Hinkley
The National Trust of Ireland has begun a legal challenge against the UK government over its decision to approve a new nuclear plant in England. The plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset was granted planning permission by the Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, last month. However, the trust (known as An Taisce in Irish) has said the Irish people should have been consulted before the UK government granted approval. An Taisce wants a judicial review at the High Court in London. Its spokesman said the proposed plant is as close to the Irish coast as it is to London, and is closer to Dublin than it is to Leeds.
BBC 2nd May 2013 read more »
RTE 2nd May 2013 read more »
Utility Week 2nd May 2013 read more »
FT 2nd May 2013 read more »
The Energy ministry’s latest data points to Britain’s first new nuclear power plant starting operations in 2020, offering some clarity over the possible startup date for the delayed plant. EDF Energy’s 1,630-megawatt Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor was initially expected to commence electricity production in 2018, but regulatory delays following Japan’s Fukushima accident have put back the start-up. The French company has not given a new date for the plant’s start of operations, but government data forecasting installed power capacity showed the energy ministry is counting on 2020 as the new date. Gvernment figures show that it now expects only 3.3 GW of new nuclear capacity to come online by 2025.
Reuters 2nd May 2013 read more »
Scottish Radwaste
Through today’s publication of the Preferred Option position paper, the NDA has now completed its strategic review of the options for the storage of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) in central and southern Scotland. The publication of this paper is consistent with the NDA’s Integrated Waste Management (IWM) Strategy which states that centralised and multi-site approaches should be considered where it may be advantageous.Following engagement with key stakeholders, the NDA published a credible options paper in August 2012 for comment. After taking into account stakeholder views, the NDA has concluded that the preferred option for storing ILW in central and southern Scotland is the current baseline for all sites, except Hunterston B where there are benefits in storing the Hunterston B waste within the Hunterston A store. In order to realise the opportunity to consolidate the Hunterston B waste at Hunterston A there are a number of recommended actions that need to be completed including the production of a preliminary safety case and a planning application will need to be prepared and submitted to North Ayrshire Council.
NDA 30th April 2013 read more »
Nuclear Research
British physicists will have access to the most advanced nuclear physics facility in the world after UK funders agreed to join the project. The £1.4bn research centre, which will try to solve some of the most perplexing mysteries of matter, is being built in Darmstadt, Germany, and will switch on in five years’ time. At its heart will be twin accelerators, each more than a kilometre in circumference, that produce intense beams of ions and antimatter. The beams will be used to probe the behaviour of atomic nuclei and subatomic particles, many so exotic they have never been studied before. Physicists in Britain have lobbied hard to become members of the facility, and many see the project as crucial to the future of nuclear physics in the country. The field suffered badly in 2009 when major nuclear physics projects were cancelled amid financial problems at the STFC. “This is a very big deal, it will reinvigorate nuclear physics in the UK,” said Alison Bruce, professor of nuclear physics at Brighton University. “As a partner, we will not only use the facility, but decide the direction of the science.”
Guardian 3rd May 2013 read more »
Sellafield
A firearms officer in court because of his experience at Sellafield said he regretted having to take legal action but felt let down by his bosses. Andrew Holcroft told an employment tribunal in Carlisle that he had been badly treated by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), who police the site, because of his dyslexia. Mr Holcroft, 29, who now lives in the north east and is still a constable in the force, said he had been removed from training for a specialist team because of his disability. He also claimed that he suffered discrimination because of his condition, and that the force did not make reasonable adjustments to help him.
Whitehaven News 1st May 2013 read more »
Cumbria
Letter: The Briain’s Energy Coast board comprises a number of very senior figures from within the nuclear industry who fund its activities. Normally this would be welcomed as these same individuals, by virtue of their day jobs, are able to remove the structural barriers that impede the diversification and growth of Copeland’s economy. Despite repeated representation and pleas made to these high level decision makers by our MP, Jamie Reed, and various elected district and county councillors, changes have not been forthcoming. Whilst the BEC projects that Mr Tomlinson points to are indeed welcomed, gently encouraging growth in the economy with the one hand whilst throttling the life out of it with the other is nothing other than perverse. Perhaps Mr Tomlinson, who is quick to highlight his independence, might use his sphere of influence to pursue this with the other members of the BEC board. Until such time as this is addressed, BEC will resemble little more than a proxy delivery agent for the NDA’s token public affairs programme.
