On July 1, 2020, Germany will take over the presidency of the Council of the European Union. During the following period, the German Federal Government will direct and coordinate the work of the Council. The organisations and initiatives undersigned expect that the Federal Government will use the Council presidency to achieve an agreement on a concrete timetable for a revision of the EURATOM Treaty, which is overdue. In their 2018 coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and SPD government partners stipulated that the EURATOM Treaty had to be “adapted to the necessities of the future regarding the use of nuclear power”. The policy paper further stated that in the future “…new nuclear power plants in the EU must not be granted (state) subsidies”.

Nuclear Consulting Group 30th July 2020 read more »

The ASN college auditioned, on June 18, 2020, Mr. Lewandowski, director of the nuclear and thermal fleet (DPNT) of EDF . The hearing focused on EDF’s strategy for the storage of spent fuel from its nuclear power plants. ASN identified in 2010 the need for new storage capacity for spent fuel by 2030. This need was confirmed in the 4 th edition of the National Materials Management Plan and radioactive waste (PNGMDR) 2016 -2018, as well as by the analysis of the consistency of the ” nuclear fuel cycle ” over the 2016-2030 period, on which ASN issued its opinion in 2018 [1] . This led the government to prescribe measures to EDF to increase these capacities [2] , in particular the filing of the request for authorization to create a new storage facility, at the latest at the end of 2020.

ASN 1st July 2020 read more »

A failure to renew France’s fleet of nuclear power reactors will have consequences as soon as 2030 for not only the country’s energy security but also its climate targets, according to the French nuclear energy society (SFEN). Nuclear power plants, with a combined capacity of 62 GWe, currently account for more than 70% of the country’s electricity generation.

World Nuclear News 1st July 2020 read more »

Russia’s nuclear play for power in Africa. Russia is pushing nuclear technology to African nations to both turn a profit and expand its political might on the continent.

Deutsche Welle 30th June 2020 read more »

Russian nuclear power is one continent closer to taking over the world. This week the Rwandan parliament approved a plan for the Russian state-owned nuclear conglomerate Rosatom to build a brand new nuclear research facility, along with a nuclear reactor, in the Central African nation’s capital city of Kigali. This hard-won development comes as the latest step in a decades-long aggressive lobbying effort on the part of the Russian government and more specifically Rosatom to woo African nations into making deals with Russia, ostensibly for profit as well as influence on the African continent.

Oil Price 1st July 2020 read more »

On 14 June the South African Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy issued a controversial statement initiating a process that could lead to the construction of new nuclear power station. The timing of the release, on a Sunday evening with the country completely focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested a secretive revival of the much maligned Zuma-era nuclear deal. The statement accompanied an official request for information intending to let the ministry “gain insight into the cost of the programme, possible ownership structures, cost recovery, the end user cost and sustainability of the programme”. Interested parties are invited to submit non-binding proposals on how they might build, operate and finance nuclear facilities with a generating capacity of 2500 MW. This is slightly larger than Koeberg, South Africa’s only existing nuclear plant. Nuclear energy has become a decreasingly popular mode of electricity generation, especially since the falling cost of wind and solar power allowed these technologies major inroads into energy markets. Last year the global completion rate of new nuclear plants dropped to four from about 30 per annum in the mid 1980’s. The plants still being built now are typically running well behind schedule and construction costs are much higher than initially projected.

The Conversation 1st July 2020 read more »

In 2007, shortly after Democrats took back the House of Representatives in the 2006 midterm elections, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, meant to gather expert testimony and develop policy plans to address climate change. Until Republicans killed it in 2011, the select committee amassed an enormous body of knowledge, which it contributed to the 2007 energy bill, the 2009 Obama stimulus bill, and the ill-fated Waxman-Markey climate bill (which died in the Senate). In 2018, just before Democrats re-took the House, Pelosi proposed reconstituting the committee. In the wake of the election, climate change activists, led by newly elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, demanded that the new committee have teeth — that it be charged with developing a Green New Deal. The original sit-in at Pelosi’s office, where AOC drew scads of media attention by appearing after having been elected but before being sworn in, was in part about demanding a more robust committee. Activists eventually got dozens of lawmakers to sign on to the effort. In the end, though, Pelosi gave the new select committee a purely advisory role, with neither subpoena power nor a specific legislative mandate. After the initial hullabaloo, the select committee largely fell out of the headlines and got to work. The report weighs in at well over 500 pages, with hundreds of individual policy recommendations — even the bullet-pointed list goes on for four pages. I will not presume to try to summarize it. Instead, I will just lay out the basic structure, the twelve policy “pillars” identified, and then say a few things about the political landscape in which the report arrives. We now have as close to a definitive answer as can be provided in advance of the question, “How can we do this?” What remains, politically speaking, is the question of whether we’ll do it, i.e., the question of power. The overall goal of the recommendations is net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the US by “no later than” 2050, and negative emissions thereafter.

Vox 30th June 2020 read more »

The Nuclear Consulting Group, Global 2000, Cities for a Nuclear Free Europe (CNFE), the Co-ordinator of the Alliance of Regions for Phasing-out Nuclear Power Across Europe and the UK and Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) warmly welcome a decision of EU member states that the planned ‘European Just Transition Fund’ will not provide financial support for new nuclear projects or fossil fuel schemes like gas power. The European Commission is seeking to establish a €40 billion Just Transition Fund, made up of €30 billion from an EU coronavirus recovery fund and €10 billion euros from the Commission’s budget for 2021-27. The aim of the fund is to move European economies away from old high-carbon industries like coal, retraining workers from such sectors, into new low-carbon renewable energy jobs. The Fund will also focus support in regions which have high carbon polluting industry and move them towards renewable energy alternatives.

NFLA 30th June 2020 read more »

The European Commission is expected to launch a hydrogen strategy on 8 July, IJGlobal can reveal, with a huge scale-up of production planned for 2030.

IJ Global 30th June 2020 read more »

The Fukushima nuclear accident has added a distinctive signature to snow and ice across the northern hemisphere, new research published in Environmental Research Letters shows. Triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan on 11 March 2011, the disaster resulted in a month-long discharge of radioactive material into the atmosphere, ocean and soil. Feiteng Wang from the Tian Shan glaciological station in Lanzhou, China, and colleagues collected snow samples in 2011 and 2018 from a number of glaciers (spanning a distance of more than 1,200 miles (2,000km) in north-western China. They expected the Fukushima signature to have faded away by 2018, but to their surprise the freeze-thaw processing had made it more concentrated, creating a strong and lasting reference layer in the ice.

Guardian 30th June 2020 read more »

After the final shutdown of the Fessenheim power station, many questions remain. On the night of Monday, June 29, the second reactor of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant will be definitively shut down. What are the social consequences of this closure? How will the dismantling take place? What future for the site? Reporterre takes stock.

Reporterre 29th June 2020 read more »

French utility EDF yesterday permanently shut down unit 2 of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant in eastern France as scheduled. Its closure, together with that of unit 1 in February, was necessary under the country’s energy transition law before EDF can bring new nuclear capacity online.

World Nuclear News 30th June 2020 read more »

BBC 30th June 2020 read more »

EDF plans to install its future centralized swimming pool to store spent nuclear fuel on the existing site of La Hague (Manche) of the Orano group, the electricity producer said on Tuesday. ” Orano was asked to carry out a feasibility study for the establishment of a new storage pool in La Hague, ” said an EDF spokesperson.

Le Figaro 30th June 2020 read more »