What should the next UK government prioritise? Views from scientists

From: Scientists for Social Responsibility: https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/what-should-next-uk-government-prioritise-views-scientists

Leading SGR figures outline some policy recommendations for the incoming British government on issues including climate change, energy, security and AI.

Responsible Science blog, 17 June 2024 (updated)
This blog includes contributions from Stuart Parkinson, Phil Webber, Jan Maskell, Keith Baker, and Philip Inglesant.

Dr Stuart Parkinson on climate change and energy:

“Humanity has opened the gates of hell,” said Antonio Guterres at an international climate summit last September. The UN Secretary General used phrases that scientists tend to avoid, but the current speed and scale of the impacts is frightening even leading researchers. The world is now starting to approach environmental ‘tipping points’ which, if passed, would lead to sudden, irreversible climate change across the planet. Our political leaders have yet to grasp how devastating this would be. In the UK, we have already seen the main political parties retreating on their inadequate commitments to reduce carbon emissions due to concerns about cost. But the costs of inaction would be far worse.

On the positive side, there is promising ambition in some parties’ proposals for the expansion of renewable energy, especially offshore wind and solar. A 2030 target for decarbonisation of the electricity grid is the minimum necessary here, and it should include onshore wind – because it’s cheaper – and a range of energy storage technologies, together with the necessary grid upgrades.

But ambition is lacking in all other areas.

A top priority should be a national home retrofit programme – including insulation, heat pumps, and solar photovoltaics. This would offer multiple co-benefits, such as reducing fuel poverty, boosting local employment, and improving national energy security.

Much greater investment is also needed in public transport, cycling, walking, and electric car clubs – as well as a much improved electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Tackling overconsumption by the ‘polluter elite’ could reduce carbon emissions faster than many other options – starting with, for example, bans on private jets and the advertising of high-carbon products, and high penalties for frequent flyers and petrol SUVs. Financial rewards for low-carbon behaviours would also be essential.

We also need to make careful choices about new low-carbon technologies. Promising examples here include green hydrogen, hydrogen-reduced steel, and tidal lagoons. Problematic dead-end technologies promoted by entrenched industrial interests include blue hydrogen, nuclear power, many biofuels, and most proposals for carbon capture and storage.

And, of course, we need an immediate end to new fossil fuel extraction projects, and a rapid phase-out of existing sources – with windfall taxes to help speed up the process. Ambitious plans for ‘difficult’ sectors like agriculture and the military are also critical.

Underlying all these changes is skills development – across science, engineering, and other sectors – supporting employees and employers in a just transition to a sustainable future. It should not be forgotten that the job-creation potential of this transition is enormous.

One overarching policy which would bring these elements together is a Climate and Nature Bill – which SGR has endorsed along with over 200 individual scientists and over 700 organisations. We especially urge the next government to enact such a bill.

In short, a climate and nature-friendly future is one that would provide benefits across society – and it needs to be a top priority whoever wins the election.

Dr Stuart Parkinson is Executive Director of SGR. He has carried out research and advocacy in climate science, technology and policy for over 30 years. He holds a PhD in climate science and has been an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Dr Phil Webber on security and military issues:

One of the most controversial uses of scientific and engineering expertise is for military activity. This is also where UK government policies have recently failed on many fronts.

Starting with war crimes and other human rights violations, UK arms are currently being exported to Israel and Saudia Arabia – whose forces have committed war crimes in Gaza and Yemen respectively. British-made military equipment is also sold to the oppressive governments in, for example, Qatar and the UAE. Halting such exports should be a priority for the new government.

Then there’s the risk of nuclear war by accident. UK politicians regularly talk of Britain’s nuclear weapons as an ‘ultimate guarantee’ of the nation’s security, ignoring the multiple ways in which the strategy of nuclear deterrence can fail – through both human error and technical error, such as false warnings of attack, especially dangerous during a crisis or ‘hot’ war. Immediate positive policy changes here should include:

• reversing the recent increase in the number of UK warheads;
• publicly committing to not hosting US nuclear weapons on British soil;
• declaring a ‘no first-use’ policy;
• working for rapid multilateral disarmament through the 2017 UN nuclear ban treaty.

The UK’s nuclear weapons alone are capable of immense destruction. One submarine using a salvo of 40 warheads is capable of destroying up to ten major cities anywhere within its 7,000 mile range.  Millions of people would be killed and huge radioactive no-go areas created. Huge conflagrations combined with intense nuclear fireballs would loft smoke high into the upper atmosphere.  Over the following decade, a ‘nuclear winter’ would follow, with drought and frosts across the northern hemisphere threatening billions with famine.

For the UK it is highly questionable if its nuclear weapons could ever be deliberately used except as part of a disastrous widespread nuclear conflict possibly ending human civilisation.

On military spending, the main political parties have recently been competing with each other over which can promise the largest and quickest increases. But what they fail to mention is that the UK’s military budget alone is already very large, about 70% of that of Russia, or the fact NATO spending dwarfs that of Russia many times over.

But one reason for the large UK budget – and NATO’s – is a focus on incredibly expensive, ‘sophisticated’ armaments systems such as huge aircraft carriers, expensive ship-based missiles, and warplanes. These choices are increasingly proving vulnerable to much cheaper armaments which can be deployed in large numbers. For example, the large NATO naval task force in the Red Sea – which includes British forces – has been combatting Houthi militia firing swarms of drones costing $2,000 – $20,000 with missiles costing about $2m each, which quickly run out, and warplanes costing $50m and some $29,000 an hour to operate. However, many merchant ships have still been sunk and container shipping is down by 90%. The US Navy has reported that it has already expended $1bn on munitions, while a French frigate had to leave the Red Sea after only 71 days, having completely running out of munitions. Meanwhile, in the Ukraine war, expensive Russian warplanes have been effectively countered by much cheaper Ukrainian-operated air defences.

But in the latest UK defence review, rather than concentrating on simpler, cheaper armaments and national (or even regional) defence, the UK has chosen to continue to aim for a ‘global reach’ for ‘force projection’ – for example, military activities in the Indo-Pacific region.

