15 April 2011

New Nukes

The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) submitted a detailed list of questions and issues it wishes to see the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (of the new Office for Nuclear Regulation) take up in its review of UK nuclear safety following the Fukushima incident. As Japanese Police start today to search in radiation suits for over 1000 bodies following the earthquake and tsunami believed to be in the Fukushima evacuation zone, the UK nuclear safety review takes place amidst the multifarious issues in dealing with these heavily damaged reactors. Discharged low-level radioactive waste water is still going into the Pacific Ocean and concerns now remain with water levels in the basement of Reactor Number 2, which are unexpectedly rising (1). It seems clear that this incident is likely to go on for many more months at least.

NFLA Press Release 14th April 2011 more >>

Letter: Since the nuclear incidents in Japan, our ruling elite has employed anyone who seems knowledgeable about nuclear power stations and the like to try to talk down the panic the general public feels about nuclear energy. There are claims that nuclear power can be better supervised and more efficient. But the thing is that where nuclear power is concerned the public is quite correct to feel panic – we have no way of cleaning it up safely. Proof of this is the fact that waste from the beginning of nuclear power generation up till now is being stored, not dealt with. That tells us the industry does not know how to deal with waste. From an early age we are told not to take chances in life if no proper exit strategy is available.

Southern Reporter 15th April 2011 more >>

Letter: An estimate of the cost of compensation to Fukushima victims of $133bn has been reported by Reuters. The UK has nuclear sites closer to major cities than Fukushima is to Tokyo, so costs could be even greater here. So it’s scandalous that nuclear operators are being allowed to cap their liability at €0.7bn or at most €1.3bn – barely 1% of the possible Fukushima compensation. No other industry is allowed to do this: BP has a $20bn fund for compensation to victims of last year’s oil spill. Why should nuclear be let off? The industry says the public have a poor perception of risk. That although a nuclear accident could be catastrophic and cause us to lose our homes and towns, the chances of it happening are so small that we should not worry about it. How strange then that their shareholders are not willing to accept the same small risk that they might lose their money. A more suitable measure would be to remove the protection of limited liability from the owners and directors of these companies in the event of a major accident. If we are to lose our homes, they should too, not walk away with bonuses and pensions intact as the bankers did. Readers may like to make their own views known to the Department of Energy and Climate Change nuclear third party liability consultation, which ends on 28 April.

Guardian 15th April 2011 more >>

The bigger question for the global construction industry centres around nuclear power. As iC went to press, the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima was still in a precarious state, and it remains to be seen how bad the radiation leaks from the plant will be. Like the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters before it, the Fukushima accident is bound to reopen the debate about the safety of nuclear energy. It is a debate that can be driven more by emotion and ideology then cool analysis of the facts, and this is understandable given the horrifying consequences of nuclear accidents. But it would be a blow if the world’s governments suddenly went cold on nuclear power for the wrong reasons, especially given that the industry has been gradually returning to favour due to its low carbon emissions. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency there are currently 65 nuclear power plants under construction around the world, including 27 in China and 11 in Russia. Even the most modern nuclear power plants cost at least US$ 1 billion per GW to build, and each of these 65 projects is a multi-GW scheme. That gives some indication of the size and value of the market.

International Construction 15th April 2011 more >>

Sellafield MoX Plant

A former minister has demanded an official investigation into Downing Street’s approval of a controversial nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield in Cumbria that has already cost the taxpayer 1.34bn with little return. Michael Meacher MP, who was environment minister under Tony Blair, said that he would be asking the National Audit Office and the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee to investigate the economic evidence used to justify the licensing of the Sellafield Mox Plant. Despite the cost, since the plant opened it has failed to fabricate more than a tiny fraction of the uranium- plutonium mixed oxide fuel it was designed to produce for foreign customers just 13.8 tons over 8 years compared to a projected output of 120 tonnes a year. Mr Meacher was the minister responsible for giving the plant an operating licence in 2001 but signed the licence only after he was pressurto do so by Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, who had told Mr Meacher that the former Prime Minister was adamant the “Mox fuel” plant must open. “The effort to get the Mox plant agreed was held up by me for at least two years because I was never persuaded that Mox fuel had a commercial market. I thought the cost was exorbitant,” Mr Meacher told The Independent. “I repeatedly expressed my doubts and concerns, and asked [officials] to go away and do further work. In September 2001, Mr Meacher was attending a European conference when he received a mid-morning phone call from Mr Powell. “It was fairly terse and straight to the point; that this had been held up for far too long, that the Prime Minister is concerned about this and that he is expecting an answer to this and wants the matter settled by 3pm that day,” Mr Meacher said. “I was being told that you pretty well have to sign up. I said tha t I’m not satisfied and he said that this is the Prime Minister’s view and he wants the matter settled. He couldn’t actually say, ‘You sign this’, but I knew perfectly well what he was saying.”

Independent 15th April 2011 more >>

In part, it was Blair’s realisation that there were a lot of jobs in deprived west Cumbria that depended on the nuclear plant at Sellafield. But his support for nuclear energy was even more fundamental – it was part of his unbridled enthusiasm for projects that were large-scale and shiny and new and high-tech (genetically modified crops were another such keen interest). In November 2006 I flew with Mr Blair on a visit to Sellafield. When he arrived at the plant the genuine warmth was quite astonishing: he was greeted by executives and workers alike as a saviour, which, given his low-key but crucial backing for their industry behind the scenes, is what he was.

Independent 15th April 2011 more >>

THE nuclear industry has been asked to look at radioactive contamination of the seabed along parts of West Cumbria’s coast. The Environment Agency wants more resources put into a seabed survey and less on monitoring local beaches for traces of radioactivity. Sellafield Ltd has agreed to the survey. The switch in emphasis was announced at last week’s meeting of the West Cumbria Stakeholders Group, the community’s health and safety watchdog for Sellafield. Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (Core) campaigner Martin Forwood was at the public meeting. He said later: “The risk of plutonium contamination to local beach users highlighted by Core over the last 30 years became a reality with the confirmation in an Environment Agency report that biological samples taken from those involved in beach monitoring around Sellafield showed elevated levels of plutonium.” However, in the meeting, the Environment Agency made it clear that further samples showed that the levels had dropped to normal. The Agency told The Whitehaven News it would continue to monitor the workers concerned as well as trying to discover the apparent discrepancy in the radiation readings.