Nuclear: Plan to relax UK planning rules for small reactors draws mixed response
Cecilia Keating, 12 January 2024
The government’s plan to relax planning rules in a bid to fast track
development of smaller nuclear reactors at more potential sites across the
UK has been met with a mixed reaction from the green economy this week.
While some have argued that eliminating siting restrictions for
next-generation nuclear technologies would help to fast-track the growth of
clean energy development in the UK, others have warned the measure risks
causing harm to local communities, urging the government to instead focus
on tackling barriers to lower-cost clean energy technologies.
The proposed planning rule changes were announced in the Civil Nuclear Roadmap strategy
published yesterday, as part of the government’s overarching target to
deliver 24GW of nuclear power capacity in the UK by 2050. In the Roadmap,
the government said it wanted to adopt a more “flexible approach” for
nuclear in its next national policy statement for nuclear power generation,
so as to allow small modular reactors (SMRs) to potentially be built in a
wider number of places across the UK than currently possible under existing
planning rules.
The move would mark a significant change from the previous
nuclear national policy statement, drawn up in 2011, which picked eight
specific sites where new nuclear plants could be constructed, based on a
range of criteria covering safety, security and environmental protection.
Business Green 12th Jan 2024
IEA: Global renewable capacity grows over 50% YoY in 2023
George Heynes, Current News, 12 Jan 24
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released a new report revealing that 50% more renewable capacity was added globally in 2023 than in 2022, but financing remains an issue.
As the globe hurtles towards impending net zero targets – and with the recently signed pledge by 118 countries to triple renewables by 2030 at the recent COP28 summit in Dubai – the recent release of the IEA’s Renewables 2023 report will be welcome. But the publication does include some key challenges that must be addressed to bolster net zero efforts.
Crucially, the standout figure from this year’s document is that global annual renewable capacity additions increased to 510GW in 2023. This represents the fastest growth rate that has been witnessed in the past two decades.
Now this should serve as huge praise to all throughout the global renewable value chain who have worked tirelessly to bolster the energy transition and maintain the Paris Agreement’s legislation to keep global warming increase well below 2°C with a target to limit it to 1.5°C.
Turning our attention to GB, the nation has seen its renewable capacity bolstered significantly over the past year and saw various wind generation records broken. The result saw low-carbon energy sources contribute 51% of the electricity used by Britain with fossil fuels having made up 33% of GBs electricity mix across 2023. Carbon Brief attributed the decline of fossil fuels to two factors: renewables increasing sixfold (by 113TWh) from 2008, and reduced electricity demand, which decreased by 21% (83TWh) since 2008.
Of the renewable energy sources added, solar PV accounted for three-quarters of additions worldwide with China being where the largest growth occurred. For readers wanting to learn more about solar across 2023, our sister site PV-Tech provided its own analysis to the IEA report.
China also saw huge growth in its wind sector with additions having risen by 66% year-on-year. This staggering total has seen the nation become the largest developer of wind in the world, something that could come as a blow to the UK with its offshore wind pipeline having dropped below China over the course of 2023……………………………………..
The need to support emerging and developing economies
Another crucial aspect of the IEA report is its view into the global race to net zero. As referenced by the organisation, G20 countries account for almost 90% of global renewable power capacity today meaning that much must be done to support emerging and developing economies and countries as they transition away fossil fuels……………………..
An eye to the future
The IEA referenced various major milestones that could be achieved by 2028. Firstly, should the current trajectory continue at its rate, the globe could well bring online more renewable capacity between 2023 and 2028 than has been installed since the first commercial renewable power plant was built more than 100 years ago.
Indeed, this showcases the opportunity and collective movement to ensure net zero targets are met. However, this may not be enough. As mentioned previously, more time and resources must be allocated to support developing countries in their own net zero journeys to ensure that the Paris Agreement targets are met and maintained.
Other key milestones include:
- In 2024, wind and solar PV together generate more electricity than hydropower.
- In 2025, renewables surpass coal to become the largest source of electricity generation.
- Wind and solar PV each surpass nuclear electricity generation in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
- In 2028, renewable energy sources account for over 42% of global electricity generation, with the share of wind and solar PV doubling to 25%.
