Posted by jamie — 26 August 2008 at 3:41pm
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Some unsettling
news appeared in the Independent
over the weekend, which revealed that an Environment Agency report has said
that containers at Sellafield (where most of the UK's waste is stored) may not
be as stable as was thought. The
document effectively destroys Britain's
already shaky disposal plans just as ministers are preparing an expansion of
nuclear power.
"Currently, we have to use a mix of energy sources to power our country - fossil fuel, renewable energy and nuclear power. Together they provide us with a reliable electricity supply. And although the use of low-carbon energy sources is growing, fossil fuel will continue to generate power, not just here but around the globe."
Posted by jamie — 1 August 2008 at 3:13pm
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It's usually poor form to laugh at another's
misfortunes, but in this case I feel a slight chortle is more than justified. EDF's
bid to takeover British Energy - the semi-state owned company charged with
looking after the UK's
nuclear power stations - has been kicked out, throwing a spanner of cosmic
proportions into our government's plans for a new atomic age. Oops,
butterfingers.
Commenting on news that
the expected takeover of British Energy by French energy company EDF has fallen
through, Nathan Argent, head of
Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, said:
"This is a hammer blow
for Brown's deluded nuclear ambitions. If this deal had gone ahead, it would
have been a disaster for renewable energy in the UK. A
push for more nuclear power would scupper the UK
renewable energy industry, and, by doing so, cancel out the prospect of creating
hundreds of thousands of British green-collar jobs.
For three weeks, Brighton-based writer Justin McKeating has been
quietly working on a new Greenpeace blog, Nuclear Reaction. Now it's ready to open its doors to the world.
The purporse of the blog, in Justin's own words, is to record and comment on "the various incompetencies, radioactive leaks, cover-ups, accidents, spin, radioactive leaks, empty
promises, contamination, massive cost overruns, radioactive leaks,
substandard reactor construction, and radioactive leaks that dribble
and gush from the nuclear energy industry."
A Greenpeace briefing on the government's internal audit ("Response to the Business and Enterprise Committee Funding the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority") and follow up report ("NDA Budgetting Shortfall 2007-08: Lesson Learned"). These reports expose massive cost overruns, amateurish bureaucratic cock-ups and complete chaos within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority - the organisation charged with cleaning up the UK's lethal radioactive legacy.
Posted by jamie — 24 July 2008 at 2:55pm
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Well, what do you know? Another news story has
broken which demonstrates that the UK's nuclear industry is not the
robust, well-managed machine our ministers would have us believe. The
government has sneaked out a report assessing the working practices of the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) which is managing the clean-up of
existing power stations and waste. They were clearly hoping no one would notice
as there's no doubt that many people have been caught with their pants
anklewards.
Commenting on Business Secretary John Hutton's announcement today at Sellafield, where he proposed the establishment of a national nuclear laboratory, Greenpeace's senior nuclear campaigner Ben Ayliffe said:
"No amount of misguided tub-thumping by the government will solve the myriad problems currently facing the nuclear industry, which is having a torrid time of late.
