New nukes
Reading the headlines surrounding last summer’s energy review, you would have thought Britain had moved decisively to build new nuclear power reactors. Not at all. The government used the review to pronounce itself in favour of new reactors, but left the industry to construct them. And the industry is not moving a muscle until the government delivers on its promises to bolster and extend the emissions trading scheme that helps low-carbon power and to announce changes to the planning system in a white paper. The industry is now likely to sit on its hands for a few months longer, because the white paper is to be delayed from Christmas to around Easter. The cause of the delay does not appear to be policy quarrels inside government but rather the need to finish follow-up work on, among other things, rejigging subsidies for renewable energy, promoting gas storage and even on the puzzle of how to encourage utilities to sell less energy to their customers. If it puts new investment on hold, the delay will further strain the country’s future energy balance and environmental performance. But it can also be used wisely to come up with the necessary streamlining of nuclear planning without riding totally roughshod over the traditions of Britain’s participatory democracy.
FT 12th Oct 2006
THE government will not give subsidies to encourage Britain’s energy companies to invest in a new generation of nuclear power, the energy minister has said.
Edinburgh Evening News 11th Oct 2006
North Korea
For the vulnerable people of North Korea, Kim Jong Il’s decision to test a nuclear device came at the worst possible time. In a country chronically subject to food deficits, people were already coping with the consequences of the government’s October 2005 decision to ban the private buying and selling of grain, its limits on the scale of the UN World Food Program’s distribution of assistance to needy citizens, and floods caused by torrential rains in mid-July, which destroyed 90,000 tons of grain.
Reuters 11th Oct 2006
Life in nuclear North Korea is anything but normal.
Reuters 12th October 2006
The French government said Monday’s explosion in North Korea was either not nuclear in nature or was a failed nuclear bomb test.
Interactive Investor 11th Oct 2006
Nearly five years after Bush’s “axis of evil” speech, we can see the damage caused by the president’s too-cute slogan and the muddled thinking behind it. By failing to distinguish clearly among the overlapping threats presented by rogue states, nuclear proliferators and supporters of terrorism, Mr Bush helped bring his own nightmare to life. Thanks to his foreign policy, many of the world’s dictators now function as a kind of anti-American co-operative, in a way they did not when he made that speech.
FT 12th Oct 2006
RUSSIA and China are blocking an American plan to mount international inspections of all cargoes entering and leaving North Korea for fear of provoking a military showdown.
Times 12th Oct 2006
Letter from Caroline Lucas MEP: North Korea’s nuclear bomb test poses a grave threat to peace, stability and respect for international law, not just in North-east Asia but globally. But the Pyongyang regime has been encouraged in its nuclear ambitions by the very nations that are clamouring to criticise the test most loudly: the nuclear states of Britain and the US. By maintaining their nuclear arsenals and refusing to implement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s requirements to disarm, Blair and Bush have weakened the NPT significantly, to the point where North Korea was able to simply walk away from it and develop its nuclear weapons beyond the reach of international law.
Independent 12th Oct 2006
North Korea turned a defiant face to the world yesterday, threatening to conduct more nuclear tests and to retaliate against any “harassment” by America.
Telegraph 12th Oct 2006
As negotiations drag on over sanctions after its nuclear test, Mr Pak has scurried around the corridors of the UN building, condemning moves to adopt sanctions, claiming instead that the world should congratulate its scientists. In exchanges notable for their harsh tone, Mr Pak has threatened more nuclear tests. The ambassador’s performance has done nothing to salvage the already low reputation of North Korean diplomacy. Its embassies, outposts of the ruling Workers’ Party, are notorious as linchpins of lucrative drug-running and money-laundering activities.
Telegraph 12th Oct 2006
GEORGE Bush warned North Korea last night of “serious repercussions” over its nuclear test blast.
Mirror 12th Oct 2006
I’VE spent the past few days speaking to some of Britain’s sharpest military and political brains to find out why it’s OK for us to have nuclear weapons, but not North Korea. Compare the differences between us, they say, and it’s clear we’re modern and civilised, while they’re stone-age savages.
Mirror 12th Oct 2006
Trident
Letter from Solidarity: What sanctions does Margaret Beckett anticipate against Britain when the government agrees to spend £72 billion on a replacement for Trident?
Scotsman 12th Oct 2006
Japan
Japan’s history means any talk of developing its own nuclear option has long been taboo. But in the wake of Pyongyang’s apparently successful test, the limits of the debate are being tested. Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former prime minister, is the latest politician to suggest that Japan should “study the nuclear issue”. While this week, Japan’s largest newspaper, The Daily Yomiuri, said the country should reconsider its aversion to the bomb.
Independent 12th Oct 2006
Wales
NEWS of any potential Tory-Liberal Democrat deal in Cardiff Bay has yet to reach Westminster, where disagreements between MPs from both sides went nuclear yesterday. Tory MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire Stephen Crabb accused the Lib-Dems of being “hypocritical” for highlighting the growing problem of fuel poverty in Wales during their weekly press conference.
Western Mail 11th Oct 2006
Renewables
NEARLY half of Scottish homes should be producing some of their own energy needs within 10 years, under SNP plans for government. Alex Salmond, the party leader, last night set out his aim of having more than a million of the 2.5 million homes in the country with wind turbines on roofs and in gardens, with solar panels and biofuel burners.
Herald 12th Oct 2006
Iran
Boris Johnson says give the Iranians the bomb – it might make them more pliable. Perhaps the Americans could actually assist with the technology, as they assist the United Kingdom, in return for certain conditions: that the Iranian leadership stops raving about attacking Israel, for instance, and that progress is made towards democracy, and so on.
Telegraph 12th Oct 2006
BNG Privatisation
THE leading manufacturing union has accused the nuclear industry of engineering a “stitch-up” with three American private contractors over the sale of Magnox nuclear reactor sites. Amicus, which represents thousands of workers in the electricity and nuclear industries, said that a sale would favour industry executives and three United States-based contractors that are the existing partners on the sites in question.
Times 12th Oct 2006
Decontamination
The discovery of radioactive snails at a site in southeastern Spain where three US hydrogen bombs fell 40 years ago may trigger an American-Spanish clean-up operation. The bombs landed near the fishing village of Palomares in 1966 after a collision between a bomber and a refuelling craft, which killed seven crewmen. A clean-up followed, but Spain still advises children not to play near the site or eat the snails, a delicacy.
Times 12th Oct 2006
