CND Press Roundup Monday 5th September 2022

War in Ukraine / NATO

• Russia said that Ukrainian forces attempted and failed to recapture the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Friday, in claims unverified by Reuters. It comes as Kiev confirmed that it carried out airstrikes at Russian targets in the area around the plant – where UN nuclear inspectors are currently visiting. However, it did not comment on claims it was responsible for shelling which knocked the plant offline after shelling took out a power line connected to the facility. Meanwhile, a Russian official told the UN inspectors that a rocket found at Zaporizhzhia had performed a 180 degree turn before impact – in an apparent attempt to cover up the fact that it had been fired from Russian-held territory. Both sides have accused each other of shelling the plant.

• Turkey’s Erdogan has offered to act as a mediator regarding Zaporizhzhia, during a phone conversation with Vladimir Putin over the weekend. Ankara previously acted in facilitating an agreement to allow Ukrainian grain and sunflower exports from the Black Sea port of Odesa after the invasion led to a jump in global food prices.

• The Tory chair of the defence select committee has predicted that a nuclear weapon will be used within the next decade. “We’re in for a very, very difficult decade. Our world will change. I suspect, horrible to say so, that we will see a tactical nuclear weapon used in the next ten years,” Tobias Elwood told Times Radio. He added that the country needed a new Churchill-type figure to lead the country through this “difficult period.”

• Professor Alessio Patalano of King’s College London writes in the Telegraph arguing that in order to avoid nuclear war, we need more nuclear power: “A step change in the prioritisation of energy security will require renewed public engagement to address concerns over potential risks. For Europe, a revanchist Russia means we need a new debate on the realities of our energy security. SMRs may not be a panacea, but they may well put open societies on a path to a sustainable and more resilient future.”

AUKUS

• A US Navy official has said that without significant additional investment, Washington won’t be able to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines before 2030 – citing constraints and backlogs at its nuclear shipyards. He added that the UK would have a similar problem in filling any orders.

UK Nuclear Energy

• 804 million fish could die each year as a result of the Sizewell C nuclear plant, if a device to prevent them from being sucked into the reactor’s cooling system isn’t installed. Nuclear firm EDF – who is developing SIzewell C in Suffolk – had appealed against having to install the device at its other development at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. However, the inspector denied the appeal and EDF will now have to install the technology or risk paying hundreds of millions of pounds. As the Time reports: “The Hinkley C cooling system, described as a giant plughole under the sea, will suck in 130,000 litres of water per second. The twin inlet tunnels, stretching two miles out into the Severn estuary, are so big that a double-decker bus could drive through them. Conservation groups say it will kill up to 250,000 fish a day and must be altered or scrapped.”

• Despite Boris Johnson announcing £700 million in funding for Sizewell C – the i newspaper reports on the struggle Whitehall is having in finding additional investors. The Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model introduced by the government to fund the project – sees the government and EDF each take a 20 percent share in the project – with additional funding coming from other investors. However, the search has proven more difficult than anticipated and the UK has had to tap up potential backers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Australia. Dr Paul Dorfman said that the “market has fled nuclear” adding: “There is no nuclear being built without vast public subsidy. The market has said no to nuclear, because it’s completely uneconomic and doesn’t make financial sense. It’s hugely expensive, the learning curve is completely static, the renewable market is off the wall. Last year, 84 per cent of all new power capacity worldwide was renewable, but nuclear is nowhere.”

• The UK government announced a £3.3 million funding boost to support the development of advanced modular reactors (AMRs). “This investment will help unlock the potential for new nuclear reactors in the UK, as we drive forward plans to boost clean, cutting-edge, homegrown technologies for our energy security, while driving down bills in the long term,” Energy Minister Greg Hands said.

• One of these projects will see the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) work with Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory and nuclear company Jacobs to build a demonstration high-temperature gas reactor by the early 2030s.

• CJ Bright’s letter in The Times argues against nuclear power: “Nuclear power is neither a long-term nor short-term solution to our energy crisis. Sizewell C (reports, Sep 1 & 2) will take many years to construct before it comes on line, and there is no satisfactory method of disposing of nuclear waste at the end of its useful life. In the short term the safety of nuclear power stations is doubtful: there have already been at least three accidents, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, not to mention great uncertainty at Zaporizhzhia, occupied since March by Russian forces in Ukraine.”

Nuclear Energy

• France has vowed to restart all of the 32 nuclear reactors that are currently offline by winter, as pressure mounts on the state-run EDF to end the run of outages. Issues with corrosion and maintenance were compounded by a summer heatwave which raised river temperatures to such an extent that reactors couldn’t be cooled properly. This led to France – usually an energy exporter – to have to import energy from Britain.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• US officials on Friday rejected the idea that reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal could be linked with ending an investigation by the UN’s nuclear watchdog. “There should not be any conditionality between re-implementation of the JCPOA and investigations related to Iran’s legal obligations under the Non-proliferation Treaty,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, referring to the deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.