New Nukes
Mark Lynas: Why Greens must learn to love nuclear power. Global warming and finite resources mean our way of life is more threatened than ever, and it’s time for the environmental movement to face up to some hard truths.
New Statesman 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Nuclear companies are being asked to come clean over their plans for the future of Oldbury power station. German-owned E.ON has revealed an interest in building a power plant at the Oldbury site near Thornbury – four months after the American-Japanese consortium of Toshiba-Westinghouse announced it was developing its own scheme.
Bristol Evening Post 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Hutton will tell a meeting of the Government’s new nuclear development forum that new nuclear reactors are absolutely indispensable for keeping the light on.
ITN 18th Sept 2008 more >>
eGov Monitor 19th Sept 2008 more >>
World Business Council for Sustainable Development 19th Sept 2008 more >>
Public Servant Online 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Building Services Journal 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Business secretary John Hutton has spent the morning courting nuclear stakeholders, pledging he will “press all the buttons” to secure nuclear investment in Britain.
View London 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Britain’s two most celebrated architects have rejected the opportunity to contribute designs to a new generation of nuclear power stations. It has emerged that the practices of Norman Foster and Richard Rogers have been approached by French energy giant EDF Energy with a view to including them in a framework to design stations. SMC Alsop and Building Design Partnership are also understood to have been approached by EDF, which wants to build at least four stations.
Building 19th Sept 2008 more >>
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has declared that Britain must find a way of keeping the lights on without Lancashire’s nuclear industry.
Lancashire Evening Post 18th Sept 2008 more >>
British Energy
EDF is preparing finally to seal a sweetened £12bn offer for British Energy, the nuclear operator. British Energy’s board met on Monday and concluded that it expected to be able to recommend the EDF offer. However, some technical issues remain to be resolved and the deal could still collapse again at the last minute as it did in July. The move came as EDF considered a bid for Constellation Energy, its US partner. The French group’s board met in Paris yesterday to discuss the group’s options for further investment in the US, where a crisis of confidence has sent its US partner’s shares crashing in the past few weeks.
FT 18th Sept 2008 more >>
EDF raised its offer for British Energy Group Plc by 1.2 percent, valuing the U.K. utility at 12.4 billion pounds ($22.6 billion).
Bloomberg 18th Sept 2008 more >>
British Energy is being closed in on by EDF, with a sweetened £12bn deal expected to be announced as soon as next week.
Daily Mail 19th Sept 2008 more >>
Negotiations over the sale of British Energy (BE) to EdF remain deadlocked over disagreements about price with the French nuclear power company refusing to make a significant improvement to its £12bn offer. EdF believes the falling oil price makes its offer even more attractive. The French company is also worried about the spiralling construction costs of new reactors. Meanwhile Mr Hutton is considering state aid towards a £120m-£150m investment by Sheffield Forgemasters in a giant steel press to make reactors. The company is one of only about five in the world capable of making the huge structures.
Telegraph 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Building 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Sellafield
Members of two unions at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria are taking part in industrial action. The work to rule, or “action short of a strike”, start earlier after the GMB and Unite workers rejected a 2% pay deal. However, 4,600 members of the Prospect union, the largest at the plant, are not taking part after voting to accept a deal said to be worth a total of 3.7%
BBC 19th Sept 2008 more >>
Renewables
Alex Randall of the Centre for Alternative Technology says: Last year we did the sums and found that through a radical rethink of how we use energy and massive investment in renewables, the UK could meet its energy needs without fossil fuels or nuclear. “The sums”, as Professor Fells calls them are contained in our report, Zero Carbon Britain.
Guardian 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Ireland
IRELAND WILL not be able to achieve a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 if the Government continues to rule out the “nuclear option”, according to the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Irish Times 19th Sept 2008 more >>
North Korea
North Korea said today it was making “thorough preparations” to restart its nuclear reactor, accusing the US of failing to fulfil its obligations under an international disarmament-for-aid agreement.
Guardian 19th Sept 2008 more >>
Kazakstan
Kazakstan’s nuclear test zone has lain deserted for the last 20 years and largely forgotten by the outside world, but experts say radiation will continue to be a health risk until the huge site is cleaned up thoroughly.
Institute for War and Peace 18th Sept 2008 more >>
Lithuania
The company leading work on Lithuania’s new $10 billion nuclear power station said on Thursday it would target capacity of 2,200 megawatts, lower than originally forecast. A draft environmental impact study said the plant could be built to generate up to 3,200-3,400 MW, accommodating the demands of project partners Poland, Latvia and Estonia, all keen to lessen their dependence on Russian energy supplies.
Money AM 18th Sept 2008 more >>
US
The speed with which Constellation Energy’s fate was sealed took most people by surprise, but none more so than Pierre Gadonneix, the chief executive of Electricit de France. He was still hoping yesterday to win his board’s backing for a cash injection of about $500m into the utility that he hopes will be his bridgehead into the US civil nuclear power market. It was a hard sell to directors already becoming impatient with the French group’s protracted efforts to acquire British Energy in the UK for an estimated £12.4bn ($22.5bn). But Mr Gadonneix’s team worked round the clock to prepare the case to a strongly divided board. In the end the decision did not come quickly enough and Warren Buffett, the US investor, snapped up the utility that hopes to be one of the leading players in North America’s nuclear revival.
FT 19th Sept 2008 more >>
