News July 2006

Nuclear Waste

The UK government should move with haste to begin burying the country’s radioactive waste deep underground, says the Royal Society. The national scientific body made its call as the panel tasked with finding a long-term solution to the waste problem prepared to issue its final report.
BBC 31st July 2006
Sky News 31st July 2006
Times 31st July 2006

Government advisers are today set to outline their proposals for the disposal of Britain’s stockpiles of radioactive nuclear waste.
e-politix.com 31st July 2006

Iran

The U.N. Security Council was poised on Monday to adopt a resolution demanding Iran suspend its nuclear activities by the end of August or face the threat of sanctions.
Reuters 31st July 2006

Comment: Iran’s nuclear threat must be faced.
Telegraph 31st July 2006

Scotland

JACK McConnell, the First Minister, will today come under renewed pressure to say whether he favours building new nuclear power stations in Scotland. Mr McConnell will face fresh questions over his stance after the publication of the final report from the independent body charged with finding ways of safely disposing of nuclear waste.
Scotsman 31st July 2006

Trident

Letter from Medact: The British Trident system is not “fully operationally independent of the US” (Government backs off from replacing Trident missile fleet, July 27). The missiles are loaned from the US and serviced at Kings Bay submarine base, Georgia.
Guardian 31st July 2006

N.Korea

The US is considering the reimposition of a full suite of bilateral economic sanctions against North Korea following its recent missile tests, a senior US official has said.
FT 31st July 2006

Heatwave

The European heatwave has forced nuclear power plants to reduce or halt production. The weather, blamed for deaths and disruption across much of the continent, has caused dramatic rises in the temperature of rivers used to cool the reactors, raising fears of mass deaths for fish and other wildlife.
Observer 30th July 2006

Pakistan

PAKISTAN will soon be able to strike every city in India using a new arsenal of plutonium warheads developed with Chinese help, according to senior generals and defence analysts.
Sunday Times 30th July 2006

CoRWM

BRITAIN now has enough nuclear waste to fill the Albert Hall five times over. The stockpile of 470,000 cubic metres in surface tanks is growing at such a rate that government advisers will recommend this week that it is entombed underground beneath concrete layers thick enough to contain it for centuries. A report from the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (Corwm) will be published this week after three years of deliberations.
Sunday Times 30th July 2006

Drigg

THE race is hotting up to take over the running of the national low-level radioactive waste disposal site at Drigg with two American giants set to battle it out for a contract worth more than £100 million. Energy Solutions, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is set to bid for the lucrative contract against Washington Group International, whose HQ is in South Carolina. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, who now own both Sellafield and Drigg, will award the contract next year, signalling the start of the NDA’s open competition in the £70 billion clean up and decommissioning market. Energy Solutions, who describes itself as the world’s leading and most experienced radioactive waste management contractor, will lead a consortium including Fluor Ltd and BNG, the operating arm of British Nuclear Fuels, who have run Drigg as well as Sellafield for more than 30 years, along with Jacobs Babtie, a major UK company specialising in engineering and safety with American connections.
Whitehaven News 27th July 2006

Nirex

MP JAMIE Reed has made a scathing attack on Nirex and called for the nuclear waste quango to be scrapped. Mr Reed, who briefly worked as a publicist for Nirex, told the House of Commons it “remains a byword for everything that was wrong with the old nuclear industry”.
Whitehaven News, 27th July 2006

Nuclear Skills

CAREER prospects for the area have taken a giant leap forward with news that Lillyhall is set to be the base for a new ‘nuclear academy’. The academy will be a dedicated centre of excellence and innovation. It will provide a wide range of education and training facilities, enabling the local workforce to make the most of the employment opportunities as the NDA spends an estimated £40 billion over the coming decade.
Whitehaven News 27th July 2006

Nuclear Testing

Sixteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of inhabitants from this area south-east of Astana, Kazakhstan’s new capital, are still reeling from the deadly legacy of being a nuclear test site.
Sunday Telegraph 30th July 2006

