The billions for Sizewell C show Labour’s shameful nuclear hypocrisy
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER condemns Starmer’s willingness to let children go hungry and the elderly shiver while pouring billions into doomed nuclear projects that won’t address the climate crisis
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/billions-sizewell-c-show-labours-shameful-nuclear-hypocrisy Linda Penz Gunter6 Sept 24
THE Keir Starmer Labour government won’t scrap the two-child benefit cap because, it claims, the country can’t afford it. Doing away with this punitive measure would lift close to half a million children out of poverty at an estimated cost of £3.6 billion a year.
On the other hand, the Starmer government is perfectly happy to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, because doing so saves money — an estimated £1.4bn this financial year. That potentially life-saving support will now be stripped from as many as 10 million eligible pensioners.
That’s £5bn saved, on the backs of children and the elderly, two of the most vulnerable segments of our society.
Instead, the Labour government has now announced it will assign almost this identical sum — as much as £5.5bn in life support — to the planned 3,200 megawatt (MW) two-reactor Sizewell C nuclear power plant project on the Suffolk coast.
pensioners shiver in the dark in exchange for an entirely futile energy project that will keep no-one warm anytime soon, if at all.
Reacting to the announcement, Pete Wilkinson, spokesperson for Together Against Sizewell C, a local opposition group, observed: “It’s staggering that Labour has increased the potential outlay on this white elephant project to £8bn just days after Labour claimed the country couldn’t afford winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.”
This would be the second government subsidy the scheme has received on top of an earlier £2.5bn handed out by the previous Tory government.
The announcement was made on August 30 by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which described it as “a new subsidy scheme — the Sizewell C Devex Scheme — to enable continued support to the development of the proposed new nuclear power plant Sizewell C (SZC) to the point of a Final Investment Decision (FID) and thereby ultimately reach operation.”
The word “ultimately” is key here, since that operational date is very uncertain. Realistically, Sizewell C will never be completed in time to address the climate crisis. The project was initiated in 2010 with the contract awarded to French government corporation, EDF, in 2012.
Fourteen years later, the estimated cost at completion is £20bn, although these calculations are typically unpredictable and underestimated and could soar as high as £30-£40bn. Meanwhile, there are no reactors under construction.
Shovels are in the ground, but only to raze forests and fragile habitats adjacent to the precious Minsmere Nature Reserve. This is being done to make way for non-nuclear construction projects including “new offices, and training facilities,” according to Sizewell C’s joint managing directors Julia Pyke and Nigel Cann.
Further compounding the risks at Sizewell — in addition to the unsolved dangers of radioactive waste storage and meltdowns — the site sits on the shores of the North Sea where erosion has already taken its toll. With climate change precipitating sea-level rise, the plant will become ever more vulnerable to severe flooding and violent storms by the time it becomes operational.
All of this ignores the warnings of climate experts that we now have a window of five years or less in which to take urgent action to reduce carbon emissions to net zero.
Despite this, the Labour government continues to support another nuclear debacle, EDF’s first two-reactor project, the 3,200 MW Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset.
Conceived in 2010 in the waning days of the Tony Blair Labour government, it was then ardently embraced by Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, and his Tory successors. Six years into actual construction, Hinkley Point C remains unfinished while its costs have ballooned to at least £34 billion. EDF’s vague completion date is now “after 2029.”
Claims that small modular reactors (SMR) are a promising alternative and can be rolled off assembly lines to answer energy needs are just more pie in the sky. That’s because the hundreds if not thousands of SMRs needed would result in such poor economies of scale it will send electricity prices even higher to compensate for the up-front costs.
SMR designs remain on paper, there is scant interest from buyers, and the flagship SMR project in the US, NuScale, has already collapsed under the weight of its exorbitant finances, which proved unacceptable to investors, many of whom dropped out.
Furthermore, squandering money on new nuclear power plants that are unlikely to materialise on time if ever, diverts much-needed resources away from the technologies that could be deployed quickly and on a significant scale, such as solar and wind power. For every pound squandered on nuclear power, more carbon reductions could be achieved faster by spending it on renewable energy instead.
All of this, however, falls on deaf ears in Westminster. “Labour complained about a black hole in the country’s finances yet now they are proposing to dig still further,” observed Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C. “Where would this cash come from?”
Certainly not from the military, another nuclear hog at the subsidy trough that Labour is more than happy to overfeed. As Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and independent MP for Islington North remarked: “If the country’s finances are so bad, then why are we still spending £50bn a year on the military? If there’s no money left, why are we spending £12,000 a minute on nuclear weapons?”
Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland. She is the independent specialist at Beyond Nuclear (www.beyondnuclear.org).
The US empire is hidden in plain sight
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was ‘created… to do in the open what the Central Intelligence Agency has done surreptitiously for decades,’
The UK appears to have very little control over what happens on the USAF-operated bases or the missions that are flown from them.
these agreements ‘ultimately reserve jurisdiction of US personnel to the US’. Most of the American bases are called RAF stations and leased by the US.
1 September 2024
So-called RAF bases filled with US military personnel are a tell-tale sign of Britain’s key role in US imperialism, writes Matt Kennard.
Four years after my book The Racket was first published, I started my own media outlet with historian and journalist Mark Curtis. It was a departure from what I had focused on before – the consequences of US imperialism around the world – because this new publication, Declassified UK, would cover British foreign policy.
Britain handed the mantle of world domination to the US after World War Two and the received history is that it then retired from any kind of imperial role. I found out pretty quickly at Declassified that this was a misunderstanding. The truth is the empire never died. Britain merely became a ‘junior partner’ to the US hegemon. London’s adjunct status did not mean it was insignificant, however. The City of London’s role as the world’s financial capital which spreads neoliberalism around the world, Britain’s vast network of military bases, alongside its corporate giants like BP and BAE Systems, showed the country still served a critical imperial role for its senior partner.
But a more interesting realization for me came when I started to look at the institutions that make up the US empire and their role in Britain. I had spent years looking at what institutions like the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or the US military were doing in the Global South, where their power was exercised against often weak states. But I saw quickly that the infrastructure of the US empire which had colonized so much of the world had also colonized my home country, the country where I had lived nearly all my life. Britain, in fact, appeared to be more completely under the control of its American ally than any country I’d looked into around the world in The Racket.
The similarities did not stop there. Like the mainstream media could never mention the term ‘US empire’ or explain its real role in world affairs, those same establishment journalists did not touch US influence in Britain. This was, again, an invisible empire, hiding in plain sight. The work I began doing would have never made it into the pages of my old employer, the Financial Times, like so many truths in The Racket never could.
