nuclear
A nuclear plant built at a cost of £470m to provide atomic fuel to be used in foreign power stations has produced almost nothing since it was opened six years ago, the government has
admitted.
The mixed oxide (Mox) facility at Sellafield in Cumbria - which was opposed by green groups as uneconomic - was originally predicted to have an annual
throughput of 120 tonnes of fuel. The energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, has admitted in response to a parliamentary question that it had managed only 2.6 tonnes in any one 12-month period between
2002 and 2006-07.
In the four years before 2002, the plant had produced annual figures respectively of 2.3 tonnes, 0.3 tonnes, 0 tonnes and 0 tonnes. The technical difficulties at the facility and the failure to get anywhere close to its financial targets will add to concerns about the economics of nuclear power, following the government's decision to give the green light to a new generation of atomic reactors.
Wicks described the Sellafield Mox plant (SMP) as being based on "largely unproven technology" and pointed out that its estimated annual output had been
reduced by 2001 to 72m tonnes. British Nuclear Group (BNG), which operates the Sellafield site, said a range of improvements were being made to the facility but it admitted that the 2007-08
period had again seen production disrupted by various problems.
The SMP was designed to make new fuel from the recycled uranium and plutonium recovered from used nuclear fuel, which had been reprocessed by the nearby thermal oxide reprocessing plant (Thorp) at Sellafield. A Mox demonstration complex was opened in 1998 but was hit by a scandal involving quality control and the falsification of documents, which led to the resignation of John Taylor, chief executive of BNFL.
Attempts to open the main SMP facility led to high court challenges by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which argued that the government's decision to allow BNG's parent group, BNFL, to proceed with opening the facility was unlawful under European law. The Irish government also took unsuccessful legal action to stop the SMP opening over concerns about radioactive effluent from the plant polluting the Irish Sea.
Jean McSorley, a nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace, said the Mox plant was - along with Thorp - "another great failure of British nuclear engineering" and pointed to the dangers of accepting the industry's economic models and promises.
She pointed out that Thorp had been shut for the past three years because of an accident and continual attempts to reopen it had been thwarted by further problems. A spokeswoman for BNG, the operating division of BNFL, said production was still being "ramped up" and the performance of the plant was the subject of a detailed improvement plan. She said the problems at the SMP were not related to the difficulties at Thorp.
"We had to overcome a number of technical issues and make engineering improvements to the [SMP] plant as part of the normal commissioning process. We made improvements to plant maintenance, equipment reliability and have installed upgraded equipment as required," she said.
"We are awaiting suitable plant availability to demonstrate the benefits of these capacity enhancements. Throughput in 2007-08 was adversely affected by the extended outage for the fuel campaign change. We remain committed to meeting our customers' Mox fuel requirements."
BNG has been forced to meet the needs of Swiss and other contracted customers for Mox fuel through buying alternative supplies from France and Belgium.With the £470m construction costs written off, the plant was assessed by government-appointed consultants in 2001 to have a net positive value of only £216m - a value that was partly based on winning back Japanese business, which proved hard after the falsification of quality-assurance data in 1999.
......................................................
23/07/2007 : Los Angeles Times
A WARMING WORLD : No to nukes
From the Los Angeles Times
A WARMING WORLD
No to nukes
It's tempting to turn to nuclear plants to combat climate change, but
alternatives are safer and cheaper.
July 23, 2007
JAPAN SEES NUCLEAR POWER as a solution to global warming, but it's paying a
price. Last week, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake caused dozens of problems at the
world's biggest nuclear plant, leading to releases of radioactive elements into
the air and ocean and an indefinite shutdown. Government and company officials
initially downplayed the incident and stuck to the official line that the
country's nuclear plants are earthquake-proof, but they gave way in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Japan has a sordid history of serious
nuclear accidents or spills followed by cover-ups.
It isn't alone. The U.S. government allows nuclear plants to operate under a
level of secrecy usually reserved for the national security apparatus. Last
year, for example, about nine gallons of highly enriched uranium spilled at a
processing plant in Tennessee, forming a puddle a few feet from an elevator
shaft. Had it dripped into the shaft, it might have formed a critical mass
sufficient for a chain reaction, releasing enough radiation to kill or burn
workers nearby. A report on the accident from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
was hidden from the public, and only came to light because one of the
commissioners wrote a memo on it that became part of the public record.
The dream that nuclear power would turn atomic fission into a force for good
rather than destruction unraveled with the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979
and the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. No U.S. utility has ordered a new nuclear
plant since 1978 (that order was later canceled), and until recently it seemed
none ever would. But rising natural gas prices and worries about global warming
have put the nuclear industry back on track. Many respected academics and
environmentalists argue that nuclear power must be part of any solution to
climate change because nuclear power plants don't release greenhouse gases.
