SMRs
Concerns are being raised about the billions of dollars being spent on research to design and build small nuclear reactors for electricity production The world’s big powers are in a race to build a new series of small reactors, which they believe will combine with renewables to create a low-carbon future for the planet. Small modular reactors (SMRs) have hardly been heard of by the public, but many billions of dollars are being spent in the US, China, Russia, the UK and France on research and development. The nuclear industry believes the first reactors can be deployed as early as 2025, and the plan is for them to be sited close to towns to produce the local electricity supply. This week, leaders of companies from across the globe are meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, to assess progress on prototypes and to address the all-important question of licensing these new designs for safety. The US government has already put $217 million into one commercial design, and is offering billions of dollars in loan guarantees for others.
Climate News Network 11th April 2016 read more »
Take a large number of scientists who have grown up with the firm belief that nuclear power is the future of energy, face them with the fact that nuclear power is proving to be undeliverable in anything like the scale, time and cost that has been originally envisaged in UK Government plans, and what do you get? Wishful thinking about ‘small modular reactors’ or ‘smrs’! You can see this in the article in the Times by Lady Judge. Nuclear reactors in the UK (and in the rest of the world) have been steadily scaled up from around 200 MWe in size to begin with, up to around 500 MWe in the 1960s, and then up to over 1000 MWe in the 1980s and 1990s. Contrary to the impression given in Lady Judge’s article, this was not a recent decision or trend. And there are sound engineering reasons for this, including one very simple one: for complex machines with moving parts and the need to ensure (safe) functioning of each unit each unit needs much the same input for design as a much larger unit. This fact is effectively taken for granted with other type of power sets, even those whose safety characteristics are not so much the centre of anxiety.
Dave Toke’s Blog 11th April 2016 read more »
Wylfa
“We do believe that Horizon’s Wylfa Newydd nuclear build will go ahead, but our development at Penrhos is not dependent on it. “Even if Wylfa were to stall our development plans for Penrhos would still progress.” The project has faced criticism from some circles due to its scale and potential impact on an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Daily Post 10th April 2016 read more »
Radhealth
The Welsh Affairs Committee continue their inquiry into the future of nuclear power in Wales as they hear evidence from Wade Allison, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Oxford.
Parliament 11th April 2016 read more »
Nuclear Security
Letter Philip Warburg: In calling for greater vigilance in protecting nuclear power plants from terrorist attack, Graham Allison and William H. Tobey don’t reach the necessary conclusion: It’s time to bring our precarious romance with the “peaceful atom” to an end. They point to the need for rigorous personnel security checks, armed guards and simulated attacks at nuclear facilities. It’s hard to fathom why these measures are not universally required today. Yet sabotage and security breaches in Belgium barely hint at the gaping holes in plant safety that plague nuclear power in a politically unstable world.
New York Times 11th April 2016 read more »
Letter Karen Hadden: In light of efforts to minimize nuclear risks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should halt its dangerous plans to consolidate high-level nuclear reactor waste. More than 10,000 shipments of uranium and plutonium could be transported on railways and highways in a process that would last for more than 20 years, increasing accident and terrorism risks. Can you imagine what would happen if terrorists hijacked a radioactive waste shipment in a large city? Millions of lives could be threatened. Radiation exposures can lead to human genetic damage, cancers or even death. Radiation releases could contaminate land and water.
New York Times 11th April 2016 read more »
Supply Chain
The UK’s Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) has welcomed new official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which it said shows the “vital contribution nuclear power generation makes to the economy”. The statistics, released for the first time and part of the low-carbon and renewable energy data series, show nuclear generation and new build activities contributed £3.5 billion ($5.0 billion) to the economy in 2014, with 15,500 people employed full time.
World Nuclear News 11th April 2016 read more »
Decommissioning
Sellafield Limited and Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) have drawn up plans to assist each other with communications related to their respective decommissioning activities. These plans follow the signing of a cooperation agreement in 2014. In a joint statement, the companies announced today that they have issued a White Paper – referred to as the “Fukushima-West Cumbria Study” – describing how they will work together to improve each other’s efforts to communicate and engage with stakeholders. The aim of the White Paper is to share Sellafield’s 60 years of experience in England’s West Cumbria, and Tepco’s five years of experience in decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi. One objective, Tepco said, is to expand the dialogue beyond the two companies to include the West Cumbria and Fukushima communities.
World Nuclear News 11th April 2016 read more »
Energy Policy – Scotland
MPs on the Westminster parliament’s Scottish Affairs Committee are due to continue their inquiry into renewable energy on renewable energy in Scotland by hearing from representatives of industry and energy, including the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, Renewable Energy Foundation, Scientific Alliance Scotland and Scotland Against Spin.
