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News May 2019

Waste Transport

BRIDGWATER residents only have a few days to have their say on proposals to transport nuclear waste through their town. Magnox Ltd currently operates the Hinkley Point A site near Stogursey, which includes a small area where nuclear waste is stored before being moved elsewhere for processing. The company has applied to Somerset County Council for permission to store waste from other nuclear power stations at the Hinkley site – which would involve moving it through Bridgwater on agreed routes.

Bridgwater Mercury 30th May 2019 read more »

Wylfa

The decision to pause development of the new nuclear power plant at Wylfa on Anglesey earlier this year was a blow to North Wales, and the Ambition Board has been in talks with the UK and Welsh Governments to determine the most positive course of action. They are also pushing for £40million of further funding in addition to the £240million received from both governments last year and encouraging them to invest a larger capital sum to support an even bolder and more impactful Growth Deal. And that deal will see more than 4,000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs created, reinforced by £511m of private sector investment and £3.3bn of capital leveraged from the private sector, achieved as a result of the projects and programmes being delivered.

The Leader 29th May 2019 read more »

The man responsible for steering the now-suspended Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant through the planning process has been nabbed by LDA Design to head up its planning team. Alex Herbert (pictured) joins LDA Design as the new head of planning to help the practice boost its planning offer in infrastructure, energy, major mixed-use development and regeneration. Herbert was previously major permissions strategy advisor for Horizon Nuclear Power on the Wylfa Newydd development consent order (DCO) process, supporting the project through submission and examination. He had also worked as head of consents for Tidal Lagoon Power, steering the pioneering Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon through the DCO process, working closely with LDA Design who was the lead designer and masterplanner for the scheme.

Building 31st May 2019 read more »

Sellafield

Mitie strikers at Sellafield warned of public backlash amid claims of ‘lack of regard’ for community. The comments from a council nuclear chief come as industrial action from Mitie contractors has led to “gridlock” on some of the county’s roads. Security guards, catering staff and cleaners have been setting up pickets outside the nuclear site in a dispute over pay, launching a series of ongoing strikes. But David Moore, Copeland Council’s nuclear portfolio holder, has claimed attitudes to the strikers are now hardening.

Whitehaven News 30th May 2019 read more »

Radiation Free Lakeland report into the Energy Coast Laundry.

RfL 30th May 2019 read more »

A Quick & Dirty Look At Energy Coast Laundry’s Radioactive Materials Permit (Starting With Caesium 137 Discharges to Air).

Radiation Free Lakeland 30th May 2019 read more »

Sizewell

Sizewell B Relocated Facilities. Having carefully scrutinised the supporting documents we strongly reject the assessment and conclusions drawn within the Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment, namely that: the susceptibility of the natural beauty and special qualities indicators are low and therefore that the Suffolk Coasts and Heaths AONB is of only medium sensitivity. We do not accept that the permanent effects are very limited as they only impact upon a small part of the AONB. We strongly refute the conclusion presented in table 7.10 which judges the scale of effects to be, at their highest level, only small with regard to landscape quality and negligible with regard to all other indicators including relative wildness, tranquility and heritage. The SPS strongly rejects the applicant’s overall conclusion that the magnitude of effects will be negligible and that the proposed development will have minimal significance (not significant) and on balance be neutral.

Suffolk Preservation Society 28th May 2019 read more »

Sizewell B nuclear power station is being switched off for planned refuelling and maintenance work this week – after a run of 485 days of continuous electricity production.

East Anglian Daily Times 30th May 2019 read more »

Dounreay

Jacobs (JEC) has been awarded a four-year framework agreement by Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) to provide decommissioning services. Located in Caithness County, Scotland, the Dounreay site is one of the most complex nuclear decommissioning programs in Europe, with extensive remediation activities underway to return the former nuclear energy testing site to as near its original condition as possible. The construction of a size reduction facility, shaft and silo decommissioning and demolition of historic active laboratories are just some of the major projects expected to be delivered as part of the decommissioning services framework, which DSRL estimates is worth up to $500 million (£400M). The framework, spanning four years with potential extensions of up to three years, has been awarded to six organisations. It enables DSRL to take the site into a new phase of decommissioning when historic wastes from the shaft, silo and low-level waste pits are due to be retrieved, repackaged and consigned to modern waste facilities.

Yahoo Finance 29th May 2019 read more »

Highland councillors have agreed a funding package that would allow a closed down museum and art gallery to reopen. Caithness Horizons closed in February due to increasing running costs and a reduced income. Opened in 2008, its collection includes Pictish stones and a control room from the Dounreay nuclear power complex. Highland Council, working with Dounreay Site Restoration Limited, has put together a three-year funding package. Funding of £204,000 will also be offered to the museum to cover building work costs at the site.

