THE TRUE FACTS ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER
Why it is: Unaffordable - Dangerous - Unnecessary - Bad For The Environment
THE TRUE FACTS ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER
Why it is: Unaffordable - Dangerous - Unnecessary - Bad For The Environment
LATEST NEWS
5th May 2025
A DORSET LEISURE CENTRE avoided closure by installing 528 solar panels to combat rising energy costs. See the full story here Bournemouth Echo 4th May 2025
THE SPANISH GRID FAILURE. Reports by the anti-renewables lobby that the Spanish black-out on 28th April 2025 was due to Spain having a large amount of their electricity generated by renewable energy is misinformation. In fact, renewables based systems are reducing blackouts across the world! The truth is gradually emerging that far from threatening electricity transmission systems with blackouts, renewable energy-based systems are preventing them for occurring! This has a lot to do with the fact that the installation of batteries to deal with renewable output variability has the side-effect of improving grid resilience. Solar power is also reducing possibilities for blackouts in hot places. See the full story here
JONATHON PORRIT EXPLAINS WHY TIDAL POWER IN THE SEVERN ESTUARY WILL KILL OFF NUCLEAR POWER PLANS
The well known sustainability campaigner and author, Jonathon Porrit, has just posted this on his website:
"This is a big moment for tidal energy in the UK. People have been talking about the extraordinarily exciting prospects for tidal on the Severn for more than 100 years, yet nothing has ever happened, with every proposal killed off by a combination of vested interests, political indifference, intransigent opposition from misguided environmental organisations (particularly the RSPB), and a shocking lack of vision.
And that lack of vision might just have something to do with the realisation (amply confirmed by the Commission’s report) that if the UK Government ever got serious about tidal power on the Severn, we’d finally be able to consign the nuclear industry’s ‘all of the above’ PR narrative to the dustbin – and with it, the monstrosity of Sizewell C. "
Read the full article here on Jonathon's website
URGENT ACTION NEEDED TO HARNESS TIDAL POWER IN SEVERN ESTUARY, SAY EXPERTS
Commission launched in 2022 says lagoon project, not full barrage, should be backed by UK and Welsh governments
Urgent action is needed to harness the UK’s potential for tidal range energy in the Severn estuary but smaller lagoon models should be pursued over a larger dam-like barrage, a panel of experts has said. The Severn Estuary Commission said that harnessing the energy of the tides in the estuary could deliver predictable, renewable electricity that would work independent of weather conditions.
The commission is made up of nationally and internationally recognised engineers, financiers, scientists and other experts, and was launched by the Western Gateway “powerhouse”, a coalition of politicians, business and public sector leaders and academics. Urgent action is needed to harness tidal power in Severn estuary, say experts.
Sarah Williams-Gardener, chair of the Western Gateway, said: “We need urgent action to make the most of this opportunity. A lagoon project would not only deliver predictable renewable energy, it could also add up to £12bn GVA (gross value added) to the UK economy and 220,000 job years in the construction phase.”
STAND has long advocated the building of tidal lagoons all around the coast of the UK. We have estimated that 30 tidal lagoons dotted around the UK coastline would produce more electricity than the yet-to-come-on-stream Hinkley C and the proposed Sizewell C nuclear reactors together, could be built quickly and cheaply (we estimate approximately 1/20 of the cost of Nuclear, thus reducing electricity bills), would produce far more jobs over a longer period, would come on stream many years earlier, and would not produce the toxic waste legacy of nuclear power.
STAND JOINS INFLUENTIAL BEIS nuclear NGO GROUP
STAND is pleased to announce that we have been invited to join the BEIS nuclear NGO group, which has as its members Friends of the Earth, The Nuclear Free Authorities group, Stop Hinkley groups and others.
We will be meeting regularly with Government Ministers in Whitehall to ask questions and put our points of view.
A brilliantly researched paper by two of the groups members will be presented on the 6th of December to Lord Hunt, the Minister for Nuclear Power. You can download this report here - a must-read for anyone interested in the future of energy production in this country...
29th Dec 2024
Labour donor and green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince and Citizens Advice urge Govt to rethink new nuclear power station at Sizewell.
The government’s new value for money tsar has been challenged to examine the costs of a nuclear power station set to be given final approval next year, as ministers attempt to shore up private investment for the project.
