Dounreay
AN MSP is demanding answers about the state of a Ross-shire railway line over which 90 shipments of nuclear material will start being transported this summer. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has confirmed trains carrying around 44 tonnes of nuclear material will pass through Ross-shire’s major towns including Tain, Invergordon, Alness, Dingwall and Muir of Ord over the next five to six years. The breeder material will travel down the far north line from Dounreay in Caithness – but the exact times and dates will not be disclosed because of fear of terrorist attack. The decommissioned nuclear plant at Dounreay, due to close by 2025, cannot store the material long term and the NDA plans to take it to Sellafield in Cumbria for reprocessing. But now Rob Gibson, MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, has raised concerns about whether the railway line is modern enough to cope with the radioactive cargo.
North Star 26th Jan 2012 more >>
Wylfa
THREE hundred protestors took to the streets against plans to build a new nuclear power station at Wylfa. The march in Llangefni was organised by a number of organisations, including Pobl Atal Wylfa B, Greenpeace and Cymdeithas yr Iaith, which are supporting farmer Richard Jones of Caerdegog Uchaf near Llanfechell who is in dispute with Horizon, the company which wants to build Wylfa B.
Holyhead & Anglesey Mail 25th Jan 2012 more >>
South West Against Nuclear 22nd Jan 2012 more >>
eWales 22nd Jan 2012 more >>
Hinkley
This week’s decision to axe an overhead pylon route in Lincolnshire has been welcomed by the No Moor Pylons pressure group, which is opposed to National Grid’s route for a line of pylons between Hinkley Point and Avonmouth.
Burnham-on-sea.com 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Radhealth
Ive been asked to comment on the recent Costes/Bissel paper (see pnas.org/content/early/2011/12/16/1117849108.full.pdf+html) which concluded that extrapolating risk linearly from high dose as done with LNT could lead to overestimation of cancer risk at low doses. My main caveat about this study is that it repeatedly makes strong comments about the dose-response relationship which are unjustified.
IanFairlie.com 24th Jan 2012 more >>
Radwaste
Workington residents aired their views on proposals to build a radioactive waste dump in the west Cumbria at a meeting yesterday. The consultation, in the Carnegie Theatre, was hosted by West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership, which includes both Allerdale and Cumbria County councils. Richard Griffin reassured people that the councils have a right to withdraw at any time and that they have not committed the area to the project. He added: We are here to listen to what you have to say and we will reflect those views in a report to the partnership at the end of the year.
Carlisle News and Star 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Bob Forrest is known for a lot of things in Carlsbad, a quiet city of 25,000 on the edge of New Mexicos empty, endless Chihuahuan Desert. He was mayor here for 16 years. Hes chairman of the local bank and owns the spanking new Fairfield Inn, which sits next to the new Chilis and the new Wal-Mart. And he helped bring 200,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste to town.
Forbes 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Japan
Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan returns to the world stage this week, part of a campaign to reinvent himself as a global antinuclear activist nearly a year after he oversaw his government’s widely criticized handling of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. “I would like to tell the world that we should aim for a society that can function without nuclear energy,” he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, previewing his speech scheduled for Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Bloomberg 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Japan is set to launch a $13 billion bail-out of the owner of its stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant after the utility dropped resistance to a public fund injection, sources said on Thursday, as the country debates the future of nuclear power.
Reuters 26th Jan 2012 more >>
Huge energy imports last year caused Japan to record a rare trade deficit. Manufacturing was hit by the tsunami, but the use of fossil fuels to replace shut-down nuclear plants was a bigger factor.
World Nuclear News 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Independent 26th Jan 2012 more >>
Only four of the country’s 54 nuclear power reactors are running due to public safety fears following the March disaster.
Guardian 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency today began their first inspection of a Japanese nuclear power plant that has undergone official stress tests a key step required to restart dozens of nuclear plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima crisis. A 10-member IAEA team was inspecting the number three and number four reactors at the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui, western Japan, where 13 reactors are clustered in four complexes along the snowy Sea of Japan coast, making it the countrys nuclear heartland.
Wales Online 26th Jan 2012 more >>
Iran
Iran is unlikely to move toward building a nuclear weapon this year because it does not yet have the capability to produce enough weapon-grade uranium, a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security said on Wednesday.
Telegraph 26th Jan 2012 more >>
Guardian 26th Jan 2012 more >>
Reuters 26th Jan 2012 more >>
President Obama used his State of the Union speech last night to ramp up pressure on Iran after Europe sent battleships to the Gulf. The U.S. President warned Iran that America would focus on its disputed nuclear program with ‘no options off the table’ but said the door remained open to talks for a peaceful resolution.
Daily Mail 25th Jan 2012 more >>
US
While US nuclear generating capacity is expected to grow by 11% by 2035, its share of the country’s total electricity output will drop slightly, according to a forecast by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Coal use will fall significantly during this period, with gas seeing the highest growth.
World Nuclear News 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Niger
Niger will forge ahead with plans to develop a nuclear energy plant in partnership with other West African countries, despite the Fukushima disaster in Japan last year, the countrys president said this week. Mahamadou Issoufou, who was elected president in March 2011, referred to plans he announced in July to build a nuclear plant in co-operation with other countries in West Africa.
Metal Bulletin 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Romania
Canadas SNC-Lavalin Nuclear has signed a contract with Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica (SNN) to install venting systems at a plant in Romania.
Construction Index 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Renewables
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has lost its appeal against a High Court ruling which branded its plans to rush through cuts to solar subsidies as illegal. Three Court of Appeal judges this morning upheld the original decision that the government had acted unlawfully in proposing cuts to feed-in tariffs for solar installations completed after December 12 last year, on the grounds the consultation on the proposed changes to the scheme did not close until December 23.
Business Green 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Utility Week 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Guardian 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, said he would seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning businesses and consumers have no idea whether solar panels installed in coming weeks will earn 43p per kilowatt hour (kWh) for energy generated over the next 25 years or could yet have a new 21p/kWh rate imposed retrospectively.
Telegraph 25th Jan 2012 more >>
The decision means that households that have installed solar panels recently or will do soon will qualify for the original top rate. It is expected to spark a stampede for panels before the new deadline of March 3, when the £1,000 subsidy rate expires. It takes at least four weeks to install and register the panels. Nevertheless, the Government has refused to concede defeat over its plan to halve subsidies earlier than expected. Having lost its latest challenge, it said that it would seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, prompting the CBI to demand that the Government draw a line under the saga.
Times 26th Jan 2012 more >>
India is producing power from solar cells more cheaply than by burning diesel for the first time, spurring billionaire Sunil Mittal and Coca-Cola Co. (KO)s mango supplier to jettison the fuel in favor of photovoltaic panels. The cost of solar energy in India declined by 28 percent since December 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The cause was a 51 percent drop in panel prices last year as the worlds 10 largest manufacturers, led by Chinas Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP), doubled output capacity.
Bloomberg 25th Jan 2012 more >>
Climate Change
Flooding is the greatest threat to the UK posed by climate change, with up to 3.6 million people at risk by the middle of the century, a report published on Thursday by the environment department.
Guardian 26th Jan 2012 more >>
The current risk assessment was based on modelling of river flooding and coastal flooding, which will be made worse by rises in sea-level.
Independent 26th Jan 2012 more >>
