Communiqué – Statement Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany. Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director General, French Agency for Energy Management, former Advisor to French Minister of Environment, … [Continue Reading]

The Science-based case for excluding Nuclear Fission Technologies from the EU Taxonomy One of the most influential policy initiatives of the European Commission in the past years has been the “EU Taxonomy”, essentially a shopping list of investments that may be considered environmentally sustainable across six environmental objectives. To be … [Continue Reading]

December 2021 report by Friends of the Earth Australia, ‘Nuclear Power’s Economic Crisis and its Implications for Australia’. The full report is available as a PDF. The introduction (minus references and footnotes) is copied below. INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY Despite the abundance of evidence that nuclear power is economically uncompetitive compared … [Continue Reading]

By Jonathon Porritt The fact that COP26 was crawling with huge numbers of delegates from Big Oil and Gas got a lot of attention from the media. Less attention was paid to the large number of pro-nuclear delegates parasitically inserting themselves into as many events as they could engineer access … [Continue Reading]

By Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone Under the AUKUS agreement, the United States and the United Kingdom plan to transfer nuclear submarine technologies to Australia. One international security scholar characterized the deal as “a terrible decision for the nonproliferation regime,” noting grave concerns for peace and security worldwide. Others have … [Continue Reading]

No other country taking part in Cop26 is relying on multiple new reactors to get to net zero by 2050 In 2007, Vincent de Rivaz, the then EDF chief executive, said Britain would be “cooking our Christmas turkeys” with electricity from Hinkley Point C nuclear station by 2017. Instead the … [Continue Reading]

Fraud, counterfeiting, bribery, corruption, sabotage, theft, and other criminal activities are rife in global nuclear industry. “As prime minister of Japan at the time of the [Fukushima] disaster, I now believe that the time has come for Japan and the world to end its reliance on nuclear power,” Naoto Kan … [Continue Reading]

As we head towards COP26, CND’s scientific adviser, Dr Ian Fairlie, addresses the claims that new forms of nuclear power production can be part of the solution to the climate emergency. In recent months, the outpouring of pro-nuclear media stories and newspaper articles has been incessant and increasing in the … [Continue Reading]

https://www.nuclearconsult.com/blog/8784/

by Dave Elliott As noted in an article in Regional Life, a local conservation e-magazine linked to a local anti nuclear group, the flat landscape of the Dengie peninsula in Essex is punctuated by a line of tall wind turbines, slowly turning and the massive grey-blue hulk of the former … [Continue Reading]

by Shaun Burnie The decision of the Japanese government on Tuesday to proceed with plans for discharging radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean is a direct threat to the marine environment, public health and fisheries, and violates the human rights of people in Japan as well as other countries. In … [Continue Reading]

Big industry players pushing techno-fixes are ignoring the only realistic solution to the climate crisis: renewables Now that the whole world seems to be aligned behind the goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the nuclear industry is straining every sinew to present itself as an invaluable ally in … [Continue Reading]

After 70 years of producing plutonium in reprocessing works the United Kingdom, now with 140 tonnes of it, the largest stockpile in the world, finds it has no use for the metal – and needs to spend £4.5 billion (US$6bn) just to keep it safe. Having already spent at least … [Continue Reading]

Anyone new to Suffolk, ignorant of EDF’s nuclear plans, would be forgiven for laughing out loud. An untried reactor, labelled ‘technically complicated to construct’ by its own designers, a cost of £20billion-plus, taking at least 10 years to build, producing waste which is not only lethal to living tissue but … [Continue Reading]

On 27 May the European Commission (EC) put forward its proposal for a major post-Covid-19 recovery plan. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that what underpinned the programme was a determination “to hold governments more accountable for fighting climate change and saving our nature.” David Lowry explores … [Continue Reading]

With so many self-appointed pundits (like me!) currently locked down with their laptops, the present rush of commentary on how to pivot the coronavirus crisis is hardly surprising. Beyond the general news and commentary, scores of articles are exploding across the media, diagnosing what this global catastrophe means, and prescribing … [Continue Reading]

Nuclear power went backwards last year with the permanent shutdown of nine power reactors and the startup (grid connection) of six. Startups were concentrated in Russia (three) and China (two), with one in South Korea. The shutdowns were spread across eight countries. Worse still for the industry – much worse … [Continue Reading]

The edifice already heading for the status of the largest and most expensive construction project in the world, the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in the UK, is dragging its builder, the French giant EDF, into ever-deeper debt: the company’s flagship reactor is facing still more delay. Although EDF … [Continue Reading]

At the present time, over a million tonnes of tritium-contaminated water are being held in about a thousand tanks at the site of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station in Japan. This is being added to at the rate of ~300 tonnes a day from the water being pumped to … [Continue Reading]

Whether it comes from nuclear plants or fossil fuel-fired power stations with carbon capture and storage (CCS), the UK will need 30-40 GW of new “firm” low-carbon baseload generation by 2050 to meet the net-zero emissions target, Greg Clark reportedly said, just before being replaced by Andrea Leadsom as UK … [Continue Reading]

Meeting a net-zero emissions global target by mid-century — as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – needs accelerated innovation. But the IEA says that in 2017 only 4 of 38 energy technologies and sectors were on track to meet long-term climate, energy access and air pollution goals. … [Continue Reading]

The impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 included thyroid cancers in those who were children at the time. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) produced a report in 2008 which found that, among those exposed who had been under 14 years of … [Continue Reading]

The OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has produced an updated study of System Costs with High Shares of Nuclear and Renewables. Perhaps unsurprisingly, its new report concludes that nuclear wins hands down over variable renewable energy (VRE). The agency says that “a mix relying primarily on nuclear energy is the … [Continue Reading]

Small modular reactors are being heavily promoted but the economics don’t stack up. The nuclear industry is heavily promoting the idea of building small modular reactors (SMRs), with near-zero prospects for new large power reactors in many countries. These reactors would have a capacity of under 300 megawatts (MW), whereas … [Continue Reading]

As new technologies trying to compete with well-established technologies, renewables needed some interim help. In a new book, Renewable Energy in the UK: Past, Present and Future, I look at how that has been done. What stands out is that, whereas some countries have gone for direct aid or guaranteed … [Continue Reading]

Nobody knows what to do with a vast uranium and plutonium stockpile built up in the UK by reprocessing spent fuel. It is now a nuclear nightmare. Thirty years ago it seemed like a dream: now it is a nuclear nightmare. A project presented to the world in the 1990s … [Continue Reading]

Australian academics Mark Diesendorf and Ben Elliston have challenged the views of fellow Australian academics Brook and Bradshaw and Heard et al., who criticized studies that claim it will be possible to supply 100% of global power (renewable electricity or “RElec”) or even all global energy needs from renewables. Instead, … [Continue Reading]

Officially the UK nuclear industry is going ahead with building a new generation of power stations. But it can’t find anyone to pay for them. The future of the UK nuclear industry looks increasingly bleak, despite the Conservative government’s continued insistence that it wants to build up to 10 new … [Continue Reading]

Some technologies win, others lose, at least in the short term. The UK tidal power industry has been taking stock after the UK government decision not to proceed with the 320 MW Swansea lagoon as it saw it as too costly. “We saw no appetite from government to think differently, … [Continue Reading]

During this summer’s heatwave, nuclear reactors in five European countries had to be shut down or put on reduced power, writes Paul Brown. An argument of the nuclear lobby is that renewables, particularly wind and solar, are unreliable because of changing weather. Only nuclear power can guarantee to keep the … [Continue Reading]

The last hope of the nuclear industry for competing with renewables is small modular reactors, but despite political support their future looks bleak, writes Paul Brown. On both sides of the Atlantic billions of dollars are being poured into developing small modular reactors. But it seems increasingly unlikely that they … [Continue Reading]

