to cope with the
higher demand caused by the fleet of new cars. A heady roll out of electric
vehicles is expected to drive the cost of battery storage down at an even
faster rate than expected, meaning drivers could be parking their electric
cars next to affordable home batteries, which are linked to cheap solar
panels.
Currently consumers are only able to use around 30pc of the power
generated by solar panels because their demand picks up once the sun is
setting. But the battery boom means energy users can store the unused solar
power generated during the day to charge their cars at night, saving money
and easing the pressure on the grid.
Major wind farms, including the giant Burbo Bank project off the Liverpool coast, are already connected to
batteries so that energy stored during windy nights can power homes when
demand lifts in the morning. Using renewable energy more effectively also
means costs will fall too. The shift in economics is expected to trigger a
deluge of fresh investment into renewable power projects, without the need
for subsidies. The cumulative impact of more renewable power – and better
use of it – could help meet the demand created by electric vehicles in the
first place. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/26/electric-vehicles-have-put-energy-sector-road-change/
July 28, 2017
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energy storage, UK |
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Morning Star 27th July 2017, TWO peace campaigners were released from prison in Scotland yesterday after
an unexpected U-turn by prosecutors who dropped bail demands that they stay
away from protests at nuclear bases.
Angie Zelter, 66, and Brian Quail, 79, both members of the nuclear disarmament campaign group Trident
Ploughshares, were arrested on July 13 during a protest outside the Royal
Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport, where Trident nuclear warheads are
stored.
The pair returned to the justice of peace court — the Scottish
equivalent of a magistrates’ court — in Dumbarton yesterday for an
intermediate hearing on the charges they face. In a surprise move, the
procurator fiscal (public prosecutor) withdrew the demand for the
undertaking to stay away from the two bases and they were given bail.
The pair headed straight to Faslane nuclear submarine base north-west of
Glasgow for another protest after their release. Jane Tallents of Trident
Ploughshares said: “Their principled action was to refuse to say they
would not protest. “The procurator just dropped the insistence on the
condition. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-d0bc-Anti-nuclear-campaigners-out-of-prison-after-bail-restrictions-lifted
July 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
opposition to nuclear, UK |
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