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The content of this e-journal was for the most part originally
prepared for Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland) and is
reproduced, as adapted, with their permission but without liability
for its contents.
1.0 New Nuclear Monitor
1.1 Energy Minister, Mike O'Brien, told the Nuclear Industry
Association (NIA) Energy Choices 2004 Conference on 2nd December,
that it was up to the private sector to prove that nuclear power
was economic. He said the nuclear industry would have to come
up with an economically viable proposal before the Government
would publish a White Paper for consultation on building new nuclear
stations. O'Brien said the market, not the Government, must decide
whether we need more generation capacity, and what kind. So if
new nuclear is to be built, the private sector must come up with
the cash. As things stand, this is unlikely to be forthcoming.
O'Brien earlier dismissed nuclear as 'irrelevant' to current policy.
He told The Observer in November that the focus 'has to be on
renewables'.
1.2 Gordon MacKerron, Chair of the Committee on Radioactive Waste
Management (CoRWM) also told the Conference the nuclear waste
issue would not be resolved in July 2006 when CoRWM submits its
recommendations to the Government. This might be a significant
moment in the process, but CoRWM is only the 'front-end' of a
very long process - the issue will not be resolved just because
CoRWM reports its recommendations on the best option for nuclear
waste management.
1.3 Robert Knight of MORI also reported to the Conference how
the public's views on the nuclear industry have developed over
recent years. Those with an unfavourable opinion or impression
of the nuclear industry peaked around July 2001 after the MOX
data falsification scandal at 49% (with those with a favourable
opinion at 19%). By October 2004, however, those with an unfavourable
view had gone down to 27%, with 24% holding a favourable view.
But there has also been a decrease in the number of people who
oppose the building of new nuclear stations to replace stations
being phased out, from 57% in 2001 (19% in support), to 34% in
2004 (30% in support). However, 53% of Labour supporters opposed
replacement reactors in 2004.
1.4 By January, according to The Times, public opinion had swung
in favour of replacement nuclear power stations. According to
MORI, 35% of the British population said they would support the
building of new nuclear power stations to replace those stations
that are being phased out over the next few years. 30% opposed
replacement stations. Those who felt favourable towards the nuclear
industry had also gone up to 35%.
1.5 In addition, Knight told the Conference that opinion polls
show that the public remains to be convinced that nuclear power
does not produce greenhouse gases, and as much as 65% of the public
is at least fairly concerned about future imports of gas. Renewables
remain the most popular energy source, though knowledge is poor
and opinions may be easily influenced.
1.6 Meanwhile, the former Bishop of Birmingham, Hugh Montefiore,
has been forced to leave the board of Friends of the Earth (FoE)
because his support for nuclear energy to tackle global warming
is not compatible with FoE's aims. In an opinion piece in The
Independent Montefiore said we need nuclear power to save the
planet from a looming catastrophe - its advantages far outweigh
the dangers. Tony Juniper, FoE's Chief Executive said nuclear
power does not provide an adequate or appropriate solution to
climate change. Evidence shows that the Government's target of
a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 can be achieved
through modest reductions in demand for electricity, reductions
in emissions from transport and industry, and support for renewables.
In the longer term, the Royal Commission has shown that Britain
can cut its emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 without recourse
to nuclear power. Non-nuclear alternatives are preferable because,
contrary to Bishop Montefiore's claims, nuclear power is not "a
reliable, safe, cheap, almost limitless form of pollution-free
energy". Radioactive waste remains dangerous for tens of
thousands of years.
1.7 Some sections of the Press have sought to characterise the
fact that a couple of environmentalists have argued that nuclear
power has "positive" benefits, as a "growing row"
among Britain's leading environmentalists. The other environmentalist
to support nuclear power in recent months was James Lovelock,
author of the Gaia theory. He is often described as one of the
country's most respected green thinkers. But he has long been
a nuclear supporter. In 2000 he told the Guardian that he would
happily bury nuclear waste in his garden. He would use it to heat
his home and "to sterilise the stuff from the supermarket,
the chicken and whatnot, full of salmonella. Just drop it down
through a hole. I'm not saying this tongue-in-cheek. I am quite
serious."