Overall, my conclusion is that the UK focus on an aggressive global military reach is a mistake and that wider security should be improved by tackling climate change and prioritising diplomacy, and that it is in these areas that security spending should be focused.

Dr Philip Webber is a Co-chair of SGR’s Board of Directors. He has carried out research and advocacy on security, science and technology issues for over 40 years. His publications include the books, London after the bomb and New defence strategies for the 1990s, and the SGR report, UK nuclear weapons: a catastrophe in the making?

Dr Jan Maskell on environmental behaviour change:

Behaviour change has long been neglected as a policy tool for helping to tackle the climate crisis, in both Britain and elsewhere. One of the key messages from a recent report by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – the UK government’s advisory body – was the need to “Empower and inform households and communities to make low-carbon choices. Despite some positive steps to provide households with advice on reducing energy use in the last year, a coherent public engagement strategy on climate action is long overdue.”

To achieve the necessary climate action, a combination of technology and behaviour change is needed. The next government needs to develop a strategy including both, and the CCC’s recommendations are a good starting point. Examples of household and community behaviour change have been achieved before and demonstrated through, for example, the implementation of low emission zones in cities, and the plastic bag charge. Low carbon climate behaviours are needed in many areas, for example: consumption and waste – reducing what people buy and encouraging more re-use, re-purposing and recycling; energy use – mandating low carbon heating systems (e.g. heat pumps) for individuals and community systems; transport – disincentives for car ownership and flying, and further incentives for active travel (including making walking and cycling the default choices); and food – promoting healthy, nutritious, and environmentally sustainable diets, and taxing high-carbon ultra-processed food.

The target behaviours to be addressed need to be identified and prioritised in terms of low carbon behaviours and acceptability, then a combination of legislation and ‘nudges’ developed. The co-benefits of these behaviours are also important considerations in their implementation. For example, there are health benefits from active travel and improved air quality, and financial benefits for households from reducing spending on high-carbon products.

As the CCC report recommended, there needs to be public engagement to “support people to make these choices including through regulation and incentives. Government should lead by example by visibly adopting these green choices.”

Dr Jan Maskell is an Occupational Psychologist with 25 years’ experience. She is also a Sustainability Consultant who supports organisations to implement their Environmental Management Systems and individuals to reduce their environmental impact. She is Co-chair of SGR’s Board of Directors.

 

Dr Keith Baker on a publicly-owned energy company:

One of the proudest moments in my career was when, after years of arguing for the establishment of a Scottish publicly-owned energy company, I received the news that the Welsh Government had gone ahead and adopted Common Weal’s model for their own company, Ynni Cymru. So, when Labour announced their plan to establish GB Energy and base it in Aberdeen, I was really pleased.

However, the latest news indicates that the policy has disintegrated. Of the three options that I understand are on the table, one sounds like a quango – so not technically a company – and the other two sound scarily like the return of the much-criticised Private Financing Initiative of the previous Labour government. Only one of the three sounds anything like an energy company. And none are limited to renewables – with the big worry being that the ‘investment vehicle’ option could end up losing billions underwriting new nuclear build.

I want to see a public energy company that develops renewable energy projects and, critically, the infrastructure needed to support them, and retains at least a majority share in them. It should be the developer of first resort for projects, such as district heating systems, that are less attractive to investors because of their long payback periods, but which will address social issues such as fuel poverty as well as reducing carbon emissions. Following Wales’s lead, it should start small and be focussed on those projects that deliver measurable benefits to those most in need rather than trying to be everything to everybody.

Under the Conservatives we have seen councils declare climate and ecological emergencies, and now we’re seeing them declare housing emergencies. How long will it be before they start declaring energy and infrastructure emergencies? Labour’s original proposals for GB Energy showed a lot of promise. If the opinion polls are right and they do win the general election, they will need to be brave, stick with these proposals, and learn from what their colleagues in Wales have been doing.

Dr Keith Baker is a Researcher in Fuel Poverty and Energy Policy at the Built Environment Asset Management Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University. He is also a member of SGR’s Board of Directors, and Convenor of the Energy Working Group within Common Weal.

Dr Philip Inglesant on AI:

Artificial Intelligence is everywhere. AI has seized the public imagination with Large Language Models, which are able interact in seemingly human-like ways and to produce credible, if not very imaginative, answers to everyday questions. But AI is rapidly encroaching on decisions that affect our lives in large and small ways, from who we get to see as friends on social media to the medical treatment we receive to decisions on whether to give us a bank loan or shortlist us for a job application.

There are well-known risks from AI: bias; security and privacy; lack of transparency; unaccountability; and incontestability. But there are broader implications, for democracy and for society, as we have seen with social media. AI and facial recognition can be used for repressive policing. And AI also has terrible military applications, including ‘killer drones’.

The Conservative government has taken a ‘pro-innovation’ approach to AI regulation, mainly using existing regulatory frameworks. However, this misses the point that Big Tech such as AI always tends to monopolisation by a handful of large companies, and these will always seek to monetise their products rather than to provide socially-beneficial services.

Would Labour be much better? Their manifesto has little to say about AI, and, like the Conservatives, promises to drive innovation in technology. However, it does acknowledge the inadequacy of current regulators to deal with rapid technological development, and says they will introduce binding regulation on the most powerful AI companies. Nevertheless, Labour seems increasingly controlled by centrists who have the ear of the likes of the Tony Blair Institute and want to ‘cut red tape’ for tech firms. They seem likely to have more influence than its traditional trade union backers.

We should urge the next government at least to prioritise the rights of citizens over the increasingly powerful corporate agenda.

Dr Philip Inglesant teaches and researches Responsible Innovation in areas including AI, quantum computing, and information technologies more broadly. He is an Advisor to SGR’s Board of Directors.

 

[image credit: C Archer]

 

Nuclear power and net zero: Too little, too late, too expensive

This complete article has been copied from Responsible Science Journal No. 6, which inturn was copied into the SGR Newsletter.

