Disavow Dumping

Received from Stop Hinkley:

Councillors in the Lake District have volunteered as a potential site for a nuclear waste dump. Please sign the petition calling on them to withdraw from the process immediately. http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-nuclear-dump-in-the-lake-district

This petition is important as the Lake District is a very under-populated area and they are 

pushing the plan through because there are low numbers of locals complaining.  The Lake 

District is visited by people from all over the country and with this petition we have a voice.  

There is less than a week before the Council’s will decide if it will go ahead.

Nuclear waste storage is key to whether new nuclear waste should be produced, so it is important to the campaign to stop nuclear new build in the whole of the UK.

You can find out more about this from http://www.noend.org.uk/

Efficiency elide

Debates on UK energy policy focus almost exclusively on energy generation/production and often neglect even to mention energy saving and energy efficiency. It’s always going to be cheaper to save energy and be efficient than it is to generate it - not only does it cut household bills and increase the profitability of businesses by reducing their outgoings, it also cuts pollution rapidly, is a very good job creator, can increase comfort, cut noise levels, and can sometimes be done using materials normally thrown away...So whilst we are so wasteful of energy why consider building large numbers of new power stations of any kind? Why is our primary focus not on creating a lower energy, energy thrifty culture? Basic, already existing technologies can be used but the challenge is to combine these with thrifty attitudes and behaviours.

The energy generation debate at present often zooms in on nuclear and wind. Nuclear power is low carbon emission in operation but we’ve had it since the 1950s and it has done nothing to stop climate change. The UK currently has nuclear 16 reactors in operation at 9 different sites - and it’s had more in the past. We've come to rely on fossil fuels and population has increased as has our level and intensity of consumption but expanding nuclear power for decades - and expanding power generation by all methods - has been part of unsustainable plans for industrial and economic expansion. This attitude still prevails. Until we change from unsustainable economic expansion to properly and fully applying sustainable development - including an energy policy with energy saving and efficiency as its primary focus - then we won’t tackle economic, social and environmental problems such as climate change.

The scale at which we waste energy is vast, so the scope for energy saving is huge. For example the Energy Saving Trust said that UK households waste £1.3 billion by just leaving TVs and other electronic devices switched on... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/9355870/Energy-Saving-Trust-households-waste-1.3bn-for-leaving-gadget-switched-on.html#  . In hard economic times and with energy prices rising you'd think people would be more careful with their consumption but apparently they aren't, so we’ve made little progress towards a energy thrifty culture. Research in 2006 found the UK was top of the European energy waster league. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6075794.stm

Part of the problems is the fact that my local paper can’t even write a balanced and correct piece about nuclear power, let alone cover energy issues in the round as it should do. People are often ill-informed as a result.  Here's my case against nuclear power: http://tinyurl.com/c75rvbg .Here's  a  post arguing for energy efficiency, combined heat and power and decentralised energy: http://tinyurl.com/cxagb4o.  Some thoughts on local renewable energy developments here: http://tinyurl.com/bm5m764.

Nuclear news

The Post says 'Japan's largest industrial electronics maker has signed a £700 million deal to buy the UK's nuclear project Horizon, which will build new reactors at Wylfa, Angelsey, and Oldbury, South Gloucestershire...' (here). They should say is planning to build, subject to conditions being right and obtaining the various proper permissions.

Saying 'will build' is distinctly premature and it's bad journalism (again) from The Post not to give further details eg Hitachi has: not worked out exactly how much it would cost to build six new nuclear power plants in the UK; a government-guaranteed "strike price", or minimum price for nuclear generated power, has not yet been hammered out; it is not clear when the plants would be completed, nor who would operate them; the boiling water nuclear reactor system that Hitachi is keen to install has yet to be granted UK safety approval... http://tinyurl.com/8fn58rn

There are many ways to build energy security - most of which would generate more jobs and more efficiently and more quickly and without increasing the legacy of nuclear waste to future generations.

