New Nukes
The U.K. nuclear industry is being launched, with Germany’s Eon and RWE unveiling plans for their first two plants, and France’s EDF announcing the hiring of 10,000 new staff to back up its British expansion.
UPI 5th Apr 2010 more >>
With memories of the oil crises of the 1970s still fresh in many minds, the Thatcher government announced a ten year programme of support for the nuclear power industry in 1980. The reactor construction rate was pegged at one per year. In response, the April 1980 issue of the Ecologist was dedicated to the ensuing nuclear debate, pointing out the problems in such an undertaking. The UK now stands in exactly the same position, with exactly the same debate still raging. Can we learn from Peter Bunyard’s article, written 30 years ago?
Ecologist April 2010 more >>
Dounreay
SKILLS used in the decommissioning of Dounreay can be transferred to help build Scotland’s fledgling marine energy industry, industrialists in Aberdeen heard this week.
John O Groat Journal 2nd Apr 2010 more >>
Hinkley
An extra 2,500 new homes are needed in the West Somerset district council area by 2026 according to the government. As a result, a series of public consultations are being held in the area over the next few weeks. The plan could see new homes built in Minehead, Watchet and Williton. Another option could also see Stogursey expand in order to accommodate construction workers from the new Hinkley Point power station over an eight year period, should it go ahead.
BBC 6th April 2010 more >>
Emergency Planning
A NUCLEAR disaster exercise is to be staged in Plymouth this autumn involving up to 10,000 people. Centred around Devonport Naval Base and its nuclear submarine section, Exercise Short Sermon (SS10) is being organised as part of the Ministry of Defence’s contingency planning.
Plymouth Herald 6th Apr 2010 more >>
Radioactive Waste
THERE are times when letting go is the best way to move forward. When the US abandoned plans for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca mountain, Nevada, there was no alternative in sight. Now, less than two months after that decision to walk away from a decades-long, multibillion-dollar boondoggle, a promising solution is coming into view. What is being proposed is not another Yucca mountain-style set of tunnels in an even more remote location, but hundreds of boreholes that could be spread nationwide, where waste would be sealed several kilometres down in impermeable rock. The approach was discussed by the world’s leading experts on deep borehole repositories at a brainstorming meeting in Washington DC on 15 March. The meeting was organised by geochemist Patrick Brady of Sandia National Laboratories and was sponsored by Sandia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
New Scientist 6th Apr 2010 more >>
Radiation & Health
A clampdown on clinics offering MOT health checks to the worried well – which can include whole body scans – was signalled by the government today, amid concerns over the exposure of healthy people to unnecessary radiation. The Department of Health said it accepted all nine recommendations of the government’s advisory committee on medical aspects of radiation in the environment (Comare), which called for action more than two years ago.
Guardian 7th Apr 2010 more >>
South Korea
Gary Lim from Natixis associate Absolute Asia Asset Management is increasingly finding opportunities in South Korea, particularly in nuclear energy, as the country’s presence in foreign markets continues to grow. One of the country’s main energy suppliers, the Korean Electric Power Company (KEPCO), recently won a highly sought-after contract to build four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Lim has started taking positions in the sector which he tips for steady growth.
City Wire 7th Apr 2010 more >>
US
An ashen Walter Cronkite intoned: “The world has never known a day quite like today.” The face of American television news was speaking on March 28 1979, the day a faulty cooling valve led to a meltdown at Three Mile Island. Nuclear Armageddon did not arrive-–there is no conclusive evidence that anyone was even injured that day-–but the incident did mark the beginning of the dark ages in the nuclear power industry in the US. New plant construction was halted. An absolutist opposition to nuclear power became a canon of the American left. It was hardly surprising then that anti-nuclear advocacy groups reacted in orchestrated horror when Barack Obama, taking a centrist position, announced the government would provide $8bn in federal loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors. With two dozen or so nuclear plants stalled on the drawing board across the US, supporters hope the guarantees mark the beginning of a nuclear revival.
eGov Monitor 6th Apr 2010 more >>
Nuclear Weapons
The United States said yesterday that it will resist developing any new nuclear weapons and will add new limits to the circumstances under which it would deploy its existing atomic weapons against an enemy.
Belfast Telegraph 7th Apr 2010 more >>
President Barack Obama has vowed to limit possible use of America’s Cold War-era nuclear arsenal, as part of a bold but politically risky move aimed at discouraging the spread of nuclear technology around the world. Under the new plan, the US promises not to use nuclear weapons against countries which do not possess them.
Herald 7th Apr 2010 more >>
Guardian 7th Apr 2010 more >>
Daily Mail 7th Apr 2010 more >>
Telegraph 7th Apr 2010 more >>
FT 7th Apr 2010 more >>
Times 7th Apr 2010 more >>
BBC 6th Apr 2010 more >>
The United States has for the first time declared it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, which means it would not reply to a chemical or biological attack on the US with a nuclear one. But this assurance is hedged with caveats: the non-nuclear states have to be “in compliance” with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations (this specifically rules out both Iran and North Korea ); and given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons, the US reserves the right to go back on that.
Guardian 7th Apr 2010 more >>
Yesterday’s nuclear posture review (NPR) was always going to be an improvement on the last. Published in 2002 at the peak of the Bush administration’s confident assertion of the new American century, the previous NPR rejected arms control and multilateralism and sought to reintroduce the concept of nuclear war-fighting with mini-nukes, bunker-busters and counter-proliferation through first strikes.
Guardian 7th Apr 2010 more >>
After nearly a year of tough negotiations US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are due to sign a new nuclear pact in Prague tomorrow.
Sky News 7th Apr 2010 more >>
As the signing date for a fresh nuclear arms reduction pact between the U.S. and Russia approaches, a Russian security expert says the key issue is how other states will respond.
Reuters 6th Apr 2010 more >>
Russia’s foreign minister has said his country could opt out of a new nuclear disarmament treaty if it feels threatened by US missile defence plans.
BBC 6th Apr 2010 more >>
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will miss a nuclear summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington next week as he campaigns for Britain’s May 6 parliamentary election, his spokesman said on Tuesday. Brown has asked Foreign Secretary David Miliband to represent him at the April 12-13 nuclear security summit.
Interactive Investor 6th Apr 2010 more >>
Telegraph 7th Apr 2010 more >>
