Moorside
The Cumberland News reported yesterday in sycophantic mode on the “Fantastic” Feedback over Moorside Nuclear Power Station Plans. The article looks like it was pulled straight from NuGen PR Man (formerly Copeland Borough Council’s Lead Planning Officer) Fergus McMorrow’s press release and goes on to say: “Fergus McMorrow, NuGen’s planning lead in Cumbria, said: “We have had a fantastic response. The numbers of people through the doors, and those logging-on to use the online portal, has surpassed all our expectations. “It’s not just the sheer number of visitors that’s impressed us, but their level of interest and engagement. For example, we’ve had lots of people come back to see us on several occasions to find out more or to give us greater in-depth feedback”. No mention of the protests outside Whitehaven, Kendal, Carlisle and Penrith, protests which included music, leafletting, hundreds of people pledging to boycott Toshiba (Toshiba are 60% NuGen) and 8000 people signing the ongoing Stop Moorside petition.
Radiation Free Lakeland 29th July 2015 read more »
Dounreay
DOUNREAY Site Restoration Limited have announced it has appointed a new managing director who will take over the site’s decommissioning operation. Phil Craig will take over from current managing director Mark Rouse at the end of September. Mr Craig, who has worked within the nuclear industry for over 20 years is currently business director of Cavendish Nuclear EDF
John O Groat Journal 28th July 2015 read more »
Energy Policy
After a flurry of shock green policy announcements, the Under Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) says such drastic changes were needed to drive down consumer bills. Lord Nick Bourne, who is responsible for the Conservative Party’s energy efficiency policy, says last week’s decision to axe the Green Deal along with recent moves to restrict clean energy subsidies will mean “people are not paying bills that are totally unaffordable”. Speaking to edie yesterday (28 July), Bourne said: “This is a new Government and we are setting the scene. What we’ve done this week and last week is ensure bills will come down. We’re keen to strip some of these measures out… to have a simplified system which is subsidy-free.” Bourne insists the Tories are on the right track. “We are still continuing to decarbonise at a massive rate,” he said. “The costs are coming down and the need for subsidies is less. Even with the reductions on solar, feed-in tariffs and so on, we are still contributing massively to decarbonisation because these projects last beyond 2020, by which time there is every prospect that some of these costs will continue to fall massively – solar is on a very steep trajectory.
Edie 29th July 2015 read more »
Energy Supplies
Belgium had a worrying 2014-2015 winter – known as the Belgian Nuclear Winter when 3 nuclear power plants were shut down. What lessons should we learn from that event? The key lesson to learn is that no energy system is 100% reliable. All resources (nuclear, coal, gas, renewables, hydro, demand response, storage, interconnectors) have a certain likelihood of not being entirely available or available at all on any given day. So when considering how much of what mix of resources a system needs to meet the established security of supply standard those ‘likelihoods’ are taken into account in a probabilistic assessment of the amount of investment required to provide ‘resource adequacy’ (often known as a reserve margin) to ensure energy security.
IGov 29th July 2015 read more »
Unlike coal and natural gas plants in the US polar vortex of 2013-2014, energy efficiency and demand side response perform well in all weather conditions. Renewable energy offers zero-cost fuel no matter the weather – and some renewable resources perform at very high levels during the winter months when gas supply is under the most pressure. The global energy future is uncertain. However, one thing that is not uncertain is that energy systems need to be able to operate flexibly to meet reliability needs as cost effectively as possible, whilst meeting our environmental objectives. That means reducing our total energy use, flattening the demand curve via demand side response and increasing flexibility, via interconections, storage and so on. Expanding these resources is the best no-regret way to meet our energy needs – both on an every-day basis and in winter and summer extremes.
IGov 30th July 2015 read more »
EDF/Areva
French utility EDF and nuclear group Areva have reached an agreement on the broad outlines of a cooperation deal between the two state-controlled companies, two sources said on Wednesday. Nothing has been signed yet, but both sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters the companies are finalising an agreement after months of difficult negotiations. “There is an agreement on the broad outlines of a deal,” one of the sources said. Four consecutive years of losses have wiped out Areva’s capital and the firm has a 1.25 billion euro ($1.4 billion)bond to repay in September 2016 and another 900 million euro matures in October 2017. As ordered by the government, EDF will buy a majority stake in Areva’s nuclear reactor business. One source said EDF had agreed to value the division at 2.7 billion euros but did not know how big a stake EDF would buy. French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Wednesday that EDF would buy 75 percent of the Areva reactor unit.
