Nuclear firm AREVA hedging its bets- making wind turbines now
Areva plans 750 jobs with Scottish wind turbine factory, Telegraph,
By Emily Gosden 19 Nov 2012 French energy company Areva has
unveiled plans for a wind turbine factory in Scotland that could
create up to 750 jobs.
The plant at the Firth of Forth would manufacture turbines for use off
the coast of the UK, each generating 5 megawatts of electricity, which
could supply 6,000 homes a year.
The move was hailed as “brilliant news for Scotland” by Prime Minister
David Cameron, who added: “Growth of the renewable energy sector isn’t
just good for our environment, it’s good for our economy too.”…..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9689022/Areva-plans-750-jobs-with-Scottish-wind-turbine-factory.html
Renewable energy is increasingly powering UK’s electricity grid
UK RENEWABLE ENERGY POWERS FORWARD Waste 
Management World, LONDON, Dec. 27 — The Department of Energy and Climate Change issued the following press release: Renewable energy is powering forward in the UK, according to the 2012 update to the Renewable Energy Roadmap published today by Energy Secretary Edward Davey.
Significant progress has been made on the rollout of renewable energy across the United Kingdom from July 2011 to July 2012, including:
* A 27 percent increase in overall renewable electricity generated;
* A 40 percent increase over the same period in renewable electricity capacity. Now over 10 percent of all electricity generated is coming from renewables;
* A 60 percent increase of offshore wind capacity to 2.5 gigawatts, and;
* A five-fold increase in solar PV capacity. Continue reading
3000 km away, and nearly 30 years later Chernobyl’s radiation is a BIT better
While other areas of Europe, such as Scandinavia, continue to record substantial levels of radioactivity in stock animal populations, the UK has provided happy evidence that the impact of Chernobyl radiation is diminishing.
British Sheep vs. Chernobyl Radiation 18 December 2012 by Stephanie Swift, http://www.scilogs.com/mmmbitesizescience/british-sheep-and-chernobyl-radiation/
The explosion of reactor number four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 is widely regarded as the worst radiation disaster in human history. The radioactive fallout spread from Northern Ukraine throughout Northern Europe, dispersing large quantities of radioactive elements, including two caesium isotopes, Cs-134 and Cs-137. Continue reading
Plutonium now called “material” as it travels from Scotland to Wales
Breeder is classed as material and not as fuel or waste, by NDA.
Nuclear material moved by train from Scotland to England , BBC News, 17 December 2012 The first of 90 rail shipments of nuclear material from Dounreay in Caithness to Sellafield in Cumbria was made overnight.
The journey was understood to have been made under armed escort. Forty-four tonnes of breeder material in total will be transported by train to Sellafield for reprocessing. Continue reading
World’s largest offshore wind farm fully operational by Spring 2013
Construction complete at world’s largest offshore wind farm REM, 14 December 2012 The 175th and final turbine has been installed at the London Array offshore wind farm marking the end of major construction activities, Dong Energy announced.
Turbine installation began in January 2012 and has been completed by MPI Discovery, A2SEA’s Sea Worker and Sea Jack. Now that all the turbines are in place and the majority now connected and supplying power to the national grid, the wind farm is on track to
be fully operational in Spring 2013.
DONG Energy, which holds a 50 percent stake in the project, said the wind farm has been generating energy since October 2012 when the first turbine began producing power. Continue reading
UK new Trident nuclear submarine fleet an insane waste of money
Harvey said it would be cheaper for the government to give every worker £2m “so they could go an live in the Bahamas”.
Sea-based nuclear deterrent expensive and ‘insane’ – ex-defence minister Former armed forces minister Sir Nick Harvey urges need for Trident alternatives in evidence to Nuclear Education Trust Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, 13 December 2012 Keeping a constant sea-bound nuclear deterrent is “complete insanity” that costs too much and is militarily illogical, a former defence minister has said.
