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Fuel problems for nuclear power, as the industry continues to languish in the doldrums

Slow and expensive. Yet despite the drive to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear has been languishing in the doldrums. The adoption of small HALEU reactors has, if anything, slowed. The first company with approval, NuScale, cancelled a power plant for Utah in November after costs surged. ‘Costs have kept growing for small modular reactors,’ says Bunn. Solar, wind and natural gas are really, really cheap right now. That’s nuclear’s biggest problem – it’s expensive.’

renewables are outmuscling nuclear. ‘Renewables provided something like 90% of all new electricity capacity [in 2023]

the risk sea level rises and storm surges pose to nuclear power plants at coastal sites. ‘The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [2023] stated that renewables were ten times better than nuclear at CO2 mitigation,’

Nuclear power expansion plans highlight fuel bottlenecks, BY ANTHONY KING 17 JANUARY 2024,  https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/nuclear-power-expansion-plans-highlight-fuel-bottlenecks/4018795.article

Nuclear energy shuffled into the spotlight in December with a declaration at the COP28 climate meeting to triple its capacity by 2050. The declaration lauded the role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Yet many industry watchers doubt this ambition can be achieved. ‘If I was a betting man, I would give ten-to-one odds against this happening,’ says Matthew Bunn, a professor of energy and foreign policy at Harvard University, US. Not enough new reactors are being built.

Meanwhile, the supply of fuel for nuclear reactors is complicated by a reliance on Russia at various points in the supply chain and often a lack of profit for commercial companies involved, which compete against state-backed enterprises in Russia and China.

Read more: Fuel problems for nuclear power, as the industry continues to languish in the doldrums

Uranium is not the main constraint on the supply of nuclear fuel. ‘There’s plenty of uranium in the world,’ says Bunn. Everyone knows how many nuclear reactors are operating, and how much uranium they need. ‘So you would expect prices to be pretty darn stable,’ he explains. ‘That expectation would be wrong.’

Price surge

The price of uranium rose sharply towards $90 (£70) per pound in the second half of 2023, having hovered around $20/lb in 2017, and risen to over $40/lb after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The main drivers ‘are rising demand coupled with a lack of sufficient supply response,’ says Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a market research firm for the nuclear industry.

Kazakhstan is the world’s largest miner of uranium, with around 40% of total production. While some additional mines are expected there, ‘we really need to see more new mines in places like Canada, Australia and Africa,’ says Hinze.

Mining is only the start. The supply chain runs from a mine through three more steps; each is a market onto itself. Uranium is mined and milled into uranium oxide (U3O8), then shipped to facilities for conversion into uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), in preparation for enrichment.

Mined uranium is 99.2% U-238 and just 0.7% U-235. Enrichment plants use thousands of centrifuges to enrich U-235 to about 5%, as needed in a typical power plant. But enrichment brings in geopolitics. ‘Unfortunately, concentrating it to 3-5% for a commercial reactor uses exactly the same technology as concentrating it to 90% for a nuclear bomb, and it is an exponentially accelerating process,’ says Bunn.

After enrichment, UF6 is converted to uranium dioxide (UO2) and fabricated into fuel pellets and rods, designed for specific reactor types. The format required depends on who built the reactor, whether it’s a French, US, Chinese or Russia design. A pressurized water reactor generating 1GW of electricity, for example, might contain over 50,000 fuel rods with over 18 million pellets.

Conversion constraints

Kazakhstan is a behemoth in mining, with 13 active mines producing almost 19,500 metric tonnes in 2020. Australia produced 6200 tonnes, Namibia 5400 tonnes and Canada 3800 tonnes. But the Kazakhs rely on Russia for processing uranium into UF6, with Russia holding almost 40% of global conversion market, ahead of China and Canada, with France some way behind.

‘Conversion is extremely constrained at the moment given recent plant outages and other operational challenges,’ according to Hinze. ‘The move by the West and other markets to reduce or eliminate reliance on Russia means that other producers must ramp up capacities to make up for the loss of Russian supplies.’

Unsurprisingly, Russia also holds a significant share of the enrichment stage, with 46% market share in 2018. The state company Tenex supplied 30% of enrichment services to EU utilities in 2019, according to a recent report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York, US.

‘Russia is fairly important in the conversion market, but doesn’t have to be,’ says Bunn. There is under-used conversion capacity in several other countries. ‘[But] Russia is hugely important in the enrichment market.’ Enrichment is tougher to change, and is partly a legacy of the Cold War, when Russia ran huge facilities for its civil and military nuclear industry.

Even the US imports enriched uranium from Russia, which started with a programme dubbed ‘megatons to megawatts’ that saw large amounts of highly enriched weapons-grade uranium converted into fuel for US power plants. This ran from 1993 to 2013 and is viewed as one of the world’s most successful non-proliferation endeavours.

The US government privatised its enrichment facilities, creating the United States Enrichment Enterprise in 1992, reborn as Centrus in 2014 following bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Soviet uranium processing facilities continued operating. ‘They had these huge enrichment plants with not much to do, so they offered low prices and got a lot of business,’ says Bunn. ‘Because Russian enrichment was cheap, we all got dependent on Russia.’

Rosatom (Russia) is the biggest enrichment services provider, followed by Urenco (UK, Netherlands, Germany and US) and Orano (France). ‘Urenco, for example, did not expand its capacity, because there was no profit incentive,’ says Bunn. ‘The market was oversupplied with enriched uranium.’

Changes are afoot. In October 2023, Orano said it plans to increase its enrichment capacity in the south of France by nearly 30%, to reduce the dependence of its customers on Russian supplies.

Chinese demand

China, however, has built up substantial conversion and enrichment capacity, exceeding its civilian needs. ‘The Chinese have been expanding their capacity like gangbusters because these are state-owned companies. They don’t have to worry about the profit situation,’ says Bunn. ‘They worry about cut-offs of foreign supply and being self-reliant.’

Some of this enriched uranium will be used to produce weapons, some may be exported. For uranium, China has adopted a three-market strategy: investing in domestic uranium mines, buying mines overseas to send uranium back to China, and buying supplies on international markets.

Between 2010 and 2020, China built 36 new nuclear reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The building of nuclear power plants in China has slowed more recently, says Bunn: ‘They’ve built a heck load of electricity plants and have more electricity than they need.’ Another drag is that new plants can attract public opposition and the Chinese authorities take protests into account when evaluating the performance of local government officials, Bunn adds.

