Energy Policy
From 2015, Britain is due to start shutting down its dirty coal-fired power stations. The country has taken a huge punt on nuclear power to plug the gap that will be left by the demise of coal. It is a gamble that already looks like backfiring. David Cameron and George Osborne have turned to Fallon, often called the “chancellor’s enforcer”, to fix it. Fallon is now the government’s point man on some of the most controversial and thorny subjects. He is piloting the Royal Mail’s planned £3bn privatisation, and the sale of Urenco, the uranium enrichment business valued at $13bn (£8.6bn). Both deals could happen this year. Fallon is also throwing himself into make-or-break negotiations with EDF, the French state-controlled power group, about the future of new nuclear plants in Britain. “We are inching closer,” said Fallon, “but these are very difficult negotiations. We can’t be sure at this stage whether we are going to succeed.”
Sunday Times 12th May 2013 read more »
Radiation Monitoring
Tim Deere-Jones dissects the UK Government’s system for monitoring doses of marine derived radioactivity in food and concludes that the current programme is deeply flawed. 2013 has seen a major surge in the potential for expansion of UK nuclear power. In February, the Environment Agency (EA) found no objection to the discharge and disposal of radioactive wastes from a proposed nuclear power station at Hinkley. In the same period, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), responsible for monitoring radioactivity in food, stated that, since “an annual monitoring programme has been in place for more than 25 years and no food safety risks have been identified during this period”, it now proposed to “optimise” the monitoring of radioactivity in food by reducing the scope and volume of its annual environmental monitoring and analysis programmes. The FSA’s proposal to “optimise” the monitoring programme by “reducing background monitoring away from nuclear sites” while continuing to “monitor food around all licensed nuclear sites” is not a viable proposal for monitoring in the context of the proposed future expansion of nuclear power, and radioactive waste discharges to sea, in the UK. On the contrary I would urge the FSA to adopt a more stringent and intense monitoring programme. This should comprise a higher number of sampling observations, analysis for a greater number of representative isotopes, a more intensive study of “far field” sites (such as island and coastal communities), a more intensive link between sample gathering and the “peaks” of pulsed discharge, and more intense research into both the dietary and inhalation impacts of the sea to land transfer of radio-nuclides and the contribution of marine radioactivity to coastal zone terrestrial diets.
Ecologist May 2013 read more »
Sellafield
THE number of radioactive particles found on Sellafield beach soared threefold, a meeting has heard. Three-times-higher-than- average finds were discovered on Seascale beach following storms in February. They are now said to be back to normal with no significant risk to anybody’s health. Experts want to make sure there is also no risk to the public’s health from radioactive particles on the seabed off the Cumbrian coast. But reassurance work has to be done at the right price because there are far greater potential hazards to be dealt with at Sellafield. The Environment Agency (EA) is now looking into risk associated with particles found on the seabed where monitoring is taking place.
In Cumbria 10th May 2013 read more »
Wylfa
As part of the planning process for the project,Horizon is seeking the views of the local community, the general public, local authorities and a range of statutory and other non-statutory bodies. Dates for forthcoming events are listed and are also advertised in local media and in our community newsletter.
Horizon 11th May 2013 read more »
Companies
Douglas Fraser talks to Ian Marchant, boss of energy giant SSE, about his company’s record fine for mis-selling, ever rising bills and the threats facing future energy supplies.
BBC 11th May 2013 read more »
Renewables
ALEX Salmond will struggle to fulfil his ambitious renewable targets as a result of Scottish Government proposals to increase wind farm-free zones around towns, a leading energy expert has claimed. David Toke, an Aberdeen University academic studying energy policy, has questioned a new plan to increase the “separation distance” between cities and towns and wind farms from two kilometres to 2.5 kilometres. The suggestion has been made in the Government’s recently published Scottish Planning Policy consultation. Toke claimed the measure, which has been suggested to reduce the “visual impact” of wind farms, would lead to a shortage of land available for onshore wind generation.
Scotland on Sunday 12th May 2013 read more »
Some people see Dale Vince as a brave, visionary green guru and alternative entrepreneur who could save Britain from the catastrophe of climate change. In the UK’s Environment Agency list of all-time top eco-heroes, Vince was right up there alongside Al Gore and St Francis of Assisi.
Sunday Times 12th May 2013 read more »
‘Mad Alex’ Salmond lied to me about wind farm and I’m going to sue! Donald Trump attacks ‘insane’ Scots leader for ruining tycoon’s golf course… and no, he WON’T keep his hair on!
Daily Mail 11th May 2013 read more »
Energy Efficiency
BUSINESS Secretary Vince Cable is encouraging firms to seize the chance of government match-funding to increase their energy efficiency and better compete with US rivals benefiting from America’s shale gas revolution. Cable attended the launch of a forum for green technology firms in Edinburgh last week, where it emerged that the private sector is missing out on huge energy savings because companies are too risk-averse to invest in technology. But the UK Cabinet minister told Scotland on Sunday that help is at hand, as match-funding initiatives from the likes of the Green Investment Bank aim to de-risk projects and pave the way to a rise in efficiency for firms.
Scotland on Sunday 12th May 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is under fierce attack for investing hundreds of millions of pounds in US companies which remove the tops of mountains in order to scoop out coal inside. More than 500 mountain summits have been removed by explosives in the Appalachians in West Virginia over the last few years. Not only is the environment trashed and sights of natural beauty destroyed, but the process also releases toxic wastes into streams, pollutes the air and threatens the health of local communities. RBS has been named in a report as the world’s seventh-biggest financial backer of mountaintop removal (MTR), with £235.6 million ($362.5m) worth of lending and underwriting in 2012.
Siunday Herald 12th May 2013 read more »
MINISTERS are preparing to rescue Britain’s coal industry by dumping into a quango the heavy financial liabilities that threaten to crush it. The part-nationalisation may prevent the collapse of UK Coal, the quoted miner created from the rump of British Coal. It has suffered a cash crunch since a fire closed its Daw Mill deep mine in March, putting 650 people out of work and posing a question mark over the pensions of about 10,000 former staff.
Sunday Times 12th May 2013 read more »
Francis Egan is known to some as Mr Frack. As chief executive of oil and gas group Cuadrilla he is pioneering the controversial technique of fracking in Britain and next week he will embark on a delicate mission to try to win round the residents of a West Sussex village of 600 houses that has become the front line in the company’s battle to gain public support.
This is Money 11th May 2013 read more »
JIM RATCLIFFE, the billionaire chemicals tycoon, is planning to cash in on America’s shale gas boom after orchestrating a $5.2bn refinancing of his Ineos empire.
Sunday Times 12th May 2013 read more »
Climate
It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).
Observer 12th May 2013 read more »
The news that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere reached a level of 400 parts per million last week might not appear to have immediate significance. The level is only a couple of units higher than last year, after all. Yet the development has undoubted importance. With the realisation that carbon dioxide levels have achieved that symbolic 400ppm figure, it is now clear that two decades of warnings from scientists have fallen on deaf ears and that our leaders have failed completely to curtail rising outputs of greenhouse gases across the world. Indeed, they have allowed them to accelerate.
Observer 12th May 2013 read more »
