Nuclear Sites
German power utility E.ON and smaller domestic rival RWE have placed joint bids for three British nuclear sites, German daily Handelsblatt reported on Thursday, citing company sources. Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) last week launched an auction of 999-year leases on land near three of its nuclear power stations in the UK, at Wylfa in north Wales, Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Bradwell in Essex.The NDA potentially might be able to make an announcement next week about the winning bidders, the spokesman said.
Interactive Investor 26th Mar 2009 more >>
New Nukes
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency have collaborated to launch a new website area covering the safety of future nuclear power stations. Currently, the HSE and the Environment Agency are assessing two nuclear power station designs in particular, which could be built in the UK over the coming years. The website can be accessed at www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/index.htm
Croner 26th Mar 2009 more >>
IAEA
The board of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has failed to elect a successor to director Mohammed ElBaradei. After three rounds of inconclusive voting in Vienna on the two candidates vying to succeed him, the 35-member board decided to begin again on Friday. Japan’s Yukiya Amano led South Africa’s Abdul Samad Minty but did not get the required two-thirds majority. Mr ElBaradei, in office since 1997, is due to step down later this year.
BBC 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Reuters 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Companies
France is banking on 3.5 decades of civil nuclear use at home, and three domestic companies with atomic expertise and a global scale to spearhead a worldwide nuclear power rebirth. This is a list of key facts on power group EDF, nuclear reactor maker Areva, and gas and electricity group GDF Suez.
Interactive Investor 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Dounreay
A Highland castle attacked by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army and later a site of experiments on radioactive liquid is at risk of collapse. Engineers have carried out a structural survey of 16th Century Dounreay Castle following concerns over safety. They said the ruins, which form part of the estate now managed by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, had badly eroded lintels and precarious masonry. Historic Scotland has been informed of the latest survey results. The government agency lists it as a scheduled monument and carried out its own inspection in February.
BBC 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Work is underway on the next phase of a major clean-up project unique in the history of the nuclear industry. Contractors have started to prepare the ground where a major new plant will be built to retrieve radioactive waste from an underground shaft and silo.
Dounreay.com 24th Mar 2009 more >>
Nuclear Skills
The unique new job site – www.nuclearcareersonline.com – has become the UK’s first nuclear industry career site to find candidates with direct nuclear experience and those looking to transfer their skills into the nuclear business.
Online Recruitment 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Proliferation
NUCLEAR power for all who want it, without helping those who would abuse it? A similar dream in the 1950s later turned to nightmare, as India, Israel, Pakistan and South Africa and others until they were stopped bent the materials and technologies offered as “atoms for peace” to bomb-making. Many suspect Iran is misusing technology for enriching uranium and producing plutonium (ingredients in both reactor fuel and nuclear weapons). Anxious to head off imitators, some governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear guardian, have plans to guarantee fuel supplies: countries building civilian nuclear reactors would then have no need or excuse to dabble in such proliferation-prone technologies.
Economist 19th Mar 2009 more >>
Terror
Letter from Dr Keith Baverstock: It is difficult to understand how the threat of a dirty bomb could be higher now than it was three years ago (“UK faces greater threat of ‘dirty bomb’,” 25 March). Two components are required for such a bomb, explosive and a radioactive material. Both should be more difficult to obtain now than three years ago and if that is not the case then we should look for an explanation to the Government.
Independent 27th Mar 2009 more >>
Japan
A Japanese fire brigade lifted on Friday a ban on the use of flammables and other dangerous materials at a Tokyo Electric Power Co nuclear power plant, bringing the firm closer to restarting the plant closed for two years following the earthquake.
Yahoo 27th Mar 2009 more >>
North Korea
North Korea has warned that if the international community punishes it for next month’s planned missile launch, it will restart a nuclear plant that makes weapons-grade plutonium. This week, the secretive state put a long-range missile in place for a launch that the US has warned would violate UN sanctions. The planned launch, seen by many as a disguised military exercise, is the first big test for Barack Obama in dealing with the rogue state.
Independent 27th Mar 2009 more >>
North Korea has placed a long-range missile capable of reaching the US on a launch pad as the Stalinist state prepares for what it claims is a satellite launch in early April. A US official confirmed that Pyongyang had erected a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile at its Musudan-ri site.
FT 27th Mar 2009 more >>
US
Exelon Corp, the nation’s largest nuclear plant operator, on Thursday said GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy will supply a more mature technology for two new reactors for a proposed nuclear plant in Texas.