_______________________________________________________________________

Prof Steve Thomas, Greenwich University, assesses the considerable obstacles to the UK government’s target for new nuclear power.

Article from Responsible Science journal, no.6
Advance online publication (original article): 9 January 2024; update published: 9 February 2024
Original article (9/1/24)

Introduction

In October 2023, the British government reaffirmed the 2022 Boris Johnson target of bringing online 24 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity, eight stations the size of Hinkley Point C, by 2050. [1]  As we wait for more details to be published on how the government intends to try to meet this target, this article critically considers likely proposals. While there is talk about Small Modular Reactors making a significant contribution, as I argued in my article on these in Responsible Science, no.5, [2] their rationale is based on some highly suspect assumptions about cost-savings from reducing reactor size. At most a few demonstration SMRs might be built, demonstrating only that they are far from being competitive with other options for low-carbon generation.

So, if the 24 GW target is to be met, most of the capacity will have to be in large (1.2 GW-plus) reactors. The government seems determined to drive through the Sizewell C project whatever the cost. This would comprise two reactors of the EPR-1 design used at Hinkley Point C, but that would leave a further seven to build.

To achieve the 24 GW target, at least four conditions must be met:

1. The equivalent of eight new nuclear projects must be completed by 2050.
2. Mature, commercial, large reactor technologies must be available.
3. Seven sites beyond Sizewell, suitable for 3 GW stations, must be approved.
4. Owners and financiers for eight stations, expected to cost about £250bn, must be found.

1. When could new capacity come online?

Ambitious nuclear programmes are always accompanied by the same tired rhetoric offered for more than 50 years – of cutting red tape, streamlining planning and regulatory processes, learning from past mistakes, and taking advantage of new technologies. This has never worked in the past, not because we were not trying hard enough, but because nuclear power stations intrinsically take a long time from start of planning to first power, and new technologies have proved expensive and bring their own problems. The government acknowledged this in its Impact Assessment for the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) legislation which stated that it typically took 13-17 years from a Final Investment Decision (FID) to first power. [3]  It could have added that most announced projects do not make it as far as FID. The Impact Assessment also stated that nuclear projects typically cost 20-100% more than the estimate at FID. Adding in a few years to get from project inception to FID and it is clear the whole process is likely to take 15-20 years. The Flamanville (France) and the Olkiluoto (Finland) projects will take longer than 20 years and with at least four years of construction left at Hinkley Point C, that project will take nearly 20 years if there are no more delays. Flamanville [4] and Olkiluoto [5] are about 300% over budget. Planning for any capacity that will be online by 2050 must be started by 2030.

2. Which technologies?

The EPR-1 design supplied by the French nationalised utility, EDF, is not credible for further orders. A former CEO of EDF described EPR-1 as “too complicated, almost unbuildable”. [6]  Design work has been in progress for more than a decade on its replacement, EPR-2, which is claimed to be cheaper and easier to build. EDF plans to build six EPR-2s in France, the first coming online in 2035-37. EDF has said it would not try to sell the design until an EPR-2 was operating in France. Whether the EPR-2 will live up to the claims made is irrelevant. If we must wait till the after 2035 for it to be available, EPR-2s cannot be online in the UK by 2050.

Assuming designs from Russia and China are not acceptable, that leaves us with the other two designs meant to make up the Blair programme of 16 GW by 2030, the Hitachi-GE ABWR and the Westinghouse AP1000. While these have been approved by the UK safety regulator, they are not attractive. The three reactors of the ABWR design operating in Japan use a 1986 version of it. No orders for the updated designs are in prospect and the vendor appears not to be offering it for sale.

The record of the AP1000 is almost as bad as that of the EPR with all eight orders going badly wrong. The history of the ‘AP’ designs illustrates the nuclear industry’s duplicity on reactor size. Initially it was the AP600 (about 700 MW), but this was found to be uneconomic. It was scaled up to the AP1000 (1170 MW) and this was built in China and in the USA, but to improve the poor economics, China has scaled it up to 1550 MW (CAP1400). In March 2023, Westinghouse announced its new design would be a scaled down AP1000, the 300 MW AP300.

The other candidate is the South Korean APR1400. Like the ABWR, this has been built but using a design that did not take account of the lessons from the Chernobyl disaster (a means of preventing a molten core getting into the environment) or from the 9/11 attack (a need to toughen the shell enough to absorb a hit by an aircraft). It seems unlikely that an updated design could complete the required safety review in time for an FID to be taken on a project using this technology until after 2030. The record of APR1400 projects is problematic with long delays due partly to falsification of quality control documentation in South Korea and quality issues in the UAE.
3. Where would they be built?

Eight sites were identified as suitable in the government’s siting decision of 2010. [7]  With Hinkley and Sizewell already under some sort of development, this leaves Moorside, Wylfa, Oldbury, Bradwell, Heysham and Hartlepool. There are concerns about the impact of sea-level rises for all the sites. [8]  A project for the Wylfa site underwent review by the Planning Inspectorate which recommended the project not be consented because of its environmental impact. Moorside, Oldbury and Bradwell have undergone some investigations for new nuclear capacity for projects now abandoned and this preparatory work could be utilised to speed things up.[9] Heysham and Hartlepool would need detailed assessment to determine their suitability before any project could be proposed, so they might not be available by 2030. If eight projects (including Sizewell C) need to be completed by 2050, then either the planning advice at Wylfa would need to be ignored or at least one new site would be needed – and this also assumes all planning issues at the other sites could be adequately dealt with by the end of this decade and none of these locations would be earmarked for SMRs.

4. How would they be financed and who would own them?

When electricity utilities could pass on whatever costs they incurred, they enthusiastically supported nuclear projects. Now, if nuclear projects go wrong, it will be their shareholders who bear some of the costs, so interest from utilities, particularly investor-owned ones, has evaporated. Direct government ownership is an option, although it would be an extraordinary decision to invest taxpayers’ money in nuclear projects on the basis that no other investors would be willing to take this risk. So, innovative methods of finance are required.

