Settlement reached between Vancouver Province and uranium company
Vancouver’s Boss Power closes on $30-million settlement with province over uranium ban By Tyler Orton http://www.biv.com/article/20140602/BIV0108/140609993/vancouvers-boss-power-closes-on-30-million-settlement-with-province Mon Jun 2, 2014 A Vancouver-based resource company has closed on a $30-million settlement with the B.C. government, officially putting to bed a nearly six-year-old lawsuit.
The province imposed a halt on all uranium exploration and development in April 2008. Boss Power Corp. (TSX.V: BPU) filed suit later in the year claiming the B.C. government expropriated the company’s interest in its Blizzard uranium property near Kelowna when it imposed a “no registration reserve” under the Mineral Tenure Act.
The reserve allowed the government to ensure no future claims included the rights to uranium, however, Boss Power argued the property was registered before this ban went into effect.
Boss Power and Victoria settled for $30 million in 2011 before the case went to court.
The final amended settlement will divide the settlement up between other parties with interests in the property.
About 80% of the settlement will be held in a trust until Boss Power is reorganized into two different corporations, an arrangement expected to be approved in August.
Largest environmental settlement ever to clean up South Dakota uranium mine
Settlement gives $179 million to clean up abandoned uranium mine in Harding County, Rapid City Journal, 1 June 14, Used in the early years of America’s thirst for nuclear fuel, the Riley Pass uranium mine in Harding County was one of hundreds of sites mined to provide fuel for nuclear weapons and reactors.
Companies strip-mined the site, which sprawls across 250 acres of bluffs and other land in the North Cave Hills, about five miles east of the town of Ludlow about 130 miles northwest of Rapid City. In those days, there were no regulations forcing companies to clean up old mines.
“Back in the Cold War era, there was almost sort of a gold rush going on up there for uranium,” said Dan Seifert, a project coordinator for the Riley Pass mine with Custer National Forest.
But for the past 50 years, the mining site has been abandoned, and waste products known as spoils have sat exposed to the wind and rain. That allowed toxic metals and elements like arsenic, uranium, radium and thorium vulnerable to be carried away by the weather.
Now, a tangled series of court proceedings has resulted in a $179 million plan to clean up the majority of the mine site. That money is part of a settlement, announced last month by the U.S. Department of Justice and approved by a judge last week, required Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to pay a $5.15 billion settlement of fraud claims from a 2006 acquisition of Kerr-McGee. Continue reading
Corporate executives could be liable for damages for funding climate denialsim
Big Carbon’s Big Liability Environmental groups have warned directors of fossil fuel companies that they may be held personally liable for misleading the public about climate change. The Nation Dan Zegart May 29, 2014
A new and potentially potent weapon is being unleashed in the climate wars. Yesterday, three major international environmental organizations warned the corporate executives of some of the largest fossil fuel companies that they could be personally liable for damages for funding climate change denialists and working against efforts to slow climate change. Continue reading
A legal precedent that could stall Japan’s nuclear power restart
Oi ruling may fuel anti-nuclear push Plaintiffs elated as district court prioritizes rights over profits Japan Times, BY ERIC JOHNSTON MAY 22, 2014 Wednesday’s court ruling blocking restarts of the No. 3 and 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi plant may embolden opponents of nuclear power nationwide.
It creates a legal precedent and could fuel resistance to restarts, throwing into question whether the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be able to push ahead with them as swiftly as planned.
The government earlier asserted that the ruling, by the Fukui District Court, would have no impact on its plans.
Kepco announced Thursday it has appealed the lower court’s decision to the Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court. There, the case could take two or three years to be decided……….
Kepco came under intense criticism from the Fukui court, which said the utility had made optimistic safety projections with no clear evidence. But in a move that could have ramifications nationwide, the court also ruled that 166 plaintiffs living within a 250-km radius of the Oi plant faced concrete dangers from the operation of nuclear power stations.