Sir Nick Harvey, who was armed forces minister until September, said the UK had to properly consider other options before any decisions were taken about whether to replace the Royal Navy’s four ageing Trident submarines. Continue reading
Britain’s taxpayers up for more than 100 billion pounds in nuclear cleanup
Nuclear clean-up to cost £100bn and take 120 years. Decommissioning, no2nuclearpower, 9 December 2012 BRITAIN’S taxpayers will be landed with a bill of more than £100bn for cleaning up radioactive waste from sites such as Sellafield and Dounreay, according to the chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
The amount represents a near-doubling of the £56bn cleanup cost announced when the NDA began operating in 2005, and could rise still more. The warning comes as NDA 
engineers start work on some of the biggest and most expensive engineering projects seen in Britain — building giant robotic grabs to lift deadly nuclear waste from Sellafield’s decaying 1950s repositories.
The buildings being targeted include Sellafield’s B29 and B30 cooling ponds, where decaying 1950s fuel rods are stored. This weekend John Clarke, chief executive of the NDA, said he was spending £3bn a year on the cleanup, with about £1.6bn of that going on Sellafield alone. Such sums are similar to those spent on the London Olympic site at the peak of construction.
Figures released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change show that, since Britain’s first nuclear power station opened in 1956, they have generated 2.5 billion megawatt hours of electricity — worth £125 billion at today’s prices. If the cost of building Britain’s 20-odd nuclear power stations (around £10bn-£12bn each in today’s money), is included, it would far exceed the value of the power produced, say experts.
Such figures show why power companies, which would be responsible for the waste, are refusing to build new nuclear power stations without government guarantees of a consumer subsidy that will almost double the market price for their power.
Sunday Times 9th Dec 2012 more >> http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/news/daily12/daily.php?dailynewsid=343
UK navy man tried to sell nuclear secrets to Russia
Nuclear submariner tried to pass secrets to Russians to ‘hurt’ Royal Navy A disillusioned Royal Navy submariner betrayed his country by trying to pass nuclear sub secrets to Russian agents because he wanted to “hurt” the Navy. Telegraph UK, By Tom Whitehead, 12 Dec 2012
Petty Officer Edward Devenney was jailed for eight years yesterday for breaching the official secrets act after being caught in an elaborate MI5 sting operation. Continue reading
UK’s secret plan to move its nuclear submarines out of Scotland
Angus Robertson, the SNP’s defence spokesman, said: “Anti-independence
politicians have repeatedly tried to claim that the process of removing Trident from Scottish waters would be a problem but now we have yet more confirmation from the Ministry of Defence that these arguments do not stack up.
PLAN B WILL TAKE NUCLEAR SUBS TO DEVON. EXPRESS.co.uk, December 9,2012 By Greg Christison WHITEHALL is secretly preparing a contingency plan to move the UK’s nuclear arsenal south of the Border if Scotland votes for independence, it was claimed last night. Continue reading
Despite the hype, the nuclear industry is nervous about its future
Nuclear industry faces up to reality of ‘interesting times’ The Engineer, 7 December 2012 | ByStuart Nathan ”………Part of the problem is that the nuclear landscape is so complicated, especially in the UK, with its history as a nuclear
pioneer and the legagcy of experiment that has left behind. John Clarke of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, again reflecting the mood of realism, put it in a way which pretty much everyone would understand. ‘It’s like telling children to put their toys away before getting out new ones. Clearing up the mess is a key enabler to new build.’
…… .it’s relatively easy to put toys away. Nuclear is different. ‘At Sellafield, we’re dealing with structures which were put up in the 1940s in great haste to support military programmes, where the only concern was “is it safe for today”,’ he said. ‘They were neverdesigned to have waste taken out of them, and the waste is poorly categorised — we often don’t really know what it is.’
The situation isn’t much better even at industrial-scale power stations, said Peter Walkden, commercial director of Magnox. ‘It was never going to be easy to decommission a 50 year old plant that was never designed to be decommissioned, under a regime that was designed for operation,’ he said. Decommissioning a Magnox plant takes the best part of a century — three years to defuel, then ten years of preparation for care and maintenance while radioactivity subsides (the stage that current decommissioning projects are in), followed by 85 years of care and maintenance, then about ten years to clear the site.