Labour donor and green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince has written to the chair of the governments’ new Office for Value for Money (OVfM), David Goldstone, arguing that a nuclear plant already being built has seen spiralling costs. He also warns the construction of Sizewell C “will saddle consumers with higher bills long before it delivers a single unit of electricity.
“Originally priced at £18bn, the cost of Hinkley has ballooned to £46bn and then there’s the delays. Back in 2007, the then EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said that by Christmas 2017 we would be using electricity generated from atomic power at Hinkley. We’re now in Christmas 2024 and Hinkley isn’t due to be completed until 2031.
“Due to a novel funding method, a lengthy construction timeline for Sizewell will saddle consumers with higher bills long before it delivers a single unit of electricity at a time when there is clear evidence that we can secure a cleaner, cheaper energy future without nuclear.”
The charity Citizens Advice issued a warning earlier this year that the Suffolk project may offer “poor value for money” and called for greater clarity on its funding.
The Guardian/Observer 29th Dec 2024
10th Nov 2024
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities have noted that a report from Labour’s new National Energy System Operator (NESO) just out identifies a miniscule contribution from nuclear in Britain’s future clean energy mix. Clean Power 2030 highlights the priorities for the new agency and two primary pathways – one with and one without a flexible contribution from biomass, hydrogen and Carbon Capture and Storage – to achieve a clean power network by the end of this decade. In a network generating 143 gigawatts (GW) through a mix of renewable technologies, nuclear is only earmarked to provide a supplement of 4.1 GW. The report calls for a tripling in offshore wind generation from 15 to 43 – 50 GW, a doubling in onshore wind from 14 to 27 GW, and a tripling of solar panel generation from 15 to 47 GW.
Nuclear Free Local Authorities
National Energy System Operator (NESO)
19th Sept 2024
The UK, US, Canada, Japan and France to work together to build supply chains for nuclear fuel to reduce reliance on Russia. The Sapporo 5 grouping of G7 nuclear energy countries announced that they have mobilised $5.6 billion to date to establish a global commercial nuclear fuel supply chain, to create an alternative to Russian-supplied fuel. They also called on like-minded nations to commit to the objectives of the group and seek a nuclear fuel supply free from Russian influence.
3rd Sept 2024
Part of Flammanville nuclear power station may begin operating soon says French state owned constructor EDF. Only 11 years late!
Construction work began in December 2007 on the third unit at the Flamanville site in Normandy in northern France. The dome of the reactor building was put in place in July 2013 and the reactor vessel was installed in January 2014. The reactor was originally expected to start commercial operation in 2013 but has faced a series of delays and severe cost over-runs. This is exactly the same design that EDF are building at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which was originally projected to cost £18 billion and be ready by 2025. Back in January this year EDF admitted that it was likely to cost £46 billion in todays prices and not be ready until 2030-2031.
World Nuclear News, Sept 2024. World Nuclear News, Jan 2024.
ARCHIVED NEWS
Developer snaps up site of former Berkeley nuclear power station to create first new hub for nuclear energy research, training and AI. Will work in collaboration with Rolls Royce to produce UK's first SMRs
Chiltern Vital Berkeley (CVB) has today agreed to purchase the 40-acre Gloucestershire Science and Technology Park in Berkeley for a reported £6.5m in order to create the UK’s first low carbon “super cluster” for nuclear research, education and AI. The developer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chiltern Vital Group (CVG), said it would seek to transform the site - which formerly housed one of the world’s first civil nuclear power stations - into the UK’s R&D centre of excellence for the next generation of small modular and micro reactor technology.
STAND has looked at their website and they say they are looking forward to collaborating with Rolls Royce to build the next generation of nuclear reactors at Berkeley and Oldbury.
Explainer
About 12 years ago, a company was formed, called Horizon Nuclear Power to develop new nuclear reactors for the site at Oldbury, which were originally to be built by Hitachi. After Hitachi pulled out, realising that it was no longer financially viable to build nuclear power stations, Horizon kept operating. For those 12 years, dozens of highly paid people had been working in a large office building in Gloucester, paid for by the British taxpayer. The company has now ceased operating. What have they achieved? Apart from "earning" lots of money for themselves, absolutely nothing! Are the Chilton Vital Group now going to jump onto the same gravy-train when it comes to the nuclear reactor part of their brief?
