Monthly Archives: October 2015

UK-China nuclear deal won’t keep our lights on

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A huge nuclear deal has been announced by Chinese Presdient Xi Jinping and UK Prime Minister David Cameron to get Britain’s nuclear renaissance off the ground.

Under the deal, Chinese state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CHN) will pay £6 billion for a one third share in the troubled Hinkley C project. They also take an option to go on to build new reactors in partnership with EDF at Bradwell, Essex, and Sizewell, Suffolk.

For UK Chancellor George Osborne, the need to get the Chinese involved is twofold. First, they have the money to invest. Second, they have their own ambitious nuclear programme with 27 power stations operational and another 24 under construction.

With Chinese money, industrial power, technical expertise, and ‘can do’ approach, Osborne believes, the UK’s nuclear programme will finally lift off and ‘keep the lights on’ for a generation to come.

But it won’t. For a very simple reason. There is no reactor design that’s actually up to the job. All the existing ones like the French EPR and the Japanese AP1000 are afflicted by severe problems with huge delays and cost overruns. The EPR also comes with serious safety fears.

And as for China’s promised new reactor designs, the CAP1400 and the ACPR1000 – they don’t yet exist.

Works at Taishan have come to a halt

For all the bluster, China’s nuclear build programme is in a highly uncertain state. For example The Ecologist has learnt from an industry insider that work on its two power stations at Taishan in Guangdong province came to a grinding halt in mid-2014 and the sites remain deserted.

That’s a long way from its early promise. Two power plants were expected to be fully operation in December 2013 and October 2014, according to a report in Power Technology, which optimistically stated: “The Chinese nuclear project is benefiting from the experience gained from the Finnish and French NPPs, with significant savings in cost and construction time.”

And that’s a serious matter. Taishan is the world’s single biggest nuclear power project, with two power stations under construction each with two EPR reactors rated at a nominal 1.75 GW. But the reasons for this are clear.

Currently there is not a single working EPR nuclear plant anywhere. Those under construction at Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France are both running hugely over time and budget. Oliluoto is now nine years late and three times over budget, as Carbon Brief reports.

The Flamanville reactor is doing no better. Ordered in 2006 for a price of €3.3 billion, it was meant to be generating power in 2012. According to an EDF statement in early September, it is scheduled for completion in the 4th quarter of 2018 and costs are assessed at €10.5 billion. But Agence France Presse revealed yesterday that EDF has requested to delay completion until 2020 – a full eight years late.

In fact there are severe doubts as to whether it will ever be completed at all as the reactor’s pressure vessel – supplied by French parastatal Areva – that lies at its heart has been found to suffer from grave metallurgical flaws, with the steel made brittle by localised excesses of carbon, leading to the possibility of cracks and, ultimately, catastrophic failure.

A long programme of tests is under way and there is a real possibility that the vessel, and its lid, may be scrapped. If that’s the case, the entire project is likely to be abandoned.

An unfolding Chinese nuclear disaster?

And it is surely the chilling effect of this defect that is knocking on to Taishan. The Taishan reactor vessels, two of which are already installed, were also supplied by Areva, along with other key components such as the steam generators and the pressuriser for the primary reactor coolant system.

In April 2015 the South China Morning Post ran a report stating that the Taishan reactors had not been subject to tests before installation, and could therefore suffer from the same defect.

The Taishan project is being carried out by Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co (TNPJVC), in which China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation (CGNPC) has a 70% stake, while EDF has 30%.

As for why construction at Taishan has halted there are three reasons coming into play:

  • The China Insurance Regulatory Commission is reported to have forbidden the loading of any fuel into the Taishan reactors before the Flamanville issue is fully understood and resolved.
  • EDF and CGNPC are probably awaiting the outcome of the tests under way at Flamanville before committing further capital to completing what may be a doomed project.
  • The three banks that are financing Taishan, China Development Bank, Bank of China and Société Générale will, if they have any sense, have declined to advance any further cash to the Taishan project pending the Flamanville outcome, causing it to run out money. CDB and BOC have already advanced about $6.5bn to the project.

In any case the Taishan problems represent a massive headache for all parties involved, and most of all for EDF and Areva both of which are in a perilous financial state and would probably have gone bust already were it not for the support of the French government.

Oh yes – and this is the reactor design that’s planned for Hinkley C. Also note: despite the deal announced today, there has still been no ‘final investment decision’ by either EDF or CGN.

China’s great nuclear hope – the CAP1400

Meanwhile uncertainty looms over China’s ‘great nuclear hope’, its CAP1400 design – one of the two designs it may employ at  Bradwell and Sizewell in the UK.

The CAP1400 is an expanded 1.5GW version of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design rated at 1.1GW. Three AP1000 reactors are already scheduled for use at the UK’s proposed Moorside nuclear plant next to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria.

Three AP1000 reactors are currently under construction in China at Sanmen and Haiyang and as part of the construction deal, Westinghouse is transferring its nuclear technology to its Chinese partner the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation – the process that led to the CAP1400. An even larger variant, the CAP1700, is also planned.

However as Chris Goodall reported on The Ecologist in July, all current AP1000 projects are suffering from delays and cost overruns. He wrote of Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia, now under construction in the US:

“Near-concurrent construction of the two plants started in May 2013 with completion of the first planned for April 2016 … in February 2015 the station’s eventual 45% owner (Georgia Power) told the state regulator that the partnership building the station had recently estimated that the eventual completion date for Vogtle 3 would be June 2019. Vogtle 4 would be finished in June 2020. The expected delay for Vogtle 3 is now 39 months, more than doubling the initially expected construction time. The project is not yet half complete.”

The project has been reported as running $1.4 billion over cost and now faces the danger that its completion may come too late to qualify for $522 million in federal Production Tax Credits.

China’s AP1000s experience long delays

Cost data and construction delays on Chinese nuclear projects are generally unpublished, however there is evidence of significant problems. Construction at Sanmen began in August 2009 and was due to end by August 2013.

As late as March 2012 completion was still officially planned for 2013. However completion is now expected to take place in 2016 after a three year delay. And as Goodall notes,

“The design used in China is simpler than that used in the US, and it may well be possible for Chinese constructors to build much more quickly and cheaply. However the modifications are unlikely to be acceptable to Western regulators. For example, the power stations are not designed to survive a direct hit from an airliner, a US requirement.”

So what about the CAP1400? There is still not a single operational example of one anywhere in the world, nor even under construction, though a site is being prepared at Shidaowan, Shandong province.

China is confident of the design and it is now the country’s preferred option for both domestic use and export, not least because it owns it. But given the combination of all the known problems of the AP1000, and the unknown problems that are certain to arise in the construction of the first CAP1400s, it appears unwise in the extreme for the UK to be pinning its hopes on it.

So when might China actually be able to deliver – 2030?

The same applies to China’s ACPR1000 design, the ‘advanced’ verion of its PCR1000 reactor, itself a variant of Areva’s 900MWe class reactors designed for the home market. Two of the new ‘third generation’ ACPR1000 reactors are under construction at the Yangjiang nuclear complex in western Guangdon with a scheduled completion date of 2019.

The design therefore remains untested, and will do for at least four years to come. It also – and the same applies to the CAP1400 – will need to pass lengthy and stringent examination by the UK’s nuclear safety regulators before it can be approved.

So at this point it’s fair to ask – what are the prospects that China will be able to deliver a new generation of nuclear power stations for the UK in a timely manner? The EPR is a dead duck, the AP1000 is little better, and both the CAP1400 and the ACPR1000 are entirely unknown quantities.

