Radwaste
THE results of a three-year public consultation into whether high-level nuclear waste should be buried under Cumbria are set to be revealed. The group set up to investigate the issue the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership will present its findings at a meeting in Whitehaven next Tuesday. The consultation, one of the biggest ever undertaken in the county, has attracted 1,300 replies and has been backed by a 3,000-strong telephone poll by polling firm Ipsos Mori. A draft summary report of the findings was expected to be released by the group today.
NW Evening Mail 16th May 2012 more >>
Draft consultation summary and Partnership response available here.
West Cumbria Managinf Radioactive Waste Safely 16th May 2012 more >>
Romney Marsh in Kent, one of Englands most peaceful areas and most wildlife-rich wetlands, has been suggested as a site for Britains future nuclear waste dump. Ten thousand letters have been sent to residents of the area by the local district council, Folkestone-based Shepway, canvassing their views about siting the proposed Nuclear Research and Disposal Facility in the geological strata deep beneath the marsh. The fact that solidly-Tory Shepway Tory majority, 44 out of 46 council seats, with two independents is now showing stirrings of interest is something of a breakthrough, and was specifically welcomed yesterday by the Energy Minister, Charles Hendry.
Independent 17th May 2012 more >>
John Large, an independent nuclear safety analyst, said that the transport of vast quantities of highly radioactive nuclear waste in up to ten trains a day could pose a serious health risk to hundreds of thousands of people in London as well as Kent. The nuclear safety and public-dose implications of this would be significant, he said.
Times 17th May 2012 more >>
A bunker used to store nuclear waste from all over the UK could be built in Kent, under a council’s plans. Shepway District Council is examining whether a nuclear disposal facility, where waste is buried underground, could be built at Romney Marsh. The authority said it could bring jobs to the area as Dungeness A and B power stations are phased out. However, Kent County Council said it would use “every tool in the box” to oppose the scheme.
BBC 16th May 2012 more >>
ITV 16th May 2012 more >>
Kent News 16th May 2012 more >>
Kent Messenger 16th May 2012 more >>
Thousands of newsletters are to be sent to homes after it was revealed a £12bn nuclear waste site could be built on Romney Marsh. It comes after we revealed yesterday how Shepway District Council has opened up a major debate on whether the Marsh should have such a centre. It claims it could offset the loss of up to 1,000 jobs as the Dungeness A and B stations are phased out.
Kent Online 16th May 2012 more >>
LARGS resident Eddie McGowan who says he does not support any politial party has taken SNP members to task over their comments on nuclear waste at Hunterston. In a letter to the ‘News’ Mr McGowan stated: I was astonished to read your article “Dirty Tricks Row In Election Week” in which SNP candidates (both now NAC councillors), Alan Hill and Alex McLean state that “the disposal of nuclear waste is a matter reserved to Westminster and does not fall within the remit of the Scottish Government”. ABSOLUTELY WRONG!
Largs & Millport News 16th May 2012 more >>
Hinkley
The Governments nuclear programme has not been derailed by the decision of two German power giants to pull out of the market, Energy Minister Charles Hendry insisted yesterday. He said he believed new investors would take over the projects started by Horizon Nuclear Power including in Gloucestershire. It emerged as French energy giant EDF denied national newspaper reports earthworks needed to prepare for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point have been delayed.
Western Daily Press 16th May 2012 more >>
AN INCIDENT which has seen several fire engines attend Hinkley Point power station was a small fire, according to site operators EDF Energy. Residents in Bridgwater had reported hearing sirens heading in the direction of the nuclear power station at lunchtime on Wednesday (May 16). In a statement, EDF said: “A small fire was detected in the gas turbine house at 11.55am today at Hinkley Point B power station. The station’s fire response team was mobilised to deal with the incident.
This is the West Country 16th May 2012 more >>
Wylfa
The Energy Minister said he believed new investors would take over the projects started by Horizon Nuclear Power with the Anglesey scheme leading the way. Mr Hendry told the Commons Energy Select Committee there could be new investment from China or Japan. He also strongly denied that the Horizon decision drove a ‘coach and horses’ through the coalition Government’s hopes of new nuclear.
Daily Post 16th May 2012 more >>
Sellafield
A project to build up to six highly active (liquid) storage tanks, or HASTs, at Sellafield estimated in 2010 to cost up to £1.5 billion appears likely to be abandoned. The new HASTs were meant to replace capacity from an aging 21-tank complex that started storing the sites liquid reprocessing wastes in 1955. The newest of the existing tanks were commissioned between 1970 and 1990, but have increasingly had their cooling components fail. Nuclear regulators say Sellafield has informed it that the replacement HAST tanks are no longer required to support reprocessing. A spokesman for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) told i-NUCLEAR that the regulator has taken an initial view, following early information and engagement with Sellafield Ltd and NDA that the replacement HASTs project at Sellafield may no longer represent the as low as reasonably practicable position with regard to hazard reduction activities on the site. The replacement HASTs, previously expected to enter commissioning around 2016, are currently scheduled for delivery in 2019, according to ONR. Therefore, the replacement HASTs would not provide any additional safety or environmental benefits over and above those of the existing fleet, the ONR spokesman said. Thats because, on current plans, the NDA expects to complete reprocessing at Thorp by 2018 and Magnox reprocessing between 2017-2018.
i-Nuclear 16th May 2012 more >>
Stress Tests
Safety reassessments of the UKs non-power generating nuclear sites were revealed to have no serious weakness, according to an official report out today.
