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Joint Regulatory Position Statement on the EPR Pressurised Water Reactor
The UK nuclear safety regulator (HSE's ND), the French nuclear regulator (ASN), and the Finnish nuclear regulator (STUK) are currently working to assess the EPR Pressurised Water Reactor.
In carrying out individual assessments, we have all raised issues regarding the EPR Control and Instrumentation (C&I) systems, which the proposed licensees and/or the manufacturer (AREVA) are in the process of addressing.
Although the EPR design being developed for each country varies slightly, the issues we raised with the current C&I system are broadly similar, our aim being to collectively obtain the highest levels of safety from the EPR.
The issue is primarily around ensuring the adequacy of the safety systems (those used to maintain control of the plant if it goes outside normal conditions), and their independence from the control systems (those used to operate the plant under normal conditions).
BBC NEWS | All change as gas reserves soar
With coal being too dirty and wind farms and nuclear power plants arriving late, it seems the world is left with a stark choice: keep on polluting or turn out the lights.
Unless, that is, someone comes up with an alternative.
Energy executive Rune Bjornson thinks he has the answer.
"Natural gas, more than any other fuel, is an option we have here and now," he tells the BBC in an interview.
And, he adds, there is plenty of it around - unlike scarcer resources such as oil and coal.
Britain's nuclear strategy threatens destruction of Kalahari | Environment | The Observer
Namibian environmentalists warn expansion of uranium mining could devastate spectacular natural landscape
The hidden cost of Britain's new generation of nuclear power could be the destruction of the Kalahari desert in Namibia and millions of tonnes of extra greenhouse gas emissions a year, the Observer has discovered.
The desert, with its towering sand dunes and spectacular lunar-like landscapes, is at the centre of an international uranium rush led by Rössing Uranium, a subsidiary of the British mining giant Rio Tinto, and the French state-owned company, Areva, which part-manages the nuclear complex at Sellafield and wants to build others in Britain.
EDF Energy wants Britain to fix the market if it builds nuclear plants - Times Online
British families could be forced to pay up to £227 extra on their annual energy bills to help to fund a new generation of nuclear power stations under plans proposed by the French company expected to build most of them.
EDF Energy, which wants to build four reactors in Britain at a cost of about £20 billion, was accused of holding the Government to ransom last night, after an executive told The Times that none would be built unless the Government agreed to underwrite part of the cost. Speaking before a government announcement on Britain’s energy future on Monday, Humphrey Cadoux-Hudson, managing director of EDF Energy’s new nuclear business in Britain, said the nuclear programme would proceed only if the Government ensured that consumers paid more for electricity from fossil fuels, such as coal and gas, which is cheaper but produces more greenhouse gas, making nuclear more competitive.
Sellafield decommissioning job worth £1.5bn attracts big hitters | News | Construction News
A host of international firms are lining up to battle for a package of decommissioning works at Sellafield that could be worth as much as £1.5 billion.
Balfour Beatty is understood to be bidding for the three-phase contract in a joint venture with Amec and French nuclear specialist Areva.
Meanwhile, Costain is believed to have teamed up with US engineering giant Fluor to bid for the job, which will eventually see the construction of a highly active liquid effluent facility.
Laing O’Rourke is also thought to be in a consortium with Jacobs, Nuvia and Doosan Babcock to tender for the work – valued at between £250 million and £1.5bn.
Calls to reveal top-secret nuclear dump - News - Roundup - Articles - Helensburgh Advertiser
A PLEA has been made for the Government to reveal a top-secret nuclear dumping ground situated in Argyll and Bute.
MP Alan Reid has called on the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, to come forward and name the site where the waste - radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines - is being disposed of.
It comes after revelations that at least one site on the confidential list is situated in Argyll and Bute.
It was also revealed that Coulport was previously named as a possible site, but was later rejected.
Mr Reid said: "Every community in Argyll and Bute is now worried that a site near them is on the secret list of sites being considered as a nuclear dump.
"The Government must publish the list of sites. Publishing the list would set some people's minds at rest.
Government's claims on energy 'should be taken with a pinch of salt' - Telegraph
Government claims that there is "no danger of power cuts in the next decade" should be taken ''with a pinch of salt'', according to campaigners.
The warning was issued by the expert group, Supporters of Nuclear Energy (SONE) which accused politicians of formulating policy in a vacuum of ignorance.
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, was quoted in SONE's monthly bulletin as saying: ''There is no danger of power cuts in the next decade. Power stations are closing but we already have ten gigawatts (10,000MW) of new power stations being built and another ten gigawatts that have planning consent.''
300 at Plymouth anti-nuclear protest
CAMPAIGNERS protesting against possible plans to scrap nuclear submarines at Devonport Dockyard descended on the city for an organised protest at the weekend.
Around 300 people turned out in support of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who believe that Plymouth will be turned into a dumping ground for nuclear submarines.
The rally began with a march through the city centre before speeches outside the Guildhall. The group then travelled to Devonport Park before a protest march along the dockyard wall, finishing at the site’s Camels Head entrance.
North West Evening Mail | Campaign against Sellafield
CAMPAIGNERS from Norway descended on Westminster to demand Sellafield be closed down amid fears an accident at the site would cause devastation across the globe.
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CAMPAIGN: Campaigners from Norway protest against Sellafield at Westminster
The group claimed the quality of the radioactive waste is poor and they fear there will be an accident at the site.
Frank Storelv, from Oslo, said 90 per cent of wind blows from the south west and if there was an explosion or accident at Sellafield, one or two days later the radioactive waste would be carried to the west coast of Norway.
