Sellafield
Bosses at Sellafield have been given a week to explain why decommissioning costs at the plant have soared by £5 billion in a year. MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the powerful House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, has aimed scatching criticism at those in charge of the nuclear clean up. She expressed her surprise that the cost decommissioning costs have soared to £53b. Mrs Hodge said: “Despite my Committee’s calls in February 2014 for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to make big improvements, the cost of cleaning up the nuclear waste at Sellafield continues to soar and has risen by an astonishing £5 billion to £53 billion in February 2015, from £48 billion on 31 March 2014. “The Authority’s work at Sellafield is not just costing more, it is also taking much longer than planned and, for 2014-15, it looks like work will be behind schedule for the fourth year running.
Carlisle News & Star 4th March 2015 read more »
The cost of decommissioning and cleaning up the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria has increased by £5bn to £53bn, says the National Audit Office. Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which commissioned the report, said the cost hike was “astonishing.” A year ago, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the body responsible for the clean up, said the cost would be £48bn. The work is also behind schedule, the report said.
BBC 4th March 2015 read more »
FT 4th March 2015 read more »
Times 5th March 2015 read more »
East Anglian Daily Times 4th March 2015 read more »
With the Sellafield figures published in the National Audit Office report (March 2015) – ‘Progress on the Sellafield site: an update’, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority faces a renewed grilling from the Government’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on March 11th. Chair of the Committee MP Margaret Hodge has said she will be seeking an explanation from the NDA, its Site Licence Company Sellafield Ltd and others, as to how the escalation of Sellafield’s costs will be stopped, why the clean-up programme continues to fall behind and how/when it will be put back on track. In recent encounters with the NDA, PAC’s Margaret Hodge has been highly critical of the Authority’s oversight of Sellafield, its poor management of major projects and its mis-guided faith in Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) who it had contracted in 2008 as Sellafield’s Parent Body Organisation whose financing from the public purse she described as an absolutely appalling waste of public money …it is like scattering confetti’ (NMP was stripped of its contract in January this year at a cost to the taxpayer of £430,000). She also raised the evidence submitted by CORE (18/10/13) to PAC on Sellafield’s commercial operations ‘Underperformance and Missed Targets’ in which the expansion of the NDA’s original clean-up and decommissioning remit – through taking on the oversight of the UK’s nuclear waste disposal and an involvement in new-build issues – had overstretched the Authority and adversely affected its judgement and performance. In its own report published last month ‘Nuclear Provision – explaining the cost of cleaning up Britain’s nuclear legacy. February 2015’, the NDA makes no specific reference to the £53Bn figure used by the NAO for Sellafield but provides an alarming estimate of the costs of cleaning up all 17 nuclear sites under its ownership and for which it is responsible for deciding how they should be decommissioned. It states ‘…in reality, taking account of numerous uncertainties, the range (across the UK) is likely to be somewhere between £90 billion and £220 billion, depending on a wide range of assumptions.
CORE 4th March 2015 read more »
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) shares the alarm of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee Chair, Margaret Hodge MP, over a huge increase in the nuclear decommissioning costs at the Sellafield site in West Cumbria. Mrs Hodge has given the bosses at Sellafield a week to explain why decommissioning costs at the plant have soared by £5 billion in just a year. Mrs Hodge said: “Despite my Committee’s calls in February 2014 for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to make big improvements, the cost of cleaning up the nuclear waste at Sellafield continues to soar and has risen by an astonishing £5 billion to £53 billion in February 2015, from £48 billion on 31 March 2014.
Nuclear Free Local Authorities 4th March 2015 read more »
Hinkley
The Stop Hinkley Campaign, along with Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Nuclear Free Local Authorities, has written to the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to ask her to commit to re-examining the deal between the UK Government and EDF Energy regarding Hinkley Point C in the event of the Labour Party winning the next election.
Stop Hinkley 3rd March 2015 read more »
The planned Hinkley C nuclear power station in Somerset is the subject of a new legal challenge. A German energy co-operative founded by environmental lobby group Greenpeace is to launch a legal action against the European Commission. It accuses the Commission of wrongly approving the nuclear reactor project in October following a lengthy state aid inquiry. The co-operative argues the new plant threatens to “distort” competition. EDF Energy is due to build the plant, the first in the UK in almost 20 years. Soenke Tangermann, managing director of Greenpeace Energy, said the “highly subsidised” electricity produced by the plant would “noticeably distort European competitiveness.” The energy cooperative was founded by Greenpeace 15 years ago and now operates as an independent company. “This effect will have economic disadvantages for committed green [energy] providers like us and that’s why we are going to court,” Mr Tangermann said.
