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French company EDF fined – it spread false information on cost of Hinkley nuclear power project

Bunham-on-sea.com 1st Aug 2020, The French market watchdog has levelled a £4.5m fine against energy giant
EDF for misleading investors about the cost of the Hinkley Point C nuclear
project. Regulators say the French state-owned energy company spread
“false information” about its agreement with the Government to build
the nuclear plant near Burnham-On-Sea.

AMF, France’s financial markets
authority, says the company may have set EDF’s share price “at an
abnormal or artificial level” by claiming in a news release dated October
2014 that the terms of its deal with the UK government were “unchanged”
from the 2013 agreement.

https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/hinkley-point-c-french-watchdog-fines-edf-4-5m-for-false-claims-over-costs/

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Chinese minority owner of Hinkley nuclear project appoints CEO from China’s military area

New head of Chinese investor in Hinkley nuclear plant brings military links
China General Nuclear’s role in the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station has come under scrutiny recently
Telegraph ByEd Clowes1 August 2020  China General Nuclear, the 
minority owner of the Hinkley Point C power station, has appointed a chairman with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s military nuclear programme.

 Yang Changli made his first appearance as
leader of the state-owned conglomerate last week, speaking on the virtues
of Communism and the value of a strong nuclear industry. He previously
served as deputy general manager at China National Nuclear Corporation, the
organisation responsible for developing the country’s nuclear weapons.
In a speech to CGN staff, Mr Changli outlined his vision for the nuclear giant
and called on his colleagues to build a company that was more infused with
Communist ideals.
He made his remarks at a ceremony to mark the new company
strategy held at its own university, which is designated as an official
Communist Party school. Mr Changli spoke of “in-depth implementation of
general secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on high-quality
development”, and said: “We must be good commanders and good
combatants.” CGN owns a 33.5pc stake in the £22.5bn Hinkley Point C
project in Somerset where it has partnered with EDF, the French energy
giant.
Mr Changli’s appointment at CGN is likely to raise eyebrows in
Westminster and stoke speculation that the civil nuclear company will be
merged with CNNC.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/01/new-head-chinese-investor-hinkley-nuclear-plant-brings-military/

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Who flew drones over the nuclear reactors?

Mystery at Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant: Who flew drones over the reactors? AZ Central,

Ryan RandazzoArizona Republic,  Security guards at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix noticed something odd on a September night last year.Five or six drones buzzed over the perimeter fence of the nuclear plant— the largest power generator in the United States — 50 miles west of Phoenix. They went across the open desert where security guards practice “force-on-force” simulated combat drills to sharpen their skills to ward off an assault, over heavy-duty gates and arrived at the protected area around the concrete-domed reactors.

They stayed for nearly an hour, and came back the next night for a repeat performance.

Nobody except the drones’ pilots knows whether this was a case of hobbyists touring the plant out of curiosity, or something much more nefarious, intended to disrupt a massive power source for customers from Texas to California. And nobody in any official capacity seems to know who piloted the drones that night or the next………

Security guards at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix noticed something odd on a September night last year.

Five or six drones buzzed over the perimeter fence of the nuclear plant— the largest power generator in the United States — 50 miles west of Phoenix. They went across the open desert where security guards practice “force-on-force” simulated combat drills to sharpen their skills to ward off an assault, over heavy-duty gates and arrived at the protected area around the concrete-domed reactors.

They stayed for nearly an hour, and came back the next night for a repeat performance.

Nobody except the drones’ pilots knows whether this was a case of hobbyists touring the plant out of curiosity, or something much more nefarious, intended to disrupt a massive power source for customers from Texas to California. And nobody in any official capacity seems to know who piloted the drones that night or the next………

Security guards at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix noticed something odd on a September night last year.

Five or six drones buzzed over the perimeter fence of the nuclear plant— the largest power generator in the United States — 50 miles west of Phoenix. They went across the open desert where security guards practice “force-on-force” simulated combat drills to sharpen their skills to ward off an assault, over heavy-duty gates and arrived at the protected area around the concrete-domed reactors.

