Hinkley & Freedom of Information
Almost exactly a year ago (3 Dec, 2014) I asked the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC )in an FOI request if it would send me the “ full documentation provided to the European Commission is support of the UK application for State Aid agreement on the Hinkley Point C nuclear project, including : a report by KPMG on potential distortions to competition; a report by Oxera on market failures, proportionality and potential distortions of competition; a study by Pöyry on potential distortions to the internal market and alternatives to new nuclear; report by Redpoint on the evolution of the UK electricity sector; & details of the Cost Discovery and Verification process, compiled by KPMG and Leigh Fisher.” DECC refused, but admitted there were actually 126 documents, not just the five I listed, and also threw out my appeal. DECC told me: “Having balanced the public interest arguments, we consider the public interest in releasing the full notification is outweighed by the need to ensure that the Commission is able to carry-out its investigatory functions effectively which involves the submission of candid and frank views by the Government and requires a safe space for the Commission to consider matters out of the public eye. This would not be possible if information contained in State aid notifications were subject to disclosure I passed my request on to the Information Commissioner. After several months of exchanging e-mail communications, in which I explained in great detail the public interest in disclosure, in mid-August, the Commissioner – who is supposed to protect citizens’ right to know – unbelievably rejected my appeal in a fifty page justification for secrecy.
David Lowry’s Blog 11th Dec 2015 read more »
The Stop Hinkley campaign has today welcomed news that a deal on tackling climate change is in sight at the Paris talks. However, lobbyists and nuclear industry champions have been in overdrive during the Conference. “There seems to have been a desperate last-ditch effort in Paris to convince us all that nuclear power is an important part of the answer to the climate crisis with blatant attacks on those who envisage a future based on renewable energy without nuclear. But the truth is that nuclear power is a dangerous distraction from what we really need to be doing. Because every pound spent on nuclear power could have been spent more effectively, making greater reductions in carbon emissions, nuclear is actually damaging efforts to tackle climate change.”
Stop Hinkley 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Moorside
Toshiba is asking around among Japanese financial institutions for help to fund the Moorside project, being built near the Sellafield site in west Cumbria. The plant will house three reactors designed by Toshiba subsidiary Westinghouse Electric to produce 3.4 gigawatts of power, slightly more than Hinkley Point in Somerset. Two years ago the project was estimated to cost around £8bn, the Guardian notes, but this could have doubled since, as the assumed cost of labour and meeting stringent regulations has increased. Reuters says Toshiba’s share of the costs would be £2bn, but since its accounting scandal it is now thought to have “become difficult for Toshiba to do this on its own”.
The Week 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Dounreay
THE UK Government is to investigate concerns that plans are being drawn up to transport dangerous nuclear material, so-called “exotic fuel”, on public roads in Scotland for possible shipment to the US. The issue was raised during Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons by Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, who told MPs: “There are growing reports in the north of Scotland about plans to transport dangerous nuclear material, including potentially nuclear weapons grade uranium, from the Dounreay nuclear facility on public roads to Wick airport. It’s believed that it will then be flown to the United States.” Mr Robertson asked George Osborne – who was standing in at the dispatch box for David Cameron because the PM was in Romania as part of his EU reform mission – what the nuclear material would be used for. “Have any of his colleagues or himself spoken with a single minister in the Scottish Government about this?” added the party leader. The Chancellor explained that the transportation of nuclear materials had happened across the UK over many decades and that there were established procedures for doing so. He told Mr Robertson: “The Royal Marines and the police service in Scotland provide the security as they do that. If he has specific concerns he wants to raise about the plans for the transportation, he can raise them with us, but as I say, the arrangements are in place to make sure we protect the public.” Later, Mr Osborne’s spokesman was asked if the UK Government would examine Mr Robertson’s concern. He replied: “I’m sure we will look at it.”
Herald 9th Dec 2015 read more »
New Nuclear
Nuclear Fantasy: Why nuclear doesn’t have a place in our energy future.
Interesting Engineering 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Capacity Market
UK Capacity mechanism proves an expensive flop that is fuelling investment in dirty power. The UK capacity auction results were annouced today. It was a shambles as expected: no new gas or interconnection, very little demand-response, and lots of new diesel funded by generous tax-breaks for the rich.
Sandbag 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Old coal plants, gas power stations, and diesel farms have been awarded hundreds of millions of pounds worth of subsidies in a bid to keep the UK’s lights on over the next decade through the government’s latest capacity market auction. The provisional results from the latest capacity market auction were released earlier this week by the National Grid, revealing half the capacity was awarded to existing gas plants, with significant sums also channelled into coal and diesel generation.
