Hitachi- from the country that brought the world Fukushima

Hitachi- from the country that brought the world Fukushima
We feel very sad for the people of Japan who want to end nuclear energy whilst a potential new government and big business are desperate for it

No Fukushima at Oldbury

No to Fukushima at Shepperdine!

No to Fukushima at Shepperdine!
オールド全く福島ません

Thursday 26 May 2011

SANE places advert in tomorrows Bristol Evening Post

We are placing an educational advert in the Bristol Evening Post tomorrow which questions the governments wisdom to place two or three new nuclear reactors at the Shepperdine site, a mere 13 miles from Bristol City Centre.

Approximately one million people live within the 30 km radius from the Shepperdine site.

We have been interviewed by Jack and Breeze FM which will be broadcast on their news feature in the morning tomorrow.

There is a growing irritation in the SANE membership that the government and the HSE are totally underestimating the effects of errors, accidents or terrorism at the proposed new nuclear power plants

Wednesday 25 May 2011

The Germans will protect us from E.on and RWE and our own government


Thankfully the german public and government realise that German companies should not be allowed to build new nuclear plants anywhere in the world, including the UK.

We the people of SANE thank you for your compassion and determination to end the sin of nuclear.

New Nukes

Plans by E.ON and RWE to build new nuclear reactors in Britain are in limbo because of the backlash against nuclear power in Germany after the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown, The Times has learnt. Bankers and industry sources also said that the cash-strapped RWE would struggle to fund its share of the multibillion-pound programme even if it went ahead. Horizon, the British new-build joint venture set up by the two German companies, had been due to award the contract to build its first reactors on Anglesey early this year. Work is still under way to assess competing bids from two consortiums, fronted by the reactor groups Areva and Westinghouse, to build them. But a decision is now not expected this year, according to several s! ources. One source close to RWE’s supervisory board, whose approval is necessary for strategic moves, said that the contract would not be awarded in the next “three to six months, at the earliest”. The source said that taking such steps to build new reactors overseas while the industry was under a cloud in Germany would be seen domestically as “politically provocative”. there is fierce lobbying going on behind the scenes directed at Charles Hendry, the Energy Minister, who is drawing up a White Paper to reform the electricity market. RWE is furious about the Government’s carbon tax, which has made its task of convincing the board in Germany to back new- build plans more difficult. Putting a floor under the price of carbon to support nuclear power also penalises coal plants, which RWE relies on to generate much of its electricity. It will also result in a windfall for its competitor EDF Energy, which owns British Energy, the nuclear genera! tor.

Times 25th May 2011

Sunday 22 May 2011

For TEPCO could we read RWE or E.on in future?


Please note the potential liability to TEPCO is $123 billion for the Fukushima disaster and obviously untold damage to health.

Recently our government put a cap on liabilities to private companies such as e.on, RWE and edf to £1 billion or approximately $1.5 billion?

Did the USA help BP out in the Mexican Gulf?

Who will make up the shortfall?....I think we all know who!

Nuclear is dead around the world and the sooner our government realises we can start to confront the massive challenges that our impoverished country has.


