Rob Edwards

Why does a nuclear plant make the sea glow green?

from Sunday Herald, 22 January 2012

Don’t be afraid. The sea near the Hunterston nuclear power station does glow spookily green - but it’s not because of radioactive leaks.

A local resident raised the alarm after spotting a patch of luminous green on the satellite photographs of the North Ayrshire site published online by Google Earth. There’s an equally vivid area visible just inside the site boundary.

Given the nature of the site, first thoughts were of plutonium or some other nuclear nasties contaminating the water, and endangering the health of local children.

But not so, says EDF Energy, the French company that generates electricity from the Hunterston B reactors. The green glow has a more mundane explanation: bubbling water.

The nuclear plant takes in large amounts of seawater to cool its reactors, and then discharges it back into the sea. The greenish area at sea is where the warmed water bubbles up from a pipeline, and the greenish area on the site is a shaft through which the water surges.

Pesticides are killing bees, say US scientists

from Sunday Herald, 15 January 2012

Nicotine-based pesticides in widespread use by farmers are implicated in the mass deaths of bees, according to a new study by US scientists.

The authoritative, peer-reviewed research undermines the pesticide industry’s long-repeated arguments that bees are not being harmed, and piles pressure on UK and US authorities to follow other countries by introducing bans.

Pesticide companies have been trying to protect their multi-billion pound businesses by lobbying internationally against bans on neonicotinoids, a group of toxic chemicals designed to paralyse insects by attacking their nervous systems.

Agricultural crops in Scotland, England and around the world are dosed with the chemicals to prevent insects from damaging them. But evidence has been mounting that they could be to blame for the “colony collapse disorder” that has been decimating bee populations.

The US has been losing a third of its honeybee hives every year, while beekeepers in Europe say that more than a million bee colonies have been wiped out in France, Germany, Italy and the UK since 1994.

Although neonicotinoids have faced bans or restrictions in Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia, regulators in the UK and the US have so far accepted the industry’s contention that the toxins were not poisoning bees.

Reprimand for safety lapses at Torness nuclear plant

from Caledonian Mercury, 12 January 2012

EDF Energy has been reprimanded by the government’s nuclear watchdog for a series of safety lapses at the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, the Caledonian Mercury can reveal.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has criticised the French power company for a “shortfall” in its arrangements for checking safety valves and for inadequacies in addressing concerns about the state of radioactive waste discharge pipes following a leak.

ONR has also expressed concern over slow progress in introducing self-closing “hazard barrier doors” to prevent large releases of hot gas. And it has urged EDF to improve its early warning systems after a “jellyfish blockage” caused Torness to be shut down last June.

The revelations have prompted critics to question the safety of prolonging the working life of Torness, alleging it is becoming increasingly unreliable. EDF, however, says the plant has a good safety record.

ONR has posted its latest report on Torness online, covering 1 July to 30 September 2011. It disclosed that staff at the plant failed to inspect a safety relief valve on a nitrogen test rig when they should have done.

MoD suffering worsening staff crisis, leaked survey reveals

from Sunday Herald, 08 January 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is suffering a severe and deteriorating crisis of confidence amongst its staff because of cutbacks and bad management, according to an internal survey leaked to the Sunday Herald.

The vast majority of MoD civil servants have lost faith that their managers can steer them through difficult times. They feel more negative about almost every aspect of working for the MoD than they did a year ago, and their morale is much worse than the rest of the civil service.

The revelations have prompted a fierce reaction from trade unions and a former MoD official, who confirm that the workforce is deeply demoralised, upset and angry. According to one union, the words most often used to describe the MoD management are “incompetent, short-sighted, inept, poor, uncaring and self-interested.”

The leaked survey was conducted in the autumn by the US opinion research company, ORC International, as part of an annual questionnaire of the entire civil service. It received responses from nearly 33,000 staff, 44% of the MoD’s workforce.

Overall only 22 percent felt positive about the MoD’s “leadership and managing change”, three points less than in 2010 and 16 points below the median for the civil service. A meagre nine per cent agreed that “when changes are made in MoD they are usually for the better”.

