Hinkley
Britain failed to satisfy concerns over the possible dangers from planned nuclear power stations when first raised by the Irish government three years ago, according to letters lodged in a London court case. The high court in London yesterday reserved judgment after a three-day hearing of an application by An Taisce for a judicial review of a decision last March by British energy secretary Ed Davey to grant planning permission for a £14 billion (€16.7 billion) plant in Somerset. The application argues that Mr Davey acted unlawfully in granting planning permission without carrying out “transboundary consultation” with the Irish, as required under European Union rules. Last week, Jonathan Swift QC, counsel for the energy secretary, said Mr Davey is required to consult where there is “a real risk”, or “a serious possibility” of “significant environmental effects”, but not where that risk is minimal. The Irish government, Mr Swift said, had repeatedly raised questions about the operation of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria but concerns about the new Somerset plant at Hinkley Point “have never been raised”. However, files lodged in the case include two letters to British ministers from Irish ministers. They were sent by the former Green Party minister for the environment, John Gormley, in February 2010 and his successor, Fianna Fáil’s Éamon Ó Cuív, in January 2011. In his letter, Mr Gormley said it was not “immediately apparent” that the cumulative effects of Sellafield’s “continuing discharges” and new nuclear power stations had been “satisfactorily assessed’ by the British. The case made for extra nuclear capacity relied “heavily on claims that nuclear power generation is a necessary part of the UK’s response to climate change”, said Mr Gormley, even though the carbon bill left by stations over their lifetimes was unknown.
Irish Times 10th Dec 2013 read more »
EDF Energy and its main delivery partners are today meeting with hundreds of suppliers to talk through the contract award process for the proposed £16bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
Construction Index 9th Dec 2013 read more »
Oldbury
ANTI-nuclear campaigners have spoken out against the storage of atomic waste from Oldbury Power Station at the decommissioned Berkeley site. Members of the Stroud District Green Party claimed dangerous waste could not be monitored and was unacceptably hazardous. Last month the Gazette reported that under a preferred option revealed by industry bosses, 100 loads of intermediate level waste (ILW) would be taken the 12 miles by road from Oldbury, near Thornbury, to go into a storage building which is nearing completion at Berkeley.
Gloucestershire Gazette 9th Dec 2013 read more »
New Nukes
Speech by Michael Fallon to the Nuclear Industry Association: Hinkley is not the only success story this year. As we heard yesterday, HM Treasury have signed a co-operation agreement with Hitachi, Horizon Nuclear Power Wylfa Ltd, to promote external financing for a new nuclear power station at Wylfa, Anglesey. This agreement will enable access to the UK Guarantee Scheme that will underpin the establishment of external project finance for the ‘Wylfa Newydd’ project, expected to come on-stream in the first half of the 2020s. And Government has made good progress over the last 12 months to make new nuclear happen in the UK. We’ve successfully completed the first generic design assessment for Areva’s UK EPR and starting the process for Hitachi’s ABWR design. We’ve also introduced a community benefit regime which recognises the contribution of local populations surrounding new nuclear power stations to the long term provision of clean and secure energy for the nation.
DECC 5th Dec 2013 read more »
“China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) is the large state-owned enterprise under the direct management of the central government. Historically, CNNC successfully developed the atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb and nuclear submarines and built the fist nuclear plant in the main land of China. CNNC is the main body of the national nuclear technology industry, the core of the national strategic nuclear deterrence and the main force of the national nuclear power development and nuclear power construction, and shoulders the duel historical responsibilities for building of national defense force, increasing the value of state assets and developing the society.”
CNNC (accessed) 11th Dec 2013 read more »
Sellafield
Tom Zarges, the boss of Nuclear Management Partners, the private consortium in charge of cleaning up Sellafield. He got a terrible kicking the other day from the public accounts committee. “It would be nice if there was an apology for the lost millions to the British taxpayer,” declared chair Margaret Hodge. “We can say that we are sorry and humbled only because we are resolved to set things right,” said Zarges. Grovelling on that scale might work.
Guardian 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Radwaste
Michael Fallon MP, Minister of State for Business and Energy at DECC has just said in oral evidence to a Lords Select Committee that: it is “not right a county council should have a veto over a GDR”; a wider county has no real interest in the siting of a GDR; that the consultation has already ended on the GDR siting.
Radiation Free Lakeland 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Decommissioning
A NORTH-EAST construction and maintenance firm has been rewarded for its work that saved taxpayers £1.3m. Hertel, based in Middlesbrough, has received a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority award for its services at Hinkley Point A, in Somerset. The company separated more than 250 tons of asbestos waste for disposal, which was the completion of work to remove 2,100 tons of asbestos. Bosses say the process helped site operator Magnox save £1.3m in disposal costs by reducing the amount of waste sent to a specialist facility in Cumbria.
Northern Echo 11th Dec 2013 read more »
Nuclear Research/Subsidies
A new Nuclear Fuel Centre of Excellence (NFCE) and a project to reduce nuclear decommissioning costs are among the beneficiaries of a new £28m funding package for nuclear research and development. Around £8m will be put aside to establish the NFCE, while the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) has been handed £5m to commission a new facility aimed at developing high-end skills and conducting research into how decommissioning could be made cheaper. A further £1m has been channelled towards equipment for the Advanced Digital Radiometric Instrumentation for Applied Nuclear Activities (ADRIANA) – a state-of-the-art capability to control, monitor and operate nuclear power stations as well as contribute to nuclear safeguards and security, decommissioning activities, and fusion research. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) also approved £1.5m for an as yet to be revealed nuclear R&D programme, while early in 2014, up to £13m will be made available for a project developing products for the nuclear industry.
Business Green 11th Dec 2013 read more »
British engineering firms are being called on to propose ideas for innovative technology that could help grow the UK’s nuclear power supply chain. The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) is offering up to £13m to help UK firms develop innovations for the nuclear energy sector, a move intended to help British industry reap more of the economic rewards from the creation of the next generation of power stations. The main manufacturing contracts for the first of these plants – Hinkley Point C in Somerset – have gone to French firms, partly as a result of the disappearance of the UK’s capabilities in nuclear technology.
The Engineer 10th Dec 2013 read more »
AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, and The University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute have launched a long-term, strategic partnership.The partnership will see both parties working collaboratively to create a global centre of excellence for reactor engineering and nuclear skills in the North West. Building on a track record of innovative research and development projects it will broaden the services both parties offer to respective customers, including Reactor Technology Development; a project that will take technology developments from the Dalton Nuclear Institute and put them into industry application through AMEC. Rt Hon Michael Fallon, UK Minister of State for Energy, launched the partnership at today’s Energy Choices conference. He said: “I am delighted to announce the launch of this partnership between AMEC and The University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute. The UK nuclear sector is second to none and it is critical that the UK continues to showcase its expertise and skills around the world.
Energy Business Review 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Energy Markets
The Government must “step back” from energy markets and desist from “Soviet-style planning” in order for fuel prices to fall, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has said. In a hard-hitting report published on Wednesday, the IEA has argued that the UK energy markets have deteriorated from being “highly competitive” just a decade ago because of state interventions. “A remarkable change has come over the UK energy market in recent years as governments have reverted to a regime of centralised energy planning not seen since the late 1970s,” the report says. “Since then, governments have reverted to centralised action, importing many of the defects of discredited Soviet-style planning. In particular, they effectively control the types of power stations that are built, even though they lack relevant knowledge.”
Telegraph 11th Dec 2013 read more »
Energy Costs
Some energy companies have been accused of “getting away with green murder” for failing to pass on savings from a Government shake-up of levies. Just two of the “big six” providers, British Gas and Scottish and Southern Energy, have announced that they will pass on the savings – worth around £50 – to all customers, including those on fixed-price contracts. Price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com said some bill-payers would be disappointed to learn that their supplier might not reduce the cost of their energy, mostly penalising those who were “savvy switchers” and already benefiting from a good-value fixed-price energy deal. EDF Energy and E.On both said they took the Government’s cuts to green levies into account when announcing their most recent smaller-than-expected price rises. But both have said that existing customers on fixed price contracts will not benefit from the saving, claiming that they already benefit from a discounted rate.
