CND Press Roundup Friday 20th May 2022

War in Ukraine

• A senior manager at the defunct Chernobyl power plant has been charged with colluding with the Russians during their takeover of the facility in February. Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) said the “serviceman fled the station and did not provide physical protection for the facility, which was part of his functional responsibilities.” They added that they were “investigating the possible involvement of the official in carrying out subversive activities against Ukraine,” in particular assisting the Russian’s in taking over the plant.

Trident / US nukes in Britain

• Jane Fenton of Scottish CND writes for The National on recent comments made by the SNP’s defence spokesperson in Westminster – on the possibility that an independent Scotland could host other country’s nuclear weapons. She argues that an about-turn on the SNP’s long standing anti-nuclear policy would be a vote loser: “The SNP’s strong anti-nuclear message is at the heart of its continued support over many years. And while many hoped that the referendum would give us the power for disarmament, in 2014 the TPNW was still a dream, leaving the fear of the UK strong arming Scotland into nuclear compliance. SNP membership and support could haemorrhage like snow off a dyke if the electorate were to suspect that any caucus sought to abandon the policy at this juncture, with the possibility of a nuclear-free independent Scotland in sight.”

• A Morning Star editorial assesses the lack of pacifist voices in the House of Commons. CND’s protest at RAF Lakenheath gets a mention: “This is the road to madness, if not to world war three. If MPs won’t call a halt to it, other citizens must raise their voices for peace and sanity. They can do that tomorrow at Lakenheath in Suffolk, where the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament will be protesting against the planned return of US nuclear weapons to the airforce base there.”

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset will be online a year later than planned and at an extra cost of £3 billion, a review by French nuclear firm EDF has said. Citing the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first reactor won’t be online until 2027. The cost of the project has also ballooned to between £25 and £26 billion. Managing Director of Hinkley Point C, Stuart Crooks, said: In total, the start date for Unit 1 has gone back 18 months since construction started in 2016. In such a complex project, it wouldn’t be credible to say we can measure exactly how much of this is due to Covid-19 impact, but it is clearly in excess of 12 months. Running the site for longer and less efficiently during the pandemic also adds cost. We are facing the same issues as other major projects with UK-wide supply and labour shortages and inflation.”

• A report by MPs on the public accounts committee has found that the cost of decommissioning the UK’s ageing nuclear reactors has nearly doubled in cost. The report said safely decommissioning the advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs), at plants like Dungeness B, Hunstanton B and Hinkley B, will now total £23.5 billion. MPs also expressed concern that the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) would struggle to handle decommissioning the seven AGRs in addition to its existing responsibilities such as older Magnox reactors.

• Actor and avid birdwatcher Samuel West has joined protesters against the building of the Sizewell C twin-nuclear reactors in Suffolk. West joined volunteers from the RSPB for a “once in a generation” protest outside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on Thursday. The bird protection charity is concerned the project – to be built in a nature reserve adjacent to Sizewell beach – will endanger some 6,000 bird species and millions of fish. If the development goes ahead, breeding grounds the size of eight football pitches will be lost from the reserve. West said: “I don’t think I know anywhere lovelier. It’s an extraordinary collection of habitats, internationally important numbers of threatened species, and we’re very lucky to have it. So if we can’t protect this, then we can’t protect anything.” A planning decision by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng – planned for the end of May – was recently pushed back to July.

• EDF has commenced defuelling the gas-cooled reactor at the Hunterston B plant in Scotland as part of its decommissioning activities. “Following the successful completion of its R3 pre-defueling outage, the station has now officially started defueling,” EDF Energy Managing Director of Generation Matt Sykes told employees. “This is an historic moment for our company, as the first of our AGR sites enters the next stage in the nuclear lifecycle.”

North Korea

• US President Joe Biden has kicked off his trip to east Asia where he will meet the new leaders of South Korea and Japan. It’s expected that both allies will join the Indo Pacific Economic Framework – a US-led regional partnership that will cover trade, supply-chain robustness, technology, and other issues in a move that is likely to ruffle feathers in Beijing. Leaders will also discuss North Korea’s unprecedented flurry of ballistic missile testing this year – with South Korean and US officials braced for another missile test, or even a nuclear test, to coincide with Biden’s visit to the Korean peninsula.

Culture

• More coverage of the Amnesia Atomica art event taking place in New York. “We are entering a new silent arms race… we are more likely to experience nuclear war in our lifetimes than ever,” Reyes toldArtnet News during the fair’s VIP preview. “It’s up to a handful of people to end life on earth.”