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Nuclear test veterans’ medical records were gathered by secret government lab

Susie Boniface Reporter, 04 Aug 2026, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nuclear-test-veterans-medical-records-37508232

Medical records of nuclear test veterans were gathered by a secret government laboratory, the Ministry of Defence has admitted.

Up to 50,000 paper files now locked in a climate-controlled warehouse were collected by scientists at Porton Down. The cache of files has yet to be examined, despite a two-year review into missing medical records of veterans who were subject to a programme of medical monitoring at Cold War bomb tests.

Campaigning MP Rebecca Long-Bailey said: “We need to know how many records are in there, for what reason they were held, and whether they constitute some of the missing files our veterans have spent decades searching for. I hope our new Prime Minister, who has been unfaltering in his support of the veterans, will order this archive searched before Parliament returns from summer recess.”

A cross-party group of MPs have written to Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, urging him to examine the archive. Veterans of Britain’s 45 atomic experiments have long complained their medical files were missing.

In 2022, the Mirror uncovered the first evidence thousands of them were given previously-denied blood, urine and thyroid testing, and underwent chest x-rays, before, during and after service at the weapons trials. The original orders were for blood test results to be recorded on six different forms, by five separate people, and held in four places, including ‘special health registers’ for each unit.

A review was launched in 2024, but when it was published last month it was unable to find most records, and assumed the blood tests were – in many cases – never taken and in others destroyed. No trace of the registers was found.

But it did locate a warehouse in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, which held 50,000 paper records about historic radiation exposure. A brief search established it held medical records for at least one atomic serviceman. The review said: “It is possible that the records of other nuclear test veterans are in the collection.”

The archive has a chequered past. Officially called UHR ‘DSTL Historic Radiation’, it appeared to have been formed by the Defence Science Technology Laboratory, more usually known as Porton Down. It is a top-secret facility that conducts classified biological and chemical research.

Today the files are held by a private contractor called Restore, which specialises in document storage. A digital version is held by Defence Radiation Protection Services, another part of the MoD, based 172 miles away in Gosport, Hampshire.

Two years ago, DRPS merged with the Atomic Weapons Establishment which is now responsible for the files, but no-one can search them without “specific individual permissions” from Defence Business Services; the administrative arm of the MoD. When ministers published the review, they did not say if or when the archives would be searched.

Veteran John Morris, 88, said: “It’s bonkers. The MoD has some paperwork, but the MoD hasn’t given itself permission to search it and tell the rest of the MoD what it has. If my medical records are in there, I want them back.”

An MOD spokesperson said: “We owe an enduring debt of gratitude to the more than 22,000 Service personnel, scientists and civilians who contributed to the UK’s nuclear testing programme and helped safeguard our national security.

“This Government commissioned a comprehensive review in relation to its agreed scope, processing more than 100,000 items and records across the organisations holding relevant material.

“As with any exercise involving records over 70 years old, additional collections and references may emerge over time. The fact that further material has been identified does not change the findings of the review, which found no evidence of deliberate concealment and set out transparently the limitations and gaps within the surviving record.”

August 6, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear station cleaning balls wash up on beaches

Tom BurgessNorth East and Cumbria, 3 Aug 26, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0l5kln078do

Dozens of bright blue balls used for cleaning a nuclear power plant have washed up on a beach.

Walker Neil Baldwin said more than 40 taprogge balls, which come from Hartlepool power station, were spread along the high tide mark along Redcar beaches.

He said he had seen them regularly during the 20 years he has lived near the beach and was worried about birds or dogs eating them.

EDF Energy, which runs the power station, did not address questions about possible faults in its system, instead the company claimed to have “significantly reduced the number of releases over the past 18 months”.

Taprogge balls are used to clean stretches of pipework and, occasionally, some are released into the environment, according to the company.

EDF said tide patterns can wash debris on to nearby beaches but it had received no reports of similar finds since April.

The firm did not confirm how many balls it had collected in the last year but did say the balls are biodegradable in seawater.

“I noticed a lot of them and I kept seeing more and more as I was walking,” he said.

“I looked for a bag to pick them up in and I found a plastic bottle which I filled on my walk back.”

Saltburn resident John Stevens said he “didn’t understand what they were” when he started litter picking 14 months ago.

“I understand they can cause an ingestion risk to marine wildlife and they contribute to coastal litter in the ocean,” he said.

“I find it ironic that they clean the power plant machines, but there is a potential they come out and mess up the sea life and beaches.”

EDF said anyone who finds taprogge balls should report the exact location to the company or the Environment Agency so debris can be removed.

