RWE

RWE background

RWE is an international energy and water business, with interests in Germany, the UK, Central and Eastern Europe, and the US.

In the UK, it owns Thames Water Utilities, the largest water and sewage company in the country, with over 4,000 employees and 13 million customers across London and south-east England.

It also owns the energy firm nPower, which supplies electricity and gas to 6.2 million customers. RWE nPower has major interests in renewable energy and developed the UK's first major offshore wind farm.

RWE Nukem background

Nukem was set up in 1960 and was one of Germany’s first nuclear power firms. It became a subsidiary of TESSAG Technische Systems und Services Aktiengesellschaft (Tessag) in 1999, which was later to become RWE Solutions. In 2001 Nukem bought AEA Technology’s nuclear engineering arm.

Nukem now offers design and build, decommissioning, land remediation, consultancy, radiation safety and nuclear support services. Its annual turnover in the UK is excess of £60 million, and £245 million worldwide. UK staff are based at permanent offices in Risley, Dounreay, Sellafield, Harwell and Winfrith.

Leaks and dodgy reports

In October 2005, decommissioning work on a lab at Dounreay was stopped after routine tests on eight contractors working for Nukem suggested they had breathed in traces of plutonium.

According to the local newspaper, “The lab, where reprocessing experiments were carried out on highly enriched uranium and plutonium, was shut down a year ago following a similar health scare involving 15 workers. Tests showed that some had inhaled tiny amounts of plutonium.� [1]

In 1999, the reliability of an ‘independent’ Nukem report on the safety of nuclear waste transportation in Britain, commissioned by the government, was called into question after it emerged that the firm had close ties to BNFL, including a joint £54m contract to decommission a nuclear reactor at Sellafield. Nukem was paid £50,000 by the government to carry out a safety survey of BNFL trains carrying spent nuclear fuel. Unsurprisingly, it gave BNFL the all-clear. [2]

Who runs RWE Nukem?

• Dr Michael Down, managing director – has been associated with the nuclear industry all his working life. He researched fast reactors and nuclear fusion at Nottingham University for eight years and then worked at Westinghouse before joining Nukem.

• Ken Jackson, major projects – former board member of Ingenco Ltd, Kemgas Ltd, BNFL and Urenco. He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

• Keith Collett, marketing –previously worked for BNFL and NNC Limited.

• Mike Brewin, engineering & consultancy - has worked in the nuclear industry since 1975.

• Frank Cullinane, finance – previously held senior financial positions at Manweb Contracting, W H Smith and other contracting and engineering businesses.

• Dr Richard Birch, health physics – a career health physicist and chairman of the nuclear industry’s Internal Radiations Dosimetry Group.

PR

Burson-Marsteller provided consultancy services for Thames Water in 2003/4 [3] and for RWE npower and RWE Thames Water during 2005. [4]