The Independent (May 9)
The closure of the Hamaoka nuclear facility will affect the future of a nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Hamaoka was scheduled to become Sellafield’s biggest customer for mixed oxide (Mox) nuclear fuel. The UK has more spent plutonium fuel than any other country and Sellafield was designed to reprocess this plutonium as nuclear fuel. Little has gone according to plan. Since 2001, the “Sellafield Mox Plant has been beset by problems. Instead of producing 120 tonnes of fuel a year, it has managed just over 13 tonnes in eight years, at a total cost to the taxpayer of £1.34bn – and a further £800m in future running costs expected this decade.”
The New York Times (May 7)
The U.S. added 244,000 jobs in April, but the jobless rate rose because even more people left or lost jobs. The “contradictory employment data raise questions about the economy’s momentum,” demonstrating the need for additional job creation programs, rather than government budget-cutting. “Job growth is not taking off. At the current monthly rate, it would take more than five years to return to the pre-recession unemployment rate of 5 percent in December 2007.”
Tags: Budget, Jobs, U.S., Unemployment