That could open the door to lawsuits from anyone living within 250 km of a nuclear plant, if the Fukui court’s decision is used as the basis for a claim that other utilities, as well as the Nuclear Regulation Authority, have created inadequate safety measures to deal with the possibility of an accident.
The entire Kansai region, most of Chubu, including Nagoya, much of Chugoku, including Hiroshima, and roughly a third of Shikoku lies within 250 km of the Oi plant.
Plaintiffs were particularly happy the court ruling included language that said providing electricity via nuclear plants is a mere economic activity, and as such has a lower priority than personal rights……..ww.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/05/22/national/oi-ruling-may-fuel-anti-nuclear-push/#.U4PbrnJdWik
Legal ruling in Japan throws doubt on ANY nuclear reactor restarts
Reflect on Fukui nuclear ruling, Japan Times 23 May 14 The Fukui District Court’s ruling this week that it will not allow the restart of two nuclear power reactors run by Kansai Electric Power Co. challenges the Abe administration’s energy policy of keeping nuclear power as a key source of the nation’s electricity supply despite the safety risks that materialized in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011.
The court’s Wednesday ruling was on a lawsuit filed by a group of 189 people from Tokyo, Fukui and other prefectures against the 2012 restart of two of the reactors at
Kepco’s Oi Nuclear Power Plant in Oi, Fukui Prefecture.
The two Oi reactors — the first to have been reactivated after all of the nation’s nuclear reactors were shut down following the triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant — were taken offline last year for regular maintenance, leaving the nation again without nuclear power.
The content of the court’s ruling, in effect, questions the plans by power firms and the government to restart more than a dozen nuclear reactors around the country just three years after the disaster in Fukushima, ……
The district court said the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at the Oi plant have “structural deficiencies” in their safety measures against severe earthquakes, and determined that restarting their operation would violate the fundamental rights to life of plaintiffs who live within 250 km of the plant — the maximum range where the effects of a worst-case nuclear power plant disaster are estimated to spread in simulations based on the Fukushima case……
The ruling dismissed an argument by Kepco in court, noting that it is legally irrelevant to discuss people’s fundamental rights to life on the same level as the question of rising costs of generating electricity.
It went on to say that even if Japan suffers large trade deficits because of the nuclear power plant shutdowns, the real loss of national wealth is when people become unable to live stable lives on their land — an apparent reference to the shattered lives of those residents around the Fukushima plant who were forced to flee their homes. The court also called the radiation fallout from the Fukushima disaster “the worst environmental contamination” in Japan’s history and brushed aside as completely missing the point the argument that the nation needs to have nuclear power as a clean energy that reduces emissions of global warming gases.
One of the key points of the ruling is that operation of the Oi reactors needs to be stopped if there is “even a slightest chance” that the reactors’ ability to keep cooling their cores and contain radioactivity could be lost — as happened in the case of the Fukushima No. 1 plant — if the plant is crippled by severe earthquakes.
The crucial point of the ruling is its contention that it is inherently impossible to determine on scientific grounds that an earthquake more powerful than assumed in the operator’s worst-case scenario would not happen. It noted that since 2005, four nuclear power reactors around the country have experienced quake shocks more powerful than the maximum level anticipated on their sites. It is “groundless optimism” in this quake-prone country that such a temblor would never hit the Oi plant, the ruling stated……..
The Abe administration and the power companies need to stop and reflect on the Fukui court ruling in the context of what the events of the Fukushima disaster. The core meltdowns at Tepco’s Fukushima plant took place after the operator deliberately underestimated tsunami risks and failed to take necessary precautions. When it hit, Tepco sought to excuse its lack of preparedness by characterizing the tsunami as simply beyond the scope of “conventional assumptions.”
