Frances McKie
On 22nd September 2022, Andrew Bowie’s Tory London Government announced a “mini-budget” which caused international banking panic and promptly added over 30 Billion pounds to the frightening UK fiscal deficit – doubling it within 2 months. His government immediately passed this debt on to ordinary workers, with ordinary incomes, through new stealth taxes. His government is already condemned internationally for its deliberate increase of poverty throughout the UK, especially amongst our most vulnerable communities- the disabled, old and very young.
With that horrific record, Mr Bowie should surely be very careful about accusing anyone else of “economic vandalism”. However, like his Westminster colleagues, who have been known to celebrate the multiplication of foodbanks throughout the UK, Mr Bowie clearly feels no disgrace- just a huge excess of gall.
Likewise, as that government’s Minister for Energy, his shameless dismissal of facts suggests ignorance and incompetence: deliberate or accidental. In this case, his behaviour is very dangerous for Scotland- clearly now regarded by Westminster as a strategic energy producer for the greater good of SE England’s teetering, unsubstantiated money-laundering “economy” . We already have too many communities- from Caithness to Kirkcudbright- blighted by London’s foolhardy gung-ho commitment to a technology which- after 70 years of experiments – has still not solved fundamental problems of corrosion and containment.
In terms of economics, without burdening Mr Bowie with too much reading, he would do well to consider the recent history and latest news about the Pressurised Water Nuclear Reactors he wants to impose on Scotland. In Taishan, China, the first EPR was commissioned in 2018, and promptly shut down for a year when the fuel rods were found to be damaged. In Flamanville in France, the only one built so far is over 10 years behind schedule and 3 times over budget. When it finally starts operating- it is already due to be shut down within a year to replace the reactor vessel cover. In Finland, the only other example, at Olkiluoto, 3 times over budget and 14 years late, cracks appeared in the feedwater pumps even before it was fully commissioned this year. Last month, it was shut down without warning again.
Yet, ignoring all of this, Mr Bowie’s economically challenged Westminster government has committed Scottish Tax payers to two further examples of this failed technology at Hinkley Point and Sizewell in England. His “Low Carbon Contract Company” has already subsidised Hinkley Point by guaranteeing £92.50- in 2012 money- for each megawatt hour for 35 years- twice as much as offered to wind and other alternatives. He has just donated another £900 million to the Sizewell project while desperately seeking international investment- ignoring the fact that private money wont touch nuclear power without absolute indemnity from governments on decommissioning, accident and waste disposal costs. Hinkley Point, like the other four in France, Finland and China, is running true to form, years behind schedule and massively over the estimated budget.
Scotland does not need any nuclear power because our Holyrood government has had the courage and foresight to back alternative energy production- even when it has cost them votes. Scotland, like Germany- one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world- rejects nuclear power because it simply does not work. Together, Scotland and Germany are investing in alternatives and associated production of Green Hydrogen. As the famous Norwegian nuclear physicist, Dr Torbjorn Sikkeland, predicted, that is the real answer to the world’s energy needs but- while the nuclear lobby holds economically challenged politicians like Andrew Bowie in thrall, Westminster is heading-disastrously, the wrong way.
We need, therefore, to ask why Mr Bowie has been ordered north to impose more nuclear reactors on Scotland. The answer is very simple: Westminster’s chaotic energy “policies” urgently require a nuclear dump; Westminster’s economic and environmental vandalism therefore includes a well- advanced project to dump UK nuclear waste in the sea bed of the Solway Firth- thus avoiding an international ban. Implicating Scotland in the production of more of this waste is, to these political vandals, an obvious, cynical and scandalous, first step.
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This is one of the reasons they (Tories and Labour) are trying to foist new nuclear power stations on Scotland.
As usual,nothing to do with our requirements but designed to satisfy political needs in London.
We would not be expected to take waste from England’s nuclear power stations in return for nothing,at least for now.
However if we had our share of these white elephants,they might be able to justify that position.
There is,however,a matter of getting planning permission but I am sure Westminster could get around that by claiming it is in the “National Interest” and reserving that sort of thing to itself.
When are some Scots going to realise that the UK is being run for the benefit of England alone and decide that we don’t really need their “benevolence”.
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It used to be said ” Don’t shoot the messenger !” …but in Bowie ‘s case I would clearly make an exception .
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Amazing
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‘ a well- advanced project to dump UK nuclear waste in the sea bed of the Solway Firth- thus avoiding an international ban.’
Hadn’t heard before of any plan to dump WASTE FROM NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS on the seabed of the Solway.But I do recall this from The Herald dated 10 March 2013: ‘MoD ‘places’ its toxic tank shells in Solway Firth’. It concerns Depleted Uranium weapons, not waste from power stations.
From the Herald’s piece: ‘The Ministry of Defence has been evading an international ban on dumping radioactive waste at sea by redefining thousands of uranium weapons fired in the Solway Firth as “placements”.
‘Minutes of secret meetings released under freedom-of-information law reveal the MoD was worried about breaching an inter-government agreement on marine pollution by firing depleted uranium (DU) tank rounds into the sea from a military range at Dundrennan near Kirkcudbright.
