Crispin Aubrey
Journalist, author and long-standing anti-nuclear campaigner Crispin Aubrey has died aged 66, it has been announced. The Stop Hinkley campaign said Aubrey suffered a fatal heart attack on Friday afternoon. Aubrey, who lived in Somerset with his family, had been preparing for the planned protest against Hinkley C next weekend and was due to speak at the rally next Saturday. Katherine Attwater, from the Stop Hinkley campaign, said: “Crispin’s wife Sue, also part of the Stop Hinkley campaign, has bravely requested that the ‘show must go on because it’s what Crispin would have wanted’. “The Aubreys were involved in the original protest against Hinkley C over 20 years ago.
ITV 1st October 2012 more >>
BBC 30th Sept 2012 more >>
Obituary by Duncan Campbell: Journalist and environmental campaigner who was a defendant in the ABC secrecy case. Crispin Aubrey, the journalist, author and campaigner, who has died of a heart attack aged 66, came to national prominence when he was arrested under the Official Secrets Act in 1977. His subsequent trial and the campaign around it led to a re-examination of secrecy legislation and shone a light into some of the darker corners of the intelligence services.
Guardian 1st October 2012 more >>
Sellafield
Plans to build new nuclear reactors adjacent to Sellafield have suffered a major and possibly terminal setback with the announcement that Spanish energy giant Iberdrola is to pull out of the NuGeneration (NuGen) consortium which planned to develop up to 3.6 GW of nuclear power at the new station. Price and construction costs are believed to be behind the decision. The NuGen consortium, formed in 2009 and comprised of GDF Suez (37.5%), Iberdrola (37.5% and Southern & Scottish Electricity SSE (25%), had secured the rights to purchase a 470-acre greenfield site adjacent to Sellafield owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Paying £19.5M up front, a further £50.5M was to be paid by NuGen over the following 6 years, with the choice of reactor type expected to be made by the end of 2013 and a final investment decision planned for around 2015. Ibderolas withdrawal – from a project that many observers considered to be doomed from the start because of its remote location from where power was actually needed in the UK, follows the similar withdrawal by SSEs in September 2011 with the announcement that it wanted to concentrate on renewable energies which it considered to be more suited to the strength of the company. As the sole remaining member of the NuGen consortium – which in 2010 boasted that its greatest strength was that it can draw upon the experience, resources and skills of three well established and respected energy companies – GDF Suez commitment to the project must now also look highly questionable given that just 3 months ago the French multinational was reported as expecting to significantly trim its 47-year old nuclear business (Reuters 29.6.12). Reporting Iberdrolas withdrawal today, the Sunday Times suggests that GDF is unlikely to go ahead with the project on its own.
CORE 30th Sept 2012 more >>
IBERDROLA is said to be considering an exit from its UK nuclear plans as part of its debt-cutting strategy. The NuGen project, a joint venture between Spains Iberdrola and French group GDF, is set up to develop a 3.6 gigawatt nuclear power station at Moorside, near Sellafield in West Cumbria. But Iberdrola has been scaling back operations in Britain, with plans to sell off its power grid network, and yesterday the Sunday Times reported that it has told GDF it can no longer continue with NuGen. A spokesperson for the venture told City A.M.: Both partners are 100 per cent committed to the Moorside project. Iberdrola did not respond to calls for comment.
City AM 1st October 2012 more >>
Scotland
Labour will today warn Scotland could be “left behind” in the race for thousands of jobs because of the SNP’s opposition to new nuclear power stations. Skilled workers in Scotland “desperate” to put their talents to use will be let down by the Scottish Government, Labour MP Tom Greatrex will say. The SNP are opposed to the construction of a new generation of nuclear plants in Scotland. The party says the energy source is costly and dangerous and that Scotland should focus on renewables instead. However, Mr Greatrex will use a fringe event at the Labour party conference in Manchester to highlight the potential jobs dividend from nuclear power. A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank estimated up to 32,000 new jobs could be created through new nuclear power stations across the UK. Industry figure s show Scotland employs more than 5000 people in the industry.
Herald 1st Oct 2012 more >>
Iran
ISRAELS go-it-alone option to attack Irans nuclear sites has set the Middle East on edge and unsettled its main ally at the height of a US presidential election campaign. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exudes impatience, saying Tehran is barely a year from a red line for atomic capacity. Many fellow Israelis, however, fear a unilateral strike, lacking US forces, would fail against such a large and distant enemy. But it seems Israel might not be completely devoid of allies in the region. Azerbaijan, the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic on Irans far northern border, has, say local sources with knowledge of its military policy, explored with Israel how Azeri air bases and spy drones might help Israeli jets pull off a long-range attack.
Scotsman 1st Oct 2012 more >>
Energy Efficiency
As the evenings grow cooler, what better time to launch the biggest transformation of the nation’s draughty housing stock ever attempted? The government’s “green deal”, which begins on Monday, aims to plug the gaps in 14m of Britain’s leaky homes, making them cosier, cheaper to heat and producing less climate-heating carbon emissions. Yet severe doubts are swirling around the programme like a bitter winter wind, some even whipped up by the government’s own analyses. If the immediate prospects look bleak, Ed Davey, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, sees better weather ahead: “It will be a gradual roll out because it is a new market: we should be looking ahead two, three, four, five years.” Perhaps ministers’ desire to focus on the future is why the green deal launch is set to be quieter than mouse buried under three feet of insulation.
Guardian 1st Oct 2012 more >>
The government’s “green deal” scheme, intended to give householders a environmental makeover, launches on Monday without any of the country’s large retailers signed up despite a promise that they would play a central role in offering the deal to consumers.
Major retailers such as supermarkets and DIY stores are viewed as essential to the success of the scheme as they are trusted by customers and have the necessary reach to cover the population. But none is ready to join the launch, with several telling the Guardian they would “wait and see” how the scheme worked out before making a final decision whether to support it.
Guardian 1st Oct 2012 more >>