BBC 4th March 2015 read more »
Business Green 5th March 2015 read more »
Machine Translation: British nuclear plant could increase the cost of German green power. Two reactors, more than three gigawatts, 60 years maturity – and a total cost of more than 40 billion euros. The proposed block C of the British nuclear power station at Hinkley Point the southwest coast of England is hardly possible to operate profitably. Unless the taxpayer acquires the power company electricity from expensive. And that’s exactly what The government in London. With up to 22 billion euros they will subsidize the nuclear power plant. Because Europe but also energy technology continues along disengaged, the new reactors in England could also promote renewable energy more expensive in Germany – this is the result of an opinion in the Hamburg electricity supplier Greenpeace Energy has been commissioned. Losers would therefore electricity customers in Germany, especially small green electricity provider. Greenpeace Energy is therefore now sue for information from SPIEGEL ONLINE against the European Commission, which has allowed her consent, the subsidy of nuclear power only.
Der Spiegel 4th March 2015 read more »
The Government is seeking European Commission approval to hold a “golden share” in EDF’s £24.5bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, which could have the effect of strengthening pending legal challenges against the plant’s constrution. European opponents of the plant, which would be the third at the site on the Somerset coast, have seized on the Government’s disclosure. They believe it dramatically alters the UK’s state aid case, meaning they could, at least, delay a project that is supposed to herald a new generation of British nuclear power plants. Matthew Hancock, an energy and business minister, revealed in a Parliamentary answer that there had been “initial discussions” over a golden share, which would provide certain special voting rights. Theoretically, this could include blocking a change of ownership of Hinkley should the French company EDF ever be sold, or to ensure that the supply chain meets certain health and safety standards. a German law firm, Beck Buttner Held (BBH), is representing a co-operative of energy suppliers and traders fighting the decision in a commercial action. These are German-based, and were originally founded by Greenpeace, but there is a push to get smaller British renewable energy companies to join in, should they be able to show that EDF’s guaranteed price skews the market against them. BBH partner Dorte Fouquet said Mr Hancock’s admission was a “very strange thing” and that it meant the initial state aid argument had not been “identified and clarified”. She believes it could even invalidate the European Commission’s decision to grant state aid approval. At the Ecobuild conference in London this week, Baroness Worthington, a shadow energy spokeswoman, warned that politicians had become “over-obsessed” with constructing Hinkley.
Independent 5th March 2015 read more »
BOSSES at Hinkley Point have strongly denied the plant is to be turned into a nuclear dumping ground. Last week the Mercury reported on proposals that could see waste being transported to the site from three UK power plants. Anti-nuclear campaigners slammed the idea as “absolute madness” warning it could lead to more waste being sent to Bridgwater. They also voiced fears lorries carrying cheaper concrete boxes housing the waste could be targeted by terrorists. However, at a meeting with stakeholders, Magnox which operates Hinkley A, dismissed claims the site would become a dumping ground.“Our amended proposals would see less waste potentially brought to the site, 25 lorries over a two year period, compared to 70 lorries over a two year period under previous proposals. “We have not made any decisions yet and will keep working closely with our local stakeholders as our plans progress.” In the Mercury last week, we revealed Magnox was considering importing what is known as intermediate level waste (ILW) from as far away as Kent and Suffolk. Addressing stakeholders, Ron Schroder, site director at Hinkley Point A, explained the plant was currently trialling a new technique called milling to deal with contaminated waste. Mr Schroder said: “Using milling techniques we remove about 1mm of the contaminated surface. “By scraping off the contaminated layer this reduces the size of a skip to about a cup of contaminated waste.
