Britain’s $170 billion Trident nuclear missile program totally dependent on USA
UK’s nuclear deterrent fully depends on US, cross-party commission finds Rt.com July 01, 2014 Britain’s $170 billion Trident nuclear missile program has won the support of an independent cross-party commission, but found to be totally dependent on US
Britain’s $170 billion Trident nuclear missile program has won the support of an independent cross-party commission tasked with identifying the value of the UK’s deterrent, due for renewal in 2016. This comes despite the commission’s acknowledgement of Britain’s total dependence on US systems.
The commission’s findings come as a blow to anti-nuclear campaigners, who are calling for the program to be drastically scaled back or the total disarmament of the UK’s nuclear-armed submarine fleet, arguing the money spent on an extremely costly system could be better spent on social needs and jobs at a time of austerity throughout the UK.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) estimate that the £100 billion required to renew Trident could employ 150,000 nurses, build 1.5 million homes or 30,000 new primary schools in the country………
The report notes that Britain’s deterrent is “a hostage to American goodwill.”
It adds: “If the United States were to withdraw their cooperation completely, the UK nuclear capability would probably have a life expectancy measured in months rather than years”.
“The UK is dependent on the United States for many component parts of the guidance and re-entry vehicle, and for the Trident ballistic missile system itself.”………..
It is lamentable that three years of hard work has not moved on the debate around Britain’s weapons of mass destruction,” said Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) general secretary Kate Hudson, reacting to the commission’s findings.
“The Trident Commission should have listened to the majority of the British people who oppose Trident replacement – and the overwhelming majority internationally who want to see a world free of these monstrous and outdated weapons. Instead the Commission has produced a rehash of Cold War thinking which fails to acknowledge that the world has moved on.”
“The Government’s own National Security Strategy downgraded the likelihood of a state-on-state nuclear attack: prioritizing terrorism, climate change and cyber warfare. To suggest that the UK should spend £100bn on a weapons system which we could never use and which doesn’t meet the threats we face is mindboggling.”
Scottish CND also criticized the Trident Commission for supporting Britain’s continued possession of nuclear weapons, based in Scotland, suggesting the report makes September’s independence referendum more pertinent.
John Ainslie, Coordinator of Scottish CND, said: “Malcolm Rifkind, Des Browne and Menzies Campbell are stuck in the past. The future is in the hands of the people of Scotland. We can vote Yes and kick out these indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction.” http://rt.com/uk/169688-trident-deterrent-dependent-on-us/
Should China be designing, owning, and running Britain’s nuclear power stations?
MPs’ concerns mount over deals with China to run British nuclear power stations, THE INDEPENDENT 24 June 14, MARK LEFTLY Monday 23 June 2014 The Government has been accused in Parliament of “accepting money tainted with blood”, after agreeing a deal that will allow Chinese firms to design, own and run British nuclear power stations.
The Chinese premier Li Keqiang struck the bargain as part of a three-day trade visit to the UK last week, which also included an £11.8bn contract for BP to supply gas to China National Offshore Corporation over 20 years. The state-owned China Development Bank wants to fund new nuclear plants directly, as well as the no-less-controversial £42.7bn London-to-the North High Speed Two rail link.
But campaigners are furious the Government has been wooing China without demanding improvements to the country’s notoriously poor human rights record. Mr Li’s Government was accused of placing “arbitrary curbs on expression, association, assembly, and religion” by Human Rights Watch in a recent report.
Paul Flynn, the anti-nuclear power Labour MP for Newport West, motioned in the House of Commons last week for the Coalition to cancel any proposed nuclear agreements with China. “This House… believes, in light of appalling human rights violations, that accepting money from the Chinese State Investment Bank to invest in UK new nuclear is accepting money tainted with blood,” said the motion.
This echoes concerns of union leaders, who said last year that giving the Chinese access to UK power plants meant they had the power to “turn the lights on and off” and so put national security at risk. …..http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/mps-
Britain’s nuclear waste cleanup spirals above £110 billion
Britain’s nuclear clean-up bill soars to £110bn http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10921309/Britains-nuclear-clean-up-bill-soars-to-110bn.html Spiralling costs at Sellafield site in Cumbria contribute to £6.6bn increase in bill for tackling Britain’s nuclear waste By Emily Gosden
8:16PM BST 23 Jun 2014 The bill for cleaning up Britain’s nuclear waste has topped £110bn, after a £6.6bn increase in the cost estimate for work required over the next 120 years
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said that the biggest increase derived from a fresh assessment of the work required at Sellafield, the country’s biggest and most toxic nuclear site.
