New nukes
PRIME MINISTER Tony Blair is supporting plans to turn West Cumbria into the international centre of excellence for the nuclear industry as ‘Britain’s Energy Coast’. Mr Blair gave his support after a meeting with a top-level, delegation from West Cumbria, on Tuesday, led by West Cumbrian MPs Jamie Reed and Tony Cunningham. The meeting was also attended by secretary of state for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling and financial secretary to the Treasury, John Healey.
Whitehaven News, 26th April 2007
Carlisle News and Star 26th April 2007
EDF Energy is in talks with British Energy about building nuclear power stations together, and hopes to have the first reactor connected to the grid by Christmas 2017, its chief executive told the Financial Times. Vincent de Rivaz said he had a design for a new reactor ready to present to the authorities as soon as he was given the go-ahead. It would be the first nuclear power station to be built in Britain for 30 years. But he warned that new nuclear projects could stall, and Britain could face electricity shortages, if the government did not come to a clear decision in the autumn and introduce the necessary legislation in that parliamentary session.
FT 27th April 2007
Forbes 27th April 2007
General Electric has fired the starting gun in the race to build a fleet of new nuclear power stations by writing to the Government to say it will compete for a slice of the multi-billion-pound work. The American group’s move surprised some nuclear experts because it came ahead of the Energy White Paper, which is expected in the week starting May 21.
Telegraph 27th April 2007
Hinkley
A furious row has broken out over claims that an unexpected cluster of cancer cases has been found near Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Anti-nuclear campaigners yesterday claimed the death rate from breast cancer in one part of Burnham-on-Sea was 70 per cent above the national average for the 10 years to 2005. But local health chiefs dismissed the findings as a statistical blip and said there was no reason to be concerned about a health risk from the plant. Dr Chris Busby, from consultancy Green Audit, was commission by the campaign group Stop Hinkley.
Western Daily Press 26th April 2007
Climate change
Fossil-fuel-based cogeneration of heat and power emits less carbon dioxide than nuclear-based alternatives providing the same service, according to a study released by the German environment ministry on Tuesday. The study was done by think-tank Öko-Institut, which calculated life-cycle emissions for cogeneration of heat and electricity in high-efficiency gas-fired power plants. It compared these to the carbon emissions from nuclear power generation, including uranium mining, and from the separate heating requirements of consumers not connected to cogeneration plants. Because nuclear-powered households normally use oil or gas for heating, the authors say, their overall emissions come to 772 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour (g/kWh). Emissions from heat-and-power plants are slightly lower, at 747g/kWh.
ENDS Daily 24th April 2007
German environment ministry press release and the study
An earlier version of the Oko Institut sudy is available in English
Body Parts Inquiry
An investigation into the removal of body parts from nuclear workers after their deaths will examine other sites in addition to Sellafield, the government said today. The trade and industry secretary, Alistair Darling, said he had asked Michael Redfern QC, who is leading the inquiry, to look at records of other sites to find out whether similar tests on autopsy tissues were carried out without the knowledge of the families of the dead workers.
Guardian 27th April 2007
The inquiry into the storing of body parts for research at Sellafield is to be widened after it emerged yesterday that Harwell, the former research site, also conducted experiments.
Times 27th April 2007
THE investigation into the removal of organs from deceased nuclear industry workers is to be expanded to cover more sites, including checks at Dounreay and Torness. An urgent inquiry has been launched into 65 cases, mostly people working at Sellafield, where tissue was removed from bodies for analysis, apparently without consent from families. In a statement to MPs today, Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling revealed that nuclear authorities “believe” similar work was also carried out at Harwell, Oxfordshire, and “possibly at other sites”.
Edinburgh Evening News 26th April 2007
Daily Mail website 26th April 2007
Lancashire Evening Post 26th April 2007
GMB Press Release 26th April 2007
FT 27th April 2007
Woman horrified to discover Sellafield took her Dad’s organs.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2007
US-Japan
A framework deal for increased collaboration in nuclear energy between Japan and the US has been signed. The United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan aims to increase energy security and management of nuclear waste, address nuclear non-proliferation and climate change, and advance the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative.
Nuclear Engineering International 26th April 2007
US
When the top U.S. nuclear regulator addressed industry leaders in March, he spoke about a problem often neglected in public debates about nuclear energy: the threat of a labor shortage. Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that nuclear power’s resurgence may be held up by a lack of qualified workers.
Reuters 26th April 2007
Iran
Iran on Thursday heralded what it said was new thinking in the dispute over its nuclear programme amid western scepticism that any breakthrough was imminent. The comments came at the end of a meeting in Ankara – the first in seven months – between Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, and Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Details of the substance of the talks were sketchy. But Mr Larijani, in an interview afterwards with a Turkish television station, said “new ideas” had emerged that would allow further talks to proceed soon.
FT 27th April 2007
Insufficient payments from Iran for the construction of the country’s first nuclear power station are delaying its completion by Russia, a top Russian nuclear official has said. The head of Russia’s federal agency for atomic energy Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, said the timetable for Russian contractors to complete the Bushehr plant in the south of Iran would depend on timely and full payments.
Interactive Investor 26th April 2007
Wales
ELIN JONES this week dismissed a Plaid Cymru split over nuclear power. The Ceredigion candidate insisted it was of no significance that the party was anti-nuclear while its leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, backed a nuclear replacement within the next 10 years for the Wylfa power plant on Anglesey. Successive Plaid manifestos rule out new nuclear power stations, but Mr Jones said he would support the development because he had a “re-sponsibility to defend jobs”, subject to assurances concerning the level of investment, the number of jobs that would be created and propos-als for dealing with nuclear waste. Rival candidates – apart from the Liberal Democrats – back a new power station and accused Mr Jones of fudging the issue. But Elin Jones said she defended the right of any AM, including a party leader, to disagree with offi-cial policy.
Aberystwyth Today 26th April 2007
Sellafield
Redhall Group PLC said its Jordan Nuclear division has, as part of an alliance, won a two-year site works framework contract with British Nuclear Group Sellafield worth 25 mln stg. The specialist engineering support services group said that of the 25 mln stg, around 30 pct is expected to be of a mechanical value relevant to Jordan Nuclear, its nuclear engineering and decommissioning division. Redhall added that the contract, which has an option to be extended for a further two years, ranges from repair, maintenance and refurbishment of infrastructure, to decommissioning and stripping out redundant facilities.
Interactive Investor 26th April 2007
Russia
If it hadn’t happened, you couldn’t invent it. A 24-year-old Russian woman has been voted ‘Miss Atom 2007’ in a competition to find the most beautiful woman in the former Soviet nuclear industry. Elena Kamenskaya, who works for the protection equipment manufacturer in Moscow, Eleron, beat off rivals to win a mink coat.
Rob Edwards.com 26th April 2007
France
On the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, 30 Greenpeace activists from six European nations halt construction at the site of the Électricité de France’s (EDF) proposed new European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR).
Greenpeace International 26th April 2007
Chernobyl
President Viktor Yushchenko said that relief work was continuing 21 years after the disaster, in which five million people were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. He said that state officials had been ordered to do everything possible to decontaminate the land and help the survivors.
Times 27th April 2007
