Nuclear Safety
An expert advisory committee has been quietly scrapped after it warned the future safety of Britain’s ageing nuclear plants was being put at risk by poor performance, delays and budget cuts. The Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC), which has been offering critical advice to Britain’s health and safety watchdog for nearly 50 years, was disbanded without any public announcement. Former members of NuSAC are now worried about the lack of independent safety advice at a time when the government is embarking on a major expansion and clean-up of nuclear power
Guardian 17th February 2009 more >>
Robedwards.com 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Sellafield
Letter from David Lowry: I READ with wry amusement the reported concerns expressed by Sellafield trade union representatives over the dangers posed to local employment by foreign contractors. Ministers pushed through this management takeover without any proper parliamentary oversight and, in internal memoranda provided to me under a Freedom of Information application to Sellafield’s owners the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, it is demonstrably clear that government officials plotted covertly to circumvent parliamentary oversight a full six months before the agreement to appoint NMP was concluded. The trade unions at Sellafield, which will remain a nuclear site for centuries to come, have long been far too uncritically pro any policy or ministerial statement that they think furthers the massive public subsidy of the plant, including the undoubtedly huge, but unquantifiable, insurance indemnity. By backing the foreign private takeover of Sellafield’s top-tier management rather than backing the retention of a British public sector-supported management team, they are now reaping what they have sown.
Morning Star 16th Feb 2009 more >>
One of the great white elephants of Britain’s atomic industry looks set for closure, according to documents published by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The NDA is examining the closure of Sellafield’s troubled “mixed oxide” or Mox production plant, which has performed badly since it was opened 10 years ago. The demise of the long-troubled Sellafield Mox plant (SMP) would be an embarrassment for ministers at a time when they are trying to persuade sceptics that a new generation of atomic plants can delivered on time and on budget.
Guardian 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Scotland
Jim Murphy provoked an angry exchange between Holyrood and Westminster yesterday with a speech to a nuclear energy conference in Edinburgh in which he berated Scottish ministers for putting ideology before practicalities. He said nuclear power was a necessary component of the UK’s future energy production and Scotland could not be self-sufficient in renewables without either producing nuclear power or accessing it via the national grid during peak periods. Mr Murphy’s comments were met with a rebuttal from the First Minister’s office which said the commonsense option was renewable energy while the Liberal Democrats said Labour’s plan had no public support.
Herald 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Scotsman 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Glasgow Evening Times 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Express 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Nuclear power has been today branded a “busted flush” by First Minister Alex Salmond in the latest clash with Westminster over future energy supply. The row came as a plan to build 10 wind farms off the coast of Scotland took a step forward when the Crown Estate gave companies permission to explore the sites.
East Kilbride News 16th Feb 2009 more >>
Perthshire Advertiser 16th Feb 2009 more >>
Chapelcross
Work is getting under way on removing more than 38,000 spent uranium fuel rods from a former nuclear plant in southern Scotland. It is the latest step in the £800m decommissioning process at the Chapelcross site near Annan.
BBC 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Korea
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, today warned North Korea that it stood to lose vital economic aid unless it took immediate steps to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
Guardian 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Trident
But the Trident fleet (like its French equivalent) is an anachronism. New Labour support it as part of their effort to pretend they’re not left-wing radicals. Funny that they support it now, when it doesn’t matter, but opposed it when it did matter. The Tories support it because they are so embarrassed abut the way they devastated the armed forces in the Thatcher-Major days, and wish to look macho.
Daily Mail 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Submarines
The navy was facing demands for answers yesterday after two nuclear submarines crashed in the middle of the Atlantic.
Yorkshire Post 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Portsmouth News 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Plymouth Evening Herald 16th Feb 2009 more >>
A huge disaster was narrowly avoided when British and French nuclear submarines crashed in the Atlantic, a marine engineer said yesterday.
Daily Mail 17th Feb 2009 more >>
Iran
Defence Minister Ehud Barak told a forum of military chiefs on Monday that Israel would regard a nuclear-armed Iran as an “existential threat” that would speed up a regional arms race.
Yahoo 16th Feb 2009 more >>
Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran’s nuclear programme, US intelligence sources have revealed.
Telegraph 17th Feb 2009 more >>