Erratic information fuels mistrust of TEPCO
TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power's belated admission that damage to crippled reactors at its nuclear plant is worse than it first thought has fuelled suspicion it withheld bad news in the first days of Japan's crisis.
A series of revisions to earlier assessments about damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have emerged since the utility began sending workers into reactor buildings for the first time.
More than two months after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl was triggered, TEPCO last week admitted fuel rods inside reactor cores melted down in the first few hours after the March 11 tsunami disabled cooling systems.
It was a sharp reversal of earlier assessments from both TEPCO and the government that meltdown was unlikely, reactors were relatively stable and dangerous radiation leaks had been largely contained.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan conceded that the government failed to see flaws in TEPCO's earlier assumptions and has called for a regulatory overhaul.
"What I told the public was fundamentally wrong," Kan told a parliament session Friday. "We failed to respond to TEPCO's mistaken assumptions. I am deeply sorry," he said.
TEPCO said it had revised earlier information only after it could send workers close enough to the reactors to read gauges but critics argue that independent experts reached similar conclusions much earlier.
"The way TEPCO releases information utterly lacks any sense of crisis," the Nikkei business daily said in a recent front-page analysis.
"Two months after the accident happened, it admitted a meltdown at reactor one. But many experts pointed out that possibility immediately after the accident happened," the newspaper said.
"They do not mention bad news until it is confirmed. Such an attitude has led to mistrust," the Nikkei said.
The biggest utility in Asia, TEPCO is a regional monopoly supplying power to Tokyo and its surrounding Kanto region in central Japan.
With a track record of safety cover-ups, TEPCO has been criticised for inadequately preparing for disaster, helped by soft regulation by a government organisation also tasked with promoting nuclear power.
The liberal Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial that TEPCO and official regulators avoided direct reference to the term "meltdown" to "lead the public into underestimating what was really happening."
Public anger and confusion have intensified, and critics say the latest revisions underline the slowness of moves to ensure the safety of nearby residents.
Shortly after the emergency began, the government asked those living within a three-kilometre (two-mile) radius from the plant to evacuate as a precaution.
The government and TEPCO gradually expanded the evacuation area to 20 kilometres as the plant continued to release radioactive materials, and recommended those between 20-30 kilometres stay indoors.
Last week it started moving people from towns beyond the zone, with tens of thousands of people having had to flee their homes.
Even after hydrogen explosions blew away concrete buildings that housed reactors, officials maintained that the reactors themselves had remained intact, posing a relatively low "immediate" risk to health.
It was later learned that massive radiation leaks peaked around the time of the explosions in the first few days, while many nearby residents still remained at home.
Fukushima Daiichi is believed to have released a 10th of the material emitted by the Chernobyl plant in 1986, but the situation has not yet been resolved.
The Atomic Energy Society of Japan, a nationwide conference of nuclear scientists, said in a report that TEPCO and authorities failed to adequately explain the situation.
"Radiation safety is complex and difficult to understand," the society said.
"The logic behind radiation's effects on human health... was not accurately communicated, inviting unnecessary confusions," it said.
"(The authorities) are seen holding back information and have lost credibility," it said.
In the wake of the disaster, TEPCO posted the biggest loss in Japanese corporate history for a non-financial firm and its president Masataki Shimizu stepped down.
"More can be done to think about our customers," he said of his company's inward looking corporate culture on Friday. Compensation is expected to hit as much as 10 trillion yen ($123 billion).
No one has yet died as a result of radiation exposure, but Fukushima residents have voiced worries about long-term health effects amid scepticism that TEPCO can honour its pledge to end the crisis by January.

Recent video of Reg Illingworth

Reg was recently interviewed by Lucia, a final year journalism student at UWE in Bristol.

Check it out and the other three videos which form the Shepperdine story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXov87BgWIk

Sellafield Sleaze......Job at any cost!



GREENPEACE LIFTS LID ON ‘PUSH FOR NUCLEAR POWER AT ANY COST’

