Sellafield
A RISE in radioactive discharges into the air is causing another problem at Sellafield, it was confirmed to The Whitehaven News yesterday. Increased levels have come from the Magnox reprocessing plant. For the last five weeks it has had to close to avoid exceeding the discharge limit. The plant has just started up again but Sellafield Ltd has applied to the Environment Agency for a new authorisation to raise the discharge limit. A Sellafield spokesman said yesterday there was no risk to public health. Magnox was halted because the discharges were getting close to the limit. The shutdown had provided discharge leeway possibly until late summer by which time there might be a risk of breaching the limit.
Whitehaven News 10th June 2009 more >>
THE “rogue” highly radioactive nuclear material which got Sellafield into hot water with Japan will be on the move – to France. This is the batch of eight Mox fuel assemblies made at Sellafield and later found to be “falsified” in its specification data after being shipped out to customers in Japan. The faked pellets scandal led to loss of business confidence in BNFL and for a time Japan refused to strike any further deals with Sellafield. The fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium, was sent back to Sellafield – seven years ago.
Whitehaven News 10th June 2009 more >>
CHECKS are being carried out to see whether a Sellafield worker has radioactive contamination to a thumb which he cut doing a decommissioning job.
Whitehaven News 10th June 2009 more >>
New Nukes
Widespread political support for nuclear power marks Britain out as one of the most attractive markets for new nuclear power stations, the chief executive of French reactor maker Areva said on Wednesday. “Today the UK is clearly in the front rank of all global new build markets,” Luc Oursel, the head of one of the world’s biggest power plant builders said. “It is a market where Areva wants to have a major role,” he told the Nuclear Industry Forum in London.
Reuters 10th June 2009 more >>
Telegraph 11th June 2009 more >>
Areva and its supply chain “need to demonstrate to UK utilities by the end of 2009 that we are ready.” Over 20 companies had already been qualified as supplieers and “by the end of the year we hope tp have many more,” he said. Oursel said his company was planning to recruit thousands of new engineers and other staff to carry out its construction programme, saying “We will start recruiting in the UK for UK projects this year”.
Utility Week 11th June 2009 more >>
E.On and RWE are key to new nuclear-build in the UK. However, a major change in the German energy landscape may cause their investment focus to become more domestically-orientated. In any event, with nearly £40 billion of net debt, E.On’s own investment plans are being cut back. Worrying times then for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) – a reversal of Germany’s nuclear phase-out policy would certainly not be helpful for the prospects of new nuclear-build in the UK.
Adam Smith Institute 11th June 2009 more >>
Europe’s biggest utilities can afford to build Britain’s new nuclear power stations but want heavier, long-term charges on rival climate-warming power plants to support their multi-billion pound investments, executives from two of the leading potential builders said on Wednesday. The chief executive of EDF Energy, leading the push to replace Britain’s ageing nuclear reactors, and the head of the UK arm of German utility E.ON, warned that the current carbon market was not enough to ensure investments in low-carbon technologies like nuclear and fight climate change.
Interactive Investor 10th June 2009 more >>
Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) has announced plans to develop and deploy a scalable, modular nuclear power reactor. US utilities have already expressed an interest in the 125 MWe design.
World Nuclear News 10th June 2009 more >>
Dounreay
An area of seabed measuring 75,000m2 is to be monitored over the summer during the next phase of contaminated particle recovery off the coast of the Dounreay nuclear power station in Caithness. Independent experts estimate that there may be 1,500 fragments buried in the sediment close to the site’s old effluent discharge outlet that are a significant hazard to public health. The disintegration of these fragments is believed to contribute to the number of smaller, less hazardous particles found on local beaches.
Professional Engineering 10th June 2009 more >>
Companies
SWEDISH power company Vattenfall has put its participation in the nuclear new- build programme on hold for up to 18 months to focus on renewable energy in the UK.
Professional Engineering 10th June 2009 more >>
At the same time Iberdrola competes with SSE as ScottishPower, but it is also a partner in a consortium that is hoping to play a part in the UK’s multi-billion-pound nuclear renaissance, and is expected to be among the bidders to develop a new reactor at Sellafield, in west Cumbria, Europe’s most heavily contaminated industrial site.
Herald 10th June 2009 more >>
FARMERS around Sellafield will have to wait and see how much they will get from the sale of land paving the way for a new nuclear power station at Sellafield. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority this week set the ball rolling to sell 250 hectares (618 acres) of prime agricultural land around the existing Sellafield site.
Whitehaven News 10th June 2009 more >>
Nuclear Sites
The Government yesterday fired the starting gun on the most lucrative land auction in Cumbria’s history. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has offered up a parcel of land adjacent to Sellafield which has been earmarked for a new nuclear reactor.
Carlisle News and Star 10th June 2009 more >>
NW Evening Mail 10th June 2009 more >>
German utilities EON and RWE have bought all the land they need to build the 6 gigawatts of nuclear power plants they plan for Britain, the head of EON UK said on Wednesday. EDF Energy invited expressions of interest in buying land which could be used to build new nuclear power plants near its Dungeness nuclear power plant in Kent or Heysham power station in Lancashire. But the EON-RWE joint venture seems unlikely to bid after buying land at auction at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in south west England in late April.
