North Korea
The US confirmed on Monday that North Korea last week conducted a nuclear explosion, making the Stalinist nation the eighth country to join the so-called nuclear club. The office of the Director of National Intelligence said air samples collected after the October 9 explosion in North Korea confirmed that Pyongyang had conducted an underground nuclear explosion with a sub-kiloton yield.
FT 17th Oct 2006
Guardian 17th Oct 2006
BBC 16th Oct 2006
Shares closed lower, ending a three-day rally, with investors scared by reports that North Korea may be preparing a second nuclear test, dealers said.
Interactive Investor 17th Oct 2006
Sky 17th Oct 2006
British Energy
Government plans to sell off its holding in British Energy were in serious trouble last night after the nuclear power company admitted it had found 90 defects at one site, leaks at another, and agreed that only one of its plants was operating normally. The list of problems was lambasted by critics and came as British Nuclear Group, which is also scheduled for privatisation, was fined £500,000 for safety lapses at the country’s largest atomic site, Sellafield.
Guardian 17th Oct 2006
This is London 16th Oct 2006
Daily Mail 17th Oct 2006
South Wales Evening Post 16th Oct 2006
The Sun 17th Oct 2006
The plan to sell the state’s 65% stake in the company this autumn is dead. British Energy is not a serious investment in its current form because nobody – least of all the company’s management, it seems – has an accurate picture of the bill for restoring its ageing nuclear plants to a vaguely reliable state.
Guardian 17th Oct 2006
Guardian website 16th Oct 2006
Britain’s nuclear power industry almost ground to a halt yesterday just hours after Tony Blair heralded a new era in energy supply security with the opening of a new gas pipeline from Norway. The discovery of more cracks in boiler tubes forced British Energy to shut down two plants, Hunterston B in Scotland and Hinkley Point B in Gloucestershire. The company also disclosed for the first time that only one of its eight plants is currently operating at full output.
Telegraph 17th Oct 2006
The Government over the summer gave the green light to more nuclear power plants being built to help meet the country’s future energy needs. But it is still unclear what will happen to Britain’s existing fleet of nuclear power stations.
Telegraph 17th Oct 2006
Sellafield
The operator of Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant was fined £500,000 yesterday after 83,000 litres of radioactive acid leaked out of a broken pipe.
Telegraph 17th Oct 2006
Daily Mirror 17th Oct 2006
Sky 16th Oct 2006
HSE stresses importance of nuclear industry safety standards following Sellafield sentencing.
Society of Procurement Officers 16th Oct 2006
Trident
TONY BLAIR faces growing pressure from all sides among Labour MPs to spell out the choices for replacing Britain’s nuclear deterrent in his final months in office.
Times 17th Oct 2006
New nukes
The world needs a 20-fold expansion in nuclear energy in order to prevent dangerous climate change, the head of a leading industry body has said. John Ritch, director-general of the World Nuclear Association, made his comments at a conference in Sydney.
BBC 16th Oct 2006
Proliferation
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it needed a new system to ensure that 20 to 30 new countries do not develop a nuclear weapon, on top of the nine current nuclear powers, including North Korea. “We need to develop a new system of international approach (or we will not) end up with nine (nuclear-)weapon states only, but with another 20 or 30 states which have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons in a short time,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in Vienna.
Interactive Investor 16th Oct 2006