What the ruling called the “groundless optimism” about safety of the Oi plant can be a malady common to all nuclear power plants in this country. The “safety myth” in nuclear power was shattered in the Fukushima disaster. Such a myth should not be resurrected. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/05/23/commentary/reflect-on-fukui-nuclear-ruling/#.U4ENcHJdWik
USA Energy Dept in a fix about legal cases and no answer for nuclear wastes
they should stop making this toxic radioactive trash
Tiny nuclear waste fee added up to billions LA Times, 17 May 14 A charge for electricity that millions of Americans didn’t even know they pay will suddenly disappear Friday, after the Energy Department this week quietly notified utilities across the country that it was suspending its fees for a future nuclear waste dump.
The Energy Department has been collecting $750 million from electricity bills every year for such a dump since 1983, putting it into a trust fund that now contains $31 billion.
The court-ordered suspension may be a modest victory for consumers, but it reflects the government’s failure over the last 40 years to get rid of what is now nearly 70,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel, accumulating at 100 nuclear reactors across the nation……… Continue reading
The Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Lawsuit deserves all our support
The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits: Who will speak for the people? http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/206271-the-nuclear-zero-lawsuits-who-will-speak-for-the-people#ixzz3216oOGyg By Jody Williams and Robert Dodge, M.D. 16 May 14, The U.N. just concluded the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee with representatives from the 189 signatory nations and of civil society. The meeting was in preparation for next year’s NPT conference and to discuss the current status of fulfilling the obligations under the treaty and in particular, the mandate of the nuclear weapons states for global disarmament. The outcome was a continued foot dragging by the nuclear states motivating a demand for meaningful steps and progress toward disarmament by the other 184 nations in view of current international events.
Recent scientific studies by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War on the humanitarian consequences of limited nuclear war have shed additional light on the danger these weapons pose. Describing a hypothetical conflict between India and Pakistan using less than ½ of 1 percent of the global nuclear arsenals, the studies confirm 2 billion people would be at risk of dying due to global climatic change.
Combined with recent scandals involving U.S. ICBM missile controllers and a growing accounting of nuclear mishaps and near misses in our nuclear forces over the years, the sense of urgency for disarmament is greater than ever. It has become a question of who will step forward and speak for humanity.
On April 24, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) filed the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits in the International Court of Justice against all nine nuclear-armed nations, as well as against the United States in U.S. Federal District Court. RMI claims that the nuclear weapon states are in breach of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force 16,121 days prior to the filing. In this David vs. Goliath action this tiny island nation has found the voice to speak on behalf of the world and the other nations signatory to the Treaty.
The case for the Nuclear Zero Lawsuit comes directly from the NPT where Article VI states: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
This was the grand bargain that convinced many non-nuclear weapon states to sign the treaty and agree not to develop nuclear weapons of their own. Forty-four years later, with no meaningful negotiations on the horizon and no end in sight to the “step-by-step” process heralded by the permanent five members of the UN Security Council (P5), the RMI has stepped in to change the discourse on nuclear disarmament.
RMI is seeking declaratory relief from the courts that will compel the leaders of the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) to initiate good-faith negotiations for an end to the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament. They are challenging the leaders of the NWS to answer, on the record, why 44 years have passed and nuclear arsenals continue to be modernized, national security strategies continue to place nuclear weapons at the top of the list, and the P5 don’t even expect to have a “Glossary of Key Nuclear Terms” to talk about nuclear disarmament until 2015.
In addition to the five Nuclear Weapon States named in the NPT, the lawsuit also includes the four nuclear weapon states that are not parties to the NPT – Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea – which, RMI argues, are bound to Article VI obligations under customary international law.
The RMI is a small sovereign nation, among the smallest in the world. However, their courage could not be greater. Having been a testing ground for 67 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, the Marshall Islanders have seen their land, sea and people poisoned from radiation. These tests had an equivalent explosive force greater than 1.5 Hiroshima bombs being detonated daily for 12 years. The Marshall Islanders paid a heavy price in terms of their health and well-being for these destructive tests. They have experienced firsthand the horrible destruction caused by nuclear weapons and those that possess them. They are willing to stand up to the nine nuclear giants and say, “Never again. We have seen the destructive impact of these horrific weapons and vow to do all we can so the world never sees such atrocities again.”
