Futile and Dangerous: Bombing Yemen in the Name of Shipping
Another feature of the strikes is the absence of a Security Council resolution from the United Nations, technically the sole body in the international system able to authorise the use of force under the UN Charter. A White House statement on January 11 attributes authority to the strikes much the same way the administration of George W. Bush did in justifying the warrantless, and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. (Ditto those on his same, limited bandwidth, Tony Blair of the UK and John Howard of Australia.)
January 13, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/futile-and-dangerous-bombing-yemen-in-the-name-of-shipping/#
What a show. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was promoting a message of calm restraint and firm control in limiting the toxic fallout of Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza, a decision was made by his government, the United Kingdom and a few other reticent collaborators to strike targets in Yemen, including the capital Sana’a. These were done, purportedly, as retribution for attacks on international commercial shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
The wording in a White House media release mentions the operation’s purpose and the relevant participants. “In response to continued illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi attacks against vessels, including commercial shipping, transiting the Red Sea, the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom, with support from the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain, and Australia, conducted joint strikes in accordance with the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense.”
US Air Forces Central Command further revealed that the “multinational action targeted radar systems, defense systems, and storage and launch sites for one way attack unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.”
The rationale by the Houthis is that they are targeting shipping with a direct or ancillary Israeli connection, hoping to niggle them over the barbarities taking place in Gaza. As the Israeli Defence Forces are getting away with, quite literally, bloody murder, the task has fallen to other forces to draw attention to that fact. Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdusalam’s post was adamant that “there was no threat to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas, and the targeting was and will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine.”
But that narrative has been less attractive to the supposedly law-minded types in Washington and London, always mindful that commerce trumps all. Preference has been given to such shibboleths as freedom of navigation, the interests of international shipping, all code for the protection of large shipping interests. No mention is made of the justification advanced by the Houthi rebels and the Palestinian plight, a topic currently featuring before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
Another feature of the strikes is the absence of a Security Council resolution from the United Nations, technically the sole body in the international system able to authorise the use of force under the UN Charter. A White House statement on January 11 attributes authority to the strikes much the same way the administration of George W. Bush did in justifying the warrantless, and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. (Ditto those on his same, limited bandwidth, Tony Blair of the UK and John Howard of Australia.) On that occasion, the disappointment and frustrations of weapons inspectors and rebukes from the UN about the conduct of Saddam Hussein, became vulnerable to hideous manipulation by the warring parties.
On this occasion, a “broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023” and “the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against merchant and commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea” is meant to add ballast. Lip service is paid to the self-defence provisions of the UN Charter.
In a separate statement, Biden justified the attack on Houthi positions as necessary punishment for “unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea – including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.” He also made much of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, “a coalition of more than 20 nations committed to defending international shipping and deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.” No mention of the Israeli dimension here, at all.
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In addition to the pregnant questions on the legality of such strikes in international law, the attacks, at least as far as US execution was concerned, was far from satisfactory to some members of Congress. Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashita Tlaib was irked that US lawmakers had not been consulted. “The American people are tired of endless war.” Californian Rep. Barbara Lee warned that, “Violence only begets more violence. We need a ceasefire now to prevent deadly, costly, catastrophic escalation of violence in the region.”
A number of Republicans also registered their approval of the stance taken by another Californian Democrat, Rep. Ro Khanna, who expressed with certitude the view that Biden had “to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle eastern conflict.” Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah was in full agreement, as was West Virginia Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. “Only Congress has the power to declare war,” Massie affirmed.
Unfortunately for these devotees of Article I of the US Constitution, which vests Congress approval powers for making war, the War Powers Act, passed by Congress in November 1973, merely requires the president to inform Congress within 48 hours of military action, and the termination of such action within 60 days of commencement in the absence of a formal declaration of war by Congress or authorisation of military conflict. These days, clipping the wings of the executive when it comes to engaging in conflict is nigh impossible.
There was even less of a debate about the legality or wisdom of the Yemen strikes in Australia. Scandalously, and with a good deal of cowardice, the government preferred a deafening silence for hours in the aftermath of the operation. The only source confirming that personnel of the Australian Defence Forces were involved came from Biden, the commander-in-chief of another country. There had been no airing of the possibility of such involvement. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had, in not sending a warship from the Royal Australian Navy to join Operation Prosperity Guardian, previously insisted that diplomacy might be a better course of action. Evidently, that man is up for turning at a moment’s notice.
In a brief statement made at 4.38 pm on of January 12 (there was no press conference in sight, no opportunity to inquire), Albanese declared with poor conviction that, “Australia alongside other countries has supported the United States and the United Kingdom to conduct strikes to deal with this threat to global rules and commercial shipping.” He had waited for the best part of a day to confirm it to the citizenry of his country. He had done so without consulting Parliament.
Striking the Houthis would seem, on virtually all counts, to be a signal failure. Benjamin H. Friedman of Defense Priorities sees error piled upon error: “The strikes on the Houthis will not work. They are very unlikely to stop Houthi attacks on shipping. The strikes’ probable failure will invite escalation to more violent means that may also fail.” The result: policymakers will be left “looking feckless and thus tempted to up the ante to more pointless war to solve a problem better left to diplomatic means.” Best forget any assuring notions of taking the sting out of the expanding hostilities. All roads to a widening war continue to lead to Israel.
On the road to nowhere… UK Ministers launch nuclear ‘Roadmap’ in election year
11th January 2024, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/on-the-road-to-nowhere-ministers-launch-nuclear-roadmap-in-election-year/
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are dismissive of the UK Government’s announcement today (11 Jan) of a ‘Roadmap’ supposedly outlining the route to undertake ‘the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years’,[1] as another example of blinkered thinking by Ministers who are taking the wrong path to achieve energy security and net zero.
NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill said of the ‘Roadmap’: “Prime Minister Sunak and his ministers seem more like a group of clueless hikers too focused on the endless trail to their nuclear nirvana to see the turning immediately enroute which leads down the renewables path and the truly sustainable electricity future that Britain needs.