Whitehaven News 2nd May 2013 read more »
NPT
Delegations from around the world have been meeting in Geneva over the past two weeks to debate how to keep alive the 45 year-old compromise between the nuclear haves and have-nots known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it has not gone all that well. The second week of the Preparatory Committee meeting, PrepCom, was dominated by the Egyptian delegation’s dramatic walkout on Monday in protest about the lack of progress on one of the most burning issue: the holding of a conference on a Middle East WMD-free zone, known by the folksy acronym, MEWMDFZ.
Guardian 2nd May 2013 read more »
France
French Industry Minister Mr Montebourg signalled in a recent newspaper interview that the government was willing to sell down other state shareholdings. However, this week he rowed back from a suggestion that Paris may sell part of its 85 per cent holding in EDF, the big nuclear power and electricity provider. There is certainly plenty of scope for privatisations, given the €60bn of state shareholdings in quoted companies, including GDF Suez, and Areva. But while officials say there are “no taboos” about selling some shareholdings, there are important caveats. We are not talking here of a Thatcherite privatisation programme – even a furtive one. The government is firmly committed to retaining its influence in defence, energy and transport.
FT 2nd May 2013 read more »
Turkey
Japan is set to build its first overseas nuclear power station since the Fukushima disaster two years ago, with prime minister Shinzo Abe due to sign an agreement with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish counterpart. However, a Japanese official said that despite Turkey’s decision to award a Japanese-led consortium exclusive negotiating rights for the $20bn-plus tender, there was still “a long way to go” regarding financial terms. France would also have a central role in the prospective deal. Two people familiar with the talks said Turkey would take a 50 per cent stake in the 4,500-plus megawatt facility at the Black Sea site of Sinop. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is set to take 30 per cent of the consortium with GDF Suez, which would operate the plant, taking the remaining 20 per cent, according to a person on the French side. The technology for the four reactors would be supplied by French company Areva.
FT 2nd May 2013 read more »
UAE
Japan and the United Arab Emirates signed on Thursday a nuclear cooperation agreement during a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who stressed Tokyo’s cooperation with its Middle East partners. Abe is on a regional tour he began in Saudi Arabia, in a push to sell Japanese nuclear technologies. The cooperation agreement over a peaceful use of nuclear energy was signed in Dubai, in the presence of Abe and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashif al-Maktoum, WAM state news agency said.
Middle East Online 2nd May 2013 read more »
World Nuclear News 2nd May 2013 read more »
Japan
Japan is preparing to start up a massive nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant over the objections of the Obama administration, which fears the move may stoke a broader race for nuclear technologies and even weapons in North Asia and the Middle East. The Rokkasho reprocessing facility, based in Japan’s northern Aomori prefecture, is capable of producing nine tons of weapons-usable plutonium annually, said Japanese officials and nuclear-industry experts, enough to build as many as 2,000 bombs, although Japanese officials say their program is civilian.
FoX Business 1st May 2013 read more »
Two years after a triple meltdown that grew into the world’s second worst nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is faced with a new crisis: a flood of highly radioactive wastewater that workers are struggling to contain. Groundwater is pouring into the plant’s ravaged reactor buildings at a rate of almost 75 gallons a minute. It becomes highly contaminated there, before being pumped out to keep from swamping a critical cooling system. A small army of workers has struggled to contain the continuous flow of radioactive wastewater, relying on hulking gray and silver storage tanks sprawling over 42 acres of parking lots and lawns. The tanks hold the equivalent of 112 Olympic-size pools. But even they are not enough to handle the tons of strontium-laced water at the plant — a reflection of the scale of the 2011 disaster and, in critics’ view, ad hoc decision making by the company that runs the plant and the regulators who oversee it. In a sign of the sheer size of the problem, the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, plans to chop down a small forest on its southern edge to make room for hundreds more tanks, a task that became more urgent when underground pits built to handle the overflow sprang leaks in recent weeks.