Independent 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Plans to axe the “green” taxes passed on to gas and electricity customers were rubber-stamped in the Autumn Statement. The change should shave £50 off the average annual fuel bill. However, four of the “big six” energy firms have refused to act until the new year. SSE has already said it will administer the £50 reduction in March, leaving its customers paying the higher prices through the coldest months. Scottish Power and npower are yet to confirm their intentions, and could also wait until spring.
Telegraph 10th Dec 2013 read more »
The Archbishop of Canterbury has summoned the bosses of the ‘Big Six’ energy companies to a private meeting on Wednesday to discuss fuel poverty and rising energy prices. The meeting comes after the Most Rev Justin Welby said he understood why people felt above-inflation price rises were “inexplicable” and called on the companies to act with “generosity”.
Telegraph 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Utilities
A Spanish government decision to abandon plans to bail out the country’s electricity sector from a €3.6 billion deficit has diminished credit rating of Spain’s power producers – including Scottish Power owner Iberdrola – by investor service agency, Moody’s.
Utility Week 9th Dec 2013 read more »
Uranium
A week before a uranium mine in Kakadu National Park spilled a million litres of radioactive slurry a Rio Tinto-owned African mine had a similar accident. Rio Tinto owns Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), the company which operates the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory, where a crack in a leach tank turned into a massive spill in the early hours of Saturday. ERA said it had completed its preliminary inspections and was satisfied the surrounding area was safe and Kakadu had not been contaminated, but there were still concerns in the scientific and Indigenous communities that rain had the potential to carry the contaminated slurry. On 3 December, a similar accident happened at Rossing, a mine in Namibia owned by Rio Tinto, with the company reporting a leach tank failed but it did not say how much of the radioactive slurry – which, like the Ranger spill, also contained acid – was spilled.
Guardian 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Europe
European development bank cuts funding for coal power. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approves strategy that will see more investment in energy efficiency and renewable power. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy investments over the next five years and slash its funding for coal projects, a managing director at the bank told Reuters.
Guardian 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Japan – Fukushima
Hundreds of tons of radioactively contaminated water leak from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors every day. That water has to go somewhere and the operator of the plant is running out of places to store it. So the suggestion has been made that it be dumped in the sea. At the scene of the Fukushima nuclear disaster they can’t clean anything without getting something else dirty. The plant’s operator TEPCO has a decontamination system at Fukushima called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System). It takes the contaminated water and filters out most of the radioactivity except for tritium. This “tritiated” water is then stored in tanks. The problem is that ALPS hasn’t been the most reliable of systems at Fukushima. Of the three systems in use, two had to be shut down for repairs earlier this year when it was found they were being corroded by the very water they were supposed to decontaminate. Last week one of them was found to be leaking hydrochloric and was shut down again.
Greenpeace International 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Iran
US Secretary of State John Kerry has defended the six-month nuclear deal struck with Iran to a sceptical panel of congressmen. Mr Kerry said if the US Congress imposed new sanctions against Iran, it would risk the “delicate” diplomatic effort needed for a larger deal. The US and other world powers have promised no new sanctions in exchange for a curb of Iran’s nuclear programme. But US critics of the deal say it gives Iran cover to expand the programme.
BBC 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Guardian 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Senior Iranian officials indicated on Tuesday that progress was being achieved in expert-level talks between Tehran and six world powers over the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal.
Reuters 10th Dec 2013 read more »
South Korea
Nuclear power should account for up to 29% of Korean generation capacity by 2035, according to draft long-term energy plans submitted to the government. Previous plans called for 41% nuclear by 2035.
World Nuclear News 10th Dec 2013 read more »
South Korea is looking to scale back plans to rely on nuclear power, but growing energy demand and the shutdown of aging reactors mean it will still likely need to build new nuclear-fired plants in the next two decades. Asia’s fourth-largest economy has been under pressure to curb its usage of nuclear power after a scandal forced the shut down of some reactors that had received replacement parts using fake safety certificates. The government had planned to increase reliance on nuclear power to 41 percent of power generation by 2030, but a draft policy revision is now targeting 29 percent by 2035, the least stringent reduction recommended by a public advisory group.
