Rob Edwards

Greenpeace 'risked deaths' in anti-nuclear protest

from Sunday Herald, 17 August 2008

Greenpeace activists protesting against a shipment of nuclear waste on its way to to Sellafield put themselves at risk of death or serious injury, the UK nuclear security chief has warned.

Roger Brunt, the director of the government’s Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS), has accused the international anti-nuclear group of “recklessness” during attempts to board a boat carrying plutonium-contaminated waste from Sweden.

But Greenpeace insisted that its volunteers were “highly trained” and abided by rigorous safety procedures. The dangers they were trying to prevent were far greater than any they might have caused, the organisation argued.

Will nuclear power stop us freezing in the dark?

from The House Magazine, 14 July 2008

The last Prime Minister who attempted to do what Gordon Brown is now trying to do with nuclear power was Margaret Thatcher. Shortly after she took office in 1979, she announced a programme of ten new nuclear reactors.

They were to be built to avoid the risk of people in Britain freezing in the dark, recalled Tom Burke, a former advisor to three UK environment ministers. “Fifteen years later, one reactor had been built at two times its original cost,” he said. “She had been defeated by the economics of nuclear power. No-one froze in the dark.”

Nuclear waste: don't hold your breath

from The House Magazine, 14 July 2008

Three times governments have tried to find a way to dispose of Britain’s nuclear waste - in 1981, 1987 and 1997 - and three times they have failed. Now they are trying again.

In a White Paper published in June, ministers have asked local communities to volunteer to host a repository for radioactive waste accumulated from 55 years of nuclear power and weapons. Despite offering multi-million pound incentives, they are not expecting to be knocked down in the rush.

UK plutonium stocks rise

from New Scientist, 09 July 2008

The UK's stockpile of plutonium from nuclear power stations has risen to 108 tonnes, according to the British government's latest submission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. The stockpile at the end of 2007 exceeded the previous year's total by 1.1 tonnes, and is enough for 13,500 nuclear bombs. Most is stored at Sellafield in Cumbria.

Protest over plan to send nuclear waste to Sweden

from Sunday Herald, 15 June 2008

An unprecedented plan to export radioactive waste from old nuclear submarines in Scotland to Sweden is coming under fire from local authorities worried about accidents and pollution.

The naval dockyard at Rosyth in Fife has applied for permission to ship metal contaminated with radioactivity to a smelter run by the nuclear waste company, Studsvik, near Nyköping in Sweden.

The plan is for the metal, from the decommissioning of seven defunct submarines laid up at Rosyth, to be melted, decontaminated and reused. The contaminated slag will be then sent back to Rosyth to be disposed of at Britain’s low-level radioactive waste dump at Drigg, near Sellafield in Cumbria.

Bird and Fortune on nuclear power

A irresistible seven minute clip satirising the government's decision to build more nuclear power stations.

Time to lance Blair's plutonium boil

comment, from The Guardian, 14 May 2008

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Take the plutonium produced by nuclear power stations, mix it with uranium and make it into a new fuel for reactors to burn. Call it nuclear recycling, so that it sounds environmentally friendly.

That - or something like it - was the rationale for the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to give the go ahead in 2001 to the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP). Costing an eventual £490 million to build, this was meant to convert Britain’s stockpile of foreign plutonium into a mixed oxide fuel for selling back to foreign customers.

Blair took the decision against the advice of his then environment minister, Michael Meacher and environmental groups. But it was a boost for the flagging nuclear industry and, in retrospect, a foretaste of the government’s current enthusiasm for a new nuclear power programme.

New evidence of child cancer rises near nuclear plants

from Sunday Herald, 04 May 2008

Children living near nuclear plants run a higher risk of getting cancer, according to three major new studies by scientists from Germany and the US.

The studies have re-ignited the decades-old debate over whether radiation leaking from nuclear power and weapons sites increases the incidence of childhood leukaemia in the surrounding area.

Experts say that the new evidence greatly strengthens the case for releasing a detailed breakdown of leukaemia rates amongst children in the south west of Scotland to help find out if they have suffered from nuclear pollution.

Scottish ministers can block nuclear stations

28 April 2008

Any proposal to build a new nuclear power station in Scotland could be blocked by the Scottish government, according to internal documents released today.

A series of emails between civil servants in June 2005 confirms that Scottish ministers have devolved legal powers to reject applications for new power reactors north of the border.

One year on, how green is the SNP?

from Sunday Herald, 27 April 2008

The SNP grew up on oil, is wedded to economic expansion and always wants to put Scotland first. As a political party, it has never developed a coherent theoretical approach to one of the defining issues of the age: the environment.

It comes as some surprise then, that after a year in power, the SNP has won warm plaudits from many environmentalists. There are still major reservations, of course, but most observers outside political parties seem to think that the SNP is doing a better job than its predecessors in government.

Let's take cancer clusters seriously this time

comment, from New Scientist, 26 April 2008

by Ian Fairlie

Among the many environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power plants, there is one that provokes public anxiety like no other: the fear that children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer. Though a link has long been suspected, it has never been proven. Now that seems likely to change.

Details on plutonium stores could ‘help terrorists’

17 April 2008

Releasing details of the plutonium stores at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland could have a “far reaching” impact on national security, the UK’s freedom of information tsar has ruled.

Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has upheld a decision by the UK Atomic Energy Authority to withhold seven files on the storage and safety of “fissile material” and “special nuclear material” at the Caithness site.

Nuclear super-fuel gets too hot to handle

from New Scientist, 09 April 2008

It seems like a no-brainer. Make uranium burn stronger, hotter and longer in nuclear reactors, and you'll need less fuel, and there'll be less waste to deal with when it has been exhausted.

For decades, nuclear operators have done just that, but emerging safety and waste-disposal issues are raising questions about this approach. The latest high-efficiency fuel may prove to be unstable in an emergency, and so poses a greater risk of leakage of radioactive material into the environment. What's more, the waste fuel is more radioactive, meaning it could prove even more difficult than existing waste to store in underground repositories.

Nuclear industry must not forget lessons of the past

Comment, from New Scientist, 09 April 2008

In the nuclear industry, memories can be distressingly short. In 1976, the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution declared that it would be "morally wrong" to make a major commitment to nuclear power without demonstrating a way of safely isolating radioactive waste.

Yet the UK is about to embark on a programme to build at least 10 reactors while still lacking a disposal site for the waste that has accumulated over the past 50 years. What's more, spent fuel from these reactors will be far more radioactive than existing waste and may even require a second repository.

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.

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.