“Those with a cynical bent may be inclined to believe that its launch may not be coincidental in what is likely to be an election year as it represents a mantra of aspirations that will appeal to a certain voter base – two pointed references to Churchill are made by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho in the preamble – but is nonetheless completely unaffordable. How can a vast programme of nuclear new build costing hundreds of billions of pounds be paid for, when the HS2 railway programme was curtailed on grounds of cost?
11th January 2024
On the road to nowhere… Ministers launch nuclear ‘Roadmap’ in election year
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are dismissive of the UK Government’s announcement today (11 Jan) of a ‘Roadmap’ supposedly outlining the route to undertake ‘the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years’,[1] as another example of blinkered thinking by Ministers who are taking the wrong path to achieve energy security and net zero.
NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill said of the ‘Roadmap’: “Prime Minister Sunak and his ministers seem more like a group of clueless hikers too focused on the endless trail to their nuclear nirvana to see the turning immediately enroute which leads down the renewables path and the truly sustainable electricity future that Britain needs.
“Those with a cynical bent may be inclined to believe that its launch may not be coincidental in what is likely to be an election year as it represents a mantra of aspirations that will appeal to a certain voter base – two pointed references to Churchill are made by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho in the preamble – but is nonetheless completely unaffordable. How can a vast programme of nuclear new build costing hundreds of billions of pounds be paid for, when the HS2 railway programme was curtailed on grounds of cost?
“Despite several academic reports having been published in recent months outlining how the UK can meet its electricity needs through renewables [2,3,4] this government appears intent to once more trod the route taken by many Ministers before them – the route of greatest resistance – to the nuclear never-never.
“A plan based upon generation by a range of green technologies, coupled with energy efficiency measures and storage solutions, would be far quicker, far cheaper, and create many jobs to achieve the government’s stated goals of achieving energy security and net zero for the nation.”
The ‘Civil Nuclear Roadmap’ recommits the government to building a fleet of nuclear reactors capable of producing 24GW by 2050, around a quarter of electricity demand. Approval will be given for one to two reactors every five years between 2030 and 2044, a rate far faster than historic trends. The plan is predicated upon building a third large-scale plant alongside Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. This would most likely be located at Wylfa in North Wales, which was ‘talked up’ by Prime Minister Sunak in a recent interview with BBC Wales as ‘a fantastic site’.[5]
Government ministers are also wedded to investment in so-called Small Modular Reactors, which may be built at existing or former nuclear sites or co-located alongside large industrial consumers. A ‘competition’ is currently being held by a new company specifically created to take forward the government’s SMR ambitions. In the initial stage, Great British Nuclear has approved new SMR designs from six companies with a view to taking forward two as preferred competitors in the spring. The plan also provides for investment in a range of so-called Advanced Modular Reactors.
Alongside the ‘Roadmap’, the government has also launched two consultations. One is to establish a new policy on ‘siting’ nuclear plants on ‘a greater diversity of sites’ and with ‘a flexible approach to nuclear siting’. The second concerns Alternative Routes to Market for New Nuclear Projects exploring how to ease the way for new nuclear. To the NFLAs these both sound suspiciously like vehicles to favour developers by loosening the regulatory regime to enable SMRs and AMRs to make development and deployment possible on a wider range of sites, by adopting new procedures involving less planning, licensing, and consultation with elected members, community organisations and the public.
11th January 2024
On the road to nowhere… Ministers launch nuclear ‘Roadmap’ in election year
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are dismissive of the UK Government’s announcement today (11 Jan) of a ‘Roadmap’ supposedly outlining the route to undertake ‘the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years’,[1] as another example of blinkered thinking by Ministers who are taking the wrong path to achieve energy security and net zero.
NFLA Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill said of the ‘Roadmap’: “Prime Minister Sunak and his ministers seem more like a group of clueless hikers too focused on the endless trail to their nuclear nirvana to see the turning immediately enroute which leads down the renewables path and the truly sustainable electricity future that Britain needs.
“Those with a cynical bent may be inclined to believe that its launch may not be coincidental in what is likely to be an election year as it represents a mantra of aspirations that will appeal to a certain voter base – two pointed references to Churchill are made by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho in the preamble – but is nonetheless completely unaffordable. How can a vast programme of nuclear new build costing hundreds of billions of pounds be paid for, when the HS2 railway programme was curtailed on grounds of cost?
“Despite several academic reports having been published in recent months outlining how the UK can meet its electricity needs through renewables [2,3,4] this government appears intent to once more trod the route taken by many Ministers before them – the route of greatest resistance – to the nuclear never-never.
“A plan based upon generation by a range of green technologies, coupled with energy efficiency measures and storage solutions, would be far quicker, far cheaper, and create many jobs to achieve the government’s stated goals of achieving energy security and net zero for the nation.”
The ‘Civil Nuclear Roadmap’ recommits the government to building a fleet of nuclear reactors capable of producing 24GW by 2050, around a quarter of electricity demand. Approval will be given for one to two reactors every five years between 2030 and 2044, a rate far faster than historic trends. The plan is predicated upon building a third large-scale plant alongside Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. This would most likely be located at Wylfa in North Wales, which was ‘talked up’ by Prime Minister Sunak in a recent interview with BBC Wales as ‘a fantastic site’.[5]
Government ministers are also wedded to investment in so-called Small Modular Reactors, which may be built at existing or former nuclear sites or co-located alongside large industrial consumers. A ‘competition’ is currently being held by a new company specifically created to take forward the government’s SMR ambitions. In the initial stage, Great British Nuclear has approved new SMR designs from six companies with a view to taking forward two as preferred competitors in the spring. The plan also provides for investment in a range of so-called Advanced Modular Reactors.