With the push to bolster renewable generation capacity expected to ramp up further into the decade, it will be interesting to see how the UK government manages its expectations and is able to take a global leadership role in the fight for net zero. https://www.current-news.co.uk/iea-global-renewable-capacity-grows-over-50-yoy-in-2023/
B1 Federal Employees to Stage Walk Out Over Biden’s Support for Gaza Slaughter
Federal employees from nearly two dozen US government agencies will walk off their jobs on Tuesday in protest of President Biden’s full-throated support for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, Al-Monitor reported on Friday.
by Dave DeCamp January 14, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/01/14/federal-employees-to-stage-walk-out-over-bidens-support-for-gaza-slaughter/
Federal employees from nearly two dozen US government agencies will walk off their jobs on Tuesday in protest of President Biden’s full-throated support for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, Al-Monitor reported on Friday.
The Biden administration has faced significant internal dissent over the Israeli slaughter in Gaza, which has killed nearly 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Officials from across government agencies have signed letters protesting the US support for Israel, but a walkout will be the most dramatic step yet, besides the two resignations from administration officials.
Dozens of US officials are organizing the walkout as a group calling itself Feds United for Peace. They expect hundreds of other federal employees to join them on Tuesday.
Al-Monitor obtained a list of some of the agencies where employees are expected to participate in the protest, which includes the Executive Office of the President, the National Security Agency, the Departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, and more.
In light of the Al-Monitor Report, House Republicans are calling for any employees who participate in the protest to be fired. “Any government worker who walks off the job to protest US support for our ally Israel is ignoring their responsibility and abusing the trust of taxpayers,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), according to Axios. “They deserve to be fired.”
President Biden is also facing dissent from within his re-election campaign as his backing of Israel’s mass killing of Palestinians is hurting his chances of winning another term. Seventeen Biden campaign staffers said in a letter protesting his support for Israel that they’ve seen “volunteers quit in droves, and people who have voted blue for decades feel uncertain about doing so for the first time ever, because of this conflict.”
$25 billion for refurbishment of Darlingon and Bruce reactors
Two Canadian nuclear refurbishment projects are in the top five of the largest public sector infrastructure projects currently under development in Canada, according to a newly published annual ranking. The annual Top100 Projects report, published by ReNew Canada magazine, features the 100 largest public sector infrastructure projects currently under development in the country ranked based on their confirmed project cost. Bruce Power’s refurbishment project is in third place with a project cost of CAD13 billion (USD9.7 billion), with Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington nuclear refurbishment in fourth place, at a cost of CAD12.8 billion.
Source: World Nuclear News, 15 January 2024
Inside Bradwell’s Dark Secrets
BANNG’s coordinator, Peter Banks, identifies the radioactive residues
that lurk beneath the shiny cladding of the former Bradwell nuclear power
station in the December 2023 column for Regional Life.
The discoveries of extensive radioactive contamination around the site has triggered the
imperative to keep potential intruders at bay, out of all the shiny
buildings, including the radioactive waste store, and the contaminated
underground labyrinth of tunnels and ducts. How ludicrous would it be to
introduce a new power station next door and go through the whole cycle
again?
BANNG 18th Dec 2023
Bradwell Nuclear – Falling Off the (Road)Map
On the Road(map) to Nowhere! Despite the Government’s recent
re-announcement of a massive expansion of civil nuclear power, the
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) believes new nuclear at
Bradwell remains dead in the water.
In future new nuclear power stations
will only be sited in ‘suitable locations’ identified by developers
based on a set of criteria. The Government also welcomes ‘responses from
any communities that think they may benefit from the social and economic
opportunities that new nuclear power can deliver’.
Professor Andy Blowers, the Chair of BANNG, commented, ‘This new approach to siting
effectively rules Bradwell out of any further consideration. As we have
strenuously demonstrated over the last fifteen years Bradwell is a most
unsuitable site and the Blackwater communities are overwhelmingly opposed
to nuclear development in such a fragile location, increasingly vulnerable
to the impacts of Climate Change’.
BANNG 12th Jan 2024
Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists
New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster
Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month
out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective
climate goals.
