Between the Broadsheets

British Energy, the UK's largest electricity generator, yesterday confirmed that two of its nuclear reactors would remain shut for the foreseeable future – The Times

The cost of nuclear clean-up operations is to rise further amid increased problems at Sellafield, Britain's main reprocessing site – The Times

Shell has once again been rapped over the knuckles by the Health and Safety Executive for safety problems on its North Sea platforms despite pledges from chief executive Jeroen van der Veer that he was determined to change the culture after problems in the past. The HSE confirmed last night that it had upheld various complaints made by trade unions about staffing and operational procedures on the Cormorant Alpha, Dunlin Alpha and three other platforms and asked the oil group to take immediate action - The Guardian

Plans to speed up the dismantling of Britain's atomic power stations were in disarray last night after the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority admitted it was slowing down the clean-up process owing to soaring costs and fuel reprocessing problems at Sellafield - The Guardian

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's draft business plan for 2011 disclosed yesterday that due to prioritising "hazard reduction", the majority of funds over the next three years would be used to clean up Dounreay and Sellefield's plants. But this clashes with previous intentions to focus on cleaning up Magnox sites - Financial Times

British Energy's shares went into meltdown yesterday after the UK's largest power producer found a second faulty wire on one of its nuclear reactors. The discovery of the failure of a "reinforcing wire" surrounding the cooling unit at its Heysham 1 nuclear reactor comes just two weeks after the same problem was uncovered at its Hartlepool reactors. British Energy's inability to predict when the problems would be resolved sent its shares down 7% yesterday , closing at 516p a share. "This is a legacy issue of the initial construction, identified during the course of baseline inspections," the company said. "while this component of the plant was not originally designed to be inspected, improved technology and innovative inspection techniques have been developed which have allowed inspection." Financial results will be reported on 13 November - The Independent