Britons can cut their electricity bills, even make money, in switching to renewable energy
if you feel like you’re getting taken for a ride every time you open up your energy bill then boycott the big six energy companies and switch to renewable energy today.
Battling the ‘Big Six’: The Best Way to Boycott Extortionate Charges from Energy Companies Greener Ideal, Gabriella Johnson is JULY 18, 2013 “……the recent 
publication of a new in depth investigation into renewableenergy, ‘The Offshore Valuation’, has thrown out the gauntlet to renewable energy nay-sayers by attempting a complete economic evaluation of the offshore renewable energy resource available in the
UK, which produced some startling results.
Transforming UK Energy
According to the study, the UK could become a net electricity exporter and be generating the equivalent of a million barrels of oil by 2050 by developing just a third of the total tidal, wind and wave power available around the country.
This could have a huge number of benefits including insuring against the volatility of fossil fuel prices, creating over 140,000 new jobs and generating more than £30 billion in revenue through exporting electricity to Europe. Continue reading
UK’s new nuclear plants – subsidies to the French seller, bribes to UK villages
The government is still in negotiations with EDF Energy over a “strike price” that would provide a guaranteed long-term income for new reactors at Hinkley Point.
The government has already committed itself to a £10bn loan to the French-owned company but has repeatedly ruled out any subsidy for the Somerset project that is seen as a test case for any future atomic plants being built here
Hinkley Point C nuclear plant £128m windfall dismissed as ‘social bribe’ Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 July 2013 Government proposals to compensate Somerset towns and villages near planned nuclear plant rejected by campaigners Campaigners have dismissed proposed government £128m windfall for towns local to Hinkley Point nuclear power station, saying it is really worth only £3.3m 
per year.
Towns and villages around a proposed new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point C in Somerset could be in line to receive a £128m windfall under new proposals outlined by the government.
Campaigners opposed to the project dismissed the funding as a “social bribe” that only amounted to £3.3m annually over 40 years while wind farm developers complained they had to pay five times more in community benefits.
People living around eight potential nuclear sites in England and Wales could be eligible for a package of benefits worth up to £1,000 per megawatt of power once a facility starts, the government said…… Continue reading
UK’s new solar feed-in tariff will pay off for homeowners
UK Launches Renewable Heat Incentive http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3839 16 July 13 UK households are set to reap big rewards under a new feed-in tariff scheme for energy generated by solar thermal panels, biomass boilers and heat pumps.
The new Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) will pay homeowners the equivalent of AU$0.12c/kWh for air-to-water sourced heat pumps, AUS0.20/kWh for recycled biomass pellet boilers, AU$0.30/kWh for ground and water-sourced heat pumps, and a minimum of AU$0.31c/kWh for homes with installed flat plate and evacuated tube solar hot water systems.
The scheme is designed to assist in the uptake of renewable energy systems in the UK, cut carbon emissions and help drive down the cost of electricity bills for working families. Only technologies that help Great Britain meet its European Union renewable energy target obligations will be eligible under the new tariff arrangements.
“The Coalition is committed to helping hardworking families with the cost of living. Investing for the long term in new renewable heat technologies will mean cleaner energy and cheaper bills. So this package of measures is a big step forward in our drive to get innovative renewable heating kit in our homes,” said UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker.
The RHI is being hailed as a world first by parent agency, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The DECC says lessons learned from Renewable Heat Premium Payment – a one-off payment to assist households with the cost of installing renewable energy systems – has helped the DECC design a scheme in which people “can now invest in a range of exciting heating technologies knowing how much the tariff will be for different renewable heat technologies and benefit from the clean green heat produced.”
The RHI is open to households that have installed an eligible renewable heat technology since 2009. Payments will be made quarterly for seven years – the expected payback time of a renewable heating system, taking into account the falling cost of solar thermal and heat pump technologies.
Crazy military nuclear plans – the chicken nuke, the backpack nuke
The Five Most Insane Nuclear Delivery Systems Jaolpnik MICHAEL BALLABAN, 14 July 13 “……The Chicken Nuke When Cold War planners were planning out the seemingly inevitable Hot War, they had dreams dancing in their heads of massive waves of Russian soldiers and tanks sweeping across Germany. The British, being plucky, were confident they would lose.
The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment developed a nuclear land mine that could be detonated either by wire or by an eight-day timer that would completely obliterate the advancing enemy columns. Not such a bad idea if you’re a fan of indiscriminate wastelands.