August 6, 2026 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

AUKUS: Its single point of obsolescence

A multi-decade submarine programme passing through that many hands is its own kind of risk. It helps that Burnham voted for Trident renewal in 2016 when Jeremy Corbyn voted against. This is not a man who wandered into submarine policy for a photograph.

By Vince Hooper | 1 August 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/tba-hooper-for-midday-saturday,21376

A timeline is not a delivery date, and a single shipyard carrying the weight of both a national deterrent and a trilateral alliance remains exactly what the title suggests: a single point of obsolescence, writes Professor Vince Hooper.

ANDY BURNHAM HAS BEEN PRIME MINISTER for ten days and has already discovered the one town in England that Whitehall cannot ignore.

On Thursday he travelled to Barrow-in-Furness, a Cumbrian settlement of fewer than 70,000 people that happens to be the only place in Britain capable of building a nuclear submarine. He announced £8.4 billion for the Dreadnought program.

He spoke of reindustrialisation, apprenticeships, and the dignity of skilled work. He told the shipyard workers that security is about who builds it, not only what we build. It was a sentence that could have been lifted from a mayoral stump speech in Salford, which is more or less where it came from.

Australian readers may be forgiven for assuming this has nothing to do with them. It does. The money is for Dreadnought, Britain’s nuclear deterrent, but the sheds it flows into are the same sheds that must deliver SSN-AUKUS, the attack submarines on which Australia’s undersea future has been staked.

Every Dreadnought hull and every SSN-AUKUS hull must pass through the same facility, fitted by the same workforce, in a town that cannot currently house the workers it already has.

The UK Defence Committee warned in April that investment in upgrading Barrow had already slipped and that any further failure could delay SSN-AUKUS with serious consequences for credibility with AUKUS partners.

Lord Case, chairing the cross-government Team Barrow effort, conceded that the broader ecosystem, from housing and schools to transport and healthcare, was not keeping pace. The ambition is one boat every eighteen months. The most recent Astute-class boats have each taken more than a decade from keel to commissioning. One trusts the PowerPoint is more optimistic than the precedent.

The £8.4 billion covers Delivery Phase 4: sea trials for HMS Dreadnought and construction milestones for HMS Valiant. It preserves the possibility of SSN-AUKUS steel being cut in 2027 without the yard falling into the kind of gap that turned the Astute programme into a thirteen-year crawl from keel to operational status.

BAE has achieved a forty per cent productivity increase at the yard over three years, which is impressive until you remember that two submarine programmes are now competing for the same finite pool of welders, engineers and shed space.

The productivity gains occurred inside what economists would politely call a monopoly supplier. Apply a Herfindahl-Hirschman index to British submarine construction and you arrive at 10,000, the theoretical maximum. In any other sector that number would trigger an antitrust inquiry. In Barrow it triggers a prime ministerial visit. There is no second yard.

For Canberra, the risk compounds across the Atlantic. A July 2026 GAO report found that at least thirty-seven per cent of the U.S. Navy’s fast-attack submarine fleet is in maintenance at any given time. American Virginia-class production runs at 1.1 to 1.2 hulls per year; the AUKUS plan requires 2.33.

The U.S. Navy has told Congress it will not reach even two hulls annually before 2032. Under the National Defence Authorisation Act, the President cannot legally sell a nuclear-powered submarine to a foreign partner unless he certifies to Congress that the transaction will not degrade domestic undersea capabilities.

Australia is counting on three to five Virginia-class boats from the early 2030s as a bridge while it waits for SSN-AUKUS to arrive. If Washington cannot build enough hulls to satisfy its own fleet, the certification becomes politically impossible and the bridge collapses before it carries a single boat south.

On the British side, the Defence Committee heard in December that four of six commissioned Astute-class hulls were at low readiness; by late June, Navy Lookout reported that none was at sea. None.

The capability gap between Collins-class retirement and SSN-AUKUS delivery is not a scheduling inconvenience. It is a window in which Australia could find itself without a credible undersea force, which is an unusual position for a country that has just committed the largest defence expenditure in its history to acquiring one.

The political choreography is worth reading as closely as the engineering. Burnham has installed John Healey, the defence secretary who resigned in June over Starmer’s failure to fund the department, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, placing the man who quit over the defence budget in charge of the national finances, which is either poetic justice or an exceptionally dry joke.

He has given Defence to Wes Streeting, a right-flank Labourite who has affirmed the inherited commitment to three per cent of GDP on defence by the next parliament, and made Ed Miliband, until last month the energy secretary, his Foreign Secretary, the post from which Britain’s end of the AUKUS relationship is diplomatically managed.

