nuclear power

Prepare to be unsurprised. Very unsurprised. Those lovable energy giants EDF and E.ON have put their collective boots into government plans to generate 35 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources.

According to their submissions to the latest energy consultation, the figure is not only unrealistic but also damaging to alternative schemes such as nuclear plants. So damaging that, um, they may be forced to drop their plans to build a new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK unless the government scales back its targets for wind power.

Mention Cherbourg and what springs to mind? Brigit Bardot skipping through the rain with a song on her lips, twirling one of those famous umbrellas? Sadly, that was all a long time ago and the quaint port of Jacques Demy's masterpiece is now a major link in the fuel chain for Japan's nuclear power stations.

Yesterday, a shipment of plutonium mixed oxide (Mox) fuel left France bound for Japan. It's the first shipment of Mox fuel to Japan in eight years, and the largest shipment of plutonium the world has ever seen - 1.8 tonnes of it in fact, enough to make 225 nuclear weapons.

Back in 1999, Greenpeace was protesting about plutonium shipments destined for the Mox plant at Sellafield. Now the plant may have to close © Greenpeace/Sims

In the 'funny if it weren't so scary' category we have the advert which ran last week in the Whitehaven News, the local paper for west Cumbria where Sellafield is to be found. As reported in the Guardian at the weekend, LLW Repository Ltd - the company which has recently taken over managing the site - have found there are significant holes in records detailing what radioactive waste was dumped in the repository at nearby Drigg; so they're appealing for people who worked at Sellafield in the 60s, 70s and 80s to rack their brains and fill in the gaps. 

The waste from this EPR in Finland will be seven times more hazardous than existing nuclear reactors © Greenpeace/Cobbing

Thanks to Justin at Nuclear Reaction for allowing us to reproduce this scandalous story:

Following the French government's announcement that it wants to build a second EPR (European Pressurised Reactor) comes the news that the nuclear waste produced by this so-called state of the art reactor is far more dangerous than that of ordinary reactors.

The papers have been filled with reviews of the year and we're barrelling into awards season, so it's only fitting that we have some awards of our own. My colleagues over on the very entertaining Nuclear Reactions have been staging their own award ceremony, "to recognise those who have help make the nuclear industry the over-subsidised and under-scrutinised joke it is today".

Here's the latest in the Deep Green column from Rex Weyler -author, journalist, ecologist and long-time Greenpeace trouble-maker. The opinions here are his own, and you can sign up to get the column by email every month.

The nuclear industry has hitched a ride on the climate change bandwagon, proclaiming that nuclear power will solve the world's global warming and energy problems in one sweeping "nuclear renaissance."

As you might expect, there's a catch. Nuclear energy faces escalating capital costs, a radioactive waste backlog, security and insurance gaps, nuclear weapons proliferation, and expensive reactor decommissioning that will magnify the waste problem.