Forget Sizewell C nuclear – go for a warm home plan
April 12, 2025, https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2025/04/forget-sizewell-c-go-for-warm-home-plan.html
Sizewell C will cost much too much and there are much better alternatives. So says a new plan by Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C and Colin Hines of the Green New Deal Group. They argue that ‘there is a clear political advantage from halting Sizewell C and redirecting the billions saved into making millions of homes more energy efficient, thus reducing fuel poverty’. They say this approach ‘will benefit every city, town, village and hamlet in Britain. It will generate long term, secure jobs, particularly for young people. It will be quick to implement, so by the next election new jobs and cheaper, warmer, healthier homes will have appeared in every constituency’
By contrast, they say ‘should Sizewell C go ahead, it is expected to cost around £40bn between now and when it opens, potentially around 2040: an average of £2.7bn per year for the next 15 years’. But, ‘deducting money already spent, if Sizewell is cancelled now, the public money saved by 2030 is £7.1bn, assuming (as seems likely) no private investors are found to share the cost.’ And they propose that ‘this £7.1bn should be added to the £6.6bn to be spent over the current Parliament on home energy efficiency, as promised in Labour’s 2024 manifesto.’ They say ‘this shift of funds would massively increase the chances of achieving the Government’s aim to ‘Make Britain a clean energy superpower to cut bills, create jobs and deliver security with cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero’.
It certainly does sound a strong case. On costs, they say that ‘no European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) project has ever been completed even close to budget or on time. All six EPR reactors worldwide have or will cost at least double their expected budgets and are, or have been, six to 14 years late. The case of Hinkley Point C is especially stark: EDF’s most recent estimates of the construction cost is up to £35bn [2015], or £46bn in 2023 money – almost double its £18bn [2015] budget when the FID was taken in 2016. These costs do not include financing costs, which EDF has said might double the total construction cost. Hinkley’s Unit 1 is now delayed to between 2029 and 2031, four to six years late, with the second reactor at least a year behind. EDF has made five cost and completion revisions for Hinkley since FID, and with several years to go, it is implausible that there will not be further revisions.’
Claims that there will be ‘replication’ cost savings seem to be illusory: ‘Taishan 1 & 2 in China took well over double the predicted build time and were reportedly 50% over budget. Olkiluoto 3 in Finland was 14 years late and three times over budget, and Olkiluoto 4 was cancelled. Flamanville 3 in France came online (though is not yet up to full power) 12 years behind schedule and four times over budget; £11.2bn [2015] for a single reactor. These repeated failures suggest that learning from previous EPRs has not happened, and at £17.5bn [2015] for each of Hinkley’s two reactors, replication seems to have increased cost’.
As an alternative, the report argues, we should cancel Sizewell and use the money saved to boost home energy efficiency and the Warm Homes plan. It notes that ‘Labour has promised to invest an extra £6.6bn over the next Parliament, doubling the existing planned government investment, to upgrade five million homes to cut bills for families.’ It says the Warm Homes Plan ‘will offer grants & low interest loans to support investment in insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low-carbon heating to cut bills. Another aim is to ensure homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy efficiency standards by 2030, potentially saving renters hundreds of pounds per year.’
And it says this could and should be dramatically expanded, ‘by more than doubling its budget to decarbonise and make the UK’s 30 million homes & buildings energy-efficient’. It notes that ‘the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group (EEIG) estimates that to carry out all of the necessary work needed to dramatically reduce emissions from homes between now and 2030 will require at least 250,000 more tradespeople’. And the report says that ‘were the Government to scrap Sizewell C and transfer the £7.1bn saved to making UK homes more energy efficient, this would allow it to fund what the EEIG describes as an ambitious zero-carbon skills strategy, working with industry, unions, schools, and colleges, to tackle any skills gaps that could hinder progress. Examples of required skills include those for designers, builders, and installers of energy-efficient and zero-carbon heating, for which demand will increase sharply. This should also result in a major expansion of high quality and advanced apprenticeships, backed up with new sector-led national colleges.’ And why not! And they should start with the fuel poor and the left behind.
That is very much what the new green heat campaign also has in mind- something that is also being pushed by the Association for Decentralised Energy. It’s part of Labour International’s green deal, looking at all the new green technology options, aiming to create jobs locally, not least by releasing money from having to be spent on high cash-cost heat, with added environmental costs. It says that ‘clean heat can play a major role in regenerating flagging local economies, making them more attractive to new inward investment due to the improved levels of disposable household incomes that result from reduced energy outgoings and increased opportunities to secure better employment and income. Higher levels of local economic demand are most likely to be expended in the local economies in which they arose, growing local economies wealth, health, resilience and prospects; beneficial economic outcomes that will feed up into the national economy.’
Is this sort of future going to happen? The official position is that Sizewell C will be funded by recourse to the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model, with consumers paying up-front, in advance, before construction even starts. It is claimed that this would mean that, all being well, developers and backers will face less investment risks than otherwise, and can pass on savings to consumers. But will they? And will all go well? There can be big delays and overspends, as we have seen in the past. The report notes that ‘RAB would require residential consumers… to potentially financing half the total construction cost,’ and, if it goes bad, they could even be stuck with paying off excesses into the 22nd Century, when the plant is forecast to be retired.
The other key message from the developers and government is that we need more nuclear- to balance variable renewables. Well this is easily squashed. The last thing you want, if you are trying to back up a variable energy source, is a large, costly and inflexible one that can only run continuously at full output. There are plenty of alternative option for flexible balancing systems including short and long storage. With renewables booming and storage at last getting established, who needs Sizewell? Well it seems not EDF- so the UK has had to provide a further £2.7bn!
Attacked, demonized and forced into hiding
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/04/13/attacked-demonized-and-forced-into-hiding/
S.P. Udayakumar and thousands of other Indian activists challenged a Russian nuclear plant
S.P. Udayakumar was awarded the 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Award for resistance. Owing to visa constraints he was not able to be present in New York City, where the Awards ceremony was held, to accept his prize in person. He delivered these remarks via a video recording, which was met with prolonged applause. We reproduce his speech here. (A report and photos of the 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Awards ceremony, was published last week.)
