EDF
EDF, the French energy group, could be forced to sell some of its power stations in France to help to fund its £12.2 billion acquisition of Britain’s nuclear industry, it admitted yesterday. EDF shocked investors by unveiling a fall of nearly 40 per cent in annual profits and warning that its debt pile had increased to nearly 25 billion (£22.5 billion) after a string of acquisitions, including those of British Energy, the UK nuclear generator, and America’s Constellation Energy.
Times 13th Feb 2009 more >>
EDF is putting 5bn ($6.4bn) in assets up for sale as debt approaches historic highs and as the economic slowdown, investment commitments
and state-limited tariffs begin to hit profits at Frances electricity champion.
FT 13th Feb 2009 more >>
EDF says it will be the sole operator of the second French EPR.
Interactive Investor 12th Feb 2009 more >>
EDF says it will engage in a dialogue with French safety authorities about extending the life of its reactors.
Interactive Investor 12th Feb 2009 more >>
New Nukes
The UK’s £40bn new nuclear programme could be seriously delayed by legal opposition from anti-nuclear groups, law firm Eversheds has warned. In a background briefing note, Eversheds warns: “It strikes us that the Government’s current assumptions about its nuclear timelines allow inadequate time for the resolution of third party challenges – such challenges should be presumed as a probability, rather than considered as a faint possibility – some (opponents) have made it clear they will challenge the Government every step of the way.” The first wave of objections under the new planning process are expected in April when the Government publishes its list of nominated new nuclear sites. These are expected to be followed by legal challenges when the Government reveals its list of preferred nominated sites this summer.
Contract Journal 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Redundant construction workers are being urged to transfer their skills to the cash-rich nuclear sector.
Contract Journal 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Builder and Engineer 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Letter from Martin Forwood: If the Prime Minister and his sidekick Jamie Reed had bothered to do a Google search on nuclear power station jobs, they would have found a very different set of figures to the 9,000 construction and 1,000 operational jobs they proclaimed and which appeared in your columns and editorial. As just one example, EDF, the French company most likely to be involved in new-build in this country, has said that its plans for the UK “could create approximately 350 direct permanent jobs and over 2,000 temporary jobs during the peak construction period” for each power station. Another example is given for EDF’s station currently under construction in Finland where “around 600 (construction) people work at the site, with up to 3,000 during peak times”. Further searches and other archives reveal similar levels of employment for past, present and future nuclear power stations. This begs the question of course as to why our dear leaders should find it necessary to massage the figures so extensively, by around 300 per cent, for new build at Sellafield. The proof of the pudding will lie in the responses to the Freedom of Information requests we have now raised, with both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Department of Energy and Climate Change who issued the press release, requesting the source data upon which their inflated job figures were based.
Whitehaven News 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Nuclear Skills
A LANDMARK £5million is being invested in Westlakes by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). It has today announced a comprehensive redevelopment and extension of its Westlakes Campus, to make it a fit-for-purpose, modern and bring state-of-the-art teaching facilities to the local area. The university says it will particularly support the local skills agenda and the nuclear industry.
Whitehaven News 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Nuclear Waste
COPELAND and Allerdale are rivals in the search to find a safe place to bury the nation’s stocks of higher level nuclear waste. The proposed underground repository could bring community benefit packages probably worth billions of pounds to the chosen area. Allerdale Borough Council has now followed Copeland by “expressing an interest” in the potential for hosting a repository. They are the only UK local authorities to show initial interest. Public consultations will have to take place in both boroughs.
Whitehaven News 11th Feb 2009 more >>
MILLIONS more pounds are being invested in facilities for storing medium-level radioactive waste at Sellafield. The waste has to be kept in safe storage on the site pending a final solution which is expected to be in a repository deep underground. Meanwhile, AMEC, the UK part of the consortium which now runs Sellafield, has led a successful bid for the refurbishment of one intermediate level storage plant along with the design for a sister building.
