Nuclear Power

Where Does The Green Party Stand On Nuclear?

While I know many hard-working activists who are involved in The Green Party Of England And Wales (GPEW) (including my girlfriend – we do not […]
Question: What Is The Meaning Of “cost-effective”

During the recent stage 2 consultation on Sizewell C run by EDF, the company expressed a desire to maximise the use of rail and marine […]
More About This Blog

I have recently had several comments questioning1 my ‘scientific integrity’ and implying that I have a political agenda. I can assure them that I definitely […]
Capacity Factor Learning Curve

The learning curve for nuclear power plant operation can lead to a slow increase in capacity factor. However, this leads the nuclear industry to be […]
Energy Density of Uranium

I am writing this because it is mentioned in many children’s science books and on the Internet. This is the fact that one kilogram of […]
How The ‘Generic Design Assessment’ Has Failed

The Generic Design Assessment (GDA) is a process which was set up in order to examine the designs for new power stations and iron out […]
Hitachi ABWR – One Of The Least Reliable In The World

It has been proposed that Hitachi Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR) be build at Wylfa in Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. The UK Parliament has […]
Too Little Too Late

The government has now pushed back its timescale for nuclear ‘new build’ by five years. So already after the energy review in 2006 the nuclear […]
Thorium Reactors

I talked a bit about the question of thorium reactors and proliferation in a previous post. I try not to talk too much about pie-in-the-sky […]
Iran and Uranium Enrichment

In one of my previous posts I talked about the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. In this post I am going to expand […]
1950s vs 2010s Technology
More on Sizewell ERC Consultation

Previously I posted the response from EdF about the public consultation about the Emergency Response Centre (see Sizewell B Emergency Response Centre public consultation). I […]
Sizewell B Emergency Response Centre public consultation

Here is the responses to my questions at the consultation. I have now posted their response to my response to their response to my questions […]
Comment Rejected by EADT

Could you please clarify what part of this comment is libel. The data is taken from http://infrastructure.planningportal.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/EN010001/2.%20Post-Submission/Application%20Documents/Other%20Documents/8.16%20Economic%20Strategy/8.16%20Economic%20Strategy.pdf Are you accusing EdF of libel? Other reports […]
Reply from MP with original letter

Letter to MPWednesday 9 May 2012 Dear Richard Bacon,Thank you for your letter date 20th of April. However, I stated in myletter (16th of April) […]
Emails to Paul Wood – 28 May Event

From Me: 2012-05-09 Where is the meeting to be held? Also there are various community groups who would like to put their point of view […]
Email to Journalist:25,000 Jobs at Sizewell?

A recent article in by Archant says that Sizewell will create 25,000 jobs here is my correspondence withe the reporters craig.robinson@archant.co.uk and Richard.Porritt@archant.co.uk From: Richard.Porritt@archant.co.uk […]
Sizewell B Layout

A more detailed plan can be found here.
Sizewell Camp Boards

Several people have asked me for a copy of what we displayed on our boards at Sizewell Camp. Although they are quite large I have […]
New Sarcophagus at the Chernobyl on 26th Anniversary

Ukraine will begin the construction of a new sarcophagus at the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, the 26th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear […]

Jobs And Economics

Updated Load Factors For UK Nuclear Power Plants

We are often told that nuclear power provides reliable baseload and, unlike renewables, do not need backup. However, as the data shows1 this is not […]
Sizewell C Second Consultation: Jobs and Employment

I have written several times about the effect on employment of new nuclear build: This is just some further points about employment rights and EDF. […]
Update: The Recent ‘Review’ Of The Hinkley C Project

My last post was about the ‘review’ of the Hinkley C project. I have now received the final decision from the BEIS over my Freedom […]
The Recent ‘Review’ Of The Hinkley C Project

In July 2016 the UK government announced a ‘review’ of project to build the ‘Hinkley C’ nuclear power plant1. In September 2016 they then announced […]
‘Bigging Up’ Nuclear

The director of one of the companies I used to work for had a technique of getting contracts which is probably not that uncommon. He […]
Nuclear Strike Price and the ‘Open and Transparent’ Energy Market

I previously posted the response from Michael Fallon (Minister of State for Business & Energy) to a number of questions I asked my MP (Peter […]
Future Energy Costs and the Nuclear Strike Price