EDF has now set a target date of 2025 for the completion of the Hinkley C project – and note, this one has already been long in gestation, site works are already well under way, planning permission has been won, and the design has been approved by UK regulators.

Realistically, no Chinese nuclear plant can feasibly be completed at Bradwell or Sizewell until 2030 or beyond. Meaning that the entire current exercise is a complete waste of time when it comes to meeting the UK’s needs to ‘keep the lights on’ for the next ten years.

But the power generation crunch is already upon us with diminishing margins between capacity and demand, and will exacerbate in the years to 2023 thanks to the closure of old coal fired and nuclear power stations. In the face of this threat, new nuclear capacity in 2025, 2030 and beyond is as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot.

We should be concentrating on low carbon technologies that can be delivering in months and years, not decades hence – like proven and increasingly low cost renewables like wind and solar, combined with ‘smart grid’ systems for adjusting demand to supply, and new energy storage technologies. Instead of which George Osborne is deliberately crushing the entire renewable energy sector.

On the day of the 1992 General Election the Sun‘s headline ran: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights”. If the Tories don’t get their energy strategy onto a rational foundation, we won’t even need to do that. The lights will have gone out already.

 

 

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

Canada’s new Liberal government – an environmental renaissance?

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Holy smokes! Canada, you have a new Prime Minister. I would say ‘go home, you’re drunk!’ But don’t, because you’re not. This is actually happening.

But wait, what is actually happening? We have a new majority Liberal government.

Before the fun gets away with us, let’s do a quick reality check for what the Liberal Party and incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been promising all y’all on some of our top DeSmog Canada topics: climate, environment, science and transparency.

On the issue of Canada’s climate commitments for the UN climate summit this fall in Paris, the Liberal platform is underdeveloped. On the campaign trail last week party leader Justin Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen”, Trudeau said. “What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

The former Conservative government promised to reduce emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2050, a target that has been roundly criticized as weak. Others have pointed out that ex-PM Stephen Harper’s plan made no mention of the Alberta oilsands, the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada.

Although the Liberals don’t have a specific plan yet, the party has promised to establish a new climate change framework by February 2016 that includes an eventual phase out of fossil fuel subsidies.

The plan will also include investment in climate resilience, clean technology and low-carbon infrastructure. And the party will set aside $2 billion for emissions-reducing projects through a new Low Carbon Economy Trust.

Trudeau has also promised to attend climate negotiations in Paris with all of the premiers and to work with the provinces on emissions reduction plans that are location specific.

Importantly the Liberals have also promised to work with other countries like Mexico and the US in developing shared clean energy plans.

Liberals on environment

The Liberal party is promising to undo some of the damage done to Canada’s environmental laws and environmental assessment process for projects like pipelines.

The party promises to establish new, credible reviews for proposed development that are comprehensive, consider full and cumulative impacts, including upstream impacts like development in the oilsands, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Their revamped review process promises to be evidence-based and allow for more meaningful participation by the public.

Liberal party candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who took the North Vancouver riding with 56% of the vote, has also promised to scrap the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review in favour of a revitalized process.

Trudeau has voiced his support for pipelines, including the controversial Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines, but has also acknowledged “even though [it is] governments that grant permits, ultimately it’s only communities that grant permission.”

In that light, the party is also promising to engage more respectfully with First Nations during the consultation process. Considering cumulative impacts around the oilsands has been a major issue for local First Nations.

On this note the Liberals have also promised to immediately implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – something that will alter the manner in which First Nations are approached and consulted on major energy projects.

Since 2012 the Conservative party has weakened and eliminated many of Canada’s strongest environmental laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act. The Liberals have promised to review changes to both of these Acts, re-instate what was removed from them and possibly up protections where warranted.

Significantly for BC the Liberal party has promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on the province’s north coast.

Liberals on science

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the ‘war on science’ in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work.

Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management.

This is significant in light of the Conservative government’s de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Liberals plan on incorporating more science into federal environmental assessments including the consideration of climate change and environmental impacts of oilsands development on pipeline projects. Under the Conservatives both emissions and environmental impacts of the oilsands were considered ‘outside the relevant scope’ of pipeline reviews.

The federal Conservatives also fought against First Nations and conservation groups regarding the Species at Risk Act and its implication for major projects like oilsands mines or pipelines.

The Liberal party has promised to respond more quickly and more scientifically to the issue of at risk species. This means species will be listed faster and mandatory timelines will be put in place for species once they are listed as at risk. A new version of the Species at Risk Act is already on the Liberal’s environmental plan.

Liberals on transparency

When it comes to dealing with media, Trudeau has promised to have a much more open and transparent relationship with journalists. Through its Transparency Act, the party has promised to make access to information much easier for Canadians, including making all government documents freely available online.

The Access to Information Act will be amended to make information ‘Open by Default‘, that is, more easily available to the public, on quicker timelines and for less money. Current requests under the act cost $5 per request but may be subject to additional fees if the request is large or requires a lot of time. The amended act will limit the possible fee to the initial $5 charge.

In addition the Act will be reviewed every five years and expanded to include the Prime Minister’s Office, which is usually exempt from disclosure rules.

Trudeau has also promised to repeal certain elements of the Conservative’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51. Former prime ministers, national editorial boards, tech experts, legal scholars, civil society organizations, democracy watchdogs and droves of citizens opposed the bill, saying it undermined the democratic rights of Canadians. Many were outraged at the Liberals’ decision to support it.

Trudeau has promised to “take a constructive approach to improving the bill” including instituting greater oversight of Canada’s national security agencies and establishing an “all-party committee of Parliamentarians, to provide oversight of various agencies, including CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and DND.”

No matter what, Canadians are in for a real mix up under this new leadership. Reuters is reporting Justin Trudeau will bring “glamour, youth and charisma” to Ottawa in the dawning of this new age.

I’ll reserve that kind of cheer for another moment. For now, I’ll just say the Liberal party certainly has their work cut out for them.

 

 

Carol Linnitt is Managing Editor and Director of Research for DeSmog Canada, and lead author of DeSmog’s report Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Our Water, Health & Climate. Her work also led to the DeSmog micro-documentary CRYWOLF: An Unethical Oil Story and the Cry Wolf investigative series. She tweets @carollinitt.

This article was originally published on DeSmog.ca.

 

Austrian timber giant ransacking Romania’s forests

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The Austrian timber giant Schweighofer is processing large amounts of illegally harvested timber from Romanian forests into semi-finished wood products and biomass, according to the US Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

The accusation comes in a new report released today, which follows two years of investigations and details, for the first time, the extent of the destruction caused by the high volumes of illegal wood reaching Schweighofer’s Romanian mills.

The illegal timber products, says the EIA’s executive director Alexander von Bismarck, are being sold throughout the European Unio. “Schweighofer is one of the largest timber companies in Europe and unfortunately a major driver of illegal logging in Romania.”

Romania still has an estimated 218,000 hectares of old growth forests. A recent Romanian government study estimated that 80 million cubic meters of timber have been cut illegally in the past 20 years, representing a loss to the Romanian economy of over €5 billion.

Also today, WWF filed a complaint at the Federal Forest Office in Vienna for violations of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) and calls for a full investigation of the allegations against Schweighofer.

Half of Romania’s timber is illegal – and most of it goes to Schweighofer

According to the report, over 50% of logging in Romania is illegal. This includes illegal cutting in national parks, clear-cutting, overharvesting, use of false permits, and logging on stolen land. According to the Romanian government itself, 20% of public forest land has been restituted illegally after the fall of Communism, instead of being returned to the rightful owners.

