New Nukes
The Conservatives have called for an immediate National Policy Statement on nuclear power. Shadow Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) minister Greg Barker has come out in support of the CBI and said the publication of a policy statement is needed as soon as possible.
Building Sustainable Design 5th Nov 2009 more >>
In fact the Nuclear NPS will be published on Monday, along with the Draft Justification Decision.
no2nuclearpower 5th Nov 2009 more >>
DECC presentation on the NPS available here.
DECC October 2009 more >>
RWE npower and E.ON UK have today (5 November 2009) announced further details of their nuclear joint venture, which is to be called Horizon Nuclear Power. The company will begin operation from 16 November working from new headquarters near Gloucester. The 50:50 joint venture was created in January and aims to develop around 6,000MW of new nuclear capacity in the UK – enough to power a city the size of Greater London – by 2025. The first reactor is expected to come online around 2020. Earlier this year the company secured development land at Wylfa on Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. Its programme of new nuclear power stations could involve more than £15bn in investment and create around 11,000 jobs, including around 800 permanent jobs at each site and up to 10,000 during construction.
RWE Press Release 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Your Nuclear News 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Oil Voice 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Forbes 5th Nov 2009 more >>
South West Business 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Times 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Contract Journal 5th Nov 2009 more >>
List of nuclear plants being built or planned across Europe
Reuters 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Letter from Leon di Marco: nuclear is a distraction. To put numbers on this, of the world primary energy consumption of 10TW-plus, nuclear could optimistically provide less than 500GW over the plant’s lifetime before the fuel runs out, and so a contribution of less than 5 per cent. Hardly huge. Furthermore, the opportunity cost is completely disproportionate, not only in the capital requirement but also in the manpower. The Open University is already in the process of setting up a professional nuclear engineering course, which will mop up resources that would be far better put to developing renewables.
FT 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Building Magazine identifies five of the biggest problems in getting new reactors up and running: Licensing; Planning; Investment; Protestors; Construction.
Building 6th Nov 2009 more >>
David Mackay says after some quick calculations, de-carbonising the UK will therefore mean we will either need wind farms the size of Wales or 50 nuclear power stations resembling Sizewell dotted around the country. Some nice, simple, condensed rhetoric you wouldn’t expect from a Cambridge academic – and a key Government aide to boot.
Telegraph 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Sellafield (Reactor site)
Letter from Jean McSorley: The Whitehaven News, October 29) tries to paint a particularly rosy atomic future for Sellafield, but in so doing makes some glaring omissions and shows how the nuclear industry is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Cumbria. GdF-Suez/Iberdrola/Scottish and Southern have only “secured an option to purchase land” on site, as the Department for Energy and Climate Change itself states. They have not actually handed over all the money for the land yet. Additionally, the energy consortium will only finish paying the £70million in 2015 – the very point at which some claim reactor construction would start. In no way does last week’s announcement mean that construction is guaranteed. Given the patchy record of the nuclear industry in keeping to deadlines, perhaps a degree of scepticism would have been in order. West Cumbria talks quite rightly of becoming our energy coast. If this is a serious goal the solutions are obvious: a focus on cutting-edge clean and sustainable technologies like renewable energy. Lame-duck nuclear distractions should be treated with well-merited scepticism.
Whitehaven News 5th Nov 2009 more >>
GDA
The HSE has identified unresolved issues over designs of the new nuclear reactors that could cause approval delays. Problems were highlighted last week in the update on the progress of the Generic Design Assessment (GDA). In the document the HSE expressed concern over slow progress and lack of detail. The GDA process, to be completed by June 2011, is a detailed examination of French firm Areva’s EPR and Japanese-owned Westing-house’s AP1000 designs. The GDA’s aim is to speed up nuclear new-build by identifying potential problems before construction starts. The update criticises Areva and Westinghouse for delaying a “key” assessment phase on external hazards to the nuclear reactors such as flooding. Westinghouse was singled out for criticism over mechanical engineering issues in the design of its squib valves. Squib valves are fast-reacting single-action valves designed to rapidly release a pressurised fluid.
Professional Engineering 4th Nov 2009 more >>
Nuclear Costs
Looks like the shockingly poor economics of nuclear energy may have killed two more two more reactor projects, this time in the US. Entergy said on Tuesday that the company is unlikely to pursue construction of new nuclear plant in its Southeastern U.S. utility territory. “It’s not off the table, but the economics are really not supportive and not likely to be supportive in the near future,” Leonard said from the sidelines of the Edison Electric Institute financial conference. And the estimated cost of two new nuclear reactors proposed by CPS Energy has gone up as much as $4 billion, prompting the [San Antonio] City Council to postpone Thursday’s vote on the project’s financing until January.
Greenpeace Nuclear Reaction 4th Nov 2009 more >>
Sizewell
With oil and gas reserves set to run out in a few decades, a new wave of nuclear power plants is being hailed as key to meeting the UK’s future energy needs. And with new reactors planned on the Suffolk coast, the industry also offers massive potential for the region’s businesses with contracts worth billions up for grabs. In 2012 construction is due to start on two new nuclear reactors at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast. And as well as delivering a major contribution to the country’s energy needs, Sizewell C also offers potential contracts worth billions which could create thousands of jobs in the region.
