Documents

Uranium mines threatening indigenous people's lands

[url=[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-west-bank-barrier-874923.html]]Uranium mining threat...[/url]Uranium threatLetter from David Lowry: Gremlins must have entered Sarah Arnott's article ("Rolls-Royce eyes cut of £50bn nuclear market", 17 July) for her to write, "In the face of growing pressure to replace existing dirty power sources with environmentally friendly alternatives, nuclear is firmly back on the agenda". With the spoil from uranium mines threatening long-term ecological catastrophe across the indigenous peoples' lands from Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, eastern Germany, Russia, Namibia to the USA, and some nuclear waste remaining highly hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years, with no long-term solution yet achieved for its management, the last thing nuclear energy can be described as is "environmentally-friendly".{This is a complete transcript of the letter: on the Independent site it is the fifth down}

Tom Tuohy - an unsung hero

Tom TuohyObituary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/07/nuclearpower

Sosnovy Bar Conference in Decommissioning

In Russian and English

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Who will clean up BE sites?

Who will now be responsible for the clean-up of existing BE sites. If land is transferred from BE to other atomic aspirant owners, who will hold the liabilities for radioactive remediation? Who will be responsible for the insurance cover of existing reactors, especially any accident that involves off-site radioactive contamination. And who becomes responsible for other assets or liabilities of around 15,000kg (15 tonnes) of plutonium from BE's advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) and the spent nuclear fuel discharged from the reactors?

Guardian 19th Nov 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/19/edf-nuclear-energy-sellafield-drigg

Collusion over Sellafield sweetener

Collusion over Sellafield sweetener
A Sunday newspaper is claiming collusion by top civil servants and nuclear administrators over the running of Sellafield.

The Independent on Sunday says they prevented MP's from challenging a massive sweetener to a private business taking over the nuclear plant in west Cumbria.

The paper claims the Government pushed through the handover at breakneck speed because it feared that the "unstable management arrangements" risked its safety.

The investigation in today's edition is by Geoffrey Lean, Andy Rowell and Rich Cookson who obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

The IoS journalists say that a leading Labour MP is try to get a parliamentary investigation into the revelations in the documents, which run to 140 pages and have been so heavily censored prior to release that many whole pages, and the names of most of the officials involved, have been systematically blanked out.

Paul Flynn MP, a member of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee – which examines the performance of the Civil Service – is to ask it to inquire into what he calls "an egregious example of obstruction of parliamentary accountability".

The cover-up arises from the awarding, late in November, of a contract to run the nuclear complex to Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of US, French and British companies.

Although the contract is worth some £22bn, the consortium told ministers that it would walk away from the deal unless it was fully indemnified against the costs of cleaning up an accident at what is one of the world's most hazardous nuclear sites.

Normally, as the documents repeatedly acknowledge, the Government would place a special minute before Parliament if it intended to undertake a liability of more than £250,000.

MPs would then have 14 days to raise an objection, which would stop the undertaking going ahead until it had been dealt with. But MPs were not told about the Sellafield indemnity until 75 days after the last moment when they could object, even though it potentially exposes the taxpayer to liabilities running into billions.

The energy minister Mike O'Brien blames a "clerical oversight" for this. But the documents clearly show that the senior civil servants and nuclear administrators had been actively discussing how to limit MPs' chance to object at least since early last year.

The documents have come to light only as a result of persistent pressure from Dr David Lowry, an independent environmental policy and research consultant, who is a member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates.

The documents make it clear that the Government was determined to hurry through the handover of operations at Sellafield as quickly as possible because of what one of them calls "the current unstable management arrangements overseeing these extremely sensitive sites, and their high hazard inventories".

Another adds that this instability "constitutes a genuine risk to health, safety and environmental performance" at the complex.

A rushed timetable was drawn up which involved naming a preferred bidder for the contract on 11 July and signing a transitional agreement on 6 October. But this clashed with the long parliamentary summer recess, which ran from late July to the very day set aside for the signing.

If the Government were to stick to its speeded-up timetable, the documents say, "the very earliest date" in which the minute could be laid before Parliament would be 14 July, shortly before the recess began on the 22nd.

Determined not to slow down the handover, the Government decided to reduce the period in which MPs could object.

http://www.getnoticedonline.co.uk/news/general-news/collusion-claim-over-sellafield-sweetener.html

Response to NDA Business Plan

Response to NDA Business Plan

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Response to NDA Business Plan

Response to NDA Business Plan

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Fission chipped

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/letters-to-the-editor/western-mail-letters/2009/03/16/monday-16-march-2009-91466-23151587/

Fisson chipped

Western Mail letters, 16 March 2009

SIR – Labour MP for Ynys Môn/Anglesey, Albert Owen, is on dodgy ground in attacking Plaid Cymru for having political leaders who apparently disagree with the merits of new nuclear power (Letters, March 2).

In his own Labour Party, former Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has long opposed nuclear power, and advocated renewable energies, even when he was in the Cabinet.

Current energy and climate minister in Westminster, Joan Ruddock, as a vice president of Labour's own environmental campaign group, SERA, (as is Peter Hain) has long opposed nuclear power, ever since she was national chairperson for CND.

Former Labour environment minister Michael Meacher is outspokenly opposed to nuclear power, as is Labour MP for Newport West, Paul Flynn, who regularly carries attacks on nuclear industry financial corruption on his excellent web site. And there are many other serious opponents of nuclear fission in the Labour Party.

Finally, Mr Owen made an impassioned constituency plea for a new nuclear reactor at the Wylfa site, in his speech in the annual St David's Day Welsh Affairs debate in Parliament last month (http://www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090226/deb text/90226-00 19.htm)

He also raised the important question of the future of Anglesey Aluminium. What is clear is new nuclear will be of no help in saving the aluminium plant, as it cannot possibly come on line at the most optimistic until 10 years time. The current Wylfa nuclear plant will close within a few years, even if it gets a lifetime extension.

Sustainable energy sources are needed urgently in Wales, not expensive, environmentally hazardous and speculative nuclear fission power.

Dr DAVID LOWRY

Environmental policy and research consultant, contributing author, Nuclear or Not? (PalgraveMacmillan 2007), Stoneleigh, Surrey

Obituary Ed Grothus

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/24/ed-grothus-obituary-nuclear-weapons

Ed Grothus: US atomic worker turned maverick antil-nuclear activist

Clearing up rumours on nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion...Clearing up rumours on nuclear fusionLetter to the Morning Star
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/letters/clearing_up_rumours_on_nuclear_fusion

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Uranium Exploitation and Environmental racism: response to NIA

Uranium exploitation and environmental racism: why environmental despoliation and the ignorance of radiological risks of uranium mining cannot be justified by nuclear fuel production
Response to consultation on: Stations
'Justification Application New nuclear power stations
Submitted by the Nuclear Industry Association' (June 2008)

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Uranium exploitation and environmental racism

Submission to nuclear justification consultation, 25-3-09.doc

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