Reuters 10th June 2009 more >>
Low Level Waste
A former opencast mine near Whitehaven has been earmarked for use as a nuclear waste dump. Endecom UK Ltd has bought a 173-acre site at Keekle Head to take what it calls “low and very low level waste”, mainly from west Cumbrian nuclear sites. The company, a subsidiary of waste firm SITA UK, expects to submit a planning application by early 2010. It is hoped the facility will relieve pressure on the Low Level Waste Repository at Drigg, near Sellafield.
Cumberland News 10th June 2009 more >>
PLANS for a low-level radioactive waste site at Lillyhall have got the full backing of Distington Parish Council. Councillors were given the opportunity, by the Waste Recycling Group and Energy Solutions, to visit the site to see what kind of products will be disposed of.
Whitehaven News 10th June 2009 more >>
Wylfa
Wylfa, one of the UK’s oldest nuclear power plants, has been given the go-ahead for operation beyond its planned closure date. The nine-month extension is being hailed as a first step towards an even longer operating life.
World Nuclear News 10th June 2009 more >>
News Wales 10th June 2009 more >>
Energy Business Review 9th June 2009 more >>
Anglesey Today 10th June 2009 more >>
Utility Week 10th June 2009 more >>
FT 11th June 2009 more >>
POWER giants RWE npower who won the bidding process to build a new nuclear power station at Wylfa have been explaining their proposals to local people with a two day drop in session last week. The consortium has nominated land close to the existing Magnox nuclear power station at Wylfa into the Government’s Strategic Siting Assessment (SSA) process. Last month (April 2009) RWE npower announced that, along with its joint venture partner E.ON, it had bought land at Wylfa, as well as at Oldbury in Gloucestershire for £450m in an auction conducted by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Holyhead and Anglesey Mail 10th June 2009 more >>
Iran
One of the most senior Democrats in Washington has dismissed a key element in the west’s long standing strategy on Iran’s nuclear programme as “ridiculous”. His comments throw open the debate about how far the US and its partners should go in seeking a compromise with Tehran after on Friday’s presidential election. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and the Democrats’ 2004 presidential nominee, told the Financial Times in an interview that Iran had a right to uranium enrichment – a process that can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material.
FT 11th June 2009 more >>
Japan
Japanese utility Tohoku Electric Power Co said on Thursday it started manually shutting down its 524-megawatt Onagawa No.1 nuclear reactor earlier in the day after identifying an oil leak. There was no radioactive impact outside the plant, a company spokesman said.
Yahoo 11th June 2009 more >>
Korea
South Korean officials have travelled to North Korea for rare talks over the fate of a joint industrial complex amid rising tensions over Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test.
Telegraph 11th June 2009 more >>
Spain
From the very beginning, Jos Luis Rodr guez Zapatero has been a diehard supporter of renewable energy such as wind and solar power and an opponent of the nuclear alternative. Under the stewardship of Spain’s greener than green socialist prime minister, the country has become one of Europe’s leading producers of electricity from wind farms along with Germany and Denmark. These days, wind power accounts for about 15 per cent of Spanish electricity consumption. Mr Zapatero has also said he planned to shut down eight existing nuclear reactors when they reached the end of their natural life. He is about to have his first opportunity to confirm his anti-nuclear convictions with the country’s oldest nuclear plant of Garona in northern Spain coming to the end of its 40-year lifespan.
FT 10th June 2009 more >>
Disarmament
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said his country could give up nuclear weapons if everyone else that had them did the same.
BBC 10th June 2009 more >>
Renewables
Cllr Euan McLeod: The news that there have been 42 applications for leases to develop wave and tidal energy in the Pentland Firth is extremely welcome, particularly because the investment will help create jobs and opportunities across the whole of Scotland (your report, 9 June). South of the Border, the Environment Agency is urging local authorities to use their land and property for renewable energy to help tackle climate change and set an example to others by taking positive action. Glasgow City Council is doing just that by planning the construction of its own wind turbines. Glasgow is also looking at the possibility of harnessing renewable biogas from food waste and manure. With the combination of the large-scale projects being promoted by the Scottish Government and smaller-scale local projects, a vision of a sustainable energy future for Scotland is emerging. Other schemes around Scotland reported recently range from solar panels installed on a school in Aberdeenshire, to a wind turbine installed in the grounds of a High School in Edinburgh, to ten offshore wind farms planned off our coasts. These types of sustainable energy are a much more efficient way of creating jobs than investing in capital intensive nuclear power. It is estimated that nuclear power produces around 75 jobs per year per unit of power compared with between 918 and 2,400 per year for wind power. With the announcement in May (your report, 20 May) that Inverness College is to set up a micro-renewables training centre we can begin to see how promoting a sustainable energy future locally and nationally will be an essential part of replacing jobs lost through the recession.
Scotsman 11th June 2009 more >>