Alongside the ‘Roadmap’, the government has also launched two consultations. One is to establish a new policy on ‘siting’ nuclear plants on ‘a greater diversity of sites’ and with ‘a flexible approach to nuclear siting’. The second concerns Alternative Routes to Market for New Nuclear Projects exploring how to ease the way for new nuclear. To the NFLAs these both sound suspiciously like vehicles to favour developers by loosening the regulatory regime to enable SMRs and AMRs to make development and deployment possible on a wider range of sites, by adopting new procedures involving less planning, licensing, and consultation with elected members, community organisations and the public.
A third consultation on the taxonomy of nuclear projects, to declare nuclear a ‘green’ energy source to facilitate investment, and the publication of the government’s response to the consultation on managing radioactive waste are promised, but these have already been long-delayed.
But all is not ‘rosy’ in their nuclear garden.
Both the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C plants will be built and operated by EDF, a French state- owned company which is in dire financial trouble and is faced with the diversion of needing to make further significant investment in existing and new nuclear plants at home. Hinkley Point C, which is currently under construction in Somerset, is behind schedule and massively over budget. In 2016, EDF estimated the cost of building the plant at £18 billion, this budget has now mushroomed to £33 billion at current prices. The enterprise was a partnership with CGN, a Chinese state-owned nuclear company, which agreed to take a 33.5 percent stake, but which last month declined to put any more money into the project after meeting its contracted share, putting more financial pressure on EDF.[6]
The date of first generation has also been constantly pushed back, with the latest official estimate that generation from reactor one will start in the summer of 2027 and from reactor two one year later. However, it is interesting to note that both The Daily Telegraph[7] and now The Guardian[8] have recently printed that generation will not actually begin until the 2030’s. Even the road map is non-specific pledging only to monitor developments so generation ‘can come online later this decade’.
At Sizewell C, EDF’s partners, CGN, were forced out on a tide of anti-Chinese sentiment and the French and British Governments instead agreed to take a fifty percent stake. £1.2 billion of UK taxpayers’ money has already been poured in, whilst Ministers seek private investment from the money markets to enable them to reduce the government’s stake. Eager to move things on, in the ‘Roadmap’ Ministers have pledged to arrive at a Financial Investment Decision ‘before the end of this Parliament’ and to hold a future consultation on taxonomy, but this will not make money materialise.
For whilst ministers and certain sections of the media talk of the budget as being as low as £20 billion, this seems fanciful given the additional engineering challenges attached to development at the Suffolk site and the established runaway cost of Sizewell’s older sister at Hinkley Point C, and respected academics, such as Professor Stephen Thomas at the University of Greenwich, have calculated that the eventual cost could be over twice that. Although there has rumours of interest in investment from Middle East sovereignty funds and Centrica, nothing of substance has so far materialised, and investors may baulk at the cost.
Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C would both be equipped with the EPR, the European Pressurised Reactor, a design with a chequered history. One EPR in China was offline for many months following an accident and others in Finland and France have, or are being, delivered very late, well over budget and with a series of ‘teething troubles’. Even EDF’s former Chief Executive Henri Proglio, in December 2022 told a hearing of the French National Assembly in exasperation that: “The EPR is too complicated, almost unbuildable. We see the result today.”[9]
Interest in Wylfa has been expressed by American nuclear engineering companies Westinghouse and Bechtel, whose performance has proven to be lamentable at the VC Summer and Vogtle 3 nuclear projects in the United States. In South Carolina, a new nuclear project ended in a fiasco, with a corporate bankruptcy, prosecutions for fraud, and an inoperable plant which amounted to a ‘hole in the ground which had to be filled in’ at an estimated cost of up to $9 billion to state taxpayers.[10] Whilst in Georgia, Vogtle 3 has just begun operations after a six-year delay and with a $30 billion price tag.[11] More likely to coalesce is an interest from KEPCO, the South Korean nuclear company, which signed a commercial partnership agreement alongside the recent state visit paid to the UK by the South Korean President.
On the SMR front, only two of the six potential designs have so far been entered into the Generic Design Assessment process managed by the Office of Nuclear Regulation. The government have pledged to speed this process up but may face pushback from the regulators. Although the ‘Roadmap’ specifies 2029 as the target date for investment decision making, we are still at an early stage with the six designs still technically unproven and, as shown by NuScale’s recent experience in Utah, financially uncertain. As to the supposedly Advanced Modular Reactor designs, these are mostly rehashed concepts first developed in the aftermath of the Second World War, tried previously, and found wanting.
In describing the ‘road’ that Ministers have ‘mapped’ out, NFLA Chair Cllr Lawrence O’Neill added:
“This is indeed a rocky road involving dependency on foreign investment, foreign technologies, and, yes until at least 2030, Russian uranium; failed or uncertain reactor designs; the uncertain risk of accidents; the most certain generation of radioactive waste; and the massive cost of managing both it and the decommissioning of old plants. And reliance on nuclear will mean creating an energy network of potential ‘dirty bombs’ that will be a prime target for terrorists and hostile state actors in time of war.
“Nonetheless these Whitehall hikers are heedless, for ultimately it will be electricity consumers and taxpayers who will pick up the tab for their folly with new plants funded through the imposition of a ‘nuclear tax’ on bills through the Regulated Asset Model; through paying higher metered prices for the electricity generated by nuclear plants; by paying for the cost of decommissioning the old nuclear plants; and by bankrolling the ongoing management of the resultant nuclear waste.
“These costs will be especially burdensome for low-income households already faced with huge energy bills and would be iniquitous to consumers in my own native Scotland which has so robustly rejected nuclear.”
Ends//… For further information please contact the NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, by email at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
References: ……………………………………………………….
Commission decision a ‘gut-punch’, so years-long battle over radioactive waste mound will continue
“You cannot sit there and tell me that over the next 550 years nothing is going to leach out of this mound and get in and make its way into the surrounding environment and waterways.” —Kebaowek First Nation Councillor Justin Roy
By Shari Narine
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Windspeaker.com 12 Jan 24
Kebaowek First Nation is considering legal action now that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has given the go ahead to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to construct a Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) for solid low-level radioactive waste at its Chalk River Laboratories site on traditional unceded Algonquin territory.
