New Nukes
Despite 400 construction jobs losses at the UK’s first new nuclear build for 20 years its supporters remain confident this is the dawning of a new era for the industry in the UK. There still remain a number of hurdles to overcome before the final go-ahead for construction of the UK’s first new nuclear plant since Sizewell B in Suffolk in 1995. French state-owned business EDF Energy hoped to have signed off on the deal to build two new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset by late last year. But progress on the £24bn project has stalled, with EDF still to make a final investment decision – and these delays led to the redundancy of 400 of the site’s 600 construction staff earlier this month. Difficulties over assembling the financial package and on-going concerns over the robustness of the technology lie at the heart of the delays. However EDF, the Government and the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) remain confident the UK is at the dawning of a new nuclear era.
Newcastle Journal 22nd April 2015 read more »
Energy Costs
Professor calls on new UK government to invest in energy storage to avoid higher customer bills. Phil Taylor, Professor of Electrical Power Systems and Director of the Institute for Sustainability at Newcastle University, says if the government is going to address fair pricing of energy for consumers – a major debate in the run up to the election – then changes in energy regulation and policy are needed to make the price of energy reflect the current grid carbon mix, and demand should be more flexible to match low carbon generation. He said: “If the government is serious about cutting energy prices then it needs to address the bigger picture of energy usage through regulation, and upgrade UK energy policy and infrastructure to deliver a new model for energy pricing that addresses inefficiency and ways to save energy. The UK has a massive opportunity to become a global leader in energy storage similar to what Germany has done for the deployment of renewable energy generation, but there are steps that government needs to take in order for the country to realise the wider benefits of energy storage for the economy.
Scottish Energy News 22nd April 2015 read more »
Trawsfynydd
Ninety jobs are to go at a Gwynedd nuclear power station which is being decommissioned. Magnox, the owners of the Trawsfynydd station, said the roles will be lost after sub-contracting work was completed.
Daily Post 21st April 2015 read more »
BBC 21st April 2015 read more »
Sellafield
Workers at the Sellafield nuclear site could take industrial action before the end of May if a row over health and safety is not resolved. Shop stewards debated for three hours yesterday morning about what steps could be taken if an agreement is not reached concerning a new health and safety role. Unite claims it has been trying for 10 months to have a union official appointed to the role at Sellafield Ltd before talks broke down.
Carlisle News and Star 22nd April 2015 read more »
Politics
The Conservative manifesto – greener than you think? The Tory manifesto promises to deliver deep emissions cuts, but has angered green business groups with its attack on wind farms – would a Conservative government keep the green economy on track?
Business Green 21st April 2015 read more »
Manifesto report: the SNP are big fans of offshore wind.
Energy Desk 21st April 2015 read more »
US – radwaste
Dozens of drums of radioactive waste at one of the nation’s premier weapons laboratories are stable after some showed signs of chemical reactions over the past year, according to federal officials. The drums are being closely monitored after a chemical reaction inside a container with similar contents caused a breach in February 2014, resulting in a radiation release and the indefinite closure of the country’s only underground nuclear waste dump. Investigators with the U.S. Energy Department confirmed during a recent town hall that there have been chemical reactions in the containers stored at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but the gases building up inside have decreased over the past several months.
CBS 20th April 2015 read more »
Japan – reactor restarts
A court in Japan has rejected an attempt by local residents to halt the restart of two nuclear reactors at the Sendai plant in Kagoshima prefecture. Kyushu Electric Power already had official approval to resume operating, but the residents wanted to stop this, voicing concerns about safety. In a similar case last week, a court in Takahama ruled in favour of residents.
BBC 22nd April 2015 read more »
Guardian 22nd April 2015 read more »
Reuters 22nd April 2015 read more »
IB Times 22nd April 2015 read more »
Hungary
Hungary’s plan for a 12bn euro nuclear power plant financed by Russia was revived on Tuesday after EU regulators approved a revised plan. Brussels had blocked key elements of the project but confirmed on Tuesday it had approved a revision of the fuel contract with Russia at the centre of the dispute. The decision removes a hurdle for the Paks II project, which was first announced by Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in 2014.
FT 21st April 2015 read more »
AFP 20th April 2015 read more »
Germany
Reuters today published a story (and it is indeed a “story”) with the alarming headline Costs for Germany’s nuclear exit could rise to $75 billion. You can be sure the nuclear and coal advocates will start spreading that around as yet one more “failure” of Germany’s Energiewende, or energy transition. Look, they’ll say, at the huge costs ending nuclear power are inflicting on Germany and its citizens. But, like the argument that use of coal has increased because of the Energiewende and shutdown of some of Germany’s nuclear reactors (as we stated here, with two citations, coal increased because of decisions made before the nuclear shutdown decision, and coal’s use is now dropping as more renewables continue to be added to the nation’s energy mix), the Reuter’s story shows a misunderstanding of the situation, aggravated by the headline. That $75 billion cost estimate is for decommissioning Germany’s reactors and building a permanent radioactive waste dump. Those are costs that will be incurred regardless of the Energiewende–nuclear reactors don’t last forever. Eventually they’re all going to close and be decommissioned, and the radioactive waste they generated will have to be isolated from the environment. In fact, by closing their reactors early, Germany actually will be saving money, because less radioactive waste will be generated, which means less will have to be placed in a disposal site.
