[News] from [guardian.co.uk]
[guardian.co.uk > Environment > Nuclear power]
UK's nuclear reactor programme falls behind schedule
Regulator and builders blame each other for construction hold-up as designs await approval
Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010 20.25 BST
Article history
Nuclear plant in Flamanville, northwestern France under construction. French nuclear engineering specialist Areva is in a consortium behind one of the designs for the UK's first reactor under the building programme. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP
The schedule for the UK's nuclear reactor building programme has slipped behind already, the safety regulator has admitted, reinforcing concerns that the first reactor will not be built on time.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it would probably have to issue an "interim" decision on the safety of the two new proposed reactor designs next June, the deadline for its assessment programme. The regulator expects significant chunks of extra work will remain before it can finally approve or reject the designs, but did not say how long this would take.
Kevin Allars, director of the assessment programme at the HSE, said that companies could continue planning and carry out preparatory construction on proposed nuclear sites while they waited for a final decision. But he insisted that construction of a reactor could not start without its consent.
Allars promised there would be no repeat of the chaotic construction in Finland of what was supposed to be Europe's first new reactor in decades. The Areva plant is more than three years behind schedule and more than €2bn (£1.6bn) over budget, with the Finnish regulator trying to approve each component of the design while it is being built. EDF has promised that the UK's first reactor will be operational in 2018, although it had originally said it would be running by the end of 2017.
The HSE said the companies behind the designs – French consortium Areva, EDF and US firm Westinghouse – had been repeatedly submitting information which was incomplete and late.
In turn, the companies are blaming the regulator for not having sufficient resources to carry out the work. The Guardian revealed last year that the arm of the HSE which was carrying out the work – the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) – had been forced to hire more than a dozen project managers, even though they work for the companies hoping to build the designs under review.
In its quarterly update on the assessment programme, the HSE admitted that this risk of a conflict of interest was a "factor of increasing significance" which it said it would "continue to monitor closely".
Westinghouse, which has put forward its AP1000 reactor design, comes in for particularly harsh criticism. Allars said of the company: "It's very frustrating. We get a load [of work] in late and then we do not get what we were promised or of the quality we were promised. If this carries on they won't get a design acceptance."
The HSE has already raised a red flag over Westinghouse's civil engineering plans for key structures making up the reactor core, which the regulator says are not sufficiently robust. The company was supposed to carry out further analysis by the end of June, but most of this has been delayed, while what had been done "fell significantly short of what we expected".
"Significant issues" are also flagged for Westinghouse's planned control and instrumentation systems to operate the reactor. The company missed a June deadline to provide information on reactor chemistry, "which does not help our confidence that Westinghouse will meet future delivery dates", said the HSE.
A Westinghouse spokesman said: "We accept that some of our input in one or two areas has not met the regulator's expectations."
A Greenpeace spokesman said: "The generic design assessment [GDA] process has already unearthed a string of nasty surprises within the new nuclear reactors' designs. But now we find out GDA won't even be able to give a final green light to the reactor designs. This means we could be faced with the farcical situation where the government is letting utilities press ahead with building work for reactors that haven't been given safety approval."
[guardian.co.uk > Environment > GM]
GM salmon may go on sale in US after public consultation
Food and Drug administration begins 60-day process to approve animal critics call a 'frankenfish'
> Artificial meat? Food for thought by 2050
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010 21.24 BST
Article history
{A genetically-modified AquAdvantage salmon, top, next to a control salmon of the same age. Photograph: AP}
US authorities today began the process to approve the first GM animal for human consumption.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a 60-day period of consultation and public meetings over whether to permit a GM strain of salmon to be eaten by humans, even though it has been called a "frankenfish" by critics. The approval process could take less than a year, and if it gets the green light the fish could be on the market in 18 months.
Environmentalists and scientists see the decision as marking a threshold. If it is approved it is likely to open the door to a large range of GM animals being raised for consumption. If not, scientists say that will have a negative effect on research, in part because there will be no money to be made from it.
Among the considerations by the FDA is whether, if the fish is approved for consumption, it must be labelled as genetically engineered.
The AquAdvantage salmon – a modified North Atlantic salmon – has been created by AquaBounty Technologies in Boston, Massachusetts, over 14 years at a cost of $50m. The company says the salmon grows at twice the speed of similar fish, cutting costs for farmers and greatly increasing production.