Nuclear no no

No-one would disagree (would they?) that burying waste from today's nuclear power stations leaves a very big set of social, economic and environmental problems for many generations to come. Since sustainability is about dealing with risks and costs now and not passing problems to future generations it therefore follows that burying nuclear waste is inherently unsustainable. The following question alone demonstrates this: with waste that can be active for thousands of yrs how can it be possible to guarantee that the institutions needed would be stable beyond periods which have so far proved to be whole lifetimes of civilisations?

Despite the logic above the UK plans to build more nuclear power stations (if the huge economic cost obstacles can be overcome) and the '...search for an underground storage site for high-level nuclear waste is likely to go ahead in Cumbria after a poll showed residents are in favour.

In Copeland, the local authority area encapsulating Sellafield [pictured], 68% of people backed entering formal talks with government on hosting the repository.

Across Cumbria as a whole, 53% are in favour and 33% opposed...'
(full report here).

Safe systems?

The Evening Post headline 'Oldbury deemed safe' is misleading as it makes no sense to declare something 'safe' ie free from risk. This is not what the assessments of UK nuclear power stations have tried to do. What does make sense is to talk about degrees of risk ie the probability occurrence of various hazards. 'No major weaknesses' in UK nuclear stations is not the same as safe - better to say that certain risks have been found to be low probability. The development of life on Earth is thought to be an extremely low probability event - but here we are!

'Safely' closing Oldbury nuclear power station costs £954m

Nearly a billion quid to close the damn thing. Taking decades, during which it produces no power whatsoever. Leaving a legacy of nuclear waste for many, many future generations. It always has been a joke to refer to nuclear as cheap, clean and green - the figures speak for themselves. It would be irrational to build more.

THE cost of decommissioning Oldbury Nuclear Power Station has been set at £954 million, latest figures have shown.

A revised document just published by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) gives the estimated sum for taking the plant out of action and clearing the site once it stops generating electricity.

But it will take about 90 years to achieve the "final end" status.

Oldbury is the oldest operating nuclear power reactor in the world, having started producing power in 1967. It has already exceeded its expected generating life by a couple of years and one of its two reactors will close down for good this summer...

Peoples message: energy saving and renewable energy not nuclear power

Message I've just received from Friends of the Earth: 21,000 of you have now signed our petition for a safe and nuclear-free future . This fantastic support for clean, green power is backed up by a recent poll. 75 per cent of people want energy saving and renewables (like wind and solar) to be Government's top energy priorities. The petition has already travelled far and wide. But with big decisions about energy coming next month we want to organise an attention-grabbing hand-in to the Government. Please send us your ideas - as big and bold as you like. The message is clear : Energy saving and renewable resources can provide all the energy the UK needs. There's no need to gamble on nuclear. So put on your thinking caps! What's the best way to get our message across to Government?

Lucas: lessons on nuclear power from the Japan disaster

The lesson from the Japanese disaster is that you can never design out every possible human error, or natural accident, or unpredictable event. The problem with nuclear power is that it’s just so inherently risky. If a catastrophe does happen, then the impacts when we’re dealing with nuclear power are uniquely catastrophic, if you like, in a way that they’re not if we were dealing with the alternatives around renewable energy and energy efficiency, and so on. Of course, all of our thoughts are with the people of Japan, and particularly with those incredibly brave people who are at the plants now trying to bring them under control, but I just think that when we’ve got alternatives that are safer and cheaper, it does raise the question as to why we would run the risk with nuclear.

-“Wave and wind energy can’t be cheaper than nuclear, can it?”

Yes it can, and it is. If you look at the documents, that’s quite clear. Sometimes it doesn’t look that way of course, because nuclear’s very clever about not putting on its books the cost of decommissioning nuclear power at the end of its life. But if you add in those nuclear decommissioning costs, then nuclear is a lot more expensive. If we’re looking in Britain at the best way of being able to meet our carbon objectives, in terms of getting our emissions down to deal with climate change and keep the lights on, then it’s far cheaper, and government’s own statistics show this, to be investing in renewable energies and energy efficiency rather than nuclear. Of course the nuclear industry right now is engaged in a massive fight-back, trying to present itself as this nice clean energy of the future. I think the situation with Fukushima just shows us that that’s not the case, and it’s never been the case.

