No.97 October/November 1993 £2.00

Japan's plutonium policy Uranium tipped ammunition Energy efficient office Thorp: carry on regardless New Munich research rea i~uftl tneijv)Ou~i '*pioducecs COMMENT bl•monthly . for the.. British AnU~Nucleat .and s.-fe. Energy movements. >by•·· ·• .. the 8cotta.h Cilmpalgn to ·R.,slat the

According to the source: "The picture has entirely changed. The figures are no longer as bad as they looked. They [the nuclear industry] are more efficient and look like breaking even. It would be madness to do away with nuclear power." u!nifls · These ministerial posturings do not sit well with the revelation that the nations nuclear waste is being kept in conditions so dangerous that SCRAM. reserve~ the right to· edit letters to fit the available space. Professor John Horlock, the government's chief nuclear safety adviser, has recommended that democratic processes be streamlined (dumped- as .ADVERTISING in repository) to accelerate the establishment of a permanent nuclear waste dump. Horlock warns that the industry is unwilling to meet the Advertising rates are: costs of repackaging its nuclear waste to prevent dangerous levels of Full page (190 x 26511\m) £140 worker exposure and to reduce the risk of a major accident. Once more, Half page (190 x 130mm) £75 economics are being put before safety. auarter page (90 X130n'll'n) ·· · .. £40 Inserts can be mailed oiJt with the The ministers' rosy nuclear view also does not sit well with advice given journal-details on request; to Scottish Nuclear by its merchant bankers, namely that nothing has BACK ISSUES changed since the last failed attempt at privatisation and that it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of finding a buyer. Back copies of the journal are available for most issues: Copies from the.previous year cost £1.50 (Inc. p&p) However the 'Mother of Parliaments' does not seem as attached to democracy or £7.00 for the set of six. Issues more as it is to the nuclear industry. The government has told its German than a year old are £1.00 (Inc. p&p); counterparts that the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) is in no danger of cancellation. Dr Karl-Heinz Berg, head of the nuclear waste section in the German environment ministry, said he had been told the consultation exercise was "a matter of precaution".

The government had told him that the second public consultation was a way of ensuring that when the plant is granted a licence any legal action would be defeated. The text of Safe Energy is .now available on disk for people who are registered blind; This service Is While rejecting Greenpeace's legal bid to prevent uranium testing occurring at available at a charge of £3 above the the Thorp plant, Lord Justice Otton has established the group's right to bring appropriate subscription ·rate·- this covers the cost of the disks and court actions. Dismissing British Nuclear Fuels' assertion that the group was just administration. Further.informatlon a "meddlesome busybody'' he said: "I regard the applicants as eminently available on request. respectable and responsible and their interest in the issues raised is sufficient for them to be granted locis standi [recognised or identifiable legal status]." Lord Melchett, executive director of Greenpeace, said that if the government gave the go-ahead to Thorp without calling a public inquiry then the organisation would return to the High Court to seek a second judicial review "with our right to do so already established".

It is difficult to see exactly how the government plans to bypass democratic procedures without entirely destroying what remains of its credibility. One wonders exactly how it plans to circumnavigate the simple facts of a crisis in nuclear waste management, spiralling economic inefficiency and ever- tightening radiation protection standards. Perhaps ministers might reply that the way ahead is clear, all we have to do is take a sharp left at the second consultation on the right and keep going straight-on 'till morning. In nuclear Never-Never land ministers never have to grow up and face their responsibilities.

2 Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 I CONTENTS ·~}·:::;::,:::·:~::::!::~:::·t:·~!~·::;iJlr;~~.:~lii ?~l,::i::::;::::::::c·::: SAFE ENERGY ·······climmen~··••··········•···········•• ...... ~}········ ··~r••••···•••···••·· •.··~;: ~~~¥i#-fi!J~ S~IJ~~' I FEATURES I

8 Japan's plutonium policy

Japan's dedication to nuclear power and the plutonium ·...... '' .. :··.· ·.. :.·.;,.:.;Y•:::,:: ..::·:<;:::: .. •::·:: .. ;·.: economy is increasing the threat of proliferation throughout the region. Having just returned from Japan, 1 ··.·•.·.··•.. uv...n·..·•· •. ··... ·.·•.• .. •.·.· .• ·.··.·•.. ·.···.··::..·.·.•.·.··.·..· .... ·.·~t·· .. ··.u··.·.·.·····a··· ..· ... •.·.. ···.··.··.··.r.••••·.···.·.· ·:z...•• ... u'.•••·.·.·.·.·.··.··.·.···.· .•... ·•.·.·· ..·.·.· .•....·· ..·•.··.· .. ·.. ·.··.·.·.·.. ··.·····.·•.•·.········.•.••...•.······.••.···········.•···.• .. •. >·.•••·••·:;;; ?t ...••...•.•.•.. •... •.·•. •.....·.•·.•.··.•,., ..i.3).. .•••.••.. •.······ ..•. •..•.·.•··•···.• Stewart Kemp of the National Committee of the Nuclear ,·.:·:.::i.:; ::;::;r:~.\~?;~; Free Local Authorities reports on the danger of a nuclear arms race on the Korean Peninsula. ·iJtttteBliltitcR.aaljit 24r··

1 Q Uranium tipped ammunition The use of depleted uranium in armour piercing shells has been linked with ill-health suffered by some Gulf Wat veterans. Pete Roche, a Greenpeace disarmament campaigner, looks at the risks for troops and for those living near test firing ranges.

12 Energy efficient office The rapid increase in energy consumed by office equipment is causing serious concern to those involved in energy efficiency. David Olivier outlines the energy wastage involved and considers the possible savings that could be made.

14 Thorp: carry on regardless Already 'minded' to approve Thorp, the government's extended review of the plant is fundamentally flawed, argues Or Patrick Green of Friends of the Earth. It has failed to take account of radioactive waste management policy, European Community Directives and internationally recognised principles of radiological protection.

16 New Munich research reactor? Plans for a new research reactor at the Technical University of Munich are being opposed because of fears over safety, waste disposal and proliferation. Hans-Martin Adorf, a physicist at the university, believes that there is no compelling reason for the reactor to be built.

c: ~... ! (!J Ql ~ ------E LLe .______;;

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 3 adequately safeguarded and will make it another reason not to reprocess." Thorp troubles that much easier for a terrorist group to Reprocessing of German spent fuel steal the few pounds of plutonium "continues backed only by the force of s the government considers the necessary to build a nuclear weapon." political inertia... The federal government A 40,000 or so objections received Sweden and other Scandinavian in Bono, he said, .. should pay less during the second consultation into the coun.tries are also putting pressure on the attention to what Britain, France and controversial Thennal Oxide Repro­ government not to commission Thorp. Japan think about what we are doing, and cessing Plant at , which came Sweden, which has had some 140 tons of more attention to the requirements of our to an end on 4 October, pressure is spent fuel stored at Sellafield since the late own nuclear programme." mounting in the international 1970s, is now considering repatriating the conununity for an end to reprocessing. fuel. In a submission to the latest Home front Eighteen Japanese MPs, all members of consultation the country's environment Things are also not going so weU for the ruling five--party coalition fonning the minister, Olaf Johansson, says that they BNFL in the UK. Both Nuclear Electric Japanese government, have written to have now moved away from supporting and Scottish Nuclear Ud are trying to their opposite numbers in the UK calling reprocessing. In a separate letter, force the company to reduce its charges for immediate talks on the future ofThorp. Johansson, in his capacity as the chair of for reprocessing by 20% . The move Revealing previously secret details of the the Nordic council of ministers for the follows a decision by the President of the contract between British Nuclear Fuels environment, says that Thorp is not Board of Trade, Michael Heseltine, to plc (BNFL), the plant's operators, and the acceptable if there is reason to believe it withdraw a promise to underwrite the Japanese utilities - its biggest customers will "cause additional radioactive risks of unforeseen costs after the three - they argue that there is a substantial discharges into the marine environment." companies decided to move away from risk that the plant might make a large loss. Johansson says that before reaching a cost plus to fixed price contracts. The They say that the contracts specify that decision on Thorp's commissioning the main risk of price increases is thought to the UK is obliged not to reprocess spent British government must comply with an come from any possible future tightening fuel which would result in surplus agreement reached in June among of international radiation protection plutonium: "If the rate of reprocessing European nations to impose stiffer standards. Japanese spent fuel must be slowed down controls on radioactive discharges into the Also at home the National Trust has in order to avoid a surplus, this would sea. His letter is echoed in separate thrown the weight of its two million have a significant detrimental economic submissions from the Danish and members behind calls for a full public effect on Thorp... Icelandic governments. inquiry into the plant. As a major land As justification for their concern the owner in the area around Sellafleld, the MPs cite the repeated delays experienced German doubts Trust is angry that it was not consulted in Japan of starting its fast breeder Reprocessing is no longer legally about plans to licence increased programme and the lack of any plans to justifiable for German nuclear utilities discharges from the Sel1afleld site. bum plutonium in conventional reactors, according to the Bundesrechnungshof In a letter to the environment secretary, as a mixed oxide fuel. (BRH), the federal government's John Oummer, the Trust's director, Given the Mutmost attention" being accounting office. Title nine of the Federal Angus Stirling said that in the short time focused on the issue of nuclear Atomic Energy Act mandates the available it had sought independent proliferation arou.nd the world they reprocessing and recycling of nuclear professional advice on the issue. The conclude that it would be "highly materials when those operations are picture that emerged, he said, was unclear, undesirable" for Japan and the UK to "justified on technical and economic even government research came to extract an unwanted surplus. grounds." Aooording to BRH, reprocessing contradictory conclusions. Normally is twice as expensive as direct disposal. neutral on matters of government policy, Mountin& concern MOver the course of 10 years, the calling for a public inquiry is the most In the US concem is also mounting over calculated cost-benefit equation has political act in the Trust's long history. the proliferation risks of reprocessing. The shifted in favour of direct disposal," argue It is clear, and has been for some time, US House ofRepresentatives (or Congress) BRH: "It should also be taken into that the government cannot maintain any has passed an amendment to the 1994 account that reprocessing does not reduce pretence of being democratic if it chooses Defense Authorization Act calling for a the volume of waste but increases it." to ignore the overwhelming concern worldwide suspension of reprocessing. According to the industry journal about Thorp. At the very least it must The "sense of the Congress" Nuckar FUI!l, a senior German a full public inquiry into the amendment argues that the start-up or utility executive has welcomed the BRH plant. An inquiry where no self-serving continued operation of any plutonium conclusions, saying "they should be BNFL funded appraisals can be allowed separation plant presents "serious accepted by government and industry as to go unchallenged or unseen. Q environmental hazards and increases the risk of proliferation of weapons-usable plutonium" and should be suspended "until the related environmental and proliferation concerns have been addressed and resolved." Further, a Bill was introduced by Representatives Stark, Kennedy and Pelosi and 23 others which is explicitly opposed to Thorp being started up. The Bill calls for President Clinton to instigate high level talks with the British government. Stark said: "Thorp is a direct threat to international security, bringing an additional 59 tons of plutonium into circulation over the next ten years. This much bomb-usable material can't be

S.fe Energy 97, OctoberjNovember 1993 by the regulatory bodies. most sensible use for it at the time. It is waste mess '"This report came out in 1991 and has well underground and into the rock strata. been sitting in the House of Commons The authorities at the time evidently sbaft containing unknown library since then. agreed in so far as they licensed it." Aquantities of radioactive waste and .. It is important to remember that both a highly volatile potassium-sodium hydrogen and oxygen have to be present • Since abandoning the waste shaft., mixture at Dounreay could explode, to cause another explosion. The oxygen is Dounreay has been dumping its low-level according to a Scottish Office report. being constantly purged by argon gas. We waste in shallow burial pits on site - a The 200m shaft, originally sunk to are monitoring for hydrogen all the time. move which in recent months has proved allow the plant's waste discharge pipeline '"The public can be assured that this no less controversial. lO be laid, had been used as a dump for facility is being actively managed by us in A planning application from Dounreay radioactive waste and dangerous a safe and prudent manner, and that there to extend existing waste pits was rejected chemicals from 1959 to 1977. Shortly is no cause for concern." by Highland Regional Council (HRC) after closing the shaft in May 1977 an Since the 1977 explosion, the plant's following a visit to the site. Regional explosion, thought to have been caused by operator, AEA Technology, has installed counciUors were horrified by what they a combination of the sodium-potassium monit.ors to detect any dangerous build up found - thousands of barrels of nuclear reacting with water, blew off its concrete of hydrogen gas and it continually pumps waste scattered on the surface. Many were plug. 12,000 cubic meters of contaminated rotten and 800 drums stacked on top of Now, concludeR M Consultants, while water annually from the shaft into its full pits beside the sea since 1985 had only "further explosions are unlikely, the discharge pipeline. recently been covered by tarpaulin. possibility cannot be ruled out." Brought When asked whether dumping low and Others were covered by a net to keep in to identify long-term solutions t.o the intermediate-level waste into the shaft scavenging birds out of the waste. management of the shaft, all they had been prudent, Dounreay press officer, Now the Dounreay management have managed to do was rule out every Nicholas Parsons, replied; "It seemed the appealed to the Secretary of State for suggested possibility. Two options, a to over turn the HRC decision. concrete plug or grout curtain around the While stressing that they have requested shaft, have both been rejected as a sist (suspension) of the appeal, the site's long-term solutions. The integrity of the manager, Roger James, said: "We have curtain could not be guaranteed for .. more decided to ask for the sist in order to give than tens of hundreds of years", they said. us time to pursue a dialogue with HRC in This was Dounreay's preferred option, search of a mutually acceptable solution however, R M Consultants said it was to the problem of dealing with low-level unlikely to be effective in restricting the waste at Dounreay."

