Electricity Market Reform
Electricite de France SA said U.K. energy policy is likely to make the company’s 20 billion pound ($32 billion) plan to build four nuclear reactors profitable enough to draw more investors to the projects. “The current market framework is not fit to deliver the investment we need,” Chris Huhne, U.K. secretary of state for energy and climate change, said today. “Left untouched, the electricity market would allow a new dash for gas, increasing our dependence on a single fuel, and exposing us to volatile prices.” Policy will have to provide the incentives to make new reactors viable, Citigroup Inc. analyst Peter Atherton said in a telephone interview. “The government would like companies to do things that are commercially and economically difficult to justify.”
Bloomberg (Updated) 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Britains electricity market is braced for its biggest shake-up since privatisation as the Government prepares to unveil a package of measures designed to shore up 200 billion worth of investment in greener sources of energy over the next decade. Key proposals are being refined and subjected to the Cabinets scrutiny, with a final announcement expected by early December. Mr Huhne claimed yesterday that the reforms would represent a seismic shift in energy policy. Another senior Whitehall insider said that the proposals would be radical and unquestionably the biggest change since privatisation in 1990. They are expected to include a carbon floor price designed to penalise investment in fossil fuel power stations and boost the attractiveness of lowcarbon energy. This is expected to rise steeply every year to force energy companies to invest in lower-carbon sources of power, such as wind parks and nuclear reactors. One official said that the rate of increase could be as high as 5 per cent to 6 per cent a year. This will be accompanied by a mechanism aimed at reducing revenue uncertainty for low-carbon electricity generators by establishing a full system of feed-in tariffs, or an alternative incentive such as the creation of an obligation on suppliers to provide a fixed proportion of low-carbon power.
Times 18th Nov 2010 more >>
Sweeping reforms to the UKs energy market will make it easier for nuclear power generators to build plants, under plans set out by the energy secretary on Wednesday. Chris Huhne promised wide-reaching reforms to energy market regulation, with a consultation to begin this year, leading to draft legislation next spring. Left untouched, the electricity market would allow a new dash for gas, increasing our dependence on a single fuel and exposing us to volatile prices, he told a climate summit hosted the CBI in London. We have a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild our fragmented market, rebuild investor confidence and rebuild our power stations. Like privatisation, this will be a seismic shift.
FT 18th Nov 2010 more >>
Sellafield
No-one is to face prosecution after an inquiry found the organs of dead nuclear workers were removed without permission, it has been revealed.
BBC 17th Nov 2010 more >>
The Redfern Report was a shocker. Organs had been taken from the bodies of Sellafield workers to check for radiation damage. What is not known is the information published by distinguished expert David who I name checked in the House. Workers at Sellafield, the nuclear plant at the centre of the missing body parts scandal, were subjected to secret Cold War experiments in which they were exposed to radiation.One experiment, described in a confidential memo, involved volunteers drinking doses of caesium 134, a radioactive isotope that was released in fatal quantities following the Chernobyl disaster. Other experiments involved exposing volunteers to uranium, strontium 85, iodine 132 and plutonium. The revelation raises questions over whether the volunteers suffered early deaths or illness due to their exposure. The experiments, which started in the Sixties, were considered so controversial that Sellafield drew up a covert PR strategy to deflect possible media attention.
Paul Flynn MP 16th Nov 2010 more >>
As Inquiries into nuclear activities go, the findings of the three-year Inquiry lead by Michael Redfern QC published today, stand out as a refreshingly honest and hard-hitting indictment of the cavalier and unethical practices of harvesting organs from deceased Sellafield workers from the 1960’s to 1992. Few individuals or organisations directly involved in the removal of an obscene number of organs during coroners’ or hospital post-mortems remain unscathed by the Inquiry, with criticisms levelled at British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL), its predecessor UKAEA, Pathologists and Coroners involved in West Cumbria at the time.
CORE Press Release 16th Nov 2010 more >>
The UK government has apologised to the families of nuclear workers for retaining post-mortem samples for analysis without consent. A three-year inquiry concluded yesterday into the circumstances under which samples from dead British citizen’s bodies were taken without their families’ consent as part of national radiation protection studies.
World Nuclear News 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Yorkshire Post 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Edie 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Press & Journal 17th Nov 2010 more >>
INQUESTS on some of the former Sellafield workers whose organs were taken mainly for scientific research might be re-opened.
Whitehaven News 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Whitehaven News 17th Nov 2010 more >>
REMOVING radioactive material from legacy ponds at Sellafield should be the top priority for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Cumbria County Council says.
Whitehaven News 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Scotland
A PROMINENT US think-tank has backed First Minister Alex Salmond’s anti-nuclear energy policy, branding the energy source “an expensive way to boil a cup of water”. Dan Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center of American Progress in Washington DC, said he believed the building of new nuclear power stations was unnecessary and that he approved of Mr Salmond’s policy of investing renewables instead.
Scotsman 18th Nov 2010 more >>
Nuclear Waste Transport
THE frequency of trains carrying nuclear waste through the heart of Birmingham is increasing, it has been claimed. And the routes taken are being altered without consultation causing the radioactive freights to travel much closer to the city centre, it was also alleged. The worrying allegations come after a nuclear flask was reportedly seen passing through Bournville station, a location it should not call at going by freight train timetables. While the chances of a toxic spillage are considered extremely remote, the consequences would, according to a radioactive materials researcher, be ‘catastrophic’. David Polden, from the Nuclear Trains Action Group, believes the Department for Transport is sending more nuclear waste trains through Birmingham from the nuclear power station at Sizewell to finish decommissioning the plant before the 2012 Olympics.
Birmingham Evening Mail 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Kazakhastan
U.S. Dept. of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Security was tight during a yearlong project to transport 100 tons of radioactive materials from a former nuclear reactor in western Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea to an undisclosed secure storage site 1,500 miles across the country in northeast Kazakhstan.
NPR 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Armenia
A U.S. State Department official says Washington hopes American companies will participate in the construction of a new nuclear power station in Armenia, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports.
Oil Price 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Iran
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister has warned that Iran must be stopped from becoming a nuclear power in order to “prevent another Hiroshima.”
Danny Ayalon, who is on a four-day official visit to Japan, made the comments after visiting the memorial for victims of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb.
Jewish Chronicle 17th Nov 2010 more >>
India
India signed an international treaty governing global civil nuclear liability on Wednesday, a step sought by Washington to reassure U.S. suppliers entering the country’s fledgling $150 billion atomic power market.
International Business Times 17th Nov 2010 more >>
Disarmament
THE American Senate was urged yesterday to vote this year on a US-Russia nuclear weapons treaty by secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Mrs Clinton said any delay in ratifying the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) would threaten America’s security.
Scotsman 18th Nov 2010 more >>
The Obama administration has mounted a drive to salvage its set piece arms control deal with Russia and shore up its authority on the world stage.
FT 18th Nov 2010 more >>
Guardian 18th Nov 2010 more >>
BBC 17th Nov 2010 more >>
The disarmament lobby is in damage-limitation mode after the body blows inflicted on Tuesday, with Jon Kyl’s apparent strangulation of the New Start treaty, and the realisation that Nato’s “new strategic concept” – to be adopted at the Lisbon summit at the weekend – will do next to nothing to change the nuclear status quo in Europe. In an op-ed in today’s International Herald Tribune, Sam Nunn, former US senator and co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, makes a plea for joint Nato-Russian action to improve the security of the bombs he describes as “a terrorist’s dream”.
Guardian Blog 17th Nov 2010 more >>