Miliband’s previous experience of trilateral partnerships was largely confined to climate summits. The £8.4 billion itself was already committed under the Defence Investment Plan, and sits above a £4.7 billion shortfall in the broader £298 billion spending envelope that Burnham must find in his first budget.

Today’s announcement repackaged existing commitments inside a jobs narrative tailored for a prime minister whose political capital is northern, industrial, and built on a decade of telling Westminster it does not understand the provinces.

Burnham is Britain’s sixth prime minister in a decade, as he himself acknowledged in his first speech from Downing Street. A multi-decade submarine programme passing through that many hands is its own kind of risk. It helps that Burnham voted for Trident renewal in 2016 when Jeremy Corbyn voted against. This is not a man who wandered into submarine policy for a photograph.

As signalling, the visit works. As reassurance that AUKUS remains on track, it falls rather short.

The Defence Investment Plan reconfirmed up to twelve SSN-AUKUS boats inside a £63.6 billion nuclear ring-fence, but attached no programme cost. That omission speaks volumes in a language Canberra understands fluently.

Pillar 2 of the partnership (hypersonics, AI-enabled undersea surveillance, autonomous undersea vehicles) is advancing more quietly and with less industrial risk, but it is Pillar 1’s submarines that define whether AUKUS is a programme or a slogan. There is an uncomfortable irony in that division. Australia’s first SSN-AUKUS boat is not expected until the early 2040s, a platform being designed today for a battlespace nearly two decades away.

The very Pillar 2 technologies the partnership is developing (autonomous detection, seabed sensor networks, AI-enabled surveillance) could reshape undersea warfare before the first hull enters service, making crewed submarines less decisive than the programme assumes.

The UK Government plans to cut steel on its first SSN-AUKUS boat at Barrow next year, a timeline that will reassure some in Canberra if it holds.

But a timeline is not a delivery date, and a single shipyard carrying the weight of both a national deterrent and a trilateral alliance, while the ocean it is building for changes around it, remains exactly what the title suggests: a single point of obsolescence.

August 5, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Burnham is wrong – increased nuke spending will lose more jobs than create

July 30, 2026, https://cnduk.org/press-release-burnham-is-wrong-increased-nuke-spending-will-lose-more-jobs-than-create/

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made his inaugural trip as Prime Minister to BAE’s shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, announcing a £8.4 billion contract for the latest phase of Britain’s Dreadnought nuclear-armed submarine programme.

Ahead of the trip, Burnham made the claim that the spending would help revitalise the economy and local community.

“Keeping this country safe is the first responsibility of any government – but security is not only about what we build; it is about who builds it, and who benefits from it,” Burnham said ahead of the trip. Downing Street said that this phase of contracts would support 18,000 extra jobs in nuclear weapons sector and 22,000 additional apprentices by 2035.

“To every young person across the country, I want you to know that there is a path for you into a reindustrialised Britain, and it starts with the apprenticeships we are funding through this investment today,” Burnham added.

Successive British governments have claimed that hikes to military spending will result in improving the economy.

However, the government’s own data shows that the ‘defence’ industry is jobs-poor. For the same level of spending, double the number of jobs are created in social care for instance. This is because the vast majority of the spending goes on the weaponry and on profits for the arms companies like BAE.

Burnham has gone along with the Defence Investment Plan – of which £64 billion has been allocated to nuclear weapons. This is being funded through at least £7 billion in cuts to public services. Research by the Transition Security Project has found that this will result in a net loss of at least 10,000 jobs.

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:

“Spending billions of pounds on nuclear weapons is not keeping us safe. In fact, Britain’s role in replacing its nuclear submarines and buying the US F-35A nuclear-capable fighter jets is only increasing the risk of nuclear weapons being used. The government is making Britain less safe because of its aggressive, expansionist nuclear and foreign policy. British bases like RAF Fairford are now a target because the government has continued to allow Trump to use this base to illegally bomb Iran.

“On the economic front, the argument that Burnham is making – that more money for nuclear and military spending will revitalise the economy – is totally false and not backed up by facts. The Defence Investment Plan – precisely because it is based on cuts to far more jobs-rich areas like health, transport and education – will result in a net loss of jobs. This will only drive social deprivation even further.

“Right now, thousands of people are dying in this country because of the underfunding to our health service and because of the total lack of preparedness to tackle the climate-driven extreme heatwave.

“The British government needs to fundamentally shift direction. It needs to focus on diplomacy and dialogue, and scrap its nuclear weapons and cut back its military spending. It needs to prioritise funding our hospitals, schools, and mitigating climate change. That should be the priority of this government, not preparing for the next war that could lead to a nuclear confrontation.”