Greenpeace is the sworn enemy of the nuclear industry.
Sellafield aerial photo
Sellafield
The environmental group this week unveiled 118 pages of minutes and other documents, mostly obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which it claims undermine the case for a new power station at Sellafield.
It hopes the findings might force a rethink of the NuGen consortium’s plan to start building in 2015.
The scheme will create 5,000 jobs in the construction phase and 1,000 permanent jobs once the plant opens in 2023.
In fact, many of Greenpeace’s “revelations” were already public knowledge, such as problems with the site’s geology and difficulties in accessing the National Grid.
But the documents do shed light on a behind-the-scenes campaign to promote Sellafield as suitable for nuclear new build against improbable odds.
That campaign began in January 2008, the month that the then Business Secretary John Hutton gave the green light to a new generation of nuclear power plants.
He told the Commons that the power stations, to be built by the private sector, would most likely be located at or near existing nuclear installations.
He also pledged to streamline the planning process to prevent delays from lengthy public inquiries.
Five days after his announcement, Cumbria’s movers and shakers held a ‘nuclear influencing strategy workshop’ at the Castle Green Hotel in Kendal.
Rosie Mathisen, director of nuclear opportunities at West Lakes Renaissance, was in the chair.
Also present were representatives from Copeland, Allerdale and Cumbria County councils, Sellafield unions, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Cumbria Vision, Northwest Development Agency, Invest in Cumbria, and Carl Carter from Copeland MP Jamie Reed’s office.
They saw the Government’s announcement as a huge opportunity to bring jobs to west Cumbria.
The minutes obtained by Greenpeace say: “There has to be a sense of urgency in our work.
“This opportunity is on our watch and is certainly one of the big transformational projects we must go all out to win – despite not being favoured.”
The minutes of that first meeting spelt out some of the obstacles.
The biggest was the remoteness of Cumbria from the large urban centres where electricity is needed and the lack of a 400kv connection to the National Grid.
This would require 50m-high pylons, instead of the usual 30m pylons, possibly crossing the Lake District National Park.
There was an admission too that the geology of Sellafield was far from ideal.
The minutes say: “Bedrock is too far down in most areas but the area behind the Windscale Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor is okay if a little costly.”
The group also identified points in Sellafield’s favour, not least a “willing and accepting” community supportive of nuclear power.
There was a suggestion – seized on by Greenpeace – that west Cumbria might agree to have an underground repository for long-term storage of nuclear waste in return for getting power stations.
The minutes say: “No consensus on how/when to play our trump card – that west Cumbria has a community willing to host a high-level repository but perhaps only if we get new build and socio-economic money that follows to benefit the community.”
Some of the more intriguing ideas floated at this meeting included asking the BBC to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the campaign and using a proposed bridge across Morecambe Bay to carry the high-voltage power line from Sellafield.
Two months later, a steering group was formed called ‘Building the Case for New Build at Sellafield’. It identified another problem – plutonium contamination in the sea bed off Sellafield that might interfere with plans to take water to cool any new reactors.
The minutes say: “It was confirmed that a mud bank of silt is evident, which contains plutonium.
“There is approximately one third of a tonne, which is an obvious issue.”
Minutes of subsequent meetings outline how the campaign evolved, lobbying the Department for Business and Enterprise, the utility companies and the National Grid.
There was a media push to promote Sellafield as suitable for nuclear new build, channelled through “friendly press contacts”.
The campaign received impetus in July 2008 when Mr Hutton unveiled the Energy Coast masterplan, a vision to create 16,000 jobs and make west Cumbria a world leader in energy generation.
The News & Star reported: “The announcement is the clearest hint yet that Sellafield as a site for a new nuclear power station, though no decision has yet been taken.”
A month later, the steering group minutes report that “90 per cent” of the route for the high-voltage power line had been agreed with the National Grid but it had still to persuade any of the energy companies to pick Sellafield as a preferred site.
A breakthrough came early in 2009 when the Nuclear Decommissioning agreed to “nominate” Sellafield as a suitable site for a power station.
Shortly afterwards three locations in west Cumbria – Sellafield, Braystones, and Kirksanton near Millom – were among 11 potential sites named by the Government.
Braystones and Kirksanton were later dropped but Sellafield was snapped up by NuGen, a consortium made up of Iberdrola, GDF Suez and Scottish & Southern Energy.
NuGen acquired an option to buy 500 acres of land subject to final approval.
The campaign cleared another hurdle last October when the incoming Coalition Government confirmed Sellafield as one of eight sites earmarked for new reactors.
Greenpeace argues that the minutes of these meetings show the ‘expression of interest’ from local authorities in having a long-term waste repository were a smokescreen to promote nuclear new build.
It is uncomfortable at the way the campaign to promote new build was pursued by council officials and representatives of various quangos behind closed doors.
There was little public awareness of this campaign apart from a News & Star report, in March 2008, that West Lakes Renaissance and Cumbria Vision were launching “a bid to make Sellafield the centre of the Government’s planned expansion for the nuclear industry”.
Greenpeace said this week: “The councils, and others who initiated these meetings, seem to view west Cumbria and the Lake District as their private fiefdom to be offered up for nuclear waste dumping.
“Their blind pursuit of nuclear jobswill cost jobs and income in the tourism, food and drink, and agricultural sectors dearly.
“These minutes expose the cynical machinations behind the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely stakeholder-engagement programme.
“Claims about openly discussing nuclear waste disposal are a sham based on a hidden agenda.
“The discussions on disposal should now be halted.
“The councils should not be allowed to take any further steps until there is full disclosure and examination of all the documents concerning new build and waste from all parties involved.”
But voices in west Cumbria have dismissed Greenpeace’s claims as the predictable views of an organisation implacably imposed to the nuclear industry.
Tim Knowles, Cumbria County Council’s cabinet member responsible for nuclear issues, said: “Anybody reading Greenpeace’s propaganda would think they are oblivious to the fact that 70 per cent of the country’s higher-level nuclear waste is already stored at Sellafield and that Cumbria is already at the heart of Britain’s nuclear industry.
“The fact that the county and district councils are supporters of the nuclear industry is no more surprising than a London-based environmental pressure group trying to argue the county’s economy should be built solely on B&Bs, tea rooms and sheep farms.
“In the real world, local authorities in Cumbria need to work with the Government on behalf of their communities.
“There is no hidden agenda and there are no ‘trump cards’.
“If Cumbria is not the right place to have an underground repository for radioactive waste and if it’s not supported by local people then we will oppose it.
“If building one or more of the new generation of nuclear power stations and improving the county’s connections to the National Grid are not in the best interests of local communities then we will oppose them.
“But at this stage, we are at the table with Government and looking at the evidence while talking to local communities in a process which is both open and transparent.
“No decisions have been made and voluntarism is an important principle underpinning the approach to an underground repository.
“Cumbria County Council makes no apologies for working with the nuclear industry and Government in the best interests of the public.”