I am extremely happy and immensely grateful that the Nuclear-Free Future Awards family that includes Beyond Nuclear, IPPNW and the international jury have chosen me and our struggle for the 2025 “Nuclear-Free Future” Award in the resistance category.
Tens of thousands of people including children, youth, women and men are struggling against the Russian-supplied Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project near the southernmost tip of India. Several people have sacrificed their lives, scores of people have gone to prison, so many of us have braved police harassment, State surveillance, court cases, property losses, income deprivation, and umpteen number of various difficulties.
Lots and lots of religious leaders, community leaders, political leaders, lawyers, film personalities, intellectuals, writers, publishers, poets, artists, media persons, international human rights activists, even some conscientious government officials, police officers and the general public from all over Tamil Nadu and the larger India have contributed significantly to this 2011-2014 phase of a much longer struggle.
I know that you cannot honor all the people who have taken part in our struggle and that I have been chosen as a representative of all of them. On behalf of all those thousands and thousands of fellow protesters, I humbly accept this great award. Thank you!
Although I am disappointed that I could not be with you all this evening and accept this award in the hall where the ‘Great Emancipator’ President Abraham Lincoln’s voice had once reverberated, I am glad that my sons, who had to undergo so much suffering, are receiving this award from you and celebrating this timely and important recognition of our people and the struggle.
The struggle against the Koodankulam nuclear power project began back in 1988 right after the Chernobyl accident in April 1986. The government of India has adopted the 4-I strategy of Ignore, Insult, Intimidate and Incinerate. We were totally ignored when we asked for the basic information about the project, such as the detailed project report, environmental impact assessment, site evaluation study, safety analysis report etc. When we persisted with our campaign, we were called all kinds of names, that we were anti-Indian, anti-national, foreign-funded, American stooges, left-wing radicals and so forth.
When we still pressed ahead with our campaign, the State came down upon us heavily with 349 cases with very serious charges, including sedition, waging war on the state, attempt to murder and so on. We are attending court hearings even now. Our passports have been impounded, bank accounts frozen, ‘Look Out Circular’ issued, our properties vandalized, and we are still being treated as dangerous criminals.
We were physically attacked when we went for a dialogue with government officials, several of us were imprisoned for months together, and a few of us were shot to death by police, and killed by low-flying coastguard planes, and prison negligence etc.
Because of all this highhanded behavior of the State, the concerted campaign was ended in 2014 but we have been propagating our anti-nuclear messages to the people of India through peaceful and democratic means.
Our messages are simple and straightforward:
Nuclear power is NOT cheap, or safe, or clean, or climate-friendly.
Nuclear power and nuclear bomb are both sides of the same coin. Nuclear reactors are stationary bombs and nuclear bombs are moving reactors.
Nuclear power is not suitable for a country like India that is highly and densely-populated. As you all know, the world’s worst industrial disaster took place in the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal in December 1984. The debilitating chemical waste of the Bhopal gas disaster has just been removed after 40 long years.
Both nationally and internationally, the nuclear hawks and hawkers promote nuclear power as THE answer for climate destruction. But consider the amount of carbon-emitting power that is used for uranium mining, milling, reactor construction (with thousands of tons of steel and cement over 20-30 years of construction), reactor operation for 40-60 years, decommissioning, waste management and so forth! Can anyone honestly claim that nuclear power is the answer for climate destruction? Even if it was, can poisoned earth be the answer for polluted air? How are we going to deal with the dangerous nuclear wastes for the next 48,000 years?
Nuclearism is part and parcel of profiteering globalism. The India-US nuclear deal is not about India’s energy security, or national security or safeguarding India’s growth and development. This deal is a naked corporate business deal which will bring humongous profits to a few American corporate houses. Similarly, the nuclear deals that India has signed with Russia, France, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Argentina, and others will bring profits and prosperity to these countries’ corporate houses but will result in disaster and destruction for the poor in India. Yes, desire for profit, power, and prominence drives the nuclear industry.
On the other hand, it is hate, fear and recklessness that fuel this very industry. Some countries’ revision of nuclear doctrines, refusal to extend nuclear arms treaties, rising weapons count, continuing Uranium enrichment, constant testing, actual threat to use nuclear bombs, and several wars around the world poised to reach a “nuclear threshold” foretell the precarious situation of our global society today. Yes, Nuclearism and Fascism are inter-related. Fascism is the ideology behind Nuclearism and Nuclearism is the penultimate expression of Fascism.
When all is said and done, this beautiful planet of ours, the Earth, can be likened to a humongous commercial airplane with clear class divisions, limited supply of resources, lopsided opportunity structures, and unbalanced entitlement arrangements, etc. And this plane of ours has been hijacked by the P-5 and the other nuclear States such as Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and who knows who else?
The great poet, Robert Frost had predicted back in 1920:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
The delegates of the Third Meeting of States Parties (3MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) who are meeting in New York City right now have a tough task ahead. We wish them all the best!
And let us continue to strive for a nuclear-free future that will have No Deals, No Mines, No Reactors, No Dumps, and No Bombs! Nowhere in the world!!
To quote my favorite Robert Frost again:
Woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But we have promises to keep!
And miles to go before we sleep,
And miles to go before we sleep!
Alert! Attack on No New Nukes Bans – Help push back!
A California and Nationwide Industry Assault on Nuclear Moratoriums
Apr 11, 2025, By Mary Beth Brangan, James Heddle – EON
Attempt to Reverse 1976 Moratorium
Despite multiple earthquake faults surrounding the three California nuclear reactor coastal sites harboring huge amounts of radioactive waste in tsunami zones, with no plan to deal with the tons of waste, a bill has been introduced in the state Assembly to increase nuclear use in our state. This also despite the devastating fires that occur regularly in California increasing the already staggering risks of nuclear reactors and the lethal long lived waste they produce.