Into the state
The colonization by the US empire of Britain became particularly clear when the Labour party elected Jeremy Corbyn leader in September 2015. A veteran anti-war and anti-imperialist politician and activist, Corbyn was a complete outlier within the British political system. He was dangerous to the rule of the British establishment, but also the ability of the US to retain Britain as a vassal state.
The different pressure points that stay hidden in normal times, when the system is running like it should, quickly became exposed. This was made explicit in June 2019, when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Britain and was recorded saying privately: ‘It could be that Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.’
……………….. Britain’s traditional subservience to the US ‘could have gone a different way at various points in modern history, recently if Jeremy Corbyn hadn’t been destroyed by a vicious media campaign,’ Noam Chomsky has written. But it was not a coincidence. The US was integral to building a British political system that made a ‘different way’ next to impossible. m that made a ‘different way’ next to impossible. I began looking at how the US state had been interfering in British politics to stop the rise of anti-imperialist leaders. Britain has never had a prime minister that was not signed up to the US imperial project. I started to realize this was not a mistake, but the result of concerted efforts from Washington.
…………………………………………………………Declassified files from the CIA show how concerned the intelligence agency then was by the left turn in Labour. The BBC noted ‘the deep level of concern inside the CIA about the strength of the Left within Labour in the early 1980s, a political force which the agency regarded as anti-American’. The CIA was particularly concerned about Foot winning the 1983 general election, with an internal report stating that ‘a Labour majority government would represent the greatest threat to US interests’. Foot’s 1983 election manifesto questioned ‘the programme for establishing American-controlled cruise missiles on our soil’ and noted that a new European security pact should end with the ‘phasing out’ of NATO. The BAP’s own official history notes that ‘the traditional British leftwing remained deeply suspicious of the United States, particularly on foreign policy and security issues’ in the period, adding ‘this was the era of Michael Foot’s leadership of a Labour Party committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament’.
………………………………. Michael Foot was a founder and strong supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), while Corbyn has been a member of the peace group since he was 15 and was, at the time of his election to the Labour leadership, its vice-chair.
The US neutralization campaign, which was leaked to the Washington Post, ‘would take three forms’, Dorrill continued: mobilizing public opinion, working within the churches, and a ‘dirty tricks’ operation against the peace groups.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was ‘created… to do in the open what the Central Intelligence Agency has done surreptitiously for decades,’ the New York Times reported in 1997…………………………………….. Since the end of the Cold War, the NED had grown and been involved in trying to undermine or remove governments independent of Washington,………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………….. John Kiriakou, a CIA officer from 1990 to 2004, told me that recent changes in the law have widened the potential targets of US information operations. ‘In 2011, the US Congress changed the law that forbade the Executive Branch from propagandizing the American people or nationals of the other ‘Five Eyes’ countries – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,’ he said.
……………….. The CIA’s propaganda efforts throughout history have been shameless. But now that they’re not legally relegated to just Russia and China, the whole world is a target.’ One particularly interesting case was Index on Censorship, the UK’s foremost free expression group which monitors threats to free speech and publishes censored writers. It received £603,257 from the NED in 2016–21, according to its Charity Commission accounts.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. This is how it works. Not just in the developing world, but, I was learning, in the developed world, too. In fact, the control was even deeper. I soon understood that the US was not just interfering in the British political process, media and civil society. The hidden fist of the US empire which I’d seen deployed all over the developing world – the massive American military – was also occupying Britain.
I found the US Air Force (USAF) had 9,730 personnel permanently deployed throughout Britain, a number which was increasing rapidly.
……………………………………………… US military personnel in Britain are all in England, with access to 11 Royal Air Force (RAF) bases, stretching from Cambridgeshire to Yorkshire. They are known officially as United States Visiting Forces (USVF).
……………………….Jewel in the crown
The largest US military presence is at RAF Lakenheath, a 727 hectare site in Suffolk. Despite being called an RAF base, it is leased to the USAF, and its population is overwhelmingly American. There were 5,404 US Department of Defense personnel based there in 2022.
……………………………………………… The US is spending billions of pounds upgrading air bases in Britain to enable Washington to intercept international communications and launch military strikes more quickly. Some of the locations are hubs for offensive bombing missions. RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire is the USAF’s only bomber Forward Operating Location, or military base, in Europe. The aircraft deployed there ‘enable US and NATO warfighters to conduct a full spectrum of flying operations’.
………………………………………………..But the UK appears to have very little control over what happens on the USAF-operated bases or the missions that are flown from them. The overarching framework for the stationing of US forces in the UK comes from two pieces of legislation. In 1951, NATO agreed a ‘status of forces’ agreement to govern hosting arrangements between its member states. The following year, The Visiting Forces Act incorporated the NATO agreement into UK law.
But Hudson said that these agreements ‘ultimately reserve jurisdiction of US personnel to the US’. Most of the American bases are called RAF stations and leased by the US. ‘Because of this, while the physical buildings comprising the bases are usually the property of the UK Ministry of Defence, very little of what happens in them is controlled by the British government,’ Hudson said. The empire never sleeps and, despite the mainstream media working to keep it invisible, it’s everywhere.
This is an edited version of the new preface to The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire by Matt Kennard. The second edition is out now, published by Bloomsbury and available at bloomsbury.com and via all good bookshops.
Rare photos show Earth’s fatal hotspot that can kill any human standing nearby in just five minutes
Harrowing photos of the lethal area reveal how dangerous it is to be near the hotspot
Joshua Nair, https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/chernobyl-elephants-foot-radiation-photos-743946-20240906 6 Sept 24
There’s a spot on Earth that is so dangerous, it could kill someone if they stood nearby for just five minutes.
And the story behind it is haunting.
A lot of things on our blue planet can be dangerous towards us humans, but something we can’t really avoid is radiation.
No, I’m not talking about generating electricity for all of our technology, I mean the radiation that can be caused by the use of weapons, which can leave everlasting effects on certain areas of the world.
Nuclear weapons are bad, but the biggest tragedy related to this isn’t to do with weapons at all, and it occurred in Chernobyl after a tragic power plant explosion in Pripyat, Ukraine.
What was the Chernobyl disaster?
At a nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl on 26 April, 1986, reactor number four exploded during a failed steam test, killing 30 people instantly.
Radiation released could be detected in countries as far as Sweden, while several civilians and workers in the area would go on to die from severe radiation poisoning, while others died from other health issues and terminal illnesses from the unsafe levels of radiation put into the atmosphere.
