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British Energy to shut plants after finding cracks
Dan Lalor, Reuters
British Energy said it would shut two nuclear reactors after finding cracked pipes at two other power stations, sending its shares down a quarter in value on Monday.
Britain’s biggest power producer also said it was examining “a significant leak” in an underground cast iron pipe in the cooling water systems at Hartlepool, northeast England.
Asked about any risks to public safety, a spokesman said boiler tubes at Hinkley in western England and Hunterston in Scotland were cracked but not leaking, and that water leaking from the pipes in Hartlepool was “non-nuclear”.
(16 Oct 2006)
Nuclear needs ‘huge expansion’
Richard Black, BBC
The world needs a 20-fold expansion in nuclear energy in order to prevent dangerous climate change, the head of a leading industry body has said.
John Ritch, director-general of the World Nuclear Association, made his comments at a conference in Sydney.
He said nuclear power was the only way to fuel fast-developing nations without big rises in greenhouse gases, and that nuclear weapons is an unrelated issue.
His comments have been condemned by environmental groups.
(16 Oct 2006)
More threat than panacea
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age
Nuclear power is being touted as our salvation. But its dangers are too great, writes Jeremy Rifkin.
SUDDENLY nuclear power is in vogue. At the G8 summit in St Petersburg, Russia, President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a far-reaching agreement to co-operate in the rapid expansion of nuclear energy worldwide and called on other countries to join them. It was the latest in a series of high-profile initiatives by the White House to promote nuclear power. Bush argues that the future energy security of the United States and the world will depend on increasing reliance on nuclear energy.
… according to a study conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2001, known uranium resources could fail to meet demand, possibly as early as 2026. Of course, new deposits could be discovered,
(4 Oct 2006)
Rifkin also mentions high price tag, and waste storage, and proliferation issues.
Nuclear energy has record of safety and security
Michael Angwin, The Age
In contrast to Jeremy Rifkin’s assertion [see above], nuclear power is not being “resurrected” or “re-introduced” into the world. Nuclear power has never been away. The world has been living safely with nuclear power for 50 years.
Today, 442 nuclear power plants produce 16 per cent of the world’s electricity, cleanly and virtually without carbon dioxide emissions. Australia exports uranium to many of the 31 countries using nuclear power under 19 safeguards treaties negotiated since 1979.
(18 Oct 2006)
Michael Angwin is executive director of the Australian Uranium Association. Contributor SP writes:
The AIC has been incorporated into the Uranium Information Centre (UIC).
They have info on resources and a cute “the atom is your friend” style education section. See: www.uic.com.au/education.htm and www.uic.com.au/peac.htm
However what caught my attention in the above article was this:
“The known resources of any mineral, including uranium, bear little relationship to what is in the Earth’s crust. There is a strong and proportional relationship between known resources and the money and effort spent looking for and defining them.”
The same argument used for oil. If you spend it, it will be there.
If, as industry publication Australian Journal of Mining (AJM Jul 2006 p 23) states, the global consumption of the exisiting ~440 reactors is 68,000tU per year… and the known resource base is 3,600,000tU then I think there is a recognisably familiar problem here.