Sellafield, in Cumbria, is now estimated to cost £79.1bn to clean up, but the NDA warned that the total would “increase significantly next year” once it had fully assessed a new “performance plan” for the site.
The NDA controversially renewed a contract with Nuclear Management Partners to manage Sellafield despite fierce criticism from MPs on the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office of the company’s performance.
The NDA’s annual report and accounts make clear the huge scale of uncertainty that exists over the ultimate bill for Britain’s civil and military nuclear waste.
It says it has “reviewed a number of scenarios with a range of possible outcomes” and found that “the estimated cost could have a potential range from £88bn to £218bn”.
The figure of £110bn is on an “undiscounted” basis. Once discounted, the total is £65bn.
Legal case against UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
UK nuclear body faces £200m damages claim from Energy Solutions. Ft.com By Gill Plimmer 15 June 14,Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is facing a £200m damages claim from one of the bidders who lost out on a £7bn deal to clean up Britain’s oldest nuclear power plants.
Energy Solutions, a Salt Lake City-based company, filed a High Court writ last week after losing the 14-year contract to engineering company Babcock and Texas-based Fluor. The deal is one of the largest and most sensitive government contracts ever put out to tender.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the government-funded body responsible for Britain’s state-owned nuclear sites, started the competition two years ago and work is expected to start by Babcock in September.
But Energy Solutions, which has been managing the nuclear sites for the past 14 years, has alleged in documents filed to the High Court last week that the NDA’s point scoring system is flawed and that it didn’t follow its own procedures. It competed for the contract in partnership with the US company Bechtel but is taking legal action alone……..http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d7394394-f483-11e3-a143-00144feabdc0.html#axzz34qaWV0UC
Questions raised about UK independence as it co-operates closely with USA over nuclear warheads
Exclusive: UK to step up collaboration with US over nuclear warheads Documents released under FoI reveal ‘enhanced collaboration’ plans, raising questions over independence of UK deterrent Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Friday 13 June 2014 Britain is stepping up its cooperation with the US over the design of nuclear warheads, raising new questions about the independence of the UK deterrent, according to documents disclosed after a freedom of information request.
A document prepared for a visit by a senior American nuclear official to the Aldermaston atomic weapons establishment (AWE) refers to “enhanced collaboration” on “nuclear explosive package design and certification”, on “maintenance of existing stockpiles”, and the “possible development of safer, more secure, warheads”.The partially censored document refers to a letter Tony Blair wrote to George Bush in 2006 asking for US help in maintaining Britain’s “nuclear delivery system” and the white paper of the same year, which gave the green light for replacing the existing fleet of Trident nuclear missile submarines.
One document describes the MDA as an agreement that enables Britain and the US “nuclear warhead communities to collaborate on all aspects of nuclear deterrence including nuclear warhead design and manufacture”.
A briefing paper drawn up for ministers and Ministry of Defence officials argues that physical “movements under the MDA do not involve nuclear weapons or devices” and therefore the agreement does not contravene the letter of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).
Most of the documents now released were drawn up at the time of the last renewal of the MDA in 2004. They make it clear Whitehall did not welcome a debate in parliament about the mutual defence pact……
Peter Burt of Nuclear Information Service, who obtained the papers, told the Guardian: “The UK and US are setting a dreadful example to the rest of the world by renewing the MDA, and are seriously undermining the credibility of international efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
He added: “If Iran and North Korea had signed a similar agreement for the transfer of nuclear weapons technology, the UK and US would be branding them pariah nations and screaming for the toughest of international sanctions to be imposed.”
Renewing the MDA showed the “worst kind of two-faced hypocrisy” and demonstrated that neither nation was serious about meeting its legal obligations under the NPT, Burt said.
The MoD said the agreement would be renewed by the end of the year http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/12/uk-us-mutual-defence-agreement-exclusive
UK government’s secret list of ‘probable nuclear targets’

UK government 1970s made a list of 106 cities, towns and military bases thought to be at risk of attack contained in documents shared by National Archives Rob Edwards The Guardian, Friday 6 June 2014 The UK government drew up a top secret list of 106 cities, towns and bases across the country seen as “probable nuclear targets” in the early 1970s, according to documents released by the National Archives.During the cold war, a list of the places thought likely to come under nuclear attack by the Soviet Union was agreed by military commanders, the intelligence services and the Cabinet Office under Conservative prime minister Edward Heath………
London was expected to be devastated by two to four bombs of up to five megatons each exploding over the city. Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester were each said to be in line for one or two “airbursts” of up to five megatons. That’s 333 times more powerful than the 15-kiloton US nuclear bomb that flattened the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 140,000 people…….