On its website the company says: "This advancement provides a compelling economic benefit to farmers (reduced growing cycle) as well as enhancing the economic viability of inland operations, thereby diminishing the need for ocean pens." The fish are also sterile, which the company says would prevent interbreeding with wild salmon.
The genetic modification involves taking a growth hormone gene from a chinook salmon and joining it with a control DNA sequence (called a promoter) from an ocean pout – an eel-like creature from a different family of marine organisms. The growth hormone gene is almost identical to the equivalent gene in the North Atlantic salmon – the sequence differs by just 1% – but it operates differently because of the new control sequence. Unlike in North Atlantic salmon, which produced growth hormone only in the summer, ocean pout control sequence directs the gene to produce hormone all year round.
The genetic mash-up is then injected into the eggs of North Atlantic salmon. Here, it is taken up by the fish's genome and ultimately the DNA is present in cells throughout the body of the fish. The company uses a different genetic trick to make the fish it proposes to sell to customers sterile to prevent them interbreeding.
The explanation of the genetic modification on the company's publicity literature, aimed at reassuring the public, makes no mention of the ocean pout gene. "The chinook growth hormone is the same as the Atlantic salmon growth hormone; it is simply regulated differently. Their ability to grow faster does not change the biological make-up of the fish," the company says.
That appears to contradict the explanation of the technology from AquaBounty's chief scientific officer, Dr John Buchanan, who said the fish do incorporate DNA from the ocean pout. But he said there was no intention to mislead. "I don't think it is intentionally hidden. It has been disclosed many times and published in papers," he said, adding that the description on the website had been simplified to make it less confusing.
Because it is new ground for the FDA there are no regulations about genetically engineered animals and so it is being evaluated as if it were an animal treated with drugs.
The FDA has established an advisory committee of veterinarians to consider the evidence and public views. A public meeting will be held next month.
Among the opponents is the International Salmon Farmers Association which is concerned about the reaction of consumers and that it will undermine the popularity of salmon, which commands high prices in the US.
However, the National Fisheries Institute, a trade association of American seafood producers, backs "the use of biotechnology in the production of genetically-engineered fish" provided it has FDA approval.
If the FDA approves the fish for human consumption, AquaBounty says they will be raised in inland waters to ensure the modified salmon do not enter the oceans.
[guardian.co.uk > Environment > Nuclear power]
UK's nuclear reactor programme falls behind schedule
Regulator and builders blame each other for construction hold-up as designs await approval
Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010 20.25 BST
Article history
Nuclear plant in Flamanville, northwestern France under construction. French nuclear engineering specialist Areva is in a consortium behind one of the designs for the UK's first reactor under the building programme. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP
The schedule for the UK's nuclear reactor building programme has slipped behind already, the safety regulator has admitted, reinforcing concerns that the first reactor will not be built on time.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it would probably have to issue an "interim" decision on the safety of the two new proposed reactor designs next June, the deadline for its assessment programme. The regulator expects significant chunks of extra work will remain before it can finally approve or reject the designs, but did not say how long this would take.
Kevin Allars, director of the assessment programme at the HSE, said that companies could continue planning and carry out preparatory construction on proposed nuclear sites while they waited for a final decision. But he insisted that construction of a reactor could not start without its consent.
Allars promised there would be no repeat of the chaotic construction in Finland of what was supposed to be Europe's first new reactor in decades. The Areva plant is more than three years behind schedule and more than €2bn (£1.6bn) over budget, with the Finnish regulator trying to approve each component of the design while it is being built. EDF has promised that the UK's first reactor will be operational in 2018, although it had originally said it would be running by the end of 2017.
The HSE said the companies behind the designs – French consortium Areva, EDF and US firm Westinghouse – had been repeatedly submitting information which was incomplete and late.
In turn, the companies are blaming the regulator for not having sufficient resources to carry out the work. The Guardian revealed last year that the arm of the HSE which was carrying out the work – the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) – had been forced to hire more than a dozen project managers, even though they work for the companies hoping to build the designs under review.
In its quarterly update on the assessment programme, the HSE admitted that this risk of a conflict of interest was a "factor of increasing significance" which it said it would "continue to monitor closely".
Westinghouse, which has put forward its AP1000 reactor design, comes in for particularly harsh criticism. Allars said of the company: "It's very frustrating. We get a load [of work] in late and then we do not get what we were promised or of the quality we were promised. If this carries on they won't get a design acceptance."