A bit more than just putting the toys away, and something that can’t be done before building new plants’. ….”
EDF keeping aged nuclear plants running in UK
Ageing nuclear plants to stay open till 2023 Morning Star, 04 December 2012 by Alex Ballard Anti-nuclear campaigners attacked the “hazardous” decision by EDF Energy today to keep two of Britain’s oldest nuclear power stations in use until at least 2023. Continue reading
Time that the Left woke up to the scourge of consumerism
So if you can, work less, so others can work more, on some days buy nothing – expect the New Statesman, of course. Otherwise buy less, buy better, but buy time, love, care, compassion, freedom and some control over your life and your society the only way you can – by doing it not as a consumer but as a citizen
Why is the left silent on the scourge of consumerism? Labour must look beyond the politics of more and recognise that the good life cannot be bought off a shelf. New Statesman, BY NEAL LAWSON 29 NOVEMBER 2012 Did you do it – by accident or design? Did you manage to buy nothing on Buy Nothing Day last Saturday? What do you mean you didn’t know you it was Buy Nothing Day? Too busy Xmas shopping?
The idea that an issue can only be raised by dedicating one day out of 365 to it is just one indication of how we 
have become a consumer society. Being a consumer society doesn’t mean that all we do is shop, rather it suggests that knowing ourselves and others by what we consume is the prime way in which society now reproduces itself. It is the dominant way of being, just as work once was, when we knew ourselves, and others, primarily as producers. We were what we did.
Now we are what we buy.
I don’t know the ‘Buy Nothing Day’ people but I’m guessing the problem isn’t consumption per se. We have to consume to live. The problem is one of balance. What is the damage being done to us, our society and the planet by consuming too much? And the issue is not the inability
of capitalism to balance its need for expanding profit and our
individual, collective and environmental needs, capitalism can’t do
balance. The problem is that our politicians have given up trying to
secure that balance through regulation……..
Hinkley nuclear project needs to get more permissions
The granting of the licence does not provide full permission for the construction of the power station.
New nuclear clears licence hurdle for EDF-Centrica link2 David Thorpe, News Editor, 27 Nov 12, EDF, the French power company, and Centrica are closer to building the first new nuclear power station in Britain, following the granting of a Nuclear Site Licence (NSL) for Hinkley Point C by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). Continue reading
Sellafield – a financial as well as environmental disaster
Sellafield inspection after ‘intolerable risk’ report, BBC News 26 Nov 12 Sellafield is the UK’s largest and most hazardous nuclear site Sellafield nuclear plant is to undergo a value-for-money inspection after a report found it posed a “risk”.
Earlier this month the National Audit Office (NAO) found decommissioning projects were over budget and that storage buildings were “run-down”.
Now members of the Public Accounts Committee will visit the site to ask “tough questions” on how taxpayers’ money is being spent….. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-20495334
“Low Carbon” – UK government’s excuse for sneaking in nuclear subsidy
EDF Nuclear Plan Gets Boost From U.K. Low Carbon Funds Bloomberg, By Sally Bakewell – Nov 23, 2012 The U.K.’s plan to collect 7.6 billion pounds ($12 billion) for low-carbon projects by 2020 would advance Electricite de France SA’s nuclear plants and add about a third to consumer electricity bills, analysts said.
The sum, announced today by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, will help pay for the 1.1 billion pounds of support a year needed to build two European Pressurized Reactors made by Areva SA (AREVA) for use at EDF sites in England, as well as renewable plants, according to Credit Suisse Group AG……..
Credit Suisse said Davey’s announcement was of particular importance for EDF Energy and Centrica Plc (CNA), which sought the arrangements.
A spokesman for SSE said, “We are pleased to see that the Levy Control Framework means that the U.K. will be building new power stations, including nuclear and renewables.”
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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