They stayed for nearly an hour, and came back the next night for a repeat performance.

Nobody except the drones’ pilots knows whether this was a case of hobbyists touring the plant out of curiosity, or something much more nefarious, intended to disrupt a massive power source for customers from Texas to California. And nobody in any official capacity seems to know who piloted the drones that night or the next…….

The Palo Verde incidents are apparently not the first time something like this has happened. One NRC email discusses “several high-speed” drone overflights of the Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania approximately eight months prior.

Another indicates there had been 42 drone incidents in three years. APS officials said some of those were at Palo Verde.

What if the pilots meant harm?

At least one person in the NRC was concerned last year that an airspace restriction from the FAA wasn’t sufficient.

“I would point out that restricted airspace will do nothing to stop an adversarial attack and even the detection systems identified earlier in this email chain have limited success rates, and there is even lower likelihood that law enforcement will arrive quickly enough to actually engage with the pilots,” wrote Joseph Rivers, a senior security adviser with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who recently retired……

A columnist for Forbes went even further, speculating that the drones could have made three-dimensional maps of the power plant to assist a later attack.  ……   https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2020/07/31/drones-flew-over-palo-verde-nuclear-plant-arizona-pilots-unknown/5551928002/

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

BOOKS on The New Nuclear Threat

The New Nuclear Threat, NYB Books

Jessica T. Mathews
AUGUST 20, 2020

The Age of Hiroshima

edited by Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry
Princeton University Press, 431 pp., $99.95; $32.95 (paper)……….The mushroom cloud became a universal symbol of horror. As Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, the editors of The Age of Hiroshima, describe, entirely new ways of thinking about war and peace had to be invented, together with a new understanding of global interconnectedness. “Very few aspects of life,” geopolitical, technological, or cultural, they write, “have been left untouched,” not just among the superpowers but worldwide.  ……

The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War

by Fred Kaplan
Simon and Schuster, 372 pp., $30.00 ………..Kaplan tells the story of how, two weeks into the Kennedy administration, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara traveled to Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters in Omaha for his first briefing on nuclear war’s holy text, the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). One of its thousands of targets, he learned, was an air defense radar station in Albania. The bomb slated to destroy it was—by then only a few years into the arms race—roughly three hundred times larger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. “Mr. Secretary,” said the commanding general, “I hope you don’t have any friends or relations in Albania, because we’re going to have to wipe it out.” Albania, a tiny country, was Communist but politically independent of Moscow.  …….

The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump

by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina
BenBella, 268 pp., $27.95 ………..What can be said with certainty, however, is that the threshold the US judges necessary to deter the enemy is always set immensely higher than what has actually deterred the US. In The Button, former defense secretary William J. Perry writes that at the time of the Cuban missile crisis the US had about five thousand warheads to the Soviets’ three hundred, but “even with this seventeen-to-one numerical superiority, the Kennedy administration did not believe it had the capability to launch a successful first strike.”


The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel

by Jeffrey Lewis
Mariner, 294 pp., $15.99 (paper)………  The more powerful reasons to doubt that there could be a limited nuclear war, to my mind, are those that emerge from any study of history, a knowledge of how humans act under pressure, or experience in government. In his “speculative novel” The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States (2018), the nuclear analyst Jeffrey Lewis convincingly traces the path to an unintended war. The book’s lessons are much broader than the particulars of the Korean setting. Lewis uses variations on actual events to trace a series of miscalculations, mistakes, coincidences, domestic pressures, and misreadings of others’ intentions………..   https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/08/20/new-nuclear-threat/

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, resources - print, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The WHO says coronavirus is a once-in-a century crisis that will impact lives for decades

Deaths from coronavirus as at early August 2020

The WHO says coronavirus is a once-in-a century crisis that will impact lives for decades, SBS World News, 2 Aug 20,  The World Health Organization committee “highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic”.

The World Health Organization has warned the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be “lengthy” after its emergency committee met to evaluate the crisis six months after sounding the international alarm.

The committee “highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic”, the WHO said in a statement, and warned of the risk of “response fatigue” given the socio-economic pressures on countries.