“The big thing being discussed right now is pushing for a judicial review of the project. Just based on all of our environmental findings and the impacts that could be shown, we strongly believe we’d have a good case for this,” said Kebaowek First Nation Councillor Justin Roy.
Next steps will be decided once the legal team has fully reviewed the 169-page decision from the commission, which was released Jan. 9, he says.
The commission ruled it was confident that the NSDF project, an engineered containment mound for up to a million tonnes of radioactive and hazardous waste, was “not likely to cause significant adverse effects with respect to Aboriginal peoples.”
The containment mound is to be located 1.1 km from the Ottawa River on a bedrock ridge. The Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River) is sacred to the Algonquin people. The Chalk River site is also close to the sacred Algonquin sites of Oiseau Rock and Baptism Point.
The commission concluded “the design of the NSDF project is robust, supported by a strong safety case, able to meet its required design life, and sufficient to withstand severe weather events, seismic activity, and the effects of climate change.”
Roy calls the decision a “gut punch” but admits he is not surprised.
What does surprise him, however, is that the decision states that CNL adequately undertook a duty to consult with First Nations.
“I find that hard to believe when you have 10 of 11 Algonquin communities in direct opposition to the project. After everything that we’ve done over the last number of years and everything that we presented at last year’s hearing and then even in the hearing this last August, we’re just falling on deaf ears once again,” said Roy.
On June 9, the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan signed a long-term relationship agreement with CNL and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, another nuclear organization. The agreement establishes a working group with representatives from all three parties.
The commission held that the disposal facility was also “not likely to cause significant adverse effects” when it came to fish and fish habitat, aquatic species at risk, migratory birds, or federal lands.
“We have inherent rights to our unceded Algonquin territory and that means we need to protect everything that encompasses that territory, from the environment, the trees, the land, the air, the water and all the living species that make up our Algonquin territory,” said Roy.
Algonquin people are on the ground, he said, hunting, fishing and picking berries and “were able to show that there are going to be plenty of environmental impacts and, especially, species at risk that are going to be affected by this.”……………………………………………………………… https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/commission-decision-gut-punch-so-years-long-battle-over-radioactive-waste
IG report finds Pentagon failed to account for more than $1B in weapons sent to Ukraine
Pentagon finds nearly 40,000 weapons sent to Ukraine were not properly tracked
By Danielle Wallace , Liz Friden Fox News, 11 Jan 24
A new Department of Defense Inspector General report released Thursday finds more than $1 billion worth of weapons sent to Ukraine were not properly tracked by U.S. defense officials.
The DOD IG has personnel stationed in Ukraine and is investigating with its Defense Criminal Investigative Service allegations of diversion of weapons. For now, the IG says, “It was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance.”
The weapons in question are small and include shoulder-fired missiles, one-way attack drones and night-vision devices.
“From a monetary perspective, the delinquent serial numbers account for more than $1.005 billion of the total $1.699 billion (59 percent of the total value) of EEUM‑designated defense articles as of June 2, 2023,” the report says. “Until those challenges are resolved, the DoD will not be able to fully account for all of the more than $1.699 billion in EEUM‑designated defense articles provided to Ukraine.”
As Congress weighs sending more U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, a growing number of lawmakers are demanding greater oversight. ……………………………………………….. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ig-report-finds-pentagon-failed-account-more-1b-weapons-sent-ukraine
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
- Hokuriku Electric Power reported second oil leak at Shika nuclear power station
Daily Mail, By JAMES CALLERY, 12 January 2024
A Japanese nuclear power station has admitted that 20,000 litres of oil leaked when 10ft tsunami waves slammed into the plant after the 7.6-magnitude New Year’s Day earthquake.
Shika nuclear power plant, which contains two reactors, was hit by the huge waves shortly after the powerful earthquake struck the central Ishikawa region on January 1.
Around 19,900 litres of insulating oil leaked after the transformers in the two nuclear reactors were damaged in the quake, Hokurika Electric Power, which runs the facility, said. A second oil leak was reported yesterday, raising yet more safety fears.
Water used to cool spent fuel rods was spilt and the plant’s electricity power was temporarily knocked out as a result of the 7.6-magnitude quake, which killed more than 200 people.
Though Hokuriku Electric claims that no that radiation leaked from the plant, a small number of nearby monitoring stations were taken offline by the earthquake, raising fears that there could in fact be more damage.
Nobuhiko Ban, a safety panel member at Japan’s nuclear watchdog NRA, said this is a ‘huge problem’ and proposed utilising drones and aircraft to measure radiation levels until the operator’s monitoring stations could be repaired………………………………………………………………………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12951991/Japanese-nuclear-power-station-admits-10ft-tsunami-waves-slammed-plant-7-6-magnitude-New-Years-Day-earthquake-facility-battles-contain-oil-leaks-amid-fears-safety.html
Ayrshire radiation highlighted as Labour’s nuclear support attacked
12th January
SCOTTISH Labour have been called out for their support of nuclear energy as
an MP warned of the risks of radioactivity in parts of the country. Allan
Dorans, the MP for Ayr said parts of his constituency were being
contaminated by radioactive waste from the Sellafield reprocessing plant in
Cumbria.
He highlighted research which found that shellfish caught off the
Ayrshire coast at Maidens, in the extreme west of his constituency,
contained radiation at a level which would mean it would be illegal for
sale in Japan.
It comes as the Government yesterday unveiled new plans for
what it called the “biggest nuclear expansion in 70 years”. Catches,
including the shells of mussels, cockles and winkles made off the Ayrshire
coast, which is downstream from Sellafield, were found to contain
“significant” levels of radiation in a 2015 study.
Labour are committed
to nuclear energy, with party leader Keir Starmer using a speech last
summer to slam the Government for stalling the UK’s progress on setting up
new atomic power plans and to pledge if in power he would invest in the
energy source. But concerns have been raised about its safety, with critics
pointing to the possibility of leaks or major breakdowns like Chernobyl or
Fukushima.