Science tells us that, to avoid devastating climate change, we must rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero. How fast is possible, asks Mark Diesendorf  of the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia. He believes the sceptics may be wrong. This article focuses on the … [Continue Reading]

Danger of coastal flooding might make sensible people think twice about building houses in vulnerable places, let alone nuclear power stations Back in 2012 a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Environment Agency was warning that 12 out of the UK’s 19 nuclear sites were … [Continue Reading]

If recent trends continue for another two years, the global share of electricity from renewables excluding hydropower will overtake nuclear for the first time. Even 20 years ago, this nuclear decline would have greatly surprised many people – particularly now that reducing carbon emissions is at the top of the … [Continue Reading]

It’s not often that nuclear matters make me laugh out loud. But yesterday provided one such occasion, on reading of the latest announcement from EdF that a new ‘optimised reactor’ would be unveiled in 2020 at roughly half the price (£5.3bn) of the reactors currently under construction at Hinckley Point … [Continue Reading]

The International Energy Agency (IEA) ‘underreports (the) contribution solar and wind by a factor of three’ compared to fossil fuels, according to a recent report. I and others have been pointing this out regularly, but it’s good to see this methodological anomaly (if that’s what it is) exposed and explored … [Continue Reading]

Community power projects in Denmark and Germany have inspired politicians worldwide but have failed to translate to other countries. Sometimes the first step is to let people say no. In June 2008, George Smitherman was sworn in as the energy minister of Ontario in Canada. The province was already low-carbon, … [Continue Reading]

Michael Shellenberger is visiting Australia this week. He has been a prominent environmentalist (of sorts) since he co-authored the 2004 essay, The Death of Environmentalism. These days, as the President of the California-based ‘Environmental Progress’ lobby group, he is stridently pro-nuclear, hostile towards renewable energy and hostile towards the environment … [Continue Reading]

It’s unusual, but things do occasionally change in the UK! We had been quietly awaiting the governments much delayed Carbon Plan, but then came an unexpected shock, a dramatic fall in offshore wind prices emerging from the new round of the Contract for Difference (CfD) auction process. Hornsea Project 1, … [Continue Reading]

The two young co-founders of nuclear engineering start-up Transatomic Power were embarrassedearlier this year when their claims about their molten salt reactor design were debunked, forcing some major retractions. The claims of MIT nuclear engineering graduates Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie were trumpeted in MIT’s Technology Review under the headline, … [Continue Reading]

Hopes of a nuclear revival to combat climate change have been dashed as another prestige project runs into trouble. The nuclear revival the global industry has been hoping for took another hammer blow this week when two reactors under construction in the US state of South Carolina were abandoned, only … [Continue Reading]

There is a mantra that nuclear and natural gas power stations are essential to keep the lights on in the UK. It’s a myth, says Keith Barnham Here’s a fact you won’t have heard from the main parties during the UK’s election campaign: the nation doesn’t need a new generation of expensive … [Continue Reading]

Australia’s nuclear energy debate reaches Peak Idiocy this week with the visit of Jessica Lovering from the U.S. Breakthrough Institute. Lovering has and will be speaking at public events alongside Australian university student Ben Heard. Both the Breakthrough Institute and Heard’s ‘Bright New World’ present themselves as progressive environment groups … [Continue Reading]

It’s quite something to find myself in a country where nuclear power is even more of a basket case than it is in the UK – and that of course is the United States of America. Not yet dead, but struggling to find a reason to go on living. And … [Continue Reading]

With the sixth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster falling tomorrow, nuclear lobbyists are arguing over solutions to the existential crisis facing nuclear power, writes Jim Green. Some favour a multinational consolidation of large conventional reactor designs, while others back technological innovation and ‘small modular reactors’. But in truth, both approaches … [Continue Reading]

A legacy of lies and cover-up leaves nuclear energy with a serious credibility gap, and no sign of its long-promised revival. There have been three well-documented major nuclear accidents in the last 60 years, each one accompanied by official lies and cover-ups. There have been other less well-known serious accidents … [Continue Reading]