The panel gathered Friday for the fourth time over the coronavirus crisis, half a year on from its January 30 declaration of a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the WHO’s highest level of alarm………

Warning over crisis fatigue

Several countries around the world have imposed strict lockdowns in a bid to control the spread of the respiratory disease, plunging economies into sharp contraction.

The committee urged the WHO to provide nuanced, pragmatic guidance on COVID-19 management “to reduce the risk of response fatigue in the context of socio-economic pressures”.

The panel urged the WHO to support countries in preparing for the rollout of proven therapeutics and vaccines.

Warning over crisis fatigue

Several countries around the world have imposed strict lockdowns in a bid to control the spread of the respiratory disease, plunging economies into sharp contraction.

The committee urged the WHO to provide nuanced, pragmatic guidance on COVID-19 management “to reduce the risk of response fatigue in the context of socio-economic pressures”.

The panel urged the WHO to support countries in preparing for the rollout of proven therapeutics and vaccines.

It called for improved understanding of the epidemiology and severity of COVID-19, including its long-term health effects.

And the committee wanted more light shed on the dynamics of the virus, such as “modes of transmission, shedding, potential mutations; immunity and correlates of protection”.

The near six-hour gathering was hosted at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, with some participants joining via video-link.

The committee will reconvene within the next three months……..https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-who-says-coronavirus-is-a-once-in-a-century-crisis-that-will-impact-lives-for-decades

August 2, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

The potential for a new coronoavirus, with bats as a possible transmitter

The next coronavirus may already be circulating in bats, study suggests, by Tom Avril, Philadelphia Inquirer,  July 29, 2020   While the exact origin of the coronavirus remains murky, scientists have been racing to determine how it jumped from animals to humans so they can prevent another pandemic.

The next one could just be a matter of time, a study published this week suggests.   The authors said a virus with similar ability to infect humans may already be out there, carried by a type of bats known for having horseshoe-shaped “leafs” on their noses.

Scientists made that prediction after constructing a family tree of the coronavirus — tracing its ancestry by comparing its genetic code with that of other coronaviruses found in bats, humans, and a scaly animal called the pangolin.

The lineage of the virus that causes COVID-19 appears to have branched off from its closest viral relatives about 40 to 70 years ago, the authors wrote in Nature Microbiology. And other viruses in the same branch of the family likely share a similar ability to latch onto cells in human airways, said Maciej F. Boni, a Pennsylvania State University biologist and lead study author.

“It’s very likely there are lots of other lineages that nobody knows about, because nobody has sampled, that are circulating quietly in bats,” he said. “Potentially all of them could have this ability to infect human cells.”……

 by using a battery of statistical techniques, the scientists identified three genetic regions in the coronavirus that appeared to have remained intact for decades. They identified the same three regions in another coronavirus that came from a bat found in Yunnan, a province in southern China near Laos.

That virus cannot infect humans but is otherwise highly similar to the one causing the pandemic, which was first identified in human patients in the city of Wuhan. The two viruses seem to have branched apart in the family tree sometime in the 1960s, and almost certainly have undiscovered cousins with the potential to infect humans, said Boni, who collaborated with scientists in Europe and China…….

By itself, the presence of similar coronaviruses in bats would not mean another pandemic is imminent, said Kevin Olival, vice president for research at EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that works with scientists worldwide to protect people and animals from infectious disease…….

What is not in dispute is that viruses have been jumping from animals to humans for centuries, and that it will happen again.

And coronaviruses carried by bats are a prime suspect.

Similar predictions have been made before — such as in 2013, when a Science magazine article was headlined “Bats May Be Carrying the Next SARS Pandemic.”

