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Scotland's energy future should be based on non-nuclear sources. The SNP today welcomed a report from the Parliament's Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee which supported the Scottish Government's plans for Scotland to build a clean, green and renewable energy future as SNP MSP Rob Gibson called for the UK Government to release £150 million of potential investment in Scotland's energy future. In their report the Committee state that;"Scotland does not need a new generation of nuclear power stations to be constructed and sees Scotland's energy future as one that seeks to increase markedly investments in energy efficiency, in renewable energy, in cleaner renewable or fossil-fuel fired thermal plant, such as combined heat and power and district heating, energy-from-waste plants and which, if necessary, supports the construction of a new generation of larger fossil-fuel fired plants with carbon capture technologies."

"One suspects the loneliest jobs in Ottawa these days involve being either technical experts or program overseers responsible for advising the government on adopting best practices. Over the past four years, the Harper government has mocked, ignored or fired almost everyone it has in place to provide guidance on the most complex issues that Canada needs to address. From the firing of the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission and the watchdogs of the RCMP and military, the national science adviser and Canada's chief electoral officer, to mocking the parliamentary budget officer and members of the diplomatic corps, to attacking the judiciary, charities and human rights groups, there is barely an expert in Ottawa who hasn't been marginalized or disrespected by this government."

"An otherwise garden-variety workplace dispute has posed a larger question at the Byron nuclear generation station, 80 miles west of Chicago: How adequately are security guards trained and equipped to protect nuclear power plants? The question is raised by a complaint brought before a federal administrative judge by Matt Simon, a former guard and weapons trainer at Byron who is asking the court to decide between two explanations for why he no longer works at the facility. Was he an incompetent employee who falsified weapons logs, as claimed by Exelon Corp., which operates Byron? Or was he fired a year ago for trying to alert his superiors to security lapses at the plant, as he asserts? In what his attorneys characterize as a whistle-blower suit, Simon alleges there was a consistent policy of dumbing down security training and certifying unqualified guards. He says rifles and other equipment failed. He says plant officials filed false security reports with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that his firing resulted directly from his speaking out."

"Nuclear power is more competitive than coal-fired power stations without carbon capture and gas-fired power stations when the cost of borrowing is low and carbon prices are around $30 a metric ton, the International Energy Agency said Thursday. However, with the same carbon price, if the finance costs are higher, then coal without carbon capture equipment, coal with carbon capture and gas power plants are the cheapest forms of electricity, the IEA said in a report on the projected costs of generating electricity."

Gray smoke rose from two reactor units Monday, temporarily stalling critical work to reconnect power lines and restore cooling systems to stabilize Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear complex. NPR's Richard Harris reported from Tokyo that a fire apparently broke out on the roof of problem-plagued reactor unit No. 3 and burned for several hours, prompting officials to pull back workers at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant as radiation levels were assessed. There was no immediate spike in radiation at the complex. But Harris said that just as the fire went out, white steam or smoke started coming up from unit 2. "So there's been a little bit of a return to sort of the dramatic state of things that we saw last week although no big explosions, no large amount of radiation released right now," he said.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe. This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe. This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe. This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".

Wackenhut Services Inc., the government's security contractor in Oak Ridge, has confirmed that a security supervisor was fired for allegedly threatening another employee. "One supervisor was terminated for verbally threatening another employee, while on duty, which is a violation of the WSI-OR Workplace Violence Policy," spokeswoman Courtney Henry said in response to questions about the incident. Wackenhut also confirmed other disciplinary actions that have been taken against supervisory personnel and strongly denied that the contractor management had shown more leniency toward supervisors than hourly personnel. Several security police officers in recent weeks have suggested that Wackenhut (also known as WSI-Oak Ridge) uses a double standard in doling out punishments.