At the root of all these problems, according to recent
research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an
interdisciplinary team of scientists. “We’ve socially engineered
ourselves the way we geoengineered the planet,” says Joseph Merz, lead
author of a new paper which proposes that climate breakdown is a symptom of
ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by the deliberate
exploitation of human behaviour.
“We need to become mindful of the way
we’re being manipulated,” says Merz, who is co-founder of the Merz
Institute, an organisation that researches the systemic causes of the
climate crisis and how to tackle them. Merz and colleagues believe that
most climate “solutions” proposed so far only tackle symptoms rather
than the root cause of the crisis. This, they say, leads to increasing
levels of the three “levers” of overshoot: consumption, waste and
population.
Guardian 13th Jan 2024
The “Rules-Based International Order”
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JAN 16, 2024 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-rules-based-international-order?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=140721447&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the incineration of Gaza, and the bombing of Yemeni forces who are trying to stop it.
The “rules-based international order” allowed hundreds of thousands of people to be killed by western-backed Saudi atrocities in Yemen.
The “rules-based international order” allowed NATO powers to knowingly provoke a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine.
The “rules-based international order” allowed western powers and their regional partners to plunge Syria into a horrific civil war by flooding the nation with heavily armed fascistic extremist factions.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US to invade and occupy a vast stretch of Syrian territory in order to control the nation’s natural resources and prevent reconstruction.
The “rules-based international order” allowed Libya to be turned into a chaotic hellscape after western-backed forces killed Gaddafi following a long-desired western regime change operation disguised as “humanitarian intervention”.
The “rules-based international order” allowed the invasion of Iraq to destabilize an entire region resulting in millions of deaths following a campaign of deliberate lies and propaganda.
The “rules-based international order” allowed the invasion of Afghanistan and a decades-long occupation sustained by lies and corruption.
The “rules-based international order” allowed the imprisonment of Julian Assange for journalistic activities exposing US war crimes.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the planet to be circled by hundreds of US military bases, including in places where the people who live there vehemently oppose their presence like Okinawa, Iraq and Syria.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US and its allies to kill huge numbers of civilians with siege warfare tactics in nations like Yemen, Iraq and Venezuela.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US to interfere in scores of elections around the world at will and forcibly topple inconvenient governments whenever it wants to.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed China to be surrounded by a rapidly increasing amount of US military bases and war machinery in preparation for a future conflict of unimaginable horror.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US to plunge the world into a new cold war with rapidly-escalating brinkmanship against nuclear-armed Russia and China.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed our civilization to be controlled by the most powerful propaganda system ever devised, creating a mind-controlled dystopia of brainwashed gear-turners who are deceived into believing they are free.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed unfathomable amounts of government malfeasance to be hidden behind an increasingly opaque wall of government secrecy.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the interests of ordinary human beings to be subordinated and subjected to the interests of billionaire corporations and sociopathic government agencies.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the destruction of our ecosystem for the enrichment of powerful plutocrats.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed our planet to be dominated by an empire of extreme murderousness and depravity at the cost of nonstop bloodshed and ever-increasing tyranny.
If the “rules-based international order” has allowed all these things to happen, what kind of “rules” are we talking about exactly? And what kind of “order” do they sustain?
If this is what the “rules-based international order” looks like, would we not, perhaps, be better off without it?
West got Ukraine ‘painfully wrong’ – Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico
Slovakia’s Robert Fico has slammed “stupid liberal demagogues” who still support military aid to Kiev
Funding and arming Ukraine is a “futile waste of human resources and money” that will serve only to fill Ukrainian cemeteries with “thousands of dead soldiers,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico wrote in an op-ed on Tuesday. Fico’s article was a rebuttal to his country’s president, who has urged him to send weapons to Kiev.
Following his party’s electoral victory in September, Fico immediately cut off Slovakia’s military aid to Ukraine and vowed to block Kiev’s accession to NATO. Slovak President Zuzana Caputova, however, has called for Ukraine to be given “the means needed to defend itself,” while pro-Western pundits in Slovakia have accused Fico of cozying up to the Kremlin.
…..
