Radwaste
Letter Tim Knowles: Yes, we do at this point believe that there are limited circumstances where a borough or county council could ultimately override the wishes of a potential host community (just like in the traditional planning system). Yes, at present we do feel that the representatives of a potential host community, which expresses a wish not to be included in the search for a possible site for a facility, should be able to show that they have given the whole community the opportunity to contribute views and deliberate on the issues in an informed way. We feel that the highest possible standards of community engagement should be maintained, with support and funding for undertaking this activity (running a thorough consultation, commissioning a poll etc). We have not taken a view on who should make a judgement on whether the right standards have been reached.
Whitehaven News 1st Mar 2012 more >>
Letter Martin Forwood: Whilst your full page article on the underground nuclear dump at Carlsbad, New Mexico, makes interesting reading, I cant help wondering about your motives for publishing it. Your glowing testimony of the WIPP facility, whilst misleading in several respects, carries the subliminal message that whats good for the folk of Carlsbad must also be good for Copeland, whose communities should welcome the prospect of an underground dump and reap the so-called benefits that have been showered on New Mexico by a US Government and industry that is in as much of a pickle on nuclear waste as we are in the UK. It wouldnt come as much of a surprise to discover that, as a result of your article, the pro-dumping worthies of Copeland and Allerdale are, at this very moment, setting up travel arrangements for a junket to Carlsbad at taxpayers expense to see for themselves the wonders you describe. It would of course be a complete waste of time, for the list of similarities you list between Copeland and Carlsbad conveniently forgets to point out that the respective geologies are as different as chalk and cheese the latter area being as flat as a pancake and having the simple hydrogeology that NIREX would have killed for in West Cumbria. Further, the WIPP facility is limited to a maximum of around 175,000 cubic metres of low-level waste and plutonium contaminated materials produced by Americas weapons establishments a drop in the ocean compared to UK volumes which include high-level waste and spent fuel. True, as a result of the multi-billion dollar failure of the Yucca Mountain dump in Nevada, pressure is now being applied to expand Carlsbad to take these higher level wastes, but increasing local opposition is quite rightly raising the less-than-perfect safety record for WIPP which your article completely omits. Why no mention of the degrading concrete discovered in the shafts, the seepage of water into the salt caverns or, most recently, the leaking to the atmosphere of carbon tetrachloride gas from leaking waste drums at increasing levels that threaten to restrict or even stop any further waste emplacement.
Whitehaven News 1st Mar 2012 more >>
Save our Lake District is asking supporters to give a few minutes to help us in the fight against siting the UK’s national nuclear waste dump in West Cumbria – near to or under the Lake District National Park!
Save Our Lake District 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Sizewell
THE transportation of highly-radioactive spent fuel from the Sizewell A nuclear power station is to be
suspended during the Olympic Games. The route used to take the steel rail-containers housing the uranium fuel rods passes close to the Olympic village at Stratford, east London. But, while the containers have previously been identified as a possible terrorist target, the decision to suspend transport is being attributed to a request from rail operators anxious to avoid congestion during a period when a frequent shuttle service will be running for visitors to the Games.
East Anglia Daily Times 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Dungeness
This spring, a decision will be made by the Government on whether to allow the expansion of Lydd Airport – a small terminal located next to an area of land designated as a National Nature Reserve, a Special Protection Area, Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. Lydd Airport sits next to Dungeness.
Kent News 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Heysham
EDF Energy stopped its 450-MW Heysham 1-2 nuclear reactor for a planned maintenance outage which is due to last until the week starting May 7.
Reuters 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Wylfa
TWO information events have been organised for landowners who may be affected by a new road serving the new nuclear power station at Wylfa, Anglesey. Letters have been sent to farmers inviting them to a seminar organised by the Farmers Union of Wales and land agents Davis Meade Property Consultants. Its at Douglas Inn, Tregele, on March 7, at 1.30pm. Representatives from Horizon Nuclear Power will outline the proposals and signpost locations likely to be affected between Wylfa B and Valley.
