Nuclear waste to be buried 650ft under the English countryside.
Swathes of nuclear waste are set to be buried in the English countryside
after ministers agreed to dig a 650ft pit starting this decade. The
facility, which has yet to be allocated a site, will hold some of the 5m
tonnes of waste that was generated by nuclear power stations over the past
seven decades.
This will ease pressure on the 17 nuclear waste disposal
plants currently in operation around the country, which consist of giant
sheds and cooling ponds. The largest facility is the Sellafield site in
Cumbria.
Plans for the 650ft pit will see it house so-called
intermediate-level waste, possibly in a mine on a pre-existing nuclear site
to minimise planning objections. The facility will be separate from the
much deeper geological disposal site that will hold the UK’s most
dangerous waste, such as plutonium, which is unlikely to be built until
after 2050.
The proposals come amid fears Britain’s stockpile of nuclear
waste will grow in the coming decades with nowhere to put it. Concerns are
particularly acute as the Government is currently planning to build at
least three new nuclear power stations. This will put the country at odds
with the 1976 review of nuclear waste policy by the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution, which warned the UK was accumulating nuclear waste
so fast that it should stop building reactors until it had a solution.
Ministers want to brand nuclear energy as a “green” and
“sustainable” fuel. However, experts on the Government’s own advisory
body, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, have said such terms
are misleading if there is no safe place to store radioactive waste.
A government spokesman said: “In addition to long-term plans to dispose of
the most hazardous radioactive waste in a geological disposal facility
hundreds of metres underground, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will
explore a facility closer to the surface for less hazardous radioactive
waste. “While a geological disposal facility is not expected to be ready
until the 2050s, a shallower disposal facility – which is up to 200m
below ground – could be available within 10 years.”
Telegraph 16th May 2024
UK government about to overrule Scotland and impose nuclear stations?
Don’t get above your nuclear power station, Scotland
17th May, By Wee Ginger Dug, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24325966.dont-get-nuclear-power-station-scotland/—
Scotland, know your place. Our exalted Viceroy General Alister Jack – He Who Must Be Obeyed – has said that the UK Government is considering plans to build a nuclear reactor in Scotland, despite fierce opposition from the Scottish Government and even though planning is a devolved matter.
Jack told a committee in the Lords that he expected a “Unionist regime” to gain power in Holyrood after 2026 and said that he has asked ministers at the Department for Energy and Net Zero to plan for a nuclear reactor to be built in Scotland as part of a UK-wide programme.
Although planning is devolved to Holyrood, energy policy is reserved to Westminster. This means that even though Westminster is committed to an expansion of nuclear energy generation, the Scottish Government has a de facto means of blocking the development of nuclear energy in Scotland as it can refuse planning permission for new nuclear power plants.
Jack’s remarks suggest that the UK Government is preparing to overrule Holyrood and impose new nuclear power plants on Scotland against the will of Scotland’s elected representatives.
The Scottish Government is strongly opposed to new nuclear power plants in Scotland, favouring instead a greater development of Scotland’s vast renewable energy potential which is already capable of supplying more energy than Scotland requires for domestic consumption.
Any new nuclear power stations which the UK Government builds in Scotland will not be built because Scotland needs them, they will be built in order to meet the energy needs of the rest of the UK, but these needs could also be met by greater investment in and development of Scotland’s renewable energy potential.
Moreover, given the years long timescale that is required from the commissioning of a new nuclear power plant, any new nuclear reactor that the UK commissions in Scotland would not be on stream until 2033 at the very earliest. New renewable projects can be brought in stream and contributing power to the grid much quicker.
Hinkley Point C, the UK’s first nuclear plant in more than two decades, was estimated to cost between £25bn and £26bn in 2015. The first reactor will not be in use until at least 2029, two years later than the most recent 2027 goal, and could take until 2031 if electromechanical work runs into problems.
The projected cost is now between £31bn and £35bn in 2015 figures and up to £46bn in today’s money.
This dwarfs the cost of a new wind farm. The British Government has allocated just £800m for investment in offshore wind farms. The massive onshore Whitelee wind farm south of Glasgow cost £1.5bn to construct. It has a total capacity of 539 megawatts and can power over 350,000 homes annually.
Jack’s behaviour is ‘menacing’
Jack has been condemned by John Swinney for keeping his plans for new nuclear plants in Scotland a secret from the Scottish Government.