The RMI does not act alone in this action. A consortium of NGOs working to highlight the legal and moral issues involved in the Nuclear Zero Lawsuit has come together around the world coordinated by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara. Respecting the courage of the plaintiff in bringing these lawsuits against some of the most powerful nations in the world they have developed a call to action.
The consortium urges everyone to join them by raising your voice in support of the Nuclear Zero Lawsuit. Go to www.nuclearzero.org, where you can read more about the lawsuits and sign the petition encouraging leaders of the Nuclear Weapon States to begin good-faith negotiations.
Williams received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and is chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Dodge is a family physician on the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles. PSR is the U.S. affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War – recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
New nuclear reactor plans for Ontario stopped by Federal Court ruling
Ontario nuclear reactor plans go back to drawing board http://metronews.ca/news/canada/1035484/reactor-plans-go-back-to-drawing-board/TORONTO – A Federal Court ruling has thrown out the preliminary approvals for a series of new nuclear power reactors in Ontario.
Ruling in a case brought by environmental groups, Justice James Russell says the environmental assessment for the proposed expansion of the Darlington nuclear plant fell short.
Russell says the assessment should have examined the environmental effects of radioactive fuel waste, a Fukushima-type accident and hazardous emissions. As a result of the decision, the whole project is stalled until a panel can redo the assessment.
Ontario Power Generation’s plan to expand Darlington has been in the works since 2006 and would have seen up to four new reactors built.
Environmentalists welcomed the ruling.“This is a win for Canadians’ right to meaningfully participate in environmental reviews and understand the risks of nuclear power,” said Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. The group was part of the suit, along with Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, Northwatch and Greenpeace.
“This is a common sense ruling,” said Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace. “It boggles the mind that the federal authorities approved new reactors without first considering the environmental effects of radioactive waste and reactor accidents.”
The Ontario government decided last October to suspend its reactor plans. But the ruling means that the project cannot be revived without more assessment.
“The Federal Court has confirmed that federal authorities must do more than simply kick the tires before approving new nuclear reactors,” said lawyer Justin Duncan.“Fully assessing radioactive waste, major accidents, and hazardous emissions is essential to protecting the health of Ontarians.”
Right wing attack on Colorado Clean Energy Standard fails in court
Court Slaps Down Right Wing Attack On Colorado Clean Energy Standard http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3437403/right-wing-attack-on-colorado-res-slapped-down-by-court/ BY TOM KENWORTHY
ON MAY 13, 2014 COLORADO’S RENEWABLE ENERGY STANDARD, ONE OF THE MOST AMBITIOUS IN THE U.S., HAS THE DISTINCTION OF BEING APPROVED NOT JUST BY THE STATE LEGISLATURE BUT ALSO BY VOTERS IN A STATEWIDE REFERENDUM.
Now it’s been approved in the courts.
In a decision that could have implications for other renewable energy requirements under attack by the fossil fueled right wing, a U.S. District Court judge has upheld Colorado’s RES. Judge William J. Martinez flatly rejected arguments by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute that Colorado’s RES violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Martinez granted summary judgment to the three defendants in the case, all commissioners of the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
In a news release responding to the decision, EarthJustice — which represented environmental groups which intervened in the case — said the decision will have implications beyond Colorado because renewable standards in some of the 30 other states that have them are “under legal attack by the fossil fuel industry and its supporters.”
Michael Hiatt, an EarthJustice attorney, said in an interview there have been a number of cases attacking clean energy and climate change efforts that have been rooted in Commerce Clause arguments and that the Colorado decision is important in beating back that line of legal attack. “It confirms that states do have the authority to mandate the use of renewables,” he said.