Despite pumping Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and sanctioning Moscow’s economy, “Russia completely controls the occupied territories militarily, Ukraine is not capable of any meaningful military counter-offensive, [and] it has become completely dependent on financial aid from the West with unforeseeable consequences for Ukrainians in the years to come,” he explained.
“The position of the Ukrainian president is shaken, while the Russian president increases and strengthens his political support,” Fico continued, pointing out that “neither the Russian economy nor the Russian currency collapsed, [and] anti-Russian sanctions have increased the internal self-sufficiency of this huge country.”
Should the West continue along the path desired by Caputova, “in two or three years we will still be where we are now,” Fico predicted. “The EU alone will be perhaps 50 billion euros lighter, and in Ukraine, cemeteries will be full with thousands more dead soldiers.”
Fico’s Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) faction currently leads a three-party coalition government, while Caputova is the co-founder of the Progressive Slovakia party. Caputova’s role as president is largely ceremonial, and Fico claimed in his op-ed that she is “impatiently waiting” for the end of her term this year so that she can re-enter parliamentary politics…….. https://www.rt.com/news/590409-west-ukraine-wrong-fico/
Construction to start on Sizewell C nuclear power station amid opposition.
Construction to start on Sizewell C nuclear power station amid opposition.
Construction on the multi-million pound Sizewell C nuclear power station
will start despite local opposition to the plans. The government has signed
a development consent order, meaning that preparation work on the £700
million site such as building fencing and accommodation can start. Andrew
Bowie MP, Minister for Nuclear and Renewables, will visit the site in
Suffolk today where he is expected to be met with peaceful protests which
have been organised by local campaign groups who are opposed to the
project. The final stage of the project, the Final Investment Decision,
will be announced later this year.
ITV 15th Jan 2024
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-01-15/construction-on-700-million-nuclear-power-station-starts
BBC 15th Jan 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-67973566
Sizewell C campaigners hold peaceful demonstration as government minister
Andrew Bowie visits. Two campaign groups opposed to the building of a
nuclear power plant near the Suffolk coast are to hold a peaceful protest
this morning. Stop Sizewell C and Together Against Sizewell C will be
demonstrating at the site entrance from 8.45am to 9.30am. Energy minister
Andrew Bowie is visiting to prompt a Development Consent Order (DCO) which
campaigners say will take the project to the next step.
Suffolk News 15th Jan 2024
Fresh Trident safety fears as submarines’ ‘life expectancy’ extended repeatedly
NEW concerns have been raised about the safety of Britain’s nuclear
fleet – with two submarines still in action previously predicted to have
been out of commission by this year. Former top government adviser Dominic
Cummings (below) sparked interest in the state of Britain’s nuclear fleet
at the beginning of this month when he revealed he had attempted to secure
assurances the Government would address the “horror show” of the
arsenal in return for his help in Rishi Sunak’s election campaign.
The National 14th Jan 2024
This week’s nuclear news
TOP STORIES.
Israel Is Terrified the World Court Will Decide It’s Committing Genocide.
The ‘Ghost Budget’: How America Pays for Endless War. US prepares for nuclear war at foreign bases – with “Steadfast Noon”.
‘PR Fairy Dust’ Has Canada Tripling Nuclear Capacity by 2050. Cancelled
NuScale contract weighs heavy on new nuclear.
Nuclear Continues To Lag Far Behind Renewables In China Deployments.
‘Do or die’: MPs launch urgent bid to spare Assange from US extradition.
****************************Covid. Yes, it’s still there – it’s NOT over yet.
Climate. Analysis: Record opposition to climate action by UK’s right-leaning newspapers in 2023. 2023 confirmed as world’s hottest year on record. Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists.
Nuclear. It’s all over the UK media – enthusiasm for Civil Nuclear Roadmap – methinks the ladies and gentlemen do protest too much. Meanwhile – back at the Israel-Palestine-Lebanon-USA-Iran ranch – it’s all getting perilous – while I try to keep that stuff out of this newsletter
Noel’s notes. Aw gee! Did ya know that Australia is partnering USA in making multiple strikes on Yemen?. Who can be believed? New heights of folly as UK government releases its Civil Nuclear Roadmap.
