Rob Edwards

Scottish seas: abused, ignored and in need of a law

from Holyrood Magazine, 28 January 2007

Scotland is defined by the sea. The crashing waves, the ragged cliffs, the glistening sands encircle the nation’s history, feed its culture, and help shape its psychology.

With a shoreline stretching some 11,000 kilometres, hundreds of islands scattered over vast reaches of ocean and 70% of the population living within ten kilometres of the coast, the sea could hardly be more vital. Yet, bizarrely, it has been virtually ignored by governments.

Activities on land have been planned, managed and controlled for centuries, but the sea has been left to look after itself. It has been dredged for huge quantities of fish, exploited for oil and gas and used as a toxic dumping ground, but it has never been the subject of a strategic plan by ministers.

Plans for 30,000 new houses provoke outrage

from Sunday Herald, 27 January 2008

A Scottish local authority has been accused of trying to bulldoze through plans for more than 30,000 new houses that would worsen pollution, wreck the countryside and damage democracy.

The massive house-building programme being proposed by Fife Council has run into fierce and widespread opposition from government agencies, neighbouring councils, environmental organisations and scores of residents’ groups. In total, more than than 2,500 objections have been lodged.

Public consultations have amounted to “gerrymandering” and population projections have been “seriously misleading”, local residents claim. And the prospect of constructing so many new houses is alleged to have triggered “a feeding frenzy” amongst developers.

Doubts over government's climate plan

from Sunday Herald, 27 January 2008

The Scottish government will face a key test of its environmental commitment this week when it launches a public consultation on plans to cut Scotland’s climate pollution 80% by 2050.

The long-awaited report on proposed climate change legislation is due to be unveiled by Scottish ministers at Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens on Tuesday. Although it is not expected to contain any major surprises, it will be closely scrutinised to check that the government is serious about reducing emissions.

Environment watchdog goes green - mostly

from Sunday Herald, 27 January 2008

Scotland’s environmental watchdog is succeeding in greening itself by cutting pollution, waste and air travel - but it still has a problem with the mountains of paper it uses.

The latest green audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), to be published tomorrow, shows that the organisation is on track to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 20% of 1998-99 levels by 2010.

But it has failed to meet its target to reduce paper consumption per employee by five per cent of 2005-06 levels. Only a three per cent cut was actually made, though measures have now been introduced to try and improve on that.

Wind farms in Scotland face prolonged delays

from Sunday Herald, 20 January 2008

Plans for more than 3,000 new wind turbines across Scotland are facing prolonged delays because the planning system is log-jammed, undermining ministers’ efforts to cut the pollution that is wrecking the climate.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald has revealed that frustrated developers are waiting an average of 33 months to get decisions on big wind farms from the Scottish government, and 20 months for decisions on smaller projects from local authorities.

The amount of electricity that would be generated by the 153 wind farms currently held up in the planning queue is enough to provide 60% of all Scotland’s power, and could easily replace the nation’s nuclear power stations at Hunterston in North Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian.

Carbon-trading plans could boost nuclear power

from New Scientist, 17 January 2008

A tough plan to auction off European carbon credits will, indirectly, make nuclear power a much more attractive option.

Leaked drafts of legislation, due to be launched by the European Commission on 23 January, reveal that Europe's ailing trading scheme for carbon emissions is due for an overhaul.

Nuclear waste stores planned for Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 13 January 2008

Up to six new stores for more than 300,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste left behind by nuclear power and weapons are being planned for Scotland.

Scottish ministers are considering building long term storage facilities at or near to existing nuclear sites. This means that Hunterston in North Ayrshire, Torness in East Lothian and Dounreay in Caithness could all end up with waste stores, along with possibly Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway, Rosyth in Fife and Faslane in Dunbartonshire.

Shortage of safety inspectors could delay nuclear plans

from Sunday Herald, 13 January 2008

The UK government’s new nuclear power programme could be delayed because of an acute shortage of nuclear safety inspectors.

As many as a hundred new inspectors will have to be hired over the next four years in order to assess new reactor designs and to keep checking existing nuclear plants.

But if the recruitment campaign fails, timetables would be prone to slippage, according to trade unions and the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which runs the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate.

Nuclear power: still jam tomorrow

commentary, 13 January 2008

Nuclear jam tomorrow: that is the Alice in Wonderland promise that the world’s reactor merchants have always made. What became apparent last week is that ministers in London have bought it.

At the heart of the long-anticipated White Paper on nuclear power published on Thursday is the belief that however bad things have been, and however bad they now are, they can only get better. So England gets to embark on a new nuclear programme.

Never mind the £70 billion bill for nuclear decommissioning, or the £20 billion cost of waste disposal or the £3.4 billion bail-out of British Energy, tomorrow it will all be cheaper. Forget the tens of thousands killed by the Chernobyl accident in 1986 or the unavoidable links to nuclear weapons in Iran, tomorrow it will all be safe.

Legal battles threaten nuclear power renaissance

from New Scientist, 09 January 2008

The return of nuclear power is not going to be smooth. Governments in the UK and US are bracing themselves for legal battles that could hamper their plans to generate more electricity from nuclear reactors.

Waste breaches covered up by council

from Sunday Herald, 06 January 2008

A litany of damning allegations about illegal waste dumping, pollution breaches and the mishandling of confidential data on children have been covered up by a Scottish local authority.

Senior officials at Aberdeenshire Council doctored an internal waste audit to cut out its most serious findings, including a warning that the council was vulnerable to “legal action, expensive penalties, loss of credibility and extensive reputational damage”.

A suggestion that the council could also be guilty of “double standards” was omitted, along with the conclusion that “waste management as a service appears to be near the bottom of the list of priorities for Aberdeenshire Council”.

Safety problems cause big drop in nuclear output

from Sunday Herald, 06 January 2008

The amount of electricity produced by nuclear power stations in Scotland has suffered a dramatic drop because of safety and technical problems, according to a new analysis by the UK government.

The number of units of nuclear electricity generated fell 24% from 18,681 in 2005 to 14,141 in 2006. This caused nuclear power’s share of electricity output in Scotland to drop from 38% to 26%.

The analysis (pdf) by the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) in London (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry) comes as UK ministers prepare to confirm their backing this week for a new generation of nuclear stations in England.