The National 12th Jan 2024
Allan Dorans: Scottish Labour’s support for nuclear fuel poses a risk
THE Labour candidate for the Central Ayrshire constituency at the next
General Election is supported by the GMB Scotland trade union. The GMB is a
champion of the nuclear fuels industry and of nuclear weapons.
The Labour candidate for my constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock will follow the
UK Labour Party line which supports Trident and is calling for new nuclear
power stations in Scotland.
My party, the SNP, is firmly opposed to both.
Just last month, The Guardian released a video explaining why the
Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, a short distance down the
coast from my constituency and upstream from it, is “Europe’s most
dangerous industrial site”, pointing out that Sellafield has failed to
contain numerous threats, including a cybersecurity breach by groups linked
to Russia and China and of growing physical cracks in its “most hazardous
facility”. In 2016, researchers at Glasgow University reported
“enhanced” radioactivity levels, in shellfish catches, at a number of
coastal locations in Cumbria, near the Sellafield plant, and on the west
coast of Scotland, including the village of Maidens, in my Ayrshire
constituency.
The National 12th Jan 2024
Government remains committed to Sizewell C timetable before a generalelection.
The Government remains committed to revealing a timetable for
investing in the new nuclear power station at Sizewell C before a general
election, a minister has said. Energy minister Andrew Bowie faced calls
from Labour to reveal the timetable for a final investment decision in the
Suffolk power station before the end of the Parliament.
Labour said the roadmap was “two years later” than promised and “still leaves a
number of unanswered questions about how the Government intends on turning
warm words into practical action”. Shadow business minister Sarah Jones
said: “It is all well and good talking about commitments to new stations
in the next Parliament but can he tell us the timetable for Sizewell C in
its final investment decision? “The Government promised to have a final
investment decision by the end of this Parliament so can he give a
categorical promise today that that will be done? Mr Bowie replied: “She
asks about the final investment decision on Sizewell C, we remain committed
to making that decision by the end of this Parliament, and in fact on
Hinkley Point C we are very proud of the progress that is being made.
Press & Journal 11th Jan 2024
TODAY. New heights of folly as UK government releases its Civil Nuclear Roadmap.
When Rishi Sunak rose to the political throne in Britain, I thought: ”Well, of the stupid Tories, at least he’s probably less stupid than the rest of them”.
Well, now I wonder. With an election due by early 2025, surely Sunak and co. are not planning upon political suicide?
So I can only conclude that Sunak is as thick as a brick.
He’s launched the Civil Nuclear Roadmap for UK to increase nuclear generation by up to four times to 24GW by 2050. The Prime Minister said: “Nuclear is the perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain – it’s green, cheaper in the long term and will ensure the UK’s energy security for the long-term.” “This is the right long-term decision and is the next step in our commitment to nuclear power”
The UK intends to build up to eight new reactors, and will invest up to £300 million into producing the HALEU fuel required for new high-tech reactors, and which currently is only commercially produced in Russia.
And there’ll be a fleet of “small modular reactors” to be .built across Britain.
Sounds great, don’t it?
BUT:
Large nuclear reactors. The cost of Hinkley Point C has spiralled to £33bn, a 30 per cent increase from 2015 when it forecast the cost at £25-£26bn. Sizewell C has not yet received a final investment decision.
Six reactors on three sites have been shut down since 2021 and will be need expensive dismantlement
Most of the UK’s 9 functioning nuclear reactors are nearing the end of their operating lives, although 2 of them Heysham 1 and Hartlepool are to be extended.
Small Nuclear Reactors. Regulation and planning rules will be loosened . A developer-led approach will replace previous rules. Rather than ministers specifying sites, developers will be asked to identify locations for small nuclear reactors .
Nuclear plants will be ruled out in line with “population density” and “proximity to military activities” . But apart from those considerations, “All other criteria willbe discretionary, including size, flood risk, proximity to civil airports, the natural beauty, ecological importance or cultural heritage of the site. ”
Divorced from reality? Does Rishi Sunak not know what happened to the USA’s one and only small nuclear reactor project – the rapid decline and fall of the NuScale enterprise?
The mainstream media faithfully touts Rishi Sunak’s nuclear plans. But investors and the general public are not that gullible.
I think it more likely that the Nuclear Roadmap will prove the antidote to a Tory government for 2025
The Case for Genocide
A ruling by the court could be years away. But South Africa is asking for provisional measures that would demand Israel cease its military assault – in essence a permanent ceasefire. This decision could come within two or three weeks.
The International Court of Justice may be all that stands between the Palestinians in Gaza and genocide.
By Chris Hedges /ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/12/chris-hedges-the-case-for-genocide/
The exhaustive 84-page brief submitted by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) charging Israel with genocide is hard to refute. Israel’s campaign of indiscriminate killing, wholesale destruction of infrastructure, including housing, hospitals and water treatment plants, along with its use of starvation as a weapon, accompanied by genocidal rhetoric from its political and military leaders who speak of destroying Gaza and ethnically cleansing the 2.3 million Palestinians, makes a strong case against Israel for genocide.
Israel’s smearing of South Africa as “the legal arm” of Hamas exemplifies the bankruptcy of its defense, a smear replicated by those who claim that demonstrations held to call for a ceasefire and protect Palestinian human rights are “anti-Semitic.” Israel, its genocide live streamed to the world, has no substantial counter argument.
But that does not mean the judges on the court will rule in South Africa’s favor. The pressure the U.S. will bring – Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called the South African charges “meritless” – on the judges, drawn from the member states of the U.N., will be intense.
A ruling of genocide is a stain that Israel – which weaponizes the Holocaust to justify its brutalization of the Palestinians – would find hard to remove. It would undercut Israel’s insistence that Jews are eternal victims. It would shatter the justification for Israel’s indiscriminate killing of unarmed Palestinians and construction of the world’s largest open air prison in Gaza, along with the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It would sweep away the immunity to criticism enjoyed by the Israel lobby and its Zionist supporters in the U.S., who have successfully equated criticisms of the “Jewish State” and support for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism.
