NuGen
With the future of the domestic nuclear industry uncertain, Toshiba Corp. is looking to bolster its overseas business with the acquisition of a company planning a nuclear plant in Britain for upward of 10 billion yen ($100 million), sources said. Toshiba is in the final stage of negotiations for purchasing more than 50 percent of NuGeneration Ltd. through subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co., a U.S. nuclear reactor builder.
Asahi Simbun 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Toshiba is in the final stage of negotiations to buy a stake in a major project to build a nuclear reactor at Sellafield. Reports yesterday suggested that Toshiba, which owns the energy industry heavyweight Westinghouse Electric, is in talks to acquire a majority stake in NuGen for £64 million. NuGen, short for NuGeneration Ltd, is a joint venture company founded in 2009 by Scottish and Southern Energy, GDF Suez of France and Iberdrola, the Spanish owner of Scottish Power, which is trying to build a 3.6GW nuclear power station at a disused reactor site at Sellafield. In 2011, SSE sold its 25 per cent stake in NuGen to its consortium partners, after deciding to concentrate on renewable energy generation. NuGen is preparing plans for the project, known as Moorside, after purchasing 200 hectares of land from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the public body which owns the Sellafield site, for £70 million in 2009. If completed, NuGen estimates the Moorside power station would create 700 permanent jobs. However, the lease on the Sellafield site will expire next year unless the owners step up construction plans. If they fail to show progress has been made, the site could be auctioned off next year.
Times 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Hinkley
The Government is risking Britain’s security by wooing the Chinese to invest in its nuclear programme, union leaders have warned. Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary, met state-backed companies in China last month to try to get them to stump up billions for the next generation of British nuclear power stations. In the next few weeks, France’s EDF Energy is expected to finalise a deal with the government to build a £14bn nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, Somerset, in which China General Nuclear Power Corp will then take a stake of at least 40 per cent. However, China has been accused of backing cyber-attacks on overseas nations to gain intelligence. Cyber-crime has been estimated to cost the British economy as much as £27bn a year. Eric Schmidt, the Google chief executive, has said China is the most “sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies.
Independent 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Energy Costs
Household energy bills are to be cut using a “tax bonanza” from fracking to strip out green levies, under Conservative plans. With 40 new fracking sites due to be set up in the next two years, ministers want to use the tax revenue from operators to reduce bills for hard-pressed households. Green taxes, which help pay for onshore wind farms, currently account for about 10 per cent of the average energy bill, and the proportion is expected to rise to a third by 2020. However, George Osborne has indicated that he is looking for ways to reduce the burden on households of environmental levies, and ministers believe that fracking may provide a solution.
Telegraph 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Lobbyists employed directly by the energy companies should be reined in and their dealings with the Government made more open, Ed Miliband has said. In an interview with The Independent, the Labour leader accused ministers of being too close to the Big Six energy companies. Analysis reveals that ministers from the Department of Energy and Climate Change have met representatives from the energy giants on 128 occasions since the Coalition was formed in 2010, yet have held talks with the main groups representing energy consumers only 26 times during the same period. Labour will table amendments to the Lobbying Bill, which returns to the Commons tomorrow, that would force all lobbyists to join the register.
Independent 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Labour figures reveal that the combined profits of the “Big Six” power companies – SSE, Scottish Power, npower, EDF, Eon and British Gas – came to £3.37bn in 2012, up 73 per cent in just three years. Household bills are expected to rise a further 8 per cent this winter, sending average heating and lighting costs to around £1,400. The chief executive of Energy UK, which represents energy providers and suppliers, is former Conservative MP Angela Knight, who spent much of the financial crisis fighting on behalf of the City as head of the British Bankers Association. She has warned of rising prices and power shortages if Mr Miliband goes ahead with his plan for a 20-month price freeze.
Independent 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Gas and electricity prices make up only 4.5pc of the Consumer Price Index. To have a serious impact on living standards a government would have to do more than freeze energy costs. What next? Controlling the price of food? Before we know where we are we would be back to the 1970s, with the Government trying to control just about everything, including pay – and with dire results.