It is still by far and away the worst nuclear disaster in human history, reportedly costing governments around $700 million (£532 million) to deal with, while the area is uninhabitable.
The ‘Elephant’s Foot’
Known as the most dangerous object on the planet, it was caused by the Chernobyl disaster as a large hunk formed at the bottom of the reactor, which was caused by uranium fuel becoming molten when it overheated.
Steam blew the reactor apart, as heat, steam and molten nuclear fuel combined to make a 100-ton flow of dangerous chemicals that poured out of the reactor and through to the basement of the plant, solidifying and being given the name the ‘Elephant’s Foot’, resembling one.
Why is it so dangerous?
People soon realised after the explosion that it shouldn’t be approached for a while, as the radioactive lump continued to sear for months.
When measured, the Elephant’s Foot released almost 10,000 roentgens per hour, equivalent to the exposure given by four and a half million chest X-rays.
It’s is incredibly dangerous, with photos of people near the hotspot showcasing some of the bravest scientists out there, putting their lives at risk to better understand the Elephant’s Foot.
According to science magazine Nautilus, 30 seconds of exposure would have your cells haemorrhaging, and in just four minutes, violent vomiting and diarrhoea would hit, and if you got to five minutes in the lump’s vicinity, you’d die within two days.
Studies on the Elephant’s Foot
People have chosen to visit and study the site for short periods of time, and while it is still cooling down, the Elephant’s Foot is incredibly dangerous to be around, as scientists have only taken the smallest of samples to carry studies out on.
The Elephant’s Foot remains entombed in the New Safe Confinement (NSC) that was slid over Chernobyl to prevent any more radiation leaks from the nuclear power plant.
‘Dangerously hot’ weather roasts US west as brutal summer continues
California, Nevada and Arizona swelter in what could be the most intense heatwave of an already blazing season.
. Excessive heat warnings were in effect across parts of southern
California, Arizona and Nevada, affecting tens of millions of people. The
harsh weather was predicted to peak beginning on Wednesday and lasting into
the weekend. The city of Los Angeles could see temperatures approaching
100F (37.7C), with locations further inland hitting nearly 110F (43.3C) or
higher, according to a forecast from the National Weather Service (NWS).
Guardian 4th Sept 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/04/us-west-heatwave-summer
Controversy Surrounds Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Referendum
Oil Price, By RFE/RL staff – Sep 04, 2024,
- Kazakhstan has allocated $32 million for a referendum on the construction of a nuclear power station.
- The referendum, scheduled for October 6, has sparked controversy due to concerns over nuclear safety and Russia’s potential involvement.
- Despite public opposition, the Kazakh government is pushing forward with the plan, highlighting the country’s tightly controlled political environment.
…………………………………………….Mustafina’s deputy Konstantin Petrov said more than 12 million Kazakh citizens are eligible to vote at more than 10,000 voting sites across the country and 78 stations will be set up in different countries for Kazakh citizens residing abroad.
Only one question will be asked in the referendum: “Do you agree that Kazakhstan needs to construct a nuclear power station?”
Many in Kazakhstan expect that the answer will be “yes,” considering the country’s tightly controlled political environment.
But the push to build a nuclear power plant has been met by significant opposition despite apparent efforts to silence dissent on the issue. In recent weeks, several activists known for their stance against the nuclear power station’s construction have been prevented from attending public debates on the matter.
Nuclear-power-related projects have been a controversial issue in Kazakhstan, where the environment was severely impacted by operations at the Soviet-era Semipalatinsk nuclear test site from 1949 to 1991 and the Baikonur spaceport, which is still being operated by Moscow.
Hours before his decree was made public on September 2, President Toqaev reiterated his support for the plan to build a nuclear power station.
There was no official information about the site of the future nuclear station, but a public debate was held last year in the village of Ulken on the shore of the Lake Balkhash in the southeastern region of Almaty about the possibility of constructing a nuclear power station there.
The idea to build a nuclear power station in Kazakhstan has been circulating in the country for years, leading to questions regarding what countries would be involved in the project.
Kazakh officials have tried to avoid answering the question, saying the decision would be made after a referendum.
Shortly before launching its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia proposed its Rosatom nuclear agency to be Kazakhstan’s major partner in the project. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Controversy-Surrounds-Kazakhstans-Nuclear-Referendum.html
Kazakh Internet users mostly rejected the idea of Rosatom’s involvement, citing the legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and Russia’s gaining control over the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine as examples of Russia’s attitude toward nuclear safety.
“Subsidy for UK nuclear build calls funding into question”
“It’s not a great argument for public ownership. Doing it because private investors won’t touch it“
(Montel) The UK’s decision to pump an additional GBP 5.5bn into getting the 3.2 GW Sizewell C nuclear power station to a financial investment decision has triggered more uncertainty about its financing and cost, said industry sources.
Reporting by: Kelly Paul, 03 Sep 2024
“I think there’s a lot of uncertainty about it,” Paul Dorfman, visiting professor at the UK’s University of Sussex, told Montel.
“There are questions around what does it actually mean and will that money be drawn up before 2025 [when a final investment decision is expected].”
“Clearly the decision is already made,” said Steve Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at Greenwich University.
Won’t abandon project
“The government is not going to spend GBP 8.5bn [including an original cost estimate and additional payments] then abandon the project. The uncertainty is what proportion investors will take and on what terms, or will we just make it 100% public.”
The UK’s new Labour government is proposing a GBP 5.5bn subsidy scheme aimed at covering Sizewell C’s costs up to and including a final investment, subject to next month’s spending review.
It comes amid a protracted process of trying to attract private investors to Sizewell C, namely via the regulated asset base financing model launched last year, designed to ensure a significant proportion of capital is secured before the construction phase to shore up the contribution of the lead developer, EDF of France.
Yet doubt surrounds the status of private investment into the project, with financially strapped EDF’s share capped at 19.99% after a final decision is taken. The total cost of Sizewell is estimated at GBP 20bn.
“I don’t feel like this equity round has been a resounding success,” Alison Downes, a director at campaign group Stop Sizewell C, told Montel, citing anonymous government sources and pointing to the apparent absence of sovereign wealth and pension funds.
The lack of clarity around final costs and timeline also called into question the role of nuclear in the country’s bid to achieve a decarbonised economy by 2030 and in terms of contributing to its energy security, she added.
“2030 is not the be all and end all but it is a critical part in terms of the government’s goals,” she said.
Greater costs?
