Sellafield
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown will talk to his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, at the G8 meeting in Hokkaido next month about a potential £1bn a year deal which would boost the UK’s nuclear industry. Mr Brown and Mr Fukuda will discuss a contract to reprocess fuel at Sellafield in Cumbria to be used in Japan’s nuclear reactors, industry sources said. The deal would provide a welcome new source of revenue for the cash-strapped Treasury and would revive the UK’s declining reprocessing industry.
Telegraph 23rd June 2008 more >>
Sellafield nuclear power station will run a state school under the biggest-ever expansion of the Government’s academy programme. The company responsible for the controversial plant – Sellafield Ltd – is among three organisations behind one of the new schools in Cumbria.
Telegraph 23rd June 2008 more >>
Nuclear Waste
The company behind plans to ship radioactive waste to Scandinavia for decontamination says the scheme meets the government’s guidelines on the transfer of low-level material abroad. Babcock, which owns Rosyth Dockyard in Fife, wants to send waste from decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines to Studsvik in Sweden where it would be smelted. The contaminated slag would then be shipped back to Scotland before being sent on to the permanent low-level waste dump at Drigg, near Sellafield in Cumbria. The proposal has met opposition from some local authorities and environmental groups, but Babcock insists there is no reason why it should not be granted a permit. Officials from the Scottish EnvironmentProtection Agency (SEPA) have already told the Scottish Government they are “minded to grant” the application.
Dundee Courier 23rd June 2008 more >>
Letter from Stephen Salter: It is not perverse to expect the industry to pay for the entire chain from fuel to production to waste disposal rather than just its own reactor sites, as Mr Campbell suggests. In a 2004 report by the US General Accounting Office we read that, over 25 years, disposal costs for low-level nuclear waste have risen from $1 to $400 per cubic foot, with projections to well over $1,000 and one facility now quoting $1,625. I would argue that it is perverse not to ask for a figure for the capped value and not to question how accurate this figure might be by the time our children have to pay for it.
Scotsman 23rd June 2008 more >>
New Nukes
Government plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations risk delays after warnings by its own inspectors that no decision can be made on reactor designs because of a shortage of skilled engineers. Delays in receiving documentation from various parties and the difficulties of talking to overseas regulators and receiving final reactor designs are referred to in a letter from Mike Weightman, chief inspector at the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), to the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
Guardian 23rd June 2008 more >>
Here we go again. This week, following closely on the row over 42-day detention, another key argument will be fought out on the floor of the Commons. Its implications could hardly be greater. It is about democracy, climate change and daily life – about roads and nuclear power stations, airports and voting. And, yet again, the government finds itself on the wrong side of the argument, with the Tories standing smugly, arms folded, waiting for another Labour political disaster to begin.
Guardian 23rd June 2008 more >>
Part of the Prime Minister’s plan is to persuade the Opec nations and others to invest some of their vast foreign currency reserves in nuclear and renewable energy technologies in the West.
Independent 23rd June 2008 more >>
Mr Brown revealed that Britain was in talks with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Qatari Government to explore investment opportunities in British energy projects.
Times 23rd June 2008 more >>
Opec should invest billions in reducing demand for the cartels’ only product – a proposal tantamount to asking British American Tobacco to invest in nicotine patches.
Times 23rd June 2008 more >>
Renewables
Various letters including Scientists for Global Responsibility: You highlight the problems in meeting the targets for renewable energy in the transport sector while not conflicting with food supply (New study to force ministers to review climate change plan, July 19). Scientists for Global Responsibility has recently made a submission to the House of Lords economic affairs committee inquiry into the economics of renewable energy, highlighting the potential synergy between the renewables in which the UK is well endowed, particularly onshore and offshore wind, and electric vehicles and “plug-in hybrids” (PIHs) – vehicles that can be charged at times when there is a surplus available on the grid – making it easier to integrate variable energy sources such as wind or tidal energy. Such a combination could enhance our energy security as well as enabling us to meet our CO2 reduction targets.
Guardian 23rd June 2008 more >>
Syria
Syria has signalled that it is confident of the outcome of a probe into an alleged nuclear installation begun by the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday. President Bashar al-Assad promised full co-operation with the IAEA and called American claims that a building was part of a nuclear programme undertaken with North Korean assistance “fabricated 100 per cent”. The building was demolished in an Israeli air strike last September.
FT 23rd June 2008 more >>
Senior UN inspectors arrived in Syria yesterday to investigate US allegations that Damascus was building a clandestine nuclear reactor before an Israel air strike destroyed it in September.
Herald 23rd June 2008 more >>
View London 22nd June 2008 more >>
Reuters 22nd June 2008 more >>
Algeria
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon signed nuclear energy and military agreements with Algeria on Saturday, ahead of talks aimed at persuading Algiers to back French plans for a Mediterranean Union.
AFX 22nd June 2008 more >>
UAE
Engineer and project manager AMEC Plc has been shortlisted to manage a big nuclear programme in the United Arab Emirates. A spokeswoman for AMEC confirmed on Sunday it is one of nine firms on a shortlist to run the project. She said AMEC would have the skills and experience to manage the project, but said the process was at “a very early stage”.
Reuters 22nd June 2008 more >>
US
Week in and week out, Washington gives master classes in making simple questions complicated. It is a bipartisan effort of mutually assured irrelevance. Perfected over years, a combination of tribal ideology, empty posturing and feverish displacement activity generally does the trick. You see it everywhere, but nowhere more than in energy policy. The US constitution makes it difficult for politicians to do much (except fight wars) and this avoids a lot of damage that would otherwise result. But now and then some intelligent policymaking is needed, and energy is again a case in point.
FT 23rd June 2008 more >>
