"Not Wales, or Scotland….they want renewables
The Welsh Assembly Government's new Energy Policy Statement 'A Low Carbon Revolution', sets out an approach to accelerating the transition to a low carbon energy economy in Wales, focusing on efficiency measures and the use of indigenous renewable forms of energy such as marine, wind, solar and biomass. It claims that by 2025 around 40% of electricity in Wales could come from marine sources and a third from wind.
In addition to local community-level micro-generation projects, it proposes the use of offshore wind around the coast of Wales in order to deliver a 15 kWh/d/p (per day per person) of capacity by 2015/16 and to capture at least 10% (8 kWh/d/p) of the potential tidal stream and wave energy off the Welsh coastline by 2025, and it wants onshore wind to deliver 4.5 kWh/d/p of installed onshore wind generation capacity by 2015/2017. It will back small-scale hydro and geothermal schemes, where they are environmentally acceptable, in order to generate at least 1 kWh/d/p, and wants bioenergy/waste to deliver up to 6 kWh/d/p of electricity by 2020- 50% indigenous/50% imported- also offering an additional heat potential of 2-2.5 kWh/d/p."
MOST North Wales councils have decided to snub an appeal by the British Government to bury nuclear waste in their areas - despite financial incentives.
North Wales has two Magnox nuclear power station sites, Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd, which closed in 1991 and where clean-up operations are ongoing, and the still-operational Wylfa power plant on Anglesey.
"RADIATION from Chernobyl was carried far and wide by the wind and some of it was deposited in heavy rain on the upland areas of North Wales.
More than 300 Welsh farmers are still unable to take a total of 180,000 lambs to market without calling in Government inspectors armed with Geiger counters.
The men from the ministry scan animals for signs of radiation because the land they graze is still contaminated. Many continue to have to be moved to lower pastures in order to be clear of radioactivity."
As a fellow exile from Neath, along with Sian Lloyd (Western Mail Business, October 15), I read with some incredulity that the West Wales Business Forum has joined the atomic advocacy club.
But generously, it is supporting a new reactor being constructed in Anglesey - just about as far away from West Wales as it is possible to go without leaving the nation.
Of course, even if planning permission for such a plant was to be given this month (which it won't!), it would take at least 10 years before any power could be generated.
As 1,000 ex-servicemen exposed to atomic tests in the Pacific in the 50s fight for compensation in the High Court, the widow of one veteran tells his story
KEITH Davies held up his hands to cover his face and was shocked to see his own bones.
Keith was on board an aircraft carrier, HMS Warrior in the 1950s and was an unwitting witness to Britain's testing of early nuclear bombs.
Twenty two years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Plaid MEP Jill Evans says tomorrow's anniversary (Saturday) serves as a timely reminder of why nuclear power must be phased out.
The radioactive cloud spread radiation from Chernobyl right across Europe, and more than 300 farms in the north of Wales are still affected by restrictions imposed in the aftermath of the disaster.
UP to 359 Welsh farms are still operating under restrictions imposed in the wake of Chernobyl, more than two decades after the Soviet nuclear plant went into meltdown.
The Food Standards Agency Wales revealed the figure before today's 22nd anniversary of the largest nuclear accident in history.
Huw Alun Evans's farm in north Wales looks no different from any other; his 400 sheep and lambs graze happily across 125 hectares. His farmland rises to 2,408ft at the summit of the extinct volcano Rhobell Fawr, in the Snowdonia national park. His family has farmed there for three generations and he has run the Hengwrt Uchaf farm at Rhyd-y-main for 31 years.
However, for more than two decades he has lived on the southern periphery of a restricted area due to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl power station accident in 1986. Thousands of his sheep have been scanned for radiation throughout this time.
With the Copenhagen climate conference under way, the UK government under pressure to cut carbon emissions and Wylfa on Anglesey shortlisted for a new nuclear power station, BBC Wales' environment correspondent Iolo ap Dafydd asks if nuclear is the low carbon answer to energy security in the future.
Inside the ageing Wylfa plant there are four large turbines which are part of the process to produce electricity 24 hours a day.
When fully operational, they produce enough electricity to power both Liverpool and Manchester simultaneously.
With a predicted shortage of energy by 2015, should we build more nuclear power stations?
With the Copenhagen climate conference under way, the UK government under pressure to cut carbon emissions and Wylfa on Anglesey shortlisted for a new nuclear power station, BBC Wales' environment correspondent Iolo ap Dafydd asks if nuclear is the low carbon answer to energy security in the future.
Inside the ageing Wylfa plant there are four large turbines which are part of the process to produce electricity 24 hours a day.