movement of activity to the foreshore. N Admitting that they had "shot Indeed the report draws attention to [themselves) in the foot" during the Strontium 90 contamination in algae on Councillors· visit to the site, a spokesman the foreshore nearby, saying that the said: "We were too close to the problem. source of the contamination "is uncertain, It was under our noses and we let it but migration from the shaft could be one happen." The managemen.t have now explanation." embarked on a two-year £15 million The obvious option of excavating the remedial programme to bring the pits up shaft and removing the waste to an above to standard. ground repository "merits further Councillors have reacted angrily to consideration" although such an the threat of the AEA appealing to the operation is .. without precedent, costly Secretary of State. Summing up and potentially dangerous." feelings inside HRC, Councillor Jim Dounreay's head of safety, Ken Fry said: " It will cause confrontation Butler, has rejected the possibility of a and suspicion. The debate would have further explosion; .. The shaft is safe as Councillors on a site visit to been a Jot better without this being it stands and has been licensed as such Dounreay's shallow burial pita introduce at this time." 0

operator handling and the potential for "unsatisfactory for long term storage, they Nirex nonsense accidental releases. are deteriorating and there is a natural "We are far from confident that the reluctance on behalf of the operator to EMOCRATIC procedures should company [Nirex] will be able to achieve repackage the waste until the final Dbe overridden in the race against its current target of an operational facility packaging for disposal arrangements are time to establish a pennanent waste before the year 201 0, or even within a few agreed." dump for Britain's growing stockpile of years of that date." ACSNI has also stressed that the nuclear waste - currently stored in The risks to the public are such, "arrangements for the treatment and "unsatisfactory" conditions at nuclear believes the outgoing chair of ACSNI, eventual disposal of waste are issues sites around the country - according to that the government should take urgent highly relevant to the government's the government's chief nuclear safety steps to ensure a "clear commitment by all forthcoming review of the future adviser. parts of government to the principle that prospects of nuclear power." In a confidential letter to government a final disposal facility should be In response to Horlock's warning the ministers, Professor John Horlock, provided at the earliest opportunity." Department of Trade and Industry issued a chairman of the Advisory Committee on Further, he is calling for government statement saying that the government was the Safety of Nuclear Installations action "to clear the way for the "considering the implications for its nuclear (ACSNI), has warned that delays in the achievement of this aim- in particular, waste storage policy" of the delays in the industry's plans to transfer the waste to a the avoidance of unnecessary planning Nirex store. .. In the meantime", it said, "the permanent repository are .. producing a hurdles." Health and Safety Executive can require situation in which the safety at nuclear Many of the nuclear sites are storing changes to waste storage, including sites could be compromised in terms of their waste in conditions which are repaclcaging, whenever necessary." 0

S•f• Energy 97, Octot»rjNovembttr 1993 BNFL has already attempted to use the stated that if population mixing was Cancer cases judgement as a green light for the Thermal responsible, it would be unlikely to cause Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) by an effect over 20 years after mixing took HE two families who blamed their claiming that it proves that they did not place. T children's cancers on paternal cause the leukaemia cluster in Seascale. The excess of leukaemia at Seascale is radiation exposure at Sellafield have However, the judgment finds only that continuing and is statistically significant lost a four-year legal battle for damages there is insufficient evidence to conclude even if those cases with fathers at with British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL). that the irradiation of fathers working at Sellafield are excluded. Consequently, However, the families may now appeal Sellafield was responsible for their the only convincing explanation for the following the publication of a new children's cancers in these two cases. It Seascale factor is environmental Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not explain the continuing contamination from Sellafield. The HSE study, writes Pad Green. abnormally high rate of childhood study, however, did not consider this At the centre of the families • claims was leukaemia in Seascale. In fact, neither possibility. the 1990 report by the late Professor the judge, nor BNFL in its evidence, The new study also reinforces the Martin Gardner. Gardner had examined offered any alternative explanation for powerful advice to government from its the excess of leukaemia in the village of the excess. Committee on the Medical Aspects of Seascale, two miles from Sellafield, and Valuable support for Gardner came Radiation in the Environment (Comare) found a strong link between the incidence only two weeks after the cases ended, that BNFL's plans to increase discharges of leukaemia and the radiation dose when the HSE published the results a by operating Thorp could increase the risk received by the father in the six months follow-up study of cancer among children to the population of Seascale. prior to conception. of Sellafield fathers. Comare chairman, Professor Bryn The study sent a shock wave throughout The new study supports Gardner's Bridges, advised that: "There are a the nuclear industry as it was the first to hypothesis that radiation exposure of number of possible causes which may demonstrate that there may be a genetic fathers (paternal preconception have led to this excess. There is risk from radiation exposure. Radiation irradiation - PPI) can cause leukaemia in insufficient evidence to point to any one safety standards currently take little their children. It also implies the existence particular explanation and a combination account of the risk of genetic damage and of a further factor that acts with PPI to of factors may be involved. As exposure if Gardner is right, current standards are cause the leukaemias in Seascale. to radiation is one of these factors, the completely inadequate. For reasons best known to itself, the possibility cannot be excluded that Howev«, the judge accepted BNFL's HSE claimed that this Seascale factor was unidentified pathways or mechanisms argument that Gardner was unsupported explained by the population mixing involving environmental radiation are by other studies and had a number of theory advocated by Dr Leo Kinlen. This implicated. In the light of this, proposals shortcomings which reduced the claim is not based upon statistical to increase the level of discharge of any confi~nce that could be placed in its evidence, only a recognition that specific radionuclide as proposed in the results. He gave the benefit of scientific population mixing had occurred when draft authorisations should be viewed doubt to BNFL and not the families. Sellafield was built. The HSE report also with concern... a

power stations must be ordered over the practical way into the private sector - if Scottish privatisation? next five years: "The scale of the Public achievable at all. Sector Borrowing Requirement suggests A trade sale, according to City COTTISH Nuclear Ltd's (SNL) that providing funding of £8bn over a analysts, would present the same Sdream of operating in the private ten-year period may not be acceptable to problems as a flotation and those· sector has been sorely crushed. by the government and it is likely that such encountered when the government tried advice from Cbarterhouse, its merchant funding would need to be raised privately. to privatise the industry in 1990. These bank advisets, according to a report in That implies privatisation of the include concern about long-term the Scotsman. industry." decommissioning and waste Company Chair has Charterhouse has rejected such a future. management costs and the risks of an already expressed his desire for SNL to be It has told SNL that a flotation on the stock accident. Further flies in the privatised in 1995, following the market, at least in the short term, was out privatisation ointment include: the low government's review of the nuclear of the question. It has, however, left the price of alternative fuels; the high industry. It is his belief that the time has door open for some other form of capital costs of nuclear stations; the come for the nuclear industry to start privatisation. The most likely of which, limited nature of SNL long-term supply planning its future, and in order to according to Charterhouse, would be a contracts; and Scotland's massive maintain its generating base four new trade sale. This, it says, would be the most excess generating capacity. a

Sizewell C? new nuclear power stations after that Sizewell C will generate electricity Sizewell B will not be given before the at under 3p/kWb. conclusion of the government's If the government review gives the planning application has been forthcoming review of the future nuclear industry the go-ahead, then NE A lodged with Suffolk County prospects for nuclear power... will be hoping that the three-year public Council by Nuclear Electric (NE) for a The new 2,600MW PWR station, inquiry into Sizewell B will not have to third nuclear at Sizewell, Sizewell C, will be required to maintain be repeated as the economics of the a move which has angered both the the company's generating capacity as station will have already been consldered government and environmentalists. all six operating reactOIS are in the review. Further, it will argue that In response to the application, Energy due to close around the turn of the the Hinkley C public inquiry has already Minister Tim Eggar issued a statement century. NE claims that the plant will examined the safety aspects. Its hope is saying: "The Government did not cost a mere £3.5bn as development that a local planning inquiry - to decide encourage the company to apply now ... costs have already been met in the on site access and the colour of the toilets capital approval for NE to build any budget for Sizewell B. It also believes - is all that will be needed. a

Safe Energy 97, OctoberfNov.ml»r 1993 fast breeder technology to deliver power closed has still not been explained. They Rise of Superphenix? to the national grid and to reduce the say no insight has been gained into .. the long-term nuclear wastes, thus giving unexplained reactivity anomalies that HE ill-fated French fast breeder approval for the reactor's use as a waste occurred in 1989 and 1990 in Phenix (a Treactor, Superpbenix, could be incinerator, ie to bum plutonium and short leap to 110% of the normal power restarted in the middle of next year if the minor actinides. followed by a sudden decrease on the edge nuclear installations inspectorate, of the core) and on the preventative Direction de la Surete des Installations Opposition measures to be taken on Superpbenix." Nucleaires (DSIN) can establish new Any moves to reopen the stricken The DSIN, says the group, along with the security systems for the prevention of reactor will be fiercely contested within Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation sodium fires. France. Opponents of the plant believe it of Technological and Scientific Options, Having been closed for over two years, to be inherently dangerous and stated in December 1991 that restarting after failing to solve the problem of leaks technologically redundant. As the rest of the reactor would be unthinkable unless in its sodium system, French law requires Europe moves away from fast breeders, the phenomena were explained. that a public inquiry be held before a and Japan is struggling with its own About 77% of France's electricity licence to restart can be gained. Operated programme, French environmentalists needs are met by nuclear power, making by a Franco-German-Italian consortium, reject claims that the plant can be used to it the most nuclear dependent country in NERSA, and commissioned in 1986, the burn excess plutonium, arguing that Europe. Superphenix was conceived as a 1,240MW station has not operated since ending reprocessing would be a more symbol of the French government's faith 1990. During the time it was running, it sensible move. in nuclear power and after having spent operated on only 308 days, producing They also point out that "restarting over .£3.2bn they are unwilling to abandon 4.5TWh - much less than its 30TWh Superphenix would ignore a number of it. They will also be reluctant to abandon rating - while consuming lTWh. important unresolved questions the reactor because of fears that they could The Public Inquiry Commission ruled concerning safety." A new organisation, face enormous compensation claims from that: "It does not appear that the station Europeans Against Superphenix, * armed foreign investors. a will be particularly dangerous or that, in with 25,000 signatures opposing the itself, it constitutes a significant risk of reopening of the plant, have issued a * Europeans Against Superphenix, c/o plutonium leakage." leaflet outlining their objections, chief Comite Malville, 4 rue Bodin, 69001 According to the Commission, the amongst which is the fact that the failure Lyon-France. Tel: 78 28 29 22. Fax: 7l reactor's operation could serve to perfect which led directly to the plant being 07 7004.

debt to neighbouring Russia for The Chemobyl station is a wounded Chernobyl stays open imported gas and oil played the vital animal." role in swinging the votes of deputies, The country's environment minister, ACED with chronic energy who had decided two years ago to shut Yuri Kostenko, also voted against Fshortages, the onset of winter and the station permanently at the end of allowing the station to stay open but an economic crisis, the Ukrainian 1993. laments that the Ukraine has little parliament has reversed its decision to While public opinion is still hostile to choice with winter coming. shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power nuclear energy, the powerful nuclear The aftermath of the explosion at station at the end of the year. lobby argued that the decision will Chemobyl's reactor number four still The parliament, voting 221 to 38, has secure an increased capacity of consumes about 11% of the Ukraine's also lifted a ban on the construction or 18,000MW of electricity in less than a national budget. The concrete completion of new nuclear plants. year, a powerful incitement given the sarcophagus which was built around the President Leonid Kravchuck told state of the Ukraine's balance of reactor by soldiers in the immediate wake deputies that: "A moratorium means that payments. of the accident is now in a dangerous sate the days of nuclear power are numbered and without a future. We cannot at the Parliamentary deputy Volodymyr of decay and a second shell is expected to moment reject the development of nuclear Yavorisky has denounced the decision be built in the hope of containing the power in Ukraine." as .. senseless and unprofessional ... reactor's radioactivity until a permanent Severe energy shortages and a huge Ukraine will lose from such a decision. solution can be found. a

laws had been broken and said that will not do so, but warns that without Russian dumping international organisations and financial help it will be unable to build governments had been informed about a planned reprocessing plant in its Far D USSIA has admitted dumping the dumping. A spokesman for the East. If the plant cannot be completed Anuclear waste into the Sea of International Atomic Energy Agency within 18 months, says the Russian Japan, after a Greenpeace vessel confirmed that it had known about government, then more waste will have watched a tanker disposing of Russia's plans. Although there is an to be thrown overboard. radioactive liquid, and has agreed to end international moratorium on Russia has run out of capacity on land the practice. sea-dumping of nuclear waste, it is and the amount it is storing on floating The dumping was witnessed by five voluntary. Some 32,000 cubic feet of tankers is growing as submarines and Greenpeace activists in an inflatable waste from scrapped nuclear powered other atomic powered naval vessels are boat: "The crew of the inflatable, using submarines was dumped. decommissioned. radiation detection equipment, Although the news of the dumping Japan has welcomed the Russian measured airborne radiation at around caused a storm of protest from the US, announcement and said that it is ready ten times background levels around the Japan and South Korea, Russia had to discuss ways of helping with the bill Russian dump ship... intended to dump a further 28,000 cubic for safely disposing of the country's A ministry official denied that any feet of waste. It has now decided that it huge radioactive scrap heaps. a

