Radwaste
The organisation which represents town and parish councils in Cumbria this week said the search for a nuclear waste dump site was not credible or viable. Cumbria Association of Local Councils, a member of West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership, announced that it would not support the process unless major changes were made. The partnership is considering if West Cumbria should continue in the search for a site for a high-level nuclear waste repository. An association statement said: In view of the absence of clear support from parish councils and the community generally, and the number of serious shortcomings in the prospective managing radioactive waste safely process, we do not consider the programme as currently envisaged to be credible and viable.
Times & Star 26th April 2012 more >>
THE chances of finding a place to bury radioactive waste in the area have suffered another setback. For the Cumbria Association of Local Councils (CALC) has decided not to support any move to look for a safe and suitable site. The association represents town and parish councils on the West Cumbria MRWS Partnership which recently held a consultation and brief public opinion survey on whether the process should now go a stage further searching for a site. Seventy per cent of the councils who responded to the survey have said they do not support proceeding any further. Three parish councils closest to Sellafield, Gosforth, Beckermet and Ponsonby, have already said no.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
Letter Michael Baron: Not for the first time in the long-running debate on the GDF, your leader of April 12 has neatly and dispassionately defined the issues before Cumbria, Copeland and Allerdale. But is the debate really about the parishes and roaring in the grassroots? And now the Cumbria Association of local councils has added its powerful questioning voice. The concern is for the best method and the safest place for the nations high-level nuclear waste, even its plutonium. While there is much to be argued for a county-wide referendum, who decides the question to be put therein to the electorate?
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
Letter Barry Weston: I read with interest your editorial (April 12) regarding the possibility of hosting a geological disposal facility in our locality but would take issue with your assertion that …most of the nasty stuff to be disposed of is produced at Sellafield. The problem of dealing with dangerous radioactive material is indeed a national one and it always has been. Sellafield (particularly its employees) can be justly proud of its role, up to now, in safely dealing with this national problem and should not be cast as a villain for causing the problem. Trying to extend this role to included the siting of an underground dump for radioactive waste in geology that has been shown to be totally unsuitable should be resisted by our local representatives not encouraged.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
Chernobyl
Today is the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl. It is a disaster that left a 30-kilometre uninhabitable exclusion zone, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and still threatens the lives of tens of thousands. The legacy of the day that Chernobyls Reactor Four exploded, throwing radioactive contamination across Europe, is still with us and will be for many years to come. We must never forget the magnitude of the disaster and the people who suffered then and continue to suffer now as Greenpeace found when we returned to the area surrounding Chernobyl last year. Its 26 years later and what have the nuclear industry and its supporters learned? Nothing.
Greenpeace 26th April 2012 more >>
Urging all nations to be extremely cautious with nuclear energy, Ukraine’s president thanked donors for financing the construction of a new, safer shelter over the damaged Chernobyl reactor on the 26th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. President Viktor Yanukovych spoke during a ceremony Thursday inaugurating the initial assembly of a gigantic arch-shaped steel containment building to cover the remnants of the exploded reactor. The structure weighing 20,000 tons and big enough to house New York’s Statue of Liberty is due to be completed in 2015, allowing the delicate and dangerous job of dismantling the reactor and cleaning vast amounts of radioactive waste still around it to begin. About 2,000 protesters staged an angry rally Thursday outside parliament in Kiev, demanding an increase in compensations and pensions. In Minsk, the capital of Belarus, more than 1,000 demonstrators took part in a march protesting plans to build the former Soviet republic’s first nuclear power station, in the town of Ostrovets near the Lithuanian border. The plant will be built by Russia.
Huffington Post 26th April 2012 more >>
TWENTY-SIX years to the day after the worlds worst nuclear disaster, Ukraine yesterday began construction of a vast new metal shelter to contain the stricken Chernobyl reactor.
Scotsman 27th April 2012 more >>
SKILLED workers, volunteers and financial donors are needed to help children affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Elaine Roberts, 50, an ordained minister from Clopton who runs the Christian mission charity World Mandate Ministries, is appealing for people to travel to the Ukraine in August to carry out work at the Chernobyl hospital which helps the children of children who were affected by the radiation leak and near melt down 23 years ago. If work is not done it could be closed. She is also asking for financial donations and practical items from businesses or individuals.