Interactive Investor 26th Mar 2009 more >>
India
The 1,350-MW ABWR technology is the world’s only commercially proven Generation III reactor design, with the first two of four units entering service in 1996 and 1997 and four additional units under construction today. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has signed two agreements with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) as the companies prepare to collaborate on building multiple GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy-designed nuclear reactors to help meet India’s energy production goals.
Energy Business Review 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Canada
Emcor Group, a provider of electrical and mechanical construction and facilities services, has announced that its subsidiary Comstock Canada has received contracts from Bruce Power in connection with a major refurbishment of nuclear generators at the Bruce A nuclear power plant in Tiverton, Ontario.
Energy Business Review 26th Mar 2009 more >>
Renewables
Iberdrola Renewables will cut its British investment by more than 40 per cent, it was reported. The £300 million withdrawal could have paid for a wind farm capable of powering 200,000 homes.
Telegraph 26th Mar 2009 more >>
A Union of Concerned Scientists’ study has found that renewable energy is a major job generator because renewable energy investments largely go to labor intensive industries, such as manufacturing, installation, and maintenance. The study further points out that renewable energy industries such as wind energy exhibited remarkably strong growth last year despite the downturn in the economy. The number of people employed in the U.S. wind industry alone increased by over 240 percent in 2008, to 85,000 people.
Climate Progress 25th Mar 2009 more >>
Ministers were last night considering fresh incentives designed to spur investment in renewable energy amid evidence that the credit crunch is threatening government energy targets. The Energy Minister hit back at claims that the Government was failing to deliver on an ambitious plan to foster a green energy revolution by building thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines. Mike O’Brien told a meeting of renewable-energy chiefs that he was determined that Britain would meet its goal of generating as much as 35 per cent of all UK electricity from wind, wave and solar power by 2020, up from less than 5 per cent at present. Responding to news of a further collapse in financing for the UK wind industry, he said that the Government was examining new ideas to increase investment, which has been hit by the recession as banks rein in lending and the price of conventional fuels plunges.
Times 27th Mar 2009 more >>
With its report arguing that we need to accelerate radically the building of onshore wind turbines in the UK, if necessary by easing up the planning system, it became part of the Government’s propaganda machine. Any developer facing the concerns of local conservationists has just been given a bazooka marked “RSPB” with which to destroy the opposition. By what right did it spend my money on commissioning a report from a body (part funded by the EU and Defra, incidentally) that will promote the interests of central government and the energy industry? Can we expect a report from the RSPB on nuclear power? It would be interesting to hear on what bird-related evidence it bases its opposition.
Independent 27th Mar 2009 more >>
Green New Deal
Fiscal stimulus on its own is simply not enough to justify the UK taking on long-term debt that it will have to pay for for decades to come in its taxes. The 2.5% cut in VAT is a classic example of a scattergun fiscal stimulus, weakly boosting consumption and retail profitabilty, but so diluted over the economy as a whole as to have little discernible effect – while adding about £12bn to the national debt. Instead we need to design a stimulus package that will deliver against a multiple bottom line. It has to bring the unemployed back into work, find a new role for manufacturing industries as buyers turn away from consumer goods from cars to computers; It has to improve human welfare, comfort and wellbeing. It has to improve the long-term competitiveness of the British economy, creating a margin of benefit from which future taxes necessary to pay off the debt taken on can be extracted. And it has to do all of this against a backdrop of climate change – rapidly reducing our emissions in line with the mandatory targets set in the Climate Act. These considerations lead to one firm conclusion: we need to invest in the new energy economy. Any new nuclear capacity will be slow to deliver, and will come at a high cost – as demonstrated by Finland’s failing nuclear experiment.
Guardian 25th Mar 2009 more >>
Nuclear Disarmament
Fixing the economy, withdrawing from Iraq, overtures to Iran, a plan for Afghanistan, a thaw with Moscow and a bargain with Beijing… I could go on. The issues on Barack Obama’s agenda rush by like station names seen from a fast-moving train. This is a US president who wants to do more than walk and chew gum. Mr Obama is poised to add further to this burgeoning list. He is turning his mind to nuclear disarmament, a challenge that has been recklessly neglected during the two decades since the end of the cold war. If he gets it right, he could transform the dynamics of global security.
FT 27th Mar 2009 more >>
The possibility of computer hackers gaining control of nuclear weapons poses a major threat to the stability of the world, former Cabinet minister Baroness Williams of Crosby warned today. Liberal Democrat Lady Williams, who is a director of the American group the Nuclear Threat Initiative, also called for an eventual reduction in the UK’s nuclear arsenal.
Metro 26th Mar 2009 more >>
