Labour backs nuclear – but at what cost?
for the UK consumer, nuclear new building means expensive electricity and offers little in terms of addressing climate change.
With new funding announced for the prospective Sizewell C plant, the government seems committed to nuclear power.
However, the cost of nuclear newbuild in the UK is staggering and,
even if built, sufficient new capacity will not arrive soon enough to help
mitigate climate change.
UK electricity consumers should hope that the
target of 24 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050 slips into obscurity. “We
will ensure the long-term security of the sector, extend the lifetime of
existing plants, and we will get Hinkley Point C over the line.” That was
Labour’s manifesto commitment to nuclear power, and the government has
already put money on the line.
In late August, it announced additional
funding of up to £5.5 billion for the proposed Sizewell C plant, which
would be only the UK’s second nuclear construction project since the
completion of Sizewell B in 1995, if built.
However, for the UK consumer, nuclear new building means expensive electricity and offers little in terms of addressing climate change. The UK’s operable nuclear capacity declined
from 12.2 GW in 1996 to 5.8 GW in 2023. Only nine reactors are still
generating power and two are under construction. Eight of the operable
reactors came online between 1983 and 1989, making the youngest 45 years
old. Last year, the Hartlepool and Heysham 1 plants gained modest life
extensions to 2026, and operator EdF hopes to extend the lives of its other
Advanced Gas Cooled (AGRs) reactors to 2028.
However, there is little likelihood that the eight remaining AGRs can continue in service beyond these dates. They were initially designed to last about 30 years, with the
decision to decommission based on the deterioration of irreplaceable
components such as the graphite core and boilers. Three AGRs – two built
in 1976 and one in 1983 – are already defueling, a preliminary step to
decommissioning. As a result, by 2030 at the latest, all of the UK’s AGRs
will be out of service.
Decommissioning costs the consumer money, and the
Nuclear Liabilities Fund has not kept up with the cost of decommissioning.
In its third report of 2022-23, the House of Commons Committee of Public
Accounts noted that the government had already been forced to provide
additional funding of £10.7 billion and that there remained “a strong
likelihood that more taxpayers’ money will be required”.
In addition, despite the first nuclear reactors coming into service in the 1950s, there
is still no clear plan for the permanent storage of the most hazardous
forms of radioactive waste.
The government’s most recent energy and
emissions projections, published in November 2023, forecast the
volume-weighted wholesale electricity price in 2030 at between £36.6/MWh,
in a low fuel price scenario, and £58.5/MWh in a high fuel price scenario.
The UK’s latest licensing round for renewable energy, the results of
which were announced in September, returned CfD prices for solar projects
of £50.07/MWh, onshore wind at £50.90/MWh and offshore wind at
£58.87/MWh (2012 prices).
At over £100/MWh in today’s money, even
without a further five years of inflation, Hinkley Point C is a chronic
deal for the UK electricity consumers. EdF wants a new funding model for
both the construction of Sizewell C and the lifetime extension of Sizewell
B, indicating that even the large CfD strike price for Hinkley Point C is
not enough to build new nuclear in the UK. This will almost certainly mean
UK consumers bearing more of the risk. The adoption of the proposed
Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model would see consumers paying for nuclear
plants years before they actually generate electricity.
Energy Voice 18th Sept 2024.
Miliband urged by US nuclear giant to abandon large reactors in favour of mini-nukes
GE-Hitachi Nuclear boss says investors have ‘scars’ from large projects’ cost overruns
Matt Oliver, Industry Editor
An American nuclear power giant has urged
Ed Miliband to focus on building a new generation of mini reactors instead
of vast megaprojects such as Hinkley Point C. Andrew Champ, the UK country
director for GE-Hitachi Nuclear, said small modular reactors (SMRs) offered
“the best route” to expanding Britain’s nuclear capacity as the
Energy Secretary draws up plans to overhaul the power grid.
By comparison, many investors have “scars” from budget overruns and delays with bigger
nuclear projects and view them as too risky, he claimed. Mr Champ pointed
to the large cost of Hinkley Point C in Somerset as an example. The
project’s budget has ballooned from £20bn to as much as £46bn when
inflation is included.
