New Nukes
A group of Liberal Democrat MPs are gearing up to rebel next week against a section of the government’s finance bill which they believe gives a subsidy to the nuclear power industry. The coalition agreement rules out any new subsidy for nuclear power, and backbenchers in the party believe such a measure would represent as great a breach of trust with voters as breaking their promise on tuition fees. A large group of Lib Dems are concerned about clause 78 of the bill, which MPs will consider on Monday or Tuesday, that asks them to support a carbon floor price. This mechanism penalises fossil fuels but not low-carbon energy sources, such as nuclear and renewables, and the MPs believe it hands a large financial windfall to nuclear power effectively a subsidy. President of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, is so concerned about the legislation he has asked Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, to withdraw the clause. However, it is thought the bill is too complicated to allow for one element to be unpicked. Instead Lib Dems would like to propose a “windfall tax” to claw back some of the financial gains they think the nuclear industry stands to make. A group of 21 Lib Dem MPs have signed anti-nuclear parliamentary motions since the formation of the coalition over a third of the parliamentary party.
Guardian 1st July 2011 more >>
A prominent Liberal Democrat has called for Chris Huhne to resign immediately as energy and climate change secretary after emails were released detailing his officials’ efforts to co-ordinate a PR response to the Fukushima disaster with the nuclear industry. Civil servants in the energy and business departments were apparently trying to minimise the impact of the disaster on public support for nuclear power. Andy Myles, the party’s former chief executive in Scotland, said: “This deliberate and (sadly) very effective attempt to ‘calm’ the reporting of the true story of Fukushima is a terrible betrayal of liberal values. In my view it is not acceptable that a Liberal Democrat cabinet minister presides over a department deeply involved in a blatant conspiracy designed to manipulate the truth in order to protect corporate interests”. The leader of the Lib Dems in the European parliament, Fiona Hall, said nuclear plans should be put on hold.
Guardian 1st July 2011 more >>
Letter: Our party stood at the general election on a manifesto promise to oppose plans to build a new generation of nuclear power plants because it is a far more expensive way of reducing carbon emissions than promoting energy conservation and renewable energy. Our party also rejects nuclear subsidies there is no justification for paying extra to support nuclear, which is a mature technology, when we could use the money to invest in innovation to bring down the cost of new renewable technologies. We managed to win a commitment to this in the coalition agreement, which states that there will be no public subsidy for nuclear power and allows Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear power. We were proud that our party democratically decided at our conference in September 2010 to “ensure that any changes to the carbon price do not result in windfall benefits to the operators of existing nuclear power stations”. We are therefore dismayed that the finance bill will result in a windfall of £50m per year from 2013 to 2030 to existing nuclear operators for doing nothing different pushing up consumer electricity bills. Support for a Conservative party-inspired policy on nuclear power must not become another tuition fee debacle for our party. We need to make a stand and ensure that the nuclear industry does not benefit from being an unintended beneficiary of tackling carbon emissions.
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Letter Caroline Lucas: The orchestrated effort of coalition officials and the nuclear industry to create a pro-nuclear public information campaign immediately after Fukushima shows that not even a large-scale nuclear incident can halt this government’s ideological obsession with new nuclear. In particular, the leadership of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in this effort points to an alarming propensity to prioritise business interests over public safety. Officials clearly did not care to wait for the results of the government’s safety review, due in September, before rushing to assure us that a similar disaster was not possible on these shores. In parliamentary questions put down today, I am asking the government to shed greater light on the meetings in the days following Fukushima, asking what briefings were given to the government’s chief scientist and just how many staff they had working on what was effectively a PR exercise for the nuclear industry.
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Letter Friends of the Earth: While sadly not surprising, it is disgraceful that government is working hand in glove with the nuclear industry to massage public opinion. Next week ministers are likely to reject proposals in parliament to claw back over £1bn of windfall profits that nuclear power companies will gain from the inept introduction of new carbon taxes. So, as people struggle with rising fuel bills, and government schemes to insulate homes are cut because of the spending squeeze, we are handing cash to six huge electricity companies. The Treasury’s failure to block this can only be explained by the favouritism towards nuclear power that your story exposes.
