Hinkley
An attempted blockade of Hinkley Point nuclear power station is due to begin today as campaigners against a proposed replacement nuclear plant step up their protest. Stop New Nuclear, a group of organisations wants to halt the plan for the new twin reactor Hinkley C, and site clearance work, which has already started at the Somerset site. Developer EDF Energy has yet to apply for planning permission for the new station itself.
Western Morning News 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
Jack FM 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
More than 150 people marched through Bridgwater today to protest against EDF Energys plan for two new mega-reactors at Somersets Hinkley Point nuclear power station. In the first of a series of demonstrations over the next three days, protesters converged opposite EDF Energys regional headquarters with an array of costumes and banners before marching through the town centre. Two protesters were dressed as the grim reaper and carried a large banner saying: Nuclear energy: the death of a safe, affordable future. Boycott EDF. A choir from Wales also sang songs opposing a new reactor proposed for Wylfa nuclear power station on Anglesey.
Indymedia 1st Oct 2011 more >>
WELSH campaigners protested in Somerset yesterday against EDF Energys plans to build two new nuclear reactors arguing they pose a threat to more than one million people in South Wales. The new power station proposed for the site across the Bristol Channel at Hinkley Point would be just 15 miles from Barry. Cardiff and Newport are less than 30 miles away.
Wales on Sunday 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
A leading environmental activist warned today that jobs at EDF Energys proposed nuclear power plant in Somerset would either be non-existent or from the bottom of the barrel. Yannick Rousselet from Greenpeace France said the work situation at EDF Energys protoype EPR reactor at Flamanville in northern France was shameful. He added that far from the secure, long-term jobs that local people had been promised, unemployment had risen in the area since construction began. He said that two people had already died during construction and that most of the labour had come from outside the region. There are 18 different nationalities working there and most of the work is done by sub-contractors. This means there is no job security and the pay is poor. Workers get shipped in and shipped out and have none of the benefits of permanent work.
Stop New Nuclear 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
Radwaste
Among a number of key issues raised in its response to the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) consultation on identifying and assessing potential candidate sites for an underground nuclear waste dump, anti-nuclear group CORE has warned the Government that its Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) process must now be abandoned until at least 2015 when the parliamentary constituency boundary changes proposed by the Boundary Commission for England (BCE) are ratified. The changes could see both Copeland and Allerdale expanded to include Central Lakeland communities. The MRWS West Cumbria Partnership, which is carrying out the Governments programme with a focus on West Cumbrian communities, is planning to advise Copeland, Allerdale and County Councils early in 2012 whether or not to move to the next crucial stage of the MRWS process the Decision to Participate with the decision expected to be taken by the Councils later in 2012.
CORE 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
Politics
Energy minister Charles Hendry, addressed a 75% empty hall. The Tories should be on firmer ground here, as the department of energy and climate change has hugely out-performed the environment department, defending its budget and delivering a string of big policies, including the Green deal for energy efficiency, the Green investment bank and big changes to the energy market. But Decc is led by LibDem Chris Huhne, leaving Hendry able to merely parrot the modest threats Huhne had already made to the big six energy companies over soaring bills. We’re back to the same old question: does the Conservative enthusiasm for the green policies that could deliver a clean and sustainable future for the UK exist beyond a few cabinet ministers and their tree logo? The repeated blocking of green ambition by the trolls of the Treasury and business departments, the comments of senior figures Tyrie and Maude and the total absence of announcements in the speeches I just watched suggest green issues are very far down the Tory party priority list.
Guardian 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
Companies
Maces strategy to make inroads into the nuclear industry has started with two major contracts awarded by Magnox for decommissioning work. The first project is a managed services contract at Sizewell in Suffolk, the second contract is for programme management support at the Berkeley site in Gloucester. Mace will manage the delivery of projects as part of the decommissioning programmes.
Construction Enquirer 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
The head of RWE npower says that he didnt attend the Labour conference, where Ed Miliband put energy groups at the top of his hit list of predatory businesses ruining Britain he went to the Munich beer festival but the Labour leader is far from the first to criticise energy companies. Consumer groups, politicians and the regulator all claim that households are being ripped off. Mr Beckers counters that the industry is cleaning up its act. Besides, he adds, consumers and government will have to learn to trust companies such as his because they are needed to deliver £200 billion of investment in grids, power plants and wind turbines over the next decade. Its not sustainable if you … have to make this commitment and you are seen as an organisation which is not trustworthy. He adds that increased meddling by politicians and the regulator Ofgem in the market will scare off much-needed investors. My concern is that if we see more interventionist policy, almost regardless of what we do in EMR [the Governments new electricity market reform package], investors will lose confidence. They will say the market is not fully liberalised and its not fully regulated. Its something inbetween. That will definitely lead to a hiatus in investment if that continues. Yet uncertainty dogs its Horizon joint venture with E.ON to build four new nuclear reactors in Britain at a cost of more than £20 billion. Is it possible that the project wont go ahead, given its ruinous cost? For Mr Beckers you can never say never, although he admits that RWE npower is likely to look for investors, or a partner, to share the cost once the subsidies for nuclear power have been set.