His comments come as the Government is reconsidering
proposals to build a large-scale nuclear power station in Wylfa, a
taxpayer-owned site on the Welsh island of Anglesey.
GE-Hitachi, which also builds larger-scale reactors, is among those currently trying to
commercialise SMR technology and is vying to secure funding from the UK
under the Government’s current mini-nuke development competition. SMRs
have been hailed as a potential breakthrough for nuclear power because they
would be built in chunks by factories and then assembled rapidly on site,
potentially meaning they can benefit from economies of scale.
So far the technology remains unproven on a commercial basis and no such reactors are
in operation. He also said the UK’s current target to build out 24
gigawatts of nuclear capacity was likely to prove too conservative, partly
due to the huge growth in power demand from data centres being used to
develop artificial intelligence software.
Telegraph 16th Sept 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/15/miliband-urged-ge-hitachi-prioritise-mini-nukes/
Dounreay nuclear wastes : new snake like robot to access off limits areas
A new robot has been trialled at Dounreay in order to reach “severely
restricted” areas at the former experimental nuclear plant. During
decommissioning of the reactor, engineers have had to come up with
innovative solutions to access parts of the plant that are off limits to
humans.
John O’Groat Journal 17th Sept 2024
Hinkley Point C must deploy mandated protections for fish
For Hinkley Point C to deliver on its environmental claims, the project must install its mandated Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD) system, writes Fish Guidance Systems’ Lewis English.
Can we truly call energy “clean” if it
causes significant environmental harm? This question becomes particularly
pertinent when examining the situation at Hinkley Point C, a new generation
nuclear power plant under construction in Somerset.
For nearly eight years,
EDF Energy has been working to remove a vital environmental protection at
Hinkley Point C, the Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD). The AFD system is
designed to protect aquatic life by deterring fish from entering the
cooling systems of the power plant, and was included in the initial design
plans of Hinkley Point C. Despite its importance, the removal of the AFD
has been a contentious issue.
The Welsh Government Commission has warned
that its absence could lead to the death of approximately 182 million fish
annually, including sensitive species like shad, sprat, Atlantic salmon,
and herring, which are crucial to local ecosystems, and Secretary of State
Kwasi Kwarteng ruled in a Public Inquiry that the measure must be applied.
Still, EDF continues to contest it, arguing that it would further delay the
completion of Hinkley Point C and hold up the UK’s net zero plans.
The Engineer 16th Sept 2024
A Suffolk wildlife and conservation charity has called for “greater transparency” from Sizewell C in relation to its wildlife compensation schemes.
Earlier in September, developers of the new Sizewell C nuclear
power station announced a new partnership with the nature restoration
movement WildEast to promote the return of land to nature across the
region. In announcing the partnership, Sizewell C flagged up how it had
pledged to return a large part of the land to nature during the
construction of the new power station. Its involvement in leading on a
wildlife habitat scheme at Wild Aldhurst nature reserve in Leiston was
mentioned, along with plans for wetland habitat creation at three nature
reserves at Benhall, Halesworth and Pakenham.
However, in a joint statement
with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Suffolk
Wildlife Trust spoke of its “real disappointment” that Sizewell C had
included the work at the three nature reserves, which is part of its legal
duty to compensate for the impacts of the power station’s construction on
wildlife. The charities said the projects were a “minimum requirement,” but
were being “misrepresented” as examples of the developers going the extra
mile for nature.
East Anglian Daily Times 16th Sept 2024
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24585320.suffolk-wildlife-trust-rspb-speak-sizewell-c-nature/
The UK’s nuclear waste problem
“more nuclear power means more nuclear waste”
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK, 16 Sept 24 https://theweek.com/environment/the-uks-nuclear-waste-problem
Safety concerns as ‘highly radioactive’ material could be buried in the English countryside
“Not in my backyard” is a term normally used in conversations about proposed new housing or rail lines, but a version of it could soon be heard about one of the most dangerous materials on the planet.