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Letter George Regan: Chris Huhne should hang his head in shame for his involvement in this deplorable piece of media management. The same day it is reported that urine samples from children 60km from Fukushima contain traces of dangerous radioactive materials. In an effort to gain some credibility, Mr Huhne should visit Fukushima and see the impact of this terrible incident on local communities. To fool the UK public about Fukushima is bad enough; to threaten the waste of billions of pounds on the folly of new nuclear build is quite scandalous.
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Letter from Berlin: On Thursday the German parliament voted by a stunning 513 to 79 to phase out all nuclear power by 2022. Events since March prove that Germany has drawn lessons that Britain refuses to consider. How do we trust the government on its pronouncements on nuclear’s costs and safety when it is so clearly the mouthpiece of the industry? Ministers assure us that nuclear will not be subsidised but who is paying forthe £83bn decommissioning costs for existing nuclear plants (actually, it’s the taxpayer) and who pays out when there’s a major disaster?
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Damian Carrington’s Blog: The UK government worked hand-in-hand with the nuclear industry to play down the Fukushima crisis: they are treating the public with contempt. For the British government to attempt to “maintain public confidence among the British public on the safety of nuclear power stations” by colluding in secret with the nuclear industry within just 48 hours of the Fukushima disaster would be laughable if it were not so serious. It was, at best, only a partial success. This opinion poll from Ipsos-Mori shows that one in five of those Britons now opposed to nuclear power had not been opposed prior to the catastrophe in Japan. To my mind, it resembles the public relations fiasco of the first genetically modified crops in the UK, which doomed commercial use of the technology for two decades.
Guardian 1st July 2011 more >>
MPs have accused government officials of acting as PRs for the nuclear industry after e-mails were disclosed showing contacts between civil servants and energy companies following the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The messages, revealed by a request under the Freedom of Information Act, showed officials wanted to prevent campaigners from using the events in Japan to argue the case against a new generation of nuclear power stations.
FT 1st July 2011 more >>
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has responded to the revelation of emails showing a deep level of collusion between the Government and the nuclear industry to downplay the impact of the Fukushima disaster. CND commented that it believes that the Department for Energy & Climate Change is more interested in spinning to boost the nuclear industry than in allowing debate based on the facts.
CND 1st July 2011 more >>
The British Government has been accused of instigating a pro-nuclear PR campaign in the wake of disastrous Fukushima incident in Japan in order to prevent a new generation of nuclear plants being derailed in the UK according to a leaked email..
The Drum 1st July 2011 more >>
Monbiot: On Thursday 7th July, Ill be thrashing out the nuclear issue with Greenpeace and others. Come along if you can. The debate is taking place at 6.30, July 7th, at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Book tickets here.
Monbiot 1st July 2011 more >>
After witnessing what has happened in Japan, can we ever justify having new plants and placing people at risk again? If these proposals are to be brought forward for development it is essential that safety is paramount. Current standards will need to be reviewed and staff will need training to deal with all types of eventualities including earthquakes, tsunami, floods and fires.
Environmental Graffiti 2nd July 2011 more >>
Scotland
The Scottish government has shifted away from its hardline opposition to nuclear power after the energy minister said there was a “rational case” for extending the life of Scotland’s two nuclear plants. Fergus Ewing, the energy minister, told MSPs on Thursday that the Scottish National party (SNP) government was “perfectly open” to the continued use of Hunterston and Torness power stations, to ensure there was security of supply. The Conservative opposition and environmental campaigners said this was a marked change in the government’s stance, as the SNP has been opposed to the entire principle of nuclear power, a policy long regarded as a strict article of faith for its activists and many backbenchers. Environment campaigners were stunned by Ewing’s statement, claiming it undermined his statements last month that nuclear energy had no future after the Fukushima disaster and after Germany’s announcement it was to phase out nuclear power. In a joint letter they only recently sent to Ewing, FoE Scotland, WWF Scotland and Nuclear Free Local Authorities Scotland urged the minister to oppose plans to extend the life of two reactors at Hunterston B until 2021 or 2026 which are now being drawn up by its operator EDF. They said that Hunterston B, on the coast of Ayrshire, will be 40 years old when its current licence runs out in 2016. It was already the focus of safety concerns, and the campaigners urged Ewing to commission an independent review of the risks of continuing to operate its reactors. Ewing’s statement implied the SNP would also accept extending Torness’s life further until the late 2020s or beyond, making the SNP’s opposition to new nuclear power stations largely meaningless.
