Hinkley
The promoters of this project, granted consent in March 2013 and finally out of the courts in December 2014, applied for a ‘non-material change’ to the project on Tuesday. Details of the change have yet to be published on the Planning Inspectorate website.
BDB Law 28th Jan 2015 read more »
Hinkley B
Families living near Hinkley B nuclear station in Somerset have been reassured that increased hours of work at Combwich laboratory has been caused by analysis that needs to be undertaken as part of the major maintenance programme currently under way on one of the two station reactors. Locals were concerned to see that the laboratories, which also routinely test milk grass and other samples from the local area, appeared to be working round the clock this week. EDF Energy said yesterday the work was part of the 10-week maintenance schedule
Western Daily Press 31st Jan 2015 read more »
Sellafield
Letter John Kane: The contracts issued by the NDA for work on – and the supply chain to – the Sellafield site totals tens of billions of pounds and the work will continue for many decades into the future. Sellafield Ltd has been a good employer and does put monies into our community, however since the site licence was put out to contract, we have seen a huge increase in local, national and international companies coming into the area in the guise of tier one, tier two and sub contracts. Very few of these companies have a clear visible and accessible socio-economic policy on working with and working in the community, to be brutally honest and frank the majority of them put nothing back into our community, they take with one hand then take with the other. This abuse has to stop forthwith. Making an opening gambit, I would suggest, via the NDA, that every company working on or supplying the Sellafield site pays a levy of one per cent on every contract worth over £500,000. Whilst this is only a small percentage it would bring millions over time into what is regarded nationally as a deprived and blighted area.
Whitehaven News 29th Jan 2015 read more »
Wylfa
THE nuclear reactor to be used at the proposed Wylfa Newydd power station has been approved. Horizon Nuclear Power has completed a long approval process called Regulatory Justification for its chosen reactor type for the multi-billion pound project to replace the current Wylfa plant in Cemaes Bay. Energy bosses had to take their plans for a Hitachi-GE UK ABWR reactor through two rounds of public consultation and seek approval from the UK Secretary of State for energy and climate change Ed Davey and both houses of parliament.
North Wales Chronicle 30th Jan 2015 read more »
News North Wales 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Dungeness
Jobs have been secured at Dungeness B power station with a £150 million investment securing its life for another decade. Dungneness B is one of the largest employers in the Rye area and takes on apprentices from local schools. The station, operated by EDF Energy employs 550 people plus another 200 contract staff which can increase four-fold during planned maintenance programmes. Improvement projects at Dungeness B have already included a £75m upgrade to control room computer systems and £8m on enhanced flood defences. News of the extension comes after extensive reviews of the plant’s safety cases and work with the independent nuclear regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). The station will also be subject to continuing independent safety reviews by the ONR. It will enable the station to continue generating low carbon electricity until 2028, producing enough power each year to supply the equivalent of 1.5m homes.
Rye and Battle Observer 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Oldbury
THE risk of any nuclear fuel flasks leaving Oldbury power station with radioactive contamination on them has been lowered as a result of significant improvements being made. Last summer it was revealed that contaminated debris was found on a rail wagon used to carry flasks of spent fuel from the plant. The small metallic fragments were discovered when the wagon was monitored on arrival at the Sellafield reprocessing site.
Gloucestershire Gazette 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Sizewell
Work on a major new plant and wildlife habitat designed to compensate for the loss of specialised sites if Sizewell C is ever built is set to start this spring.
East Anglian Daily Times 30th Jan 2015 read more »
World Nuclear
The world needs to quadruple the rate it is adding nuclear power capacity to the grid by the 2020s if it is to meet climate targets, according to a new report from thinktank the International Energy Agency (IEA). The 2015 technology roadmap for nuclear energy, published jointly with the Nuclear Energy Agency, suggests nuclear power capacity needs to more than double by 2050 as part of cost-effective efforts to limit warming to two degrees. Carbon Brief takes you through the roadmap’s findings and its recommendations for securing a nuclear contribution to avoiding dangerous climate change. If the IEA’s formidable ambition for nuclear power is achieved, it would make a major contribution to cutting emissions. It could avoid 2.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year, the IEA says, against current annual global emissions of around 50 gigatonnes. While that’s a sizeable amount, it goes to show that nuclear can only be a small part of the solution to climate change.
Carbon Brief 31st Jan 2015 read more »
The International Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency suggest in a report released Thursday that nuclear will have such a significant role to play in climate strategy that nuclear power generation capacity will have to double by 2050 in order for the world to meet the international 2°C (3.6°F) warming goal. To accomplish the needed CO2 emissions cuts to keep warming no greater than 2°C, the IEA says global nuclear power generation capacity needs to increase to 930 gigawatts from 396 gigawatts by 2050.
Scientific American 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Nuclear Safety
The United States looks set to succeed in watering down a proposal for tougher legal standards aimed at boosting global nuclear safety, according to senior diplomats. Diplomatic wrangling will come to a head at a 77-nation meeting in Vienna next month that threatens to expose divisions over required safety standards and the cost of meeting them, four years after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Switzerland has put forward a proposal to amend the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), arguing stricter standards could help avoid a repeat of Fukushima, where an earthquake and tsunami sparked triple nuclear meltdowns, forced more than 160,000 people to flee nearby towns and contaminated water, food and air.