Nuclear power stations are filling up with radioactive waste, so “swathes” of the highly dangerous material are set to be “buried in the English countryside”, said The Telegraph. For local communities, it isn’t so much “not in my backyard” as “not under my backyard”, said the Financial Times.
‘100,000 years of hazard’
Sellafield, in Cumbria, is the “temporary home to the vast majority of the UK’s radioactive nuclear waste”, said the BBC, “as well as the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium”. It’s stuck there because no long-term, high-level waste facilities have been created to deal with it.
The “highly radioactive material” releases energy that can infiltrate and damage the cells in our bodies, Claire Corkhill, professor of radioactive waste management at the University of Bristol, told the broadcaster, and “it remains hazardous for 100,000 years”.
The permanent plan to handle the waste currently at Sellafield is to first build a designated 650ft-deep pit to store it. Although the contentious matter of its location has yet to be agreed, the facility will hold some of the 5 million tonnes of waste generated by nuclear power stations over the past seven decades. Then, in the second half of the century, a much deeper geological disposal site will be dug, which will hold the UK’s “most dangerous waste”, such as plutonium, said The Telegraph.
The problem is only going to get bigger because nuclear power is a central part of the government’s mission for “clean power by 2030” and “more nuclear power means more nuclear waste”, said the BBC.
With at least three new nuclear power stations planned, said The Telegraph, the country will quickly be “at odds with” the 1976 review of nuclear waste policy by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which warned the UK was amassing nuclear waste so fast that it should stop building reactors until it had a solution.
‘Poison portal’
Some believe part of that solution will be found overseas. Earlier this year, there were warnings that Australia could become a “poison portal” for the UK and US as a result of a new three-nation defence pact called Aukus. The original wording of the agreement would allow for facilities to be created to dispose of waste from “Aukus submarines”, which could have included UK and US vessels.
Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s nuclear free campaigner, warned at the time that Aukus partners could see Australia as “a little bit of a radioactive terra nullius”.
After pushback, the Australian government added a loophole to the legislation to “ensure Australia will not become a dumping ground for nuclear waste”, said The Guardian.
But the Australian Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said the changes did not go far enough. The amendment only addresses high-level radioactive waste, he said, and “still allows the US and UK to dump intermediate-level waste, and Australian high-level waste, anywhere in Australia”.
New logo for Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) represents a costly conversation
‘£4,600 excluding VAT’ was the answer to the query posed to Nuclear
Waste Services by NFLA Secretary Richard Outram who asked about the cost of
commissioning a new logo for the GDF Theddlethorpe Community Partnership.
With two speech bubbles signifying a conversation, the new logo was
conceived by House 337, who are ‘experts at building brands across many
sectors’. House 337 is an arm of NWS’s ‘contracted strategic delivery
partner’, MHP. Wags might suggest that a single speech bubble signifying
a one-sided conversation or a deaf ear signifying an inattentive NWS might
have been more appropriate.
NFLA 16th Sept 2024
Sizewell C now: from farce to drama
To ensure that the terrain of the site is strong enough to withstand the pressures and forces of such a mammoth construction and future climate change challenges, ground anchor trials have been ordered. The results of these trials are not yet known, but that has not deterred the Office of Nuclear Regulation from issuing a nuclear site licence.
Construction of Sizewell C is already under way in Suffolk. The promise is for cheap, clean and safe energy, but what is the reality?
by Peter Wilkinson, 17 September 2024, https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/energy/sizewell-c-now-from-farce-to-drama/
As time passes and the land is prepared for the Sizewell C development, the impact of this massive undertaking is finally and painfully revealing itself to residents.
Sizewell C: here we go again
Vegetation has disappeared from large tracts of land. A 100-year-old forest has been felled. Huge lay-down areas are being created to store the equipment required for construction work. The presence of large numbers of aggregate tipper lorries on the small roads around the site has become routine. Footpaths have been closed. Deer have been driven out of their traditional habitat and wander bemused onto roads. Worker campuses are appearing and already, some workers have been charged with driving offences, causing one resident who has seen it all before – and worse – during the construction of Sizewell B to comment, “And so it begins”.
