Radioactive Waste
The European Commission is consulting on two possible options for binding EU legislation on the treatment of nuclear waste. The commission has said it will table a legislative proposal on this issue by the end of the year. The first option would be to strengthen in EU law “internationally accepted” principles and requirements laid down in the IAEA Safety standards and the Joint Convention on the management of radioactive waste and spent fuel. Member states would be required to adopt national programmes. Stakeholders are asked to give their views on possible requirements including the creation of a regulatory authority and an organisation dedicated to waste management. The second option would be to adopt specific requirements for the scope, content and review of national programmes in addition to the first option. For example, the commission wants to know if the programme should include inventories of radioactive waste and spent fuel and identify disposal routes.
ENDS European Daily 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Liberal Democrats
The UK’s Liberal Democrat party has come out strongly against new nuclear power stations in its general election manifesto, but at the same time favours increased targets for low-carbon generation. Although they are the UK’s third political party, the Liberal Democrats could prove influential in the event of a hung parliament whereby no single party holds a clear majority of seats in parliament. The manifesto rejects new nuclear power stations, claiming that they are a more expensive method of reducing carbon emissions than renewable generation and energy conservation. But the Liberals follow that with some ambitious targets. They want 40pc of UK electricity to come from what they term “non-carbon emitting sources” by 2020, rising to 100pc by 2050. The manifesto suggests supporting renewable generation with guaranteed prices, and wants 75pc of renewable energy to come from marine and offshore sources.
Argus Media 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Energy Supply
Public spending on the UK’s energy, transport, water and technology networks should be ring-fenced, despite the need to sharply reduce the record deficit, because of the positive effect it would have on economic growth, the IoD said in a report published on Thursday. It said £300bn needed to be spent on energy infrastructure by 2020.
Telegraph 15th Apr 2010 more >>
Cumbria
Letter: We the undersigned represent hundreds of artists who oppose new nuclear build and “geological disposal” of nuclear waste in Cumbria. The Lake District is synonymous with writers, artists and poets. The Wordsworthian vision of the original Lakeland Artists shaped a renewed reverence for nature. Reverence for nature is anathema to the nuclear industry. Two wildlife officers are employed on site at Sellafield to “humanely” destroy birds and nests. On site, freezers hold hundreds of dead birds and mammals, classified as nuclear waste. Nuclear power is promoted as a solution to climate change, but the likelihood is that it will make the problem worse by diverting resources to an expensive technology which can only ever tackle a very small proportion of greenhouse gas emissions.
Guardian 15th Apr 2010 more >>
Dungeness
Campaigners and politicians have held a meeting in Kent to call for a nuclear power station to be built at Dungeness. The site was ruled out due to the risk of flooding but campaigners want the government to reconsider. Folkestone and Hythe’s Conservative candidate Damian Collins and Labour’s Donald Worsley said a power station at Dungeness is vital for jobs. Liberal Democrat Lynne Beaumont said she wanted to see the area rebranded as a green tourist destination.
BBC 14th Apr 2010 more >>
A commitment to press for a new nuclear power station at Dungeness has come from civic leaders. They vowed to lobby the next government to get Dungeness C back on the list of potential new station sites. At a meeting at Quarterhouse in Folkestone last night, Kent County Council chairman John Davies said: “We are going to present a case that the government of the future will listen to.”
Kent Online 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Damian Collins, Conservative Candidate supports Dungeness C.
Damian Collins 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Wylfa
More than 30 campaigners gathered close to the site of a proposed nuclear power plant in Anglesey. The protest came days after Horizon Nuclear Power said it would apply for planning consent in 2012 to build a new plant on the island.
Brand Republic 7th Apr 2010 more >>
Berkeley, Bradwell and Hartlepool
The Nuclear Local Liaison Committee (LLC) Quarterly reports for the period 1 October to 31 December 2009 (quarter 4) are now available for Berkeley, Bradwell and Hartlepool sites.
HSE 9th Apr 2010 more >>
New Nukes
The Future of Nuclear Energy to 2030.
CIGI 4th Feb 2010 more >>
Legal
Morgan Lewis & Bockius has moved to beef up its London energy team with the hire of the former group legal director and company secretary of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), Susan Quint. Quint, who left BNFL at the end of 2009, had been group legal director and company secretary since 2007, having previously held the role of general counsel. She joined Morgan Lewis on 6 April, becoming the 12th partner in the US law firm’s London office.
Legal Week 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Terror/Proliferation
Publicity for Obama’s project may perversely increase fears about nuclear by catapulting a new risk into the headlines when scientists were beginning to succeed in assuaging fears about the previous identified risk – disposal of nuclear waste. It would be surprising if this nuclear terrorist concern did not eventually play into the public politics of nuclear power. Imagine if terrorists managed to use a nuclear device against a major city: How would this affect the fragile public acceptance in countries like the UK that nuclear is (in some people’s minds) a necessary evil?
BBC Blog 14th Apr 2010 more >>
An interesting story in today’s Washington Times, which says Barack Obama may have exaggerated the threat of nuclear terrorism. Contrary to the president’s dire warnings, the risk of al-Qaeda building a bomb has not grown in the past few years. One expert compares the exaggeration to the Bush administration’s excessive alarm about WMD in Iraq.
Telegraph Blog 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Representatives of forty-seven countries, who attended the nuclear security summit in Washington, have agreed to secure all the world’s vulnerable nuclear materials within the next four years. At the end of the two-day summit on Tuesday, leaders pledged to establish preventative measures to stop terrorist groups acquiring nuclear material.
