Hinkley
A council consultation on plans to prepare land for the building of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point has been reopened. It comes after the applicant, EDF Energy, supplied West Somerset Council with more information. The council said it had made a formal request for extra details to be included in the environmental statement. The consultation is due to run until 20 May. The response from EDF includes more information on environmental issues including transport, ecology, landscape and visual impacts, noise, vibration and air quality.
BBC 4th May 2011 more >>
Hartlepool & Heysham
Electricite de France SA halted nuclear reactors at its Heysham-1 and Hartlepool plants in northern England, National Grid Plc data show. The 580-megawatt Heysham-1 unit 2 stopped at about 6 a.m. local time, grid data show. The halt was unplanned, Martyn Butlin, a spokesman based at the power plant in Lancashire, said by e-mail.We are currently assessing the situation, he said. At no time was anyones safety at risk. Reactor 2 at EDFs Hartlepool site, with a capacity of 605 megawatts, stopped at about 7:30 p.m. yesterday as part of a planned refueling outage, Butlin said.
Bloomberg 4th May 2011 more >>
Reuters 4th May 2011 more >>
Terror
The five men who were arrested outside the Sellafield nuclear plant have been released without charge. But the incident has turned attention to nuclear facilities’ security. According to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), which polices Britains nuclear facilities, the men were stopped as part of a routine patrol near the perimeter of the Sellafield plant and were unable to give a satisfactory account of their actions. They were arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned, then released without charge. Nonetheless, with the West on heightened alert after bin Ladens death, the incident will raise concerns about the security of Europes nuclear facilities and their ability to defend themselves from potential attack.
Christian Science Monitor 4th May 2011 more >>
Houses in Forest Gate and Stratford were raided by counter-terrorism police, it has emerged.
Newham Recorder 4th May 2011 more >>
A GANG of five terror suspects arrested outside the Sellafield nuclear plant hours after news of the killing of Osama bin Laden broke were expected to be quizzed by counter-terrorism officers today. It comes a day after police raided four houses in east London linked to the suspects.
Edinburgh Evening News 4th May 2011 more >>
Newcastle Journal 4th May 2011 more >>
Five men who were arrested outside the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria have been released without charge by counter-terrorism police after they were questioned and their homes searched.The men, all of Bangladeshi heritage and in their 20s, were stopped by armed Civil Nuclear Constabulary officers on Monday afternoon, just hours after the announcement that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan. The men told police they were travelling along the road only because their in-car satellite navigation system had taken them the wrong way on the remote road just off the coast of Cumbria, close to the Lake District. The plant’s main gate had been locked down for security reasons by officers from Cumbria Constabulary on Tuesday, with a roadblock set up on the main road.
Guardian 4th May 2011 more >>
NDA
Stakeholders Newsletter.
NDA 4th May 2011 more >>
Europe
Stress tests on nuclear power stations in the European Union will start in June, EU president Hungary announced Wednesday, following an informal meeting of European energy ministers this week.
EU Business 4th May 2011 more >>
Austria’s Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich has criticised the proposed security tests to be conducted at European nuclear power plants, in particular the absence of tests with respect to a terrorist attack. He faults the proposed tests being put together by the EU for their failure to take into account the consequences of human acts, such as terrorism, cyber attacks or an aircraft crash. The German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung has reported that the tests would focus solely on natural disasters.
Europolitics 4th May 2011 more >>
Japan
As part of a review of the nations growth strategy, Japan is considering a drastic shift in its energy policy to better deal with the consequences of the Mar. 11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis. Under the revised growth strategy Japan will put more emphasis on the development of renewable energy such as power generated by solar, wind, and geothermal heat, as well as the enhancement of electric accumulators. More to the point, Japan will seek to secure electricity without depending on nuclear power too much.
Oil & Gas Journal 4th May 2011 more >>
Consumers can expect to see higher electric bills as Tokyo Electric Power Co. passes on its compensation obligations due to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant accident. Government sources said May 2 that an estimate of the total amount of compensation required reached 4 trillion yen ($48.7 billion) and that TEPCO would be expected to cover about half of that.
Asahi 5th May 2011 more >>
Workers were set to enter the No.1 reactor building at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Thursday for the first time since an explosion ripped its roof off a day after the devastating March earthquake and tsunami. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said 12 staff equipped with protective suits, masks and air tanks would go through a special tent set up at the entrance to prevent radiation leaks.
STV 5th May 2011 more >>
BBC 5th May 2011 more >>
Tokyo Electric Power Company has released a new video showing inside reactor number one at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
ITN 4th May 2011 more >>
Belgium’s safety watchdog has found radiation levels exceeding EU limits on a shipping container from Japan. The agency yesterday decontaminated the container after it found Caesium-137 emitting radiation at 0.5 microsieverts per hour in two rust spots, above the 0.2 limit.
Scotsman 5th May 2011 more >>
Pakistan
Pakistan’s spy agency should have known Osama bin Laden was hiding not far from the country’s capital, Afghanistan’s defence ministry has said, the first direct comment from Kabul about its neighbour’s apparent inability to track the al-Qaeda leader. Defence ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy said the case raised questions about Pakistan’s ability to adequately protect its nuclear weapons.
Scotsman 5th May 2011 more >>
US
For the first time in more than 30 years, the construction of new nuclear plants is underway in the United States despite the ongoing nuclear crisis at Fukushima in Japan. Two new projects, from Southern Co’s Georgia Power unit and SCANA Corp’s South Carolina Electric & Gas Co unit, however, are on track to receive the combined construction permit and operating licenses (COL) from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), possibly before the end of 2011, S&P said. Both companies want to add two of Westinghouse Electric’s 1,154-megawatt AP1000 reactors at existing nuclear power sites: Southern’s Vogtle plant in Georgia and SCANA’s Summer plant in South Carolina.
Reuters 4th May 2011 more >>
China
The reactor building dome of unit 2 at the Yangjiang nuclear power plant in China was recently installed, 16 days ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, the second ring of the containment vessel of unit 2 at the Haiyang plant has also been lifted into place.
World Nuclear News 4th May 2011 more >>
Nuclear Weapons
The US decision to site interceptor missiles at the Deveselu air base in Romania has been condemned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The base will form a key part of the so-called ‘missile defence’ system, which critics say risks spurring the development of new missile and warhead technologies in attempts to circumvent the US system. CND has previously praised US President Barrack Obama for reaching agreement with the Russian government over the reduction of nuclear warheads.
Ekklesia 4th May 2011 more >>
Renewables
It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries. Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production.
Guardian 4th May 2011 more >>
RENEWABLE energy produced by wave power could support 68,000 jobs and be worth 76 billion to the economy by 2050, according to a new report. A report by the Carbon Trust said the British marine energy sector had the potential to be a powerhouse of the economy. WWF Scotland director Dr Richard Dixon said: “This study reinforces our view that Scotland could literally rule the waves when it comes to creating jobs from marine renewables.”Pioneering wave and tidal energy machines here will also create a huge export industry for Scotland.
Edinburgh Evening News 4th May 2011 more >>