The only problem was that land mines tend to be buried in the ground, where it can get cold. Cold temperatures would freeze the electronics in the nuke mines, preventing them from doing their intended deadly deed. Clearly, a solution was needed to heat those bad boys up.
Blankets? No, too safe. One of those gel packs you put in your mittens when you ski? How pedestrian. No, this was 1954, and everything needed to go whoosh and phflew, so something high-tech was needed. Oh yes, that’s right.
Chickens.
The idea was to seal the chickens inside the nuclear casing as the Western armies retreated from the German plain. With a supply of food and water inside, the chickens would last for roughly a week, and their body heat would be enough to make sure everything went kaboom as normal.P
Once again, chickens.
Somehow the British actually ordered ten of these things in 1957, but supposedly none were made before the project was cancelled a year later, Let’s just hope there are no chickens buried under Germany.
The Backpack Nuke
Local news likes to whip everyone into a tizzy with tales of terrorists and backpack nukes, but the reason we know it’s a real possibility is because backpack nukes are a real thing. And we would know, because we made them.
The H-912 container for the Mark 54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) could be feasibly carried on your back, although it does look a bit bulky. The idea would be for two guys (Navy SEALs or otherwise) to parachute into Soviet territory, set it, and forget it. The second guy would be there essentially just to back the first guy up, though in a pinch it looks like it could be used on a one-man mission.
Though it doesn’t look that big, it could actually destroy the equivalent of a few city blocks.
How fast can you run?… http://jalopnik.com/the-five-most-insane-nuclear-delivery-systems-768180979
Why UK wants nuclear submarines in Scotland, and Scotland doesn’t
The UK’s military were highly ambivalent about acquiring nuclear weapons, not least because they could not be launched without US permission. Nuclear bases on British soil have always been de facto US bases and we pay US firms for provision and maintenance. But politicians wanted them. Being a nuclear power is almost as good as still having an empire.
Trident, the UK’s current nuclear weapon system, is in Scotland because London isn’t. That’s one of the reasons why Trident is hugely unpopular with Scots. Faslane is a deep-water port that keeps mildly unstable weapons far from the politicians disastrously wedded to the idea that if enough civilians of the right type die, almost anything is achievable.
Faslane: this was a nuclear weapon for the SNP, Guardian UK, 12 July 13, The rumoured plans for the naval base were a reminder of how deeply unpopular Trident is among Scots The MoD’s, or Whitehall’s, or whoever’s plans to designate Trident’s Faslane base “sovereign UK territory” earlier this week seemed, at best, petty – an attempt at humiliation timed to balance Andy Murray’s cheering victory. It was a gift to the SNP, now denied and passed from hand to hand like a vomiting baby. That the idea was ever floated offers us another reminder of the colonial attitudes so catastrophically embedded in nuclear policy; a fundamental, fatal dismissal of “ordinary” people.
Once, it was relatively easy to acquire a colony if you had access to industrialised military production when the people you were invading didn’t. But by the end of the 19th century there was nowhere desirable left to steal, and industrialised armies finally faced each other. The results were intolerable: massive national debt and casualties that could mount by tens of thousands a day.
But then, in the 1920s, Britain’s airforce successfully bombed undefended Iraqi villages into quiescence. Italy followed suit in Ethiopia, and Germany in Spain. The age of “intimidation by bomb” was born, and with it the dream that killing a high enough percentage of a civilian population from the air would destroy a country and win a war with low military casualties……… Continue reading
UK might make nuclear base in Scotland a ‘sovereign United Kingdom territory”
Trident nuclear base on banks of the Clyde ‘could be designated as UK territory’ if Scotland votes for independence
- Idea floated as a contingency if Scotland breaks away from the UK
- But Number 10 says it is not ‘credible or sensible’
- SNP accused Westminster of trying to bully Scotland
By MATT CHORLEY, MAILONLINE POLITICAL EDITOR, 11 July 2013 The nuclear deterrent base in Scotland would be designated as sovereign United Kingdom territory under plans drawn up by the Ministry of Defence.
The move comes amid warnings of the ‘enormous’ costs of trying to relocate the Trident missile system away from Faslane if Scotland breaks away from the rest of the UK.
But David Cameron today moved to quash the idea, warning it was not a ‘credible or sensible’. The future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent has become a key area of dispute in the run up to the referendum on Scottish independence next year.
The submarines and missiles are housed at a naval base on the Clyde but the SNP wants rid of the system.
