Sellafield
INCREASED security checks have caused chaos as workers queued to get into the Sellafield site. Members of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary have been searching all vehicles entering the site, but Sellafield Ltd deny the measures are linked to security concerns last week. The company has also denied a link to arrests made across the UK in a counter-terrorism offensive. On December 15 The Times reported a security breach had prompted a major security alert at the site and staff have complained of poor access since the measures began. Heavy traffic has built up on the A595 since the checks were introduced on December 16.
NW Evening Mail 27th Dec 2010 more >>
Hinkley
On the 26th November 2010, EdF submitted their application to carry out preliminary works to West Somerset District Council, as a part of this they also submitted an application to the Marine Development Organisation to build a temporary Jetty at the site. Anybody who wants to object to EdFs planning application can do so by visiting the link before the deadline for objections is the 12th of January.
Saying No to Hinkley C 27th Dec 2010 more >>
Scotland
Brian Wilson: Freezing cold, wind turbines stilled, French nuclear power ensuring that our lights stay on Surely none of this was included in the energy script we have been encouraged to recite from over the past few years. Winter freeze-ups were a phenomenon of the past. Global warming was the great challenge of the 21st century. Renewable energy was the way of the future. Scotland, bizarrely, was to generate “120 per cent” of our electricity from renewables.
Scotsman 28th Dec 2010 more >>
Energy Supplies
Virtual pipeline that ships LNG around the world is growing in importance – and reducing the UK’s reliance on Russia. But it can’t insulate the gas supply from disruption.
Guardian 28th Dec 2010 more >>
Fuel Poverty
We have one of the highest levels of excess winter deaths. Roughly twice as many people, per capita, die here than in Scandinavia. Even Siberia has lower levels than we do. Between 25,000 and 30,000 people a year are hastened to the grave by the cold here – this winter it could be much worse.
Guardian 28th Dec 2010 more >>
Half a million pensioners were thought to have spent Christmas in bed to keep warm, new figures have disclosed, as it emerged that more than a million are missing out on cold weather payments.
Telegraph 28th Dec 2010 more >>
Uranium
In this depressed corner of western Colorado one of the first places in the world that uranium, nuclear energy’s primary fuel, was ever dug from the ground in industrial scale the debate is both simpler and more complicated. A proposal for a new mill to process uranium ore, which would lead to the opening of long-shuttered mines in Colorado and Utah, has brought global and local concerns into collision jobs, health, class-consciousness and historical memory among them in ways that suggest, if the pattern here holds, a bitter national debate to come.
New York Times 27th Dec 2010 more >>
Wikileaks cables have revealed a disturbing development in the African uranium mining industry: abysmal safety and security standards in the mines, nuclear research centres, and border customs are enabling international companies to exploit the mines and smuggle dangerous radioactive material across continents.
IPS 26th Dec 2010 more >>
US
The nuclear construction business looks highly uncertain at the moment, but companies that are interested in building are still keeping their options open, and spending money to do so. Last week I wrote that Exelon, of Chicago, had dropped its application for permission to build in Victoria County, Texas, but was still pursuing an “early site permit” a license for the patch of land, about 120 miles southwest of Houston. Having that permit in hand would lop many months off the time needed to get a nuclear plant up and running if at some point in the future Exelon decided it was a good idea. So the company is working hard to win permission in the face of concerted opposition, even though it has no building plans at the moment.
New York Times 27th Dec 2010 more >>
UAE
The UAE’s state nuclear company is moving ahead with plans to build its first nuclear power plant, saying it has filed a construction license application covering the project’s first two reactors. The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced the filing of the roughly 9,000-page regulatory application Monday a year after it awarded a South Korean consortium led by Korea Electric Power Corp. the $20 billion contract for the project.
Bloomberg 27th Dec 2010 more >>
World Nuclear News 27th Dec 2010 more >>