Sure enough, as the world now knows too well, that came true.  https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/covd19-bats-china-virus-origin-penn-state-rna-genetics-20200729.html

August 2, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

United Arab Emirates new nuclear power risks further destabilising the Gulf region

New York Times 1st Aug 2020, The UAE’s investment in these four nuclear reactors risks further
destabilizing the volatile Gulf region, damaging the environment and
raising the possibility of nuclear proliferation,” Paul Dorfman, a
researcher at University College London’s Energy Institute, wrote in an
op-ed in March. Noting that the U.A.E. had other energy options, including
“some of the best solar energy resources in the world,” he added that
“the nature of Emirate interest in nuclear may lie hidden in plain sight
— nuclear weapon proliferation.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/01/world/middleeast/uae-nuclear-Barakah.html

August 2, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

Experts wonder why Oil-rich UAE is opening the Arab world’s first nuclear power plant.

Oil-rich UAE opens the Arab world’s first nuclear power plant. Experts question why, By Ivana Kottasová and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN, August 1, 2020, Why oil rich UAE is developing nuclear power 02:35

The United Arab Emirates has launched a nuclear energy plant on Saturday, the first such project in the oil-rich Arab world.

Unit 1 of the Barakah plant in the Al Dhafrah region of Abu Dhabi started producing heat on Saturday, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation said in a statement. Unit 1 is the first of the plant’s four nuclear reactors to launch. The corporation said the construction of Unit 2 has finished recently, while the other two reactors are still being built — even though the original schedule called for the plant to become operational by 2017…….
some experts have questioned the need for the nuclear power plant given the country’s potential to develop solar energy and the tensions surrounding nuclear power in the Middle East.
Paul Dorfman, who heads the Nuclear Consulting Group and is a research associate at UCL’s Energy Institute, has warned the UAE’s investment into the plant “risks further destabilizing the volatile Gulf region, damaging the environment and raising the possibility of nuclear proliferation.”
In an opinion piece published earlier this year, Dorfman argued that the investment into the new plant is “strange” given the falling prices of renewable energy technology and rising costs of nuclear power generation.
“Since new nuclear seems to make little economic sense in the Gulf, which has some of the best solar energy resources in the world, the nature of Emirate interest in nuclear may lie hidden in plain sight — nuclear weapon proliferation,” he wrote.
Jim Krane, an energy studies fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, said that based purely on costs, the nuclear plant was “an uncompetitive choice” for the UAE. ……
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/01/middleeast/nuclear-power-uae-intl/index.html

August 2, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement urges all nations to end the nuclear era

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement urges all nations to end the nuclear era  https://reliefweb.int/report/world/international-red-cross-and-red-crescent-movement-urges-all-nations-end-nuclear-era  , Geneva, 31 July 2020 –Seventy-five years ago, on the morning of August 6, 1945, a B-29 warplane released a terrifying new weapon on Hiroshima.

The nuclear bomb wiped out the city, instantly killing an estimated 70,000 people and leaving tens of thousands more suffering horrific injuries. Three days later, on 9 August, a second nuclear bomb devastated the city of Nagasaki, immediately killing 39,000 people.

By 1950, an estimated 340,000 people had died because of the bombs’ effects, including from illnesses caused by exposure to ionizing radiation. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Japanese Red Cross Society witnessed the unimaginable suffering and devastation, as medical and humanitarian personnel attempted, in near-impossible conditions, to assist the dying and injured.

The 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes even as the risk of use of nuclear weapons has risen to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War. Military incidents involving nuclear states and their allies have increased in frequency, and nuclear-armed states have made explicit threats to use nuclear weapons.

Additionally, agreements to eliminate existing arsenals are being abandoned as new nuclear weapons are being developed, putting the world on the dangerous path of a new nuclear arms race. These developments add urgency to the international community’s efforts to prohibit and eliminate these unacceptable weapons. The indisputable evidence of their catastrophic impact makes it extremely doubtful that their use could ever comply with international humanitarian law.

The horror of a nuclear detonation may feel like distant history. But today the risk of nuclear weapons being used again is high. Treaties to reduce nuclear arsenals and risks of proliferation are being abandoned, new types of nuclear weapons are being produced, and serious threats are being made. That’s an arms race, and it’s frightening. We must push all states to ban nuclear weapons and push nuclear weapons states to negotiate, in good faith, steps towards their elimination,” said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“The international community would not be able to help all those in need after a nuclear blast. Widespread radiation sickness, a decline in food production, and the tremendous scale of destruction and contamination would make any meaningful humanitarian response insufficient. No nation is prepared to deal with a nuclear confrontation,” said Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Proving the wide support for a nuclear-free world, 122 states in July 2017 adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The treaty will become legally binding for countries that ratify it after 50 do so; to date 40 have. The treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. For nuclear-armed states that join the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for the verified elimination of their nuclear weapons program.

