Nuclear Waste
Anti-nuclear protestors are calling on the new government to halt moves to get rid of radioactive material in conventional landfill. They are also calling for public support to prevent the lowest levels of radioactive waste being buried on the former Keekle Head open cast site in Copeland. A handful of protestors gathered in Whitehaven yesterday to try and win backing for their position. They were lobbying members of the West Cumbria Partnership, which is helping to make “informed decisions” on government proposals for an underground repository, to take higher levels of radioactive waste mainly from Sellafield.
Carlisle News & Star 6th Aug 2010 more >>
ONE of the engineers working for the National Nuclear Laboratory based at Sellafield has won a national award. Within two years of graduating as a chartered engineer, he was identified as the ideal candidate to lead a major development programme simulating the behaviour of medium radioactive waste at full scale.
Whitehaven News 6th Aug 2010 more >>
Wylfa
Horizon Nuclear Power has signed contracts with Areva and Westinghouse for preliminary work on its first nuclear power plant at Wylfa, on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales. The proposed nuclear power plant, developed by Horizon Nuclear Power, is a joint venture between RWE and E.ON. The preliminary work will be carried out between now and the end of the year with the two reactor vendors, which are currently being assessed for new UK nuclear reactor licenses. Horizon expects to be generating power at Wylfa by 2020.
Breaking Bulk 6th Aug 2010 more >>
Horizon Press Release 2nd Aug 2010 more >>
THE man in charge of Anglesey’s nuclear power station is confident that it will continue generating as a decision on its future draws closer. Wylfa site director Nick Gore said that he expected a decision by nuclear regulators on extending generation to 2012 by October.
North Wales Chronicle 6th Aug 2010 more >>
Sizewell
Twenty four villages around Sizewell Nuclear power station in Suffolk are asking for more than 10 million pounds if a new plant is built. The parishes, which include Leiston, Saxmundham and Middleton, want energy companies and suppliers to put up the money.
ITV Anglia Tonight 5th Aug 2010 more >>
Devonport
Letter from Ian Avent: IN RESPONSE to the report (July 30) headlined ‘Trident bill could be “end of base”’ Plymouth-based defence expert Iain Ballantyne saying that “Devonport’s future is now very much at risk” is pure sabre-rattling speculation and is forgetting one important factor; Devonport is crucial to the Ministry of Defence and Babcock Marine’s plan to create a new nuclear submarine scrapyard at the base. I have recently returned from the latest Submarine Dismantling Project Advisory Group meeting, held in Cardiff on July 27. The project is to go ahead as planned; the strategic environmental assessment has been completed and the next visible stage will be the public consultation to be held in the autumn of 2011. There are only two sites being considered for dismantling nuclear submarines – Devonport and Rosyth. The Scottish contingent are making it crystal-clear that they want to be rid of the redundant subs as soon as possible. The Rosyth Nuclear Licence, which was due to be revoked after cleaning up the base, is now being held open as a thinly-veiled attempt to justify the terms of the public consultation.
Plymouth Herald 7th Aug 2010 more >>
Rosyth
A west Fife councillor said retaining “rusting” nuclear submarines at Rosyth will be a “blight” on future developments at the dockyard. Bill Walker, a representative for the West Fife and coastal villages ward, told The Courier more nuclear submarines may come to be located at Rosyth and that he fears the site is just being used as a “dumping ground” by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Dundee Courier 6th Aug 2010 more >>
Climate
It is not hard to see why pessimism has grown this year about the future of international efforts to tackle climate change. However, far from this being the disaster that some assert, I believe that we are rapidly reaching the point when the tide will decisively turn. Why the reasons for such optimism amid so much apparent gloom? First, there is now a much underappreciated movement towards the adoption of nuclear energy across the world. Despite the lack of recognition in the final Copenhagen communiqu , it is estimated by the International Atomic Agency that some 50 countries will have built nuclear reactors by 2030. This will result in a significant shift in the global energy mix and, while nuclear will continue to have vociferous critics, its virtue in the battle against climate change is as unquestionable as renewables such as wind and solar.
Independent 4th August more >>
Russia
RUSSIA yesterday moved nuclear material and weapons from the areas engulfed by its worst-ever fires as noxious smog continued to choke Moscow. The government was also trying to stop the flames spreading to other nuclear facilities in western Russia and to the area contaminated by radioactivity after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion.
Express 7th Aug 2010 more >>
Ukraine
Ukraine is weighing up two options for the future of its nuclear fuel cycle among various cooperative arrangements with Russia.The International Enrichment Centre project, begun in early 2007 by Russia and Kazakhstan, represents a new way that Ukraine might source its nuclear fuel to avoid direct reliance on Russian firms.
World Nuclear News 6th Aug 2010 more >>
Hiroshima
Events are being held around the world this Friday to mark the 65th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. The scale of the disaster that overtook the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is still difficult to fathom. The figures of 170,000-246,000 killed outright and thousands affected by the ongoing, insidious legacy of the cancers and genetic mutations passed through the generations do not really do justice to the actual experience of what it was like in the cities on the days of their destruction.
Greenpeace Nucleear Reaction 6th Aug 2010 more >>
Government and society must find “new resolve to protect the sanctity of life”, Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), said in a statement recognizing the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Inspire 7th Aug 2010 more >>
Christian Today 6th Aug 2010 more >>
A spectre is haunting the United States: the spectre of nuclear attack without nuclear war. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Iran, Pakistan and North Korea, capable state and shadowy non-state actors contemplate flattening an American city with a device smuggled into the United States at one hundred possible ports of entry. It would have no return address. The scenarios of holocaust are many and multiply with the advance of technology and the information age. What will this lead to?
Open Democracy 6th Aug 2010 more >>
It was a day for remembering the victims of one of history’s greatest mass killings, but most of the attention was on a middle-aged man sitting among the 55,000 people watching yesterday’s memorial ceremony in Hiroshima. John Roos, the US ambassador to Japan, was one of 74 foreign envoys who fell silent at 8.15am – the time “Little Boy” detonated over the city on 6 August 1945. But for survivors of the blast that reduced Hiroshima to ashes and took 140,000 lives, his presence loomed by far the largest.
Independent 7th Aug 2010 more >>
At last we’ve apologised for Hiroshima – well, sort of. We’ve recognised the suffering our atom bombs caused –well, kind of. President Obama was showing off his anti-nuclear credentials in the killing grounds of Hiroshima, but this was not to be confused with saying sorry.
Independent 7th Aug 2010 more >>
Trident
Further to my observations here a week ago about the lunacy of the Government’s policy towards replacing Trident, I was given a tip the other day from a Tory insider about the relationship between Dave and Liam Fox, his increasingly embattled Defence Secretary. “Cameron’s like a playground bully,” he told me. “He has to have Liam in the Cabinet in order to keep the Right happy. But he doesn’t like him, he doesn’t trust him, and he and his mates are deliberately ganging up on him to make life difficult for him.” Well, how very grown-up of them to do all this on the small and inconsequential matter of the nation’s defence against nuclear attack, which the Treasury now maintains can be sustained only by depriving our brave servicemen and women of proper kit.
Telegraph 7th Aug 2010 more >>
Renewables
Electricity could be sold to the national grid by councils under plans to encourage town halls to generate power.
Telegraph 7th Aug 2010 more >>