You can’t design out unforeseen circumstances. When they built those nuclear power stations 40 years ago, they never expected an earthquake of that size. Here in Britain, just back in the 1950’s, we had storm surges which were extraordinary and killed 300 people in East Anglia – you cannot predict what’s going to come in the future, and if there are alternatives, we should be using them. If it were genuinely the case that we had to make the choice between climate change and nuclear power, then of course the situation would be different, we’d have to look at it again. That’s not the choice we’re being faced with right now. You can never “design out,” whether it’s a terrorist attack, whether it’s human error, and when you’re dealing with something that’s as inherently risky as nuclear, it doesn’t make sense to take that risk.

Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party leader, on BBC Radio Sussex – 16 Mar 2011

Nuclear emergencies in Japan

Japan has 53 nuclear power stations, making it third largest nuclear power user in the world. As a result of the earthquake and tsunami there are emergencies at 5 of them, 10% or so of the total in the country. Its incredible that nuclear stations have been built - and on a large scale - in a place where many earthquakes, large and small, often occur. Its incredible that these nuclear stations - with their systems (protected by systems) which protect systems... - have failed unsafely on this large scale. We have been told that nuclear stations are designed to do the opposite, hardly failing at all and when they fail they fail safely. Its incredible that a country leaves itself so heavily dependent on this energy source - or any single energy source. Or, given the extremely dodgy history of the nuclear industry, and given the goals that motivate industrial societies, is it so beyond belief??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12722719

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12723092

No Need for Nuclear

Been looking over this campaign website: No Need for Nuclear

Extract
This is a campaign to stop the building of new nuclear power stations.
All but one UK nuclear power stations are due to close by 2023. We think this generation of nuclear power should be the last.

Nuclear power is not necessary to meet the UK's electricity demand, it is more expensive than renewable alternatives, and is not carbon-neutral.

Action
This is a big campaign ask, since the new coalition Government has already decided that the UK nuclear industry should be allowed to grow. This means we're going to need all the help we can get in order to convince them otherwise. Please visit our activism pages to find out how you can help.

Green Party | Caroline Lucas MP makes case for nuclear cuts to save essential services

Green Party Caroline Lucas MP makes case for nuclear cuts to save essential services

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP today published a report identifying well over £100 billion of potential savings from nuclear arms projects and subsidies to the nuclear power industry.

In the report Britain’s first Green MP argues that cancelling the Trident renewal will save over £100 billion, while axing proposed new nuclear power stations will save the UK taxpayer around £8 billion in nuclear waste costs...

The report can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/b9UnqL

ENERGY Secretary Chris Huhne paved the way for a new power station at Oldbury but shelved plans for a Severn barrage for at least five years.

I'm glad to hear that the severn barrage has been shelved - its very expensive and in fact would destroy beautiful and valuable estuary ecosystems (pictured) and some land on either side too. [Interesting to read in the story below that my MP Dawn Primarolo thinks the barrage is actually a green idea - she's never understood what green action means].


The pro-nuclear stance of the Govt is wrong however because nuclear leaves an extremely expensive and extremely toxic legacy of nuclear waste for future generations. Its very much the wrong technology choice, with the prospect of large delays and cost overruns too.

While we are so very wasteful and inefficient with our energy use how can we justify building any kind of power station?

ENERGY Secretary Chris Huhne paved the way for a new power station at Oldbury but shelved plans for a Severn barrage for at least five years.

