24 May 2010

Radwaste Costs

Labour left a multi-billion-pound black hole in its nuclear power budget, which could force ministers to implement bigger cuts elsewhere in Whitehall, coalition sources claimed this weekend. They alleged that future costs of safe waste disposal had not been properly accounted for in spending budgets, amounting to a £850m shortfall next year, £950m in 2012-13 and £1.1 billion by 2013-14. The issue was judged so serious it was discussed at the cabinet’s first meeting. “We will have to look at it very carefully because we can’t do cuts to nuclear decommissioning and safety,” said one insider.

Sunday Times 23rd May 2010 more >>

Sizewell

We are protesting about National Grid’s plans for a line of pylons marching towards London, across our rural part of Suffolk and Essex, carrying the extra power that is to come from wind farms in the North Sea and a new nuclear plant at Sizewell. More pylons are the Orwellian downside to the low-carbon future. And this is just the beginning. Here and in the Mendips in Somerset, the path of the pylons lies through areas of outstanding natural beauty, which celebrated their 40th anniversary as protected landscapes last week. We have been writing letters and going to meetings trying to persuade National Grid to put the cables underground for the whole route.

Sunday Times 23rd May 2010 more >>

US

Nuclear power – energy released from atomic nuclei via controlled nuclear reactions – is a safer, more environmentally friendly source of electricity. Simply put, nuclear power is “clean”. No pollutants or greenhouse gasses, no impact on respiratory health, no connection with other adverse human health effects. So why are we still relying on coal and oil instead of nuclear? There are at least three reasons: groundless fears, technological ignorance and political correctness.

Anti-nuclear activists, still living in the dark days of A-bomb fears and radioactive fallout polluting the atmosphere, and harbouring a New Age preference for more “natural” – but currently inadequate – sources of energy such as wind and solar, promulgate scary scenarios about nuclear energy plants leaking radioactivity in amounts sufficient to harm or kill people in surrounding areas.

Guardian 24th May 2010 more >>

Israel

Israel is an undeclared nuclear power: it has a nuclear plant in the southern city of Dimona, in the Negev desert, and is believed to have a formidable nuclear arsenal, but the government has always maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity”. Israel – like India, Pakistan and North Korea – is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Guardian 24th May 2010 more >>

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons. The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.

Guardian 24th May 2010 more >>

Guardian 24th May 2010 more >>

Telegraph 24th May 2010 more >>

Daily Mail 24th May 2010 more >>

Proof that Israel is, without any doubt, a nuclear weapons state, means an end to nods, winks and blind eyes. It confirms Israel as the Middle East’s premier armed power. And it challenges all the countries of the region, including Iran, to address, separately or jointly, the threat inherent in the resulting, now undeniable military imbalance.

Guardian 24th May 2010 more >>

Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu has started a three-month jail sentence for breaking the terms of his release and meeting a foreigner.

Telegraph 24th May 2010 more >>

Guardian 24th May 2010 more >>