CND Press Digest: 30th September 2024

NATO / Europe

• The Guardian: Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.
• CND website: Russia details changes to its nuclear use policy.
• Newsweek: Putin Is ‘afraid’ to use nuclear weapons: Zelensky.
• Al Jazeera: Has Russia’s military improved enough to take on NATO?
• The Guardian: Mark Rutte takes charge of NATO at a perilous moment for Ukraine.

Middle East & North Africa

• NDTV World: Iran’s ultra-hardliners are demanding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the development of a nuclear bomb in response to the recent killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
• i News: The Israeli nuclear risk no one is talking about. Israel’s ability to build and deploy nuclear weapons, while never officially acknowledged, remains at the heart of its security doctrine

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

•  Reuters: Australia, Britain to strike treaty for joint production of submarines.
• Flight Global: AUKUS partners beef up P-8A interoperability.

Global Nukes

• IEEE Spectrum: How to disable a nuclear warhead in midflight.

Nukes in Britain

• Labour Outlook: Public scrutiny of UK-US nuclear pact is essential. Carol Turner, CND, International, “Rather than working together to get rid of their nuclear weapons, the UK and US are collaborating on further advancing their respective nuclear arsenals” Vice Chair of CND, Carol Turner, writes on the UK-US Mutual Defence Agreement, and what it spells for the so-called independence of Britain’s foreign policy. One of the Prime Minister’s first foreign policy initiatives after taking office in July was an amendment to the Agreement for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes. Never heard of it? That could be just what Labour is hoping for. The Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) is a bilateral nuclear pact between the USA and Britain. The United States provides the UK with nuclear technology and know-how in exchange for access to British intelligence facilities. Since it was first signed in secret in 1958, the MDA has been brought before parliament for approval every 10 years. This has been a formal process, with no vote and negligible scrutiny. After the MDA is signed by the end of this year, not even the formality of approval will be required in future. Defence Secretary John Healey laid an amendment to the MDA before parliament on 25 July – three weeks after Labour took office, just five days before the summer recess – which removes all mentions of renewal. When the pact is signed this year, it becomes permanent. No parliamentary debate and no change in the law is needed for this. As CND General Secretary Kate Hudon observes ‘this spells farewell to even the smallest notion of parliamentary responsibility’ for Britain’s foreign policy.

Ukraine

• Reuters: Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant says Ukraine again attacks substation. The management of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had launched a new attack on a nearby electricity substation, destroying a transformer.

Nuclear Waste

• BBC: A nuclear storage facility has begun storing spent fuel in a new rack system. Sellafield Ltd, in Cumbria, said the first deposits have been placed into a space-saving storage rack that would allow the site to store 50% more spent nuclear fuel. It means the site could store all the fuel expected from the UK’s currently operational nuclear power stations without the need to build a new storage pond, the company added. In total,160 racks are to be manufactured to increase capacity from 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes. The 63-can rack, installed in the Thorp (thermal oxide reprocessing plant) pond was needed because the UK no longer reprocesses spent fuel, but instead stores it under water prior to disposal, Sellafield Ltd said. The racks are “16 years in the making”, from concept design to manufacture, the company added.
• NS Energy: How nuclear sector can tackle waste challenges with innovative encapsulation techniques. Initial trials of a proprietary geopolymer technology capable of encapsulating a broad range of problematic waste types demonstrate a 40% increase in sludge waste incorporation with the potential to make significant budget savings. What are the next steps? Lucideon, an international materials technology company based in Staffordshire, UK, and NUVIA, a global nuclear engineering solutions provider, have forged a partnership that has quickly demonstrated the potential for Lucideon’s MIDAR-Augmented Lower-cost Lower-carbon Encapsulation Technique (MALLET) as a long-term solution for the encapsulation of a variety of nuclear waste forms.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Bird Guides: Suffolk Wildlife Trust and the RSPB have called for greater transparency from Sizewell C in relation to its wildlife compensation schemes. Earlier this month, developers of the nuclear power station announced a new partnership with the nature-restoration movement WildEast to promote the return of land to nature across the region. In announcing the partnership, Sizewell C flagged up how it had pledged to return a large part of the land to nature during the construction of the new power station.

Nuclear Energy

• The Times: Microsoft has signed a 20-year commitment with the carbon-free energy group Constellation (CEG) to buy all the 800 megawatts of power the recommissioned nuclear plant can produce. Constellation shares surged 22 per cent higher on the news, to value the business at $80 billion (£60 billion).

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament