Energy Costs
Energy giants have come under fire for failing to deliver promised price reductions, despite cuts for customers of a rival supplier coming into effect on Wednesday. Ministers announced at the start of December a deal with the companies to cut an average of £50 from household bills by reforming controversial ‘green levies’. It said at the time: “All of the major energy suppliers have confirmed that they will pass the benefits of this package to their customers.” But while British Gas announced a price cut the same day – which comes into effect on January 1 – three other of the ‘Big Six’ suppliers, nPower, ScottishPower and SSE, have yet to confirm price cuts for their millions of customers, a month later.
Telegraph 31st Dec 2013 read more »
Millions of hard-pressed households will enjoy some New Year’s Day cheer in the form of a 3.2% reduction in their British Gas energy bill. At the start of December, the company – which supplies nearly half of the country’s homes – said it would reduce gas and electricity prices by an average of 3.2% with effect from Wednesday. This is equivalent to £41 off an annual dual-fuel bill, with an extra £12 rebate for the government’s warm home discount scheme, bringing the total annual saving to £53, said British Gas. The announcement came after the government confirmed a shakeup of green levies.
Guardian 31st Dec 2013 read more »
Energy companies seeking to deflect attention from rising bills have received a New Year gift from the industry regulator. Ofgem has decreed that, from today, Britain’s official average household annual bill must be recalculated in a way that reduces it by £153. Sadly, the move is a sleight of hand that will make no difference to how much it actually costs to heat and power our homes. Ofgem has decided that the old figure for the average bill, £1,437, is no longer accurate after industry claims that better insulation and efficiency improvements mean households are using less energy. From January 1, the regulator has told government officials, energy companies and price comparison websites to assume that households use about 10 per cent less energy when quoting the latest average bills. At a stroke, this will reduce the official household bill to £1,284. Consumer groups said the change would confuse bill payers, particularly after the latest round of inflation-busting increases.
Times 1st Jan 2014 read more »
Energy companies could be forced to pay more than £4 million compensation for Christmas Day power cuts, after the two main networks affected said they would pay £75 for any December 25 outage, no matter how long it lasted. The true payout total could be even higher, as customers are entitled to larger compensation payouts if they were left without power for more than 60 hours. Southern Electric, which supplies power across counties such as Hampshire in central southern England, said on Tuesday afternoon that it would guarantee a £75 payment for “any customer who was without electricity for any time on Christmas Day, regardless of the duration of the power cut”. A spokesman for the company said 19,500 customers were without power at the start of Christmas Day, putting its potential bill at almost £1.5m.
Telegraph 31st Dec 2013 read more »
Japan – Fukushima
Unexplained plumes of radioactive steam have been rising from Fukushima’s Reactor Building 3, Could a major meltdown be on the way? Fukushima’s Reactor Building 3 exploded on 13th March 2011 as a result of a hydrogen buildup, breaching the building’s containment and emitting a huge plume of radiation. The reactor itself is in meltdown. And now fresh plumes of steam have been seen coming out the structure. These have now been confirmed by Tepco, the owner of the nuclear plant, from 19th December onwards. The company believes the steam is coming from the fifth floor of the building. However it does not know the cause of the steam. Lethal levels of radiation and the physical damage to the structure have so far made entry and inspection impossible.
Ecologist 31st Dec 2013 read more »
Japan’s homeless are being recruited to clean up at the now defunct radioactive Fukushima nuclear power plant. In a special report, Reuters revealed that some of Japan’s most vulnerable citizens are being employed at minimum wage for one of the most undesirable jobs in the industrialised world.
Independent 31st Dec 2013 read more »
Nuclear Testing
The complete rehabilitation of areas of Australia used to test British nuclear weapons may not be possible, the Hawke cabinet was advised in 1986. Cabinet was warned that a full clean-up may have been more expensive than the British government would be willing to contemplate, according to documents released this week by the National Archives. They provide new insights into the Hawke government’s response to the recommendations of the McClelland royal commission into British nuclear tests in Australia.
Guardian 31st Dec 2013 read more »
Renewables
Jonathon Porritt: When I was doing my research for The World We Made I was delighted to unearth a wealth of highly innovative initiatives in China, India and South-East Asia. But I sort-of knew that I was just scraping the surface. And that’s now been confirmed in spades by the latest Game-changer Report from WWF-UK. I love these Reports – this is the fourth – as they have an uncanny knack of identifying brilliant people doing brilliant things to help shape a more sustainable world. This one is all about Asia – focussing on ‘green innovation flows’ that go both ways: from Asia to the UK and from the UK to Asia. Based on research from Verdantix, Dax Lovegrove eloquently outlines the economic context (“Asia’s role in the global economy is growing phenomenally, with both China and India in the largest ten global economies and expanding faster than western economies. As such, Asia concurrently presents both potential disruption to western firms, in the shape of new Asian multinationals with innovative models and solutions, and opportunities for western firms in new markets.”). He then hunts down a fascinating cross-section of case studies (16 in all), and helps people interpret what the significance of all this might be. “Pay close attention to the regulatory landscape which creates markets on an unprecedented scale. China in particular has created a favourable landscape for the development of its solar energy and electric vehicles markets. The scale of the investments and hence opportunities is astounding, as evidenced by China’s commitment to put 500,000 Electric Vehicles on the road by 2020, attracting US firms such as GE and Solaria on the solar side.
Porritt 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Climate
Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a new scientific study. The scientist leading the research said that unless emissions of greenhouse gases were cut, the planet would heat up by a minimum of 4C by 2100, twice the level the world’s governments deem dangerous. 4C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous. For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet, with sea levels rising by many metres as a result.
Guardian 31st Dec 2013 read more »
