Hinkley
Things are hotting up with the government and nuclear industrys plans for nu-killer new build in Britain. If we want to put the brakes on their insane plans to build a fleet of new potential Fukushimas at up to eight sites around England and Wales, we need to get active TODAY!
Stop Nuclear Power 21st Aug 2011 more >>
Foreign Office Minister and Member of Parliament for Taunton Deane, Jeremy Browne called in at EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point site this month to see for himself plans for a new nuclear power station. As well as discussing the project with members of the construction site management team, Mr Browne also took the opportunity to tour the operational Hinkley Point B power station. The MP met several of his constituents who work at the power plant and was shown around the site by station director, Mike Harrison.
Build.co.uk 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Sellafield
Letter published in NW Evening Mail 10th August from Marianne Birkby. Mox Closure Designed to Generate Pleading for Nuclear Developments. The way in which the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority coldly announced the closure of the Sellafield MOX – without any prior talks with the workforce was designed to generate pleading for new nuclear developments. Sure enough Jamie Reed MP and other nuclear supporters are calling for MOX 2 (!) along with new build and deep disposal. The NDA have said the closure of MOX is essential to easing the financial burden to the taxpayer. The sincerity of this statement could only be believed if the NDA then went on to say: No more spent fuel will be delivered to Sellafield; All jobs expertise and taxpayers money will now be put into looking after existing wastes; Existing wastes will not be dispersed into the wider environment by deep ‘disposal,’ dumping in landfill, ‘recycled’ into pots and pans. Or as with MOX and Thorp turned from solid spent fuel into even more dangerous and much larger volumes of liquid high level wastes (reprocessing). Then perhaps I could believe the NDA when they say they are concerned with wasting taxpayer billions
Radiation Free Lakeland 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Sellafield is appealing for bidders for a £58 million contract for electrical and maintenance work on the nuclear site.
Construction News 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Sellafield chiefs are looking for maintenance contractors and plant hire specialists to join a four-year framework worth £58m to help with the upkeep of the nuclear plant. Work up for grabs ranges from M&E maintenance work to the supply of plant and equipment. The work has been split into four lots with the main £48m contract being Lot 1 covering civil maintenance and repair work and electrical installation.
Construction Enquirer 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
US
U.S. nuclear plants face the first post-Fukushima test of their ability to withstand multiple natural disasters as Hurricane Irene bears down on an area shaken by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake. The temblor yesterday knocked out power to Dominion Resources Inc.’s North Anna nuclear plant in Virginia and prompted 12 stations from North Carolina to Michigan to declare “unusual events,” the lowest-level emergency designated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. North Anna’s twin reactors were being cooled by backup diesel generators yesterday after automatically shutting down during the earthquake, whose epicenter was less than 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the plant, about 85 miles southwest of Washington, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
San Farncisco Chronicle 24th Aug 2011 more >>
A nuclear power plant in Louisa County, ten miles from the epicentre of the earthquake, has been shut down. Federal officials said two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station were automatically taken off line by safety systems around the time of the earthquake. The power plant was only built to withstand a magnitude 5.9 to 6.1 earthquake. Today’s earthquake measured 5.8.
Daily Mail 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
The largest earthquake to hit the East Coast of the United States in 67 years raised concerns on Tuesday about the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants. The 5.8 magnitude quake’s epicenter was just a few miles from the two-reactor North Anna nuclear power plant operated by Dominion Resources in Mineral, Virginia, 80 miles southwest of Washington.
Reuters 24th Aug 2011 more >>
The largest earthquake to hit the eastern US in 67 years has raised concerns about the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants. The 5.8 magnitude quake’s epicentre in Virginia yesterday was close to the North Anna plant, 130 kilometres southwest of Washington. The plant lost power and automatically halted operations after the quake. While the operator reported no ‘major’ damage to the facility, three diesel generators were required to kick in and keep the reactors’ radioactive cores cool. A fourth diesel unit failed. While nuclear power plants can operate safely on back-up power, failure of generators was a key reason for the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant after a 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami in March.
RTE 24th Aug 2011 more >>
Iran
A man accused by Iran of carrying out an assassination “sponsored and designed by Israel” has pleaded guilty to the murder of an Iranian “nuclear scientist”. According to Iranian media, Majid Jamali-Fashi, 26, admitted killing Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, a particle physicist who Iran says was involved in the country’s nuclear programme, Jamali-Fashi confessed to having attached a remote-control bomb to a motorcycle parked on the street, which detonated and killed Ali-Mohammadi while he was leaving home for work in January 2010.
Guardian 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Iran allowed a senior U.N. nuclear inspector rare access to a facility for developing advanced uranium enrichment machines during a tour of all of the country’s main atomic sites, an Iranian envoy said on Tuesday. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week’s visit to Iranian nuclear facilities by IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts showed Tehran’s “100 percent transparency and openness.”
Reuters 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Telegraph 24th Aug 2011 more >>
Japan
Among the lessons to be learned from the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daichii nuclear powerplant, according to a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are that emergency generators should be better protected from flooding and other extreme natural events, and that increasing the spacing between reactors at the same site would help prevent an incident at one reactor from damaging others nearby.
R&D Mag 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
An energy saving mood sweeping the country is a new trend in Japan that gives an opportunity to push for clean energy over national policy that favours nuclear power. She explained that the challenge facing green activists is to link the setsuden mood to banning nuclear energy. “To push renewable and safe energy to the national forefront and reduce Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy, it is important to sustain the current public setsuden mood. I am worried that the public support could be temporary,” she said. Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind provide for less than two percent of Japan’s total power consumption.
Guardian 22nd Aug 2011 more >>
There can be no reasonable case for the government to lead efforts to sell nuclear technology to other countries when one of the worst nuclear accidents in history has taken place in this nation, raising many serious questions about the future of atomic energy.
Asahi 24th Aug 2011 more >>
Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) and US Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have signed an agreement to cooperate in the joint research in the field of nuclear power. Initially the two institutes will undertake a project of joint research on materials to address the deterioration of nuclear power plants and on the effects of low-level radiation exposure on the human body. The CRIEPI also intends to carryout research on topic related to nuclear safety and response to nuclear accidents.
Energy Business Review 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Moody’s has cut Japans credit rating by one notch citing concerns about the governments ability to reduce its mountain of debt and implement long-term fiscal sustainability measures. Moodys said that the March 11 disaster, and the nuclear accident that followed, have aggravated deflationary conditions and delayed the economys recovery from its recession in 2009, its worst since the second world war.
FT 24th Aug 2011 more >>
Germany
The Wunderland Kalkar in Germany has everything that a theme park should possess log flume, swings, a big wheel – and a nuclear power station.
Metro 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
Mail 23rd Aug 2011 more >>
