EPR Safety Concerns
The government’s nuclear industry regulator said it is continuing to monitor information from foreign counterparts after safety concerns were raised about construction processes at a Chinese power plant being built by two French companies who want to construct similar installations in Britain. The concerns mirror some of those raised at sites in France and Finland, which are also being built and operated by EDF and Areva. A report on the Taishan site which was compiled immediately before building started, warned the Chinese plant’s managers that “quality control of concrete pouring should be strengthened” and they should make proper preparations for wet weather, which can affect the construction process. The report, apparently put together by safety inspectors, also highlighted concerns that the rock underlying part of the site has “relatively pronounced fractures”, a lack of experienced personnel onsite due to the “fast pace” of the project’s progression, and fears over the availability of important documents related to construction, among other concerns. Greenpeace says the documents “make it clear that EDF and Areva can’t be trusted to build the new generation of power stations properly”. Dr Doug Parr, the organisation’s chief scientist, said: “In China they can’t even get the right cement. Here in the UK, the Government and the nuclear industry want to rush new power stations through without checking the implications and lessons learnt from Fukushima. “We are being asked to believe that EDF are fit and proper people to build the next generation of nuclear power stations, starting at Hinkley Point, when these documents make clear they’re not.”
Independent 10th Sept 2011 more >>
Heysham
EDF has closed Heysham 2-7 for scheduled maintenance.
Reuters 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Scotland
John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, took the opportunity at the recent Scottish Cabinet meetings held in Kirkcaldy to highlight the importance and success of Fifes renewable energy sector. Watch this clip from a Q&A session held with members of the public at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy.
Fife Today 5th Sept 2011 more >>
Opinion Polls
In the six months since the Fukushima disaster, a global survey has detected mounting opposition to nuclear energy, especially in Asia. Yet Germany remains the only country to abandon the technology to date. Opposition to nuclear power in the UK has increased from 41% to 51% since Fukushima.
Deutsche Welle 9th Sept 2011 more >>
A nuclear expert from the University of Huddersfield has said people are more worried about energy supply than nuclear risk. Professor Bob Cywinski spoke as a survey was revealed indicating that Britons are less worried about nuclear power now than they were last year, before an earthquake and tsunami hit the Japanese plant at Fukushima. The poll was conducted in August, five months after reactors at the nuclear plant went into meltdown resulting in the release of radioactive material. It revealed that British attitudes towards nuclear power have softened over the last decade – and the trend has continued since Fukushima.
Malton Mercury 9th Sept 2011 more >>
BBC 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Protest
Campaigners opposed to the UKs governments nuclear renaissance will be taking part in a global wave of action in support of communities in Japan who are calling for an end to nuclear power. This year, September 11th marks two disasters. Not only will the spotlight turn to the US and the tenth anniversary of 9/11 but also to the hundreds of thousands who have been affected by the nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant since it began exactly six months ago. The media spotlight may have moved away from Fukushima but radiation continues to pour out of the power plant, contaminating the air, soil and sea, says Nikki Clark, spokesperson for the Stop New Nuclear alliance. If Germany can commit itself to a nuclear-free future using bridging technologies like combined heat and power (CHP), why cant we?
Stop Nuclear Power 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Politics
Forty eight people from fossil fuel companies, consultancies and academia have worked unpaid in the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), Caroline Lucas revealed in her leader’s speech here at the Green party conference in Sheffield on Friday. “There are very few businesses who will lend their top employees to government for nothing,” she told her party. “No, they expect something in return: influence, access and the inside track on the next fat contract.” Companies including EDF, Centrica, ConocoPhillips and the UK Petroleum Industry association all lent staff, as well as KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst and Young. Non-commercial organisations also donated staff time, such as the Carbon Trust and Cambridge University. Lucas had made freedom of information requests to numerous government departments, but has only received detailed replies from Decc so far. It covers the period since Decc was founded in 2008 but most of the secondees arrived after the general election in May 2010. She also lashed out at the government for “the shockingly cosy complicity with the nuclear industry to play down the significance of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan”,
Guardian 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Ms Lucas told the Financial Times: One would imagine these companies are getting something for their money, whether thats influence or policy changes. EDFs involvement shows energy policy is being rigged to benefit nuclear power.
FT 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Europe
A top expert has admitted that “consequences” were inevitable following the nuclear disaster in Japan earlier this year. But Jean-Pol Poncelet, director general of Foratom, said the catastrophe need not spell the end of nuclear energy in Europe. The conference, organised by Eurelectric, the body representing Europe’s electricity industry, brought together a range of experts to discuss the future of the nuclear sector in the wake of the Fukushima accident. Poncelet said, “We have to face up to the fact that this was a very substantial event and there will be consequences to follow. “At present, we do not yet know exactly what these will be.”
The Parliament 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Japan
Since the disaster, the anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan has been growing steadily with the nation becoming increasingly vociferous in its opposition to atomic power plants. Only 11 of its 54 reactors are currently operating, with more scheduled to go off-line in the coming months to undergo scheduled maintenance testing. As the volume of voices calling for a nuclear-free society increases, the new prime minister Yoshihiko Noda faces a tricky task balancing the energy needs of the nation with such high levels of public wariness of atomic power. Some industry experts have voiced concern about the instability of Japan’s future energy supplies and the threat of production shifting overseas if off-line reactors are not put back into action or in the absence of alternative sources.
