Reports and briefings

 

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Reports

Three Mile Island 30th Anniversary 28th March 2009: Thirty years ago, Americans stood in shock watching unfold what had been officially deemed by federal officials as "incredible" — a major accident at a nuclear power reactor.

World Nuclear Industry Status and Future Trends, talk by Independent Consultant, Anthony Froggatt in Hamburg September 2008. He concludes there is no nuclear renaissance; no increase in nuclear can be expected for at least a decade; historic problems which halted the last nuclear push in the 1970s have yet to be resolved; and new problems may arise such as uranium availability and proliferation concerns.

Potential Environmental Risks of the Next Generation of Nuclear: Power Plants, by Anthony Froggatt, October 2006, A briefing note based on the report, Nuclear Reactor Hazards; Ongoing Dangers of Operating Nuclear Technology in the 21st Century. Report Prepared for Greenpeace International, by Helmut Hirsch, Oda Becker, Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt, April 2005.

Radioactive Waste – an outstanding problem, a presentation by Hugh Richards BArch MA MRTPI, September 2008 [pdf, 2.6MB]

Too Hot to Handle: the Truth about High Burn-up Spent Fuel, by Hugh Richards, April 2008
The high burn up fuel proposed for new reactors uses more enriched uranium, and leaves it in the reactor for longer. This gets more output from the fuel, but increases the dangers of radioactive releases as the fuel cladding gets thinner. This increased danger persists throughout its storage and disposal.

Burying the Truth, by Hugh Richards, March 2008
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) were established to help deal with existing radioactive waste and were able to build a degree of public trust on the basis that they were addressing a finite problem that concerns all of us. But now the Government’s push for new nuclear power stations is putting all that hard work in jeopardy by forcing both organisations to include the huge additional amounts of highly radioactive spent fuel from a new nuclear programme.

Is nuclear power a solution to climate change? by Pete Roche, April 2005 [pdf, 350KB]

See Nuclear Free Local Authorities New Nuclear Monitor briefings, in particular:

• New Nuclear Monitor No.9, March 2006 "Responding to Our Energy Challenge" [pdf, 375KB]

• New Nuclear Monitor No.8, May 2005, “Nuclear Power is Not the Solution to Climate Change” [pdf, 476KB]

Recent Briefings

No2NuclearPower 2009 briefings

Building New Reactors Damages Attempts to Tackle Climate Change, June 2009

 

No2NuclearPower 2008 briefings

The Civil Nuclear Power Revival and Nuclear Proliferation, May 2008

 

NuclearSpin 2008 briefings

To assist people understand key issues on nuclear power, NuclearSpin has launched a series of in-depth briefings on key issues surrounding the debate concerning building new nuclear power plants in the UK.

Nuclear Cost and Finances, by Pete Roche, September 2008

Nuclear Reactor Siting, by Pete Roche, September 2008

Nuclear Waste, by Pete Roche, September 2008

Nuclear Decommissioning, by Pete Roche, September 2008

 

Other briefings

A brief survey of the range of possible alternatives to nuclear power in Scotland.

For a full briefing on the so-called ‘facilitative actions’ which the Government is carrying out to speed up nuclear developments see New Nuclear Monitor No.14