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Whistleblowers at nuclear sites may face bullying and threats, MPs warn

Members of public accounts committee raise concerns about culture and call for greater examination

Anna Isaac, Guardian 20th March 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/20/whistleblowers-at-nuclear-sites-may-face-bullying-and-threats-mps-warn

Nuclear whistleblowers who try to draw attention to cultural and safety issues face bullying, MPs have warned.

Members of parliament’s public accounts committee have said they are concerned about the way people who raise concerns about culture and safety on nuclear sites are treated.

“There is generally a problem with whistleblowing and a safety culture,” said Rachel Gilmour, a Liberal Democrat MP, when quizzing nuclear bosses on Thursday.

“That relation between bullying and safety within a nuclear context” needs greater examination, Gilmour said, adding that her office was seeking to raise the issue further with regulators.

The Guardian’s Nuclear Leaks investigation has revealed claims of bullying, sexual harassment and drug use at the nuclear waste dump, Sellafield, which could put safety at risk.

Gilmour’s interjection followed a refusal by Euan Hutton, the chief executive of the Sellafield site, to apologise for its treatment of an HR consultant, Alison McDermott, when asked to by Anna Dixon, a Labour MP. Hutton also refused to say whether he considered the cost of the case against McDermott to be a good use of public funds.

Sellafield, in Cumbria, spent about £750,000 in its pursuit of McDermott’s claim that she was wrongfully dismissed after raising concerns of a “toxic culture” at the Sellafield site.

McDermott was found by a judge to have blown the whistle by raising reports of harassment. The judgment was made in 2023, after an appeal over the findings of an employment tribunal.

However, her wrongful dismissal claim was not upheld. Sellafield, along with the oversight body the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), sought to recoup costs of £40,000. A judge reduced these to £5,000. McDermott told the Guardian she intends to appeal against this decision.

Dixon said she was “disappointed” by Hutton’s response. She said it was “critical for a safety culture” that people feel able to speak up.

Hutton acknowledged there had been problems faced by staff but that there had been progress in recent years.

Hutton also acknowledged major cybersecurity failings at the site, which were also first revealed by the Guardian.

He said that “as an organisation we let ourselves down”, by failing to meet standards, but he repeated denials that the world’s largest plutonium store had been subject to “successful” cyber-attacks.

Sellafield was ordered to pay nearly £400,000 after pleading guilty to leaving data that could threaten national security exposed for four security.

March 22, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

House Of Commons Public Accounts Committee: Decommissioning Sellafield – Seafield is the most dangerous place in the U.K

House Of Commons Public Accounts Committee: Decommissioning Sellafield.
Admissions that Seafield is the most dangerous place in the U.K. and an
accident involving the high activity waste storage tanks would be
catastrophic. Witness(es): Clive Maxwell, Second Permanent Secretary,
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; Lee McDonough, Director
General, Net Zero, Nuclear and International, Department for Energy
Security and Net Zero; David Peattie, Group Chief Executive Officer,
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority; Kate Bowyer, Chief Financial Officer,
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority; Euan Hutton, Chief Executive, Sellafield
Ltd

 Parliament TV 20th March 2025 https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/7f124fa5-c2e2-4c68-bce8-557763429471

March 22, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C nuclear will cost at least £75 billion – highly unlikely that Sizewell C will be any cheaper.

KEEPING REEVES SWEET: AXE SIZEWELL C!

Jonathon Porritt, 19 Mar 25

“…………………………… , Ed Miliband’s still a total sucker for the propaganda of both the fossil fuel industry (with the latest research from Fossil Free Parliament reminding us that DESNZ Ministers notched up an unbelievable 104 ministerial meetings with various fossil fuel companies between July and September last year) as well as the nuclear industry.

I’ll return to Ed’s mystifying obsession with the fossil fuel industry’s mega-scam of Carbon Capture and Storage in my next blog. For now, let’s just stick to his nuclear nonsense.

Knowing that he will have to give something big and bold back to the Treasury if he’s going to be able to protect things that really matter in his overall portfolio, the blindingly obvious thing to give up is Sizewell C. He knows the Treasury already despises the nuclear industry, deep down, after literally decades of its over-claiming and under-performing. So give them some red meat. A lot of red meat.

The UK Government has already spent around £3.7 billion on preparing the groundworks for Sizewell C. I saw the consequences of that for myself when I was in the area a couple of weeks ago, and I was genuinely shocked. The devastation is unbelievable – including more than 21,000 trees cut down. And that’s BEFORE a Final Investment Decision (FID) has actually been secured. Prospective investors (even in the Middle East) seem to be a lot less keen on Sizewell C than Ministers keep telling us.

Worse yet, Labour has promised another £2.7 billion in the next financial year – to go on doing exactly the same, again, before an FID is secured. Axing Sizewell C at this point, however painful that might be politically, would be a huge, short-term win for the Treasury.

In fact, this would be a much, much bigger prize for UK taxpayers in the longer term. Sizewell C has been described by EDF as a “Hinkley Point look-alike, with a lot of lessons learned”. There’s mighty little evidence that the UK nuclear industry has ever learned a single lesson from its unparalleled record of failure, but let’s just live with that for the time being.

The latest estimate for the “overnight cost” of Hinkley Point C in Somerset is £46 billion. Please don’t be fooled by that ever-so-opaque terminology: “overnight” simply means the cost of construction. It’s the figure the industry loves to trot out to the UK’s limitlessly gullible media (including the BBC and The Guardian), without acknowledging that it doesn’t include the cost of the capital EDF has had to raise to build this monstrous white elephant in the first place. EDF has indicated in the past that cost of capital can add as much as 60% to the overnight cost.

Yes, that’s right: Hinkley Point C will cost at least £75 billion.

It’s highly unlikely that Sizewell C, on the Suffolk coast, will be any cheaper – indeed, it’s already clear that the engineering challenge at Sizewell C is much greater than at Hinkley Point C.

And who will pay for Sizewell C? Well, it’s either YOU as a taxpayer (depending on the size of the stake that the UK government will eventually have to take in Sizewell C in order to secure that ever-elusive Final Investment Decision), or YOU as an energy consumer, through the chosen mechanism of a Regulated Asset Base. From the moment construction at Sizewell C starts, consumers’ bills will start rising.

Axing Sizewell C will obviously be a huge hit to the nuclear industry. Which means it’s probably too much to kill off the industry’s accompanying fantasies about Small Modular Reactors at the same time. At the moment, subsidising SMRs is relatively small beer for the taxpayer, and it’s got as much to do with keeping Rolls Royce on board as it has with any serious attempt to crack the huge technological challenges associated with these new reactors.

Once free of Sizewell C, DESNZ could then double down on all those parts of its portfolio which will deliver real economic value before the next election: solar and wind, storage (batteries plus a lot more), reconfigured grids, and low-carbon manufacturing………………………………..
https://jonathonporritt.com/poor-old-ed-miliband/

March 22, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

UK will not shy away from nuclear weapons, John Healey tells Russia

Defence secretary warned the weapons could do ‘untold damage’ as construction began on the successor to Trident

Larisa Brown, Defence Editor |Bruno Waterfield, Brussels, Thursday March 20 2025, The Times

Britain has the power to do “untold damage” to adversaries such as Russia with its nuclear deterrent, the defence secretary has warned, as he marked the build of the next generation of nuclear submarines.

John Healey said he took Vladimir Putin’s threats to use his nuclear arsenal seriously and the UK should not “fight shy” of the fact it has such weapons.

On a visit to a submarine yard, he also said that France could follow the UK’s example and commit its nuclear weapons to defend Nato and protect the security of Europe. At the moment, France will only officially use its weapons to protect itself.

In an interview with The Times, he said: “Our nuclear deterrent is there as a deterrent.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/britain-nuclear-power-damage-russia-cd8bv0d

March 22, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sellafield decommissioning to continue for at least a century – robot dogs play a part

Robot dogs could help decommission Sellafield nuclear plant after successful trials.

Operators working from the Westlakes Science Park in Whitehaven, around
eight miles from Sellafield, remotely operated “safely and securely” a
custom Boston Dynamics Spot Quadrupedal Robot ‘dog’ that could carry
out tasks such as remote inspections, data gathering and clean-up work.

Energy generation at the plant stopped in 2003, but the painstaking
decommissioning process typically takes decades and presents radioactive
hazards to workers. Sellafield is unusual in that the decommissioning
challenge also encompasses early nuclear research and nuclear weapons
programmes that took place on the site.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is not expecting full site remediation to be completed until 2125.

 Engineering & Technology 20th March 2025

March 22, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Louth and Horncastle MP welcomes council pulling out of nuclear waste site partnership

By Andy Hubbert

Louth and Horncastle’s MP, Victoria Atkins has welcomed news that
Lincolnshire County Council’s Leader, Coun Martin Hill is minded to pull
the authority out of a community partnership group overseeing proposals for
a nuclear waste facility. By pulling out of the Nuclear Waste Services’
Community Partnership, the council would effectively cancel the company’s
consideration of the Lincolnshire coast for a Geological Disposal Facility
(GDF) for deep burial of nuclear waste, after NWS announced that their area
of focus had changed to an area of open land between Gayton le Marsh and
Great Carlton, between Louth and Mablethorpe.