Wackenhut Services Inc., the government's security contractor in Oak Ridge, has confirmed that a security supervisor was fired for allegedly threatening another employee. "One supervisor was terminated for verbally threatening another employee, while on duty, which is a violation of the WSI-OR Workplace Violence Policy," spokeswoman Courtney Henry said in response to questions about the incident. Wackenhut also confirmed other disciplinary actions that have been taken against supervisory personnel and strongly denied that the contractor management had shown more leniency toward supervisors than hourly personnel. Several security police officers in recent weeks have suggested that Wackenhut (also known as WSI-Oak Ridge) uses a double standard in doling out punishments.

I'm not surprised about this new turn of events but I am stunned that your staff accepted interim GM Steve Bartley's statement that he didn't know about the omission. How could henot know? Ask Bartley what he'd do to any employee who: 1. told him he didn't know about a major element of their business, or 2. flat out lied to him? He would fire him on the spot. What CPS management did was out and out fraud. They lied to us on their application for a rate hike. Treat them the same way any bank would treat an application for a home loan if the financial information was fraudulent. Turn down the application and call the authorities to investigate. We should do the same. City Council would not tolerate any citizen coming before them and lying to their faces, or are they going to condone lying? Hopefully there are not two sets of rules - one for ordinary citizens and one for big shot citizens/companies.

I'm not surprised about this new turn of events but I am stunned that your staff accepted interim GM Steve Bartley's statement that he didn't know about the omission. How could henot know? Ask Bartley what he'd do to any employee who: 1. told him he didn't know about a major element of their business, or 2. flat out lied to him? He would fire him on the spot. What CPS management did was out and out fraud. They lied to us on their application for a rate hike. Treat them the same way any bank would treat an application for a home loan if the financial information was fraudulent. Turn down the application and call the authorities to investigate. We should do the same. City Council would not tolerate any citizen coming before them and lying to their faces, or are they going to condone lying? Hopefully there are not two sets of rules - one for ordinary citizens and one for big shot citizens/companies.

I'm not surprised about this new turn of events but I am stunned that your staff accepted interim GM Steve Bartley's statement that he didn't know about the omission. How could henot know? Ask Bartley what he'd do to any employee who: 1. told him he didn't know about a major element of their business, or 2. flat out lied to him? He would fire him on the spot. What CPS management did was out and out fraud. They lied to us on their application for a rate hike. Treat them the same way any bank would treat an application for a home loan if the financial information was fraudulent. Turn down the application and call the authorities to investigate. We should do the same. City Council would not tolerate any citizen coming before them and lying to their faces, or are they going to condone lying? Hopefully there are not two sets of rules - one for ordinary citizens and one for big shot citizens/companies.

"A fire inside a nuclear power station took firefighters seven hours to extinguish yesterday. Emergency plans were put into effect as more than 45 firemen tackled the blaze at the Sizewell B station near Leiston, Suffolk. The blaze in a building which is used to control fuel started at 8.45pm on Friday and was not fully extinguished until 3.40am yesterday. Crews wearing breathing equipment entered a charcoal absorber used to filter gas and flooded it with water to cool the surrounding area."

"Federal nuclear regulators are meeting to discuss a special inspection of a South Carolina plant that shut down earlier this year. Staff from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission are in Hartsville on Wednesday to talk about safety at Progress Energy's nearby Robinson plant. Two fires happened March 28 in the plant's electrical system. The commission says the plant and public were never in danger but decided that issues raised in an initial inspection warranted further study. The plant entered a refueling outage originally planned for mid-April and remains shut down. Last month, the commission sent in a special inspection team to review the events that led to shutdown. The agency will issue a report after the public hearing."

Five years after the closing down of Bulgaria's Nuclear Power Plant's 1st and 2nd blocks and two since the closing of 3rd and 4th there isn't a single employee fired from both sections, "Dnevnik" daily writes Monday. There are 1095 people employed in the closed down parts out of the total 4492 in the whole AEC-Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. The plant currently produces power with its 5th and 6th 1000 MW blocks. The medium salary in the plant is around EUR530, as the money for employee payments is included in the final electricity tax consumers pay. "Dnevnik"'s Calculations show that for 2008 alone EUR6,500,000 have been spent for the employees in the closed blocks.