1.8 The Minister with responsibility for renewable energy has
become the first member of Jack McConnell's administration to
break ranks over its opposition to nuclear power. Writing in the
Sunday Herald, Allan Wilson, MSP for Cunninghame North - the constituency
which hosts Hunterston B - argues that new nuclear power stations
may be inevitable north of the Border because of the unreliability
of other energy sources. Wilson said that Scotland and Britain
would become increasingly reliant on gas-powered generation if
nuclear generation is not replaced. "Does it make sense",
he asked, "even with a substantial contribution from renewables
to become so dependent on imported gas?"
1.9 At a conference, organised by white collar union Prospect
in November, entitled "Keeping the Nuclear Option Open -
What Will It Take?", Martin O'Neill MP, chairman of the Trade
and Industry Select Committee, expressed optimism a new Labour
government would take another hard look at nuclear "within
12 months" of winning an election. But he believed a new
consortium of companies rather than British Energy would be the
most likely vehicle for building new capacity. Two of Britain's
largest unions, Amicus and the Transport and General Workers'
Union (T&G), which together have 2.1 million members, have
also demanded that the Government rethinks its energy policies
and puts nuclear power back on the agenda - to prevent a looming
power crisis.
1.10 Europe's nuclear power industry won an important boost when
EdF, the state-owned French electricity group, announced it would
build a prototype 3bn Euro next-generation plant on the Normandy
coast. EdF said it would seek swift planning permission to build
its first European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) at Flamanville,
south-west of Cherbourg. But the European Renewable Energies Federation
lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission asking
it to investigate whether the EPR being built in Finland violates
state aid regulations. EREF alleges that illegal state aids, through
low-cost bank loans and export credit guarantees, have been given
to the Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) and Areva and
Siemens, suppliers of the 1,600-MW EPR being built at Olkiluoto-3.
EREF says these "structured energy distortions" by state
authorities "undermine any level playing field" and
are unfair to any other electricity supplier. The European Commission
(EC) confirmed that it would investigate the complaint.
2.0 Sellafield Discharges
2.1 West Cumbrian fishermen say the area's shell-fishing industry
would be devastated by new rules to ban seafood that is too contaminated
with plutonium from Sellafield. Thousands of tonnes of British
shellfish currently eaten in Europe - including fish from Cumbria,
the Solway, and Morecambe Bay - could be banned because it breaches
limits being proposed by the United Nations. The UN is proposing
a new safety limit for plutonium of 1 Becquerel per Kilogram (1Bq/Kg).
The UK's Food Standards Agency says the new limits are too strict
and "not proportionate to the actual risk".
2.2 On the other hand, Greenpeace welcomes the replacement of
the current European Community Food Interventional Levels (CFILs)
with these new Guidance Levels. CFILs were originally introduced
in 1987 following the Chernobyl accident to restrict the marketing
of radioactively contaminated foodstuffs within Europe after a
nuclear accident. The UN Guideline Levels will apply to radioactivity
in food arising from routine radioactive discharges as well as
after accidents. The proposed UN Guideline Level for plutonium
is the same as the CFIL for baby food (The CFIL for other food
is 80 Bq/kg). Greenpeace says that although the implementation
of the new Guideline Levels may prevent the marketing of shellfish
from North West England and South West Scotland, it is right that
we should protect the most vulnerable consumers. The proposal
would take into account emerging scientific uncertainties about
the health risks of small amounts of plutonium inside the body
and is in line with radiation safety limits recommended by other
regulatory authorities internationally, in the US and in the UK.
The Government's Committee Examining Radiation Risk of Internal
Emitters (CERRIE) final report agrees that the ICRP (International
Committee of Radiological Protection) models could be wrong by
a factor of well over 10 in the case of Plutonium and Americium
in the body.
2.3 The UN's proposed guideline for technetium-99 (Tc-99) would
increase the current CFIL from 1,250Bq/kg to 10,000Bq/kg. Greenpeace
says this would be a retrograde step, and run counter to the precautionary
principle.
2.4 The Italian nuclear decommissioning agency, Sogin, will launch
a tender for reprocessing of 235 metric tons of spent fuel from
the country's decommissioned power reactors as soon as the government
publishes a pending decree allowing it to do so, in late January.
Sogin will ask BNFL or Cogema to keep the final waste products
in storage until the availability of a final repository in Italy,
or for up to 20 years. It would also ask to receive only vitrified
high-level waste (HLW) back from reprocessing, with the reprocessor
keeping other waste categories.