Guardian 1st July 2011 more >>
Hinkley
A million pounds is a lot to pay for a fence. If youre going to fork out that much, you will want to make pretty sure there is going to be something inside. The fence in question is destined to surround Britains first new nuclear power station since Sizewell B. Fencing contractor Kier is already on site – a potential sign that French energy giant EDF is poised to push the button on Britains next generation of nuclear stations. In theory, EDF is unlikely to get planning permission for its first £4.5bn reactor in Hinkley, Somerset, until the end of 2012. But tell-tale signs are emerging that the generator is going ahead with early preparatory works. In addition to that fence, Kier and Dutch JV partner Bam are in the final stages of bidding for the £120m earthworks package. Again, there are indications, aired recently in Building, that EDF is preparing to push ahead with some of the earlier contracts irrespective of the status of planning.
Building 1st July 2011 more >>
The Stop Hinkley campaign will be raising the issue of the dangerously cosy relationship between the nuclear industry and the government at a meeting in London next week. This follows revelations that government officials tried to play down the potential effect of the Fukushima accident in Japan on the UK ‘s nuclear ambitions. A number of organisations representing the anti-nuclear movement, including Stop Hinkley, will be meeting the head of the Office of Nuclear Regulation, Mike Weightman, as well as officials from the Department of Energy’s Office for Nuclear Development, at a meeting in London on Tuesday. They will be discussing the lessons to be learned from the events in Japan . Private emails revealed in the Guardian newspaper today show that government officials asked the nuclear industry to play down the potential effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident. This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally, one message read. We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. The emails were sent just two days after the accident in March, and before its full impact had become clear. This correspondence reveals that the government is hell bent on supporting the nuclear industry, whatever the facts, said Stop Hinkley spokesman Crispin Aubrey. The Japanese accident has shown that a supposedly high tech industry cannot cope with the unexpected. Other countries like Germany have taken the lesson from Fukushima and halted nuclear expansion. This country should do the same and abandon all nuclear construction plans, including Hinkley C.
Stop Hinkley 1st July 2011 more >>
A Somerset MP has won a ballot to speak in Parliament about pylons. Wells Liberal Democrat Tessa Munt has long been a campaigner against plans by National Grid to construct a chain of pylons from Hinkley Point to Avonmouth. The company will use the cables to carry electricity from the planned new nuclear power station but locals want them put under the Bristol Channel. The debate, called under a Ten Minute Rule Motion, will take place on Tuesday, 5 July.
BBC 1st July 2011 more >>
An EU mission to the EDF nuclear power station construction site across the Channel at Cherbourg is to investigate poor labour standards there. The GMB union is concerned that EDF, due to build the first new nuclear power station in the UK at Hinkley Point in Somerset, has already made moves at West Burton Power station in Nottinghamshire to undermine the engineering construction workers national agreement. French media have reported that Bouygues is the subcontractor to EDF for the nuclear build in Flamanville near Cherbourg. Around a third of the 3000 workers on site are overseas workers from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and North Africa. French union CGT has long protested the workers are being exploited on pay, working and living conditions. The union CGT has also raised concerns about potential irregularities with social security payments and ensuing rights to welfare protection which the union would like to be investigated and clarified. Poor health and safety standards on the site is also an issue – There have been two fatalities on the site in the past 6 months, one just a month ago. There have also been reports of work not up to the standards which can only be delivered by highly specialist and skilled construction trades.
The Engineer 1st July 2011 more >>
Oldbury
One of the two nuclear reactors at Oldbury Power Station has shut down permanently. Reactor Two, which has been operating for 43 years, stopped generating at midnight last night (30 June). The reactor was originally earmarked for closure in December 2008 but the date was extended.
Insider Media 1st July 2011 more >>
Wylfa
Site stakeholder group quarterly report for 1 January to 31 March 2011.
ONR 1st July 2011 more >>
Torness
A nuclear power station has switched one of its reactors back on following a two-day shutdown after jellyfish inundated the seas near the site.
Rutherglen Reformer 1st July 2011 more >>
Letter: In your article on the recent shutdown of Torness nuclear power station you include a statement from Mary Church, a campaigner for Friends of The Earth Scotland. It is quite outrageous of her to attempt to make a link between the safe and prudent temporary shutdown of the reactors and the events at Fukushima. If she has any understanding of matters technical or scientific, then her contribution is mischievous; if she has none, as appears to be the case, then she has no right to be a spokesperson for this organisation. Ill-informed scaremongering of this nature does nothing to further a reasoned case for a progressive move away, in the long term, from nuclear power. In the short term, it is stations such as Torness which will provide the necessary megawatts of CO-free energy when wind farms are immobile and the demand is present. If Greenpeace seeks credibility as an organisation then it should make certain that its public statements are founded on fact and not emotion or scaremongering.