EDF is stamping its imprint all over East Suffolk, making its intentions crystal clear. The trickle of inconvenience will quickly become the intolerability of an invasion of workers, noise, industrialisation and disruption over the next few years.
How do we define ‘safe’ when it comes to nuclear power?
Nuclear power is often cited as being ‘safe’. A quick search of the internet will disabuse anyone of that view. Many reported accidents are trivial, but some are significant and bring with them the contradiction of the term ‘safe’. It is difficult to quantify or qualify the level of safety we can expect from the operation of nuclear power plants, largely because the regulatory authorities – let alone the mere mortals in the communities who are required to host these nuclear facilities – are unaware precisely what those impacts are in relation to exposure to radioactivity.
The Environment Agency itself cannot give a figure on the volume of uranium dust particles that are routinely, and with regulatory knowledge, discharged from an operating nuclear power station and, therefore, cannot – or will not – calculate the associated health impact. These potentially lethal specks of alpha-radiation-emitting dust are dismissed by the regulators as ‘insignificant’. Their presence in the atmosphere and in the sea, however – from accidents such as Chernobyl, Fukushima, Windscale in the 1950s, from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing as well as from the routine operation of nuclear facilities – cannot be denied.
Future risks and threats
The more conventional aspects of threats to our safety presented by nuclear power plants should concern us too. At Sizewell, for example, the site is considered to be too small to accommodate the planned twin EPR reactor development and is also highly vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges. So great is this threat, that the entire site is to be surrounded by a curtain wall 14 metres high, requiring foundations 50 metres deep – deep enough to prevent sea water ingress from below as well as solid enough to resist another ‘Beast from the East’ as experienced in 2018.
To ensure that the terrain of the site is strong enough to withstand the pressures and forces of such a mammoth construction and future climate change challenges, ground anchor trials have been ordered. The results of these trials are not yet known, but that has not deterred the Office of Nuclear Regulation from issuing a nuclear site licence.
Sizewell C, like all nuclear plants, needs a daily supply of potable water (rather than salt water from the sea). Sizewell C needs an average of 2.2 million litres a day. Suffolk is the driest county in the country and dramatic reductions in domestic requirements have been suggested as ways in which to balance supply and demand, leaving the fate of water supply in the area uncertain and possibly at the mercy of energy-intensive, polluting and chemicals-reliant desalination plants.
Spent fuel
All nuclear plants are required to host nuclear fuel once it has been ‘spent’ or ‘fissioned’ in the reactor core. It emerges as intensely hot and lethally radioactive and is required to be stored for years in what is effectively an on-site swimming pool before being transferred – in the case of Sizewell B spent fuel – to an on-site dry fuel store where it awaits the identification, construction and transfer to a ‘geological disposal facility’.
EDF/SZC Co estimate that the amount of spent fuel generated by Sizewell C’s two EPR reactors over their lifetimes of a notional 60 years will amount to around 4,000 tonnes. The radioactivity associated with that fuel is unimaginable. As we have seen in the Ukraine with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in times of conflict the temptation for an adversary to ‘weaponise’ nuclear facilities is difficult to resist. The aspiration for the UK to treble its nuclear-generated electricity output will require, in addition to proposed ‘gigawatt-sized’ Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, the deployment of up to 50 ‘small modular reactors’ around the country, each of which is capable of being weaponised.
The hidden nuclear agenda
From the difficulty of crossing roads clogged with construction traffic, to the threat posed by a catastrophic accidental or malicious failure of nuclear containment, the impact of transforming Suffolk’s heritage coast to the energy coast without so much as a public debate about the wisdom or desirability of such a colossal change, is already arriving in many forms.
The questionable stability of the terrain upon which the development is designed to stand, and the need to renew the electricity grid pylon network – characterised by National Grid Electricity Transmission as being from “Norwich to Tilbury to reinforce the high voltage power network in East Anglia between the existing substations at Norwich Main in Norfolk, Bramford in Suffolk, and Tilbury in Essex” – add to the level of anxiety and uncertainty many express about the future of their county.