Meanwhile, the government could find itself saddled with greater costs as potential investors seek to minimise their share of the risk, the sources said.
“It’s not a great argument for public ownership. Doing it because private investors won’t touch it,” Thomas said.
When contacted by Montel, an energy ministry spokesperson said: “We are committed to Sizewell C, which will play an important role in helping the UK achieve energy security and net zero, while securing thousands of good, skilled jobs and supporting our energy independence beyond 2030.
“Subject to all the relevant approvals, we aim to reach a final investment decision before the end of the year.
“Any investment from the [GBP 5.5bn subsidy] scheme will be subject to approvals and in line with the project’s spending plans, as agreed by the government and its co-shareholders.”
Sizewell C, the company managing the nuclear project, was unavailable for comment when contacted by Montel.
Delays, debts and false promises — inside France’s nuclear nightmare.
The energy giant EDF pledged to rebuild Britain’s atomic power sector,
starting with Hinkley Point. But setbacks to a similar project in Normandy
throw the UK’s nuclear future into doubt.
This week, the one and only EPR
that France has itself tried to build was finally switched on — 12 years
behind schedule. When work got under way on the reactor in Flamanville,
Normandy, in 2007, engineers had promised that it would be up and running
by 2012, at a cost of €3.3 billion (£2.8 billion).
The final bill is estimated to be €19.1 billion and it is not even plugged into the grid
yet. EDF says that will happen “by the end of the autumn”, signalling
yet another delay.
The project has been beset by problems. Safety
inspectors discovered “deviations” in eight welds in the reactor’s
main steam transfer pipe, for instance. It instructed EDF’s welders to do
the job again. Then the Nuclear Safety Authority, the French watchdog, came
across what it called a “manufacturing anomaly in the lower dome and the
vessel closure head”, which are also key components.
It has ordered the replacement of the head, although it agreed to allow the reactor to start
up with the existing one still in place. It will be removed after about 18
months of operation, to coincide with the first fuelling outage. The delays
and cost overruns at Flamanville have been viewed as a national
humiliation. Critics have asked how the project could have gone so wrong,
given France’s proud nuclear tradition — its reactors supplying about
two thirds of the country’s electricity.
Times 4th Sept 2024
Starmer permanently ties UK nuclear arsenal to Washington
: Britain’s nuclear weapons are now forever reliant on US military scientists after a transatlantic treaty was quietly rewritten.
RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR, 3 September 2024,
https://www.declassifieduk.org/starmer-permanently-ties-uk-nuclear-arsenal-to-washington/
Labour has reinforced the “special relationship” with Washington by agreeing to make Britain’s nuclear arsenal permanently dependent on the US.
In one of its first, but little-noticed foreign policy moves, Labour has amended the Eisenhower-era 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) that is crucial to Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system.
Officials deleted a long-standing sunset clause that required it be renewed every ten years.
All references to an “expiry date” have been removed “to make the entirety of the MDA enduring, securing continuing cooperation with the US”, according to a memorandum signed by defence secretary John Healey.
Kate Hudson from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) told Declassified: “This spells farewell to even the smallest notion of parliamentary responsibility for Britain’s foreign and defence policies.”
She added that at least nominally parliament has had the opportunity, once a decade, to debate and reconsider America’s role in Britain’s nuclear programme.
“This amendment, introduced in the most undemocratic fashion by the government – at a time when it will be lost in the recess and party conference season – will eradicate those opportunities. This must not go unchallenged.”
The change was agreed by senior British and US officials on 25 July, three weeks after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.
It comes as Starmer described Britain’s nuclear weapons as the “bedrock” of the country’s defence and amid concern about possible threats to the future of the MDA if Donald Trump wins back the White House.
During a visit to Washington shortly before the general election, David Lammy, now foreign secretary, told a centre-right think tank that Labour: “will always work with the United States, whatever the weather…”
The MDA enables the US to provide Britain with nuclear weapons materials and know-how without which Trident would not be able to function.
It gives the lie to persistent claims by the Ministry of Defence that Britain’s submarine-launched nuclear arsenal is “operationally independent”.
American client
Trident missiles themselves are obtained from America and a cross-party report concluded that the life expectancy of Britain’s nuclear capability without US support could be measured in months.
US presidents have also alluded to this dependency, with George W. Bush saying in 2005 that the US helped Britain maintain a “credible nuclear force”.
Barack Obama declared it was in America’s interest to continue to help Britain “in maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent” when the MDA was renewed ten years ago.
As Declassified recently reported, British military aircraft regularly cross the Atlantic with highly radioactive ingredients supplied by the US. These ingredients are absolutely vital to the Trident missile system.
The memorandum signed by Healey states: “The MDA provides the necessary requirements for the control and transmission of submarine nuclear propulsion technology, atomic information and material between the UK and US, and the transfer of non-nuclear components to the UK.”
It continues: “The MDA underpins the defence nuclear relationship between the UK and US.”
Above democracy
The memo further states that the amendment does not require any change in the law. Although the MDA is incorporated in US law, it has no statutory basis in the UK.
Astonishingly, despite its huge significance, it has never been the subject of a substantial debate in Parliament.
The government describes the MDA as covering the exchange of information on “sensitive nuclear technology” for developing “defence plans” and “military applications of atomic energy”.
Other aspects involve evaluating “the capabilities of potential enemies in the employment of atomic weapons”.
It also concerns the sale of “naval nuclear propulsion plants” and the transfer of materials like U-235 enriched uranium.
However, governments have long refused to provide information about how much nuclear material for British warheads the US has provided to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston and the nearby Burghfield warhead factor, and at what cost.
The quantity is likely to be significant. Nearly 1,000 non-nuclear components for atomic weapons systems were exchanged between the US and UK in 2020-23 under the MDA, according to new research by the Nuclear Information Service.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said the removal of the 10-year renewal provision was decided “given the longstanding nature of this agreement”. She added that making the entirety of the MDA “enduring” was “the case with other international agreements.”
Peter Burt of Nukewatch UK which monitors the UK’s nuclear weapons programme commented: “Every UK Prime Minister since the Second World War has been petrified about losing influence with the US, and in a large part this hinges around access to nuclear weapons technology and military intelligence.
“This is the main reason the UK government always aligns itself with US foreign policy and allows itself to be drawn into US military adventurism, even when it is clearly not in the interests of this country to follow America.”
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) in Canada
While civil society opposition to SMRs is broad and substantial in Canada, ultimately the exorbitant cost of SMRs will be their undoing. Conclusive analysis shows that SMRs cannot compete economically with wind, solar and storage systems.