The First Minister was asked about Jack’s comments by SNP MSP Rona Mackay at FMQs. She said: “This week, the Secretary of State for Scotland confirmed that planning is underway to develop new nuclear reactors in Scotland despite opposition …”
She was interrupted by the boors on the Tory benches cheering at the prospect of the democratically elected government of Scotland being overruled.
After the Presiding Officer hushed the adolescents, she went on: “Despite opposition from the democratically elected Scottish Government. Scotland doesn’t need expensive nuclear power. We already have abundant natural energy resources. Can the First Minister advise if the UK Government has approached Scottish ministers about these apparent plans?”
The First Minister replied: said: “I’m often lectured in this parliament about the importance of good intergovernmental relations. The Secretary of State for Scotland has made no mention of this proposal to the Scottish Government.
“This is utterly and completely incompatible with good intergovernmental working and is illustrative of the damaging behaviour, the menacing behaviour, of the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Government will not support new nuclear power stations in Scotland.”
He added that “supporting the announcements of formidable investments in the renewable energy potential of Scotland” was “the policy agenda of this government, and we have nothing to do with nuclear power”.
But Jack says – don’t get above your nuclear power station, Scotland.
We’re all right Jack: No need for nuclear in Scotland
Contrary to the call of an out-of-touch, and increasingly out-of-time, Conservative Secretary of State that nuclear must be included in Scotland’s energy mix, the Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities remain convinced that renewables represent the only way forward to achieve a sustainable, Net Zero future for the nation.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, appearing before the House of Lords Constitution Committee on Wednesday, confirmed that he has approached fellow Scot and Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie MP to plan for a new so-called Small Modular Reactor north of the border.
The sole operational nuclear plant in Scotland is at Torness, but this will cease generating before the end of the decade. Other reactors at Chapelcross, Dounreay, and Hunterston are in the process of being decommissioned.
Such a plan would put the UK Government at odds with that of Scotland, as the SNP-led Administration has affirmed to the NFLAs that it remains implacably opposed to the construction of any new nuclear fission plants in Scotland. Whilst energy policy is determined by Whitehall, the SNP Government can veto any development as planning authority has been devolved. The Minister is then clearly banking on regime change in 2026 at Edinburgh as both the Conservative and Labour Parties have both expressed support for new nuclear in Scotland.
To the NFLAs, an investment in any nuclear would not only be folly, but a lamentable diversion of effort from achieving the credible goal of supplying 100% of Scotland’s electricity from renewables.
Nuclear power plants are enormously expensive to build and notorious for their cost and delivery overruns. The sole UK gigawatt plant under construction at Hinkley Point C in Somerset is now expected to cost up to £47 billion at current prices, approaching triple its original estimate, whilst wildly optimistic claims by operator EDF Energy that the plant would be generating power ‘to cook British turkeys by Christmas 2017’ have been dampened by a series of damaging delays, with the first reactor expected now to become operational in 2031.
Secretary of State Alister Jack appears to be focused on bringing one of the so-called Small Modular Reactors (or SMRs) to Scotland. There has been previous talk of an SMR being co-located with the Grangemouth chemical plant, a prospect nipped in the bud by an NFLA intercession to the Scottish Minister. However, none of the competing SMR designs has yet received the required approvals from the nuclear regulator to even be deployed in the UK; none have been built; no sites have yet been permissioned for their deployment; the facilities to fabricate the parts have yet to be constructed; the necessary finance has yet to be put in place; and the procedures for their onsite assembly have yet to be perfected. SMRs are estimated to cost £3 billion each, but cost overruns are notorious in the nuclear industry, and the earliest any approved and financed SMR would come onstream would be in the early 2030’s.
Nuclear plants are also incredibly expensive to decommission, and the resultant radioactive waste must be managed at vast expense for millennia. There has been research published that suggests that SMRs will produce more radioactive waste per unit of electricity produced that gigawatt reactors.
Instead of wasting cash and time on nuclear, the Scottish NFLAs believe the money and effort would first be far better spent insulating all domestic properties and public buildings to the highest standard to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and minimise or eliminate fuel poverty, as well as investing in more renewable energy generating capacity and battery storage capacity.
Not only does Scotland possess more than sufficient natural resources, in the forms of wind, wave, hydro and geothermal energy to meet its own needs, but it can become a powerhouse where the surplus renewable energy can be exported to its neighbour England and to states in Europe, via interconnectors, generating income for the nation.