While Western powers discuss moving away from an overreliance on Russia for conversion and enrichment, they are loath to swap for dependence on China. ‘The world outside of Russia and China is quickly moving away from supplies from these nations,’ says Hinze. ‘However, these moves mean that costs of nuclear fuel are rising and supply chains are becoming tighter.’

Russian reactor reliance

Russia has also been also a major exporter of reactors in recent decades. There are Russian reactors operating in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia and elsewhere. More are being built, for example in Turkey, Hungary, Bangladesh and Slovakia. ‘Russia even offers build and operate contracts, where they will come and build you a reactor without you paying a penny,’ says Bunn. ‘They’ll operate the reactor and make the money back on electricity sales over the decades.’ Russia will also take back spent fuel. It’s state company, Rosatom, has large projects with Iran, South Africa and Egypt, among others.

This can render countries reliant on Russia for the operation and/or maintenance of their reactors. And, since each type of plant requires specific fuel assemblies, Russian-designed reactors traditionally use Russian-made fuel. ‘Russia is going to be a big player in nuclear markets for a long time in the future,’ Bunn predicts.

A recent analysis examined Russia’s nuclear energy diplomacy in the context of the war in Ukraine. Since Rosatom is fully owned by the Russian state, it can be used to exert political pressure and project power globally. ‘For most Western-aligned states, it will be inconceivable to enter into any type of new dependence or even non-dependent cooperation with Russia in the nuclear energy sector,’ the authors note.

Nonetheless, alternatives are emerging. In September 2023, US nuclear services provider Westinghouse delivered the first fuel assemblies for Russian-designed reactors in Ukraine from a fabrication facility in Sweden. Ukraine praised the move as the end of the Russian monopoly in this section of the nuclear fuel market.

‘The key question now is how fast Westinghouse can scale up, given that there’s a bunch of countries with Russian-designed plants,’ says Bunn. Others, too, are moving to support domestic fuel supply. Saparro 5 is a group of five nations (Canada, Japan, France, the UK, and the US) that aims to establish a resilient uranium supply market free from Russian influence ‘and the potential to be subject to political leverage by other countries’. It announced plans at COP28 to jointly invest at least $4.2 billion to boost enrichment and conversion capacity over the next three years.

Meanwhile, there are efforts in the US Congress to formally ban all Russian uranium imports by 2028. One sticking point of such efforts has been HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium), which is enriched with uranium-235 to between 5% and 20%. ‘Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia was the only place with a plant licensed to produce material above 5% enrichment,’ says Bunn. The UK’s Civil Nuclear Roadmap, announced on 11 January, promises up to £300 million of investment specifically to develop HALEU fuel production, ‘with the first plant aiming to be operational early in the next decade’.

Advanced reactors, including in the US, are being developed to run on such fuel. These reactors would be ‘smaller, more flexible and less expensive to build and operate,’ according to the US Department of Energy. In the US, Centrus Energy says it is pioneering HALEU to power existing and future reactors. Bunn says the company is well positioned now to seek additional subsidies from the US government to expand its enrichment capacity.

Slow and expensive

Yet despite the drive to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear has been languishing in the doldrums. The adoption of small HALEU reactors has, if anything, slowed. The first company with approval, NuScale, cancelled a power plant for Utah in November after costs surged. ‘Costs have kept growing for small modular reactors,’ says Bunn. Solar, wind and natural gas are really, really cheap right now. That’s nuclear’s biggest problem – it’s expensive.’

Others too say that renewables are outmuscling nuclear. ‘Renewables provided something like 90% of all new electricity capacity [in 2023], and that’s because of the very great difference in cost,’ says Paul Dorfman, chair of the nonprofit Nuclear Consulting Group and visiting fellow at the University of Sussex, UK. ‘And in the context of climate change, nuclear plants take too long.’ He cites UK government findings that it takes up to 17 years for a nuclear reactor to be readied for operation.

A 2021 report authored by Dorfman also warns of the risk sea level rises and storm surges pose to nuclear power plants at coastal sites. ‘The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [2023] stated that renewables were ten times better than nuclear at CO2 mitigation,’ Dorfman adds. ‘It is clear renewables will do the heavy lifting and nuclear is marginal, if not problematic.’


In the decade before the Fukushima nuclear incident in Japan in March 2011, on average about 3GW of nuclear power generation was being added each year. To meet the COP28 target, factoring in how long it will take to build the plants, ‘we’d have to build on the order of 30-50GW every year from now to 2050,’ says Bunn. ‘That means convincing people that nuclear energy is ten times more attractive than it was before Fukushima. That’s a heavy lift.’

January 21, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time

coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media.

By Norman Solomon, World BEYOND War, January 18, 2024,  https://worldbeyondwar.org/how-the-gaza-war-can-be-big-news-and-invisible-at-the-same-time/—

Zen wisdom tells us that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war.

We are not.

What we do routinely see is reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.

The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets convey war’s realities end up obscuring those realities all the more.

Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza — what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what’s going on now in Gaza is “the most transparent genocide in human history.”

With enormous help from U.S. media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder — by any other name — has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.

Extraordinary determination to keep killing civilians and destroying what little is left of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of hunger, displacement, destruction of medical facilities, and expanding outbreaks of lethal diseases, all obviously calculated and sought by Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S. media outlets while cravenly dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress, the calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens by the day.

“Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations declared this week. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

Israel is waging a war toward extermination. But for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists — in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets — remains virtually invisible.

Of course, Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully appropriate, and easy in the United States.

“Deploring the crimes of others often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so different from those bad people,” Noam Chomsky has observed. “That is particularly true when there is nothing much we can do about the crimes of others, so that we can strike impressive poses without cost to ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much harder, and for those willing to do it, often carries costs.”

With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now in its fourth month, “looking at our own crimes” can lead to clearly depicting and challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is distinctly unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power — even though, and especially because, the U.S. role of massively arming and supporting Israel is pivotal for the war.

“For the narcissist, everything that happens to them is a huge deal, while nothing that happens to you matters,” scholar Sophia McClennen wrote last week. “When that logic translates to geopolitics, the disproportionate damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is not held to any standards, while those who question that logic are told to shut up. And if they don’t shut up, they are punished or threatened.”

Further normalizing the slaughter are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, only 11 senators voted to support a resolution that would have required the Biden administration to report on Israel’s human-rights record in the Gaza war. The sinking of that measure reflects just how depraved the executive and legislative branches are as enablers of Israel.

The horrors in Gaza are being propelled by the U.S. war machine. But you wouldn’t know it from the standard U.S. media, pointing to the moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of its dark side.

_____________________________________

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.

