Yet another problem at Oldbury nuke

A couple of days ago I learnt that Oldbury nuclear power station was forced to shut down at the beginning of this month due to problems with a turbine linked to the reactor - work by Stop Hinkley led to todays news release here following Cllr Martin Whitesides' interview this afternoon by BBC. INfact this is likely to be the first report of this incident on the web.

Photos: Above view from Haresfield Beacon across Stonehouse to Oldbury in the distance - see zoom photo below for closer look (plant to right).

This incident follows the recent fire at the plant that shut it down, info coming to light about safety concerns, management of the plant by a company that has never run nukes and 2 years of closure to one reactor due to problems with the corroded core and 11 months to the other which is still closed.

We have seen an extraodinary catalogue of problems at Oldbury nuke: this latest closure due to a turbine problem is yet another sign that the power station is worn out and a safety risk.
It seems to many that an industry that hasn't even the cash to dismantle its defunct reactors is trying dangerously hard to still make some money from this 39 year old dinosaur.

Four nukes a week needed!!

All this is of concern as the Government still plans to build new nukes - I hope they rethink and look at the evidence of their own advisors that tell them not to build more. An interesting report by the Oxford Research Group has also just come out adding weight to what in my view is already a more than strong argument - they say that we would need four nuclear power stations to be built every week from now on if nuclear power is to play a serious role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The group attacked the idea of a huge growth in nuclear power as 'beyond the capacity of the industry', and concluded that such a programme would 'stretch the International Atomic Energy Agency to breaking point' just in terms of monitoring and safeguards. The report argues that for nuclear power to be a significant part of our future energy mix, it would have to supply one-third of our electricity by 2075. This would mean an unfeasible building programme of four new power stations every month worldwide for the next 70 years. They conclude: 'Unless it can be demonstrated with certainty that nuclear power can make a major contribution to global co2 mitigation, nuclear power should be taken out of the mix.'

Nuclear is just not the answer to climate change. In the UK nukes provide less than 20% of electricity, but only about 8% of total energy. We cannot wait 10 years plus to build nukes. The government's own Performance and Innovation Unit warned that supporting nuclear could set back better, smaller-scale alternatives which could turn every home and business into a climate-friendly power station. The industry's own figures, even at current rates of use, show reserves of high-grade uranium ore will not last out this century. At best nukes would make only a minimal contribution to climate change.

Nuclear is a Safe Bet Now

I read this claim recently in one of the local papers and just off the top of my head I could think of many examples that would give cause for concern - here's a few:

- at Sellafield 20 tonnes of highly radioactive acid leaked unnoticed for 9 months, - 355 Welsh farms are still subject to Emergency Orders because of Chernobyl and farms in Norway, - BNFL has been found guilty of systematically falsifying safety records, - repeated evidence of cancer clusters around nuclear plants, - some 30 accidents a year involving nuclear trains in Britain - contract workers at Sellafield have been told to cover up forearms as seagull droppings were radioactive!

Dounreay nuclear site staff found plutonium in a manhole a couple of weeks ago. I am so not convinced by the industry's record on safety. Anyhow that is perhaps for another blog entry another time...

What about fusion?

This is another issue sometimes raised - basically ITER is experimental... if everything works (and that's a big if) the experiment might generate a bit of electricity by 2030. Commercial plant by 2050 is extremely optimistic. There are still big breakthru's required in particular they've not really worked out how, once you've got a stable plasma, you can usefully get energy out of it. Problems focus around development of new materials able to withstand the extreme physical conditions near the plasma. For timescale see: http://www.iter.org/Future-beyond.htm

Fusion is a long long way off even at the most optimistic we're talking towards the end of the century before it can contribute significant amounts of power globally.

Anyhow enough on nuclear I have a meeting to go to...