Hinkley
French energy giant does not expect to take final investment decision on Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation until the autumn, missing its own target of July. EDF expects to miss its own deadline for deciding whether to build Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation. The French energy giant announced in October that it planned to take a final investment decision on the £16bn Hinkley Point C plant by July, after striking a landmark subsidy deal with government. But it now believes that an ongoing European Commission investigation into whether the subsidies are illegal state aid will not be fully resolved until autumn, forcing its decision on the Somerset plant back until then. The delay could threaten EDF’s plans to deliver first power from the plant in 2023 – a timescale it had said was “subject to a final investment decision by July 2014”. Amid intense scrutiny of the Hinkley plan, EDF is also lobbying strongly against a long-term freeze of the UK’s rising carbon tax, which it fears would weaken the case for Hinkley by pushing up the bill for direct subsidies for the plant.
Telegraph 10th March 2014 read more »
Anyone who has followed the saga of EDF’s Hinkley Point plans has long learnt to take its pronouncements on the project’s timescales with a healthy dose of salt. These are the reactors, after all, that chief executive Vincent de Rivaz once said would be powering Britons to cook their Christmas dinners in 2017. Yet the Frenchman has shrugged off the embarrassment of repeated delays to the first power date (six years and counting) in a manner of which Edith Piaf would be proud. Indeed, he has continued to set optimistic project milestones in the face of warnings from partners and rivals alike that they will not be met. EDF insisted through much of 2012 that its investment decision would come by the end of the year – raising more than a few eyebrows at partner Centrica. That slipped to early 2013 and then, as Centrica pulled out and subsidy talks dragged on, to the end of 2013. When EDF decided last October to publish a new target of July – leaving itself just nine months to complete the state aid process – it did so despite months of warnings from rivals, such as SSE, that the European Commission deliberations would take at least a year. The deadline-setting may well be a deliberate policy: first, it was to pressure the Government, now to crank up pressure on the EC to act. But it does little to inspire confidence that we won’t be safer relying on the gas oven for our turkeys come Christmas 2023. The EC’s January verdict made clear that many key details of the contract are simply not yet finalised. “Autumn”, in Whitehall terms, stretches at least as far as November. It would be little surprise if, in EDF terms, it may mean next year. Yet the EC’s dossier published in January raised important questions about the financing of the project, at a time when the UK parliament and the general public have been afforded scant chance to scrutinise the details. With household energy bill-payers on the hook for what critics have dubbed “the world’s most expensive power station”, those questions have to be answered.
Telegraph 10th March 2014 read more »
Glastonbury councillors have accused EDF of “cowardice” after the nuclear company pulled out of a public meeting organised by the town council for March 12 about Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. The council says EDF told it that due to postings on social networks, it would not take part. Pulling out of the community meeting, EDF offered instead to address a council meeting “to inform members how the Hinkley Point development will impact and benefit the residents of Glastonbury”, but the offer has failed to satisfy some councillors.
Western Daily Press 10th March 2014 read more »
Vulcan
Nuclear and environmental regulators are facing a grilling over why people living in the north were not told about a radioactive leak. Members of a community liaison group are outraged they were kept in the dark after the incident at the UK Government’s Vulcan Nuclear Reactor Test Establishment next to Dounreay two years ago.
Press and Journal 11th March 2014 read more »
THE Ministry of Defence has been accused by the Scottish Government of a deliberate attempt to mislead the people of Scotland and cover up the truth regarding a nuclear-related incident at Dounreay. The local community in Caithness was told there was “little” to report when in fact the site’s Vulcan reactor was shut down for several months in 2012, according to Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead. Last week, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond revealed that Britain’s oldest nuclear submarine, HMS Vanguard, was to have its reactor refuelled at a cost of £120 million after the Vulcan test reactor was found in 2012 to have “low levels of radioactivity … in a prototype core”. Mr Lochhead, who will make a statement to the Scottish Parliament this afternoon, said the minutes of meetings of the Dounreay Stakeholder Group showed th e Ministry’s “culture of secrecy just gets deeper and deeper”. He said: “They then told the community it was ‘business as usual’ when that clearly was not the case given that the Vulcan reactor was shut down for several months in 2012 in response to abnormal levels of radiation within the facility. “Not only did the Ministry of Defence not inform the people of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Government of this nuclear-related issue, they actually told the local community there was ‘little to report’ when clearly there was plenty to report.”