They make a weak case. The enormous cost of building nuclear plants, the
reluctance of investors to fund them, community opposition and an endless
controversy over what to do with the waste ensure that ramping up the nuclear
infrastructure will be a slow process — far too slow to make a difference on
global warming. That's just as well, because nuclear power is extremely risky.
What's more, there are cleaner, cheaper, faster alternatives that come with none
of the risks.
Glowing pains
Modern nuclear plants are much safer than the Soviet-era monstrosity at
Chernobyl. But accidents can and frequently do happen. The Union of Concerned
Scientists cites 51 cases at 41 U.S. nuclear plants in which reactors have been
shut down for more than a year as evidence of serious and widespread safety
problems.
Nuclear plants are also considered attractive terrorist targets, though that
risk too has been reduced. Provisions in the 2005 energy bill required threat
assessments at nuclear plants and background checks on workers. What hasn't
improved much is the risk of spills or even meltdowns in the event of natural
disasters such as earthquakes, making it mystifying why anyone would consider
building reactors in seismically unstable places like Japan (or California,
which has two, one at San Onofre and the other in Morro Bay).
Weapons proliferation is an even more serious concern. The uranium used in
nuclear reactors isn't concentrated enough for anything but a dirty bomb, but
the same labs that enrich uranium for nuclear fuel can be used to create
weapons-grade uranium. Thus any country, such as Iran, that pursues uranium
enrichment for nuclear power might also be building a bomb factory. It would be
more than a little hypocritical for the U.S. to expand its own nuclear power
capacity while forbidding countries it doesn't like from doing the same.
The risks increase when spent fuel is recycled. Five countries reprocess their
spent nuclear fuel, and the Bush administration is pushing strongly to do the
same in the U.S. Reprocessing involves separating plutonium from other materials
to create new fuel. Plutonium is an excellent bomb material, and it's much
easier to steal than enriched uranium. Spent fuel is so radioactive that it
would burn a prospective thief to death, while plutonium could be carried out of
a processing center in one's pocket. In Japan, 200 kilograms of plutonium from a
waste recycling plant have gone missing; in Britain, 30 kilograms can't be
accounted for. These have been officially dismissed as clerical errors, but the
nuclear industry has never been noted for its truthfulness or transparency. The
bomb dropped on Nagasaki contained six kilograms.
Technology might be able to solve the recycling problem, but the question of
what to do with the waste defies answers. Even the recycling process leaves
behind highly radioactive waste that has to be disposed of. This isn't a
temporary issue: Nuclear waste remains hazardous for tens of thousands of years.
The only way to get rid of it is to put it in containers and bury it deep
underground — and pray that geological shifts or excavations by future
generations that have forgotten where it's buried don't unleash it on the
surface.
No country in the world has yet built a permanent underground waste repository,
though Finland has come the closest. In the U.S., Congress has been struggling
for decades to build a dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but has been unable to
overcome fierce local opposition. One can hardly blame the Nevadans. Not many
people would want 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste buried in their
neighborhood or transported through it on the way to the dump.
The result is that nuclear waste is stored on-site at the power plants,
increasing the risk of leaks and the danger to plant workers. Eventually, we'll
run out of space for it.
Goin' fission?
Given the drawbacks, it's surprising that anybody would seriously consider a
nuclear renaissance. But interest is surging; the NRC expects applications for
up to 28 new reactors in the next two years. Even California, which has a
31-year-old ban on construction of nuclear plants, is looking into it. Last
month, the state Energy Commission held a hearing on nuclear power, and a group
of Fresno businessmen plans a ballot measure to assess voter interest in
rescinding the state's ban.
Behind all this is a perception that nuclear power is needed to help fight
climate change. But there's little chance that nuclear plants could be built
quickly enough to make much difference. The existing 104 nuclear plants in the
U.S., which supply roughly 20% of the nation's electricity, are old and nearing
the end of their useful lives. Just to replace them would require building a new
reactor every four or five months for the next 40 years. To significantly
increase the nation's nuclear capacity would require far more.
The average nuclear plant is estimated to cost about $4 billion. Because of the
risks involved, there is scarce interest among investors in putting up the
needed capital. Nor have tax incentives and subsidies been enough to lure them.
In part, that's because the regulatory process for new plants is glacially slow.
The newest nuclear plant in the U.S. opened in 1996, after having been ordered
in 1970 — a 26-year gap. Though a carbon tax or carbon trading might someday
make the economics of nuclear power more attractive, and the NRC has taken steps
to speed its assessments, community opposition remains high, and it could still
take more than a decade to get a plant built.