Germany's Greens second most popular party - The Irish Times - Thu, Oct 07, 2010

Germany's Greens second most popular party - The Irish Times - Thu, Oct 07, 2010

GERMANY’S GREEN Party has nosed ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD) in an opinion poll for the first time to become the country’s second most popular political party.
Some 30 years after emerging from Germany’s anti-nuclear, environmentalist and pacifist movements, the party has soared to 24 per cent support in the Forsa poll, published this morning in Stern magazine.
The SPD, with whom the Greens shared power for seven years until 2005, has slipped to just 23 per cent.

Nuclear New Build proposals in England and Wales: Have Your Say

Received the information below * from the Environment Agency. I'll be taking part in the consulation process and hope many others do likewise. No more nuclear stations should be built and existing ones phased out. Nuclear and its waste is environmentally, socially and economically unsustainable - we should be going for efficiency and renewables.

*Why are we writing to you?
The UK needs new and replacement energy infrastructure that can provide secure, reliable, low carbon electricity. The 2008 Nuclear White Paper said that nuclear power could play a vital role in this. Power companies are now planning to build new nuclear power stations in England and Wales and two sites potentially suitable are at Hinkley Point and Oldbury . We would like to tell you about our role in this process and highlight an opportunity for you to tell us what you think of the designs and our findings so far.

What is happening?
We regulate the nuclear industry on environmental matters and are currently working with the Health and Safety Executive to make sure that any new nuclear power stations would meet high standards of safety, security, environmental protection and waste management. Together we have implemented a new approach called ‘Generic Design Assessment’ (GDA) and have been assessing two new reactor designs from an early stage, in advance of site specific proposals coming forward. This enables us to identify any problems and influence the design at an early stage, before any major construction begins. We are currently assessing two different reactor designs: Westinghouse’s AP1000™ and the Areva/EDF designed UK EPR™.

What next?
As part of our GDA process, we are conducting a consultation on our findings so far. The consultation recently began on 28 June and will last sixteen weeks, closing on 18 October. We welcome your views. At the close of the consultation we will carefully consider the comments received before we reach a final decision on the acceptability of each of the two designs. We intend to publish the key issues raised during our consultation before the end of the year and to come to a view about the acceptability of the designs in June next year.

If a developer comes forward with proposals for a new nuclear power station at a specific site, they will still need to apply for and obtain all the safety, security, environmental, planning and other permits that are required before development can proceed. When considering any future applications for site specific environmental permits we will take into account all the work we have done on GDA.

How can you get involved?
You can take part by visiting the Environment Agency consultation on-line at:
http://www.consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal/ho/nuclear/gdahttps://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal
You can call 08708 506 506* and ask for a consultation document, or
send an email to: gda@environment-agency.gov.uk and request the consultation papers.
* Approximate call costs: 8p plus 6p per minute (standard landline). Please note charges will vary across telephone providers.

Nuclear station wants an extension to make more cash

Nuclear station wants an extension to make more cash

Oldbury nuclear power station is set to continue operating into next year despite previous plans to shut it down within months, it has emerged.

Officials are requesting a "fairly short" extension to its lifespan, which would generate cash that could be off-set against a £4 billion hole in the national decommissioning budget revealed yesterday by the Government.

Oldbury was due to be decommissioned in 2008 after operating for 41 years but was then given permission to run until this year.

Oldbury nuclear station has already been allowed to operate for longer than originally envisaged and designed for. This report does not tell us how much longer they are now asking for and the reason - financial - is hardly right-headed. One nuclear station operating for a 'fairly short' time is hardly likely to make much of a dent in the £4 billion black hole in the nuclear decommissiong budget. That there is such a large financial hole for such a vital operation is in itself disturbing - and adds weight to arguments against nuclear power.

Nuclear power: in a nutshell guide

This is a great film project (http://www.tennerfilms.com/) . Tenner Films is an interactive film and online project which looks at the human stories and the issues surrounding nuclear power. Thirteen short films to entertain and encourage debate have been made (the example above is my favourite so far). Eight have now been completed - check them and the rest of the project out and give the makers some feedback!

You can feedback on-line or by emailing abby@tennerfilms.com. If you would like to hear more about the project as it develops you can also join an email list. You can also join the Facebook group and follow Tenner films on Twitter!