Lowestoft Journal 4th Nov 2009 more >>
Wylfa
RWE NPower has started testing land near the current Wylfa Power Station on Anglesey to assess its suitability for a potential Wylfa B nuclear plant. Initial work is being carried out in a compound used by contractors near the Wylfa Power Station Visitors Centre.
Anglesey Today 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Sellafield
Contractors in the running for a £110m decommissioning project at Sellafield were dealt a blow this week as it emerged the project is facing delays of up to a year. The news raises doubts about the government’s ability to adequately deal with waste from the UK’s ageing nuclear stations in advance of the £20bn new-build programme. Six teams, including Laing O’Rourke, Amec, Vinci and Costain with Sir Robert McAlpine, entered bids in May to build a “box encapsulation plant”, which will be used to store radioactive waste before a permanent repository is ready. The contractors were expecting to hear who had been picked as preferred bidder this autumn. But rather than announcing the winner, the client, Sellafield Ltd, has come back with an eleventh-hour list of queries. These include a question about how the teams’ bids would be affected by a 12-month delay in starting the scheme.
Building 6th Nov 2009 more >>
On the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, anti-nuclear campaigners in Cumbria have questioned Sellafield’s continued production of the nuclear explosive plutonium! Radiation Free Lakeland is calling for the “insanity of the continued production” to end. Marianne Birkby, for RFL says: “Clearly it is now time to stop adding to the risks at Sellafield. “Continuing to extract yet more plutonium from waste nuclear fuel rods is an insanity that must be stopped urgently.
Get Noticed Online 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Letter: (1) Could it be that it helps gloss over the bad news that has seen this industry in court with hefty fines? Could it be that local and national politicians would prefer the local population not to dwell on the 1997 BNFL-funded study that found plutonium from Sellafield present in the teeth of adolescents throughout the UK and that those levels doubled for those in Cumbria. There is also the German KiKK 2008 study showing a doubling of childhood leukaemia rates within five kilometres of all German PWRs, similar to reactors being assessed for new build in Cumbria . (2) Here in Cumbria the state and industry owe it to us to look after the existing wastes as safely as possible. Cumbrians should not be bribed and coerced into accepting ever more dangerous nuclear reactors in the vicinity of the world’s most ferociously volatile nuclear wastes.
News and Star 3rd Nov 2009 more >>
Areva
AREVA takes the line that ‘nuclear power has the smallest land-use footprint’. But have they looked at ‘Land Use Intensity’. They seem to ignore uranium mining, land contamination around nuclear reactors, high-level nuclear waste storage etc.
Greenpeace Nuclear Reaction 5th Nov 2009 more >>
A new generation of French nuclear power reactors came under attack on Tuesday as opposition parties called for an inquiry into their security systems, after three nuclear safety bodies asked for changes to their design.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development 3rd Nov 2009 more >>
Submarine Waste
DOUNREAY could be turned into “the Murmansk of Britain” if a plan to dump radioactive waste from defunct nuclear submarines goes ahead. That was said yesterday by Caithness Against Nuclear Dumping spokesman Steven Pottinger following a study for the Ministry of Defence which identified the Far North site as a possible location for storing the dismantled radioactive components of the submarines. Murmansk is the dumping ground for the ageing fleet of Russian nuclear submarines.
John O Groat Journal 4th Nov 2009 more >>
The resignation of an advisor who accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of “ignoring its own advisory group” has called into question the future of a project aimed at dismantling nuclear submarines at a plant in central Plymouth. The project has already attracted strong criticism from local residents, NGOs and the leader of Plymouth City Council. Hundreds of people marched through Plymouth last weekend to oppose the use of a city-centre location for the site. Peter Lanyon, an advisor representing NGOs on the project’s consultation group, resigned from the group in protest at the sacking of two other advisors, Jane Hunt and Bill Thompson. Hunt and Thompson are academics specialising in public consultation, based at Lancaster University’s Centre for the Study of Environmental Change.
Ekklesia 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Poland
France and Poland signed a technical cooperation accord in nuclear power on Thursday but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it was too early to say whether French firms would be partners in its planned reactor.
Reuters 5th Nov 2009 more >>
France
15 Nuclear reactors are currently stopped in France for maintenance, but EDF is taking precautions to avoid power cuts this winter.
Interactive Investor 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Israel
Israel’s threat of military action against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme is not a bluff, the country’s deputy foreign minister has told Sky News.
Sky News 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Iran
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has demanded that Iran explain evidence indicating that its scientists have experimented with the design of an advanced nuclear warhead, it emerged last night.
Telegraph 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Reuters 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Guardian 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Daily Mail 6th Nov 2009 more >>
Japan
Kyushu Electric Power Company Incorporated (KEPCI)’s reactor at Genkai nuclear power plant has started using recycled mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for generating power under Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling scheme, Kyodo News reported. The nuclear power plant is located in the town of Genkai in the Higashimatsuura District in the Saga Prefecture.
Energy Business Review 5th Nov 2009 more >>
Climate
A global treaty to fight climate change will be postponed by at least six months and possibly a year or more, senior negotiators and politicians conceded today.
Guardian 6th Nov 2009 more >>