Meanwhile, a 2006 study by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
found that for nuclear power to play a meaningful role in cutting greenhouse gas
emissions, the world would need to build a new plant every one to two weeks
until mid-century. Even if that were feasible, it would overwhelm the handful of
companies that make specialized parts for nuclear plants, sending costs through
the roof.
The accelerating threat of global warming requires innovation and may demand
risk-taking, but there are better options than nuclear power. A combination of
energy-efficiency measures, renewable power like wind and solar, and
decentralized power generators are already producing more energy worldwide than
nuclear power plants. Their use is expanding more quickly, and the decentralized
approach they represent is more attractive on several levels. One fast-growing
technology allows commercial buildings or complexes, such as schools, hospitals,
hotels or offices, to generate their own electricity and hot water with
micro-turbines fueled by natural gas or even biofuel, much more efficiently than
utilities can do it and with far lower emissions.
The potential for wind power alone is nearly limitless and, according to a May
report by research firm Standard & Poor's, it's cheaper to produce than nuclear
power. Further, the amount of electricity that could be generated simply by
making existing non-nuclear power plants more efficient is staggering. On
average, coal plants operate at 30% efficiency worldwide, but newer plants
operate at 46%. If the world average could be raised to 42%, it would save the
same amount of carbon as building 800 nuclear plants.
Nevertheless, the U.S. government spends more on nuclear power than it does on
renewables and efficiency. Taxpayer subsidies to the nuclear industry amounted
to $9 billion 2006, according to Doug Koplow, a researcher based in Cambridge,
Mass., whose Earth Track consultancy monitors energy spending. Renewable power
sources, including hydropower but not ethanol, got $6 billion, and $2 billion
went toward conservation.
That's out of whack. Some countries — notably France, which gets nearly 80% of
its power from nuclear plants and has never had a major accident — have made
nuclear energy work, but at a high cost. The state-owned French power monopoly
is severely indebted, and although France recycles its waste, it is no closer
than the U.S. to approving a permanent repository. Tax dollars are better spent
on windmills than on cooling towers.
Noted the mistake in the last paragraph? One made time and time again when nuclear is argued. France does NOT produce 80% of its power from nuclear. It generates 78% of its electricity from nuclear, which is 18% of the energy overall produced in France. Like the UK, the other 80% or so is by oil and internal combustion --cars etc. Try running a car on nuclear power.
See next page!
Waste shaft work ahead of schedule
By Iain Grant
Published: 07 September, 2007
WORK is running ahead of schedule on the major engineering job to form an underground grout curtain around Dounreay's notorious high-active waste shaft.
The creation of the barrier is a key part of the £27 million scheme to isolate the former makeshift dump.
The unlined, submerged rock tunnel adjoining the shoreline was used to dump all kinds of radioactive and chemical debris from the late 1950s to 1977.
Since January, over 200 boreholes with a combined depth of over 15 kilometres have been drilled and filled with grout in the operation to seal off the shaft from the surrounding environment.
The seal's main function is to minimise the seepage of groundwater into the 65-metre-deep shaft.
The next phase, sinking a further 43 boreholes with a total depth of four kilometres, got under way at the start of August – three months ahead of schedule.
This will be followed by 75 new boreholes which will test how the completed grout curtain is performing.
A UKAEA spokesperson said: "Results so far have been positive with a significant reduction in water entering the shaft."
The isolation project is being carried out by Ritchies, the geotechnical division of Edmund Nuttall, which currently has 28 staff working on the project alongside 10 UKAEA staff.
The drilling was preceded by the creation of an 11-metre-high concrete working platform. The team has also built a galvanised steel portal frame to stop rainwater getting into the shaft and installed a permanent electrical supply needed for the grouting equipment.
The isolation works are scheduled to be completed by March 2009.
The UKAEA expects to start work on retrieving the waste and transferring it to a yet-to-be-built containment plant in the late 2010s.
The total project is costing taxpayers £170 million.
The shaft was abandoned as a dump after a chemical explosion in 1977 blew off its concrete lid.
Despite many disposals having gone unrecorded, the UKAEA insists it has a very good knowledge of the contents of the 750-cubic-metre sludge inside the shaft.
IS NUCLEAR FUEL SPENT OR BENT?
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Nuclear waste is divided rather arbitrarily into three categories: high level waste, intermediate level waste and low level waste, abbreviated to HLW, ILW and LLW. High level waste includes the most dangerous, long-lived and intractable forms, notably the irradiated fuel that is discharged as waste from nuclear reactors after raising steam to generate electricity. By reason of the fission products and transuranic elements built up during uranium atom splitting, this material is a million times as radioactive as it was when it was first loaded into the reactor. It is so intensely radioactive that it has to be stored under water for years to avoid its spontaneous ignition. This used fuel is the main type of HLW.
