Archive of selected extracts from my Triple Crunch Log
CBI urges UK government to shift away from wind to nuclear power
12 July 2009: Whitehall should rein in its ambitions on the proportion of renewables in the energy mix generally, Deputy DG John Cridland says. The government is aiming too high on wind.
My view: But it is about much more than wind. This is a twentieth-century approach to a 21st century set of opportunities. Note that EDF is on the CBI’s Energy Committee.
Ecotricity takes EDF to the High Court for stealing their Green Britain idea in greenwash ads.
7 July 2009: EDF, who argue against even 20% renewables in the UK energy mix, are driving vans around the UK, painted with the Union Jack, coloured completely green.
France forced to import UK electricity as heatwave shuts a third of its reactors
3 July 2009: EDF’s stations are generating their lowest level of electricity for 6 years. 14 of France’s 19 nuclear power plants are inland, and the law does not allow them to discharge water at a temperature of more than 24C into waterways.
My view: I last recall reading about this problem in the heatwave summer of 2003. Of course, with global warming, we would be hearing about it more and more if France stays nuclear-dependent.
Nuclear safety fears grow as the NII seconds 12 reviewers from firms pitching to build reactors.
26 June 2009: The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has seconded staff from Bechtel, CH2M Hill, and Amec, companies hoping to build the new generation of nuclear reactors. The NII hopes that the hires will get the review of designs back on schedule for mid 2011, and that any conflicts of interest can be dealt with in secondees’ contracts. Technical staff have also been hired from Areva, one of the two companies offering designs for new reactors. The NII says they will not be allowed to work on the Areva designs.
My view: This is just plain wrong, for utterly obvious reasons. It should not be allowed.
Tally of UK nuclear leaks and other safety events in the last 5 years revealed: 1,750.
21 June 2009: There were 1,750 leaks, breakdowns, or other safety ‘events’ at British nuclear plants between 2001 and 2008, according to a recent report from the government’s chief nuclear inspector to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Mike Weightman’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) report, obtained by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act, says about half were serious enough “to have had the potential to challenge a nuclear safety system.” The NII, charged with overseeing all such problems, has an acute staff shortage. The HSE for its part wants to create “exclusions” in its assessment of new reactor designs, in order to “streamline” the process.
My view: This industry has had half a century to get its dangerous and expensive technology at least to stop leaking. It has failed. This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the problems, as a scan of the Triple Crunch log on this website shows.
Thorp will probably have to be mothballed for four years, operating company admits
19 May 2009: Sellafield Ltd admits its £1.8bn nuclear reprocessing plant cannot meet NII orders for operation as a result of continuing technical problems. This will cost millions of pounds. Two of the plants have been breaking down repeatedly, and the third has been closed after a rise in radiation levels. Work has started on a new £100m evaporator, but it is behind schedule, and probably won’t come on stream before 2013. Germany may sue when spent fuel is not returned reprocessed. Closure of the plant would slow decommissioning of British nuclear plants, and remove much of the £70bn needed for that process, which reprocessing at Thorp was supposed to raise a good deal of.
My view: Who is going to have the fork out for the £70bn now, I wonder? Could it be the same people who bailed out the banks?
New nuclear scares threaten UK nuclear sites
17 May 2009: A radioactive leak, undiscovered for 14 months, was found in January at Sellafield the day before a visit by the Prime Minister, so Nuclear Management Partners (who run the site) have recently confessed. At “level two”, this was the worst leak since a 2005 leak for which BNFL was fined £500,000. A board of enquiry concludes the leak went un-noticed because “managerial controls over the line were insufficient and there was inadequate inspection.” Meanwhile, elsewhere on the site two containers of highly radioactive material have gone missing. NMP says it is most likely that “the anomaly lies within the accounting procedures”, and the lost containers are still somewhere on site. “Environmental and public safety has not been compromised,” they say.
My view: Can we have a guarantee that there are no terrorists working undercover in the accounts department please.
Areva attacked on safety professionalism by Finnish nuclear regulator
10 May 2009: Jukka Laaksonen, director general of STUK, Finland’s radiation and nuclear safety authority, says in a letter to Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon that some of her supposed experts have a “lack of professional knowledge” that is slowing the Olkiluoto 3 plant down. Areva says this won’t cause additional delays, but admits the reactor – already 3 years overdue – still has no definite opening date.
My view: Part of the industry’s problem is that they don’t have enough trained personnel: their average age is even higher than that of the oil industry.
Drigg nuclear dump operators use local newspaper ads to ask old workers what was put in the site
14 February 2009: The new operators, LLWR, has found that records are completely inadequate, and are looking for workers from the 1960s through 80s who might be able to help them fill in the holes, so to speak.
My view: If Ben Elton had invented this one for a comedy novel, we would have thought he was going over the top.
Cracks begin to appear in the French nuclear consensus
26 September 2008: The government report on radioactivity of groundwater under France’s reactors is due next month. Areva has promised to shift the military dump that may have been responsible for the older radioactivity found in water below Tricastin after 75 kg of untreated uranium leaked in July. Polls show that although two thirds do not think there should be a reduction of nuclear power, 49% of those under 35 believe the share should be reduced because of the dangers involved. The independent nuclear inspectorate created two years ago posts all nuclear incidents on its website ….and there are 800 a year. Says an official: “people are beginning to realise that incidents are frequent.”
French government orders a radiological assessment of groundwater around all 58 nuclear reactors
18 July 2008: This after a second leak is reported at another site in southern France, and an unexplained older contamination is found in the groundwater at the spill at the Tricastin site. The second site is at Romains-sur-Isere, another site run by an Areva subsidiary, where a pipe is found to have burst long ago. Radioactivity has not leaked beyond the site. The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) accuses Areva of “human negligence” and “dysfunctional” processes. Ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo says the investigation is because “I do not want people to think we are hiding anything,” and Areva insists there is no threat. However, ASN’s findings have been passed to the prosecutor’s office, which may decide a criminal investigation is required. Borloo says there were 86 level-one incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006.
My view: Who would be willing to bet this process will produce a clean bill of health, I wonder?
18 April 2007: The UK government announces an independent inquiry into claims that body parts of workers who died in suspicious circumstances at Sellafield and other nuclear plants were taken without consent, over a period back to the 1960s, for medical examination. BNFL admits this but says the practice stopped in the 1990s.
My view: And the results were what? And the reactions of the bereaved have been what?
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