Friends of the Earth report shows all we need is wind, wave and solar. A recent report by Friends of the Earth shows that using less than 3% of the land in England for solar and wind and wave/tidal power would increase the amount of electricity generated by renewables by 13 times and provide enough electricity to power the whole of England, twice over, while providing thousands of new green energy jobs. FOE report
Report sums up succinctly why the UK's insistence on new Nuclear Power will literally cost the earth. Researchers at Oxford and the Union of Concerned Scientists in the United States, among others, confirm what STAND has been saying for for years - that the new so-called modular nuclear reactors, which are still at the design stage, will be ridiculously expensive, can't help the climate crisis, are dangerous and will leave a toxic legacy for future generations. Guardian, 10th May, 2024
A nuclear waste storage facility has been told to take action, after it breached its environmental permit. The Environment Agency (EA) has written to bosses at the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) in Cumbria with concerns about a delay in securing waste at the site. The EA said it could not comment on the matter due to impartiality rules during election periods. BBC, 21st April, 2024
Back in 2016, Hinkley Point C in Somerset was meant to cost £18bn; the latest estimate, according to EDF, is up to £35bn in equivalent terms and more like £46bn in today’s money. And completion date likely to be 2031, admits French company, putting UK government's plans for nuclear expansion (see article below) in doubt, as China backs out of new Sizewell plant. Guardian, Jan 23 2023. “I would have bet at the time that we would see the costs we have today. And I think they’ll climb higher too,” says a former EDF executive. Another says the deal was based on political strategy rather than a commercial rationale. Guardian, Jan 27 2024
Latest news confirms what STAND has been saying for decades - that nuclear weapons are the only logical reason for continuing with nuclear power, as the UK government now admits the close link. Read the full evidence here: The Guardian, 19 Jan 2024
"Nuclear just doesn’t add up, and the future is renewable" says Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, as Government announces biggest expansion of Nuclear Power in decades. Guardian, Jan 11 2023.
This Guardian article from 10th May 2024 sums up succinctly why the UK's insistence on new Nuclear Power will literally cost the earth. It's what STAND has been saying for decades - that the new so-called modular reactors, which are still at the design stage, will be ridiculously expensive, can't help the climate crisis, are dangerous and will leave a toxic legacy for future generations. Guardian, 10th May, 2024
Back in 2016, Hinkley Point C in Somerset was meant to cost £18bn; the latest estimate, according to EDF, is up to £35bn in equivalent terms and more like £46bn in today’s money. And completion date likely to be 2031, admits French company, putting UK government's plans for nuclear expansion (see article below) in doubt, as China backs out of new Sizewell plant. Guardian, Jan 23 2023. “I would have bet at the time that we would see the costs we have today. And I think they’ll climb higher too,” says a former EDF executive. Another says the deal was based on political strategy rather than a commercial rationale. Guardian, Jan 27 2024
Latest news confirms what STAND has been saying for decades - that nuclear weapons are the only logical reason for continuing with nuclear power, as the UK government now admits the close link. Read the full evidence here: The Guardian, 19 Jan 2024
"Nuclear just doesn’t add up, and the future is renewable" says Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, as Government announces biggest expansion of Nuclear Power in decades. Guardian, Jan 11 2023.
Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China. Malware may still be present and potential effects have been covered up by staff, Guardian investigation reveals. Guardian, Dec 4 2023.
Sellafield - Guardian investigation reveals ‘Bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site - Sellafield has leak that could pose risk to public. Guardian, Dec 4 2023.
Why future sea levels matter to Suffolk’s Sizewell nuclear plant. Global coastal inundation is now expected to be far worse than previously predicted - Guardian, September 16, 2022.
Attack on Ukraine nuclear plant ‘suicidal’, says UN chief as he urges access to site - Guardian, August 18 2022.
Half of EDF’s 56 nuclear reactors are offline due to planned maintenance and work to repair corrosion - Guardian, August 3 2022.
EDF cuts output at nuclear power plants as French rivers get too warm - Guardian, August 3 2022.
Mini nuclear power stations may produce more waste than large ones- New Scientist, June 2022.
There could still be time to fix climate – but not with UK’s nuclear plans - The Guardian, May 2022
The Windscale fire in 1957. The fire released radioactive fallout which spread across the UK and the rest of Europe.The radioactive isotope iodine-131, which may lead to cancer of the thyroid, was of particular concern at the time. It has since come to light that small but significant amounts of the highly dangerous radioactive isotope polonium-210 were also released. Windscale has since been renamed Sellafield. There have been many hundreds of accidents around the world since, many of which you will not see in the news until many years later, if at all, so secretive is the nuclear industry.