The actual justification for Sizewell C – not the one used by government of energy security – is to ensure the maintenance of the skills base, the material and the supply chain for Trident renewal. And the purpose of Trident is to maintain our security by threatening the murder of tens of thousands of men, women and children we will never meet.
We have to question what sort of world we are knowingly allowing to be created for future generations. And we have to question what right the government has to ignore what Keir Starmer recently said would be applied across all government departments – ‘a duty of candour’. But perhaps he has already forgotten he said that, or wishes he had not.
Postscript
On the afternoon of Friday 30 August, a popular time to release unwelcome news with the weekend approaching, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero announced that the government had allocated a further £5.5bn to the investment-averse Sizewell C (SZC) project, taking the total of public money sunk into this scheme to £8bn at a time when the new Labour administration is claiming a lack of public finances with which to help millions of pensioners and children with benefits to keep them warm and fed.
Scottish nuclear base staff using pagers adds to Trident fears
National security concerns have been raised about the use of the antiquated technology in sites where nuclear weapons are stored and maintained.
Two sources have confirmed to this paper that the use of pagers, which appear to have been tampered with to cause explosions across Lebanon in attacks which have injured thousands, remains common at bases in Coulport and Faslane.
Pagers, also known as bleepers, are almost entirely redundant in most walks of life having been superseded by mobile phones decades ago – but they are still used on Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites in Scotland and by the Islamist militant group Hezbollah, which has blamed Israel for the attacks.
NHS workers in England were told to stop using pagers in hospitals in 2019 though it is thought some still use them.
Concerns about their use have been raised in light of Tuesday and Wednesday’s deadly attacks, which have killed at least 21 people including two children, in a move which threatens to escalate tensions between Israel and Lebanon into all-out war.
One source told The National that staff at a Scottish nuclear base who were on call or on duty used pagers.
Alba general secretary Chris McEleny, who previously worked at Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport where nuclear warheads are stored, told The National “people will be astounded that the safety of the UK’s nuclear deterrent is still supported by a network of 1980s and 1990s-style handheld pagers”.
He added: “The Hezbollah attack should result in the MoD now assessing the vulnerability of where the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons are stored because pager holders are highly likely to be in close proximity the most critical possible systems and materials on site but then the pagers go offsite overnight.”
The revelation will add to fears about the state of Britain’s nuclear fleet, which is believed to be “rotting”.
Former Tory special adviser Dominic Cummings last year lifted the lid on what he said was the “nightmare” issue of Trident.
He wrote that nuclear weapons infrastructure was “a dangerous disaster and a budget nightmare of hard-to-believe and highly classified proportions”.
The UK Government was approached for comment.
Hinkley Point C: Building Britain’s first nuclear reactor in 30 years
The government revised the strike prices for renewable generation in December 2023, the strike price for offshore wind is £73 and PV £61 so nuclear remains an expensive zero carbon option. The current price for electricity is approximately £83mWhr.
Building, By Thomas Lane, 17 September 2024
Like its Finnish and French twins, Hinkley Point C has suffered from cost overuns and delays. What are the team doing to claw back the losses and what does this mean for Sizewell C?
Nothing on the drive from Taunton to Hinkley Point C hints at the scale of the project at the destination. The journey is along picturesque minor roads, through woods and up and down steep-sided, intimate valleys before the terrain flattens out to reveal Europe’s largest construction site.
The huge location, which is deliberately situated miles away from major population centres, sprawls across a flat plain next to the Bristol Channel on the Somerset coast. Everything about this project is supersized.
There are 58 cranes on this job, one of which is Big Carl, the world’s largest land-based crane. Powered by 12 engines and rolling on 96 wheels, this monster can lift 5,000 tonnes and needs dedicated tracks to move it to the different parts of the nuclear island, where the reactors are being built.
A dedicated bus company was set up to avoid thousands of workers clogging up the lanes with traffic. It brings up to 11,000 of them from around the area and home again on a fleet of 176 buses. This includes a route to transport people around the 176-hectare site. The site even has a doctor’s surgery, a fire service and police station.
The civil engineering works are well advanced, with one of the two reactors close to fit-out and construction on the second coming along. Works elsewhere are progressing with the project about to move from the civil engineering phase to the complex mechanical, electrical and heating fit-out stage (see box).