Officials in Whitehall have been looking at alternatives to ensure Britain can maintain its at sea deterrent.
Under the plan to reclassify Faslane, the base would be given the same status as the British sovereign military bases in Cyprus, the Guardian reported. Continue reading
Cover-up of health effects of soldiers affected by nuclear bomb tests
A victory for the vets would destroy the current radiation risk model and open the floodgates for more claims If the court were to allow the evidence, a victory is more likely, setting a legal precedent for some 900 other veterans waiting in the wings.
”Millions have died because of this cover up of the effects of internal radiation, and millions more will die if we don’t succeed in destroying this risk model.”
EXPOSED: Health threats of ‘safe’ levels of radiation covered up by Anglo-American establishment in nuke test; vets fight for pensions http://www.naturalnews.com/041130_Christmas_Island_atomic_bomb_tests_veterans.html, July 10, 2013 by: Anna Bragga A pensions case has become the site of a vicious battleground between the Anglo-American establishment and a British scientist in a row over accepted safe levels of radiation exposure.
It began in 2011 when a group of 16 veterans of UK nuclear bomb tests in Australia and Christmas Island applied for pensions on the grounds that their illnesses (and those of their children and grandchildren) were most likely caused by particulate uranium inhalation.
In a tale with more twists than a John Grisham novel, the veterans have had their appeals quashed after being forced to change their firm of solicitors and their expert witness – international radiation authority and Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, Dr. Chris Busby, who has a track record of winning five similar cases in a row.
The veterans, originally represented by Rosenblatts Solicitors, had commissioned Dr. Busby to provide evidence. But Rosenblatts suddenly pulled out of the case in December 2012 after funding provided by the Royal British Legion dried up. Washington-based Hogan Lovells International – a firm with a history of representing government and pharmaceutical companies, quickly filled the gap.
Coincidentally, at the very same time, Dr. Busby had obtained access to secret nuclear test reports by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), revealing information of significance to the case. He had also by then written 12 reports showing new evidence of the link between internal radiation exposure to uranium, the main component of all the bombs and a range of ill health effects. Continue reading
Guaranteed money from UK for new nuclear – not a subsidy, REALLY?
Ed Davey ‘will not give an inch’ on nuclear power price As a former nuclear sceptic, energy secretary says he regards the negotiations over Hinkley Point as a personal test The Guardian, Patrick Wintour 6 July 2013 The energy secretary on Saturday intervenes in the debate over nuclear power by insisting he will not budge a further inch in his offer of long-term guaranteed fixed prices for nuclear electricity. Ed Davey [Liberal Democrats] says he regards the negotiations as a test for his commitment to produce nuclear energy at an affordable price and without subsidy by the taxpayer.
The government is locked in lengthy talks with its preferred supplier, the French energy firm EDF, over a planned nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which would be the first in almost two decades. Continue reading
Unsafe levels of ionising radiation at firm in Mersey, England
Workers at Mersey firm exposed to potentially unsafe levels of radiation, Liverpool Echo, By Gary Stewart, 4 July 13, Staff at firm couldn’t understand machine instructions because they were in Chinese Workers at a Wirral company were accidentally exposed to potentially unsafe levels of radiation because the instructions for the machine they were using were in Chinese
Two members of staff at Meyer Group Ltd, Bromborough, were put in charge of a “low intensity x-ray scope” which they used to check the inside of kettles sent back as faulty.
The machine, which was brought from China, was used for four months between 2002 and 2003 and again for nineteen months between 2007 and 2009 during a second product recall.
But unknown to the workers they were using the scope, which emitted “ionising radiation” for twice the recommended daily limit, because they couldn’t understand the instructions.
Nigel Lawrence, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court one of the workers was assured the machine was safe by a Chinese colleague who told him how to use it.
But it wasn’t until he asked for the instructions to be translated years later he realised he was in danger……..
Mr Lawrence said: “Any adverse health effects may not be known for many many years.”
The company later pleaded guilty to failing to ensure safety of workers and breaching regulations relating to working with radiation……
Judge Graham Morrow said that anyone who ever had an x-ray would know that radiation was potentially hazardous.
He will deliver his sentence this afternoon and is expected to fine the company tens of thousands of pounds.http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/mersey-meyer-group-ltd-workers-4870083
Nuclear waste cleanup a financial bonanza for UK firm
Nuclear waste: Clean-up Quandary.FT, By Sylvia Pfeifer, 1 July 13, More reactors are to be built but a permanent solution for high-level waste remains elusive …….
