Sellafield (new reactor site)
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is has announce that it has sold an area of land comprising 190 ha (470 acres) lying to the north of the existing site at Sellafield in Cumbria for a value of at least £70 million. The winning consortium comprises Iberdrola S.A, GdF Suez S.A and Scottish and Southern Energy plc.
NDA 28th October 2009 more >>
A consortium of GDF SUEZ SA, Iberdrola SA and Scottish and Southern Energy Plc has secured an option to purchase land for the development of a new nuclear power station at Sellafield. Following the sale run by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the consortium set out plans to build up to 3.6 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity in the UK, with work beginning in 2015.
DECC 28th Oct 2009 more >>
A POWER station with up to three nuclear reactors is likely to be built at Sellafield bringing jobs galore – upwards of 10,000 in construction, at least another 3,000 permanent jobs and extra employment in the community.
Whitehaven News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Europe’s most heavily contaminated industrial site is to host a new nuclear power station, after the Government announced the £70 million sale of land at Sellafield. The 190-hectare plot, next to the main site in West Cumbria where Britain mastered the technology to build the atomic bomb in the 1950s, was bought yesterday by a consortium of French, Spanish and British companies. The group, which includes Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), Iberdrola, of Spain, and GdF Suez, of France, said that it planned to use the site to build a new nuclear power station with a capacity to produce up to 3.6 gigawatts enough to provide the power needs of Glasgow, Leeds and Cardiff combined with construction due to start in 2015.
Times 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Irish Examiner 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Business Green 28th Oct 2009 more >>
World Nuclear News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Reuters 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Telegraph 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Construction News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Utility Week 28th Oct 2009 more >>
BBC 28th Oct 2009 more >>
STV 28th Oct 2009 more >>
A third potential new nuclear operator entered the UK market today, taking total proposals for new nuclear power stations up to 16 gigawatts of electricity. A consortium of GDF SUEZ SA, Iberdrola SA and Scottish and Southern Energy has secured an option to purchase land for the development of a new nuclear power station at Sellafield.
Click Green 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Edie 28th Oct 2009 more >>
The two Scottish companies – are desperate not to be frozen out of the new nuclear programme earmarked for England and Wales. They are preparing to invest billions in return for the rights to supply the reactors’ electricity to their customers.
Guardian 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Wylfa
TESTS will be carried out this week by German energy giants, RWE nPower, to see whether land near the current Wylfa nuclear power station, is suitable for a Wylfa B. The company will start work on a contractors’ compound near to the existing power station visitor centre.
Holyhead & Anglesey Mail 28th Oct 2009 more >>
WYLFA’S recently departed nuclear chief has vowed to use his expertise to help push for new nuclear development on Anglesey after stepping down as site director. Greg Evans left his position at the Anglesey nuclear plant last month to take up a new UK role with power giant Centrica.
Daily Post 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Hinkley
A SERIES of consultation events on a planned 400,000-volt powerline through North Somerset begins next week. National Grid is proposing the link between a new nuclear power station planned for Hinckley Point C with a substation in Avonmouth. The power line will be carried by 50m-high pylons over a 37-mile route still to be decided.
Weston & Somerset Mercury 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Residents have launched a campaign to fight controversial plans to put a new 400,000 volt electricity line through the countryside around Nailsea. Scores of people packed a special meeting this week to discuss plans by National Grid to create a new overhead line from Bridgwater to Avonmouth to bring electricity from the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point on to its transmission network.
Western Daily Press 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Dungeness
A fisherman’s cottage advertised without any mention of the nuclear power stations on its doorstep is under offer, the estate agents have said.
BBC 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Telegraph 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Yorkshire Post 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Daily Mail 29th Oct 2009 more >>
New Nukes
Letter: I HOPE the climate protesters at Ratcliffe-on-Soar are following the logic of their protests and declaring their full support for an immediate start of construction of nuclear power stations.
Derby Telegraph 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Low Level Waste
Radiation Free Lakeland has issued a warning over news that the Studsvik plant in Workington has “recycled” a record 98% load of low level radioactive waste. The anti-nuclear campaigners believe it should be of concern to anyone who uses a pot or a pan or wears spectacles. Consisting of 12 half height ISO shipping containers, the waste consignment would normally have been sent to the Low Level Waste Repository for nuclear waste near Sellafield but Studsvik has been given a licence to “recycle” the radioactive metal- so long as it is below the Euratom Directive limits. RFL say this limit is set high and amounts to a scam in order to dispose of radioactive waste into consumer products. It’s a win-win situation for the nuclear industry who will be delighted to “solve” a toxic waste problem by re-branding it “recycling.”