In its investigation, EIA identifies and documents actual cases of each type of illegal logging in the forest and found that in nearly every case the wood was on its way to, or ended up at, Schweighofer’s mills. And Gabriel Paun, director of the Romanian NGO Agent Green, believes the trade is deeply penetratred by criminal organisations:

“In my opinion organized crime structures facilitate the flow of illegal wood from Romania to the European and global markets. So until now the EU and national legislation was not able to stop illegal activities, therefore remains a high risk to buy wood products from many Romanian regions.

“Europe’s last intact forest landscape is at stake, and two thirds of its virgin forests that are home to the largest populations of brown bears, grey wolves and lynx living in the wild.”

Earlier this year, two videos showing Schweighofer purchasing managers accepting illegal wood were released. A logging truck from a Romanian national park was filmed with a hidden camera as it transported undocumented logs to Schweighofer, despite the company’s claim that it rejects timber from national parks.

Over the past year, Agent Green has investigated and exposed a series of cases of illegal or unsustainable logging in national parks and other protected areas. In the spring of 2015, EIA released an undercover video, in which two of Schweighofer’s senior managers agreed to purchase illegally cut wood and offered boni for it.

Economic loss for Romania

EIA’s report also finds that Schweighofer has caused massive damage to the furniture industry in Romania by pushing up prices and buying out timber stocks. According to former Romanian Minister of Environment, Doina Pana, this practice has cost the Romanian economy 50,000 jobs since Schweighofer settled in the country.

Schweighofer extracts the profits from its Romanian businesses through a complex network of companies. At the head of this structure sits an Austrian-registered private foundation, Schweighofer Privatstiftung, through which the company enjoys significant tax benefits.

Magor Csibi from WWF Romania added that it should be economic common sense to further process wood in Romania in order to create jobs, economic growth for the local communities and more relevant income for the state budget:

“Unfortunately, the market became dominated by major actors who took advantage of the legislative gaps and created an economic model which concentrates only on the maximisation of profits, ignoring the sustainability of the forest ecosystems.”

In order to protect their business model, Schweighofer actively tried to prevent a new forest law in Romania that limits the share one single company can have in the national timber market. In a letter to the Romanian Prime Minister, CEO Gerald Schweighofer threatened to sue Romania in international courts and to lay off all of the company’s Romanian employees should the new law not be retracted.

Romania’s forests need EU protection

WWF has, based on available report and information, now filed a complaint according to the EUTR in Austria. WWF has made continuous efforts to save the last remaining virgin forests in the Carpathian region and managed to create legislation proposing 25,000 hectares of virgin forest to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“Today we are calling for a full investigation of all allegations raised in the report”, said WWF CEO Andrea Johanides. “If this fails, then the last Southeast European virgin forests will be turned into wood pellets and burning stoves for the benefit of multinational companies.”

The complaint is addressed to the Federal Forest Office (Bundesamt für Wald) which is the responsible EUTR authority in Austria. The EUTR came into force in 2013 and prohibits putting illegally logged timber and timber products onto the EU market.

A study by WWF revealed that, unfortunately, this regulation has not been adequately translated in national laws throughout the EU and it furthermore still contains loopholes and exemptions and found penalties for violations too weak to serve as deterrent, in countries such as Austria.

Schweighofer has been active in Romania since 2002, where the company now owns three sawmills and two factories. The company’s main export products are sawn lumber and biomass, in addition to other semi-finished products.

Sixty percent of Schweighofer’s exports within the European Union are biomass in the form of pellets, briquettes, and wood chips. Within 13 years, the company became one of the largest wood processors in Europe, with an annual turnover of €465 million.

 

 

The report: ‘Stealing the last forest‘ is published today by EIA.

 

UK-China nuclear deal won’t keep our lights on

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A huge nuclear deal has been announced by Chinese Presdient Xi Jinping and UK Prime Minister David Cameron to get Britain’s nuclear renaissance off the ground.

Under the deal, Chinese state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CHN) will pay £6 billion for a one third share in the troubled Hinkley C project. They also take an option to go on to build new reactors in partnership with EDF at Bradwell, Essex, and Sizewell, Suffolk.

For UK Chancellor George Osborne, the need to get the Chinese involved is twofold. First, they have the money to invest. Second, they have their own ambitious nuclear programme with 27 power stations operational and another 24 under construction.

With Chinese money, industrial power, technical expertise, and ‘can do’ approach, Osborne believes, the UK’s nuclear programme will finally lift off and ‘keep the lights on’ for a generation to come.

But it won’t. For a very simple reason. There is no reactor design that’s actually up to the job. All the existing ones like the French EPR and the Japanese AP1000 are afflicted by severe problems with huge delays and cost overruns. The EPR also comes with serious safety fears.

And as for China’s promised new reactor designs, the CAP1400 and the ACPR1000 – they don’t yet exist.

Works at Taishan have come to a halt

For all the bluster, China’s nuclear build programme is in a highly uncertain state. For example The Ecologist has learnt from an industry insider that work on its two power stations at Taishan in Guangdong province came to a grinding halt in mid-2014 and the sites remain deserted.

That’s a long way from its early promise. Two power plants were expected to be fully operation in December 2013 and October 2014, according to a report in Power Technology, which optimistically stated: “The Chinese nuclear project is benefiting from the experience gained from the Finnish and French NPPs, with significant savings in cost and construction time.”

And that’s a serious matter. Taishan is the world’s single biggest nuclear power project, with two power stations under construction each with two EPR reactors rated at a nominal 1.75 GW. But the reasons for this are clear.

Currently there is not a single working EPR nuclear plant anywhere. Those under construction at Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France are both running hugely over time and budget. Oliluoto is now nine years late and three times over budget, as Carbon Brief reports.

The Flamanville reactor is doing no better. Ordered in 2006 for a price of €3.3 billion, it was meant to be generating power in 2012. According to an EDF statement in early September, it is scheduled for completion in the 4th quarter of 2018 and costs are assessed at €10.5 billion. But Agence France Presse revealed yesterday that EDF has requested to delay completion until 2020 – a full eight years late.

In fact there are severe doubts as to whether it will ever be completed at all as the reactor’s pressure vessel – supplied by French parastatal Areva – that lies at its heart has been found to suffer from grave metallurgical flaws, with the steel made brittle by localised excesses of carbon, leading to the possibility of cracks and, ultimately, catastrophic failure.

A long programme of tests is under way and there is a real possibility that the vessel, and its lid, may be scrapped. If that’s the case, the entire project is likely to be abandoned.

An unfolding Chinese nuclear disaster?

And it is surely the chilling effect of this defect that is knocking on to Taishan. The Taishan reactor vessels, two of which are already installed, were also supplied by Areva, along with other key components such as the steam generators and the pressuriser for the primary reactor coolant system.

In April 2015 the South China Morning Post ran a report stating that the Taishan reactors had not been subject to tests before installation, and could therefore suffer from the same defect.

The Taishan project is being carried out by Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co (TNPJVC), in which China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation (CGNPC) has a 70% stake, while EDF has 30%.

As for why construction at Taishan has halted there are three reasons coming into play:

  • The China Insurance Regulatory Commission is reported to have forbidden the loading of any fuel into the Taishan reactors before the Flamanville issue is fully understood and resolved.
  • EDF and CGNPC are probably awaiting the outcome of the tests under way at Flamanville before committing further capital to completing what may be a doomed project.
  • The three banks that are financing Taishan, China Development Bank, Bank of China and Société Générale will, if they have any sense, have declined to advance any further cash to the Taishan project pending the Flamanville outcome, causing it to run out money. CDB and BOC have already advanced about $6.5bn to the project.