*************************************
CLIMATE. “The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the European Union’s action against climate change”.
ECONOMICS. Nuclear power and net zero: Too little, too late, too expensive. Sizewell C: UK and France-owned EDF look to raise £20bn for Suffolk nuclear site. Housing unaffordability – implications for Somerset with huge increase in nuclear workers for Hinkley Point C.
EDUCATION. Peace Pod: an aural adventure in anti-militarist activism. With teacher resources.
EMPLOYMENT. Nuclear defence workers to strike over pay. Hotel near Bridgwater could be repurposed to house Hinkley Point C workers.
ENERGY. Reducing energy demand- technologies are available, scalable and affordable today. ’The potential is extraordinary’: Business action on energy efficiency could save $2tr a year, new research claims. Unplanned nuclear power outages are reducing UK’s electricity output.
ENVIRONMENT.
- Coldwater Creek to finally have warning signs after decades of nuclear contamination.
- Ayrshire radiation highlighted as Labour’s nuclear support attacked.
- Nuclear Power: The Thousand Year-Plus Albatross Around Humanity’s Neck.
- Nuclear: Plan to relax UK planning rules for small reactors draws mixed response. Inside Bradwell’s Dark Secrets.
- Utility scale solar farms contribute to bird diversity.
ETHICS and RELIGION. ‘The Evidence of Genocide Is Not Only Chilling, It Is Also Overwhelming and Incontrovertible’: Quotes from International Court of Justice.
HEALTH. The mystery of a Truchas woman who died with extraordinary amounts of plutonium in her body.
HISTORY. The Spectacular Failure of the Zionist Project
INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Commission decision a ‘gut-punch’, so years-long battle over radioactive waste mound will continue.
LEGAL. An international law expert explains why South Africa’s case at the ICJ is so important. Craig Murray: Observations on Israel’s defense in the International Court of Justice.
MEDIA. Nuclear technology: the shady beginnings and the uncertain future. Book (fiction): The Secret of the Three Bullets- How New Nuclear Weapons Are Back on Battlefields
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . No to nuclear power: stop the expansion. Will Sizewell nuclear project go ahead? Campaigners question the timetable and the funding.
POLITICS. Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher enthuses over “the rebirth of France’s nuclear industry”. Mr President, saying that nuclear power will save the climate is a lie. France Moves Away from Renewable Targets in Favor of Nuclear Power.
UK Government unveils biggest nuclear expansion in 70 years. Mini nuclear plants to be built almost anywhere in UK. On the road to nowhere… UK Ministers launch nuclear ‘Roadmap’ in election year. UK’s Nuclear Roadmap is Pure Fantasy. UK Government’s nuclear power expansion plans branded hot air. Bradwell Nuclear – Falling Off the (Road)Map. Allan Dorans: Scottish Labour’s support for nuclear fuel poses a risk. Government remains committed to Sizewell C timetable before a general election. Ministers told to say how Sizewell C will be funded as new nuclear plan launched.
Setback for Japan’s Nuclear Revival as Reactor Restart Delayed. NZ’s anti-nuclear stance is at risk of compromise but must be upheld.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. What Does ‘Rules-Based International Order’ Mean When US Can Bomb Yemen at Will? Peace from River to Sea.– (pages 21-25). Net-Zero and Nonproliferation: Assessing Nuclear Power and Its Alternatives.
SAFETY. UK’s dwindling nuclear fleet – four ageing reactors to be kept going beyond their planned closure date. Sellafield nuclear safety and security director to leave. Nuclear convoys: Blacked-out lorries carry ‘deadly cargo’ through the village. Fresh Trident safety fears as submarines’ ‘life expectancy’ extended repeatedly.
Japan’s Hokuriku Elec reports second oil leak from Shika nuclear plant. Japan’s NRA orders probe on quake damage at Shika nuclear power plant. Japan quake stressed nuclear plant beyond design limit: panel. Japanese nuclear plant admits 20,000 litres of oil leaked when it was hit by 10ft tsunami sparked by New Year’s Day earthquake – as officials call for drones to monitor radiation levels.