Mr Maurer and Mr Rocca commended the states that have already joined the TPNW and encouraged all others to follow suit, ensuring the events of 1945 never occur again. The two leaders said it was crucial that the TPNW becomes a new norm of international humanitarian law.

“Not since the end of the Cold War has it been more urgent to call attention to catastrophic consequences and fundamental inhumanity of nuclear weapons. We must signal in a clear and unambiguous manner that their use, under any circumstances, would be unacceptable in humanitarian, moral and legal terms,” said Mr Rocca.

There are over 14,000 nuclear bombs in the world, thousands of which are ready to be launched in an instant. The power of many of those warheads is tens of times greater than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

“Weapons with catastrophic humanitarian consequences cannot credibly be viewed as instruments of security,” said Mr Maurer.

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Hiroshima survivor,  Setsuko Thurlow, 88, continues her fight for a nuclear weapons-free world

“The majority of the world really doesn’t wish to hear our voices, and they haven’t heard us,” Thurlow said. “They choose not to hear us. That’s disappointing. They are just allowing these leaders to pile up the money, invest the money in armaments, to massacre human beings — mass killing. That’s a crime.”
Haunted by bombing, Hiroshima survivor continues fight against nuclear weapons, GRANDIN Media, By Michael Swan, Canadian Catholic News, July 31, 2020   Setsuko Thurlow, 88, isn’t just disappointed. She’s choking back tears of frustration and grief as she describes the response she’s had from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on nuclear disarmament over the last four years.

“That’s extremely, extremely disappointing — so disturbing,” said the Hiroshima survivor who has been actively campaigning against nuclear weapons for more than 60 years.

“It’s not just me. There’s a lot of people disappointed. And that’s not the way the prime minister should be behaving. If this is a democracy, he (Trudeau) should be sharing his ideas and encouraging debate.”

The world is marking the 75th anniversary this month of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that still haunt and propel Thurlow in her passion for the disarmament cause.

On June 22 she sent a letter to Trudeau asking that he acknowledge that Canada helped to produce the first atomic weapons and has copied the letter to all 338 parliamentarians in Ottawa. She is still waiting for a reply.

So far the only time Trudeau has ever spoken about nuclear weapons policy was to mock efforts to declare the weapons illegal, Thurlow said…..

Trudeau was not in attendance later that year when Thurlow accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Nor did anyone in his government congratulate her.

The Trudeau government fell in line with U.S.-dictated NATO policy and refused to participate in United Nations negotiations leading to the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

Canada voted against the treaty while 122 nations voted it in. Since then 40 states, including the Vatican, have ratified the treaty. Once 50 countries have ratified it, the treaty comes into legal force.

As one of a dwindling number of hibakusha, or survivors of the first two nuclear weapons, Thurlow has become an important face of the treaty and the campaign that brought it to the UN.

Her drive for a nuclear-free world began almost from the moment she woke up amidst the rubble left by the bomb that killed at least 70,000 people in a flash of heat and blinding light in Hiroshima.

She was then a 13-year-old school girl, bused downtown with 30 classmates to help crack coded messages for the Japanese military. She woke up to a world of pain under a pile of debris that morning of Aug. 6, 1945. Continue reading →

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, opposition to nuclear, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

South Carolina’s $9 billion nuclear fiasco – another legal saga develops, criminal investigation coming

3 years later: How the fallout from SC’s $9 billion nuclear fiasco continues   Post and Courier,  By Avery G. Wilks and Andrew Brown awilks@postandcourier.com abrown@postandcourier.com, Jul 31, 2020

     It has been three years since two of South Carolina’s largest electric utilities abandoned their $9 billion effort to build two nuclear reactors, but the legal, political and financial consequences continue to ripple across the Palmetto State.

