Scotland
MAJOR reductions in Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by 2050, experts said yesterday. A Co2 cut of 75 per cent is possible even without controversial measures such as building nuclear power stations, they said. The findings came in one of three Scottish Government-commissioned reports on aspects of climate change published yesterday.
Scotsman 15th Nov 2008 more >>
Oldbury
A new nuclear power station at Oldbury is looking increasingly likely after companies came forward to snap up land around the site. Those living near the site have been told German-owned E.on, which has publicly stated an interest in having a £4-billion nuclear plant in South Gloucestershire, has already been buying up pieces of privately owned land around the station.Now it is set to be one of the firs bidding to acquire land currently in the hands of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and which is due to be sold next year.
Western Daily Press 14th Nov 2008 more >>
New Nukes
It’s clean, safe and – if done correctly – cheap. Yet thanks to a series of horrific, expensive blunders Britain remains terrified of nuclear power. From Sizewell B to Windscale, Paul Kendall tours the industry’s greatest triumphs and disasters and asks: why so scared?
Telegraph 15th Nov 2008 more >>
Dounreay
DOUNREAY’S training and development team has become the first of its potential spin-out businesses to move off the site.
John O Groat Journal 14th Nov 2008 more >>
Germany
1&1 Internet – one of the world’s largest web hosts – will build its next European data center inside an abandoned nuclear fuel facility. Built in the late 1980s, Hanau, Germany’s ‘New MOX’ plant was supposed to process fuel for nuclear reactors, making mixed oxide rods from enriched Uranium and Plutonium. But thanks to local protests, it was never turned on, and in 1995, it was abandoned by owner Siemens AG. Then, more than a decade later, after it escaped from nuclear control legislation, 1&1 came calling.
The Register 14th Nov 2008 more >>
A new offer from German power company RWE allows consumers for the first time to select a zero-carbon energy scheme fueled mostly by nuclear sources. But as Germany erupts in anti-nuclear protests, the company may be courting a backlash.
Der Spiegel 14th Nov 2008 more >>
US
In the Chicago-area voters approved by well over two-to-one a referendum asking that “our elected officials in Illinois take steps to phase out nuclear power in the state, replacing it with renewable sources such as wind and solar.” The communities currently rely on atomic power for some 75% of their electricity, which is supplied through Commonwealth Edison, a subsidiary of Exelon, America’s largest nuke owner. Obama was criticized by eco-advocates for taking campaign donations from Exelon. The issue of how to finance a “nuclear renaissance” now overshadows all the rhetoric, and will define the technology’s future. Wall Street has given thumbs down to a technology that can’t compete with Solartopian sources like wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other green energies.
The future of new reactor construction thus depends on massive federal and state subsidies.
Common Dreams 6th Nov 2008 more >>
Nuclear Weapons
Letter from Edward Davey MP: Timothy Garton Ash is right to highlight the critical need for revived US leadership over nuclear disarmament (Comment, November 13). A nuclear-free world will be impossible without far-reaching new international agreements and serious negotiations between the US and Russia. But he is too soft on our own government. Britain squandered a major opportunity to position itself as an outrider for Obama’s nuclear non-proliferation objectives with its premature decision to commit to renewing the Trident submarines. With both the government and the Conservatives backing Trident renewal in the run-up to talks at the non-proliferation treaty review conference in 2010, Britain has failed to give the leadership needed on nuclear disarmament.
Guardian 15th Nov 2008 more >>
