New Nukes
Britain has set up a watchdog to ensure that decommissioning the nuclear power plants that the government wants to be built, and disposing of the waste, does not cost the taxpayer anything. The Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board (NLFAB) will scrutinise how the companies planning to build the new power plants will pay to shut them at the end of their useful lives and clean up the radioactive waste they produce. The NLFAB, which will be chaired Lady Balfour of Burleigh and is expected to meet in January next year, is to study the Funded Decommissioning Programmes submitted by potential operators of Britain’s next generation of nuclear reactors.
Guardian 3rd Nov 2008 more >>
Guardian 4th Nov 2008 more >>
Reuters 3rd Nov 2008 more >>
DECC Press Release 3rd Nov 2008 more >>
Letter from Westinghouse: It’s correct that website claims on the cost of French electricity are a poor guide to future costs of energy from nuclear plants, but he is wrong to believe our existing nuclear plants provide any better guide. All our existing nuclear plant designs are unique to the UK, and virtually all those are one-off designs without anything similar built even on our own shores. Potential developers have made clear that any future plants will be of standard international designs, where we can tread in the footsteps of other nations and build a near replica of an existing power plant.
Scotsman 4th Nov 2008 more >>
The UK’s £40bn new reactor programme cuts through the gloom of the credit crunch like a beacon of hope.
Contract Journal 3rd Nov 2008 more >>
We are told that nuclear power is about to achieve a “green renaissance,” “clean coal” is just around the corner, and municipal garbage is a “renewable resource,” which, when burned, will yield “sustainable energy.” On the other hand, sometimes we are told that solar, geothermal and tidal power are what we really need to “green” our energy system. How is a person to make sense of all these competing claims? Luckily, scientists have developed two sets of criteria that we can use to judge the “greenness” of competing technologies. The first is called “The 12 principles of green engineering” and the second is “The 12 principles of green chemistry.”
Counter Punch 3rd Nov 2008 more >>
The latest White Paper on manufacturing from the DBERR suggests a slightly more activist attitude, for example over nuclear power. Yet here, and even more so in the defence sector, state favouritism has been a traditional source of strength and reliable orders in virtually every Western power.
Independent 4th Nov 2008 more >>
Europe
The Slovak and Czech Prime Ministers called on the EU to back nuclear power.
EU Business 3rd Nov 2008 more >>
Yucca Mountain
AREVA announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a contract to USA Repository Services LLC, a subsidiary of URS Corp. that includes AREVA and the Shaw Group, to manage the used nuclear fuel repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The five-year contract, which includes an option for five additional years, is valued at $2.5 billion.
Areva Press Release 31st Oct 2008 more >>
