Moorside
An assessment published today by CORE titled ‘All Spin and No Substance’, reveals the extensive threats facing NuGen’s impossibly tight timeline for its Moorside project where the construction and operation of three Westinghouse AP1000 reactors is scheduled to be completed in a period of just six years (2020-2026). In countering the consortium’s spin, CORE’s assessment outlines a range of site-related issues that, though not insurmountable, have the potential to delay if not derail NuGen’s planned investment decision in late 2018. It then identifies the significantly greater threat to the reactor construction phase, scheduled to begin in 2020, posed by the fabrication and ‘lego-style’ assembly of the 600-plus modules – many weighing hundreds of tons – that will make up Moorside’s three reactors. Based on Westinghouse’s current inability to do this at four separate AP1000 projects overseas – where building just two reactors per site is taking up to seven years (and still counting) – NuGen’s schedule for Moorside is neither credible nor achievable. CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said today: ‘There is no realistic chance of NuGen’s timetable being met. Our assessment, which draws largely on the woeful Westinghouse experience overseas – a true template for what is likely to happen at Moorside – knocks the stuffing out of NuGen’s timetable and points to inevitable delays that could push back completion of reactor construction to 2030 or later. In swallowing their own perverted propaganda, the NuGen consortium has clearly lost touch with the realities on the ground both here and abroad’.
CORE Press Release 14th Feb 2015 read more »
CORE’s assessment can be found at:.
N2NP 14th Feb 2015 read more »
Hinkley
The Government has backed a call to the senior European official responsible for energy policy to insist that the UK must remain able to build new nuclear plants amid a growing diplomatic row with Austria over the Hinkley Point C project. The Prime Minister refused to accept a letter the Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann tried to hand to him at this week’s meeting of European leaders in Brussels in connection with the dispute and told him no other country could dictate the UK’s energy policy.
Belfast Telegraph 14th Feb 2015 read more »
Hunterston
MP Katy Clark is calling on EDF Energy to withdraw their application for the transfer of nuclear waste to Hunterston, and re-apply for a lesser scale of road movements. EDF have applied to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) to vary their licence for disposing of nuclear waste at their Hunterston B Power Station. Ms Clark has previously written to SEPA to voice her concerns about this application. Concerns have been raised about the lack of specificity in relation to both where waste would be transported from and how often it would be transported on local roads.
Largs & Millport News 15th Feb 2015 read more »
US
Southern Co. might spend more than $8 billion to finish building a nuclear power plant in Georgia, or roughly 30 percent more than it originally budgeted, according to a recent analysis prepared for state utility regulators. Power company officials disclosed in January that builders expect it will take three years longer than first expected to construct two new reactors at Plant Vogtle. Construction delays can significantly run up the cost of building and financing a nuclear plant.
Statesboro Herald 13th Feb 2015 read more »
Australia
South Australia’s nuclear debate is a “gale of common sense”, Tony Abbott says. Jay Weatherill, the South Australian premier, has announced a royal commission into whether the state should be more heavily involved in the nuclear industry, including enrichment, power production and the storage of waste. The inquiry has the backing of the prime minister, who on Sunday pledged to work with South Australia on the issue. The state is home to one of the world’s largest uranium mines, and there should be a debate on its use in Australia, Abbott said.
Guardian 15th Feb 2015 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
BRITAIN could save up to £13bn if it replaced its Trident nuclear deterrent with a strike force of combat aircraft armed with up to 100 atomic bombs, a think tank will claim tomorrow. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighters would, in the event of a nuclear war, launch a mass attack from UK airbases and aircraft carriers to obliterate enemy cities, although many would be shot down, according to a report drawn up by Centre Forum, a liberal think tank.
Sunday Times 15th Feb 2015 read more »
The Ukraine crisis has turned into a potentially apocalyptic nuclear stand-off as President Vladimir Putin primes Russia for conflict with the West. But how scared should we really be?
Telegraph 15th Feb 2015 read more »
Renewables – offshore wind
New ways to slash the costs of offshore wind based on a two-year programme of research by the Glasgow-based Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC) are set to be unveiled in a report to be published later this month. The report, which makes use of research data obtained from OREC’s testing facility at Blyth, aims to identify the ways to jump-start the stalled maritime wind sector, by cutting costs by a third, to £100 per megawatt hour (MW/h). While this would still be more than the £85 per MW/h average cost of land-based equivalents, it would make the investment return for offshore developments broadly similar to onshore given the fact that windier conditions at sea make offshore turbines 50 per cent more efficient.
Herald 15th Feb 2015 read more »