There are still a number of key obstacles facing EDF and HMG before the fiasco that is Hinkley Point C begins to unravel. EDF and Areva are facing significant challenges in France due to the flawed and falsified nuclear parts in at least 18 current operational French nuclear plant. EDF/Areva … [Continue Reading]

Given that energy is the essential bedrock of a healthy economy, it is both frustrating and bewildering to watch a protracted national debate like the one accompanying the Brexit referendum and see how little time and attention has been allotted to energy policy. I saw hardly any coverage of two … [Continue Reading]

On Friday last week, within a few hours of Greg Clark (Secretary of State at the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) announcing that the UK Government would be reviewing the whole Hinkley Point situation, the Times came out with a thoroughly damning indictment of the Hinkley Point … [Continue Reading]

For a couple of hours on Friday morning, for the first time ever, I felt old. At the age of 65 (nearly 66!), I am old, but I’ve never actually felt old. All it took were a few clips of Farage, Johnson and Gove, plus interviews with the likes of … [Continue Reading]

Don’t believe the spurious claims of nuclear shills constantly doing down renewables, writes Mark Diesendorf. Clean, safe renewable energy technologies have the potential to supply 100% of the world’s electricity needs – but the first hurdle is to refute the deliberately misleading myths designed to promote the politically powerful but … [Continue Reading]

I feel duty bound to keep readers up to date with the slowly unfolding Hinkley Point meltdown – spasm by agonising spasm. Three important updates: 1. Jean-Bernard Lévy throws a wobbly Jean-Bernard Lévy, CEO of EdF, has just threatened to cancel the Hinkley Point deal unless the French Government provides … [Continue Reading]

Profound changes are happening in Somerset, where Britain’s first nuclear power plant in 20 years is being built, and in UK energy policy. Going back to the Blair years, UK energy policy has been long-wedded to the idea that new nuclear will plug the electricity gap and save us from … [Continue Reading]

Two armed ships set off from the northwest of England this week to sail round the world to Japan on a secretive and controversial mission to collect a consignment of plutonium and transport it to the US. The cargo of plutonium, once the most sought-after and valuable substance in the … [Continue Reading]

NASA scientist James Hansen is heading to COP21 in Paris to berate climate campaigners for failing to support ‘safe and environmentally-friendly nuclear power’, writes Jim Green. But they would gladly support nuclear power if only it really was safe and environment friendly. In fact, it’s a very dangerous and hugely … [Continue Reading]

As Osborne doubles nuclear research support for small modular reactors in the UK, has he ignored the new, multiple terror risks this brings in its wake? In his Comprehensive Spending Review, chancellor George Osborne doubled research support for new, smaller nuclear reactors, as he justified slashing taxpayer support for solar … [Continue Reading]

The Luxembourg government will join Austria’s legal challenge to the €108 billion Hinkley C subsidy package at the European Court of Justice. The low-key announcement was released yesterday in Austria’s Parliament, just days before the deadline for other states to join is due to expire on Monday. “They will not … [Continue Reading]

In trying to justify their desperation to commit billions of public money to the Hinkley C nuclear project, the Treasury and its Chancellor, George Osborne, claim there are other benefits that justify the vast scale of expenditure. So what exactly are they – and do the claims withstand critical examination? … [Continue Reading]

In recent months, as the large Hinkley Point nuclear project has hit a succession of problems (see the recent blog by Phil) there has been increasing attention to the prospects of small nuclear reactors, most often small modular reactors (SMRs).  These are seen as either a complement to or, increasingly, … [Continue Reading]

EDF say that the deal they cut with the Coalition is ‘fair and balanced for consumers and investors alike’. I guess it’s unsurprising that EDF are very pleased with the deal, as it gives them a guaranteed and inflation-proofed return at twice the price we currently pay for electricity for … [Continue Reading]