August 4, 2026 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

What links Palestine Action arrests with Burnham’s nuclear weapons splurge?

MASS arrests of peaceful Palestine solidarity demonstrators in London were the backdrop to Andy Burnham boasting of his commitment to enlarging Britain’s nuclear arsenal in Barrow-in-Furness this week.

The left has a lot of work to do to turn the existing majority against British complicity in Israeli genocide, and the growing hostility to military partnership with a Donald Trump-led United States, into a more consistent rejection of the militarist agenda being forced down the country’s throat.

Not many will see a connection between the Palestine Action ban and Trident renewal, and many will even oppose the former while supporting the latter.


But the ban on Palestine Action — itself part of a wider project to suppress public solidarity with Palestine, from new police powers to outlaw protests to the prosecutions of peace movement leaders like Ben Jamal, Chris Nineham, Alex Kenny and Sophie Bolt — was never a random act of repression.

Nor — though this view is common on the left — was it primarily about banning criticism of Israel or a result of pressure from the Israeli state or its supporters, though of course both welcomed it.

The huge Palestine solidarity movement is a threat because it exposes the ugly truth about British foreign policy and the role the British military plays in the world.

A state which tries to warn international courts off investigating genocide is no defender of international law or human rights.

The armaments companies that help supply the weaponry for that genocide are complicit in it. They are also the beneficiaries of Labour’s militarist splurge.

And a military which actively assists the army committing the genocide — through the way bases like RAF Akrotiri act as staging posts for weapons supplies, or all those RAF surveillance flights over the killing fields of Gaza — is not a force for good in the world.


Early in the course of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, militarist pundit Paul Mason urged that it be reined in because outrage over Palestine would undermine support for the military more widely and for Britain’s interventions in other conflicts, notably Ukraine.

He was right to worry, though actually the implications of our complicity in Israeli war crimes, and more recently in the illegal US-Israeli war launched against Iran, are not widely enough recognised.

British military power is not used to deter aggression, but to enable it. Our principal allies are the most warlike countries on Earth, the readiest to resort to violence and the likeliest to plunge us into a new world war.

Once that is understood, the reckless rearmament drive — which itself is the result of pressure from President Trump — is much harder to justify. It makes Britain and the world more dangerous.

And support for rearmament rests anyway on shaky foundations. A plurality of the public oppose increased arms spending if it means tax rises or public service or welfare cuts.

Constant government hysteria has failed to instil war fever in the general public. Half of young people (aged 16-29 in a major poll this spring) say they would never fight in a war and ministers admit to a recruitment and retention crisis in the armed forces.

The causes are complex, with MPs like Clive Lewis pointing out rightly that many young people see little worth fighting for given Britain’s grotesque inequality and lack of decent jobs or affordable housing. But the success of the Palestine movement in opening eyes to the truth about our foreign policy and our allies should not be disregarded.
The ruling class wants war, or at least a population ready to be sacrificed in defence of the US-led imperialist order should war be required to shore it up.

That explains the rearmament drive. It also explains the continued repression of dissenting voices. Authoritarianism and militarism go hand in hand: we must oppose both.

August 4, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Suffolk nuclear power plant on alert over wildfire.

 Firefighters are racing to contain the Suffolk fire before the wind
changes direction and starts blowing smoke and flames towards the Sizewell
B nuclear plant. Westerly winds have so far pushed the blaze across the
heathland towards the coast, away from most human habitation and the power
station. But from early evening the wind is forecast to shift, pushing the
blaze and fumes first southwards and then south west. This could
potentially take them inland towards settlements like Leiston and the area
around Sizewell.

A nuclear industry source warned that if smoke started
blowing towards Sizewell B, it could force the station to shut down. There
is a risk of the smoke clogging the filters of the site’s heating,
ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, which draws air from
outside.

This week, Sizewell B has restarted one reactor after refuelling
and plans to restart the second within days. On Thursday, EDF said Sizewell
had so far not been impacted by the blaze, but said it was “continuing to
monitor the situation”. As well as changing direction, the breeze is also
set to double in speed overnight – increasing from around 5mph on
Thursday to between 10 and 12mph through Friday, according to weather
website

Windy.com whose forecasts are based on the European Centre for
Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. ‘Low risk’ to under-construction
Sizewell C. The fire poses a “low risk” to Sizewell C, a nuclear power
plant being built next to Sizewell B, due to its distance from the fire and
the watercourses in between. A spokesman said: “Our sites and offices
remain open and operating as normal. “We are continuously assessing smoke
conditions and any impacts on the road network to help keep people safe and
ensure emergency services have priority access. “We remain ready to
support the local community, working closely with the local council, police
and fire and rescue service.”