This is the West Country 5th March 2015 read more »
In this country, eurosceptic free marketeers tend to be big fans of nuclear power – which is ironic, because the dominant players in the nuclear industry are owned by the French state. As is often the way with state-owned industries, one of these companies – Areva – is in financial difficulty, having just posted a massive loss of €4.8 billion. It is extraordinary that a nuclear power station that might not open for another decade (if it gets built at all) is based on a design that is already out-of-date and losing money: “All of the European projects by Areva or EDF feature the EPR reactor, a 1990s design that was supposed to lock up a big share of global orders for France but is proving exceedingly complex and expensive to build.”
Conservative Home 4th March 2015 read more »
A special conference hosted by Green MEPs will this week seek to dismantle the case for Hinkley C nuclear power station and bring an end to the argument that nuclear is ever part of a sustainable energy future. The London conference will take place to coincide with the 4th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster and will reveal the findings of a soon to be released report commissioned by Molly Scott Cato MEP]. The report will say: – The South West has the potential to generate more than enough of its energy needs through renewables Renewables would provide significant revenue by keeping money circulating in the local economy and through exporting surplus energy to the national grid; There is the potential for at least 80,000 new jobs in the renewables sector; Rapidly declining costs of renewables together with new energy storage technologies and local smart grids will ensure that renewables are highly competitive with other forms of energy generation and ultimately cheaper than nuclear; Inadequate funding mechanisms and a lack of political will are holding back the renewables sector in the South West; Large scale divestment from fossil fuels and nuclear power and investing instead in renewables could rapidly create a low carbon resilient future for the South West.
Green Party 4th March 2015 read more »
Dounreay
DOUNREAY have challenged the nuclear industry to come up with ‘innovative’ ideas which will help in the decommissioning of the site. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited hosted a supply chain event in Thurso which attracted 77 companies to discuss opportunities involved in the clean up of the redundant nuclear experiment. DSRL Managing Director Mark Rouse outlined a number of major projects designed to retrieve, treat and store Dounreay’s historic waste.
John O Groat Journal 3rd March 2015 read more »
Sizewell
The main control room at a former nuclear power station has been closed after about 50 years in operation. Staff at Sizewell A, near Leiston, manned the site controls for seven days a week, 24 hours a day since 1966. The plant stopped generating electricity in 2006, and operator Magnox began the process of removing radioactive fuel from the site. While the fuel was still on site, the plant had to operate as though it was still generating, a spokesman said.
BBC 4th March 2015 read more »
New Nuclear
NIRS, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen have been collaborating for more than a year to produce a new video contrasting the benefits of a safe, clean, affordable renewable-power future with continued reliance on dirty, dangerous nuclear power and fossil fuels. It’s a powerful video, and we’re sure you’ll like it.
Make Nuclear History 4th March 2015 read more »
Green World 4th March 2015 read more »
Capacity Market
UK energy policy risks driving up costs and emissions as the government’s electricity market reform (EMR) programme may fail to bring forward lower carbon and more efficient technologies, MPs have warned. The influential Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) says in a new report that the capacity market, designed to meet peaks in demand and help keep the lights on, is skewed in favour of supporting fossil fuel power stations, which contrasts with the government’s vision that the reforms will “transform the electricity system” to ensure it provides “secure, affordable and low carbon energy”. Green campaigners have argued the capacity market should have greater focus on supporting energy storage and “demand-side response” (DSR) providers, which can provide back-up capacity while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but were awarded less than 0.4 per cent of capacity contracts. This is a point echoed by the MPs who warn that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has failed to provide a level playing field for demand management in the capacity market, by only allowing providers to bid for one-year contracts, rather than contracts of up to 15 years awarded to new generation. This has left consumers subsidising spare electricity generating capacity that may only be used for a few hours each year.
Business Green 4th March 2015 read more »
Guardian 4th March 2015 read more »
Europe
UK and seven other EU countries call on commission for increased nuclear aid funding and support to help meet climate targets and energy security objectives. The UK and seven other countries last month called for a new package of nuclear aid funding and support, in a letter sent to the commission ahead of the EU’s energy union policy launch. The letter, seen by the Guardian, calls for new EU financing mechanisms for nuclear as a low carbon technology, and research and innovation initiatives to deal with the costly and unresolved issues of nuclear waste and decommissioning. New state aid guidelines are also needed, it says, and these should be based on past EU decisions, including the approval of the UK’s planned Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset.
