British Energy
FRENCH firm EDF’s proposed takeover of British Energy risks creating competition problems in the UK electricity market. Professor Dieter Helm, an energy expert at New College Oxford, said the deal would mean “essentially handing the British nuclear industry to the French government”. Keith Munday, commercial director of independent supplier Bizzenergy, said: “We think this move is a very significant step in the wrong direction. The wholesale electricity market is bad now and it’s going to get worse.”
Edinburgh Evening News 28th July 2008 more >>
It is a strange sort of privatisation where one government sells its assets to another government. The UK is on the verge of selling British Energy, the UK’s nuclear power provider, to EDF, the French state-owned energy company. Although the company’s foreign ownership is not troublesome, the deal highlights structural problems with the UK energy market. The deal, however, shows up a number of problems with UK electricity regulation. At the moment, British Energy is a monopoly nuclear provider. The government intends to build new nuclear plants, so it is important that it allows competition. But if EDF buys British Energy it will own most of the large UK nuclear sites and so will control almost all viable locations for future development. Other companies must be given access to these sites. If not, EDF will be buying a virtual nuclear monopoly.
FT 28th July 2008 more >>
Nuclear Waste
NUCLEAR waste will not be stored in mid Cheshire’s salt mines and cavities. A Government invitation to store radioactive waste underground was turned down by Vale Royal Borough Council at a meeting on Thursday.
Northwich Guardian 26th July 2008 more >>
Iran
Presidential candidate Barack Obama said President George W. Bush’s decision to send a senior diplomat to nuclear talks with Iran was a substantive move and should be taken seriously by Tehran.
Reuters 28th July 2008 more >>
Iran wants to seek common ground with western powers.
ITN 28th July 2008 more >>
George Monbiot: We lie and bluster about our nukes and then wag our finger at Iran.
Guardian 29th July 2008 more >>
France
None of the incidents involved radioactive leaks from nuclear reactors, but even so they stirred lingering public concerns over the safety of atomic energy. The timing couldn’t be worse, given that nuclear power is just now reemerging from decades of disrepute after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. Faced with rising oil prices and concerns over carbon emissions, countries from the U.S. to Britain to Germany are reviving dormant nuclear programs or rethinking long-standing anti-nuclear policies.
Business Week 28th July 2008 more >>
Oil
Shell, BP and other oil companies at the centre of the tar sands revolution in Canada are facing a backlash from the Co-operative and other members of the ethical investment community determined to bring a halt to these operations for environmental reasons. A joint report from Co-operative Investments and the wildlife charity WWF released today will be followed up in September by a meeting of the UK Social Investment Forum (UKSIF) to press for an end to this carbon-intensive activity. The tar sands business, by which crude oil is produced through highly carbon and water-intensive extraction and treatment procedures, risks tipping the world into an irreversible process of global warming, critics claim.
Guardian 29th July 2008 more >>
Energy Efficiency
A competition is showing the way to cut fuel bills by a third and carbon by a fifth.
Guardian 29th July 2008 more >>
