UK nuclear subsidies may be unnecessary, and could cost £17bn
Subsidies for UK nuclear plant could reach £17bn and ‘may be unnecessary’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10525538/Subsidies-for-UK-nuclear-plant-could-reach-17bn-and-may-be-unnecessary.html
European Commission probes whether subsidies are needed for EDF’s Hinkley Point plant in Somerset and warns they could cost £17bn – more than the plant itself By Emily Gosden, Energy Editor
18 Dec 2013 British consumers could pay £17bn in potentially unnecessary subsidies to fund construction of the country’s first new nuclear plant in a generation, the European Commission has said.
The EC said it was assessing whether the planned subsidies for Hinkley Point in Somerset – which could exceed the £16bn cost of the plant itself – were needed at all, or whether energy companies would build the plant anyway without a penny of public support.
Ministers in October signed a landmark deal with energy giant EDF to fund the construction of the plant, which would see consumers pay billions of pounds in subsidies to the French company for decades to come.
On Wednesday the Commission opened a formal investigation into “whether the construction of a nuclear power station could not be achieved by market forces alone, without state intervention”. The Commission said its investigation, which threatens to delay or derail the plant altogether, will assess whether UK plans “to subsidise the construction and operation” of the plant are in line with EU state aid rules.
Taxpayer money for UK nuclear from French, as well as British?
Areva may use French fund to help pay for UK nuclear plant –paper http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/16/uk-areva-hinkleypoint-funds-idUKBRE9BF0KS20131216 (Reuters) – Areva is in talks with the French 
government to release some funds set aside for dismantling its nuclear installations in France to help the company finance a new British nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported.
Britain signed a deal with France’s state-owned utility EDF in October to build a 16-billion pound nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest Britain, the first new plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster.d to help pay for UK nuclear plant – paper
PARIS Mon Dec 16, 2013 State-owned Areva is taking a 10 percent stake in the consortium that will build the facility, which also includes EDF’s Chinese partners China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN) and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).
Warning that UK’s Hinkley nuclear power will be unaffordable
Ineos boss says Hinkley nuclear power too expensive, BBC News 15 Dec 13, Power from the new Hinkley C nuclear generator will be too expensive, the boss of one of the UK’s biggest energy consumers has warned.
Jim Ratcliffe, whose company Ineos owns the Grangemouth plant in Scotland, told the BBC that UK manufacturers would find the price unaffordable.
The government has guaranteed a price of £92.50 per megawatt hour (Mwh). Mr Ratcliffe said Ineos recently agreed a deal for nuclear power in France at 45 euros (£37.94) Mwh.
The government has guaranteed that the new Hinkley station, being development by France’s EdF and backed by Chinese investors, can charge the £92.50 minimum price for 35 years.
“Forget it,” Mr Ratcliffe said in an interview with the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston.
The existing Hinkley station currently produces about 1% of the UK’s total energy, but this is expected to rise to 7% once expansion of the Somerset plant is complete in 2023.
Ministers and EdF were in talks for more than a year about the minimum price the company will be paid for electricity produced at the site, which the government estimates will cost £16bn to build.
In the end, the government guaranteed the group a price for electricity in 2023 at twice the current level of wholesale prices……..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25390456
Japan joins the frenzy to sell uneconomic nuclear power to UK
Westinghouse to buy 50 per cent stake in NuGen By Guy Chazan, Jim Pickard and George Parker 15 Dec 2013, Westinghouse, the Japanese-owned engineering group, will announce within days that it is buying a big stake in one of the UK’s three nuclear-building consortiums .
Westinghouse, which is owned by Toshiba, is expected to announce it is acquiring a 50 per cent share in NuGen, which owns the right to build a nuclear plant near Sellafield in Cumbria…. Continue reading
Probable illegality of Britain’s nuclear subsidy throws doubt on global nuclear industry
In the wider context the deal is important because the nuclear industry’s revival in democracies depends on it being classed as a low carbon generator, which can benefit from carbon credits and other subsidies in the same way as renewables. This has already been ruled out in most democratic countries outside Europe.
Without state aid the large capital expenditure needed to build nuclear plants is hard to find from the private sector, and the time it takes to build reactors makes the return on capital long-term. Two stations being built in Finland and France are both up to seven years late and construction budgets have already doubled. They are the same design as the reactors intended for Britain.
‘Illegal UK state aid’ probe hits nuclear plans Eco Business, 14 Dec 13, An EU investigation into the UK’s financial support for new nuclear power stations is dividing Europe, with critics saying London is flouting EU rules by offering illegal subsidies.A full-scale investigation is being launched into whether Britain’s deal with French nuclear giant EDF, backed with money from Chinese nuclear generators, to build new stations at Hinkley Point in the west of England, is illegal state aid.