Scottish Energy News 12th April 2016 read more »
Chernobyl/Fukushima
David Robert Grimes: This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, and the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl incident. Together, these constitute the two greatest nuclear accidents the world has ever seen. Even now, widespread confusion over these disasters still blights rational discussion on energy production; too often the debate becomes needlessly acrimonious, reliant on rhetoric in lieu of facts. Yet as climate change becomes an ever-encroaching factor, we need more than ever to have a reasoned discussion on nuclear power. To this end, it’s worth dispelling some persistent myths. Of course, the fact that the health impact of Chernobyl is far less than people tend to believe should not detract from the tragedy: at least 43 people died as a direct consequence of the disaster and up to 4,000 others exposed in 1986 might yet exhibit some ill effect. Moreover, the scale of disruption in the wake of the incident was enormous, with around 115,000 people evacuated by the authorities from areas surrounding the reactor in 1986. To this day, a 30km exclusion zone around the reactor has been maintained for precaution, despite the radiation level in this boundary being far below that which would cause damage. Unmolested by human hands, the Chernobyl exclusion zone has become an incredible natural wildlife habit and a growing tourist attraction. But for ideological opponents of nuclear power, this reality is largely ignored; a Russian non-peer-reviewed report garnered headlines with the claim 985,000 died as a result of the accident, a number subsequently exposed as baseless by the Radiation Protection Dosimetry journal. The scientific evidence also undermined Greenpeace, who had long used the spectre of Chernobyl (and more recently, Fukushima) as a prop in their anti-nuclear narrative. They and European Greens scrambled to counter this by releasing “The other report on Chernobyl (Torch)” in 2006 as a counter to the Chernobyl forum. In it, they reported that more than 200,000 deaths might be attributable to the disaster. This figure too is devoid of merit, a transparent attempt to circumvent the scientific consensus. Such empty hyperbole and stubborn insistence on projecting ideology over reality isn’t merely intellectually vapid, it’s actively damaging to the psychological health of survivors.Nuclear energy is complicated, has drawb acks, and like any form of energy production it has risks. But it is also clean, safe and hugely efficient. If we truly want to have a rational discussion on how best to power our world, we need to confine ourselves to facts rather than fictions and weigh up the advantages and disadvantages without recourse to ill-founded ideological radiophobia. Our very future depends upon it.
Guardian 11th April 2016 read more »
Germany
The commission tasked with protecting funds needed for closing down Germany’s nuclear plants wants to decide on recommendations for the government at the end of April instead of this week, a commission source said. “The last meeting should take place on April 27 or 28 now,” a member of the commission told Reuters on Monday. The commission was originally scheduled to present proposals on how to secure funds by the end of February, but the complexity of the task has delayed talks. Germany’s last nuclear plant is due to be shut down by 2022 and it is feared the around 40 billion euros ($45.6 billion) so far set aside in provisions by the big four utilities will not be enough to cover the costs.
Reuters 11th April 2016 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
The risk that terrorists might seek to acquire nuclear materials cannot be discounted. Acquiring materials that could be used in nuclear weapons would be catastrophic. But it is also unlikely: there has been an active effort to secure all weapons-usable fissile material and a large number of sting operations. There are still concerns about potential “loose” nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union, and about the possibility that Pakistani nuclear weapons might be lost or stolen. There are also concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear facilities to sabotage or terrorist attack. The nuclear security summit process has helped to reduce these risks, but the risks cannot be eliminated entirely. Nonetheless, there is a risk that the effort and attention devoted by the summit to this issue might have detracted – or at least not have helped fight – much broader nuclear dangers. The problem is that nuclear security issues are only a part of the nuclear danger facing the UK – and indeed its allies. Both the UK’s and Nato’s relations with Russia are at their worst level since the Cold War. North Korea is actively testing nuclear weapons and delivery means and recently released propaganda videos in which Washington DC and Seoul were destroyed by nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, there is the real possibility of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan that would directly affect the United Kingdom in a number of ways. Indian strategic planners would also likely argue that China’s role cannot be disentangled from the risks of conflict between India and Pakistan. There are signs that China, in turn, is evolving its own nuclear posture to deter the United States, and this will doubtless require a change in Nato’s nuclear doctrine in due course. Perhaps the more useful question to ponder is not whether the UK should renew Trident or otherwise, but under what circumstances should the UK be prepared to eliminate its nuclear weapons. I would argue that the UK should be prepared to do so when it can be assured that the non-proliferation regime is strong enough to prevent the emergence of further nuclear weapons states; that the UK’s security will not be lessened by the abandoning of nuclear weapons, and that the UK’s position in the world should not be set back by disarmament.