January 21, 2024 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

Why nuclear reactors are not the future of energy despite what UK Government would have you think.

– Dr Richard Dixon. The UK Government is trying to create the impression that it’s all go for nuclear. It isn’t.
The UK’s nuclear enthusiasts have been on another PR offensive, with
announcements of new reactors and possible life extensions to old reactors.


All of it denying the reality that nuclear is much too slow to build and
much too expensive to be part of our future energy strategy. Globally
nuclear is in terminal decline. In the last five years more renewable
electricity has been generated by just new schemes around the world than by
all the world’s nuclear reactors. And twice as much again is expected to
be constructed in the next five years, taking renewables output to five
times that of nuclear.

Of course the motivation for this burst of
co-ordinated PR is clear, the $20bn for Sizewell C hasn’t been raised so
the UK Government is desperately trying to give the impression that it’s
all go for nuclear in the UK. When it clearly isn’t.

 Scotsman 17th Jan 2024

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/why-nuclear-reactors-are-not-the-future-of-energy-despite-what-uk-government-would-have-you-think-dr-richard-dixon-4480376

January 21, 2024 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Germany plans to supply Israel with tanks shells as Gaza death toll nears 25,000

Berlin has also announced its intention to ‘intervene’ on behalf of Israel in the genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

The Cradle,   News Desk, JAN 17, 2024

German government officials have “fundamentally agreed behind the scenes” to supply Israel with thousands of rounds of 120-millimeter precision ammunition to fuel the war in Gaza, according to a report by Der Spiegel.

Since receiving an Israeli request for the tank shells in November, the Chancellery, the Defense Department, the Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs have been holding talks to fulfill the request.

“German defense companies were not in a position to deliver the requested ammunition in a short period of time, and the ministries have started on a plan to provide this ammunition from the German army’s own stocks,” the German daily reported on 16 January.

Once completed, the deal would mark the first public arms delivery from Berlin to Tel Aviv since the start of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. Der Spiegel reports that Germany has so far mainly supplied Israel with “medical supplies and protective equipment.”

“Both sides have agreed to keep quiet about the request to send lethal weapons because Israel does not want to allow any conclusions to be drawn about its military capabilities,” the report highlights………………………………………………. more https://new.thecradle.co/articles/germany-plans-to-supply-israel-with-tanks-shells-as-gaza-death-toll-nears-25000

January 21, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chalk River, or low-level nuclear governance.

Monique Pauzé, The author is a Bloc Québécois MP (Repentigny) and Environment critic., January 18, 2024

A few days ago, after several “rounds of work and consultation” that began in 2016, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) ruled in favor of the Chalk River Near Surface Waste Management Facility (NSWMF) project. Opposition to this open-air radioactive dump is undeniable: a multitude of aboriginal communities, citizen groups, scientists and over a hundred cities and municipalities spread around the Ottawa River, including Ottawa, Montreal and Gatineau.

To contextualize the issues surrounding this project, and to grasp the extent to which the authorization given is highly reprehensible, if not absurd, I believe it is pertinent to address it in the light of a study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment, specifically on Canada’s governance of radioactive waste. Held in 2022 and concluding with a report submitted to federal elected officials, the study is absolutely relevant today.

To begin with, we remind you that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made suggestions and recommendations to the CNSC in 2019, during the peer review conducted by the Integrated Regulatory Review Service mission.  As a result, we had confirmation, despite the government’s expressed pride, that Canada was not beyond reproach in this area, and this justified the attention of federal elected officials.

Many decried it: the essential principle of keeping radioactive waste away from sources of drinking water is not respected, and in many respects the project is at odds with the recommendations and guidelines of the IAEA, as well as with the five principles agreed and adopted by the leaders of 133 First Nations in Ontario.

There is an absence of consideration for the possible hazards associated with the project’s location and underground, hazards that attract less attention than the risks of contamination of watercourses, tributaries of the river, from which potentially millions of people draw their drinking water.

Legitimate opposition

In addition, Chalk River is located at the junction of geological fractures and in the western Quebec earthquake zone, a seismic belt that spans the Ottawa Valley, the Laurentians and parts of eastern Ontario. The volume of various radioactive wastes that will be buried in the open pit is substantial. Witnesses and experts have raised the issue of the lack of clarity in identifying the substances that will be introduced into the mound.

Opposition to the project is absolutely legitimate.

Several witnesses to this study accurately addressed the physical characteristics of Canadian radioactive waste, highlighting the redefinition of what constitutes intermediate-level radioactive waste, hidden in a CNSC “proof regulation” adopted in June 2020. William Turner, retired from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and a resident of Deep River, provided the committee with a detailed fact sheet on this issue.

Gilles Provost, a science journalist and witness to the study, wrote in Le Devoir on June 13 of the same year: “[…] we come up against a scientific absurdity: in physics, the activity of a radioactive product is its decay rate. The faster it decays, the higher its activity. This means that a radioactive product with [higher] activity according to physics would now be low-level waste according to the new definition decreed by the CNSC!”

This new definition has concrete effects, since the Chalk River SRWMF is designed to receive only low-level waste. The result? Waste considered to be medium-level by physical science will end up in the mound, since it is now considered to be low-level.

For the Aboriginal communities of Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi, the process chosen by the CNSC constitutes a failure in its duty to consult properly.

In addition to the disturbing comments made or sent by their representatives during the parliamentary committee study in 2022 about the “coercive” nature of the consultative approach, the aboriginal communities are rightly relying on Article 29.2 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that no decision on nuclear waste storage, small modular reactors, transport or decommissioning can be taken without free, prior and informed consent.

“[…] We could explain it to you, but you wouldn’t understand it anyway. We’ll give you all the information and you won’t understand it.” This excerpt from the testimony of Reg Niganobe, Chief of the Grand Council of the Anishinabe Nation and a witness to the 2022 study, is shocking: when a representative of the sector expresses himself in this way, I think the climate they want to create is incredibly unhealthy and contemptuous. Non-native groups have also been subjected to this type of “approach” in similar processes. Their submissions to the committee study attest to this.

If there is indeed a political will to consider the communities most directly affected by these issues, then they must be given the consideration they deserve.

Reconciliation? Participatory consultations? Transparent processes and compliance with IAEA standards? The CNSC reports to Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and the mobilization against Chalk River will continue. The federal government had better change its mind… It has the authority to do so.

https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/805514/environnement-chalk-river-ou-gouvernance-nucleaire-bas-niveau

January 21, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Roadmap to warfare: new policy exposes links with UK military nuclear projects

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are keen to assist University of Sussex academics in exposing the links to the military that were revealed in the recent UK Government’s launch of a ‘Roadmap’ for the civil nuclear sector (11 January 2024).[1]

In the public interest, Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy, and Research Fellow Dr Phil Johnstone, both at the University of Sussex, have done remarkable work over many years highlighting the lack of transparency and the extent of cross-subsidy between the civil and military nuclear sectors, despite facing official hostility, obfuscation, or denial. 