 Lincolnshire World 19th March 2025 https://www.lincolnshireworld.com/news/politics/louth-and-horncastle-mp-welcomes-council-pulling-out-of-nuclear-waste-site-partnership-5041035

March 22, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Questions asked in Cumberland on two key nuke dump concerns

 Green Councillor Jill Perry kindly asked questions of senior Labour
Councillors at the most recent meeting of Cumberland Council relating to
two key concerns relating to any possible location of a Geological Disposal
Facility (nuclear waste dump) in Cumbria.

These concerns relate to the
future flooding and flood defences of any site and making all parties
engaged in property transactions aware of the possibility of a GDF and the
discretionary ‘Property Value Protection Scheme’ launched last year by
Nuclear Waste Services.

The NFLAs raised these issues – and others
relating to housing demand and provision – with Cllr Perry and we are
grateful for her support in asking these questions of the Council Leader
and an Executive member. The NFLAs have been highly critical of the NWS
compensation scheme and raised our concerns over historic instances of
flooding at Millom and Haverigg in a recent letter to NWS and the Chair of
the South Copeland GDF Search Area.

 NFLA 19th March 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/questions-asked-in-cumberland-on-two-key-nuke-dump-concerns/

March 21, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

“South Copeland Community Partnership Area of Focus” on nuclear waste is unravelling 

 The area is narrowing down to …surprise surprise the exact same spot as
the failed nuclear dump in the 1990s. NIREX was the forerunner of Nuclear
Waste Services and their plan for a Rock Characterisation Facility aka a
Trojan Horse for a full blown nuclear dump for low and intermediate level
wastes was refused as being far too dangerous.

That was at Longlands Farm, Gosforth which is now the Wasdale Mountain Rescue Centre – a far better outcome for the land than a nuclear dump. So what is the state of play now?

There are three Areas of Focus two in Cumbria and one in Lincolnshire. In
Cumbria one of the two Areas of Focus, the so-called “South Copeland
Community Partnership Area of Focus” is unravelling with communities
within the area increasingly saying no to the plan.

A ‘willing’ community is the cornerstone of government’s drive to find a Geological
Disposal Facility aka nuclear dump. Simon Hughes, Nuclear Waste Services
Head of Siting, has stated, “The policy surrounding our search for a safe
and suitable location for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in the UK is
emphatic. It requires the express consent of the people who would be living
alongside a GDF, and gives them influence over the pace at which
discussions progress.”

Residents in the two areas of South Copeland who
will be living alongside the focus area, i.e. Kirksanton and Bank Head
housing estate, have resoundingly said they are NOT a willing community. In
2023 Whicham Parish Council surveyed their residents and found 76% were
opposed to a GDF being sited there. Now, the other area most affected, Bank
Head housing estate near HMP Haverigg, have also rejected the idea and are
asking Millom Town Council, Cumberland Council and their MP Michelle
Scrogham, for help to stop it. After meeting their MP, residents of Bank
Head conducted the survey at her suggestion – Millom Town Council have
refused to conduct a similar survey, so residents took it into their own
hands. With a return rate of 68.3%, 78.7% have said no to a GDF, 11.7% yes
and 5.2% don’t know.”

 Radiation Free Lakeland 19th March 2025, https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2025/03/19/pin-the-tail-on-the-nuclear-donkey/

March 20, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

County council set to withdraw from nuclear waste facility group

Lincolnshire County Council leader announces intention to withdraw from
Nuclear Waste Services’ Community Partnership. This would effectively
cancel the company’s consideration of the Lincolnshire coast for a
Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).

Cllr Martin Hill OBE, leader of
Lincolnshire County Council, said: “When we took up Nuclear Waste
Services’ (NWS, then called ‘Radioactive Waste Management’)
invitation to join a working group in 2021, we did so with an open mind,
knowing that residents themselves could make the decision as to whether it
was right for the area. “We wanted residents to be able to understand the
full extent of the opportunities and consequences that would come with the
building of a GDF in Lincolnshire.

“At that time, the site earmarked for
the development was an old gas terminal in Theddlethorpe – a brownfield
site. Since then, the area that NWS is considering for the entry point to
the GDF has shifted to open farmland, a couple of miles up the coast and
further inland. “This changes the very nature of the proposal and,
understandably, raised further concerns within the local community.