In any case the Taishan problems represent a massive headache for all parties involved, and most of all for EDF and Areva both of which are in a perilous financial state and would probably have gone bust already were it not for the support of the French government.

Oh yes – and this is the reactor design that’s planned for Hinkley C. Also note: despite the deal announced today, there has still been no ‘final investment decision’ by either EDF or CGN.

China’s great nuclear hope – the CAP1400

Meanwhile uncertainty looms over China’s ‘great nuclear hope’, its CAP1400 design – one of the two designs it may employ at  Bradwell and Sizewell in the UK.

The CAP1400 is an expanded 1.5GW version of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design rated at 1.1GW. Three AP1000 reactors are already scheduled for use at the UK’s proposed Moorside nuclear plant next to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria.

Three AP1000 reactors are currently under construction in China at Sanmen and Haiyang and as part of the construction deal, Westinghouse is transferring its nuclear technology to its Chinese partner the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation – the process that led to the CAP1400. An even larger variant, the CAP1700, is also planned.

However as Chris Goodall reported on The Ecologist in July, all current AP1000 projects are suffering from delays and cost overruns. He wrote of Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia, now under construction in the US:

“Near-concurrent construction of the two plants started in May 2013 with completion of the first planned for April 2016 … in February 2015 the station’s eventual 45% owner (Georgia Power) told the state regulator that the partnership building the station had recently estimated that the eventual completion date for Vogtle 3 would be June 2019. Vogtle 4 would be finished in June 2020. The expected delay for Vogtle 3 is now 39 months, more than doubling the initially expected construction time. The project is not yet half complete.”

The project has been reported as running $1.4 billion over cost and now faces the danger that its completion may come too late to qualify for $522 million in federal Production Tax Credits.

China’s AP1000s experience long delays

Cost data and construction delays on Chinese nuclear projects are generally unpublished, however there is evidence of significant problems. Construction at Sanmen began in August 2009 and was due to end by August 2013.

As late as March 2012 completion was still officially planned for 2013. However completion is now expected to take place in 2016 after a three year delay. And as Goodall notes,

“The design used in China is simpler than that used in the US, and it may well be possible for Chinese constructors to build much more quickly and cheaply. However the modifications are unlikely to be acceptable to Western regulators. For example, the power stations are not designed to survive a direct hit from an airliner, a US requirement.”

So what about the CAP1400? There is still not a single operational example of one anywhere in the world, nor even under construction, though a site is being prepared at Shidaowan, Shandong province.

China is confident of the design and it is now the country’s preferred option for both domestic use and export, not least because it owns it. But given the combination of all the known problems of the AP1000, and the unknown problems that are certain to arise in the construction of the first CAP1400s, it appears unwise in the extreme for the UK to be pinning its hopes on it.

So when might China actually be able to deliver – 2030?

The same applies to China’s ACPR1000 design, the ‘advanced’ verion of its PCR1000 reactor, itself a variant of Areva’s 900MWe class reactors designed for the home market. Two of the new ‘third generation’ ACPR1000 reactors are under construction at the Yangjiang nuclear complex in western Guangdon with a scheduled completion date of 2019.

The design therefore remains untested, and will do for at least four years to come. It also – and the same applies to the CAP1400 – will need to pass lengthy and stringent examination by the UK’s nuclear safety regulators before it can be approved.

So at this point it’s fair to ask – what are the prospects that China will be able to deliver a new generation of nuclear power stations for the UK in a timely manner? The EPR is a dead duck, the AP1000 is little better, and both the CAP1400 and the ACPR1000 are entirely unknown quantities.

EDF has now set a target date of 2025 for the completion of the Hinkley C project – and note, this one has already been long in gestation, site works are already well under way, planning permission has been won, and the design has been approved by UK regulators.

Realistically, no Chinese nuclear plant can feasibly be completed at Bradwell or Sizewell until 2030 or beyond. Meaning that the entire current exercise is a complete waste of time when it comes to meeting the UK’s needs to ‘keep the lights on’ for the next ten years.

But the power generation crunch is already upon us with diminishing margins between capacity and demand, and will exacerbate in the years to 2023 thanks to the closure of old coal fired and nuclear power stations. In the face of this threat, new nuclear capacity in 2025, 2030 and beyond is as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot.

We should be concentrating on low carbon technologies that can be delivering in months and years, not decades hence – like proven and increasingly low cost renewables like wind and solar, combined with ‘smart grid’ systems for adjusting demand to supply, and new energy storage technologies. Instead of which George Osborne is deliberately crushing the entire renewable energy sector.

On the day of the 1992 General Election the Sun‘s headline ran: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights”. If the Tories don’t get their energy strategy onto a rational foundation, we won’t even need to do that. The lights will have gone out already.

 

 

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

Canada’s new Liberal government – an environmental renaissance?

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Holy smokes! Canada, you have a new Prime Minister. I would say ‘go home, you’re drunk!’ But don’t, because you’re not. This is actually happening.

But wait, what is actually happening? We have a new majority Liberal government.

Before the fun gets away with us, let’s do a quick reality check for what the Liberal Party and incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been promising all y’all on some of our top DeSmog Canada topics: climate, environment, science and transparency.

On the issue of Canada’s climate commitments for the UN climate summit this fall in Paris, the Liberal platform is underdeveloped. On the campaign trail last week party leader Justin Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen”, Trudeau said. “What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

The former Conservative government promised to reduce emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2050, a target that has been roundly criticized as weak. Others have pointed out that ex-PM Stephen Harper’s plan made no mention of the Alberta oilsands, the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada.

Although the Liberals don’t have a specific plan yet, the party has promised to establish a new climate change framework by February 2016 that includes an eventual phase out of fossil fuel subsidies.

The plan will also include investment in climate resilience, clean technology and low-carbon infrastructure. And the party will set aside $2 billion for emissions-reducing projects through a new Low Carbon Economy Trust.

Trudeau has also promised to attend climate negotiations in Paris with all of the premiers and to work with the provinces on emissions reduction plans that are location specific.

Importantly the Liberals have also promised to work with other countries like Mexico and the US in developing shared clean energy plans.

Liberals on environment

The Liberal party is promising to undo some of the damage done to Canada’s environmental laws and environmental assessment process for projects like pipelines.

The party promises to establish new, credible reviews for proposed development that are comprehensive, consider full and cumulative impacts, including upstream impacts like development in the oilsands, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Their revamped review process promises to be evidence-based and allow for more meaningful participation by the public.

Liberal party candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who took the North Vancouver riding with 56% of the vote, has also promised to scrap the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review in favour of a revitalized process.

Trudeau has voiced his support for pipelines, including the controversial Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines, but has also acknowledged “even though [it is] governments that grant permits, ultimately it’s only communities that grant permission.”

In that light, the party is also promising to engage more respectfully with First Nations during the consultation process. Considering cumulative impacts around the oilsands has been a major issue for local First Nations.

On this note the Liberals have also promised to immediately implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – something that will alter the manner in which First Nations are approached and consulted on major energy projects.

Since 2012 the Conservative party has weakened and eliminated many of Canada’s strongest environmental laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act. The Liberals have promised to review changes to both of these Acts, re-instate what was removed from them and possibly up protections where warranted.

Significantly for BC the Liberal party has promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on the province’s north coast.

Liberals on science

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the ‘war on science’ in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work.

Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management.