Over 23,700 Palestinians, including over 10,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas and other resistance fighters breached the security barriers around Gaza. Some 1,200 people were killed – there is strong evidence that some of the victims were killed by Israeli tank crews and helicopter pilots that intentionally targeted the some 200 hostages along with their captors. Thousands more Palestinians are missing, presumed buried under the rubble. Israeli attacks have left over 60,000 Palestinians wounded and maimed, the majority of them women and children. Thousands more Palestinian civilians, including children, have been arrested, blindfolded, numbered, beaten, forced to strip to their underwear, loaded onto trucks and transported to unknown locations.
A ruling by the court could be years away. But South Africa is asking for provisional measures that would demand Israel cease its military assault – in essence a permanent ceasefire. This decision could come within two or three weeks. It is a decision that is not based on the final ruling by the court, but on the merits of the case brought by South Africa. The court would not, by demanding Israel end its hostilities in Gaza, define the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocide. It would confirm that there is the possibility of genocide, what the South African lawyers call acts that are “genocidal in character.”
The case will not be determined by the documentation of specific crimes, even those defined as war crimes. It will be determined by genocidal intent – the intent to eradicate in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group – as defined in the Genocide Convention.
These acts collectively include the targeting of refugee camps and other densely packed civilian areas with 2,000-pound bombs, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the destruction of the health care system and its effects on children and pregnant women – the U.N. estimates there are around 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, and that more than 160 babies are delivered every day – as well as repeated genocidal statements by leading Israeli politicians and generals.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu equated Gaza with Amalek, a nation hostile to the Israelites in the Bible, and cited the Biblical injunction to kill every Amalek man, woman, child or animal. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians “human animals.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated, as the South African lawyers told the court, that everybody in Gaza is responsible for what happened on Oct. 7 because they voted for Hamas, although half the population in Gaza are children who are too young to vote. But even if the entire population of Gaza did vote for Hamas this does not make them a legitimate military target. They are still, under the rules of war, civilians, and entitled to protection. They are also entitled under international law to resist their occupation via armed struggle.
The South African lawyers, who compared Israel’s crimes with those carried out by the apartheid regime in South Africa, showed the court a video of Israeli soldiers celebrating and calling for the death of Palestinians – they sang as they danced “There are no uninvolved civilians” – as evidence that genocidal intent descends from the top to the bottom of the Israeli war machine and political system. They provided the court with photos of mass graves where bodies were buried “often unidentified.” No one – including newborns – was spared, the South African lawyer Adila Hassim, Senior Counsel, explained to the court.
The South African lawyers told the court the “first genocidal act is mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza.” The second genocidal act, they stated, is the serious bodily or mental harm inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza in violation of Article 2B of the Genocide Convention. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another lawyer and legal scholar representing South Africa, argued that “Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”
Lior Haiat, spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called Thursday’s three hour hearing one of the “greatest shows of hypocrisy in history, compounded by a series of false and baseless claims.” He accused South Africa of seeking to allow Hamas to return to Israel to “commit war crimes.”
Israeli jurists, in their response on Friday, called the South African charges “unfounded, “absurd” and amounting to “libel.” Israel’s legal team said it had – despite U.N. reports of widespread starvation and infectious diseases from a breakdown in sanitation and shortage of clean water – not impeded humanitarian assistance. Israel defended attacks on hospitals, calling them “Hamas command centers.” It told the court it was acting in self-defense. “The inevitable fatalities and human suffering of any conflict is not of itself a pattern of conduct that plausibly shows genocidal intent,” said Christopher Staker, a barrister for Israel.
Israeli leaders accuse Hamas with carrying out genocide, although legally if you are the victims of genocide you are not permitted to commit genocide. Hamas is also not a state. It is not, therefore, a party to the Genocide Convention. The Hague, for this reason, has no jurisdiction over the organization. Israel also claims the Palestinians are warned to evacuate areas that will come under attack and provided with “safe areas,” although as the South African lawyers documented, “safe areas” are routinely bombed by Israel with numerous civilian casualties.
Israel and the Biden administration intend to prevent any temporary injunction by the court, not because the court can force Israel to halt its military assaults, but because of the optics, which are already disastrous. The ICJ’s ruling depends on the Security Council for enforcement – which given the veto power by the U.S., renders any ruling against Israel moot. The second objective of the Biden administration is to make sure Israel is not found guilty of committing genocide. It will be unrelenting in this campaign, heavily pressuring the governments that have jurists on the court not to find Israel guilty. Russia and China, who have jurists in The Hague, are battling their own charges of genocide and may decide it is not in their interests to find Israel guilty.
The Biden administration is playing a very cynical game. It insists it is trying to halt what, by its own admission, is Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians, while bypassing Congress to speed up the supply of weapons to Israel, including “dumb” bombs. It insists it wants the fighting in Gaza to end while it vetoes ceasefire resolutions at the U.N. It insists it upholds the rule of law while it subverts the legal mechanism that can halt the genocide.
Cynicism pervades every word Biden and Blinken utter. This cynicism extends to us. Our revulsion for Donald Trump, the Biden White House believes, will impel us to keep Biden in office. On any other issue this might be the case. But it cannot be the case with genocide.
Genocide is not a political problem. It is a moral one. We cannot, no matter what the cost, support those who commit or are accomplices to genocide. Genocide is the crime of all crimes. It is the purest expression of evil. We must stand unequivocally with Palestinians and the jurists from South Africa. We must demand justice. We must hold Biden accountable for the genocide in Gaza.
Aw gee! Did ya know that Australia is partnering USA in making multiple strikes on Yemen?