As I have posted previously I have been trying to find out from DECC how they justified the Â£92.5/MWh strike price for Hinkley C. Here […]
Future Energy Prices: Correspondence with MP & Michael Fallon

Peter Lux: Friday 1 November 2013 Dear Peter Aldous,I am writing to ask you to explain the reason why the strike price of £92.5/MWh has […]
Future Electricity Costs

I have been asking DECC via my MP how they justified the Â£92.5/MWh strike price for Hinkley C. Although it is difficult to project future […]
Nuclear Jobs – Boom and Bust in Rural Communities

As noted previously, EdF claim that new nuclear build at Hinkley or Sizewell will lead to 25,000 temporary jobs. 25,000 temporary jobs created also means […]
25,000 Jobs

Almost without fail when the possibility of new nuclear power stations at Hinkley or Sizewell are mentioned it is stated that ‘they will create 25,000 […]
USA Nuclear Plants Shut Due To Flaws

It was announced recently that the troubled San Onofree nuclear plant in the US is to be shut permanently1. The plant has had a large […]
The Economics of Nuclear Energy – British Energy History

I thought it would be good to have a look at the economics of nuclear power by having a look at the history of ‘British […]
Is Wind Power Ineffective and Costly?

There has been another spate of articles about wind being costly and ineffective. How much do subsidies for wind cost? Well, according to the London […]
Financing Nuclear Build

I have been having a quick look at the cost of nuclear power compared with wind, solar, CHP etc. However, I have many problems many […]
French Nuclear Outages August 7th 2012

List of nuclear power plant outages in France as of 7th August 2012. Only 39 out of 58 French nuclear plants currently operating. UNIT NAME […]
Rising Costs of Nuclear Build in USA and Canada

I wrote previously about the delays and increasing costs of Olkiluoto and Flamanville reactors in Europe. Things are not much better – or possibly even […]
The local Impact of Sizewell C and D on employment and the economy

Key Matters of Concern: Full report is here
Olkiluoto and Flamanville – More Defects

Concrete pouring has been suspended at Flamanville due to weld defects. Other parts made by the same manufacturer are now beind investigated. Despite the fact […]
UK R&D Expenditure on Energy

Just a quick look at the UKs R&D expenditure on energy. Not that exciting but I thought I would have a look. Data is taken […]

Flood Risk and Coastal Processes

Sizewell C 3rd Consultation: Mains Water

Emma Bateman had brought up the question of whether there was an adequate supply of fresh water for Sizewell C in the 2nd Sizewell C […]
Dragons, Meteors and Nuclear Power

In a previous post I wrote about how far back we need to look to have a reasonable chance of seeing rare events such as […]
150 Years Is Not Enough

At a recent meeting on ‘Coastal Processes’ at Sizewell held at Snape Maltings on the of 29th February Colin Taylor (Environment Manager (Marine), New Nuclear […]
Sizewell B Emergency Response Centre public consultation

Here is the responses to my questions at the consultation. I have now posted their response to my response to their response to my questions […]
Coastal Erosion at Sizewell

The coast line around Sizewell is very dynamic. At present, coastal erosion in the Dunwich area produces a lot of sediment that is moved south […]
Sizewell Flood Map

This map reproduced from the UK Environment Agency shows the flood risk around the Sizewell plants. Flooding at nuclear power stations is a very International […]
Response to the NPS for Energy Infrastructure in relation to Sizewell C nuclear power station (January 2011)

Storm Surge We refer extensively to British Energy Generation Ltd, Review of medium to long-term coastal, geohazard risks at British Energy sites, September 2007 which […]

Accidents and Risk

Nuclear Power: Systemic Risk And Climate Change

Summary Humanity faces a large number of challenges in future decades including increasing population leading to increased competition for dwindling resources and climate change. These […]
Nuclear Safety Equipment Has “no impact on public health and safety”?

