Nuclear Waste
A PARISH Council wants to see all council tax in Copeland abolished “in perpetuity” if the borough becomes home to the nation’s underground nuclear dump. The proposal from Lamplugh Parish Council is revealed in the consultation responses being considered by Cumbria County Council on Thursday in Kendal. The county council is expected to rubber stamp a recommendation that Cumbria “expresses an interest” in hosting a repository in Copeland. Allerdale has still not decided if it wishes to express an interest in hosting such a nuclear repository.
Whitehaven News 20th Nov 2008 more >>
NATTERJACK toads need not worry over plans to build a big bund to take massive amounts of spoil at the low-level radioactive waste repository near Drigg. The spoil will come from excavation and construction of Vault 9, a huge £20 million project to dispose of future waste arisings.
Whitehaven News 19th Nov 2008 more >>
Oldbury
E.ON, the German energy group, has been buying up farmland in south Gloucestershire as it firms up plans to build a £4 billion nuclear power station beside the River Severn. A spokeswoman for E.ON confirmed that it had acquired several tracts of privately owned land in recent months around an existing nuclear site at Oldbury-on-Severn, north of Bristol, which is owned by the Government through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The plant, scheduled to stop generating electricity in seven weeks, but could stay in use for another two years.
Times 21st Nov 2008 more >>
Sellafield
The employers of a man who died after plunging 350ft down a radioactive Sellafield chimney have together been fined £250,000 for breaching health and safety practices which led to his death.
Carlisle News & Star 21st Nov 2008 more >>
MINUTES after getting the keys to Sellafield next Monday for a nominal £1 “golden share”, Nuclear Management Partners will say how it aims to open the purse strings to help local communities. A substantial sum will be kept in NMP’s coffers to aid Copeland’s communities and West Cumbria as a whole. No specific figure has been set aside at this stage but money will be made available over a period of time, The Whitehaven News can reveal ahead of Monday’s milestone event when NMP takes over Sellafield from BNFL. Sellafield Ltd’s 10,000 workers were told yesterday they will all receive a £1,500 “golden goodbye” bonus from BNFL for ensuring a smooth handover.
Whitehaven News 19th Nov 2008 more >>
SELLAFIELD Ltd has paid for a union boss to have an away-day in Paris so he could meet and establish links with the left wing CGT trade union in France.
Whitehaven News 19th Nov 2008 more >>
Hunterston
A new coal-burning power plant, which would be the first conventional station to come on stream in Scotland since 1980, is being planned for the Firth of Clyde. Denmark’s state-owned energy company, Dong, has identified Hunterston, North Ayrshire, as the preferred site.
BBC 20th Nov 2008 more >>
Companies
SHEFFIELD Forgemasters has won a contract to make key components for a new generation of nuclear power plants in North America on the back of success in China.
Sheffield Star 20th Nov 2008 more >>
Art
If you go down to Spitalfields (Nicholls and Clarke Building, 3-10 Shoreditch High Street, Spitalfields, London E1) on any remaining weekend in November – see right – you’ll be able to enter the offices of an outfit calling itself the British Atomic Nuclear Group (BANG).
Daily Telegraph 20th Nov 2008 more >>
Nuclear Proliferation
Looking ahead to 2025, the NIC (which coordinates analysis from all the US intelligence agencies), foresees a fragmented world, where conflict over scarce resources is on the rise, poorly contained by “ramshackle” international institutions, while nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East, and even nuclear conflict grow more likely.
Guardian 21st Nov 2008 more >>
British Energy
Pre-tax profits at British Energy fell 86 per cent in the six months ending September 28, reflecting lower power output from the nuclear group’s reactors. Revenues fell from £1.39bn ($2.05bn) to £1.28bn ($1.89bn), on power output that was 26 per cent lower at 22.7 terawatt hours. Pre-tax profits fell from £407m to £58m.
FT 21st Nov 2008 more >>
Iran
President Bush is to hold White House talks with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday after publication of a nuclear watchdog’s report this week showing that Iran may have stockpiled enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb.
Times 21st Nov 2008 more >>
Romania
Romania has signed a deal to build two more reactors at its only nuclear power station, Cernavoda, on the Danube. The 4bn-euro (£3.4bn; $5bn) deal gave a 49% stake to six European commercial partners – ArcelorMittal, CEZ, GDF Suez, Enel, Iberdrola and RWE Power.
BBC 20th Nov 2008 more >>
Money AM 20th Nov 2008 more >>
Spain
Sixty activists are at the Garo a nuclear power plant in Spain to demand that the Spanish government makes good on its commitment to start phasing out nuclear power plants, starting now with the immediate closure of the Garo a power plant.
Greenpeace 20th Nov 2008 more >>
Yucca Mountain
YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nevada – Will this barren mountain rising up to 4,950 feet from the Mojave desert look roughly the same in the year 1,002,008? That’s a million years into the future. The question may sound bizarre but its answer is key to the future of a decades-old, controversial project to store America’s nuclear waste in the belly of Yucca Mountain, on the edge of a nuclear test site and 95 miles from Las Vegas.
Reuters 20th Nov 2008 more >>