Nothants Evening Telegraph 26th April 2012 more >>
Sellafield
FEARS have been raised that Cumbria police officers will be stretched as they are brought in to help police Sellafield site. An agreement has been drawn up between Cumbria Constabulary, Sellafield Ltd and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary to implement a new way of policing. However, there are concerns the move will put a strain on Cumbria Constabularys resources, which has already been forced to make serious cutbacks.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
NUCLEAR and local authorities have again come under fire from Copeland MP Jamie Reed. Adding to the criticism first aired in The Whitehaven News the day before the conference that anticipated community benefits were not being delivered quickly enough, Mr Reed said: The key is deliver on your promises. In my line of work, if I dont deliver on my promises I face the sack. Thats right, thats fair and thats exactly the same standard to which I am now going every organisation in this room. More to the point, thats precisely what 170,000 West Cumbrians expect and deserve. So what is the way forward? Unless partners act in concert to achieve our aims, then they will not be achieved. It follows that todays event will be entirely pointless without an unambiguous declaration from partners (but from Nuclear Management Partners in particular) that they will now act to realise the ambitions that we have talked about today.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
SELLAFIELD unions have painted two possible futures for West Cumbria one to uplift the area through nuclear renaissance but the other a threat of decline and stagnation. Despite the early optimism of nuclear power renaissance, Mr Clements pointed out: Regrettably not one sod has been cut in the construction of any new nuclear power plant in the UK to say the least we are frustrated by the lack of progress. And nowhere is this lack of progress more evident than at Sellafield. The NDAs decision on the Sellafield plant has been the only announcement that has led to real live action closure. All the good intentions (NuGen, Mox 2, the Prism fast reactor, and the MRWS public consultation about an underground waste repository) are just that so far. Whats real for is that we are in a state of decommissioning that has been the situation for over eight years. Despite all the good intentions, unless things change dramatically we see a future dominated by decommissioning, by decline, run down, redundancies and closures.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
Nuclear Transport
CLAIMS that two nuclear ships for carrying highly radioactive materials are potentially unsafe have been denied by the operators. The vessels Oceanic Pintail and Atlantic Osprey are managed by International Nuclear Services (INS) on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. But Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (Core) claims the ships are being kept in service beyond their sell-by date. Core spokesman Martin Forwood alleged: INS and NDA are playing fast and loose with maritime safety by press-ganging the old Pintail back into service when she should have been retired and scrapped.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2012 more >>
Sizewell
The fourth annual camp at Sizewell nuclear power station took place from Friday 20th to Sunday the 22nd of April 2012. The aim of the camp is to make information available to local people about nuclear power, and to oppose the building of the two planned reactors, Sizewell C and D, and the dry fuel storage dump. The camp takes place in April to commemorate the Chernobyl disaster which occurred on 26th April 1986.
Indymedia 25th April 2012 more >>
Stop Nuclear Power 25th April 2012 more >>
Wylfa
Nuclear industry workers will get career advice and re-training as part of a £4m scheme for north-west Wales. It comes as the end of generating electricity at Wylfa Reactor 2 on Anglesey was brought forward by five days on Wednesday. The Welsh government said help would be available for more than 1,200 staff at Wylfa and the former nuclear power plant at Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd. Wylfa will stop generating in 2014, and Trawsfynydd is being decommissioned. Originally Wylfa’s Reactor 2 was due to be shut down on Monday 30 April, but it finished generating electricity on 25 April when the reactor was shutdown at 19:02 BST.
BBC 26th April 2012 more >>
Wales Online 26th April 2012 more >>
Reuters 26th April 2012 more >>
ITV Wales 26th April 2012 more >>
The penultimate Magnox reactor has generated its last electricity after 41 years of service. The closure of Wylfa 2 leaves its twin, unit 1, as the sole operational representative of the type.
World Nuclear News 26th April 2012 more >>
Gwilym O Jones is a Senior Production Technician at Wylfa power station and chairman of Anglesey County Council. He has worked at the site since its opening in 1967, and says that the highly trained workforce that has been built up is keen for a replacement power station after the current one closes in 2014. “We have the required skills” he says. “We’ve trained local lads, from Anglesey, from the Gwynedd and the surrounding area”. “They are trained and they are ready to do the work.”
ITV Wales 26th April 2012 more >>
A £4 million windfall to reskill nuclear energy workers on Anglesey and in Gwynedd has been welcomed. The Welsh Government support came as Reactor 2 at Wylfa closed down on Wednesday at 7.02pm after 41 years of safe operation.
Daily Post 27th April 2012 more >>
Europe Stress Tests
The EU’s energy chief Thursday deemed an almost year-long study on nuclear plant safety in Europe as short on detail and numbers and demanded further work before publication of the critical report. “Going deep is more important than being fast,” Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told journalists, saying that a final report would be available to the public in the autumn rather than in the summer, as scheduled.