Assemblymember Dr. Juaquin Arambula (D – Fresno) with main co-sponsors Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R – Orange) and Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R- Sacramento) introduced AB 305 . It would overturn California’s longstanding nuclear moratorium to allow for the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
Nuclear Recidivism – Not Only In California
This is part of a national and international pattern. Recidivist nuclear revival forces have mounted coordinated national rollback efforts on state’s prohibitions on building new nuclear plants. Push for new nuclear build outs is happening through the Governor’s Association, as if it were ALEC. Pro-nuclear consortia are being formed with clusters of 10 states as a group.
On the international level, plans to decommission 7 nuclear plants in Spain, for instance, are also being rolled back. There activists are using our documentary SOS, The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, in their efforts to ensure they are shut down and not given extended licenses, such as happened here in California with Diablo Canyon.
The underlying motivation is to attempt to rescue a failing nuclear power industry because it supports the infrastructure of research, education and labor force training for nuclear weapons production. Tritium, for instance, is a need. A ‘dual-use’ motivation is to provide power for the immensely energy guzzling Generative AI centers proliferating like weeds as key components in a planned social perception and population control grid. This is part of the agenda of the ruling elites who intend to destroy our old governmental structure of representational democracy and replace it with their transhumanist, technocratic vision.
As of December 11, 2024, 9 states still had nuclear moratoriums. Four states have already repealed moratoriums that had previously been in place:
- Wisconsin (2016)
- Kentucky (2017)
- Montana (2021)
- West Virginia (2022)
Activists in Oregon are mounting a huge fight to protect their moratorium.
We in California must join together to stop the insanity of producing more lethal radioactive waste lasting hundreds of thousands to many millions of years without any idea of how to keep it from ruining all life on earth.
Please Join Others in Taking Action!
Send letters of opposition by Tuesday, April 15!………………………………..https://planetarianperspectives.substack.com/p/alert-help-push-back-against-attack
Saudi Arabia, US on ‘pathway’ to civil nuclear agreement, US Energy Secretary says
The United States and Saudi Arabia will sign a preliminary agreement to cooperate over the kingdom’s ambitions to develop a civil nuclear industry, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters in the Saudi capital
Riyadh on Sunday.
Wright, who had met with Saudi Energy Minister Prince
Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier on Sunday, said Riyadh and Washington were on a “a pathway” to reaching an agreement to work together to develop a Saudi
civil nuclear programme.
Reuters 13th April 2025 https://www.reuters.com/world/saudi-arabia-us-pathway-civil-nuclear-agreement-us-energy-secretary-says-2025-04-13/
California Nuclear Plant Integrates AI for Efficiency
Oil Price By Haley Zaremba – Apr 13, 2025,
- The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California is utilizing AI technology to improve the efficiency of its document retrieval processes, aiming to reduce the time and resources spent on managing technical documentation.
- While the initial use of AI is limited to document retrieval, there are concerns among lawmakers and watchdogs regarding the potential for broader automation and the safety implications within a nuclear setting.
- The convergence of nuclear energy and AI is being driven by the increasing energy demands of data centers, with tech leaders and the federal government exploring the symbiotic relationship between these technologies for future energy solutions.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………lawmakers are very concerned about what the introduction of artificial intelligence into nuclear power production could mean for the future, and are pushing for more concrete guardrails. However, under the Trump administration, such parameters may not be forthcoming. Trump has already walked back a Biden-era ??executive order outlining goals for AI regulation, which the current administration sees as anti-innovation.
While there is little risk in the use of AI for document retrieval, there is concern about what comes next.
“The idea that you could just use generative AI for one specific kind of task at the nuclear power plant and then call it a day, I don’t really trust that it would stop there,” Tamara Kneese, the director of tech policy nonprofit Data & Society’s Climate, Technology, and Justice program, was recently quoted by Cal Matters. “And trusting PG&E to safely use generative AI in a nuclear setting is something that is deserving of more scrutiny.”
Nuclear energy and AI have become increasingly entangled as the runaway energy demand growth of data centers has threatened domestic energy security as well as Silicon Valley’s decarbonization goals. Tech bigwigs like Bill Gates and Sam Altman have increasingly touted nuclear energy as a carbon-free solution to meeting AI’s fast-growing energy demand, and have even envisioned a symbiotic relationship between nuclear and AI, wherein machine learning can help plan and design more efficient and cost-effective next-gen power plants.
The federal government has also pushed this angle. The U.S. Department of Energy recently identified 16 federal sites that ??are “uniquely positioned for rapid data center construction, including in-place energy infrastructure with the ability to fast-track permitting for new energy generation such as nuclear.” https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/California-Nuclear-Plant-Integrates-AI-for-Efficiency.html
Kyiv working to repair Chornobyl nuclear site damaged by drone attack
Environment minister says experts ‘actively working’ to prevent leaks in wake of February attack.
Ukraine is seeking solutions to repair the damage caused by a Russian drone attack to the
confinement vessel at the stricken Chornobyl nuclear power plant, a
government minister said on Saturday. Environment minister Svitlana
Hrynchuk said Ukraine was working together with experts to determine the
best way to restore the proper functioning of the containment vessel, or
arch, after the 14 February drone strike.
“We are actively working on
this … We, of course, need to restore the ‘arch’ so that there are no
leaks under any circumstances, because ensuring nuclear and radiation
safety is the main task,” she said. The arch was installed in 2019 to
cover the leaking “sarcophagus” underneath, hurriedly put in place in
the weeks following the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. The February drone attack
punched a large hole in the new containment structure’s outer cover and
exploded inside.
Guardian 13th April 2025,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/13/ukraine-war-briefing-kyiv-working-to-repair-chornobyl-nuclear-site-damaged-by-russian-attack
Moltex Canada pushes on with nuclear project as U.K. parent struggles
Matthew McClearn, Globe and Mail, Toronto, 14 Apr 25
The British owner of New Brunswick small modular nuclear reactor developer Moltex Energy Canada Inc. is up for sale as part of a U.K. insolvency proceeding.
