Sellafield
Unions and MPs have reacted with shock to yesterday’s announcement that the companies that have overseen cost overruns and delays in the clean-up of Sellafield have been given a new five-year contract. Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told The Independent that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will “have a job justifying” the decision to hand Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) a new five-year deal. The consortium – made up of Britain’s Amec, URS in America and France’s Areva – were found by the committee to have been behind schedule on 12 of 14 major projects at the Cumbria site last year. An industry source said: “It’s surprising that this decision has been reached given the well-documented failings of the consortium, which to date has provided questionable value to the taxpayer.” Gary Smith, the GMB union’s national secretary for energy, added: “This is an ideological and a bad decision, but we need to move on and focus on [sorting out] the site.” Ms Hodges’ committee will meet the NDA and NMP early next month to discuss the failings of the contract so far. This is expected to take a whole afternoon, when these sessions usually last around 45 minutes.
Independent 5th Oct 2013 read more »
The private consortium in charge of cleaning up Sellafield, western Europe’s largest and most complex nuclear waste site, has been granted a five-year extension to its contract despite criticism of its performance. The first five-year period of the contract ends next March. However, there had been widespread speculation that Nuclear Management Partners would either see the renewal time shortened or be stripped of the job and the work handed back to the public sector.
FT 4th Oct 2013 read more »
NUCLEAR Management Partners (NMP) has had its contract to run the Sellafield site extended for a further five years. Site owners, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), announced this afternoon that it will grant NMP a second five-year period to run the nuclear site.
Whitehaven News 4th Oct 2013 read more »
NW Evening Mail 4th Oct 2013 read more »
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has today announced its intention to extend the Sellafield contract with Nuclear Management Partners (the consortium comprising URS, AMEC and Areva) into a second five year period. The first 5 year period of the 17 year contract comes to an end in March 2014.
NDA 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Engineering company AMEC said a contract to decommission the Sellafield nuclear site in the UK has been extended for another five years by the government. The UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority confirmed on Friday that it will extend the contract for the project which is run by Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), a consortium of Amec, French firm Areva and US engineer URS. The project has attracted criticism as it has been affected by cost over-runs and delays.
Share Cast 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Hinkley
Tory sources suggested that Ed Miliband’s announcement of a freeze on energy bills should Labour win the next election had “spooked” EDF, which has a large consumer arm in the UK. But industry sources denied it was a factor in the negotiations. The EDF deal would unlock Britain’s civil nuclear programme, paving the way for negotiations on the Horizon Hitachi sites in Anglesey and Oldbury. Mr Fallon has said that South Korean, Chinese and Japanese investors were also interested in investing in UK reactors.
Independent 3rd Oct 2013 read more »
look at our dismal efforts to get a nuclear energy programme going for the last decade and more. Here, the stakes are in the many billions rather than tens of millions of pounds. Last night it emerged that France’s EDF is finally getting somewhere with energy minister Michael Fallon on building a new reactor at Hinkley Point. This will unlock one of the biggest inward investment programmes to the UK in decades, with China and South Korean investors waiting to come in too.But the Government must offer long-term certainty and stability to these investors if we are not to see yet another energy fiasco.
Independent 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Energy Costs
Labour leader Ed Miliband claimed last week that energy companies have been “overcharging” their customers for years. He’s not the first to say it, and the industry furiously deny the accusation. But the complexity of the market makes the truth hard to disentangle. So who’s right – and why is the question such a tough nut to crack? There is one common theme running through commentary on this issue. Everyone – from energy regulator Ofgem to the Energy and Climate Change Committee – seems to agree more transparency is needed in the market. Until that’s achieved, it is extremely difficult to work out whether or not energy companies are making excess profits. Figures used in the public debate – for example percentage figures for the amount of profit energy companies make, or the profit announcements energy companies make – are difficult to interrogate, for many of the reasons outlined above. At a time of rising living costs and increasing energy bills, it’s little wonder that Ed Miliband’s proposal to impose a temporary freeze on energy bills while the government “reset[s] the market” has ‘ hit a nerve’ with voters. Energy companies dispute the widespread belief that excess profits are to blame – but unless the industry comes up with a better way of proving otherwise, they’re probably going to have problems countering it.
Carbon Brief 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Centrica
The owner of British Gas has appointed Rick Haythornwaite, the former head of Network Rail, as its next chairman. Mr Haythornwaite will succeed City stalwart Sir Roger Carr, who is leaving to take the helm at BAE Systems, on January 1. He joins at a time when energy bills have never been higher up the political agenda. Last month, Ed Miliband announced that Labour would freeze prices for 20 months if it won the election in 2015, putting pressure on the Government to do more to tackle record bills.
Times 5th Oct 2013 read more »
Japan
The U.N. nuclear agency said on Friday it would send an international team of experts to Japan later this month to look into efforts to clean up affected areas around the crippled Fukushima atomic power plant.
Reuters 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Fukushima Crisis Update 1st to 3rd Oct. TEPCO discovered two more leaks of radioactive water this week at its beleaguered Fukushima Daiichi plant, yet again contradicting recent statements by high-level government officials, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, that the situation there is “under control.”
Greenpeace 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Japan’s flagging antinuclear movement received an unexpected new recruit this week when one of the nation’s most popular figures, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, made a very public about-face from his previous embrace of atomic power.
