Waste Transport
SELLAFIELD is set to ship out highly active waste for the first time. The radioactive material which has been converted into glass blocks will be sent out to customers in Japan, it is understood. The canisters of waste have been loaded into a shielded flask on the site prior to being moved to a Cumbrian port. Under international security regulations, the vitrified “hot” material will be transported on a ship armed with canon as a deterrent against the potential threat of terrorism at sea. The plan is to complete the shipment by next March.
Whitehaven News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Radwaste
FOUR former members of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management are at odds with the government over its handling of the controversial disposal issue involving an underground repository. The startling move comes just as thousands of leaflets pour through West Cumbrian letterboxes asking for views on how the highly radioactive material should be managed. Professor Andrew Blowers, Professor Gordon MacKerron and Pete Wilkinson say the government is going against recommendations made by the committee (CoRWM) to it in 2006.
Whitehaven News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
New Nukes
A Newsnight investigation suggests that UK government plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to fill the energy gap by 2020 are wildly optimistic. The British nuclear regulator has told Newsnight that he would not hesitate to halt construction if problems emerged and that no British nuclear power station had ever been built on time.
BBC 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Letter from George Regan. I read with interest the letter by Struan Stevenson MEP complaining about the lack of new nuclear developments in Scotland. I wouldn’t see the policy in Scotland as being Luddite but rather it is eminently sensible. Scotland has the highest percentage use of renewable energy in the UK and Scotland can be a leader of renewable energy in Europe. Scottish councils are also leading the way in promoting energy efficiency and micro-generation. Most of the wind projects Mr Stevenson mentioned will be offshore. I would not like to see our beautiful landscape blighted by ugly new nuclear power stations, with all their risks, plus an intractable radioactive waste burden. Mr Stevenson talks about the load factor for wind turbines but what about the times when nuclear power stations are forced off-line due to safety fears or lack of cooling water? France, the great exponent of nuclear power, will have to import electricity again this winter due to a lack of generating capacity over the summer.
Dundee Courier 25th Nov 2009 more >>
NDA Budget
The government is gearing up to cut the budget for Britain’s nuclear clean-up programme, which costs around £1bn a year. The Treasury has launched a review of spending by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which is responsible for dealing with 19 contaminated sites in the UK.
Building 25th Nov 2009 more >>
SELLAFIELD will not get a cut in its budget next year despite an on-going government review into public spending. All government agencies, including the NDA, which owns Sellafield, have been told to examine their areas of spending and what they most want to spent money on. Bill Hamilton told The Whitehaven News: “We are not talking about any cuts in nuclear clean-up at the moment. For next year Sellafield’s budget will remain roughly the same.” Sellafield will have its new allocation from next April having operated for the last 12 months on a “record” £1.3 billion from the NDA. If any cuts at Sellafield or any of the NDA’s other UK clean-up sites are required they will not take effect until 2011.
Whitehaven News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
NDA Response to The Times. As part of its financial and budgetary planning processes the NDA, along with other agencies, is taking part in a Government-wide review to identify options for transformational value for money savings called the Public Value Programme (PVP). The aim is to drive efficiency and effectiveness, and options identified through the PVP process will be used to inform the next spending review, currently expected in the first half of 2010. The NDA Board will consider a range of options that will be submitted to a review panel of senior Government officials, including representation from the nuclear regulators which is essential to ensure safety considerations are taken fully into account.
NDA 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Plutonium
The UK’s plan to cut its stockpile of separated plutonium is in “disarray”, a group of scientists has warned. The British Pugwash Group (BPG) says the way 100 tonnes of the deadly powder is being stored is “ludicrous”. Its experts fear the stockpile at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria – the largest in the world – could be a target for terrorists. The government said the plutonium was stored safely and securely but recognised the need to make progress. The report said the failure of a taxpayer-funded facility to make nuclear fuel from the plutonium was “scandalous”. It said the UK had no policy to deal with the deadly material, which was reclaimed from used nuclear fuel by reprocessing, because there are no UK reactors which can use it.