SECRETS and LIES. Dutch engineer spread Stuxnet in Iran nuclear plant in 2008: report. New Revelations Shed More Light On Sabotage Of Iran Nuclear Program.
Outrage as Government admits it kept medical results on nuke test veterans a ‘state secret’ in a move Tory grandee Sir John Hayes said ‘beggars belief’. Nuclear Free Local Authorities question the Chief Constable on alleged misconduct among Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
SPINBUSTER. In the name of ‘fake news,’ NewsGuard extorts sites to follow the government narrative.
TECHNOLOGY. Killer Robots: UN Vote Should Spur Action on Treaty. Dissension in the nuclear lobby – it had to happen – Small Nuclear versus Big Nuclear. Touting a ‘new age of nuclear fusion‘. Nuclear, CCS & LNG Are Distractions As Shipping Goes Low Carbon.
WASTES. Carlsbad depositary- 79% of waste came from nuclear wastes from Idaho National Laboratory. Kebaowek First Nation strongly opposes nuclear waste storage facility in Chalk River. Behind the (somewhat dirty) scenes of nuclear waste processing.
WAR and CONFLICT. Could Israel’s War in Gaza Spiral Into a Regional War? Defence Minister Marles announces Australia has joined in U.S. attacks on Yemen.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Israel’s nuclear arsenal: what we know. Nuclear Arms Buildup Isn’t Just about War. It Also Harms People and Communities. IG report finds Pentagon failed to account for more than $1B in weapons sent to Ukraine. Biden’s $582 Million Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia. Can It Be Blocked?.
Dissension in the nuclear lobby – it had to happen – Small Nuclear versus Big Nuclear.
Comment. As the UK fumbles its way through its “Civil Nuclear Roadmap” folly, the Rolls Royce lobby paints Hinkley and Sizewell projects as obsolete trash, and touts Rolls Royce’s non existent small reactors as Britain’s energy salvation .
Jeremy Warner: Outsourcing Britain’s nuclear renewal is insanity.
Rolls-Royce’s modular reactors are an obvious way to break free of EDF’s
grip.
Here we go again. Einstein’s definition of insanity is to keep doing
the same thing and expecting different outcomes. You would think that the
Government had learned its lesson on nuclear renewal after the debacle of
Hinkley Point C. Clearly not.
Having already made the same mistake once, by
pledging a replica of the ruinously costly Hinkley at Sizewell on the
Suffolk coast, ministers are doubling down and promising a third such
monstrosity somewhere else.
According to the Government’s “Nuclear
Roadmap”, published last week, another of these leviathans in an as yet
unspecified location is to be given the go-ahead later this year. On the
most recent estimates, Hinkley Point C is expected to cost at least 80pc
more than its original budget and is years behind schedule. Some fear that
it won’t be until the early 2030s before the reactors are fully
operational, such have been the technical and safety complications
encountered in the construction phase.
Ministers have also had to agree to
punishingly expensive output prices to persuade the main developer,
France’s state-controlled EDF, to build in the first place, committing
consumers to high electricity costs for decades to come. So much for the
promise once made by the ever courteous Vincent de Rivaz, the one-time boss
of EDF in Britain, that Hinkley Point would be cooking our Christmas
lunches by 2017.
Even allowing for the learning process – theoretically,
later projects to the same design should cost less, with past mistakes
taken on board – it beggars belief that the Government should attempt to
repeat such a tried and demonstrably poor value for money technology.
Given the experience of Hinkley Point C, why are we still pursuing the hugely
costly, largely obsolete technology of EDF’s gigawatt stations when there
are perfectly viable, but smaller, homegrown alternatives just waiting for
the opportunity to fill the gap? If we are to spend £28bn a year of
taxpayers’ money on going green, as promised by Labour, we should at
least be confident that a large part of the wider economic benefit is
reserved for UK supply chains, and is not instead squandered on supporting
jobs abroad in France, China, Denmark and the US.
Telegraph 13th Jan 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/13/uk-go-full-nuclear-ensure-solutions-british/
“The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the European Union’s action against climate change”
“The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the
European Union’s action against climate change”.
The Renewable Energies for All association denounces, in a column in “Le Monde”, the
deleterious effects of the inclusion of nuclear power in the French and
European objectives for the deployment of renewable solutions.