NFLA 18th Jan 2024

Roadmap to warfare: new policy expose links with UK military nuclear projects

January 21, 2024 Posted by | UK | Leave a comment

US urges discussions with China on practical nuclear risk reduction steps

Reuters, January 19, 2024

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The United States does not expect formal nuclear arms-control negotiations with China anytime soon, but does want to see a start of discussions on practical risk-reduction measures, a senior White House official said on Thursday.

Pranay Vaddi, the senior White House official for arms control and non proliferation, told a Washington think tank it had been important to have initial arms-control talks in November with China, but stressed the need for them to involve key Chinese decision makers or influencers on the country’s nuclear posture………………………..

The U.S. and China held their first talks on nuclear arms control in nearly five years on Nov. 6, amid growing U.S. concerns about China’s nuclear build up, but the meeting produced no specific results…………………………………………..

The U.S. and China held two days of military talks in Washington last week, their latest engagement since agreeing to resume military-to-military ties.

In its annual report on the Chinese military in October, the Pentagon said China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads and will probably have over 1,000 warheads by 2030.

The U.S. has a stockpile of about 3,700 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,419 strategic nuclear warheads were deployed.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler,  https://www.reuters.com/world/us-urges-discussions-with-china-practical-nuclear-risk-reduction-steps-2024-01-18/

January 21, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley C site fire safety fears trigger enforcement notices


By Phil Hill, @GazettePHill,  https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/24055739.hinkley-c-site-fire-safety-fears-trigger-enforcement-notices/ 17 Jan 24

Pre-planned inspections in November at the Unit 1 HR Building on the site led to ONR identifying the breaches and issuing the notices.

These have been served on licensee NNB Generation Company (HPC) Ltd, contractors Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS and Laing O’Rourke Construction Limited, who are the joint venture partners in BYLOR JV, and REEL UK.

The enforcement notices require improvements to be made to address the shortfalls and prevent re-occurrence.

There were no consequences to employees, the public or the environment as a result of the shortfalls.

However, ONR identified the potential for harm and risk of serious injury, which required regulatory action.

Shane Turner, superintending inspector and head of safety regulation at Hinkley Point C, said: “The enforcement notices require these four organisations to make improvements in fire safety arrangements at the Hinkley Point C site.

We will engage with each of them during the period of the enforcement notice to ensure positive progress is made.”

The notices require necessary improvements are made by March 31.

The enforcement action relates to contraventions under the requirements of Article 22 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

1

January 21, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Kebaowek Nation calls for cancellationof nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River

Nuclear waste disposal would run counter to Aboriginal rights and environmental protection.

by Alexia Leclerc, Pivot, January 16, 2024

The Kebaowek First Nation denounces the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s decision to grant a license to the private company Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to build a radioactive waste disposal facility at Chalk River, on Algonquin Anishinabeg traditional territory. She believes that the Commission did not respect its duty to consult Aboriginal communities, and is concerned about the consequences for health and the environment.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has obtained a federal licence to operate a 37-hectare area for, among other things, the permanent near-surface storage of up to 1,000,000 cubic metres of solid low-level radioactive waste.

This area is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation communities, who reject the project. The area is close to sacred sites such as Oiseau Rock and Pointe au Baptême, as well as the Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River) and its watershed, and several animal and plant species important to the ecosystem.

The community of Kebaowek strongly denounces this situation and calls on the federal government to stop the project. “The Commission’s decision is unacceptable,” said Lance Haymond, Chief of the First Nation, in a press release issued on January 9. “The Government of Canada must act quickly and affirm the suspension of the project without delay.”

CNL applied to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), a federal administrative tribunal, for an amendment to its current operating licence. The Commission, which issues licences to nuclear companies, is mandated to assess the environmental and human impacts of such a project, while ensuring that obligations to consult Aboriginal peoples are met.

Duty to consult not respected

“We believe that consultation has been inadequate, to say the least, and that our Aboriginal rights are threatened by this proposal,” says Lance Haymond.

The communities of Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi, members of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation, intervened with the Commission in June 2022 to inform it that they had not been adequately consulted. The Commission gave them one year to provide a brief that would allow adequate consultation.

Only these two communities were given additional time for consultation activities, although other communities also requested this time.

The brief filed by Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi states that all the communities of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation have potential title, interest and inherent rights over the entire Kichi Sibi watershed, beyond the limits imposed by the reserve and provincial system.

“How do they understand the duty to consult, when ten out of eleven communities refuse the project?” denounces Justin Roy, Councillor for the Kebaowek First Nation. “It’s not enough to simply inform and listen. What the communities want is to be able to sit at the discussion table, to take part in the decision-making and solution-making process.

He acknowledges that nuclear waste management needs to be addressed, but maintains that the current solution is inadequate.

The Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi brief already asserted that approval of this project would violate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This states that states must take effective measures to prevent the storage or disposal of hazardous materials on the territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.

When we asked about the criticisms of the consultations, the Commission simply referred us to its report, without comment. The report describes the consultation process and mentions the additional time granted to the two communities.

Threats to health

Kebaowek Chief Lance Haymond states “it is undeniable that the safety and health of people and the environment will be profoundly impacted for generations to come by this project”.

Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, warns of the dangers of storing nuclear substances in the area, despite the Commission’s ruling. “Judging that there will be no significant environmental impacts doesn’t mean that there won’t be any.”

Gordon Edwards points out that even after the active life of this nuclear waste management site is over, radioactive materials from it will still be present in the environment for several thousand years.

The release of radioactive materials into the water of the Ottawa river that flows into the St. Lawrence will be monitored to ensure that the quantity respects Canadian standards, insists the Commission. However, Gordon Edwards warns that no public health or medical data will be collected on the health effects of exposure to people from these substances in the water.

“When we put radioactivity in the water we drink, we expose millions of people. Even if the level of exposure is very low, it exposes a lot of people to these radioactive cancer-causing agents.” He explains that the more people are exposed to radiation, the greater the number of cancers are expected.

“The main reason to keep radioactive materials out of the environment is to keep the number of people exposed to them as minimal as possible,” he sums up.