New Civil Engineer 16th May 2012 more >>
Health & Safety at Work 16th May 2012 more >>
France
Short first overview of key incoming government representatives’ positions on nuclear energy in France.
World Nuclear Industry Status Report 16th May 2012 more >>
Japan
The nationalisation of TEPCO, together with a legal practice called channelling of liability in which all liability related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster has to be channelled to TEPCO, means Japanese taxpayers and ratepayers will foot most of the bill. An infuriating aspect of this story is that in a recent presentation by General Electric (GE) about its success over the past 50 years, there was not a word about the Fukushima disaster and nothing approaching an apology. Yet the Fukushima disaster was affected by well-known problems related to GEs Mark 1 design, which was used at all four troubled reactors. Furthermore, GE was involved in maintenance throughout the four decades of the plants operation and had 44 on site at the time of the accident.
Greenpeace 16th May 2012 more >>
Iran
An Iranian kick-boxer was hanged for the assassination of a Tehran nuclear scientist after WikiLeaks published a confidential U.S. Embassy cable, it has been claimed. Majid Jamali Fashi, 24, was yesterday put to death at Tehran’s Evin Prison following his conviction of killing Massoud Ali-Mohammadi allegedly on behalf of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad. Experts believe the unauthorised publication of the U.S. Embassy document, from Baku in Azerbaijan where Fashi had taken part in a tournament, ‘could have raised Iranian suspicions’.
Daily Mail 16th May 2012 more >>
The US House of Representatives approved a resolution on Tuesday that undermines diplomatic efforts to resolve Iran’s nuclear stand-off with the West peacefully. Foreign affairs committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced House Resolution 568 just a week before the US and Iran are due to resume nuclear talks. It urges the president to “reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and oppose any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Morning Star 16th May 2012 more >>
U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is “fully available”, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms.
Reuters 17th May 2012 more >>
North Korea
China has been quietly and gently pressuring North Korea to scrap plans for a third nuclear test, said two sources with knowledge of closed-door discussions between the countries, but there is no indication how the North will react.
Reuters 16th May 2012 more >>
China
It looks like the safety and development plan that is currently being modified by Chinese regulators and planners for its nuclear industry will have its stamp of approval by June. Quoting Xu Yuming, vice secretary general of the China Nuclear Energy Association, Bloomberg News reported the state council of China is poised to meet before the end of June to approve the nuclear plan once the proposed amendments have been incorporated into it.
IB Times 17th May 2012 more >>
Disarmament
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is urging the NATO summit in Chicago 20-21 May to lead by example and withdraw NATO nuclear weapons still deployed in Europe more than two decades after the end of the Cold War.
Ekklesia 16th May 2012 more >>
AN influential panel is calling for an 80% reduction of US nuclear weapons and an elimination of all nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. In a report for the advocacy group Global Zero, retired General James Cartwright and others argue the US needs no more than 900 total nuclear weapons for its security in a post-Cold War world.
Herald 17th May 2012 more >>
Scotsman 17th May 2012 more >>
Green Deal
Deep concerns over the government’s flagship policy to make 14m homes warmer and cheaper to heat have reached the top of government, with prime minister David Cameron and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg receiving a personal briefing on its troubles. The green deal aims to provide “pay as you save” loans to homeowners to improve their energy efficiency and cut bills. It is due to launch in October but has faced widespread criticism from energy companies, the building industry, consumer groups and charities. The government’s own impact assessment shows loft insulations and cavity wall insulations the most cost-effective measures by far are set to fall by 93% and 67% respectively under current plans. “The impact assessment says it is going to be a train crash,” said Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy.
Guardian 16th May 2012 more >>
Climate
Funding cuts to squeezed local authorities are putting the UK’s carbon targets at risk, the government’s climate advisers warned in a report published on Thursday. The Committee on Climate Change, the statutory body set up to advise ministers on how to meet the government’s carbon targets, called for local authorities to be ordered to develop and implement plans to cut carbon emissions, with national funding to do so. Prof Julia King, a member of the committee, told the Guardian that local authorities’ climate change initiatives had been badly affected by austerity measures, with climate efforts often one of the first services to go during budget cuts.
Guardian 17th May 2012 more >>