Daily Post 1st Mar 2012 more >>
Nuclear Liabilities
Members of the Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board (NLFAB) today took up their three-year re-appointments. The role of the NLFAB is to provide independent advice to the Secretary of State on the robustness of the financial arrangements that operators of new nuclear power stations need to have in place to meet the full costs of decommissioning and their full share of waste management and disposal costs.
DECC 1st Mar 2012 more >>
NDA
John Clarke has been named as the new chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) the Government body that owns Sellafield. Mr Clarke, who lives in west Cumbria, will move to the top job from his current role as the NDAs director of business planning on April 2. He joined the NDA from Sellafield in 2008 and has worked in the international nuclear industry for more 30 years. He will replace Tony Fountain, whose departure was announced last September.
Cumberland News 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Sellafield
A history.
NW Evening Mail 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
A NUCLEAR exercise will be held at Sellafield on Wednesday to test the emergency procedures of the site. Cumbria County Council and Sellafield Ltd will be hosting the exercise, named Oscar 10, which will see hundreds of people from the nuclear plant, the countys emergency services, county council, borough council, the army and other government agencies involved . It will be based around the Sellafield site and the West Cumbria Emergency Control Centre at the Summergrove complex near Whitehaven.
NW Evening Mail 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Switzerland
When the nuclear power station in Oldbury, Britain, was shut down on February 29, the one in Beznau took its place as the oldest operating nuclear plant in the world. This record isnt exactly something many Swiss are celebrating. Opponents of nuclear power are calling for Beznau to be shut down as well, but the government is against decommissioning plants early. For Geri Müller, a member of the Green Party in canton Aargau, home of Beznau, the fact that the power station has been in operation since September 1, 1969, is not a reason to celebrate, rather another reason to close it once and for all.
Swiss Info 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Iran
Mr Netanyahu effectively brings with him an ultimatum, demanding that unless the president makes a firm pledge to use US military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb, Isael may well take matters into its own hands within months. The threat is not an idle one. According to sources close to the Israeli security establishment, military planners have concluded that never before has the timing for a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities been so auspicious.
Telegraph 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
Japan
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant is beset by technical problems nearly a year after its core meltdown, officials say. The problems include a broken temperature sensor that detects heat in a reactor and leaky piping, The Mainichi Daily News reported Saturday.
UPI 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
There is now no nuclear reactor in western Japan that is generating electricity. The two reactors that are still in operation in Japan, both located in eastern parts of the nation, are scheduled to be shut down soon for regular maintenance. If the current situation remains unchanged, Japan’s power supply system will be left without a single reactor operating in May. But there has been no power shortage, with the supply-demand situation kept stable. As demand for heating declines, there will be even more surplus power capacity. In our editorial published in July last year, we laid out a vision of a society without nuclear power generation. In that editorial, we said it would probably be possible for Japan to phase out nuclear power generation in 20 to 30 years. However, given the fact that peak demand in August last year was fulfilled with only 12 to 16 reactors online, it now seems that vision could be realized far earlier.
Asahi 3rd Mar 2012 more >>
JAPANS prime minister acknowledged yesterday the countrys government failed in its response to last years earthquake and tsunami, being too slow to relay key information and believing too much in a myth of safety about nuclear power.
Scotland on Sunday 4th Mar 2012 more >>
Energy Efficiency
In Europe, buildings burn up 40% of all the energy consumed, and the potential of refurbishing existing buildings to create savings and jobs is considerable and largely untapped. It has been estimated that, annually, 1.1 million new net jobs in the building industry could be created by 2050 through deep buildings renovation. the European Commission’s newly proposed energy efficiency directive sets mandatory 20% energy efficiency targets. Currently under scrutiny in the European Parliament, this directive is one of the most hotly debated legislative proposals in Brussels today. The European Commission’s own impact assessment of the directive claims that GDP will not only grow if the EU meets its 20% energy efficiency savings target, but that a strong directive would offer direct benefits such as the creation of 2 million new jobs and 1000 savings in energy bills per household. A powerful precedent is Germany’s KFW energy efficiency scheme. The Juelich Research Centre recently estimated that, for every euro invested by the state, the scheme brings in 4-5 in tax revenues for example, from previously unemployed workers now working in the building sector.