Another target was Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast, which was involved in an experimental US radar system known as Cobra Mist and is now a nature reserve. Nuclear submarine bases on the Clyde near Glasgow were on the list, along with nuclear airfields like those at Greenham Common in Berkshire and Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre.
Other high-level memos from 1971 said that the target list was drawn up for military planning purposes and to help “contingency planning particularly in the field of home defence”. Home defence meant protect and survive measures such as shelters to help civilians under nuclear attack.
But according to the researcher who found the documents, formernuclear weapons design engineer Brian Burnell, the real aim was not to defend civilian targets. Military planners wanted to try to ensure that UK-based nuclear bombers survived to launch a counter-attack against the Soviet Union, he said……..
- A nuclear historian from Aberystwyth University, Kristan Stoddart, said Britain was a priority target for the Soviet Union in the 1970s because it was the only state in western Europe that was part of Nato’s military structure. France had left in 1966. He said: “For a country the size of Britain there was no civil defence against large-scale nuclear attack – anything else was a myth. Whitehall knew this and most of the population knew it.”……. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/uk-government-top-secret-list-probable-nuclear-targets-1970s
Britain taking risks in extending safety limits of old nuclear reactors
UK will have to gamble with nuclear safety to provide power, analyst warns http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/04/uk-may-need-to-gamble-with-nuclear-safety-to-avoid-blackouts Safety limits of Britain’s ageing nuclear power plants may have to be extended to avoid major blackouts Terry Macalister The Guardian, Thursday 5 June 2014 Britain may have to stretch safety limits on nuclear power stations to keep the lights on, warned a leading energy analyst on Wednesday.Dorian Lucas, a nuclear specialist at energy consultancy, Inenco, made his comments after it was revealed that power group, EDF, had won permission to change the rules for its Dungeness B station.
“Britain has no choice but to gamble with extending the safety limits of the country’s ageing fleet of nuclear power plants to avoid the looming spectre of 1970s-style blackouts,” said Lucas.The atomic power station in Kent has come to an agreement with the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) that it can have the margin increased on the shrinkage of the graphite bricks inside the reactor from 6.2% to 8%.
The bricks are losing weight due to decades of radiation but a spokeswoman for EDF said the new limit was only a “teeny little step” that was well within the most conservative safety case.
In a statement, the nuclear regulator said: “ONR would not allow continued operation of any nuclear reactor unless it was safe to do so. We recognise the challenges presented by ageing of the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) fleet in the UK, and we continue to pay close attention to the problems associated with the graphite core of the reactors. We are satisfied that the reactors are safe to operate.”
But Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich, told the BBC: “It doesn’t feel good when we come up against limits and the first thing they [the ONR] do is to move the goalposts.”
Nuclear submarine commander reveals horror of 2011 accident
Horror on board Plymouth nuclear submarine as crew battles to survive By Plymouth Herald June 04, 2014 By TRISTAN NICHOLS Defence Reporter @tristan_nichols A “CATASTROPHIC” systems failure on board a Devonport-based nuclear submarine caused a mass-casualty incident, The Herald can today exclusively reveal.
Eight of those casualties were in a ‘life-threatening’ condition.
Temperatures inside the boat soared to 60 degrees Celsius with 100 per cent humidity as the crew battled to fix the problem miles from land.
With the three-year anniversary of the previously unreported incident having just passed, Ryan Ramsey, the submarine’s Commanding Officer at the time, today revealed: “I genuinely thought there was going to be a loss of life on board. People were going to die.”
The tragic incident happened at about 10.30am around three hours after the hunter-killer submarine had left Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates on May 26, 2011……….http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Horror-board-Plymouth-nuclear-submarine-crew/story-21181219-detail/story.html
EDF wants to weaken safety standard at Dungeness nuclear atation
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Nuclear power plant dismisses safety concerns Folkestone Herald, By Antony Thrower June 04, 2014
DUNGENESS power station has dismissed claims in the media this morning which claimed a reactor at the site would have breached the agreed safety margin “within months” and could have to “shut down”.
The BBC reported graphite bricks at the core of the advanced gas-cooled reactors were cracking and starting to lose weight due to decades of radiation, which could affect safety.
It suggested the current graphite weight loss limit for Dungeness is set at 6.2% but the regulator says when it reached 5.7% its operator, French power giant EDF, applied to raise it to 8%…….http://www.folkestoneherald.co.uk/Nuclear-power-plant-dismisses-safety-concerns/story-21186452-detail/story.html
UK can lead the world to nuclear disarmament
States will have to review and change their security strategies, and recognise the dependence of their security on the health of the international system.