The investigation by the European Commission is a serious blow to the nuclear industry in Europe and across the western world, because it delays any expansion of the industry for at least a year and may possibly permanently damage its prospects. Continue reading
Slack security at UK’s nuclear bomb factory
Ministry of Defence security ‘asleep on the job’ guarding a nuclear bomb factory, By Vicky Smith Mirror, UK, 14 Dec 2013
Up to 50 MoD police are being probed for allegedly failing to carry out vital security patrols at the 225-acre complex which builds Trident warheads. Up to 50 Ministry of Defence police guarding a nuclear bomb factory are being probed for allegedly failing to carry out vital security patrols.
And last night it was claimed that some were sleeping on the job at the 225-acre complex which builds Trident warheads. Seven of the armed officers have resigned and others are facing disciplinary action amid claims they ignored key duties.
A source said: “At least some of the police were sleeping on the job when they missed the patrols.
“This is highly embarrassing at such a key facility.”
Peter Burt, of the Nuclear Information Service, which campaigns for nuclear safety, said: “The sheer scale of these claims are astonishing, especially given the highly sensitive nature of the complex.
“It handles radioactive materials, explosives and hazardous chemicals. ……..http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ministry-defence-security-asleep-job-2924587
UK Olympic sized nuclear cover up – and it has spread to Japan
OP – ED Arclight2011 Nuclear-news.net 8 December 2013
The UK has decided to take the cheapest option for decommissioning according to a recent report by the badly named Department of the Environment and Climate Change (DECC), as 65 percent of their annual budget goes just on the costs of decommissioning it should be named British Nuclear Fools.
The processes involved with “decommissioning” are a “corporate secret” but a quick google says that the cheapest option is dissolution that involves melting everything in Nitric acid (or similar) and this has been the cause of high NO2 levels in the UK that are regularly blamed on other industries or countries. Though La Hague in France does contribute.
The UK has been reprimanded by the EU for the deaths caused by this NO2. And in the UK parliament we hear calls to cut the pollution detection monitors as they give the nuclear hazard away and threaten profits. These NO gases and particulates make it to even the arctic region of Russia (as Bellona has reported on many occasion whilst defending Norway from unjust blame)
As EDF and the French government begin the plans to reduce French nuclear and the shutting down of La Hague, they plan to increase use of Sellafield and other sites in the UK for these environmentally polluting nuclear processes.
The Irish Government has not been involved in the decisions for Hinckley, so An Taisce has formally lodged an appeal to the EU. The reaction of the UK and Ed Davey are well documented here… https://nuclear-news.net/2013/12/06/no-objection-by-ireland-uk-nuclear-hearing-told/
And as DECC were threatened with non co-operation if they asked for certain technical details or even the names of people involved, the Irish were likely not to be aware of the processes that the UK was planning to expand nor has their been a proper discussion concerning radionuclide’s and air quality issues being released due to these nuclear processes.
In fact not even the British public could be expected to know. In fact the UK NGO steering group who was supposed to be discussing this very issue over the past two years were not even allowed to know.
Who needs Leveson inquiry to silence information when the corporations and governments are doing the job so well anyway, I find myself asking.
I might point out that DECC also masterminded the Science Media Centre UK (SMC) to cover up or “manage” the Fukushima incident press coverage in 2011, which they then did and were rewarded by their sponsors (The big corporations and nuclear interests).
Bloggers and free press elements in Japan got too much truth out and the Japanese nuclear family had to close ranks with the USA and the Olympic Committee and have came up with the new “Secrets Act” , a shocking attack on free speech from a supposedly western country. It is now up to the Japanese Press to mobilize the people to reject this new Law, there are some signs of dissent in the media. We wish them well!
DECC has contracts of understanding with ROSATOM as well as some dubious eastern nuclear states. China, an authoritarian and pushy country will have the same leverage over DECC as the French and USA partners and therefore the Chinese communist (mostly)will have control of the information we hear on the news etc.. Have you heard the one about the Dalai lama recently? No? And you probably never will again!
Elements of the UK Media have had enough and are beginning to look a little harder at the Pro nuclear spin and analyse the sources of this drive for nuclear. The UK media is beginning to wake up to the deception but how deep will they dig?
