Electricity Market Reforms
David Toke, Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy, Birmingham University: It seems strange to have to explain why nuclear power isn’t green, but it is all over the British press from the Government that it is, and that electricity consumers will be supporting ‘green energy’ with increased bills. Consumers may think that most or all of this is going to renewable energy. But, under the Government’s ‘electricity market reform’ proposals a lot will be diverted to support nuclear power – both old and new, through two ways. One is because fossil fuel prices are being increased to make non-fossil sources relatively cheaper, and another is through a new scheme called the ‘low carbon mechanism’. This will be organised by government in what will be no doubt a rather opaque fashion to funnel an additional precept from consumer electricity bills to fund new nuclear. What is left will go to renewable energy through an ‘auction’ system that has long been discredited (see earlier blog). In doing so, of course, it does not take a great deal of imagination to see that the renewable energy programme will not be anything like as big as if all the money was going to start new renewable energy schemes rather than support nuclear power.
Campaign for Real Feed-in Tariffs 19th Dec 2010 more >>
Has EDF conned the Government? Will we be paying the price for decades? ‘What troubles me most about these new low-carbon incentives is that the immediate big financial winners will be the already built, old, nuclear power station owners. Besides being a huge windfall for their current owners (EDF/British Energy), it will provide a huge financial incentive to life-extend the old nuclear power stations to the limit. It will be hugely ironic if EDF ultimately decides new nuclear is too expensive to build, but they end up creaming it with their old power stations. Another question on my mind is will nuclear power generated in France, and sent to us over cross-channel HVDC links, also benefit from Huhne’s increased prices? If so EDF could keep the jobs in France, but pick up the extra cash from the UK to do so.’
Paul Flynn MP 18th Dec 2010 more >>
Nuclear power developers have welcomed Government plans to reform the way the electricity market works. Horizon Nuclear Power, which is planning a new plant at Oldbury-on-Severn, South Gloucestershire, believes nuclear power fits the Government’s drive for low carbon sources. Horizon boss Alan Raymant said: “We welcome the Government’s commitment to reform the electricity market.
This is Somerset 20th Dec 2010 more >>
Nuclear Subsidy
The decision not to loan money to Sheffield Forgemasters could be revisited, it has emerged. The coalition government cancelled a £80m loan to Forgemasters to build parts for nuclear power stations as part of its spending review in June. Now, deputy prime minister and Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg is reportedly thinking of looking again at the project.
Insider Media Ltd 20th Dec 2010 more >>
Oldbury
AN angry audience was kept waiting for 75 minutes before Government officers arrived for a public meeting on a proposed new nuclear power station. A delegation from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was held up at Didcot due to train delays and missed much of last night’s allocated two-hour event at Thornbury Leisure Centre. Nearly 100 people had turned up to hear a presentation from the DECC team and question them about the inclusion of land next to the existing Oldbury atomic station at Shepperdine for a new generation of reactors. A protest was held beforehand. The meeting pressed on without Peter McDonald, the deputy head of the Office for Nuclear Development, and his colleagues, with a South Gloucestershire Council officer reading out the DECC presentation.
Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy 19th Dec 2010 more >>
Hartlepool & Heysham
Power firm British Energy has announced plans to extend the life of two of the UK’s nuclear power stations, including one in Lancashire, for a further five years. The Hartlepool and Heysham 1 plants have been dogged by output issues in recent years but British Energy (BE), owned by French company EDF Energy, said the reactors had passed a technical and economic evaluation.
Westmorland Gazette 18th Dec 2010 more >>
Nuclear Energy Insider Press Release 19th Dec 2010 more >>
Heysham
A meeting of Lancaster City Council on 15th December was presented with a recommendation from Andrew Dobson (Head of Regeneration and Policy) that read: “That Council responds to the consultation on the National Policy Statements in the form drafted and attached to this report at Appendix B, and makes it clear that it supports the nuclear new build projects at Heysham and Sellafield in principle subject to mitigation of any adverse effects.” Councillor Bryning (Labour) proposed that Council adopts this recommendation. This was supported by all Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem councillors (Note 1) who spoke. John Whitelegg (Green Party) proposed an amendment that deleted the word “support” and inserted the word “oppose”. He argued that nuclear power was expensive and dangerous, high risk, usually over budget and usually delivered several years late and is associated with serious health risks (e.g. leukaemia). He argued that we should support wind and wave power and other renewable energy technologies all of which have far greater potential to create jobs and minimise risks. Other green councillors including Cllrs Barry and Coates also spoke in support of Cllr Whitelegg’s amendment.
North Lancashire Green Party 16th Dec 2010 more >>
Proliferation
The leaked US cables reveal the constant, largely unseen, work by American diplomatic missions around the world to try to keep the atomic genie in its bottle and forestall the nightmare of a terrorist nuclear attack. The leaked cables tell hair-raising tales of casks of uranium found in wicker baskets in Burundi, a retired Russian general offering to sell “uranium plates” in Portugal, and a radioactive Armenian car on the Georgian border. As part of what the US government calls its “second line of defence”, it is America’s diplomatic corps who are called out in the middle of the night when radiation detectors goes off on a border crossing or smugglers turn up with fissile or radioactive materials in his pocket.
Guardian 20th Dec 2010 more >>
India
Police resorted to a baton-charge to disperse a large crowd of villagers protesting the death of an anti-Jaitapur nuclear power plant activist in an accident in this Maharashtra district Saturday, officials said. Irfan Yusuf Qazi, 40, was going to pick up his kids from school when his scooter was hit by a police jeep, said Pradeep Indulkar, head of the Konkan Anti-Nuclear Power Project Committee.
Sify News 18th Dec 2010 more >>
Egypt
Egypt was offered nuclear weapons, material and expertise on the black market after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a senior Egyptian diplomat.
Guardian 20th Dec 2010 more >>
Yemen
A Yemen government official warned US diplomats that poor security meant there was little to stop terrorists getting their hands on the country’s nuclear material, a US cable showed Monday. At one point there was practically nothing protecting the material at Yemen’s National Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), according to the diplomatic dispatch dated January 9 this year. The lone security guard at the facility had been removed and the only closed circuit TV security camera had broken six months earlier and had never been fixed, said the cable.
AFP 20th Dec 2010 more >>
Guardian 20th Dec 2010 more >>
Niger
Greenpeace has today received and verified reports that since December 11th, more than 200,000 litres of radioactive sludge from three cracked waste pools has leaked into the environment at the SOMAIR uranium mine in Niger, operated by French energy company AREVA. Almoustapha Alhacen who carried out an inspection of the spill for NGO Aghir in’Man confirmed to Greenpeace that two hectares have been contaminated by the spill since December 11th.
Greenpeace Nuclear Reaction 18th Dec 2010 more >>
North Korea
North Korea has agreed to permit the return of UN nuclear inspectors as part of a package of measures to ease tensions on the peninsula.
Telegraph 20th Dec 2010 more >>
Disarmament
The fate of the US-Russian treaty on reducing nuclear arsenals is in the balance after the Republican leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, vowed today to vote against it. The treaty needs to be ratified by two-thirds of the 100-member Senate. The Democrats, though in control of the Senate, will need the support of some Republicans. McConnell, interviewed on CNN, said that although the Senate foreign relations committee had studied the Strategic Arms Reduction treaty, other members of the Senate had not. “I don’t think this is the best time to be doing this. Members are uneasy with it,” McConnell said.
Guardian 20th Dec 2010 more >>