Telegraph 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Energy Supplies
Will the coalition’s topsy-turvy energy policy leave us with power cuts? The industry is paralysed by a lack of confidence that government will deliver what it has promised: big incentives, guaranteed for decades to come. The energy department has even quietly begun to cut its projections for offshore wind, long a central plank of its low-carbon plan. Two years ago, on the most optimistic scenario, up to 26GW of offshore power was forecast by 2020, equal to a third of the entire generation capacity today. The department’s latest estimate put it as low as 8GW. Peter Atherton, analyst at Liberum Capital, said: “Their lowered ambition on offshore wind has affected the thinking of the big utilities when it comes to new projects.” Hinkley is already five years behind schedule and talks to set the price support, once slated to end last year, could now run into 2014. Ed Davey, the energy secretary, will nudge the energy bill one step closer to the promised land this week. He will present to the House of Commons secondary legislation laying out some of the legislation’s finer details – the length and terms of subsidy contracts, auction rules, risk-sharing between government and industry and such like.If all goes to plan the bill will be signed into law by next summer. There is still a huge amount of work to be done. The consensus in the industry is that the overhaul is overengineered, and unnecessarily complicated. That is because until recently, insiders said, it was being driven by policy wonks. Commercial nous was missing.
Times 6th Oct 2013 read more »
New Nukes
Paul Brown: A book entitled The Doomsday Machine leaves little room for doubt in readers’ minds about the two authors’ views on nuclear power. But just in case you missed the point Martin Cohen, a social scientist, and Andrew McKillop, an energy economist, add in capital letters on the cover: “The high price of nuclear energy, the world’s most dangerous fuel.” The authors set about debunking what they call the eight myths of nuclear power. This is the basis for eight chapters attacking the claims that nuclear power is green, clean and safe, and that radiation is harmless. Perhaps the most telling argument is that nuclear energy is just too expensive to be a rational choice for electricity production. Cohen and McKillop argue that no other industry gets the extraordinary level of subsidy given by governments to atomic power. All governments guarantee free insurance against catastrophic accidents and all provide a taxpayer-funded or heavily subsidised disposal service for nuclear waste – although the authors point out that most countries simply store their most dangerous radioactive garbage, since they have no safe way of disposing of it.
Climate New Network 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Heysham
I am the chairman of the Conservative Friends of Nuclear Energy and never miss an opportunity to talk about nuclear power and about Heysham 1 and 2 and the fact that the government has ear marked the land adjacent to Heysham power station for the new Heysham 3.
The Visitor 5th Oct 2013 read more »
Devonport
A Westcountry MP is to seek safety assurances from Devonport Dockyard bosses and ministers after a nuclear ring at Devonport Dockyard lost power for 90 minutes. The Office for Nuclear Regulation has issued an improvement notice on the dockyard after a report revealed concerns over some event at the dockyard which raised nuclear concerns. According to the annual 2012 site report by the Ministry of Defence into safety practices at Devonport, a nuclear ring at the base “experienced a complete loss of supplies for over 90 minutes.”
Western Morning News 7th Oct 2013 read more »
BBC 6th Oct 2013 read more »
A major nuclear incident was narrowly averted at the heart of Britain’s Royal Navy submarine fleet it can be revealed. The failure of both the primary and secondary power sources of coolant for nuclear reactors at the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth on 29 July last year followed warnings in previous years of just such a situation.
Belfast Telegraph 7th Oct 2013 read more »
China
The world’s first AP1000 third-generation nuclear power plant being built in Sanmen, Zhejiang province, has fallen behind schedule, and questions are being raised over its safety standards. The World Nuclear Association said on its website the construction cost of the two AP1000 reactors at Sanmen was estimated by the China Nuclear Energy Association at 40.1 billion yuan in May – 24 per cent higher than earlier estimates.
South China Morning Post 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Iran
Iran has accused four workers of trying to sabotage its nuclear power programme, tacitly blaming Israel for the plot. The Iranian nuclear power chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said yesterday that the authorities had monitored the suspects as they worked in one of the country’s nuclear facilities and made the arrests at ‘exactly the right time’.
Daily Mail 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Independent 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Guardian 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Iran’s foreign minister is urging world powers to come up with new proposals for talks on its nuclear programme, which are set to resume next week.
BBC 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Japan
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s Prime Minister, has appealed for overseas help to contain the ever-increasing leaks of radioactive water at the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima.
Independent 6th Oct 2013 read more »
Times 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
An independent Scotland could struggle to build effective military forces and might not even be able to take over Scottish units currently in the British army, according to a UK government analysis intended to bolster the case for the union.
FT 7th Oct 2013 read more »
Renewables
The price of solar photovoltaic cells has dropped 99% in the past quarter century. So in an increasing number of markets around the country, solar is at or very close to grid parity.
Climate Progress 6th Oct 2013 read more »