A train derailment in central Oklahoma on Friday sent fireballs into the sky but caused no injuries. Eight cars on the 110-car Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailed, seven of which were carrying either crude oil or ethanol, company spokesman Joe Faust said. He said he didn't know how many of the derailed cars had caught on fire.

Fluor Hanford has fired three employees it believes are linked to the misuse of a federal government credit card issued for work at the Hanford nuclear reservation. A single card was used to make fraudulent purchases over at least the past four years, according to a memo sent by Fluor Hanford President Con Murphy to employees Wednesday. Just one person was allowed to sign on the card. The purchases included tools and electronic equipment, said Fluor spokeswoman Judy Connell.

A vice president at Duke Energy recommended firing an employee who in 2006 questioned the legality of payments that the utility made to big corporate customers. Advertisement "My opinion is that he should definitely go, one way or the other," the vice president, James Ganier, said in a March 2006 e-mail.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Operators of nuclear power plants have yet to comply with some of the government's fire safety rules three decades after they were issued, a congressional report said Monday.

Savannah River Site officials have taken corrective actions - and fired two workers - after two incidents in H Canyon in which bundles of highly enriched uranium were dropped by a crane. According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report - dated Aug. 21 and made public Thursday - the incidents "had potential criticality safety implications" and halted reprocessing operations for a week. A criticality accident is one in which a chain reaction occurs, said Charles Nickell, the site's nuclear materials disposition manager. "It is something we definitely don't want to happen." The H Canyon area is where highly enriched uranium is loaded by cranes into vats of acid, called "dissolvers," that help purify and convert the material from solid to a liquid form. The liquid is later blended with natural uranium to create low-enriched uranium and shipped off-site for use in the manufacture of fuel rods for commercial reactors.

Berlin- A damaged fuel rod sought since last week has been located inside one of Germany's 12 nuclear power stations, regulators said Wednesday. The jinxed plant at Kruemmel near Hamburg was shut down for two years by a transformer fire. It was crippled again July 4 by a short circuit and was then reported to have a problem in one or more of its 80,000 fuel rods. Engineers took the lid off the reactor to find the damaged uranium rod. The problems at Kruemmel have led to calls to retire the station and re-ignited debate in Germany about nuclear power as an election approaches. Anti-nuclear activists are also highlighting mismanagement of nuclear waste dumps in old salt mines. Wolfram Koenig, president of the Federal Radiation Safety Agency (BfS), said radioactive contaminated fluid had been found to have seeped to the bottom of one such dump, the Asse mine.

A statewide SWAT team exercise at a firing range on the secured grounds of a nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland was halted this month after stray bullets shattered glass and struck a command center near the plant's reactors, officials said yesterday. Reactor safety at the Calvert Cliffs plant in Lusby was never compromised, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Constellation Energy Group, which operates the facility.

SELLAFIELD has come under fire from an anti-nuclear group after four highly-radioactive waste stores malfunctioned. Cooling water was lost when a faulty valve on the waste containers broke down. The temperature of the waste was allowed to rise for eight hours before Sellafield workers were able to fix the problem. No-one was injured. Cumbrian's Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, based in Broughton, has hit out at the plant, following the incident on April 1. Details of the malfunction were only released last week.

"Agency Is Refusing to Adhere to an Order to Release Document That Would Help Determine Safety of New Nuclear Reactors WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) should stop balking and provide a critical document that would reveal how the owners of a Texas nuclear plant expansion project plan to deal with a fire or explosion, three public interest groups told the commission late last week. Three administrative judges of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board have ordered the agency to provide at least a redacted version, but NRC staffers have refused. The NRC's lack of transparency could impact the ability to get adequate safety-related information not only about the South Texas Project (STP) but about other proposed reactors around the country as well. Late Friday, the groups - the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, Public Citizen and the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy - filed a brief with the NRC. It noted that the NRC staff's refusal to provide the information violated President Barack Obama's new transparency policy. The groups also said the NRC is acting arbitrarily and trying to shut the public out of NRC proceedings."