CND Press Round-Up - 24th June 2022

CND Press Roundup Friday 24th June 2022

Bruce Kent

• Our friends at MedAct have a blog post with tributes to Bruce, reflecting on his support and friendship with the group in the area of anti-nuclear campaigning.

• CND Vice-President Rebecca Johnson reflects on Bruce’s legacy and support for the women’s peace movement in this piece for the Camden New Journal.

• I also came across this piece in the Islington Tribune.

Protest and Policing

• Kate Hudson features in this interesting piece by The Morning Star on how the government’s new policing bill will impact anti-nuclear activism: ““Further restrictions could actually prevent people going to the bases or doing blockades, none of which are a danger to national security…[Protesters] are raising awareness of the issue, and giving people an opportunity to say we don’t want weapons of mass destruction. The Bill, when the Home Secretary talks about it, is designed to prevent threats from hostile foreign entities. CND protesters and our allies across the peace movement do not in any sense come into that category.”

• CND’s presence at last Saturday’s TUC demonstration in London was noted in this report by People’s Dispatch.

War in Ukraine

• Carnegie Endowment For Peace has published its testimony on the wartime security of Ukrainian power plants, to a recent CBRN Expert Parliamentary Roundtable on Ukraine at the House of Commons. Would Russia deliberately attack a plant with the intention to cause a nuclear incident? They argue no, but what could happen is if Russia has to retreat from the area around plants they control: “Russian forces might take extreme actions including carrying out physical attacks or cyberattacks against a reactor in a nuclear power station which Russian forces do not occupy or no longer occupy. This may be a low-probability scenario, but it cannot be excluded. So long as Russian personnel are in control of a nuclear power plant, a cyberattack masterminded or approved by authorities that could cause a severe accident at the installation may not be very likely.”

Trident / UK Nuclear Weapons

• The Telegraph and The Times report on Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng’s pending approval of the sale of a firm linked to the UK’s nuclear programme to a US buyer. If given the go ahead, Boston-based private equity firm Advent International will buy Ultra Electronics though a previous British acquisition, Cobham, in a sale worth £2.6 billion. A lot of Ultra’s work for the Ministry of defence is not in the public domain, but includes making equipment for the UK’s nuclear submarines and anti-submarine technology for warships and reconnaissance, patrol and spy aircraft. Aerospace firm Cobham, meanwhile, was purchased by Advent in 2020 in a sale worth £4 billion. However, the sales have been met with criticism – including from within the Cobham family – warning that the UK government is selling off important domestic defence assets at a time of growing military competition.

• The Helensburgh Advertiser has a report of last week’s actions to mark the 40th anniversary of the Faslane Peace Camp.

• Manchester World has an interview with an army veteran who participated in British nuclear testing in the 1950s. John Morris, 84, described taking part in several tests near Christmas island in 1957: “I was ordered, along with about 1,000 other men, to sit with our backs to the plane. I had a shirt, trousers and sunglasses on. That was my protective material. The heat from that bomb was so severe I felt that my body was boiling. We had our hands over our eyes and I saw right through my hands. I saw every bone in my hand. Then the blast came and it blew people off their feet. Grown men were crying, running, they didn’t know what the hell to do. It was the most terrifying thing I have experienced in my life, and I hope nobody comes across that situation at all. If it does, you have seen the end of the world. It was devastating.”

UK Nuclear Energy

• ITV takes a look at the decommissioning of the Hartlepool nuclear plant, which is now underway. The area has been listed by Boris Johnson’s government as a ‘designated nuclear site’ and could host several new reactors. However, unions are calling for further clarity and commitments that the work will go ahead.

• More drama out of the Sizewell C nuclear plant project in Suffolk – after one of the government’s top environmental advisers raised questions about EDF’s competence in delivering the project. Lord Deben, who chairs the climate change committee and lives in Suffolk, told a recent nuclear conference: “The nuclear industry has a problem because it doesn’t deliver things on time and it doesn’t deliver them to budget. EDF has still got two nuclear power stations which aren’t finished and the reasons they’re not finished are nothing to do with nuclear. So there’s a real concern with people about how qualified these people are to do these things.” The comments prompted a rebuttal from the French-owned firm, calling Deben a Nimby, and said support amongst Suffolk’s locals for the project was far higher than those who opposed.

Nuclear Energy

• The Guardian looks at the state of California’s last remaining nuclear power plant – due to close in three years – and the plans to save it. Diablo Canyon is facing a series of pricey upgrades – to the tune of $4.5 billion – if it is to stay in service safely. However, the state of California is way off its target to have 100% renewable electricity by 2045, so reviving nuclear energy is becoming a more attractive possibility.

Space

• The Daily Mail reports on ambitions by NASA to put a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030. The plan is to put a 40-kilowatt class fission power system for ten years to see if it could one day support a human settlement and turn the moon into an orbiting power station.