And they will need to understand the complex trade-off between national capabilities and the need to reduce arsenals worldwide – to everyone’s benefit.
Nuclear disarmament – the UK can lead the world, Ecologist, Paul Ingram 23rd May 2014 The belief that unilateral reductions in the UK’s nuclear weapons arsenal would bring no international benefits is deeply engrained in officialdom, writes Paul Ingram. Deeply engrained – and profoundly mistaken. The very quiet failure of this year’s Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee to agree any final document, and the daunting challenge of the treaty Review Conference next year, mean that frustration is growing about the pace of progress by the nuclear-weapons states to disarm.
In fact, progress is so slow it feels like we are going backward. Continue reading
Dalgety Beach, Scotland to get radiation warning signs
Radiation warning signs to be put up at Dalgety Bay beach within days http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/fife/radiation-warning-signs-to-be-put-up-at-dalgety-bay-beach-within-days-1.384462 By AILEEN ROBERTSON, 23 May 2014 Warning signs telling people not to dig on Dalgety Bay’s radioactive beach will be put up in a matter of days. The signs will warn: “Radioactive contamination has been found on this beach. “To minimise any risks members of the public are advised that digging should not be carried out.” Local MP Gordon Brown, who demanded the move, previously claimed a medical experts’ report calling for new safety measures at the contaminated stretch of shore was suppressed for months. A report by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) was leaked ahead of its publication this week. It concluded there is unlikely to be a link between cancer rates and radiation at the beach but said there could be risks through skin contact or ingestion.
UK peace activists make a daring blockade against construction of nuclear weapons
Britain: Activists Disrupt Construction of New Nuclear Weapons Factory http://www.globalresearch.ca/britain-activists-disrupt-construction-of-new-nuclear-weapons-factory/5382852 By Global Research News May 19, 2014by Action AWE (Atomic Weapons Eradication)
£2 billion project going ahead, but Parliament has not yet voted on further nuke development.
That’s what you call “democracy”. But it is all for a good cause. Nuclear weapons are an “instrument of peace”.
Daring dawn blockade of Berkshire’s nuclear weapons factory
This morning at 7.20, a group of people began blockading the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) site at Burghfield, near Reading. The protesters, acting as part of ActionAWE [1], a campaign of nonviolent direct action, are trying to disrupt construction of a new nuclear warhead factory on the site.
The new development at AWE Burghfield is being built at a cost to the tax payer of almost £2 billion, despite the fact that parliament has yet to vote on replacing the current generation of nuclear warheads that the site would build.
The eight protesters, aged between 19 and 40, are locked together using handcuffs inside ‘lock-on’ devices – made from drainpipes, and vegetable oil drums filled with concrete in order to block the gate to the construction site to prevent further work on the site. Traffic is now queued up, unable to enter the facility. The Christians amongst the protesters are singing hymns.
Catherine Bann, 40, mother of two from Todmorden, said: “The money we would spend renewing Trident could pay for all A & E hospital departments in the country for the next 40 years! It’s a huge waste of public money to be investing in nuclear weapons, and people like us must make a stand now, so that future generations do not have to bear the cost.”
Joanna Frew, 35, a member of the United Reformed Church living in London but originally from Scotland, said
“Trident is illegal, immoral and a waste of money. It is the opposite of everything that Jesus teaches us about being co-creators of life and loving your enemies. Political and religious leaders in Scotland are opposed to retaining Trident at Faslane. We have a real opportunity over the next year to say that it is no longer acceptable , and that we don’t want an illegal renewal.”
Phil Wood, 20, a student at Bradford University added
“To be spending millions of pounds and planning to spend billions more on nuclear weapons while cutting back on essential public services that people rely on is unforgivable”.
Matt Fawcett, 39, from Yorkshire CND said Continue reading
Britain’s Ministrty of Defence fails in bid to censor report on radioactive contamination

MoD loses battle to block radioactive waste contamination report, Rob Edwards, Guardian 14 May 14, Report warning contamination of military sites could pose public health risk to be published next week after six-month delay
The report was submitted for publication last October by the 18-memberCommittee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (Comare). To the frustration of its authors and the Scottish government, UK ministers have sat on it for the past six months after objections from the MoD.
But after the 75-page report was leaked to the Guardian, a decision was taken in Whitehall on Tuesday to publish it early next week. It will reveal that Comare is concerned about radium contamination from the second world war at Dalgety Bay in Fife and at least 25 other sites across the UK.