“Whilst we have tried to maintain an open mind towards the plans, we are
now several years on from this first being suggested, and big questions
still remain to be answered about the scale of the development and how this
waste would get there. “We had planned to put the decision on whether to
remain within the partnership to a public vote next year, but it has become
increasingly apparent that the community is getting frustrated with the
uncertainty and slow pace of this process.

“Unless NWS can provide
significant further details about their plans that would reassure the local
community and comprehensively explain the benefits and costs, it is my
intention to withdraw from the process altogether. “This will need to be
a formal decision, taken at a meeting of the council’s Executive.

 Lincolnshire County Council 18th March 2025, https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/news/article/2293/county-council-set-to-withdraw-from-nuclear-waste-facility-group

March 20, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Time to take urgent action to help Stop Sizewell C

NFLA 18th March 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/time-to-take-urgent-action-to-help-stop-sizewell-c/

With an ongoing Spending Review which will determine whether Chancellor Rachel Reeves continues to squander yet more public money to feed the ravenous Suffolk ‘White Elephant’ known as the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project, whilst seeking private sector backers to help the unholy beast lumber across the line marked Final Investment Decision, now is the time for all those opposed to the plan to step up and take action to oppose it.

The NFLAs have been consistent in supporting and promoting any initiative by our friends in Stop Sizewell C and Together against Sizewell C that will help stop the beast in its tracks, and with estimated acquisition costs recently doubling to £40 billion at a time of tightening public finances ending the project at this early stage and redirecting the money to invest in energy efficiency measures and renewables would be the wisest move by HM Treasury.

Stop Sizewell C has recently identified four actions that you could take and we urge you to do so:

Write to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, urging her to cancel Sizewell C:


Over 1,000 such messages have been sent to the Chancellor during the current Spending Review.

Please add your own via action.stopsizewellc.org/save-billions-cancel-sizewellc

You can either send the standard message (see below for the text) by pressing ‘Send Message Now’ after entering your details or edit/paste in your own text by clicking ‘Personalise this email’.

he standard message:

“As you carry out your multi-year spending review, I am reminded of your statement to Parliament during your mini-budget last year – “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”. I appreciate that you face many difficult choices, but with the Financial Times reporting that Sizewell C will cost at least £40 billion, I urge you not to throw more taxpayers’ money at this expensive, risky project that will raise energy bills during its lengthy and unpredictable construction. For alternative strategies that will help meet the UK’s 2030 target and create many thousands of jobs, I urge you to focus on renewables and energy efficiency.” 

Sign the Stop Sizewell C petition to David Goldstone, Chair of the new Office of Value for Money:

Stop Sizewell C is seeking at least 5,000 signatories to back a petition to the new Office of Value for Money’s independent Chair David Goldstone to call in the Sizewell C project for urgent scrutiny.  To sign the petition please go to action.stopsizewellc.org/valueformoney

March 20, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Sizewell C Nuclear boss challenged on her definition of failure

Nuclear plant boss Julia Pyke (“‘It’s a tough
gig, developing big infrastructure projects in the UK’”, Work &
Careers, March 17) says “I know [some campaigners] want to believe that
it’s all a terrible failure, but truly, it isn’t.”

As one of those campaigners she is trying unsuccessfully to “win over”, I would point
out that all six “EPR” reactors — the type proposed for Sizewell C on
the Suffolk coast — have been significantly late and over budget.

Taishan 1 in China (five years late, double its budget) was offline for almost two
years early in its operational life. Olkiluoto 3 in Finland and Flamanville
3 in France have suffered teething troubles after being 14 and 12 years
late and costing three and four times their budgets, respectively.

Hinkley Point C’s budget has already doubled and the project is four to six years
late, with another four to six years still to go. Given her role, is it not
important to understand how Pyke defines “failure”?

Alison Downes:  FT 18th March 2025
https://www.ft.com/content/0625dfba-9867-446d-9a42-a952c04a2e1b

March 20, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Britain wants Ukraine’s minerals too

It’s not just Trump. The UK views critical minerals as a government priority and wants to open up Ukraine’s vast resources to British corporations.

MARK CURTIS, 11 March 2025,
more https://www.declassifieduk.org/britain-wants-ukraines-minerals-too/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_content=Button

When UK officials signed a 100 year partnership with Ukraine in mid-January, they claimed to be Ukraine’s “preferred partner” in developing the country’s “critical minerals strategy”.

Yet within a month, Donald Trump had presented a proposal to Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky to access the country’s vast mineral resources as “compensation” for US support to Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Whitehall was none too pleased about Washington muscling in. 

When foreign secretary David Lammy met Zelensky in Kyiv last month he reportedly raised the issue of minerals, “a sign that Starmer’s government is still keen to get access to Ukraine’s riches”, the iPaper reported. 

