Government plans for nuclear power risk handing control of the UK's climate and energy policies to France, according to four senior environmentalists.
Energy giant EDF and reactor builder Areva, big players in the UK's plans, are largely French government-owned.
Jonathan Porritt, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper say the firms are landing UK citizens with all the financial risks of nuclear new build.
They have told Prime Minister David Cameron he is being badly advised.
The Labour leadership team at Cumbria county council has agreed to make an "expression of interest" that would pinpoint an area around the Lake District as the most likely place for Britain's first high-level nuclear waste dump.
The controversial move was taken on a vote of the council's inner cabinet amid allegations democracy was being stifled and despite a warning from a top scientist that new studies showed a link between atomic sites and incidents of cancer.
THE argument that nuclear should be part of any low- carbon solution to the UK's power requirements has been put forcefully by Westminster and, unsurprisingly, by the nuclear lobby. The counter argument – that it is, at best, a diversion from renewable energy – has been put equally forcefully by the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
DETAILS OF a serious fire hazard at the Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire have been kept secret because they could aid a terrorist attack.
The government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has refused to release information about a "specific fire scenario" at the reactors because to do so could "threaten national security".
3 September 2008 - A proposed low-level radioactive waste store near the former Dounreay nuclear power plant has won approval from the Scottish Government environmental agency.
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL) wants to construct the £110m ($195m) facility - the first of its kind in Scotland - on grazing land as a deposit for material removed from the Caithness plant during decommissioning. An approved site nearby is now considered too susceptible to coastal erosion.
CHARLOTTE - Duke Energy has removed test bundles of mixed-oxide or MOX fuel from its Catawba nuclear plant on Lake Wylie as it investigates unusual physical changes in the assemblies.
Anti-MOX groups say the halt means the testing should start all over again, delaying by years a billion-dollar federal program to use surplus weapons plutonium at Catawba.
Two reactors for CZK 80 billion or for 353 billion?
Temelín - Czech energy giant ČEZ wants to expand the Temelín nuclear power plant with building two new reactors by 2013 but has not published the costs of the project yet.
"The costs of the Temelín expansion may be published only after the contract is signed," explains ČEZ´s web site. Ministry of Environment has already received a study on the impact the two new reactors will have on the environment. The ministry was asked by ČEZ to evaluate this question. "Expanding the Temelín power plant will meet the growing demand for energy in the Czech Republic and will create a sufficient reserve," claims ČEZ. Now, a public discussion on the issue is expected to emerge.
Public polls push for return to atomic supply as fears of another Chernobyl fade
PRAGUE, May 24 (IPS) - The EU seems to be backing nuclear energy as the response to global warming and gas dependency, but civic groups warn that safety and waste processing should be preconditions for the industry's growth.
These issues were debated in Prague May 22-23 at the second European Nuclear Energy Forum, an EU (European Union) initiative to discuss opportunities and risks of nuclear energy.
PRAGUE (AFP) — European power companies called Friday for urgent EU-wide moves to clear the way for new nuclear plants, stressing the security and climate change dangers of a failure to act.
"We have a barrel of oil costing 135 dollars a barrel, it is urgent to act. Industry cannot wait for a gradual approach to lead to convergence (in harmonised safety rules)," Electricite de France board member Bruno Lescoeur warned on the second, final day of the European Nuclear Energy Forum.