Getting to this point has been long, slow and expensive. Hinkley Point C is the first nuclear reactor to be built since Sizewell B was completed in 1995. Called the European pressurised water reactor (EPR), Hinkley Point C is the third example to be built in Europe. The first was built at Olkiluoto in Finland and the second at Flamanville in France.
Each of these projects has gone massively over budget and taken much longer to build than envisaged (see box). The latest estimates suggest that Hinkley Point will cost as much as £34bn, nearly double the original budget of £18bn.
Originally scheduled to complete in 2025, the plant could come online as late as 2031. Why is Hinkley proving so expensive to build, despite the lessons from two earlier projects? And what are the cost and programme implications – and therefore the likelihood of it going ahead – for the proposed Sizewell C and beyond?.
There are many reasons for the cost increases and delays. These include the impact of the pandemic, which has delayed construction by 15 months, inflation and the challenge of finding people with the skills to meet the exacting standards demanded by nuclear construction. Different nuclear regulatory regimes across Europe are a big reason why the third EPR reactor is still costing more and is taking longer to build than originally envisaged.
“We had to substantially adapt the EPR design to satisfy British regulations, requiring 7,000 changes, adding 35% more steel and 25% more concrete,” explains Simon Parsons, EDF’s delivery director for the nuclear island.
According to Parsons, the French regulatory approach is very prescriptive, whereas in the UK it is up to EDF to prove that its design meets UK requirements. The UK is more focused on the consequences of failure than in Europe.
The main components inside the reactor building such as the reactor pressure vessel and steam generators are made to the same design by the same manufacturers but are subject to a UK specific safety regime. “We’ve been asked to do more FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis), material analysis and fracture toughness testing of welds over a piece of equipment,” Parsons says.
Progress at Hinkley Point…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………….The digital data will be used for building operation, maintenance and – in 60 years after the plant starts operating – decommissioning. The data has a second important function: it will be used to build Sizewell C assuming funding is confirmed by the new government. Crucially for the future of UK nuclear, this will incorporate the lessons learnt from the construction of each reactor.
Will Hinkley Point and Sizewell provide value for money?
……………………….Hinkley Point and Sizewell will produce 14% of the UK’s electricity, the same as generated in 2022. This is considerably less than during nuclear’s 1990s heyday when it generated 24.5% of the UK’s electricity.
When Sizewell and Hinkley Point C start generating power, the only operational nuclear power station will be Sizewell B, which means nuclear’s total contribution to UK electricity generation will be 17%.
The argument against nuclear is the cost, with critics saying it is poor value for money compared with renewables. All three EPR nuclear power stations built in Europe have suffered from serious cost overruns and delays.
…………………Hinkley Point C got the green light in 2016 with an estimated £18bn build cost and completion by 2027. The most recent estimates put costs as high as £34bn at 2015 prices, £46bn in today’s money. The poor budgetary track record of the EPR begs the question, is new nuclear good value for money?
Hinkley Point was originally a privately financed joint venture between EDF and China General Nuclear with EDF owning two-thirds and CGN the remaining third. The station was to be financed using the Contracts for Difference mechanism which is used to support forms of electricity generation which can’t compete with gas.
This government guarantees a minimum payment for the electricity, the so-called strike price. In 2012 a strike price of £93.50mWhr was agreed for Hinkley Point C at a time when electricity cost £40mWhr, provoking criticism that nuclear was too expensive. The strike price is inflation linked meaning it is worth approximately £139 at 2023 prices.
The government revised the strike prices for renewable generation in December 2023, the strike price for offshore wind is £73 and PV £61 so nuclear remains an expensive zero carbon option. The current price for electricity is approximately £83mWhr.
As the cost of Hinkley Point has increased, the backers have had to provide more funding. The souring of relations between Britain and China saw CGN stop providing any more money, leaving EDF to fund the shortfall. EDF has called upon the UK government to help out with the escalating cost but it has refused. EDF was fully nationalised in 2023, leaving the French taxpayer to pick up the tab for the cost overruns.