Revealed: 15 military sites contaminated by radioactivity

from The Guardian, 20 December 2011

At least 15 sites across the UK have been contaminated by radioactivity from Second World War military activities, according to new disclosures by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

A dozen of the sites, which include current and former air and naval bases, have not been identified before by the MoD. Some are accessible by the public or being developed for homes or businesses, though the potential risks are unclear.

The contamination comes from radium that was used to coat the dials of aircraft and other equipment so that they could be seen in the dark. It was in scrap burnt and dumped in the 1940s and 1950s, and remains radioactive for thousands of years.

The contaminated sites include the old SAS headquarters at Stirling Lines in Hereford, a former naval air base near Portsmouth, a previous home to the Red Arrows in Gloucestershire and a former RAF base at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre (see table below).

The MoD has revealed the list of sites in response to a series of freedom of information requests in the wake of the discovery of dangerous levels of radium contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife. It was home to a busy Second World War air base.

Nuclear reactor shut by storm

19 December 2011

The picture that dominated media coverage of the fierce storms earlier this month was a wind turbine bursting into flames. But at the same time one of Scotland’s nuclear reactors had to be closed down.

A 460-megawatt reactor at Hunterston in North Ayrshire was shut for two days because of a problem with local power lines caused by high winds. Critics point out that the burning wind turbine was designed to generate just one megawatt.

Hunterston’s operator, EDF Energy, said the reactor came offline on 8 December and was returned to power on 10 December. “It went off because of a fault on the national grid and not as a result of any problem with plant equipment,” said an EDF spokeswoman.

According to the National Grid company, storm force winds caused the 400,000-volt electricity transmission line owned by Scottish Power between substations at Hunterston and Inverkip to trip.

“This resulted in the disconnection of one of the generating units at Hunterston power station that feeds into the high-voltage transmission network at Hunterston substation,” said a company spokesman.

Scotland is neglecting its parks and woods, survey reveals

from Sunday Herald, 11 December 2011

They are vital for our health, our life and our sanity, but they are now in sharp decline because of government cutbacks.

The parks, gardens, allotments, woodlands and sports fields that make up urban Scotland’s vital green spaces are deteriorating fast, according to dramatic new evidence to be unveiled tomorrow.

A survey conducted for the independent social enterprise, Greenspace Scotland, reveals a steep drop in the number of people using their local green spaces over the last two years. This is because they are seen as more stressful, less attractive and more dangerous places now than they were in 2009.

This means that Scotland is putting public health and economic prosperity at risk, experts warn. The survey should act as a “wake-up call” for policy-makers to protect and enhance the quality of green spaces rather than allow them to suffer from funding restrictions, they say.

“We’ve been hearing about reductions in green space staffing and management which inevitably were going to make a difference on the ground, but we hadn’t expected this to impact so soon on people’s use and attitudes,” said Julie Procter, the chief executive of Greenspace Scotland.

UK government shared intelligence with nuclear industry, documents show

from The Guardian, 05 December 2011

The British government has been quietly exchanging intelligence on key policies with multinational companies in an effort to protect and promote their plans for new nuclear power stations, according to internal documents seen by the Guardian.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has also passed the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), which represents 260 companies, and the French nuclear company, EDF Energy, details of its court battle against Greenpeace, which is trying to block the nuclear plans.

The leakage of information has been condemned by Greenpeace as an "abuse of power" which prevents democratic scrutiny. The environmental group's lawyers have written to the government and high court in London complaining that the proper legal procedures have been breached.

The government is planning to build eight new nuclear power stations in England and Wales and there is a perception that the government has been working closely with the nuclear industry to manage public opinion and prevent a backlash against the technology as has happened in Germany and Italy.

Internal emails revealed by the Guardian in June showed that British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March.

In the latest revelations, a minute of a meeting on 15 September between officials from Decc's Office for Nuclear Development (OND) and EDF reveals that they shared information about the handling of the company's application to build the first of the new nuclear stations at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and much else.

Revealed: the dangerous radioactivity that the MoD missed

from Sunday Herald, 04 December 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing a ferocious barrage of criticism for botching its monitoring of Dalgety Bay so badly that it missed more than 400 radioactive hotspots, including some of the most lethal ever found on public beaches.