To realise this, the Scottish NFLAs would like to see the Scottish Government recommit to establishing a state-owned renewable energy company to invest in this potential and to generate an income for the nation, mirroring the commendable action of the Welsh Government. Maximum pressure needs to be applied to the UK Government to boost the capacity of the National Grid to take Scottish renewable energy from wind turbines to England. At present, constraints mean that the network is often incapable of accepting and transmitting the vast amounts of electricity generated by Scottish wind turbines, leading to them being shut off and generators being awarded huge compensation at taxpayers’ expense for lost revenue.
The NFLAs have also called on the UK Government to back the development of stored pumped hydro projects in Scotland. A report from BiGGAR Economics, commissioned by Scottish Renewables, identified six ‘shovel-ready’ pumped-hydro projects in Scotland which could deliver £5.8 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) and almost 15,000 jobs by 2035.
Scotland has some world leading renewable energy companies, such as the O2 Orbital wave power project based in the Orkney Islands and the Gravitricity gravity storage project born in Edinburgh.
The Scottish NFLAs believe that if the Secretary of State for Scotland genuinely wants to see a sustainable, Net Zero future for Scotland that he should call for the British Government to get behind the Scottish Government in backing this strategy, instead of maintaining his mad delusion for nuclear.
Scotland’s First Minister Swinney condemns Jack’s menacing idea for nuclear plant in Scotland
The First Minister was clear that the Scottish Government will not back the construction of such a facility north of the border.
John Swinney has insisted the Scottish Government will have “nothing to do” with a suggested new nuclear power station – as he hit out at the “menacing” behaviour of the Scottish Secretary.
The First Minister reacted angrily after Alister Jack revealed he has instructed UK ministers to start planning work for a nuclear plant in Scotland.
It comes despite the longstanding opposition from the SNP to the construction of such facilities north of the border.
Jack told a Lords committee on Wednesday he believes there will be a “unionist regime again in Holyrood” in 2026, and with the SNP out of power it will be possible to “move forward” with the construction plan.
Speaking about the prospect of a small nuclear reactor, Jack said he has asked the UK energy minister to “plan for one in Scotland”.
But Swinney told MSPs on Thursday that Jack has “made no mention of this proposal to the Scottish Government” – which has powers over planning north of the border.
The First Minister added: “This is utterly and completely incompatible with good intergovernmental working and is illustrative of the damaging behaviour, the menacing behaviour, of the Secretary of State for Scotland.”
He was asked about Jack’s comments by SNP backbencher Rona Mackay, who noted the UK minister’s suggestion came despite “opposition from the democratically-elected Scottish Government” to new nuclear power.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, Swinney was clear: “The Scottish Government will not support new nuclear power stations in Scotland.”
He said his Government instead supports investment in “the renewable energy potential in Scotland”, adding “massive investments” in this sector could “bring jobs and opportunities to the Highlands and islands and deliver green, clean energy for the people of Scotland”.
Swinney said: “That’s the policy agenda of this Government and we will have nothing to do with nuclear power.”
Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities welcome Traws abandonment from New Nuclear plans
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/welsh-nflas-welcome-traws-abandonment-from-new-nuclear-plans/
The Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities Forum hope that the decision made by Great British Nuclear to temporarily postpone plans for new nuclear at Trawsfynydd at this time might become a permanent one.
In March, responding to the UK Government consultation on the siting of new nuclear plants after 2025, the Welsh NFLAs said that the Trawsfynydd site was wholly inappropriate for redevelopment as it lies within the beautiful Eryri National Park. Ministers have previously agreed that any Geological Disposal Facility will not be in the Lake District National Park, and the NFLAs have called for this principal to be applied as a blanket ban on new nuclear plants in National Parks, at World Heritage Sites and in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Great British Nuclear has just announced that the site ‘may not be able to deploy quite as quickly as some other sites’, with reports that site was too small and lacked sufficient cooling water to support the deployment of so-called Small Modular Reactors for the foreseeable future.
Trawsfynydd had an operating Magnox nuclear reactor on site until 1991. It was unique in being inland and cooled by the water of an artificial lake, but it is also a brutalist eyesore standing out stark and ugly against the idyllic backdrop of mountains and forest. The plant is now being dismantled by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a British taxpayer funded body responsible for decommissioning redundant nuclear plant and for managing Britain’s radioactive waste inventory.