The contamination at Dalgety Bay poses “a potential risk to public health”, the report says. It condemns the MoD’s failure to provide a comprehensive list of other potentially contaminated sites as “unacceptable” as it “implies an unknown risk to the general population”.
Because of the “extensive” contamination, parents should be recommended not to allow their children to dig on the beach, the report says. Although it concludes that there is no immediate evidence of increased cancers, it points out that side-effects can take time to appear and recommends a study of cancer rates to be carried out around Dalgety Bay in five or 10 years.
Comare’s report recommends that the Scottish government should ensure that Dalgety Bay is cleaned up as soon as is possible. An evaluation of the best means of remediation should be instituted immediately, “considering efficacy, practicability and cost”, it says.
According to the report, disposal of radium – used to paint aircraft dials so that they could be read in the dark – was “very widespread”. It criticises the MoD for only providing a limited list of sites where this could have happened. Though the only site named in the report is Dalgety Bay, 15 have been previously listed by the MoD.They include the old SAS headquarters at Stirling Lines in Hereford, a former naval air base near Portsmouth and a previous home to the Red Arrows in Gloucestershire. There are also potentially contaminated sites in Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Nottingham, Shropshire, Cumbria, Stirling, Perth and Kinross, Angus, Moray and the Mull of Kintyre.
Comare is demanding authority from the government to force the MoD to draw up a full list of potentially contaminated sites. “The information available for each site should be evaluated and, where deemed necessary, investigation and/or remediation instituted,” it says.
The MoD has been accused of resisting funding an expensive cleanup at Dalgety Bay to avoid setting a precedent for dozens of other sites around the country. “The MoD would rather this report hadn’t existed,” said one insider……….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/14/mod-nuclear-waste-contamination-report-dalgety-bay
UK’s Ministry of Defence short of nuclear safety officers
Nuclear safety on Clyde at risk SNP. 18/05/2014 It has been revealed that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is suffering a severe and worsening shortage of skilled nuclear engineers that could threaten the safety of nuclear weapons and submarines on the Clyde.
SNP Westminster defence spokesperson Angus Robertson MP was told by the UK Defence Equipment and personnel Minister, Philip Dunne, that the MoD was short of 165 suitably qualified and experienced nuclear personnel on March 31, 2014. Some 60 of those vacancies relate to nuclear submarine activities, and 26 vacancies are at the Faslane and Coulport nuclear bases in Argyll.
Commenting, Angus Robertson MP said:
“The revelations are shocking and completely unacceptable.
“This is extremely dangerous and unsustainable, and lays bare the reality of the risks of the shambolic MoD cuts agenda. The MoD must immediately explain what it is doing to rectify this and when.
“Although the MoD insists that none of vacancies defined as “safety critical” is in nuclear operations, it has repeatedly been warned by its own advisers that nuclear safety is at risk. The Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator, the MoD’s internal watchdog, has described shortages of skilled nuclear staff as “the principal threat to safety in the defence nuclear programme in the medium term.”
“The majority of Scots do not want weapons of mass destruction in Scotland but to find out there is a significant safety risk will add salt to the wound. Only a Yes vote will ensure Scotland is rid of weapons of mass destruction.”……http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2014/may/nuclear-safety-clyde-risk
2005 Nuclear Lobby cons UK government. Nothing has changed

The nuclear charm offensive New Statesman, by Jonathan Leake 23 May, 2005 We are all being taken in by a carefully planned public relations strategy. Its mission: to push nuclear power
In the plush surroundings of the Army & Navy Club on London’s Pall Mall, Mike Alexander, chief executive of British Energy, was holding court. Assembled before him were more than a hundred leading figures from the UK’s energy industry – all there at the behest of the Energy Industries Club, an industry body that keeps its membership secret.
The point of the event, held just a few weeks ago on 15 March, was to hear a keynote speech, to be delivered by Alexander, with the title “UK Nuclear Energy: fuel of the future?” It was not, however, a purely private affair. Around the room were a selection of top opinion formers: analysts, corporate traders and members of the media. The journalists could not report the event directly – the invitations were based on so-called Chatham House rules, meaning it was for “background use only”. What they were meant to take home was a message: nuclear power is coming back. Alexander’s speech itself was simple. Within the next 20 years, he said, Britain’s nuclear power stations will come to the end of their operating lives. To meet the country’s climate-change targets, they must be replaced with some form of power generation that does not produce the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Anywhere else, that line might have prompted some sharp questions. But for Alexander, whose company owns two-thirds of Britain’s nuclear power stations, the audience was an unusually receptive one – and not just because of the fine wines. Continue reading
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