Secret Mox Scandal

£473 million white elephant

The Government has at last confessed that they have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on a nuclear stunt that was doomed before it began.

In June 2000, only seven MPs backed an EDM I put down which “Deplored the decision to agree to pay Japan £40 million as a sweetener to apologise for the fact that British Nuclear Fuels sent Kansai Electric plutonium Mox fuel with falsified safety paperwork.

I claimed at the time that the loss to the UK was likely to be in excess of £100 million. The EDM also contrasted the enormous subsidies to the plutonium fuel industry with the total annual research, demonstration and development investment into renewable energy of just £31 million.

Now energy Minister Malcolm Wicks has been forced to confess that Mox is one of the most comprehensive and catastrophic failures in British industrial history. Answering a question from Dai Davies MP for Blaenau Gwent, Mr Wicks said that a new plant at Sellafield, built at a cost of £473m, had comprehensively failed to work. Originally designed to produce 120 tons a year of "mixed oxide" (MOX) nuclear fuel – made of plutonium and uranium separated from nuclear waste by reprocessing – it had in fact managed only 5.3 tons in five years of operation.

The argument voiced in parliament eight years ago forecast a financial catastrophe based on unproven technology. By any standard, this is a major catastrophe. The Cassandras were ignored.

It proves again, that the nuclear industry can get away with daylight robbery.

No Obama

Nick Clegg is no Barak Obama.

Accepting the new standard of ‘no notes’ speeches, he got through 50 minutes with few blemishes. This technique was first used at a party conference by Anne Widdecombe.

It is not as difficult as it looks. The speaker has to have a pattern in mind of the direction of his speech – memorising about a dozen headings. The rest is easy. Just a repetition of words that the speaker has used dozens of times before. The words are firmly lodged in the memory. The secret is not to change the speech, but to change the audience.

Many of Clegg’s themes today will bring a small glow of appreciation from former Labour voters. The promise of empowerment with citizens’ juries is old hat. It’s been tried and disappointed.

Today’s speech, like Nick’s PMPQ’s, was over–rehearsed, flat and unconvincing.  Unlike Tony Blair and Barak Obama, Clegg is not a natural actor.  There is no quickening of the pulses, no excitement among the listeners. His jokes were forced and his heavy sincerity bit was lame. New politics can never be aroused from its slumber by a speaker who sounds like a Speak-your-weight machine.

I was painfully reminded of the leader speech by Iain Duncan Smith. As then, the audience dutifully clapped on every practised pause. The gestures were unnatural. Nick’s signal that he had finsished was an ill-timed extravagant arms wide-open gesture.

He gets three out of ten for today’s performance. More work needed on the faking sincerity and talking like a human being.

Evacuation

Tonight’s threatened storm may flood low-lying parts of Newport.

While there has been some flooding from the Usk and the Ebbw rivers in recent years, there has been no serious sea flood since the ‘tsunami’ of 1607.  Waves overtopped the seawall in 1987 when a high tide and a storm surge combined to raise water levels. The car park of the Lighthouse Hotel was flooded but no dwellings were affected.

As a sensible precautionary measure, a park for  residential mobile homes is tonight being evacuated. It’s impossible to forecast with accuracy how serious the storm will be. The whole city and the emergency services will do all that is possible to reduce the distress and inconvenience of those who live in these attractive dwellings.

The chances are very much against another of these happily very rare floods. But the consequences of not acting could be very serious to those living on the site.

Lost weekend (two)

Somebody loves Wales. It’s many years since I have watched a Cardiff City Match. In 1948 (I believe), I saw them beat Bristol Rovers in Division Three South. It was the unforgettable day when a man was killed. He was sitting on the roof of the Grangetown stand when a panel collapsed.

Three close members of my family are season ticket holders so the old loyalty is still there. This afternoon’s feast of confidence and skill was a delight to watch. There is no reason why the triumph of 1927 cannot be repeated. Well done, Bluebirds.

Comments

[rwendland]

And because of the MOX plant failure we are having to ship Plutonium to France to complete the orders BNFL took! Presumably sub-contracting to France is a cost beyond the £473m plant cost write-off.

Also it seems Sellafield plans to use an ordinary single-hulled ro-ro ferry, without armed escort, to transport the Plutonium!

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/dirty-bomb-threat-as-uk-ships-plutonium-to-france-793488.html

Seems the "War on Terror" is very selectively applied when it comes to nuclear industry interests.

I'm amazed that little serious thought (in public) is given to what a commando-type-squad armed with modern man-portable anti-tank weapons could do to one of the new nuclear power stations the governement desires.

[paulflynn]

Thanks rwendland.

I agree entirely