BBC 29th May 2019 read more »

Energy Policy

Leading climate scientists have called for Theresa May to make her “legacy” a target to cut greenhouse gases to zero by 2050. A group of experts have written to the prime minister calling for her to enshrine a target for “net zero” emissions in national law. Experts claim the target is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. The government said the UK already leads the world in tackling global warming. In their letter, the scientists said the evidence was “unequivocal” that avoiding dangerous climate change means eliminating or offsetting all carbon emissions – not just reducing them.

BBC 31st May 2019 read more »

More than 120 UK businesses have sent a letter to Theresa May urging the prime minister to legislate for a net zero emissions target in 2050, a bold climate goal that could become one of her most important legacies if passed before she leaves office.

FT 31st May 2019 read more »

The Greens’ surge in last week’s European Parliament elections confirmed that a growing share of voters want their politicians to do something about climate change. But it is far from clear that the majority is ready to pay the higher energy and fuel prices that would result from any serious effort to limit the rise in global temperatures – and that would hit some groups much harder than others. Economists, who for years have been debating the best ways to fine-tune carbon pricing mechanisms, are now turning their attention to the bigger challenges of political economy. A paper by IMF staff, published earlier this month, shows just how far off we are from making carbon as expensive as it needs to be. Many major economies could achieve the emissions cuts pledged under the 2015 Paris accord with a carbon price of $35 per tonne, they calculate – a level that would roughly double coal prices and add 5 per cent to 7 per cent to pump prices for road fuels. But to contain global warming to 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels would require a global carbon price of about $70 per tonne, they estimate. At present, despite a proliferation of national and sub-national carbon taxes and trading schemes, the average global carbon price is $2 per tonne. Such a steep increase will only be possible if governments find ways to persuade voters that the burden is being shared fairly – both domestically and between countries.

FT 30th May 2019 read more »

SMRs

The 13th European Nuclear Energy Forum 2018 takes place in Bratislava (SK) on 4-5 June. Scroll forward to 4.31hours on the You Tube video, and you can watch and listen to David Lowry’s presentation criticizing the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) plans on proliferation and security grounds – on behalf of Nuclear Transparency Watch – at the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF) 13 in Bratislava in June 2018. It only last five minutes, but is well worth it!

DG Energy (accessed) 31st May 2019 read more »

Chernobyl

The HBO series “Chernobyl” gets plenty of things right about the nuclear power plant disaster that most likely exposed hundreds of thousands of people to radiation. But to adapt the story for television, the “Chernobyl” writer and producer Craig Mazin invented a character and adjusted the chronology of a few events. While some circumstances are still shrouded in mystery, we now know the incident was far more catastrophic than Soviet officials initially let on.

Business Insider 28th May 2019 read more »

US

As of May 31, 2019, the nation’s operating nuclear power fleet will drop to 97 units with the permanent closure of the Pilgrim nuclear power station in Plymouth, MA. The Pilgrim closure further reduced the number of General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors operating in the US to 20 units. The four reactor units at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power station destroyed by multiple hydrogen explosions and reactor core meltdowns following the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 were all the same GE design and construction.

Beyond Nuclear 29th May 2019 read more »

The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that could cost power consumers about $190 million per year to save the state’s two nuclear power reactors from early retirement.

Reuters 29th May 2019 read more »

Renewable Jobs

The number of jobs in renewable energy in the UK has plunged by nearly a third in recent years, and the amount of new green generating capacity by a similar amount, causing havoc among companies in the sector, a new report has found. Prospect, the union which covers much of the sector, has found a 30% drop in renewable energy jobs between 2014 and 2017, as government cuts to incentives and support schemes started to bite. It also found investment in renewables in the UK more than halved between 2015 and 2017. The union compared the situation to the devastation caused to coalmining communities in the 1980s and demanded instead a “just transition” to clean energy. The Prospect report analysed and collated data taken from various sources, including the government, surveys and industry. Sue Ferns, the senior deputy secretary general at Prospect, told the Guardian: “The government’s market-led approach has failed, and resulted on offshoring green jobs while UK workers are left behind. Without a proper industrial strategy from government that promotes low-carbon generation like renewables and new nuclear, we will be unable to secure the future of our energy supply, which is under threat in the coming decade.” The focus on Brexit had not helped, she added. “The government’s tunnel vision on Brexit means the real challenges facing our country have been neglected for too long. We need a sensible deliverable strategy that provides a stable long-term pathway to decarbonisation.” The drastic fall in jobs came as the government effectively shut down schemes that rewarded consumers for buying solar panels, withdrew subsidies for onshore wind and reduced incentives for low-carbon energy. Ministers have argued that as the costs of renewable energy have fallen sharply in recent years, the industries should no longer rely on public subsidy, but multiple redrawings of government schemes in recent years have helped to create turmoil and a lack of certainty for companies.

Guardian 30th May 2019 read more »

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