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 STEWART KEMP of the National Steering Committee of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities has just returned from Japan. He reports on Japan's growing nuclear programme and warns that their dedication to the atom, and a plutonium economy in particular, threatens to spark a nuclear arms race on the Korean Peninsula. Japan's plutonium policy

N 7 October ClUna tested an regional security and a reason for reprocessing and return of separated 80-90 kilotonne nuclear device. threatening withdrawal from the plutonium from Japan cannot be ruled O North Korea is feared to be NNPT. A recent United States General out. Rokkasho operators, Japan Nuclear building one using plutonium from its Accounting Office (USGAO) report Fuels Ltd, could build more SMW research reactor and separated at Nuclear Proliferation: Japan's Shipment of reprocessing capacity. Indeed, the its 'radio chemical laboratory', both at Plutonium Raises Concerns About USGAO report cited above warns that Yongbyon. South Korea has threatened Reprocessing (p12, June 1993) says a additional capacity is planned (p3). a "tough stance" (Finandal Times, 9 former Department of Defense Deputy September) if the North continues to for non-proliferation policy stated in Future problems 11 obStruct International Atomic Energy evidence that ••• by persisting in its Agency (IAEA) inspection of plutonium use policy, Japan set a bad A small uranium ore processing facility Yongbyon. Regional tension had precedent for North and South Korea for uranium-308 (not currently operating) already increased with a test firing by that will complicate US discussions on and uranium hexafluoride production North Korea of a l,OOOkm range Scud reprocessing with them." In the same and enrichment demonstration facilities 11 type missile delivecy system in May. evidence criticism is directed at ••• both are located at Ningyo Toge; and small Any evidence of a nuclear weapon France's Cogema and the UK's BNFL reprocessing (5tHM/y) and fuel programme will. sink the December (with) offices in Seoul, South Korea, fabrication (60tHM in 1991) operate at 1991 North/South "Joint declaration for whose main objective is to sell Tokai-mura. A new LWR/ ATR denuclearisation of the Korean reprocessing services and technology." plutonium/uranium mixed oxide (MOX) Peninsula" and further fuel the fierce fuel fabrication facility (35tHM/y) is also debate in the South about the reliability under construction at Tokai. of US 'nuclear guarantees'. No-Nukes forum These developments create suspicion and If North and South Korea join China as Speakers and delegates to the 'No Nukes 'worst case' assumptions about future nuclear weapon states, what would be Asian Forum' in Tokyo on '25/26 June intentions. This was true here in the days the impact on Japan, a country already warned of a new age of Japanese before the Soviet Union imploded and trying to match its economic power imperialism as it dislodges Western Clinton sees it now but can only find with political influence? Outgoing LOP technical advisers in Asia. Japanese enough political latitude to launch a Foreign Minister Kabun Muto on 28 nuclear experts advise in Indonesia with fatally flawed non-proliferation initiative July at the South East Asian Nations plans to achieve 60% of energy needs before the UN on 27 September limited to conference, Singapore, warned that from nuclear power by 2000 (currently 'weapons' plutonium and a Japan would develop a nuclear arsenal 0% ), and in Taiwan as it pursues a 'strengthening' of the International if North Korea did (International Herald massive expansion from 6 reactors now Atomic Energy Agency still tasked to Tribune, 30 July). Following the (generating 38% electricity) to 26 reactors promote the 'peaceful' use of the atom: equivocal position taken by Japan on 8 operational by 2000. "More than a score of nations likely July at the Tokyo G7 meeting towards possess such (nuclear) weapons, and indefinite Nuclear Non-Proliferation Thailand is another target for Japan. their number threatens to grow. These Treaty (NNPT) extension after 1995 Presently it has no nuclear generation weapons destabilise entire regions. (agreeing only if the NNPT had capacity but plans 6 power reactors They could turn a local conflict into a universal adherence and nuclear between 2006 and 2014. None of these global and environmental catastrophe weapon states began arms reduction), plans would be realised without . .. Growing global stockpiles of one official stated "It would be a risk to Japanese nuclear expertise. plutonium and highly enriched acknowledge indefinite extension while uranium are raising the danger of North Korea is developing nuclear Japan is building its own 'Sellafield' at nuclear terrorism for all nations. We weapons. We have to be cautious" Rokkasho-mura, Aomori, a'green field' will press for an international (Washington Post, 9 July). site on the underdeveloped northern tip agreement that would ban production of Honshu Island. A uranium of these materials for weapons forever." Cold war enrichment facility and low-level waste shallow burial facility became Current Japanese nuclear policy is The Cold war is dead in Europe but it operational last year. Construction has committed to expansion not only in fuel remains alive in North East Asia and begun on a reprocessing plant, similar facilities. According to Nuclear any development casting longer nuclear in scale to Thorp, with a capacity of 800 Engineering International's 1993 World shadows in the region could tip the tonnes heavy metal per year (tHM/y). Nuclear Industry Handbook, Japan scales on Japan's nuclear programme This plant, due to come on line at the currently has 43 operable power from energy towards weapons. Yet turn of the century, is intended for reactors (19 PWRs, 21 BWRs, 1 Magnox, Japan is not an innocent bystander. It is domestic spent fuel but if Japan is 1 FBR and 1 LWR), has ten under part of the dynamic edging the region selling its reactor technology in other construction (4 PWRs, 5 BWRs and 1 towards nuclear proliferation. countries then spent fuel services could FBR) and plans 13 more (2 PWRs, 8 form part of a customer package. BWRs and 3 ATRs). From about '25% of North Korea points to Japan's electric power generation from nuclear plutonium policy as a challenge to This is speculation, but future now, Japan aims for 40% by 2000.

8 Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 Japan still pursues a plutonium fuelled However, on 19 August the Minister for start-up, originally planned for Autumn thermal and fast breeder reactor Science and Technology, Satsuki Eda 1992 has now been put back to at least programme. The Japan Atomic Energy told Nucleonics Week (pS-9, 26 August Spring 1994 with 'commercial' Research Institute claims to be 1993) whilst denying the intention, that operation deferred to 1996. CNIC developing a "94% pure Pu-239 'in effect' his country had the capability estimates the current plutonium once-through" fuel for thermal reactors to develop nuclear weapons. I

Japan's Atomic Energy The new coalition government Commission itself was reported led by Morihiro Hosokawa in the financial daily newspaper declared on 23 August that it Nikkei Shimbun on 6 January this would support the indefinite year to be "re-evaluating the extension of the NNPT pace of the FBR programme" because of between now and 2010 - SOt for MOX (Nucleonics Week p8, 26 August 1993). the trend away from FBRs and the fuels in LWRs;

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 9 The possible link between depleted uranium in armour piercing shells and an illness known as 1 Desert Storm Syndrome' occurring in some Gulf War veterans has lead to fears that the health of people living near depleted uranium shell test firing ranges could be affected. PETE ROCHE, a Greenpeace disarmament campaigner, reports. Uranium tipped ammunition

URING the uranium Authority said this was "obviously not available for ingestion by humans and enrichment process required [a] realistic figure" because the uranium animals". <"l D to make nuclear weapons or shells would all have to be pulverised fuel, the concentration of the 'fissile' into dust and each of the half a million The health effect which most concerns U-235 isotope has to be increased. people would have to inhale an equal the OOD is nephrotoxicity (toxicity to What is left, depleted uranium, is quantity. But the volume of DU does the kidney). about half as radioactive as natural "indicate a significant problem". <2> uranium, but very dense and 1 Desert Storm Syndrome' extremely hard. Because it is a waste The memo admitted that: "The DU will product, it is probably supplied to be spread around the battlefield and Some troops and support staff involved weapons manufacturers free of target vehicles in varying sizes and in the Gulf War are complaining of charge, or at very low cost, for use in quantities from dust particles to full size mysterious illnesses. Symptoms include armour piercing shells. penetrators and shot. It would be memory loss, fatigue, skin complaints, unwise for people to stay close to large headaches, eye and ear infections, A 1979 Ministry of Defence (MoD) quantities of DU for long periods and bleeding gums, hair and weight loss, memorandum states that tungsten this would obviously be of concern to facial paralysis, damaged lungs, and a alloys were then in use but: "The the local population if they collect this general collapse of the immune system. effectiveness of armour-piercing tank heavy metal and keep it. There will be gun ammunition depends largely on specific areas in which many rounds the density of the metal from which it will have been fired where localised The US Army now admits that some US is made. Depleted uranium has proved contamination of vehicles and the soil soldiers were unknowingly exposed to the most effective anti-armour may exceed permissible limits and these depleted uranium in the Gulf War. The penetrator in US development could be hazardous to both clean-up OOD and the Department of Veteran programmes [and] is also considerably teams and the local population."(2l Affairs have begun an identification cheaper than tungsten."<1l and health monitoring programme for The AEA' s calculations and comments, soldiers who were exposed~3 l External radiation levels from depleted whilst worrying enough, were based on uranium (DU) are low. Standing near a the assumption that only 40 tonnes of In June '93 in Washington, the House DU contaminated vehicle shouldn't be depleted uranium were left behind in Veteran Affairs Committee began an any more harmful than background the Gulf. If the figure is actually 300 investigation into what is being called radiation, as far as external radiation is tonnes the number of 'potential deaths' 'Desert Storm Syndrome'. Seven concerned. However DU is about as will rise to 3.75 million! thousand Gulf veterans claim they are toxic as lead and could be harmful to suffering from serious, mysterious the kidneys if eaten or inhaled. When Unacceptable diseases. Several theories as to what has DU burns in a fire, it converts into a caused these illnesses have been form which can be readily absorbed by The biggest hazard will have been when proposed: smoke pollution from the oil the body. If ingested or inhaled, the depleted uranium shells hit and bum fires, vaccines used on the soldiers, and toxic effects of the DU dust could out Iraqi armoured vehicles. If airborne infections spread by desert sandflies, damage the kidneys, and the particles are inhaled by service but the depleted uranium theory is (short-range) alpha radiation emitted personnel passing or looking into these gaining most currency. would increase the risk of contracting vehicles this can lead to 'unacceptable cancer. body burdens'. Furthermore if DU gets In the UK the government's attitude is into the food chain or water this will quite different - they refuse to accept Reasons for concern create 'potential health problems'. <2> that any members of the British Armed Forces who served in the Gulf are DU first came to the public's attention The US Defense Department (DOD) suffering from any unexplained in November 1991 when an Atomic admitted in a memorandum in May '91 symptoms. However, the MoD has Energy Authority (AEA) memo was that the use of depleted uranium agreed to seek further information and leaked to the Independent on Sunday. "results in remnants that are subject to monitor the situation closely, and has According to the memo, at least 40 atmospheric oxidation and/ or aqueous admitted that not all service personnel tonnes of DU were left behind on the corrosion. Either process can lead to in the Gulf were warned about the Gulf War battlefield by the Allied environmental contamination that has dangers of depleted uranium shells. armiesPl However, documents released the potential to cause adverse impacts in the US under the Freedom of on human health, primarily through the Another theory is that beryllium Information Act indicate that the figure water pathway ... contained in the depleted uranium could be as high as 300 tonnes.Pl shells could be causing the illnesses. "Surface oxidation of fragments of Despite the speculative nature of our The AEA calculated that sufficient depleted uranium penetrators is a knowledge concerning beryllium it is depleted uranium was left behind in significant process because oxidized known to be toxic to mammalian cells Kuwait and Southern Iraq to cause forms of uranium are more soluble in and can interfere with normal immune "500,000 potential deaths". The water, and thus potentially more functions and, after inhalation, can give