Lammy earlier said, in a speech last year: “Look around the world. Countries are scrambling to secure critical minerals, just as great powers once raced to control oil”.

The UK foreign secretary was correct, but Britain itself is one of those powers, and Ukraine is one of the major countries UK officials – as well as the Trump administration – have their eyes on. 

It’s no surprise why. Ukraine has around 20,000 mineral deposits covering 116 types of minerals such as beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, rare earth metals, and nickel. 

The country, whose economy has been devastated by Russia’s brutal war, also possesses one of the world’s largest reserves of graphite, the largest titanium reserves in Europe, and a third of the continent’s lithium deposits. 

These resources are key for industries such as military production, high tech, aerospace, and green energy. 

In recent years, the Ukrainian government has sought to attract foreign investment to develop its critical mineral resources and signed strategic partnerships and held investment fora to showcase its mining opportunities. 

The country has also begun auctioning exploration permits for minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt and nickel, offering lucrative investment opportunities. 

Media narratives largely parrot the UK government’s interests in Ukraine being about standing up to aggression. But Whitehall has in the past few years stepped up its interest in accessing the world’s critical minerals, not least in Ukraine. www.liberalsagainstnuclear.au

March 19, 2025 Posted by | politics international, UK, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Nuclear plant boss Julia Pyke: ‘It’s a tough gig, developing big infrastructure projects in the UK’.

 Julia Pyke is on a mission to show the nuclear industry is filled with “nice, normal people”. As joint managing director of Sizewell C, a planned nuclear power station on
England’s Suffolk coast, she has to win over campaigners, as well as the
UK government, which has already committed billions of pounds towards the
project.

Her attempts have included an unconventional move to set up a
choir at the facility. “We want to make ourselves much more
accessible,” says Pyke, herself a former choral scholar. She brought the
singers to London for the nuclear industry’s annual bash to perform
“Let it Be, Sizewell C”, a take on The Beatles’ song, to assembled
dignitaries. “It made me laugh,” she says. “Obviously people were
drunk, but by the end of it they were waving their phones in the air.”

Pyke’s affability, she hopes, is an advantage as the company seeks to
improve the perception of the nuclear industry — which she says has
“really undersold itself”.

Amid fierce opposition from many in the
local community, Pyke must convince detractors not just of the importance
of Sizewell C in Britain’s transition to cleaner energy but also as an
economic hub that creates jobs.

The stakes are high as officials are set to
make the final funding decision within months. Industry and Whitehall
figures estimate build costs could rise to as much as £40bn, double the
£20bn estimate given by developer EDF and the UK government in 2020. Pyke
points to the government’s earlier statement that it does not recognise
the figure.

Sizewell’s sister project, the Hinkley Point C plant in
Somerset, is billions of pounds over budget and several years delayed,
contributing to widespread scepticism about the nuclear industry’s
ability to deliver. Meanwhile, the UK’s reputation for building big
infrastructure projects has been tarnished by delays and high costs on
other developments.

 FT 16th March 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/8613326a-213c-44a3-9e01-a2c8db078919

March 19, 2025 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Regulators get targets to cut red tape and boost the economy

Ministers will make Britain’s 16 biggest regulators undergo twice-yearly performance reviews as part of a strategy to speed up big infrastructure projects.

 Rachel Reeves will meet UK regulators on Monday after calling for more
action to restrict red tape and spur economic growth. The chancellor argued
that government plans would reduce costly delays and disputes, saving
businesses billions, and said regulators must accept a more streamlined
decision-making process. Reeves is expected to use the meeting to announce
more detail on how the government will cut the cost of regulation by a
quarter and set out plans to slim down or abolish regulators themselves.
High on the chancellor’s target list are the costly hold-ups to major
infrastructure projects when environmental concerns are raised.

 Guardian 17th March 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/17/reeves-to-outline-plan-to-cut-regulation-costs-and-boost-growth

March 19, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Royal Navy: Powerful new nuclear submarines being built costing £41bn – when will they enter the fleet?

 Ben Obese-Jecty MP, Conservative MP for
Huntingdon, enquired about the construction in a parliamentary written
question to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Minister of defence procurement,
Maria Eagle, said: “The programme remains on track to manufacture four
Dreadnought Class submarines within the original cost estimate of £41bn,
consisting of £31bn and a contingency of £10bn. The First of Class, HMS
Dreadnought, will enter service in the early 2030s.”

 Portsmouth News 14th March 2025.
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/royal-navy-new-nuclear-submarines-when-5033798

March 17, 2025 Posted by | UK | Leave a comment

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