Former government experts, current government advisors and senior politicians have condemned the MoD’s monitoring of the contaminated Fife foreshore as inadequate, ineffectual and incompetent. According to one of the MoD’s own former radiation scientists, the ministry can no longer be trusted to do the job – though it must pay for it.

“Because of MoD’s failure to properly assess the extent and risks from the contamination, any further surveys or assessments should not be carried out by MoD, or MoD contractors,” said Fred Dawson, who worked for the MoD for 31 years before he left as head of the radiation protection policy team in 2009.

“Nor should MoD, or MoD contractors, be allowed to participate or undertake remediation work. MoD’s role should be limited to providing the necessary finance to remediate the beach.”

Dawson accused the MoD of being persistently blind to the seriousness of the pollution. “It has consistently done all that it can to avoid admitting liability for the contamination, which in all probability it caused,” he told the Sunday Herald.

Time for the Ministry of Defence to pay up

Comment from Sunday Herald, 04 December 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is turning prevarication into an art form. There are, it seems, few tricks, evasions and deceits that it won’t deploy to try and wriggle out of responsibility for cleaning up the radioactive mess it has made at Dalgety Bay in Fife.

As we report today, its monitoring of the contaminated foreshore in September missed more than 400 radioactive hotspots. Like Admiral Nelson back in 1801, the ministry’s modern-day commanders turned a blind eye in the hope that the problem would disappear.

MoD officials have also suggested that a decision to end monitoring could be kept quiet by the simple device of not telling the media. They have disputed clear evidence from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) that young children use the beach, with one MoD official telling a meeting in October that “a toddler would not be crawling about the bay”.

At the same meeting officials repeatedly refused to accept responsibility for paying for the clean-up. “MoD need to consider any cost-benefit of any remediation,” said one. “The cost-benefit analysis may suggest it is better to leave the beach closed.”

RBS pulls out of climate campaign sponsorship after protest

from The Guardian, 28 November 2011

Protestors have claimed a victory after the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) pulled out of a major sponsorship deal with the UK’s largest campaign to cut climate pollution.

RBS will not be sponsoring Climate Week in March 2012, a government and industry-backed effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The bank’s high-profile support for the event this year was dogged by accusations of “corporate greenwash” because of its multi-billion pound financial aid for polluting industries like oil and tar sands.

“With RBS being the UK bank most heavily involved in financing fossil fuels, it was clear that their sponsorship of Climate Week in 2011 was a case of greenwash,” said Liz Murray, from the World Development Movement, which campaigns against poverty.

“We’re pleased that they heeded our criticisms and decided to step down from sponsoring the event in 2012. Now they need to move beyond greenwash and look at their core business.”

Dress up as polar bears but don’t post pictures, Greenpeace told

Exclusive, 28 November 2011

It may be legal to dress up as polar bears and occupy the offices of a big oil company, but if you post pictures of your costumed protest online you could go to jail.

That is what the Greenpeace activists who invaded the Edinburgh offices of Cairn Energy to complain about climate pollution have been told. Though they were last week cleared of breach of the peace charges by Edinburgh Sheriff Court, the company is still enforcing an interdict that prevents pictures of the protest being published.

Cairn’s lawyers have insisted that a photo showing people clad as polar bears lying around the company’s offices be removed from a Greenpeace website. The penalty for not doing so would be a fine of up to £10,000 or imprisonment.

In response Greenpeace has blacked out the picture, and asked the court to withdraw or reduce the scope of the interdict. It was served in July after more than 40 activists dressed as polar bears took over Cairn’s offices in an early morning raid.

£2 billion being spent on nuclear bomb plants

from The Guardian, 27 November 2011

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is spending £2 billion on new nuclear weapons plants before a formal decision has been taken over whether to replace Trident warheads, according to ministers.

The revelation has prompted fierce attacks on the MoD for making “a complete mockery” of democracy by pre-empting a decision and so attempting to force the hands of future governments.