To the NFLAs, locating a new nuclear power plant in any National Park would be entirely incompatible with the Sandford Principal. From 1971 until 1974, Lord Sandford chaired a committee which examined the future management of National Parks in England and Wales:
‘National Park Authorities can do much to reconcile public enjoyment with the preservation of natural beauty by good planning and management and the main emphasis must continue to be on this approach wherever possible. But even so, there will be situations where the two purposes are irreconcilable… Where this happens, priority must be given to the conservation of natural beauty’.
We want to see the old Trawsfynydd plant decommissioned, and the site cleared and landscaped, as soon as practicable. n our view, any proposed new medical isotope facility would be better located at Bangor University, which has an established academic nuclear faculty and has much better transport links. The activities of the Welsh taxpayer funded Cwmni Egino, which was established to pursue new nuclear at the site, are entirely at variance with the stated ambition of the Welsh Government to source the nation’s domestically consumed electricity from truly ‘green’ sources. The body should be abolished, and its resources used to support the development of Welsh renewable energy projects.
Top Labour donor joins campaign to stop Hinkley nuclear plant
Government wasting billions of taxpayers’ money on power station, warns Dale Vince
Jonathan Leake 16 May 2024
Millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince has joined a campaign to block
Britain’s biggest nuclear power station project. The entrepreneur, who
founded green energy company Ecotricity, has emerged as a patron to Stop
Hinkley after accusing the Government of wasting billions of pounds.
He said the decision to use taxpayer money to fund Hinkley Point C, which is
under construction in Somerset, was flawed because nuclear technology is
“hugely expensive and slow to develop”. His comments will be sure to
raise questions for Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow energy secretary, who
has vowed to invest in nuclear energy.
The Opposition has accepted around
£1.5m in donations over the past decade from Mr Vince, who severed ties
with Just Stop Oil last year as part of his commitment to Labour. A
spokesman for Stop Hinkley said: “At a time when nuclear power is rapidly
losing ground to the astonishing growth in renewables, it’s great to have
someone onboard who founded a company which allows ordinary members of the
public to actually vote on the nuclear question with their electricity
bill.”
Telegraph 16th May 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/16/top-labour-donor-joins-campaign-stop-hinkley/
Pension funds need ‘compelling’ returns from UK nuclear projects to invest
Ft. com 17 May 24
Potential investors tell Jeremy Hunt regulatory clarity also essential before backing new power plants.
Local authority pension funds managing hundreds of billions of pounds have told UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt that returns from new nuclear power plants need to be “compelling” to attract their cash. The chancellor is looking to pension funds to help finance the government’s ambition for nuclear power to meet a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs by 2050. Several town hall pension funds, managing more than £100bn in assets between them, were called to a meeting with Hunt this week, where the role of large retirement plans as potential investors in the Sizewell C nuclear project in Suffolk was discussed.
The head of the Sizewell C project spoke at the meeting, according to sources close to those who attended. London CIV, which manages £17bn of pension assets for local authorities in the capital and attended the meeting, outlined the criteria needed for it to invest. “Any infrastructure solution, including nuclear power, will need to provide regulatory clarity, a solid business model and a compelling inflation-linked return stream,” said London CIV. “This is ultimately about what our partner funds need. As they are our shareholders, we’ll collaborate with them to identify whether this area is worth exploring.”
Laura Chappell, chief executive of the Brunel Pension Partnership, which manages about £35bn in assets for eight local authority pension funds, attended the meeting and with other funds offered views to Hunt on the “problems, pitfalls and potential of investing in nuclear in the UK”. “Any infrastructure solution, including nuclear power, will need to provide regulatory clarity,” said Chappell in a statement to the FT. Chappell echoed that potential infrastructure projects would need to have a “solid business model, consistent policy, and a compelling investment proposition”. The pitch to pension funds comes against a backdrop of high-profile challenges for the nuclear sector in the UK.
France’s EDF said in January that the Hinkley Point C 3.2GW nuclear plant it is building in Somerset was on course to cost up to £46bn in today’s prices and would be delayed by two more years to 2029 — compared with an initial budget of £18bn and completion by 2025.
………………………………………………. Hunt’s meeting with pension leaders came more than a year after the government flagged its intention to consult on reforms that would make nuclear a more attractive investment for UK pension funds.
However, the government is yet to consult on these reforms, which would pave the way for nuclear power to be classified as “environmentally sustainable” under the UK’s upcoming “green taxonomy”
The Treasury declined to comment on the pension meeting, including who attended, but said: “We want to incentivise private investment in nuclear as a crucial source of reliable low-carbon energy and a driver of economic growth.
