Electricity Markets
A scheme that would channel £200 billion of private sector investment into offshore wind parks, nuclear reactors and other forms of low-carbon energy production will be laid out by ministers this week in the biggest shake-up of Britain’s energy market since privatisation. In a move that could mark the death knell for many of Britain’s ageing coal-fired power stations the polluting workhorses of the nation’s electricity market for decades a string of measures will be announced on Thursday aimed at boosting the profitability of cleaner alternatives. The most powerful of these is likely to be the creation of a tax on carbon emissions, a so-called carbon price floor that will penalise electricity production from conventional coal and gas-fired power stations unless they are equipped with a costly and as yet experimental technology designed to strip out and capture carbon emissions.
Times 13th Dec 2010 more >>
Ofgen took a long hard look at what needs to be done if Britain is to develop a low-carbon economy that is fit for purpose in the 21st century, while keeping the lights on. In Project Discovery it drew up the options available and looked at how quickly action needed to be taken. According to estimates, the potential cost could total as much as £200billion. It was an exhaustive piece of work, which fed into the Government’s review of the energy market.
Daily Mail 13th Dec 2010 more >>
The UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC), a panel of experts set up by the Climate Change Act, says charging more for electricity at busy times would cut demand on the national grid and help meet Britain’s carbon reduction targets.
Telegraph 13th Dec 2010 more >>
New Nukes
DECC’s new report on ‘young people and energy’, based on participative surveys, shows massive support for renewable energy among young people. 94% of those questioned said that offshore wind was the ‘fairest’ energy technology, 81% said onshore wind, and 94% supported solar energy. This is compared to 2.2% for coal energy and some very critical responses on nuclear- 19.8% of people taking part in the survey thought nuclear power was fair, 26.6% not so fair, 30.8% not fair and 22.8% a raw deal. These figures are in a report presented by DECC’s pioneering Youth Advisory Panel to energy and climate change minister Charles Hendry. The report calls for greater youth consultation on energy and climate change policy and for young people to get involved.
Environment Research Web 11th Dec 2010 more >>
Submarines
A JINXED £1billion nuclear submarine that ran aground off Skye broke down on its FIRST day back at sea after repairs. Stricken HMS Astute was forced to limp back to Faslane Naval Base, on the Clyde, after the crew onboard found a “minor defect”. Work is now being carried out at the complex to repair the damaged state-of-the-art hunter-killer, which had been on sea trials at the time.
The Sun 13th Dec 2010 more >>
STV 12th Dec 2010 more >>
Climate
The world may not be dying, but it is still on life support. “The outcome is a weak and ineffective agreement,” said Friends of the Earth’s international climate campaigner, Asad Rehman, “but at least it gives us a small and fragile lifeline.”
Sunday Herald 12th Dec 2010 more >>
The modest deal wrangled out by the 200 countries meeting at the Mexican resort of Canc n may have done more to save a dysfunctional UN negotiating process from collapse than protect the planet against climate change, analysts said today.
Guardian 13th Dec 2010 more >>
Significance vanishes when matched against the scale of things to come. This year is already likely to be one of the warmest on record, in the warmest decade on record. The icy extremes that have gripped Britain in recent weeks were balanced by truly terrible extremes of heat in Russia in July: temperatures soared more than 7.6C above average; forest fires blazed and grain crops were destroyed. Associated catastrophic floods killed 1,500 and displaced 20 million people in Pakistan. In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the thermometer reached 52C; in Morocco it tipped 47.7C. Much milder extremes during the European heatwave of 2003 are estimated to have claimed up to 70,000 lives. More and worse could be on the way. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will next year report formally on the connection between the frequency of extreme weather events and climate change. Canc n may seem significant and even hopeful now. Soon it will look more like another opportunity missed.
Guardian 13th Dec 2010 more >>