BBC 26th Nov 2009 more >>
Cumbria
Various letters (1) Residents near the Braystones site are now very angry. Evacuation plans for those residents trapped between two sites storing highly radioactive waste are a concern. RWE’s proposal to remove the road north out of Braystones would leave only two remaining, both subject to frequent heavy flooding. Not an acceptable safety scenario. I have very little faith that any credible objections raised during the so-called ‘public consultation’ won’t simply be manipulated and sidestepped. (2) Mr Reed MP was quoted as saying that “the entire community was united in its support for new reactors on land adjacent to Sellafield…” Is Mr Reed’s statement due to arrogance, ignorance or just plain youthful inexperience? To use an old Cumbrian saying – “He gits a laal bit carried away wid hissel at times!” (3) I am horrified at the potential effects on our beautiful area. Jamie Reed seems to be really making dependency worse and choosing to put all our eggs in one basket. It’s not a clean industry and it’s certainly not clever economics. (4) Jamie Reed’s enthusiasm for a new generation of nuclear reactors would be touchingly optimistic if the issues were not so serious and so very long term. The railway line at Drigg was flooded this week, along with other parts of Cumbria perilously close to Sellafield. It would be good to feel that our representatives were paying attention to these issues, and not just sweeping them under the carpet. (5) In response to Jamie Reed’s claim that no-one else has a plan B for the economic wellbeing of West Cumbria, just a couple of weeks ago a Plan B leaflet dropped through my door issued by the Green Party.
Whitehaven News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
The Braystones farmland coastal location is on the government’s “hit list” for new reactors but last Friday’s deluge caused more alarm among residents who say future flood risks reinforce their opposition to any nuclear development.
Whitehaven News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Heysham
A new nuclear power station could be built near Heysham in Lancashire as the government seeks to implement alternative energy sources.
England’s Northwest 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Residents of Lancashire are this weekend being asked to have their say on proposals to a build a new nuclear power station in the area. Heysham, near Lancaster, has been confirmed in by the Government as a potential site for a new nuclear power station.
DECC Press Release 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Hinkley
Nuclear power bosses are appealing to guest houses and inns across the West to accommodate thousands of specialist workers set to flood the region. As work on the huge new Hinkley Point power station, one of the West Country’s biggest-ever construction projects, gets underway, hordes of new employees will be heading here to offer their expertise. And a call-out by energy chiefs at EDF Energy has so far been welcomed by small businesses across Somerset, who look set to reap huge financial rewards as a result of the 2,000 long-term guests.
South West Business 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Dounreay
DOUNREAY workers are today expected to question the head of the agency charged with cleaning up the nuclear power station site amid fears that future budgets may be cut. Tony Fountain, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), is to visit the Caithness complex amid reports the government was considering reducing Britain’s £4 billion nuclear clean-up budget.
Scotsman 26th Nov 2009 more >>
Dungeness
The active reactor at Dungeness B in Kent ,was taken offline after the blaze broke out in a boiler annexe on Monday night.
ITN 25th Nov 2009 more >>
BBC 25th Nov 2009 more >>
New Civil Engineer 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Uranium Supplies
AS the world prepares for the largest investment in nuclear power in decades, owners of uranium mines last week raised the prospect of fuel shortages. To make things worse, the reliability of estimates of the amount of uranium that can be economically mined has also been questioned. Mined uranium caters for about 60 per cent of the global demand for nuclear fuel. The rest comes from secondary sources, including stockpiles left over from the 1970s and 1980s, reprocessed fuel and the conversion of old Russian nuclear warheads. But the supply may not be as secure as first thought. The price of uranium has plummeted from a peak of around $130 per pound of uranium oxide ($286 per kilogram) in 2007 to $45 today. Some of this decline is due to slumping fossil fuel prices and some from the uncertainty surrounding the industry. Uncertainty is stifling investment in new mines, which could lead to future shortages. Added to this are concerns that uranium resources may have been overestimated. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) publish biennial estimates of global uranium resources in the so-called Red Book. Michael Dittmar, a particle physicist at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, last week released a critical analysis of the figures and argued that the reasons behind the fluctuation in estimated resources in recent years are unclear.
New Scientist 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Nuclear Submarines
The patience of people in West Fife is wearing thin, according to Dunfermline West MP, William Rennie, because we have had these submarines for 25 years and we lost the Trident refuelling contract in the ’90s. We want rid of these submarines, and we want rid of them now.
Hansard 25th Nov 2009 more >>
ePolitix 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Europe
Baroness Ashton of Upholland’s past came back to haunt her yesterday when the European Union’s new foreign affairs chief was forced to deny taking funds from the Soviet Union during her days as treasurer for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Times 26th Nov 2009 more >>
Vietnam
Vietnam’s plans to build two nuclear power plants continue to inch forward with the approval by the country’s National Assembly of a resolution on investment policy for the project.
World Nuclear News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Channel 4 News 25th Nov 2009 more >>
Clean Coal
Extra funding and better market conditions must be created for clean coal if it is ever to progress “beyond the blueprint” of trial plants, Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK, has warned.
Telegraph 26th Nov 2009 more >>