Business Green 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of subsidies will be handed out to polluting diesel and coal-fired electricity generators under a government scheme designed to minimise the risk of blackouts in four years. National Grid yesterday announced the results of the UK’s second annual capacity auction – designed to pay electricity generators to keep plants available to cover those times when intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind, fail to produce electricity. National Grid said that the total bill in this year’s auction for electricity in 2019-20 would be £834 million for just over 46 gigawatts of capacity. Nearly a fifth of this, or about £240 million, was for electricity from highly polluting coal and diesel-fired generators. Coal plants at Drax in North Yorkshire, Ratcliffe in Nottinghamshire and Aberthaw in south Wales were awarded capacity, as Kellingley Colliery, Britain’s last deep coalmine, is set to close permanently next week. The mine near York, which has been operating since 1965, produces 8,000 tonnes of coal per day and employs 451 people, down from 2,000 in the 1970s. Dozens of small-scale diesel generators owned by factories and other industrial plants took part in the capacity auction, as did some of the biggest energy companies, including Centrica and SSE. “This result represents a good deal for customers – fierce competition has driven down costs, meaning future capacity has been secured at the lowest price possible,” Andrea Leadsom, the energy minister, said. Doug Parr, Greenpeace’s UK chief scientist, said: “The energy secretary is in the thick of crucial climate talks in Paris, yet her department has just lavished million-pound subsidies on some of the dirtiest energy sources on the planet. With the exception of the coal phase-out, the gap between what this government preaches and what it does on climate and energy keeps getting wider and wider.”
Times 12th Dec 2015 read more »
More than £250m of public money will be paid to inefficient small gas and diesel engines to help provide electricity for the UK in four years’ time, it was announced on Friday. National Grid has published the results of this year’s subsidy auction to incentivise power generators to provide electricity in 2018/19 as a way of meeting the UK’s supply crunch and avoiding blackouts. The results show that the government is to spend £1.1bn on subsidies in order to guarantee the supply of 46 gigawatts of power. A breakdown shows that of the £1.1bn, £256m will go to small-scale gas or diesel engines over the next 15 years.
FT 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Telegraph 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Guardian 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Times 12th Dec 2015 read more »
The government is facing calls for an urgent investigation into how companies were awarded more than £175m in subsidies to build heavily polluting “diesel farms” to provide the UK with backup energy generating capacity.
Guardian 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Fossil fuel companies and nuclear power producers, some of which have been involved in shaping government energy policy, will receive over £834 million* in state subsidies for the winter of 2019-2020, the government has announced. The big winners of the capacity market auction, which is managed by National Grid and is designed to ensure the UK has enough power during times of peak demand, include companies which are controlled by tax haven entities. German energy companies RWE and E.ON and French-owned EDF got the three largest capacity contracts, with fellow big sixer Centrica placed at number seven.
Energydesk 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Utilities
Households are paying “extortionate” charges to Britain’s energy networks for routine jobs, an investigation by The Times has found. Some customers are being charged up to £5,400 to have their meters moved, while others are paying only hundreds of pounds for the same work. The energy watchdog is to investigate the monopolies that run Britain’s gas and electricity network after The Times uncovered the latest pricing scandal to hit the industry.
Times 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Households are paying millions of pounds too much on energy bills because the regulator is terrified of upsetting City investors, a report has concluded. Customers are subsidising excess profits at the companies that own Britain’s gas and electricity infrastructure because Ofgem has miscalculated how much profit the City needs to invest in the network. The Citizen’s Advice report says: “Consumers are charged millions each year in unnecessary payments to infrastructure firms. These costs are hidden in energy bills.
Times 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Energy Policy
The oil price is now just over a third of the level it was in the summer of 2014. This is a major problem for economies dependent on oil production – like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. But it is a welcome boost for motorists and consumers in the largest economies in the world, which are net consumers of oil. Even though the US and the UK are oil producers, we consume more than we produce so we should benefit from a lower oil price. But how long will this last? And what will the economic consequences be? The last time that oil fell to $40 a barrel and petrol was below £1 a litre was in late 2008 and early 2009. That period of low oil prices was brought on by the recession following the financial crisis, and was shortlived. This time looks different. Although there have been signs of slowdown in some economies – notably China – the current weakness of the oil price is being driven by the supply side of the market. The major producers are pumping out more oil than the world wants to consume. And there are not many incentives for that to change. For the British public, this looks like good news: cheaper petrol and diesel fuel and possibly some knock-on impact reducing other energy prices – such as the gas we use to heat our homes. A world where we take the challenge of climate change seriously is one where consumers need to be incentivised to be more energy-efficient. There also need to be good financial returns for businesses developing renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies.
Telegraph 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Russia – Fast Reactor
Unit 4 of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in the Sverdlovsk district of Russia has been connected to the national grid. The BN-800 fast neutron reactor started providing power to the Urals region at 9.21pm local time yesterday.
World Nuclear News 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Japan – Radwaste
The industry ministry will consider the feasibility of burying high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants under the seabed, which a working panel said Dec. 11 could be a “highly appropriate” solution. In an interim report on disposal methods of highly contaminated materials from spent nuclear fuel, the panel said such waste could be disposed of in adjacent waters within 20 kilometers of the coastline. It called the disposal method relatively realistic because the circulation of groundwater at sea is not as strong as on land. The panel said the site should be created in adjacent waters so that nuclear waste can easily be transported by ships. The panel included the under-the-seabed disposal plan in nearby waters as a viable option for the final disposal site.
Asahi Shimbun 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Finland – EPR
The steel of the reactor pressure vessel for the EPR under construction at Finland’s Olkiluoto nuclear power plant site does not have any anomalies similar to those found in that for the EPR being built at France’s Flamanville site, Finland’s radiation and nuclear safety authority (STUK) has concluded.
World Nuclear News 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Fusion
A German nuclear fusion experiment has produced a special super-hot gas which scientists hope will eventually lead to clean, cheap energy. The helium plasma – a cloud of loose, charged particles – lasted just a tenth of a second and was about one million degrees Celsius. It was hailed as a breakthrough for the Max Planck Institute’s stellarator – a chamber whose design differs from the tokamak fusion devices used elsewhere.
BBC 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
As President Vladimir Putin refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against ISIS terrorists, a Russian “doomsday” plane will take to the skies next week. Experts fear the world could be only one stray missile strike away from a nuclear conflict as US, British and Russian war jets carrying out bombing raids in Syria.
Mirror 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Renewables
The company responsible for more than one-third of Germany’s electricity grid says there is no issue absorbing high levels of variable renewable energy such as wind and solar, and grids could absorb up to 70 per cent penetration without the need for storage, writes Giles Parkinson of Reneweconomy.com. Boris Schucht, the CEO of 50 Hertz, which operates the main transmission lines in the north and east of Germany – and which is 40 per cent owned by Australia’s Industry Funds Management – says the industry’s views of renewable energy integration has evolved rapidly in the past decade. “It’s about the mind-set,” Schucht said at the Re-energising the Future conference in Paris, and later to RenewEconomy. “10 to 15 years ago when I was young engineer, nobody believed that integrating more than 5 per cent variable renewable energy in an industrial state such as Germany was possible.” Yet, Schucht says, in the region he is operating in, 42 per cent of the power supply (in output, not capacity), came from wind and solar – about the same as South Australia. This year it will be 46 per cent, and next year it will be more than 50 per cent.
Energy Post 9th Dec 2015 read more »
Microgeneration
This week’s Micro Power News, including some bits of good news eg. green gas could supply up to 30% of domestic demand.
Microgen Scotland 11th Dec 2015 read more »
Fossil Fuels
An environmental watchdog has been accused of “colluding with fracking cheerleaders” to help win public approval in Scotland for the controversial gas extraction technique. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is participating in regular Whitehall meetings to co-ordinate communication strategies around unconventional oil and gas. They are organised by the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil, set up by UK ministers and handed a remit to promote recovery of onshore energy reserves. Documents made public under Freedom of Information laws show that the Scottish regulator pressed the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to come up with a response to questions over why fracking had been banned in other jurisdictions but not the UK.
Herald 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Climate
Negotiators aimed to clinch a strong and ambitious global climate deal, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. Organisers of the climate talks in Paris say a final draft text has been agreed after nearly two weeks of intensive negotiations. An official in the office of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told the AFP news agency the draft would be presented to ministers at 10:30 GMT. No details of the proposed agreement have been released so far. The tentative deal was reached nearly 16 hours after the talks had been scheduled to close. “We have a text to present,” the official said, adding that the draft would be now translated into the UN’s six official languages.
BBC 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Island nations threatened by rising seas have persuaded almost all countries, including Britain and the US, to support a tougher target of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre- industrial levels. Scientists said that it would be impossible to reduce emissions fast enough to prevent the temperatures rising more than 1.5C, meaning “negative emissions” technology would be needed. Countries had previously agreed to limit the increase in average global temperature to 2C.
Times 12th Dec 2015 read more »
Telegraph 12th Dec 2015 read more »