Seeking to relaunch nuclear power whatever the cost, France is not only missing a
historic opportunity for a rapid and less costly transition to renewable
energies and decarbonization.
It weakens the climate ambition of theEuropean Union (EU). The reintegration of current nuclear production in Europe – 6% of its final energy – into the objective of 42.5% renewable
energies set by the RED III directive [Renewable Energy Directive III]
would create an accounting artifice and lead to vagueness strategic in a
field which nevertheless needs a long-term vision.
Le Monde 13th Jan 2024
What Does ‘Rules-Based International Order’ Mean When US Can Bomb Yemen at Will?
NORMAN SOLOMON, Jan 12, 2024, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/rules-based-order-yemen
What US foreign policy shamelessly amounts to is this: ‘We make the rules so we get to break the rules.”
Have you heard the one about the U.S. government wanting a “rules-based international order”?
It’s grimly laughable, but the nation’s media outlets routinely take such claims seriously and credulously. Overall, the default assumption is that top officials in Washington are reluctant to go to war, and do so only as a last resort.
The framing was typical when the New York Times just printed this sentence at the top of the front page: “The United States and a handful of its allies on Thursday carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, U.S. officials said, in an expansion of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration had sought to avoid for three months.”
So, from the outset, the coverage portrayed the U.S.-led attack as a reluctant action—taken after exploring all peaceful options had failed—rather than an aggressive act in violation of international law.
On Thursday, President Biden issued a statement that sounded righteous enough, saying “these strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea.” He did not mention that the Houthi attacks have been in response to Israel’s murderous siege of Gaza. In the words of CNN, they “could be intended to inflict economic pain on Israel’s allies in the hope they will pressure it to cease its bombardment of the enclave.”
In fact, as Common Dreams reported, Houthi forces “began launching missiles and drones toward Israel and attacking shipping traffic in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s Gaza onslaught.” And as Trita Parsi at the Quincy Institute pointed out, “the Houthis have declared that they will stop” attacking ships in the Red Sea “if Israel stops” its mass killing in Gaza.
But that would require genuine diplomacy—not the kind of solution that appeals to President Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The duo has been enmeshed for decades, with lofty rhetoric masking the tacit precept that might makes right. (The approach was implicit midway through 2002, when then-Senator Biden chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearings that promoted support for the U.S. to invade Iraq; at the time, Blinken was the committee’s chief of staff.)
Now, in charge of the State Department, Blinken is fond of touting the need for a “rules-based international order.” During a 2022 speech in Washington, he proclaimed the necessity “to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, to uphold the rights of all people.” Two months ago, he declared that G7 nations were united for “a rules-based international order.”
But for more than three months, Blinken has provided a continuous stream of facile rhetoric to support the ongoing methodical killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Days ago, behind a podium at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, he defended that country despite abundant evidence of genocidal warfare, claiming that “the charge of genocide is meritless.
The Houthis are avowedly in solidarity with Palestinian people, while the U.S. government continues to massively arm the Israeli military that is massacring civilians and systematically destroying Gaza. Blinken is so immersed in Orwellian messaging that—several weeks into the slaughter—he tweeted that the United States and its G7 partners “stand united in our condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, in support of Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law, and in maintaining a rules-based international order.”
There’s nothing unusual about extreme doublethink being foisted on the public by the people running U.S. foreign policy. What they perpetrate is a good fit for the description of doublethink in George Orwell’s novel 1984: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it . . .”
After news broke about the attack on Yemen, a number of Democrats and Republicans in the House quickly spoke up against Biden’s end-run around Congress, flagrantly violating the Constitution by going to war on his own say-so. Some of the comments were laudably clear, but perhaps none more so than a statement by candidate Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2020: “A president should never take this nation to war without the informed consent of the American people.”
Like that disposable platitude, all the Orwellian nonsense coming from the top of the U.S. government about seeking a “rules-based international order” is nothing more than a brazen PR scam.
The vast quantity of official smoke-blowing now underway cannot hide the reality that the United States government is the most powerful and dangerous outlaw nation in the world.
1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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