The Colorado case dates to 2011 when plaintiff Energy and Environment Legal Institute was known as the American Tradition Institute (ATI), a longtime opponent of mainstream climate science and clean energy. ATI had a partner organization called the American Tradition Partnership. According to theInstitute for Southern Studies the groups have ties to fossil fuel interests including the Koch brothers.
According to SourceWatch, ATI or its employees have been involved in campaign finance violations in Montana, in suing the University of Virginia to obtain access to the emails of climatologist Michael Mann, and in an effort to build a nationwide movement against wind power.
Colorado voters approved the state’s first RES in 2004, which required large investor-owned utilities to get 10 percent of their power from renewable sources. The state legislature has twice improved upon that first requirement, and those large utilities must now get 30 percent of their power from renewable sources by the year 2020. Municipal utilities and large rural electric co-ops must meet less stringent standards.
Germany’s nuclear industry fights to make tax-payers pay for cleanup
German utilities and government clash over nuclear ‘bad bank’ By Jeevan Vasagar in Berlin http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/49c5b222-d926-11e3-837f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz31XFPjIHH 11 May 14,
Germany’s nuclear industry is fighting Berlin over a plan to transfer the risks of shutting down facilities to a publicly owned foundation that would act as a “bad bank”.
The power companies are engaged in a decommissioning exercise with an estimated cost of more than €30bn after Berlin announced an accelerated exit from nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The work includes demolishing nuclear plants and disposing of radioactive waste.
German utilities Eon, RWE and EnBW have discussed the creation of a state-owned foundation to oversee the decommissioning process. Under their plan, the utilities would transfer to the foundation billions of euros in reserves that they have built up to pay for demolition and disposal. In return, the German government would shoulder the risk for any cost overruns.
But that proposal, first reported in Der Spiegel on Sunday, was rejected by German environment minister Barbara Hendricks. She said: “The full responsibility for the safe phasing out, closure, decommissioning and interim storage of nuclear waste lies with the energy companies.”
One German energy executive said on Sunday that while the idea had been discussed, there were no concrete plans. Eon, RWE and EnBW all declined to comment.
The proposal is the latest sign of strain between Berlin and utilities, which have clashed in the courts over the closure of nuclear plants and the validity of a nuclear fuel tax.
The fight comes at a time when German power companies are struggling because the favourable treatment given to renewable energy has battered the profitability of their conventional electricity plants.
The country’s seven oldest nuclear plants were all taken offline immediately after the Japanese disaster, while an eighth plant that was offline at the time stayed shut: the remaining nine are to be closed down by 2022.
Eon said in March that it intended to shut the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear plant in Bavaria seven months before schedule because of its lack of profitability.
That plant, in a state that is home to some of Germany’s most successful manufacturers, will now close in May 2015.
Berlin’s abrupt decision to phase out nuclear energy represented a U-turn on a 2010 deal to extend the lives of nuclear plants. The companies agreed, in that deal, to a tax on nuclear fuel, which was introduced at the start of 2011 – and remains in place, despite the change of policy.
A court in Hamburg ruled in April that the German state should repay more than €2.2bn in nuclear fuel taxes to the utilities.
However, this decision is not legally binding and the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.
RWE is pursuing a civil claim for damages over the decision by the state government of Hesse to order the closure of the Biblis nuclear power plant after Fukushima.
Almost cetain hat European Commission will find UK’s Hinkley nuclear funding illegal
European Commission likely to find Hinkley aid illegal: Europe London (Platts)–8May2014 The European Commission will almost certainly find that EDF Energy’s funding mechanism for the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear unit in the UK is illegal state aid, an Austrian law professor told Platts.
Franz Leidenmuhler, who specializes in EU state aid cases and European competition law, said in an email that he believed “a rejection is nearly unavoidable. The Statement of the Commission in its first findings of December 18, 2013 is too clear. I do not think that some conditions could change that clear result.”
The new Hinkley unit will be built based on a funding model in which the UK government guarantees a floor price for future power sales. This floor price, known as a “strike price,” is the reference price below which EDF would receive UK government financial support and above which EDF would pay back money, effectively a guaranteed price for the power.
