Hinkley
George Osborne’s Autumn Statement this week will be seized upon by ministers seeking to claim the political credit now for projects pencilled in for the next parliament, from a £15bn roadbuilding programme to new spending on homes and flood defences. The chancellor is also hoping to sign off a Treasury guarantee to ensure the financing of Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station built in Britain for decades. In an attempt to speed progress the government launched the UK guarantee scheme to underwrite up to £40bn of investment. So far it has helped a handful of projects including the partial conversion of the coal-fired Drax power station to biomass, the extension of the Northern Line and the Hinkley Point C power station.
FT 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Utilities
Germany’s biggest utility E.ON announced plans on Sunday to split in two and spin off most of its power generation, energy trading and upstream businesses, responding to a crisis that has crippled the European energy sector. E.ON said it wanted to focus on its renewable activities, regulated distribution networks and tailor-made energy efficiency services, citing “dramatically altered global energy markets, technical innovation, and more diverse customer expectations”.”E.ON’s existing broad business model can no longer properly address these new challenges,” Chief Executive Johannes Teyssen said in a statement. Germany’s power sector has been in turmoil, hit by a prolonged period of weak energy demand, low wholesale power prices and a surge in renewable energy sources which continue to replace gas-fired and coal-fired power plants.
Reuters 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Guardian 1st Dec 2014 read more »
Germany’s biggest utility Eon said it would spin off its fossil fuel and nuclear generation business into a new company and focus on renewables in a radical shift of business strategy, as it announced additional impairment charges of €4.5bn for this year.
FT 30th Nov 2014 read more »
E.ON has announced a strategic review of its entire North Sea business as part of a radical shake-up that will see the German energy giant split in two. The firm – which operates oil fields across the North Sea – said it wanted to focus on its renewable activities, regulated distribution networks and efficiency services, citing “dramatically altered global energy markets, technical innovation, and more diverse customer expectations”. It will spin off most of its power generation, energy trading and upstream businesses.
Telegraph 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Radwaste
U.S. Department of Energy officials say they have conducted numerous safety assessments of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad since a nuclear waste drum burst there Feb. 14. But none of those assessments has been made public, even as the plant’s operators send growing numbers of workers back into the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository. Emails and documents obtained by The New Mexican describing safety assessments in May, June and July raise questions about the stability of dozens of other nuclear waste drums that were in the same chamber as the drum that ruptured. More recent WIPP safety assessments have not been released, even to the union representing more than 300 WIPP workers.
Cumbria Trust 1st Dec 2014 read more »
Supply Chain
Scottish Enterprise has given a £330,000 contract to a company based in Cambridgeshire to help Scots business to win orders in the UK nuclear supply chain. The bid from TWI Ltd was not the most price-competitive as the contract was 60% ‘weighted’ in favour of ‘quality’ There were 18 expressions of interest in the tender, of which four were from Scottish based companies. Four suppliers submitted a tender for the ScotEnt contract – two of which were from Scottish based companies. TWI will provide ‘intensive’ company support to allow companies, which have an interest in growing the proportion of the market they derive from nuclear opportunities, achieve this through a better understanding of what they need to do in their business to exploit these opportunities.
Scottish Energy News 1st Dec 2014 read more »
Energy Costs
Strange then that prices of all the major sources of energy (except nuclear power) are falling. The oil price has fallen by 30 per cent since June and shows no sign of rebounding. In real terms, oil prices are now back to the level of November 1979, the height of the Islamic revolution in Iran. Technology in many different ways is adding to supply and reducing demand. In the past decade, technology has opened up the potential of shale gas in the US, the international ripples of which are still being felt. Coal has been pushed out of the US power sector, with the result that world prices are falling. Gas to gas competition will soon be the norm. Technology has also raised recovery rates and cut costs, taking the industry into deeper water and opened up new provinces. Technology is reducing costs in some parts of the renewables business – especially solar. Cars use less fuel per mile and through meters and smart grid technology we can fine tune the amounts of energy we consume. Those advances are still spreading through the system. The key moment will be when shale gas production starts in China and the advances in solar reach the commercial market. But technology does not stop, and investments made over the past decade especially, but not exclusively, in the US and China will produce more advances.
FT 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Germany
Letter WWF Germany: With reference to your editorial “The growing absurdity of German energy policy” (November 26): Germany’s energy transition is progressing well. While it is true that we currently have an excess of coal generation capacity, this is due not to our Energiewende or the closure of nuclear plants, but to a dysfunctional EU emissions trading scheme. Between 2010 and 2013 the increase in power produced by renewables (+46.9TWh) has outpaced the decrease in nuclear power (-43.3TWh). This growth in renewable energy has given a real boost to the German economy. In 2013 there were almost 380,000 jobs in the renewables sector in Germany and this is expected to grow to 600,000 by 2020. It also brings annual savings of €10bn due to reduced imports of fossil fuels. Most importantly, the Energiewende will not only help Germany transform into a green and emission-free economy, but will also increase our energy security by making the energy sector more resilient in the face of changing conditions in politically unstable supply regions.
FT 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Turkey
Turkey’s first nuclear plant to be built by the Russian company Rosatom will have a life span of 100 years, says CEO Sergey Kiriyenko. Turkey’s first nuclear power plant to be built on country’s southern coast will be operational for 100 years, said a Russian Rosatom company official. “We give 60 years of guarantee for the Akkuyu nuclear plant, but I’m sure that it will have a lifespan of 80-100 years,” said Sergey Kiriyenko, chief executive officer of Rosatom.
World Bulletin 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Belgium
A fire at the Tihange nuclear power plant in Liège province has seen one of the plants three reactors be switched of. The press agency Belga Belga reports that a number of electrical cables in the transformer outside the Tihange 3 reactor caught fire. Although the reactor itself was not damaged it was switched off at 10:32 on Sunday morning as a precautionary measure. The fire service went to the scene. The cause of the fire is still unknown. The Tihange 3 reactor has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts.
Flanders News 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Press TV 30th Nov 2014 read more »
Trident
The Scrap Trident demonstration at Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Clyde yesterday was the “biggest in three decades,” according to organisers. Around 1,500 protestors marched from Faslane Peace Camp to the gates of the Trident submarine base to call for the weapons to be scrapped.
Morning Star 1st Dec 2014 read more »
Decentralised Energy
Small scale renewables are – almost un-noticed by policy makers – providing a quarter of the world’s electricity, up from 10% in 2000, writes Morgan Saletta. Forget fracking and nuclear – this is the real energy revolution that’s under way, and it’s cutting big fossil fuel and centralised power grids out of the picture, while reducing emissions and delivering energy security and resilience.
Ecologist 29th Nov 2014 read more »