This is significant in light of the Conservative government’s de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Liberals plan on incorporating more science into federal environmental assessments including the consideration of climate change and environmental impacts of oilsands development on pipeline projects. Under the Conservatives both emissions and environmental impacts of the oilsands were considered ‘outside the relevant scope’ of pipeline reviews.

The federal Conservatives also fought against First Nations and conservation groups regarding the Species at Risk Act and its implication for major projects like oilsands mines or pipelines.

The Liberal party has promised to respond more quickly and more scientifically to the issue of at risk species. This means species will be listed faster and mandatory timelines will be put in place for species once they are listed as at risk. A new version of the Species at Risk Act is already on the Liberal’s environmental plan.

Liberals on transparency

When it comes to dealing with media, Trudeau has promised to have a much more open and transparent relationship with journalists. Through its Transparency Act, the party has promised to make access to information much easier for Canadians, including making all government documents freely available online.

The Access to Information Act will be amended to make information ‘Open by Default‘, that is, more easily available to the public, on quicker timelines and for less money. Current requests under the act cost $5 per request but may be subject to additional fees if the request is large or requires a lot of time. The amended act will limit the possible fee to the initial $5 charge.

In addition the Act will be reviewed every five years and expanded to include the Prime Minister’s Office, which is usually exempt from disclosure rules.

Trudeau has also promised to repeal certain elements of the Conservative’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51. Former prime ministers, national editorial boards, tech experts, legal scholars, civil society organizations, democracy watchdogs and droves of citizens opposed the bill, saying it undermined the democratic rights of Canadians. Many were outraged at the Liberals’ decision to support it.

Trudeau has promised to “take a constructive approach to improving the bill” including instituting greater oversight of Canada’s national security agencies and establishing an “all-party committee of Parliamentarians, to provide oversight of various agencies, including CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and DND.”

No matter what, Canadians are in for a real mix up under this new leadership. Reuters is reporting Justin Trudeau will bring “glamour, youth and charisma” to Ottawa in the dawning of this new age.

I’ll reserve that kind of cheer for another moment. For now, I’ll just say the Liberal party certainly has their work cut out for them.

 

 

Carol Linnitt is Managing Editor and Director of Research for DeSmog Canada, and lead author of DeSmog’s report Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Our Water, Health & Climate. Her work also led to the DeSmog micro-documentary CRYWOLF: An Unethical Oil Story and the Cry Wolf investigative series. She tweets @carollinitt.

This article was originally published on DeSmog.ca.

 

UK-China nuclear deal won’t keep our lights on

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A huge nuclear deal has been announced by Chinese Presdient Xi Jinping and UK Prime Minister David Cameron to get Britain’s nuclear renaissance off the ground.

Under the deal, Chinese state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CHN) will pay £6 billion for a one third share in the troubled Hinkley C project. They also take an option to go on to build new reactors in partnership with EDF at Bradwell, Essex, and Sizewell, Suffolk.

For UK Chancellor George Osborne, the need to get the Chinese involved is twofold. First, they have the money to invest. Second, they have their own ambitious nuclear programme with 27 power stations operational and another 24 under construction.

With Chinese money, industrial power, technical expertise, and ‘can do’ approach, Osborne believes, the UK’s nuclear programme will finally lift off and ‘keep the lights on’ for a generation to come.

But it won’t. For a very simple reason. There is no reactor design that’s actually up to the job. All the existing ones like the French EPR and the Japanese AP1000 are afflicted by severe problems with huge delays and cost overruns. The EPR also comes with serious safety fears.

And as for China’s promised new reactor designs, the CAP1400 and the ACPR1000 – they don’t yet exist.

Works at Taishan have come to a halt

For all the bluster, China’s nuclear build programme is in a highly uncertain state. For example The Ecologist has learnt from an industry insider that work on its two power stations at Taishan in Guangdong province came to a grinding halt in mid-2014 and the sites remain deserted.

That’s a long way from its early promise. Two power plants were expected to be fully operation in December 2013 and October 2014, according to a report in Power Technology, which optimistically stated: “The Chinese nuclear project is benefiting from the experience gained from the Finnish and French NPPs, with significant savings in cost and construction time.”

And that’s a serious matter. Taishan is the world’s single biggest nuclear power project, with two power stations under construction each with two EPR reactors rated at a nominal 1.75 GW. But the reasons for this are clear.

Currently there is not a single working EPR nuclear plant anywhere. Those under construction at Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France are both running hugely over time and budget. Oliluoto is now nine years late and three times over budget, as Carbon Brief reports.

The Flamanville reactor is doing no better. Ordered in 2006 for a price of €3.3 billion, it was meant to be generating power in 2012. According to an EDF statement in early September, it is scheduled for completion in the 4th quarter of 2018 and costs are assessed at €10.5 billion. But Agence France Presse revealed yesterday that EDF has requested to delay completion until 2020 – a full eight years late.

In fact there are severe doubts as to whether it will ever be completed at all as the reactor’s pressure vessel – supplied by French parastatal Areva – that lies at its heart has been found to suffer from grave metallurgical flaws, with the steel made brittle by localised excesses of carbon, leading to the possibility of cracks and, ultimately, catastrophic failure.

A long programme of tests is under way and there is a real possibility that the vessel, and its lid, may be scrapped. If that’s the case, the entire project is likely to be abandoned.

An unfolding Chinese nuclear disaster?

And it is surely the chilling effect of this defect that is knocking on to Taishan. The Taishan reactor vessels, two of which are already installed, were also supplied by Areva, along with other key components such as the steam generators and the pressuriser for the primary reactor coolant system.

In April 2015 the South China Morning Post ran a report stating that the Taishan reactors had not been subject to tests before installation, and could therefore suffer from the same defect.

The Taishan project is being carried out by Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co (TNPJVC), in which China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation (CGNPC) has a 70% stake, while EDF has 30%.

As for why construction at Taishan has halted there are three reasons coming into play:

  • The China Insurance Regulatory Commission is reported to have forbidden the loading of any fuel into the Taishan reactors before the Flamanville issue is fully understood and resolved.
  • EDF and CGNPC are now awaiting the outcome of the tests under way at Flamanville before committing further capital to completing what may be a doomed project.
  • The three banks that are financing Taishan, China Development Bank, Bank of China, and Société Générale, may have declined to advance any further cash to the Taishan project, causing it to run out money. CDB and BOC have already advanced about $6.5bn to the project.

In any case the Taishan problems represent a massive headache for all parties involved, and most of all for EDF and Areva both of which are in a perilous financial state and would probably have gone bust already were it not for the support of the French government.

Oh yes – and this is the reactor design that’s planned for Hinkley C. Also note: despite the deal announced today, there has still been no ‘final investment decision’ by either EDF or CGN.

China’s great nuclear hope – the CAP1400

Meanwhile uncertainty looms over China’s ‘great nuclear hope’, its CAP1400 design – one of the two designs it may employ at  Bradwell and Sizewell in the UK.

The CAP1400 is an expanded 1.5GW version of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design rated at 1.1GW. Three AP1000 reactors are already scheduled for use at the UK’s proposed Moorside nuclear plant next to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria.

Three AP1000 reactors are currently under construction in China at Sanmen and Haiyang and as part of the construction deal, Westinghouse is transferring its nuclear technology to its Chinese partner the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation – the process that led to the CAP1400. An even larger variant, the CAP1700, is also planned.

