Professor John Robertson OBA Frances McKie has just alerted me to this reserved report from Reuters on the Civaux 2 nuclear reactor in France: PARIS, June 11 (Reuters) – European power contracts jumped on Wednesday on concerns France might have to reduce its nuclear output after the industry regulator said it had identified “hints” of possible stress corrosion in a reactor. The ASNR watchdog said testing had highlighted possible defects in the Civaux 2 reactor, but that there was no confirmation of corrosion at this stage and more testing was required. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/report-defects-french-nuclear-reactor-civaux-2-lifts-european-power-market-2025-06-11/ On it’s own and with that wording, it … Continue reading Reliability of nuclear energy takes another blow as France fears return to 2022, when 57% of all reactors were offline due to corrosion

stewartb ‘Reforms to planning rules will clear a path for smaller, and easier to build nuclear reactors – known as Small Modular Reactors –to be built for the first time ever in the UK.’ Just how many SMRs will be built in the UK…. and why? What will determine the number? From Nuclear Engineering International magazine (NEI, May 15, 2025): ‘Is the UK ready to give the SMR go-ahead?’ (https://www.neimagazine.com/analysis/is-the-uk-ready-to-give-the-go-ahead/ ) ‘The UK government wants to open the door to fleets of small modular reactors across the country. To achieve that, it has to sweep away some longstanding barriers created by electricity network rules … Continue reading Telegraph – Economics of Labour’s Small Modular [Nuclear] Reactors could prove hard to justify

Professor John Robertson OBA From The Hill two days ago: President Trump on Friday signed executive orders that seek to quadruple the nation’s nuclear power, including by cutbacks to health and environmental considerations.  In one such executive order, Trump laments that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) radiation safety standards are too stringent. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5316211-trump-executive-orders-nuclear-power/ From From PM Starmer via GOV.UK on 6 February 2025: More nuclear power plants will be approved across England and Wales as the Prime Minister slashes red tape to get Britain building – as part of his Plan for Change. Reforms to planning rules will clear a … Continue reading Trump to ape Starmer in scrapping ‘red tape’ for new nuclear power and put all our lives at risk

https://www.thesun.ie/news/370058/more-than-450-safety-lapses-have-occurred-at-sellafield-nuclear-plant/ stewartb We, our children, grandchildren and beyond will be living – and paying – for the legacy of past and. present nuclear power generation for a long time to come. Source: National Audit Office (16 October 2024) Decommissioning Sellafield: managing risks from the nuclear legacy – Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/decommissioning-sellafield-managing-risks-from-the-nuclear-legacy.pdf ) In the words of the NAO on Sellafield: ‘.. the NDA expects full site remediation will take until 2125.’ So 100 years! We learn that Sellafield spend in 2023-24 = £2.7 billion. And from Para 3.16 of the NAO report: ‘Sellafield spends the majority of its current … Continue reading Sellafield: full site remediation will take until 2125

By JB Stanford-led research finds small modular reactors will exacerbate challenges of highly radioactive nuclear waste Small modular reactors, long touted as the future of nuclear energy, will actually generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants, according to research from Stanford and the University of British Columbia. A study published in May 31 2022 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reached the conclusion. “Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our … Continue reading Stanford research finds Labour’s preferred small modular reactors will produce even more highly radioactive nuclear waste

Professor John Robertson OBA From CBS News and other US media yesterday: When Linda Morice and her family first moved to St. Louis in 1957, they had no idea they had anything to fear. Then, people started getting sick. “It was a slow, insidious process,” Morice said. After the death of Morice’s mother, her physician uncle took her aside and gave her a stark warning: “Linda, I don’t believe St. Louis is a very healthy place to live. Everyone on this street has a tumor.” Their neighborhood was bordered by Coldwater Creek, a 19-mile tributary of the Missouri River. It … Continue reading ‘They didn’t know their backyard creek carried nuclear waste. Now, they’re dying of cancer’ – new evidence from the USA of how similar Sellafield waste and Scotland’s higher cancer deaths are likely to be connected

The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson By Professor John Robertson OBA I’m grateful to @NickyZog for alerting me to these sources. From the high-status Foreign Policy on January 2oth 2025: For the United States—a country that, especially under incoming President-elect Donald Trump, aspires to be not only energy … Continue reading Labour’s planned small modular reactors – inefficient, polluting and carcinogenic – will also be dependent on high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) from Putin’s Russia which has ‘complete monopoly’ to undermine our energy security