New Nukes
More than 60 Labour MPs are threatening to derail plans to weaken people’s long-standing right to oppose the building of new nuclear power stations and airport runways in their own “backyards”.
Independent 24th June 2008 more >>
Q&A What is the Planning Bill
Times 24th June 2008 more >>
Britain will face severe power outages by 2013 and run out of energy altogether two years later if plans to build nuclear and wind energy facilites are delayed, according to business leaders. The Confederation of British Industries (CBI) has warned MPs that any watering down of a new fast-track planning system will have disastrous consequences for the country by slowing down the construction of new power plants and renewable energy sources.
Times 24th June 2008 more >>
For major infrastructure projects, Britain’s planning process desperately needs speeding up. That is the intention of the Government’s Planning Bill, currently going through the Commons (see page 15). The Bill’s proposal to streamline eight different consent regimes into one will cut out a good deal of waste and confusion. Its proposed national policy statements on Britain’s transport, energy, water and waste needs should give greater clarity to developers, and help to circumvent activists who have delighted in delaying inquiries with lengthy debates about the principles of policy, such as nuclear power, before tackling the specifics of the site.
Times 24th June 2008 more >>
The Worldwatch Institute, the D.C.-based environmental think-tank just produced a scorecard on nuclear power’s progress around the world: It’s growing one-tenth as fast as wind power. Last year, just 2 gigawatts of new nuclear power were brought on line, or a 0.5% increase over the world’s existing nuclear capacity. While there are 34 reactors under construction around the world, a dozen of them including one in the U.S. have been in the works for 20 years. Projects from Finland to China are routinely delayed and over-budget.
Wall Street Journal 19th June 2008 more >>
Worldwatch Paper 19th June 2008 more >>
UK generators need “long-term certainty” around the new nuclear framework before the construction of a new generation of reactors can begin, Electricite de France’s UK division EdF Energy said today. “The framework must include a settled planning system, an agreed approach to managing waste and decommissioning costs, a clear licensing regime for nuclear reactor designs and a long-term price for carbon,” the chief operating officer of EdF Energy’s energy branch, Martin Lawrence, said at a nuclear energy conference in London. But EdF Energy welcomed the recently established Office of Nuclear Development, which is designed to draw together the different nuclear policy strands across government. “The new office will be a way of creating a stable long-term framework,” Lawrence said. British Energy (BE)’s chief executive, Bill Coley, speaking at the same conference, identified the difficulty of securing planning permission as the major obstacle to new infrastructure projects in the UK.
Argus Media 23rd June 2008 more >>
Nuclear Waste
British Energy will seek approval to temporarily store all the waste from its Sizewell-B atomic plant on site and wants the government to set a date for building a longer-term repository. The waste will be stored above ground at Sizewell, near Leiston, southeast England, until the station stops producing electricity, Chief Executive Officer Bill Coley told reporters today at a conference in London. The government should set dates for when it wants an underground waste storage site to be ready and a first new nuclear plant to be completed, Coley said. The government plans to develop a site to store radioactive waste as part of plans to encourage the construction of reactors to replace older generators. A deadline is “a signal that the financial community wants to hear,’’ Coley said. “You’d give a sense of urgency and make the process more aggressive and more focused.’’
Bloomberg 23rd June 2008 more >>
Nuclear Skills
Sellafield Limited, the company in charge of decommissioning two of Britain’s nuclear power plants, is to become a sponsor of one of the new quasi-autonomous academies. The company will run the new West Lakes Academy in Cumbria alongside the University of Central Lancashire and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Sellafield claimed the move would ensure a future generation of nuclear experts by “reinforcing the nuclear skills base” in the country. Unions have opposed the academy programme, arguing it is “inappropriate” for private organisations to have control over issues such as teachers’ pay and the curriculum in state schools.
Public Private Finance 24th June 2008 more >>
BBC 24th June 2008 more >>
Wigan Today 23rd June 2008 more >>
Times 23rd June 2008 more >>
Letter from General Secretary of Prospect: Your article on the risks to timely completion of the generic design assessment process for new nuclear power stations (Report, June 23) comes as no surprise to Prospect. As the union that represents the health and safety specialists on whose skills the GDA depends, we have been warning for years that the government needs both to train more people to do this work and to pay them enough to do it. Those with the necessary expertise can earn far more in the commercial sector and the rigid public-sector pay cap means that the HSE cannot offer comparable rates.
Guardian 24th June 2008 more >>
France
20 Greenpeace activists this morning stopped construction of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) in Flamanville from restarting today by blocking the entrance to three quarries which supply sand and gravel for the build, as none of the safety problems that shut the construction down in May has been addressed.
Greenpeace International 24th June 2008 more >>
Saudi Arabia
Here’s a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world’s largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars? If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you’re right.
Wall Street Journal 10th June 2008 more >>
Iran
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush’s successor is sworn in.
Telegraph 24th June 2008 more >>
Share prices were lower at lunchtime after hesitant early trading gave way to a sharp fall in response to a fresh spike in oil prices and a rumour — later denied by Iran — of an attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
Interactive Investor 24th June 2008 more >>
Iran on Tuesday condemned the European Union’s adoption of new sanctions over its controversial nuclear drive, warning that the measures could damage fresh diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis. The foreign ministry accused the bloc of “double standards” in imposing the sanctions just over a week after world powers presented Iran with a new package of proposals aimed at ending the standoff.
Middle East Online 24th June 2008 more >>
Reuters 24th June 2008 more >>
Israel is remaining silent on reports it has rehearsed an attack on nuclear sites in Iran.
Sky News 24th June 2008 more >>
Iran says the additional sanctions by the European Union will not affect Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Express 24th June 2008 more >>
Six years ago, President George W. Bush denounced Iran, Iraq and North Korea as founder members of what he memorably labelled the “axis of evil”. Today the two surviving members of that select group enjoy very different fates. US policy on Iran has yet to result in negotiations or a slowdown of Tehran’s nuclear programme. But Washington’s approach on North Korea has led both to talks and to the disabling of the Stalinist state’s Yongbyon reactor, which to date has furnished enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs.
FT 24th June 2008 more >>
Nicolas Sarkozy today overturned more than a dozen years of icy relations between France and Israel when he became the first French President to visit the Jewish State for 12 years, pledging to “block” Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Times Online 23rd June 2008 more >>
Recent reports that blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon could have been sold to “some of the most treacherous regimes in the world” are pretty frightening. But is there less to the story than meets the eye? It seems the only thing really new is the suggestion that the designs are for a bomb small enough to suit Iran’s requirements – so is the story more about politics than proliferation?
Guardian 23rd June 2008 more >>
Middle East
A comprehensive and well-detailed report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, released last week, sheds a pile of information on the state of nuclear proliferation in one of the world’s most volatile regions – the Middle East.
Washington Times 24th June 2008 more >>
North Korea
US officials have confirmed that Thursday is the target date for North Korea to hand over a long-awaited declaration of its nuclear activities.
BBC 24th June 2008 more >>
India
India’s government is scrambling to shore up political support in a last-ditch effort to save its landmark nuclear energy agreement with the US, even though the deal is already written off as dead by many in Washington. US officials say it is probably impossible for the deal to receive approval in the US Senate before President George W. Bush leaves office in January. They say not enough legislative time is left following the Indian government’s failure so far to reach agreement on the deal with its parliamentary allies.
FT 24th June 2008 more >>
Bulgaria
Belgian utility Electrabel and Germany’s RWE have submitted bids for a 49pc stake in Bulgaria’s 2,000MW Belene nuclear power plant project. A spokesman for Bulgaria’s national electricity company (NEK) described the submissions as “binding preliminary offers” and said that negotiations will follow, with the possibility of further bids from the two companies.
Argus Media 24th June 2008 more >>
Syria
UN nuclear inspectors are reported to have gone to a site in Syria at the centre of allegations that the country has been working on nuclear weapons.
BBC 23rd June 2008 more >>
Proliferation
The Malaysian government says it has released an alleged middleman in the nuclear secrets ring run by disgraced Pakistani scientist AQ Khan.
BBC 23rd June 2008 more >>
Nuclear Weapons
Democratic senators yesterday called on Robert Gates, US defence secretary, to explain how the US Air Force lost track of hundreds of sensitive components for nuclear weapons. John Kerry, a senior member of foreign relations committee, responding to a story in the Financial Times, said the “revelation that the administration has reportedly lost track of 1,000 sensitive nuclear missile components is only the latest reminder of how this president has dangerously compromised our nuclear security”.
FT 21st June 2008 more >>
Uranium
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and uranium producer Cameco have announced that the latter has joined GE and Hitachi as owners of their laser-based nuclear fuel enrichment venture, GE Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment.
Energy Business Review 23rd June 2008 more >>
