New Nukes
The Government’s Committee on Climate Change, headed by Lord Turner, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) chairman, will say that there should be a “floor price” on carbon emission permits, a move that will create an incentive for industry to “go green” as it will cost more to emit CO2. Lord Turner, who will deliver the progress report to ministers, is also likely to advise that nuclear must play a larger role in helping Britain hit its goals on reducing emissions, raising the possibility of subsidies or a levy to help those companies building new plants. Key members of the committee have this week been briefing utility companies and other stakeholders about the recommendations, including a greater emphasis on nuclear power and the idea of a creating a mechanism to support the price of carbon.
Sunday Telegraph 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Letter (1) Ben Ayliffe: In Jonathan Leake’s article Professor David MacKay cites Sizewell B as a model to follow. But it took 13 years to build and cost taxpayers the equivalent of £4 billion. Hardly a glowing reference. What’s more, if the nuclear industry’s track record is anything to go by, MacKay is whistling in the wind if he thinks it is possible to build the number of reactors he suggests in time to do anything to save the climate. The government of Ontario was recently quoted almost £14 billion for two reactors. (2) David Lowry: Do the arithmetic. How much radioactive rubble is created at uranium mines and milling plants; how much more would be created if the kind of expansion MacKay advocates were undertaken; what volumes of water are poisoned by leaching toxic materials from uranium mines; and how many indigenous people have had their health affected by such industrial processes?
Sunday Times 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Nuclear waste
Over 600 tonnes of foreign nuclear waste is to be kept in Scotland despite repeated promises by governments and the nuclear industry that it would be sent back to the countries from which it came. The Scottish government has secretly proposed storing the highly dangerous waste at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness. But, under a bizarre radioactive swap scheme, a smaller volume of waste will be returned from England. The revelation has prompted outrage from anti-nuclear campaigners, who have accused the Scottish National Party (SNP) of breaking its promises to prevent Scotland from becoming the world’s nuclear dustbin. “It is quite disgraceful that any Scottish government should acquiesce in turning Scotland and the Highlands into a dumping ground for vast quantities of other people’s radioactive waste,” said the veteran anti-dumping campaigner, Lorraine Mann.
Sunday Herald, 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Rob Edwards.com 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Radioactive scrap
A controversial shipment of radioactive scrap metal from Egypt, stored at a freight depot in central Scotland for nine years, has been sent to the UK’s radioactive waste dump at Drigg in Cumbria. Internal papers from the UK government’s waste management steering committee, released under freedom of information legislation, reveal that prolonged efforts to persuade the Egyptian government to take back the scrap failed.
Rob Edwards.com 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Terror
Nuclear physicist Dr Adlene Hicheur, arrested in France after allegedly plotting to carry out al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, had previously worked at a British scientific research laboratory, it can be disclosed.
Telegraph 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Sunday Express 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Last night fears were growing that Dr Adlene Hicheur – who was a researcher for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire for a year – could have been planning a nuclear attack in the UK.
Mail on Sunday 11th Oct 2009 more >>
A nuclear scientist working on the Hadron atom smasher has been arrested for allegedly helping al-Qaeda. The 32-year-old physicist was working on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland when police found links to al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, fuelling fears the group is targeting the nuclear industry.
Mirror 10th Oct 2009 more >>
Independent on Sunday 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Iran
Amid increasing fears of an Israeli strike against Iran America will this week press Russia to support a threat of tougher sanctions against Tehran in an attempt to avert possible military action.
Observer 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Iran needs up to 300 kg of nuclear fuel to cover the requirements of a reactor in Tehran for a year and a half, an official was quoted as saying on Saturday. Ali Shirzadian, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, also suggested the Islamic Republic could take steps to provide the fuel itself if it did not obtain it from abroad — a development likely to worry the West.
Reuters 10th Oct 2009 more >>
Submarines
A Ministry of Defence (MoD) programme aimed at getting rid of the radioactive hulks of defunct nuclear submarines stored in Scotland is coming unstuck after the resignation of a veteran adviser. Peter Lanyon, who has represented environmental and peace groups on government advisory groups for seven years, has quit because he says the MoD’s submarine disposal project “lacks integrity”. His resignation follows an MoD decision reported last month to sack two public consultation experts from its advisory group. Dr Jane Hunt and Dr Bill Thompson, originally from Lancaster University, have been replaced by a public relations company. To date 15 nuclear submarines have been taken out of service in the UK, without any clear idea of how to dispose of them. Seven are moored at the Rosyth dockyard on the Firth of Forth, and eight at the Devonport naval base in Plymouth.
Rob Edwards.com 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Renewables
In stark contrast to E.ON’s postponement of a coal-fired power plant, a start-up energy company will tomorrow announce plans to build a geothermal power plant in Cornwall that could feed “green” power to the UK’s commercial electricity grid by 2013. The company, London-based Geothermal Engineering, would also use the plant to provide free heat to the local community near Redruth, as part of a regeneration scheme.
Independent on Sunday 11th Oct 2009 more >>
Coal
ScottishPower is on the verge of announcing a major advance in carbon capture technology that could greatly improve its chances of winning the UK government’s £1 billion competition for the technology, the Sunday Herald has learned. Scientists working for the Spanish-owned energy group, which is vying to build the UK’s first large-scale carbon capture demonstration plant at Longannet site in Fife by 2014, are understood to have found a way to give an unprecedented boost to the efficiency levels of the process.
Sunday Herald 11th Oct 2009 more >>
