17 January 2010

Scottish Waste Consultation

Scottish ministers have abandoned their ban on nuclear waste dumping, opening the way for a proliferation of permanent radioactive dumps across Scotland. In a major but unnoticed shift of policy, the environment minister Richard Lochhead has dropped his pledge to ensure that waste was only kept in stores near nuclear sites where it could be easily monitored and retrieved in case of leaks. “The Scottish government certainly has questions to answer about why it wants to change its laudable policy of near site, near surface storage of waste to also include disposal,” said Edinburgh-based nuclear consultant, Pete Roche . “Obviously this could lead to a proliferation of mini-nuclear dumps all over Scotland, and ministers need to give assurances that this is not going to happen.” Roche argued that there was an important principle at stake. “Radioactive contamination would leak from the dumps and we shouldn’t be in the business of diluting and dispersing radioactivity around the environment,” he warned.

Sunday Herald 17th Jan 2010 more >>

The former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, insisted on investigating dumping nuclear waste in Scotland in defiance of fierce objections from her Scottish Secretary in 1989, Malcolm Rifkind. Secret Scottish government documents obtained by the Sunday Herald have revealed deep divisions within the then Conservative government in London and Edinburgh. At the time, Scottish Office officials warned that the policy being pursued by UK ministers was going to create a “mess”. The timetable being proposed was “hopelessly unrealistic” and the idea that a proper safety case could be prepared in time was “equally silly”, said one memo. Another draft briefing for Rifkind prior to a crunch meeting with Ridley argued that the UK strategy was so flawed that it was doomed to fail. It was “likely to create so hostile a climate from the outset as to destroy any likelihood of getting a deep repository at all,” the briefing warned. More than 20 years on, with no nuclear waste repositories yet in sight in Scotland or England, those words look prophetic.

Sunday Herald 17th Jan 2010 more >>

Hinkley

NOWHERE near enough detail has been given to explain how local roads would cope with a new Hinkley Point power station, a packed public meeting has heard. Members of the public crammed into Bridgwater House on Thursday to hear Sedgemoor District Council give its formal response to EDF’s plans for two new reactors at Hinkley. The plans include a 900-space park and ride facility in Cannington and a by-pass around the village. With 2,400 workers expected at the peak of construction, councillors said they feared local roads could struggle to cope under the plans.

This is the West Country 16th Jan 2010 more >>

Government ministers will have an opportunity to hear for themselves early next week about the growing protests in the West Country against proposals to build 37 miles of mega pylons during an adjournment debate secured by Woodspring MP Liam Fox. Wraxhall & Failand Parish Council has told the National Grid in a 77-page submission that its proposals for the overhead power lines is a mistake and that putting the cables subsea is a ‘viable and no more expensive’ alternative.

Nailsea People 15th Jan 2010 more >>

Braystones

A PUBLIC meeting was held on Saturday to discuss the controversial inclusion of Braystones as one of 10 potential UK sites for a new nuclear power station. More than 100 people turned up for the first of the public discussions being held by the Department of Energy and Climate Change to give local people the chance to air their views and any worries. The main concerns centred on what impact harsh weather might have on the safe operation of nuclear reactors, inadequate roads and how radioactive waste arisings would be handled. One worried Braystones resident said: “We have just been through terrible flooding, a bridge collapse, snow and ice, our lovely county has been disabled so how much influence will this have in the planning of nuclear power stations?”

Whitehaven News 16th Jan 2010 more >>

Companies

FRANCE’s state-controlled power giant GDF Suez has made a takeover approach to International Power, the £5 billion energy group. The FTSE 100 company is one of the biggest energy providers in Britain and the talks will cause political waves amid growing worries about Britain selling off key infrastructure and skills to foreign buyers. International Power owns half a dozen power plants around Britain, including a giant hydroelectric plant in Snowdonia, that together generate power for more than 4m homes. The companies have had discussions for months and these intensified in the weeks before Christmas, with direct calls between Gerard Mestrallet, the GDF boss, and Philip Cox, chief executive of International Power.

Sunday Times 17th Jan 2010 more >>

Pakistan

The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one.

Sunday Times 17th Jan 2010 more >>

Uranium

Niger exports enough uranium to France to generate 80 per cent of the latter’s electricity supply, writes Khadija Sharife. But ordinary Nigeriens reap little benefit from France’s control of their country’s uranium resources, with over three-fifths of the population living below the poverty line and reports of radioactive contamination of water, air and soil by multinational mining operations.

Pambazuka News 14th Jan 2010 more >>

Greenpeace

Many navies are shrinking as defence cuts bite, but environment groups are renewing their fleets in response to growing ecological pressure on oceans and losses of their vessels at sea. German and Polish shipyards will shortly start work on Greenpeace’s £14m flagship, a mega-yacht that will become the third Rainbow Warrior next year. It will be one of the biggest yachts to have been commissioned in the last decade with, say the designers, a massive 1,300 sq metres of sail supported on two A-frame masts.

Observer 17th Jan 2010 more >>