Please pass details of this project to anyone who you think may be interested.
http://www.tennerfilms.com/

More on nuclear power:

http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-am-i-against-nuclear-power.html

http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-hinkley-nuclear-plant-likely-to-be.html

http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2009/03/nuclear-power-too-slow-to-help-solve.html

Defence and security

My response to CND, who are seeking the views of general election candidates...I'm an anti-nuclear campaigner, both nuclear weapons and nuclear power, of over 25 yrs standing. I would certainly vote against the replacement of Trident and would vote for a Nuclear Weapons Convention aimed at banning all nuclear weapons internationally.

As a Green MP I would work to:

*Ensure that the British military is only used in self defence, or as a last resort, within an international UN-led policing force;

*Improve the military to promote human security, by focusing only on defence not aggression and specialising in crisis prevention, emergency relief and conflict resolution;

*Seek binding global agreements against all weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons;

*End all export subsidies and increase controls on UK arms sales, especially to goverments who violate human rights.

Consultation on Nuclear National Policy - ends 22nd Feb

Received from Stop Hinkley: To take part in the Government consultations [on nuclear power] go to: www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk/home/ where you can also order hard copies of the consultation documents. Or call 0870 600 5533. Ask for all documents related to the nuclear policy statement and ‘justification’. Or send in your response by email to: energynpsconsultation@opm.co.uk

On the Stop Hinkley website you will find two letters addressed to Government departments. You can use them to respond to the consultations. Simply add your name and address and post to the address at the top of the letters. Alternately you can adapt them with your own words.[Also see previous blog entries*] Note: the consultation ends on 22nd February

www.stophinkley.org/EngRevu/Template%20Justification%20response.doc

www.stophinkley.org/Temporary/OPMJan2010Template.doc

Please forward this to as many people as possible and if you have any queries contact Stop www.stophinkley.org/Contact.htm

_______________________________________________

*You may find some of my previous blog entries, showing nuclear as fraught with technical and economic problems and sustainablitiy, waste and security issues useful.

New Hinkley nuclear plant: likely to be fraught with economic and technical problems

Our Government have been telling us, yet again, that quite a bit more nuclear power is needed to meet our energy needs. However, an excellent report on last nights Newsnight cast massive doubt over both the economic and the technical aspects of this technology. No British nuclear power station has ever been built on time. The reactor type planned for Hinkley Point, which will be the first of the new reactors to be built, is three years over time and billions over budget on a site in Finland – and construction has been stopped many times due safety errors of which there have been 3000 to date!!

Over confidence about this latest design and construction method from the French construction company Areva was so high that they had agreed a fixed price and a fixed date for completion – but its all ended in extra cost, extra delay, threat and dispute!!

Remember when they said that nuclear electricity would be ‘too cheap to meter’. That technical fix never transpired – and it looks very much like our Government are vastly over-optimistic about nuclear power this time too. Full Newsnight report text below:

By Meirion Jones BBC Newsnight

A Newsnight investigation suggests that UK government plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to fill the energy gap by 2020 are wildly optimistic.

The British nuclear regulator has told Newsnight that he would not hesitate to halt construction if problems emerged and that no British nuclear power station had ever been built on time.

The first of the new generation of reactors in Britain will be at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and will be a replica of the new Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) reactor currently being built in Finland by the French company, Areva.
The Finnish EPR at Olkiluoto was supposed to be the first "third generation" reactor - safe, affordable, and designed for mass production.

The reactor is three years behind schedule and billions of pounds over budget after more than 3,000 mistakes were made by the builders.

The Finnish nuclear regulator has also halted construction on at least a dozen occasions due to safety concerns.

British regulator, Kevin Allars of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), told Newsnight that he will be every bit as tough as his Finnish equivalent.

Energy promises

Earlier this year, EDF announced that by 2017 Britons would be cooking their Christmas dinners with electricity generated by a new EPR nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, and that come 2020 four reactors would be operating in time to fill any energy gap.