Reuters 29th July 2015 read more »
Politics
Labour leadership hopeful Yvette Cooper has launched a stinging attack on the new government’s environmental record, accusing ministers of taking the UK’s green efforts “backwards”. “It is a serious threat to our world and to social progress and the Tories are taking us backwards,” she said. “They don’t believe in global leadership on climate change and their new minister [Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary] has bought into conspiracy theories that action to stop climate change can be ‘cover for anti-growth, anti-capitalist, proto-socialism’. This sort of nonsense will be the norm if Labour keeps losing elections and condemns future generations to a Tory future. David Cameron’s ‘hug-a-husky but scrap a wind farm’ hypocrisy is setting us back years.” Environmental issues have played a limited role in the Labour leadership campaign to date, with all of the candidates indicating they regard climate change as a serious threat, but Cooper emerging as the first to put forward a relatively detailed strategy for addressing the challenge. In related news, the new Liberal Democrat party leader Tim Farron has unveiled his shadow cabinet today, confirming that former MP Lynne Featherstone will lead on energy and climate change policy. Baroness Kate Parminter is to take on the environment and rural affairs brief and Baroness Jenny Randerson will lead on transport issues.
Business Green 29th July 2015 read more »
Japan
A massive decontamination exercise is under way in Iitate Village near Fukushima, writes Kendra Ulrich: step one in a plan to force 6,000 residents back into the evacuated zone in 2017. But as radiation levels remain stubbornly high, it looks like the real plan is to ‘normalize’ nuclear catastrophe, while making Iitate residents nuclear victims twice over – and this time, it’s deliberate.
Ecologist 29th July 2015 read more »
Germany
Last Saturday Germany experienced a perfect combination of weather for the nation’s renewable energy industry, leading to a record-breaking spike in clean power generation. At the same time as a storm battered northern Germany and sent its wind turbines spinning, a relatively sunny day in the south led to a surge in power from the region’s many solar panels. This weather combination set a new record for German renewables, which met 78 per cent of the country’s electricity demand for a few hours, according to a new analysis from German energy expert Craig Morris. The performance beats the previous record of 74 per cent, which was set in May 2014.
Business Green 29th July 2015 read more »
US
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said the operator of the San Onofre nuclear plant is claiming $7.57 billion in damages related to the shutdown of the Californian facility. The Tokyo-based company said in a filing that U.S. power generator Edison International had made the claim to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which is arbitrating on the matter. Mitsubishi said it maintains that its liability is capped at around $137 million. The claim against Mitsubishi Heavy in the prolonged dispute had earlier been estimated at “not less than $4 billion,” according to the statement. Mitsubishi Heavy designed and supplied steam generators to San Onofre. Edison said in June 2013 that it would permanently shut both reactors at the plant after unusual wear was found on steam generator tubes.
Atomic Age 28th july 2015 read more »
China
China now relies on nuclear power for a little more than 2 percent of its power generation. But its goal is to generate 15 percent of its power from cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels by 2020, and 20 percent by 2030. The alternatives include not only wind, solar and hydropower, but also nuclear generation.
Oil Price 29th July 2015 read more »
China is rapidly moving up the global nuclear power leaderboard. Since 2012, as the traditional leaders in nuclear energy production have remained stagnant or backed off of their reliance on nuclear in the wake of Fukushima, China has added 11 new reactors and over 11 gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity. By the end of this year, China is expected to pass Russia and South Korea and boast the fourth-largest nuclear generating capacity in the world, behind the United States, France, and Japan. By 2020 it will likely replace Japan in third place.
MIT Technology Review 27th July 2015 read more »
Brazil
Brazilian federal police are investigating potential irregularities in a military program that aims to build a nuclear-powered submarine in partnership with France by 2023, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Wednesday. Folha said police searched for documents that could prove their suspicions of fraud in the program. The search was part of a wider probe that led to the arrests on Tuesday of two executives involved in building a nuclear power plant for state-run utility Eletrobras.
Reuters 29th July 2015 read more »
West Africa
The newly created West African Integrated Nuclear Power Group (WAINPG) prepared a draft memorandum of understanding and three-year action plan at its first meeting, held last week in Niamey, Niger. The heads of delegations from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal will take the MOU document to their respective governments for signature, which will commit them to proceeding with the initial planning for a regional nuclear power program.
World Nuclear News 29th July 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
E.ON and Sungevity are to expand a joint solar rooftop scheme into the UK market, promising homeowners guaranteed returns even if panels fail to produce anticipated levels of clean electricity. The new Go Solar programme will be piloted in the Midlands and the North of England initially, the companies announced today. It promises customers that if solar panels fail to produce at least 95 per cent of the electricity quoted, they will receive a payment to help cover the shortfall over the 20-year lifetime of the scheme. The scheme has already been rolled out in the Netherlands and Germany, and is expected to be expanded across the rest of the UK over the coming months. Andrew Birch, chief executive of Sungevity, said the companies wanted to encourage more decentralised energy on the grid. “Our UK expansion is a prime example of how a global utility and solar provider can work collaboratively to change the energy landscape across the world,” he said in a statement. “Extending our alliance with E.ON to the UK is another key step toward enabling a more sustainable global future for generations to come.”