Telegraph 11th April 2016 read more »
PEACE campaigners gave a qualified welcome yesterday to a call for nuclear disarmament from G7 foreign ministers meeting in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A summit of the ministers issued two statements on non-proliferation and paid tribute to the victims of the US atomic bombing of the city on August 6 1945. “In this historic meeting, we reaffirm our commitment to … creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons,” the declaration said. But that task has been made more complex, it said, by the deteriorating security environment in countries such as Syria and Ukraine, as well as by North Korea’s “repeated provocations” — a reference to Pyongyang’s four nuclear weapons tests.
Morning Star 12th April 2016 read more »
US Secretary of State John Kerry joined other world leaders to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed when US forces dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese town of Hiroshima in 1945. However, a senior US official said Mr Kerry would not apologise for the atrocity.
Independent 11th April 2016 read more »
Renewables
With new figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) revealing that renewables grew at record pace in 2015, edie digs deep into the data to bring you 10 surprising statistics about the world’s green energy transformation. According to Renewable Capacity Statistics 2016, released by UN-backed clean energy agency IRENA on Friday (8 April), global renewable energy capacity grew by 8.3% last year, as countries added 152GW of renewable capacity.
Edie 11th April 2016 read more »
Renewables – solar
A leisure centre in Nottingham is set to save the local council an estimated £10,000 on energy bills and reduce carbon emissions by 41 tonnes thanks to the installation of an 88KWp solar carport. The 354-panel solar array, constructed by commercial solar PV developer EvoEnergy for Nottingham City Council will generate 79,874kWh of on-site energy across nine separate, specially-built roofs at the Ken Martin Leisure Centre. Fitted over three months between November and January, the Ken Martin solar carport was completed before the Government’s recent cuts to the Feed-in Tarriff (FiT). The system is on course to pay for itself within 11 years, after which point it will earn Nottingham City Council an income for the remaining nine years of the FiT.
Edie 11th April 2016 read more »
Whitbread-owned Coffee shop chain Costa is planning to introduce at least four more of its innovative ‘zero-energy’ coffee shops across the UK within the next 12 months, after a pilot store in Shropshire delivered significant energy savings for the hospitality group.
Edie 11th April 2016 read more »
The amount of household solar power capacity installed in the past two months has plummeted by three quarters following the Government’s cuts to subsidies, according to new figures.
Edie 11th April 2016 read more »
Renewables – AD
A new bio-methane plant in Cumbria is set to be Europe’s first anaerobic digestion plant to supply the grid with biogas generated only from cheese production residues, developers announced last week. The £10m project, commissioned by British company Clearfleau, was designed and built for Lake District Biogas, which will be operate the plant for 20 years, using feedstock such as process rinses from dairy giant First Milk’s nearby Aspatria creamery site.
Business Green 11th April 2016 read more »
Renewables – Hydro
The British Hydropower Association (BHA) has urged the government to do more to encourage the development of hydropower, as support for the technology wavers. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has called a high level summit with industry representatives on 27 April to discuss the impact of recent policy changes, including the reduction of feed-in tariffs, on the development of hydropower.
Utility Week 11th April 2016 read more »
Biomass
Used coffee grounds have been turned into a cheap, renewable fuel that can be used in wood-burning stoves, according to a young entrepreneur who claims his invention will cost half the price of coal, wood or charcoal. Bio-bean, which was founded three years ago by architecture student Arthur Kay, collects coffee slops from a network of coffee shops, retailers, airports and coffee factories, and turns them into biofuel. The grounds are stripped of oil and packed together to form small bricks, which do not release an aroma when burnt, despite being made from used coffee.
Telegraph 11th April 2016 read more »
Fuel Poverty
An estimated 1.48 million households currently live in homes rated below Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) band C, according to data compiled for the Existing Homes Alliance. That is 62 per cent of the approximately 2.42 million households in Scotland. There are seven parliamentary constituencies in Scotland where more than 75 per cent of households are estimated to be living in a cold home: Na h-Eileanan an Iar; Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch; Caithness, Sutherland and Ross; Shetland Islands; Orkney Islands; Argyll and Bute ; Banffshire and Buchan Coast. The Western Isles is the worst affected area with an estimated 88 per cent of homes rated band D or above for energy efficiency and 74 per cent of households living in fuel poverty. Only three constituencies in Scotland have more than half of the properties in the target A to C bands for energy efficiency: Glasgow Anniesland, Glasgow Shettleston and Edinburgh Northern and Leith.
Holyrood 11th April 2016 read more »
Scotsman 11th April 2016 read more »
Energy Live News 11th April 2016 read more »
Scottish Housing News 11th April 2016 read more »