Green World 21st April 2015 read more »
The bill for shutting down Germany’s nuclear power plants and building a safe disposal site for nuclear waste could rise to 70 billion euros ($75 billion), the head of a government commission told daily Frankfurter Rundschau in an interview.
Reuters 20th April 2015 read more »
France
Anti-nuclear groups have filed a court complaint against French utility EDF for under-reporting an incident at its Fessenheim plant near the German border, they said on Tuesday. On Feb. 28, EDF stopped one of two nuclear reactors at the Fessenheim plant for an unplanned outage, citing “a lack of watertightness” on some piping outside the nuclear zone. It said there had been no safety or environmental impact. But in a parliamentary hearing last week, the head of France’s independent nuclear regulator ASN said that during the incident a pipe had burst, spreading water on an electrical cabinet. The pipe burst a second time on March 5. “We are not happy about the way they informed us,” Pierre Franck Chevet told parliament on April 15.
Reuters 21st April 2015 read more »
French power utility EDF said on Monday construction work at its Flamanville nuclear plant in the country’s western Normandy region can go ahead despite recently disclosed anomalies.
Reuters 20th April 2015 read more »
China
The Obama administration has sent a proposal to the Congress to approve a 30-year renewal of bilateral commercial nuclear cooperation with China.
Energy Business Review 22nd April 2015 read more »
South Korea
South Korea and the United States reached a deal on Wednesday to revise a 40-year-old agreement that has limited South Korea’s ability to enrich uranium for nuclear power generation and to reprocess spent fuel, the foreign ministry in Seoul said. No further details about the revised agreement were immediately available. Officials of the two countries are scheduled to initial the revised agreement later on Wednesday in Seoul, the ministry said.
Reuters 22nd April 2015 read more »
Renewables – heat pumps
Dave Pearson, former Director of Innovation of Glasgow-based Star Refrigeration – the UK’s largest industrial refrigeration contractor who now leads the specialist subsidiary Star Renewable Energy – will tell the remarkable story of the Drammen heat-pump renewable energy scheme before an international energy conference today (22 April). In 2009, Glasgow based Star Renewable Energy was the first company in the world to offer a city-sized heat pump at 90C using a natural working fluid, ammonia. Heat pumps cool one fluid and transfer this heat to another fluid but at higher temperature using only a fraction of the primary energy. In the case of Drammen, in Norway, the Glasgow team harvest heat from the fjord and cool it by 4 degrees. In doing so they deliver enough heat for 6,000 houses to a district heating network. Norway town generates 85% of its heat for 1/7th cost of gas – without emissions – thanks to Glasgow’s Star Renewable Energy.
Scottish Energy News 22nd April 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
Construction work on a commercial-scale solar park in Angus will start at the end of this year, according to developers. Aberdeen-based BWE Partnership has already gained planning permission for a 9.5MW solar photovoltaic (PV) park on farmland at Carmyllie, near Arbroath. BWE said the project could produce enough energy to power 6,670 homes. It has already secured a 9.5MW connection agreement with Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution.
BBC 21st April 2015 read more »
Renewables – AD
The answer to UK energy security could literally be under our noses. Green energy company Ecotricity says it has found a way to produce gas from grass,l offering a viable alternative to fracking. After several years of research and development Ecotricity has this week announced that it has come up with a concept that uses anaerobic digestion to turn grass sourced from marginal land on farms into biogas, which is then purified into biomethane and fed straight into the national grid. The process is said to also result in the production of a fertiliser that will go back onto the farmers’ fields and help to improve soil quality.
Business Green 21st April 2015 read more »
Climate
There is a one-in-ten chance of the world being 6C warmer than it is today by 2100 which would lead to cataclysmic changes in the global climate with unimaginable consequences for human civilisation, leading climate researchers have warned in an “Earth Statement”.
Independent 22nd April 2015 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Three-quarters of known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground if humanity is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a group of leading scientists and economists have said in a statement timed to coincide with Earth Day. The Earth League, which includes Nicholas Stern, the author of several influential reports on the economics of climate change; Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a climate scientist and adviser to Angela Merkel; and the US economist Jeffrey Sachs, urged world leaders to follow up on their commitments to avoid dangerous global warming. Spelling out what a global deal at the UN climate summit in Paris later this year should include, the group dem anded governments adopt a goal of reducing economies’ carbon emissions to zero by mid-century, put a price on carbon and that the richest take the lead with the most aggressive cuts.
Guardian 22nd April 2015 read more »
Letter: Tomorrow, on 22 April, members of the Welsh assembly will have the opportunity to vote for a moratorium on opencast coal mining in Wales. With the existing moratorium on fracking and the demise of the deep coalmining industry, this means that Wales has the possibility of opening a new chapter in its history. It means that Wales could become the first country in the world with substantial fossil fuel reserves to put them beyond use. It’s a moment of global and intergenerational significance, because Wales was the source of much of the coal that fuelled the industrial revolution. Fossil fuels have huge political and psychological significance in Wales.
Guardian 21st April 2015 read more »