I recently saw a report that failure of a piece of safety equipment had “no impact on public health and safety”. If so, why is […]
The Problem of Complex Systems

This post is a bit abstract, but I hope it will help people understand the problems involved with dealing with complex systems. The reason it […]
The Problems Of Fail-safes and Redundancy

When discussing nuclear safety we are often told by the nuclear industry that they have ‘fail-safes’ , ‘built in redundancy’ etc that make their reactors […]
The ‘unscientific’ approach to Radiation Risk

This post was going to be about the ICRP’s (International Committee on Radiological Protection) risk model. However, Dr Chris Busby has recently written1 an article […]
A is for Atom

Here is a link to a 1992 programme by Adam Curtis called ‘A is for Atom’ What I found interesting was the interviews with some […]
Learning The Lessons Of The Titanic

In a recent news article1 about the evacuation zone around Sizewell nuclear power plant, Jeremy Western, director of special projects and nuclear new build for […]
Sellafield Leak

It is being reported on the news today1 that elevated radiation levels have lead to the partial evacuation of the Sellafield site. This reminded me […]
Problems with risk calculations

While we are often told that severe nuclear accidents are ‘impossible’ (which itself is impossible – maybe a subject of a future post) a more […]
Emergency Planning – lessons not learnt from Fukushima

As a consequence of the events in Fukushima, the plans for protecting communities around Sizewell power station in the event of an emergency are being […]
Dragons, Meteors and Nuclear Power

In a previous post I wrote about how far back we need to look to have a reasonable chance of seeing rare events such as […]
Why The Nuclear Industry Cannot Predict The Past

The title of the post is not that original1 and you will have to bare with me to understand it. I read a yet another […]
Nuclear Power – Try It and See

A lot of people see nuclear power as a well understood and scientific pursuit. Well, it is not. It is akin to alchemy. Let us […]
Olkiluoto and Flamanville – More Defects

Concrete pouring has been suspended at Flamanville due to weld defects. Other parts made by the same manufacturer are now beind investigated. Despite the fact […]
Fukushima Exclusion Zones Applied To Sizewell

No Need For Nuclear

Updated Load Factors For UK Nuclear Power Plants

We are often told that nuclear power provides reliable baseload and, unlike renewables, do not need backup. However, as the data shows1 this is not […]
Nuclear Power: Keeping The Lights On??

People in the UK are currently (September 2021) expecting steep rises in the cost of fuel and electricity1, with some fearing the stability of supply2. […]
Capacity Factors

I was just going to explain briefly about what ‘capacity factor’ was but while I am on the subject I decided to make a couple […]
TASC Leaflet – Meeting Our Energy Needs

This is a copy of the leaflet produced for Together Against Sizewell C (http://www.tasizewellc.org.uk). The leaflet can be downloaded in pdf format from here. Before […]
Using Energy and Thermal Efficiency

This is a follow on from my previous post – Energy and Temperature and looks at how we can extract and use energy from a […]
Energy and Temperature

First of all I am going to talk a bit about energy. It is not going to be a scientific analysis but is designed to […]
What Do We Use Energy For?

We would like to refer to proper studies on what is our energy use. Unfortunately most of the studies are based on greenhouse gas (GHG) […]
Is Wind Power Ineffective and Costly?

There has been another spate of articles about wind being costly and ineffective. How much do subsidies for wind cost? Well, according to the London […]
Importing French Nuclear Generated Electricity

I have heard many people argue that we HAVE to import electricity from France. The fact is that the decision on whether to import or […]
Nuclear Produces Less Than 4% Of Our Energy

It is often stated that nuclear produces 20% of our energy needs. This is wrong since it produces less than 20% of our our electricity. […]
Wind vs Nuclear in India

“No, no – it wasn’t China – it was India which is producing lots of nuclear plants”. Well its time to get those spreadsheets out […]
Power for the People or Profit for the Few?

The changes to the increasing complicated electricity market and the domination of electricity supply by a few big companies brings into question whether the UKs […]
Nuclear / Wind Power In China

China did have the most ambitious nuclear programme in the world until putting it on hold after Fukushima. Various targets have been quoted but the […]
Wind vs Nuclear

This graph shows the capacity installed per year for nuclear power versus wind power. The installed capacity is not necessarily the actual power produced since […]

Risk and Radiation

“No discernible changes in future cancer rates and hereditary diseases”?

It is often quoted that Fukushima will produce “No discernible changes in future cancer rates and hereditary diseases”. This quote is from the UNSCEAR report […]
DNA Repair

This was going to be a reply to a comment on one of my posts. However, I think it is an important issue, so I […]
Drink Driving And Radiation Risk

Although I have talked about this topic previously here is another attempt of explaining a big misconception about radiation risk by comparing it to drink-driving. […]
Fukushima Health Effects

There has been a large increase in the number of abnormal thyroid growths found in children near Fukushima1. The normal rate would be less than […]
Graphite Weight Loss at AGR Reactors

There have been several reports in the news1 about EDF wanting to raise the limits of the amount of graphite which can be lost from […]
Is Natural Background Radiation is Safe?