Letters: Dangers of exporting nuclear technology | From the Guardian | The Guardian
Dangers of exporting nuclear technology
Your revelations about Iraq's modern-day atomic aspirations (Iraq seeks permission for new nuclear programme, 28 October) raise the question whether the UK nuclear industry – with encouragement of the government, now all reborn atomic aficionados – will seek to gain a foothold in the re-emerging Iraqi nuclear industry.
The UK has form on this: on 31 March 1957 the Baghdad Pact Nuclear Centre opened, with full British support. This pact was created in 1955 by Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq with the primary aim of strengthening regional security. A year later, on 29 March 1958, the centre was honoured by a lecture from Sir John Cockcroft, director of the UK's Atomic Energy Research Establishment.
HSE issues nuclear alert - Building
Watchdog warns £20bn programme faces delay unless reactor designers improve performance
The UK’s £20bn nuclear programme is facing delays because of a failure to tackle design problems with their reactors, the Health and Safety Executive has warned.
A report by the HSE, seen by Building, said the two firms in the running to build the reactors had to put more resources into dealing with the safety assessment process if it was to be completed on time.
One of them, Japanese-owned Westinghouse, came in for particular criticism for failing to provide a report on external hazards such as flooding.
Nuclear firms pay £70m for Sellafield site - Business News, Business - The Independent
A multinational consortium of energy companies is paying £70m for land adjacent to Sellafield suitable for building a new atomic power station.
Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), Spain's Iberdrola and France's GDF Suez have acquired the 470-acre site, which is the fourth piece of land to be sold by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The consortium plans to build an installation with a capacity of up to 3.6 gigawatts, starting in 2015.
The SSE/Iberdrola/GDF group is the third new entrant to the UK nuclear industry after France's EDF bought British Energy for £12.5bn in January, and a consortium of Germany's RWE Npower and E.ON was successful in earlier NDA land auctions in April.
SSE/Iberdrola/GDF was also a bidder in previous auctions for land at Wylfa, Oldbury and Bradwell. But the group pulled out after competition became so fierce it ran for six weeks rather than the expected one, and netted the Government a whopping £387m rather than the expected £100m.
Trio buy Sellafield site to build giant nuclear plant - Telegraph
A consortium of utility companies is planning to build a giant nuclear power station at Sellafield, the former home of the world’s oldest reactor, as part of Britain’s next generation of cleaner energy sources.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said yesterday that it had sold the right to develop the land for a 3.6 gigawatt station to Scottish and Southern, Iberdrola and GDF Suez for £70m.
Response: New nuclear energy will not need a taxpayers' subsidy | Comment is free | The Guardian
Your leader column claims that the "nuclear renaissance" does not make sense on financial grounds (Nuclear power: A bung by any other name, 19 October). However, there is a growing collation of support among the public, politicians of the main parties, industry, scientists and regulators, who recognise nuclear is needed as part of the answer to keep the lights on and tackle climate change.
Times & Star | News | Sellafield hit by another plant failure
SELLAFIELD has been hit by another plant failure but there is said to be no impact on site safety or operations.
breaking news
Evaporator B known as Bravo and which treats highly radioactive liquor has failed for the second time in six months due to coil corrosion.
Sellafield’s operators stress, however, that as no fuel reprocessing is currently taking place production is not affected and there are no implications for health and safety.
Energy fears over nuclear waste dumps | Environment | The Observer
Former senior advisers say ministers 'cherry-picked' reports to bolster case for new power plants
Former senior government advisers on nuclear power have accused ministers of being "cavalier" and "cherry-picking" their advice to bolster the case for a new generation of nuclear power stations.
They and other industry experts say the government should not embark on building any new atomic facilities without properly tackling the unsolved problem of how to deal with radioactive waste from existing power plants.
In 2006 the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management published recommendations on how the UK should dispose of nuclear waste. A key idea was that long-term disposal would be best carried out by identifying suitable sites at which the waste could be buried, a process called deep geological disposal.
New research suggests how low doses of radiation can cause heart disease and stroke
A mathematical model constructed by researchers at Imperial College London predicts the risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, stroke) associated with low background levels of radiation. The model shows that the risk would vary almost in proportion with dose. Results, published October 23 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, are consistent with risk levels reported in previous studies involving nuclear workers.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and one of the leading causes of disability in developed countries, as reported in the paper and also by the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/whosis/en/). For some time, scientists have understood how high-dose radiotherapy (RT) causes inflammation in the heart and large arteries and how this results in the increased levels of cardiovascular disease observed in many groups of patients who receive RT. However, in the last few years, studies have shown that there may also be cardiovascular risks associated with the much lower fractionated doses of radiation received by groups such as nuclear workers, but it is not clear what biological mechanisms are responsible.
Nuclear power: The consumer always pays | Environment | The Guardian
Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors
From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens.
The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.
Secret files reveal covert network run by nuclear police | Environment | The Guardian
The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets.
The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent.
Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF.
Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.
Crumbling stores, leaky plants and the dangers of old age | Terry Macalister | Environment | The Guardian
Dealing with the problems of old age lies at the heart of the nuclear industry's challenge to convince the public of its safety: leaky power plants, crumbling waste stores nearing the end of their lives and overworked inspectors who do not have the time to assess properly the next generation of power stations.
Even with billions of pounds a year being poured into clean-up operations, it is a toxic legacy going back to the cold war that continually threatens to undermine the facelift given by the new private sector companies. The companies, mainly from France and Germany, have joined the government to try to convince the public it is time for a nuclear renaissance, on both energy security and climate change grounds. In recent days the industry watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), has admitted that the possibility of a serious accident at Britain's biggest nuclear complex, Sellafield in Cumbria, is still "far too high", while questioning the safety designs of new reactors being submitted for approval.
The private sector managers who took over at Sellafield less than a year ago have been told in a letter that they should reduce the risks at the radioactive storage pond dubbed "Dirty 30" and elsewhere as soon as possible.
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