10 Safe Energy 97, OctoberjNoveml»r 1993 rise to an incapacitating lung disease ammunition have been detected at Ordnance factories at Wolverhampton known as berylliosis, and possibly Eskmeals and Kirkcudbright." and Chorley in Lancashire. cancer. However, when the radiation The dangers of DU shell manufacture By January 1993 reports reached the monitoring reports were finally made are illustrated by the fact that the UK of mysterious and inexplicable public in July, "subject to deletion of National Lead Company plant in postwar illnesses appearing in Iraqi some classified details", it became clear Albany, New York State, which used to children, including cancers - that safety limits had been exceeded. manufacture DU penetrators, has been leukaemia being the most common. Serious contamination was discovered forced to close down, because it was However, given the breakdown in the outside the "controlled area" at contaminating New York State. DU collection of health statistics in Iraq Eskmeals "in some cases above the level particles were found up to 26 miles since the War, it will be impossible to at which it would be prudent to away from the plant. prove that there has even been an consider remedial action". Grass and increase in cancer incidence. soil at Kirkcudbright was found to have Conclusions uranium levels "well above acceptable The US has already spent a considerable limits" after a "malfunction" at a firing There may never be any hard evidence amount of money recovering point. that civilians or servicemen have contaminated US vehicles from the suffered from health problems as a battlefield, and returning them to South A "misfiring" on 13 November '89 at result of the use of depleted uranium. Carolina as nuclear waste. But nothing Kirkcudbright led to a DU shell hitting However, the government needs to be has been done in Iraq, and little in a bank of stone and exploding into a lot more open about the problem and Kuwait, to recover the remaining DU fragments. The MoD normally works act quickly to dispel any suggestion that rounds. Workers involved in the to a tolerable limit of 72mg of uranium they have attempted to silence the Kuwaiti clean-up operation appear to per kilo of soil, and an upper limit of victims and launch an inquiry into have been unprepared to deal with 300mg/kg. But at the site of the 'Desert Storm Syndrome'. hundreds of contaminated Iraqi accident the level reached vehicles. (3) 1,692mg/kg. Assistance by the Allies needs to be offered to both Iraq and Kuwait to Weapons testing A total of 91 cubic metres of low-level clear up the depleted uranium left radioactive waste, contaminated with behind after the Gulf War, as quickly A programme of test firings of armour depleted uranium, is expected to be as possible. That dean-up operation piercing shells tipped with depleted stored at Eskmeals by 1994, rising to should be carried out by staff fully uranium was first authorised and 468 cubic metres by 2030. However, trained in the handling of announced to the House of Commons according to the government, there is radioactive materials. Assistance in March 1979. The test firing no radioactive waste at Kirkcudbright should also be offered to carry out programme began at Eskmeals in or West Freugh nor any likely to arise health studies to ascertain whether Cumbria in 1980 and Kirkcudbright in in the future. This is because at the health of Iraqis and Kuwaitis has in 1981. A few Eskmeals the shells are fired at targets in any way been affected by the use small calibre rounds were also tested at on land which subsequently become of these weapons. West Freugh near Stranraer in 1988 and nuclear waste, whereas at 1990. DU shells have also been Kirkcudbright shells are fired into the Despite all the protests, particularly in test-fired at White Sands, New Mexico, Solway Firth. South-West Scotland, the MoD plans to Aberdeen in Maryland and at Gramat press ahead with the introduction of in France. The government announced a "full new depleted uranium tank shells for environmental impact assessment" at the army's new Challenger 2 tanks, and If there is a danger to health and the Eskmeals and Kirkcudbright on 1 July has begun tests at Kirkcudbright. environment in Iraq from DU, and '93. Approximately 4,000 shells have Whether or not civilians and service personnel are returning from the been fired into the Solway Firth from servicemen have been affected by Gulf with unexplained illnesses, then the testing range at Kirkcudbright, depleted uranium, it is clear that it what is the potential danger from DU and as part of the environmental represents both a toxic and radioactive being test fired in Britain? impact assessment, the MoD asked the hazard to health and the environment. Navy to retrieve a few shells to "allow Its use in armour piercing shells, and If DU is fired at a target, it will burn laboratory assessment of their the testing of those shells should and could be potentially dangerous. reaction to exposure to seawater". therefore cease immediately. a Nuclear engineering consultant John However, the exercise, which was Large says: "If you fire a depleted supposed to take place in August, had uranium shell, you want to see what to be postponed because of bad References it does to a target and, if the wind and weather. weather conditions are wrong, you (1) "Anti-Armour Ammunition With Depleted Uranium Penetrators" could spread that depleted uranium Other sites across the civil population. So of Memorandum by the Ministry of Defence. March '79. course there are problems but not to The MoD establishment at Radway the same scale as the potential Green near Crewe is most likely to be (2) "Radioactive waste left in Gulf by problems that we've identified for the the site where these weapons are allies" by Nick Cohen. Independent on Gulf War." produced. Fort Halstead, near Sunday, 10 November '91. Sevenoaks in Kent, is a research site (3) "The desert glows -with propaganda" As late as June '93, Defence Minister, where uranium tipped shells are Jeremy Hanley, claimed that radiation probably developed. There is a small by William Arkin. Bulletin of Atomic monitoring carried out at the three test quantity of depleted uranium waste Scientists, May '93. sites showed that "No detectable stored at Fort Halstead. Export (4) "Depleted Uranium Munitions" by Dr contamination has been found at West licences obtained in the United States Joe Osterman. US Department of Freugh and only very low levels of show that depleted uranium has been Defense office of Environmental and radioactivity from depleted uranium exported from the US to Royal Health Science. May '91.

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 11 In industrialised countries office equipment accounts for more energy consumption than the steel industry, it is the fastest growing of all energy uses. Here DAVID OLIVIER*assess the vast potential savings from improving efficiency in the office. Energy efficient office

LECIRONIC equipment in office before adding up the power consumption The estimated payback time for this buildings is the fastest growing of the remote terminals, some main­ measure, which saves about 35% of the Earea of energy waste. Design frames consume tens of kilowatts of copier's total power consumption, was improvements could do much to alter electricity each, and have to be artificially one or two years. this situation and to alleviate mounting cooled. A typical small mini-computer, pressure on the environment. dating from the early 1980s, and designed EPRI believes that by redesigning new for 100 users, consumes 6 kW. If 10% of copiers more than 70% of the electricity With the proliferation of microcomputers, the terminals are in use at any one time, may be saved. One option is a and office electronics in general, comes a that is 600W per user. resurgence of the cold fusion process, steady rise in the quantity of electricity which does not use a heated drum to consumed. Common perceptions may Most modem desktop PCs consume melt the toner and fix it to the paper. suggest that these devices are 100-200W per user. State-of-the-art Instead, it uses very high-pressure insignificant consumers of electricity, but portables use about lOW. The rollers to fix the toner. This consumes the opposite is true. fundamental reason for the energy 90% less electricity than the use of an efficiency of portable computers is that, electrically-heated drum. US research demonstrates t}tat nearly all within the weight constraints of a 3 kg personal computers (PCs) in offices machine, no battery can supply more A small Canon photocopier using this were left on all day, and many were left than a few tens of watts for a few hours. method was sold in the 1980s, but was on all night and all weekend. On As a result, manufacturers were forced withdrawn due to the shiny surface average, a small PC was found to use to develop energy efficient computers. which resulted from passing paper as much electricity as a refrigerator. through high-pressure rollers. With the Electricity consumption on this scale With this exception, energy efficiency has renewed interest in energy saving, other has global ramifications. clearly never been much of a design issue models may be relaunched, and paper in Pes, except for the nuisance value of may be developed with a better finish. The electricity consumption of office the heat given off by the electronic machines may have more effect on the circuitry. Worryingly, Intel's new Computer printers environment than any other aspect of 'Pentium' microprocessor, which is office design and engineering. planned to supplant the 80486, consumes There is no systematic connection However, it receives little publicity. a great deal of electricity. Until a lower between the amount of electricity used power version is developed, its use in per printed page, and the quality of the Worldwide, as more electrical equipment portables is almost ruled out. output. Inkjet printers, whose output is is purchased, the electricity consumption becoming indistinguishable from ordin­ of office buildings is rising. To run the There is little difference in the tasks that ary laser printers, use 20 times less elec­ electronic equipment in a small office, can be undertaken by these machines, tricity per page than lasers. The old daisy­ fossil-fuelled power stations pump out and with minor exceptions, wheel printers, and dot matrix printers of one kilogram per hour of carbon dioxide. manufacturers of desktop PCs could most types, use intermediate amounts. Added up over Britain, or any other use the basic portable technology. The country which uses fossil fuel generated US Electric Power Research Institute Laser printers themselves could be electricity, and millions of extra tonnes of (EPRI) estimates that such desktop improved by simple power manage­ CO:z per year are emitted; not to mention computers would consume 90% less ment measures. Hewlett Packard (HP) the SO:z, NO, NO:z, other toxic gases, dust electricity than existing products. already has a policy that its employees and heavy metals. should turn off idle equipment. As laser Photocopiers printers can withstand frequent on-off Many of Britain's universities, hospitals cycling, HP recommends that small and other large institutions have had Tests carried out in Switzerland, in an laser printers be switched off whenever energy managers for many years. office where 500 copies per day were they are idle for over 15 minutes. It Despite resultant large reductions in the made on a single machine, showed that plans to distribute a leaflet to this effect amount of energy used for space and only 22% of the electricity used was with new printers, and will incorporate water heating, electricity use in these attributable to making copies. 53% was more power management features in organisations has risen relentlessly. used in standby mode, mainly to keep new models. the fuser hot, and 25% was consumed This phenomenon is causing rising when the machine was switched off, but Recent laser printers do tend to concern. It does not indicate failure by not unplugged. consume less electricity in standby energy managers, as this is far outside mode, and do switch more quickly to their remit. It reflects a lack of attention As with computers, advances in standby. However, the rate of progress to the possibility of energy-efficient office technology can reduce electricity use, but is frustratingly slow. equipment by other groups of people; so can simple power management, which namely purchasing managers and equip­ ensure that a given machine uses less Typical fax machines use about lOW in ment manufacturers, who until recently electricity when it is not actually copying. standby mode, and 20W when printing. offered no significant innovations. Even these modest figures could be 3M in the USA has retrofitted reduced by further 'tweaking' of the Not long ago, the world ran on timeswitches to many of its copiers, circuitry: the EPRI estimates a potential mainframe and mini-computers. Even switching them off after office hours. saving of 40% and 60% respectively.

12 Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 Plain-paper laser faxes are another south-east England, 100% of new offices All eight agreed to launch at least one matter. Using the same technology as now have space cooling systems, most energy-efficient desktop PC. laser printers they consume as much of them electrically-powered. electricity. Most fax machines are left on Some US electricity companies have a all night and at weekends, so unless their Let us assume that 600 people work in statutory duty to invest in energy power-management controls are a 6,000 m2 building, and that there are efficiency where this is cheaper than the improved dramatically, an increase in 500 PCs - the per capita figure cost to the utility and its customers of their use would be very bad news for the predicted for North America in the near building new power stations. Pacific environment. future. Then the original heat gain on a Gas and Electric, a large utility on the summer day is almost 75kW and the US west coast, announced that, because Ink-jet faxes are available, producing new one, after choosing energy-efficient of its concern about office equipment similar results to laser faxes on plain PCs is only 2.5kW. electricity consumption, from mid-1993 paper, using about 5% of the electricity. it would only buy Energy Star Air conditioning systems are very computers and peripherals. Other large Almost everywhere in the office there is expensive. In the USA, they cost PC users, culminating in the US federal scope for large electricity savings. A few roughly £170/m2 of floor space (British government, followed suit. years ago, the US Rocky Mountain ones can cost double this). A large Institute discovered that their 10-year-old building, containing 6,000m2 of office Swedish authorities are also trying to internal telephone exchange consumed space, may thus need expenditure of introduce energy-efficient office 95W, day and night When this device £1m on its cooling system equipment. The Board for Industrial was replaced by a modern one, the build­ Development supported the production ing's electricity consumption fell by 90 W. The extra price of an energy-efficient of retrofit controls for PC monitors, and 80486 PC is currently about £500. The new monitors with built-in automatic The consequences residual differences are assumed to controls. It also helped with the cancel out; desktop PCs have a better development of laser printers that have In Britain, assuming that around eight screen, because of the residual a very low standby power consumption million PCs are in use, the same per capita limitations on colour LCDs, but - below 25W. These products are now ratio as the USA, the generating capacity portables provide the convenience of an entering the market. of at least one huge 1.2 GW power station uninterruptible power supply, at no has undoubtedly been needed to supply extra cost, and LCD screens present no Conclusions the extra electricity consumption of the concern about radiation from monitors. inefficient PCs that were sold. This Fundamentally, the lack of energy generating plant has probably cost In this same building, the extra cost of efficiency in office machines came about £2,000m. It may have cost a further purchasing energy-efficient PCs adds through apathy, ignorance, and £250m per year to fuel it, and a further up to £250,000. This is a quarter of the perhaps even sheer disbelief that the £1,000m to reinforce the electrical grid cost of the air conditioning. So if the humble PC could have global to meet the increased demand. Of purchase of energy-efficient PCs consequences. Not to mention the rapid course, we, the electricity consumers, obviated the need to install a cooling changes in the basic technology, from paid these billions of pounds. system, it could actually save a one month to the next, and many building's owner £0.75m. manufacturers' and dealers' ignorance Meanwhile, building services engineers of the wider implications of what they have been commenting on the high cost Energy-efficient computers don't have are selling. Few consumers even realise of the air conditioning systems they were to cost £500 extra. If energy-efficient that there is an issue here. obliged to fit to new buildings. This need technology was used in all PCs, thereby for cooling was partly due to the spreading the development costs over To date, except for Sweden and North electricity-consuming electronic larger sales, the added costs would America, there is little sign of serious equipment within them. Some old certainly be less than £500. Some US efforts in this field. As the USA is one buildings could not cope with the manufacturers believe workstations or of the first countries to try to reverse this increasing heat gains, and were retrofitted fileservers designed to use 30W may be soaring electricity use, we might with expensive air conditioning. cheaper to build than the present consider it fortunate that its firms have models, owing to the cost savings from such a worldwide influence over the By 1990, it appeared that it might cost eliminating the cooling fan, and using a design of office equipment. The less to fit more energy-efficient office smaller power supply. environmental impact justifies equipment in some office buildings innovations by all countries which have than to pay for a large cooling system. US research in the period 1988-89 a manufacturing base, such as Japan, The electricity saving, and the beneficial showed that unless office equipment Germany, Italy and much of the Far East. effect on the environment, was not just quickly became more energy-efficient, free but had a negative cost: it was not hundreds of large power stations, The energy efficiency of future office just a free lunch, but a lunch that one costing billions of dollars, would have equipment will depend on the actions of was paid to eat. to be built. There are now some serious hundreds of manufacturers, dozens of moves being made in North America. governments and millions of consumers. Energy-efficient computers make We may debate which factor is the more striking example. Within an office In 1992, eight US companies, important, but the outcome depends building, replacing several hundred accounting for 35% of the US desktop critically on all of them. It is a tricky area heat sources of 100-200W by heat market, established, with the for governments to regulate in detail, but sources of S-lOW has a dramatic effect Environmental Protection Agency, an merely to follow the US government, and on the summer comfort standard which 'Energy Star' program. To qualify for try to phase out the most egregious cases the building provides for its occupants. this label, computers must use either of energy waste, could benefit us all. a less than 30W, or less than 20% of that In some climates, office buildings are used by the normal version of the same • David Olivier, is Principal of Energy fitted with cooling systems as a matter machine in standby mode, and they Advisory Associates, 8 Meadow Drive, of course. In central and northern must have controls to automatically Credenhill, Herefordshire, HR4 7EF; Tel Europe, they are not. In practice, in switch off the screen when not in use. (0432) 760787, Fax (0432) 760787-0088.