The ministry, however, argues that part of the investment helps to ensure the safety of the existing Trident warheads. But it accepts that the money also maintains the capability to design a new warhead “should that be required”.

Details of the MoD’s huge investments in plants for putting together and taking apart warheads, making enriched uranium components and high explosives have been unveiled for the first time. The plants are being built at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire.

The most expensive plant, called Mensa, is a £734 million facility for “warhead assembly/disassembly”, a risky but essential maintenance process. Then there is Pegasus, a £634 million highly enriched uranium plant, and Circinus, a £231 million high explosives plant.

Scottish government under fire for failing to cut climate pollution

from Sunday Herald, 27 November 2011

Scottish ministers are coming under mounting pressure to reverse their “embarrassing” failures to put in place the policies needed to cut the pollution that is altering the climate.

As the climate change minister, Stewart Stevenson, heads for the world’s crucial next round of climate talks in Durban, South Africa, his government is coming under fierce fire at home for slashing spending on environmentally-friendly travel and not doing enough to save energy in homes.

A powerful coalition of groups representing substantial swathes of Scottish society are pressing ministers to drop their budget plans to cut spending on “sustainable and active travel” by a third. The spending review in September proposed reducing the money available for improving walking, cycling and other low-polluting travel facilities from £25 million in 2011-12 to £16 million in 2012-13.

“Scotland’s track record on this issue is embarrassing to the point of recklessness,” according to Scottish Environment Link, which represents 36 environmental and recreation groups with half a million members.

In a letter to ministers on Friday, Link’s chair, Deborah Long, condemned the cutback to the active travel budget. It contradicted the SNP’s manifesto pledge to increase spending, and would damage public health, she argued.

The climate hope that’s disappearing in Durban

from Sunday Herald, 27 November 2011

So here we are again. Another big world summit on climate change, another set of desperate hopes and promises, and another feeling that we’re heading for a fall.

The 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) opens in Durban, South Africa, tomorrow (Monday). Ministers and officials from some 200 countries, including the redoubtable Stewart Stevenson from Scotland, will gather to try and hammer out progress on cutting the pollution that is wrecking the climate.

Prospects for the summit are about as bleak as they could be. No one expects any major breakthroughs, and no one believes that a legally-binding agreement – promised for Copenhagen two years ago and again for Cancun last year – will be reached.

In fact, the latest reports suggest that all the major industrialised nations have given up on making such an agreement until 2016, and even then it wouldn’t come into force until 2020. For the poorer countries struggling to survive the droughts, floods and storms already being triggered by climate change, that is much too late.

Perhaps that is why the former president of Costa Rica, José María Figueres, has called for an extension of the worldwide ‘occupy’ movement provoked by the banking crisis to Durban. “I have called on all vulnerable countries to occupy Durban,” he said.

More nuclear workers risk being bribed, warns security watchdog

exclusive, 21 November 2011

The economic crisis has triggered a significant increase in the number of nuclear workers vulnerable to bribes, the government’s nuclear security watchdog has warned.

Roger Brunt, who was director of civil nuclear security with the Office for Nuclear Regulation, has revealed that growing numbers of workers vetted for national security reasons have run into financial difficulties, and had their clearances reviewed.

In a report to ministers covering 2009-11, released online today, Brunt also expressed concern about the vetting of foreign workers. He disclosed a problem with the security of nuclear information, and said that the proportion of nuclear police who were armed had risen.

Brunt has been head of the Office for Civil Nuclear Security, which in April merged with the Officer for Nuclear Regulation, for the last seven years. His job has been to prevent the theft of nuclear materials to make bombs, or the sabotage of nuclear plants by people “with a malicious agenda”.

That includes ensuring that workers with access to plutonium, or other sensitive materials or facilities, don’t pose an “insider threat”. But increasing money worries caused by the banking crisis have put more of them in danger of being tempted by bribes.

Revealed: the toxic pesticides that pollute our lochs

from Sunday Herald, 20 November 2011

They look like pristine, unpolluted beauty spots - but in fact they are contaminated with toxic pesticides.

The sea lochs that line Scotland’s north west coast, famed for their natural splendour, are polluted by poisonous chemicals used by fish farms, surveys by the Scottish government’s green watchdog have revealed.