Moltex Energy Ltd., a private company based in Stratford-upon-Avon, announced last month the appointment of two insolvency practitioners from accounting firm Azets Holdings Ltd. to manageitsaffairs. Azets hired appraisers Hilco Valuation Services to solicit offers for its assets, which are due May 7.
It’s the latest complication fortaxpayer-sponsored efforts to construct small modular reactors, or SMRs, in New Brunswick.
Moltex’s wholly owned Canadian subsidiary is one of two vendors partnered with New Brunswick Power to build reactors at Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. Moltex Canada’s is known as the Stable Salt Reactor-Wasteburner (SSR-W), and it’s also developing a plant to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The second company, ARC Clean Technology, is working on another reactor called the ARC-100.
Both were originally promised by 2030. But developing a novel nuclear reactor is a painstaking, resource-intensive process that can require hundreds of employees, billions of dollars and decades of effort. New Brunswick and the federal government backed startups with only one or two dozen employees, and they’ve struggled to raise funds privately.
Moltex’s British holding company was founded in 2014 by Ian Scott, who previously worked in the biological-sciences field including as a senior scientist at Unilever PLC. (A co-founder, John Durham, stepped down as a director in October.) According to its latest financial report, published in January, it employed two people during the year ended March 31, 2024, and lost £630,000 (about $1.1-million). For several years its reports raised uncertainty about its ability to continue as a going concern.
Britain’s administration process is similar to proceedings under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act; according to the British government, it’s intended to provide “breathing space” while a rescue package or sale of assets is executed.
According to Moltex Energy Ltd.’s financial statements, its shareholders had provided its equity throughout its history; it carried no long-term debt. The company reported in 2023 that its future depended on raising external capital; it had enough cash flow to survive through December, 2025, albeit “there would need to be cuts.”
Rory O’Sullivan, chief executive officer of Moltex Energy Canada, was also a director of the parent company for much of the past several years. He said the British company’s shareholders would not approve the Canadian subsidiary’s fundraising efforts, effectively stalling them.
“The key here is we needed to get someone else in control of Moltex Energy Ltd. so that we could have a competitive sale process,” Mr. O’Sullivan said…………………………..
New Brunswick’s government attracted Moltex and ARC to establish offices in the province in 2018. The two companies have each estimated that it would cost around $500-million to develop their respective technologies…………………………
As for ARC, its CEO and other employees suddenly departed last summer; ARC has published no announcements on its website since then. The ARC-100 is undergoing a prelicensing review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Spokesperson Sandra Donnelly said the company will complete its design by 2027 to support an application for a construction licence.
NB Power’s CEO, Lori Clark, presented SMRs as playing a crucial role in her utility’s plans to achieve “net zero” emissions. More recently, however, she acknowledged that neither project is likely to follow its original schedule, and the utility is now considering other reactors for construction at Point Lepreau.
Spokesperson Dominique Couture wrote in a statement that NB Power has been working on an environmental impact assessment for the ARC-100 during the past year. And it assisted Moltex’s development efforts for reprocessing spent fuel.
All this is far less than what the federal government envisioned in the SMR Roadmap, a 2018 document developed with extensive input from the nuclear industry. It promised demonstration projects across the country; successive federal budgets allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to support them.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories was to have an SMR called the Micro Modular Reactor up and running at its Chalk River facility by 2026. But its partner in that project, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp., initiated a court-supervised sale process under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in October. Another partner, Ontario Power Generation, pulled out last year.
Of the demonstration projects contemplated in the SMR Roadmap, only one appears to be on track: OPG’s proposal to build a “grid-scale” SMR at its Darlington Station. This month it received a construction licence from the CNSC to build its first reactor, a BWRX-300 designed by U.S. vendor GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy. If completed on schedule by 2028, it would be the first SMR in any G7 country. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-moltex-canada-pushes-on-with-nuclear-project-as-uk-parent-struggles/#comments
Iran says ‘indirect talks’ have taken place with US over nuclear programme – with more to follow
The talks come after US President Donald Trump warned Iran it would be in “great danger” if a deal wasn’t reached between the two countries.
Sky News 1 13 April 2025
The discussions on Saturday took place in Muscat, Oman, with the host nation’s officials mediating between representatives of Iran and the US, who were seated in separate rooms, according to Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry.
After the meeting, Oman’s foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi thanked Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff for joining the negotiations aimed at “global peace, security and stability”, in an X post.
“We will continue to work together and put further efforts to assist in arriving at this goal,” he added.
‘Very positive’ and ‘constructive’
Iranian state media claimed the US and Iranian officials “briefly spoke in the presence of the Omani foreign minister” at the end of the talks – a claim Mr Araghchi echoed in a statement on Telegram.
He said the talks took place in a “constructive atmosphere based on mutual respect” and that they would continue next week.
Speaking on board Air Force One on Saturday US President Donald Trump said the “talks are going okay”……………………………………………………..
Reuters news agency said an Omani source told it the talks were focused on de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions in exchange for controlling Iran’s nuclear programme.
‘Great danger’ if talks fail
Donald Trump has insisted Tehran cannot get nuclear weapons.
He said on Monday the talks would be direct, but Tehran officials insisted it would be conducted through an intermediary.
Mr Trump also warned Iran would be in “great danger” if negotiations fail…………….
He added Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran”.
The comments came after Mr Trump’s previous warnings of possible military action against Iran if there is no deal over its nuclear programme. https://news.sky.com/story/iran-says-indirect-talks-taking-place-with-us-over-nuclear-programme-13347051
Ukraine is seeking solutions to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor’s damaged confinement vessel .
Ukraine is seeking solutions to repair the damage caused by a Russian
drone attack to the confinement vessel at the stricken Chornobyl nuclear
power plant, a government minister said on Saturday. Minister of
Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Svitlana Hrynchuk was
speaking outside the decommissioned station during the inauguration of a
0.8-megawatt solar power facility ahead of two conferences due to discuss
Chornobyl and other issues related to nuclear power operations.