Impact on endangered species

Despite the Commission’s assessment, the Kebaowek First Nation also remains concerned about the project’s environmental impacts. “The Commission’s final decision is completely unfounded in concluding that the project […] will not have significant environmental effects,” insists Lance Haymond.

Justin Roy points out that several protected species inhabit this environment. For example, he points out that the Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi brief assesses, among other things, that vegetation clearing would have an impact on the black ash, considered an endangered species by the Ontario government. However, there is no mention of the black ash in the Commission’s report.

Construction of the site would also require the destruction of hibernation sites, threatening the black bear population, says Justin Roy.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission affirms that the environmental effects are for the most part insignificant, and that mitigation measures will be put in place to protect endangered species. In response to Pivot’s questions, it states that it will continue to observe the surrounding environment as part of the Independent Environmental Monitoring Program.

La nation Kebaowek demande l’annulation de l’entreposage de déchets nucléaires à Chalk River

January 21, 2024 Posted by | indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment

TODAY. UK govt has come clean about it! Nuclear power- no use, really – just essential for the nuclear weapons industry.

” Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, – in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.

Some pesky British scientists have gone badly off script – the naughty troublemakers.  Andy Stirling and Philip Johnstone should be talking about the wonderful ability of the nuclear industry to fix climate problems and energy needs.

But dammit, these guys don’t seem to understand which side their bread is buttered on. They have blatantly explained what the UK government has quietly acknowledged – THE REAL REASON FOR THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY.

The industry is not economic, not clean, not healthy, not safe, not effective against global heating, - BUT – it provides a good, respectable cover for continuing to use tax-payer to prop up the killing industry - nuclear weapons.

We probably all knew this, underneath. But it is obscured by some comfortable fantasy that we are safer “protected” by mass-killing weapons, than by friendship, understanding, negotiating, with other nations. By the fantasy that “strong” (though stupid) governments care about our survival. The reality is that those in power in government just want to hang on to their prestigious jobs and hope that the bad stuff doesn’t happen until after they retire. In the meantime they’ve got the support of the killing industries and macho military.

Stirling, Johnstone, and also Jonathon Porritt have publicised what the government rather quietly admitted:

” Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, – in this supposedly “civil” strategy – are multiple statements about addressing “civil and military nuclear ambitions” together to “identify opportunities to align the two across government”.

Jonathon Porritt is probably already persona non grata with the authorities. As for Stirling and Johnstone – telling the truth is probably not a good career move.

January 20, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

Shining a light on the UK’s nuclear deterrent

changes in the government’s policy on nuclear power in recent years would effectively allow Britain’s military nuclear industry to be supported by payments from electricity consumers.

“The issue now is that UK citizens are unwittingly subsidising military nuclear activity through energy bills to the tune of many tens of billions of pounds,”

 https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/explore-our-research/business-and-economics/shining-light-on-nuclear-deterrent 18 Jan 24

Professor Andy Stirling and Dr Phil Johnstone have highlighted a lack of transparency between governments’ nuclear power programmes and their military nuclear capabilities.

As nuclear power declines worldwide, it is striking how many countries that continue to expend costly support are either existing or aspiring nuclear weapons states.

So say Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy, and Research Fellow Dr Phil Johnstone, at the University of Sussex. Their research into the dependency of military nuclear capabilities on the support of civil nuclear programmes has been cited widely – not least in the UK.

From early working-paper findings to presenting evidence to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the House of Commons, their research has raised important questions about accountability, transparency and the future role of the nuclear industry in a changing world.

It has also received major media attention, with stories in the Guardian, the BBC, Independent and New York Times, whilst their findings also culminated in questions being asked (and significant answers being obtained) in a UK Parliamentary Select Committee, many Parliamentary Questions posed in Westminster and a motion being passed through the Scottish Parliament.

But it hasn’t come without its frustrations. Since the academics first presented their findings to the House of Commons in 2017 – and then in numerous subsequent national and international press stories – the UK Government has not responded directly to the serious criticisms that arose concerning a lack of transparency and accountability. Invitations have been received to discuss these issues with official bodies, and the analysis has not been refuted, but it remains open what the Government itself will do.

Early findings

It’s been quite a journey from their initial research. In 2015, the academics published a working paper on German and UK nuclear power. It was here that the pair conducted an in-depth analysis to try to understand the different nuclear trajectories of the UK and Germany.

The findings of this research first pointed towards concealed UK motives for persisting with nuclear at a time when commentators and experts, virtually across the board, were suggesting the opposite: that it was in irreversible decline.

What was new about the Sussex analysis was that it looked beyond nuclear weapons to the hidden dependencies of the submarine industry on civil nuclear programmes.

“When we started out, the idea of civil programmes supporting military nuclear programmes, was met with significant scepticism.” says Stirling.

“Since then, through evidence submissions and continued output, there has been a gradual acceptance by some that the need to sustain key capabilities and skills in order to construct and maintain nuclear submarines is a significant factor driving the UK’s intense enthusiasm for new nuclear.”

A block in public openness

Things were about to speed up. In 2016, a detailed SPRU working paper asked why UK policy had been so intensely committed to nuclear power, with the findings clearly pointing to military links as a means for continuation.

As a result, questions were now being asked of the UK Government, with transparency – or the lack thereof – at the top of the agenda.

“When we started out, the idea of civil programmes supporting military nuclear programmes, was met with significant scepticism.” says Stirling.

“Since then, through evidence submissions and continued output, there has been a gradual acceptance by some that the need to sustain key capabilities and skills in order to construct and maintain nuclear submarines is a significant factor driving the UK’s intense enthusiasm for new nuclear.”

A block in public openness

Things were about to speed up. In 2016, a detailed SPRU working paper asked why UK policy had been so intensely committed to nuclear power, with the findings clearly pointing to military links as a means for continuation.

As a result, questions were now being asked of the UK Government, with transparency – or the lack thereof – at the top of the agenda.

In 2017, the findings were first presented before the Public Accounts Committee in the House of Commons. The evidence found that a white paper into the UK’s energy policy was now “extraordinarily overdue”.

“It was very clear that the usual public policy processes were falling short,” says Stirling. “In this sense, it is not just our own analysis, but a matter of public record, that due consultation and analysis have not so much been “disregarded” as not performed at all.

“So, at the core of this issue is the fact that the intensity of official commitments to nuclear power by successive UK governments is largely due to factors that remain effectively undeclared.”

Hinkley Point C

Undoubtedly one of the most significant developments in recent times in relation to the UK’s nuclear strategy has been the go-ahead and development of Hinkley Point C, a large nuclear power station under construction in Somerset.