‘But officials found a way round the problem, by claiming the munitions were not being “dumped” in the sea, but “placed” there. This is despite the fact attempts to retrieve them have failed, and their locations are unknown. DU is toxic and radioactive and has been linked to increases in cancers and birth defects in Iraq, where it has been used as a weapon. It has also been linked to health concerns among members of UK armed forces exposed to the shells.
‘Campaigners have accused the MoD of resorting to “semantic trickery” to justify its plans to dump more DU weapons in Scottish waters.’
Could there be a mixing up of different nuclear waste disposal issues here – waste from nuclear energy generation and waste from nuclear weapons? Mr Bowie’s ‘waste’ will come from the former.
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This is a separate issue from the Dundrennan/Kirkcudbright DU dumping. They started seismic testing of the sea bed over a year ago and there are protest groups in Cumbria and in Scotland. Westminster desperately needs to show it has a plan for High Level nuclear waste and they are hoping to get away with international bans by using coastal sea beds. They last tried this near Orkney in the 1980s …at Stormy Bank. Here is a link :https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-62728233.amp&ved=2ahUKEwj5oaStxfmCAxX9_7sIHV-cD9IQFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2es_N8Mqw1_pQou1TsF3Ji
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My comment came up as anonymous…not sure why! Frances M
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Herr is another one of reasons why they desperately need a nuclear dump: https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/?action=user_content_redirect&uuid=45906b3264c4ac987c3bc65f9f7d434268de4999b28dcb1ba1b4306ffaebcf9c&blog_id=27395530&post_id=17573&user_id=95100707&subs_id=131315660&signature=7c6623ebc7afd1a95f7b333e18e2a39b&email_name=new-post&user_email=frances_mckie@hotmail.com&encoded_url=aHR0cHM6Ly9tYXJpYW5uZXdpbGRhcnQud29yZHByZXNzLmNvbS8yMDIxLzA2LzI1L21hZ25veC1zaWxvLWxpcXVvci1jcmFjay11bmRlci1jb250cm9sLW5vdGUtaXQtaXNudC8
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Indeed I note this morning Mr Bowie’s mission northward being promoted on both the BBC/Scotland and Politics web-pages under the heading “Does nuclear have a role in Scotland’s energy mix ?”, with Philip Sim’s article switching title to “Does nuclear power have a role in Scotland’s energy future?” https://archive.ph/ZxH5H to promote the idea of hosting such a source.
The answer to the first is of course yes – Scotland will have no control over the source of the power in a future european grid – The answer to the second, Bowie’s real mission is a straightforward ‘hell no’.
Philip opens with the well-worn ‘well everybody else is doing it’ line over nuclear, then plays with the ‘fusion’ fairy whilst telling us of it’s huge ‘potential’, reprising the 1950’s nuclear pitch of ‘so clean and cheap to produce it’s not worth billing for’…
That worked out well, eh ?
Yet when Philip wheels out the wearisome “But there are peaks and troughs when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, or not. Sometimes not enough power is generated, and sometimes too much” my eyes glaze, as it is they can’t be solved by expanding the grid to the continent and sorting out the bottlenecks that persist in the UK grid.
Then the ‘energy storage’ problem gets an airing and my blood pressure rises thinking on the vexed history of ‘Coire Glas’ being bounced around by HMG and Ofgem alongside 5 other hydro storage projects.
It’s not as if the problems can’t be solved once you replace London political chicanery with Engineers.
Your final paragraph best sums up Bowie’s mission, justification for a nuclear dump far away from the Home Counties, for nuclear IS England’s ONLY solution – They don’t produce enough power, and they’re going to need a shedload more of it to solve their water crisis, both the inevitable result of myopic management by London over many decades.
It ultimately doesn’t matter where in Scotland London would like to take a nuclear dump, do it at home.
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Is not a case of Andrew Bowie and his Scottish (INO) colleagues at WM and too at Holyrood adopting a position of ‘Bravado’ against what they know are the many failures, many flaws and too the lack of REAL action as part of a political party who currently are THE UK government…. in them , as a party who governs in the UK, failing to end the hardships endured by the UK public where food costs have increased, energy bills have increased and where England’s privatised water companies fail to do the job required as dividends for shareholders and bonuses for Executives are regarded as MORE of a priority than sewage disposal in English waters…….and where the Tories themselves are complicit in their failing to STOP the flow…..not just of the S*hit (rhymes with PIT) , but also of all the woes as suffered by citizens that they, as a UK government, are supposed to protect and support…..
I think Bowie and his colleagues EVERYWHERE know it is more likely that they as Tory politicians ,whose party are currently THE UK Govt, are on course to SINK come the next GE and thus will no longer be allowed to continue to SWIM leisurely along as if they had no cares or concerns …. without them eventually at some point …going UNDER. ….I hope to witness Andrew ‘smug pus’ Bowie losing his seat…..as one of the Tories YES men for WM….as I still fail to see what his contribution, via him being elected , has done for Scotland but instead can see what he has always tried to do for both his party and too WM politics…….that is keep Scotland under their dictatorship and thus keep Scotland down……..also known as “economic vandalism”
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