General Election
A hung British parliament with a strong, anti-nuclear Liberal Democrat Party should not derail the multi-billion pound expansion of Britain’s nuclear industry, the head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority said on Friday. “I don’t believe that the amount of seats the LibDems get, or the amount of time they’ll have power for, is enough to stop that train which has left the station,” Lady Barbara Judge, Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority told Reuters in an interview. I don’t believe this issue would come to the floor in the period in which there was a hung parliament, because there is no legislation pending.”
Reuters 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Hinkley
EdF has ordered contractors bidding for the UK’s first contract at new nuclear site Hinkley Point, Somerset to re-price the earthworks following significant changes to the contract’s scope.
New Civil Engineer 29th Apr 2010 more >>
Oldbury
AN ENERGY company wanting to build a new nuclear power station near Oldbury has been granted permission for a temporary development. Horizon, the firm behind the project, already has a contractors’ compound on land it owns off Shepperdine Road, where it has been able to carry out investigative work. The compound was built under permitted development rules, which means the site must be cleared once a project has been completed, and would have to be reinstated if the company wanted to carry out more investigation works at the site.
Gloucesteshire Gazette 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Sizewell
More than 50 protesters held a four-day camp on the beach near Sizewell Nuclear Power Station to campaign against nuclear power on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The camps included workshops, a demonstration, a tour of the proposed site for the new reactor and commemorations for Chernobyl Day.
PR Week 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Chernobyl Day 26th Apr 2010 more >>
Indymedia 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Cumbria
Copeland needs a voice for those against nuclear power, says Green Party hopeful Jill Perry. As the constituency’s first Green candidate in a general election, she believes her party can fill a gap in the political market. Copeland, because of Sellafield, is reliant on the nuclear industry. Jobs and the local economy have become dependent on it. As a result, the Greens anti-nuclear stance has not found much favour with many of the constituents. But according to Mrs Perry, neither has it evoked much anger.
Carlisle News and Star 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Scotland
Letter from Steuart Campbell: My letter published on 28 April wrongly claimed that the Hunterston B nuclear power station will close next year. In fact, its life and that of its sister station at Hinckley Point in Somerset has been extended to 2016. This will help to prevent blackouts, although by that time four other nuclear station in England and Wales will have shut and only four others will remain in operation. Electricity shortages remain a possibility from 2013 to 2017.
Scotsman 1st May 2010 more >>
Europe
In the 2006 report, 62% of EU citizens people thought that nuclear power could help combat climate change. That number has plummeted to 46%. The number of people who answered ‘don’t know’ has risen in France, Spain, Finland, UK, Belgium, Luxemburg, Ireland, Estona, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Malta and Cyprus. France, UK and Finland are at the heart of the faltering nuclear ‘renaissance’. So interested is the EC’s nuclear-industry dominated ENEF in ‘broad discussion’, breaking ‘taboos’ as well as discussing the ‘transparency‘, ‘opportunities’ and ‘risks’ of nuclear power that Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Sortir du Nucl aire pulled out of the body ‘accusing ENEF of stifling critical voices, ignoring their concerns and riding roughshod over alternative scientific evidence.’
Greenpeace Nuclear Reaction 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Most Europeans believe that nuclear power plants can be operated safely but still think they are a “risk”, according to an extensive Eurobarometer survey.The results of the survey of 26,470 European citizens across all 27 European Union member states, carried out in September and October 2009, have now been published by the European Commission in a 168-page document, Europeans and Nuclear Safety.
World Nuclear News 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Nuclear Ships
NUCLEAR-powered deepsea containerships that would only need re-fuelling every five years or so could eventually replace today’s conventional oil-dependent vessels. “The day will come,” Germanischer Lloyd’s executive board member Hermann Klein predicted this week.
Lloyd’s List 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Companies
An ambitious engineering firm has more than doubled its turnover after buying a Lancashire business out of administration in a deal which marks its entry into the nuclear sector. Adelaide Engineering, based in Heywood, has acquired Leopold Grove Engineering, of Blackpool, for an undisclosed sum. Leopold Grove has a customer base to die for, including working in the nuclear industry with BNFL. This is a growing sector with new government contracts to build more reactors on the way, but it had a couple of loss-making contracts and couldn’t take the losses.
Manchester Evening News 30th Apr 2010 more >>
NPT
Endorsing a campaign by UK churches, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima has stressed the crucial role of British citizens alongside others in helping to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The Mayor’s statement came just days before the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which will take place 3 – 28 May 2010 in New York, USA.
Ekklesia 30th Apr 2010 more >>
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — the world’s major arms control agreement, now 40 years old and signed by 189 states — is in deep crisis. Can it be rescued and, indeed, can it be reinforced to meet the challenges to international security of the coming decades? This will be the task of the NPT review conference, due to be held in New York from 3 to 28 May — one of the most important dates in the nuclear calendar.
Middle East Online 30th Apr 2010 more >>
Japan
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said Friday it will restart the experimental Monju fast-breeder reactor on May 6, ending a 15-year suspension caused by an accident. The prototype reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, was suspended in December 1995 after a sodium coolant leak, fire and attempted coverup
Japan Times 1st May 2010 more >>
The test run of the prototype fast-breeder reactor (FBR) Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, is now expected to start after Golden Week, after prefecture Gov. Issei Nishikawa on April 28 gave the go-ahead for test runs to be conducted. The 280,000 kW reactor an important part of Japan’s planned nuclear fuel cycle has been inoperative for the 14 years and five months since Dec. 8, 1995, when some 640 kg of secondary-coolant sodium leaked and caused a fire.
Japan Times 1st May 2010 more >>
The Monju prototype fast breeder nuclear power reactor, which has been gearing up for an early May restart after a 15-year stoppage, suffered a temporary glitch in a coolant leakage detector Tuesday that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency reported had no impact on the environment. One Japanese nuclear industry source familiar with the Monju project was quoted as saying in Japan Today that malfunctions of this type – and worse – are “inevitable” in such reactors.
Bellona 29th Apr 2010 more >>
Sweden
It’s been an incredibly busy and successful week for clean energy activists this week. We’ve had spectacular scenes in Germany and thousands of people came out to remember the Chernobyl disaster on Monday. Yesterday, 30 Greenpeace activists from Germany, Poland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden shutdown the main headquarters of energy company Vattenfall in Stockholm ahead of its annual general meeting today.
Greenpeace Nuclear Reaction 29th Apr 2010 more >>
Iran
Iran’s President Ahmad Ahmadinejad, already assured of attention as the only head of state attending a UN meeting, will claim top billing on the speech list Monday when the conference on nuclear non-proliferation opens. Ahmadinejad’s country is believed to have nuclear-weapons capability in violation of its membership in the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and in defiance of UN Security Council demands. Yet according to UN protocol, as the only head of state, he will be the first NPT country representative to speak in the General Assembly, right after remarks by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Nonaligned Movement.
Earth Times 1st May 2010 more >>
Middle East
US officials are in talks with Egypt over a plan to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, part of an effort to block the Iranian nuclear program.
Yahoo 1st May 2010 more >>
