Nuclear Subsidy
Rolls Royce will get the biggest portion of 150 million pounds ($250 million) of U.K. government funding announced by Business Secretary Peter Mandelson. The aircraft-engine maker will use 45 million pounds of government money to build four factories in Britain, three focused on aerospace and one on civil nuclear power, the Department for Business said in a statement today from London.
Bloomberg 28th July 2009 more >>
ROLLS-ROYCE has sent out a clear signal of its intention to corner two markets which it sees as key to future growth. Greener aero engines and new nuclear power stations look to be the focus in coming years.
Business East Midlands 29th July 2009 more >>
Sellafield
It is hoped that hundreds of new nuclear engineering jobs will be created at Sellafield after the government lent its support to the safe expansion of the global nuclear energy sector. Prime minister Gordon Brown’s plans for coping with nuclear challenges places the Cumbrian processing plant in a favourable position, the North West Evening Mail reports. It is hoped that the site will benefit from a new wave of reprocessing and fuel manufacturing contracts after the UK said it would help any country looking to safeguard stocks of potentially risky nuclear material.
Career Engineer 28th July 2009 more >>
Germany
Whether nuclear power generation gets a second lease on life in Germany depends on the result of the Sept. 27 general election. In 2000, a center-left coalition between Social Democrats and Greens under then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed to gradually phase out all of the country’s 17 remaining nuclear reactors by around 2021. But a looming power supply gap means current Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Liberal party are in favor of postponing the nuclear exit.
Wall Street Journal 28th July 2009 more >>
Iran
The issues on which the US, France, and the UK are making a hue and cry were once hatched and sponsored by them. How could one forget that it was the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who had signed the National Security Decision Memorandum 292 titled, ‘US-Iran Nuclear Cooperation’ in 1975, which very generously laid out the niceties of the sale of nuclear energy equipment to Iran to bring home more than $ 6 billion as revenue? This cooperation did not stop in the following year (1976) when US President Gerald Ford signed a directive offering Tehran a chance to buy and operate a US-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Besides this, numerous other contracts were signed with various Western firms, including a German firm that began the construction of the Bushehr power plant. Work was halted after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the German firm withdrew from the project.
Middle East Online 28th July 2009 more >>
Jordan
Jordan is forging ahead with a peaceful nuclear programme that would turn the energy-poor kingdom into an exporter of electricity, nuclear chief Khaled Tukan said.
Middle East Online 28th July 2009 more >>
Renewables
Letter from David Lowry: Thank you for your positive article Wind farm in Westminster? about the threatened closure of Britain’s only commercial-scale wind turbine manufacturer on the Isle of Wight. This week during the end-of-session adjournment debate in the House of Commons, Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle asked: “Given that the government are expanding the UK market with more wind farms offshore and onshore, what can we do to ensure that some of that work is put into the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight to keep this country’s manufacturing base going?”
Morning Star 29th July 2009 more >>
More than a week into their wildcat occupation of the Vestas Wind Systems plant 11 workers opened letters from the management telling them they had been sacked with immediate effect and without compensation.
Guardian 29th July 2009 more >>
Independent 29th July 2009 more >>
Telegraph 29th July 2009 more >>
Police in the Isle of Wight are bracing themselves for the possible arrival of thousands of environmental activists who are heading to the island in a show of support for workers facing the closure of the Vestas wind turbine factory.
Guardian 29th July 2009 more >>
Britain’s countryside and coastline will be dotted with 2,700 new wind turbines by 2012 more than double the existing total according to an industry survey of approved wind farms. The figures contradict claims by Vestas, owner of the country’s only significant wind turbine factory, that demand is too low to justify continuing production. The Danish company will go to court today to seek a possession order allowing it to evict 18 members of staff who have spent the past ten days barricaded inside offices at the factory at Newport in the Isle of Wight.
Times 29th July 2009 more >>
Europe’s largest onshore windfarm project has been thrown in severe doubt after the RSPB and official government agencies lodged formal objections to the 150-turbine plan. The setback adds to the problems facing the government’s ambition to install 10,000 new turbines across the UK by 2020. The proposed 550MW windfarm, sprawling across the centre of Shetland’s main island, would add almost 20% to existing onshore wind capacity. But the objectors say the plans could seriously damage breeding sites for endangered birds, including a rare wader, the whimbrel, which was unexpectedly discovered by the windfarm developer’s own environmental survey teams. Other species at risk include the red throated diver, golden plover and merlin.
Guardian 29th July 2009 more >>
Climate
China’s three biggest power firms produced more greenhouse gas emissions last year than the whole of Britain, according to a Greenpeace report published today. The group warned that inefficient plants and the country’s heavy reliance on coal are hindering efforts to tackle climate change. While China’s emissions per capita remain far below those of developed countries, the country as a whole has surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest emitter.
Guardian 29th July 2009 more >>
Slough’s reputation for industrial sprawl may soon be a thing of the past as it joins environmental capitals including Copenhagen and Vancouver in pledging to strive to be part of the UN’s Climate Neutral Network.
Telegraph 29th July 2009 more >>
