Nuclear Subsidies
A loan granted by the last government to a steelworks company to help it build a manufacturing facility for the nuclear industry is under review, the new business minister said on Thursday. Vince Cable said the 80-million-pound loan to Sheffield Forgemasters agreed under the Labour government that lost power after a May 6 election was being re-examined, like all other projects agreed after January 1, 2010.
Interactive Investor 3rd June 2010 more >>
Supply Chain
Durham City-based NOF Energy, a national business development organisation for the oil, gas, nuclear and offshore wind sectors, has teamed up with the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) to help roll out the SC@nuclear project to its members. The NIA’s SC@nuclear initiative is designed to raise awareness of opportunities in the nuclear sector.
Northern Echo 3rd June 2010 more >>
ENGINEER Redhall said it has made good progress in testing markets and is looking forward to a surge in nuclear work. The Wakefield group, whose work ranges from designing and building a new bio-ethanol plant at the BP Chemicals Saltend site, to outfitting contracts for nuclear submarines, grew sales and profits in the six months to the end of March
Yorkshire Post 3rd June 2010 more >>
Oldbury
Oldbury nuclear power station is set to continue operating into next year despite previous plans to shut it down within months, it has emerged. Officials are requesting a “fairly short” extension to its lifespan, which would generate cash that could be off-set against a £4 billion hole in the national decommissioning budget revealed yesterday by the Government. Oldbury was due to be decommissioned in 2008 after operating for 41 years but was then given permission to run until this year.
Bristol Evening Post 3rd June 2010 more >>
Decommissioning Costs
The government agency in charge of decommissioning nuclear power stations, including Hinkley Point in Somerset, faces a £4 billion funding shortfall. In the next four years, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is expected to see the costs of dealing with nuclear waste soar while income drops as older plants close.
This is Somerset 3rd June 2010 more >>
South West Business 3rd July 2010 more >>
The previous Labour government has been accused of leaving a £4 billion black hole in the budget for decommissioning nuclear power stations, including two reactors in Lancashire. Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, is locked in talks with the Treasury to secure more funding and has even had to raise the issue at one of the coalition government’s first cabinet meetings.
Lancashire Evening Post 3rd June 2010 more >>
Economist 3rd June 2010 more >>
The SNP have seized on a warning by the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary that Britain faces a £4bn black hole in nuclear decommissioning costs over the next four years. The black hole is equivalent to wiping out one-sixth of the overall cuts in public spending identified by the Treasury last week.
News on News 3rd June 2010 more >>
Dounreay
A fire at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland, involving sodium residues from decommissioning work, has been contained by on-site firefighters. The fire broke out at around 12.45 am last Friday in a small, tented area inside the Prototype Fast Reactor complex. It took the site’s firefighters, who are specially commissioned for work on the plant, around three hours to put out. Firefighters used graphex, a suppressant for sodium fires, to douse the flames. Some firefighters remained on the scene until 4.30am to make sure the area was safe.
info4fire 4th June 2010 more >>
Skills gained from decommissioning the Dounreay nuclear plant could be turned to the dismantling of defunct oil and gas platforms, an expert has said. Simon Coles, a member of industry forum Decom North Sea, said 80% of the skills at the Caithness site “overlapped” with those needed in the oil sector.
BBC 3rd June 2010 more >>
EDF
French parliamentarians will debate a bill next week that could force former power monopoly EDF to sell a quarter of its nuclear output to rivals to foster greater competition in the electricity market. The French market has been fully liberalised since July 2007 in line with European Union demands, but EDF’s competitors such as Poweo and GDF Suez are struggling to attract clients because they can get access to only small volumes of baseload electricity output.
Interactive Investor 3rd June 2010 more >>
Sellafield
All access to the Sellafield site – which employs 11,500 people – was cut off for three hours as Bird rampaged through west Cumbria.
Carlisle News & Star 3rd June 2010 more >>
NPT
After four weeks of haggling the 189 members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) unanimously reaffirmed their support for the battered document at a five-yearly review that ended on May 28th. Even usually truculent Iran endorsed a lengthy declaration upholding the NPT’s goals.
Economist 3rd June 2010 more >>
Iran
Brazil accused the US of double standards, and Turkey insisted Thursday that rejecting the deal with Iran, which calls for Tehran to ship around half its stock of low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for enriched uranium suitable for research and medical use, would be “unreasonable” and said that a US push for fresh sanctions on Tehran was creating an “absurd situation”. “Those who speak to this issue should eliminate nuclear weapons from their own country and they should bear the good news to all mankind by doing that,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said while attending a UN conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Middle East Online 3rd June 2010 more >>
Burma
Fresh claims that Burma is trying to acquire the know-how and material to build a nuclear weapon, based on information provided by a former army officer, are published today, renewing concern about the extent of the junta’s military ambitions. Unrealistic experiments and crude engineering suggest that success may be beyond Burma’s reach, say researchers for an opposition Burmese media group. They base their claims on information provided by Sai Thein Win, a former major in the Burmese army, who is said to have been trained in Russia in missile technology. He has since defected from Burma.
Guardian 4th June 2010 more >>
Jim Webb, a high-profile US senator who has been calling for American re-engagement with Asia, has cancelled a trip to Burma citing fresh concerns that the generals who run the country are trying to develop nuclear capability. News reports published today contain new allegations regarding the possibility that the Burmese government has been working in conjunction with North Korea to develop a nuclear programme.
FT 4th June 2010 more >>
South Africa
An apartheid-era cabinet minister carried a “nuclear trigger” to South Africa from Israel as part of Pretoria’s efforts to build an atom bomb, according to a report in a Johannesburg newspaper.
Guardian 3rd June 2010 more >>
Renewables
One of the biggest new offshore wind farms in the UK is to go ahead, after three German companies formed a joint venture to finance the 2bn (1.7bn) project. The Gwynt y Mr wind farm the name means wind in the sea in Welsh will be built in Liverpool Bay, about 18km off the north Wales coast, and will comprise 160 turbines with a combined generating capacity of 576MW. RWE Innogy will have a 60 per cent stake in the venture, with Stadtwerke Mnchen, a German utility company, and Siemens providing the turbines. The farm aims to produce electricity from 2013 and, when fully operational, should provide enough energy for 400,000 households. Planning permission for the wind farm has already been granted, but its financing has not yet been resolved. Offshore wind farms are about three times more expensive than onshore turbines, and the future of some proposed of fshore farms such as the London Array, a 1GW project in the Thames Estuary has been put under scrutiny in the past two years as costs have spiralled while subsidies have not kept pace.
FT 4th June 2010 more >>