SMRs will last as long as governments are willing to pour public funds into them, and SMRs will start to disappear after the money tap is turned off. Already the nuclear hype in Canada is turning back to big reactors.
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, August 29, 2024 | Issue #918, By Brennain Lloyd and Susan O’Donnell
Introduction: CANDUs versus SMRs
Canada developed the CANDU reactor, fueled with natural uranium mined in Canada and cooled and moderated with heavy water. All 19 operating power reactors in Canada – 18 in Ontario on the Great Lakes and one in New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy – are CANDU designs with outputs ranging from about 500 to 900 MWe.
It’s been more than 30 years since the last CANDU was completed and connected to the grid in Canada. Attempts to build new ones were halted over high projected costs, and CANDU exports have dried up. To keep itself alive, in 2018 the nuclear industry launched a “roadmap” to develop smaller reactors and kick-start new nuclear export opportunities.
From 2020 to 2023, the Canadian government funded six so-called “Small Modular Nuclear Reactor” (SMR) designs. Only one – Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) design – is Canadian.
The six designs are not only unlike the CANDU but also different from each other. The fuels range from low-enriched uranium, TRISO particles and HALEU (High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium) to plutonium-based fuel, and the different cooling systems include high-temperature gas, molten salt, liquid sodium metal and heat pipes. One design – Moltex – requires a separate reprocessing unit to extract plutonium from used CANDU fuel to make fuel for its proposed SMR.
Only one of the grid-scale SMR designs seems plausible to be built – the GE Hitachi 300 MWe boiling water reactor (BWRX-300) being developed at the Darlington nuclear site on Lake Ontario. This design uses low-enriched uranium fuel and is cooled by ordinary water. The Darlington site owner, the public utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG), is planning to build four of them.
Canada gave OPG a $970 million “low-interest” loan to help develop the BWRX-300 design. The other five SMR designs received considerably less federal funding, from $7 million to $50.5 million each, and most SMR proponents have been struggling to source matching funds. One design, Westinghouse’s off-grid eVinci micro-reactor, had early development costs funded by the U.S. military and now seems to have independent funding.
The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) at Chalk River received more than $1.2 billion in 2023. CNL is operated by a private-sector consortium with two U.S. companies involved in the nuclear weapons industry and the Canadian firm Atkins-Réalis (formerly SNC Lavalin) which is also involved in almost every SMR project in Canada. CNL and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited are building an “Advanced Nuclear Materials Research Centre” at Chalk River, one of the largest nuclear facilities ever built in Canada, that will conduct research on SMRs.
Canada recently released a report suggesting that SMRs will be in almost all provinces by 2035, although most provincial electrical utilities have expressed no interest, and only Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta are promoting SMRs. Alberta says it wants SMRs to reduce the GHG emissions generated in tar sands extraction.
SMR “project creep”
Proponents of most of the SMR designs keep changing the description of their projects. This is not unique to Canada, but is certainly apparent in Canada, and the regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), aids and abets that practise for those SMRs in the review stream.
In the case of the BWRX-300 proposed for the Darlington site, the CNSC not only accepted a 2009 environmental assessment for very different reactors as a stand-in for the BWRX-300 but also is carrying out the current review as if for a single reactor. The nuclear regulator made this decision despite Ontario Power Generation very publicly stating its intent to construct four reactors in rapid succession at the Darlington site.
The proposed “Micro Modular Reactor” (MMR) for the Chalk River site in Ontario is another example of “project creep” and demonstrates just how flexible “scope of project” is in the domain of the CNSC.
Earlier this year, CNSC staff released a document outlining communications from the MMR proponent, Global First Power, describing significant project changes. The proponent wants to triple power output, and to operate with fuel enrichment levels from 9.75% (LEU+) up to 19.75%.
Global First Power also wants a shift from no need to refuel in a 20-year operating life to provision for on-site refueling and defueling with periods varying from three to 13.5 years. They also want to double their facility design life from 20 years to 40 years.
Despite all these significant changes to key elements of the design, the CNSC staff concluded that the Global First Power MMR project remained within scope of its initial (very different) description.
Another example of SMR project creep is in New Brunswick. In June 2023, the provincial utility NB Power applied to the CNSC for a licence to clear a site for the ARC-100 design at the Point Lepreau nuclear site on the Bay of Fundy. The design for the sodium-cooled reactor requires HALEU fuel, which is scarce because of sanctions imposed on Russia, the sole supplier.
News reports have suggested the ARC-100 design might need to change because changing the fuel means changing the design. Meanwhile the ARC company CEO left suddenly, and staff received layoff notices. Despite these obvious problems, the application under CNSC review and a provincial environmental assessment underway with the CNSC are continuing with the original design.
SMRs complicate radioactive waste management
One of the (many) false promises floated about SMRs is that they will alleviate the significant challenges of managing radioactive wastes. This is patently false. Some of this misleading rhetoric stems from the notion of “recycling” and claims by some SMR promoters that their particular design of reactor will use high-level radioactive wastes as “fuel” for their reactor.
But the reality is that the introduction of so-called “next generation” designs of reactors in Canada will only complicate the already complex set of problems related to the caretaking of these extremely hazardous materials.
……………………………………………..The shift from natural uranium to enriched uranium in commercial power reactors in Canada will fundamentally change the nature and characteristics of the spent fuel waste and will take away one of the nuclear industry’s favourite pitch points for the CANDU design: that there is no potential for criticality after the fuel is removed from the reactor.
The new potential for the irradiated enriched fuel wastes to “go critical” is only one of the many problems being overlooked by both government and industry.
Another very obvious shift is in the dimensions of the fuel, from the relatively uniform dimensions of CANDU fuel to the widely divergent shapes and sizes of fuel being depicted for the various small modular reactor designs.
The CANDU fuel bundles are approximately 50 cm long and 10 cm in diameter. In contrast, the fuel waste dimensions are significantly different for SMRs. For example, the BWRX-300 fuel bundles are much larger, the casks much heavier, and the reactor will generate higher level activity wastes. These differences will require different approaches and designs for interim and long-term dry storage of used fuel.
SMR wastes not considered in Canada’s repository design
As a fleet, small modular reactors will generate more waste per energy unit than the larger conventional reactors that preceded them. But in Canada they will also require redesign of the “concept” plan currently being promoted for the long-term dispositioning of the used fuel to a deep geological repository (DGR).
Since 2002 an association of the nuclear power companies, operating as the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), have been pursuing a single site to bury and then abandon all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste.