Reuters 12th April 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-seeking-solutions-damaged-chernobyl-confinement-vessel-minister-says-2025-04-12/
Ambassador does not deny Russian attempts to track UK subs
Alys Davies BBC 12th April 2025
Russia’s ambassador to the UK has not denied allegations that Russian sensors have been hidden in seas around Great Britain in an attempt to track UK nuclear submarines.
Andrei Kelin said that while he did not deny Russia was attempting to track British submarines, he rejected the idea that such activities presented a threat to the UK.
Asked on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg whether he objected to the claims, Kelin said: “No”.
“I am not going to deny it, but I wonder whether we really have an interest in following all the British submarine with very old outdated nuclear warheads… all these threats are extremely exaggerated,” he said.
Pressed further by Kuenssberg, the ambassador added: “I’m denying existence of threats for the United Kingdom. This threat has been invented, absolutely, there is no threat at all from Russia to the UK.”
Kelin’s admission follows an investigation published by the Sunday Times earlier this month, detailing the discovery of alleged Russian sensors in seas around Britain.
In its investigation, the Sunday Times said the devices are believed to have been planted by Moscow to try to gather intelligence on the UK’s four Vanguard submarines, which carry nuclear missiles……………………………………………………………………………………..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yl2729nmjo
Nuclear waste sparks fury in Germany
Staff Writer April 4, 2025,
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/nuclear-waste-returned-to-germany-amid-protests/
The Pacific Grebe, a specialist nuclear transport vessel carrying radioactive nuclear waste from the UK, was met by anti-nuclear activists when it arrived at Nordenham port in north-western Germany. The nuclear waste was the result of reprocessing fuel elements from decommissioned German NPPs at the UK’s Sellafield site.
This was the second of three planned shipments. Seven flasks containing high level waste (HLW) were transported by rail from the Sellafield site in West Cumbria to the port of Barrow-in-Furness, where they were then loaded onto the Pacific Grebe, operated by Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS).
Vitrified Residue Returns (VRR) are a key component of the UK’s strategy to repatriate HLW from the Sellafield site, fulfilling overseas contracts. The first shipment of six flasks each with 28 containers of HLW to Biblis took place in 2020.
he Pacific Grebe, a specialist nuclear transport vessel carrying radioactive nuclear waste from the UK, was met by anti-nuclear activists when it arrived at Nordenham port in north-western Germany. The nuclear waste was the result of reprocessing fuel elements from decommissioned German NPPs at the UK’s Sellafield site.
This was the second of three planned shipments. Seven flasks containing high level waste (HLW) were transported by rail from the Sellafield site in West Cumbria to the port of Barrow-in-Furness, where they were then loaded onto the Pacific Grebe, operated by Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS).
Vitrified Residue Returns (VRR) are a key component of the UK’s strategy to repatriate HLW from the Sellafield site, fulfilling overseas contracts. The first shipment of six flasks each with 28 containers of HLW to Biblis took place in 2020.
According to Germany’s Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE – Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung)) the transport licence for the latest shipment was approved in December. Until 2005 German utilities shipped used fuel from NPPs to La Hague in France and Sellafield in the UK for reprocessing: “The resulting liquid waste was then melted down into glass and has since been gradually returned to Germany,” BASE noted. “The last shipment of this waste from France was returned in November 2024.” There is one more shipment planned, after the current one, from the UK to complete the repatriation.”
BASE issued a licence in April 2023 for the storage of the vitrified waste at the Isar interim storage facility, which is licensed to hold a maximum of 152 casks of high-level radioactive waste and “according to current plans, there will be 28 fewer high-level waste casks there than originally intended, including the casks containing the vitrified waste”.
According to Germany’s Society for Nuclear Service (GNS – Gesellschaft für Nuklear‑Service), “The waste is massively shielded from external radiation. In the reprocessing plant, the waste is mixed with liquid silicate glass and poured into cylindrical stainless-steel containers, which are then sealed tightly after hardening. These containers, filled with the hardened glass mixture, are called “glass moulds”. For transport and storage, the moulds are placed in … massive, more than 100-tonne cast iron and stainless-steel containers, which have been proven in extensive tests to provide both strong shielding and to be safe under extreme conditions.”
Until 2011 reprocessed waste was sent to the Gorleben interim storage facility in Lower Saxony, where 108 casks of vitrified radioactive waste have been stored, which was “already a large proportion of the total waste to be returned from reprocessing”. BASE said, as part of the Site Selection Act of 2013 to seek a repository for high-level radioactive waste, the remaining vitrified waste abroad was to be stored in interim storage facilities at nuclear power plant sites.
“The aim was to avoid giving the impression that Gorleben had already been chosen as the site for a final storage facility during the open-ended search for a repository site. In 2015, the federal government, the federal states and the utility companies agreed to store the remaining radioactive waste in Biblis, Brokdorf, Niederaichbach (Isar NPP) and Philippsburg,” BASE noted.
France’s Orano completed the 13th and final rail shipment from France of vitrified high-level nuclear waste, to Philippsburg, in Germany in November 2024. In total 5,310 tonnes of German used fuel was processed at Orano’s La Hague plant up to 2008.
The latest shipment of waste from Sellafield is due to be transported to the interim storage facility at the site of the former Niederaichbach NPP in southern Bavaria. The Niederaichbach heavy water gas cooled reactor operated for only 18 months from 1972-1973. From 1975 to 1995 the plant was demolished and the site returned to greenfield condition. A monument marks its former location near the closed Isar NPP.
Germany’s Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE – Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung) is in the process of identifying a suitable location for the permanent underground storage for 27,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste produced over the course of 60 years of German nuclear energy production.
On arrival at Nordenham port, the seven castor containers were transferred by crane from the Pacific Grebe to a train in the harbour, where tests were carried out to ensure legal radiation limits were not exceeded. The containers each measure four metres in length and weigh over 100 tonnes.
