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"The whereabouts of about 30 subcontractors who helped deal with the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is unknown, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said on June 20. The workers are among some 3,700 who worked to control the disaster in March, the month the plant was struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The workers' names were listed in records showing that they had been loaned dosimeters, but when the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), contacted the companies they were associated with, the companies replied that there was no record of those workers. The ministry has branded TEPCO's administration of workers "sloppy" and ordered the company to conduct an investigation to identify the workers. "We don't know why there is no record of the workers. The records and dosimeters were managed by TEPCO and its administration can only be described as sloppy," a representative of the ministry's Labor Standards Bureau said. Ministry officials said that 3,639 emergency workers were enlisted to handle the nuclear crisis in March. As of June 20, TEPCO had reported provisional radiation exposure figures for 3,514 workers to the ministry. "

"PROBLEMS at the Sizewell B nuclear power plant could see the reactor remain closed until September - potentially costing tens of millions of pounds in lost electricity sales. Sizewell's owner EDF Energy has confirmed that the facility is not expected to be up and running until the third quarter of 2010. It means the power station, which has been shut since the end of March and employs more than 500 people, could be closed until September while engineers carry out repairs. Commentators suggest the power station could lose around £350,000 a day in electricity sales. Working on the basis that it will remain shut until September - about 180 days - it could see losses in the region of £63m. "

LAND close to a former nuclear power station in Essex was yesterday earmarked as a potential site for a new reactor - sparking concerns from local campaigners. The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA) has announced that it expects to put forward land near Bradwell for consideration as the Government looks to identify locations suitable for new nuclear build. The news was greeted with alarm by local anti-nuclear campaigners - who fear it could pave the way for more than one power station to be built.

A COMMUNITY watchdog group is calling for more information about a German study which suggests that there are clusters of childhood leukaemia cases near nuclear power station sites. The Sizewell Stakeholder Group - set up to improve liaison between the nuclear site, the local community and regulators - wants to know if there is any UK implication. The new study, commissioned by the German Federal office for Radiological Protection, looked at childhood cancers in the vicinity of the country's nuclear power plants.

ENVIRONMENT Agency bosses have decided not to prosecute the operator of Sizewell A over an incident which saw thousands of gallons of water contaminated when radioactivity escaped into the North Sea. The incident, in January 2007, involved the fracture of a plastic pipe in a cooling pond building where highly radioactive spent fuel rods are stored under water prior to their despatch to the Sellafield reprocessing works in Cumbria.

CAMPAIGNERS claimed last night the Government had already decided to build a new nuclear power station on the Essex coast - before public consultation even begins.

EX-SERVICEMEN from Suffolk and Essex who claim the Government treated them like "guinea pigs" during Cold War atomic bomb testing are fighting for compensation which could run into millions of pounds.

DECOMMISSIONING of the last of the radioactive material from Sizewell A has been put back 75 years, with energy bosses saying it isn't their number one priority. The removal of all hazardous waste from the twin reactor nuclear plant had been recommended to be fast-tracked to only take 25-30 years, but those plans have now been thrown out. Nuclear radioactive waste will now stay on the Suffolk coast at the Sizewell A site until 2110 after the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) committed its resources to Sellafield and Dounreay. But last night the organisation insisted the situation was not motivated by financial constraints. Anti-nuclear campaigners are up in arms over what they claim to be a 'U-turn', saying it will leave Suffolk open to potential terrorist attacks for years to come.

THE government should halt all plans to build more nuclear power stations with immediate effect after it was revealed that Suffolk was just hours away from a nuclear accident, campaigners claimed last night. About 10,000 gallons of radioactively contaminated water was discharged into the North Sea in January 2007 after a pipe, carrying cooling water to an engineered pond containing highly radioactive spent fuel rods, burst at Sizewell A power station on the Suffolk coast. Now an independent consultant's report has said that the power station was about ten hours away from a serious accident which could have drained the cooling pond, uncovered the old fuel and started a fire which would have released highly radioactive products.

"MAINS water supplies in east Suffolk could be put under stress if permission is given to build a £6billion Sizewell C nuclear power station, according to critics. Figures revealed to a local watchdog group show that the existing Sizewell B plant uses about 800 cubic metres of mains water a day - estimated to be about 7% of the total demand in the local catchment area. Critics say based on this figure a twin-reactor Sizewell C would demand a further 1,600 cubic metres a day - in one of the driest parts of the country and where householders and businesses have in the past few decades faced restrictions on use."

"HIGHLY radioactive spent fuel from the Sizewell B nuclear power station could be stored in containers in a massive new building on the site. British Energy, part of EDF energy, has outlined plans to build a dry storage building to manage the power station's spent fuel from 2015. The company has submitted an application to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for permission to build the facility near Sizewell B on the north Suffolk coast. At the moment, spent fuel is kept in a fuel storage pond, which is expected to provide capacity until about 2015. If the application for the new dry fuel store is permitted, it will be built on the existing site and store spent fuel from 2015."