Herald 11th March 2014 read more »
“There was little new to report,” lieutenant commander Rory Stewart, deputy commander of the Vulcan naval reactor near Dounreay in Caithness, told more than 30 community representatives gathered at the Pentland Hotel in Thurso on the 7 March 2012. He was giving an update on events at the Vulcan plant over the last three months to the Dounreay Stakeholder Group, a forum set up to improve transparency and trust. We now know the commander was being – let’s be generous here – economical with the truth. Last week the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, told the House of Commons that in January 2012 radioactivity was detected leaking into the reactor’s cooling water. This resulted, he said, in Vulcan being shut down for investigations until November 2012 “as a precaution” – as well as a £270 million rethink of the navy’s nuclear submarine programme. None of this was mentioned by Stewart. According to the agreed minutes of the meeting, published online, he said: “Core burn operations continue to programme”. Why did the MoD insist that a radioactive problem at its submarine test reactor should remain secret for two years? What exactly are the security reasons that justify secrecy in 2012 and 2013, but not in 2014? Why were Sepa and ONR not told about the problem until months after it occurred? Why where the community representatives on the Dounreay Stakeholder Group given a series of reassurances in 2012 that have turned out to be false? Why, above all, is the MoD still permitted to run some of the some dangerous nuclear operations on the planet without any statutory, independent safety regulation? We should be told.
Rob Edwards 10th March 2014 read more »
Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead is to make a statement to MSPs about a radiation problem at a nuclear test reactor in the Highlands.
BBC 11th March 2014 read more »
Heysham
More than 60 people held a vigil at Heysham Nuclear Power station on Saturday, to mark the third anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Fukishima. There was silence as messages were read out, including some from Japan, where the meltdown occurred in 2011. The crowds also called on power company EDF to answer questions on Heysham Power Staton’s safety in the face of climate change. Local architect Mo Kelly took levels to demonstrate how high sea levels could be in 2100, and showed that a storm-surge like those seen in Dorset recently might breach the security perimeter fence. Ruth Quinn, a Lancaster resident said: “It was terrifying to see how vulnerable the monolithic nuclear power station could be in the face of climate-change induced sea surges. How can we be sure that future flooding won’t cause nuclear waste leaks?’
Lancashire Evening Post 10th March 2014 read more »
Radwaste
Located near Carlsbad, New Mexico this Department of Energy (DOE) experimental nuclear waste dump is attempting to store leftover radioactive plutonium and americium from the US weapons program. On February 14, 2014 there was a nuclear safety failure at the site and the Department of Energy is not being honest about it. In this film Fairewinds Energy Education’s Arnie Gundersen pieces together what happened and points out Fairewinds’ major concerns about the facility, the accident and the lack of transparency at the DOE.
Fairwind 7th March 2014 read more »
A recovery process has started at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) with the aim of resuming operations. Seventeen workers have so far tested positive for extremely low levels of contamination following a radiological event at the facility last month.
World Nuclear News 10th March 2014 read more »
Energy Supplies
As the European Union looks to agree on the future of its climate and energy policy the conflict in Ukraine has raised fears over gas supply in Europe. Around 30% of the EU’s gas comes from Russia and around a third of that goes through the Ukraine – which Russia’s gas giant Gazprom is threatening with sanctions. The latest instability pushed up gas price futures by 10%. The EC’s impact assessment, published alongside its 2030 energy package in January, states that a 40% greenhouse gas reduction target would reduce energy imports compared to business as usual – but a scenario with a 40% GHG target, a 30% renewables target and ‘ambitious energy efficiency policies’ would cut net imports by more than half by 2050.
Energy Desk 4th March 2014 read more »
Independent gas generators warn mooted freezing of levy in the Budget as advocated by coal industry will lead to blackouts. Three of the largest independent gas power suppliers have warned the UK could face blackouts if the Chancellor freezes the government’s main carbon tax in next week’s Budget. InterGen, Vitol and Macquarie have written to George Osborne asking him to reconsider the move, which has been strongly hinted at by ministers who believe that cancelling planned increases to the levy will help curb energy costs for households and energy intensive industries.
Business Green 10th March 2014 read more »
Fukushima
A senior adviser to the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has told the firm that it may have no choice but to eventually dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. Speaking to reporters who were on a rare visit to the plant on the eve of the third anniversary of the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Dale Klein said Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] had yet to reassure the public over the handling of water leaks that continue to frustrate efforts to clean up the site.
Guardian 10th March 2014 read more »
Three years after Fukushima, Japan still struggles to cope. The plant’s operator Tepco is still storing nearly half a million tons of radioactive water on site but experts recommend the water be released into the sea. Scientists estimate it will be at least four decades before the reactors are rendered safe, decontamination work is completed and the tens of thousands of people who used to live in the exclusion zone around the plant can return. Some believe that time-frame is optimistic.