The train’s route to the Isar storage facility is not being publicised for security reasons.
Further protests are planned along the presumed route of the train over the coming days, including in the cities of Bremen and Göttingen. “Every castor transport is one too many because it only postpones the problem and does not solve it,” Kerstin Rudek, a spokesperson for the group Castor-Stoppen, said in a statement, adding that nuclear waste should not be moved until a safe, final storage location is determined.
Nuclear news – not the industry handouts
Some bits of good news – ‘Friendship benches’ are coming to England.
Power to the people: the rise of community energy
How an Ancient Yemeni Tradition Is Reviving Bee Populations.
TOP STORIES.
Trump’s Iran talks can succeed if the administration embraces reality rather than myth. Trump has threatened Iran over an ultimatum that likely cannot be met.
From the archives – ‘How Many Nuclear Bombs Has The US Air Force Lost?
Climate. Arctic sea ice hit a record low as global powers eye shipping routes.
Noel’s notes. The irrational optimism of the nuclear power lobby.
AUSTRALIA.
- Community groups furious Coalition nuclear plan would go ahead even if locals oppose it.
- As the debate around renewables and nuclear continues, here is what the experts say.
- How US Dependence is Not in Our Best Interest.
- What if a Fukushima-sized nuclear accident happened near you? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIModFC_9kI
- Nuclear would funnel up to 200 Gigalitres away from Australian farms annually.
- Going nuclear will decimate jobs in regions first, stop billions in new investment.
- Israeli Defence Force courts Australian universities amid anti-war protests.
- More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2025/04/10/australian-nuclear-news-7-14-april/
ATROCITIES. Israel is About to Empty Gaza . How Israel hunts and executes Palestinian medics.
| ETHICS and RELIGION. The Journey Beyond Nukes Begins with an Apology. |
| EVENTS. In Chicago: Testimonies of Korean Atomic Bomb Victims and International People’s Tribunal Promotion Events. |
| HISTORY. We thought it was the end of the world’: How the US dropped four nuclear bombs on Spain in 1966 |
| LEGAL. The top Republicans in the Arizona Legislature want the federal government to cut back regulations on the nuclear energy industry. |
| MEDIA. Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics. When will progressive media acknowledge and condemn US enabled genocide in Gaza. |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR .Attacked, demonized and forced into hiding. Nuclear waste returns to Germany amid protests. The 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Awards. Youth Leading the Charge for a Nuclear-Free Future. Raising Funds to Stop Lake District Coast Sub-Sea Nuclear Dump. NFLAs ‘shout up’ for National Parks to be spared from nuclear development. |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. ESA’s new documentary paints worrying picture of Earth’s orbital junk problem. |
| TECHNOLOGY. The Flamanville EPR nuclear reactor will not be able to deliver its full power without major works – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/04/12/1-a-the-flamanville-epr-nuclear-reactor-will-not-be-able-to-deliver-its-full-power-without-major-works/ Radiation Monitoring – Scottish university in ‘world-first’ for nuclear technology. UK Government convenes AI Energy Council, but could be ignoring hidden climate impacts in supply chains. |
| WASTES. Nuclear waste sparks fury in Germany. |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Russia holds all the cards. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Inside the New Mexico lab where the U.S. is moving into the most terrifying chapter of the nuclear arms race. Walt Zlotow: Trump, Hegseth off by nearly 1 trillion on national security budget. To Secure U.S. Energy Dominance, the Department of Defense Selects Eligible Companies for the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations Program. |
Israel is About to Empty Gaza
April 13, 2025 By Chris Hedges ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/04/13/israel-is-about-to-empty-gaza/
Israel is poised to carry out the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing since the end of World War II. Since March 2, it has blocked all food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and cut off electricity, so that the last water desalination plant no longer functions. The Israeli military has seized half of the territory — Gaza is 25 miles long and four to five miles wide — and placed two-thirds of Gaza under displacement orders, rendered “no-go zones,” including the border town of Rafah, which is encircled by Israeli troops.
On Friday Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel will “intensify” the war against Hamas and use “all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing United States President [Donald] Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents.”
Since Israel’s unilateral ending of the ceasefire on March 18 — which was never honored by Israel — Israel has been carrying out relentless bombing and shelling against civilians, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and wounding over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry. An average of one hundred children are being killed daily according to the United Nations. Israel is, at the same time, inciting tensions with Egypt to lay what I suspect will be the groundwork for a mass expulsion of Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, echoing Katz, said Israel would not lift the total blockade until Hamas was “defeated” and the remaining 59 Israeli hostages were released.
“Not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza,” he vowed.
But no one in Israel or Gaza expects Hamas, which has weathered the decimation of Gaza and sustained mass slaughter, to surrender or disappear.
The question no longer is will the Palestinians be deported from Gaza but when they will be pushed out and where they will go. The Israeli leadership is apparently torn between driving Palestinians over the border into Egypt or shipping them to countries in Africa. The U.S. and Israel have contacted three East African governments – Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland – to discuss the resettlement of ethnically cleansed Palestinians.
The consequences of wholesale ethnic cleansing will be catastrophic, jeopardizing the stability of the Arab regimes allied with Washington and setting off firestorms of protests within Arab countries. It will likely mean the severing of diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbors Jordan and Egypt, already close to the breaking point, and push the region closer to war.
Diplomatic relations have fallen to their lowest point since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979. The Israeli embassies in Cairo and Amman are largely empty with Israeli staff withdrawn over security concerns following the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions. Egypt has refused to accept the credentials of Uri Rothman, who was appointed to be the Israeli ambassador last September. Egypt did not name a new ambassador to Israel when former ambassador, Khaled Azmi, was recalled last year.
Israeli officials are accusing Egypt of violating the Camp David accords by increasing its military presence and building new military installations in the Northern Sinai, charges Egypt says are fabricated. The peace treaty’s annex permits additional Egyptian military hardware in the Sinai.