“We have already begun to engage with industry on the topic and will consult on a UK green taxonomy in due course.” The meeting was held in the same week ministers showed signs of losing patience with pension funds over low levels of investment in domestic listed and unlisted markets. In a speech this week, Bim Afolami, City minister, said “We have a challenge with pension funds.” He said if there was “no improvement” in levels of investment in the UK by pension funds then the government would “consider what further action can be taken”. https://www.ft.com/content/70cd278f-8ef5-4904-9535-305fe1095768
Nuclear Free Local Authorities welcome commitment to recruit new Theddlethorpe GDF Community Partnership Chair at less cost who is local
After a prolonged period of paid tenure, the Interim Chair of the Theddlethorpe GDF Community Partnership is finally making way for a successor – and the Nuclear Free Local Authorities have welcomed the commitments made to appoint a local person to the post at a significantly lower cost to the taxpayer.
Jon Collins has acted as Chair since being appointed by Nuclear Waste Services at the inception of the Theddlethorpe GDF Working Party. Mr Collins is the former leader of Nottingham City Council without strong roots within the Theddlethorpe Search Area. The NFLAs have been especially critical of the renumeration package attached to the post, which initially comprised a payment of £1,000 a day for two days per week, since reduced to £750. This day rate is many times higher than the average salary received in the local community.
Now the Community Partnership is recruiting a candidate for the ‘challenging but rewarding role’ to manage the meetings and business of the partnership. Although the NFLAs reject the hyperbole that the GDF represents the ‘biggest environmental protection project of our lifetime’, creditably the advertisement states that members of the partnership ‘have expressed a preference to recruit a Chair who lives or works in the Search Area’ and that renumeration has now been reduced to a more modest annual honorarium of £10,000.
By contrast, in West Cumbria, both Community Partnership Chairs have always been local Councillors and worked solely for expenses rather than salary.
With the Theddlethorpe Community Partnership now moving to public meetings, the appointment of a new independent and impartial Chair at this time will be a welcome move, but it remains to be seen whether a local person is in fact appointed to the role or if the appointee will ‘act independently and not represent either themselves or any organisation of which they are a member’.
The advert also states that the Independent Chair must ensure ‘the work of the Partnership is fair, unbiased and reflects the needs of the community’. This must pose the appointee with a dilemma for clearly the local community does not share the belief of Nuclear Waste Services that the GDF represents the ‘biggest environmental protection project of our lifetime’.
By contrast, in West Cumbria, both Community Partnership Chairs have always been local Councillors and worked solely for expenses rather than salary.
With the Theddlethorpe Community Partnership now moving to public meetings, the appointment of a new independent and impartial Chair at this time will be a welcome move, but it remains to be seen whether a local person is in fact appointed to the role or if the appointee will ‘act independently and not represent either themselves or any organisation of which they are a member’.
The advert also states that the Independent Chair must ensure ‘the work of the Partnership is fair, unbiased and reflects the needs of the community’. This must pose the appointee with a dilemma for clearly the local community does not share the belief of Nuclear Waste Services that the GDF represents the ‘biggest environmental protection project of our lifetime’.
The last thing that Scotland needs is new nuclear power, small or otherwise
Pete Roche, Edinburgh,
The last thing that Scotland needs is new nuclear power, small or otherwise. (Scotsman Editorial 16th May 2024). It is perfectly feasible to supply 100 per cent of Scotland’s energy (not just electricity) from renewable sources. In fact, a recent study [1] by renowned energy modelling academics at the LUT University in Finland, showed that not only is a 100 per cent renewable energy mix feasible for the whole UK but it would save well over £100 billion in achieving net zero by 2050, compared to the UK Government’s current strategy.
It’s true that renewable energy output is variable, and there are times when wind and solar are producing almost nothing. But there are also times when they produce too much power, and we have to pay wind to turn off. The UK could waste more than £3.5bn per year by 2030 this way.[2] The answer is flexibility, not “always on” nuclear power stations which will just end up wasting more power when renewables are plentiful.
Firstly, we need to: reduce overall demand (helping tackle fuel poverty in the process); introduce more flexibility with new smart technologies (for instance making use of demand-response aggregators like Edinburgh-based company Flexitricity), and vehicle to grid technology; build more energy storage – not just batteries, but pumped hydro storage (with several schemes in Scotland awaiting approval), gravity storage (developed in Edinburgh), compressed air storage; and thermal storage (developed in East Lothian).