Amongst these fearful products are plutonium and isotopes of uranium, which are deemed by our security experts to be so lethal that there is little risk of their being stolen, for terrorists would die in the attempt before they could hurt anyone else. So this HLW from most of the nuclear power stations is trundled by train across the UK, right through the London, Midland and Greater Manchester conurbations, to Sellafield for storage, often sitting in sidings in town centres and near schools and housing estates while commuters in their hoards pass it without a thought. Yet the nuclear industry evidently has some qualms about this, since it euphemistically calls such HLW “spent fuel”; one can see why they are so keen to avoid attracting attention to how closely and continuously the public live with HLW. The adjective “spent” however is in direct denial of the fact that the material will go on dangerously “spending” its radioactivity for at least another quarter of a million years.
This HLW is removed from most of the British power stations, but not from from the Sizewell B pressurised water reactor - where it is stored on site in cooling ponds for the full life of the reactor, accumulating over 40 years or so as a concentrated legacy of death should anything go wrong there. Sizewell B is only 10 metres above sea level; yet, as we all know, every time the pundits mention sea level rise, the rise they predict seems to get bigger and sooner. Similar to all the civil reactors themselves - which the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has admitted were not designed to withstand attacks with large aircraft - these cooling ponds are also vulnerable to deliberate attack.
Members of this Campaign taking part in the deliberations of the government-appointed Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) had been impressed by the efforts of the Committee to be as open and transparent as it can, during its work to discover the safest and most environmentally acceptable way of storing nuclear waste. So we were startled to discover last year that a map of the UK published by CoRWM in their 2nd Consultation Document, for the precise purpose of showing where the HLW, ILW and LLW is, failed to show any HLW at all at Sizewell. We mentioned this to the Committee Members during the Ipswich CoRWM Meeting on 10 May 2005, and the published record of that meeting shows that the Members “agree it should be listed”. By the time, however, of this February’s Ipswich Meeting no attempt seemed to have been made to correct the error, so we raised it again. The record this time has the Members saying “we will ensure it is corrected”. When we followed this up with a telephone call to CoRWM and spoke to their Secretariat however, we began to develop misgivings that that august office might not share the candour of the Members we had dealt with. We were assured though that a letter would be sent to us resolving everything.
The letter, dated 17 March 2006 from Mr. S. J. Mansfield of the CoRWM Secretariat, told us: “It would be misleading … to reference the spent fuel held at Sizewell by the term “HLW” ". And lest we might assume this was simply bureaucratic ignorance, the tortuous excuse was advanced that “Along with some similarities, there are important differences between spent fuel and high level waste, notably the reasons for their creation, their physical forms and the means used for their storage”. That is rubbish; the map is to show where and what level the waste is, not what its ontogeny, morphology or means of storage may be.
We wrote back on 26 March to this effect, only to receive in response another map that CoRWM had published, which we had not seen until then. This did indeed hint rather coyly that there was HLW at Sizewell B; but it showed it by a symbol that indicated it was “spent” fuel, not HLW. The symbol for HLW was still not shown at Sizewell. So the nuclear industry’s myths have now been maintained and intentionally perpetuated by a Government Committee: that there is no HLW at Sizewell, and that “spent” fuel is not HLW.
When we challenged this sad deceit, the only defence Mr. Mansfield seemed able to advance rested upon an eleven years old Government document which, in two separate places, gave two rather conflicting explanations of the relationship between “spent” fuel and HLW. This document leant heavily upon the IAEA’s views at the time, coloured as they were then by unrealistic hopes for a separate future for used nuclear fuel. Eleven years ago the Government, glowing with reflected kudos from the recently commissioned Sizewell B, was perhaps prepared to go along with industrial nuclear propaganda. The situation in those days is to be clearly distinguished from nowadays, when CoRWM has been asked to work in an open, transparent and inclusive manner, and to engage with stakeholders. Mr. Mansfield’s excuse in no way invalidates our complaint.
As you would expect, we – as stakeholders - have now engaged directly with the Chair of CoRWM, Gordon MacKerron, on this matter. We expect him to uphold the decisions of his Members, to correct the obfuscations in CoRWM’s maps, and to regret that it has taken nearly a year for this to happen.
I have described all this at some length here, to demonstrate two things. The first is the level of diligence that this small, voluntary non-governmental organisation maintains in scrutinising for the public safety the contortions and antics of the nuclear industry. The second is the apparent connivance of some parts of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management with the worm-tonguedness of the nuclear establishment.
Peter Lanyon
Vice Chair
Shut Down Sizewell camapign April 2006
page 2, French nuclear facts
aims -
newsletter one - newsletter two - newsletter three - environment & effects on suffolk -
membership - climate change - climate change & the effects of air travel - - letters
power from the wind - world comment - alternatives - foe - identity cards