Former Israeli chief of the general staff, Herzi Halevi, warned of what he calls Egypt’s “security threat.” Katz said that Israel would not allow Egypt to “violate the peace treaty” between the two countries signed in 1979.
Egyptian officials note that it is Israel that has violated the treaty by occupying the Philadelphi Corridor, also known as the Salahuddin Axis, which runs along the nine mile border between Gaza and Egypt and is supposed to be demilitarized.
“Every Israeli action along Gaza’s border with Egypt constitutes hostile behavior against Egypt’s national security,” Egyptian General Mohammed Rashad, a former military intelligence chief, told the Arabic language newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat.
“Egypt cannot sit idly by in the face of such threats and must prepare for all possible scenarios.”
Israeli officials are openly calling for the “voluntary transfer” of Palestinians to Egypt. Knesset member, Avigdor Lieberman, stated that “displacing most Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai is a practical and effective solution.” He contrasted the high population density — Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet — with the vast “untapped lands” in the Egyptian Northern Sinai and noted that Palestinians share a common culture and language with Egypt, making any deportation “natural.” He also criticized Egypt because it allegedly “benefits economically from the current political situation,” as a mediator between Israel and Hamas and “reaps profits from smuggling operations through the tunnels and the Rafah crossing.”
The Israeli think tank Misgav Institute for National Security, staffed by former Israeli military and security officials, published a paper on Oct. 17, 2023, calling on the government to take advantage of the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip,” and resettle Palestinians in Cairo with the assistance of the Egyptian government. A leaked document from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry proposed resettling Palestinians from Gaza to the Northern Sinai and constructing barriers and buffer zones to prevent their return.
Any expulsion would likely happen swiftly with Israeli forces, which are already mercilessly herding Palestinians into containment areas in Gaza, carrying out a sustained bombing campaign against the trapped Palestinians while creating porous evacuation portals along the border with Egypt. It would entail a potentially lethal standoff with the Egyptian military, instantly throwing the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has described any ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza as a “red line,” into crisis. It would be a short step from there to a regional conflict.
Israel has seized territory in Syria and southern Lebanon, part of its vision of “Greater Israel,” which includes occupying land in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It covets the maritime gas fields off Gaza’s coast and has floated plans for a new canal to bypass the Suez Canal, to connect Israel’s bankrupt Eilat Port on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These projects require emptying Gaza of Palestinians and populating it with Jewish colonists.
The anger on the Arab street — an anger I witnessed over the past few months during visits to Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Qatar — will explode in a justifiable fury if mass deportation takes place. These regimes, simply to hold on to power, will be forced to act. Terrorist attacks, whether by organized groups or lone wolves, will proliferate against Israeli and western targets, especially the United States.
The genocide is a recruitment dream for Islamic militants. Washington and Israel must, on some level, understand the cost of this savagery. But it appears as though they accept it, foolishly trying to obliterate those they have cast out of the community of nations, those they refer to as “human animals.”
What do Israel and Washington believe will happen when the Palestinians are expelled from a land they have lived in for centuries? How do they think a people who are desperate, deprived of hope, dignity and a way to make a living, who are being butchered by one of the most technologically advanced armies on the planet, will respond? Do they think creating a Danteesque hell for the Palestinians will blunt terrorism, curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Can they not grasp the rage rippling through the Middle East and how it will implant a hatred towards us that will endure for decades?
The genocide in Gaza is the greatest crime of this century. It will come back to haunt Israel. It will come back to haunt us. It will usher to our doorsteps the evil we have perpetrated on the Palestinians.
You reap what you sow. We have sown a minefield of hatred and violence.
Inside the New Mexico lab where the U.S. is moving into the most terrifying chapter of the nuclear arms race
By JAMES REINL, 13 Apr 25, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14597065/activity-new-mexico-lab-nuclear-arms-race.html
It weighs just 824lbs, but packs enough plutonium to vaporize a city center and kill and maim three million people in the blink of an eye.
Scarier still, production of America’s new B61-13 gravity bomb is seven months ahead of schedule, as scientists speed up work at their laboratory in the New Mexico desert.
The timeline was moved up due to the ‘critical challenge and urgent need’ for a new nuclear deterrent. It is 24 times more powerful than the atom bomb that levelled Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.
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They speak of an ‘urgent need’ for the new super-nuke, as everywhere from Russia to China, North Korea and even Britain boost their stockpiles of warheads.
Nuclear arms watchers say that, while overall global inventories have fallen since the Cold War, the number of warheads deployed for combat readiness is on the rise once again.
For some, this new nuclear arms race is scarier than when America and the Soviet Union built enough nukes to wipe out mankind many times over in the years after World War II.
That’s down to the wide array of states that possess the weapons now — which includes India, Pakistan, and, reputedly, Israel — and as a multipolar balance of power emerges.
As the US Trump administration slights its allies in Europe and Asia, the club of nine nuclear powers looks set to expand, perhaps quickly, and grow even more unwieldy.
In recent months, officials from Germany to Poland, South Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia have broken the nuclear taboo and spoken about acquiring nukes, or related technology.
Meanwhile, Iran’s religious hardliners have been spinning their uranium centrifuges in secret for years.
Joseph Cirincione, a national security analyst who advised the State Department in the Obama administration, warns of a ‘nuclear nightmare’ of more European nations going fissile.
‘Should they proceed, the spread of nuclear weapons would not be limited to Europe or our allies,’ says Cirincione.
‘The nuclear reaction chain could quickly spread to Asia, where Japan, South Korea and Taiwan face similar worries about the reliability of their defense agreements with America.’
This is all happening as US President Donald Trump slaps tariffs on nuclear-armed China, and many other big economies, in a trade war that’s raised tensions and roiled stock markets.
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico recently said they were kickstarting development of the B61-13, a nuclear ‘gravity bomb’ that was originally slated to go into production for the US Air Force in 2026.