Their siting process, launched in 2010, caught the interest of 22 municipalities that allowed themselves to be studied for the “$16-24 billion national infrastructure project.” Hundreds of millions of dollars later – with tens of millions going directly into the coffers of the participating municipalities – the NWMO is now down to two candidate sites in Ontario.
The NWMO say they will make their final selection by the end of 2024. But even at this late date they have produced only “conceptual” descriptions of their repository project, including for key components such as the packaging plant where the fuel waste would be transferred into that final container, and the DGR itself. But all of the conceptual work is premised on the characteristics and dimensions of the CANDU fuel bundle.
The process lines of the used fuel packaging plant, the final container, and the spacing requirements for the repository will all need to be redone for different SMR wastes with their very different dimensions and characteristics.
While it could be said that the NWMO design progress has been surprisingly slow given their target of selecting a site this year and beginning the regulatory and licensing process next year, it will be back to square one if their proposed DGR is to accommodate SMR wastes.
There is, however, a strong possibility that the regulator, the CNSC, will allow the NWMO to skate through at least the first license phase with large information gaps, as the CNSC is doing with the plan to construct four BWRX-300s at the Darlington site.
As mentioned in the example of “project creep,” earlier this year the CNSC announced it would accept an environmental assessment approval of a generic 2009 reactor proposal instead of requiring that the BWRX-300 be subject to an impact assessment. This was despite the marked differences between the technologies assessed in 2009 and the BWRX-300 technology.
These differences will impact the management of the project’s radioactive waste. For example, the BWRX-300 public dose rates are estimated to be 10 x higher for one accident scenario (pool fire) and 54% higher in a dry storage container accident, the waste contains different proportions of radionuclides than the waste that was assessed in 2009, radio-iodine and carbon-14 emissions will be higher, alpha and beta-gamma activity per cubic metre of waste will be higher and the BWRX-300 will generate higher activity spent fuel.
Despite the NWMO having successfully wooed two small municipalities, there is broad opposition to the transportation, burial and abandonment of all of Canada’s high-level radioactive wastes in a single location, either in the headwaters of two major watersheds in northern Ontario or the rich farm lands of southwestern Ontario.
This opposition is amplified by concerns about SMR wastes and the NWMO’s open ticket to add other operations to their DGR site. Of particular concern are the potential for the NWMO to add an SMR to power their repository site or even to add a reprocessing plant at the site to extract plutonium from the used fuel. The Canadian government’s refusal to include an explicit ban on commercial reprocessing in the 2022 review of the national radioactive waste policy heightened the latter concern.
Who/what is behind the SMR push in Canada?
Although proponents claim that SMRs will contribute to climate action, critics are sceptical. It is doubtful that any SMR will be built in time to contribute to Canada’s target to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035, and independent research found that SMRs will cost substantially more than alternative sources of grid energy.
The high cost and lengthy development timelines of SMRs, the questionable claims of climate action, as well as the significant challenges related to SMR wastes, raises an obvious question: who is pushing SMRs and why?
A central reason is a political imperative to keep the Canadian nuclear industry alive. The industry is small in Canada, but nuclear power looms large in the political imagination. Canada sees itself as a global leader in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Without a nuclear weapons industry, Canada needs nuclear exports to keep its domestic industry alive and ensure Canada’s membership in the international nuclear club. Earlier this year, Canada released an action plan to get nuclear projects built faster and ensure that “’nuclear energy remains a strategic asset to Canada now and into the future.”
Since the start of the nuclear age, Canada has spent a disproportionate amount of research funding on nuclear reactor development. Politicians see the CANDU design as a success, despite its costly legacy and lackluster exports. The CANDU reactors in Canada have all required significant public subsidies, and the CANDUs sold for export have been heavily subsidized by Canada as well.
Selling more CANDUs outside Canada is unlikely in the foreseeable future. But Canada wants a nuclear industry, and that requires choosing and aggressively marketing at least one nuclear reactor design. Despite being a U.S. design, the G.E. Hitachi BWRX-300 is the chosen favourite in Canada. The reactor, in early development at the Darlington site, is being promoted globally by Ontario Power Generation as part of an international collaboration with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Synthos Green Energy.
What’s the future for SMRs in Canada?
Since the nuclear industry and its government partner Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) launched their SMR roadmap in 2018, the political and business hype for SMRs has been intense. The SMR buzz is meant to attract private sector investment, but so far that strategy is failing.
Almost everyone understands now that SMRs, like the CANDUs, are expensive projects that will need continuous massive public subsidies. To date, taxpayers have provided just over $1.2 billion in direct subsidies to SMR proponents in Canada, not nearly as much as the industry will need to develop an SMR fleet in the country.
A broad coalition of groups – from climate activists to Indigenous organizations and other groups protecting lands and waters from radioactive waste – have been pushing back against public funding for SMRs. A 2020 statement signed by 130 groups called SMRs “dirty, dangerous distractions” from real climate action. In March this year, 130 groups in Canada also signed the international declaration against new nuclear energy development launched in Brussels at the Nuclear Summit organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
While civil society opposition to SMRs is broad and substantial in Canada, ultimately the exorbitant cost of SMRs will be their undoing. Conclusive analysis shows that SMRs cannot compete economically with wind, solar and storage systems.
SMRs will last as long as governments are willing to pour public funds into them, and SMRs will start to disappear after the money tap is turned off. Already the nuclear hype in Canada is turning back to big reactors.
The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Huron in Ontario, with eight CANDU reactors, is already the largest operating nuclear plant in the world. Bruce Power recently began the formal process to develop four new big reactors at the site, to generate another 4,800 megawatts of electricity. It remains to be seen if the sticker shock for the proposed big nuclear reactors will, like it has for SMRs, scare off investors.
Although more than six years of SMR promotion in Canada has produced almost no private investor interest, the SMR buzz remains strong. The SMR star may be fading but the SMR story is far from over.
Brennain Lloyd is the coordinator of Northwatch in Ontario. Susan O’Donnell is the lead researcher for the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick and a spokesperson for CRED-NB. https://crednb.ca/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-smrs-in-canada/
Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE
by Gordonhahn September 3, 2024 https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/03/ukrainian-tipping-points-update/
Rueters reports US is just about se to send long-range missiles to Ukraine for attacks deep inside Russia:
US close to agreeing on long-range missiles for Ukraine; delivery to take months
Summary
-Stealthy JASSM weapons have range to hit targets inside Russia
-Decision expected in autumn, U.S. officials say
-Pentagon trying to integrate JASSMs on Soviet-era Ukrainian jets
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. is close to an agreement to give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment, U.S. officials said. The inclusion of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) in a weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three sources said, though a final decision has not been made (https://www.reuters.com/world/us-close-agreeing-long-range-missiles-ukraine-delivery-take-months-2024-09-03/).
