Swiss nuclear lobby hit by bomb
March 31, 2011 by
Filed under Green Electronics
Two injured after parcel bomb explodes in offices of Swissnuclear
Two people have been injured after a parcel bomb exploded in the offices of the Swiss nuclear lobby, police said.
The two female employees of Swissnuclear were taken to hospital with superficial burns and hearing damage, a police spokesman said, adding that it was not yet known who sent the parcel.
Police cordoned off the office on the fourth floor of a building in the northern town of Olten. The police spokesman said forensic specialists were on the ground.
Earlier this month, Switzerland suspended the approvals process for three new nuclear power stations so that safety standards could be reviewed after Japan’s earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Swissnuclear says it works to promote the safe and efficient use of nuclear power and represents Swiss utilities Alpiq, Axpo, BKW, CKW and EGL, which run the nuclear plants that produce about 40% of Swiss electricity.
Olten is home to the headquarters of Alpiq, where about 50 Greenpeace protesters held a demonstration on Thursday calling for the company to withdraw its application to build a new nuclear plant.
A police spokesman said they were investigating whether there was any connection between the explosion and the demonstration.
Greenpeace said it had nothing to do with the attack. “We are shocked that such action can be used for political purposes. Greenpeace is committed to non-violent protest,” said energy campaigner Florian Kasser.
The centre-left Social Democrats and the Greens are calling for Switzerland to abandon nuclear power after the Japanese disaster. However, the energy minister, Doris Leuthard, has cautioned against a hasty decision, warning that abandonment would mean more gas power stations and a subsequent rise in carbon emissions.
In 1990, Swiss voters backed a 10-year moratorium on the building of nuclear power plants but they rejected extending the freeze in 2003, opening the way for the government to consider new plants to replace those that needed to be retired.
Last month, voters narrowly approved the building of a plant in Muehleberg to replace the old one there, which is 20% owned by Germany’s E.ON.
Ministers meetings with nuclear lobby raise concerns of favouritism
November 7, 2010 by drjohnmcgowan
Filed under Green Energy
The renewable energy industry is concerned that the government has spent thousands meeting nuclear lobbyists
Thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been spent on special meetings between ministers and the nuclear industry in Britain, prompting allegations the government is giving the sector an unfair advantage over renewable energy.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has paid more than £8,000 this year for meetings outside government offices with the Nuclear Development Forum – set up to “secure the long-term future of nuclear power generation in the UK”, and help make Britain “the best market in the world for companies to invest in nuclear power”.
Two of those three external meetings with leading energy and engineering companies were attended by the secretaries of state at the time, Labour’s Ed Miliband in March, and Chris Huhne in July, and the third meeting in October by the minister of state, Charles Hendry. Further meetings at the department’s headquarters in Whitehall Place took place, for which costs were not provided.
Concern about the preferential treatment given to the nuclear industry by successive governments is likely to be heightened by the decision last month to abolish the parallel Renewables Advisory Board, which met every quarter at the department and once a year outside, as part of spending cuts. The work of the renewables board will be taken on by the Office for Renewable Energy Deployment, for which there is a parallel Office for Nuclear Development.
The developments are likely to fuel concerns among the many environmental campaigners who oppose nuclear power that the industry has unfair access to the government, as well as benefiting from hidden subsidies.
“They [government] have to come clean about all the money spent on assisting nuclear – and this would be part of that,” said Mike Childs, head of climate campaigns for Friends of the Earth. “It’s important ministers come clean about who they are meeting, when they are meeting, and the issues they are discussing.”
In response to a Freedom of Information request from consultant and anti-nuclear campaigner David Lowry, Decc said that it had costed three external meetings with the NDF in 2010, spending £3,910 in March, £2,820 in July, and £1,416 in October.
The coalition has promised there will be no subsidies for nuclear, but more than half Decc’s £3bn budget last year was spent cleaning up nuclear waste through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and despite savage cost cuts across the rest of government in last month’s spending review, the NDA budget will continue to rise up until 2014-15. There is widespread expectation that minsters will find other ways to ensure new reactors are built, including by setting a “floor” price for carbon that would make nuclear – and other non-carbon emitting renewable energy sources – more cost competitive.
Another common claim is that assessments of the environmental benefits of nuclear power ignore many of the “upfront costs such as mining and the on-going row over how to dispose of radioactive waste, and that claims nuclear power offers more security of supply are undermined by predicted shortages of uranium.
“To be honest, we had concerns about the Renewables Advisory Board, how effective it was,” added Childs. “They can set up an advisory board, but nobody’s listening. It depends whether the secretary of state and ministers care about an issue.”
However not all environmental groups see nuclear and renewable energy in opposition. “I don’t think it’s a competition about who can have however many committees,” said Matthew Spencer, director of the Green Alliance of lobby groups. “The question is: is policy going to be well formed by a regular interaction with people who are delivering on the ground?”
A Decc spokesman also rejected claims that the government was unfairly favouring nuclear power, adding that there were also forums for offshore wind and carbon capture and storage, the hope of catching and storing greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations.
“We do not believe this will lead to an unfair playing field and we are keen to see a diverse energy mix,” said the spokesman. “As the UK remains the global leader in operating offshore wind, we are committed to retaining this position by working closely with industry to overcome current barriers and help further investment.”