New Nukes
De Rivaz, boss of the French nuclear group EDF, has already charmed ministers into allowing him to buy the crown jewels of our nuclear generating industry, British Energy, for £12.5bn. But he knows that the public will be harder to convince, made sceptical by years of blunders, delays and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on dysfunctional projects. His task also comes as the political climate hardens against large infrastructure schemes – such as Heathrow expansion.
Guardian 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Drivers Jonas has finished work advising the government on how to make its draft nuclear national policy statement (NPS) watertight. The consultancy carried out the two-month commission for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) with engineering firm Arup. “We were commissioned to ensure that the policy will stand up.
Planning Resource 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Nuclear Inspectors
The HSE’s Nuclear Directorate is to undergo a major restructure to help it respond to a number of challenges, especially difficulties in recruiting inspectors. The Government has recognised that the success of its nuclear-build programme and corresponding decommissioning work will be put at risk unless it addresses the skills shortage in the industry and restructures the Nuclear Directorate. Issuing its response on 27 January to a review by Dr Tim Stone on the nuclear regulatory regime, the Government said that agreement for the restructure, through legislation, has now been reached. This will lead to the creation of an autonomous body that would remain within the auspices of the HSE, but with greater flexibility to respond to specific challenges.
Safety and Health Practitioner 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Nuclear Waste
ALLERDALE council will express an interest in hosting a new nuclear waste dump, members agreed on Wednesday. The full council ratified a recommendation from its executive committee to express a without-commitment interest in Government plans for a high-level nuclear waste repository.
West Cumberland Times and Star 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Sellafield
MORE than £2 billion could be pumped into the West Cumbrian economy and 10,000 jobs created if Government-backed plans for a new atomic reactor at Sellafield go ahead.
West Cumberland Times and Star 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Sizewell
Sizewell B nuclear power station shut down at around 1300 GMT on Thursday, a spokeswoman for the company said. “It was an unplanned trip,”
Reuters 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Heysham
A Lancashire power plant is well down the list of sites proposed for a new nuclear power station. Heysham Power Station owner British Energy said it would be looking at putting its southern-based sites forward first when the Government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change invites companies to submit potential sites for new nuclear power facilities this week.
Lancashire Evening Post 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Companies
French nuclear engineering company Areva said Thursday that sales rose 10.4 percent last year as its uranium mining and reactor construction businesses benefited from increasing demand for nuclear power.
International Herald Tribune 29th Jan 2009 more >>
“THIS is not the way you behave in business normally you send signals,” spluttered a French nuclear executive this week at the news that Siemens, Germany’s engineering giant, would divest the 34% stake it has held since 2001 in Areva NP, a Franco-German joint venture in nuclear reactors. Until this week Areva NP was an example of a successful partnership between French and German companies in a promising industry. Nuclear power is in the midst of a global comeback, and Areva NP’s new design, the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), is leading the field against competing blueprints from American and Japanese rivals. Being a minority shareholder, the German firm complained, “considerably limits the entrepreneurial manoeuverability of Siemens within the joint venture.”
Economist 29th Jan 2009 more >>
MoX Shipment
Companies have confirmed that a shipment of mixed oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel from Europe to Japan is being prepared, although the exact departure date has not yet been announced.
World Nuclear News 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Finland
Damages claimed from Areva and Siemens as building work runs three years late at Europe’s first new reactor for a decade. Finnish nuclear company EVO is claiming 2.4bn in damages from Siemens and Areva for delays in the construction of the Olkiluoto nuclear reactor. Europe’s first nuclear power station for a decade is due for completion in 2012, three years behind schedule.
Building 29th Jan 2009 more >>
France
Leading French utilities EDF and GDF Suez are to be involved in the construction of a new French EPR nuclear facility, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said on Thursday. The President’s Elysee office said in a statement that the new site would be located at Penly, northern France. State-owned EDF, which is France’s main electricity provider, is already in the midst of building an EPR plant near Flamanville in northern France. The Flamanville EPR is due to cost 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion), more than an initial expected cost of 3.3 billion. French state-owned nuclear group Areva is also
facing cost overruns on an EPR plant that Areva is building in Finland.
Reuters 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Bloomberg 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Test Veterans
Lawyers for the MoD have told the High Court that there is no solid medical evidence to link the illnesses to the tests. Charles Gibson QC said the veterans’ claims were an “attack” on the distinguished scientists and public servants who organised the tests. “We submit the evidence they have deployed in support of the individual cases doesn’t come remotely close to proving causation,” he said.
Coventry Telegraph 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Iran
Preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is a more pressing challenge than solving the economic crisis, Benjamin Netanyahu (the frontrunner to become the next Israeli PM) has said.
Telegraph 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Times 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Real change in Washington’s policy in the Middle East would enable Iran to have a “co-operative” attitude towards the US, Iran’s foreign minister says.
BBC 29th Jan 2009 more >>
India
For decades, India’s nuclear establishment worked in almost total isolation, the result of US-led international sanctions intended to punish the country for refusing to relinquish its nuclear weapons programme. Barred from obtaining nuclear fuel or technology from abroad, the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India, working with private firms, installed a mere 4,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity, with another 2,600MW under construction. But when New Delhi was finally accepted last year as a de facto member of the global nuclear club – as part of a deal with the US – India became an accepted partner for the international civil nuclear trade. Since then, western energy companies have been beating a path to New Delhi. Yet even as they tout their wares, New Delhi is still grappling with sensitive questions of how much foreign involvement to permit.
FT 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Carbon Trading
The row over the working of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme intensified last night when EDF Energy warned that speculators risked turning carbon into a new category of sub-prime investment. Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of the UK arm of the French-owned gas and electricity group, said politicians and regulators needed to revisit the way the ETS was working and whether it was bringing the results they wanted. “We like certainty about a carbon price,” he said. “[But] the carbon price has to become simple and not become a new type of sub-prime tool which will be diverted from what is its initial purpose: to encourage real investment in real low-carbon technology.”
Guardian 30th Jan 2009 more >>
Fusion
An experimental fusion reactor that will recreate the conditions at the heart of the sun to create cheap green power could cost twice as much as governments had planned for, the Guardian has learned. The flagship project, which absorbs almost half of Britain’s energy research budget, will test complex machinery needed to make the world’s first operational fusion power plants – a technology widely expected to transform energy generation by providing abundant power with no greenhouse gas emissions and only small amounts of radioactive waste.
Guardian 29th Jan 2009 more >>
Submarines
Technicians aboard the new £1.2bn first of class submarine Astute moored in Devonshire Dock are to switch on its nuclear reactor either next month or in early March. It will be the first such switch-on since the reactors of the Trident missile submarine HMS Vengeance were switched on back in 1999.
North West Evening Mail 29th Jan 2009 more >>