Devonport

Clearing up Devonport Dockyard’s nuclear legacy will cost future taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds, according to new figures published by the Ministry of Defence. In a move that will intensify the debate about the cost of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent, Defence Secretary Des Browne reveals that the MoD has already run up nuclear liabilities totalling almost £10 billion.
Western Morning News 29th July 2006

British Energy

The hottest mandate in town right now is the one to advise on the sale of the Government’s stake in British Energy. Over the past week, some of the City’s leading investment bankers have been queuing up outside the plush Mayfair offices of Lazard, the blue-chip bank hired by the Government to sell its 65 per cent stake in the nuclear generator.
Sunday Telegraph 30th July 2006

Utilities

If Friday’s decision by the country’s highly politicised energy regulator is anything to go by, Spanish prime minister Jose Zapatero now wants to secure a face-saving deal. Spain’s National Energy Commission (CNE) on Friday approved Eon’s offer, after a scrutiny process that seems to have lasted an age. It imposed 19 conditions but ones less onerous than some feared. Eon will have to sell some 7,600MW of Endesa’s Spanish power generation, including the Asco nuclear power plant, 2,400MW of coal-fired plant, and all the businesses outside the Iberian peninsular – the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, and the North African outclaves of Melilla and Ceuta.
The Business 30th July 2006

Dounreay

HOMEOWNERS living close to the Dounreay nuclear site are to challenge its operators over plans to build huge waste storage vaults near their properties. Residents in Buldoo, Caithness are trying to stop the development of the shallow storage dumps which will be built just 430 metres from the nearest home and will be left in the ground forever. They want a public inquiry into the move, as the stores would be built outside Dounreay’s licensed site.
Scotsman 29th July 2006

DOUNREAY bosses want to build a £100 million plant to treat liquid and solid radioactive wastes, a legacy of reprocessing work at the nuclear site. Liquids in underground tanks, accounting for almost 80 per cent of radioactive waste at the site, will be solidified in cement and put in steel drums. The Caithness plant will also solidify other liquid waste and store it for up to 100 years, pending a national strategy for long-term storage or disposal of intermediate level waste. It is hoped that building can start in early 2008, with 120 workers employed on construction.
Scotsman 28th July 2006

Iran

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have agreed on a draft resolution giving Iran until 31 August to suspend uranium enrichment.
BBC 28th July 2006
FT 29th July 2006

The UN cannot push Iran into abandoning its nuclear work, an influential cleric said on Friday.
Reuters 28th July 2006

FT editorial: let us suppose, for the sake of practical rather than moral clarity, that Hizbollah was doing its sponsors’ bidding: trying to get Syria back in the game after its ejection from Lebanon last year; and signalling on behalf of an Iran facing sanctions because of its nuclear ambitions that Tehran has the means to respond. What should be the response of the US and its allies?
FT 29th July 2006

Nuclear Waste Trains

Greenpeace has compiled train timetables revealing when and where nuclear waste is being regularly freighted across the UK. The environmental lobby group says that an accident or a terrorist attack on a train could “spread radiation over 100 kilometres, and cause over 8,000 deaths”.
EDIE 28th July 2006

N.Korea

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged North Korea to rejoin negotiations on its nuclear program as ten world powers held Asian security talks without the communist regime.
Interactive Investor 28th July 2006

Nuclear Weapons

Will the BAE, Barrow-in-Furness submarine carry the UK’s next nuclear deterrent? First look inside new Astute vessel that navy could adapt to carry Trident.
Guardian 29th July 2006

Utilities

Eon, the German energy group, looks ready to push ahead with its €27bn ($34bn) cash bid for Endesa in spite of a regulatory ruling that could force it to sell 30 per cent of the Spanish utility’s domestic generation capacity.
FT 29th July 2006

Iran

The European Union called on Iran on Thursday to stop punishing human rights activists, including a lawyer accused of spying on Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme. The Finnish EU Presidency expressed “serious concern” about what it called a deteriorating situation with regard to freedom of expression in Iran and the status of human rights activists.
Reuters 27th July 2006

