9 February 2010

New Nukes

Two thirds of customers are willing to accept new nuclear power stations to maintain security of electricity supplies, according to new research released by IBM. But the same proportion said they were unwilling to accept increased costs, even if it reduced carbon dioxide emissions. The survey of 2000 people in November 2009, followed publication of the government’s draft National Policy Statement on Energy. IBM said that there was general acceptance of nuclear power as an alternative power source, but nearly 75 per cent of consumers polled believed that the case for new nuclear power had not been delivered with clarity.

Utility Week 8th Feb 2010 more >>

Oldbury

MORE than 200 people turned out at the weekend to debate government proposals for a new nuclear power station at Shepperdine. Thornbury Leisure Centre was packed on Saturday morning with local people attending a meeting organised by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Outside the leisure centre up to 40 people took part in a silent protest against the proposals. Reg Illingworth, chairman of Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy (SANE), which organised the protest, said: “We want to create awareness about the lack of consultation in this process. “There’s been very little consultation and a lot of people have seen it as fait accompli. We hope we can turn things around.”

Gloucestershire Gazette 8th Feb 2010 more >>

Cumbria

Residents of Braystones and Kirksanton in west Cumbria face a long wait to find out if plans for nuclear power stations there will go ahead. RWE npower has been consulting on proposals with a view to submitting planning applications. It now says there will be no early announcement on whether it will push ahead. It has also chosen to drop its National Grid connection agreements for the sites. That could be interpreted as a sign its interest is cooling, although the company argues the agreements can be renegotiated if necessary.

Carlisle News and Star 8th Feb 2010 more >>

North West England

MPs on the North West Committee hear evidence as part of the Committee’s second inquiry, the ‘Future of the Nuclear Industry in the North West’. (Witnesses include Martin Forwood of CORE and Councillor Ralph Pryke of NFLA)

UK Parliament 8th Feb 2010 more >>

Proliferation

A significant expansion of nuclear energy worldwide is unlikely to occur before 2030. This provides a window of opportunity to urgently fix the currently inadequate system for governing nuclear energy to avoid accidents, nuclear terrorism and weapons proliferation. These are the key findings of the three-and-a-half year Nuclear Energy Futures project released today by The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Ottawa. The project was unique in considering together the normally ‘stove-piped’ subjects of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation. Nuclear Energy and Global Governance to 2030 reports the findings of the three-and-a-half year Nuclear Energy Futures project. Flowing from the findings is the project’s five-point Action Plan for policymakers in Canada and abroad.

Computing Journal 4th Feb 2010 more >>

Germany

German plans to extend the running time of nuclear-power plants split Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government after her environment minister suggested a 40-year limit on their operating life.

Business Week 8th Feb 2010 more >>

US

Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, now taints at least 27 of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants. The leaks many from deteriorating underground pipes come as the nuclear industry is seeking and obtaining federal license renewals, casting itself as a clean-green alternative to power plants that burn fossil fuels.

CBS 1st Feb 2010 more >>

Climate Progress 8th Feb 2010 more >>

Iran

Iran has started the process of enriching uranium to 20% in defiance of the West, Iranian state media says. The process was begun at the Natanz plant in the presence of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, al-Alam state television reported.

BBC 9th Feb 2010 more >>

Herald 9th Feb 2010 more >>

Telegraph 9th Feb 2010 more >>

Times 9th Feb 2010 more >>

New Statesman 8th Feb 2010 more >>

Numerous Iranians are all for nuclear technology in order to produce electricity to meet their country’s 8% annual increase in demand for energy. Although their country has abundant gas and oil supplies, they would prefer to export it and use the income to develop their country’s infrastructure. But do not imagine that thinking underpins the Iranian leadership’s latest call, on Sunday, to accelerate enrichment of its uranium stockpile. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s main motivation for following the current nuclear policy is to keep Iran isolated. The thinking among Tehran ultra-conservatives is that by raising the ire of the west and keeping Iran isolated from the rest of the international community, it will be easier for them to crack down against opposition at home. Khamenei’s second priority is his hope that, once Iran becomes a nuclear power, nobody would dare attempt regime change from the outside.

Guardian 9th Feb 2010 more >>

China

China has finished initial design work on its first three inland nuclear power plants, all of which will use technology developed by Westinghouse, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba China Daily newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Reuters 9th Feb 2010 more >>

A list of China’s nuclear power plants already operating, under construction, approved by the government or planned.

Reuters 9th Feb 2010 more >>

Romania

SC EnergoNuclear (EnergoNuclear) and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) have signed a contract to assess the technical and commercial viability, and planning of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant (NPP) units 3 and 4 investment project in Romania.

Energy Business Review 8th Feb 2010 more >>

Litvinenko

The Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky was the victim of a “savage” libel that aimed to “muddy the waters” of the investigation into the death of the former secret agent Alexander Litvinenko, a court heard today. Berezovsky, who has lived in the UK since 2001 and was granted asylum two years later, has taken legal action over a claim that he was complicit in Litvinenko’s poisoning with polonium, a radioactive element.

Guardian 9th Feb 2010 more >>

Green Electricity

From Tuesday any energy company advertising or selling a “green” electricity deal needs to prove its environmental credentials to a new panel set up by the industry regulator Ofgem. Only those companies who pass certain tests can call their tariffs as eco-friendly. Previously, some suppliers have merely repackaged the renewable energy they are legally required to sell under European rules and called it “green”. However, the certification scheme, which has been eight years in the planning, has already been attacked for “taking advantage” of consumers.

Telegraph 9th Feb 2010 more >>

Climate

The leak of the “climategate” emails that showed scientists behaving just as tribally as their detractors, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s great glacier meltdown (enough “gates” for now), the abject failure of Copenhagen, Obama’s Massachusetts disaster and a bitterly cold winter in much of Europe and the US. If you doubt the effect of the last of these, take a look at stories like “The mini-ice age starts here” in the Daily Mail, or the website entitled If Global Warming Is Real Then Why Is It Cold?. Add to that lot a mildly hysterical binary culture in which the case for action on climate change is either unanswerable or in tatters, and the perfect storm is complete. It is worth pointing out that no journalist has so far found: any evidence of scientists fiddling their results, or indeed anything that calls into question the scientific case that man is causing dangerous climate change. The case for action must be remade from the ground up. It’s no good politicians and scientists going on TV and insisting that the overwhelming body of climate science has not been touched by the scandals. They need to go back to first principles and explain how we know that CO2 causes warming, how we know CO2 levels are rising, how we know it’s our fault, and how we can predict what is likely to happen if we don’t act.

Guardian 9th Feb 2010 more >>