However as Chris Goodall reported on The Ecologist in July, all current AP1000 projects are suffering from delays and cost overruns. He wrote of Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia, now under construction in the US:

“Near-concurrent construction of the two plants started in May 2013 with completion of the first planned for April 2016 … in February 2015 the station’s eventual 45% owner (Georgia Power) told the state regulator that the partnership building the station had recently estimated that the eventual completion date for Vogtle 3 would be June 2019. Vogtle 4 would be finished in June 2020. The expected delay for Vogtle 3 is now 39 months, more than doubling the initially expected construction time. The project is not yet half complete.”

The project has been reported as running $1.4 billion over cost and now faces the danger that its completion may come too late to qualify for $522 million in federal Production Tax Credits.

China’s AP1000s experience long delays

Cost data and construction delays on Chinese nuclear projects are generally unpublished, however there is evidence of significant problems. Construction at Sanmen began in August 2009 and was due to end by August 2013.

As late as March 2012 completion was still officially planned for 2013. However completion is now expected to take place in 2016 after a three year delay. And as Goodall notes,

“The design used in China is simpler than that used in the US, and it may well be possible for Chinese constructors to build much more quickly and cheaply. However the modifications are unlikely to be acceptable to Western regulators. For example, the power stations are not designed to survive a direct hit from an airliner, a US requirement.”

So what about the CAP1400? There is still not a single operational example of one anywhere in the world, nor even under construction, though a site is being prepared at Shidaowan, Shandong province.

China is confident of the design and it is now the country’s preferred option for both domestic use and export, not least because it owns it. But given the combination of all the known problems of the AP1000, and the unknown problems that are certain to arise in the construction of the first CAP1400s, it appears unwise in the extreme for the UK to be pinning its hopes on it.

So when might China actually be able to deliver – 2030?

The same applies to China’s ACPR1000 design, the ‘advanced’ verion of its PCR1000 reactor, itself a variant of Areva’s 900MWe class reactors designed for the home market. Two of the new ‘third generation’ ACPR1000 reactors are under construction at the Yangjiang nuclear complex in western Guangdon with a scheduled completion date of 2019.

The design therefore remains untested, and will do for at least four years to come. It also – and the same applies to the CAP1400 – will need to pass lengthy and stringent examination by the UK’s nuclear safety regulators before it can be approved.

So at this point it’s fair to ask – what are the prospects that China will be able to deliver a new generation of nuclear power stations for the UK in a timely manner? The EPR is a dead duck, the AP1000 is little better, and both the CAP1400 and the ACPR1000 are entirely unknown quantities.

EDF has now set a target date of 2025 for the completion of the Hinkley C project – and note, this one has already been long in gestation, site works are already well under way, planning permission has been won, and the design has been approved by UK regulators.

Realistically, no Chinese nuclear plant can feasibly be completed at Bradwell or Sizewell until 2030 or beyond. Meaning that the entire current exercise is a complete waste of time when it comes to meeting the UK’s needs to ‘keep the lights on’ for the next ten years.

But the power generation crunch is already upon us with diminishing margins between capacity and demand, and will exacerbate in the years to 2023 thanks to the closure of old coal fired and nuclear power stations. In the face of this threat, new nuclear capacity in 2025, 2030 and beyond is as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot.

We should be concentrating on low carbon technologies that can be delivering in months and years, not decades hence – like proven and increasingly low cost renewables like wind and solar, combined with ‘smart grid’ systems for adjusting demand to supply, and new energy storage technologies. Instead of which George Osborne is deliberately crushing the entire renewable energy sector.

On the day of the 1992 General Election the Sun‘s headline ran: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights”. If the Tories don’t get their energy strategy onto a rational foundation, we won’t even need to do that. The lights will have gone out already.

 

 

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

Canada’s new Liberal government – an environmental renaissance?

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Holy smokes! Canada, you have a new Prime Minister. I would say ‘go home, you’re drunk!’ But don’t, because you’re not. This is actually happening.

But wait, what is actually happening? We have a new majority Liberal government.

Before the fun gets away with us, let’s do a quick reality check for what the Liberal Party and incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been promising all y’all on some of our top DeSmog Canada topics: climate, environment, science and transparency.

On the issue of Canada’s climate commitments for the UN climate summit this fall in Paris, the Liberal platform is underdeveloped. On the campaign trail last week party leader Justin Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen”, Trudeau said. “What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

The former Conservative government promised to reduce emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2050, a target that has been roundly criticized as weak. Others have pointed out that ex-PM Stephen Harper’s plan made no mention of the Alberta oilsands, the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada.

Although the Liberals don’t have a specific plan yet, the party has promised to establish a new climate change framework by February 2016 that includes an eventual phase out of fossil fuel subsidies.

The plan will also include investment in climate resilience, clean technology and low-carbon infrastructure. And the party will set aside $2 billion for emissions-reducing projects through a new Low Carbon Economy Trust.

Trudeau has also promised to attend climate negotiations in Paris with all of the premiers and to work with the provinces on emissions reduction plans that are location specific.

Importantly the Liberals have also promised to work with other countries like Mexico and the US in developing shared clean energy plans.

Liberals on environment

The Liberal party is promising to undo some of the damage done to Canada’s environmental laws and environmental assessment process for projects like pipelines.

The party promises to establish new, credible reviews for proposed development that are comprehensive, consider full and cumulative impacts, including upstream impacts like development in the oilsands, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Their revamped review process promises to be evidence-based and allow for more meaningful participation by the public.

Liberal party candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who took the North Vancouver riding with 56% of the vote, has also promised to scrap the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review in favour of a revitalized process.

Trudeau has voiced his support for pipelines, including the controversial Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines, but has also acknowledged “even though [it is] governments that grant permits, ultimately it’s only communities that grant permission.”

In that light, the party is also promising to engage more respectfully with First Nations during the consultation process. Considering cumulative impacts around the oilsands has been a major issue for local First Nations.

On this note the Liberals have also promised to immediately implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – something that will alter the manner in which First Nations are approached and consulted on major energy projects.

Since 2012 the Conservative party has weakened and eliminated many of Canada’s strongest environmental laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act. The Liberals have promised to review changes to both of these Acts, re-instate what was removed from them and possibly up protections where warranted.

Significantly for BC the Liberal party has promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on the province’s north coast.

Liberals on science

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the ‘war on science’ in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work.

Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management.

This is significant in light of the Conservative government’s de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Liberals plan on incorporating more science into federal environmental assessments including the consideration of climate change and environmental impacts of oilsands development on pipeline projects. Under the Conservatives both emissions and environmental impacts of the oilsands were considered ‘outside the relevant scope’ of pipeline reviews.

The federal Conservatives also fought against First Nations and conservation groups regarding the Species at Risk Act and its implication for major projects like oilsands mines or pipelines.

The Liberal party has promised to respond more quickly and more scientifically to the issue of at risk species. This means species will be listed faster and mandatory timelines will be put in place for species once they are listed as at risk. A new version of the Species at Risk Act is already on the Liberal’s environmental plan.

Liberals on transparency

When it comes to dealing with media, Trudeau has promised to have a much more open and transparent relationship with journalists. Through its Transparency Act, the party has promised to make access to information much easier for Canadians, including making all government documents freely available online.

The Access to Information Act will be amended to make information ‘Open by Default‘, that is, more easily available to the public, on quicker timelines and for less money. Current requests under the act cost $5 per request but may be subject to additional fees if the request is large or requires a lot of time. The amended act will limit the possible fee to the initial $5 charge.

In addition the Act will be reviewed every five years and expanded to include the Prime Minister’s Office, which is usually exempt from disclosure rules.