The war in Lebanon may have somewhat distracted the world from Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it will increase scrutiny in the longer term, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.
Reuters 27th July 2006

CoRWM

The independent body set up to debate what to do with the UK’s current stock of nuclear waste will report its findings on Monday.
AFX 27th July 2006

Nuclear Skills

LILLYHALL has been chosen as the site of an £18.8 million nuclear training academy. The development puts the Workington area at the centre of the government’s plan to build a new generation of nuclear facilities. The academy will be built on a 7.3 hectare site on the Lillyhall Business Park with space for about 250 students. A planning application will be submitted to Allerdale council in September with work expected to start in 2008.
West Cumberland Times and Star 28th July 2006

India

The Indian media has expressed cautious optimism over the proposed nuclear deal with the US after the US House of Representatives voted in its favour.
BBC 28th July 2006

The US House of Representatives has given strong backing to an agreement to forge closer strategic ties with India by allowing civil nuclear co-operation for the first time in 30 years, but it insisted Congress retain some oversight of the final deal.
FT 28th July 2006

Opponents of nuclear proliferation were pulling out all the hyberboles yesterday to describe Wednesday night’s overwhelming vote by the US House of Representatives to allow shipments of nuclear fuel and technology to India.Ed Markey, Democratic co-chair of a House taskforce on nuclear non-proliferation, called it a “historic failure” that “pours nuclear fuel on the fire of an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race”.
FT 28th July 2006

N. Korea

Asian powers and the United States are to hold talks here today on security concerns as North Korea repeated its vow to shun negotiations on its nuclear program.
Interactive Investor 28th July 2006

Submarines

An exclusive programme of new public tours of Devonport Naval Base – home to nuclear subs – is launched this week to give unparalleled access to the base until mid-December.
Plymouth Evening Herald 27th July 2006

Waste Transport

People in South Glouces- tershire are calling for action after it was revealed a train carrying a leaking nuclear flask travelled through the area. The defective flask was transported on a train from nuclear submarine HMS Talent in Davenport Dockyard.Spent fuel rods from the reactors which power the Royal Navy submarine are regularly transported by rail to the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria. But a recent report says one of the flasks had a defectively fitted valve. The train passed through Bristol, Coalpit Heath, Winterbourne, Yate and the Wickwar Tunnel in South Gloucestershire.
Bristol Evening Post 27th July 2006

Trains containing nuclear waste are passing through Stafford station up to three times each week at rush hour.
Stafford Post 27th July 2006

Dounreay

UKAEA has unveiled plans for a £100 million waste treatment plant which would play a major role in the clean-up operation at Dounreay.
IC Scotland 27th July 2006

New nukes

A HIGH-profile speaker addressed Ellesmere Port people about the future of nuclear power. Former Environment Minister Michael Meacher gave both sides of the argument when he spoke to an audience of more than 50 at the Civic Hall. The event was also attended by members of the industry from Urenco at Capenhurst.
Ellesmere Port Pioneer 27th July 2006

Scottish & Southern Energy, the Perth-based power group, last night said it had until the end of the decade to decide whether or not to invest in the next generation of nuclear power stations. Ian Marchant, chief executive of SSE, told shareholders at the group’s annual meeting in Bournemouth that the company was keeping an “active watching brief” on the issue.
Herald 28th July 2006

Springfields

WORKERS at the Fylde’s only nuclear site are celebrating after reaching a safety milestone.
More than 20,000 potential injuries have been avoided as a result of a safety initiative introduced at the Westinghouse’s Springfields site at Clifton.
Blackpool Today 27th July 2006

Nuclear Weapons

If you are ever driving up the M6 to Scotland on a dark night, and you see a convoy of three sinister-looking dark green trucks come loom ing up out of the mist ahead of you, be afraid. Be very afraid. You have just come face to face with part of the UK’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Each cargo truck carries a crate of warheads from Trident missiles, each capable of triggering a thermonuclear explosion ten times the size of Hiroshima. The warheads regularly make the journey down to the Atomic Weapons Establishment
New Statesman 31st July 2006

