New nukes
FRANCE’s EDF, Germany’s Eon and British Energy are considering teaming up to bid for multi-billion-pound contracts to build the UK’s next generation of nuclear power stations. The government has indicated that it will approve nuclear new build when it releases the outcome of its long-awaited energy review, expected this Tuesday.
Sunday Times 9th July 2006
FRENCH nuclear giant Areva plans to push for a UK permit for its next-generation European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) design as soon as the government’s Energy Review comes out in support of new nuclear power stations this week. Areva and other nuclear companies have long demanded to be able to licence reactor designs before their customers decide to build a new station at a particular location – known as “pre-licensing”. A source close to the company told The Business: “Should the Energy Review open the pathway to nuclear power, pre-licensing will be the next step. We and other vendors would definitely look at pre-licencing.”
The Business 9th July 2006
A major review of Britain’s future energy supplies has been a sham designed only to push through Tony Blair’s dream of a new generation of nuclear power stations, a former leading government adviser claims today. Stephen Hale, who until a few weeks ago was special adviser to the then Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, writes in The Observer that the Prime Minister ‘refused to consider the alternatives’ to nuclear energy. ‘The depressing truth is that the review was undertaken primarily to act as a springboard to formally initiate the government’s nuclear position,’ says Hale, who is now director of the Green Alliance think-tank.
Observer 9th July 2006
The Energy Review will back the PM’s push for atomic energy, but, says Stephen Hale, it won’t deal with the challenge of global climate change
Observer 9th July 2006
Tony Blair’s energy review has pulled off a remarkable feat: it has abolished history. Don’t take our word for it, read what Dr Colin Mitchell, a manager of nuclear policy at the Department of Trade and Industry in London, wrote last month when he turned down a request for information on the review. The only way for Blair to gove new reactors the go-ahead this without flinching is to ignore the history of nuclear power over the last 50 years. Because if he remembered the mountains of radioactive waste, the companies that have gone to the wall and the billions of pounds wasted, he would choose another way.
Sunday Herald 9th July 2006
RobEdwards.com
AS the use of nuclear power expands, it will become increasingly ineffective at combating global warming, warns a report by an independent think tank published today. The Oxford Research Group argues that a worldwide shortage of high-grade uranium ore will force new nuclear reactors to exploit increasingly lower-grade ores for their fuel. Because that requires more energy to extract, the process will result in ever-greater amounts of climate-wrecking pollution.
Sunday Herald 9th July 2006
RobEdwards.com
The Prime Minister’s enthusiastic support for nuclear power will reopen a rift in the Labour Party from leftwing MPs fiercely opposed to any new nuclear plants. Opponents fear building more nuclear power stations in Britain will heighten the risk of a Chernobyl-style disaster. They claim decommissioning existing plants will cost taxpayers £70bn. The Health & Safety Executive said a new generation of nuclear reactors could receive approval in about half the six-and-a-half years it took to gain consent for Sizewell B in Suffolk, the last nuclear station to be opened in Britain in 1995.
Article for and Against by Bernard Ingham and Roger Higman
Sunday Mirror 9th July 2006
After 25 years in the political wilderness, nuclear power is back in favour. Tony Blair pressed the button for new nuclear stations in May in a speech to a City audience, so the outcome of this week’s energy review is unlikely to hold any big surprises. But there is one difference this time round. Blair will insist that nuclear pays its way, saying there will be no state handouts to cover the cost of decommissioning reactors and disposing of waste. This is a tall order. KPMG, the consultancy, estimates that the private sector would have to invest around £15bn in new build over the next 30 years to maintain the current share of electricity generated by nuclear power of 20 per cent.
Sunday Telegraph 9th July 2006
Whether Britain goes nuclear or not will not solve the power crisis we all face in the short-term. Even if all goes according to plan – and it probably won’t – there will be no nuclear stations on line before 2016. In the meantime, we face a squeeze on power supplies. The last Magnox nuclear stations are due to be phased out in the next three to four years and, together with ever more onerous regulations to cut harmful carbon dioxide emissions, Britain will need a lot of new generation capacity; senior industry executives estimate that as much as 15 gigawatts – just under a fifth of all current generation – will be needed by 2015.
Sunday Telegraph 9th July 2006
G8
World leaders are planning a massive expansion of nuclear power in their own countries and across the developing world, according to documents drawn up for the G8 summit and leaked to the Sunday Herald. An action plan for “global energy security” to be agreed in St Petersburg next weekend envisages a network of nuclear fuel plants in G8 countries combined with the widespread sale of reactors to developing countries – as long as they promise not to use them for making nuclear bombs.
Sunday Herald 9th July 2006
Leaked G8 documents available to download.
RobEdwards.com
North Korea
Russia is facing criticism after secretly offering to sell North Korea technology that could help the rogue state to protect its nuclear stockpiles and safeguard weapons secrets from international scrutiny.
Sunday Telegraph 9th July 2006
A PROGRAMME of covert action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week’s missile tests by the North Korean regime. Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.
Sunday Times 9th July 2006
Decommissioning
A delegation has come back from the United States excited at the prospect of creating a training centre for the nuclear industry in Bridgwater. An academy based on US expertise in dismantling nuclear power stations could bring millions of pounds of investment and training to the area.
Bridgwater Times 8th July 2006
