Dalgety Bay
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been forced to abandon attempts to block a report by government advisers warning that radioactive contamination of military sites across the UK could pose a risk to public health. The report was submitted for publication last October by the 18-member Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (Comare). To the frustration of its authors and the Scottish government, UK ministers have sat on it for the past six months after objections from the MoD. But after the 75-page report was leaked to the Guardian, a decision was taken in Whitehall on Tuesday to publish it early next week. It will reveal that Comare is concerned about radium contamination from the second world war at Dalgety Bay in Fife and at least 25 other sites across the UK. The contamination at Dalgety Bay poses “a potential risk to public health”, the report says. It condemns the MoD’s failure to provide a comprehensive list of other potentially contaminated sites as “unacceptable” as it “implies an unknown risk to the general population”.
Guardian 14th May 2014 read more »
Rob Edwards 14th May 2014 read more »
A report on radioactive contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife is due to be published next week. It has been produced by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE). The report has been obtained by the Guardian newspaper. It said scientists have confirmed the contamination poses “a potential health risk”. The Ministry of Defence insists there is no cause for additional public concern over the pollution in the bay.
BBC 14th May 2014 read more »
Bradwell
The NFLA shares the real concerns of the community organisation Bradwell Against New Nuclear Group‟ (BANNG) about the environmental and health impacts that could occur if anticipated discharges of dissolved radioactive debris into the Blackwater River and Estuary are commenced by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) Magnox site at Bradwell.
NFLA 14th May 2014 read more »
Cumbria
Many small and medium sized firms have sprung up in West Cumbria because of Sellafield. But the managing director of specialist hydraulics company Forth Engineering, Mark Telford, argues there’s also growth elsewhere. And adds that businesses are diversifying away from the nuclear industry.
ITV 14th May 2014 read more »
Companies
Rolls Royce will focus on growing its civil nuclear power activities and dispose of other assets after agreeing to sell the majority of its energy unit to Siemens, it has been reported. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Rolls Royce may also sell residual activities in fuel cells and smaller power stations that Siemens does not want, Rolls-Royce’s Chief Financial Officer Mark Morris said. The company has signed an agreement to sell its Energy gas turbine and compressor business to Siemens for a £785m cash consideration.
Nuclear Energy Insider 8th May 2014 read more »
RWE’s net income for the first quarter fell by more than a third as Germany’s switch to renewable energy continued to batter the company’s business model. In a letter to shareholders, Peter Terium, the chief executive of Germany’s second biggest utility by market value, blamed the “crisis in the conventional electricity generation business” for the decline.
FT 14th May 2014 read more »
Radwaste
A mysterious radiation release that has indefinitely shuttered a nuclear waste dump in New Mexico may have been caused by a change in the type of kitty litter that is mixed with the toxic waste. That’s one of the theories that officials are exploring as they investigate the February 14 leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in southeastern New Mexico that contaminated 21 workers with low levels of radiation. Jim Conca, a scientist who worked at the facility from 2000 to 2010, said believes a change from non-organic to organic litter caused a chemical reaction inside a waste drum, releasing the radioactive isotopes.
Daily Mail 14th May 2014 read more »
Energy Supplies
Energy companies face significantly higher charges if they fail to buy enough power to meet customers’ needs, under new Ofgem rules intended to reduce the risk of blackouts. The measures, due to be published on Thursday, are the latest attempt to encourage companies to build new power plants to help avert a looming energy crunch as old plants close. The regulator especially wants companies to build new gas-fired power stations, which can offer flexible back-up to cope with increasing numbers of intermittent wind farms on the system. Just one gas plant is currently being built and more are at risk of mothballing because they are loss-making. Energy suppliers are supposed to buy enough power to match the amount their customers are using at any given time. If a supplier fails to buy enough – or if a power generator fails to provide the power it has promised – they have to pay so-called “cash out” charges for National Grid to manage the shortfall, for example by calling on other power plants to fire up.
Telegraph 15th May 2014 read more »
Uranium
After Greenland’s prime minister repealed a law on uranium mining, Australian firms are staking out the country for exploitation. Local political opposition is heating up. This is a story about an Australian company you’ve never heard of, operating in a nation that rarely enters the global media: Greenland. It’s a story about the intense search for energy sources in a world that’s moving away from the dirtiest fossil fuels. Aleqa Hammond, the prime minister of Greenland, is the first woman to lead this autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. She also welcomes the financial opportunities from climate change and a melting Arctic Circle. “I simply refuse to be the victimised people of climate change”, she told Business Week this month. “This time we have other options than just hunting. We have the right now to our own underground.” The prospect of a relatively unknown Australian company exploiting massive untapped resources in Greenland deserves a robust public and political debate. It has thus far received nothing in Australia, and little in Denmark and Greenland. In an age of worsening climate change, mining uranium is an arguably unsafe and potentially explosive answer to the problem.
Guardian 15th May 2014 read more »
Ireland
NFLA fundamentally disagrees that nuclear generation should be part of Ireland’s energy mix. International experience shows it to be an overly expensive energy source – the projected cost of the new Hinkley Point nuclear power station in the UK is put at around £7 billion for example. Any analysis must also include the long term storage plan for highly radioactive waste from spent fuel rods and the cost of storage over many generations. Will these full costs be borne by the consumer or does the Minister envisage the kind of nuclear subsidies currently being investigated by the EU Commission in relation to the proposed new facility at Hinkley Point?