Times 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
Urenco
German energy giant RWE has appointed advisers for a strategic review of Urenco the nuclear power company it co-owns with the British and Dutch government. The move could press the UK Government to formalise its own strategy on disposal of the company, which is expected to net UK taxpayers £1bn. Urenco is one-third owned by the UK Government, with the rest split between the Dutch government and two German utilities, Eon and RWE. Last month RWE, which in the UK also owns NPower, said it was increasing its sell- off programme from 8bn (£7bn) to 11bn in the next three years. The company, which has about 27.5bn of net debt, was put under further pressure by the German government’s decision to phase out nuclear energy in the aftermath of the Japanese power plant disaster. RWE is also in final negotiations with Gazprom over a potential split of its assets and operations, including Npower in the UK. The deadline for any agreement with Gazprom runs out on October 15.
Telegraph 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
Japan
Small amounts of plutonium believed to have escaped from Japans tsunami-crippled nuclear plant have been detected in soil more than 40km away, say government researchers, a finding that will fuel already widespread fears about radiation risk. The discovery came as authorities lifted evacuation advisories on other towns near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power station in the north-east prefecture of Fukushima, saying radiation readings showed they were safe for residents.
FT 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
Germany
Several hundreds of people protested today, Sunday October 2, 2011 in Grohnde (Lower Saxony). After a demonstration the access roads to the NPP are blockaded by climbing activists who abseiled from a highway bridge. They are supported by some 50 activists blockading the road and an operating track with a sit-in. A second access road is blocked by an announced and permitted anti-nuclear concert in front of the atomic power station. Though police new about the action day, they could not prevent the blockades. The protesters don’t accept the German nuclear policy that only closed the eight oldest atomic power plants in reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe. Instead, they want all nuclear facilities including the remaining nine atomic reactors, a uranium enrichment facility, fuel element factory and other nuclear sites to be closed immediately. According to the German atomic policy the Grohnde NPP is supposed to be kept in operation even longer than stipulated in the former nuclear phase-out law. Thus, for the Grohnde NPP the so-called German phase-out means a lifetime extension.
Green Kids 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
Lithuania
France’s energy giant EDF has refused a Russian offer to build a nuclear power plant, Lithuania’s Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said after meeting his French counterpart Francois Fillon. Kubilius said Fillon confirmed during a visit to Vilnius Friday that state-owned EDF had rejected Moscow’s invitation to construct a plant in its Baltic territory of Kaliningrad, which borders Lithuania. Kubilius told reporters that Fillon told him “very clearly” that “Russia had intensively called on EDF to take part in building the Kaliningrad nuclear power plant and EDF refused”. Vilnius has criticised the planned plant, claiming security requirements have not been met in the project. Russia rejects the charge and says the plant, meant to be online by 2016, would be the safest in the world.
Expatica 30th Sept 2011 more >>
Nuclear Testing
VETERANS affected by nuclear tests took part in an annual parade in Wales for the final time yesterday. The march by members of the Welsh branch of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association in Risca, near Newport, has been staged since 1993. But organisers said because the number of those who take part is reducing, yesterdays parade was likely to be the last.
Western Mail 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
BBC 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
Green Deal
A number of blue chip names in banking, building and energy have signed a deal to create a unique not-for-profit financial company which will deliver billions of pounds of energy efficiency investment to residential and business premises. The aim of the companies, which include power companies British Gas and E.ON, retailer B&Q and the banks HSBC and Goldman Sachs, is to ensure low-cost finance is available to the 14m homes the government hopes will be refitted by 2020 under its green deal starting in October 2012. The green deal will enable homeowners and businesses to access loans for loft lagging, cavity wall insulation and other efficiency measures. It is a rule of the scheme that the savings on energy bills must be at least as big as the loan repayments.
Guardian 2nd Oct 2011 more >>
Renewables
Calum Wilson managing director of Forth Energy: There is already considerable discussion about Forth Energy’s proposals to site wood-fuelled combined heat and power (CHP) plants at Rosyth, Grangemouth, Dundee and Leith. Debate is good and the facts should be aired and understood. These plants will generate reliable supplies of renewable, low carbon electricity and heat for industrial processes and residential, community and commercial space heating from internationally-sourced, sustainable resources. These plants will produce not just reliable, renewable electricity (500MW or around 9 per cent of Scotland’s predicted 2020 demand), but 320MW of heat too nearly a third of the Scottish Government’s 2020 target of 11 per cent of heat from renewable sources. This heat provides the opportunity for Scotland to create a renewable heat industry with the potential for district heating networks nearby.
Scotsman 3rd Oct 2011 more >>