The sediments in nine sea lochs – all those surveyed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) – have been found to contain detectable levels of pesticides widely used to kill the sea lice that eat caged salmon.

Although Sepa stresses that the levels are mostly low, environmentalists, anglers and creel fishers condemn the contamination as unacceptable. And they claim that the chemicals could be damaging marine wildlife.

Sepa has released the results of its latest surveys of sea lochs for four pesticides: teflubenzuron, diflubenzuron, emamectin and ivermectin. They are all chemical compounds for treating salmon infested with sea lice, though land managers can also use them.

Traces of emamectin were found in sediment at all nine lochs tested in 2008 and 2009, including Loch Linnhe, Loch Ewe, Loch Nevis, Loch Fyne and lochs around Skye, Mull and the Summer Isles. Teflubenzuron was found at six lochs, and diflubenzuron at four (see table below).

Dangers of uranium weapons to be reviewed after MoD admit gaffe

from The Guardian, 14 November 2011

The armed forces minister has been forced to apologise over misleading statements he made regarding the legality and dangers of depleted uranium (DU) weapons.

Nick Harvey admitted that he had inadvertently misled MPs about a Ministry of Defence (MoD) review that he said had concluded the weapons were permissible on humanitarian and environmental grounds under the Geneva conventions.

It subsequently emerged that the review had never happened, and Harvey has apologised for the error, which he said had been made "in good faith". He has ordered that a review into the weapons' legality be carried out by civil servants. The department is facing calls for the weapons to be suspended until it is completed.

The revelations come as a new cross-party campaign is launched to pile pressure on the MoD to phase out the use of DU. The tank shells that depend on it have to be renewed in 2013.

DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear power industry that is included in weapons because it is an extremely hard material capable of piercing armour. Once the frontline has moved on, however, it can contaminate the environment, and has been linked to health problems in civilian populations.

Crackdown on toxic waste trade that contaminates Africa

from Sunday Herald, 13 November, 2011

More than 40 shipments of toxic waste that could contaminate developing countries have been prevented from leaving Scotland in the latest attempt to crack down on the multi-million-pound criminal trade in waste.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the government’s green watchdog, has this year stopped or sent back export containers full of broken TVs, defunct computers, old fridges, contaminated paper, worn-out tyres and even clapped-out cars.

According to officials, the hazardous junk is heading for Africa or Asia, where much is likely to end up being burnt or dumped, triggering the escape of poisonous toxins that will pollute air and water. Sometimes electronic items will be dismantled using child labour, in a business that has links to serious, organised crime, they say.

The illegal trade is driven by the big profits to be made by selling unsafe or polluting equipment abroad, or by extracting valuable components and materials. A Sepa study suggests that traders would be able to make a profit of around £7,000 for every container of old TVs they export.

“Illegal shipments are a way for criminals to make serious money by dumping our waste on other countries,” John Kenny, Sepa’s waste and enforcement manager told the Sunday Herald.

“There are significant risks to the environment and human health as a result. That’s why Sepa is cracking down on those who flout the law by stopping waste, before it leaves Scotland, through intelligence sharing and targeted inspections.”

Plan to test uranium weapons in Scotland again

from Sunday Herald, 06 November 2011

Depleted uranium (DU) weapons are set to be tested in Scotland again in the next two years because they have to be renewed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Sunday Herald has learnt.

The resumption of DU tests at the Dundrennan military firing range near Kirkcudbright on the Solway coast will reignite opposition from the Scottish government and environmentalists worried about pollution and possible health effects.

The revelation comes as politicians and campaigners launch a new drive today to persuade the MoD to drop DU weapons. A motion at Westminster has been backed by Labour, Liberal, Conservative, nationalist and other MPs.

DU is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear industry. It has been widely used by UK and US military forces to harden armour-piercing shells fired in the Gulf, Balkans and Iraq wars.

When DU weapons burn, they release a hazardous dust that can contaminate wide areas. Civilians and soldiers exposed to the contamination claim to have suffered from cancers, birth defects and other illnesses as a result.