The finance model used for Hinkley Point C, the Contracts for Difference (CfD) model, was both a poor deal for consumers and the plant owner, EDF. The power purchase price was set in 2013, three years before the investment decision, at £92.5/MWh in 2012 money, indexed to inflation (about £124/MWh in 2023 money) with cost overruns falling on EDF. This price is more than double the price for new offshore wind. [10]  In 2013, the expected construction cost was £16bn but the latest estimate is £26bn (both in 2016 money). [11]  So EDF will have to absorb the cost overrun of at least 60% but with no increase in the price it will get for its output. This form of CfD is not an option any sane investor would back for nuclear even though, for offshore wind, it is producing impressive results and will continue to be used.

The UK government is now proposing the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) financial model. The main architecture of the scheme is known although crucial details have not been published. How far this lack of information is down to the government leaving these open for negotiation, to the government not having decided on them yet, or to the government not being willing to admit the details, is difficult to determine. There is brave talk of risk-sharing but the reality is that it will not be the government that sets the terms, it will be investors unless the government is prepared to walk away with no deal. But the government seems likely to agree to whatever it takes to lure investors in. Deepa Venkateswaran, an analyst at Bernstein, said would-be investors in Sizewell needed to be “assured a return” that was locked in at the point of investment rather than subject to change. [12]

Under RAB, it would be the investors’ income that would be fixed, not the price paid for power. The power price would be whatever it took to generate the guaranteed annual income to the owners. All electricity retailers and therefore all consumers would be required to buy their share of the output. With the Hinkley Point CfD, the owner took the risk; with Sizewell RAB, consumers take the risk.

The selling point for the RAB model has been the claim that it would reduce the cost of finance and therefore the cost of power. RAB reduces financing costs in two ways. First, because the risks will fall on consumers and taxpayers, the project would be seen by financiers as low risk to them and would attract a low interest rate. Second, the finance charges would effectively be paid by consumers as a surcharge on their bills payable from the date of FID to completion of the plant, expected to be about 15 years. Finance costs savings would be paid for by consumers as a surcharge on bills and by them, not the project owners, assuming the project risk.

Despite this, the government is struggling to find investors. It has said there are at least four companies that have pre-qualified as potential investors, [13] although pre-qualifying commits them to nothing. EDF has been forced to offer to take about 20% of the project ownership, while the government has said it would take an unspecified stake but it will be at least 20%, but probably more, enough to fill any funding gap.

The original target for RAB was UK institutional investors but given lack of interest from this source, government now seems to be relying on more controversial sources such as Middle East investment funds. [14]  It will be difficult to explain to the public why, if the Bradwell project was politically unacceptable because of the presence of Chinese money, a RAB project with, say, Saudi money is acceptable.

The government may be able to offer enough sweeteners to allow the Sizewell C project to proceed but replicating it will be more difficult. For each project, a technology, a site, and investors will have to be found. Politically it will be difficult for the government to keep taking expensive stakes in nuclear projects just because nobody else will. The scale of investment is huge, and, for example, Sizewell C alone is expected to cost about 10 times the cost of the Thames Tideway ‘super-sewer’ water project, the first major project to use the RAB model.

Conclusions

The electricity sector ought to be one of the first sectors to be decarbonised because of the availability of a range of viable technologies available to replace fossil-fuel generation. Boris Johnson set a target of decarbonising electricity by 2035 [15] while Keir Starmer has set a target of 2030. [16]  Given that even Sizewell C is unlikely to be online by 2035, the nuclear programme is an irrelevance in achieving net-zero. The only justification is if nuclear was the cheapest way to meet electricity demand growth by the time the first capacity could come online and the current chasm in cost between nuclear and renewables or energy efficiency measures suggests this is implausible. Judged by the requirements of time, technology availability, sites and availability of finance, the programme will fail badly. In doing so, large amounts of government time and taxpayer money will, as with previous UK nuclear programmes, be diverted away from the options that have a much higher success probability, are more cost-effective and can be deployed much quicker.

Update (9/2/24)

Since the original article was finalised, the UK government published its delayed Roadmap to achieve its target of 24GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050. [17]  This contained little of new substance and did not address the barriers to achieving this set out in my article above. It also made new announcements of further spending: an additional £1.3bn on the Sizewell C project; £300m on new nuclear fuel facilities for High-Assay Low-Enrichment Uranium (HALEU); [18] and £64m on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). [19]  A new estimate for the completion cost and date of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station was also published by Electricité de France (EDF).

The scale of the new estimates of cost and time overruns for Hinkley Point C was a shock. In the 20 months since the previous announcement, [20] the estimated completion cost had increased from £25-26bn to £31-35bn (all in 2015 money) and the completion date for the first of the two reactors had been delayed from 2027-28 to 2029-31. So expected completion is further away, and the costs and time are subject to greater uncertainty than they were in May 2022.

Apparently oblivious to this renewed demonstration that the EPR technology being built at Hinkley Point and proposed for Sizewell was “almost unbuildable” (see main article), the government announced further taxpayer support for Sizewell. It committed to increase its contribution to bring the plant to the point of Final Investment Decision (FID), projected for 2024, from £1.2bn to £2.5bn. [21]  By the end of 2022, EDF had also spent £700m on this process, [22] so adding in its contribution (assuming some further spend in 2023) might take the total to about £3.5bn. The original budget to get to an FID, set by EDF in 2016 when the agreements were signed, was £458m, less than one seventh of the latest expected cost: just to get to a position when an investment decision might be taken. This begs the question how many homes could have been insulated and how much offshore wind capacity could have been built and operational in a period of eight years with a budget of £3.5bn.

Steve Thomas is Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy at Greenwich University, UK. He has researched and written on nuclear power policy issues for 40 years. 

