news & information about the UK nuclear industry
Japan takes tentative step toward jointly run nuclear plants. Broad deal teams plant builders Toshiba and Hitachi with Fukushima utilityFour of the biggest names in Japan’s nuclear industry agreed on Wednesday to explore joint operations as each player struggles with the risk of building or running reactors on its own.
Nikkei Asian Review 29th Aug 2019 read more »
HBO’s Chernobyl Sparks Questions About US Nuclear Power Safety. Physicist Ed Lyman discusses new safety threats to US nuclear reactors and why risks here are different than in Russia.
UCS 27th Aug 2019 read more »
On Monday, Democratic candidate for president Andrew Yang revealed his climate plan. Like the plans of fellow nominees Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the plan is ambitious. But Yang’s sticks out from the others because he openly endorses a type of nuclear power known as thorium. Nuclear power has divided the Democratic candidates, with a few, like Sanders and Marianne Williamson, outright opposing its extended use into the future. Meanwhile, contenders like Yang, Sen. Cory Booker, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar actively support it. Yang’s plan claims that the public’s conception of nuclear safety “has been skewed by TV shows like Chernobyl and The Simpsons.” Thorium comes with its own challenges. “Thorium dioxide melts at 550 degrees higher temperatures than traditional uranium dioxide, so very high temperatures are required to produce high-quality solid fuel,” says a report from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), a Department of Energy institute. And while thorium might avoid some of the long-term challenges in waste management, combining it with uranium-233 in the short term would actually be more radioactive than current plants.
Popular Mechanics 27th Aug 2019 read more »
It will be about a decade before it is clear whether small nuclear reactors are suitable for Australia and would take about 15 years to bring a plant online if a decision was made to build one, one of the country’s leading experts has said. But Ziggy Switkowski, who headed a 2006 review of nuclear power for the Howard government, said the technology had no chance of being introduced unless Australia had a coherent energy policy.
Guardian 29th Aug 2019 read more »
The Electrification of Heat Demonstration Project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a large-scale roll-out of heat pumps in Great Britain by installing them in a representative range of 750 homes, alongside new products and services designed to overcome some of the barriers to deployment.
BEIS 28th Aug 2019 read more »
We now have the technology to create a grid of cheap fully renewable electricity. Many studies demonstrate that fully renewable electric grids are feasible in the United States, Europe, Australia and elsewhere. Models show that the United States does not need nuclear energy to retire fossil fuels. Studies show that running an electric grid with variable renewable energy will include not using, or dumping, some energy at times, a strategy that reduces cost compared to always storing surplus energy. Still, some form of electricity storage is needed. Batteries work well for smoothing short-term fluctuations, but for storing energy for many hours or days, pumped hydroelectric storage is less expensive. Pumped hydro uses any extra energy in the grid to pump water uphill, and when energy is needed, the water runs back down to generate power in a turbine. The United States has some existing examples and many feasible locations. With grid expansion, storage may be located at a distance from users.
Market Watch 27th Aug 2019 read more »
US and European researchers have shown the way to an era of cheap and plentiful renewable energy on a massive scale. Canadian scientists have worked out how to extract pure, non-polluting fuel from spent or unexploited oil wells at a fraction of the cost of gasoline. And British and Danish scholars have worked out that, in principle, Europe could generate enough onshore wind energy to supply the whole world until 2050. Neither technology is likely to be exploited on a massive scale in the very near future. Wind energy development depends on national and local decisions, and the new study is a simple atlas of possible sites across the entire continent. And although hydrogen is already driving trains, cars and buses in many nations, the technology is still essentially experimental and the infrastructure for a hydrogen economy has still to be built. But both are instances of the sustained ingenuity and imagination at work in research laboratories and institutions as scientists confront the challenge of a world no longer dependent on the fossil fuels that drive global heating and the climate emergency. The technology that can take hydrogen straight from existing oil reserves was presented at an international geochemistry conference in Barcelona and depends on university-patented technology now being developed by a scientific start-up.
