Hartlepool
A DEDICATED website is to be launched to give residents more information about the possibility of a new nuclear power station being built in town. Hartlepool Mayor Stuart Drummond has called for a “full and open debate” when he outlined a series of consultation ideas – including the website – at a meeting.
Hartlepool Mail 14th Dec 2009 more >>
Sellafield
Letter: Business secretary Lord Mandelson has announced that Cumbria has been ‘chosen’ as a Low Carbon Economic Area for Nuclear (LCEA). Sellafield no longer produces any electricity but uses profligate fossil fuel. One way of cutting down a bit on Sellafield’s unmentionable and unmentioned yearly £30m gas bill ( 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per year) would be for the hot water cooling the ferociously radioactive wastes to be directed straight to the workers tea urns?
Carlisle News and Star 15th Dec 2009 more >>
Disarmament
The United States and Russia are close to a breakthrough on a new treaty to cut their arsenals of nuclear weapons and the missiles, submarines and bombers that would be used to launch them, according to officials and analysts.
Guardian 16th Dec 2009 more >>
Roy Hattersley: In the Cold War, Trident was a deterrent. In the War on Terror it is irrelevant. The money would be better spent elsewhere.
Times 16th Dec 2009 more >>
France
Next-generation nuclear is to receive a billion-euro boost thanks to a French investment program. Meanwhile the country’s main nuclear research body has been re-branded.
World Nuclear News 15th Dec 2009 more >>
North Korea
US President Barack Obama has written a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as part of an intensifying effort to draw the reclusive nation back to nuclear disarmament talks.
Times 16th Dec 2009 more >>
Iran
The Obama Administration said yesterday that it will investigate a report in The Times on Monday which said that Iran had been working on a trigger for a nuclear weapon, one of the final stages in the production of the atomic bomb.
Times 16th Dec 2009 more >>
Iran has denied a report in the Times newspaper that it has been working on a key component of a nuclear bomb.
BBC 15th Dec 2009 more >>
Iran has been working on the final component of a nuclear bomb since 2007; intelligence obtained by a UK newspaper has reportedly shown.
View London 15th Dec 2009 more >>
Energy Efficiency
David Cameron has pledged that a Conservative government would from “day one” kickstart £20bn of investment to make millions of homes more energy-efficient in a groundbreaking green partnership with Tesco and Marks & Spencer. In a Guardian interview to coincide with the critical stage of the Copenhagen summit, the Tory leader reveals the plan to let householders share in the savings made on their power bills with the high street retailers who provide them with lagging and insulation. He says he has already signed up a group of local councils and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, for the scheme which would tackle more than 30% of UK carbon emissions by offering 6 million households the chance to get £6,500 worth of energy-efficiency measures. Cameron sees the idea for a “localist green revolution” as an answer to his fear that what he describes as the current top- down climate change agenda is “in danger of starting to lose people”.
Guardian 16th Dec 2009 more >>
Renewables
Energy prices will have to rise if companies are to make the investments needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the head of the world’s largest wind power company has said. Ignacio Galn, the chief executive of Iberdrola, the number one generator of wind power in Europe, and number two in the US, through its subsidiary Iberdrola Renovables, said consumers should “pay more [but] consume less”. He also said the Spanish energy utility hoped for about another $470m in stimulus funding for renewable energy projects in the US next year, having received $600m this year, making it the single biggest recipient.
FT 16th Dec 2009 more >>
AMBITIOUS plans to put 26 huge snake-like wave-power machines in the water off Shetland will be announced today. If successful, the project off Shetland’s west coast will become the largest wave-power scheme in Scotland. More than two dozen 180-metre long red machines would float semi-submerged in the ocean, attached by cables to a junction on the seabed. Asingle seabed cable would link the devices to the shore. The project would provide enough power for about 13,000 homes a year. Pelamis Wave Power, based in Leith, and utility firm Vattenfall, which today opens an office in the capital, hope the 200-megawatt project will be built by 2014. The project, estimated to cost at least 60 million, has been called Aegir, after a sea god in Norse mythology.
Scotsman 16th Dec 2009 more >>
Coal
In light of the growing concern over the consequences of Global Warming, notably the rise of ocean levels, leading to the disappearance of country shore lines and islands, immediate action is needed. To the chagrin of those who dislike nuclear power, it seems it will be easier, faster, and less costly to bring online new nuclear plants than to wait for clean coal technology to become a proven technology by 2020 or 2030.
Oil Price 15th Dec 2009 more >>
Tar Sands
Oil companies have come under pressure at Copenhagen to scale back investment in production from tar sands, as Royal Dutch Shell was branded the world’s second worst corporate lobbyist for its support of the industry.
Telegraph 16th Dec 2009 more >>