EU Business 26th April 2012 more >>
EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger and Andrej Stritar, Chairperson of ENSREG, the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group, welcomed today’s adoption of the ENSREG stress test report and the agreement to examine some safety aspects in more detail and prepare a follow up in the next few months: Günther Oettinger said: “This extensive report is a major element of our stress tests. Now, we will do additional visits of power plants and analyse some safety aspects in more detail. EU citizens have the right to know and understand how safe the nuclear power plants are they live close to. Soundness is more important than timing. “
eGov Monitor 27th April 2012 more >>
Iran
Defence Minister Ehud Barak restated Israel’s fears of a nuclear-armed Iran on Thursday after his top general clashed with the government’s line by describing the Islamic republic as “very rational” and unlikely to build a bomb. Addressing foreign diplomats on Israel’s independence day, Barak said Iranian leaders were not “rational in the Western sense of the word – connoting the quest for status quo and the peaceful resolution of problems”.
Trust.org 26th April 2012 more >>
Trident
Like many independence-supporting Scots of a left persuasion, I have been extremely disquieted by the recent press speculation about a possible reversal of the SNPs stance on Nato from non-involvement, to possible membership after independence. The key questions in my mind are these: Is the SNPs advocacy of membership of Nato rooted in a desire to participate in a wave of reform of this Cold-War-era, nuclear-defined military command? Or is it a way to retain Scotlands military-industrial complex its Rosyths and Clyde shipyards, its bases with ancillary services and industries under cover of an ostensibly credible commitment to European collective security? To be blunt about it: does the SNP need Nato, because Nato will keep us shipbuilding? Before we even explore these options, I am presuming a red line in Scottish independence politics that cannot be crossed and that is the decommissioning, and then physical removal of Trident missiles from Scottish soil, under the shortest possible timeline, upon the achievement of full independence.
Scotsman 27th April 2012 more >>
Renewables
The Prime Minister David Cameron made the case for clean energy in the UK and globally today as he addressed delegates at the Clean Energy Ministerial being held in Central London. Speaking to energy ministers from 23 leading economies, and alongside a series of government and commercial announcements, the Prime Minister said: “There are huge challenges facing governments across the world today, and one of the most important of all is how we meet our growing energy demands in a way that protects our planet for our children and grandchildren.
DECC 26th April 2012 more >>
Julia Davenport: We are now expecting just five minutes from David Cameron at the Clean Energy Ministerial. This is despite its billing as the Prime Minister’s first major key note address on the environment since the infamous ‘greenest government ever’ speech. Here’s the speech I would like to see the PM deliver to the meeting of G20 Energy Ministers tomorrow. We have some of the best wind resources in the world, including 40 per cent of total resource in Europe, and our wind farms perform better than their counterparts in Germany and Denmark. As an island nation we have vast wave and tidal resources. We are just beginning to realise the huge potential we have in harnessing solar power, a technology often and erroneously considered solely the preserve of the sunniest countries. All of these energy sources hold the key to securing our long-term economic future. And at a time when the course our economy might take in the future is so uncertain, we need to choose renewables not just because they are sustainable for us environmentally, but because they are sustainable for us economically. Every pound we invest in renewable energy is a pound invested in perpetuity. Every pound we invest in other energy sources is an investment that will one day be written off.
Huffington Post 25th April 2012 more >>
Renewable energy sources must become “financially sustainable” if they are to meet the world’s needs, David Cameron is to say. Opening a meeting of international ministers later, he will hail progress made by the UK in the “green energy revolution”. But the prime minister will say the challenge now is to drive down costs.
BBC 26th April 2012 more >>
The government has achieved its aim of being the “greenest ever”, David Cameron said on Thursday, in his first significant remarks on the environment since reaching office. “When I became prime minister I said I would aim to have the greenest government ever and this is exactly what we have,” he told energy ministers from the world’s leading nations at a summit in London. Cameron said he “passionately believed” the growth of renewable energy was vital to the UK’s future. “I believe renewable energy can be among our cheapest energy sources within years not decades,” he said. But he warned: “We need to make it financially sustainable.” David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK, which took Cameron on his “husky-hugging” trip to the Arctic in 2006, said: “We were led to expect a keynote speech, only for it to be suddenly downgraded; what we got today was a damp squib.”
Guardian 26th April 2012 more >>
