Bladderwracks' Revenge - radioactive seaweed?

What Anti-Nuclear NGOs can learn from the Nuclear industry... A personal view

Spot the difference between Molecules and Compounds...

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How Molecules and Compounds was made... a look at the technique I use to grab the images off the screen to make into a video using the free Quicktime software on a Mac...

Visiting the Sizewell C Stage 3 Consultation...

Atoms, Elements and Isotopes... Video #009

Believe it if you dare... this video is in response to requests to cover some basic atomic and nuclear science. So I have decided to break them down into short episodes, your thoughts and comments always appreciated.

And there's still time to wish y'all a Happy New Year!

Is C & M Safe and Quiescent..? Video #008

Filmed on the beach at West Mersea opposite the decommissioned Bradwell Nuclear Power Station I ask that awkward question...

Happy New Year!

Irradiation and Contamination... Video #007

Monitoring UK Nuclear Power Video #006

Monitoring Electricity Energy Mix Video #005

As you can see from the extra navigation links above this is an area of great interest to me. In this video I look at a couple of ways you can examine the UK Energy Mix data via computer here and also using a smartphone app.

At the time of writing (12:30pm Sunday 25th November 2018) this is matching set of screen shots from the app which compares the Carbon Intensity and Current Generation:

Nuclear Regulators and Reactor Types... the Interviews

In August I was able to catch up with my good friend Jim Stewart and he was gracious enough to provide interviews to enable two videos to be made, one on Nuclear Reactor types in use in the United Kingdom (see below) and, firstly, information about the Nuclear Regulators working in the UK (above)...

Welcome not Waiting, transforming finances...

A criticism levied at political parties when they criticise a rampant austerity policy is “how will you pay for everything?”. For the Green Party some major contributions to the public purse seem all too obvious with the response “stop commissioning white elephants”!

Contained within the Government’s Major Project Portfolio is a staggering list of troubling entries concerning hospitals and the benefits system. However, it is the so called ‘flagship’ projects that provide ready answers to the fiscal equation.

So let’s re-allocate funds from:

HS2

Hinkley Point C

Trident

This could enable transformation of the NHS, social care, nursing homes, schools, emergency services and infrastructure. That's just for starters.

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Promoted by Robbie Spence on behalf of Peter Banks, both of 124 Morant Road, Colchester CO1 2JD

The Impact of New Nuclear at Bradwell...

Click here for FREE ticket

Living with the local Bradwell Nuclear Dump...

On Friday September 23rd 2016 Essex County Council voted to allow Magnox Limited to move intermediate level nuclear waste from their Sizewell and Dungeness nuclear power stations into the new storage facility to the east of the Bradwell reactor buildings just across the water from Mersea.

The experience of watching the Development and Regulation Committee (think Planning) consider the application swung between watching your sports team playing far better than the opposition yet still conceding against the run of play and a weird, dark drama where the truth is subverted in deference to the Party line by deliberately missing a penalty.

Essentially this application is for a lifting of the planning restrictions the same Council voted for just 4 years ago ie: that the Interim Storage Facility (ISF) could only contain Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) from Bradwell’s own decommissioning processes.

After a lengthy submission by the Planning Officer opportunities were given for pre booked presentations for and against the proposal which could last for only three minutes. First to go was BANNG's Barry Turner who ably delivered a compelling romp through the inconsistencies in the documentation. This was followed by Mrs Judy Lea, from the Maldon area, who gently made emotive points that conveyed the seriousness of the impact this would have. There then followed two brief pitches for the proposal from Magnox and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA - keep up!) which were astonishingly poor in delivery, conviction and believability.

Thereafter the debate was conducted solely by the councillors with Mersea resident Cllr John Jowers (Conservative Party) giving a remarkable sermon in full support of his constituency passionately condemning the proposal. Then, inexplicably, as he neared the end of his contribution confessed he felt bound to vote for the proposal on the grounds of a ‘quasi judicial issue’ simply because it would eventually go through on appeal from Magnox. Astonishing!

The Mersea posse was stunned along with representatives from Tollesbury and Maldon. Furthermore Cllr Jowers was given the impression that the radioactive discharges into the river arising from the Fuel Element Debris (FED) dissolution process have finished. This is fundamentally both erroneous and deeply concerning in that this was not corrected, at the time, by the Planning Officer. I would like to think this would have enabled a vote more in line with conviction rather than acquiescence to national government ‘policy’.

Next to speak was Cllr James Abbott (Green Party) who made specific requests to establish where the data was in the application to support the generic claims made on Climate Change aspects comparing effects of transport versus buildings. This was bounced back to the planning officer who effectively dismissed these points on the basis that Magnox had done their homework, therefore it was fine and also, in his opinion, it was ‘basic common sense’.