Yeah. It’s happened already. And many thanks to the American media (CNN) for letting me know. Not that it was discussed in the Australian Parliament or anything like that. But don’t worry. Our Defence Minister Richard Marles has it all in hand. I believe that he’s going to make an announcement to the Australian public soon. So no need to worry. The Labor government has everything in had, just as the Liberal government under John Howard did, in 2003, when we joined USA to bomb Iraq, without consulting Parliament.
Not a peep out of our Prime Minister yet. I wonder if the Australian media will bother to cover it?
UK’s Nuclear Roadmap is Pure Fantasy
11th January 2024, http://stophinkley.org/press-releases/nuclear-roadmap-is-pure-fantasy/
The Stop Hinkley Campaign has described the Government’s so-called Nuclear Roadmap as “pure fantasy”.
The Roadmap majors on plans to explore the possibility of building another large-scale power plant as big as Hinkley Point C. Anglesey and Cumbria are suggested as possible sites. But these sites were designated twelve and a half years ago and have come to nothing. The problem is finding somebody willing to invest the huge sums of money required for these risky projects. SSE, Iberdrola, Engie and Toshiba have already rejected the idea of investing in Moorside in Cumbria. And RWE, Eon and Hitachi have given up on Wylfa on Anglesey.
The Financial Times reports today that the Government and EDF might be able to raise £20bn to fund Sizewell C by end of this year. This looks as though it will probably include investment from the United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund. So, we have basically jumped out of a Chinese frying pan into a UAE fire.
Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Roy Pumfrey said:
“This plan is yet another vague wish-list from the Government. It is pure fantasy. Many people will be tempted to echo Beryl from Bristol’s famous phrase “Not another one!” There is nothing here which get us any closer to the important target of zero carbon electricity by 2035. We need to rapidly ramp up energy efficiency and home refurbishments – something we could be doing right now that would save people money.
Global renewable energy capacity grew by the fastest pace recorded in the last 20 years last year, but it’s still not fast enough. Britain is fast losing its lead in this area, thanks to Government bungling and too much focus on fantasy nuclear projects.”
He continued:
“The two reactors being built at Hinkley Point C are now unlikely to be generating electricity until 2028 and 2029 at the earliest and the cost is likely to reach £33bn. Our climate simply doesn’t have the time to wait around for these expensive white elephants to come on-line.
We need to get on with energy efficiency and renewable developments right now.”
Biden’s $582 Million Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia. Can It Be Blocked?
BY CHARLES PIERSON, https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/11/bidens-582-million-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia-can-it-be-blocked/
On December 24, 2023, the Biden Administration announced a $582 million arms sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Three Congressional resolutions aim at blocking the sale.
S.Res. 109,[1] which Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) introduced on March 15, 2023, invokes a little-used section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.[2] Section 502B bars the US from providing “security assistance,” including arms sales, to any country with a “consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”[3] The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia certainly fits that requirement.
502B allows Congress to request that the White House produce a report on a foreign government’s human rights record. A 502B report on Saudi Arabia[4] would focus on (1) Saudi Arabia’s human rights record; and (2) Saudi conduct with respect to Yemen, particularly the Kingdom’s disproportionate killing of civilians (which the US has aided).[5] If the Executive fails to produce the report within 30 days all security assistance to the country in question stops automatically.[6]
There are exceptions. Even if the Executive does not produce a report within 30 days security assistance can continue if the Secretary of State determines that “extraordinary circumstances” exist;[7] or, if in the Secretary’s opinion, continuing the assistance is in the US “national interest”;[8] or, the if president determines that there has been a significant improvement in the country’s human rights practices.[9] These exceptions are big enough to drive a truck through and could allow the president to evade enforcing the law. Whether Congress approves S.Res. 109 or not may not make a difference.
Biden Promises to End US Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
Even before he was elected, Biden promised to reevaluate the US-Saudi relationship.
This was in part a reaction to the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been chopped up by a bone cutter at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Khashoggi’s murder was ordered by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. During the November 20, 2019 Democratic presidential debate, Biden called Saudi Arabia an international “pariah” and vowed that the US would no longer sell weapons to the Saudis.
Biden condemned arms sales to Saudi Arabia in his first major foreign policy speech as president on February 4, 2021. Biden announced that he was “ending all support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” Pay close attention to that wording.
Biden’s Empty Promises
The Biden Administration has not treated Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.” Biden even visited the crown prince on July 15, 2022, in hopes of persuading Bin Salman to boost oil production.
And the weapons continued to flow. For the first six months of Biden’s presidency there were no US arms sales to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. In January 2021, the administration announced a temporary freeze on the Trump Administration’s pending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. There was less to this move than met the eye. As the Wall Street Journal noted: “U.S. officials said it isn’t unusual for a new administration to review arms sales approved by a predecessor, and that despite the pause, many of the transactions are likely to ultimately go forward.”
Then on August 2, 2021 the Biden Administration announced $5 billion in arms contracts to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This was followed by a $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia which was announced on November 21, 2021.
On December 7, the US Senate voted 30-67 against a joint resolution (S.J. Res. 31) which would have blocked the sale.
Biden said during his February 4 speech that he was “ending all support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” The key word here is “offensive.” Which weapons are “offensive” and which “defensive”? The Biden Administration won’t say and has rebuffed Congressional attempts to find out. Many weapons can be used for either defense or offense. Whenever the Biden White House sells arms to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates it simply asserts that they will be used for defense, such as defense against Iran or the Houthis.
This brings us to the $582 million sale announced by the Administration on December 24, 2023. S.Res. 109 would block this sale, along with all other arms sales and security assistance to Saudi Arabia. Two other resolutions target only the $582 million sale. The two resolutions are S.J. Res. 53 , introduced on Dec. 11, 2023 by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and H.J. Res. 106 , introduced on January 2, 2024 by Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN-5). Representative Omar has said: “It is simply unconscionable to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia while they continue to kill and torture dissidents and support modern-day slavery.” Omar has also excoriated Saudi Arabia’s “systematic murder, rape, and torture of [hundreds of Ethiopian refugees]” who were attempting to enter Saudi Arabia from Yemen.[10]
S.Res. 109 has been gathering dust since March 2023 without a vote. Let’s hope that these two new resolutions have more luck.
