Finland
Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) said Tuesday it had ordered a halt on welding on the primary cooling circuit at the Olkiluoto nuclear power station building site. The watchdog added that French nuclear power group Areva, the supplier of the power station, had discovered small cracks on pipes forming part of the circuit. STUK added that the cracks were microscopic and could be mended through sanding and rewelding. But STUK said Areva and Teollisuuden Voima, the eventual operator of the power station, would have to submit a report on the faults before the welding could resume.
Virtual Finland 13th May 2009 more >>
YLE News 12th May 2009 more >>
Chernobyl
For more than two decades this farm has lived on the southern periphery of a restricted area due to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl power station accident in 1986. Thousands of his sheep have been scanned for radiation throughout this time.
Guardian 12th May 2009 more >>
Nearly 370 farms in Britain are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident 23 years ago, the government has admitted.
Guardian 13th May 2009 more >>
British Energy
BRITISH GAS parent company Centrica hopes to become a key player in Britain’s next generation of nuclear power after securing a stake in Hartlepool Power Station owner British Energy.
Northern Echo 12th May 2009 more >>
Energy Risk 12th May 2009 more >>
Yorkshire Post 12th May 2009 more >>
Bradwell
EDF Energy says it plans to sell its nuclear power site at Bradwell in Essex just days after winning it in a multi-million pound auction run by the UK Government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The French power giant wants to concentrate on building four new generation nuclear reactors at Sizewell, Suffolk, and Hinkley Point, Somerset, and has already sold its Government-nominated site at Wylfa, North Wales.
Business Weekly 12th May 2009 more >>
AN MP has backed fishermen over their concerns a new nuclear power station could kill off huge numbers of Colchester’s world-famous oysters. Bernard Jenkin, MP for North Essex, is to press Government ministers on the effects a new power station at Bradwell would have on the marine ecology of the Blackwater estuary.
North Essex Gazette 12th May 2009 more >>
Cumbria
“Jedi Jamie” Reed is the young (36) ex-British Nuclear Fuels spin doctor who followed “Nuclear” Jack Cunningham as MP for Copeland in Cumbria. Boy, the pair must be in nuclear heaven! Jamie won’t even be drawing his generous parliamentary pension when the three new nuclear stations lined up by the government for Cumbria will have ended their lives and will have to be decommissioned. Then he will be able to visit Jack in his old people’s home and tell him how the perfectly nice villages of Braystones and Kirksanton were both sacrificed and the west Cumbrian coast was devastated over a length of many miles with ports and industrial facilities. Wags in Cumbria are now calling the stretch between Millom and St Bees the C te d’Atom – the greatest concentration of nuclear facilities in the world outside Chernobyl.
Guardian 13th May 2009 more >>
West Cumbrian tenant farmers could be in for a massive cash windfall if they make way for planned new nuclear reactors at Sellafield. Their tenanted prime farmland will be auctioned in the next two months when bids are expected to reach £300 million for around 400 acres stretching for five square miles outside the present Sellafield site. Current landlord, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), has pledged that farmers will be properly looked after for giving up generations of livelihood.
Cumberland News 12th May 2009 more >>
Companies
Babcock International, the engineering support services group, is targeting £4bn of contracts as it revealed estimate-beating full-year results and an increased dividend. Peter Rogers, chief executive, said: “We exit the year with an order book up about 90 per cent from last year and with a bid pipeline that is the strongest we’ve had for three years.”
FT 13th May 2009 more >>
Investors Chronicle 12th May 2009 more >>
Low Level Waste
A landfill site is bidding to process radioactive waste after its owners claimed there weren’t enough places in the UK to deal with it. Augean owners of the East Northants resource management facility is hoping to be allowed to dispose of wastes, such as soils and construction materials, from the decommissioning of nuclear power stations and other buildings like hospitals.
Edie 12th May 2009 more >>
Japan
Japan and Russia have agreed to boost cooperation over nuclear power in a new energy deal.
Telegraph 13th May 2009 more >>
BBC 12th May 2009 more >>
World Nuclear News 12th May 2009 more >>
Renewables
Plans to build the world’s biggest offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary have finally been given the go-ahead thanks to changes to the incentive scheme for renewable energy investments.
Independent 13th May 2009 more >>
Times 13th May 2009 more >>
For windpower, this is a breakthrough on the symbolic as much as on the technical level. The London Array will be the first windfarm anywhere to hit “four figures” in terms of its megawattage. It is the biggest offshore windfarm in the world. In fact, it is the biggest windfarm of any kind in the world. And when it begins operating in 2012, as London becomes the centre of world attention for hosting the Olympics, the world’s most impressive renewable energy project will have London in its title. Even though the wheels may seem to be falling off this Government, something is going right in its climate change policy. In the space of a month we have had a commitment to capture the carbon emissions of all new coal-fired power stations, a commitment to fit smart electricity and gas meters into every home in Britain, and now the facilitating of the world’s biggest wind farm. (Budget changes made it viable.) And who is presiding over this string of much-applauded successes? Step forward, Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary.
Independent 13th May 2009 more >>
Energy Security
LNG has become a transforming force in the global energy market and a potential answer to Russian domination of Europe’s gas supplies. The first super-tanker from Qatar has begun delivering frozen gas at –160C to the South Hook LNG Terminal in the south-west Wales port of Milford Haven, which was formally opened on Tuesday.
Telegraph 13th May 2009 more >>