Cllr Michael Mackrory (Liberal Democrat Party) also made considered points including drawing reasonable conclusions on the potential high level of risk from the caution given about time windows to transport the ILW containers through villages in the Dengie. Furthermore he was concerned about project creep as he considered members only granted the original permission because of the condition they were now being asked to rescind. Cllr Colin Seagers (Conservative Party) suggested that actually an amount of ‘aforethought’ was Magnox’s ‘intent always to use this as additional storage for other sites’ at the time of the original planning application. Amongst other contributions Cllr Sue Lissimore (Conservative Party) also made a pitch that aligned herself with Cllr Jowers and said she was not comfortable with abstaining... and then abstained.

So respect to Cllrs Abbott and Mackrory for having the spine to vote in line with the courage of their convictions, the laws of physics and putting people above political and fiscal expediency. For the BANNG team I travelled with and yours truly it was both shocking and disappointing. However, on reflection that personal disappointment is tempered with the determination to do much more…

We all know that what looms on the horizon is massive, let’s choose to sing in perfect harmony… all together now “there may be trouble ahead”.

Peter Banks - First appeared in the Mersea Island Courier 2nd October 2016

Click here to hear full audio from Essex County Council website

The Bradwell Baffle

The recent contrasting news concerning Hinkley Point C is paradoxical for the possible Bradwell B new build. The local protest groups will have been put into even more uncertainty than ever before, no news is, well, no news! One thing for sure is that there will be even more delay.

From the Government’s perspective let’s look at what Hinkley is supposed to provide before we examine the points in greater detail:

• 7% of UK electricity
• Energy security
• Clean energy (?!)
• Employment

What they fail to mention which the environmentalists and the media has picked up on are:

• The astronomical build cost
• Use of 20th century technology
• Similar reactors in France and Finland overdue, overspent and still not working
• Massive cost to the taxpayer
• Potential delays
• Long term costs
• National security

However, the last minute U-turn has some additional implications that need exploration.

Tom Burke, Chairman of E3G and a former government environmental adviser suggests there must be something substantial over and above the known potential issues that has caused this ‘dislocation’. Having pointed out that Theresa May was out of the country when the pause button was hit giving added credence to there being something major involved he also feels that it is high time for a ‘proper, decent forensic examination’ into ‘the assumptions with which this project has been brought forward’. This is backed up by the government’s official statement given by the new business and energy Greg Clark ‘wanted to consider carefully all the component parts of this project’.

Local lobbyist BANNG has led on the notion that Bradwell B, as a pure Chinese new build using their Hualong One reactors, has always been the carrot to entice the deep pocket Chinese investment in both Hinkley and Sizewell. This was highlighted on BBC’s Newsnight program recently along with detail of the McKinsey & Co report for the DECC in 2012 that capturing full electricity efficiency could provide a six fold yield of Hinkley Point C.

The National Grid is moving deeper into a Smart Grid where the response to fluctuating demand has to be swifter than that of a nuclear or coal fired power stations. Currently the biggest component of the UK’s electricity mix is generated using gas, right now at the point of writing this sentence viewing gridwatch.co.uk that is a colossal 55.9%.

And here’s the rub. Whilst the latest type of gas generation utilises efficient and responsive Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) the UK is neither energy secure (around 50% of gas is imported) or less fossil fuel dependent. This is a key reason the current and previous governments see the answer as Nuclear despite the high initial cost and creation of long term waste storage problems.

There are even more prudent nuclear alternatives than the giant and costly proposals such as Hinkley. The government has invested £250 million into research and support of SMRs, Small Modular Reactors, that would be built in a factory and shipped to site. The trouble is, as with so much of nuclear technology, it is still 20th century, unproven and will provide a legacy of waste for our descendants.

So how to proceed? The UK has the most wind in Europe. On shore wind farms are the lowest cost means of providing electricity and along with the substantial offshore wind farms wind power will provide some of the mix. Being an island nation, tidal power must be another element of the energy equation. Solar farms and domestic solar installations both save the load on the grid and feed back units. These would all provide more employment, too, each system with a much lower maintenance requirement.

However, it will be efficiency coupled with far less consumption that will be the biggest factor along with improvement in battery storage that will move us in the direction of a fossil free future.

Article first appeared in the Mersea Island Courier 7th August 2016

Peter Banks - Colchester Green Party - Written August 1st 2016

Robert Llewellyn on Hinkley Point C madness...

This very clever chap famous for his role as Kryten in Red Dwarf and as a presenter of Scrapheap Challenge has a YouTube channel devoted to mainly electric cars along with presentations about environmental issues. Whilst he professes to be a Nuclear Power supporter but this excellent and entertaining short film tackles head on the lunacy about Hinkley Point which will be of great interest to local Mersea bods.

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