Iran
Iran’s efforts to produce highly enriched uranium, the material used to make nuclear bombs, are in chaos and the country is still years from mastering the required technology. Iran’s uranium enrichment programme has been plagued by constant technical problems, lack of access to outside technology and knowhow, and a failure to master the complex production-engineering processes involved. The country denies developing weapons, saying its pursuit of uranium enrichment is for energy purposes.
Observer 28th Jan 2007
IRAN is installing 3,000 centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant, which will stabilise its “capability in the field of nuclear technology”. Large-scale use of centrifuges is necessary to enrich enough uranium for use in a nuclear reactor. Highly- enriched uranium is required to make nuclear weapons.
Scotland on Sunday 28th Jan 2007
Sunday Times 28th Jan 2007
Reuters 27th Jan 2007
Iran’s nuclear body has denied claims by a senior MP that it has begun installing 3,000 nuclear centrifuges to boost its uranium enrichment.
BBC 27th Jan 2007
New nukes
THE government has started planning in earnest for new nuclear power stations by hiring a top corporate-finance adviser from KPMG. Tim Stone, chairman of KPMG’s global infrastructure and projects group, has been seconded part-time to work for the DTI and Treasury. Stone declined to comment on his appointment, but it is understood that he has been asked to tackle two big questions — how industry will pay to deal with the waste and decomissioning costs associated with the new reactors, and whether government action to set a price for carbon could make nuclear power price- competitive against fossil fuels.
Sunday Times 28th Jan 2007
Dounreay
THE DOUNREAY nuclear complex is facing legal action for failing to store radioactive waste safely after an incident in which a worker was contaminated with plutonium. The government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII)has served two improvement notices on the plant’s operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), obliging it to remedy the problem. Inspectors are also considering sending a report to the procurator fiscal. A worker was found to have accidentally inhaled plutonium while decommissioning an old fuel-processing laboratory on January 12 last year. Subsequent investigations uncovered half a dozen contaminated lead bricks left on a shelf nearby. According to one of the notices issued by the NII, the bricks were stored “without adequate levels of containment”. They also lacked “adequate means of physical protection”and”any identification by means of marking or labelling”.
Sunday Herald 28th Jan 2007
RobEdwards.info 28th Jan 2007
Trident
A crucial vote to keep the UK’s nuclear deterrent will influence the decision on the future of Plymouth’s naval base ministers have confirmed.
Plymouth Herald 27th Jan 2007
SHOULD Armageddon come, its heralding scripture will not appear in any holy book. It will appear on a screen in front of two officers in the small communications room of HMS Vengeance, one of Britain’s four nuclear submarines – launch orders; blood and rubble.
Scotsman 27th Jan 2007
THE village of Garelochhead sits at the centre of a giant red bull’s-eye. During the Cold War the local school, the stone gable of the kirk and the pub bar stools could have been annihilated in a few minutes by missiles from Soviet silos, permanently targeted on this small corner of Scotland.
Scotsman 27th Jan 2007
Dungeness
Drastic efforts are being made to save Dungeness nuclear site from advancing waves on Britain’s most threatened coastline.
Sunday Express 28th Jan 2007