The HSE has already raised a red flag over Westinghouse's civil engineering plans for key structures making up the reactor core, which the regulator says are not sufficiently robust. The company was supposed to carry out further analysis by the end of June, but most of this has been delayed, while what had been done "fell significantly short of what we expected".
"Significant issues" are also flagged for Westinghouse's planned control and instrumentation systems to operate the reactor. The company missed a June deadline to provide information on reactor chemistry, "which does not help our confidence that Westinghouse will meet future delivery dates", said the HSE.
A Westinghouse spokesman said: "We accept that some of our input in one or two areas has not met the regulator's expectations."
A Greenpeace spokesman said: "The generic design assessment [GDA] process has already unearthed a string of nasty surprises within the new nuclear reactors' designs. But now we find out GDA won't even be able to give a final green light to the reactor designs. This means we could be faced with the farcical situation where the government is letting utilities press ahead with building work for reactors that haven't been given safety approval."
[guardian.co.uk > Environment > GM]
GM salmon may go on sale in US after public consultation
Food and Drug administration begins 60-day process to approve animal critics call a 'frankenfish'
> Artificial meat? Food for thought by 2050
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010 21.24 BST
Article history
{A genetically-modified AquAdvantage salmon, top, next to a control salmon of the same age. Photograph: AP}
US authorities today began the process to approve the first GM animal for human consumption.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a 60-day period of consultation and public meetings over whether to permit a GM strain of salmon to be eaten by humans, even though it has been called a "frankenfish" by critics. The approval process could take less than a year, and if it gets the green light the fish could be on the market in 18 months.
Environmentalists and scientists see the decision as marking a threshold. If it is approved it is likely to open the door to a large range of GM animals being raised for consumption. If not, scientists say that will have a negative effect on research, in part because there will be no money to be made from it.
Among the considerations by the FDA is whether, if the fish is approved for consumption, it must be labelled as genetically engineered.
The AquAdvantage salmon – a modified North Atlantic salmon – has been created by AquaBounty Technologies in Boston, Massachusetts, over 14 years at a cost of $50m. The company says the salmon grows at twice the speed of similar fish, cutting costs for farmers and greatly increasing production.
On its website the company says: "This advancement provides a compelling economic benefit to farmers (reduced growing cycle) as well as enhancing the economic viability of inland operations, thereby diminishing the need for ocean pens." The fish are also sterile, which the company says would prevent interbreeding with wild salmon.
The genetic modification involves taking a growth hormone gene from a chinook salmon and joining it with a control DNA sequence (called a promoter) from an ocean pout – an eel-like creature from a different family of marine organisms. The growth hormone gene is almost identical to the equivalent gene in the North Atlantic salmon – the sequence differs by just 1% – but it operates differently because of the new control sequence. Unlike in North Atlantic salmon, which produced growth hormone only in the summer, ocean pout control sequence directs the gene to produce hormone all year round.
The genetic mash-up is then injected into the eggs of North Atlantic salmon. Here, it is taken up by the fish's genome and ultimately the DNA is present in cells throughout the body of the fish. The company uses a different genetic trick to make the fish it proposes to sell to customers sterile to prevent them interbreeding.
The explanation of the genetic modification on the company's publicity literature, aimed at reassuring the public, makes no mention of the ocean pout gene. "The chinook growth hormone is the same as the Atlantic salmon growth hormone; it is simply regulated differently. Their ability to grow faster does not change the biological make-up of the fish," the company says.
That appears to contradict the explanation of the technology from AquaBounty's chief scientific officer, Dr John Buchanan, who said the fish do incorporate DNA from the ocean pout. But he said there was no intention to mislead. "I don't think it is intentionally hidden. It has been disclosed many times and published in papers," he said, adding that the description on the website had been simplified to make it less confusing.
Because it is new ground for the FDA there are no regulations about genetically engineered animals and so it is being evaluated as if it were an animal treated with drugs.
The FDA has established an advisory committee of veterinarians to consider the evidence and public views. A public meeting will be held next month.
Among the opponents is the International Salmon Farmers Association which is concerned about the reaction of consumers and that it will undermine the popularity of salmon, which commands high prices in the US.
However, the National Fisheries Institute, a trade association of American seafood producers, backs "the use of biotechnology in the production of genetically-engineered fish" provided it has FDA approval.
If the FDA approves the fish for human consumption, AquaBounty says they will be raised in inland waters to ensure the modified salmon do not enter the oceans.
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