Gravity bombs are literally what they sound like, a bomb dropped from a warplane that lets gravity do all the work.
It would be dropped by the stealth B-21 Raider, and have a yield of as much as 360 kilotons, or 360,000 tons of TNT.
It would create a blast radius of roughly 190,000 feet, the length of two Manhattans.
If dropped over a city like Beijing, the B61-13 would likely leave some 788,000 people dead and 2.2 million injured.
Anything within a half-mile radius of the detonation site would be vaporized by the ensuing fireball, and the blast would demolish buildings and kill nearly everyone else within a mile.
Read More
Inside Trump’s bold plan to save America from a nuclear apocalypse… and what happens if it fails
Those within a two-mile radius of the blast site would also suffer from high levels of radiation that would likely kill them within a month.
Another 15 percent of the survivors would likely perish from cancer years down the line.
Currently, the US has some 5,044 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, with Russia being the only country that has more.
Together, they possess about 88 percent of all the world’s nuclear weapons.
The Federation of American Scientists says the US and Russia are bringing down the total number of nuclear weapons globally by dismantling their old, retired warheads.
But the number of warheads in global military stockpiles is actually increasing, says the group of atomic researchers.
Five nuclear-armed states — China, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea — have all raised their nuclear stockpiles by more than 700 warheads these past 40 years.
Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2023, and subsequent Western military aid to Kiev, stoked fears of a nuclear escalation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in November lowered the threshold for Moscow’s use of its nuclear weapons.
Alarmed by this, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January moved their ‘Doomsday Clock’ closer to midnight than ever before.
The metaphorical timepiece is now at just 89 seconds before midnight — the theoretical point of annihilation.
Fears of a nuclear war come as such groups as the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) say work on a treaty to permanently ban nuclear testing has stalled, and Russia and China are adding buildings at their nuclear sites.
In February, the US government announced plans to restart its nuclear testing programs in secret underground facilities.
Fears of a nuclear war come as such groups as the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) say work on a treaty to permanently ban nuclear testing has stalled, and Russia and China are adding buildings at their nuclear sites.
In February, the US government announced plans to restart its nuclear testing programs in secret underground facilities.
In any case, the rise of China, which has some 600 nuclear warheads and is building more, complicates any negotiation process, as the nuclear arms race has more than two main players.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned that more countries would get nuclear weapons in the coming years.
He blamed the West for pushing the world towards the brink of World War Three by waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Trump has said the ‘power of nuclear weapons is crazy’ and supports a global effort to ‘denuclearize’ and has revived talks with Iran aimed at ending its bootleg nuclear program.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet in Oman on Saturday, after Trump threatened to bomb the Islamic Republic if discussions failed.
Yet Cirincione and others say the Trump administration is inadvertently making a global nuclear arms race more likely.
That’s because it is frosty toward long-standing US allies in Europe and Asia, including through the so-called ‘nuclear umbrella’ — a promise of nuclear protection in return for allies not seeking atomic weapons themselves.
From Berlin to Tokyo, alarm bells are ringing that Washington, the anchor of the Western security apparatus across Europe and Asia, is no longer a reliable guarantor of the ultimate deterrence offered by nuclear arms.
The clearest statement of nuclear intent has come from Donald Tusk, Poland‘s prime minister, who last month said the ‘profound change in American geopolitics’ has nudged Warsaw to seek ‘opportunities related to nuclear weapons.’
‘This is a serious race: a race for security, not for war,’ Tusk told Polish lawmakers.
Likewise, Friedrich Merz, the man who is set to be Germany’s next chancellor, said in February that it was time for Berlin to explore a ‘nuclear sharing’ deal with Britain and France.
Senior figures in South Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, have also made statements about acquiring nuclear arms or technology.
Likewise, Taiwan, Turkey and Egypt, have declared no interest in acquiring a deterrent, but could well change tack if they lived in a neighborhood of nuclear states.
For many defense analysts, there is perhaps the greatest threat of proliferation beyond the nine nuclear states since the end of the Cold War.
‘Whether he meant it or not, Trump has sent a message that the US nuclear umbrella might one day be folded,’ a Western security source said last month.
‘Once a South Korea or a Germany signals that they’re going for the bomb, it will be hard indeed to stop others following suit.’
Ukraine works to repair Chornobyl containment structure damaged in Russian drone strike
by Olena Goncharova, Kyiv Independent 13th April 2025 https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-works-to-repair-chornobyl-containment-structure-damaged-in-russian-drone-strike/
Ukraine is working to repair damage to the containment structure at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant following a Russian drone strike in February, Environment Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said on April 12.
Speaking at the site of the decommissioned plant, Hrynchuk noted that the strike had compromised the functionality of the massive protective arch installed in 2019 to prevent radioactive leaks.
The minister commented during the launch of a new 0.8-megawatt solar power station near Chornobyl ahead of two upcoming nuclear safety and energy conferences. She said that Ukraine is cooperating with international experts to assess the extent of the damage and determine the necessary steps to restore the arch’s integrity.
“Unfortunately, after the attack, the arch partially lost its functionality. And now, I think, already in May, we will have the results of the analysis that we are currently conducting …,” Hrynchuk said. “We are actively working on this … We, of course, need to restore the “arch” so that there are no leaks under any circumstances because ensuring nuclear and radiation safety is the main task.”
She added that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as scientific institutions and companies involved in the arch’s original installation, are contributing to the analysis.
According to plant officials, the February 14 drone attack created a hole in the containment vessel’s outer layer and exploded inside. The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the incident as “a provocation.”
The structure was designed to enclose the unstable sarcophagus hastily built after the 1986 reactor explosion—the worst nuclear accident in history.
Hrynchuk also emphasized the importance of renewable energy in the Chornobyl exclusion zone, saying the new solar facility would support the site’s power needs.
“We have been saying for many years that the exclusion zone needs to be transformed into a zone of renewal,” she said. “And this territory, like no other in Ukraine, is suitable for developing renewable energy projects.”
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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