More than 50 years after the world’s first commercial nuclear power plants started operating in the UK and the US, the tens of thousands of tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in the world still has to find a permanent home.
The absence of a permanent solution for high-level waste is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry as it tries to recover from the deadly disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. Several governments scaled back their expansion plans, with Germany announcing plans to close all its reactors. The International Energy Agency last year predicted that global nuclear generating capacity would reach 580GW in 2035 – a 10 per cent drop from its forecast a year before.
Yet new reactors, and more waste, are not far off…..
Alvin Weinberg, an American nuclear pioneer, famously said that atomic power represents a Faustian bargain: a valuable source of electricity that carries with it an obligation to deal with the waste. “New nuclear should not go ahead until we have sorted out the waste problem,” says Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace, adding that the environmental organisation is “concerned about a new round of spent fuel set to be created”…..
“We have an obligation to get it right . . . We are like a shopfront for the nuclear industry,” admits Tony Price, brought in recently by Nuclear Management Partners (NMP),as the managing director of Sellafield Limited. “It’s time now to really focus on delivery,” he adds………
In the short term, the pressure is on NMP to deliver at Sellafield. Yet the potential prize is much bigger than just cleaning up one of the world’s most polluted sites. There are potential export contracts for companies involved in the decommissioning work and for west Cumbria it offers much-needed employment opportunities. Success at Sellafield would also mean success on a wider scale.http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77c177ba-dcba-11e2-b52b-00144feab7de.html#axzz2XvB1ouop
UK’s Minstry of Defence caused radioactive beach
Dalgety Bay radiation: Sepa says MoD was responsible for contamination, BBC News 28 Jue 13Diggers have excavated sections of the beach The Ministry of Defence has been found solely responsible for radioactive contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife.
It follows an investigation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) into the history of the contamination at the beach.
Its report said the MoD had routinely incinerated and disposed of aircraft dials in the bay before the town was developed.
The dials had been illuminated by paint containing radium-226.
The aircraft had been stationed at the nearby HMS Merlin airfield, which was commissioned in 1939 as a Royal Naval Aircraft Repair Yard and decommissioned in 1959 before being sold off through the 1960s……..
“Contamination on the foreshore at Dalgety Bay is the result of erosion of deposited material and subsequent re-working and re-deposition of contaminated marine sediments resulting from coastal erosion, a process which is considered to be a normal part of life.”
Significant amounts of material remain buried on the coast and continue to erode through coastal processes and re-contaminate the foreshore areas, the report added.
It concluded that Sepa considered the MoD to be the sole “appropriate person” for the contamination…….
The local MP and former prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the MoD was “merely delaying the inevitable” and had a “moral duty” to clean up the site.
“Having been named as the polluter, the Ministry of Defence must now agree to fund the clean-up of the area to remove the contaminated substances from the Dalgety Bay beach, and the work must start immediately,” he said……. The local MP and former prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the MoD was “merely delaying the inevitable” and had a “moral duty” to clean up the site.
“Having been named as the polluter, the Ministry of Defence must now agree to fund the clean-up of the area to remove the contaminated substances from the Dalgety Bay beach, and the work must start immediately,” he said.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23098001
£10bn financial guarantee for Britain’s new nuclear power plants
Nuclear power gets £10bn financial guarantee boost guardian.co.uk, 28 June 2013 Patrick Wintour and Phillip Inman Ministers respond to warnings that UK is on brink of power blackouts with support for French generator EDF to build Hinkley Point nuclear power plant
The government has responded to warnings that Britain is on the brink of power blackouts by announcing £10bn in financial guarantees to thenuclear power industry – a concession aimed at paving the way for the building of the first new reactor in the country for a generation.
The support for French generator EDF, which is in negotiations to build the Hinkley Point nuclear power station, was announced by the Treasury chief secretary, Danny Alexander, as the centrepiece of a £100bn package of infrastructure investment covering 2015-20, including new roads, schools and affordable homes.
Michael Fallon, the energy minister, insisted the substantial guarantees represented a commercial loan, not a subsidy, saying: “This is big-scale financing, not available in the markets.” …
EDF had already prepared the site next to the two existing stations, but would not commit to the project unless the government guaranteed a minimum price for the electricity the new reactor would produce……. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/27/nuclear-power-10billion-financial-guarantee
Drunk on duty – police officers guarding UK nuclear sites
Safety fears over elite police officers drunk on duty at UK’s nuclear sites, The Independent ANDY ROWELL 26 June 13 Police officers with the elite force that guards Britain’s nuclear power stations have been caught drunk, using drugs, misusing firearms and also accused of sexual harassment and assault.