Plea for support from Japanese farmers and fishermen


Dear Friends,

Thank you for your support and solidarity.
 
From several eyewitnesses we have confirmed following information on the unprecedented repression in the Tokyo High Court Building on Friday:

(1)    Immediately after the High Court “warned” the protesters to leave the High Court Building, the police physically assaulted the protesters and arrested around 40 protesters for “trespassing”.
In any countries, including Japan, the crime of trespassing cannot be applied to people who are in a public building without prior notice to leave and without reasonable time to leave.
(2)    The police also arrested a secretary of one of the lawyers of the Narita Farmers League who was only in the building to perform the job.
(3)    After demonstration in the morning and the court procedure in the afternoon, the 89 years old Secretary General of the Farmers League, KITAHARA Koji, became very tired and took a rest in a waiting room while other farmers protested the ruling of the judge. Nevertheless the police arrested Mr Kitahara without any advance warning whatsoever.
(4)    The 50 arrestees are detained separately in different police stations, often in very remote areas in Tokyo, so that the lawyers could visit only 20 arrestees or so in the Friday evening and Saturday early morning.

This is a video taken on the sidewalk of the Tokyo High Court.

The Japanese government are now oppressing farmers and fishers in Fukushima, victims of the nuclear catastrophe, who have started to fight like Narita farmers. The unprecedented, unjust and unlawful mass arrest of Friday is done in order to intimidate people in Fukushima and beyond.

Please forward this email as widely as possible, send protest message to the Japanese government’s email form below and organize anti-nuke struggle all around the world.


In Solidarity,
International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba
Seto Tadashi

Monday 16 May 2011

Environment Agency calculates risk of Oldbury Power Station being hit by a Tsunami as 1 in 10.


Environment Agency calculates risk of Oldbury Power Station being hit by a
Tsunami as 1 in 10.

It was with great surprise that I read an exclusive article involving the Environment Agency in the Bristol Evening Post on April 20th 2011.
It gives insight into how they approach risk assessment. According to the Environment Agency and Bristol City Council, they are worried that high tides in the Bristol Channel combined with heavy rainfall over the City and a big swell coming down the Avon, low lying areas of Bristol will flood. Taking this as the Environment Agency assessment, then this must have extreme consequences for the low lying areas bordering the estuary, including Oldbury-on-Severn.
Graham Quarrier, project manager for the Environment Agency says in the article, that we have no worries about a Tsunami such as the one that struck Japan as this is a “one in one thousand year event”. However, if it did happen our current sea defences would be overwhelmed, affecting areas such as Weston-Super-Mare, Clevedon, and Avonmouth. “The existing defences, and those we are planning to construct over the next century, are all designed to prevent flooding from ordinary high tides and storm surges” said Mr Quarrier.
He went on to state however: “Though it is clearly possible that there could be an earthquake out in the Atlantic, the risk is calculated as being a “one in one thousand year event”.
Now, bear in mind that Berkeley Power Station was started in 1956, and according to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the final site clearance would not take place until 2092, and be finally finished by 2101.
The existing power station at Oldbury was begun in 1967 and by building a new reactor there now, would mean a continuous nuclear presence on this site for well over a hundred years, meaning that Mr Quarrier’s  “one in one thousand year event”,  suddenly becomes a one in ten chance during that one hundred year period, of being hit by a devastating Tsunami. This is based directly on the figures supplied by Mr Quarrier and the Environment Agency.
So, Mr Quarrier, I put it to you, that if you and the Environment Agency think a risk factor of one in ten, according to your own statement, is a safe and satisfactory safety margin, I for one beg to differ.
I wonder where Mr Quarrier lives, probably well away from the Severn Estuary, and probably a fair way in land, and very probably a long way from Oldbury-on-Severn.
Yours sincerely,
Ashley Haigh, a Thornbury resident.

Coaltion should be up-front about nuclear subsidy


"Coalition should be up-front about nuclear subsidy" says Committee



16 May 2011
The Government risks distorting its planned reform of the electricity market merely to save political face over implicit subsidies for nuclear power, MPs on the Energy and Climate Change Committee warn in a report out today.