These are just some of the ways we can make better use of the renewable resources we already have. Nuclear power is too slow and too inflexible and too expensive to play a role in cutting carbon emissions.
Together Against Sizewell C vows to continue fight after legal challenge rejected by Supreme Court – as the nuclear plant welcomes the news
By Ash Jones , ash.jones@iliffepublishing.co.uk, 14 May 2024 https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/southwold/sizewell-c-campaigners-vow-to-continue-fight-after-supreme-c-9365930/
Campaigners protesting against the £20 billion Sizewell C plant are determined to continue their fight after a legal challenge was rejected by the Supreme Court.
The court yesterday refused an appeal by Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) after it called for a judicial review of the plant, near Leiston.
TASC first challenged the Government’s decision to give planning permission to the station in July 2022 after it was given the go-ahead by then-business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
Among its claims were that the Secretary of State was wrong to grant a Development Consent Order (DCO) without first assessing the environmental impact of proposals for Sizewell C’s water supply.
In its ruling, three Supreme Court judges said the group’s latest claims did not raise an arguable point of law.
Julia Pyke, the managing director of Sizewell C, welcomed the news and said the team were glad the challenge was rejected by the court.
However, Pete Wilkinson, from TASC, said the group would seek new avenues to challenge the plant.
Mr Wilkinson described yesterday’s ruling as a ‘bit of a blow’ but said the site still needed other permits and licences.
He said it was a challenge opposing Sizewell C through the courts and the Government seemed to have decided the plant will go through regardless.
“Local opposition to the plant appears to be growing as people in the area realise the imposition it will cause,” he said.
“There are about 36 site conditions that cover the site that we’ll be able to monitor, there are no details on water supply and a many-billion pound hole in finances as well as further licences to be awarded.
There are things that lend themselves to a possible challenge to give the public a chance to review.”
This followed TASC’s case being refused by the High Court last year – the decision to approve plant was also upheld by the Court of Appeal in December.
During the High Court case, the body argued against the impacts of water supply of up to two million litres per day, which it said were never assessed and that there was no way of knowing if the environmental benefits of the plant would outweigh the costs.
In addition, no opening date for the plant could be guaranteed, campaigners said.
Ms Pyke said the team knew the majority of East Suffolk residents supported the project and looked forward to the jobs and development opportunities it would bring.
She added: “We will continue to listen closely to local communities and we are as determined as ever to ensure that Sizewell C delivers for them.”
UK government planning nuclear site in Scotland – Jack
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9eze1dzy5no 15 May 24
The UK government is planning to build a new nuclear reactor in Scotland despite opposition from Holyrood, according to Scottish Secretary Alister Jack.
He told a House of Lords committee he had asked the UK energy minister to plan for such a site as part of a UK-wide strategy.
The Conservative minister also called for the Lords to be allowed to scrutinise Scottish laws.
The Scottish government has rejected calls to end an effective ban on new nuclear power stations.
The UK government has committed to developing larger-scale nuclear plants south of the border, as well as developing a new generation of smaller reactors.
Its ambitions for up to a quarter of all electricity to come from nuclear power by 2050 are being led by government-backed body Great British Nuclear body.
Mr Jack told the Lords committee: “On the small nuclear reactors, I have asked the energy minister to plan for one in Scotland.
“I believe that in 2026 we’ll see a unionist regime again in Holyrood and they will move forward with that.”
The Scottish secretary added that he did not “see any point in having a great fight over it” given the “timescales in front of us” – a likely reference to the upcoming general election.
Scotland’s last nuclear power plant – at Torness in East Lothian – is scheduled to be shut down by 2028.
Although energy policy is largely set at Westminster, the Scottish government is able to block projects it opposes as planning powers are devolved.
‘Patronising’
The Scottish Secretary went on to suggest a “grand committee” of the House of Lords should be allowed to scrutinise Holyrood legislation.
“Devolution is not a bad thing,” he told the committee. “Where it has failed is bad governance.”
Mr Jack said the Scottish Parliament’s committee structure was “not right” and that the “knowledge and wisdom” of the House of Lords could be used to help review Scottish laws.
SNP MP Tommy Sheppard said the Tory minister was “undermining and patronising our democratically-elected government”.