Voters appear to welcome Labour’s promise of a debate and parliamentary vote on the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent, expected to come later this year. Only a small majority, 51%, want to replace it, with 39% opposing renewal.
Guardian 27th July 2006

The government yesterday gave the strongest indication yet that it will maintain Britain’s existing fleet of Trident submarines rather than provoke more controversy by deciding on a new nuclear missile system.
Guardian 27th July 2006

Scotland

The Tory leader has sought to go green. Renewable energy good, nuclear energy “a last resort”. But Scottish Tories have said they want a moratorium on all onshore wind farms, while enthusiastically demanding new nuclear plants in Scotland.
Scottish Herald 26th July 2006

Nuclear Waste

CLEANING up military nuclear sites and equipment in Scotland will cost taxpayers up to £3 billion, official figures have revealed.
The bulk of the costs north of the Border will come at the Dounreay nuclear complex in Caithness, where the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine programme has a test reactor and waste disposal facility. The Ministry of Defence forecasts that decommissioning the two units will cost £2.1 billion. Decommissioning both retired and active Trident nuclear submarines will take place at the Rosyth dockyard in Fife and at the Devonport yard in Plymouth. The cost of that work will be £837 million, with another £4 million set aside for the “disposal of support equipment which contains depleted uranium”.
Scotsman 27th July 2006

Advertisements will appear in newspapers across Spain on Thursday offering towns the chance to become the site for a new centralised nuclear waste store, a government source said on Wednesday.
Reuters 26th July 2006

New nukes

Comment by Jeremy Leggate of Solar Century: The government’s dodgy dossier on energy represents missed opportunities on a scale that is hard to understate. The real energy review, of course, was published in 2003, after lengthy consultations, which were genuine. Patricia Hewitt, secretary of state of the day, described that review as one of the most exhaustive consultations ever conducted by a government. I witnessed this process close to, as a representative of one of the 60-plus energy companies that took part. The final review, reflecting a remarkable consensus across the energy sector – nuclear industry excepted – concluded that we should cut emissions deeply, with renewables and energy efficiency, and put nuclear on the shelf, not to be reconsidered for five years at least. But for last-minute manoeuvring by the DTI, the outcome could easily have been an outright rejection of nuclear.
Guardian 27th July 2006

India

The US House of Representatives was set to vote yesterday on a nuclear deal with India that threatens to fuel a nuclear arms race in Asia. The deal, a centrepiece of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, comes as the US is pressuring Iran and North Korea to halt their nuclear programmes. Under the deal, the US will sell India nuclear fuel and technology for civilian purposes, in exchange for India putting most of its reactors under international safeguards. But a former head of Indian intelligence has said publicly the deal will allow India to produce 50 more nuclear warheads a year than it can now, by freeing up existing uranium reserves for military use.
Independent 27th July 2006

The US House of Representatives approved a controversial US-India civilian nuclear energy deal, which supporters said will be the cornerstone of a new strategic alliance between the two countries.
Interactive Investor 27th July 2006

Libya

The international effort to get to grips with the world’s worst nuclear proliferation racket suffered a serious setback today when the first criminal trial of an alleged top figure collapsed. A judge in the south-west German town of Mannheim threw out the prosecution case against Gotthard Lerch, a German engineer, four months into his trial on charges of helping Libya clandestinely build a nuclear bomb. Judge Peter Seidling said there was a danger of Mr Lerch not receiving a fair trial as the prosecution had withheld evidence.
Guardian 27th July 2006

Three more kg (6.6 pounds) of weapons-capable highly enriched uranium have been removed from Libya, bringing to 20 kg (44 pounds) the total put under international control since the country abandoned its nuclear arms program in 2003, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
Reuters 27th July 2006