Since its inception, the project, which is being built by the French electricity company EDF, has been criticised on a number of grounds – not least its huge and escalating cost.

But it is the justification to build any new nuclear power station, as highlighted by this research, that raises legitimate questions about the role the UK government has played in this process: of willfully disregarding open, thorough consultation and analysis in order to carry on regardless with nuclear energy, without providing a legitimate reason why.

In evidence submitted to the PAC, the research concluded that the costs of the Trident programme could be “unsupportable” without “an effective subsidy, from electricity consumers to military nuclear infrastructure”.

In their evidence, the academics wrote that the £19.6bn Hinkley Point project would “maintain a large-scale national base of nuclear-specific skills” without which there is concern “that the costs of UK nuclear submarine capabilities could be insupportable”.

A hidden subsidy

This evidence suggested that changes in the government’s policy on nuclear power in recent years would effectively allow Britain’s military nuclear industry to be supported by payments from electricity consumers.

“The issue now is that UK citizens are unwittingly subsidising military nuclear activity through energy bills to the tune of many tens of billions of pounds,” points out Johnstone.

“However, growing ever more significant is the failure of the existing policy apparatus to engage with the criticisms in this regard. This highlights that one of the main issues here concerns the quality of UK policy processes and the health of UK democracy itself.”

As time goes on in this way, the underlying impact of this work expands beyond the immediate story. In part, say the researchers, it lies in the failure of the UK government to be accountable for the decisions it has made in relation to the future of the UK’s energy policy. It has become a transparency issue, one in which the effects aren’t just felt on a state level but amongst its citizens – for many years to come.

What now?

In a world where misinformation is rife, it wasn’t long until claims were made that the research amounted to a ‘conspiracy theory’– particularly with findings that have had such far-reaching consequences. But this is something that Stirling and Johnstone have taken in their stride.

“The few private and public accusations that our analysis is a conspiracy theory have now all largely abated,” says Stirling.

“Several academics, policy analysts and journalists, who used these terms right at the outset, have now all gone out of their way explicitly to tell us that they believe us to be correct.

“In one case, a nuclear advocacy organization, taking the trouble to criticise us this way in an early blog post, has since shifted its position to openly advocate precisely the links they previously dismissed as a conspiracy theory.”

All of this points to research that is still evoking a reaction, still engaging stakeholders across the community, and is reaching into the heart of the democratic process. It also indicates that the effects of the research haven’t yet reached their climax.

A growing tension

“The reaction so far in the UK and international press, the wider energy policy and academic communities suggests that our work is making a firm mark in a field where the stakes are extremely high,” says Johnstone.

“Although the UK Government has itself thus far tried to side-line the issue, it has become strongly acknowledged more widely – even to the point of becoming orthodoxy in many quarters. The lack of official engagement is growing ever more telling.”

Yet uptake of the analysis by many prominent bodies and individuals in this field leaves no doubt that public discussions around nuclear power in the UK and more widely have been strongly influenced by this research.

As Stirling points out: “A backdrop of continued silence on the part of government, as trends continue to unfold and evidence and commentary continues to accumulate, suggests eventual acknowledgement is growing more likely. This in turn suggests that the largest impacts have yet to emerge.”

January 20, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear obsessions kill off its net zero strategy

The new Roadmap reads like an outing to a massive nuclear sweet shop. On top of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, we’ll have one more big one. And then we’ll have lots of Small Modular Reactors, all over the country. And we’ll have a new fuel processing plant. And a new Geological Disposal Facility – at some much more distance point. And so on and on. 24 fantastical Gigawatts to be designed and delivered by 2050.

Jonathon Porritt, 18 Jan 24

After 14 years of Tory mismanagement, the UK finds itself bereft of an energy strategy.

This was finally confirmed in the release last week of the Government’s new Nuclear Roadmap. At one level, it’s just the same old, same old, the latest in a very long line of PR-driven, more or less fantastical wishlists for new nuclear in the UK. But at another, it’s a total revelation.

For years, a small group of dedicated academics and campaigners have suggested that the UK Government’s Nuclear Energy Strategy is being driven more by the UK’s continuing commitment to an “independent” nuclear weapons capability than by any authoritative energy analysis. For an equal number of years, this was aggressively rebutted by one Energy Minister after another, both Tory and Labour.

The new Nuclear Roadmap dramatically changes all that. It sets to one side any pretence that the links between our civil nuclear programme and our military defence needs were anything other than small-scale – and of no material strategic significance. With quite startling transparency and clarity, the Roadmap not only reveals the full extent of those links, but positively celebrates that co-dependency as a massive plus in our ambition to achieve a Net Zero economy by 2050.

“Startling” is actually an understatement. Such a comprehensive volte-face is rare in policy-making circles. Every effort is usually made by Ministers to obscure the scale (let along the significance) of any such screeching handbrake turns. That is so not the case with the new Roadmap.

Courtesy of the latest forensic work done by Professors Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone at Sussex University (who have been absolutely at the forefront of seeking to bring these links into the public domain over many years – often with mighty little support from mainstream environmental organisations, let alone “independent” commentators), chapter and verse of this volte-face can be laid bare. Just three o examples from the Roadmap:

  • “Not only does this Roadmap set a clear path for the growth of nuclear fission…it acknowledges the crucial importance of the nuclear industry to our national security, both in terms of energy supply and the defence nuclear enterprise.”
  • “Government will proactively look for opportunities to align delivery of the civil and nuclear defence enterprises, whilst maintaining the highest standards of non-proliferation.”
  • “To address the commonalities across the civil and defence supply chains, and the potential risk to our respective nuclear programmes due to competing demand for the supply chain, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is working closely with the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Nuclear Sector.”

And there’s a whole lot more than that! As Andy Stirling has said: “Without any reflection on what this says about previous efforts to suppress discussion of this issue, the Government is now openly emphasising its significance.”

Indeed!

As usual, the UK’s ill-informed and unbelievably gullible mainstream media would appear to have missed the significance of this gobsmacking inflection point. So one can hardly expect them to have grasped its even more significant implications for UK energy strategy as a whole. In every single particular.

Let me briefly unpack some of those particulars:

  1. Nuclear

The new Roadmap reads like an outing to a massive nuclear sweet shop. On top of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, we’ll have one more big one. And then we’ll have lots of Small Modular Reactors, all over the country. And we’ll have a new fuel processing plant. And a new Geological Disposal Facility – at some much more distance point. And so on and on. 24 fantastical Gigawatts to be designed and delivered by 2050.