New York Times 29th April 2013 read more »
US
Duke Energy, the largest U.S. electric utility, said it notified regulators on Thursday that it will drop plans to build two new nuclear reactors in North Carolina due to slow growth in power demand. Progress Energy, which Duke acquired last year, proposed building two AP1000 reactors at the Harris nuclear plant site in Wake County, North Carolina, and submitted an application in 2008 for a construction and operating license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Reuters 3rd May 2013 read more »
Canada
On today’s podcast, Arnie and Kevin talk about international nuclear contamination with Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. They discuss the differences between American and Canadian nuclear plants in design and regulatory philosophy. They also discuss Fairewinds Associates recent report on the relicensing of the Pickering Station on the Canadian coast of Lake Ontario, just a 30 minute drive from Toronto. Fukushima Daiichi may have taught us that nuclear contamination knows no borders, but are the industry and its regulators applying this lesson?
Fairwinds 1st May 2013 read more »
North Korea
North Korea’s continuing development of nuclear technology and long-range ballistic missiles will move it closer to its stated goal of being able to hit the United States with an atomic weapon, a new Pentagon report to Congress said on Thursday.
Reuters 3rd May 2013 read more »
Iran
The EU’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton will meet chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul on May 15 in a fresh effort to defuse international concern over Tehran’s disputed nuclear drive.
EU Business 2nd May 2013 read more »
Trident
Letter Bernard Jenkin MP : As Field Marshal Lord Bramall was one of two other retired generals who, together with General Sir Hugh Beach, wrote to The Times attacking Trident in January 2009, his support for Sir Hugh is predictable. But his analysis differs in one vital respect: Sir Hugh opposed the UK nuclear deterrent even in the 1980s, however Lord Bramall concedes that it “served both sides in the Cold War well”. His case, that “the reality today” is different and there is no credible, likely threat which Trident could deter, fails to address the central point made by Admiral Lord West of Spithead and Dr Julian Lewis: the unpredictability of future military crises.
Times 3rd May 2013 read more »
Letter David Lowry: The debate overlooks the United Kingdom’s longstanding obligations to negotiate nuclear disarmament in a multilateral forum. The Foreign Office’s own website states, without qualification, in respect of membership of the 1970 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT): “States that have nuclear weapons (China, France, Russia, UK and US) agree to work towards nuclear disarmament.”
Times 3rd May 2013 read more »
Does the US want Britain to renew its independent nuclear deterrent? The question is generating a certain amount of debate among security analysts on both sides of the Atlantic. Between now and 2016, the UK must take a decision on whether to spend £20bn building four new submarines to carry the Trident missile. David Cameron’s Conservatives are keenly committed to a like-for-like replacement, saying there can be no compromise with the UK’s ultimate security guarantee. But there are a few discordant voices out there who are questioning whether it is really worth ploughing all this money into a renewed nuclear weapons capability when the UK is having to cut its conventional arsenal as much as it is. Would it not be better, ask some critics, if Britain shifted the billions of pounds of cash meant for Trident’s replacement and bought weapons it is far more likely to use and which will ensure it remains an effective ally of the US?
FT 2nd May 2013 read more »
Energy Efficiency
An organisation representing some of Britain’s leading industrial companies has warned the government that a key initiative designed to reduce household bills by saving energy is doomed to failure. The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE), whose members include Carillion, E.ON and Honeywell, together with the Green Alliance thinktank and wildlife group WWF, has written to Ed Davey, the energy and climate change secretary, expressing concerns about his proposed electricity demand reduction programme. “We feel that your department continues to treat electricity saving as a low priority, and fear it will miss the opportunity to reduce the UK’s electricity bills. We would urge you to aim higher and use the Energy bill to create a step change in the UK’s energy efficiency,” the letter says. ACE and its supporters want the government to introduce an electricity efficiency “feed-in tariff” like that available currently for solar power. Chris Shearlock, sustainable development manager at the Co-op, which is also concerned about the government’s energy reduction programme, added: “As a business that has reduced its own emissions by over 40% in the last six years we’re acutely aware of the potential that energy efficiency offers. The Energy Bill needs to go much further in offering incentives for businesses across the UK to save energy, rather than blindly paying for spare capacity in new power stations.”
Guardian 2nd May 2013 read more »
Renewables
Ten small-scale wind turbines have been installed at a waste water treatment works to help reduce energy costs. In the first project of its kind in Scotland, Scottish Water’s ‘Evance’ turbines in Stornoway are capable of generating 500 kilowatts of electricity per day.
