Sellafield
Engineers have successfully replaced vital elements of a nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. A section of the roof of the Thorp facility at Sellafield was removed to allow four huge vessels to be lowered into position by a giant crane. Technical difficulties meant the operation, involving 20-tonne vessels used to process liquid waste, was put back 24 hours.
BBC 20th Dec 2007 more >>
THORP is expected to come back on full stream early in the new year permission from the NII is only weeks away.
Whitehaven News 20th Dec 2007 more >>
Nuclear Waste
A MULTI-million pound funding package is heading for Copeland as compensation for having the Drigg low-level nuclear waste repository in the borough. After campaigning by politicians, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has pledged £10 million plus an extra £1.5 million a year as long as the repository is operating, which will extend into the foreseeable future. The village of Drigg, with just 300 people on its electoral roll, will have £50,000 ‘ring-fenced’ each year just for the village. Observers expect the deal to be the precursor to a similar offer to the area for any highly radioactive nuclear waste repository should one be planned. The county council had delayed granting permission for an extension to Vault 9 at Drigg in November awaiting news on the funding. Copeland council’s executive this week had laid down its own warning in a report that stated: “The council adopted the policy that it would not want to see a further increase in activity at the repository until an appropriate recognition package was in place.” It now remains to be seen whether the repository will be the national low-level waste site. The Government has insisted that “the LLWR wilI provide a national solution to managing the UK’s low level waste.” It remains unclear whether Scottish waste will be destined for the site.
Whitehaven News 20th Dec 2007 more >>
NDA
Members of the public are being asked to share their views on the NDA’s three year business plan at a drop-in day on 3rd Jan.
Whitehaven News 20th Dec 2007 more >>
US
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was cited for two violations at its nuclear research reactor after a worker was exposed to a surprisingly high dose of radiation, federal regulators said Thursday.
Guardian website 21st Dec 2007 more >>
Italy
Shipments of spent fuel from Italy to France began on 17th Dec, when 34 of 1243 remaining fuel rods left the closed Caorso nuclear reactor for reprocessing at La Hague.
World Nuclear News 20th Dec 2007 more >>
Bulgaria
Bulgaria’s state power utility NEK said on Thursday it had asked strategic investors to file improved offers to acquire a 49-percent stake in a planned new nuclear power plant by Jan. 9.
Reuters 20th Dec 2007 more >>
Iran
Russia dampened Thursday Iranian hopes of an imminent launch of the Bushehr nuclear power station Moscow is building in the Islamic republic, saying it would not be launched earlier than the end of 2008.
Middle East Online 20th Dec 2007 more >>
Channel 4 News 20th Dec 2007 more >>
Terror
An underreported attack on a South African nuclear facility last month demonstrates the high risk of theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or criminals. Such a crime could have grave national security implications for the United States or any of the dozens of countries where nuclear materials are held in various states of security. Shortly after midnight on Nov. 8, four armed men broke into the Pelindaba nuclear facility 18 miles west of Pretoria, a site where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade uranium are stored. According to the South African Nuclear Energy Corp., the state-owned entity that runs the Pelindaba facility, these four “technically sophisticated criminals” deactivated several layers of security, including a 10,000-volt electrical fence, suggesting insider knowledge of the system. Though their images were captured on closed-circuit television, they were not detected by security officers because nobody was monitoring the cameras at the time.
Washington Post 20th Dec 2007 more >>
Carbon Capture
Shell and StatoilHydro have scrapped plans to build a green power plant that would capture and store carbon dioxide because the project was found to be uneconomic. The decision to shelve the gas-fired power project, which was to be built at Tjeldbergodden in Norway, casts further doubt on the financial viability of power schemes that capture and safely store greenhouse gases. In the UK, BP was forced to scrap plans to build a carbon-capture and storage scheme at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, citing inadequate assurances of financial support from the British Government.
Times 21st Dec 2007 more >>