The reality couldn’t be more different:

  • We will indeed end up with Hinkley Point C – at a staggering of cost of somewhere between £26 billion and £30 billion, with consumers paying twice as much for its electricity as they will for offshore wind. And it will almost certainly not come online until the end of the decade, 15 years on from the time it was meant to be up and running.
  • We may possibly get Sizewell C, though the Government cannot currently guarantee the required level of investment. So a Final Investment Decision is unlikely before the next Election. At which point, Starmer may come to his senses and kill off this absurd white elephant.
  • We will never get a third big reactor. The economics are literally impossible to justify.
  • We are unlikely to get more than a couple of hugely expensive Small Modular Reactors, at some indeterminate point in the future, even with a new “flexible approach” to planning and financial inducements. Even that may prove to be an illusion. As Professor Steve Thomas has written: “Advocates of Small Nuclear Reactors claim they are cheaper and easier to build, safer, generate less waste, and will create many jobs compared to existing large reactor designs. These claims are unproven, misleading, or just plain wrong. Worldwide, no commercial design of SMR has even received a firm order yet.”
  • And we may or may not get life extensions for the last five power stations in the “legacy fleet” – subject to regulatory approval, which may not be all that easy given extensive cracking in their reactor cores.

In short, the Roadmap is just a massive diversion from reality. Entailing incalculable opportunity costs. And putting at risk our entire Net Zero by 2050 strategy.

Ministers know all that. But they don’t really care. Our nuclear weapons programme (including upgrading Trident) will be protected as a consequence of this, via an unceasing flow of public money into the civil nuclear cul-de-sac, at a time when our defence budget is already massively overstretched. So who cares about the missing 24GW?

  1. Renewables

We’ll continue to see new investment into renewables here in the UK, despite (not because of) government policy, which has seriously messed up our offshore wind industry, maintained a de facto ban on onshore wind, couldn’t care less about solar, witters on vapidly about tidal without doing anything etc etc.

Meanwhile, on a global basis, renewables continue to boom. Here are a few facts – in contrast to over-excited sightings of nuclear unicorns:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Why don’t people see this?

Why don’t our mainstream media offer any serious critique of what’s going on here?

Why don’t our opposition parties rip to shreds this tissue of preposterous illusions?

The reasons for this almost complete silence can be traced back to successive governments’ grim intent to hang onto our so-called “independent nuclear deterrent”. At literally any costs…………………………………………………………………….more https://www.jonathonporritt.com/uks-nuclear-obsessions-kill-off-its-net-zero-strategy/

January 20, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Zelensky Courts JPMorgan, Bank of America & Bridgewater CEOs At Davos, Urges More Money From West

Zero Hedge, BY TYLER DURDEN, WEDNESDAY, JAN 17, 2024

As expected, anything related to Ukraine presented at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos has been focused on more weaponry and seeking more vows of integration among Western allies. 

“Ukrainians need predictable financing throughout 2024 and beyond,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told World Economic Forum participants. “They need a sufficient and sustained supply of weapons to defend Ukraine and regain its rightful territory.”

As for President Zelensky, in addressing world leaders at the forum he emphasized that the West needs to help Ukraine achieve air superiority if his forces are to have a chance to emerge victorious against Russia……………………………………

At the summit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised that Washington will keep up its support for Ukraine, however while keeping things vague – following Biden’s proposed foreign defense budget request being reject by GOP members in Congress; and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg suggested Ukraine is moving closer to entry into the alliance.

Stoltenberg acknowledged a “serious battlefield situation” but also said there is “cause for optimism” after nearly two years of fighting, and NATO’s constant support.

Below is a portion of the NATO press readout based on his panel speech: 

…………  Ukrainians are now firmly oriented to the West, aspiring for membership in NATO and the European Union. The Secretary General also stressed that “support for Ukraine is not charity; it’s an investment in our own security”.………

But realistically, the prospect of Ukraine gaining full NATO membership would be a process of years, and would likely trigger WW3 with Russia–so to some degree this is all empty posturing.

But here’s what’s happening at Davos which is arguably more important to Kiev at the moment:

Ukraine is seeking new ways to finance its rebuilding plans as vital aid from the West slows down. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly has plans to meet JP Morgan’s CEO at the World Economic Forum.

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy is reportedly planning to meet JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at the World Economic Forum in Davos to seek new ways of financing its rebuilding plans. 

JP Morgan, the biggest US bank with almost half a trillion dollars of market capitalization, has already been advising Ukraine on financing reconstruction.

It’s as yet unclear if any firm promises were made or agreements struck at the Davos meeting which also included Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, as well as Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio. 

According to further details of who was in attendance via Fox Business: “Other meeting attendees included David Rubinstein of the private equity firm Carlyle Group; billionaire entrepreneur Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies; Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund; Steve Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity fund; and Philipp Hildebrand, representing BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager.”

Additionally, “Dimon was accompanied by Mary Erdoes, who runs JPMorgan’s asset-management unit. The White House was represented by Penny Pritzker, of the super-wealthy Pritzker family and a major Democratic Party donor.” Pritzker has been appointed Biden administration’s special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery.  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-courts-jpmorgan-bank-america-bridgewater-ceos-davos-urges-more-west

January 20, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Limping along: EDF Energy looking to extend operational life of aging reactors AGAIN.

Nuclear Free Local Authorities, 18 Jan 24

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are concerned that EDF Energy, the arm of French state-owned Électricité de France which operates the UK nuclear fleet, has just announced its intention to further extend operations at its four remaining aging Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor plants.

Hartlepool, Heysham-1, Heysham-2, and Torness first began generating in either 1983 or 1988, with an estimated operational life of 30 years. In 2023, the operating lives of Hartlepool and Heysham-1 were extended by two years from 2024 to March 2026, however the closure of Heysham-2 and Torness had previously been brought forward from 2030 to March 2028 because of ‘impacts on the graphite cores’.

The aging AGR plants will have been operating for at least 40 years by 2028, and the NFLAs’ core concerns revolve around the safety risk posed by the degradation of the graphite neutron moderators in each reactor.

NFLA Scotland Policy Advisor Pete Roche finds the rethink of the situation at Torness and Heysham 2 totally inexplicable: “In May 2020 we learnt that the cores of the four reactors at Torness and Heysham 2 were predicted to start cracking in 2022, six years earlier than previously thought. These last two AGRs have a significant design difference, compared to other AGRs which could make the cracking problem worse. Several commentators, at the time, questioned whether the two stations would make it even as far as 2028.