The scuttled V.C. Summer expansion in Fairfield County is now widely considered one of the biggest business failures in the state’s history. The announcement of the project’s cancellation on July 31, 2017, shook South Carolina’s power industry, state government and business community.

The two homegrown S.C. utilities that partnered on the project were thrown into disarray. Investigations were initiated by state lawmakers, financial regulators and federal law enforcement officials.

The state and federal court systems were flooded overnight with lawsuits by investors, ratepayers, construction workers and lenders. The state regulatory system that backed the project for nearly a decade was called into question.

And more than 1.7 million utility customers with S.C. Electric & Gas, Santee Cooper and the state’s 19 local electric cooperatives realized they might be forced to pay billions of dollars more for a power plant that will never produce a watt of electricity.

Much has changed since Santee Cooper and SCE&G’s leaders suddenly announced the project’s collapse. But the saga isn’t over quite yet. Here is a breakdown of where things stand.  Continue reading →

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 1 Comment

Mystery over drone swarm above America’s largest nuclear power station

the intruders, as well as establishing that Palo Verde lacks effective drone defenses, may now have highly detailed maps of the facility, showing the exact location of every valve, pipe, switch and control. Perhaps they simply aim to sell these on the dark web to anyone who will pay. Or perhaps they have something else in mind. Either way, it is an alarming demonstration of how easily drone intruders can now go anywhere anytime they wish. 

‘Drone Swarm’ Invaded Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant Last September — Twice   Forbes Jul 30, 2020, David Hambling

Documents gained under the Freedom of Information Act show how a number of small drones flew around a restricted area at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant on two successive nights last September. Security forces watched, but were apparently helpless to act as the drones carried out their incursions before disappearing into the night. Details of the event gives some clues as to just what they were doing, but who sent them remains a mystery.

Details of the events were obtained from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Douglas D. Johnson on behalf of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The SCU’s main interest is in anomalous aerospace phenomena, what other people term UFOs. In this case though the flying objects were easily identifiable as drones, although their exact mission and origin are unknown. Johnson passed the information to The War Zone who give a detailed account.

Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant is the largest in the U.S., producing over three gigawatts, 35% of Arizona’s total power capacity. It supplies electricity to Phoenix and Tucson, as well as San Diego and Los Angeles. It is a critical piece of strategic infrastructure; during the 2003 Iraq War, National Guard troops were deployed to Palo Verde to defend against a possible terrorist threat. In normal times, as with other nuclear installations, it is protected by armed security guards.

The armed guards, gates, fences and barriers were useless on the night of September 29th. According to the official report:

Officer noticed several drones (5 or 6) flying over the site. The drones are circling the 3 unit site inside and outside the Protected Area. The drones have flashing red and white rights [sic] and are estimated to be 200 to 300 hundred [sic] feet above the site. It was reported the drones had spotlights on while approaching the site that they turned off when they entered the Security Owner Controlled Area. Drones were first noticed at 20:50 MST and are still over the site as of 21:47 MST. Security Posture was normal, which was changed to elevated when the drones were noticed.”

The drones departed at 22:30, eighty minutes after they were first spotted.   The security officers estimated that they were over two feet in diameter. This indicates that they were not simply consumer drones like the popular DJI Phantom, which have a flight endurance of about half an hour and is about a foot across, but something larger and more capable. The Lockheed Martin Indago, a military-grade quadcopter recently sold to the Swiss Army, has a flight endurance of about seventy minutes and is more than two feet across. At several thousand dollars apiece minimum, these are far less expendable than consumer drones costing a few hundred. All of which suggests this was not just a prank.

The next night events were repeated:…….

Despite this incident, two months later the NRC decided not to require drone defenses at nuclear plants, asserting that small drones could not damage a reactor or steal nuclear material. It is highly likely that such sites are still vulnerable to drone overflights.

Are such drones a genuine threat to nuclear facilities?…….

their ability to strike pinpoint targets to hit control systems and failsafes. While this would be unlikely to cause a Chernobyl, it might well shut the plant down, taking out 35% of Arizona’s electricity at a stroke. The successful attack on the Abqaiq facility last year, in which about twenty garage-built drones knocked out a heavily-defended oil facility in Saudi Arabia, should be a wakeup call that such unmanned precision strikes are not just the preserve of state actors any more………

the intruders, as well as establishing that Palo Verde lacks effective drone defenses, may now have highly detailed maps of the facility, showing the exact location of every valve, pipe, switch and control. Perhaps they simply aim to sell these on the dark web to anyone who will pay. Or perhaps they have something else in mind. Either way, it is an alarming demonstration of how easily drone intruders can now go anywhere anytime they wish.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/07/30/drone-swarm-invaded-palo-verde-nuclear-power-plant/#78cb15aa43de

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Does UK nuclear energy have any future? The industry has big doubts

Ministers challenged on future of UK nuclear energy
Industry dogged by doubts about China and rise of renewables calls for clarity,
Ft.com, Harry Dempsey in Somerset and David Sheppard in London 31 Jul 20, 

 The head of construction at the UK’s first nuclear power plant in three decades has challenged the government to decide whether “it wants nuclear or not” as ministers prepare to publish a new energy policy later this year and uncertainty hangs over China’s continued involvement in the sensitive sector. EDF, the French developer of Hinkley Point C in Somerset, is racing to meet its target of generating electricity by 2025 as it seeks to bolster the case for a new fleet of nuclear plants   …
In recent years, an ambitious plan to build a new generation of reactors across the UK has begun to unravel as two of the world’s leading nuclear engineering groups — Japan’s Toshiba and Hitachi — backed away from their projects. That left just two schemes — Hinkley and Sizewell — led by EDF with its partner China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), which is proposing a third plant at Bradwell in Essex.
“The government needs to decide if it wants nuclear or not,” said Stuart Crooks, managing director of Hinkley Point C. “If it doesn’t want nuclear, no amount of financing will make it happen,” he said, referring to a continuing debate about how to finance any future nuclear plant.  ….
EDF has finished the base for the station’s second reactor. In the coming months, the world’s largest crane, dubbed “Big Carl”, will lift giant prefabricated steel containment structures into place and fill the bases with equipment and piping in critical steps towards building the reactors.
But the coronavirus pandemic has forced EDF to reverse plans to expand its workforce on-site to 6,000; instead, at the height of the UK’s lockdown, it fell to 2,000. Worker numbers have since returned to 4,500 split over two shifts but productivity is as much as 20 per cent lower because of social distancing restrictions.
On Thursday, EDF warned of a “high” risk of further delays, which could push back first power generation until 2027. Speaking earlier in the week, Mr Crooks said disruptions caused by coronavirus at supplier factories, which are running at 50 per cent of output on average, were the biggest risk to the schedule. The French state-controlled utility, which operates all of the UK’s eight nuclear power stations, faces another serious challenge however.
  CGN, its partner in the project, has come under intense scrutiny as relations between London and Beijing deteriorate over Hong Kong and the ban on Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei from supplying new equipment to the UK’s 5G network. The Chinese state-owned company is providing a third of the financing on Hinkley and EDF has repeatedly denied that staff from the Chinese state-backed company pose a threat to UK national security.  ……..
  confidence [ in the Chinese technicians] is unlikely to be shared by some in the ruling Conservative party who want China out of the UK’s nuclear programme. The UK government is also under growing pressure from Washington, which has become increasingly hostile towards the Chinese government. In 2018 the US warned London it believed CGN was involved in the transfer of civilian nuclear technology for military uses…….
  there are growing calls from hawkish Tory MPs to reject CGN’s plans for a nuclear plant at Bradwell, on the Essex coast, using Chinese reactor technology. That has stoked fears that the state-owned group could withhold further investment in Hinkley in retaliation. That could derail the project and stymie any future UK nuclear plants as well as harm EDF’s international nuclear ambitions.  ………
 The nuclear industry has struggled to regain its footing in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011 and the few new-build projects in other developed countries, such as France, have also been hit by extensive delays and spiralling costs.
  Advances in renewable energy technology have further put nuclear on the back foot as the price of solar and wind generation falls. “The nuclear industry is under pressure from a reputational perspective,” said Mr Buckland. “It’s under the microscope at the moment.” Beyond the diplomatic dispute with China, the building of any further nuclear plants in the UK will need a viable funding mechanism. One option is that consumers would effectively take on the risk by paying in advance through their electricity bills.  ………. https://www.ft.com/content/3c3658e0-27f5-49a5-b948-3986da3e5bcd