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 13 The government's decision-making process considering whether Thorp should open has been fundamentally flawed and has failed to take account of its radioactive waste management policy, internationally recognised principles of radiological protection and legally binding European Community Directives, reports Dr PATRICK GREEN of Friends of the Earth. Thorp: cany on regardless

N April1992, British Nuclear Fuels The requirement to justify a practice National Radiological Protection Board plc (BNFL) applied to HM which causes radiation exposure, such as (NRPB). They provide further I Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP) Thorp, means that the need for the information on the processes to be for new radioactive discharge practice must be established in terms of a considered when deciding if a practice authorisations under the Radioactive net positive benefit which outweighs the is justified. The Commission explicitly Substances Act 1960 for its Sellafield increased risks from radiation exposure. recommends that radiation detriment site which would enable the Thermal This decision-making process requires be included: "when practices involving Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) to that detriments, benefits and alternatives exposure, or potential exposure, to commence operation. are fully considered and quantified. radiation are being considered, the radiation detriment should be explicitly In response, HMIP along with the Current government policy and Euratom included in the process of choice." Ministry' of Agriculture, Fisheries and directives are based upon the 1977 Food published draft authorisations and recommendations of the International The detriment to be considered is not just launched a public consultation exercise. Commission for Radiological Protection confined to the health detriment from This lasted for about ten weeks (ending (ICRP) which introduced a basic system exposure, it includes "the costs of the January 1993) and attracted over 80,000 of protection, based around the concept practice." From this, it can be seen that responses of which two thirds objected to of justification, to ensure that radiation the process of justification involves the the granting of the authorisations. doses were as low as reasonably achiev­ identification of the health and other Regardless, HMIP concluded that its draft able and within stated dose limits. detriment caused by radiation exposure authorisation would; "effectively protect and the identification of the benefits human health, the safety of the food This system aims to "ensure that no arising from the practice causing the chain, and the environment generally." source of exposure is unjustified in radiation exposure. The exercise should relation to its benefits or those of any also establish whether the same benefits This did not, however, lead to the available alternative, that any necessary can be produced by an alternate means granting of the authorisations. Instead, exposures are kept as low as reasonably that does not cause the same degree of the Department of Environment (DoE) achievable and that the dose equivalent detriment. The ICRP states: "Decisions launched a further period of public con­ received do not exceed certain specified concerning the adoption and continua­ sultation. This was to address a number limits." tion of any human activity involves a of "wider policy issues" which, according choice between possible options and are to the DoE, were outside HMIP's remit. Justification often carried out in two stages. The first HMIP considered only the question of stage is the examination of each "environmental acceptability of radio­ These recommendations have been separately in order to identify those active discharges from the Sellafield site." incorporated into the government's options which can be expected to do more radioactive waste management policy, good than harm. This provides a 'short These "wider policy issues" included which clearly requires that: "all list' from which the preferred option can the question of Thorp's justification. practices giving rise to radioactive be selected. The second stage, the final Such questions were judged, by waste must be justified, ie the need for selection, will often involve the government, irrelevant to granting the practice must be established in replacement of one existing practice by radioactive discharge authorisation terms of its overall benefit." another. The net benefit of the change will under the Radioactive Substances Act then be the relevant feature rather than 1960. However, because of "wider The justification principle was also the net benefit of each option separately." [government] responsibilities" a further given full legal force by the EC in 1980. period of consultation was ordered. Article 6(a) of the Euratom Directive The need to justify a practice is not a Which it prefaced with the warning that 80/836 as amended by Article 2 of one-off exercise. The ICRP has explicitly it was "minded" to allow Thorp to carry Euratom Directive 84/467 requires that: stated that it is a continuous process. on - regardless. "the various types of activity resulting Practices that were considered to be in an exposure to ionising radiation justified in the past can be re-evaluated This decision-making process is shall have been justified in advance by and can be judged to be unjustified. This fundamentally flawed. "Wider policy the advantages which they produce." clarification is particularly relevant to the issues" are directly relevant to issue of reprocessing and Thorp in consideration of the acceptability of a Because the UK has not directly particular: "The process of justification is radioactive discharge. Indeed, the implemented this Article the Euratom required, not only when a new practice is government is explicitly required to Directive itself has "direct effect". It is being introduced, but also when existing establish the justification for a practice, binding on the government and BNFL, practices are being reviewed in the' light such as Thorp, before it can decide a state-owned company. The principle of new information about their efficacy or whether the risk from radioactive is that member states cannot take consequences. If such a review indicates discharges is acceptable. It is required advantage of their own legal failures that a practice could no longer be claimed to do this by its own radioactive waste when implementing EC law. to produce sufficient benefit to offset the management policy, by internationally total detriment, withdrawal of the accepted radiological protection The ICRP's latest recommendations practice should be considered. This principles and by legally binding were published in 1990 and have been option should be treated in the same way European Community (Eq directives. endorsed for use in the UK by the as the justification of a new practice".

14 Sate Energy 91, OctoberjNovember 1993 However, the ICRP has added the caveat that decision-making process, a future ment has publicly stated that Thorp that this action may not actually remove decision can still decide that the practice would not be built today. Professor John all of the sources of exposure: "it must be causing the waste is unjustified. Knill, Chairman of the Radioactive remembered that the disadvantages of Waste Management Advisory withdrawing a well established practice BNFL' s justification, and by implication Committee, has been quoted saying may be more obvious than the the government's, for Thorp heavily there would be "no justification" for advantages of introducing a comparable depends on alleged economic benefits. Thorp if BNFL applied for permission new one and withdrawal of the practice Yet, at the Windscale Inquiry into Thorp to construct it today. may not result in the withdrawal of all in 1977, the Inspector explicitly accepted the associated sources of exposure." that the economic case for Thorp was far Consequently, the government's from proven and that there would be argument that Thorp has already been "Preventing the further extension of an future development which could either justified by the Windscale Inquiry does existing practice that is no longer justified support or undermine BNFL's case; "I not stand up. It is entirely correct for the may sometimes be a reasonable should stress, however, that it is yet too justification for Thorp to be challenged compromise, but will introduce an early to reach any conclusion on the 15 years after BNFL was granted anomaly between the past and the economic position. H the project proceeds, planning permission. present that will not always been seen as there may be changes which will affect logical," argues the ICRP. The continuous the position. Developments in the design, Quite clearly, the government's nature of the justification criteria has now alterations in the requirements for the decision-making process to date has not been incorporated into a draft Euratom control of emissions or a failure to obtain complied with these principles. The Directive which is due to be adopted by the amount of foreign business presently issues of justification and risk have been the European Community Council of expected might change the situation." separated and the intrinsic link between Ministers later this year: "all practices the two ignored. resulting in exposure to ionising radiation Such further developments, he implied, shall be justified in advance by, and kept would require that the issue of Thus, HMIP' s conclusion that its draft under review as to the benefits which justification for Thorp be revisited. This authorisation would "effectively protect they produce." clearly implies acceptance of the human health, the safety of the food chain argument that changed circumstances and the environment generally" is wrong The government's view can lead to the justification for a project and solely based upon its assessment that being challenged. Consequently, even the draft authorisations would ensure Contrary to international under­ though Thorp may have been that members of the public were not standing of the justification principle, considered justified when planning exposed above currently applicable the government has argued that it is a permission was granted, circumstances radiation dose limits. one-off process. Its stated support for may have changed and the project may Thorp rests on the "principle" that the no longer be considered justified today. This conclusion is based upon a flawed justification should not be challenged This fact has already been accepted by interpretation of government policy once a plant has been built: "The government at the Inquiry into Scottish and the recommendations of the ICRP. government's policy is that the Nuclear's plans to construct a dry store Furthermore, the government's principle of whether a plant - such as for its spent fuel at its Tomess AGR. The separate considerations of safety and Thorp - should be built and used Inquiry Reporter stated in his draft report: justification have both been inadequate. should be decided in or at the time of "Mr Hetherington [Scottish Office Its consultation on safety did not allow the planning process ... and not after the Environment Department] accepted that the detriment resulting from Sellafield developer has built the plant." circumstances had changed since the discharges, and from Thorp in government had made its response to the particular, to be assessed. HMIP's As detailed above, this is a flawed select committee in 1986. The relative conclusion explicitly ignores the interpretation of the principle. It is economic advantages of obtaining opinion of the government's main certainly true that the planning process uranium from reprocessing rather than advisers in this area. The Committee on determines whether a plant such as direct mining had changed, and dry the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Thorp can be constructed. However, the storage of spent fuel had emerged as a Environment said that no attempt has government already accepts, through practicable possibility ... The reprocessing been made to calculate the total health its policy, that justification is a route did not appear to offer any detriment of the Sellafield site continuous exercise. In particular, immediate and significant advantages, discharges, or from Thorp in particular. government policy requires that from a waste management point of view." justification be reconsidered before the Equally, the offered justifications for plant is allowed to produce radioactive Additionally, the government's foremost Thorp are inadequate and the waste and start operation. Even after adviser on radioactive waste manage- government has not considered whether its alleged benefits can be achieved differently while producing less detriment. Instead, the government has relied entirely on a self-serving analysis by BNFL of the economic performance of Thorp. Scant details of this assessment have been made public.

Even if justification and risk had been consider as part of a single exercise, the government would not be able to substantiate a claim to have justified reprocessing in general, or Thorp in particular. a

A fully referenced version of this article is available from Scram, £1 inc. p&p.

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 15 The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is planning to erect a new nuclear research reactor in Garching near Munich. There is strong opposition to this environmentally risky project, reports TUM physicist HANS-MARTIN ADORE* NewMunich research reactor?

INCE the mid-'80s, and largely weapons grade material. The novel OM at end of 1990 to a 530 million OM unnoticed by the general public, silicite material, in which uranium earlier this year (still not believed to be Sthe Technical University of atoms are embedded in a crystal the final price tag), has been a major Munich has been planning a new structure at a much higher density than argument used by the project managers nuclear research reactor. According to that of metallic uranium, was originally to fend off a competitor design known the project managers, the planned proposed to allow research reactors as spallation neutron source, and "Forschungsreaktor Miinchen 11" traditionally using HEU, to be estimated to cost more than 1,000 (FRM-11) will replace the so-called converted to medium or even low million OM. "Atom-Ei'' (atomic egg) nuclear reactor enriched uranium (LEU). at the research park in Garching. Fuel supply The reactor core will contain about Skg The Atom-Ei is north of Munich on the of HEU and about five fuel-cycles are Another point being argued is fuel river lsar, FRM-11 is to be built about planned per year leaving about 40kg of supply. The US has reduced its HEU lOOm to the east - into a totally highly contaminated and still highly exports from 750kg per year to zero, changed environment. The research enriched (80 %) weapons-grade leading to concerns that the new reactor facilities of the Technical University and uranium waste, reprocessable only in a will be left without fuel. During a public the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of military plant. hearing in the Bavarian Landtag (state Munich, which have settled during the parliament) in April this year, the past 20 years in the immediate vicinity The project has been planned so far by FRM-II project leader Professor BOning of the old reactor, have largely Interatom and Kraftwerks-Union argued that he could earmark 400kg outgrown the small research reactor (KWU), two subsidiaries of the Siemens HEU in Germany, sufficient for 10 years and its 50-odd employees. combine, with a strong foothold in of FRM-11 operations. Bavaria in general and Munich in Within a radius of a few hundred metres particular. No call for tenders is This statement came much to the around the proposed site, about 6,000 foreseen, leaving Siemens as the surprise of even those long engaged in researchers and associated staff pursue company to eventually build the the German anti-nuclear movement. mainly non-nuclear work. They will be FRM-11. Given that Germany is not a nuclear joined by another4,000orso research staff military power, given that its research if the Technical University succeeds in Proliferation reactors no longer use HEU (apart from moving its Electrical Engineering faculty potentially burning their stockpile), the from Munich to Garching. The proposal to bum weapons-grade question is: why is it hoarding 400kg HEU (90 %) in a research reactor has HEU? The development of Garching itself has raised soine serious concerns. Driven by not stood still. Since the years when non-proliferation considerations, the Waste disposal Wemer Heisenberg started his "lnstitut policy to forego using HEU for fiir Plasmaphysik" (IPP) GmbH, the non-military purposes was initiated in Reprocessing of burnt HEU-fuel is once tiny village has grown into a town 1978 by the US Carter administration possible only in military reprocessing of about 13,000 inhabitants. A 2km and was subsequently successfully plants. The current FRM reactor used to radius arow11l the proposed reactor site supported by the International Atomic feed the Hanford military plant in the encircles its latest residential Energy Agency (IAEA). In recent years US, but the US no longer take in any development, including a kindergarten. all European research reactors have, used fuel. The project managers argue wherever possible, have switched to that both France and the UK would A 10 km radius includes the northern LEU. welcome the spent fuel. parts of Munich, far more than 100.000 people live or work in this area, with The FRM-11 project managers try to sell In order to get approval by German the well-known central Marienplatz the idea of using HEU with the authorities, the managers of any nuclear being only 16 km away from the present argument that burning HEU-fuel facility must prove that they can safely and proposed reactor sites. produces less plutonium. While this is dispose their radioactive waste. true by the laws of physics, the Apparently driven by concerns of not FRM-II is intended for the production argument can (and should indeed) be being able to always get rid of their of neutrons for fundamental physics inverted: one cannot use HEU because burnt fuel cores, the project managers research, medical purposes and of the proliferation concerns; and one plan large intermediate stores for 50 commercial production processes. cannot use LEU either, because of the radiating cores - sufficient for 10 years While the old reactor has a rating of inevitable plutonium production. of operation. 4MW (thermal), FRM-11 will produce 20MW of heat with a fifty-fold increase The proposed usage of HEU instead of While the managers argue that they are in neutron flux output. LEU is especially disconcerting, since going to build a "mini-reactor" in from the laws of physics there is no comparison with a standard nuclear This much improved ratio of usable compelling reason to use it, other than power plant - they like to compare neutron flux to waste energy will be to minimise heat production, their 8kg of HEU in the active core with achieved by combining an construction size - and cost. The the 10 tons or so of LEU in a power plant ultra-compact core design fuelled by projected cost for the FRM-II, which has - potentially hoarding up to 400kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), a already risen from a mere 350 million highly radioactive waste makes the

