By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor - Sunday, 9 March 2008 - From Sellafield, an ordinary, unarmed ferry is to transport weapons-ready plutonium – material that could easily be used to make a 'dirty bomb'
Weapons-ready plutonium that terrorists could easily make into a nuclear bomb is to be carried hundreds of miles down the west coast of Britain in an unarmed ship, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
As the government makes ever more enthusiastic pronouncements about new nuclear reactors for the UK, the outlook is brightening for British Energy, which owns the bulk of the country’s nuclear plants.
On Thursday, John Hutton, the business secretary, revealed in the Financial Times that the government would pull out all the stops to maximise expansion of nuclear power and would drop its previous commitment to holding a minimum 29.9 per cent stake in British Energy.
The UK is committed to a dramatic and rapid expansion of nuclear power, ensuring new stations generate "significantly" more of the country's electricity than the existing stock, according to John Hutton, the business secretary.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Hutton also dropped the UK government's previous commitment to maintaining a minimum 29.9 per cent stake in British Energy, the nuclear generator.
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
A big study of nuclear workers has suggested an unexpectedly strong link between radiation exposure and heart disease.
The study, published yesterday, analysed health records and radiation doses for 65,000 people employed at four nuclear sites - Sellafield, Capenhurst and Springfields, in north-west England, and Chaplecross in south-west Scotland - between 1946 and 2005.
Political nous and solid relationships will be key to winning the work
If anything is guaranteed to divide public opinion, it is nuclear energy. At one extreme there is a band that sees nuclear as a panacea for a carbon-free UK, at the other it is seen as a risky technology with an unresolved waste management issue that could burden future generations.
A nuclear plant built at a cost of £470m to provide atomic fuel to be used in foreign power stations has produced almost nothing since it was opened six years ago, the government has admitted.
The mixed oxide (Mox) facility at Sellafield in Cumbria - which was opposed by green groups as uneconomic - was originally predicted to have an annual throughput of 120 tonnes of fuel.
POWER companies are to be offered a new range of potential sites to construct nuclear power stations in Britain.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a government agency in charge of the £70 billion-plus clean-up of the UK atomic legacy, is expected to open talks shortly.
THE nuclear industry is an economic “basket case” and will continue to be a “financial albatross” for the taxpayer, the Government was warned today.
Labour’s Newport West MP Paul Flynn told the Commons the “immense” cost of cleaning up nuclear waste – which he said was £73 billion – was probably an underestimate. The bill would amount to £3,000 for every family in the country.
A LEADING member of the British atomic energy team involved in building the next generation reactor has urged Teesside engineers to get on board the programme, which could bring millions of pounds to the local economy.
Dan Mistry, fusion and industry manager for the British Atomic Energy Association, who will address a Partners4Engineering one-day event in Billingham on March 12, said: “The last thing we want is to lose this work to mainland Europe.”
The UK will help develop international policy on the use of nuclear power by joining the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Business Secretary John Hutton said.
The GNEP is part of US president George Bush's "advanced energy initiative" and seeks to develop a worldwide consensus on enabling expanded use of economical, carbon-free nuclear energy to meet growing electricity demand.