New York Times 2nd Oct 2013 read more »
Japan’s climate goals remain as unclear as its energy policy. According to the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations it should resist setting targets until well into next year. The country continues to import enormous extra quantities of LNG, oil and coal to compensate for the extraordinary shutdown of all its nuclear reactors. These switched off for mandatory maintenance outages and await permission to start again under a new more stringent set of requirements. While power shortages were managed, previous climate goals were put out of reach by a surge in carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector.
World Nuclear News 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Iran
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that he would be willing to speak by phone with the new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani if the latter called him. But he stressed he would only tell the Iranian leader that Tehran should stop its nuclear programme.
Independent 4th Oct 2013 read more »
China
CB&I has formed a joint venture to build nuclear power plants in China with CPI Power Engineering Company, a subsidiary of China Power Investment Corporation (CPI). China’s nuclear industry is expected to grow significantly. The country currently has 17 operational nuclear power reactors and is building 29 more. Its nuclear generating capacity is around 12.5 GW, but it is planning to build 30 more nuclear power plants by 2020, to take generating capacity to around 60 GW. By 2050, China’s nuclear generation capacity could be as high as 400 GW, more than 32 times the present capacity. CB&I is already providing engineering, procurement, construction management, commissioning, information management system and project management services for four nuclear reactors being built in China, including two at CPI’s Haiyang site in Shandong province.
Chemical Engineer 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
In Eric Schlosser’s new book, Command and Control, he asks: “How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them?” Schlosser tasked film-maker Kevin Ford with bringing the book’s themes to life in a short video. With Radiohead’s 4 Minute Warning as a soundtrack, the film cycles through declassified footage – some of it never before seen.
Guardian 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Leo Szilard was the man who first realised that nuclear power could be used to build a bomb of terrifying proportions. Lisa Jardine considers what his story has to say about the responsibilities of science.
BBC 4th Oct 2013 read more »
An octogenarian Roman Catholic nun, jailed for breaking into a nuclear weapons facility in Tennessee, is facing up to 30 years in prison after losing her plea for the most serious charge to be dropped. Sister Megan Rice, 83, and two fellow peace activists staged a non-violent protest to symbolically disarm the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons facility, home to the nation’s main supply of highly enriched uranium, in July. They were initially charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison, but felony charges quickly followed. They were eventually convicted of interfering with national security and damage to federal property.
Guardian 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Local Authorities
Bristol City Council has been working on climate change and energy issues for over 10 years. With lots of successful projects completed already, Bristol is moving forward to a new phase of action. All the positive changes we make today will help to create a better future for the city and its people. Every area of the city is set to benefit, with plans for better street lighting, warmer homes, greener buildings and improved waste collection services. The full extent of the work across Bristol is contained in the Council’s Climate Change & Energy Security Framework, which aims to reduce Bristol’s carbon emissions by 40% by 2020 from a 2005 baseline.
Bristol City Council 1st Oct 2013 read more »
Energy Efficiency
The Government’s claim this week to be pro-business is news to Carillion. The enginering contractor signed up with gusto to the Green Deal, a state-sponsored scheme to encourage householders and businesses to carry out environmental upgrades to their properties – insulation, double glazing and the like. Carillion, which can ill afford the money, pumped millions of pounds into preparing for a flood of orders for new boilers, lagging jobs and other lucrative stuff. But none arrived. The most recent figures from the Government suggest the number of households taking up Green Deal loans the length of breadth of the country totalled… 12.
Independent 4th Oct 2013 read more »
The Planning & Energy Act is a success: most of England’s 324 planning authorities use it to tighten efficiency standards on new houses and install renewables, and it has become the principle driver of such improvements. Yet support of the Private Members Bill that introduced the Act, Eric Pickles, is now considering abolishing it, while Mr Fallon, now the energy minister, seems to want to ditch the Government’s climate-change undertakings. Mr Pickles, now Communities Secretary, proposes to “amend or remove” the Act as part of a review of housing standards out for consultation. The review, aimed at simplifying the “large and complex range of local and national standards, rules and codes that any developer has to wade through”, is long overdue: there are, for example, 12 different wheelchair standards for housing in London alone. But its plans for Mr Fallon’s initiative have caused widespread alarm. The review also plans to “wind down” the Government’s Code for Sustainable Homes, which sets out a roadmap for future improvements, including abandoning a reduction in water wastage that would cost a three-bedroom house only £68.
Telegraph 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
The UK’s only company engaged in fracking is closing one of its five exploration sites, citing environmental concerns about wintering birds. Cuadrilla will abandon its exploration of the Anna’s Road site in Lancashire and restore it to green fields. The site was acquired in 2009 and opened in 2011. But the company’s permission to explore there was dependent on its impact on migrating birds, including pink-footed geese and whooper swans.
Guardian 4th Oct 2013 read more »
Greenpeace
Twenty-eight Greenpeace activists from 18 different countries, and two independent journalists, have been charged in Russia with piracy with a maximum 15 years in prison. This is despite president Putin saying last week: “Obviously, they are not pirates”. But what is obvious to Putin, speaking in front of the world’s press at an Arctic Forum, may become obscured within the labyrinth of the Russian legal system.
Guardian 3rd Oct 2013 read more »