He added: “His comments and the decision to ignore the Scottish government on building new nuclear reactors in Scotland show exactly how this Westminster government sees Scotland and its people – a nation that should get in line and know its place.
“Scotland doesn’t need expensive nuclear power – we already have abundant natural energy resources, we just need full powers over energy so Scotland can take full advantage of the green energy gold rush.”
Nuclear power station risks hitting taxpayers with £20bn bill
Plans for a power station at Wylfa could be derailed by government rules
Telegraph, Matt Oliver, INDUSTRY EDITOR, 13 May 2024
Plans for a large nuclear power station on the Welsh island of Anglesey risk being derailed by government rules that will add an estimated £20bn to the national debt, insiders have warned.
Efforts to develop a gigawatt-scale scheme at Wylfa are on the agenda this week as Andrew Bowie, the minister for energy security, meets representatives from the South Korean state nuclear company Kepco.
The company is among several thought to be in the running to build a plant at Wylfa, with a consortium that includes US nuclear giant Westinghouse also putting forward proposals.
But one senior industry source warned there were concerns about the willingness of ministers to sign off on such a large project ahead of the general election, with the next government expected to be saddled with challenging budgetary constraints.
They blamed accounting rules which will force the British state to add the project’s full cost to the national debt, even if it only holds a minority stake in the scheme.
This is owing to the Government’s position as the ultimate guarantor if the project goes wrong.
There are fears it could put ministers off from backing a scheme at the Wylfa site, which has just been reacquired by the Government.
No decisions about the potential project have been taken yet but the scheme’s budget is widely expected to be in the region of £20bn. Britain’s debt pile is currently 98.3pc of GDP, or almost £2.7 trillion, as high interest rates push up the cost of Government borrowing.
The industry source said: “The main barrier right now is that if you build gigawatt-scale units, you have to put them on the Government balance sheet.
“Whoever is in power after the next election is going to have to grapple with that balance sheet – and are they really going to do this?
“It is something that is being looked at now.”………………….. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/13/anglesey-nuclear-plant-risks-saddling-taxpayers-with-bill/
UK nuclear lobby further infiltrates universities with government grants for nuclear fusion
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the UK’s national
fusion energy research and development organisation, has awarded six
organisations with £9.6 million of contracts to advance their concepts to
support fusion energy development. The contracts were awarded to three
universities and three companies focusing on digital engineering and fusion
fuel cycle developments dedicated to addressing fusion energy challenges.
The contracts range between £460,000 and £1.9m, and are funded by
UKAEA’s Fusion Industry Programme, an initiative launched in 2021 to
develop the necessary technology and skills for the future global fusion
powerplant market.
UKAEA 15th May 2024
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukaea-awards-96m-to-six-organisations-for-fusion-projects
EU rebuffs UK attempt to continue collaborating on nuclear fusion experiment.
EU rebuffs UK attempt to continue collaborating on nuclear fusion
experiment. Bloc tells London it will be locked out of Iter project in
France within months unless it rejoins civil atomic programme. Brussels has
told London it will be locked out of the Iter project, based in France,
within months unless it affiliates to Euratom, which it quit when it left
the bloc, according to people familiar with the matter.
The UK has asked to continue with Iter as an outside partner, an arrangement granted to
Australia. But the EU has said it must also join a Euratom research scheme,
the people said. Australia has a co-operation agreement with Euratom.
London left Euratom because it did not believe the programme provided value
for money, and stayed out when it rejoined other EU research schemes last
year. Iter is an international project to build the world’s biggest
tokamak — the reaction vessel for nuclear fusion.
After four decades of experiments the technology is still years away from proving it can generate commercially viable power, but supporters hope it will prove a viable
source of plentiful low-carbon energy.
FT 15th May 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/12cf843a-184d-4e50-8818-a57e12464276
Nuclear power and nuclear weapons – two sides of the same coin
In March 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak explicitly linked nuclear weapons production capability with civil nuclear power generation development. This is because nuclear reactors are used to create tritium – the radioactive isotope of hydrogen – necessary for nuclear weapons.
The government has admitted its push for nuclear energy expansion is linked to its strategic military interests
by Peter Wilkinson, 12 May 2024, o https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/nuclear-power-and-nuclear-weapons-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/
The government’s apparent answer to climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is to triple the amount of nuclear generated electricity in the belief that it generates ‘low carbon’ electricity. But a recent admission by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggests there is a strong military component to what looks on the surface to be a civil matter.