Dungeness

British Nuclear Group has received consent from UK safety authorities to end power production at the Dungeness A station in southern England. The 438MW reactor opened in 1965, and the last electricity will be produced at the end of this year. The buildings will be demolished by 2021, but the site will not be officially declared clear until 2111.
Energy Business Review 27th July 2006

Waste Transport

Greenpeace activists have taken to giant megaphones to alert commuters to the hidden hazard in their midst: terror targets on wheels. The activists told commuters at London’s Kensington Olympia, Peckham Rye, Wandsworth Road and Denmark Hill to stand back from the yellow line because the next train coming through would be carrying a deadly cargo of radioactive waste.
Greenpeace Press Release 26th July 2006
Greenpeace International 21st july 2006

NUCLEAR waste is travelling through North Somerset aboard a train three times a week, according to Greenpeace.
Weston Mercury 26th July 2006

United States

Lovins said that the subsidies provided to nuclear power in the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 “are equal to the entire capital cost of the next six reactors . . . but is similar to defibrillating a corpse: it will jump but not revive.”
Centre for Media and Democracy 26th July 2006

Wales

Welsh MPs have chosen to sustain Wales’ growing demand for energy through supporting a new generation of nuclear power stations in Wales instead of promoting energy efficiency. The Welsh Affairs Committee has launched its Energy in Wales report which aims to provide a Welsh context to the UK Government’s Energy Review launched recently
Source UK.net 26th July 2006

Politics

Tony Blair has a new principal private secretary – Oliver Robbins, a Treasury official who has been helping to determine the future of nuclear power. At the tender age of 31, he replaces Ivan Rogers, 46, who left in March.
Telegraph 27th July 2006

Nuclear Testing

A veteran of Allied atomic bomb tests is the first British soldier to win compensation from the US government over Christmas Island nuclear testing.
BBC 25th July 2006
Daily Mail 25th July 2006
Birmingham Post 26th July 2006

India

The United States House of Representatives is due to vote on a landmark nuclear deal to share civilian nuclear technology with India. The deal offers US nuclear technology to India in exchange for inspectors’ access to Indian civilian reactors.
BBC 26th July 2006

Submarines

The Clyde naval base at Faslane is about to celebrate the 300th patrol of a nuclear missile submarine since Britain deployed its first strategic deterrent in 1968.
Herald 26th July 2006

Nuclear Transport

Letter from R.Don: Before they go shouting about security, and trying to alarm the public, perhaps Greenpeace would like to tell us just how the cargo of a nuclear train could be hi-jacked. The flask weighs approximately 55 tons. How are the hijackers going to lift it? As I had a small part in the design of the type of nuclear flask pictured, I would be very interested.
Scotsman 26th July 2006

Iran

Sadegh Kharrazi, Iran’s former ambassador to Paris and an influential pragmatist, has said that Israel’s assault on Lebanon could complicate attempts to reach a settlement on Iran’s nuclear programme but added that Tehran was still open to compromise.
FT 26th July 2006

Dungeness

The 438-megawatt Dungeness A nuclear power reactor in Kent has been given permission to decommission after its stops producing electricity at the end of this year, British Nuclear Group said.
Reuters 25th July 2006

Libya

Libya was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb before it decided in 2003 to abandon its programme to produce weapons of mass destruction, its leader Moamer Kadhafi said.
Middle East On-Line 25th July 2006

Terror

THREE men were cleared at the Old Bailey yesterday of plotting to supply a rare radioactive material to terrorists for the manufacture of a dirty bomb to spread radioactive material.
Times 26th July 2006

New nukes

The Government has ruled out subsidies for nuclear power or market mechanisms such as a “nuclear obligation” requiring suppliers to buy part of their needs from nuclear stations – raising doubts as to how a new generation of reactors might be built. The nuclear lobby claims that a streamlined and shortened planning and licensing regime is all that is needed to make a new construction programme viable. But City experts believe it will require government guarantees before any private investors will put money into the nuclear industry once again.
Belfast Telegraph 24th July 2006