Israeli Official: Without US Aid, Israel Couldn’t Sustain Gaza Operations for More Than a Few Months
The US has sent over 50,000 tons of weapons to Israel since the genocidal war began and increased shipments over the past month
by Dave DeCamp September 3, 2024 , https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/03/israeli-official-without-us-aid-israel-couldnt-sustain-gaza-operations-for-more-than-a-few-months/
A senior Israeli Air Force official has told Haaretz that without US military aid, Israel would not have been able to sustain military operations in Gaza for more than a few months, demonstrating how crucial US support is for the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians.
The support is especially crucial for the Israeli Air Force. The report said the US provides the IAF with “all of its fighter planes and some of its bombs, missiles and intelligence equipment.” The US also helps Israel develop “joint weapons systems for all three layers of air defense.”
Since October 7, the US has shipped Israel over 50,000 tons of weapons and other military equipment. Weapons shipments have increased over the past month, with flight tracking data showing that August was the busiest month for US deliveries since October 2023.
President Biden also signed a bill into law that included $17 billion in additional military aid for Israel on top of the $3.8 billion it receives in annual military assistance. The administration recently approved $20 billion in new arms deals for Israel, which includes a new fleet of F-15 fighter jets.
The official speaking to Haaretz said the IAF is crafting a recommendation to increase the domestic production of bombs, missiles, and other ammunition to reduce reliance on the US. But any changes would take years to implement, meaning Israel will continue to be almost entirely reliant on US support.
Israel’s reliance on the US gives the Biden administration enormous leverage over the Israeli government. The administration has refused to use that power to force a ceasefire despite claims that US officials are working for one.
Declassified files reveal plans for nuclear power plant in Tyrone, northern Ireland
WeAreTyrone, By Callum McGuigan, 3 September 2024
DECLASSIFIED Government documents have revealed high-level discussions over a proposal to build a nuclear power plant near Coalisland during the 1950s.
Papers recently opened at the Public Records Office in Belfast under the 20-year rule outline how close Tyrone and the North was to achieving atomic power decades ago.
The two sites envisioned for the dawn of a nuclear age in the North were earmarked as Washing Bay and Derrywarragh Island, both just miles from Coalisland.
Secret talks were held between Stormont and Westminister with the strictest confidence, not just because of Cold War paranoia, but also in fear of recent IRA skirmishes at the border…………………………………………………………………………………
Disaster
The nuclear planning preparations were shortlived, as in October of 1957 the worst nuclear disaster in the UK would halt the progress of developments in the North.
The Windscale nuclear site in England caught fire and radiation spread across the UK and Europe.
The disaster was ranked five out of seven on the International Nuclear Disaster Scale, just two rankings below Chernobyl.
Ultimately, the plans never went ahead.
Reacting to the proposals contained in the recently-declassified files, Coalisland independent councillor, Dan Kerr, said that the ‘risks would have outweighed the positives’.
“When you think of nuclear plants you think of big industrial cities and urban areas, but you also can’t help but remember the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
“It would have been a huge employment opportunity in Coalisland, but at the same time, the risks to locals and the environment would have far outweighed the positives.
“Looking at Lough Neagh now, you could imagine if a disaster like Chernobyl were to have happened here, the whole area and maybe even large parts of the North, could have been turned into a complete wasteland………………………………… https://wearetyrone.com/news/declassified-files-reveal-plans-for-nuclear-power-plant-in-tyrone/
A crisis at Kursk?
IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, duly went off to visit the Kursk site, to remind whoever is listening from either side that having a war around nuclear power plants is frightfully inconvenient when your agency is busy telling the world how safe the technology is and how badly we need more of it.
Linda Pentz Gunter, 2024 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/09/01/a-crisis-at-kursk/
The Russian war against Ukraine now threatens to envelop one of its own nuclear power plants, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, visited the threatened Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia last week, but continues to promote nuclear power expansion.
The trouble with nuclear technology, of any kind really, is that it depends on sensible and even intelligent decisions being made by supremely fallible human beings. The consequences of even a simple mistake are, as we have already seen with Chornobyl, catastrophic.
To add to the danger, nuclear technology also relies on other seemingly elusive human traits, beginning with sanity but also something that ought to be — but all too often isn’t —fundamentally human: empathy. That means not wanting to do anything to other people you wouldn’t want to endure yourself. But of course we see humans doing these things every day, whether at the macro individual level or on a geopolitical scale. We just have to look at events in Congo, Gaza, Haiti, Sudan; the list goes on.
And of course we cannot ignore what is playing out in Ukraine and now Russia. Because of the war there, dragging on since Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, we remain in a perpetual state of looming nuclear disaster.
Currently, the prospects of such a disaster are focused on Russia, where that country’s massive Kursk nuclear power plant is the latest such facility to find itself literally in the line of fire as Ukrainian troops make their incursion there in response to Russia’s ongoing war in their country.
But we cannot forget the six-reactor site at Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine either, embroiled in some of the worst fighting in that country, the plant occupied by Russian troops for more than two years and also perpetually one errant missile away from catastrophe.
Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear power for its electricity supply, with 15 reactors in all at four nuclear power plants, when all are fully operational. In 2023, even as the war raged around the nuclear sites, Ukraine was still providing a little over half of the country’s electricity from nuclear power.
Russia is far more dependent on natural gas, a product it also exports, and only draws just over 18 percent of its electricity needs from its estimated 37 reactors, situated at 11 nuclear sites.
There are also some fundamental technological differences between the Zaporizhzhia and Kursk nuclear power plants themselves. Kursk, like Zaporizhzhia, is also a six-reactor site, one of the three largest nuclear power plants in Russia. (Zaporizhzhia is not only the biggest nuclear power plant in Ukraine but also Europe’s largest.)
But while Zaporizhzhia is made up of six Russian VVER reactors, more akin to the pressurized water reactors used in the United States and much of Europe, the Kursk reactors are of the old Soviet RBMK design.
This is the same model as the Chornobyl unit that exploded in 1986, irradiating land across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and much of Europe, contamination that persists in many areas today.
Alarmingly, because the Kursk RBMK reactors lack a secondary containment dome, they are even more vulnerable to war damage than Zaporizhzhia’s.