 Telegraph 30th July 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/30/wildfire-in-suffolk-just-four-miles-nuclear-power-plant/

August 4, 2026 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s £8.4bn nuclear submarine investment

 £8.4bn nuclear submarine investment “breathes new life into Barrow’s
historic traditions”. The £8.4bn investment into next generation nuclear
deterrent submarines “breathes new life into Barrow’s historic traditions”,
the UK Government has said.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, accompanied by
defence secretary Wes Streeting, visited BAE Systems (BAES) shipyard in
Barrow following the announcement that funding has been committed to begin
the fourth major production phase of the UK’s Dreadnought Class submarine
programme.

A contract worth £5.9bn has been agreed by the government and
BAES, the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE) industry partner responsible for
submarine production from its shipyard in Barrow, the home of UK submarine
building.

Further investments are set to be committed to Rolls-Royce
Submarines in Derby and the wider supply chain across the UK. The DNE
supports more than 6,000 UK companies in the supply chain and backs about
47,000 UK jobs.

 Insider Media 31st July 2026 , https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/8.4bn-nuclear-submarine-investment-breathes-new-life-into-barrows-historic-traditions

August 3, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Firefighters in ‘better position’ as they tackle Suffolk wildfire near Sizewell nuclear site, for third day

The fire is a few miles away from Sizewell B and the construction site for the new Sizewell C.

Standard 31st July 2026

Fire crews battling a large wildfire near Britain’s biggest nuclear power station have said the blaze is “stabilising”, as firefighting efforts enter their third day.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service said late on Thursday night that they were in a “better position” than they were a few hours earlier, although they warned that the blaze near Sizewell B was still a “dynamic incident”.

An update early on Friday morning said that “crews and officers remained at the incident overnight” and that they “maintained a watching brief during darkness”.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday morning, deputy chief fire officer for Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service Henry Griffin said an investigation had been launched into the cause of the fire and that the blaze had “stabilised”………………………………… https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/suffolk-andy-burnham-london-fire-brigade-zack-polanski-edf-b1291911.html

August 3, 2026 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

UK Needs Urgent Guidance On Preferred Reactor Concepts, (for small nuclear reactors) Says Fission Materials Roadmap

The report also called for long-term funding commitments of at least five years to support sustained research programmes.

By David Dalton, 30 July 2026, https://www.nucnet.org/news/uk-needs-urgent-guidance-on-preferred-reactor-concepts-says-fission-materials-roadmap-7-4-2026

Interim report lays out priorities on shaping next generation of nuclear plants

The UK urgently needs guidance on preferred reactor concepts and operating environments so it can prioritise materials research as it strives to shape the next generation of nuclear reactors which will power the country’s nuclear future, a report has said.

The UK Fission Materials Roadmap Interim Report, published by the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) and the Henry Royce Institute, said a decision is needed within one to two years on whether the UK should build a domestic materials test reactor.

Within five years the government needs to establish a national materials archive to preserve irreplaceable irradiated material samples

The report also called for long-term funding commitments of at least five years to support sustained research programmes.

Four major technical themes are set out in the report: structural materials, fuels and cladding, disposability of materials and irradiation damage. These sit alongside six separate priorities: skills, infrastructure, funding, qualification, modelling and policy. Together, they form the foundation of a full roadmap planned for publication in late 2026.

Gareth Headdock, chief science and technology officer and deputy chief executive officer of UKNNL, said the interim report is the product of genuine collaboration across the UK nuclear sector.

“From structural steels to advanced fuels and waste disposability, we have identified the priorities that matter most and the decisions that cannot wait.

“The decisions ahead – on reactor concepts, materials test infrastructure and long-term funding – are consequential ones, and it is vital that we get them right.”

David Knowles, chief executive officer of the Henry Royce Institute, the UK’s national institute for advanced materials research and innovation, said the momentum behind the UK nuclear sector is clear.

He said recent agreements between Rolls-Royce SMR, UKNNL and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies demonstrate the growing international confidence in UK nuclear capability.

“At the same time, the continued progress of Rolls-Royce SMR in securing commercial opportunities and advancing deployment highlights the strength of UK nuclear engineering and the scale of the opportunity ahead,” he said.

Rolls-Royce SMR, a subsidiary of blue chip engineering giant Rolls-Royce, and Czech state power company ČEZ are working on plans to deploy up to 3 GW of SMR capacity in the Czech Republic.

