CND Press Roundup Wednesday 20th July 2022

War in Ukraine / NATO

• Ukraine’s security service has accused Russia of conducting nuclear terrorism – after troops temporarily occupied the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant between February and March. “By turning this facility into its temporary military base, the Russian Federation flagrantly violated the Geneva Convention, which expressly prohibits attacks on nuclear facilities in conditions of armed conflict,” the agency said on Tuesday, adding that it had collected “indisputable” evidence of the Kremlin’s actions at the facility.

• NS Energy has a review of last April’s World Nuclear Fuel Conference 2022 in London. Here, industry leaders gathered to discuss the changing energy and security landscape in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Read here.

Nuclear History

• The latest episode of Matthew Syed’s Sideways series on nuclear weapons is out now on BBC Sounds. It looks at the origins of nuclear strategy, the Rand Corporation and its role in the development of deterrence theory and how wargaming tested this theory’s validity.  

• Another podcast series suggested by someone on Twitter is Atomic Hobo. Its latest episode looks at how a false alarm led people in Hawaii to think a nuclear strike was incoming.

Trident

• CND’s website has a news item on the return of Trident submarine HMS Vanguard to service after a 7-year maintenance period. Initially slated to be carried out over 3.5 years at a cost of between £150-200 million, the new bill is predicted to be in excess of £500 million.

• Plymouth Live reports on the announcement that construction giants Kier and BAM will oversee an overhaul of the Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, as part of £2 billion revamp project. Operated by defence firm Babcock International, the 10 Dock project will include the redevelopment of a dry dock for nuclear submarines alongside the demolition of existing buildings and construction of new ones to support the Royal Navy’s submarine maintenance programme.

British Nuclear Testing

• Veterans of Britain’s nuclear testing have joined Hillsborough and Grenfell campaigners in calling for a new law to prevent government cover ups. Steve Purse, whose father David served in British Army nuclear tests in the South Pacific said: “Successive governments have refused to study our health and concentrated the massive resources of the state in a strategy of delay, deny, until we die…We have MoD documents saying the men would have their blood tested. We have witnesses who say their blood was taken. Today, the MoD refuses to show us those records. We need a Hillsborough Law now.”

AUKUS

• Australia’s hope to plug a submarine capability gap with US Virginia-class submarines is unlikely to happen, according to a new report from the US Congress. Australia’s former defence minister, Peter Dutton, had previously suggested buying from the current US submarine programme – as Canberra’s existing fleet of Collins-class subs will be decommissioned a decade before the AUKUS nuclear submarine programme starts delivering in 2040. But the latest report from Congress reveals that Washington will struggle to meet its own shipbuilding targets and will unlikely have the subs to spare.

UK Nuclear Energy

• BBC covers the planning decision on the Sizewell C nuclear project. The decision was expected in May and then delayed until July 8th. However, the chaos of Boris Johnson’s resignation as PM led the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to issue a “new deadline of no later than 20 July for deciding this application.”

• The Environment Agency has launched a 4-week consultation period on a proposed change to the way radioactive waste will be stored at Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. It was announced this week that the plant’s operators planned to change how they would store radioactive waste from wet storage – ie. submerging and storing in water – to dry storage, which would see the radioactive waste sealed in containers and stored on site before being sent to a geological storage facility (GDF). The consultation will run until August 14th. You can send your comments, quoting reference EPR/ZP3690SY, via email: [email protected], or post to: Hinkley Point C Consultation, Environment Agency, Nuclear Regulation Group, Red Kite House, Howbery Park, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 8BD.

• Construction News looks at the challenges and opportunities that new nuclear projects will have for the sector.

• Radiation Free Lakeland is crowdfunding for a legal challenge against a plan to start seismic blasting in the Irish Sea – as part of exploratory work for an undersea nuclear waste dump.

• Nuclear Free Local Authorities comments on the Energy Security Bill and how it reveals the government’s preference to dump nuclear waste offshore: “The NFLA has far from convinced that however well engineered a nuclear waste dump, or Geological Disposal Facility as the nuclear industry likes to call it, is that the structure of such a facility will not become compromised over the 100,000 years it is required to hold waste whilst it remains radioactive. We fear that in future centuries we shall see radioactive waste poisoning our oceans and beaches.”

Nuclear Energy

• The Times picks up on the near £8 billion offer by the French state for the full nationalisation of nuclear firm EDF. Paris has offered €12 a share to take 100 per cent control of EDF, “which represents a 53 per cent premium in comparison with the stock market price before the announcement of the full nationalisation.”

• Two nuclear reactors in Belgium had to cut electricity production by more than half this week – as the heat wave engulfing Europe made the cooling water too hot to service them correctly.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• Leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Tehran yesterday for trilateral talks including the war in Ukraine, the Iran nuclear deal, and Syria. Turkey’s Erdogan signed an economic and trade deal with Iran – despite threats by the US to up sanctions on Tehran if efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal fails. Meanwhile, Turkey gave backing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it was necessary to prevent an eventual war in the country led by NATO over Crimea.