Nuclear

There's an old joke that you can walk into any bar in Vancouver and find somebody claiming to be a Greenpeace founder. If that somebody had been Jim Bohlen, however, then this claim would have been absolutely true. It is with very deep sadness, then, that we have learned of Jim's death on 5 July, 2010, at the age of 84.

The OL3 European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) project, under construction at Olkiluoto, Finland, is seen by the nuclear industry as the blueprint for a new generation of reactors they'd like to see being built all over the world.

Already well behind schedule and way over cost, serious problems were uncovered two days ago in the primary coolant pipes, only a week after documents leaked to Finnish media revealed that designs for the most vital and fundamental part of this untried and untested nuclear reactor - the safety systems - are still not yet in place.

Proposed sites of new nuclear power stations. See below for key

Do you live in the vicinity of one of these 11 locations, which are being proposed as potential sites for new nuclear power stations? Happy about it? If not, then you've got less than three weeks to read and respond to the information provided by the companies bidding to develop each site as part of the government's 'consultation' process.

Not only that, but if you take the information contained in the 'have your say' guide on the  government's website, you'll run the risk of being seriously misled over issues as fundamental as how much  nuclear actually contributes to the UK's energy mix, and how and where the spent fuel will be disposed of.