The company, a Rolls-Royce subsidiary, is also deploying three units in the UK with the potential for six, with a launch programme of three units in Sweden .

August 3, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Is it safe to extend the life of a nuclear power station?

BBC, Pamela Tickell, North East and Cumbria

When Hartlepool’s nuclear power station came online in 1983, it had an initial lifespan of 25 years. Now in its 43rd year, its operator has announced another extension. While the news has been welcomed by hundreds of employees, is it safe to keep doing so?

“Yeah, absolutely,” is the short answer from Mark Wenman, professor of nuclear materials at Imperial College London.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), which Wenman describes as a “very stringent regulator”, would not grant a licence unless they were sure it was safe to do so, he said.

Hartlepool is one of five sites, including Heysham 1 and Sizewell B, which have had their lifespans extended multiple times.

Even when French energy firm EDF took over all of the UK’s working nuclear power stations in 2009, Hartlepool was due to stop generating electricity in 2014.

On Friday, it extended the lifespan again until 2030……………………………………………..

However, opponents argue that while the technology might be clean and safe, it is not completely clean, or completely safe.

Nuclear power produces radioactive waste and disposing of it can be costly and comes with environmental risks, which Friends of the Earth says there is “no answer for”.

The UK government is currently looking for a site to build an underground storage facility for its radioactive waste, some of which would have to be buried for thousands of years before its safe.

Why is the lifespan limited anyway?

The radioactivity permanently degrades the nuclear reactor’s core over time.

At about 10 metres (33ft) high, uranium fuel is channelled through the core.

The graphite bricks, which make it up, break down due to cracking and weight loss and cannot be replaced.

“Once they [the core graphite bricks] reach the end of their life, that is the end of the life of the reactor,” Wenman said.

Can they be brought back online?

You would not get another one in the exact same spot because it takes a long time to decommission a reactor, Wenman said.

“Remember, everything in there is radioactive,” he said.

Equipment may be left to sit there for many years so it can lose its radioactivity over time.

“It will be quite a slow process, so where the actual AGR is built right now, they’ll probably leave it there for quite a few years,” Wenman said……….. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp87y14r11do

August 2, 2026 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

UK Nuclear output sinks to 40-year low

Lastest stats from DESNZ show the pressures of the transition in terms of generation, demand and fuel mix

Energy Live News 30th July 2026

UK nuclear generation fell to its lowest level since the 1980s last year, forcing greater reliance on gas even as renewable output reached another record.

Official DESNZ figures show nuclear generation dropped 12% in 2025 to 35.9TWh because of refuelling, planned maintenance and unplanned outages across the ageing fleet. The decline helped push the low-carbon share of electricity generation down slightly to 64.3%.

The fall comes at a difficult time for Britain’s power system.

Electricity demand increased 1.2% to 323TWh while the Government is preparing for much sharper growth from electric heating, transport, industrial electrification and data centres.

New nuclear projects are not expected to arrive quickly enough to replace all the output lost as older stations close. That creates a growing gap between the existing fleet and future projects including Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and planned small modular reactors………………………………………………………

Renewable generation rose 5.9% to a record 153TWh and supplied 52.1% of UK electricity. It was only the second year in the published series that renewables provided more than half of generation………………………………………

Data centres are becoming an increasingly important part of that picture. DESNZ estimates they consumed 4.5TWh of grid electricity in 2024, up from 1.3TWh in 2020.

That represents an increase of 246% in four years and helps explain Ofgem’s concern in the surge in speculative data centre connection applications………………………………………………https://www.energylivenews.com/2026/07/30/nuclear-output-sinks-to-40-year-low-as-power-demand-rises/

August 2, 2026 Posted by | ENERGY, UK | Leave a comment

Suffolk fire live: Hundreds of firefighters battle ‘unprecedented’ wildfire near nuclear plant

A wildfire is raging in Dunwich Heath, Suffolk where evacuations have been ordered – the blaze is close to three nuclear plant sites, and has burned an area the size of 210 football pitches

Olivia Beeson UK & World News Reporter , Joe Smith News Reporter, Rucsandra Moldoveanu Live News Reporter, Patrick Hill Senior News Reporter and Ethan Davies, 3o July26https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/suffolk-fire-sizewell-weather-b-37492955

Hundreds of firefighters are battling through the night to contain a massive wildfire in Dunwich Heath, Suffolk, that has devasted a huge nature reserve and threatened a nearby nuclear power plant.