Telegraph 10th Sept 2011 more >>
While virtually all his neighbours in the village of Iitate hurriedly left, Ito says he is staying. “I’m officially registered as living in a shelter in Iino because I was supposed to have been evacuated there, but I’ve never stayed,” says Ito with a shrug. “It’s about 30km (18.6 miles) from here and I only go to collect my post because they won’t deliver here any more. I’m 67 years old and they say that the impact of exposure can only be seen after 15 or 20 years I’m prepared to become a human guinea pig.”
Telegraph 10th Sept 2011 more >>
When it comes to nuclear power it usually takes a while for the truth to come out. And now six months after Japans catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, sparked off the current crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the truth is finally beginning to emerge. Parents, despite making every effort to avoid radioactive contamination without government support, are discovering the ongoing risks the disaster is having on their children. As Greenpeace found in Fukushima City last month, when it found contamination in several schools and public areas, parents are being forced to choose between radiation and their childrens education. Japans other nuclear companies, having seen public opinion swing against them, have embarked on a covert mission to persuade the people of Japan to give them a second chance. Since the nuclear crisis began, both the nuclear industry and government officials have been embroiled in a series of scandals where power companies have attempted to manipulate public opinion in favour of nuclear power.
GPI 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Fukushima news update 6th – 8th September.
GPI 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has edged another step closer to its near-term goal of bringing the crippled reactors at its quake and tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant to a state of cold shutdown by January, as the temperature at the second of three damaged units fell below boiling point this week.
Reuters 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Czech Republic
A Czech draft policy paper seen by Reuters on Thursday proposes to build a string of new atomic plants in the central European country, in a stark contrast to a wide pullback from nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster in March.
Reuters 8th Sept 2011 more >>
US
A single maintenance worker caused a massive power blackout that left up to six million people without electricity, caused two nuclear reactors to be shut down and grounded flights at airports. The calamitous workman was removing a piece of malfunctioning monitoring equipment at the substation in what should have been a routine procedure. But the process caused an outage on a high-voltage power line linking Arizona and California. Systems which should have contained the blackout in the local area failed. Two reactors at a nuclear power plant went offline after losing electricity, but officials said there was no danger to the public or workers.
Telegraph 9th Sept 2011 more >>
A divided Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The commission split, 2-2, on whether to uphold or reject a decision by an independent nuclear licensing board. The board voted last year to block the Energy Department from withdrawing its application for Yucca Mountain, a remote site 90 miles from Las Vegas. The licensing board said the government failed to make a scientific case for why the application should be withdrawn. Despite the split vote, the NRC said in an order Friday that the licensing board should continue steps to close out work on Yucca Mountain by the end of the month, citing “budgetary limitations.” The Energy Department has not requested additional funding for Yucca Mountain, and NRC spending on Yucca expires at the end of the month.
Huffington Post 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Nuclear regulators shot down an ambitious five-week timeline proposed to restart Dominion’s two North Anna reactors in Virginia during a public meeting on Thursday to discuss the Aug. 23 earthquake that knocked the station offline.
Reuters 9th Sept 2011 more >>
India
A bill to set up a new national nuclear authority and other regulatory bodies to oversee radiation and nuclear safety has been introduced to India’s lower house, the Lok Sabha. The Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority Bill was drawn up in response to events at Fukushima and aims to establish several new regulatory bodies. A new Council of Nuclear Safety (CNS) would oversee and review policies on radiation safety, nuclear safety and other connected matters.
World Nuclear News 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Microgeneration
Councils going solar this week include Durham County, Surrey, Eastleigh, Stirling. Housing Associations: Ellesmere Port; Stockport homes and Newcastle looking at geothermal.
Micxogen Scotland 9th Sept 2011 more >>
Thorium
Parliamentary events are often dull affairs, but Thursday night’s launch of the Weinberg Foundation a new pressure group advocating thorium nuclear energy was quite the opposite. I can’t remember the last time I stood in a room full of people concerned about climate change that was so full of optimism. Part of the warm glow may have been the result of a small pang of pride at the Guardian’s involvement. Two of the key people behind it all the host, Bryony Worthington, and the keynote speaker, nuclear engineer Kirk Sorensen met at the Manchester Report, a Guardian event on climate solutions. Worthington was on the judging panel; Sorensen was advocating a little-known nuclear reactor design based on liquid thorium fuel. In the two years since, Worthington has been appointed to the House of Lords and Sorensen quit his day job to set up FLIBE energy, a company dedicated to commercialising liquid-fluoride thorium reactors. Their collective enthusiasm for the technology played a key role in the creation of the Weinberg Foundation, which was set up “to drive awareness, research and commercialisation of cleaner and safer nuclear technologies, fuelled by thorium.”
Guardian 9th Sept 2011 more >>