References

[1] Science, Innovation and Technology Committee (2023). https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/41818/documents/207526/default/

[2] Thomas (2023). https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/small-modular-reactors-last-chance-saloon-nuclear-industry

[3] BEIS (2021a). https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-02/0174/ImpactAssessment.pdf

[4] The cost estimate for Flamanville 3 at start of construction was €3.2bn, the most recent estimate (December 2022) was €13.2bn (2015 money). EDF hopes the reactor will go online in 2024. https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/update-on-the-flamanville-epr-0

[5] The cost estimate at start of construction was €3bn. The final cost has been estimated to be nearly €11bn. https://yle.fi/a/3-12356596

[6] Hansard (2023). https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-09-07/debates/A29C6747-0A3A-4AEA-83FB-D75EE1892C29/NuclearEnergy

[7] DECC (2010). https://www.gov.uk/government/news/huhne-highlights-urgent-need-for-new-energy

[8] See, for example: Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2009). https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/reports/detail/climate-change-adapting-to-the-inevitable; The Guardian (2012). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/07/uk-nuclear-risk-flooding

[9] The Bradwell project to be built by the Chinese company CGN has not been formally abandoned but EDF’s most recent annual report stated: “The project to build a nuclear power plant based on the UK HPR1000 technology reactor is unlikely to be implemented.” https://www.edf.fr/sites/groupe/files/2023-04/edf-urd-annual-financial-report-2022-en.pdf

[10] BEIS (2022). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6318a01cd3bf7f77d5f2c6bb/contracts-for-difference-allocation-round-4-results.pdf

[11] EDF (2022). https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/hinkley-point-c-update-0

[12] The Times (2023). https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/centrica-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-plant-stake-263rj5r2c

[13] TASC (2023). https://tasizewellc.org.uk/sizewell-228/

[14] This is Money (2022). https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-11472637/UAE-wealth-fund-invest-Sizewell-C.html; i news (2022). https://inews.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-nuclear-power-energy-money-funding-investment-boris-johnson-1831509

[15] BEIS (2021b). https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plans-unveiled-to-decarbonise-uk-power-system-by-2035

[16] Politico (2023). https://www.politico.eu/article/united-kingdom-labour-party-keir-starmer-net-zero-decarbonize-power-electricity-green-policy/

[17] DESNZ (2024a). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-nuclear-roadmap-to-2050/civil-nuclear-roadmap-to-2050-accessible-webpage

[18] The announcement on HALEU, heavily couched in anti-Putin rhetoric, is even harder to comprehend. Worldwide, HALEU is used for reactors producing medical isotopes and a small number of prototype reactors. The government acknowledges that it will be difficult to deploy the type of power reactors that would need HALEU before 2050 in the UK and the outlook is no better elsewhere. So why we need to bring the new facility on-line in the early 2030s is incomprehensible. DESNZ (2024b). https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-invests-in-high-tech-nuclear-fuel-to-push-putin-out-of-global-energy-market

[19] The government also announced it was commissioning the Office of Nuclear Regulation to carry out Generic Design Assessments (GDA) for the Holtec and GE-Hitachi Small Modular Reactors. Holtec was given £30.05m and GE Hitachi £33.6m to pay for the first two of the three of the stages of the GDA. DESNZ (2024c). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-nuclear-enabling-fund-shortlisted-applications/future-nuclear-enabling-fund-successful-applicant

[20] EDF (2022). https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/hinkley-point-c-update-0 ; EDF (2024). https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/hinkley-point-c-update-1

[21] DESNZ (2024d). https://www.gov.uk/government/news/further-steps-to-prepare-sizewell-c-for-construction

[22] EDF (2023). https://www.edf.fr/sites/groupe/files/2023-04/edf-urd-annual-financial-report-2022-en.pdf

Nuclear power in Ukraine: what would happen if Zaporizhzhia was hit?

The Zaporizhzhia region in south eastern Ukraine houses the largest nuclear power station in Europe – the Zaporizhzhia NPP – one of the ten largest such plants in the world. It is currently in an intensely fought war zone. Dr Philip Webber, SGR, explains some of the risks of radiation releases that this poses, both nationally and internationally.

Article from Responsible Science journal, no.5; advance online publication: 15 December 2022

About the Zaporizhzhia site

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant [1] is part of a huge industrial complex some 8km square. It houses six large (1 gigawatt or GW) VVER-1000 Russian designed and built nuclear power reactors, [2] three thermal (coal- and gas-powered) power stations, and the purpose-built city of Enerhodar, which was built in 1970 to house 11,000 power plant workers and a total population of around 53,000. [3]  Before the war, the nuclear plant supplied about 20% of Ukraine’s electricity – widely used for heating in large apartment blocks. The reactors’ containment structures [4] house the nuclear core and used or ‘spent’ nuclear fuel in cooling pools. After five years, this spent fuel is transferred to dry storage casks nearby, which are air-cooled. In addition, huge external cooling ponds – which are continuously sprayed with water – store many older used nuclear fuel rods. The three thermal plants were shut down in May 2022 having run out of fuel due to the Russian invasion.

The Zaporizhzhia power site is much larger than the biggest UK nuclear sites such as Sellafield or Hinkley Point – either of these would fit within just the area of the cooling ponds at Zaporizhzhia. The entire complex is situated on a flat promontory on the south-east bank of the Dnipro River which is 5km wide at that point. [5]  The site is 50km south west of the city of Zaporizhzhia, also on the south bank of the Dnipro. Kherson is about 150km to the south west – but on the other bank of the river.
Under occupation

The reactor site has been occupied by Russian military forces since March 2022 – with Ukrainian forces in control of the opposite river bank. The original Ukrainian Energoatom plant operators are being forced to keep working there under conditions of extreme stress. These stresses include excessively long shifts, extreme concerns about family safety, and even the arrest of the plant chief. Various parts of the site have been hit by artillery shells and warheads from rocket-launched missiles over several months. Photographs show cratering and rocket tubes embedded in the ground. Both sides accuse the other of deliberately targeting and hitting the plant site. As a result of major safety concerns, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has placed monitoring teams at the site and nearby, but sourcing reliable information remains extremely difficult. [6]

The local electricity grid is very extensive and extremely vulnerable. Before the war, several high voltage (HV) power lines extended east from the nuclear and thermal plants to what is now Russian-occupied Ukraine via extensive electricity sub-stations, whilst one large HV line connected directly across the Dnipro to the opposite bank – under the control of Ukraine – via Marhanets just 15km away. Artillery shells can easily be fired over 40km whilst rocket launchers can reach even further, so the entire area is within range of both Russian and Ukrainian forces. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the IAEA continue to report that connections to the electricity grid keep being destroyed by artillery shelling which are then intermittently repaired. Repairs are very difficult owing to a severe shortage of supplies such as power transformers, insulators, cabling and HV circuit breakers. So far, neither the containment buildings for the reactors, nor the spent fuel assemblies in canisters, nor the large cooling ponds appear to have been seriously breached, but there is no guarantee this will continue to be the case.