Get Noticed Online 28th Oct 2009 more >>
THE Low Level Waste Repository near Drigg is benefiting from a new metal recycling process in West Cumbria. Instead of waste scrap metal from the nuclear industry being shipped directly to the LLWR for disposal, it is now being decontaminated at a special metal recycling facility (MRF) at Lillyhall, owned by Studsvik UK.
Whitehaven News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
FREE transport is being given to residents from Pica so they can attend a public exhibition about the Keekle Head plans. Endecom UK Ltd has agreed to hold a fourth public exhibition so that members of the public can have their say on the plans for a new low level radioactive waste disposal facility. The extra drop-in event will be held between 2pm and 6pm on Wednesday, November 4 at Adams Hall in Barwise Row, Arlecdon.
Whitehaven News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Nuclear Finance
Radiation tax proposed to protect DNA? Letter sent to Ed Milliband regarding carbon tax.
Indymedia 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Sellafield MoX Plant
SELLAFIELD’s troubled Mox plant – SMP – has been given a lifeline after picking up its performance. The plant’s future has been hanging in the balance for many months but has been given a vote of confidence by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority after a review of its operations. The news – given to Sellafield staff on Tuesday – came as a big boost not only to the site as a whole but the 800 workers who operate SMP. The thumbs up comes eight months after Copeland MP Jamie Reed, worried about possible job losses, telling Parliament there was an urgent need to build a new plant if SMP had to close.
Whitehaven News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Sellafield Reprocessing
SELLAFIELD has been hit by another plant failure but there is said to be no impact on site safety or operations. Evaporator B known as Bravo and which treats highly radioactive liquor has failed for the second time in six months due to coil corrosion. Sellafield’s operators stress, however, that as no fuel reprocessing is currently taking place, production is not affected and there are no implications for health and safety. Thorp is in a seven-month planned shutdown and Magnox reprocessing had already closed for routine engineering a few weeks before the latest failure. Magnox reprocessing is due to re-start before the end of the year by which time Evaporator A known as Alpha will be brought back into service to treat the arising radioactive liquid effluent.
Whitehaven News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
US – AP1000
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) recent objection to serious safety problems in the AP1000 reactor design is just the latest setback of the so-called “nuclear renaissance” and shows that it would be contrary to the Obama administration’s emphasis on ending reckless lending practices for the Department of Energy (DOE) to proceed with its plans for loan guarantees for any new reactors that are not finalized and licensed. In the last 18 months, more than half of the 25 nuclear reactors that the industry has said constitute the “’nuclear renaissance’ have been canceled, or have been delayed by more than a year, or have experienced an upward cost revision of more than a billion dollars. These delays are very likely to increase the costs of the plants, turning some of them into economic white elephants.
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy 28th Oct 2009 more >>
US industry body the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has drawn up a package of policy initiatives to facilitate the expansion of the country’s nuclear energy industry. The group says that federal policy in a number of areas, particularly financing, is required for such an expansion.
World Nuclear News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Bulgaria
German utility RWE AG said it has terminated a joint venture agreement with Bulgaria’s state-owned National Electricity Co., or NEK, due to problems with the financing of a nuclear power plant that was planned to be built near the town of Belene.
Wall Street Journal 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Business Week 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Iran
Iran is expected to respond today to a crucial international offer regarding its nuclear programme, amid concerns among world powers that it will not accept a deal to transfer about two- thirds of its current stock of low-enriched uranium to France and Russia.
FT 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Russia
Russia’s space agency is proposing to build a new spaceship with a nuclear engine. Its chief Anatoly Perminov said today that the preliminary design could be ready by 2012. It will then take nine more years and around £600 billion to build it.
Belfast Telegraph 29th Oct 2009 more >>
Portsmouth
A nuclear-alert siren will sound at Portsmouth Naval Base at the end of this week. The alarm will be tested at 9.30am this Friday, October 30. The test will last for one minute.
Portsmouth News 28th Oct 2009 more >>
Renewables
Centrica gave the go-ahead to one of the UK’s largest offshore windfarms today but warned the government that its 2020 renewable energy targets would be missed unless the current level of subsidy was maintained. The firm, which owns British Gas, announced that it would invest £725m in the 270MW project off the coast of Lincolnshire, which will be able to power a city twice the size of Cambridge when the wind blows. The government announced in the last budget that offshore windfarms approved by March next year would receive higher subsidies, or renewables obligation certificates (Rocs). But officials said tonight that there were no plans to make this arrangement permanent, leaving the economics of offshore wind unviable, according to Centrica.
Guardian 29th Oct 2009 more >>
