Nuclear power in Europe

Individual payments of up to £1m have been handed out from the public purse as a “golden goodbye” to directors at the loss-making nuclear holding group BNFL, according to the latest set of accounts.

David Bonser, executive director for human resources and a key figure in the development of BNFL’s troubled Thorp reprocessing plant, received £1,046,350 compensation for ending his employment last month. That was on top of an annual salary and bonuses worth £577,112 for the 12 months to March 31, 2008. (more…)

ENVIRONMENT Agency bosses have decided not to prosecute the operator of Sizewell A over an incident which saw thousands of gallons of water contaminated when radioactivity escaped into the North Sea.

The incident, in January 2007, involved the fracture of a plastic pipe in a cooling pond building where highly radioactive spent fuel rods are stored under water prior to their despatch to the Sellafield reprocessing works in Cumbria. (more…)

One of the people advising the Government on the best places to site new nuclear reactors has branded Sellafield a “poor location”.

In an extract to his book Nukenomics: The commercialisation of Britain’s nuclear industry, Ian Jackson, who helped write the siting report for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform/Department of Trade and Industry gives his views. (more…)

IRELAND WILL not be able to achieve a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 if the Government continues to rule out the “nuclear option”, according to the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Nobuo Tanaka, who will address an Asia-Europe Foundation forum on energy sustainability in Dublin today, told The Irish Times he realised that nuclear power was “taboo” here - mainly because of Sellafield. (more…)

International Nuclear Services (INS) has issued a big-money brief for world-wide PR support.

INS was created out of the ’spent fuel services’ business of Sellafield to provide a service to more than 20 global utility firms. It manages the transportation of their nuclear waste and subsequent reprocessing at Sellafield. (more…)

The Sellafield body parts inquiry has hit a major legal hitch after a doctor suggested his patients’ medical records should remain confidential – even though they are dead.

Michael Redfern QC is leading an inquiry into claims organs and tissue were secretly removed from workers at Sellafield and other nuclear plants without the knowledge of bereaved loved ones. (more…)

A SOUTH Lakeland anti-nuclear campaigner has claimed taxpayers’ money is being used to “soften up” Cumbrians for a new nuclear power station.

Artist Marianne Birkby spoke out after discovering the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has given £34 million from its “socio-economic fund” to organisations such as hospitals and colleges and wildlife, and heritage groups. (more…)

Green campaigners have expressed concern that the Government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is using the same lobbying consultancy as a firm that often bids for major nuclear decommissioning contracts.

The NDA is charged with cleaning up the UK’s nuclear waste - and in particular with decommissioning the Sellafield site. It has employed Bell Pottinger Public Affairs (BPPA) since 2005. (more…)

For the first time since a fire 50 years ago, engineers have taken a look inside the Windscale Pile 1 reactor at the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The decommissioning team looked inside the affected area with an endoscope to take pictures from the core, allowing for the removal of the remaining fuel and isotopes in the reactor pile.

In 1957 one of the two reactor piles caught fire and caused Britain’s worst nuclear accident, releasing masses of radiation into the countryside. (more…)

GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS protesting against a shipment of nuclear waste on its way to Sellafield are putting themselves at risk of death or 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. (more…)