In 2020 the Office for Nuclear Regulation said the design difference at Torness and Heysham 2 could lead to graphite debris challenging the reactors’ ability to move or adequately cool fuel. And if the Regulators modelling predictions on the graphite core cracking were realised, then the reactors would not be safe to operate for another ten years. Heysham-1 and Hartlepool face similar operational challenges.

Yet in the ‘UK Nuclear Free Stakeholder Update’ published earlier this month, EDF company bosses state: ‘The prospect of further AGR lifetime extensions ([of] four power stations) will be reviewed again by the end [of] 2024 and the ambition is to generate beyond these dates, subject to plant inspections and regulatory approvals.’[1]

To support this ‘ambition’, EDF Energy also pledges to: ‘invest a further £1.3 billion over the next three years (2024-26) to help sustain current levels of generation’ within the company’s Nuclear Operations Division.

The function of the graphite core and the impact of aging is detailed by the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) on its website:

https://www.onr.org.uk/civil-nuclear-reactors/graphite-core-ageing.htm

‘As well as moderation, the fundamental safety requirements of an AGR core include allowing free movement of control rods, free movement of fuel and directing the flow of coolant gas to ensure adequate cooling of the fuel and core structure.  Essentially, significant weight-loss and cracking may compromise these safety requirements.
‘During operation, the graphite slowly loses weight due to oxidation caused by the reactor’s carbon dioxide coolant gas.  Loss of weight affects both the mechanical properties of the graphite brick, and reduces its effectiveness as a moderator.’

We raised our concerns that graphite core cracking could over time seriously compromise safety as far back as 2014 and most recently in correspondence, and in meetings, with officials from the ONR.

Our concerns and activities on this issue were outlined in our briefing No 250 ‘Update on the AGR closure programme’, dated 17 October 2022:……………………………………………………

Three AGRs at Dungeness-B, Hinkley Point-B and Hunterston-B have already closed, and are in the process of defueling, but those that remain continue to experience defects during their end-of-life cycle in addition to any cracking of the graphite core moderator.

Dr Paul Dorfman, Chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, who is often called upon to comment on nuclear power and renewable energy issues by media outlets worldwide, is clear that closure of the AGRs is long overdue:

“All the UK nuclear reactors that EDF want to ‘life extend’ have histories of technical problems – by far the most significant is the cracking of the graphite bricks in the core moderator. The role of the graphite moderator is to slow down the fast neutrons to allow the chain reaction.


“Due to irradiation damage over time, the bricks crack and reactor core distorts. Channels run through the bricks, allowing control rods to shut-down the reactor in an emergency. Because the graphite core can’t be repaired or replaced, this means that core damage is a life-limiting condition.
This is why these reactor’s original operating design life was just 30 years.

“All things considered, much better to be safe than sorry. Shut them down.”

The status and operating history of the AGRs does indeed belie the claim of government ministers and industry supremos that nuclear is a reliable source of electricity generation; indeed, generation at the plants can best be described as ‘intermittent’, a term commonly used by detractors of renewable energy technologies……………………………………………..

There will doubtless be a point where it will simply be uneconomic for EDF Energy to continue generating electricity at these elderly plants, but Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair of the NFLAs, wonders if EDF Energy’s motivation is in part driven by the need to generate extra income in the medium term given the significant delays in delivering Hinkley Point C:

“Frankly EDF Energy could do with the money from continuing operations at the four AGR plants. Hinkley Point C is being built at EDF’s risk and EDF’s cost. It is massively over budget and hugely behind schedule. It may well not be generating by 2028 or even by 2030, and broadsheet newspapers like The Telegraph and Guardian have recently speculated that the plant may even not be online before 2032. In the meantime, EDF Energy will be haemorrhaging cash”…………………………………… https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/limping-along-edf-energy-looking-to-extend-operational-life-of-aging-reactors-again/

January 20, 2024 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment

For Estonia the risks of going nuclear are high, and the plant not strictly necessary

ERR EE,   Jevgeni Ossinovski, chair of the Social Democratic Party (SDE) parliamentary group, 20 Jan 24

Our worst-case scenario would be suspending Estonia’s sustainability efforts in anticipation of a nuclear power plant, Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE) writes.

“….. nuclear power plants could be the preferable option in countries with high population density, high energy demand and limited land for renewable energy development.

A very different question is whether Estonia needs a nuclear power plant. We lack the skills, regulations, civil protection and monitoring systems, or even a waste disposal site, for building and operating a nuclear power plant. For all of these reasons, developing a nuclear facility carries significant risks and societal costs that would fall on future generations.

The report of the [Estonian] nuclear working group suggests that it is possible to build a nuclear power plant in Estonia, which is not surprising. Also, the report suggests ways to minimize some of the risks involved, but on several critical topics, such as the final disposal of nuclear waste, it provides little insight and merely states that a waste disposal solution will be eventually developed, which apparently does not yet exist.

Unfortunately, the report also fails to address the question, which is critical to Social Democrats: Is it unavoidable that Estonia needs a nuclear power plant, considering the long-term risks and consequences?

The board of the Social Democrats adopted the position that the answer to this question was “no” as early as 2021. There are other alternative approaches that could speed up the realization of our energy goals, and these are affordable, environmentally sustainable and reliable energy sources.

At the Social Democrats’ insistence, a goal of generating 100 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030 has become law. The administration is aiming to establish the necessary regulatory structure to double renewable energy generation in the coming years.

This will give us a surplus of energy for over half the year, which we should aim to store for periods when there is no wind and little sun, or export. So we’ll be supported by fast-growing storage capacity (the soon-to-be-built Paldiski hydropump and battery storage), better consumption management and links to neighboring nations where we can also get electricity in cases of shortages for most of the remaining hours………………………………………………………………………………………..

The development of renewables, storage facilities, consumption management, and international trade will give us what we need: economical, climate-friendly and secure electricity under normal grid conditions, while we also have sufficient reserve capacity for extreme cases……………………………….

Our worst-case scenario would be suspending Estonia’s sustainability efforts in anticipation of a nuclear power plant. If the plant is not built in 10 years due to public opposition, a political decision, the immaturity of [small modular reactor] technology, or a lack of investment (all of which are real risks), we will be facing a sinkhole and the National Audit Office once again will have to admit that decision-makers shortchanged the Estonian people.

Should new circumstances emerge that indicate Estonia is incapable of achieving its energy policy goals without a nuclear power plant, we will be ready to reassess our position. So far, the nuclear energy working group failed to address this issue in its report.  https://news.err.ee/1609227519/ossinovski-risks-of-going-nuclear-high-and-the-plant-not-strictly-necessary

January 20, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | 1 Comment

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