The Coalition Agreement pledged to allow new nuclear power stations to be built 'provided that they receive no public subsidy'. But MPs believe that Government proposals will effectively provide subsidies to nuclear generators through new long term contracts and a carbon price floor that could hand them windfall profits.
Tim Yeo MP, Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, said: 
"Ministers believe that new nuclear could play a key role in keep the lights on and meeting our climate change targets—but they don’t want to own up to supporting it.
 This is understandable given the promise they made not to subsidise nuclear, but it would be deeply irresponsible to skew the whole process of electricity market reform simply to save face. 
 The Government must be up front about the support it is giving to nuclear and not hide subsidies in a one-size-fits-all design for long-term energy contracts." 

Background

Over one hundred billion pounds of investment is needed by 2020 to replace the UK's aging power stations, cut carbon emissions and maintain energy security. Government proposals for Electricity Market Reform (EMR) are supposed to encourage power companies to deliver clean affordable energy, even when there are more inflexible and intermittent sources of electricity in the mix.

The committee's findings

The committee is concerned that the current EMR proposals are over-complex and could fail to attract the £110 billion investment needed in the electricity generation alone by 2020. It is calling on the Government to simplify its package of reforms to provide a more certain framework for investors. The starting point for EMR should be a clearly defined objective to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation in the UK to 50g of CO2 per kilowatt hour (KWh) by 2030.

Conclusions

  • The wholesale market should be fundamentally reformed to break up the dominance of the Big Six energy companies, in order to allow new entrants to invest in the UK and improve the liquidity of the market.
  • The long term contracts designed to encourage low carbon energy sources—known as Feed-in-Tariffs with Contracts for Difference—will work for nuclear, but different types of contract are needed for renewables and other clean technologies.
  • It is too early for the Government to design a capacity mechanism given the rapid development of smart meters, interconnectors and storage systems that could remove the need for "peaking plant".
  • The Carbon Price Support is a necessary short term solution to weaknesses in the EU Emission Trading System, but will increase costs for consumers and could provide a windfall for nuclear and renewables generators.
The Chair of the committee, Tim Yeo MP, said:
"The Government must go back to the drawing board and come up with a more straightforward and coherent set of plans to reform the electricity market.
Radical reform of the wholesale energy market is needed to stop the Big Six from stitching it up, but at the moment Ministers are only tinkering at the margins."
The MPs also call on the Government to be up front about the effect that reforms will have on energy bills. Tim Yeo MP added:
"Cleaning up our power sector will cost money, but the long term benefits for the UK of having a secure, reliable and low-carbon electricity system are clear.
In the short to medium term bills will rise, but in the long term people will see savings—Ministers should be open about that." 





Contents

Terms of Reference
Summary 
1 Introduction 


2 Background 


3 DECC's high level objectives 


4 The electricity wholesale market 


5 Long term contracts 


6 Carbon Price Support (CPS) 


7 Capacity mechanism 


8 Emissions Performance Standard (EPS) 
9 Investment: risks and returns 


10 Energy consumers 


11 Demand side measures 


12 Transition period and implementation of the new regime 


13 Conclusion 
Conclusions and recommendations 
Formal Minutes 
Witnesses 
List of printed written evidence 
List of additional written evidence 
List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament
Oral and written evidence
18 January 2011
25 January 2011
2 February 2011
8 February 2011
15 February 2011
15 March 2011 (morning)15 March 2011 (afternoon)
Written Evidence
Additional written evidence (unprinted)

Energy and Climate Change - Additional (Unprinted) Written Evidence [Back to Report]
Electricity Market Reform
Here you can browse the Written Evidence ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 25 January 2011.

CONTENTS
Memorandum submitted by Dr Barrie Murray
    Annex

Nuclear Power Stations: Environment Protection

9 May 2011 : Column 1024W 
Martin Horwood: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate has been made of the additional revenue that will accrue to existing nuclear power station operators as a result of the carbon price support proposals announced in the 2011 Budget. [52152]
Justine Greening: The carbon price floor announced in the Budget is intended to create economic incentives toward low-carbon electricity generation and away from high-carbon generation. All types of low-carbon technologies will be incentivised by the price floor. The impact on utility companies' profitability will depend on the overall composition of their generation portfolios and future investment decisions.
The existing nuclear sector is likely to benefit by an average of £50 million per annum to 2030 due to higher wholesale electricity prices. Similarly, the renewable energy sector is expected to benefit by an average of at least £25 million a year to 2030.

 
 
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