The UK review of the energy sector, prompted by the invasion of Ukraine, offered a golden opportunity to address the need to drive down demand for electricity and energy more generally. This could be achieved by retrofitting insulation to the housing stock and buildings, mandating solar panel use for all new homes, investing heavily in renewables, in emerging battery technology and in decentralisation. Instead, the government has focused on a massive expansion of nuclear-generated electricity.
The dual nuclear agenda
Now the reason has finally been openly admitted. Maintaining and improving the supply chain and the knowledge and skills base in the workforce for the UK’s £100bn Trident nuclear weapons renewal programme relies on the civil nuclear sector.
While this claim has been regularly made by anti-nuclear campaigners – and just as regularly denied by minister after minister – it is now openly acknowledged. The Roadmap states quite clearly that it is important to align civil and military nuclear ambitions across government, to strengthen the interconnections between civil and military industries’ research and development, and thereby reduce costs for both the weapons and power sectors.
In March 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak explicitly linked nuclear weapons production capability with civil nuclear power generation development. This is because nuclear reactors are used to create tritium – the radioactive isotope of hydrogen – necessary for nuclear weapons.
The cat which was so carefully and fraudulently hidden for decades is finally out of the bag: ministers now have to acknowledge that the civil nuclear programme owes more to maintaining weapons of mass destruction – weapons that were outlawed by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which entered into force in January 2021 – than it has to do with salvation from the existential crisis that is climate change.
Debunking myths: the truth behind nuclear ambitions
Its brave new world aims for a nuclear sector generating upto 24 Gigawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s comparable to seven new 3.2 Gw capacity Hinkley Point Cs or Sizewell Cs or forty-eight Sizewell A-size reactors at around half a Megawatt output.
The locations for a proposed ‘mix’ of ‘gigawatt-sized reactors’ such as the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) planned for Sizewell C, and ‘small modular’ and ‘advanced modular’ reactors (SMRs and AMRs respectively) is the subject of the government’s ‘Nuclear Road Map’.
It is, necessarily, largely a work of fiction laced with eulogies to nuclear power and liberally interspersed with admissions of hope over expectations. The truth is that Hinkley Point C is now expected to cost an eye-watering £40+bn from its original £20bn, and Sizewell C has already cost the taxpayer £2.4bn in sweeteners to the private sector.
Commercial SMRs don’t yet exist, and they are not small, unless you consider that Sizewell A falls into that category. AMRs have remained a fantasy for decades and are likely to remain so. Mention them to a nuclear regulator, and you’ll probably get a raised eyebrow in response.
Nuclear revival: promises vs reality
The Sizewell project has yet to be granted multiple construction and operating permits and licences and no final investment decision has been made. Other issues which make Sizewell C a terrible idea include:
- A multi-billion hole existing in its finances
- There is no reliable and guaranteed supply of potable water – of which an average of 2.2 million litres a day are required in the country’s most water-scarce area
- It is situated in a flood zone
- It is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
- It sits on the fastest-eroding coastline in northern Europe
- An estimated 46 hectares of woodland have already been flattened
- The Environment Agency (EA) has authorised the dumping of 1,590 tonnes of dead and dying fish back into the North Sea each year as a consequence of the Sizewell C cooling water intake (not to mention the 100s of millions of fish, fish larvae and other marine biota)
- In addition, there will be an estimated 171 million sacrificial sand goby, none of which are acknowledged by the EA.
- Radiological discharges from Sizewell C to the sea and air have contested health impacts
EDF ploughs on
The Supreme Court is still considering the merits of a judicial review appeal against the original planning approval. None of these uncertainties and deficiencies have stopped EDF devastating the areas around the development with the sanction of the local planning authority.
The tragedy is that nuclear is now a redundant technology which takes too long to come to our climate-change rescue and is not fit to be in the front-line of defence against climate change. It does not represent a plan of great urgency to meet the accelerating existential threats of climate change.
It has a rapidly narrowing window in which to contribute its electricity to the job of reducing climate change risks. When compared to renewables and conservation measures, nuclear is slow, costly and unreliable in terms of the new technology embodied in the EPR design. The Flamanville project in France, using a Sizewell EPR-type reactor, is still offline, is twelve years late and will cost four times the original budget.
The government has been in thrall to nuclear power for a long time. Perhaps with the admission of its connection to its strategic miliary goals, we can now better understand why that is. But the knowledge only deepens and entrenches the divide between the hawks and the doves.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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