16 Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 FRM-II comparable in implied risks to national product) make the project one of the two procedural steps a a large nuclear plant. appear ill-placed not only nuclear reactor project has to pass to be geographically but in time. licensed. (The "Raumordnungsver­ There are a variety of other criticisms fahren" generally assesses the and objections that have been raised 8. There is no insurance against working suitability of the location of a major against the project, some only of local disability caused by ionising radiation facility.) The project description was relevance, but some of relevance on a in case of a major nuclear accident. publicly displayed in Munich, Garching larger scale. Here is a selection: Contracts offered by private insurance and some villages within 10km of the site. companies explicitly exclude such risks. 1. There are no railway tracks leading No alternative state-provided insurance The supporting documents supplied by to the proposed reactor site, leaving has been offered thus far. Similarly, the FRM-II managers were very thin lorries as the only means of there is virtually no insurance cover for (about 60 pages), superficial and transportation for fresh and used private property. contained many errors, indicating once nuclear fuel. again that the project staff is overstretched 9. A not-so-serious nuclear accident by simultaneously operating the existing 2. There is a planned steady release of leaving most people's health unaffected reactor and preparing the construction of gaseous radioactivity including tritium would nevertheless render private a new one. But the assessment, completed and noble gases into the surrounding property in the whole area virtually in October, found in favour of the air. There are also some concerns about unsaleable. (This has happened development. synergetic effects, eg with cadmium elsewhere in Germany.) The price of found on the surrounding fields - a potentially affected property has been Simultaneously with the "Raum­ remnant of earlier thoughtless sewage estimated to easily exceed 1,000 million ordnungsverfahren" the "atom­ sludge disposal. In addition to gaseous OM, dwarfing the 50 million OM covered rechtliche Genehmigungsverfahren" releases there will be regular liquid by the present insurance contract. (nuclear approval procedure) was releases of radioactivity into the Isar. launched. An important part in the 10. Emergency measures, including procedure is the risk assessment report 3. According to present plans the evacuating major portions of the (euphemistically called "safety report"). FRM-II will be insufficiently protected population from the surrounding This report, although completed months against aeroplane crashes. (1) Fast-flying villages, are bound to fail, since on ago, was returned by the ministry in military aircraft and large commercial normal days traffic is already charge of the project because of serious aeroplanes are likely to penetrate the congested. deficiencies, and only made available to lm concrete containment. The site lies the general public at the end of October. in the flight control zone (FCZ) of the 11. Last, but not least, the project recently opened airport Munich II. And managers have failed to forward a Since the launch of the two legal there is a rule established by the German scientifically compelling reason why procedures the Bavarian CSU "Reaktorsicherheitskommission" (RSK the reactor, only a medium-level government has changed: the new nuclear safety regulatory neutron-flux source by Prime Minister Or Stoiber, a commission) that a nuclear reactor world-standards, should be built at all. law-and-order conservative, has put the should be protected against construction of the FRM-II at the top of Phantom-class military aircraft as well Current state of affairs his agenda. He has since initiated a as commercial aeroplanes and should partial privatisation of the largely not lie within an airport's FCZ. The whole issue of the planned nuclear state-owned Bayernwerke (a major research reactor was brought to the Bavarian electricity company) in order 4. The FRM-11 will suffer a core melt­ attention of the Garching public by an to raise some money for the project. down should the cooling pumps fail. initiative launched at the end of 1990 by The project managers simply account the local Green Party. A recent "Biirgerversammlung" (citizen's for the risk, which they never gathering) in Garching, forced to take numerically specified, in the so-called Almost forgotten are the days when place by the BGAG collecting a sufficient "Restrisiko" (remaining small risk). reactor critics had to overcome massive number of signatures, was generally opposition by both the Garching and rated as a success for the local anti-nuclear 5. In addition, their is another risk the Munich leaders of the Bund movement. All eight motions passed, specific to this new research reactor, Naturschutz (BN), who in a strange some with overwhelming majorities, namely a so-called "cold (neutron) coalition tried to protect the FRM-II one without opposition - in the source", a container holding liquid project. Both leaders are gone now and presence of project staff, some of whom hydrogen less than 20cm from the core. the present ones are very supportive of were entitled to vote. If the cooling of that container fails, the a critical assessment. The grassroots hydrogen will rapidly expand and very position has been supported by the vote An anti-Siemens campaign is forming likely damage the mechanics of the of a specially formed BN-commission. right now with the aim of persuading reactor core. There is the added risk of the enough potential buyers of Siemens reactor containment being blown up. During the BN internal struggle for an goods to boycott the company until it ecologically sound position on the withdraws from nuclear commerce. 6. There is a less dangerous alternative project, a citizen's initiative "Biirger About 2% of Siemens revenues come to producing neutrons with a fission gegen Atomreaktor Garching" (BGAG) from nuclear industry deals, mainly by reactor: the so called "spallation formed which has since become a focal maintaining the 20-odd German nuclear source". Two European projects are in point for the opposition. power plants. a preparation, Bavaria being invited to participate in at least one of them. In January 1993 the Bavarian •Hans-Martin Adorf is a physicist and government ordered the minister for works on the premises of the research 7. The enormous cost is straining the cultural affairs to get the project park at Garching. A member of the weak German financial resources. The officially under way. Early in February German Green party and the Bavarian Eastern build-up, shortage of flats and the Technical University launched the Bund Naturschutz, he has been active for an immense state debt (about 21,000 "Antrag auf Raumordnung" over two years as an opponent of the OM per capita, or 42% of the gross (application for planning assessment), FRM-11 project.

Safe Energy 97, OctoberfNovember 1993 17 "core" pits may also close. Meanwhile, it has emerged in sell-out It is widely expected that, with nothing Parliament that the cost of coal from most having been done to improve the market for of the pits threatened with closure is RITISH COAL (BC), having been coal, there will only be arotmd 12 to IS BC competitive with imported coal, Bravaged by government energy pits left open come privatisation in mid-'94. improving its cost advantage for policy, is now to be privatised. Heseltine's white paper "The prospects over gas and Announcement of the BC sell-off in for coal" was never anything more than a nuclear. A debate in the Commons on the five regional divisions - Scotland, political manoeuvre to quell a backbench future of coal, 27 October, highlighted the Wales, North East, and two Central revolt and dampen public opposition to failure of the government to create a regions comprising Yorkshire and the October 1992 announcement by BC market for coal or create a level playing Nottinghamshire - was made in that 31 pits would close with the loss of field. Five Conservative MPs voted with September by energy minister Tim 30,000 jobs. The dash to gas has continued the opposition but the government won Eggar. apace with government approval for new the vote by 317 votes to 283 thanks to the It is expected that the sell-off will raise gas-fired power stations at Didcot support of Ulster Unionists. £500m at most, while the taxpayer will be (l,SOOMW), Seabank (1,200MW) and left to meet around £3bn of liabilities. Keadby (710MW). AndHMinspectorateof • An industry-led group has been set up With 19 of the 31 pits "reprieved" in Pollution has given PowerGen permission by the government to find commercial March by the President of the Board of to bum the dirty fossil fuel Orimulsion at its applications for the British Coal Trade Michael Heseltine ( "Little help for Ince and Richborough plants. developed Topping Cycle clean coal coal", Safe Energy 94) already shut, Neil The attempt to lease closed BC pits to technology. The group will have at its Clarke, Be's chairman, has admitted that private operatotS has been a flop. Just disposal most of the £12m allocated for there is little hope for the remaining 12 seven of the 19 pits put out to tender have coal research over the next three years in threatened pits, and that some of the 19 received mining bids. Heseltine's coal white paper. a

The UK government's £1.25m financing Rio ripples of the event did little to disguise its own Energy saving failure to follow up commitments made in ANCHESTER played host in Rio. Of four reports due to be published by new scheme to support residential M September to a low-key follow-up the end of the year, outlining plans for A combined heat and power (CHP) conference to last year's Rio Earth preserving forests and for protecting of rare systems has been launched by the animals and plants should not be too Summit. "Partnership for Change" was a Energy Saving Trust (EST). The arduous. However, stabilisation of C~ surprise proposal made by John Major to government quango has made £lm emissions and sustainable development are environmental groups at Rio. available to local authorities and The 330 delegates from 86 countries causing the Department of the Environment housing associations for around 20 pilot attending the get-together of non­ (DoE) considerable difficulty. projects. governmental organisations (NGOs) included The DoE and the Department of Administration of the scheme will be enviromnentalists, city planners, industrialists, Transport are in bitter opposition over bankers, employees, officials and politicians. road building, with increased vehicle carried out for the Trust by the Combined Discussions centred around eight case studies emissions threatening to undermine the Heat and Power Association, and the first ranging from Greenpeace's collaboration with DoE's flimsy package of policies to tackle projects are expected to be operational by an east German refrigeration manufacturer to ~emissions ("Transport troubles", Safe the end of 1993. produce CFC-free fridges to Filipino waste Energy 96). Relations with the Treasury As part of its strategy to meet the disposal schemes. and the Department of Trade and Industry international commitment to While there were worthwhile discussions are also strained with the DoE's position stabilisation of col emissions at 1990 on individual projects, the conference failed being undermined ("Carbon tax levels by the end of the century, the to address the broader issues. progress", below). a government recently put its faith in the EST to produce one quarter of the savings in projected growth and increased the The Spencer report will go before the target for CHP use by the year 2000 Carbon tax progress European Parliament's plenary session in from 4,000MW to S,OOOMW November for a final vote. ("Transport troubles", Safe Energy 96). OME progress has been made on The EC's four 'peripheral states' - plans for a European Community Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland - have • A network of energy advice centres is S been lobbying for special treatment in (BC) carbon energy tax, but the UK to be set up to promote energy efficiency introducing the tax, having already been government continues to oppose the in homes and small businesses. The allowed less rigorous c~ targets. proposal. scheme will be monitored for the EST by A report on the tax by UK Conservative A meeting of national environment ministers, in Luxembourg, October 4, the National Energy Foundation, Milton MEP Thomas Spencer was adopted Keynes. overwhelmingly by the European proposed a plan for progressive introduction Parliament's committee on the environment, of the tax in those countries whose per capita • The government has announced that it public health and consumer protection. The C01 emissions and GNP fell below the BC report's proposals, which supports the average in 1990. is to abolish the client contribution European Commission's provisions for an required under the Home Energy even split between taxes on ~ emissions • Despite the progress on the detail of the Efficiency Scheme (HEES), which and energy, will benefit natural gas and carbon energy tax, the UK government provides low-income households with renewables over coal and oil. An remains resolutely opposed to the plan, and grants towards draughtproofing and amendment adopted by the environment has upped the ante by stating that it will insulation. In welcoming the announce­ committee will impose an additional charge prevent joint BC ratification of the Rio ment, Andrea Cook, Director of on nuclear-generated electricity. Climate Change Convention unless the Neighbourhood Energy Action, said that: Other amendments were introduced to carbon energy tax is dropped. "By abolishing the client contribution, the strengthen energy saving and col reduction However, most BC countries believe that government is removing a barrier which efforts in central Europe and to ensure a it is only through measures like the carbon has prevented HEES from reaching those fairer distribution of the tax burden among energy tax that the BC will be able to meet households in most urgent need of Member States. the Rio commitments. a assistance... a