Reuters 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Renewables – US Solar
The third quarter of 2013 was another big one for the U.S. solar industry. 930 megawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV) were installed across the country — the second largest quarter in the industry’s history — and it was the largest quarter ever for residential PV installations. As the solar industry continues its remarkable growth, “2013 is likely to be the first time in more than 15 years that the U.S. installs more solar capacity than world leader Germany,” according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Climate Progress 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Energy Efficiency
ECO, whilst far from sufficient for its supposed original purpose, did at least offer the prospect of some real progress being made in tackling the chronic energy inefficiency of the nation’s homes. Particularly for the intractable seven million or so ‘hard to treat’ homes, mostly with solid walls, whose occupants could have expected their energy bills to halve under the scheme. Strange then to review levies with the purpose of reducing bills by a little, when the actual result is to keep bills sky high for the unfortunates who will not now see their homes improved. And let’s be clear about this; even the remaining Carbon Emissions Reduction Obligation (CERO) element of ECO will probably not go towards such treatments, since cheaper cavity and loft insulation has also been included into ECO targets. It is very unlikely now that obliged companies will seek to discharge their obligations through ‘hard to treat’ homes when they can achieve the watered down and time-extended targets by other, cheaper means. The response of DECC to the turmoil, however, has been altogether more subtle and almost entirely off the radar. For at the same time as the programme as a whole has been slashed, few eyes have been focused on what has happened to the remains. DECCs ‘Green Deal Community Competition’ for example has seen its funding quadrupled, directly from cannibalising the almost completely unspent ‘Green Deal Cashback’ scheme for individual Green Deal applicants. Only £2m out of the £125m cashback money originally allocated has actually shifted out of the door, mostly on replacement boilers. And of course, elements of what would have been in Green Deal have now been incorporated into eligible ECO activities, alongside, significantly, district heating schemes. CSCO eligible areas have been substantially extended. All of which says to me that the original individual focus of measures in both Green Deal and ECO is being stealthily switched towards a ‘street by street’ approach, with local authorities, social landlords and public sector consortia at the heart of the process.
Alan Whitehead 10th Dec 2013 read more »
It is perhaps a bit of a metaphor for the whole febrile debate on energy that we should have come to this. Because without a doubt, if you want to save the most, permanently, on energy bills, ECO (or something like it) is the programme you should be investing in. The comparative figures across Europe should not surprise anyone but they still come as a bit of a shock. In the UK we have some of the continent’s cheapest energy prices but we also have significantly larger energy bills than most. And this is quite simply because, as a rule, we live in more poorly insulated, leakier homes than in the rest of Europe. These energy inefficient houses are twice as high an incidence as in Scandinavia, for example. And therefore we sit at the bottom of the European league for homes spending considerable amounts of household income on energy – we spend almost three times the level of homes in Belgium or Holland. The effects of ECO-type schemes on bills can be startling. Many solid wall homes across the country can halve their bills through effective insulation measures. This would be a far higher and more permanent saving than other measures being canvassed. For example, reforming tariffs probably saves a few pounds and an energy price freeze would save perhaps £72 – definitely worth having but paling in weight beside the long-term effects of wholesale energy efficiency action.
Alan Whitehead 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Why is the poor state of the housing stock allowed to perpetuate? The coalition has been working hard in recent weeks to convince us that we are helplessly at the mercy of the all-powerful energy companies, and international energy markets, and that all that can be done to help is fiddling around the edges of bills by watering down socially necessary policies like ECO. The key question for me is, given that those at the top are evidently aware of public concerns around energy bills, and at least notionally aware of the huge potential that exists for efficiency improvement, why is this natural synergy being ignored? Given the level of support from the treasury for ‘big kit’ energy infrastructure such as fracking rigs, new nuclear power, and new conventional forms of electricity generation – the business case for these is largely reliant upon continuing high levels of native demand – it is perhaps unsurprising that there is a lack of focus on demand reduction. Any policies which successfully reduce demand, or at the very least were seen as credibly likely to do so, would threaten the investment cases for these big-ticket projects. Insulation installers, boiler engineers, and window firms (to name but a few) would undoubtedly flourish if strong policies to reduce demand were brought forward. It is evident therefore that the lack of attention to the demand side is far more complex.
