Nuclear Free Cities
Local authority leaders from across Europe are meeting in Brussels to co-ordinate opposition to developing nuclear power. Representatives from European cities held a key meeting today to discuss concerns about nuclear power and today are opening a major exhibition at the European Parliament. The group, led by Vienna City Council (VCC) and supported by Manchester-based Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), intends to lobby European Union institutions and MEPs to improve nuclear safety and move away from nuclear power. NFLA secretary Sean Morris said that following the Fukushima disaster VCC wrote to authorities across Europe to lobby the EU on improving safety and phasing out reactors. A number of cities had given their “political support,” he said. The major exhibition called “Uranium mining in and for Europe” will be opened by speakers including NFLA chair Brian Goodall, Karin Kadenbach MEP and Elisabeth Vitouch from VCC.
Morning Star 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Radwaste
PLANS for a nuclear waste dump in Cumbria are set to be discussed tomorrow ahead of a crunch meeting next month. Copeland Borough Council will meet tomorrow to debate the final report from the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership, ahead of the meeting on October 11 when the county council cabinet and district authorities will decide whether to progress with plans for an underground storage facility. Last week Shepway Council voted against proposals to store nuclear waste underground in Romney Marsh, Kent, and only Cumbria has expressed an interest. It is feared the county council is likely to block plans for the facility. Some local councillors have complained the cabinet has not been given long enough to assess the plans and are seeking to postpone the vote until early next year. Yesterday the Sellafield Workers Campaign urged councillors to vote in favour of carrying on the search for a nuclear repository in Cumbria amid fears a new-build nuclear power station will not come about if there is no repository.
NW Evening Mail 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Hinkley
U.K. regulators plan to give a site license to Electricite de France SAs proposed Hinkley nuclear station by the end of November, removing one of the hurdles for the company as it decides whether to go ahead with a new plant. The exact timing is dependent still on some outstanding information which needs to be received and reviews they need to carry out, said Colin Patchett, deputy chief inspector for the U.K.s Office for Nuclear Regulation, in a telephone interview.So far, we havent found any major issues.
Bloomberg 25th Sept 2012 more >>
MORE must be done to protect Bridgwater from the effects of Hinkley C, a leading politician has been told. EDF Energy, the firm behind a third nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, has this week revealed details of how it will mitigate the area if the scheme goes ahead. A £64million package will include nearly £16million on roads and £8.5million on housing. But politicians in Bridgwater fear the measures do not go far enough. On Saturday, Labour councillors invited Baroness Royall, Labour leader in the House of Lords, to Bridgwater, to press for the towns case to be heard at the top ranks of Government.
This is the West Country 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Sizewell
EDF Energy says a public consultation on building a new nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk will start by the end of November.
ITV Anglia 26th Sept 2012 more >>
Prolferation
Three Swiss engineers guilty of involvement in a Pakistani nuclear smuggling ring avoided a prison sentence on Tuesday after agreeing a plea bargain with the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Marco and Urs, pleaded guilty at the federal criminal court in Bellinzona of supplying centrifuge parts and participating in the smuggling ring of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, who in 2004 was found by Pakistan to have sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. However, after agreeing the plea bargain, the Tinner trio were handed relatively mild suspended jail sentences of between 24 and 50 months.
Reuters 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Nuclear Safety
An industry team that will review safety of new nuclear power plants before they start up has been assembled by the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) at a new office in Hong Kong. One of WANO’s major programs has been to organize peer reviews of operational nuclear power plants, where a team of experts from its membership deliver frank feedback on another operator’s methods. Now, a new pre-startup peer review team will do the same thing but for reactors that have yet to reach first criticality, focusing on their “preparation and readiness… to start safely and reliably.” It will be made up of seconded peer reviewers with experience gained at WANO’s other offices – in Atlanta, Moscow, Paris and Tokyo, as well as the coordinating centre in London.
World Nuclear News 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Companies
Germanys two biggest power companies may have joint roots in making electricity from the coal mined in the Ruhr valley and they are still neighbours RWE is based in Essen and Eon in Düsseldorf, 35km south. But they are implementing very different strategies to deal with the revolution they see sweeping the energy sector. With sun and wind ever cheaper to harness, they recognise decentralisation of electricity generation as a threat to the incumbents of old and Germanys accelerated nuclear phase-out, which last year brought forward the closure of the last nuclear plant to 2022 from 2036, encouraged potential new entrants all the more.
FT 26th Sept 2012 more >>
France
Newly signed contracts have seen one of Areva’s largest ever uranium orders, which will help to secure over 20 years’ fuel supply for EDF’s reactors. According to a joint statement from the two French companies, Areva will supply more than 30,000 tonnes of natural uranium to EDF for the period from 2014-2035. The companies have divulged no details on the value of the contracts, which follow on from a long-term partnership agreement announced in January.
World Nuclear News 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Japan
Fukushima Crisis update 21st to 24th Sept.
Greenpeace 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Iran
President Barack Obama warned Iran on Tuesday the United States will “do what we must” to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon and said time was running short for diplomacy but ignored the Israeli prime minister’s demand to set a “red line” for Tehran.
Reuters 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Telegraph 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Trident
All 120 armed warheads on Britain’s fleet of Trident submarines could be removed within a month in a staged dismantling of the country’s nuclear weapons system. It would take just two years to remove Britain’s entire stockpile of nuclear weapon from the Clyde, and four years to dismantle the entire stockpile of less than 225 warheads. This is the timetable set out in what the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) calls “a practical guide to de-activating and dismantling the Trident nuclear weapon system”. It says: “Recent years have seen the consensus in Westminster crumble, with defence analysts recognising both the crippling on conventional defence spending of retaining and replacing Trident, and the strategic redundancy of nuclear weapons”.
Guardian 26th Sept 2012 more >>
The plan preferred by the Lib Dems would see nuclear warheads fired from existing Astute submarines, eliminating the need to replace the Vanguard-class nuclear boats. A final decision is not expected until after the next general election, but the initial gate stages of preparatory work have already been signed off, resulting in more jobs being created at BAE Systems Barrow shipyard. Mr Woodcock said: I have worked well with Tim Farron on a number of issues, but on renewal of the deterrent the Lib Dems are either cosmically ill-informed or seeking to pull the wool over the eyes of many thousands whose jobs depend on a thriving shipyard.
NW Evening Mail 25th Sept 2012 more >>
Renewables
Onshore wind energy: what are the pros and cons? This Q&A is part of the Guardian’s ultimate climate change FAQ
Guardian 25th Sept 2012 more >>
The assertion that wind turbines don’t reduce carbon emissions is a myth, according to conclusive statistical data obtained from National Grid and analysed here in the Guardian for the first time. With a new wind generation record of 4,131 megawatts set on 14 September, the question of how far the UK’s wind generation fleet can help in meeting our climate targets is increasingly controversial. Now it can be shown that the sceptics who lobby against wind simply have their facts wrong.
Guardian 26th Sept 2012 more >>