The strike price has been set at GBP92.50/MWh ($156.04) if the proposed new EPR there is the only new nuclear unit built by EDF Energy. The strike price would be GBP89.50 for both units if EDF is able to use the same EPR design to build another reactor at Sizewell C.
The support, known as contracts for difference, will be delivered through investment contracts designed to provide the most efficient long-term support for all forms of low-carbon generation. If the EC were to find the aid illegal, it is unclear whether EDF would go forward with the construction of the new reactor.
In a speech delivered at an industry conference last month, Leidenmuhler said that “in my opinion, the result has to be that this CfD is illegal state aid. Contrary to renewables, there is no exception for nuclear power in the general block exemption regulation, so that, as a result, CfDs in the field of nuclear power are not compatible with EU law.”…..
The categories of aid that are allowed under the block exemption include the areas of small- and medium-sized businesses, research, innovation, regional development, training, employment of disabled and disadvantaged workers, risk capital and environmental protection.
Leidenmuhler indicated he believed EDF’s funding mechanism for Hinkley Point C did not meet these criteria to be granted an exemption for state aid…….
The issue of a potential precedent being set was a point emphasized indirectly by Leidenmuhler in his presentation, when he cited the recent decision by the Czech government not to offer aid guarantees for the construction of a new nuclear unit at Temelin that would be similar to the guarantees offered by the UK government for Hinkley Point C.
“The decision of the Czech Government three weeks ago not to give such price guarantees in the case of Temelin is not only an economically reasonable step, but also legally required from the view of EU State aid law,” Leidenmuhler said.
First lawsuit against TEPCO by a worker exposed to radiation
Fukushima worker sues TEPCO for exposure to radiation http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201405080045 A worker at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant who was exposed to high levels of radiation in the early days of the disaster is seeking compensation from plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and other parties.
It is the first such lawsuit by a Fukushima worker, according to the man’s lawyers. Their client’s identity was withheld.
“I wish (the utility) had informed us of possible risks in advance,” the 48-year-old man said at a news conference in Tokyo on May 7. “I want (TEPCO) to create safer conditions for workers because the decommissioning of the reactors will not finish anytime soon.”
Arguing that he was unnecessarily exposed to high levels of radiation due to slipshod instructions from TEPCO, the man is seeking 11 million yen ($107,000) in compensation. The lawsuit was filed at the Iwaki branch of the Fukushima District Court.
Just 13 days after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, the man was among the six workers from TEPCO’s original contractor and its subcontractor who entered the basement of the No. 3 reactor turbine building, which had been flooded by tsunami, to install cables.
Three of the workers waded through contaminated water up to their ankles and were exposed to up to 180 millisieverts of radiation. They were later hospitalized.
According to the man’s complaint and other documents, he did not enter the radioactive water, but worked near a puddle of contaminated water for 90 minutes. He estimated that he received a radiation dose of at least 20 millisieverts at that time. The man argued that TEPCO should have been aware of the risks of working in the basement because it had previously discovered highly contaminated water around the No. 1 reactor on March 18. The man insists that the utility, however, told the six workers that the basement was safe to work in.
“That is a breach of responsibility to ensure safety,” the man said. “(The utility) put us in a position of being exposed to high doses of radiation unnecessarily.”
So far, the man has suffered no health issues.
“After carefully examining the contents of the demand and his arguments, we will sincerely respond to the claim,” TEPCO said in a statement issued the same day.
UK’s contract with EDF to build Hinkley nuclear station may not be valid
Hinkley Point nuclear power contract ‘may be invalid’ BBC News 6 May 14 The contract for building the UK’s first nuclear power station in a generation might not be “valid”, a leading legal academic has warned.
Former Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth, who lectures at Cambridge, said the deal with EDF over a plant at Hinkley Point could be seen as an “unjustifiable subsidy” under EU law.
