Dounreay
A STAGGERING 250 tonnes of historic documents, charting the development of Britain’s first fast-breeder nuclear reactor at Dounreay, will be among the first items to be stored in the new National Nuclear Archive to be built in Caithness, it was revealed today.
Scotsman 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Nuclear Skills
A nuclear business centre in Somerset has failed to attract £1.5 million of government funding. Somerset County Council wants to build a £7 million innovation centre for nuclear and low-carbon businesses in Bridgwater to capitalise on the proposed development of a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point. The Regional Growth Fund, to which the council applied for the funding, was “hugely oversubscribed” and the council now faces making up the shortfall. The council now intends to apply for £3.2m from the Low Carbon Energy Innovation and Collaboration Programme European Regional Development Fund for the project.
Utility Week 19th Aug 2013 read more »
BBC 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Plutonium
On the desolate steppe of eastern Kazakhstan, the Soviet Union carried out 456 nuclear explosive tests during the Cold War at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, which sprawls over an area approximately the size of Belgium. Of these, the Soviet Union performed 116 tests in the atmosphere, and 340 underground. While some of the nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk involved atomic explosions, other experiments were designed to study the impact of conventional explosives on plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), the fissile materials used in nuclear bombs, or to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons during a simulated accident such as a fire or nearby explosion. Some of these tests—particularly tests involving plutonium—did not vaporize the material in a nuclear blast. It remained in tunnels and containers, in forms that could be recovered and recycled into a bomb. In addition, the Soviet Union discarded equipment that included high-purity plutonium that would have provided materials and information that could lead to a relatively sophisticated nuclear device if it had been found.
Tengri News 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Washington Post 16th Aug 2013 read more »
A French nuclear research center has been using ordinary pressure cookers to store and transport plutonium and other “sensitive materials” for 50 years, it has been revealed. The news leaked as the center posted a public tender for 4,000 pressure cookers.
Ammon 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Japan
The operator of Japan’s tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant says about 300 tons of highly radioactive water have leaked from a storage tank there. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday that the contaminated water leaked from a steel storage tank at the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. TEPCO hasn’t figured out how or where the water leaked from the tank. TEPCO said the leaked water seeped into the ground after largely escaping a barrier made of sandbags around the tank. Workers are pumping out the puddle and the remaining water in the tank to transfer the contaminated water to other containers.
Fox News 20th Aug 2013 read more »
Despite the land and ocean around Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant being contaminated by dangerous levels of radiation, plans are being drawn up to turn the no-go zone into a tourist attraction.
Telegraph 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Iran
Iran appears to be holding back growth of its most sensitive nuclear stockpile by continuing to convert some of it into reactor fuel, diplomats said on Monday, potentially giving more time for negotiation with world powers.
Reuters 19th Aug 2013 read more »
China
China Nuclear Engineering and Construction (CNECC) has completed installation of reactor pressure vessel at Unit 1 of the Changjiang nuclear power plant in China. CNECC received the vessel at the site on 5 August 2013, which was transported by ship from Shanghai. It was manufactured by Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Equipment under a contract signed in December 2008. The vessel is measured about 10m long and weighs around 250 ton.
Energy Business Review 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Renewables
An official study of the impact of wind farms and renewable energy on the countryside is being suppressed by the department of energy, Coalition sources have disclosed to The Daily Telegraph. The newspaper has learnt that a new Government row over wind farms is blocking a report that could provide official confirmation that the controversial turbines can harm rural areas. Sources have said that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) – run by Ed Davey, a Liberal Democrat – wants to stop Owen Paterson, the Conservative Environment Secretary, publishing a major report that he has commissioned on renewable energy and the rural economy. Mr Paterson, a known opponent of onshore wind farms, is understood to be furious at the attempts to stifle his department and is said to be “determined” to publish th e findings. In June, he said that onshore turbines were often regarded as a “complete scam”. Opponents of wind farms claim that they are unsightly and are an inefficient method of energy generation. Sources in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) tonight claimed that figures in Mr Davey’s department were more concerned about “ideology” than scientific evidence. “This is our department,” a source said. “We are doing this report. It is part of our remit.” It is claimed that figures in the DECC are concerned that the report, which has not been completed, could include negative conclusions about how renewable energy affects the rural economy.
Telegraph 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Climate
This paper assesses the forces working for and against the political sustainability of the UK 2008 Climate Change Act. The adoption of the Act is seen as a landmark commitment to action on climate change, but its implementation has not been studied in any depth. Recent events, including disagreements over the fourth carbon budget and the decarbonisation of the electricity sector, shows that while the Act might appear to lock in a commitment to reducing emissions through legal means, this does not guarantee political lock-in. The assumption, made by some proponents of the Act, that accountability of political leaders to a public concerned about climate change, via Parliament, would provide the main political underpinning to the Act is criticised.
IGov 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Anti-fracking zealots are the enemies of progress. Rational debate had been drowned out by a shrieking chorus of protest at Balcombe.
Telegraph 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Christopher Booker: This may be the silly season, but we should be rubbing our eyes in disbelief at the insanity of what has been going on in Balcombe. A handful of protesters have seemingly been allowed to threaten Britain’s entire energy future. It was pitiful enough that, until yesterday, the police were apparently unable to stop a self-regarding gaggle of activists and mini-celebs from halting the wholly legal operations of a company planning to drill for oil in a Sussex field.
Daily Mail 20th Aug 2013 read more »
Carbon Brief’s new poll shows how little support there is for shale gas fracking in the UK. But while the poll suggests supporters of shale have problems to overcome, it also shows that anti-fracking face problems as well. Shale gas wells have the lowest support out of any domestic source of energy. Fewer than one in five would support the building of a shale well within 10 miles of their home: that compares with more than half who support wind turbines.
Carbon Brief 20th Aug 2013 read more »
The UK’s only Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, was among dozens of anti-fracking protesters arrested on Monday as a “day of action” saw thousands of people take part in demonstrations at sites across the England.
Guardian 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Independent 19th Aug 2013 read more »
Times 19th Aug 2013 read more »
The prime minister’s love of shale gas is not driven by jobs or energy security, but a fixation with manly extractive industries. If you’re a local protester, they call you a nimby; if you come from outside, they call you rent-a-mob. You can’t win – and that’s the point. The protests against fracking companies are proving so effective that the technique is likely to become inviable in the UK, and the corporate press is in full cry seeking to delegitimise them. It would be better employed trying to determine why fracking is being used in the first place. Because it makes neither strategic nor political sense. The energy we need could be produced with so much less pain.
Guardian 19th Aug 2013 read more »
David Cameron has unnecessarily stoked resistance to shale gas drilling in Britain by making people believe this potential new energy source was “literally coming out of the ground” now rather than being a decade away, Labour has warned. Caroline Flint, Labour’s shadow energy secretary, criticised the prime minister for framing the debate as “if it’s jam tomorrow” when production of shale gas was still in exploratory stages. Mr Cameron has repeatedly promised that fracking will create thousands of jobs and bring down household energy bills. “The way the government has framed the debate in terms of the potential and the time in which it could be developed has been misleading,” she said. “We’re talking decades away on this.”
FT 19th Aug 2013 read more »
A public meeting is to be held in a Dumfriesshire village amid concern about plans to extract methane gas from the surrounding area. Buccleuch Estates and Australian company Dart Energy are exploring more than 20 coal bed sites around Canonbie. The developers have held meetings in the village about the scheme, which has council planning permission.
BBC 19th Aug 2013 read more »
