Non-proliferation
More than 100 cold-war era research reactors run on uranium pure enough to be used in a nuclear weapon. But switching to safer fuel isn’t easy.
Nature 11th Oct 2010 more >>
US
Constellation Energy’s announcement on Saturday that it had reached an impasse with the federal government over the fee for a loan guarantee on a new reactor in Maryland is a sign of how much the landscape has been transformed. Essentially, the Energy Department argued that Constellation’s project is so risky that the company must pay a high fee or provide other assurances of repayment if it wants the taxpayers to guarantee its construction loans. Constellation said the government’s demand was “unreasonably burdensome.”
New York Times 10th Oct 2010 more >>
France
The French government has given the go-ahead to Electricite de France to increase the amounts of radioactive tritium it discharges into the sea and the air at Flamanville on the Normandy coast. In future the two power generating nuclear reactors will be able to discharge another 20,000 billion becquerels of tritium per year. The Flamanville power station operates alongsite the site of the new European Pressurised reactor, which is due to start operating in 2014.
Channel Online TV 11th Oct 2010 more >>
Sweden
The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) has submitted its latest RD and D programme to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority. Based on the programme SKB now has the knowledge to submit the applications to build a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark. SKB plans to submit the applications in March 2011.
Nuclear Power Daily 8th Oct 2010 more >>
Pakistan
Pakistan has been secretly accelerating the pace of its nuclear weapons programme, infuriating the US which is trying to cap worldwide stocks of fissile material and improve fraught relations with a fragile ally in the Afghanistan war
Telegraph 11th Oct 2010 more >>
Iran
A Sunni militant group in Iran has claimed it kidnapped a man working at a nuclear facility and has threatened to spill his secrets if members of the group held by Tehran are not released.
Telegraph 11th Oct 2010 more >>
Middle East Online 10th Oct 2010 more >>
Korea
US government documents have confirmed that Washington repeatedly planned and threatened to unleash a nuclear holocaust on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea over the last six decades. Newly declassified official paperwork released in this 60th-anniversary year of the Korean war revealed that US air force bombers flew nuclear rehearsal runs over Pyongyang during the devastating conflict.
Morning Star 10th Oct 2010 more >>
Renewables
Tim Yeo says he is concerned that upfront funding for clean coal technology will be delayed or worse; money for an upgrade of north-eastern ports needed for the establishment of large windfarms is unlikely to be secured; the Carbon Trust and the Energy Saving Trust will be scrapped; and funding for feed-in tariffs and renewable heat incentives will be reduced. If there is the slightest change to these mechanisms, Yeo says, the UK’s renewables sector will become too unpredictable to survive.
Guardian 11th Oct 2010 more >>
David Cameron has reneged on a pre-election promise to reward early adopters of solar panels and other domestic green energy generation, it has emerged.
Guardian 11th Oct 2010 more >>