Business Green 29th July 2015 read more »
Lawyers for Friends of the Earth have written to Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd, calling on her to extend the consultation period for the government’s proposed changes to solar subsidies, warning the current consultation is “unfair”, contrary to the government’s consultation guidelines, and potentially in breach of administrative law. The letter argues the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) should immediately move to extend the consultation by four weeks in order to give all interested stakeholders sufficient time to respond. The consultation on changes to RO subsidies is scheduled to close on September 2nd and the consultation on changes to the FiT closes on August 19th. DECC said it would aim to publish its decisions as soon as possible thereafter. Ministers argued the measures were necessary to ease pressure on the UK’s levy control framework (LCF) clean energy subsidy budget, which officials fear could overshoot its target by £1.5bn by 2020. However, many within the renewables industry warned the changes would lead to negligible savings for billpayers and would curb investment, undermine the sector’s ability to cut the cost of solar power, and lead to higher emissions. Friends of the Earth is now warning those affected by the changes are not being given sufficient time to make their case.
Business Green 29th July 2015 read more »
Renewables – Hydrogen
The lead partner behind Levenmouth Community Energy Project has awarded its first contract, just months after securing £4 million of Scottish Government funding to kick start the innovative hydrogen power scheme. The Levenmouth Community Energy Project members include Bright Green Hydrogen, Japanese industrial conglomerate Toshiba and the Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association The project is the most complex hydrogen project outside Japan to date that Toshiba has become involved with and will see the company implement the hydrogen energy management scheme at site by providing the overarching control system, which will control the operation of the scheme, as well as seeking opportunities to build upon project learning.
Scottish Energy News 30th July 2015 read more »
Renewables – Tidal
Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing today marked major milestones in Caithness on Phase 1 construction of the world’s largest tidal energy development. The MeyGen project in the Pentland Firth was one of the first tidal projects in the world to secure the necessary planning consent, lease agreement, grid connection and power purchase agreement in order to begin onshore and offshore construction. The MeyGen project is the world’s largest planned tidal development at 398 megawatts of total installed capacity when fully constructed.
Scottish Energy News 29th July 2015 read more »
Renewables – wind
RenewableUK urges government to save small wind projects from green policy axe and delivers 3,000 signatures to four government departments in a show of support for small and medium-scale wind generation projects.
Business Green 29th July 2015 read more »
Green Deal
The government could be taken to court by Green Deal providers left high and dry after its surprise decision to axe the energy efficiency financing scheme.
Construction News 29th July 2015 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Environmentalists accused ministers of buckling under pressure from energy companies yesterday after it emerged that they had authorised preparatory work to start on a controversial fracking-type process off the east coast of Scotland. Cluff Natural Resources wants to start underground coal gasification, which would involve igniting coal seams under the Firth of Forth and extracting gas. Environmental campaigners believe the process is similar to fracking and should be included in the Scottish government’s temporary ban on fracking. They published a series of letters yesterday between Cluff and ministers, which, they claimed, showed that ministers had been “held to ransom” by the energy company. The letters revealed that Algy Cluff, the tycoon behind Cluff Natural Resources, had written to Alex Neil, the planning minister, asking f or written confirmation that underground gasification was not included in the temporary fracking ban. Mr Cluff warned that £250 million of investment would be lost if his plan was halted. Mr Neil complied with his request within days, confirming that gasification would not be included in the moratorium.
Times 30th July 2015 read more »
Daily Record 30th July 2015 read more »
The National 30th July 2015 read more »
STV 29th July 2015 read more »
BBC 29th July 2015 read more »
The company behind plans to extract gas from coal under the Firth of Forth has been accused of trying to “hold Scotland’s environment to ransom”. WWF Scotland has urged the Scottish Government to extend its moratorium on unconventional oil and gas developments to cover underground coal gasification (UCG), a technique that produces gas from underground coal seams. The SNP has also come under pressure from within its own ranks to expand the scope of the ban. It follows the publication of a series of letters from Algy Cluff, chairman and chief executive of Cluff Natural Resources, to Scottish ministers.
Herald 30th July 2015 read more »
Scotsman 30th July 2015 read more »
THE SNP has been challenged not to dodge a debate on fracking at the party’s conference, after it emerged that grassroots members across Scotland are calling for an outright ban. A series of local SNP branches have submitted resolutions on the topic ahead of October’s mass meeting calling for overt opposition to controversial gas exploitation methods, as have the party’s 15,000-strong trade unionist group. A resolution from the Edinburgh Eastern branch states that fracking and Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), a process for exploiting coal underground by setting it alight and capturing gas, poses “serious threats to the environment and water course” and that possible financial rewards are not worth the risks.
Herald 30th July 2015 read more »