It began after the crash of 2008 and 200 billion Euro moved directly into nuclear investments (A Norwegian insurance investment company has just sold its stocks in TEPCO at a massiviely reduced price and has beeen left licking its wounds). The Insurance and banking industry saw this as a safe bet for three more years and are heavily invested, in fact, the UK insurance industry will be proping up this PONZI scheme with a staggering 25 billion investment that is a curiously small amount considering the Total investment accrued in the Nuclear Industry by now. Just the normal monthly “Top Up” perhaps?
And if you dont think the Insurance Corporations view this as their own private nuclear “gravy train” why was the liability capped in Canada to only 1 billion? when the Japanese have paid TEPCO 50 billion in just the first year after the disaster. It seems it is the beleaguered Tax Payer is always the end recipient of this PONZI shaped dept burden.
Finally, the UK corporations have been supporting the Pro nuclear Corporations in Japan from the start and are still supporting Japan as it becomes a fascist state to protect their investments. These investments are very long term, measured in decades, and any country with nuclear power could be facing the same control of the population and of information.
Orwell would be not surprised perhaps at technology being used to enslave people by reducing their knowledge and controlling them totally.. No dissent, no illegal thoughts or 5 years in prison and a criminal history to stop you getting work for the rest of your life. Poor Japan! Poor UK!
Time for UK government to be honest about its subsidy to nuclear power
biggest criticism is over ministers’ insistence that the deal agreed by the Treasury and EDF to fund the construction of a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset is not a subsidy.
“New nuclear is being subsidised and the coalition should come clean and admit it,” said Walley. “The government cannot escape that clear fact by talking about ‘support mechanisms’ and ‘insurance policies’ instead of ‘subsidies’.”
be honest about oil, gas and nuclear subsidies and restate commitment to end fuel poverty Terry Macalister The Guardian, Monday 2 December 2013 The government has been urged to be more honest about the levels of subsidies given to oil and gas producers and the companies who will build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point.A parliamentary watchdog argued on Monday that ministers should admit they are already providing £12bn of annual subsidies to fossil fuel operations and windfarms while lining up more support for shale gas and nuclear.
The environmental audit committee (EAC) said subsidies to oil and other carbon fuels should be scaled back because of the impact on global warming, and also urged ministers to restate a previous commitment to ending fuel poverty.
A report on energy subsidies just published by the committee says the chancellor’s autumn statement later this week is an ideal chance to provide a “clear and comprehensive analysis of energy subsidies in the UK”. Continue reading
EU probe into Britain’s nuclear subsidy could take until 2020
EU state aid probe likely over British plan for EDF nuclear plant 7 News, December 3, 2013, By Barbara Lewis and Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU regulators are likely to open a formal investigation into whether Britain’s offer of state guarantees, to help finance a nuclear plant to be built by France’s EDF , conform with the bloc’s rules, its competition commissioner said on Monday.
Britain in October signed a deal with EDF to build a nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in southwest England and became the first European country to offer a guaranteed power price over 35 years for a new nuclear project.
“Two to three weeks ago we received notification from the UK,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a Brussels conference organised by Eurelectric, which represents the EU electricity industry.
“We are starting to analyse what is in the British proposal. Probably we will open a formal investigation because many people are asking the same question as you do,” he said when asked whether the British proposal for 35 years of a guaranteed energy price was too long under the terms of EU rules on state aid………The Commission is revising its state aid guidelines and is expected to finalise the rules for 2014-2020 next year.
It has said they will not specifically include nuclear energy, dealing another blow to Britain’s hopes of early certainty. Instead, each project will be assessed on its own merits………http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/20120325/eu-state-aid-probe-likely-over-british-plan-for-edf-nuclear-plant/
Thorough examination by European Commission nto UK’s nuclear subsidy plan
analysts at Liberum Capital argued that the guarantees offered to EDF could prove to be “economically insane”. They said by agreeing an inflation-linked price Davey had made a huge bet the cost of fossil fuels would rocket by the time Hinkley Point starts operating in 2023.
The House of Commons’ environmental audit committee has also criticised the government for refusing to admit that the Hinkley Point deal had subsidised EDF and its consortium partners.
“The government cannot escape that clear fact by talking about ‘support mechanisms’ and ‘insurance policies’ instead of ‘subsidies’,” the committee said in a report.
European commission inquiry into Hinkley Point deal could delay project Brussels to look at UK state aid for nuclear power plant after government offers EDF Energy a set price for 35 years The Guardian, Tuesday 3 December 2013 The government’s deal to underwrite the £16bn Hinkley Point nuclear power station plan faces delay and possible rejection after the European commission said it was ready to launch an in-depth inquiry into the agreement.