Before we start, I would like to restate that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that health risks can be measured by total radiation dose […]
Risk and Radiation

There are many discussions about the risk associated with radiation. I am not going to go into the various arguments about the effects of radiation […]
What Is A Sievert?

Background A Sievert is an attempt to quantify the danger of various radioactivity levels.Ionising radiation is measured in counts per second (called a becquerel). For […]

Spent Fuel

Mass and Volume of Spent Nuclear Fuel – NRC Response

I recently wrote a post on the Mass and Volume of Spent Nuclear Fuel. Roberto Kersevan pointed out in a comment that the Nuclear Regulatory […]
Mass and Volume of Spent Nuclear Fuel

I frequently hear comments about the amount of spent nuclear fuel for a certain amount of energy. One figure is that it is one pound […]
‘Burning’ Nuclear Waste in Nuclear Reactors

I was recently asked for my opinion on the DUPIC (Direct Use of spent PWR fuel In CANDU) reactor. Although I do not have any […]
Spent Fuel Pools – Sizewell/Hinkley and Fukushima Unit 4

Originally I was going to write something just about Fukushima Unit 4 Spent fuel pond. There has been some reports about ‘the end of civilisation’ […]
Deep Geological Repository

It is planned that the spent fuel from Sizewell C&D will be moved to a final ‘geological repository’ in about 21301. At a recent consultation […]
Terrorist Attacks on Spent Nuclear Fuel Ponds

In my previous blog I talked about the amount of spent fuel and in particular Caesium 137 that will possible stored at Sizewell if the […]
Sizewell Nuclear Waste Dump

Unlike Sizewell A the waste from Sizewell B and from the proposed Sizewell C&D are to be stored on site until at least 21301. This […]
Cs-137 Inventories in Spent Fuel

In my previous post, I showed a method of getting a rough idea about how much Cs-137 there is in spent fuel as it leaves […]
Cs-137 in Spent Fuel as it leaves the reactor

I am now going to get a rough idea of how much caesium 137 there is in spent nuclear fuel. One reason for choosing Cs-137 […]
Production and Decay of Fission Products

We are going to assume that the fissile product has one mode of decay and does not do anything naughty, such as undergo neutron capture. […]
Composition of Spent Fuel

The fuel in modern nuclear power plants is enriched to 3-5% U-235 (which is the isotope that undergoes fission). Therefore we might expect that spent […]
Implications of High Burnup Fuel – Basic Notes

An important issue around nuclear new build is the amount and what happens to the spent fuel. The proposed EPR reactors at Sizewell and Hinkley […]
Spent Fuel – Basic Notes

These are just a few basic notes about spent fuel waste from nuclear power stations. It assumes a basic understanding of the nuclear fission process […]
Uranium Enrichment Formula

This is another one of those background information posts deriving the mass balances for uranium enrichment. Let us consider the following enrichment scenario: We have […]
3500 Tonnes of Spent Fuel may be produced by Sizewell C

I previously did a rough calculation about the amount of spent fuel waste that is going to be generated by Sizewell B (see Spent Fuel […]
US Legal Challenge to Onsite Waste Storage

A Federal Appeal Court in the USA has ruled that nuclear regulators did not fully assess the risks associated with allowing utilities to store their […]
Over 1000 Tonnes of Nuclear Waste To Be Stored At Sizewell B

Over 1000[1] Tonnes of Nuclear Waste To Be Stored At Sizewell BDespite over 60 years of producing highly radioactive waste we still have no way […]
Spent Fuel At Sizewell B

This is my calculation of the amount of spent fuel at Sizewell B. It is not that accurate (estimate 20% either side) but should give […]

Water Usage

Mains Water Usage At Nuclear Power Plants

In a recent post, we (Emma Bateman and myself) talked about mains water usage at Sizewell nuclear power plant1. This has created some confusing (not […]
Sizewell C 2nd Consultation: Mains Water

In the 321 pages of the 2nd consultation document, there is no mention at all about the use of mains water. When I asked a […]

Nuclear Power

Jobs And Economics

Flood Risk and Coastal Processes

Accidents and Risk

No Need For Nuclear

Risk and Radiation

Spent Fuel

Water Usage

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