Rob Edwards

Tritium hazard rating 'should be doubled'

from New Scientist, 29 November 2007

Radioactive tritium, commonly discharged in large amounts by civil and military nuclear plants around the world, may be more dangerous than previously thought.

The cancer risk for people exposed to tritium could be twice as high as previously assumed, an expert report for the UK government's Health Protection Agency (HPA) concludes. The report suggests that international safety standards need to be tightened up, which will put pressure on nuclear plants to cut their emissions.

Study of nuclear security in Russia reveals lapses

from New Scientist, 28 November 2007

“Come quickly and come alone,” the fax said. “Illicit trafficking issues need urgent attention.” That is how a Russian nuclear agency asked experts at the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) for their insight and experience in assessing the scale of serious security risks in the Kola peninsula, arguably the world’s most radioactive region.

The resulting investigation was completed earlier this year, but in keeping with its cloak-and-dagger origin, the Russian authorities are keeping the details secret. However, New Scientist has learned that the report exposes gaping holes in the arrangements meant to prevent the theft of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

Nuclear terror attack will happen soon, say police

from Sunday Herald, 25 November 2007

A nuclear attack by terrorists causing widespread panic, chaos and death is inevitable and will happen soon, a senior Scottish police officer has warned.

Ian Dickinson, who leads the police response to chemical, biological and nuclear threats in Scotland, has painted the bleakest picture yet of the dangers the world now faces.

Efforts to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining materials which could be made into radioactive dirty bombs - or even crude nuclear explosives - are bound to fail, he said. And the result will be horror on an unprecedented scale.

Government to back bid to ban GM crops in Europe

from Sunday Herald, 25 November 2007

The Scottish government will this week make an unprecedented intervention in Brussels to try and help ban genetically modified (GM) crops throughout Europe.

The environment minister, Michael Russell, is planning to back a controversial bid by the European environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, to block applications to grow GM maize from three multinational companies.

The move is likely to heighten tensions with Westminster, which has been increasingly irritated by Holyrood's anti-GM stance. It will also annoy the GM industry - but delight environmentalists who want to see Europe stay GM-free.

Nuclear industry 'on the wane'

from New Scientist, 22 November 2007

Rumours of a nuclear power renaissance have been greatly exaggerated. So says an audit of the nuclear industry released on Wednesday.

The report, commissioned by the Greens in the European parliamentary, points out that many ageing reactors are due to close before 2030, and that 338 new ones would have to be built just to replace them.

Global warming worse than feared, world experts warn

from Sunday Herald, 18 November 2007

If the world fails to slow global warming, it will overwhelm us. And it will do so more certainly, more quickly and more dangerously than we ever feared.

That, in essence, is the uncompromising message delivered to world leaders by climate scientists yesterday. The increase in storms, floods and droughts caused by pollution from industry, transport and agriculture will threaten the lives and livelihoods of billions around the planet.

"Unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt", concludes a report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at a meeting in Valencia, Spain.

Eurostar's green train is nuclear-powered

from Sunday Herald, 18 November 2007

The new high-speed Eurostar from London to the Channel tunnel, lauded last week as the world's first "green train", is powered by electricity from Britain's nuclear reactors.

The revelation has embarrassed Eurostar, which is attempting to promote itself as an environmentally friendly company, and prompted accusations of "eco-spin" and "double standards".

It has also posed awkward dilemmas for environmental groups which back the train but oppose nuclear power. Friends of the Earth in England has signed a formal partnership agreement with Eurostar, allowing the company to claim the group's endorsement.

Moray dolphins threatened by oil development

from Sunday Herald, 18 November 2007

Scotland's most famous school of dolphins is under threat because the UK government is failing to block oil and gas developments in the Moray Firth.

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) in London - formerly the Department of Trade and Industry - has rejected calls from environmental organisations to exclude the Firth from the current round of oil and gas licensing.

If the area is developed by oil companies, its precarious population of bottlenose dolphins could be hit by "potentially lethal impacts", the groups warn. Other cetaceans, including whales and porpoises, could also suffer.

Stopping Trident sneaking out of the Clyde

from Holyrood Magazine, November 2007

Occasionally, you can glimpse them. From the slopes of the Arrochar Alps or the shores of Loch Long and the Gare Loch, they sneak quietly out to sea, looking curved, dark and lethal.

Every hour of every day, a Trident submarine from the Clyde carrying up to 48 nuclear warheads - each capable of obliterating a city - is hiding somewhere deep under the world's oceans. Some believe they are helping to deter war, but for most people in Scotland they seem supremely pointless, or worse.

The missiles are not targeted on any country. They have not prevented punishing wars in the Balkans, the Gulf and Afghanistan, and they certainly don't deter terrorists. They are draining the UK economy of billions of pounds. And if they were ever fired, they would wreak death and destruction on an unimaginable scale.

Risk of Trident terrorist attack underestimated

from Sunday Herald, 11 November 2007

The danger that a 7/11-style attack on the Trident base on the Clyde could cause a major nuclear disaster has been underestimated, according to internal Ministry of Defence (MoD) documents passed to the Sunday Herald.

A risk assessment for the MoD says that the shiplift used to hoist nuclear-armed submarines out of the water at the Faslane naval dockyard would collapse if it was hit by a plane. Another study by MoD experts says an aircraft crash could trigger "weapon ignition/detonation".

This would create "one helluva mess", according to nuclear experts, who argue that the shiplift is a prime target for terrorists because it exposes a submarine and its Trident nuclear-tipped missiles to attack. Even the Ministry of Defence (MoD) accepts that an aircraft crash would be "catastrophic".

Nature agency 'putting wildlife at risk'

from Sunday Herald, 11 November 2007

The government's conservation watchdog has been accused of putting wildlife and wild places at risk across Scotland by preparing to relax its defences against development.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is under fire from environmental groups and insiders for allowing a coal mine and wind farms to go ahead despite the damage they could do to birds and bogs.

Revealed: £40m farm grant scandal

from Sunday Herald, 04 November 2007

Scotland's parliament and government have been hoodwinked into giving farmers an extra £40 million of taxpayers' money this year, despite advice from officials that it would be "gross over-compensation".

A dossier of internal emails and memos from the former Scottish Executive reveals that the then LibDem rural development minister, Ross Finnie, misled MSPs and fellow ministers over the payment. The European Commission was kept in the dark and rules were bent to ensure that farmers received the money in the run-up to the election in May.

The £40 million pay-out is regarded as "absolutely scandalous" by insiders. It triggered a private pre-election row between Finnie and the then Labour Finance Minister, Tom McCabe, and resulted in the retrospective doctoring of a government news release.

Inside story: how farmers won £40m from the public purse

from Sunday Herald, 04 November 2007

It all started with a three-line email on 4 October 2006 from an official in the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. There was a possibility of a "supplementary payment" to farmers.

"I have mentioned this idea informally to Mr Finnie and he is keen that we pursue it urgently", the official wrote. And so began the saga of the then rural development minister, Ross Finnie, and his £40 million for farmers.

The fascinating inside story of how decisions on subsidising Scotland's farmers were made, reversed and misrepresented emerges from a long trail of internal emails and memos released by the Scottish government under freedom of information law.

Bush administration's nuclear plan criticised

from New Scientist, 01 November 2007

You probably wouldn't offer to take your neighbour's trash unless you had a pretty clever way of getting rid of it. But that's what the Bush administration was accused of this week over its plan to reprocess other nations' nuclear fuel.