ALISTAIR DARLING came face to face with nuclear protesters outside his Rutland Square office. Campaigners from Friends of the Earth Scotland held the protest at the Trade and Industry Secretary’s office to highlight their concerns over his proposals to build new nuclear power stations in Scotland.
Edinburgh Evening News 24th July 2006

Letter from David Lowry on the risk of flooding at nuclear sites and one from Pete Roche on nuclear proliferation.
Independent 25th July 2006

Pakistan

THE United States has urged Pakistan not to expand its nuclear weapons programme, after a think tank claimed Islamabad was building a nuclear reactor able to fuel up to 50 atomic bombs a year.
Scotsman 25th July 2006

Pakistan appears to have embarked on a dramatic expansion of its nuclear arsenal with the construction of a new heavy water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for up to 50 warheads a year, according to a report released yesterday by a US thinktank.
Guardian 25th July 2006
Independent 25th July 2006
Times 25th July 2006

Politics

John Harris on Gordon Brown. Brown announced his support for a renewal of Britain’s nuclear armoury and you may start to feel very miserable. indeed.
Guardian 25th July 2006

Nuclear Weapons

Anti-nuclear campaigners called for an “open” debate about whether Britain renews its Trident nuclear deterrent ahead of a vote in Parliament on the crucial issue. The Government has promised MPs they will have the final say on whether to order a new generation of nuclear missiles, which would cost up to £25 billion. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament welcomed the move but said the vote must be preceded by a full public and Parliamentary debate.
Guardian website 23rd July 2006

Radiation and Health

Dr Chris Busby is calling for an investigation into a childhood cancer cluster around a nuclear plant which pumps radioactive waste in an open channel through housing estates. Leukaemia rates in children within a three-mile radius of the Capenhurst atomic plant in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, are four times the national average. Capenhurst, which has supplied enriched uranium to Britain’s civil nuclear industry since 1962, emits liquid discharges of uranium and its derivatives to the Rivacre Brook which flows past schools and playing fields.
Daily Post 24th July 2006

Romania

RWE AG has joined the bidding for a Cernavoda, Romania nuclear plant extension contract, a company spokesman told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. So far, 15 local and international companies, including E.ON AG, Iberdrola SA and Enel SpA, are bidding for the contract.
Interactive Investor 23rd July 2006

Radioactive Scrap

A SHIPMENT of radioactive scrap metal that arrived in Scotland eight years ago has been found to be still lying in storage, awaiting a decision on its fate. The cargo, which was shipped from Egypt to Coatbridge in Lanarkshire in 1998, has become the source of a long-running dispute between the UK and Egyptian governments over its ownership. According to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), the scrap had been brought to the UK to be disposed of, but when it was found to have low levels of naturally occurring radioactivity, it was decided it should be sent back.
Scotsman 24th July 2006
Herald 24th July 2006

With quotes from Nuclear Free Local Authorities.
Sunday Post 23rd July 2006

N. Korea

China has signalled its reluctance to hold five-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions in Malaysia next week, if the reclusive communist state refuses to meet.
Reuters 22nd July 2006

Waste Transport

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners yesterday revealed detailed timetables for the trains that carry nuclear waste across Britain, triggering alarm that terrorists could exploit the information. The report, from Greenpeace, includes details of more than 1,000 nuclear transports through the UK every year, including journeys through the centre of Edinburgh and other Scottish population centres.
Scotsman 22nd July 2006
Lancashire Evening Post 22nd July 2006

Nuclear Weapons

Addicted to the nuclear option – an essay by William Keegan.
Observer 23rd July 2006

New Nukes

Letter from Keith Allot – head of Climate Change at WWF-UK: THE Prime Minister’s obsession with new nuclear power has led to an energy review which offers few concrete policies to deliver progress towards a truly sustainable energy future. We need to take action to make renewables and energy efficiency work “with a vengeance”, to use Tony Blair’s phrase. The government’s continued dalliance with new nuclear power is a massive distraction from delivering a truly sustainable energy future.
Scotland on Sunday 23rd July 2006