Scotsman 2nd July 2011 more >>
Radwaste
The UK’s largest fleet of nuclear reactors are named after their fuel cladding, magnesium oxide, or magnox. Although Oldbury and Wylfa are still generating electricity, the eight other sites have been shut down. The amount of ILW varies from site to site depending on operations, with a total of 6500m3 stored at magnox sites. It includes wet and solid waste including sludge, ion exchange resin, sand, filter cartridges, nimonic springs from fuel elements and metal such as redundant control rods and charge chutes. The original strategy for managing ILW was developed in the 1980s by the UK Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive (NIREX), which is now the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate, part of the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The strategy focused on retrieving ILW, sorting and encapsulating it in concrete within NIREX-approved boxes. These would then be transferred to a large purpose-built shielded ILW store on site, where they would be stored until the planned final deep geological disposal facility became available. This strategy was adopted by all magnox sites and incorporated into the lifetime plan baselines. The encapsulation strategy has high front-end costs, forecasted to be as much as £360 million, due to the fact that before any ILW can be retrieved and packaged, an expensive conditioning plant and ILW shielded store would need building and commissioning so it can receive packages. With this in mind, EnergySolutions, the parent body organisation that owns Magnox Ltd, and which runs the fleet on behalf of owner the NDA, began, in 2007, to look for an alternative. The change in ILW management is just part of a much wider new decommissioning strategy for the magnox sites, which culminated in the Magnox Optimised Decommissioning Programme (MODP). The MODP coordinates decommissioning activities across the entire magnox fleet.
Waste Management World 1st July 2011 more >>
In order to encompass everything, from design to long-term waste disposal, the timelines need to approach a century, if not more – and that’s not taking into account events that may transpire much further in the future if something goes awry in the disposal site. Calder Hall opened in 1956; but there’s no chance of waste resulting from its very first watts of electricity being buried before 2040 at the very earliest. In the UK now, companies wanting involvement in the new reactor business include EdF, RWE and E.on. Currently, all are healthy and reputable. But in half a century’s time, when the reactors need shutting down and decommissioning, when there’s no more cash coming in from selling electricity and only costs of disposal to look forward to, will those same companies still exist? Will they have merged, or been taken over by corporations with different interests, or gone bankrupt? Such things have happened before, certainly in the UK’s history… and the public, in those instances, has ended up paying the bill.
BBC 1st July 2011 more >>
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) outlined an ambition to see the Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) accept its first waste by 2029, around 10 years ahead of the current indicative timeline, this week. Details have been been unveiled in its first annual report of it Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Programme. The programme is focused on implementing the long-term geological disposal of our higher activity radioactive waste.
New Civil Engineer 1st July 2011 more >>
France
Electricite de France SA, the biggest operator of nuclear reactors, was ordered to bolster defenses against floods, earthquakes and fires as a condition for extending the lifespan of a plant in the south of the country. EDF must reinforce the earthquake buffers at the Tricastin reactor as well as improve anti-flooding measures, according to a report released yesterday by the national atomic watchdog. Nobody from EDF could be reached for comment today.
Bloomberg 1st July 2011 more >>
Japan
A urine analysis performed by a French non-profit organization on a small number of children in Fukushima city suggests they may have suffered internal radiation contamination from reactor fuel from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, even though they live outside the national governments 30-kilometer evacuation zone.
Wall Street Journal 1st July 2011 more >>
Through interviews with dozens of officials, workers and experts, and hundreds of pages of newly released documents, The Associated Press found the early response to the crisis was marked by confusion, inadequate preparation, a lack of forthrightness with the public and a reluctance to make quick decisions. These problems set the tone for the troubled recovery effort since.
AP 2nd July 2011 more >>
Although it is desirable to part with dependence on nuclear power plants as soon as possible, if such a move disrupts electric power supplies, then the restart of nuclear reactors that are deemed safe is inevitable. Regardless, it seems premature to restart the reactors at this juncture given that the verifications of safety still have a long way to go. Kyushu Electric also needs to work harder to win the understanding of local residents and governments that host the plant.
