Swedish Waste
Three Greenpeace activists boarded the Atlantic Osprey carrier Friday as it was making its way to Sellafield in England with a shipment of Swedish nuclear waste for reprocessing. The ship left Studsvik in Sweden on Thursday, carrying 4.8 metric tons (5.3 tons) of spent nuclear fuel, including 1.2 kilograms (2.65 pounds) of plutonium for reprocessing at the Sellafield plant in northwest England. Once it has been treated in Sellafield, it will be returned to Sweden for final storage. Sweden stopped shipments of nuclear waste to Sellafield in the early 1980s, and has since stored its waste at facilities in Sweden without reprocessing.
IHT 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Channel 4 News 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Iran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a defiant speech defending Iran’s nuclear programme against criticism from Western countries.
BBC 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Channel 4 News 5th Oct 2007 more >>
US
In its bid to build new nuclear power plants, the nuclear power industry has “found a way around a long-standing regulatory policy they say added a year or more to construction times for nuclear plants.” The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) “agreed to industry demands” and decreased “its oversight of initial work at reactor sites,” by “narrowing its definition of the word ‘construction.'”
Centre for Media and Democracy 2nd Oct 2007 more >>
Hunterston A
ENGINEERING firm Aker Kvaerner has won a £16m contract with Magnox Electric to help decommission a Scottish nuclear power plant. The Stockton business will lead on design, building and installation of a plant for the retrieval of waste at Hunterston in Ayrshire, Scotland.
Newcastle Journal 6th Oct 2007 more >>
Torness
British Energy’s Torness-1 nuclear power reactor restarted on Friday afternoon after planned work, while both units at its Hunterston nuclear plant on the other side of Scotland remained closed. “It’s come back on following its statutory outage,” the spokesman said of the reactor at the plant, situated on the east coast of Scotland near Edinburgh. It was stopped on July 27.
Reuters 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Windscale
Afternoon Play: Windscale Mon-Tues, Radio 4, 2:15pm. AS GAGGED protesters from Glasgow Friends of the Earth lobby consultation meetings on nuclear power in the belief that the Government’s consultation process is less than transparent, a two-part play based on Britain’s worst nuclear accident, 50 years ago, airs on Radio 4.
Scotsman 6th Oct 2007 more >>
Fifty years ago, on the night of 10 October 1957, Britain was on the brink of an unprecedented nuclear tragedy.
BBC 5th Oct 2007 more >>
NDA
The U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority told Dow Jones Newswires Friday that it had postponed launching a competition to outsource the dismantling of five Magnox nuclear sites to determine market interest in the contract and not due to plans to cut its funding. “We don’t recognize that the NDA is facing a slash of funding. We can’t foresee what the government will decide in its comprehensive spending review but we’re confident of a good settlement. This year (our funding) was significantly higher than the last,” Jon Phillips at the NDA said. Earlier Friday, The Guardian linked the NDA’s delay in launching the outsourcing of the five sites to industry speculation that the authority is to have its budget slashed in the government’s comprehensive spending review.
Dow Jones 5th Oct 2007 more >>
BNFL
Italian defence and aerospace company Finmeccanica’s Ansaldo Energia unit has bid for a British Nuclear Fuels business that is up for sale, a source familiar with the matter said. BNFL put its specialist nuclear decommissioning business — British Nuclear Group Project Services Ltd — on the block in February.
Reuters 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Romania
Romania wants to build a second nuclear power station, after the Cernavoda plant in the southeast of the country, to ensure its independence in energy, prime minister Calin Tariceanu said. Phase two of Cernavoda, which was built like the first phase by a consortium of Atomic Energy of Canada (EACL) and Italy’s Ansaldo, began supplying electricity in August, after three months of tests. When it is fully operational, Cernavoda will supply around 17-18 pct of the country’s electricity needs. Romania launched a tender for the construction of a third and fourth reactor at Cernavoda, which should be operational by 2014-2015. Some thirty companies have expressed an interest in the project.
Interactive Investor 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Mexico
Mexico needs to expand its fledgling nuclear energy industry to meet rising demand but it will be 10 years before a new plant could be up and running, a Federal Electricity Commission official said on Friday.
Reuters 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Europe
European Commission (EC) president José Manuel Barroso has told European countries that they “cannot avoid the question of nuclear energy”. Barroso’s comments came at an energy conference in Madrid on 1 October, which included various energy industry leaders. But his pro-nuclear remarks and those of two other commissioners have caused controversy.
Nuclear Engineering International 5th Oct 2007 more >>
Dounreay
Robots will be brought in to clean up the seabed as part of a long-term operation to decommission a nuclear site in Scotland. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has unveiled proposals for remotely-operated vehicles to scour an area of seabed the size of 60 football pitches over the next three summers around the Dounreay site on the north coast.
EDIE 5th Oct 2007 more >>
John O Groat Journal 5th Oct 2007 more >>