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November Newsletter No259

The good news – Sizewell C. “Boris Johnson is close to giving Sizewell nuclear power plant in Suffolk the go-ahead” we were told on November 5th. Sizewell C will provide 3.2 GW of electricity for 60 to 80 years – and 5.8 GW of waste heat in addition.


October Newsletter No258

We will not be able to hold the AGM in person at the Institute of Civil Engineers as we had hoped. Nevertheless, the Meeting will go ahead on 26 October at 2pm, but in a different form. It will be in two parts, both online and open to Members. In a lighter vein, Marie Zabell has drawn a cartoon strip about the differing effects of nuclear and renewables on Nature.


August Newsletter No257

Last month Neville Chamberlain wrote to the Prime Minister, as reported in Newsletter 256. The reply that came back from the Ministry repeats what is already in the public sphere. — Nuclear Phobia was born 75 years ago this month.


July Newsletter No256

Everybody is waiting for the Government to announce its energy policy. Whether it is the Government or the Civil Service that is in disarray, it is clear that feet are being dragged and that plans for a viable energy future are still gathering dust in Whitehall. A letter to the Prime Minister. A comment on Solar Panels. Nuclear radiation is not like a virus.


June Newsletter No255

The cacophony that currently fills the news columns obstructs rational communication. The noise is almost exclusively on the subject of COVID-19 and health, of course. It makes spreading sensible discussion on the need for nuclear energy that much harder. Improving the ratio of signal to noise requires getting the message signal right – but understanding how the noise is received, too.


May Newsletter No254

At last! Admittedly dwelling on emotion rather than evidence, a full-length video, “Planet of the Humans”, made by environmentalists, that condemns “Renewables” for the confidence trick that they are.


April Newsletter No253

What was once the National Nuclear Corporation (NNC), based in Knutsford and which might be regarded as the last UK specialist nuclear engineering organisation, is now in US ownership, having been bought by Jacobs Engineering for a reported £250million.


February Newsletter No252

On 8 January at the suggestion of SONE member, Malcolm Savidge, the Cirencester Science and Technology Society hosted a lecture on “Nature, Nuclear Energy and Life”. On 25 January SONE members attended an open “Stargazing” event hosted by the Oxford Physics Department.


January Newsletter No251

Some cuttings from the daily press by James Lovelock and Sir Bernard Ingham. “A Message for Society from Science” published in Oxford at the end of 2019 by Wade Allison. News of bizarre political decisions that will lead to self-harm by EU. A discussion on synthetic fuels with Christopher Cockcroft.


December Newsletter No250

All General Election candidates have received an open letter organised by the Nuclear Industry Association and signed by many familiar names. You can read it by clicking here.  Though it reads well, it lets the “renewables” off too lightly, I argue.


November Newsletter No249

It had been our intention to issue a Press Release at the time of the Annual General Meeting, urging the Government to increase investment in nuclear power.


September Newsletter No248

It’s twenty years since SONE was formed to promote civil nuclear power in the UK. It is time to review how the UK has fared during that time in its commitment to nuclear energy.


July Newsletter No247

26th July 2019 is the 100th Birthday of James Lovelock CH CBE FRS, Patron of SONE, Lovelock is the doyen of the broad scientific study of the environment and its future including the part that nuclear energy should play. In the 1970s he developed the Gaia Theory, a description of the two-way dynamic relationship between life and its environment.


June Newsletter No246

The website for the Moltex Molten Salt Reactor is offering an investment opportunity open during May and June. I understand that this offer is well subscribed and any SONE member who is interested may have to act quickly to avoid disappointment. (This is not a recommendation, but SONE will alert members whenever such a new opportunity to support nuclear energy initiatives in the UK comes to our attention.)


May Newsletter No245

A resolution to cease carbon emissions, as passed by Parliament with great fanfare, achieves nothing unless a thought-out plan follows. The solution should come from advances in science and technology, everyone supposes. These two, science and technology, get conflated by commentators who would benefit from studying the difference.


April Newsletter No244

A Good News Month – mostly There have been a few seminal moments in industrial history when a whole new vision of the future appeare. I think of Brunel’s Great Britain, Stephenson’s Rocket and the repeal of the Red Flag Act in 1896 when a new more realistic idea of safety on the roads allowed an avalanche of new development to begin.