78% of Mail readers have voted in favour of a new nuclear station at Sellafield.
North West Evening Mail

Utilities

FRANCE’S EdF is one of three companies which has bid for an option to buy British Energy’s £2bn ($3.7bn, E2.9bn) Eggborough coal-fired power station.
The Business 23rd July 2006

Decommissioning

Services group Serco has teamed up with US construction giant Bechtel to bid for a slice of the £70bn UK nuclear decommissioning market. The move could lead to an offer for British Nuclear Group (BNG). Confirmation of Bechtel’s involvement in the consortium will be controversial. The US company helped set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the state-run body that will set the terms of BNG’s sale and start handing out decommissioning contracts this autumn.
Independent on Sunday 23rd June 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1191863.ece
Bechtel, the secretive family-owned construction firm, has been dubbed ‘the working arm of the CIA’. Headed by Riley Bechtel – part of the fourth generation of the family to lead the group – it was the first firm the US government turned to when it awarded contracts to rebuild Iraq. It is also the British government’s favourite contractor, advising the Treasury on nuclear energy as well as working on the Channel Tunnel rail link, the Jubilee line and the West Coast Main Line rail upgrade.
Observer 23rd June 2006

CoRWM

BRITAIN’S burgeoning nuclear waste stockpiles should be entombed in rocks at least 1,000ft underground to prevent them contaminating the earth for future generations, according to a report from government advisers. The study by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management will be published next week. Britain has about 470,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste stored in surface tanks.
Sunday Times 23rd June 2006

New nukes

Letter in support of CHP rather than nuclear power.
News Wales 21st July 2006

Why God would smile on the nuclear option. SHOULD we build a new generation of nuclear power stations? Let’s first deal with the deeper question. Given that there are Christians prepared to go to jail in opposition to nuclear power, how could others work in such an industry?
Scotsman 22nd July 2006

Wylfa

Calls are being made for economic aid for Anglesey after the decision to shut Wylfa nuclear power station in 2010. About 800 people work at Wylfa, but a further 700 jobs may be at risk at nearby Anglesey Aluminium which relies on cheap electricity supplied by Wylfa.
BBC 21st July 2006
News Wales 21st July 2006

Waste transport

AN investigation was under way today after a newspaper reporter planted a fake bomb on a train carrying nuclear waste. The journalist from the Daily Mirror claimed he had wandered up to the unattended wagons at a north west London depot.
Edinburgh Evening News 21st July 2006

THE rail company at the centre of a nuclear security scare exposed by the Mirror has already been criticised for “serious lapses”. One industry chief was said to have “gone up the wall” after a Mirror reporter found it all too easy to plant a fake bomb on a train carrying radioactive waste. Our revelation follows an earlier critical report into a private firm contracted to guard the train at the yard in Brent, North West London. The government’s Office for Civil Nuclear Safety outlined serious failings in supervision at the sidings last year. It has now launched a major probe after our story.
Daily Mirror 22nd July 2006

Japan

A nuclear power plant in Japan was forced to lower the output of its reactors after jellyfish blocked a filter in a seawater cooling system. Power from two reactors at Chubu Electric Power Co’s plant in Hamaoka had to be reduced after the water intake system shut down automatically.
BBC 21st July 2006
EADI 21st July 2006

British Energy

The Government has confirmed it will consider plans to reduce its 65% stake in British Energy (BE), the UK’s biggest producer of nuclear power.
IC Teeside 21st July 2006
Edinburgh Evening News 21st July 2006

Sellafield

Alistair Darling would only confirm that Sellafield was in the running for the site of the National Nuclear Laboratory.
Cumberland Times and Star 21st July 2006

Iran

The German government said yesterday it would ignore a letter sent this week by President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran to Chancellor Angela Merkel, as it addressed neither the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme nor the crisis in Lebanon.
FT 22nd July 2006