Open Democracy 14th Apr 2010 more >>
At the end of the day, large political summits don’t necessarily make the world safer, but strong American leadership in the face of tyrannical regimes definitely does, as Ronald Reagan demonstrated. Unfortunately that kind of backbone is in short supply at the White House today, with a president more concerned with PR spin than confronting and defeating evil on the world stage.
Telegraph Blog 14th Apr 2010 more >>
List of key commitments made at the Nuclear Summit by individual nations.
eGov Monitor 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Summit Communique
eGov Monitor 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Forty-seven states have committed to maximise security for nuclear materials, bring all relevant conventions into force and continue the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
World Nuclear News 14th Apr 2010 more >>
IF POLITICIANS are serious about nuclear security, they should start listening to scientists. That’s the appeal from scientific groups as world leaders promised better security at a summit in Washington DC this week, but said little about how to achieve it.
New Scientist 14th Apr 2010 more >>
According to the Belfer Centre at Harvard University, there is around 1.6m kg of highly-enriched uranium and 0.5m kg of weapons-grade plutonium in the world. The combined amount is enough to build more than 200,000 nuclear weapons.
Economist 13th Apr 2010 more >>
Iran
The Obama administration said yesterday it would probably take Iran three to five years to make a nuclear weapon, a statement that provoked incredulity from Senator John McCain, the former presidential candidate. The administration added that it expected China to support United Nations sanctions, although not ones that would choke off Tehran’s supply of refined petroleum.
FT 15th Apr 2010 more >>
Middle East Online 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Daily Mail 15th Apr 2010 more >>
The UN envoys of six major powers have resumed negotiations in New York on a possible Iran sanctions resolution, bolstered by the nuclear summit held in Washington earlier this week.
BBC 14th Apr 2010 more >>
China has deepened economic ties with Iran, boosting direct sales of petrol to the Islamic republic as the Chinese government negotiates new sanctions at the UN security council, it has emerged. Iran announced today at the UN discussions in New York that it has produced five kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, defying security council demands to stop enrichment. Iran says it needs the enriched uranium to make medically useful isotopes, but western governments fear the achievement will enable Tehran to develop the capacity to make weapons-grade fuel.
Guardian 15th Apr 2010 more >>
US
As the United States works to expand its nuclear fleet for the first time in three decades and extend the life of current reactors, thorny questions remain to be answered about the life cycle of nuclear fuel, a former nuclear regulator said on Wednesday. Following the Obama administration’s rejection of Yucca Mountain as a permanent site for used nuclear fuel, the government should move toward creation of an centralized interim storage location and push for the recycling of spent fuel, Dale Klein, a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said at the Gulf Coast Power Conference in Houston.
Reuters 14th Apr 2010 more >>
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy is pushing the Obama administration to support new recycling technology that the company says would reduce the risk of proliferation and the storage needed for radioactive waste.
Bloomberg 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Contrary to some prevailing opinion, reprocessing would not eliminate the need for a deep geologic disposal program to replace Yucca Mountain. It aggravates waste, proliferation, and cost problems. The volume of waste to be disposed of in deep geologic repository is increased about six times on a lifecycle basis in the French approach compared to the once-through no-reprocessing approach of the United States. A new report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a nonprofit scientific research group, shows that France uses less than 1 percent of the natural uranium resource, contrary to an impression among some policy makers. The report has several recommendations for President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which was created to address U.S. nuclear waste issues after the administration’s cancellation of the Yucca Mountain program.
IEER 8th Apr 2010 more >>
Canada
Solar power in southeastern Ontario has the potential to produce almost the same amount of power as all the nuclear reactors in the United States, according to two studies conducted by the Queen’s University Applied Sustainability Research Group located in Kingston, Canada.
Science Daily 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Bangladesh
Bangladesh has approved a deal with Russia to set up a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant in the power-starved country.
Morning Star 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Fusion
Engineer Atkins and consultant Faithful and Gould have landed a £132m deal to work on an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in the south of France.
Building 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Trident
Devon MPs have clashed over the future of the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines which are refitted at Devonport base in Plymouth. Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat candidate for Devon North, said the deterrent should be included in a defence review. Linda Gilroy, Labour candidate for Plymouth Devonport, said the Trident-based system was not for review.
BBC 14th Apr 2010 more >>
Gordon Brown, who is pledged, like Obama, to creating a nuclear free world, is going an odd way about it. Labour’s manifesto, like the Tories’, commits to maintaining our nuclear weapons. The planned replacement of Trident, which may cost £76 billion, is not even to be included in the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review. The PM’s one small move was to suggest giving up one of Britain’s four nuclear-armed submarines as part of a “global grand bargain’. A few days ago, however, the Daily Telegraph reported that defence minister Quentin Davies has now promised shipyard workers that all four boats will be retained.
Telegraph 15th Apr 2010 more >>
Open letter signed by various former ministers from around Europe including Rifkind, Beckett, Des Browne: Across Europe, and at this moment of diplomatic opportunity, we have joined together to declare our unequivocal support for President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons, to declare our desire to re-set the security relationship between Europe, the US and Russia, and to show strong European support for the measures necessary to deliver these goals. Any major nuclear security incident anywhere is likely to derail the civil nuclear renaissance everywhere. Regardless of whether we as individuals support the idea of more nuclear power, this may ultimately undermine global attempts to meet the challenge of climate change, an outcome we all have a stake in avoiding.The UK and France, working with other nuclear weapons states, can play their full part in discussions on disarmament, and in efforts to implement any internationally agreed and verifiable reductions in warhead numbers. In addition to that leadership Europe is a key player in civil nuclear power and nuclear security. In short, Europe can and must play a vital role in building the co-operation necessary for meeting the global nuclear challenge. All our futures depend on it.
Guardian 14th Apr 2010 more >>