The EU competition commissioner said Brussels was likely to investigate the deal, which guarantees a minimum power price for 35 years, to make sure it conformed with state aid rules. The commission frowns on national governments offering deals to companies that stifle competition and distort the market.
Joaquín Almunia said: “We are starting to analyse what is in the British proposal. Probably we will open a formal investigation because many people are asking the same question [whether the UK’s agreement was too long].”
Energy secretary Ed Davey gave the go-ahead in October for a consortium led by France’s EDF Energy to build the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset. Its two reactors will cost £8bn each and will provide enough power to supply 7% of Britain’s homes for 60 years.
Davey agreed a minimum price of £92.50 for every megawatt hour (MWh) of energy that Hinkley Point generates – almost twice the current wholesale cost of electricity. The deal with EDF was unprecedented and made the UK the first European country to offer a set price over 35 years for a new nuclear project……..
- Almunia gave no indication of how long an investigation might take but the commission sees the government’s deal with EDF, Areva and China’s General Nuclear Power as complex and highly novel. An investigation is therefore likely to be in-depth to investigate all aspects of the proposals……..
- The government’s proposals were always likely to receive attention from the commission but Almunia’s comments suggest they will be subjected to intense scrutiny.
The UK wants the EU to accept that nuclear power should be given special status like renewable energy but Germany and Austria oppose such a move and Hinkley Point is likely to be considered like any other state aid case.
Moves by the commission to block or radically alter the nuclear deal could spark a major dispute between London and Brussels. Many Conservative MPs and constituency parties are virulently opposed toEurope‘s influence over UK policy and David Cameron has pledged a referendum on UK membership of the EU if the Tories win the 2015 election……
- The government’s case was dealt a blow a month ago when analysts at Liberum Capital argued that the guarantees offered to EDF could prove to be “economically insane”. They said by agreeing an inflation-linked price Davey had made a huge bet the cost of fossil fuels would rocket by the time Hinkley Point starts operating in 2023.
The House of Commons’ environmental audit committee has also criticised the government for refusing to admit that the Hinkley Point deal had subsidised EDF and its consortium partners.
“The government cannot escape that clear fact by talking about ‘support mechanisms’ and ‘insurance policies’ instead of ‘subsidies’,” the committee said in a report.
EDF declined to comment.http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/02/european-commission-inquiry-hinkley-point-deal
March of surviving UK nuclear test veterans to Downing St.
“We’ve got 80 MPs backing our call for recognition and had an amazing response from the public. They have to hear us sooner or later.”
In recent weeks Veterans’ Minister Anna Soubry has insisted there is ‘nothing unique’ about the atomic survivors, and said there were no plans to issue any formal thanks to them.
A court case suing the Ministry of Defence for negligence has been granted the go-ahead but is stalled by a lack of funding.
Now she’s been back – older, wiser, and twice as angry about the toxic legacy of Britain’s nuclear experiments. ‘My husband died because he served his country,’ she said. ‘We will not go away. We can’t – they have poisoned our families for generations to come.’
Her husband John was one of 22,000 men ordered to witness atomic bomb tests between 1952 and 1967, wearing nothing but cotton shirts and shorts as radioactive fallout showered down upon them. Fewer than 3,000 are still alive, suffering a catalogue of cancers, rare illnesses, and 10 times the normal rate of birth defects in their children.
This week 200 veterans and relatives marched on Parliament to demand an end to 60 years of injustice. They included a two-year-old in his pushchair, a wheelchair-bound mum-of-two born with twisted limbs, and Marilyn and her two sons. Continue reading
Support building for justice for UK nuclear veterans
Britain’s nuclear test veterans are inching towards the recognition they deservehttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-nuclear-test-veterans-inching-2873338 They don’t want much. They want a thank you, they want to know their sick children will have care, they want medical research
The nuclear test survivors are the closest they have ever been to winning recognition.
In 10 years of covering their campaign I have never seen them nearer to finally getting the official salute they deserve.
They have 80 MPs, lawyers, and charity experts fighting to get them where they ought to be – front and centre in the national consciousness, just for a moment.
For 60 years Ministry of Defence bureaucrats have denied the obvious: that nuclear bombs could cause any harm to thousands of men stood below in nothing but cotton shorts.
They’ve never answered the question why, if it was so safe, they didn’t explode them over Surrey.
At test sites in Australia, America and the South Pacific men lived, slept, and ate for up to a year at a time in areas heavily contaminated by radiation.
We’d never do that now. We shouldn’t have done it then.
This is one story I find it hard to be objective about. You cannot help but hug a woman who tells you about six successive miscarriages, or weep for a daughter who tells you how she held her father’s hand as a rare kind of cancer ripped him from her .