NFLA 14th May 2014 read more »
Japan – Fukushima
For the past three years, it has been used as a base camp for thousands of workers traipsing in and out of Japan’s crisis-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant in a bid to keep it under control. Now, the government has unexpectedly novel plans for the same site: it will be cleaned up and transformed into a sports practice facility for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The former sports site, known as J-Village, is located on the fringes of the 12 mile exclusion zone around Fukushima’s nuclear power plant and has been taken over by operators Tokyo Electric Power Company since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Telegraph 14th May 2014 read more »
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy got a firsthand look inside the Japanese nuclear plant devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami today, as she vowed to help support the clean up. Kennedy toured the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant for about three hours on Wednesday with her son Jack Schlossberg by her side. She wore a yellow helmet and a white radiation protective suit with her last name emblazoned on it as she was shown around the plant.
Daily Mail 14th May 2014 read more »
Reuters 14th May 2014 read more »
US
For the past few years, Greenpeace International has published major reports under the moniker Energy (R)evolution detailing ways to move the European Union to a renewable energy future–an approach that has gained considerable traction within the EU. Now, Greenpeace has turned its attention to the U.S., with its release today of Energy (R)Evolution: A Sustainable Energy USA Outlook.
Green World 14th May 2014 read more »
The Energy [R]evolution demonstrates that transitioning to a renewable energy economy can free resources for economic development. It means more and better jobs, greater energy independence, and it is more democratic as citizens attain more control of energy production. Compared with the Energy Information Agency energy outlook, the transition to renewables creates more jobs at every stage of the energy transition, with more than 34% more jobs by 2030.
Greenpeace 12th May 2014 read more »
France
France’s top public auditor slammed the management of state-controlled nuclear group Areva in a confidential report in which it called for more state oversight, Les Echos daily wrote on Monday.The preliminary report criticises a lack of oversight of multi-billion euro projects, the remuneration of the supervisory board members and what it calls the “excessive” package former Chief Executive Officer Anne Lauvergeon received when she left the company.
Reuters 12th May 2014 read more »
China
China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC), a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Power Co., (CNNP) one of China’s three state-owned nuclear power developers, is planning its first IPO, intended to raise at least $2.6 billion. CNNP’s Shanghai stock market IPO listing could be the biggest on the mainland since the Agricultural Bank of China debuted in July, 2010. CNNP currently has 12 nuclear power projects, including operating nuclear power plants in Zhejiang and Jiangsu and others under construction or being planned in Fujian, Hainan, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Hunan and Henan. CNNP intends to use the money raised by the IPO to fund the construction of four plants containing a total of 10 reactors in Fuqing, Fujian, Sanmen, Zhejiang, Changjiang, Hainan and Tianwan, Jiangsu.
Oil Price 14th May 2014 read more »
Iran
Six world powers and Iran launched a decisive phase of diplomacy on Wednesday to begin drafting a lasting accord that would curb Tehran’s contested nuclear activity in exchange for a phased end to sanctions that have hobbled the Iranian economy.
Reuters 14th May 2014 read more »
BBC 14th May 2014 read more »
Renewables – wind
Loughborough-based Evance went into administration last month, and renewable energy company Ecotricity bought the premises, plant and intellectual property and it will bring staff into a new company trading under the same name. This is because administrators prevented the purchase of the company outright. Evance had been designing an “innovative new windmill” that was 90 per cent through the development phase and was “nearing the production stage”. Ecotricity claimed that Evance’s investors were “spooked” following the government “increasing anti-wind rhetoric” and cuts to the feed-in-tariffs available for onshore wind. Ecotricity founder, Vince Dale, said: “So many small wind companies are going out of business in Britain due to government policy.
Utility Week 14th May 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
The prime minister has said he’s willing to go “all out” for shale gas. That’s upset George Osborne’s father-in-law and former Tory energy minister, Lord Howell, who has suggested large swathes of the country should be off-limits for fracking. Failing to do so so could cost the Conservatives precious votes, he warns. Writing in the Journal of Energy Security, Lord Howell claims he “dearly wants” the UK to develop a shale gas industry, but that ministers shouldn’t be promising to frack just anywhere. This isn’t the first time Howell has offered well-meaning advice on where to frack. Last year, he declared fracking should only be given the go-ahead in the “desolate” north, later clarifying that he only meant the region’s “derelict” former mining communities. Since Lord Howell seems to have made it his personal mission to site the UK’s fledgling shale gas industry, we were wondering – where does he think we should be fracking? Working through Lord Howell’s comments does show the difficulty with pushing for a shale gas revolution while hammering “keep out” signs across your (metaphorical) lawn – you may end up with very limited parts of the country left to frack.
Carbon Brief 14th May 2014 read more »
Climate
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has issued another major report warning that we are headed for a beyond-catastrophic 11°F warming (6°C). The IEA report, “Energy Technology Perspectives” (ETP 2014), explains that delaying climate action has cost the world trillions of dollars in just the past two years. The good news is that the new report “confirms that global population and economic growth can be decoupled from energy demand.” The IEA says that an aggressive effort to deploy renewable energy and energy efficiency (and energy storage) to keep global warming below the dangerous threshold of 2°C — their 2DS scenario — would require investment in clean energy of only about 1% of global GDP per year. But it would still be astoundingly cost-effective.
Climate Progress 14th May 2014 read more »
Collapse, irreversible, unstoppable, catastrophic: Eye-catching words like these pepper recent media coverage of two scientific papers charting the demise of West Antarctic glaciers. Both papers come to much the same conclusion – the region’s glaciers are shrinking under the pressure of rising temperatures and will ultimately add several metres to sea levels worldwide.
Carbon Brief 14th May 2014 read more »
