New Nukes
Foreign firms are targeting British contractors in a bid to win a slice of the UK’s £40bn new nuclear programme. The news comes as German contractor Hochtief is tipped to join forces with Costain and Robert McAlpine’s new nuclear joint venture. Meanwhile, German firm Bilfinger Berger and French contractor Eiffage are also courting UK construction firms in a bid to muscle in on the UK’s new nuclear market. Likely partners include Kier, Skanska, Morgan Est and Carillion. Costain/McAlpine’s move to bring Hochtief on board – a seasoned nuclear new build player – will strengthen their chances of winning new nuclear work, particularly from German energy giants RWE and EON. Both RWE and EON are planning to build at least four new nuclear reactors in the UK after jointly buying suitable sites at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in South West England last month.
Contract Journal 17th June 2009 more >>
The West Midlands’ business community looks far and wide for opportunities, but I doubt Cumbria is on the list – perhaps it should be? Famous for tourism, it now sells itself as Britain’s Energy Coast TM, with impressive credentials. Home to the National Nuclear Laboratory, the region also boasts 36 per cent of our civil nuclear activities at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant. Training in all things nuclear is delivered through three of the region’s universities and the Nuclear Skills Academy (Energus), which offers expertise to the nuclear and environmental restoration industries. Cumbria also features many renewable energy projects, including the Barrow offshore wind farm, with 30 turbines bringing power ashore since 2006. Currently under development are more offshore wind, tidal and energy-from-waste projects. The big prize, however, is a key role in the Government’s new nuclear-build programme, with the prospect of three nuclear power stations being built in the region. To sell the obvious opportunities presented for Midlands businesses by these massive infrastructure projects, a 12-strong delegation led by Invest in Cumbria and Cumbria Vision visited Birmingham last month.
Birmingham Post 18th June 2009 more >>
A new report out today casts doubt on the ability of the nuclear industry to deliver its promised new reactors. French companies EDF and Areva, who are at the forefront of the new worldwide reactor design and building programme, have been making serious investments in foreign markets where they hope to build new reactors, including here in the UK. As a consequence they are heavily in debt.
Greenpeace UK 17th June 2009 more >>
NDA
We have today announced the appointment of Tony Fountain as our new Chief Executive Officer. Mr Fountain, who will take up his new position in October, joins the NDA from BP where he was Chief Operating Officer (COO) of BP’s Fuels Value Chains business.
NDA Press Release 17th June 2009 more >>
Whitehaven News 17th June 2009 more >>
Sellafield
Letter: Following the Lakes for Living conference it was resolved that Windermere should be twinned with her namesake in Ontario. The twinning should extend to equal radiological protection. Last week Ontario (Canada’s most populated province) recommended reducing radioactive tritium exposures to the public. In the same week Sellafield Ltd said it is applying to the Environment Agency to actually increase these discharges from its Magnox plant. This would also pave the way for increased discharges from proposed geological disposal of waste and new-build. Are Cumbrians by some Lakeland magic immune to radiation while those puny Canadians need protecting?
Carlisle News and Star 16th June 2009 more >>
A LEAK of radioactivity which has lasted for half a century at Sellafield has finally been plugged. The radioactive water is known to have seeped into the ground under the nuclear site for up to 50 years and the public was first told about it in the 1970s, since which time it has been monitored regularly at safe levels. But it is one of the radiation sources which has led to contamination on local beaches. The liquid has seeped from a crack in one of four huge concrete waste tanks which in the past processed effluent before being discharged into the Irish Sea.
Whitehaven News 17th June 2009 more >>
TWO highly radioactive cannisters have been tracked down, weeks after they were reported missing at Sellafield. The mistake has been put down to “an accounting anomaly”.
Whitehaven News 17th June 2009 more >>
Low Level Waste
PLANS to dump radioactive material on the former Keekle Head opencast site have been taken a stage further. The proposal by SITA, the UK arm of a French-owned company, were first revealed in The Whitehaven News several weeks ago after Copeland Council received a planning application to drill exploratory boreholes at Keekle Head. Copeland planners gave backing but the county council has to give the final go-ahead at meeting next Tuesday. The development control committee has been recommended to approve.
Whitehaven News 17th June 2009 more >>
THE Dounreay nuclear site, which is currently being decommissioned, will play a part in a plan to try and reduce the amount of waste going to low-level repositories. That has emerged following the launch of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s UK low-level waste strategy consultation which is to run until September.
John O Groat Journal 17th June 2009 more >>
Nuclear Skills
U.K. utilities risk falling behind with plans to build nuclear power plants because Middle East nations may use higher salaries to lure skilled workers, reactor builder Westinghouse Electric Co. said. “These nations have no legacy program to use as a source for nuclear expertise,” said Adrian Bull, U.K. stakeholder relations manager at Westinghouse, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp. “If you have literally nothing to go on, you have to be the Chelsea or Real Madrid and buy in the people from elsewhere.”
Bloomberg 15th June 2009 more >>
Cumbria
WEST Cumbria’s Energy Coast will have a TV airing on this Sunday’s BBC Politics Show. The show is being recorded from Maryport where a panel of 12 experts will be at The Wave Centre to debate plans to revitalise West Cumbria through energy developments.
Whitehaven News 17th June 2009 more >>
Hinkley
A PLOT of land donated to Bridgwater College by the council has been criticised by an anti-nuclear campaigner. Sedgemoor District Council decided in a meeting closed to the public and press in May to give land next to the campus and worth an estimated £85,000, to the college for free for the energy skills centre. But Stop Hinkley, a Bridgwater-based anti-nuclear campaign group, believes this decision is not only ‘tacky’ but not in Bridgwater’s best interests.
This is Somerset 17th June 2009 more >>
US
The companies that own almost half the nation’s nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found. The shortfalls are caused not by fluctuating appetites for nuclear power but by the stock market and other investments, which have suffered huge losses over the past year and devastated the plants’ savings, and by the soaring costs of decommissioning.
MSNBC 16th June 2009 more >>
The USA is to invest in a range of university nuclear programs in the latest round of spending. Almost $9 million will go to 29 universities and 86 scholars to support the “important zero-carbon energy source.” Speaking more strongly in favour of nuclear energy than usual, energy secretary Steven Chu linked the nuclear research he was supporting to energy independence and achieving climate change goals. The money is being awarded under the Nuclear Energy Universities Program and follows a $44 million announcement last month.
World Nuclear News 17th June 2009 more >>
Climate
The threat to Britain posed by floods, heat waves and coastal erosion is far more serious than previously thought, according to a group of experts appointed by the Government. Their report, to be published today, is expected to be the bleakest official assessment yet of the impact of climate change in Britain over the rest of this century.
Times 18th June 2009 more >>
Carbon Capture
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said four new “carbon capture and storage” trials would eventually add 2pc to bills through a levy on electricity suppliers – the day after the Government announced a tax on fixed telephone lines to fund high-speed broadband.
Telegraph 18th June 2009 more >>
