New Nukes
Energy is one of the north-west’s big growth industries. It contributes around £5bn ($7bn) to the local economy, employs 50,000 people, and is set to play a dominant role in the renaissance of the UK’s nuclear power sector. The vast majority of the UK’s nuclear research capability is located in the north-west and Manchester, in particular. John Dalton, who presented his atomic theory to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society just over 200 years ago, was one of the founding fathers of the Manchester Mechanics Institute (now part of Manchester University). James Joule, one of his students, developed the first laws of thermodynamics that led to an international unit of energy, the joule, being named after him.
FT 11th Mar 2009 more >>
A series of village meetings is to be held over plans for two nuclear power stations in west Cumbria. A full-sized exhibition of the plans from RWE npower to site facilities at Braystones and Kirksanton is due to go ahead this afternoon at Whitehaven Civic Centre. Further meetings have been planned to take place later this month in villages near to the planned developments.
Carlisle News and Star 11th Mar 2009 more >>
A three-day series of meetings will begin on March 24 to give the public a chance to have their say over plans to construct a plant at Layriggs Farm in Kirksanton. Action group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment has already said it will be launching a campaign to throw the plants out of the county.
NW Evening Mail 11th Mar 2009 more >>
AN under-the-sea plan is on the drawing board to carry electricity from Copeland’s proposed new nuclear power stations. Energy generated from Cumbrian windfarms could also be transmitted to the National Grid in the same way. The £1 billion scheme is seen as an alternative to erecting high-powered pylons in parts of the Lake District. Nothing has been decided yet, but it is thought that if the seabed option proves best it would head off almost certain Lake District opposition and avoid planning delays.
Whitehaven News 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Hartlepool
Plans for a new nuclear power plant next to a station which is due to be decommissioned are to be unveiled. EDF Energy is hoping to build the new plant in Hartlepool but wants to hear the views of local people. Power generation began at the Hartlepool station in 1983. Officials said it was outdated and was due to be decommissioned in the next 10 years. An exhibition and public meeting to discuss the new plans is being held at the town’s Grand Hotel on Wednesday. Paul Newman, director of the Hartlepool power station, said: “While the company’s new build focus is in the south of England where the need for new generating capacity is most urgent, we believe the Hartlepool site is a good candidate for a new nuclear plant.
BBC 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Oldbury
Oldbury power station, near Thornbury, will soon be back to full power with both of its nuclear reactors generating electricity. The power station on the bank of the River Severn has been given permission to by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) to restart its number one reactor alongside number two reactor. The station was due to close last December with the loss of more then 450 jobs but it was given a two-year reprieve and will now carry on producing power until 2010.
Bristol Evening Post 11th Mar 2009 more >>
EDF
Investigators from the European Commission raided the offices of lectricit de France (EDF) yesterday seeking evidence of price-fixing in the French electricity market. Commission officials were joined by inspectors from the French Competition Authority in a raid on the utility’s headquarters in Paris. The Commission said that it suspected that EDF was engaged in activity that abused its dominant position in the market. “The suspected illegal conduct may include actions to raise prices on the French wholesale electricity market,” it said.
Times 12th Mar 2009 more >>
Dounreay
Restrictions on seafood coming from an area near Dounreay nuclear site will remain in place, following a Food Standards Agency review. The Agency examined the existing restrictions on seafood from near Dounreay in light of new data and current work to remove radioactive particles from the seabed. It concluded that the restricted area should remain in place while the work on the seabed is going on and be reviewed once it is complete. The review also concluded that with the restrictions in place, the risk to food safety remains extremely small.
FSA 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Low Level Waste
MORE than 150 jobs have been secured – thanks to the £20 million radioactive waste deal which brings a big boost to two West Cumbrian quarries. Some 150,000 tonnes of hardstone material is being moved from Eskett Quarry, near Frizington, and Ghyll Scaur Quarry, at Millom, to the low level waste repository (LLWR) at Drigg. The massive amounts of aggregate will be used to construct Vault 9 which will also benefit Copeland communities to the tune of £1.5 million a year for as long as the vault is used to store waste.
Whitehaven News 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Decommissioning
Exhibitors from 10 universities and 12 commercial organisations took the opportunity to display, and in some cases demonstrate, a range of cutting edge and established robotics technology at Sellafield.
Whitehaven News 11th Mar 2009 more >>
US
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Greenpeace, the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), and Dr. Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress today released a report commissioned from the German Aerospace Center (the German equivalent of NASA) that shows how the United States can meet the energy needs of a growing economy and achieve science-based cuts in global warming pollution – without nuclear power or coal. The report, entitled “Energy [R]evolution,” is co-authored by Greenpeace and EREC and includes a foreword by Dr. R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
GPUSA 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Energy Secretary Steven Chu sought Wednesday to assure skeptical senators that the Obama administration supports continued development of nuclear energy, even as it backs away from building a nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
AP 11th Mar 2009 more >>
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Wednesday the department will establish a “blue ribbon” panel to develop a comprehensive plan this year to handle the disposal of radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants.
Reuters 11th Mar 2009 more >>
An “excessive exuberance” for expansion in the U.S. nuclear power industry has calmed because of the global credit and economic crisis, the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Tuesday. Separately, a GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy official warned that the lack of credit will slow the pace of U.S. nuclear power development. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein said in the past two years he worried whether there would be enough NRC staff to review an avalanche of licenses for new nuclear power plants, none of which have been ordered since the 1970s. “Today, of course, the picture looks a little different … it seems like the global economy has resolved the issue of what I referred to as an ‘excessive exuberance’ to be in line for the first new reactor builds,” Klein said in a speech to NRC staff in Washington.
Reuters 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Iran
Iran has yet to decide whether to build a nuclear bomb and currently lacks the weapons-grade highly enriched uranium needed to do so, top US intelligence officials told lawmakers on Tuesday.
RINF 11th Mar 2009 more >>
Disarmament
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal for France to return to the ‘inner core’ of Nato, means there are ‘opportunities for co-operation’ across the world on nuclear disarmament’, says Gordon Brown.
Daily Mail 12th Mar 2009 more >>