2.5 Uranium and plutonium from past reprocessing of Italian spent
fuel at Sellafield are already being stored by BNFL. A company
spokesman said they would like to leave all their uranium and
plutonium at Sellafield. This makes a nonsense out of the idea
of reprocessing the spent fuel. Sogin is simply looking at reprocessing
because it is having difficulty finding a site to store its spent
nuclear waste fuel.
2.6 Sogin says the decision by the UK Government to allow BNFL
to substitute HLW for intermediate-level waste (ILW) stemming
from reprocessing of foreign spent fuel has encouraged it to opt
for reprocessing because it reduces the volumes of waste to be
managed.
3.0 Sellafield MOX Plant
3.1 Two former environment ministers - Michael Meacher and John
Gummer - have demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the wasting
of hundreds of millions of pounds by BNFL on a new plant that
it cannot get to work. The two who oversaw the building of the
plant and gave it permission to start up, plan to refer the "scandal"
to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. Their initiative
follows the news that BNFL has had to call in its chief competitor,
the French company Cogema, to try to get its controversial £473m
Mox plant to operate properly.
3.2 Alan Edwards, former head of the DTI's Liabilities Management
Unit, had already expressed doubts about whether SMP will ever
open and a BNFL source had said "despite everyone's best
efforts, the bloody thing does not work". BNFL has recently
been forced to subcontract a 4th MOX order to one of its European
competitors because of difficulties in opening the plant.
3.3 In an article in the Guardian on the 18th October , the newspaper
gave the mistaken impression that the National Audit Office (NAO)
had issued a report about the Sellafield MOX plant. However the
substance of the article stemmed from a letter from the head of
the NAO to Michael Meacher. BNFL's status as a public corporation
means that the Comptroller and Auditor General does not audit
BNFL's Annual Report and Accounts and does not have a statutory
right of access to information and explanations from BNFL. This,
however, will change when the SMP is taken over by the NDA on
1st April 2005. The NAO says that in 2005/6 it is likely to want
to examine the value-for-money implications of the transfer of
assets and liabilities from BNFL to the NDA.
3.4 In the meantime, Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor
General (Head of the NAO) says that, in order to answer questions
raised by Michael Meacher, the NAO has had discussions with the
DTI. The SMP was originally estimated, in 1993, to cost £265m.
The latest figure given in BNFL's accounts for 2003/4 is £490m.
In the period between plant construction and commissioning with
plutonium, BNFL had to carry out a substantial amount of remedial
work. This accounted for approximately half of the increase in
costs. The remainder results from the construction of additional
facilities and the capitalisation of expenditure on commissioning.
In addition the costs of the data falsification scandal to BNFL
amounted to £113m - making a total of around £600m.
3.5 Sir John reveals that any decision not to open the MOX Plant
would incur large costs including contractual penalty payments
to customers and would also have political consequences arising
from the return of plutonium to nuclear generators overseas. BNFL's
assessment is that SMP has sufficient orders to enable it to remain
viable, and that it would be much more expensive to close the
plant immediately than to continue operating it. However, Sir
John says this is subject to considerable uncertainty, and is
particularly dependent on the satisfactory resolution of technical
difficulties. From April 2005, the Secretary of State will be
responsible for decisions on the future of the SMP on the basis
of advice from the NDA. It is likely that the Government will
wish to consider the case for continued operation of this plant
as a result of the change in responsibilities.
4.0 Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
4.1 The NDA is consulting on its first Draft Annual Plan. The
Deadline for submissions is 11th February. The plan reveals that
the NDA will spend £1bn next year cleaning up and operating
the Sellafield facility. Of this £727m is operating cost,
and £290m will be spent on clean-up and decommissioning.
The Draft Annual plan reveals that the NDA is relying on an income
of £307m from electricity sales, £635m from reprocessing
and overseas transport of nuclear materials, and £136m from
the manufacture of AGR and MOX fuel. The Draft Annual Plan says
efforts to commission SMP will continue, and the NDA hopes to
secure consent to operate the Plant in November 2005.
4.2 The Draft Annual Plan does not make it clear how much of
the £136m the NDA expects to come from MOX fuel. BNFL has
still has not managed to complete the assembly of any MOX fuel,
but according to The Independent on Sunday SMP is expected to
generate £45m of income in the 12 months to 31 March 2006.
4.3 There is no mention in the Annual Plan of how the NDA plans
to fulfil the commitment made in the White Paper to report annually
on the "rationale for keeping [THORP, SMP and the Magnox
reactors] open".
4.4 Surprisingly the Annual Plan revealed that a huge area of
land at Hunterston has been contaminated from leaks. The contamination
is much worse than previously suspected, and far more than has
been admitted at other nuclear sites in Scotland. Some 81,000
cubic metres of soil "enough to fill 900 double-decker buses"
are laced with radioactivity which for years has been spilling
from pipelines and blowing off open-air ponds of nuclear waste.
4.5 Around 40,000 spent nuclear waste fuel rods are due to be
shipped from Chapelcross to Sellafield, now that the 4 reactors
have closed. Trade Unionists at Chapelcross have expressed concern
that the original plan which was to carry out de-fuelling between
2005 and 2007 has now been moved by two years, so won't begin
until January 2007.
4.6 The European Commission has opened a state aid investigation
into the NDA. The commission said the inquiry is to check whether
the establishment of the NDA complies with EU state aid rules
-- and in particular, the transferring of nuclear assets from
BNFL to the NDA.
The commission said in a statement that an in-depth inquiry was
necessary "in view of the complexity and novelty of the case".
The DTI has been forced to set up a transitory regime to allow
the NDA to operate, spending only money in BNFL's Nuclear Liabilities
Portfolio, until the commission reaches a final decision on the
investigation.
4.7 How the transfer of assets and liabilities might help commercial
operations will be the main focus of the EC investigation. In
May 2004 Greenpeace presented a legal opinion to the Commission,
which argued that the NDA could not be established or operate
without prior EC approval, because it breaks EC rules designed
to prevent governments providing state aid to industries. Greenpeace
believes that the implications of the NDA go to the heart of the
future of nuclear power in Europe, which depends on massive state
aid. Most immediately, it sounds a warning on efforts under way
by French state utility, Electricité de France to obtain,
prior to privatisation, tens of billions of euros to finance its
huge nuclear waste and decommissioning legacy. This would have
a devastating impact on EdF's competitors in the European electricity
market, especially those investing in clean energy production.
4.8 Now that the NDA is almost ready to begin operations, speculation
has increased over what will happen to BNFL. The Sunday Telegraph,
on Boxing Day, speculated that the DTI would unveil a range of
options after the General Election. Options would include full
privatisation to the sale of the profitable US subsidiary, Westinghouse.
Companies that might be interested in acquiring part or the whole
of BNFL include Amec, US group Halliburton and French nuclear
group Areva. The Independent on Sunday claimed that the Government
had entered into talks with Bechtel and Lockheed Martin over the
sale of the British Nuclear Group - the main operating subsidiary
of BNFL.
5.0 Plutonium Transport
5.1 Trucks carrying enough US weapons-grade plutonium for more
than 60 bombs reached southern France in early October. There
were several security lapses during its 600-mile journey through
the country. Greenpeace activists say they got within yards of
the world's biggest ever shipment of the plutonium when it stopped
for petrol outside Toulouse. The plutonium was transported to
Cadarache in Provence to be made into nuclear fuel, as part of
an agreement with Russia to reduce weapons stockpiles. It was
heavily guarded for its journey through France, which avoided
Paris to make a detour via Rennes, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse
and Nîmes.
6.0 Nuclear Waste Management
6.1 The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has launched
the first stage of a programme of consultation which closes on
21st January. (See NFLA submission). Amongst other things, the
consultation is designed to help the Committee reduce its long-list
of options for nuclear waste management down to a short-list.
6.2 Amongst the documents released for the consultation was a
Preliminary Report on the Radioactive Waste Inventory. There was
some consternation when it emerged that the Committee had assessed
the impact of building 10 new AP1000 nuclear reactors on the radioactive
waste inventory. The report points out that such a new nuclear
programme would not have a significant impact on the overall inventory
of Intermediate Level Waste - adding only around an extra 5%.
However, when looking at the most dangerous category of nuclear
waste - high-level waste - if spent fuel is included in this category,
as many believe it should be - a new nuclear programme more than
doubles the inventory from 12,012 m3 to 26,012m3.
6.3 The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, in a
report published in December, expressed grave concern that CoRWM
has been told to start "with a blank sheet of paper"
when so much work has been done already. It said CoRWM should
stop wasting time considering options that have been discarded
by the rest of the international community - such as blasting
waste into space. Instead it should focus on the variants of underground
storage or disposal. The Lords also said CoRWM appears to lack
the relevant scientific and technical expertise to assess the
various options for radioactive waste management, and said the
Government should either appoint extra members to CoRWM with the
expertise or establish a technical sub committee.
6.4 In the meantime, the House of Lords Committee said the government's
inability to deal with nuclear waste should not delay a decision
on a new generation of power stations. The "small uncertainties"
associated with burying waste in the ground were nothing compared
with a world ravaged by global warming, the committee says. Lord
Oxburgh, the committee chairman, pointed out that the al-Qaida
threat alone was an important reason why there should be a quick
government decision on radioactive waste, which is odd because
one would have thought that concern about terrorist attacks would
also rule out building new nuclear facilities and creating more
radioactive waste, which would have to be stored above ground
for at least at few decades.
6.5 In January, Lord Oxburgh renewed his attacks on CoRWM. He
said Britain will not have learnt the lesson of the Indian Ocean
tsunami if the Government continues to drag its feet over nuclear
waste storage policy. He compared Asian leaders' failure to set
up a tsunami warning system to Government decision-making on nuclear
waste storage.
6.6 The Government announced in December that it is to give the
go-ahead for the substitution of High Level Waste (HLW) for Intermediate
Level Radioactive Waste (ILW) resulting from the reprocessing
of overseas-spent fuel. This means that the higher volume Intermediate
Level Waste from overseas reprocessing contracts will remain in
this country. Instead a slightly higher volume of High Level Waste
will be returned to the country of origin.
7.0 Dounreay
7.1 The bill to clean up the Dounreay nuclear plant has been cut
by £1 billion with the job now scheduled to be completed
11 years earlier than expected. The UKAEA says the Caithness complex
will be returned to a near greenfield site by 2036 and the cost
reduced from £3.6 billion to £2.6 billion. The original
timescale for shutting down the 140-acre site was 100 years. The
revised forecasts are contained in long-range plans submitted
to the government and regulators in preparation for the launch
of the NDA.
7.2 Dipesh Shah, the UKAEA's chief executive, told BBC Radio
4's Today Programme that "the government is right to keep
the [nuclear] option open. The kind of work the UKAEA is doing
in clearing up the legacy of the past will be an essential precondition."
7.3 Speedier decommissioning will not please everyone. The Aberdeen
Press & Journal reported that it will deal a devastating blow
to the Highland economy. Most of the site's 1,280 employees, and
a similar number of contract workers, will now lose their jobs
in 2013, when only a skeleton maintenance staff will remain. The
first 200 jobs will be lost over the next couple of years by the
non-replacement of staff who leave. Dounreay generates about £80million
a year for the Caithness economy - an income the region could
struggle to replace.
7.4 The announcement caught Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise
- part of Highlands and Islands Enterprise - off guard. Chief
executive Carroll Buxton said there was "no indication that
the change in timescale and budget would be so dramatic. [Hopefully]
the area will see real and lasting benefit from the alternative
investment in the area of some of the huge savings to the public
purse derived from the accelerated clean-up programme".
7.5 In Safe Energy 28, it was reported that SEPA had made significant
changes to the liquid radioactive waste discharge authorisations
for Dounreay. The new limits came into effect on 4 October. In
addition to these new limits, SEPA is currently carrying out a
full gaseous and liquid discharge review, which will go out to
public consultation in early 2005.
8.0 British Energy
8.1 The reliability of British Energy's nuclear reactors continue
to cause the company problems as it soldiers on with its debt
restructuring. The Company's original output target for the financial
year 2004/2005 was 64.5 TWh, but this was reduced, first to 61.5
TWh and now to 59.5 TWh. In 2003/2004 nuclear output was 65 TWh.
The output reductions were mainly due to delays to the restarting
of Hartlepool and Heysham 1.
8.2 Armed police are now expected to be permanently deployed
for the first time at all of Britain's operating nuclear power
stations to protect them from possible terrorist attack. Officers
from the UK Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary are being stationed
at Hunterston in North Ayrshire, Torness in East Lothian, and
at nuclear reactors in England and Wales.
8.3 At Hartlepool cracking discovered in two graphite bricks
during a recent routine inspection of one of the two advanced
gas-cooled reactors' (AGR) graphite cores, has caused concern.
BE said the cracking was not "anticipated by our analytical
models". BE also warned that the discovery could mean that
several other AGRs, including Torness and Hunterston B, are unable
to achieve their currently assumed 35-year lifetimes
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