[en] The best way to ensure that the UK's nuclear power stations present no unacceptable safety risks is to shut them down and build replacements to modern standards, says the industry's public watchdog. Yet rather than shut down stations Nuclear Electric, which runs most of the country's reactors, is pressing the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) for licence to run the stations for many more years. Nuclear Electric has just reported a 3 TWh increase in the output of electricity from its stations in the year to April as a result of improvements in their performance. The stations include first-generation Magnox and advanced gas-cooled reactor stations. Nuclear Electric claims that the costs of electricity from even the oldest Magnoxes, following the writing-off of their capital costs, is low enough to justify their continued operation. The Magnoxes are about 30 years old. Nuclear Electric thinks they are good in engineering terms for up to 40 years. (author)

[en] UK Nirex is about to issue its revised conclusions on its favoured site for a waste repository that will contain the nation's low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The original conclusions, concentrating on the geology at Sellafield, Cumbria, and the likely movement of groundwater passing through the site about 800m underground, were widely rubbished. Nirex says it will have to delay its planning application for the repository until autumn 1993. It is unsure of its ability to present a convincing case for groundwater flows in the future. The National Radiological Protection Board is assessing the risk over the next 10 000 years. Longer than that is meaningless it says. (Author)

[en] Two leading British energy academics are calling on the United Kingdom government to abandon its strict free-market approach to energy as irrelevant and damaging. They want conscious management of the long-term development of the energy sector - in effect an energy policy. Their arguments are summarized in this article. (author)

[en] The United Kingdom Monopolies and Mergers Commission, has just published a hefty report on the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, whose main business is in nuclear research and development and consultancy. Although the report does have quibles about the running of the organisation and its transformation into a more commercial outfit, it gives it a qualified thumbs-up. Comments on the report are presented in this article. (author)

[en] In three weeks a group of government advisers will decide whether to publish a report that could deliver a death blow to the nuclear industry's attempt to find a home for its radioactive waste. The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) will be considering an internal report on the latest geological conclusions about the favoured final resting site for the waste, at Sellafield in Cumbria. The Nirex agency, charged by the government with building a repository says Sellafield still looks suitable but that more needs to be known about the site's hydrogeology - how water flows through rock -before it can submit a planning application. No application is likely before autumn 1993, about a year after the date when Nirex expected to submit it. There is concern that the flow of groundwater through the repository and out to sea might be blocked by a band of salt water and diverted upwards into rock from which drinking water is drawn. The recent Nirex studies that the RWMAC has been considering suggest that rapid contamination might be a problem. (author)

[en] The sarcophagus that was erected around the remnants of Chernobyl Reactor 4 after the accident in 1986, is deteriorating rapidly. There is an increasing risk of the structure collapsing and initiating a disaster of similar magnitude to the 1986 explosion. The construction of a new shelter has been proposed, large enough to enclose the present sarcophagus and to accommodate its dismantling and the cleaning away of all the debris. It is estimated that construction would take 10 years at a cost of about $1.6 billion. The subsequent clean-up operation would take much longer and be much more costly - an estimate is $10 billion for the first 30 years. The Ukrainians have agreed conditionally to close Chernobyl by the year 2000 and the details of a decommissioning plan for Reactors 1-3 are about to be disclosed. However, the Ukraine cannot meet the cost which will have to be borne by the international community in the interests of avoiding another disaster. Negotiations have been entered into with the Group of Seven (G7). However, the condition attached to the closure of Chernobyl by the Ukraine is that a new gas-fired power station should be financed to make up for the short-fall in capacity. This is disputed by G7 and there is concern that the debate will be protracted though the need for action is urgent. (UK)

[en] The chairman of the governing body of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) has recently commented on the hold-up of improvements to east European reactors due to delays in the provision of funding by western nations. At Chernobyl, two of the four reactors are still in operation. The main defects which led to the disaster in 1986 have been corrected in these and all similar RBMKs. But desirable improvements remain to be carried out to eliminate the risk of minor accidents. The west is criticized for committing too much funding to western engineering studies. The emphasis should now be on enabling eastern operators to buy and install new equipment. Technology transfer is also important so that equipment can be made locally and more cheaply. WANO is increasingly concerned by conditions attached to grants from 67 countries which are administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Bank is singled out for criticism over delays in funding safety improvements to older reactors. (UK)

[en] The United Kingdom government has announced a review of its nuclear programme. This will include the building of new nuclear plant and the management of wastes. The review should cover the next twenty years by which the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) will need new contracts to supply reprocessed fuel and new plants will be needed to replace those at the end of their lifetime. The government does not seem interested in an energy policy and has discouraged Nuclear Electric from attempting to be privatised. Nuclear Electric claims there is interest from both the city and from Electricite de France to invest in the future of nuclear power provided the problems of waste and decommissioning liabilities can be overcome. (UK)

[en] The demand for uranium to be used in the world's nuclear power stations is barely increasing, but the supply is rocketing up. Much of it is coming from the countries of the former Soviet Union and some of it is so cheap that republics such as Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan are being accused of dumping it. The strain is being felt in the uranium-producing countries of southern Africa, Australia and North America. Companies involved in various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle claim that unfairly priced imports form the former Soviet Union are damaging them and they have been busily lobbying authorities in the US and Europe for weeks. US uranium-producing firms, backed by the country's Oil, Chemical and Atomic Worker's Union, have asked the Department of Commerce to impose anti-dumping duties on deliveries of uranium and enriched uranium from the former Soviet republics to the US. (Author)

[en] As part of its programme to develop an underground repository for spent nuclear fuels, the Swedish nuclear fuel and waste management company (SKB) has built an experimental facility 460m underground at Aspo. The experimental tunnel has been bored into highly fractured rock which has a high level of water ingress and provides numerous pathways to the surface. It is intended to provide an opportunity for testing a range of radionuclide migration models which are crucial to the safety cases for repositories. United Kingdom Nirex is one of the radioactive waste management organisations from around the world which is interested in the experiment being carried out at Aspo to determine the extent to which tunnel excavation fractures the surrounding rock. This will have an important bearing on the case being made by Nirex for the construction of its own underground laboratory at Sellafield as a precursor to a repository. (UK)