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In focus with Sir Bernard Ingham
Up to our ears in debt but value for money still has no appeal
Well, now we know how much Chancellor George Osborne is committed to value for money in energy policy. Not much. True, in his autumn statement he halved subsidies for solar panels but only because their cost has come down substantially. He also brought in £250m energy cost relief for intensive energy users who are supposed to be a prime target for reducing carbon emissions, thereby complicating energy policy still further while usefully helping to retain heavy industry in the UK.
Exposure of the public from authorised discharges of radioactive material and direct radiation around the 39 nuclear sites in the UK has remained within legal limits and radioactivity in food is “well within safe levels”, according to an independent report.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has confirmed that it has detected signs of nuclear fission reactions in unit number 2 at the shut-down Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.
One of the crippled reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan now has a cover in place that will help lower radioactive emissions, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has said.
EDF Energy has applied for consent from the UK’s Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) to build and operate two new nuclear reactor units at Hinkley Point in Somerset, the utility said in a statement yesterday.
Belgium’s main political parties have reached a conditional agreement to shut down the country’s two remaining nuclear power plants, owned by GDF Suez unit Electrabel, a ministry spokeswoman said yesterday.
The consortium behind plans to build a new nuclear power plant on the island of Anglesey in north Wales has completed the purchase of land earmarked for the units.
Russia is likely to join the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), following an official announcement from the Paris-based organisation that it has applied for membership.
Former International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradei expects growth in nuclear energy – particularly in emerging economies – despite the Fukushima-Daiichi accident in Japan in March 2011.
Demand for Russian nuclear power plants has remained strong despite the Fukushima-Daiichi accident in March 2011 and Russia is now looking to strengthen its international presence further, the head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation has said.
Operators of the world’s commercial nuclear power plants have unanimously approved wide-ranging new commitments to nuclear safety developed following the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident in Japan.
