Sellafield
Sellafield nuclear plant workers have launched a campaign to attract fresh investment to the site. They are calling for a new nuclear power station in the area and the possible reuse of plutonium stocks. The Sellafield Workers Campaign said the plant could generate more than £1bn locally over the next five years. The Department for Energy and Climate Change acknowledged Cumbria’s role, but said the decision about the location of new plants was up to developers. Unite union national officer Kevin Coyne said without the investment, Cumbria would become an “economic wilderness”. Dr Ruth Balogh, nuclear issues campaigner for West Cumbria and North Lakes Friends of the Earth, rejected suggestions that Cumbria needed a new nuclear plant. She said: “They are wrong about the ‘economic wasteland’. The decline of jobs at Sellafield is not a steep decline. “We need to really grasp that Sellafield is a nuclear waste facility and we have to look after it properly.” She said the Friends of the Earth group believed the only safe way to deal with plutonium was to immobilise it. Dr Balogh said they had also published a report that suggested Cumbria could produce enough renewable energy to meet the population’s demands without the need for new nuclear developments.
BBC 30th Aug 2013 read more »
Workers at the nuclear site in Sellafield are launching a campaign aimed at attracting fresh investment to help guarantee its future.
Irish Independent 30th Aug 2013 read more »
Politics
Today’s Green party campaign for a public NHS and against fracking, for a living wage and against nuclear energy – so why does none of this register with voters?
Guardian 30th Aug 2013 read more »
Japan
Experts on Fukushima Unit 4 CNBC: “Far from under control, could get a lot worse” – Japan Times: “Could very quickly get much worse” – CNN: “Could still get a lot worse” — “Tokyo, Yokohama, even neighboring countries at serious risk”
ENE News 30th Aug 2013 read more »
“Careless” was how Toyoshi Fuketa, commissioner of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, reportedly described the inspection quality of hundreds of water tanks at the crippled Fukushima plant following the recent discovery of a serious radioactive spill. China’s Foreign Ministry went further, saying it was “shocking” that radioactive water was still leaking into the Pacific Ocean two years after the Fukushima incident. Both comments are to the point, and although many inside and outside Japan surely did not realize how bad the March 11, 2011 disaster was – and how bad it could get – it seems clear now that we have been misled about the scale of the problem confronting Japan. The country needs international help – and quickly. While the amount of radioactivity released into the environment in March 2011 has been estimated as between 10 percent and 50 percent of the fallout from the Chernobyl accident, the 400,000 tons of contaminated water stored on the Fukushima site contain more than 2.5 times the amount of radioactive cesium dispersed during the 1986 catastrophe in Ukraine.
CNN 30th Aug 2013 read more »
Fukushima Crsis Updae 27th to 29th August.
Greenpeace 30th Aug 2013 read more »
Iran
The first visit by a foreign leader to Iran since Hassan Rouhani assumed the presidency came earlier this week with the arrival of Oman’s sultan, Qaboos bin Said Al Said. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s new foreign minister, officially greeted Sultan Qaboos at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on Sunday, and then saw him off personally on Tuesday.The daily Khorasan newspaper reported that Qaboos carried a proposition under which Iran would be readmitted to the Swift international money transfer system in exchange for a reduction in its nuclear enrichment activities. For almost a year and a half, Iranian banks have been unable to execute most international financial transactions due to the country’s exclusion from Swift, and the state has been blocked from accessing the estimated 60 to 80 billion dollars it has on deposit in various overseas banks.
Guardian 30th Aug 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Research into the extent of leakage during the fracking process could seriously dent claims that shale gas is a relatively ‘clean’ fossil fuel. But the evidence still isn’t clear. More than two years after one study called shale gas “more polluting than coal”, academics are still wrangling over the fuel’s impact on the climate.Whoever’s right about fugitive emissions, the climate-impact of shale gas is also affected by a nest of other factors – whether it will out-compete coal or renewables, for example, or whether carbon capture and storage technology is ever developed enough on a global scale to capture the emissions from burning natural gas. As different countries develop a shale gas industry, these questions will become clearer. In the meantime, the academic argument over fugitive emissions looks set to continue.
Carbon Brief 30th Aug 2013 read more »
SHARES in Dart Energy, which is hoping to drill for gas in the Central Belt, have been suspended from trading in Australia as the group fleshes out plans for a fundraising exercise. The Singapore-based firm, which has its European headquarters in Stirling, is currently unable to access a $90 million (£58.1m) loan facility with HSBC due to delays in securing planning approval for its coal-bed methane project near Falkirk.
Scotsman 31st Aug 2013 read more »
Herald 31st Aug 2013 read more »