Whitehaven News 11th Feb 2009 more >>
Letter from Marianne Birkby: The two sane options are to Look after existing wastes as safely as possible; Not produce any more of it. Nuclear propaganda and cynical largesse has ensured that there is now a belief system surrounding the industry that defies all the evidence. This has resulted in the ‘expression of interest’ in a dodgy nuclear dump and support for new build with proposed reactors predicted to produce seven times more radiation.
Whitehaven News 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Sellafield
Letter: I am one of the tenant dairy farmers mentioned in your report. I have tenanted land in the area “nominated”. I have had no correspondence from the NDA with regards to the “land disposal programme”. As stated in your report: “The tenants farming this land have provided a valuable service and also proved good public relations ambassadors for Sellafield in particular and the nuclear industry in general.” A reciprocal approach would be appreciated from the NDA directly, not through the local media.
Whitehaven News 11th Feb 2009 more >>
US
A proposal to increase a loan guarantee program for innovative energy projects by $50 billion has been stripped from the economic recovery package after environmentalists argued it would primarily benefit the nuclear industry. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, who had gotten the measure into the stimulus bill as it moved through the Senate, confirmed Thursday that the provision had been removed from the final bill during negotiations between the House and Senate.
AP 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Climate Progress 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Officials from New Mexico’s Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory have fessed up to having only just realised that 67 of its computers were missing, with no less than 13 of them having disappeared over the past year alone.
The Inquirer 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Iran
US intelligence does not know whether Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons, but at a minimum Tehran is keeping that option open, the new US intelligence director said.
Yahoo 13th Feb 2009 more >>
Israel simply cannot afford to launch a strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, though threatening to do it might be a useful tactic, Professor Gary Sick, a leading expert on Iran, said yesterday. Nor could any US president afford to sanction such a strike or, probably, to mount a US attack either, he added, arguing that the Obama Administration’s best course – perhaps its only one – was to talk to Tehran as soon as the Iranian presidential elections in June are out of the way.
Times 13th Feb 2009 more >>
IRAN may be close to exhausting its supplies of uranium oxide and lacks the resources for a civilian nuclear programme, a US think-tank has claimed. The Institute for Science and International Security, based in Washington, said in a study that Iran did not seem to have obtained significant amounts of uranium oxide or “yellow cake” since it acquired 600 tons from South Africa in the 1970s.
Scotsman 13th Feb 2009 more >>
Sweden
IN WHAT may be his boldest move so far, Sweden’s Fredrik Reinfeldt has shredded a central part of the election manifesto on which his centre-right government fought the election in 2006. The four parties in his coalition have long been split over nuclear power. So they agreed in the manifesto to keep all matters atomic off the agenda until their term expired in 2010. But a combination of tight climate-change targets, energy-security worries and a wobbly economy has now caused a rethink. On February 5th Mr Reinfeldt unveiled a plan to reverse Sweden’s 30-year ban on building new nuclear capacity.
Economist 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Pebble Bed Reactors
Frazer-Nash Consultancy – a Surrey based engineering and technology consultancy – has said it is still involved in the development of the South African Pebble Bed Modular Reactor design.
The Engineer 12th Feb 2009 more >>
Energy Efficiency
All homes in the UK will have near to zero carbon emissions in 40 years, the government pledged on Thursday, under a new draft heat and
energy-saving strategy that will require a massive increase in home insulation. Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate change, said
cavity wall and roof insulation would be provided to all properties by 2015, requiring 400,000 households a year to be fitted.
FT 13th Feb 2009 more >>
The “Great British Refurb” will fit every home in need of insulation in the roof or walls by 2015. By 2030 every home will be offered a “whole house” green refurbishment, including fitting renewable heat technologies like ground source heat pumps and solar panels. Environmentalists welcomed the package but criticised the delay that means most of the initiatives will not begin until 2012. The Local Government Association said consumers should not have to pay. Instead the organisation called on energy companies to fork out from massive annual profits.
Telegraph 13th Feb 2009 more >>