Herald 3rd May 2013 read more »
Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the trade association, which represents the biomass and other renewable energy industries, wrote to the heads of Greenpeace, RSPB and Friends of the Earth, accusing them of spreading “misinformation” and using data that is “not science” and arguments that are “half-baked”. She told them: “Some of what has gone on recently is not worthy of your stature … The companies we represent are engaged in practical actions to reduce carbon emissions, improve forestry management, protect biodiversity and provide energy.” She urged the green campaigners to work together in a “robust dialogue”. The letter was sent on 18 March, and requested a meeting with the organisations that has not yet taken place.
Guardian 2nd May 2013 read more »
Environmentalists have formed an unlikely alliance with the paper, timber and furniture industries to warn the Government against the “reckless” pursuit of burning wood to generate electricity which they claim will damage both the environment and the economy. In a letter published in The Times today, the signatories from 15 organisations want subsidies to biomass power stations slashed to prevent them driving up the price of British wood and putting the industries which rely on them out of business. They said that 40,000 jobs could be threatened as a result of the “huge new demand for wood” caused by the biomass drive. “We have jointly written to Government to warn that the reckless pursuit of generating electricity from wood threatens to backfire, both in terms of the environment and the economy,” they write in the letter signed by the leaders of Friends of the Earth, th e RSPB and Greenpeace as well as 12 companies and trade bodies.
Times 2nd May 2013 read more »
Letter: Current subsidies for “biomass” electricity are expected to result in the use of the equivalent of six times the UK’s annual forestry harvest by 2017. This huge new demand for wood will put up prices, risking the survival of existing industries — in wood, wood panels, packaging, construction, furniture and paper — and many of the 40,000 jobs that rely on them. Furthermore, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that burning wood for power can increase greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. We believe that the only rational response to these risks is to limit subsidies and thus the amount of wood that can be burnt in individual electricity-only power stations (as opposed to efficient combined heat and power facilities), and to focus Government support on renewable energy that is genuinely “green”, such as solar, wind and wave power.
Times 2nd May 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
The departure of Peter Voser from Shell may be entirely voluntary and personal but the consequential change of leadership raises some very big issues for Shell’s board and the company’s investors. They need to take a view of where the sector will go, and of how science and technology will alter the ways in which energy is produced, distributed and consumed. And then in the spirit of the great Shell leaders of the past, back to Marcus Samuel, they need to turn that view into reality.
FT 3rd May 2013 read more »
Shale Gas
Peter Lilly: Shale gas could be great news for Britain, but its opponents insist on grotesque exaggeration.
Telegraph 29th April 2013 read more »
Royal Dutch Shell has crushed any hopes it might kickstart a British shale gas boom, saying nobody knows whether shale will succeed in the UK and it has no desire to be the company that tries to find out.
Telegraph 2nd May 2013 read more »
Utility Week 3rd May 2013 read more »
Climate
Global warming not only increased temperatures last year but caused a record low in Arctic sea ice, as well as deadly storms and economic uncertainty, the UN has warned. The World Meteorological Organisation, that tracks the weather on behalf of the 193 countries of the United Nations, confirmed 2012 was the 9th warmest year on record. The annual summary of climate change also warned Arctic sea ice reached its lowest ever level, rainfall increased causing floods around the world and a number of countries experienced drought. Extreme weather events, like Superstorm Sandy in the US and Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines, were linked to climate change.
Telegraph 2nd May 2013 read more »
Obituary
Ian Breach: Having moved to Cumbria as a freelance in 1974, Ian was a natural to cover the 1977 Windscale inquiry for the Financial Times and New Scientist – reporting that he recycled in a 1978 Penguin Special Windscale Fallout: A Primer for the Age of Nuclear Controversy. Never one to avoid controversy, Ian returned to Windscale and Sellafield in 1993 when, as BBC TV News environment correspondent, he explored the politics of THORP, the proposed thermal oxide reprocessing plant given the go-ahead in 1978, for a Panorama film called A Very British Folly. Taken to the Press Complaints Commission by British Nuclear Fuels, Ian won his case. His point that commissioning THORP would be a huge mistake has been proved correct.
Guardian 3rd May 2013 read more »
