CND Press Roundup Tuesday 5th July 2022

Bruce Kent

• Irish CND sends its tribute to Bruce Kent as its President, Canon Patrick Comerford, attended Bruce’s funeral mass yesterday. A statement from ICND read: “Professor Comerford has been a lifelong personal friend of Bruce Kent. Speaking after the funeral, he said Bruce Kent had been a friend of Irish CND and of Ireland for almost half a century. ‘Bruce was closely involved with the re-founding of Irish CND in 1979,’ and formed a lasting friendship with many involved in Irish CND, including the founding president the late Seán MacBride.’”

• Another written tribute to Bruce can be found on Central Bylines by Larraine Thompson.

War In Ukraine / NATO

• The Express writes on the dangers posed to British nuclear sites if the war in Ukraine escalates into a wider conflict. The article mainly uses comments from Dr Paul Dorfman following the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by Russian troops earlier this year. The government has refuted the claims, somewhat: “The Government takes any potential threat to the UK seriously. While we don’t comment on specific security arrangements, we have confidence in existing measures to protect UK airspace.”

AUKUS

• The UN’s nuclear watchdog said it is convinced that Australia is committed to nuclear non-proliferation but is still awaiting on technical details to be provided by Canberra. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sent a taskforce to the country to assess Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS military pact with the US and UK. But as the Guardian notes: “The agency must ensure Australia will not breach the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and there are global concerns that other states will seek to follow Australia’s move to have nuclear submarines.” The IAEA’s head, Rafael Grossi, is in Australia to get guarantees that “no loopholes or proliferation escapes that would allow for this material or part of it to be deviated or lost.”

Trident

• More local papers picked up on the recent nuclear convoy to Scotland with the story being shared on the Warrington Guardian, The Standard (Chester), The St Helen Star, and the Winsford Guardian. Philip Gilligan quoted: “These very dangerous convoys seem to be carrying nuclear warheads past our homes, schools and hospitals with ever increasing frequency. At the same time, those of us who are most likely to be affected by an accident involving one are given little, if any, information about when they will pass our homes, or about the specific dangers involved. At a minimum, we need to know if and exactly how we can begin to protect ourselves and our children from the alpha emitting plutonium and uranium particles which could be dispersed if an explosion resulted from an accident involving one of these MoD carriers. Better still, these convoys should be taken off our roads altogether. We do not need nuclear missiles, and we would all be much safer without them on our roads.”

• A good blog post recently posted by the Nuclear Information Service on the delays and rising costs attached to Trident renewal.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Guardian looks at the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model that the government is hoping to use to fund nuclear projects – which includes poorer households helping to foot the bill. The model works by adding a temporary levy to customer bills which then is given to plant operator’s to help fund construction. Previous projects would see firms like EDF fund construction up-front and would only start receiving money once reactors came online and started to produce electricity. Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C campaign, said: “Taxes of any kind hit the poorest hardest and this nuclear tax is no exception. Multimillion-pound businesses will be let off the hook if they use a lot of energy but a family on universal credit struggling to afford its heating bills will have to cough up to pay for an unwanted nuclear power station.”

• East Anglian Daily Times also covers the looming planning decision on Sizewell C and campaigner’s plan to oppose the decision if it goes ahead. Alison Downes quoted again: “Sizewell C will be too slow and expensive to urgently and efficiently meet decarbonisation targets. By the time this behemoth project may be completed, at enormous expense, the UK’s energy landscape will be profoundly different, favouring cheaper green energy and green hydrogen. Every pound invested in Sizewell C is a pound diverted from other sources.”  

• Meanwhile, The Observer looks at the environmental impact that Sizewell C’s construction could have on the RSPB’s Minsmere reserve in Suffolk. “We are not opposed to the principle of there being energy infrastructure at the Sizewell site but the likely impact of this particular project could be very damaging,” said Adam Rowlands, Suffolk area manager for the RSPB. “There is a real threat to species that we have struggled to preserve here.”

• A Rolls-Royce-led consortium has revealed its shortlist of sites that could potentially house its fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) – among them Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s constituency of North Yorkshire. Other sites on the list – revealed on Monday – include Sunderland, Deeside in Wales, Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire, Stallingborough, Lincolnshire, and Carlisle. A competition by the firm in January called on “several of England’s regional development bodies and the Welsh government to pitch for the manufacturing site, promising investment of up to £200mn and the creation of up to 200 direct jobs,” writes the Financial Times.

• In “Approve a mini nuclear reactor or delay green revolution, Johnson told,” The Telegraph reports on calls by Rolls Royce to back its mini-nuke plan.

Nuclear Korea

• AP reports on North Korea’s commitment to boost its military power to counter US, South Korean and Japanese cooperation in the North Pacific. “The prevailing situation more urgently calls for building up the country’s defence to actively cope with the rapid aggravation of the security environment of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world,” a spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released by state broadcaster KCNA.

Middle East

• Simon Tisdall writes in The Observer on US president Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the shifting sands of alliances – which includes Israel joining with Arab states to counter Iranian influence in the region. He notes that the “Rapprochement is also fuelled by shared concern about Tehran’s presumed nuclear weapons ambitions. It will gain added impetus in July when US president Joe Biden visits Israel and Saudi Arabia and comes as nuclear talks with Iran teeter on the brink of collapse.”