Guardian 4th March 2015 read more »
France
A more market-based calculation of French regulated electricity tariffs will force state-controlled utility EDF to better control its costs, France’s energy minister said on Tuesday.Segolene Royal told a parliamentary hearing into power prices that the new calculation method introduced in late 2014 will force EDF to be as competitive as its competitors, as power prices are no longer mainly based on EDF’s accounting costs.She added the new method had allowed a planned tariff hike to be cut by half, as a planned 5 percent increase in August 2014 was replaced with a 2.5 increase in November.
Reuters 3rd March 2015 read more »
French nuclear giant Areva suffered record losses of 4.8 billion euros in 2014, it confirmed on Wednesday. Bosses said job cuts were possible but said they would try to avoid compulsory lay-offs. “The scale of the net loss for 2014 illustrates the two-fold challenge confronting Areva: continuing stagnation of the nuclear operations, lack of competitiveness and difficulties in managing the risks inherent in large projects,” chief executive Philippe Knoche said in a statement. Areva, which is 87 per cent state-owned, had forecast losses of 4.9 billion euros but the slightly lower 4.8-billion-euro final figure was little consolation.
RFI 4th March 2015 read more »
EU Business 4th March 2015 read more »
French nuclear group Areva will cut spending and improve cooperation with utility EDF and its Chinese partners in an attempt to turn around the loss-making company, but it has postponed a financial restructuring to the end of July. State-controlled Areva, which posted its fourth consecutive annual loss, said its 2015-2017 financing plan would include “partnerships with an equity component”. Chief executive Philippe Knoche did not rule out talks about an equity alliance with EDF.
Reuters 4th March 2015 read more »
Paris is adept at games of industrial Meccano, and never more so than when it comes to France’s flagship nuclear sector. Even as Areva, the country’s nuclear engineering group, on Wednesday announced a record net loss of 4.8bn euro for 2014, ministers were suggesting that its biggest customer, the state-controlled utility EDF, could help to save the day. Emmanuel Macron, France’s economy minister, did not wait for Areva to set out its new strategic plan – which will involve significant undisclosed sales, unspecified annual cost savings of 1bn euro and a desire to strengthen its presence in China. Speaking to Le Figaro newspaper, Mr Macron suggested that Areva’s salvation lay in a closer relationship with EDF, which operates France’s nuclear power stations, and might include “greater industrial co-operation, or even a capital alliance”.
FT 4th March 2015 read more »
The French government’s energy bill was approved by the opposition-controlled upper house of parliament on Tuesday in a watered-down version that ditches key nuclear reduction targets and is likely to be changed again before its final adoption.The energy bill passed by the Socialist-controlled lower house last October included a reduction in the share of nuclear energy in the power mix to 50 percent from 75 percent by 2025 and capped nuclear output at current levels.The Senate, where the center-right has a majority, raised the cap, which would have forced power giant EDF to shut 1,600 megawatts of nuclear capacity when its new EPR reactor opened in 2017, and removed any reference to 2025.
Reuters 3rd March 2015 read more »
Japan
The fight over restarting Japan’s nuclear industry is moving to the courts, where power companies face the risk of further delays in firing up idled reactors if judges side with local residents worried about nuclear safety. Four reactors owned by two utilities cleared regulatory safety checks in recent months, potentially soon ending more than a year without atomic power in Japan, the first such spell in the four decades the nation has been using nuclear energy. And while ruling politicians and Japan’s bureaucracy are pushing the restarts, the judiciary – which typically sided with power companies before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster – may be shifting its attitude.
Reuters 5th March 2015 read more »
China
China approved construction of its first nuclear power project since the Fukushima disaster in Japan almost four years ago brought the program to a standstill. China’s State Council gave the go-ahead on Feb. 17 to begin building two new reactors at China General Nuclear Power Group’s Hongyanhe plant in the country’s northeast, the National Business Daily newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the situation. E-mails and calls to China General Nuclear’s spokesman weren’t immediately answered.
Bloomberg 4th March 2015 read more »
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and South Korea agreed on Tuesday to enhance cooperation in nuclear power development, transport and scientific research, Saudi Press Agency reported. The two countries sign an agreement and two memorandums of understanding on cooperation in those fields on the sidelines of a visit here by South Korean President Park Geun-hye. The nuclear agreement is for Saudi Arabia to expand its peaceful use of nuclear power. In 2013 the country announced a plan to establish 17 nuclear reactors worth over 100 billion US dollars by 2030 to meet electricity demands.
