Dounreay
HOMEOWNERS living close to the Dounreay nuclear site are to challenge its operators over plans to build huge waste storage vaults near their properties. Residents in Buldoo, Caithness are trying to stop the development of the shallow storage dumps which will be built just 430 metres from the nearest home and will be left in the ground forever. They want a public inquiry into the move, as the stores would be built outside Dounreay’s licensed site.
Scotsman 29th July 2006
DOUNREAY bosses want to build a £100 million plant to treat liquid and solid radioactive wastes, a legacy of reprocessing work at the nuclear site. Liquids in underground tanks, accounting for almost 80 per cent of radioactive waste at the site, will be solidified in cement and put in steel drums. The Caithness plant will also solidify other liquid waste and store it for up to 100 years, pending a national strategy for long-term storage or disposal of intermediate level waste. It is hoped that building can start in early 2008, with 120 workers employed on construction.
Scotsman 28th July 2006
Iran
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have agreed on a draft resolution giving Iran until 31 August to suspend uranium enrichment.
BBC 28th July 2006
FT 29th July 2006
The UN cannot push Iran into abandoning its nuclear work, an influential cleric said on Friday.
Reuters 28th July 2006
FT editorial: let us suppose, for the sake of practical rather than moral clarity, that Hizbollah was doing its sponsors’ bidding: trying to get Syria back in the game after its ejection from Lebanon last year; and signalling on behalf of an Iran facing sanctions because of its nuclear ambitions that Tehran has the means to respond. What should be the response of the US and its allies?
FT 29th July 2006
Nuclear Waste Trains
Greenpeace has compiled train timetables revealing when and where nuclear waste is being regularly freighted across the UK. The environmental lobby group says that an accident or a terrorist attack on a train could “spread radiation over 100 kilometres, and cause over 8,000 deaths”.
EDIE 28th July 2006
N.Korea
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged North Korea to rejoin negotiations on its nuclear program as ten world powers held Asian security talks without the communist regime.
Interactive Investor 28th July 2006
Nuclear Weapons
Will the BAE, Barrow-in-Furness submarine carry the UK’s next nuclear deterrent? First look inside new Astute vessel that navy could adapt to carry Trident.
Guardian 29th July 2006
Utilities
Eon, the German energy group, looks ready to push ahead with its €27bn ($34bn) cash bid for Endesa in spite of a regulatory ruling that could force it to sell 30 per cent of the Spanish utility’s domestic generation capacity.
FT 29th July 2006