Could Israel’s War in Gaza Spiral Into a Regional War?
Since the early days of this war, the conflict has not been contained to Gaza. Is a regional conflict with Iran, Hezbollah, and other actors on the horizon?
SCHEERPOST, By Maximillian Alvarez and Chris Hedges / The Real News Network 12 Jan 24
Over three months into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, there is little hope the carnage will stop anytime soon—and with each passing day, the danger of Israel’s war on Gaza spiraling into a larger regional conflict increases. The devastation in Gaza is unlike anything seen in the 21st century, but Israel’s military strikes—like last week’s assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, a top leader of Hamas, in Lebanon—have not been limited to Palestine alone.
At the same time, armed resistance groups in Iraq and Syria have launched hundreds of attacks on US bases, confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah has created a simmering northern front along the Lebanese border, and Yemen’s blockade of the Red Sea has created an international crisis for shipping and trade.
Should any of these fronts open into a new facet of this war, it could lead to the unraveling of the entire region, with a very real possibility of a showdown between Israel and the US against Iran. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with former war correspondent Chris Hedges on the slippery slope to a regional war.
TRANSCRIPT……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Chris Hedges: At this particular moment, I don’t think we’re that close. And that’s because Iran, in particular, but also Hezbollah, do not want a conflict with Israel…………………………… the longer the conflict goes on in Gaza, the more things can spiral out of control.
………………………………. But it could happen, and if it does, it will be absolutely catastrophic. Because a war with Iran, throughout the region, will not be interpreted as simply a war with Iran, it’ll be interpreted as a war against Shiism and 60% of Iraq is Shia, Bahrain, 3 million Shias in Saudi Arabia. So it will be interpreted by Shia, the Shiites, as a religious war and will immediately extend beyond the borders of Iran itself.
The big question in Gaza, we know what the Israeli goal is, whether they can achieve it or not, is an unknown. They want to push the 2.2, 2.3 million Palestinians out. They want them ethnically cleansed……………………………………………… really, the goal of Israel is to offer the Palestinians a choice between death by bombs, bullets, infectious diseases or exposure, or leaving Gaza.
Now, the problem that Israel has run into, although Anthony Blinken tried to run interference, is that none of the countries, especially Egypt which borders Gaza to the south, is willing to accept the Palestinians. …………………………………………………… And now we know, and this has been public, by the Netanyahu government, they are reaching out to countries in Africa and South America to take the Palestinians and offering them, reportedly, financial inducements to do so.
…………………. Netanyahu and his government is counting on that restraint to prevent a wider conflict. I read The New York Times this morning, it was kind of a remarkable front page story about all of the provocations that were being carried out by Iran. In fact, it’s the complete opposite, the provocations are carried out by Israel. And the nation that has exercised, up until this point, considerable restraint is Iran.
………………………………………………. Well, in the case of Iran and Hezbollah, it’s the fact that they don’t want to go into an open conflict with Israel because that will also probably, in the case of Iran, include a direct conflict with the United States. Netanyahu has long wanted to attack Iran, in particular the nuclear sites in Iran, and he has periodically made pushes to get the United States involved.
…………………. the push by Netanyahu is to get the United States to take out the aerial defense systems and then allow Israeli jets to bomb in particular nuclear sites. But if they bomb those sites, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of deaths, Iranian deaths.
…………………………………………………….. the longer Israel carries out these kinds of strikes, the more those provocations take place, the closer we come… despite a reluctance on the part of Iran and Hezbollah, the closer we come to a regional conflict.
……………………………………………………………… I think in the end, it’s really totally dependent on how far Israel goes. And if they do not show restraint, then I could see it beginning with Hezbollah. And once Hezbollah is actively engaged, especially if Israel does make a ground incursion into Lebanon, then you bring Iran a few steps closer to being involved in a conflict. And at that point, it becomes a regional conflict and very, very dangerous.
…………………………………………………… , the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. Biden is one of the largest recipients of Israel lobby aid. Both parties are completely wedded to Israel. Our intelligence services are integrated with the Israeli. Israel is the 10th largest arms exporter in the world. So it’s totally, it’s training our police forces. So I think, especially because it’s Israel, it doesn’t really matter what the public and all these demonstrations, which have been very heartening to people like myself, it doesn’t matter. Especially, it’s worse because it’s Israel. So if somehow there began to be a conflict between Iran and Israel, I have little doubt that we would intervene. And at that point, we’re at war with Iran………. https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/12/could-israels-war-in-gaza-spiral-into-a-regional-war/
Sizewell C: UK and France-owned EDF look to raise £20bn for Suffolk nuclear site
The UK government and EDF energy has announced its bid to raise £20bn for an extension to EDF’s nuclear facility in Suffolk.
The British government and the French-owned energy company EDF plan to build the UK’s second-largest power station, Sizewell C, on the Suffolk site.
They hope to raise the money by the end of 2024, the energy minister responsible for the sector told the Financial Times.
Ministers approved the construction of the building in 2022 after a decade of consultations. It is expected to take a further decade to build, although delays and high costs at sister plant Hinkley Point C suggest that it may take even longer.
“It’s a phenomenal sum of money but we are genuinely very pleased and very positive about the reaction we have had through the capital-raising process so far,” Andrew Bowie told the Financial Times. “We are very much on track.”
The UK government has already committed £1.2bn to the project, while a UAE sovereign wealth fund is among several potential investors.
On Thursday, the UK government launched its £300m civil nuclear road map in the “biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years”, which restates its aim to build up the UK’s supply of nuclear energy to 24GW by 2024…………………… more https://www.cityam.com/sizewell-c-uk-and-france-owned-edf-look-to-raise-20bn-for-suffolk-nuclear-site/
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/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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