Global Times 4th March 2015 read more »
Reuters 4th March 2015 read more »
Hungary
Hungary has approved legislation making secret for 30 years key details of a contract with Russia to expand its only nuclear power plant. The government says the measure, which applies to business and technical aspects of the scheme for Russia’s Rosatom to build two new reactors at the Paks power plant, is needed for national security reasons and is in line with similar guidelines in other European countries. The reactors will provide about half of Hungary’s electricity.
New York Post 3rd March 2015 read more »
North Korea
The United States said on Wednesday that North Korea’s nuclear program and the increased range and precision of its missiles were of great concern, a day after the isolated Asian country said it had the power to deter a U.S. nuclear threat with a pre-emptive strike if necessary.
Reuters 5th March 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
For the past year, it’s been clear that the world’s major investment banks–or at least their analysts–already have decided that our energy future is renewable, and that nuclear power and fossil fuels are on their way out. probably the most bullish major investment bank on solar power has always been Deutsche Bank. Perhaps that’s just because they’re caught up in German enthusiasm for the Energiewende or perhaps their analysts are just ahead of the time. On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank released a new 175-page report “that suggests solar will become the dominant electricity source around the world as it beats conventional fuels, generates $5 trillion in revenue over the next 15 years, and displaces large amounts of fossil fuels.” The bank is equally high on both rooftop and utility-scale solar and predicts massive growth for both. And the bank projects “that energy storage–the “missing link of solar adoption”–will be cheap enough–and technologically ready–to be deployed on a large-scale within the next five years.”
Green World 4th March 2015 read more »
Deutsche Bank says solar market is massive, will generate $5 trillion in revenue by 2030. It describes solar plus storage as the next killer app, and says even in India there will be 25% solar by 2022.
PV Magazine 3rd March 2015 read more »
Renewables – wind
Letter Dr Gordon Edge: Professor Trewavas’s letter on the cost of onshore wind is misleading. As he fails to provide a source for the figures he quotes, it is hard to know exactly where the error lies, but wind power opponents usually make claims about the cost of grid investment and “back-up” that are either massively overstated, attribute extra costs that have already been accounted for in the price, or both. Mainstream analysis by, for instance, the UK Energy Research Centre, shows the cost of integrating wind on to the grid is only £5-8 per megawatt-hour with 20 per cent wind in the energy mix, and much of this is already taken into account in the prices paid to wind generators. Such costs do not lead to the total price of onshore wind energy being higher than new nuclear power. Onshore developers should be congratulated for the low prices they achieved for their output in the recent “contract for difference” auctions – £10 per megawatt hour less than new nuclear – not subjected to unjustified claims.
Times 5th March 2015 read more »
Renewables
A prototype toilet has been launched on a UK university campus to prove that urine can generate electricity, and show its potential for helping to light cubicles in international refugee camps. Students and staff at the Bristol-based University of the West of England are being asked to use the working urinal to feed microbial fuel cell (MFC) stacks that generate electricity to power indoor lighting. The project is the result of a partnership between researchers at the university and Oxfam, who hope the technology can be developed by aid agencies on a larger scale to bring light to refugee camp toilets in disaster zones.
Guardian 5th March 2015 read more »
Biomass CHP
A combined heat and power biomass plant on the site of a Fife-based paper maker is to be opened by the Scottish Energy Minister later. Fergus Ewing MSP is to open the RWE’s Markinch Biomass plant in Glenrothes. The state-of-the-art plant replaces the former 1950s coal and gas-fired power station on the site of Tullis Russell. It represents a reduction in fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions by around 250,000 tonnes per annum. The new facility is already providing all of Tullis Russell’s electricity and steam requirements, with excess electricity generation being fed into local networks.
BBC 5th March 2015 read more »
Green Deal
Homeowners are to be given a fresh chance to claim up to £5,600 to install solid wall insulation, boilers or double glazing, under the latest Government cash giveaway for energy efficiency work. Ed Davey, the energy secretary, announced on Wednesday that £70m would be made available through the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund from March 16. The previous two giveaways have seen huge demand, with a £24m allocation for solid wall insulation in the last giveaway in December being exhausted in just one day.
Telegraph 4th March 2015 read more »