The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband this month issued a provisional go-ahead for ten new nuclear power stations, including Hinkley Point. EDF and Areva have until June 2011 to produce a design which will satisfy the British regulators.
But Finland's regulator, Petteri Tiippana says that the current design for the reactor at Olkiluoto is not safe because emergency circuits are not independent of normal control systems:

"If they aren't independent then the failure in the normal systems can cause a failure in the safety systems," he said.

Areva have promised to submit an improved design to the British and Finnish authorities, after which planning permission to build at each of the British sites must be applied for which is likely to take at least another year - taking us to the middle of 2012.

EDF will then have just five years to build the Hinkley Point reactor if we are to be able use its power to cook Christmas dinners in 2017.

Precedents

The last reactor built in Britain, Sizewell B in Suffolk, was completed in 1995 and took some eight years to build.

Five years have passed since Areva began work on the Finnish reactor and it will take at least another three years to finish the job - eight years in total.
Newsnight asked the man in charge of regulating new nuclear stations here, Kevin Allars of the NII, if any nuclear power station had every been delivered on time in the UK.

"No," was his response.

The Finnish regulator, Mr Tiippana, says it is difficult to deliver these projects on schedule because builders are not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction sites since so few new reactors have been built in recent years.

Mr Tiippana says that if construction workers do not have the right concrete to build the foundations they will use whatever is to hand, if it is awkward to put a radiation sensor where it should be they will be tempted to put it somewhere else, if it is easier to drill holes in the radiation containment vessel they will do it.

All these mistakes occurred in the construction of the Finnish reactor, just a few of the 3,000 errors detected so far. Correcting them has caused months of delays.
"When they encounter a problem on site they usually follow their previous experience" says Mr Tiippana, "this is how we did it on a coal power plant and that just doesn't work on a nuclear construction project".

Areva was so confident about the EPR that they agreed to build the reactor in Finland with a fixed delivery date of May 2009, and for a fixed price.
The earliest the reactor is now expected to come on line is 2012 and it is 3bn euros (£2.71bn) over budget.

Areva have threatened to abandon the reactor partially built unless they are given more cash.

Building nuclear power stations to order may not prove to be as easy as Ed Miliband might think.

Nuclear power: too slow to help solve climate change

The Post yesterday reported that, 'Farmland immediately north of Oldbury nuclear power station in South Gloucestershire has been identified as the most likely location for a possible new atomic energy plant. But people who visited a three-day exhibition staged by energy company Eon were told construction of the UK's next generation of nuclear sites – if given the go-ahead – was unlikely to start for another four years...'

I've previously posted my views on nuclear power and so would here focus in on the issue of time. The story above says that construction of new nuclear power stations is unlikely to start for four years. This is a considerable delay - we need to be building our energy security and cutting our carbon emissions now and so there are many technologies more appropriate than nuclear!! Sustainable Development Commission evidence, not disputed by the Government, shows that building ten new nuclear reactors can cut carbon emissions by a measly 4% and only after 2025! Doubling existing UK nuclear capacity produces an 8% cut by 2035. This is very little and very late in the day!!

The Sustainable Development Commission go on to indicate five major disadvantages of nuclear power, disadvantages they say outweigh the benefits:

1. Long-term waste - no long term solutions are yet available, let alone acceptable to the general public; it is impossible to guarantee safety over the long-term disposal of waste.

2. Cost - the economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain. There is little, if any, justification for public subsidy, but if estimated costs escalate, there's a clear risk that the taxpayer will be have to pick up the tab.

3. Inflexibility - nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised distribution system for the next 50 years, at exactly the time when opportunities for microgeneration and local distribution network are stronger than ever.

4. Undermining energy efficiency - a new nuclear programme would give out the wrong signal to consumers and businesses, implying that a major technological fix is all that's required, weakening the urgent action needed on energy efficiency.

5. International security - if the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny other countries the same technology (under the terms of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). With lower safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks.