GREENS ENERGY POLICY OPPOSES NUCLEAR POWER

The autumn conference of the Green Party of England and Wales, meeting at Aston University, Birmingham, on 5 - 8 September, agreed an updated energy policy reaffirming opposition to nuclear power.

Green Party energy policy remains committed to renewable energy sources and energy conservation measures.

Comment: The updated energy policy was agreed by a large majority of delegates at conference.

NEW US SANCTIONS OVER IRANIAN NUCLEAR LINKS

The United States has now imposed further sanctions on at least 25 companies and individuals suspected of aiding Iran's nuclear programme, evading earlier sanctions, or supporting terrorism.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28988479

The US suspects Iran of seeking atomic weapons. Iran insists it is enriching uranium for use in nuclear power stations and for medical purposes.

David Cohen, the US Under-Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said 'These new sanctions reflect our continuing determination to take action against anyone, anywhere, who violates our sanction'.

The next round of talks on this issue is expected in mid-September. The deadline set for reaching permanent agreement resolving the nuclear dispute is 24 November this year.

Comment: This dispute has been running for many years. It is rich in hypocrisy.  The development of nuclear power worldwide is supported by the US, despite the close links with nuclear weapons production, unless it happens to be a country out of favour with the US. Further, the US supports non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, but has not reduced its own enormous nuclear arsenal in line with non-proliferation treaty obligations.

TWO BRITISH NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS CLOSED TEMPORARILY

The French company EDF has temporarily shut down two of its nuclear power station in England, due to an unexpected crack in a boiler at Heysham 1 nuclear reactor, according to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28738074

Both nuclear reactors at Heysham have been shut down, also the two reactors at Hartlepool nuclear power station.

The company stated that the shut downs would last around eight weeks to allow further inspections. 

The National Grid has said that the shut downs would have no effect on the UK's supply of electricity.

The ONR is seeking positive confirmation of the condition of the boilers, and said that there has been no release of radioactive material and no persons have been injured.

Comment:  'Unexpected cracks' is worrying. We are assured that nuclear risks are all understood and accounted for at nuclear power stations - 'unexpected' is not part of the lexicon. It was the 'unexpected' that did it for Fukushima, and Chernobyl.

RESUMED IRAN NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS

Talks have resumed between Iran and the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany seeking agreement on a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27371534

The aim is to build on an interim deal at earlier negotiations that saw uranium enrichment curtailed by Iran in return for sanctions relief.

Iran is being asked to scale back its sensitive nuclear activities permanently to ensure that it cannot assemble a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear work is peaceful, and wants the economic sanctions to end.

The three key issues are:

Iran's uranium enrichment capacity
The heavy-water reactor at Arak
The possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme

President Hassan Rouhani has said that Iran will not surrender its right to nuclear development.

Comment:  Iran has always insisted that it does not intend to produce a nuclear weapon. It has been pointed out that the nuclear states have failed to implement their commitment under the nuclear proliferation agreement to reduce their existing nuclear weapons stockpiles.

THE LEGACY OF FUKUSHIMA

This new critical analysis by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes exposes the devastating legacy of Fukushima, sounding a dire warning about the future of nuclear power.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24332012

His visit to a small town 5 miles from Fukushima is a poignant reminder of the human cost of the disaster. All the inhabitants have gone, still refugees two and a half years after the tsunami which wrecked the nuclear reactors at Fukushima. There is a huge task removing radioactive contaminated topsoil and trees within a 20 mile radius of  ground zero. Where do you put it all?  For how many hundreds of years?

Professor Kurokawa comments: 'Many senior bureaucrats from Japan's Nuclear Industry Safety Agency would take lucrative jobs in the nuclear industry after leaving government'.

Could it happen again?  Wingfield-Hayes concludes that if the complacency prior to the disaster could  happen in Japan, it can almost certainly happen elsewhere. The myth that it is safe has gone.

TEPCO SUED BY US SAILORS OVER RADIATION EXPOSURE

The Japanese nuclear power company TEPCO, which operated the Fukushima nuclear reactors, has been sued by eight US sailors who allege they were exposed to higher radiation levels at the stricken site than admitted by TEPCO.
http://bbc.co.uk/news/business-20856051

If this allegation is eventually tested in the courts, evidence may emerge about the measured radiation levels at the Fukushima site during the March 2011 nuclear disaster, and the actions of TEPCO at that time.

NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE PLANT REJECTED

Shepway councillors have voted against 'formally expressing interest' in the government plan for a nuclear waste plant at Romney Marsh in Kent, near Dungeness nuclear power station.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-19656382

63% of local residents opposed the plan.
Both Kent County Council and East Sussex County Council also oppose this nuclear dump.

However, the Conservative council leader Robert Bliss will make a final decision later.

US SENATOR URGES MORE HELP
FOR FUKUSHIMA

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has followed up a Congressional delegation visit to Japan with a call for more assistance for Fukushima.

All four reactors remain badly damaged, and reactor four is in a particularly serious condition, reported Senator Wyden.

Mainstream media has said very little about the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in recent months.

JAPAN GOES NON-NUCLEAR IN MAY

By the first week of May, none of Japan's nuclear power stations will be generating electricity.
This is a significant milestone post-Fukushima, and encouragement for all nations to pursue a non-nuclear power future. 

PICNIC PROTEST AT HINKLEY POINT
NUCLEAR POWER STATION

On Sunday 6 May Southwest Against Nuclear are protesting against a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. The picnic protest starts at 10.00 am.

On 8 May work on the new site will commence, as fences go up and footpaths are closed.

THE NUCLEAR POWER CAKE IS CRUMBLING

Two of the major players for new nuclear power in the UK have pulled out.
Both RWE Npower and E.On have announced that they are no longer interested in building new nuclear power stations at Oldbury and in Anglesey. Their joint project 'Horizon Nuclear Power' cites difficulties raising finance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17546420
The government says there still remains 'considerable interest', and hopes that alternative potential investors will be found to fill the gap left by these two major companies.
The decision by RWE Npower and E.On, both German firms, can be linked to the demise of nuclear power in Germany, which itself was sparked by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

JAPAN DOWN TO ONE NUCLEAR POWER STATION IN OPERATION

No 6 unit at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station  in Japan's Niigata prefecture has been taken offline by TEPCO for maintenance. Just one nuclear plant remains in operation in Japan, on Hokkaido island.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17508657


The Hokkaido nuclear plant is the last of 54 nuclear reactors remaining in operation. It is due to be switched off in May.


Local communities and residents have demanded that reactors are left switched off after maintenance due to safety fears.

FALL-OUT FROM FUKUSHIMA
the nuclear power crisis


Radioactivity still leaks from the stricken Japanese nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, almost six months after the humanitarian disaster of the massive earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. It will be at least January 2012 before the leaks can be stopped. The scrapped nuclear reactors, still highly radioactive and toxic, will take many years and vast expense to decontaminate, monuments to the folly of power generation from nuclear fission.

The Tokyo nuclear power company held back vital information, and failed to divulge failures in safety standards. Japanese public opinion has turned decisively against nuclear power. On 6 August, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan marked the 66th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing * in 1945 by declaring that ‘I will reduce Japan’s reliance on nuclear power, aiming at creating a society that will not rely on atomic power generation.’ Before the Fukushima disaster Japan had planned to raise nuclear generation from about 30% to 53% by 2030.

After mass anti-nuclear protests across Germany, all German nuclear power plants will be phased-out by 2022.

In the UK, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced in early August the closure of the Mox plutonium recycling plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, due to events in Japan. This business depended on the shipment of weapons-usable material from Japan, always a crazy concept open to piracy and terrorism long before Fukushima.

The nuclear-convert environmentalist Mark Lynas spent two years researching a book **, published in July, praising nuclear power, ridiculing greens who oppose nuclear, implying that even Chernobyl was hardly more than a harmless picnic. Inconveniently for Lynas, the Fukushima nuclear disaster struck a few months before his book publication date. Unfazed, Lynas hastily included his anodyne assessment that Fukushima changed nothing; a gratuitous evidence-free conclusion made long before any rigorous scientific analysis is available.


Continuing to invest in nuclear power is totally irresponsible.


* ‘Children of the Ashes’, Robert Jungk, Pelican 1963
** ‘The God Species’, Mark Lynas, Fourth Estate 2011

(An abridged version of the above article was first published  in 'The Watermelon' Autumn/Winter 11/12)

CONSERVATIVES & NUCLEAR POWER

A Conservative government after 6 May (or whenever) will open at least one new nuclear power station every year and a half. There will be 'no limit' on the growth of nuclear power in Britain under a Tory government, says Greg Clark, the shadow energy spokesperson.

Clark ignores the fact that the timescale for a nuclear programme is far too long to solve the looming energy crisis. The desperate promotion of nuclear power is driven opportunistically by the nuclear industry lobby. The cost implications are horrendous.

Clark ignores the genetic and health risks of even low radiation doses associated with nuclear power.
He ignores the unsolved problem of all the nuclear waste.

What is certain is that the mess will have to be cleared up, if at all, at public expense - long after the private nuclear companies have taken their profits and vanished.

Nuclear power is not carbon neutral. Renewable energy sources are the only answer.

SELLAFIELD'S PLUTONIUM DUSTBIN

An eminent group of UK scientists, and a retired general, have reported "it's a total absurdity that we should have 100 tonnes of separated plutonium sitting up at Sellafield in tin cans ... . There is no policy to deal with the deadly material, which was reclaimed from used nuclear fuel. It's the largest stockpile in the world, a potential target for terrorists."

Last September I was in the Lake District, and took time out to inspect the Sellafield visitor centre. It wasn't my first visit. Many years ago, when it was called Calder Hall, we were shown into the reactor control room, and stood on top of the nuclear reactor. Of course, now you get nowhere near. There's a shiny new facility, outside the perimeter security, which presents a sanitised clean view of the nuclear industry. What shocked me most was the emphasis everywhere on private enterprise, shareholders and profits.

There is no PLAN A to deal with the deadly plutonium, let alone a PLAN B. Meanwhile, our government wants to build more nuclear power stations, and upgrade our nuclear weapons, to produce yet more nuclear waste to add to the dustbin.

Remember Elstow ?

What has my previous post got to do with Bedfordshire?
Well, remember the low level nuclear waste disposal dump that NIREX tried to foist on Elstow, years ago? Many folk, including myself, campaigned furiously to stop it. We won. You never know, when we have sent the 'eco-town ' packing, they might even try to present us with a nuclear power station. After all, the government think nuclear power is eco-friendly .........

The Mother of All Toxic Assets

We were kept in the dark about the banks' toxic assets. Till it was too late to do anything about it. At least, that's our excuse. But there's another load of toxicity being prepared for us. We know about this, yet are sleepwalking into it.

I refer to the new generation of nuclear power stations the government is busy planning. The toxic contaminated waste from these will be around for a thousand years, at least. The mother of all toxic assets.