Like Hinkley Point, Sizewell was a joint venture between EDF and CGN but concerns over Chinese involvement meant the UK government took over from CGN in 2022. The cost overruns on Hinkley mean EDF wanted a different funding arrangement to avoid picking up the construction risk for Sizewell.
It will be funded using the regulated asset base model, which is the same as used for Thames Tideway; a surcharge is placed on electricity bills to fund the plant. EDF’s role would be to build and operate the plant without taking the construction risk.
A development consent order for the project was granted in January 2024 and the nuclear site licence approved in May 2024. The final investment decision will be made at the end of this year.
Sizewell C may cost less to build than Hinkley Point thanks to the experience gained constructing the latter, but the British consumer could end up paying more thanks to the different funding arrangement…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.building.co.uk/buildings/hinkley-point-c-building-britains-first-nuclear-reactor-in-30-years/5130997.article
Nuclear Free Local Authorities want to lament, not ‘celebrate’ nuclear legacy.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has published its first Heritage Vision and Strategy[i] to ‘celebrate the history and cultural heritage of the nuclear industry’, but to the Nuclear Free Local Authorities the history of the industry is rather something to lament.
The NDA claims that the ‘benefits of preserving, safeguarding, and celebrating nuclear heritage are many, ranging from learning lessons of the past so we can support decommissioning and future nuclear developments, to realising significant social value potential by connecting with local communities and other stakeholders’ but the Nuclear Free Local Authorities are concerned that the strategy will only look to capture the ‘fluffy side’ of nuclear history and will disregard cataloguing its ‘sinister side’.
For the history of the nuclear industry is littered with money, scientific and human resources wasted on abortive, failed or delayed nuclear power designs; the major accidents at Windscale and Wylfa[ii] which endangered large parts of Britain; cancer clusters; the employment of civil nuclear facilities to produce plutonium for British nuclear weapons which poisoned Indigenous people and their lands and ruined the health and took the lives of many of the British military personnel involved in the test programme; a disastrous and costly venture into reprocessing; and a legacy of radioactive contamination of land, air, watercourses and seas, and radioactive buildings to demolish and a stockpile of high-level radioactive waste to manage that will cost over £280 Billion of taxpayers money at current prices.
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee, said: “Glorifying nuclear history by celebrating it, and ignoring its dark side, will only help facilitate the development of yet more nuclear plants in the future by boosting its acceptability at a time when every available penny and every national resource should be focused on building more renewable energy and storage capacity to achieve Net Zero and the Labour Government’s ambition to make Britain a clean energy superpower.”
The NDA opened Nucleus, the Nuclear and Caithness Archives, near the airport in Wick, Caithness in 2017[iii]. With a team of approximately 20 including archivists, preservation experts and support staff, Nucleus holds archives and artefacts from the nuclear industry. The organisation will work with staff from other sections of the NDA and national heritage organisations from England, Scotland, and Wales to deliver the new strategy.
Nucleus is open to the public Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. Archives may be viewed in our public search room between 10am to 4pm. Visitors are urged to make an appointment and pre-order documents at least two days in advance. Drop-in customers will also be accommodated as far as possible on the day. Documents can be requested under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Please phone 01925 802077 or email enquiries@nda.gov.uk. Members of the public are also invited to visit our exhibition space located at the front of the building.
Ends://For more information, contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
The UK government deserves an award for the biggest load of nuclear propaganda BS yet!
“to safeguard and celebrate the
history and cultural heritage of the nuclear industry”
will also support
future nuclear developments
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has published the first ever
nuclear heritage vision and strategy. The NDA is the organisation
responsible for decommissioning the UK’s legacy nuclear sites, sites and
facilities. It said the purpose of the nuclear heritage vision and
strategy, published on 12 September, is “to safeguard and celebrate the
history and cultural heritage of the nuclear industry”. Among the
strategy’s aims will be the collection of learnings to improve planning
of decommissioning activities and reduce risks. This will also support
future nuclear developments such as new nuclear builds, research and
development, long term decommissioning programmes and a Geological Disposal
Facility (GDF).
