20 July 2012

EMR

EDF Energy has denied it is seeking a strike price of £165 per megawatt hour, as recently reported by The Times of London newspaper. Any such claim is wrong, Paul Spence, director, strategy and corporate affairs, EDF Energy, wrote in a letter to the editor published in the Times July 19. The strike price is the price EDF would be guaranteed to get under long-term contracts for power from its planned EPRs at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, England. Currently, year-ahead wholesale electricity is selling at around £50/MWh* a reference price that would yield EDF a subsidy of £115/MWh if it were given a strike price of £165/MWh. (*Price reporting agency Platts reports that August baseload power was trading at £41/MWh while Winter 12 baseload was trading at £46.75/MWh July 19.) At £5 billion, which is nearly the current admitted cost of Flamanville-3, Ian Jackson of Chatham House estimates that EDF would need £91.50/MWh just to break even on a Hinkley Point C reactor. In addition to breaking even, EDF is expecting to earn a return on its investment and Jackson told i-NUCLEAR he thinks the final strike price will be closer to £148/MWh. Other analysts, notably Peter Atherton of Citibank, have publicly projected a strike price of between £150 and £200/MWh. It will show that nuclear is an affordable, cost-competitive choice. We expect very robust scrutiny of the costs of our project during this process, he said. However, only the outcome of the closed-door negotiations the strike price and other terms — will be publicly known. Much of the details and the robust scrutiny of its costs that EDF speaks of will be withheld from disclosure under commercial confidentiality, government officials have confirmed.

i-Nuclear 19th July 2012 more >>

Within months of taking office in the UK’s first post-war coalition government, the Liberal Democrats’ then energy secretary, Chris Huhne, announced sweeping reforms hailed as the biggest shake-up of the power market since privatisation more than 20 years ago. But nearly two years on, the hard realities of coalition politics are testing his vision of an electricity network where old coal-fired power stations – and many of the gas plants at the heart of UK energy supplies – are replaced by fields of tall, white wind turbines and nuclear plants, at an estimated cost of £110bn. Mr Huhne’s plans are now in the hands of his Lib Dem successor, Ed Davey, who presented a draft electricity market reform bill in May. The legislation is designed to meet the UK’s ambitious climate change targets by taking advantage of the fact that about one fifth of exis ting generating capacity – the equivalent of about 20 big power stations – has to be replaced by 2020 as ageing nuclear and coal plants are shut down. Some analysts argue the fastest and cheapest solution would be more of the gas plants that generated around 40 per cent of the country’s power last year. But unless those plants could be fitted with still-nascent carbon capturing technology, the UK could miss its climate targets, because although gas is a cleaner fossil fuel than coal, it still produces greenhouse gas emissions when burned.

FT 19th July 2012 more >>

One of the most senior civil servants in Whitehall resigned suddenly on Thursday night, the Guardian has learned, amid allegations of serious problems at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), headed by the Liberal Democrat Ed Davey. Moira Wallace was permanent secretary at the department, a post she had held for four years. She is a career civil servant with a distinguished record spanning several Whitehall departments and one of only five female permanent secretaries, the highest domestic civil service posting after Cabinet secretary. Such a high-profile resignation is unusual and adds to the impression of turmoil at the department, which was rocked earlier this year by the drawn-out saga of Chris Huhne’s resig nation, Davey’s predecessor, and has been plagued by policy U-turns and a simmering row with the Treasury over important aspects of policy. Some Whitehall insiders said Wallace was being made to take the blame for the department’s policy fiascos, such as the reversal over subsidies for solar power, which provoked a crisis in the solar panel industry, and strong criticism of proposed reforms to the electricity market, as well as a continuing row with the Treasury over cuts to wind energy subsidies. Others claimed Wallace had failed to respond to crises effectively.

Guardian 19th July 2012 more >>

Horizon

Government officials worked closely with two energy companies to soften the impact of a major blow to ministers’ plans for a new programme of nuclear power stations, internal emails reveal. The revelation is further evidence of how Westminster has collaborated with the industry to try and protect nuclear power from bad news, first exposed by the Guardian in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident in Japan last year. Hergen Haye, head of new nuclear at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), wrote to E.ON and RWE. He asked if he could be informed when the companies had told Carwyn Jones, Labour’s first minister for Wales, of their decision. He wanted to know how the companies would respond to journalists questioning whether the UK government could have done something differently to prevent the pull out. “Do you think it is possible for new nuclear to be built in the UK?”

Guardian 19th July 2012 more >>

The Horizon Nuclear Power project, which plans to build two new UK nuclear power stations at Wylfa on Anglesey (called Wylfa B) and at Oldbury near Bristol, has received new impetus thanks to an intended bid by a French and Chinese joint venture. French group Areva and the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC) are set to put in a GBP15bn ($24bn) joint bid for the Horizon project, which is a joint venture between E.ON and RWE. In March 2012, the two German utilities pulled out of the project, leaving its future in the balance.

Equities Spotlight 18th July 2012 more >>

Infrastructure

Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne MP announced the launch of a new initiative to guarantee shortfalls in infrastructure funding in certain cases. The announcement echoes the CBI’s call for something similar at the end of May (in its document with a carrot on the front). There are actually three initiatives. The first one applies to ‘nationally significant infrastructure projects’, but rather than the meaning of that phrase in the Planning Act 2008, here it means projects identified in the National Infrastructure Plan produced last November (which is a larger group, and a little vague in some cases); it can also apply exceptionally to other projects.

Bircham Dyson and Bell 19thJuly 2012 more >>

Business Green 18th July 2012 more >>

Radwaste

Concerned residents from villages to the west of Peterborough will lobby councillors next week about dumping site extension plans. Campaigners who have banded together under the name Wastewatchers will attend the meeting of Northamptonshire County Councils Development Control Committee on Tuesday July 24. They will speak out against a recommendation by council officers not to object to plans to extend nuclear waste dumping at the Kings Cliffe landfill site until 2026. Waste company Augean has submitted an application to the Infrastructure Planning Commission which would see the Kings Cliffe landfill nearly doubled in size, with continued disposal of both Hazardous and Low Level Nuclear Waste.

Peterborough Telegraph 20th July 2012 more >>

Two council leaders have clashed over a report opposing plans for a nuclear waste facility on the Romney Marsh. The report, co-authored by Kent County Council leader Paul Carter, has been criticised by Shepway council leader Robert Bliss as emotive and inaccurate. Mr Carter said he believed the report, which said the facility would blight the area, was factually correct but Mr Bliss said it was a knee-jerk reaction. Earlier, Kent County Council voted to “totally oppose” the facility.

BBC 19th July 2012 more >>

A report that could ultimately lead to nuclear waste being buried in Cumbria has been approved by a group that has been exploring the issues involved. West Cumbria’s Radioactive Waste Partnership has spent today debating a final draft of the report at a hotel near Workington.

ITV Border 19th July 2012 more >>

ITS now up to three Cumbrian local authorities whether to try and find somewhere in the area to bury highly radioactive nuclear waste. But top level Cumbria, Copeland and Allerdale councillors today (Thursday) promised that the crucial decision will be made in public at Executive and Cabinet meetings. Tim Knowles (county council Cabinet member), Elaine Woodburn and Alan Smith, leaders of Copeland and Allerdale boroughs respectively, are adamant that the final decision will not be a fait accompli in favour of going forward to search for a suitable geological site deep underground in West Cumbria. One of countys biggest decisions is expected to be made in October following the decision today by West Cumbrias Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership to approve a 221-page document covering all the issues in three years work.