Temperatures soared into the mid-30s in southern England on Thursday, burning an area the size of 210 football pitches in a National Trust reserve just a few miles away from Sizewell B – the UK’s largest nuclear power plant.

Some 200 caravans were evacuated this morning, with holidaymakers woken up by banging on their doors. Eighteen fire engines and more than 100 firefighters are now at the scene, with authorities saying they expect crews to be battling the blaze for the next two days.

There is also concern for wildlife in the area, after nature reserve RSPB Minsmere announcing its closure this morning. RSPB Suffolk area manager Adam Rowlands said the land was home to rare wildlife including nightjars – and it could take “more than a decade” for the habitat to recover.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the fire service will have “all of the support” they need in tackling the blaze.

On Thursday afternoon, an EDF spokesperson said the fire was “not affecting operations at Sizewell B power station”.

August 1, 2026 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Burnham explains why £8.4bn nuclear submarine investment will boost UK defence, jobs and apprenticeships

The nuclear-armed submarines are set to replace the current Vanguard-class when they enter service and will be capable of launching Trident 2 D5 ballistic missiles

Will Meakin-Durrant & Helen Corbett, Independent, 28 July 26

Andy Burnham is expected to unveil on Thursday an £8.4bn investment for the UK’s next generation of nuclear submarines.

Aimed at preparing Dreadnought-class boats for service by the 2030s, the nuclear-armed vessels are set to replace the current Vanguard-class and will be equipped to launch Trident 2 D5 ballistic missiles.

Powered by a Rolls-Royce nuclear propulsion system, produced in Derby, the submarines will boast an almost unlimited operational range.

HMS Dreadnought is the first of four new submarines.

The funding will primarily support its progress towards readiness, with a portion also allocated to advance the second vessel, HMS Valiant, to its sea trials.

Manufacturers will also be supported to get the third and fourth boats through their construction phases………………………..

On the Dreadnought-class submarine programme, £5.9bn of the £8.4bn will go to 

BAE Systems, with £2.5bn for the wider supply chain.

Mr Burnham faces questions about his defence policies, including how he will pay for a commitment to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP on defence spending by 2035.

Asked at a press conference on Wednesday whether he would meet the commitment, the prime minister pointed to the deadline in the next decade.

“In terms of our Nato commitments, I have been very clear that we will honour those commitments,” he said. “It does mean being prepared to look at challenging issues.”

Mr Burnham’s pick for chancellor, John Healey, resigned as Sir Keir Starmer’s defence secretary last month, warning that the former prime minister was “unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats”.

The Defence Investment Plan (Dip) which followed – including a pledge to fund the fitting of four Dreadnought submarines in Barrow – took expected total defence investment over the next four years to £298bn.

Defence spending by the end of the decade will be 2.7 per cent of GDP, according to the document.

It is thought the prime minister will hail Barrow as a case study for how taxpayer investment in major government projects can support opportunities in the long term throughout the UK………………………….. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/burnham-nuclear-submarines-hms-dreadnought-defence-jobs-apprenticeships-b3024190.html

August 1, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Government withholds cost to taxpayer of restarting nuclear power-critical CO2 factory

Tom Pashby , Jul 30, 2026, https://tompashby.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The government has declined to reveal the cost of the deal it agreed with Ensus to restart its carbon dioxide (CO2) factory, which is critical to the operation of the UK’s nuclear power stations.

On 26 March 2026, the then Department for Business and Trade (DBT) announced that agreed a deal with Ensus which owns a bioethanol plant at Wilton, Teesside to safeguard domestic CO2 supplies due to disruptions to imports caused by the Iran conflict. The plant had been mothballed in September 2025.

The DBT is in the process of absorbing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) following the appointment of Andy Burnham as Prime Minister, and will soon become the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST).

The 26 March announcement described CO2 as “vital” for Britain’s “nuclear, packaged meats, fresh food and healthcare”.The DBT said: “Disruptions to European fertiliser production — combined with difficult market conditions — have significantly reduced the reliability of CO2 imports, and rising gas prices driven by the Iran conflict, plus unplanned maintenance at several European CO2 producing sites, mean that the UK’s market for CO2 risks being undersupplied.

“Given the potential impact of a shortage on essential UK sectors, including healthcare, nuclear and food and drink production, the Government has taken the decision to back the restart of activity at Ensus to safeguard critical national infrastructure and maintain a resilient supply of CO2.”

It was widely reported at the time that the government was spending £100M to restart the factory, however, the government didn’t make public any documents confirming that figure.

The support from the government was intended to cover an initial three month restart, which is now understood to have been extended by a further three months to October 2026.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says the UK is the only operator of advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) and that the gas is CO2.