When fully operational, they produce enough electricity to power both Liverpool and Manchester simultaneously.
With a predicted shortage of energy by 2015, should we build more nuclear power stations?
Ministers refuse to release details of five incidents last year
The government is refusing to provide details on five separate security breaches at Britain's nuclear power stations last year.
The breaches have prompted accusations that ministers are suppressing damaging information at a time when they are attempting to sell the idea of more nuclear power stations. Earlier this month, 10 new sites in England and Wales were approved.
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, told MPs that nuclear was a "proven and reliable" energy source. But the latest annual report from the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) has prompted questions about the measures being taken to protect the country's ageing plants. The report states that nuclear operators must disclose "events and occurrences which may be of interest from a security point of view". It notes: "Five reports were made which warranted further investigation and subsequent follow-up action."
Ministers refuse to release details of five incidents last year
The government is refusing to provide details on five separate security breaches at Britain's nuclear power stations last year.
The breaches have prompted accusations that ministers are suppressing damaging information at a time when they are attempting to sell the idea of more nuclear power stations. Earlier this month, 10 new sites in England and Wales were approved.
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, told MPs that nuclear was a "proven and reliable" energy source. But the latest annual report from the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) has prompted questions about the measures being taken to protect the country's ageing plants. The report states that nuclear operators must disclose "events and occurrences which may be of interest from a security point of view". It notes: "Five reports were made which warranted further investigation and subsequent follow-up action."
A Welsh Labour politician has added his voice for thousands of ex-servicemen involved in Britain's nuclear tests in the 1950s to receive compensation.
Thousands suffered serious ill health, believed to be linked to radiation exposure during the tests.
A legal challenge is under way after defence chiefs told veterans they were out of time to claim for compensation.
A social housing project near a former beryllium plant has been approved by councillors in Pembrokeshire.
The 37-home application on land off Marble Hall Road in Milford Haven had attracted objections amid fears the site was contaminated.
ONE of the front runners in the race to build a new nuclear power station at Wylfa looks poised to complete an £12bn deal for British Energy which could cool its interest on Anglesey.
UK nuclear firm British Energy is expected to be snapped up by French power giants EDF (Electricité de France), which recently revealed it was buying up farmland around Wylfa, owned by the National Decommissioning Authority.
A man whose parents died while living near a former uranium smelter site in Sydney's north says he is angry the Government withheld information from the public.
A New South Wales parliamentary committee is holding an inquiry into the site on Nelson Parade at Hunter's Hill.
Members of the inquiry visited the site earlier this week and found unacceptable levels of radioactivity. Recent independent testing of soil samples found 350 times more radioactive than what is considered safe.
As revealed in The Whitehaven News, the option of storing spent fuel in underground vaults, is becoming a possible alternative to reprocessing for Britain's expected fleet of new nuclear reactors and a graphic illustration of the mountain of spoil, as large as the Egyptian pyramids, that would be created by an underground repository has been reproduced by a Welsh council that feared such a repository coming to Wales.
The New South Wales Government is facing scrutiny over plans to sell-off contaminated land at Hunters Hill, on Sydney's north shore.
An Upper House inquiry will be established into the land, which was once used for uranium processing.
The Greens won support for the inquiry from the Opposition and crossbenches.
Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the country can cope with climate change without resorting to nuclear power.
The former premier of the eastern state of New South Wales, Bob Carr, and Australian Workers Union national secretary, Paul Howes, have both urged Mr Rudd's Labor Party to drop its opposition to nuclear power.
The Uranium Mining Subcommittee's approval Thursday of the final draft of a study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia drew a variety of reactions from local opponents and a supporter.
"We're very gratified," Patrick Wales, geologist and spokesman for Virginia Uranium Inc., said Friday. "An independent study of uranium mining and milling has been the one thing we've been proposing since the inception of our company."
VUI seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. Virginia currently has a moratorium on uranium mining.
Hundreds of farms in Britain remain under restriction on the use of land as a result of the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union 23 years ago, Health Minister Dawn Primarolo.
"We have been advised by the Food Standards Agency that restrictions on land use as a result of the Chernobyl accident relate to sheep farming only," Primarolo told MPs.
" There are 369 farms, or part farms, and approximately 190,000 sheep within the restricted areas of England, Scotland and Wales," she said in a written parliament reply published Wednesday.
Despite energy matters being reserved to Westminster, SNP ministers have vowed to use their control over planning applications to block any proposals for new atomic plants in Scotland.
The Government yesterday published a shortlist of 11 potential sites for new nuclear stations, but were forced to include only England and Wales.