Asahi 2nd July 2011 more >>
Tokyo Electric Power Co. and three other power companies held shareholders’ meetings on Tuesday and six more on Wednesday. The shareholders’ meetings were overshadowed by the crisis at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. At some meetings, many shareholders presented motions calling for withdrawal from nuclear power generation. Their motions were voted down because institutional shareholders did not support them. What happened at the shareholders’ meetings indicates that the Fukushima nuclear crisis is leading more and more grass-roots people to take a serious view of the risks inherent in nuclear power generation. A record 9,309 shareholders attended Tepco’s meeting, which lasted six hours and nine minutes, much longer than the past record of three hours and 42 minutes in 1999.
Japan Times 2nd July 2011 more >>
Executives at Tokyo Electric Power, operator of Japans crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, faced angry shareholder for the first time since Marchs triple meltdown spilt radiation and brought the utility to the brink of ruin. More than 9,000 investors, many of them elderly pensioners, assembled under tight security for the companys annual meeting on Tuesday. For six hours they berated managers for everything from Fukushimas inadequate tsunami defences to the companys $15bn (£9.3bn) annual loss.
FT 1st July 2011 more >>
US
A federal appeals court on Friday declined to step into a dispute over the Obama administrations cancellation of a planned nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert, saying the matter must be left for now to federal regulators.
New York Times 1st July 2011 more >>
Finland
Finnish nuclear power company Fennovoima on Friday invited French nuclear giant Areva and Japan’s Toshiba to bid for the construction of a new power plant. “The bids are requested for the delivery and construction of reactor and turbine islands,” the company said, explaining it would decide the final model during negotiations based on the bids.
AFP 1st July 2011 more >>
Uranium
Tanzania will go ahead with plans to mine uranium in the UN World Heritage site Selous Game Reserve, the natural resources minister has told the BBC. Ezekiel Maige said he told the recent UN World Heritage Centre meeting it would mean the park’s size would need to be reduced by less than 1%. The UN body said it would approve the plans, as long as environmental assessments were carried out.
BBC 2nd July 2011 more >>
Green Deal
Letter Luciana Berger MP: I welcome the CCC’s call for the government’s green deal scheme to have clear targets for reducing carbon emissions. The green deal could mean lower fuel bills and reduced carbon emissions. But this won’t happen without a clear level of ambition and a plan for achieving it. Labour’s warm homes amendment, which links the scheme to the UK’s emission reduction targets, will do this. Since Labour first proposed the warm homes amendment back in January, support for it has grown. A coalition of over 70 organisations, including NGOs, trade unions, businesses and trade associations, is now backing the plans. Government ministers who have consistently rejected this approach should think again.
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Letter National Energy Action: Environmental and social objectives need not be contradictory and, in fact, they combine perfectly in the form of improvements to domestic heating and insulation standards. Perhaps Sir David could use his impressive powers of persuasion to convince the government of the need for an adequately funded energy efficiency strategy to make energy costs affordable for all UK households.
Guardian 2nd July 2011 more >>
Thorium
Bryony Worthington: It is tempting to think that all nuclear reactors are the same, and by extension, to place liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) in the same category as existing solid-fueled uranium and plutonium reactors. Many features of a LFTR make it inherently safer. A liquid fuel is the normal mode of operation, which means the reactor can be designed to automatically drain itself into a walk-away safe configuration in the event of a problem.
Ecologist 1st July 2011 more >>
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Information Service July Update includes articles on: Reduction in UK nuclear warhead numbers begins; P5 meet in Paris to discuss nuclear issues; Devonport US submarine accident “wholly avoidable”. Rosyth and Devonport confirmed as candidate site for submarine dismantling; Nuclear emergency planning arrangements under review; Defence Reform Review aims to reshape MoD; Deteriorating military safety puts public and environment at risk; Coulport nuclear weapons store to be privatised; Flawed MoD nuclear exercise shows emergency responders could be placed at risk; News from the Atomic Weapons Establishment: Reports reveal safety shortfalls which led to AWE fire; Secretary of State says yes to ‘Boundary Hall’ development near AWE Aldermaston despite safety concerns; Warning letter sent to AWE following discharge incidents; Pangbourne Pipeline: removal trial to go ahead; Environment Agency reviews AWE permits.
NIS 1st July 2011 more >>