The contract fixes a price for energy provided if the scheme goes ahead.
The government said the deal was “robust” and would give a “fair deal”.
The government announced last autumn that EDF, a French firm, would lead a consortium to build the Hinkley Point C station in Somerset, expected to supply around 7% of the UK’s electricity.
The company and ministers agreed a “strike price” of £92.50 for every megawatt hour, almost twice the current wholesale cost of electricity.
But Mr Howarth told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there was a “problem with whether this is a valid contract at all”.
He argued that, under EU law, its terms could be described as an “unjustifiable subsidy” and that “because the system doesn’t allow for non-British generators to come within it, it might be a violation of the basic principle of EU law of freedom of movement of goods”. Mr Howarth added that English law could also be violated, as “the contract simply says what price it will get if it happens to supply a nuclear power station”, rather than compelling the company to build one.
Setting the price paid for the energy produced could also undermine the “long-standing legal doctrine that contracts which unduly bind the future discretion of governments to act in the public interest are void as being against public policy”.
“It’s quite possible that a contract of this size, over a period of 40 years, might find itself being caught by it,” he added…….http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27291087
Flawed review of Darlington nuclear station
Darlington nuclear assessment “blinkered,” court told, Toronto Star 7 May 14 Environmental groups told a federal court that the review of the proposal to overhaul the Darlington nuclear station was flawed The agencies who gave the overhaul of the Darlington nuclear station an environmental green light had their “heads in the sand” at the prospect of a catastrophic accident, a federal court was told Tuesday.
“The responsible authorities’ blinkered approach to major accidents is not what Parliament intended,” Richard Lindgren told Mr. Justice Michael Phelan.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) proposes to overhaul the four reactors at Darlington starting in 2016, extending their lives to 2055.
Greenpeace, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Northwatch have challenged the environmental approval granted to the project in 2013.
They want the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to give it further scrutiny.
In its environmental impact statement, OPG was only required to plan for accidents with the odds of occurring more frequently than once in a million years, per reactor.
In the world of accident assessment, that rules out catastrophic accidents on the scale of Fukushima or Chernobyl, with a widespread release of radiation and the need to evacuate many thousands of people.
“Those kinds of effects were not assessed at all,” Lindgren told the court.
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act requires the assessment of accidents that “may” occur, he argued………
Darlington’s cooling system draws in cold lake water, circulates it through the plant, and then releases it back into the lake. Some fish are trapped on screens covering the intakes; smaller fish and eggs may be drawn in and killed.
The environmentalists argued for a closed-loop cooling system. http://www.thestar.com/business/economy/2014/05/06/darlington_nuclear_assessment_blinkered_court_told.html
Colorado passes Bill to protect groundwater from uranium mining’s radiation pollution
House advances uranium groundwater protection bill By Joe Hanel Denver Herald staff writer 5 May 14, DENVER – New regulations on uranium processing passed the state House on Monday, despite a plea from Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, that they would destroy hope in the mining towns in his district.
Senate Bill 192 is intended to address an environmental disaster caused by the Cotter uranium mill in Cañon City, where radioactive waste poisoned a neighborhood’s groundwater for years.
It passed 43-22 Monday morning.
“We want to make sure there is not another Cotter mill. We want to make sure groundwater is not polluted by uranium processing,” said one of the sponsors, Rep. K.C. Becker, D-Boulder. The bill sets minimum standards for groundwater cleanups before a company can be let off the hook. It also requires uranium and thorium mines to get a radioactive materials license from the state health department if they use a new process that involves injecting water into the mine’s rock formations……..
Rep. Jared Wright, R-Fruita, said new mining technologies often pollute, despite promises to be safe and clean……..“This bill is about protecting our citizens, those we are all here today to serve,” Wright said.
If Energy Fuels reverses course and decides to build the new mill, SB 192’s groundwater cleanup requirements would apply to it, as well as to Cotter’s Cañon City mill.
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