Climate News Network 29th Aug 2019 read more »
The warmer it gets, the more we use air conditioning. The more we use air conditioning, the warmer it gets. Is there any way out of this trap? Buying an air conditioner is perhaps the most popular individual response to climate change, and air conditioners are almost uniquely power-hungry appliances: a small unit cooling a single room, on average, consumes more power than running four fridges, while a central unit cooling an average house uses more power than 15. “Last year in Beijing, during a heatwave, 50% of the power capacity was going to air conditioning,” says John Dulac, an analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA). “These are ‘oh shit’ moments.” There are just over 1bn single-room air conditioning units in the world right now – about one for every seven people on earth. Numerous reports have projected that by 2050 there are likely to be more than 4.5bn, making them as ubiquitous as the mobile phone is today. The US already uses as much electricity for air conditioning each year as the UK uses in total. The IEA projects that as the rest of the world reaches similar levels, air conditioning will use about 13% of all electricity worldwide, and produce 2bn tonnes of CO2 a year – about the same amount as India, the world’s third-largest emitter, produces today. A scheme to encourage engineers to build a more efficient air conditioner was launched last year by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a US-based energy policy thinktank, and endorsed by the UN environment programme and government of India. They are offering $3m to the winner of the inaugural Global Cooling prize. The aim is to design an air conditioner that is five times more efficient than the current standard model, but which costs no more than twice as much money to produce. They have received more than a hundred entries, from lone inventors to prominent universities, and even research teams from multibillion-dollar appliance giants.
Guardian 29th Aug 2019 read more »
Greta Thunberg, the teenage activist who energised the worldwide environmental debate among young people, reached New York yesterday after a 15-day voyage across the Atlantic to attend a United Nations climate summit. Miss Thunberg, 16, wanted to travel from her native Sweden without flying and was offered passage by a German sailor on his zero-carbon yacht powered by wind and solar energy. Miss Thunberg, who travelled with her father; the documentary maker Nathan Grossman; and a crew including Pierre Casiraghi, nephew of Prince Albert of Monaco, anchored off Coney Island to clear customs and immigration. Asked about the US president’s rejection of man-made climate change, she said: “It’s strange, everyone always asks me about Donald Trump. My message to him is listen to the science and he obviously doesn’t do that. As I always say, if no one has been able to convince him about the climate crisis emergency, I should not be able to do that, so I will focus on spreading awareness so that people in general will start caring and realise how big a crisis this is.”
Times 29th Aug 2019 read more »
Guardian 28th Aug 2019 read more »
Independent 29th Aug 2019 read more »
Hundreds of climate protesters plan to occupy one of Manchester’s busiest streets for four days this weekend to expose the “huge contradictions” of a city region that has declared a climate emergency while planning to massively expand its airport. The Extinction Rebellion group says that from 10am on Friday at least 750 people have pledged to take over part of Deansgate, a popular area for shopping and entertainment that has illegal levels of air pollution.
Guardian 28th Aug 2019 read more »
Britain will experience some of the worst river flooding in Europe in the coming years, according to a major study that looked at half a century worth of data. Researchers from 24 European countries have provided the clearest evidence yet that climate change is affecting the severity of floods. The study also shows clear regional variations – in northwestern Europe, floods are becoming more severe but will be less destructive in southeastern Europe. North England and southern Scotland will be the areas worst affected, with an 11 per cent increase in river flood levels per decade, according to the research by 50 scientists from 35 research institutions.