Reuters 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Supply Chain
Rolls-Royce, in partnership with COMEX NUCLEAIRE, has been awarded a contract to supply boron measurement systems for the entire fleet of 900MW nuclear reactors in France owned and operated by EDF Group.
Energy Business Review 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Cyber Security
Funding to transform former Nuclear Lab into centre for renewable energy and cyber security skills. A former Nuclear Laboratory at Berkeley near Bristol has gained additional government funding to transform it into the Gloucestershire Science and Technology Park. The idea is that the new centre will undertake research and teach young people renewable energy and cyber security skills.
Tech Week Europe 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Politics
Letter: Janan Ganesh dismisses the Green Party as hippy eccentrics for, among other things, contemplating zero per cent gross domestic product growth. In this respect, the Greens are only as eccentric as the boy who pointed out the problem with the Emperor’s new clothes.GDP growth broadly equates to a growing throughput of energy and material resources in the economy. How much sense, then, does it make to advocate exponentially increasing GDP, forever and ever, within the limits of a finite biosphere? The laws of physics are not trumped by free trade, or innovation or whatever else is supposed to make infinite economic growth come true. Yet this is exactly what our entire corporate and political establishment (including your estimable selves at the FT, I regret to say) professes to believe.
Financial Times 31st Jan 2015 read more »
France & China
French nuclear company Areva signed a deal with Chinese utility China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) to create a joint-venture in the field of nuclear transportation and logistics, the company said in a statement on Friday. “Ultimately, the goal for both parties is the creation of a joint venture set to become CNNC’s supplier for spent fuel transport operations by road, train and sea modes,” Areva said. The deal was signed during a visit of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to China, it said.
Reuters 30th Jan 2015 read more »
EDF and CGN signed an agreement to share their experience of plant operation and engineering support for existing nuclear power plants. EDF said the aim of the agreement is “preserving the highest safety levels and maintaining consistency between French and Chinese procedures and standards.” The two companies signed a global partnership agreement in November 2007 for joint investment in domestic and foreign power plants and to support the expansion of technical cooperation and joint development of nuclear technology. That agreement saw Areva agreeing to build two EPR units at Taishan, China and to undertake a feasibility study for a used nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. Meanwhile, Areva and CNNC signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing a joint venture to supply nuclear transport and logistics services. Under the terms of the agreement, Areva will provide its expertise, experience and skills “for the deployment of a used fuel transportation and logistics system in China.”
World Nuclear News 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
The drums of war are beating on the BBC and other mass media, writes Oliver Tickell – naked propaganda about fictitious ‘Russian aggression’ intended to soften us up for a war that could wipe out life on Earth. We must refuse to fall for the endlessly repeated lies, and tell our politicians that our highest priority of all is peace.
Ecologist 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Nuclear Testing
Fiji closed “an unfortunate chapter” on Friday with a compensation payout to soldiers exposed to radiation during British nuclear tests in the Pacific more than 56 years ago, the prime minister said. The payments came after decades of campaigning by veterans and their children for recognition of the serious health problems they suffered. More than 70 Fijians were stationed on Kiritimati, then known as Christmas Island, during the 1957 and 1958 tests. The British government has refused to pay any compensation, but the Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, said the Pacific nation could wait no longer.
Guardian 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Renewables
An alternative investment that promised money for solar panels and 6.5 per cent annual returns – and claimed to be “protected, stable and socially responsible” – looks to have gone bust, potentially leaving thousands of UK investors out of pocket. Secured Energy Bonds rode a wave of green investment popularity in 2013: their launch was oversubscribed and they attracted more than £7.5m of UK investors’ money. But the Australian company behind the bonds went into administration in November and this week Capita, the registrar, told investors that the bonds had been suspended and it had ceased providing services to the company.
Independent 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Biomass
A new age of wood-burning has quietly arrived in the UK in the past two years, thanks to a renewable heating subsidy scheme that pays households that switch to wood from oil or other fuels an average of £3,000 a year, and businesses substantially more. The government says it is a world first. Nearly 10,000 wood-fired heating systems have been installed under the scheme, up from 700 at the start of 2013, according to the energy department. Poultry farms, hospitals, schools and historic homes have taken advantage of the programme. But as oil prices have sunk from $115 a barrel in June to less than $50 in January, so did the appeal of the woodchip system.
FT 30th Jan 2015 read more »
Fossil Fuels
WHAT the frack is going on? Fergus Ewing’s announcement of a moratorium on unconventional shale gas extraction in Scotland met a very odd reaction. Companies who want to get cracking with fracking warmly welcomed the move. Meanwhile, politicians who had been calling for such projects to be blocked condemned it. If the fall-out from the energy minister’s Holyrood statement on Wednesday left you confused, don’t worry: that’s probably the only appropriate response. The future of fracking seems to have been lost in a fog of politicking. It’s a sorry situation to be in. Supporters talk of an industry that would bring jobs, cheap fuel and vital tax revenues. Opponents warn of irreparable environmental damage. Some proper clarity would not go amiss. Public opinion has stiffened the political response to fracking but for how long? The answer might lie with Mr Ewing’s public consultation. Tens of thousands of people responded to previous high profile consultations on the smoking ban, gay marriage, human trafficking and the independence referendum. If similar numbers oppose fracking, the moratorium might prove hard to lift.
Herald 31st Jan 2015 read more »