Trudeau has also promised to repeal certain elements of the Conservative’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51. Former prime ministers, national editorial boards, tech experts, legal scholars, civil society organizations, democracy watchdogs and droves of citizens opposed the bill, saying it undermined the democratic rights of Canadians. Many were outraged at the Liberals’ decision to support it.

Trudeau has promised to “take a constructive approach to improving the bill” including instituting greater oversight of Canada’s national security agencies and establishing an “all-party committee of Parliamentarians, to provide oversight of various agencies, including CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and DND.”

No matter what, Canadians are in for a real mix up under this new leadership. Reuters is reporting Justin Trudeau will bring “glamour, youth and charisma” to Ottawa in the dawning of this new age.

I’ll reserve that kind of cheer for another moment. For now, I’ll just say the Liberal party certainly has their work cut out for them.

 

 

Carol Linnitt is Managing Editor and Director of Research for DeSmog Canada, and lead author of DeSmog’s report Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Our Water, Health & Climate. Her work also led to the DeSmog micro-documentary CRYWOLF: An Unethical Oil Story and the Cry Wolf investigative series. She tweets @carollinitt.

This article was originally published on DeSmog.ca.

 

Canada’s new Liberal government – an environmental renaissance?

Leave a reply

Holy smokes! Canada, you have a new Prime Minister. I would say ‘go home, you’re drunk!’ But don’t, because you’re not. This is actually happening.

But wait, what is actually happening? We have a new majority Liberal government.

Before the fun gets away with us, let’s do a quick reality check for what the Liberal Party and incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been promising all y’all on some of our top DeSmog Canada topics: climate, environment, science and transparency.

On the issue of Canada’s climate commitments for the UN climate summit this fall in Paris, the Liberal platform is underdeveloped. On the campaign trail last week party leader Justin Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen”, Trudeau said. “What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

The former Conservative government promised to reduce emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2050, a target that has been roundly criticized as weak. Others have pointed out that ex-PM Stephen Harper’s plan made no mention of the Alberta oilsands, the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada.

Although the Liberals don’t have a specific plan yet, the party has promised to establish a new climate change framework by February 2016 that includes an eventual phase out of fossil fuel subsidies.

The plan will also include investment in climate resilience, clean technology and low-carbon infrastructure. And the party will set aside $2 billion for emissions-reducing projects through a new Low Carbon Economy Trust.

Trudeau has also promised to attend climate negotiations in Paris with all of the premiers and to work with the provinces on emissions reduction plans that are location specific.

Importantly the Liberals have also promised to work with other countries like Mexico and the US in developing shared clean energy plans.

Liberals on environment

The Liberal party is promising to undo some of the damage done to Canada’s environmental laws and environmental assessment process for projects like pipelines.

The party promises to establish new, credible reviews for proposed development that are comprehensive, consider full and cumulative impacts, including upstream impacts like development in the oilsands, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Their revamped review process promises to be evidence-based and allow for more meaningful participation by the public.

Liberal party candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who took the North Vancouver riding with 56% of the vote, has also promised to scrap the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review in favour of a revitalized process.

Trudeau has voiced his support for pipelines, including the controversial Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines, but has also acknowledged “even though [it is] governments that grant permits, ultimately it’s only communities that grant permission.”

In that light, the party is also promising to engage more respectfully with First Nations during the consultation process. Considering cumulative impacts around the oilsands has been a major issue for local First Nations.

On this note the Liberals have also promised to immediately implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – something that will alter the manner in which First Nations are approached and consulted on major energy projects.

Since 2012 the Conservative party has weakened and eliminated many of Canada’s strongest environmental laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act. The Liberals have promised to review changes to both of these Acts, re-instate what was removed from them and possibly up protections where warranted.

Significantly for BC the Liberal party has promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on the province’s north coast.

Liberals on science

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the ‘war on science’ in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work.

Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management.

This is significant in light of the Conservative government’s de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Liberals plan on incorporating more science into federal environmental assessments including the consideration of climate change and environmental impacts of oilsands development on pipeline projects. Under the Conservatives both emissions and environmental impacts of the oilsands were considered ‘outside the relevant scope’ of pipeline reviews.

The federal Conservatives also fought against First Nations and conservation groups regarding the Species at Risk Act and its implication for major projects like oilsands mines or pipelines.

The Liberal party has promised to respond more quickly and more scientifically to the issue of at risk species. This means species will be listed faster and mandatory timelines will be put in place for species once they are listed as at risk. A new version of the Species at Risk Act is already on the Liberal’s environmental plan.

Liberals on transparency

When it comes to dealing with media, Trudeau has promised to have a much more open and transparent relationship with journalists. Through its Transparency Act, the party has promised to make access to information much easier for Canadians, including making all government documents freely available online.

The Access to Information Act will be amended to make information ‘Open by Default‘, that is, more easily available to the public, on quicker timelines and for less money. Current requests under the act cost $5 per request but may be subject to additional fees if the request is large or requires a lot of time. The amended act will limit the possible fee to the initial $5 charge.

In addition the Act will be reviewed every five years and expanded to include the Prime Minister’s Office, which is usually exempt from disclosure rules.

Trudeau has also promised to repeal certain elements of the Conservative’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51. Former prime ministers, national editorial boards, tech experts, legal scholars, civil society organizations, democracy watchdogs and droves of citizens opposed the bill, saying it undermined the democratic rights of Canadians. Many were outraged at the Liberals’ decision to support it.

Trudeau has promised to “take a constructive approach to improving the bill” including instituting greater oversight of Canada’s national security agencies and establishing an “all-party committee of Parliamentarians, to provide oversight of various agencies, including CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and DND.”

No matter what, Canadians are in for a real mix up under this new leadership. Reuters is reporting Justin Trudeau will bring “glamour, youth and charisma” to Ottawa in the dawning of this new age.

I’ll reserve that kind of cheer for another moment. For now, I’ll just say the Liberal party certainly has their work cut out for them.

 

 

Carol Linnitt is Managing Editor and Director of Research for DeSmog Canada, and lead author of DeSmog’s report Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Our Water, Health & Climate. Her work also led to the DeSmog micro-documentary CRYWOLF: An Unethical Oil Story and the Cry Wolf investigative series. She tweets @carollinitt.

This article was originally published on DeSmog.ca.

 

Fukushima – the first cancers emerge

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The Japanese government  has made its first admission that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear plant developed cancer as a following decontamination work after the 2011 disaster.

The man worked at the damaged plant for over a year, during which he was exposed to 19.8 millisieverts of radiation, four times the Japanese exposure limit. He is suffering from leukemia.

The former Fukushima manager Masao Yoshida also contracted cancer of the oesophagus after the disaster and died in 2013 – but the owner and operator of the nuclear plant, Tepco, refused to accept responsibility, insisting that the cancer developed too quickly.

Three other Fukushima workers have also contracted cancer but have yet to have their cases assessed.

The Fukushima nudear disaster followed the tsunami of 11 March 2011. Three out of four reactors on the site melted down, clouds of deadly radiation were released following a hydrogen explosion, and the nuclear fuel appears to have melted through the steel reactor vessels and sunk into, or through, the concrete foundations.

The tip of an iceberg

But that single ‘official’ cancer case is just the beginning. New scientific research indicates that hundreds more cancers have been and will be contracted in the local population.

A 30-fold excess of thyroid cancer has been detected among over 400,000 young people below the age of 18 from the Fukushima area.

According to the scientists, “The highest incidence rate ratio, using a latency period of 4 years, was observed in the central middle district of the prefecture compared with the Japanese annual incidence.”

