Nuclear Waste
A RADIATION expert has urged the county council to commission independent research before volunteering West Cumbria as site for burying nuclear waste. But the council’s cabinet decided at a meeting in Workington to go ahead and express an interest in a nuclear waste repository. But Dr Ian Fairlie, a consultant on radioactivity who has advised the European Parliament, warned councillors on Tuesday to think carefully.
West Cumbrian Times and Star 11th Dec 2008 more >>
Sellafield
A west Cumbrian nuclear company has clinched an £80m contract, securing the future of more than 100 jobs. Doosan Babcock Energy, based at the Westlakes Science park, near Whitehaven, will design and build the Separation Area Ventilation (SAV) project at Sellafield under the deal.
Cumberland News 11th Dec 2008 more >>
New Nukes
Balfour Beatty is to set up training camps to ensure its supply chain is properly equipped to build nuclear power stations.
Construction News 11th Dec 2008 more >>
EDF
Barely six years ago, EDF was paying the price of a heady international acquisition spree. Its debt had ballooned to 27bn with little identifiable gain from its acquisitions in Italy, Argentina and Germany. The French state electricity group’s move into Italy, for example, so outraged the Rome political establishment that the Italian government slapped a 2 per cent voting cap on its stake in Edison. The internationalisation, driven by the company’s concerns over the opening of its domestic market to competition, ultimately cost the job of Fran ois Roussely, chairman. One should never underestimate the continuing public unease over nuclear energy. The smallest incident is likely to revive public concerns as was the case in France this summer. EDF’s latest international expansion raises more questions than it answers. The risks of this strategy may emerge more quickly than the ultimate rewards in an industry with such long lead times.
FT 11th Dec 2008 more >>
France’s main electricity provider EDF under pressure from cost overruns on a key project, said it was open to work with partners over building new EPR nuclear reactors.
Reuters 12th Dec 2008 more >>
EDF is seeking to “pilot” development of a second new-generation nuclear reactor in France and is open to working on the project with partners. A decision on who will develop the so-called evolutionary power reactor, or EPR, is expected “within months,” Chief Executive Officer Pierre Gadonneix said today during a visit to Flamanville in Normandy, the site of EDF’s first EPR. A partnership could include France’s GDF Suez SA, he said. “The moment has come to decide on a second EPR to meet our basic electricity needs,” Gadonneix said, adding that there should be a five-year lag between the Flamanville EPR and a second of its kind. EDF has said costs for its new 1,650-megawatt plant at Flamanville, the third reactor on the site, have risen about a fifth to 4 billion euros ($5.1 billion) because of higher prices for raw materials and components and fluctuations in foreign exchange. The utility maintained its goal of completing construction of the plant, which would be its 59th, in 2012.
Bloomberg 11th Dec 2008 more >>
Electricity Supplies
Power blackouts could blight Britain unless the government takes urgent action, the chairman of a House of Commons committee warned yesterday. The committee yesterday published a report which warned new capacity to store gas and generate electricity must be created if a “disastrous” energy shortfall is to be avoided. It warned difficult economic conditions made it less likely that energy companies would make the necessary investment to safeguard future supplies.
Guardian 12th Dec 2008 more >>
North Korea
Talks on nuclear disarmament for North Korea collapsed on Thursday night after the reclusive regime of Kim Jong-il rejected a Chinese proposal on how to verify the dismantling of its facilities.
Telegraph 12th Dec 2008 more >>
The latest round of six-party talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons ended in impasse after Pyongyang rejected proposals that would allow the international community to gauge the scale of its atomic work. The Beijing meeting was probably the last opportunity for the administration of President George W. Bush to make any headway with the communist state, which claimed it tested a nuclear bomb in 2006.
FT 12th Dec 2008 more >>
Climate
Companies could effectively buy areas of rainforest to protect them from destruction in return for being allowed to pollute after the UK brokered a groundbreaking deal on deforestation.
Telegraph 12th Dec 2008 more >>
Government departments are failing to meet their own targets on climate change, it has been disclsoed, as ministers try to persuade other countries to cut emissions as part of a new deal on climate change.
Telegraph 12th Dec 2008 more >>
Green New Deal
I have been waffling on for some time about a “Green New Deal”. So when Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, put green-collar jobs at the heart of a new industrial policy in a speech last week, I started to look at where those green jobs might come from. The idea of being able to solve both our economic problems and climate change by building a low-carbon economy is enormously attractive. But it looks as though some countries had their Green New Deal years ago. Take wind power, a huge growth area. We don’t make a single wind turbine in Britain. We import from Spain, Germany and Denmark. Or nuclear. We have only one postgraduate nuclear engineering course – at Manchester University. Our nuclear engineers are as few and ageing as our nuclear plants. The consensus seems to be that any new plants will be built mostly with French and American components, and French labour. Solar energy is dominated by Germany. Wave and tidal power are a better bet.
Times 12th Dec 2008 more >>