The offences by officers with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), released under the Freedom of Information Act, have raised concerns about the safety of the UK’s nuclear plants and radioactive material.
The CNC recently stepped up the number of officers guarding the Sellafield plant in Cumbria. The 1,000 officers in its workforce also protect highly radioactive material as it travels across the country. In one case, a police constable allegedly tested positive for cannabis at work. The matter was deemed so sensitive that the CNC refused to disclose the location or year the offence occurred, in case the identity of the officer could be traced.
Even after an internal review of the case, the date the officer resigned was deemed to constitute “personal data”, so it could not be released under the Freedom of Information Act…….
such is the array of serious misdemeanours by the CNC officers– who are funded directly by the energy companies – that it raises grave concerns about the safety of the UK’S nuclear power plants. Paul Flynn MP said: “The UK sent 441 of our soldiers to die in Afghanistan to protect us from alleged terrorist threats to the UK, Nuclear installation are the prime nightmare targets that could create mass devastation. This evidence suggests sacrifices abroad but woefully weak protection standards at home.”
Robin Oakley, Campaigns Director for Greenpeace UK, said: “This deeply worrying catalogue of misdemeanours is a reminder that nuclear reactors will always be vulnerable to human mistakes and irresponsibility. If the people supposed to protect us from probably the highest level of nuclear risk don’t take safety seriously, what confidence can we have in the rest of the nuclear industry’s operations?”
Off duty offences ranged from being drunk and disorderly in a public place to minor public order offences and common assault. The incidents listed also included those which occurred on duty, as well as on and off site. Those on site were dealt with by the CNC, who either dismissed the officers for serious offences or gave warnings. Off-site offences led to police cautions. The CNC was unavailable for comment. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/safety-fears-over-elite-police-officers-drunk-on-duty-at-uks-nuclear-sites-8675660.html
Britain cosying up with France in financing nuclear power research
UK invests £48.7m in nuclear cooperation with France http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2013/jun/nuclear-cooperation-uk-france.cfm 25 June 2013 By Tereza Pultarova A new £21.7m facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston is to be built as a further part of the UK’s contribution to the nuclear weapons information project with France.
According to the parliamentary sources, the overall investment in Project Teutates will amount to £48.7m.
The deal to share resources, in order to cut cost of military projects, between the UK and France was signed in 2010 by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both countries committed to invest into new centres dedicated to experiments on warhead materials and parts.The facilities will use extremely high power X-rays to test materials at high temperature and pressure, mimicking conditions during nuclear explosions. The data gathered should help to assess performance and safety of warheads and might be used in development of new warhead types.
The facilities involved are the French Valduc Centre for Nuclear Studies and the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.
Defence Minister Philip Dunne has confirmed the construction of the Technology Development Centre, which is part of the UK’s contribution to Project Teutates, has so far cost £27m and the remaining part will be invested into a new facility within the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston.
According to Mr Dunne, wider costs of Project Teutates have been withheld as disclosure would be “likely to prejudice commercial interests and would impact on the formulation of Government policy”.
UK nuclear decommissioning costs soar- could be over £100bn.
UK’s nuclear clean-up programme to cost billions more than expected 
Guardian UK, Terry Macalister 23 June 13, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority declines to predict final lifetime clean-up cost amid fears total bill could exceed £100bn
The public body charged with overseeing the dismantling of Britain’s network of atomic power and research stations will reveal on Monday that its estimates for the lifetime cost of the programme has risen by billions of pounds.
Despite this, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will say in its annual report that it is getting to grips with the clean-up problem because the rate of cost growth is slowing year-on-year.
Yet the soaring costs will alarm industry critics at a time when the government is trying to encourage construction of a new generation of atomic power plants while plans to construct a permanent home for high-level radioactive waste are stalled.
In the NDA’s 2011 annual report the provisional cost of dealing with the UK’s nuclear legacy was put at £53bn, compared with a 2010 figure of £49bn. The new number in the 2012 set of accounts is expected to be around £55bn. But under previous accounting methods, the figure historically used has risen to well over £80bn with some predicting the final bill could exceed £100bn. Continue reading
1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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