I have met men whose health problems deserve their own hospital wing. One whose eyelashes are growing into his eyeballs, another with 200 different skin cancers, a third with pouches of fatty tissue the size of tennis balls all over his body.
There is no science that definitively proves they all came from one cause. Radiation causes random genetic changes, and is hard to pin down.
But anyone can see what happened to these men – and to their wives, children and grandchildren – was most likely the result of atomic tests.
And from speaking to them and fighting for them I can tell you they don’t want much. They want a thank you, they want to know their sick children will have care, they want medical research.
They need, and deserve, a salute from Her Majesty’s Government and the final order: to stand at ease.
PRISM – Power Reactor Innovative Small Module new nuclear magic gimmick
The plutonium stockpile poses enormous problems for the government. Not only is it highly radioactive and an immense potential danger to health, it is also a target for terrorist attacks and for anyone interested in stealing nuclear weapons-grade material.
The NDA’s report to DECC is understood to conclude that the Prism fast reactor is as credible as the two other options based on Mox fuel, even though GE-Hitachi has not yet built a commercial-scale plant for burning plutonium waste. DECC, however, has refused to release the report under a Freedom of Information request
It is understood that the NDA has been impressed by proposals from GE-Hitachi to build a pair of its Prism fast reactors on the Sellafield site,
Revealed: UK Government’s radical plan to ‘burn up’ UK’s mountain of plutonium http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/revealed-uk-governments-radical-plan-to-burn-up-uks-mountain-of-plutonium-8967535.html 28 Nove 13 A radical plan to dispose of Britain’s huge store of civil plutonium – the biggest in the world – by “burning” it in a new type of fast reactor is now officially one of three “credible options” being considered by the Government, The Independent understands. However, further delays have hit attempts to make a final decision on what to do with the growing plutonium stockpile which has been a recurring headache for successive governments over the past three decades.
The stock of plutonium, one of the most dangerous radioactive substances and the element of nuclear bombs, has already exceeded 100 tonnes and is likely to grow to as much as 140 tonnes by 2020, bolstered by a recent decision to include foreign plutonium from imported nuclear waste.
Ministers had pledged to resolve the plutonium problem in a public consultation but are sitting on a secret report by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) which is believed to confirm that there are now three “credible options” for dealing with the plutonium stored at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. Continue reading
UK government wins case to keep secret of Litvinenko radiation poisoning
The Guardian and other media groups had intervened in the case at an earlier stage to argue that open justice would be damaged if relevant material was not released.
There is due to be a pre-inquest review on Friday to prepare for further hearings if there is to be no public inquiry.
Alexander Litvinenko inquest: high court halts lifting of secrecy order http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/alexander-litvinenko-inquest-secrecy-order William Hague successfuly argues that airing secret documents about former KGB spy would harm national security Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent theguardian.com, Wednesday 27 November 2013 Lawyers for the Foreign Office have succeeded in overturning a coroner’s ruling that secret documents should be released for the inquest into the death of the former Russian dissident and KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.
In a unanimous decision, three judges at the high court accepted that the foreign secretary, William Hague, should not have to reveal material relating to the 2006 poisoning of Litvinenko on the grounds that it would be a risk to national security.
Litvinenko, 43, consumed radioactive polonium-210 while drinking tea during a meeting with former Russian security colleagues at the Millennium hotel in Grosvenor Square, central London. He died three weeks later.
In May this year, the assistant coroner Sir Robert Owen agreed to exclude material from the inquest that suggested Russian state agencies were involved in Litvinenko’s death. He also agreed to keep secret evidence that considered whether or not the UK authorities could have prevented Litvinenko’s 2006 murder.
- But he said summaries of other documents should be disclosed despite an application by the Foreign Office that they should all be subject to a public interest immunity (PII) certificate. The coroner ruled that disclosure was necessary for a “fair and meaningful” inquest. Continue reading
Surviving UK nuclear veterans still fighting for justice
Veterans exposed to radioactive fallout take fight for justice to Number 10 NUCLEAR test veterans took their fight for justice to Downing Street yesterday more than 50 years after they were exposed to radioactive fallout. Express, 27 Nov 13 They are demanding formal recognition of their plight and the creation of a £25 million Government-funded Benevolent Fund to meet their medical needs.
Yet Britain is at the bottom of an international table for helping the veterans of nuclear countries. Even the Isle of Man has gone further than London.
More than 20,000 servicemen took part in the British Nuclear Test programme in the 1950s and 1960s but only about 3,000 are left alive…….. Continue reading
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