The plants remain in a highly contested conflict area. The IAEA and UN have called for the plants to be placed in a demilitarised safety zone. No such zone has yet been set up. It is perhaps worth saying that any such demilitarised zone would have to include the city of Enerhodar because of its intimate connection and proximity to the nuclear power plants and power lines that traverse the entire area. Creating such an exclusion zone at the centre of a high intensity war zone is extremely difficult and has been rarely achieved in other conflicts.

Emergency shutdown

It is extremely difficult to secure a reliable picture of what is actually going on at the Zaporizhzhia power generation site. The most reliable and consistent reporting in December 2022 appears to be that all of the Zaporizhzhia reactors were ‘scrammed’ – put into emergency shutdown – as the entire Ukrainian power grid was hit by multiple Russian strikes on 23rd November 2022. All of Ukraine’s other three reactor sites – Rivne, South Ukraine and Kmelnytskyi – were also scrammed. These three latter plants are still under Ukrainian control being outside of the Russian occupied areas east of the Dnipro River. In a scram, the control rods are fully inserted into the reactor, emergency back-up diesel generators are activated for core cooling, and thus the reactor cores gradually reduce to low levels of nuclear fission. According the Petro Kotin, President of Energoatom, [7] after the emergency shutdowns, two of the six Zaporizhzhia reactors were restarted to generate sufficient power to enable the emergency diesel generators to be taken off-line and to provide some power to the city of Enerhodar. However, restarting a cold shutdown reactor is very far from routine in the middle of a war zone without reliable external power supplies. Emergency shutdowns and restarts place large strains on the steam generation circuit pipework and valves making equipment failures more likely.

What if the cooling fails?

Any nuclear reactor, for safe operation, needs to be connected to an electricity supply to provide a reliable source of emergency core cooling power. Without such active cooling from pumped water, the reactor core will eventually overheat to dangerous levels. Outside the reactor cores, radioactive decay in spent fuel continues, releasing heat inside the reactor containment structure, the dry storage casks, and the external ponds. Any failures of, or threats to, electricity supplies create serious emergency situations. Because of this danger, each reactor has emergency diesel-fired electricity generators with around 10 days of fuel. [8]  Ultimately, without active cooling powered by the grid, and once back-up diesel generators run out of fuel, core temperatures would rise uncontrollably. This would lead first to hydrogen gas release, then explosions, and ultimately, runaway core meltdowns breaching the core containment.

This is what happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in 2011 [9] – when the cores in three reactors could not be cooled, large volumes of hydrogen gas were released into the containment structures, which then exploded, releasing highly radioactive materials into the environment – mainly as gases and vapours. After a few days, the reactor cores reached the melting points of the nuclear fuels and these highly radioactive molten materials burned down through the lower regions of the reactor vessels. This situation also has similarities with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster – the site of which is now part of Ukraine (and was occupied briefly by Russian troops early during the invasion).

In a reactor core of 1GW size, as those at Zaporizhzhia, if the cooling system breaks down, hydrogen explosions would occur after 8 to 12 hours. After about two days, the reactor core would become hot enough to burn through the base of the reactor vessel. [10]

Cooling for the reactor cores and spent fuel storage relies on several factors: a reliable supply of water; a reliable supply of power for the cooling pumps; working pumps; and staff to conduct any repairs and maintain the cooling systems. Without a reliable connection to the electricity grid, the only source of power for the pumps are, as mentioned, the back-up generators. With all of these factors now under threat, the risk of a reactor containment breach due to cooling failure is high. [11]

Other risks result from the ongoing conflict. Whilst an artillery shell or conventional cruise missile strike is unlikely to breach the reactor core containment directly, the threat is much greater to the integrity of over 3,000 spent fuel assemblies stored locally in concrete containers. Artillery, or a cruise missile could easily breach any of these containers releasing highly radioactive materials. This in turn could make part of the site – for example, cooling circuitry or fuel supplies – too dangerous to manage, which would lead to an even more serious core failure.

The possible effects of a nuclear disaster

There are a wide range of possible disaster scenarios.

Firstly, considering a meltdown of one or more reactor cores, the most comparable reactor accident so far has been the Fukushima plant radiation releases following the Great East Japan Earthquake and its subsequent tsunami in 2011. This led to an initial obligatory exclusion zone of 20km radius around the plant with 30km radius stay-at-home and no-fly zones and finally a larger zone extending 40km to the north west. Within a year, some people were permitted to return home within the 20km zone, whilst others with higher radiation levels were restricted for five years after the disaster, and a 30-year clean up period was envisaged. The Fukushima experience however does not give one high confidence that future nuclear disasters may be better managed. Following the meltdowns, the Japanese authorities did not coordinate information about radiation properly. For example, residents were evacuated from one area to another which in fact had higher levels of radiation contamination. [12]  There were multiple failures including a lack of evacuation planning and deliberate restriction of information.

Establishing the levels of radiation requires monitoring over-flights – in the Fukushima case, these were undertaken by the US military. Such flights would be highly dangerous and perhaps impossible in a war zone, so it would be extremely difficult for anyone to gather accurate information about the radiation levels on the ground. This would make any emergency planning very difficult from the outset.

A further difficulty arising from the conflict is that emergency responses such as evacuation of population, distribution of iodine tablets or provision of emergency medical treatment would be very difficult to coordinate, especially as no one authority would be able to take charge of the situation. Reactor crises require rapid, coordinated and well-organised recovery measures including evacuation, emergency measures to reduce radiation, suppress fires etc. These would be unlikely to be possible further increasing the impacts of any radiation release.