Safe Energy 97, OctoberjNovember 1993 government should have moved in: at to increase the wave capture. "In terms of EC boost for wave £1.9m, the 2MW device breaks through production," says its designer, Professor its £1 a watt barrier. Trevor Whittaker of Queen's University, HE world's first wave power The Osprey has benefited from two cost Belfast, "it will be the equivalent of the Tdevice in the open sea is to be cutting ideas: it will be built of steel rather modem wind turbine, and we can go stationed off Doumeay next year. It is than concrete which is more usual for bigger in the future." one of three wave devices which will oscillating water columns; and it will sit A problem for the Islay project is that benefit from a European Community on the ocean floor, held down by 'gravity the EC funding of around £0.4m is (EC) decision to allocate 2.6m ecus anchoring'. dependent on equal funding from other (about £2m) to its pilot wave energy EC funding will also go to a second sources. Its main backer, the Department programme, writes David Ross. shoreline gully wave station on Islay, of Trade and Industry, refuses to make any As forecast in Safe Energy 96 ("Wave hmer Hebrides, five times the size of the decision on future funding until after the prospects improve"), the three projects present one - which has successfully 30 November Budget. chosen for EC funding are the ART survived its first two winters, an A third plant, rated at 500kW, will be Osprey, the Islay shoreline gully and a achievement for an experimental built by the Portuguese on the island of device on the island of Pico in the prototype. The new plant will have a Pico in the Azores. The three projects Azores. man-made, 'designer' gully insteadofthe will absorb about l.5m ecus (£1.2m) The Osprey is the big breakthrough­ less efficient natural inlet with jagged with the rest of the money going to it will stand in the open sea about 1km walls currently used. It will also have research involving Professor Stephen north of Dounreay, in 18m of water. 'harbour walls' reaching out into the sea Salter, Coventry University, the Designed by Professor Alan Wells, National Engineering Laboratory at inventor of the Wells turbine, and East Kilbride, the Greek University of Applied Research and Technology of Petra and the Danes who have a design Inverness, it has support from industry using a float which drives a pump on the (something the EC insists on). Its sea bed. backers are believed to include Scottish All the allocations are only about 20% Hydro-Electric, British Steel, GEC and of what the teams asked for and there AEA Technology. remains considerable discussion to ensure The EC has rejected the practice, that there is enough money to meet the much admired by the EC's expectations, but for the first time establishment, of 'costing' projects on since Nigel Lawson shut down the UK the basis of estimates for the future price wave energy programme in 1982 - to of electricity derived from assumptions make way for Thatcher's plan to build 10 about one unconstructed prototype. But pressurised water nuclear reactors in the case of the Osprey the there is well-founded hope. a

The prospects for 'new' renewables In assessing other energy sources, the World energy reports (excluding large-scale hydro and Council believes that coal and nuclear fuelwood) has been assessed over the power have the strongest long-term ENEWABLE energy and energy past four years by a specially formed prospects provided their associated Refficiency have been given greater committee. It has concluded that use of environmental problems can be prominence by the World Energy new renewables could triple by 2020 resolved; present international agree­ Council (WEC) in two new reports increasing its share of total energy use ments on pollution reduction time­ assessing future world energy use.* from 2% to 4%. And changes in energy tables are considered unrealistically The Council, a non-governmental prices, special aid from governments tight. organisation with members from lOO and international initiatives could see Known reserves of oil and natural countries, has taken its first systematic this figure improved to 12% rising to gas are put at 40 and 65 years look at the potential role of renewables in 50% by the end of next century in what respectively; coal reserves are put at meeting energy demand. Predicting that the committee calls the "ecologically 250 years, or 100 years if it is used to 'business-as-usual' would lead to a driven case". replace oil and gas. a doubling of energy use by 2020 (and the In a campaigning tone uncharacteristic exhaustion of all fossil fuels resources by of WEC reports, the Committee is critical * "Renewable energy resources: 2100), the Council considers that the of the Council for having previously opportunities and constraints 1990-2020" increase could be restricted to 28% given renewables "secondary status as £25, and "Energy for tomorrow's world" through strong energy efficiency minor contributors to the overall energy £35, World Energy Council, 1993. Details measures. picture." on 071-930 3966

believes the development "holds out the farm on nearby land. Teesside energy park exciting prospect of Teesside becoming a There will be a sophisticated world renowned centre for research and communication network linking the R&D N innovative energy park with development in the energy sector, facilities to more than 30 universities and Afacilities for industry, business, [including] the development of new forms educational institutes in the US, Japan and research and development, and leisure of transport, new fuel sources and Europe. is to be built in Teesside. The £lOOm improved energy efficient materials and Work on the first phase of the project, scheme, backed by Teesside products." consisting of nine pavilions, is due to Development Corporation (TDC), is The park will be sited between begin later this year. It is expected that aimed at the energy industry of the 21st University College, Stockton and the the first of the R&D facilities will be century. It will include state-of-the-art, , , and taken up by the UK electricity industry, environmentally sensitive building plans have been mooted for a whilst negotiations with European, materials and solar powered transport. hydro-electric scheme, a heat recovery American and Japanese companies are TDC chief executive Duncan Hall system .using a local lake and a wind in progress. a

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 Parys Mountain, Anglesey. Opposition to council deferred a decision until 9 Wind round-up the wind farm came from local residents, November. The site is considered councillors, the Council for the Protection marginal, and other wind developers have LANS for up to 250 wind turbines of Rural Wales and a representative of expressed surprise at the proposal. Pat a site in Kielder Forest, Country Guardians. Opposition from local residents (the Northumberland have been passed in Much of the debate has centred on noise nearest house is just 320m away) is being principle by Tynedale District Council, levels, in particular whether or not these fuelled by the secretive approach of the though the flnal decision rests with would exceed 42 decibels at the nearest north-east businessmen behind the President of the Board of Trade, house to the site. The debate seemed scheme. Michael Heseltine. bizarre as none of the objectors appeared Environmentalists are split over what, to know what 42 decibels sounded like Orkney wind down at 80MW, would be Europe's largest wind (roughly that of the hum from a The 3MW Orkney wind turbine, once farm. Neither English Heritage nor the refrigerator outside the house), and described as the flagship of the Countryside Commission has raised any figures provided by V estas, the Danish renewables, has been out of service since objections but the Council for the turbine manufacturers, claimed that noise 21 December 1992 following discovery Protection of Rural England is opposed to would be nowhere near this level in any of a fatigue crack in its rotor. the development. English Nature and the case. Repair of the machine, by bolting Royal Society for the Protection of Birds As Parys Mountain is the highest spot several splice plates across the crack, have both submitted 'holding objections' on the north east of Anglesey, the problem would be straightforward, taking just a until further infonnation on the impact on of visual intrusion was also raised. few weeks and cost around £30,000. As wildlife is available. the turbine is capable of generating Grampian secret S-60Wb/y, earning over £100,000 (at the Guardian demons? Grampian Windpower, the developers low rate of 2p per unit paid by Scottish In response to the growing use of planning a 3.5MW wind farm one and a Hydro-Electric), with an annual windpower, a nationwide network of half miles from the village of Whitecaims maintenance cost of .£20,000, the one-off opposition has been formed. Based in near Aberdeen, are showing how not to repair cost is more than justified. Warrington, the group, Country win support from local people by refusing However, the Department of Trade and Guardians, has sent out thousands of to reveal their identities. Industry, which is responsible for its letters to local newspapers outlining the Although Gordon District Council's operation, has not yet taken action to carry 'horrors' of wind farms, and make Director of Planning recommended out the repair and return the machine to representations at public inquiries. The approval of the scheme in August, the service, causing concern for the turbine's mastermind behind the group is Joseph future. Lythgoe, a 71-year-old landowner who describes himself as a lifelong Body Shop environmentalist. A recent recruit to the Body Shop, the toiletries and cosmetics group, as vice president, is Sir Bernard group which aims to generate the Ingham. The former press secretary to equivalent of its UK electricity needs Margaret Thatcher, who has used his through , has placed contracts column in the Daily Express to attack for a 22 turbine, lOMW wind farm atBryn wind power and other renewables, is a Titli, mid-Wales. paid adviser to British Nuclear Fuels. The estimated £llm cost of the project is being provided by National Power Parys Mountain inquiry whose subsidiary National Wind Power, A public inquiry was held recently into along with construction group Taylor a proposal by Anglesey Mining Company W oodrow, will be responsible for for an 8 turbine, 4MW development on building the wind farm. Q

one billionth of the allowable limits." Geothermal plan Tyre power first Potentially harmful by-products like zinc oxide, steel particles and calcium A. honeycomb of disused coal mine UROPE'S first power station sulphate will be extracted and sold to ftshaftS in Lanarkshire may bring fuelled by waste tyres, a 2SMW industry. economic revival to the area. Eight E plant in Wolverhampton, is to be hundred million gallons of water in the Plans by Elm Energy for a similar tunnels could become an inexhaustible officially opened on 9 November plant in East Kilbride have met with source of heating for buildings above. following successful commissioning strong local opposition ("Tyre power", A computer study commissioned by tests. Safe Energy 95). An environmental Lanarkshire Development Agency has The £48m station will bum around a impact assessment carried out by estimated that 20 million kWh of energy quarter of Britain's waste tyres - Wimpey Environmental Ltd found that a year could be extracted. Water at a 8-lOm a year - and output from the the 6MW plant would meet world temperature of 140C, would be drawn up 150-200m, passed through a heat plant will be sold to Midlands pollution standards. exchanger and piped back to the mine Electricity under the Non Fossil Fuel However, the MEP for the area, shafts. Obligation. Ken Collins, who is chair of the The study estimates that this heat The power station's American owner, European Parliament's environment source could reduce energy costs by up Elm Energy, is keen to point out the committee, has called for the plant to 30% and it is hoped that this will environmental benefits of the plant. to be blocked, saying that the attract high energy using companies in fields like biotechnology and micro­ Anne Evans, managing director, says assessment presents certain electronics to the area. that it will be one of the cleanest power inadequacies. His main concern is Six months of trials will now be required stations in the UK, with emissions the lack of consideration of to prove the computer study's findings. Q ..between one hundred thousandth and alternatives such as recycling. Q

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 Gabcicovo dam problems metres, affecting crops, forests and roots. Two or three more years of this drinking supplies. and the whole area will be dead. Water At Vojka, Slovakia, villagers levels in the Danube arms has dropped NVIRONMENTAL damage stranded on an island between the old by 3 to 4 metres since last October." He Eresulting from the controversial Danube bed and the new 17km canal also reports that five-metre wells have Gabcicovo hydro-electric scheme in now have to take a ferry to mainland had to be dug down to 15 metres. An Slovakia is increasing as the water-table Slovakia. Vojka and other villages are active campaigner for restoration of the drops, writes Bridget Gubbins. between 10 and 18 metres below the water, Maj declares: ''The way of life of Rated by the International Rivers level of the canal, and live with the fifty thousand people who live next to Network as one of the most knowledge of the huge bulk of water the river depends on this happening." environmentally destructive hydraulic flowing above their heads. The potential energy benefits from this engineering projects in the world, the Once a vast inland delta, what massive project are minimal. The yearly damming of the Danube between remains of this ecologically unique average output from the Gabcicovo Slovakia and Hungary is the greatest river wetland of channels~ islands and turbines will be 340MW, which is 6-7% single hydro scheme in Europe. forests is threatened by loss of water. In of Slovakian electricity consumption. Hungary, a partner in the project until an attempt to control this, crude And most of this is available in the 1989, is now locked in dispute with concrete barriers have been erected summer - with the ice-melt in the Alps Slovakia. The disagreement was sub­ across the channels, known locally as - when it is least needed mitted to the International Court ofJustice 'arms', to allow backing up of water. Slovakia, like most east European in the Hague in April1993 for arbitration In the village of Dunakiliti, countries, has a high over-consumption ("Dam shame", Safe Energy 94). Hungary, forester Imre Maj manages of electricity, and a technical savings Just 20% of the former volume of 1,000 hectares of water woodland. His potential of 40-50%. Energy the Danube flows along the original trees are dying: "This year the poplars campaigners lament the money spent on river bed causing surrounding are dying ... They are the first trees to this project which should have been groundwater levels to fall by up to ten go because they have short, spreading invested in energy efficiency. Q

overwhelming majority of Chinese Three Gorges problems believe the fight is over and that the Dam emissions dam, the country's largest engineering ORK on the Three Gorges project since the Great Wall, will be HE environmental benefits of hydro-scheme on the Yangtzi, built. Thydro-power in reducing W emissions of greenhouse gases has been China, has officially progressed to the Proponents of the scheme argue that questioned in a recent Canadian preparatory stage, despite considerable it will fuel China's industrial revolution government study. opposition to the damming of the river and save millions of people from the It is claimed that emissions of C02 and and flooding of the valleys. threat of flooding. Critics warn that methane from flooded forests, soils and Initially proposed in 1923 by Sun silting behind the dam may turn it into peat bogs can make as great a contribution Y atsen, founder of the first Chinese a useless $30bn bog. to global warming as coal-fired power republic, it is planned to create a 350 Involvement of the US Bureau of stations. mile long reservoir and provide a Reclamation and the US Army The study, by the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg, however, accepts that generating capacity of 18,200MW by Corps of Engineers in the project has emission levels can vary greatly constructing the world's largest led US environmentalists to take depending on the characteristics of the hydro-electric dam. legal action. The two US agencies reservoir, the type of landscape flooded The project will displace 1.3 million are being sued over claims that they and the mode of power generation. people and endanger wildlife in an area are violating the Endangered Another recent report, for Lahmeyer of oustanding natural beauty. In an Species Act by helping to design and International, has found that where land is unusual show of dissent, more than a build the dam, which threatens the cleared of vegetation before flooding, the third of the National People's Congress existence of the giant panda, the carbon emissions resulting from biomass voted against or abstained when the Chinese tiger, the Siberian crane and lost in constructing the facility would be offset in around three years of electricity project was considered last year. But the the Chinese river dolphin. Q generation. Q

company will now be able to upgrade Hydro in brief Run of the river several hydro schemes. Approval by the Valais cantonal French low-head Concrete plans changed parliament, Switzerland, for the first of ten run of the river stations France is giving a boost to low-head hydro In an attempt to overcome environmental on the Rhone was given by 98 votes to 16 and emphasising those projects which opposition, plans for a large concrete dam with 8 abstentions. have the least environmental impact, as in Tirol, Austria have been amended to a The decade-old project has been delayed part of a prpgramme for more renewable smaller scheme using an earthwork in the past by opposition from farmers, energy projects. structure. anglers and ecologists, but the first barrage The proposals are from the Austrian could now be open as early as spring 1995. Greenland Federal Railways (0BB) which argues Greenland's firSt large hydropower station, that it needs the energy to power the trains • Voters in the Berne canton gave their supplying its capital Nuuk, will replace the which are necessary if freight is to be support to hydropower in a referendum in town's oil-ftred generating plant and cut oil transferred off the roads. September. The regional electricity consumption in Greenland by one third Q

