21 December 2010

Electricity Market Reforms

A further one million households will be forced into fuel poverty by Government plans to raise power prices to subsidise the building of thousands of wind turbines and eight nuclear power stations. There are already 4.5 million families who must spend more than ten per cent of their disposable income to keep warm, according to the Government’s own estimates.

Mail 19th Dec 2010 more >>

Radwaste

Letter from Marianne Birkby: When questioned recently on the timetable for the geological disposal of high level nuclear waste, Charles Hendry said: “We’ve set up a geological disposal implementation board of which I am the chairman and which met for the first time this morning” (November 30th). “The board will look at what is necessary to take this to the next stage. We are very committed to the approach of the previous Government, who took a voluntarist approach to finding a community prepared to host this”. “That, inevitably, is a gentle process. “There have been three expressions of interest from within Cumbria-two from district councils and one from the county council-and we are taking those forward. From their perspective, I think they see this as being part of a nuclear renaissance. It isn’t simply a facility for looking after the historical waste from the nuclear programme; they al! so want to see a nuclear renaissance in west Cumbria”. Cumbrians are being groomed (used and abused) in order to accept geological disposal and new build but NOT FAST ENOUGH for our pro-nuclear government ministers. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (who fund the Managing Radioactive Wastes Safely Partnership) are keen for Cumbrians to just forget all about the £400M Nirex (now NDA) spent on geologists. Those government commissioned geologists found 15 years ago that nowhere in West Cumbria is suitable and that the search for a site to dump nuclear wastes should continue elsewhere – anywhere but Cumbria. The Nirex Inspector said : “… the location should be in a region of low hydraulic gradients, so that there should be slow-moving and long groundwater pathways.

North West Evening Mail 20th Dec 2010 more >>

Hinkley

CAMPAIGNERS have hailed the start of a public consultation into a proposed corridor of electricity pylons through parts of Sedgemoor as an “early Christmas present”. As previously reported, National Grid has bowed to pressure from various campaign groups and agreed to consider underground cables instead of 150ft pylons to power the proposed Hinkley Point C.

This is the West Country 20th Dec 2010 more >>

Hartlepool & Heysham

UK electricity utility EDF has decided to extend the lifetime of two of its UK AGR reactors, and is planning five-year life extensions for all seven of its AGR reactors. In addition, a 20-year life extension is being planned for the Sizewell B PWR, which started up in 1995.

Nuclear Engineering International 20th Dec 2010 more >>

Companies

GDF Suez has opened a new front in the rivalry that has long riven France’s nuclear industry. It is publicly opposing the government’s proposal that state-controlled utility EDF increase its stake in Areva, the reactor and fuel group. G rard Mestrallet, chief executive of GDF Suez, said that allowing EDF to increase its 2.4 per cent stake or have a seat on Areva’s board would present “conflicts of interest” that would be unacceptable to his company as its client.

FT 21st Dec 2010 more >>

Bulgaria

One of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers, which wants to build half a dozen nuclear reactors in the UK, helped develop one in Bulgaria which was “dogged by ongoing serious safety concerns”, according to leaked US diplomatic cables. The German firm RWE, which owns npower and supplies electricity and gas to 6.7 million UK customers, bought a 49% stake in the project in December 2008 and quit as a strategic partner in October 2009. RWE said its decision to pull out of the troubled €7bn reactor project was due to the fact that “the project’s financing could not be finalised within the agreed period”. It said “safety issues were not a factor”.

Guardian 21st Dec 2010 more >>

Wikileaks: Bulgaria’s highest profile energy project — the Belene Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) is dogged by cost overruns, financing woes, construction delays, and now serious safety and quality assurance concerns

Guardian 20th Dec 2010 more >>

North Korea

North Korea should accept the return of international nuclear watchdog agency inspectors as a step towards defusing tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Yahoo 21st Dec 2010 more >>

India

Russia and India agreed on Tuesday a long-awaited contract to jointly develop fifth generation fighter aircraft and signed a deal to expand capacity at an Indian nuclear power plant.

Yahoo 21st Dec 2010 more >>

Disarmament

Russia has warned US lawmakers that any change to the new nuclear arms disarmament treaty between the two countries could destroy the pact.

BBC 21st Dec 2010 more >>

Climate Change

There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere. With the help of the severe weather analyst John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, I’ve been through as much of the scientific literature as I can lay hands on (see my website for the references). Here’s what seems to be happening.