Independent 28th Aug 2019 read more »
Millions of tonnes of ice in Greenland is melting 50 years ahead of climate change schedules, preventing inhabitants from moving around the country by sledge and leading to the surreal spectacle of children playing in the Arctic sea due to rising temperatures. A heatwave gripping the Arctic region is causing unprecedented levels of melting ice, and has also seen global sea levels rise, in a clear sign that climate change is taking its severe toll much more quickly than predicted. Earlier this month, in the town of Qaanaaq in northwestern Greenland, children were seen splashing around in the sea and wearing t-shirts, which would have been unheard of ten years ago. Some schoolgirls have reportedly even started wearing skirts as part of their uniform. Climate experts said the sudden increase in melting ice was caused by greenhouse gas emissions over the past century and the so-called Albedo effect, where falling ice levels means that heat is absorbed by the planet instead of being reflected back into space, piling on yet more heat.
Telegraph 28th Aug 2019 read more »
A group of academics, politicians and anti-nuclear campaigners have registered their “collective dismay” at the decision to restart one of the country’s oldest nuclear reactors, nearly 18 months after it was shut down to investigate cracks in its graphite core. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted permission to EDF, the operators of Hunterston B nuclear power station, to operate reactor four for four months. The reactor was shut down in March last year after investigators discovered more cracks than expected in its graphite core. The regulator said it was now satisfied that it was safe to operate the reactor and that it could be safely shut down “in all foreseeable circumstances”. However, that decision has been called into question by the 11-strong group. In an open letter to the Scottish Government, which has been supportive of extending the operating lifespan of Hunterston B, they urged ministers to object to the ONR’s decision “in the strongest terms”, pointing out how two reactors at the station had hundreds of graphite cracks, some as wide as half an inch, with many multiply-fissured graphite bricks. The group, whose members include Dr David Toke, reader in energy policy at Aberdeen University, Dr Richard Dixon, the director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, and the Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer, stressed the original sell-by date of the reactors had passed 13 years ago. They write in their letter: “It is difficult to believe that permission has been granted to see if yet more cracks, or larger cracks, or more multiply-damaged bricks will appear in this period. A winter without these reactors has demonstrated that Scotland does not need their electricity. This decision unnecessarily puts the population of central Scotland at risk. We ask the question – why?” The letter, which is also signed by David Smythe, a prominent geophysicist and fracking critic, and Arthur West, the chair of Scottish CND, adds: “Is the Scottish Government in such thrall to the Westminster government and to the French parent company EDF that it will stand by without demur and allow these ancient, potentially dangerous reactors to restart?” Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said the safe operation of nuclear power plants in Scotland was the Scottish Government’s “utmost priority” and that it welcomed the reassurance provided by ONR, a reserved body, regarding reactor four’s return to service. He added: “Prolonging the life of Hunterston B will help to ensure Scotland retains a secure energy supply, while we increase the proportion of energy generated by renewables and cleaner thermal generation technologies. “We will continue to liaise closely with the ONR and will highlight the concerns raised regarding the increased upper thresholds for cracks.”
Scotsman 28th Aug 2019 read more »
Bosses at Copeland council say they want to further interrogate the Government’s proposed model to fund new nuclear power developments before pledging their support. Steven Morgan sounded a word of caution after the authority’s Strategic Nuclear and Energy Board, which he chairs, was asked to “support the principles” of the Government developing the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model as a way to fund large power stations and support for the development of smaller and less expensive equivalents. Mr Morgan also raised concerns that the model – which is intended to make it easier to attract private sector investment in new nuclear power stations – could see a hike in electricity bills for consumers. Last month the Government began a four-month consultation on creating a RAB model for nuclear. It followed a year-long review by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy after it was first floated as a way to support NuGen’s plans for Moorside. Its introduction mid negotiation between NuGen owners Toshiba and Korean utility Kepco, appeared to cause delays which eventually led to the scrapping of the £15 billion project. The model – which has already been used in the UK to finance electricity, gas, telecoms and transport infrastructure – sees a regulator set a fixed sum for the cost of a project along with a fix return for the project’s investors, paid for by the consumer. But councillors said this could see taxpayers or ratepayers stumping up the cash for a new nuclear power station up to 15 years before it is built – and which, it was feared, might never be built.
In Cumbria 27th Aug 2019 read more »
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