IGov 10th Dec 2013 read more »
Carbon Budget
Ministers must stand by their commitment to drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, despite deepening coalition rifts over the issue, the government’s advisers on climate change have urged. Households will pay just under £200 a year by 2020 to subsidise low-carbon energy and industry, rising to about £220 by 2030, they said. But these costs will save money in the longer term because they will reduce reliance on expensive imported gas – on current gas prices, about £100bn will be saved by 2050. The Committee on Climate Change, the statutory body set up to advise the government on meeting long-term carbon goals, said firmly on Wednesday that there was no reason to revise the UK’s carbon budgets, which require a halving of carbon emissions in the 2020s, compared with 1990 levels.
Guardian 11th Dec 2013 read more »
The average British household could eventually end up paying an extra £8,000 for its gas and electricity if George Osborne succeeds in delaying vital action to make Britain greener, the Government’s official climate change advisers warn today. Postponing decisive action to cut carbon emissions by 10 years to 2030, through measures such as a widespread shift to renewable energy sources, will add at least £100bn to Britain’s collective household energy bills between 2030 and 2050, according to the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC). This works out to £4,000 per household. The increase is because Britain would need to take even more drastic action to make up lost ground to ensure it hits its legally binding target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent from 1990 levels. And if fossil fuel prices soar to the top of the range of realistic forecasts, the bill to remedy the delayed switch to a low-carbon society could reach £200bn, or £8,000 per household, according to the committee’s calculations – the first time a figure has been put on the cost to the UK of postponing action.
Independent 11th Dec 2013 read more »
There is no legal basis for watering down green energy targets for the 2020s, the Government’s climate change adviser says on Wednesday. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says in a report that the country must stick to a plan that will add £120 to household energy bills by 2030, insisting the impact is “small and manageable”. George Osborne, the Chancellor, has said Britain should resist a “very prescriptive path for green energy” and has backed the construction of a new wave of gas-fired power plants that would require watering down a “carbon budget”. Under the Climate Change Act 2008, which requires an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, the Government must agree greenhouse gas emission “budgets” for four-year periods. The budget covering 2023 to 2027, which is known as the “fourth carbon budget” and was set two years ago, would require a 32 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions on 2012 levels by 2025.
Telegraph 11th Dec 2013 read more »
Britain may have to abandon its climate change targets if other countries failed to cut emissions, the chairman of the ¬government’s advisory body has said. Lord Deben (formerly the Conservative Environment Secretary John Gummer) said: “There is no point in you doing your bit for climate change if no one else is doing it.” However, the chairman of the Committee on Climate Change also insisted that Britain “was not acting alone” and dismissed concerns that countries were already backtracking on their emission targets. The committee warns ministers in a report today that Britain’s carbon targets “should not and cannot be changed under the terms of the [Climate Change] Act”.
Times 11th Dec 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Britain should press ahead with fracking, the chairman of the Government’s climate change advisory body said yesterday.Lord Deben dismissed claims by green groups that fracking would cause significant damage to the environment, adding that Britain needed to drill shale wells to reduce reliance on foreign imports of fossil fuel. Lord Deben, who as John Gummer served as Environment Secretary in John Major’s Government, told The Times: “It just isn’t true that fracking is going to destroy the environment and the world is going to come to an end if you frack. And yet to listen to some people on the green end, that’s what they say.” Greenpeace argues that gas and toxic chemicals used in fracking could contaminate water supplies and that exploiting mineral reserves impairs efforts to cut emissions. Lord Deben said that shale gas, which has helped the US to cut emissions because it is cleaner than coal, could give Britain greater energy security and should be exploited as quickly as possible. “I’m in favour of it. The carbon budgets have already assumed that we are going to use gas well on through the 2020s and into the 30s. There will be a need for gas [and] much better to have it from us and as soon as we can because I do genuinely think people ought to be worried about the security of our energy supplies.”
Times 11th Dec 2013 read more »