Telegraph 10th March 2014 read more »
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water generated by the melted-down reactors of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power station should be poured into the sea, according to Japan’s chief foreign adviser on the disaster. In remarks that will outrage environmentalists, fishermen and local people, Dale Klein, formerly the chief regulator of the US nuclear industry, said that the Japanese Government must persuade its public to accept the “controlled release” of contaminated water to ease the risk of storing it in tanks.
Times 11th March 2014 read more »
Three years ago Japan was the second-most nuclear-dependent country on Earth. Only France relied on nuclear plants for a higher proportion of its energy. Now, Japan uses no nuclear energy at all. Since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster it has shut all 48 reactors not already destroyed by the original tsunami on March 11, 2011. Public opposition to nuclear power has lost some of its intensity as the death toll directly attributable to the disaster has stayed stubbornly low. What have not changed are Japan’s energy fundamentals. It wastes less than before Fukushima, but its net long-term demand will rise. It has few reserves of its own, and the risks of dependence on imports are as clear to the east of Russia as to the west. The lesson of Fukushima is that nuclear power must be safer, but not scrapped.
Times 11th March 2014 read more »
There is a scene part way through Nao Kubota’s Homeland, the first Japanese feature film set in post-nuclear Fukushima, when a grandmother is cooking rice for her weary, fractured family. “Where is the rice from?” asks her daughter-in-law, who has turned to prostitution to make ends meet after the meltdown at the atomic power plant three years ago drove them from their farm and wrecked the local economy. “Hokkaido, I think,” replies the grandmother, her expression equal parts bewilderment – how did we come to rely on outsiders to feed us? – and despair.
FT 10th March 2014 read more »
March 11, marks the third anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. As the world learned at Chernobyl in 1986, and as has been reinforced at Fukushima, nuclear catastrophes do have a discernible beginning. What they don’t have have is an end. They are ongoing, and especially in Fukushima’s case, will be continuing for decades. 28 years after Chernobyl, much work has been done to protect against radiation releases from the destroyed reactor, and to protect the molten fuel from going re-critical–e.g. starting a new, uncontrolled chain reaction. Is that work sufficient? So far, the answer is yes–but “so far” in nuclear accident terms is a mere droplet in time. That protection must hold up for centuries. And, 28 years later, actual decommissioning of Chernobyl remains a far-off fantasy. Three years after the onset of the Fukushima accident, decommissioning and clean-up there too is mere fantasy; there are dangerous decades ahead of us before the accident can be deemed concluded. And, of course, at both Chernobyl and Fukushima, evacuation turns out to mean relocation. And relocation is permanent. Small areas of our planet have been rendered, for all practical purposes, permanently uninhabitable. How many such small areas can our planet withstand?
Green World 10th March 2014 read more »
Nuclear power plants in Japan are going through a safety review by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which they must pass to resume their operations. The review process is now approaching its first crucial stage. The NRA has made progress in narrowing the list of reactors that are likely to meet the new safety standards, and so the nuclear watchdog expects to announce soon the power plants that will be given “priority screening” for a restart. Politicians eager for restarts tend to call the nation’s new safety regulations “the world’s most stringent.” They sound as if no problems will remain with Japan’s nuclear power plants as long as the safety standards are met. However, that is not the case. There are major outstanding issues that are not included in the NRA’s regulatory requirements, such as drawing up evacuation plans by local governments in the vicinity of the plants to prepare for a contingency and finding sites to store spent nuclear fuel for many years. On top of that, the NRA’s safety review process itself is still in the middle of reform.
Asahi Shimbun 10th March 2014 read more »
So far no one has died from radiation in Fukushima. But unable to return to their homes, scattered in evacuations centres, perhaps lonely and depressed, a growing number of evacuees are dying from anxiety, from suicide or from simply losing the will to live.
BBC 11th March 2014 read more »
The disaster hasn’t stopped the global interest in nuclear power—especially in developing countries that have untested regulatory and crisis-management systems. After Fukushima, Germany shut all its nuclear reactors. Japan let all of its reactors go idle, and then slowly restarted a few. But the world has done little to establish standards for nuclear disaster-response that builds confidence for the public, or their nation’s neighbours.
Economist 10th March 2014 read more »
While most lawsuits related to Japan’s nuclear disaster have focused on either the plant owner or Japanese government, one group who turned up to court on Monday (March 10) are looking to sue the manufacturers of the nuclear reactors themselves.
IB Times 10th March 2014 read more »
11 March marks the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The nearby city of Koriyama recommended, shortly after the disaster, that children up to the age of two should not spend more than 15 minutes outside each day.
Guardian 10th March 2014 read more »
The cost of restarting the country’s nuclear power plants: $12.3 billion and counting. That is the amount power companies have committed so far on thousands of tons of reinforced concrete and steel, armies of workers, tsunami walls and seismic tests.