The most likely risk scenario is a breach of spent fuel held in canisters or cooling ponds outside of the reactor core containment structure. This spent fuel is still highly radioactive and vulnerable to missiles, shells and rocket strikes which could spread radiation directly or start fires spreading radiation. An impact by an aircraft is also a significant risk due to the highly inflammable aircraft fuel onboard.

What if a nuclear weapon were used?

At Zaporizhzhia, the large amounts of spent fuel storage make this risk even worse. Fallout would create a lethal radiation risk across the entire plant site and city of Enerhodar. Risks downwind would be highly dependent on the wind direction, speed and any rainfall, but could threaten lethal dose rates in Marhanets and Nikopol (population 100,000) only 15km away. Lethal radiation doses could be experienced at least 60km downwind. [14]  This could potentially include the city of Zaporizhzhia itself, which had a pre-war population of 750,000. This would present a completely unmanageable evacuation requirement in peacetime let alone in the middle of an intense war. Depending on the dose rates, some areas may need to be avoided for years to decades. This was a major problem after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 with a 30km radius exclusion zone still in place over 30 years later.

In the case of a larger nuclear weapon (e.g. 1,000kT), even larger potentially lethal radiation zones would be created up to 550km in extent and 100km wide. [15]  Again, the primary source of radiation risk would be the reactor products, although in this case, combined with major blast and fire damage across a 5km radius.

Impacts in a war zone

Both the risk of a nuclear disaster and the consequences of it are multiplied in a war zone. In Ukraine, the population are already suffering intense pressure, strain and casualties due to direct impacts such as widespread Russian bombardment with artillery and missiles. Continued attacks on the energy infrastructure are leading to widespread power outages, water shortages, cold homes and huge damage to vital infrastructure such as hospitals and access to medical care. These acts already amount to widespread breaches of international humanitarian law, and are contributing to an as yet uncertain death toll amongst the civilian population.

Any nuclear accident leading to a significant release of radiation would further escalate consequences by adding yet another layer of uncertainty and danger combined with extreme difficulty in responding to an emergency. Coordination of effort cannot be achieved in the middle of an intense conflict; within Ukraine, comprehensive radiation monitoring would be extremely difficult or impossible and either side would doubt any information that was produced. Any of the more severe accident scenarios could result in radiation impacts outside of the borders of Ukraine including the EU, Russia and Belarus. In the case of Chernobyl these led to restrictions on some food stuffs over very wide areas.

The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the existence of nuclear plants in any war zone creates a whole new range of risks and dangers as the maintenance of safe operation relies on expert management, reliable supplies of vital materials such as diesel, and a connection to a working grid. Nuclear power and conflict (or environmental disaster such as recent flooding in Pakistan or drought in France) are mutually incompatible. For this reason, some commentators have likened nuclear reactors to giant landmines that can be ‘detonated’ in war in a disaster impossible to contain or effectively manage. The other three Ukraine reactor sites are also at high risk due to damage to the electricity grid and have already been subject to emergency shutdown due to such damage. The attacks on the electricity supplies also create problems and risks for neighbouring Moldova which also faces a cold winter as it obtains its electrical power from the Ukrainian grid via Russian-controlled Transnistria. [16]

Any conflict highlights how our modern society now relies on a wide range of infrastructure: energy; clean water; medical and social care; and other public services such as housing and transport. Wars disrupt all of these as they become deliberate military targets in the attempt to disrupt the resources that support frontline troops and to break the resolve of the civilian population. This has been the case for centuries and continues regrettably with much more destructive weaponry today. [17]  Other recent examples of the targeting of civilians and vital infrastructure include conflicts in former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and several ongoing conflicts across the horn of Africa. That today, in Europe, yet another conflict is seeing deliberate attacks on civilian targets including highly vulnerable nuclear power plants, water supplies and the electricity grid is yet another example of how vital it is to find peaceful solutions to conflict and how ultimately military action creates long-lasting destruction that will take decades of post-conflict rebuilding and many generations to heal.
Dr Philip Webber is Chair of Scientists for Global Responsibility. He has written widely on the risks of nuclear weapons and nuclear power – including co-authoring the book London After the Bomb. He spent part of his career working as an emergency planner in local government.

References

[all references current as of 15 December 2022]

[1] Wikipedia (2022a). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_Plant

[2] The VVR reactors are not only Russian designed and built but also supplied with enriched uranium from Russia. Despite much publicised sanctions, 20% of the nuclear fuel used by the EU is still supplied by Russia. No2NuclearPower (2022). 2 December. https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/news/nuclear-fuel-3-12-22/

[3] Wikipedia (2022b). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enerhodar

[4] A reactor containment structure is a massive concrete and steel structure designed to contain intense radiation and superheated steam circuit pipework and valves protecting the highly radioactive reactor core.

[5] The river is dammed in several places, so strictly speaking the body of water to the north of Zaporizhzhia is part of the extensive Kakhovka reservoir 240km long and up to 23km wide.

[6] IAEA (2022). Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine, 20 November. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-128-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

[7] The Observer (2022). 27 November. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/26/fears-for-all-ukraines-nuclear-plants-after-emergency-shutdowns

[8] Electricity Info (2022). 9 October. https://electricityinfo.org/news/ukraine-zaporizhzhia/

[9] Wikipedia (2022c). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster

[10] Wikipedia (2022d). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown (also see note 13)

[11] Popovych Z, Bondar D, Ramana M (2022). 7 October. https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/zaporizhzhia-on-the-brink-how-deteriorating-conditions-at-the-nuclear-power-plant-could-lead-to-disaster/; Ouest France (2022). 1 September. https://www.ouest-france.fr/monde/guerre-en-ukraine/guerre-en-ukraine-quels-sont-les-risques-d-accident-nucleaire-autour-de-la-centrale-de-zaporijjia-b1108af8-29e8-11ed-bd3f-f86da3bd80f7

[12] Reference 133: The Economist, 10 March 2012 from: Wikipedia (2022c) – as note 9.