New Civil Engineer 16th Sept 2024,
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/inaugural-nuclear-heritage-strategy-to-support-decommissioning-planning-and-new-nuclear-builds-16-09-2024/
Safety level at Scotland’s largest nuclear site raised to ‘enhanced’ after leaks found
By Katharine Hay, Rural affairs correspondent
Inspectors found “inadequate” storage of alkali metals at the site
earlier this year which fell below the legal requirements. A watchdog has
called for an increase in safety and regulation requirements at
Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project over the
current state of the building.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR)
found leaks from low-level radioactive waste pits in recent site
inspections at Dounreay, a nuclear power complex which is currently being
decommissioned on the north Caithness coast in the Highlands.
Scotsman 15th Sept 2024
One big factor could decide if one of Wales’ biggest (nuclear) projects can happen
Ken Skates says he is determined to deliver on ‘big road projects’
Wales Online, By Owen Hughes, Daily Post Business Editor, Ben Summer, Senior reporter, 14 Sept 24
Welsh Government Transport Secretary Ken Skates says he wants to deliver on “big road projects”, while discussing a key factor that might resurrect a major transport scheme. The Welsh Government’s roads review, which delivered its conclusion in 2023, shelved several prominent Welsh transport initiatives – especially in north Wales where the Menai crossing, Llanbedr bypass and Flintshire ‘Red Route’ were all cancelled.
These choices were made by then-transport minister Lee Waters, guided by a panel of transportation and environmental specialists appointed by the Welsh Government. This was criticised last year by Ken Skates when he was a backbencher; he later took on the transport minister position under Vaughan Gething and has maintained it with First Minister Eluned Morgan’s new leadership.
Mr Skates hasn’t announced an outright reversal of previous decisions, but he’s hinted at potential modifications to the projects to improve their environmental impact as well as underline the economic benefits of the projects, reports North Wales Live. This week, he spoke about progress made and specifically pointed out that the future of a third Menai crossing might hinge on one pivotal element.
This relates to the dormant Wylfa B project near Cemaes; should it advance, it would necessitate better road network capacity to support the construction of the multi-billion-pound nuclear facility. Wylfa was identified by the preceding UK Government as the optimal site for the nation’s next significant nuclear station.
This week it has been reported that the new UK Government is reviewing the potential of the Wylfa Newydd site, with one option being to repurpose it for a number of small modular reactors (SMRs). Whichever path is taken, be it SMRs or another venture, will require billions in investment and significant road improvements………………………………………
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/one-big-factor-decide-one-29935573
Dounreay placed on ‘special measures’ over wide-ranging safety concerns
John O’Groat Journal By Iain Grant, 13 September 2024
An action plan has been drawn up by operators NRS to address the issues which include ageing, deteriorating plant, radioactive leaks and the storage of chemicals.
Among the problem areas is the condition of buildings in the prototype fast reactor being used to store drums of radioactive sodium.
An inspection by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), in April made grim reading for site management. It found significant corrosion and metal loss of structural steelwork in the turbine hall.
It concluded “It was judged that the steam generator hall and generator transformer house are not adequate, as the licensee has failed to safely protect the drums against uncontrolled
degradation via air and moisture ingress.
“It is also judged that the licensee is not recognising when there is degradation in these areas.”
The issue first came to light following a probe into a minute leak of
radioactive tritium from a sodium drum in the turbine hall in November
2022. Its exposure to rainwater through a leaky roof was blamed for causing
the corrosion.
The inspection was one of a number carried out at Dounreay
in the spring and summer to receive an amber rating by ONS. Others revealed
some elderly electrical plant in a “degraded” state while Dounreay was
found to have breached the Control of Major Accident Hazards (CoMAH)
regulations by its stockpile of chemicals being over its set limit. A fire
safety inspection was generally positive but flagged up a “significant
shortfall” in assessment and control of sources of dangerous substances.
The inspector said: “It is my judgement that Dounreay do not currently
understand the totality of risk presented by dangerous substances on site
and therefore cannot provide adequate assurance as to the safety of
personnel on site.”
John O’Groat Journal 13th Sept 2024
1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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