Guardian 2nd Mar 2012 more >>
The UK’s energy minister said his “Green Deal” plan for business would be so radical it would be hated by some. Ed Davey told the Scottish Lib Dem conference in Inverness he would announce details of the project soon. He said he was “giving notice” to businesses and local authorities to get serious about saving energy and saving people money. Mr Davey also told the conference that he was “immensely proud” of the work done by his predecessor, Chris Huhne.
BBC 4th Mar 2012 more >>
Fuel Poverty
The future for many of the country’s older people is bleak, according to the Age UK report Agenda for Later Life, to be published this week. Sixteen per cent, or 1.8 million, of people over state pension age are living in poverty; 3.3 million are unable to warm their homes (an increase of more than half a million in the past two years).
Independent 4th Mar 2012 more >>
Renewables
UP TO £4 billion of annual green energy subsidies could be at risk if Scotland becomes independent, Scottish Secretary Michael Moore has warned. Moore rounded off an energy-focused second day at the Liberal Democrat Scottish Conference in Inverness by repeating concerns that the independence referendum is deterring investment. Charles Kennedy, the former party leader, who has been appointed by Moore to be the Lib Dems’ “point man” in the pro-union campaign, told delegates that England may need to create a second Green Investment Bank if Edinburgh wins a hotly-contested bid for its UK headquarters but then subsequently becomes the capital of an independent Scotland. In his closing speech to conference yesterday Moore said: “Across the UK we have a single energy market. “And that market is key to realising Scotland’s renewables potential. Yes, we have vast green energy resour ces. But we alone could not afford the level of investment needed to make good on our green ambitions.”
Scotland on Sunday 4th Mar 2012 more >>
BRITAIN could meet its climate change targets in 2020 for £45 billion less if it abandoned wind power in favour of cheaper gas-fired power plants and nuclear reactors, an independent report has found. The saving would rise to £150 billion by 2050 because of the huge costs associated with building and running the proposed 32,000 wind turbines. The study was supposed to be published last year but was killed by its sponsor, KPMG, one of the government’s closest advisers on energy policy, after some of the findings leaked, provoking an outcry from the wind farm industry. AF Consult, the firm KPMG commissioned to do the work, will tomorrow publish the analysis in the interests of presenting an “independent” perspective in a debate “led by groups with vested interests”.
Sunday Times 4th Mar 2012 more >>
John Griffith-Jones finally decided to pull the plug in early January. For weeks the chairman of KPMG, one of the big four accountancy firms, had been bombarded by angry emails and phone calls. They had started in November, when The Sunday Times ran a story based on an unpublished KPMG report that had explosive consequences for the government’s energy policy. The report concluded that £34 billion – £550 for every citizen – could be saved by 2020 if plans to replace coal-fired power stations with expensive wind and solar power were ditched for cheaper and more reliable gas and nuclear plants. With austerity biting, public debt growing and unemployment rising, the report struck a chord. If we could spend much less to hit pollution reductio n targets, why weren’t we? Renewable energy groups hit the roof. So did the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC).
Sunday Times 4th Mar 2012 more >>
Osborne’s decision last year to eliminate Levy Exemption Certificates, or LECs, which exempt companies from the climate change levy. They are relied on heavily by big users of heat, such as chemicals firms, papermakers and food and drink manufacturers. The certificates were introduced a decade ago to encourage the installation of combined heat and power (CHP) generators. CHP systems produce power, but also capture the waste heat and use it for industrial processes. A typical power plant loses most of its energy through heat – about two-thirds – visible as steam rising from cooling towers. CHP plants capture most of that heat, producing more total energy with fewer carbon dioxide emissions. The disadvantage is that they are expensive to build and operate. LECs, worth about £4 a megawatt hour, provide a crucial top-up. Osborne’s decision to end the scheme could prove disastrous for heat producers and users alike. Sembcorp, the Singapore-based energy giant, provides heat and power to firms within the giant petrochemicals complex at Wilton on Teesside.
Sunday Times 4th Mar 2012 more >>