Furthermore, unlike Zaporizhzhia, where all six reactors are fully shut down — making a meltdown less likely but not impossible — two of Kursk’s reactors are still running. And the Russians have already told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that they found the remains of a drone just over 300 feet away from the Kursk nuclear plant. Ukraine has of course denied responsibility for any attempted assault on the plant just as Russia has disavowed accusations it tried to attack the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site.
IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, duly went off to visit the Kursk site, to remind whoever is listening from either side that having a war around nuclear power plants is frightfully inconvenient when your agency is busy telling the world how safe the technology is and how badly we need more of it.
However, like a helpless pre-school teacher with naughty toddlers, Grossi’s only recourse appears to be to tell both the Russians and Ukrainians repeatedly to stop. And since he can’t exactly take away their candy, and in fact has no “or else” to implement, they simply ignore him.
Most of us do still feel empathy for those whose lives we watch extinguished each night as ever more horrific news reports pour in from the countries where war and strife have become a seemingly endless and unstoppable ordeal.
Most of us don’t want another Chornobyl, either, for Ukrainians, for Russians or for anyone. And since we can’t rely on human beings to use nuclear power responsibly, this is one “toy” we have to take away.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. Her forthcoming book, Hot Stories. Reflections from a Radioactive World, will be published in autumn 2024.
Inside UK Labour’s plans for a new nuclear age
Before the end of the year, Ed Miliband is expected to announce the next
phase of Britain’s nuclear power revival. The energy secretary has
inherited decisions on two major programmes that could help bring forward a
new nuclear age in the UK — Sizewell C in Suffolk and a fleet of mini
nuclear plants around Britain.
In its election manifesto, Labour lent its
support to nuclear as playing an important role in the shift towards clean [?]
power and improving energy security.
Sceptics of ambitions to build out
Britain’s nuclear industry point towards the delays and budgeting
difficulties that have beset Hinkley Point C as a bad omen for expanding
the UK industry.
The developers have called out the 7,000 design changes it
was forced to make to its reactors by the Office for Nuclear Regulation to
adapt the reactors to UK safety standards, increasing the amount of
concrete and steel needed and pushing up costs.
The project has also been
caught up in wrangling with the Environment Agency and it is still in
dispute over how to best deter fish from swimming near the site and getting
sucked up into its cooling systems.
There is believed to be a £5 billion
funding gap, but CGN’s liability for the project is capped at £6
billion, which leaves the French state on the hook. A fixed, albeit
inflation-linked, subsidy of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (in 2012 prices) was
agreed when Hinkley was signed off, so any increase in costs falls on
shareholders, rather than directly on bill payers.
A final investment decision on [Sizewell C] had been expected by the summer. The hope now is that the project might get the green light before the end of the year, but
there is speculation that it may slip into next year. The government is
expected to launch a new generation of mini nuclear power plants across the
country.
The selection process is being run by Great British Nuclear, an
arm’s-length body set up under the previous government to drive nuclear
deployment. Five ventures, including Rolls-Royce and GE-Hitachi, a joint
venture between GE Vernova, the American energy equipment manufacturer, and
Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate, have submitted bids for £20 billion in
taxpayer funding.
The plan is to whittle down the list to three or four
designs by the end of this month, with the winning bids chosen before the
end of the year. It is hoped that the chosen technology providers will take
a final investment decision by 2029.
The first small modular reactor is not
expected to be generating electricity before 2035, not in time to
contribute towards Labour’s 2030 net zero goals. Miliband has said the
new government will “strive” to keep to the timetable previously set
out.
When the winning mini nuclear plant designs are chosen, they will be
assigned an operating site by Great British Nuclear. There are eight sites
currently approved for nuclear development in the UK, including Wylfa in
Anglesey, the Sellafield site in Cumbria and Heysham in Lancashire. A deal
in March with Hitachi brought two sites — Wylfa and Oldbury-on-Severn in
Gloucestershire — back under government ownership.
Moorside, which is adjacent to the Sellafield facility is also state-owned, which makes all
three likely potential sites for the first small modular reactors (SMRs).
Rolls-Royce, which is considered a frontrunner in the selection process,
has previously said it has identified four potential parcels of land,
including Oldbury and Moorside, as its preferred locations. However, it is
envisioned that for small modular reactors to fully realise the benefits of
scale, development on more new sites will be needed.
Looser planning rules
are expected to allow these reactors almost anywhere outside built-up
areas.
Times 4th Sept 2024
Iran desperately needs a nuclear deal to save its battered economy
The Islamic Republic has few good options – a nuclear accord 2.0 may be its best hope
By Michael Day, iNews 4th Sept 2024
Iran appears increasingly willing to scale back its nuclear weapons programme in return for sanctions relief to rescue its stricken economy. This might explain Tehran’s reluctance to retaliate hard against Israel’s alleged assassination of a senior Hamas figure.
The delay in Iran’s threatened retribution for the provocative killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July has been explained in part by Tehran’s willingness to allow negotiators to pursue peace talks between Hamas and Israel.
America’s increased naval presence in the region with aircraft carriers and a guided missile-capable submarine might also have made the regime in Tehran think long and hard about how it should respond to Haniyeh’s killing……………………
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, allowed the election of a moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in July, after deciding that a degree of rapprochement and thereby sanctions relief with the West was badly needed to tackled Iran’s dire economic situation and the social unrest that it – along with the regime’s brutality – has created.
………………………now Azizi thinks: “Iran is seriously interested in pursuing agreements with the West that could help it lift sanctions and this is indeed a priority for it. The return of the JCPOA [2015 nuclear deal] triumvirate (Iran’s nuclear negotiators Mohammad Javad Zarif, Abbas Araghchi, Majid Takht-Ravanchi) indeed speaks to that”.
The nuclear deal was concluded with world powers in 2015 under Iran’s former president Hassan Rouhani – an accord ripped up by the Trump administration in 2018.
Underlining the regime’s desire to use a freeze in its nuclear programme as a bargaining chip, Pezeshkian is, according to reports in state media, about to appoint the nuclear negotiations specialist Takht-Ravanchi to a senior role in the foreign affairs department.
The news comes a week after Iran’s supreme leader suggested that his country might resume nuclear negotiations with the US.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….there is of course the seismic matter of the US election result, which is likely to have a huge bearing on America’s willingness to deal with Tehran. Nothing concrete will be agreed on before then. https://inews.co.uk/news/world/iran-nuclear-deal-sanctions-relief-economy-3258961
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