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Japan’s trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Rokkasho should be shut down

Rokkasho plant should be shut down in energy policy shift, Asahi Shimbun, July 31, 2020   “…….. The Nuclear Regulation Authority on July 29 approved an outline of safety measures for the trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. is building in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture…..

The Nuclear Regulation Authority on July 29 approved an outline of safety measures for the trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. is building in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture

It is also nearly impossible to find a site for building a new nuclear plant. As aged reactors will be decommissioned one after another in the coming years, the importance of nuclear power generation for Japan’s energy supply will steadily diminish.

Over the long term, Japan needs to phase out nuclear power generation to remove public anxiety about a large-scale accident.

Nuclear fuel recycling can have no great significance in this new era when Japan has to start shifting away from atomic energy. Many industrial nations have long given up nuclear reprocessing as economically unviable.

Another big problem with reprocessing the spent fuel is that it produces plutonium, a material that can also be used to make nuclear weapons.

Japan has a stockpile of some 46 tons of plutonium, stored both at home and abroad, an amount enough to make 6,000 atomic bombs. It is fueling fears and drawing criticism internationally.

Japan Nuclear Fuel’s plant in Rokkasho is designed to have the capacity of reprocessing 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel annually to recover 7 tons of plutonium.

But the plan to develop a fast neutron reactor that can “consume” plutonium by transforming it into other forms of nuclear waste, the key technology for plutonium consumption, has gone awry with the decision to decommission Japan’s “Monju” prototype sodium-cooled fast-breeder reactor.

There are clearly also limitations to the plan to burn so-called MOX (mixed oxide) fuel, which is usually plutonium blended with natural uranium, in existing nuclear reactors.

The government has promised the international community to reduce the nation’s surplus plutonium. That means the reprocessing operation at the Rokkasho plant will have to be restricted so that the amount of plutonium recovered will not exceed consumption.

It simply does not make sense to spend as much as 14 trillion yen ($134.33 billion) on building the plant to recover a small amount of plutonium.

Given that this huge cost will be passed onto consumers through higher electricity bills, it is impossible to win broad public support for the project.

If the government decides to pull the plug on the fuel recycling program, it will have to face tough policy challenges it has long avoided tackling, such as how to dispose of spent fuel. But the nation cannot make the inevitable leap into the new age of energy if it continues spending huge amounts on nuclear power generation, which is beset by so many problems.

There is a growing global trend toward renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. This is the time for the government to make a radical shift in its energy policy. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13594167

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Environmental injustice is rampant around the world

A STUDY OF NEARLY 700 STUDIES MAKES IT CLEAR: ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE IS RAMPANT AROUND THE WORLD,   ensia July 30, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement have many environmentalists paying attention to the inextricable links between marginalized peoples and environmental pollution.The history of disproportionate environmental impacts on Black, Indigenous, and people of color often goes back for centuries. A recent review of 141 Indigenous groups by University of Helsinki conservation researcher Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares and colleagues published in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management shows how colonialism directly led to the development of environment-polluting infrastructure built without the consent of — and differentially affecting — communities in their territories…… July 30, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement have many environmentalists paying attention to the inextricable links between marginalized peoples and environmental pollution….. https://ensia.com/notable/environmental-injustice-global-indigenous-pollution/

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment | Leave a comment

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Tell Congress: Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe in Iran

Tell Congress: Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe in Iran

Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.

19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing

Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET

Register for the Zoom Event Here

​

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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