Siemens to quit nuclear industry

18 September 2011 Last updated at 12:40 GMT Siemens will continue to work in the power industry but drop out of the nuclear sector German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry.

The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said.

He told Spiegel magazine it was the firm's answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".

"The chapter for us is closed," he said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations.

A long-planned joint venture with Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will also be cancelled, although Mr Loescher said he would still seek to work with their partner "in other fields".

Siemens was responsible for building all 17 of Germany's existing nuclear power plants.

But more recently, the firm has limited itself to providing the non-nuclear parts of plants being built by other firms, including current projects in China and Finland.

The latest decision appears to imply a step back from building "conventional islands" - the non-nuclear plant in nuclear power stations - an area in which Siemens has remained active.

However, Mr Loescher also said Siemens would continue to make components, such as steam turbines, that are used in the conventional power industry, but can also be used in nuclear plants.

U-turn

He also gave his backing to the German government's planned switch to renewable energy sources, calling it a "project of the century" and claiming Berlin's target of reaching 35% renewable energy by 2020 was achievable.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced at the end of May that all of the country's 17 nuclear reactors would be shut down by 2022.

Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power accounted for 23% of electricity production in Germany.

The German government's decision marked a complete U-turn by the chancellor, who only in September 2010 had announced that the life of existing nuclear plants would be extended by an average of 12 years.

Siemen's move, announced on Sunday, is also a turnaround.

In 2009, the firm withdrew from an eight-year-old nuclear joint venture with French energy firm Areva, shortly before announcing its new deal with Rosatom.

"In view of global climate change and the increasing power demand worldwide, for us nuclear energy remains an essential part of a sustainable energy mix," Mr Loescher had said at the time.

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U.S. invites N. Korea to nuclear talks

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on July 22.North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kae-gwan is invited for later this weekThe diplomat is expected to talk about ways to resume denuclearization talksSix-party talks broke down in 2008 when North Korea pulled out

(CNN) -- A top North Korean diplomat will visit New York this week for "exploratory" talks on ways to resume stalled de-nuclearization negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday.

"Following the first round of de-nuclearization talks between the nuclear negotiators of the Republic of Korea and North Korea, the United States has invited North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kae-gwan to New York later this week," she said.

The U.S. offer came on the heels of talks between the chief nuclear envoys of North Korea and South Korea last week. On Friday, the two sides agreed to try to resume six-party talks as soon as possible, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.

The session was the first such direct meeting on nuclear issues between the two nations since six-party talks broke down in 2008, when North Korea pulled out of the multinational nuclear disarmament initiative.

"This will be an exploratory meeting to determine if North Korea is prepared to affirm its obligations under international and Six Party Talk commitments, as well as take concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization," Clinton said in a statement.

"As we have stated repeatedly, we are open to talks with North Korea, but we do not intend to reward the North just for returning to the table. We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take. And we have no appetite for pursuing protracted negotiations that will only lead us right back to where we have already been."

The nations involved in the six-party talks are the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

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Nuclear workers to use £20m tool

18 July 2011 Last updated at 13:05 GMT By Steven McKenzie BBC Scotland Highlands and Islands reporter The tool will operate in highly radioactive conditions A 16-piece tool dubbed the world's most sophisticated Swiss Army knife is to help dismantle the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) in Caithness.

The device cost £20m to design and build and will operate in highly radioactive conditions inside Dounreay's landmark Dome.

Its detachable tool bits cost £100,000 each and weigh between 37-93kg.

They will cut and grab 977 metal rods once used to "breed" plutonium from uranium.

Measuring about 2.5m (8ft) in length, the rods resemble thin sections of scaffolding.

UK government agency, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), has proposed transporting the metal, which is known as breeder material, by train to Sellafield in Cumbria to be reprocessed.

The new 4m (14ft) long device has been moved into position above the DFR's reactor vessel, ready to be lowered into the darkness of the reactor vessel where it will "harvest" the metal rods.

Before this work can start, a liquid metal will have to be drained from the vessel over the next 12 months.

The tool is also being put through a series of "robust" tests and its operators are receiving training.

Once in place, the device will operate in highly radioactive conditions and in a nitrogen atmosphere. Nitrogen prevents any residue of the liquid metal from reacting.

Continue reading the main story The Dounreay Fast Reactor operated between 1959 and 1977Two thousand metal rods had surrounded the DFR's coreMore than half were removed during the 1980s. However, a number were found to be jammed in place and Dounreay also ran out of storage space for removed rodsExposure to water or oxygen would cause the metal to catch fire.

Alex Potts, the engineer in charge of the Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) project, said it was too dangerous for people to work inside the reactor vessel.

He said: "The reactor was a one-off design and so is the tool we need to take out the breeder rods.

"It's too toxic in there for anyone to do the job manually - the radiation levels are still very high and the residual traces of liquid metal coolant add to the hazard - so we need a tool capable of doing the job by remote control.

"It's a pretty sophisticated version of a Swiss army knife the team came up with."

Up to three tool bits will be in use at any one time and can be replaced by another three carried in a special tool box without the need to remove the tool itself from the reactor.

The pipe crawler has been among Dounreay's other hi-tech tools

The rest of the tool bits will be stored above the reactor and would be fitted into place during service and maintenance breaks.

Special radiation-proof cameras and spotlights will guide operators working around the clock in a control room 6m (20ft) above the reactor.

The device, designed and built by French firm Framatome, is among the most expensive in the Dounreay "tool box".

Others include a £100,000 pipe crawler, a device described by its operators as a hi-tech worm, which was deployed to probe the condition of a pipeline once used to discharge radioactive effluent from the site.

A van-sized machine has also been retrieving radioactive particles from the seabed near Dounreay.

But project costs have also been cut with the use of household cleaning products in the clean-up of equipment removed from the experimental nuclear power plant.

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