In a first screening for thyroid cancer among 298,577 young people four years after the disaster, thyroid cancer occurred 50 times more among those in the most heavily irradiated areas, than in the general population, at a rate of 605 per million examinees.

In a second screening round of 106,068 young people conducted in April 2014 in less irradiated parts of the prefecture, the cancer was 12 times more common than for the main population.

Thyroid cancer is commonly developed as a result of acute exposure to radioactive iodine 131, a product of nuclear fission. Because iodine concentrates in the thyroid gland, thyroid damage including cancer is a characteristic marker of exposure to nuclear fallout.

Exposure to iodine-131 presents a high risk in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear accident owing to its short half life of 8 days, making it intensely radioactive. It is estimated to have made up about 9.1% of the radioactive material released at Fukushima.

There’s many more cases on the way!

The paper’s authors note that the incidence of thyroid cancer is high by comparison with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 at the same time following exposure – and warn that many more cases are likely to emerge:

“In conclusion, among those ages 18 years and younger in 2011 in Fukushima Prefecture, approximately 30-fold excesses in external comparisons and variability in internal comparisons on thyroid cancer detection were observed in Fukushima Prefecture within as few as 4 years after the Fukushima power plant accident. The result was unlikely to be fully explained by the screening effect.

“In Chernobyl, excesses of thyroid cancer became more remarkable 4 or 5 years after the accident in Belarus and Ukraine, so the observed excess alerts us to prepare for more potential cases within a few years.”

Scientific studies of Chernobyl victims have also found that the risk of developing thyroid cancer has a long, fat tail – in other words, there is no significant fall in risk over time among people exposed to iodine-131.

According the the US’s National Cancer Institute, summarising the findings in 2011, “The researchers found no evidence, during the study time period, to indicate that the increased cancer risk to those who lived in the area at the time of the accident is decreasing over time.

“However, a separate, previous analysis of atomic bomb survivors and medically irradiated individuals found cancer risk began to decline about 30 years after exposure, but was still elevated 40 years later. The researchers believe that continued follow-up of the participants in the current study will be necessary to determine when an eventual decline in risk is likely to occur.”

Did WHO underestimate the Fukushima radiation release?

The authors of the Fukushima study also suggest that the amount of radiation released may, in fact, have been more that the World Health Organisation’s and other official estimates:

“Furthermore, we could infer a possibility that exposure doses for residents were higher than the official report or the dose estimation by the World Health Organization, because the number of thyroid cancer cases grew faster than predicted in the World Health Organization’s health assessment report.”

Another consideration – which the authors do not enter into – is the effect of the other radioactive species emitted in the accident including 17.5% Caesium-137 and 38.5% Caesium 134. These longer lived beta-emitters (30 years and two years respectively) present a major long term hazard as the element is closely related to potassium and readily absorbed into biomass and food crops.

Yet another radiation hazard arises from long lived alpha emitters like plutonium 239 (half life 24,100 years) which is hard to detect. Even tiny nano-scale specks of inhaled plutonium entering the lungs and lymphatic system can cause cancer decades after the event by continuously ‘burning’ surrounding tissues and cells.

 

 

The paper: ‘Thyroid cancer detection by ultrasound among residents aged 18 years and under in Fukushima, Japan: 2011 to 2014‘ is published in Epidemiology.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

Be very scared: TTIP and ‘regulatory cooperation’

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‘Collateral damage’. ‘Enhanced interrogation’. What’s the name for those phrases or words that sound relatively innocuous but are actually covering up something that’s very violent or very bad?

Here’s another one: regulatory cooperation. Cooperation is a good thing, right? It doesn’t sound so threatening, but it’s a masterful example of the power of language to make something terrible sound benign.

And it’s nestling at the heart of the trade deal being hammered out between the EU and the USA.

The widespread public concern about the controversial free trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) can be largely grouped into two main themes.

One is concern that it could mean the privatisation of the NHS, and unease about corporations being able to sue governments in secret courts (ISDS).

But there’s a less well-known aspect of TTIP that could even more fundamentally and negatively affect many aspects of our lives, but it just sounds so boring that people tend to start glazing over as soon as you mention it.

‘Red tape’ – or essential protections for health, environment, labour?

To most people, regulations such as air pollution limits and food safety standards are common sense protections against dangerous threats.

However, to many big businesses, these rules are just red tape or ‘non-tariff barriers to trade’ (NTBs) which inhibit profits. Proponents of TTIP say that 80% of the supposed benefits of the deal will come from getting rid of these NTBs.

Our new briefing shows how regulatory cooperation presents a unique opportunity for corporate interests on both sides of the Atlantic to lobby for these standards to be brought down to the lowest common denominator.

Many of the major corporate interests pushing for TTIP actually think this, not ISDS, is the aspect of the deal that is most important to them. Some supporters of TTIP have even gone as far as to advocate sacrificing ISDS to protect regulatory cooperation. Corporate lobbyists have expressed the hope that regulatory cooperation will make them so powerful that it will allow them to effectively ‘co-write’ regulation with policy-makers.

Campaigners fear this could lead to the EU caving in to corporate demands to allow chlorine-washed chicken, hormone treated meat, or more GM food. There are even fears that it could herald a return to the use of asbestos in certain building materials.

Even if some of these fears do not become reality, at the very least, it will slow down the adoption of new safety standards and regulations, delays that could cost lives, and introduce dangerous or environmentally damaging products into Europe by the back door.

A long term mission of continuous deregulation

Take the cosmetics sector for instance. The EU currently bans the use of 1,377 harmful substances for use in cosmetic products. The US bans just 11. Even a ‘split the difference’ type agreement on cosmetics could lead to hundreds of dangerous substances being approved for use in the EU. This could mean acceptance of additives like lead in lipstick (legal in the US).

After pressure from campaigners, the EU Commission is now saying that it is no longer pursuing harmonisation or mutual recognition of cosmetics standards.  But there has been no such undertaking from the US side, so it is perfectly possible that cosmetics regulation could be ceded to the US side in exchange for something else during the negotiation process.

What’s most dangerous about regulatory cooperation is that it will make the trade deal a so-called ‘living agreement’. This means that negotiators will continue to dismantle regulation behind closed doors for years after TTIP is no longer the focus of media attention.

Put simply, it is a way for EU and US officials to remove the most controversial aspects of TTIP from the main agreement, leaving them to be discussed out of the public eye when the controversy has died down.

How do we know? Because it’s already started

Proponents of TTIP say all of this is just scaremongering, but the reality is that this stuff is already happening. The mere prospect of the deal is already weakening certain EU standards.

For example, US officials successfully used the prospect of TTIP to bully the EU into abandoning plans to ban 31 dangerous pesticides with ingredients that have been shown to cause cancer and infertility. 

A similar fate befell regulations around the treatment of beef with lactic acid. This was banned in Europe because of fears that the procedure was being used to conceal unhygienic practices. The ban was repealed by MEPs in a Parliamentary Committee after EU Commission officials openly suggested TTIP negotiations would be threatened if the ban wasn’t lifted.

Campaigners and concerned citizens on both sides of the Atlantic need to fight to protect hard won standards and regulations to keep us and our environment safe.  Excluding the NHS or any other public service isn’t enough, as the regulatory race to the bottom will affect us all regardless.

TTIP should be opposed in its entirety, not just the ISDS provisions that have gained most public attention so far.

 

 

 

The briefing: ‘Race to the bottom Regulatory cooperation in TTIP: A blueprint for corporate domination?‘

Alex Scrivener is policy officer at Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.