[13] Fetter S, Tsipis K (1981). Catastrophic Releases of Radioactivity. Scientific American, vol.244, no.4, pp.41–47; Rotblat J (1981). Nuclear radiation in warfare. SIPRI/ Taylor & Francis; Fetter S (1982). The Vulnerability of Nuclear Reactors to Attack by Nuclear Weapons. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science and Technology for International Security, Report No.7.

[14] This estimate is based on fallout spread for a 1kT weapon from nuclear tests entraining reactor products. Data from: Fetter (1982); Rotblat (1981) – as note 13.

[15] The danger zone (1 gray cumulative dose causing radiation sickness and some longer-term deaths) for a 1GW reactor and 1MT weapon is 550km x 100km. Rotblat (1981) – as note 13.

[16] In a legacy from the Soviet Union, the Ukraine, Russian and Moldovan electrical power grids remain part of a common infrastructure. Quite apart from efforts by the EU to secure energy independence from Russia and self-sufficiency this is another example of how interdependence of energy supplies can be used as a weapon of war.

[17] Some weapons have been specifically designed to damage electricity generation for example by air-dropped conducting fibres.

[image credit: ralf1969 via Wikimedia; CC BY-SA 3.0]

 

Open Letter to Party Leaders on Climate Change and the UK Economy – from Scientists for Global Responsibility

Open letter sent to the eight political party leaders at the UK parliament on 13 June 2017:
Dear Madam/ Sir

In the wake of the inconclusive general election result and bearing in mind the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, we are writing to leaders of UK parliamentary parties to urge you to unite around a common cause – tackling climate change – as a way of helping to provide major economic, social and environmental benefits at this time of uncertainty. Not only does there continue to be there very strong scientific evidence on the urgency of this global threat, but measures to tackle it offer major opportunities to exploit science and technology to create jobs, tackle fuel poverty, reduce local air pollution and provide many other co-benefits for British society. The UK could capitalise on the renewed international commitment to tackling climate change in the wake of the ill-informed decision of President Trump to withdraw the USA from the Paris Agreement.

We have noted the widespread commitment to tackling climate change in the party manifestos. While there is some diversity in the approaches, there are many common factors. Hence, as a priority, we urge strong support for:

• Home energy conservation programmes. These will both reduce carbon emissions and help to tackle fuel poverty, which is estimated to be responsible for nearly 8,000 UK deaths a year.¹
• Renewable energy projects – especially wind, solar, marine and biogas technologies and community-led projects. With costs for many of these falling rapidly, the potential economic and employment benefits are very large² – and government opinion polling shows these technologies are especially popular.³
• Energy storage technologies, including batteries, power-to-gas systems, and pumped hydro storage. Many of these technologies are already rapidly falling in cost, and they have high potential to complement the variable renewable energy sources.⁴ Electric vehicles will play a key role here, and their widespread adoption will help to reduce the number of UK deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution, currently estimated at 40,000 per year.⁵

We further recommend the following additional actions, which we strongly believe will complement those above:

• End subsidies for fossil fuels, especially for unconventional sources like shale gas. The growth of a large-scale shale gas industry in this country is likely to seriously undermine Britain’s climate targets, as the Committee on Climate Change has warned.⁶ Furthermore, the technique of hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’) is not popular with the British public,⁷ partly as it creates significant risks for the local environment.
• End new commitments to nuclear power stations. These create unique and unresolved economic, security, environmental and safety risks.

Finally, we urge you to use any political influence you have in the USA to try to convince President Trump that climate change is a serious threat to his country as well as the world, and that his government needs to change course. Indeed, his failure to support cleaner industries in his own country is very likely to have a negative impact on the economy there.

We would be interested to hear your thoughts on our recommendations.

 

Your sincerely

Dr Stuart Parkinson

Executive Director

Dr Philip Webber

Chair

 

References

1. Energy Bill Revolution (2015). Fuel poverty. http://www.energybillrevolution.org/fuel-poverty/

2. REN21 (2017). Renewables 2017 Global Status Report. http://www.ren21.net/gsr-2017/

3. BEIS (2017). Energy and Climate Change Public Attitudes Tracker. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-attitudes-tracking-survey

4. Goodall C (2016). The Switch: How solar, storage and new tech means cheap power for all. Profile Books.

5. Royal College of Physicians et al (2016). Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution. https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/every-breath-we-take-lifelong-impact-air-pollution

6. Committee on Climate Change (2016). The compatibility of UK onshore petroleum with meeting the UK’s carbon budgets. https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/onshore-petroleum-the-compatibility-of-uk-onshore-petroleum-with-meeting-carbon-budgets/

7. As note 3.

This letter has also been published in The Ecologist:

 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2989043/open_letter_to_party_leaders_on_climate_change_and_the_uk_economy.html

Energy security is possible without nuclear power or fracked gas by Keith Barnham

Prof. Keith Barnham, a member of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) and an emeritus professor and distinguished research fellow at Imperial College London, published an article in the Comments section of the New Scientist on 6th June 2017:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2133760-energy-security-is-possible-without-nuclear-power-or-fracked-gas/

There is a mantra that nuclear and natural gas power stations are essential to keep the lights on in the UK. It’s a myth, says Keith Barnham and states that an all-renewable supply is a viable way forward.  He goes on to say, “Here’s a fact you won’t have heard from the main parties during the UK’s election campaign: the nation doesn’t need a new generation of expensive nuclear reactors or a dash for shale gas to keep the lights on. An all-renewable electricity supply can provide energy security.”

The arguments he provides for this can be seen in the New Scientist article (via the link above), which provides the evidence to support this claim.

 an offshore wind farm

Further information about alternative forms of renewable energy can be found on the website of  Alternative Energy (AE) News, which publishes articles about renewable energy, new technologies, and anything that will help  civilisation to use energy and natural resources in a more sustainable and efficient way. See:

ww.alternative-energy-news.info