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 REVIEWS

price for uranium is at an The claim by both the Thorp: the Whitehall nightmare; all-time low, and no country industry and the govern­ by Crispin Aubrey. has been able to make fast ment, that the plant will make reactors work. Indeed, only money for the UK plc, is Japan still has a fast reactor highly contentious and John Carpenter Publishing; 1993, 83pp; £5.99. programme, and that is shrouded in secrecy. Sellafield proving far from successful. is notorious for cost over-runs The argument that uranium and this could cost the tax­ Thorp "is not just about Reprocessing Plant (fhorp). reprocessing will reduce payer dearly as BNFL do not opposing visions ... There are In the wake of the govern­ waste generated by spoil have the funds to underwrite wider issues involved. The ment's second consultation heaps at uranium mines is their own liabilities. development raises funda­ into the plant, he hopes the less of an argument for It is difficult to believe that mental questions which book "presents the arguments reprocessing as one for anyone reading this book extend far beyond the bound­ in a readable form that will be cleaning up the mines, would come to the conclusion aries of Sellafield. There are useful to those who have not argues Aubrey. that the Thorp plant should be questions about the handling yet made up their minds, or Growing concern about vast allowed to open. Embarking of the aftermath of nuclear who want a handy guide to stockpiles of weapons-grade on a massive plutonium power, the best way to dispose the major issues." He has plutonium are in themselves a producing programme at a of nuclear waste, the uses and achieved his objective, and powerful argument against time when the world faces an risks of plutonium, the health presents a sorry saga of reprocessing ever-growing risk of terrorist effects of radiation and the government intransigence, Any suggestion that repro­ groups obtaining weapons dangers of an international institutional inertia and cessing represents the best grade material is a scenario trade in radioactive waste" international confusion. environmental approach to thatevenaninfinitenumberof argues the introduction to this The world has moved on managing the nuclear waste monkeys with typewriters slim volume. since the early seventies when legacy has in reality already would be hard pushed to Aubrey, an environmental Thorp was first mooted but been lost, as many countries come up with in an infinite journalist who contributes the nuclear industry has not. are turning to on-site storage amount of time. regularly to the Guardian's The argument that the plant of spent fuel with the On a perhaps more environment page, has set would produce useful intention of despatching it churlish note I can't help out to whittle down the by-products, specifically directly to a final (mythical) feeling somewhat irritated complex political and uranium for re-use in existing repository after a period of by Safe Energy's exclusion scientific arguments sur­ reactors and plutonium either around 100 years - those from Aubrey' s list of contacts rounding the fate of British for use in fast reactors or as a countries include Scotland, for further information. Nuclear Fuels' (BNFL) mixed oxide fuel is no longer the US, Canada, Sweden and massive Thermal Oxide valid, if ever it was. The spot Germany. MIKE TOWNSLEY

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22 Sefe Energy 97, OctoberjNovember 1993 I REVIEWS decline of coal, past and on the coal industry in the The UK 'coal crisis' origins and resolution; future, showing trends in run-up to privatisation, price, output and demand. though it contains nothing by Mike Parker Michael Heseltine' s white startling or particularly paper on coal, which quelled incisive. The Royal Institute of International Mfairs; the backbench revolt and The writing is rather dry, 1993, 47pp, £7.50. public disquiet, is summed up and would have benefited as "a triumph of presentation from a lighter and more over substance." barbed approach; the events As chief economist with Parkinson stated that Parker's conclusion is that of the last year have, after all, British Coal until 1991, the "privatisation of coal ... the'coalcrisis' of1992/3was been a farce within the black author of this paper is able to would mark the end of the "the beginning of the last comedy of the coal industry's explain the events that led to political power of the NUM." chapter in the story of a once sad decline. the pit closure announce­ Parker produces a number great industry." ment on 13 October 1992, and of useful tables to chart the This is a helpful reference GRAHAM STEIN what followed. The basic premise of the report is that the in Scotland. decline of coal is the inevitable An introduction to sustainable energy: an Not surprisingly, the guide result of government policy. does not match nuclear In seeking confirmation of educational guide; by Peter Daley & John Glover industry information for the political motivation glossy presentation, but it is behind the run-down of the Network for Alternative Technology and very evenhanded in its industry, Parker turns to the Technology Assessment; 1993, 24pp, £2. approach, presenting the memoirs of two former problems as well as the Secretaries of State for benefits of each renewable. Energy: Nigel Lawson and With the supply of energy welcome publication from There is also a list of useful Cecil Parkinson. information to schools being NATTA. contacts at the end of the Lawson wrote that: "The dominated by the nuclear It covers all the renewables, guide, though I was surprised PWR was seen as vital to industry, and with the rise in usually in detail - though it that it did not include SCRAM demonstrate to the NUM that opposition to renewable is surprisingly sparse on or Safe Energy. coal was not fundamental to energy which has come with hydro power and under­ the economy any longer'', and its limited progress, this is a states the untapped resource GRAHAM STEIN OBITUARY I Andrew Holmes press officer on leaving newly-privatised UK well at first that he was college, where he developed electricity market would rumoured to have been the Andrew Holmes, as editor an insidl!r's knowledge of mean for coal. first person almost expelled of the Financial Times the electricity industry, one A strident critic of the from a hospice for the dying. newsletter Power in Europe, which he brought to bear manner of that privatisation, This writer worked directly was one of the shrewdest with such devastating effect which he felt - rightly - with him for only a few observers of and incisive when he joined Financial would lead to the months, but his intelligence, commentators on the energy Times Newsletters in 1982, devastation of the coal dry Scottish wit and industry. His untimely first as editor of European industry, he described the generosity with time and death, a fortnight before his Energy Report, and latterly as UK's energy policies earlier knowledge are sorely 37th birthday, after a long editor of POUJer in Europe. this year as akin to Alias missed. His early death has struggle with brain cancer, Although Andy' s career in Smith & Jones' dubious card taken a wicked vein of has saddened everyone at journalism was short, his game, Montana Red Dog, humour from his colleagues; SCRAM. insight, intelligence and where the rules change as the a source of insight from the The following tribute to accuracy rapidly made their game progresses and the electricity supply industry, him appeared in Power in mark in the electricity world. bandits always win. He felt and a much-loved friend Europe, of which he was His articles, notably on the the coal crisis, however, with from those who knew him founding editor. UK privatisation process its political overtones, was best. were felt to be so influential maybe more complex. To quote Or Kim Howells Born in Greenock, that he was awarded energy He was diagnosed as MP in a letter published in Scotland, Andy was journalist of the year in 1989 having a brain tumour the Financial Times "His educated at the universifies by the British Institute of shortly before his award in death ... at the age of 36 is a of Stirling and London, Energy Economics. The 1989. This failed to deter him cruel blow not only to his taking a first in English, citation noted that he had for long, though, and he was wife Claire and to his something that will come as "raised the level of public soon back at work4 children, Lottie and Jack, but little surprise to those who debate on the whole subject". continuing, with customary to all who counted him as a recognised in his Andy was early in flair, until his illness friend, and adviser and, much-loved prose an recognising that nuclear resurfaced last February. quite simply, as one hell of a occasional suggestion of the would be removed from the Even after the stroke which good bloke." English-language greats. privatisation process and robbed him of speech and Andy joined the was almost clairvoyant in his mobility, he was determined Andrew Holmes, 19 September Department of Energy as a realisation of what the to recover, succeeding so 19S6 -ll.September 1993.

Safe Energy 97, October/November 1993 23 LITI'LE BlACK RABBIT

for "exemplary service" And from the unsuccessful Tory candidate at the 1987 I The man for the job Consumers Association Vllhich? magazine, general election, compiled his ~ Once upon a time there was a for competence of service, the wooden 'independent' report "on the basis of Tory backbencher who spoon-worst of the 12 regional electricity published information by BNFL and an earned some extra cash as a companies (recs). LBR wonders which analysis of its accounts." diJIf paid adviser to merchant trophy will have pride of place in the An interesting disclaimer in the report E: bank Hill Samuel. In the SWEB boardroom. states:" Although this publication has been run-up to electricity privatisation the MP commissioned by Dewe Rogerson, on tipped the SSEB for a swift and successful Taxing question behalf of its client BNFL, it has been privatisation, because it had such a lot of Does a tax on energy damage independently written and the views nuclear power and would be particularly a nation's economy? The expressed by the author are entirely attractive to the market. American Petroleum Institute But things didn't work out as he had says yes, the European predicted; nuclear power could not be Commission says no. sold, and the SSEB, stripped of its nuclear The API has a publication to prove its pe\:1 !~d~ ...~ = plant and renamed , was case,- so does the EC. . , letter: "Recent interviews last in the queue for privatisation. The API's was produced 1:-y a with a range of senior Some years later, our MP's obvious prestigious firm of consultants - DRI managers in industry showed understanding of the energy industry McGraw-Hill. So was the EC's. that, surprisingly, many did made him the perfect candidate for the job not know about the UK's leading business of Minister for Energy, and so Tim Eggar, I Independent? dedicated- to solving problems in the fields for it was he, took responsibility for the ~ On the subject of independent of safety, environmental protection and nation's coal industry. 30,000 miners did ~ 1. consultants, a recent report plant performance." not live happily ever after. ''BNFL: an independent Have these senior managers not heard research report" by Nigel of the highly successful Fast Breeder Award winning E: • Hawkins was published by Reactor a t Dounreay (to close next year), or SWEB, the south-west of BNFL. The future is, apparently, already the imaginative solution to radioactive England's electricity com­ glorious, but" once the Thorp plant comes waste disposal (dump it in a hole in the pany, has picked up a brace of into commercial operation BNFL income ground with some sodium and potassium awards for service to its wiU soar." The arguments for Thorp are and stand well back)? Because the UK's customers. "compelling". leading business in safety, environmental From the Department of National Hawkins, formerly employed at the protection and plant performance is AEA Heritage- came a Consumer Charter award Conservative Research Department and an Technology, allegedly. And il has a catchy new s logan: "EurekAEA" (pronounced You reek AEA). Two ways to promote I All at sea ~ As part of AEA's diver­ A/1. sificaUon into other fields, it has been involved in wave safe energy energy monitoring work off ( • Dounreay for the proposed 1\vo ways to help SCRAM: fill in lhe appropriate section(s) togeLher with ART Osprey device. your name and address and return the form to the address below. However. the power of the sea was obviously stronger than our leading problem solver had expected. Its monitor I would like to subscribe to the Safe I would like to make a donation to was wrenched from its moorings and Energy Journal, SCRAM and enclose a cheque for: 1 2 swept off by the waves. and I enclose an annual subscnpt1on Luckily it carried a tracker beacon fee of: allowing its precise location to be 0£10 pinpointed: er, somewhere in south-east (IndiVIdUals) 0 £16 England? A second grid reference was £8 (concession) 0 D £25 slightly closer, but still on dry land. Third 0 £25 (supporting) time lucky, the monitor was recovered off 0 £100 (life) D £so the Wick coast. 0 £40 (organisations) D £1oo Sponsorship news Overseas (£ sterling please): With news that the nuclear Europe add £2.50; other£ ___ industry worldwide is Outwith europe add £6.00. suffering from a shortage of graduates prepared to work for it, LBR has found a helpful booklet: "Careers in ecology and Name environmental management" sponsored by BNFL. Address Christmas @.ideas No. 1 What" = == LTttt~p1' · witho t~lf$ fJ!)_r;),~ leb Post code Phone No. Mod n tneenn.&..:_yotffr v r tt'w BNFL a 1e spenylielwagon. on forge to buy ?6Y'h't· ~~a er '&mergenc To: SCRAM, 11 Forth Street, Edinburgh EH1 3LE servic vehicle§) a