According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), the UK has eight operable AGRs at four nuclear power plants (NPPs) – named by the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) as Hartlepool, Heysham 1, Heysham 1 and Torness. The WNA and ONR appear to have slightly different naming conventions for the NPPs.

20 Working Days submitted a request under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act on 28 April asking the government to share “any documents showing the formal agreement which was agreed between Ensus and HMG (His Majesty’s Government) regarding the restart of Ensus’s CO2 facility.”

“However, when a ‘qualified’ exemption applies to the information and an accompanying public interest test is engaged, section 10(3) of the Act allows the time for response to be extended, in which case a full response must be provided within such time as is reasonable in all circumstances.

“In the case of this FOI request, we are considering section 43 (Commercial interests). However, this is not yet finalised and will be subject to changes.”

The DBT said it hoped to respond by 26 June

On 18 June, it said: “The Department for Business and Trade (the Department/DBT) can confirm information is held in scope of your request, however this is withheld in full under section 22 (Information intended for future publication), section 40(2)(Personal Information) Section 41(Information provided in confidence) and section 43(2)(commercial interests) under the Act.”

In the DBT’s explanation of its application of “Section 22 – Information intended for future publication”, it said: “The Department acknowledges the public interest in favour of transparency and early sight of the formal agreement which was agreed between Ensus and HMG regarding the restart of the facility.

“It is our view that although there may be an interest in early sight of this information, there is also a strong public interest to ensure that publication of information is in accordance with certain procedures to ensure accuracy and consistency.

“Under Section 16 (duty to provide help and assistance) the expenditure costs will be published in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts found on gov.uk.”

A written ministerial statement by the UK Government published on 13 April 2026, about the Ensus restart, said: “We will protect taxpayers’ money by operating the plant only for as long as necessary. This is why we have agreed that the plant will operate for an initial period of 3 months but will be subject to regular review.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) will closely monitor the associated spend, which will be reported in DBT’s accounts for 2026-27, with 2025-26 spend also disclosed in the annual report and accounts.

“If conditions require it, Government will not hesitate to extend this period and will retain the ability to restart the plant for a longer period as a precautionary measure.”

The DBT’s Annual Report and Accounts 2025-2026 for the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 was published on 15 July.

It said: “Ensus UK Limited was indicatively classified by HM Treasury to the Departmental Group after the designation process for 2025-26 had concluded. Accordingly, it will be consolidated in the 2026-27 Group accounts.”

On 18 June, 20 Working Days submitted a request for an internal review of DBT’s decision to withhold the information, and on 17 July, the DBT said it had conducted an internal review and that it stood by its decision to withhold the information.

The DBT, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Ensus were approached for comment.

August 1, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

“Jobs Jobs Jobs” screams the media again as the nuclear lobby plans to brink Japan’s nuclear wastes to Cumberland

COMMENT Plan to Bring Failed Japanese Fast Breeder Reactor’s Contaminated Sodium to Workington – https://radiationfreelakeland.substack.com/p/plan-to-bring-failed-japanese-fast

Japanese reactor decommissioning to bring jobs to UK

Federica Bedendo 26 July 26, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kmxl6ydpjo

New “highly skilled jobs” have been promised in the UK as part of plans to clean-up a nuclear reactor in Japan.

Cavendish Nuclear and Amentum are planning to build a facility at the Port of Workington, Cumbria, to support the decommissioning of the Monju Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR), in Fukui Prefecture, Japan.

Cumberland Council, which owns the port, said the plant would support skilled jobs directly and across the supply chain.

Leader Mark Fryer said: “This is fantastic news for the port as this new development, subject to the necessary approvals, will bring good quality jobs to Workington.”

The construction phase is expected to be worth more than £25m and employ about 20 people during its seven-year operation, those behind the plans said.

The FBR was a sodium-cooled reactor that had been designed to burn most of its spent fuel, however it encountered several problems during its lifespan.

The Workington plant would be treating the sodium coolant, turning it into sodium hydroxide, a commercially usable product.

West Cumbria is a well-known area for the nuclear sector, due to the presence of the Sellafield nuclear plant, which is being decommissioned.

The Labour-led council has started work to clear the land at Workington’s Oldside as part of its wider regeneration plans in the town.

The aim is for the area to become a hub for clean energy, manufacturing and logistics, the council said.

A Cavendish Nuclear and Amentum spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to adding real social value to west Cumbia and this new venture will contribute to the regeneration on the Port of Workington and support the local economy.”

July 31, 2026 Posted by | employment, Japan, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

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