Waste Transport
WORK is under way on two more nuclear cargo ships bound for Barrow. The yet unnamed ships – costing £30m each – are being built as the International Nuclear Services updates the fleet. Several of the old ships have been withdrawn and scrapped. The first of the three new ships, the Pacific Heron, arrived in Barrow in May last year. The new vessels will secure seamen’s jobs and the continued operation of the town’s nuclear terminal at Ramsden Dock. They will carry nuclear power station radioactive waste, reprocessed waste and mixed oxide (Mox) reprocessed nuclear fuel. A 10-year programme of carrying high-level nuclear waste reprocessed at Sellafield back to the countries that own it is due to start via Barrow port between now and April.
NW Evening Mail 11th Aug 2009 more >>
A missing cargo ship is thought to have been hijacked by pirates and sailed through the English Channel.
Telegraph 12th Aug 2009 more >>
Times 12th Aug 2009 more >>
Bradwell
CAMPAIGNERS battling plans for a new nuclear power station at Bradwell sailed from West Mersea in a peaceful protest yesterday. A flotilla of boats took to the Blackwater Estuary for the two-hour vigil. They displayed banners opposing proposals for a new nuclear facility on the Blackwater shoreline. A demonstration was also held on the beach at Mersea. The vigil was organized by the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group.
Colchester Gazette 10th Aug 2009 more >>
Cumbria
Residents of Braystones have launched a website to fight proposals to put a nuclear power station there. The coastal community near Egremont was identified by the Government as one of three Cumbrian sites suitable for nuclear new build. The others are Sellafield and Kirksanton, near Millom. The website – toxiccoast.com – was developed by resident Ian Hawkes, whose wife Jenny coined the phrase “toxic coast” to describe the nuclear proposals. The website promises to “show the pro-nuclear propaganda to be the pack of lies and half-truths that it is”.
Carlisle News & Star 11th Aug 2009 more >>
Reprocessing
With the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain seemingly dead, reprocessing again is being proffered as a way to deal with U.S. nuclear waste. But the reality is that reprocessing neither solves the waste problem nor reduces safety risks.
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 6th Aug 2009 more >>
Pakistan
Pakistan’s nuclear facilities have come under attack from the Taliban and other groups and there is a “genuine” risk militants could seize weapons or bomb-making material, an article published in a West Point think tank newsletter said.
New York Times 11th Aug 2009 more >>
Terrorists have attacked three of Pakistan’s military nuclear facilities in the past two years.
Times 12th Aug 2009 more >>
Irish Independent 12th Aug 2009 more >>
In a paper for the respected anti-terrorism journal of America’s West Point Military Academy, Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford University, detailed three attacks since November 2007 and raised the spectre of more incidents in the future.
Telegraph 12th Aug 2009 more >>
Netherlands
Dutch utility Essent has appealed against a ruling by a court in the province of Arnhem forbidding German firm RWE’s purchase of Essent’s 50pc share in the Borssele nuclear plant, the Netherlands’ only nuclear generator. The Netherlands’ largest utility expects an investigation into the RWE’s acquisition of half of the 485MW Borssele nuclear plant as part of the German firm’s takeover of Essent.
Argus Media 11th Aug 2009 more >>