All to meet tougher safety standards for the remaining 48 reactors on coastlines throughout earthquake-prone Japan. And also to convince regulators the defenses will withstand a quake and tsunami on an intensity of what struck the Tohoku region three years ago Tuesday, causing one of history’s worst civil nuclear disasters and shutting down the nation’s atomic fleet.
Japan Times 11th March 2014 read more »
About 267,000 people are still living in temporary housing and other makeshift facilities nationwide as Japan marks the third anniversary Tuesday of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku that triggered an unprecedented nuclear crisis.
Japan Times 10th March 2014 read more »
Germany
Angela Merkel’s visit to London is being widely reported in the context of David Cameron’s efforts to secure EU reform.However, the presence of Europe’s electorally most successful leader is also a reminder of some contrasts between Germany and the UK in the area of energy policy. Germany’s Energiewende, or path towards renewable energy, has recently been much lambasted in parts of the UK press as disastrously costly. And it is true that support to renewable energy has cost Germany around four times as much as a share of GDP as the UK, while producing only twice as much renewable electricity. A large part of this can be explained by Germany’s huge solar PV programme.The UK has tried to focus on energy policy that is economically optimal in the short term, but it has not created investment stability or strong public support. In contrast Merkel and her coalition colleagues have maintained public support for transformational energy policy for over a decade, even though it may not be the cheapest.
IGov 10th March 2014 read more »
Iran
An official of Russia’s state atomic energy agency is to visit Iran on Tuesday for talks on building a second nuclear power plant, Iranian media reported. Russia built Iran’s sole existing nuclear power plant in the Gulf port of Bushehr and handed it over to Iranian engineers last September.
Middle East Online 10th March 2014 read more »
South Korea
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts have successfully completed the two-week international physical protection advisory service (IPPAS) mission to review national nuclear security practices in the Republic of Korea (ROK). Conducted at the request of the South Korean government, the mission reviewed the country’s nuclear security-related legislative and regulatory framework for nuclear and other radioactive material and associated facilities, as well as security arrangements applied to the transport of nuclear material and radioactive sources, and to computer systems.
Energy Business Review 10th March 2014 read more »
Faslane
HUNDREDS of workers at the Faslane and Coulport nuclear and naval armament bases will stage a mass walkout today.
Glasgow Evening Times 11th March 2014 read more »
CHP
Funding to help reduce costs to consumers and help deliver Scotland’s low carbon targets is key in supplying heat efficiently, Energy Minister Fergus Ewing confirmed today. An additional £4 million announced today takes the funding for the next two years to £10.5 million which will support the development of district heating networks in Scotland. Heat sources in use for various district heating systems can include: geothermal heat and solar heat. This money will reduce pressure on household energy bills and maximising the economic opportunities to the industry through infrastructure developments.Tim Rotheray, CHPA Director said: “District heating is one of the most cost effective methods for tackling fuel poverty, making it an important tool to help the nearly one-third of Scottish households classed as ‘fuel-poor’. “These ambitious targets will be vital for attracting the additional investment needed to benefit the thousands of families across Scotland that struggle to pay their heating bills.
CHP 6th March 2014 read more »
Renewables
A survey into employment in the Scottish renewable energy sector has found more than a quarter of employees are women, which is a larger proportion than in the oil and gas or nuclear sectors. The findings suggest 28 per cent of the renewable energy industry’s workforce are female, compared to UK oil and gas which has 21 per cent and nuclear with 18 per cent.
H&V News 10th March 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Fracking might be a controversial proposition, but there is no need to panic just yet. It may be that shale is indeed the solution to our energy crisis, but many are unaware of the complex and tangled web of legal issues to be picked through before anyone puts a drill in the ground. Although shale gas exploration is still in its early stages, its emergence as a key energy source seems to be inevitable. What shale cannot do is solve our immediate dilemma: how do we bring down the cost of energy at a time when our traditional resources are becoming more expensive? To solve that problem in the short term, we will need to look elsewhere.
Guardian 10th March 2014 read more »
Letter Algy Cluff: Calls for the UK to quickly develop other forms of energy are long overdue but for how much longer will the UK continue to overlook the enormous energy potential which exists in its stranded but vast coal resource? The government admits that the UK is staring at a vast energy import dependence in the next decade to supply gas-fired power plants to generate electricity and supply consumers, but it still appears hesitant to maximise our ability to provide as much of this gas from domestic supplies, not just shale. Deep offshore underground coal gasification – which my company wants to pioneer in the UK – would mean gasifying vast but stranded offshore coal resources. This proven process can provide an abundant gas supply to UK industry and the power sector and does not involve fracking or the injection of chemicals underground.
FT 10th March 2014 read more »
