Hinkley
A serious flaw in the steel reactor vessel of a nuclear plant under construction in France raises safety fears for the EPR design, write Paul Brown & Oliver Tickell – and casts a dark shadow over the UK’s troubled Hinkley C nuclear project. One knock-on effect might be to seriously damage the British government’s own energy policy, which relies on building four similar reactors in England. Work has already been completed on preparatory works for a double EPR at Hinkley Point C, in the west of England, using the Flamanville design. The UK government has agreed large subsidies to support the projects, but EDF has repeatedly delayed signing a final deal to build them, because of a lack of investors. Two Chinese utilities were negotiating to back the project financially, but the discovery of a flaw at Flamanville may complicate matters. In particular, it will force a revision of the UK Government’s plan to offer EDF £10 billion in construction finance guarantees for Hinkley C. The discovery of the flaw in the Flamanville must now cause an upwards re-valuation of the guarantees – raising the cost of the development, as it raises the likelihood that UK taxpayers will have to shell out under the deal. The decision on whether to go ahead with the two reactors at Hinkley Point had already been postponed until the summer and now seems certain to be postponed yet again until the issue of the safety of the French and Chinese pressure vessels has been resolved. The report of serious and fundamental safety defects with the EPR design at reactors identical to those being planned for Hinkley Point and Sizewell is another devastating blow to the proponents of new nuclear build in the UK”, commented Councillor Mark Hackett, chair of the UK’s Nuclear Free Local Authorities group.
Ecologist 14th April 2015 read more »
Moorside
A public consultation on plans to construct a new nuclear power station is set to start in May. NuGen’s proposed Moorside Project, which would be Europe’s largest new nuclear development, would be built on land surrounding the existing Sellafield Site. The consultation will start with an event at the Moorside Information Centre in Whitehaven’s Civic Hall on May 16. More than 20 consultation events are to be held across Cumbria and the process is expected to last for 10 weeks.
ITV 15th April 2015 read more »
Heysham
One of the nuclear reactors at Heysham 1 power station in Lancashire has been shut down for a major maintenance programme worth around £30m. One thousand extra workers will join the site’s 700-strong team during the ten-week period, which began on Monday. The team will carry out more than 13,000 separate pieces of work – each carefully planned during the last two years of preparation.
The Visitor 13th April 2015 read more »
Radhealth
Radioactive food poisoned in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster is heading to the UK.
Daily Star 15th April 2015 read more »
Radwaste
Technologies that will enable nuclear waste to be sealed 5km below the Earth’s surface could provide a safer, cheaper and more viable alternative for disposing of the UK’s high level nuclear waste. Scientists at the University of Sheffield calculate that all of the UK’s high level nuclear waste from spent fuel reprocessing could be disposed of in just six boreholes 5km deep, fitting within a site no larger than a football pitch. The concept – called deep borehole disposal – has been developed primarily in the UK but is likely to see its first field trials in the USA next year. If the trials are successful, the USA hopes to dispose of its ‘hottest’ and most radioactive waste – left over from plutonium production and currently stored at Hanford in Washington State – in a deep borehole.
University of Sheffield 14th April 2015 read more »
Politics
The Greens’ manifesto argues the UK should go further and faster on carbon cuts, but experts warn that a war footing would be needed to change the energy system with such speed and scale. The Green party manifesto, launched on Tuesday, outlined ambitious climate change targets that would see the UK running a zero carbon economy by 2050. But energy analysts have told the Guardian that while laudable, elements of the Greens’ climate agenda may be impossible to implement even if the funding floodgates are opened. Along with their expansion of renewables, the Greens said they would implement a policy of stopping any new nuclear renewable developments (including scrapping the already approved plans for the Hinkley Point C station) and ban fracking for shale gas. Both of these are seen by their advocates as energy sources required for the transition away from coal and eventual decarbonisation. Gross said the Greens position on these energy sources was defensible. “We could do it without nuclear, I don’t see nuclear as being essential to decarbonisation and I think fracking is an irrelevance,” he said. But if their emissions reduction targets were to remain feasible, Gross said the £24bn billpayers are set to pay for Hinkley would have to be redirected towards carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) or developing ways to store energy from the fluctuating supply from renewable sources. Both technologies are currently in their infancy.
Guardian 14th April 2015 read more »
Green Party manifesto pledges £80bn boost for renewables and energy efficiency. Caroline Lucas says UK’s fuel poverty is a ‘national scandal’, as Greens put climate change at the heart of election campaign.
Business Green 14th April 2015 read more »
BBC 14th April 2015 read more »
From solar panels for all schools to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, the Green’s election campaign has a strong focus on the environment.
Business Green 14th April2015 read more »
The Labour Party published its manifesto on Monday 13th April. Many of the promises to do with energy have been well trailed before: for example, ‘ambitious domestic carbon reduction targets, including a legal target to remove the carbon from our electricity supply by 2030, and a major drive for energy efficiency’; ‘an Energy Security Board to plan and deliver the energy mix we need, including renewables, nuclear, green gas, carbon capture and storage, and clean coal; and best known of all: ‘Labour will freeze energy bills until 2017, ensuring that bills can fall but not rise, and we will give the regulator the power to cut bills this winter. During the freeze, we will reform the energy market so that it delivers fairer prices and a better deal for working families’.
IGov 14th April 2015 read more »
The Conservative Party has today vowed to retain the UK’s Climate Change Act and continue to cut greenhouse gas emissions “as cost-effectively as possible”, but has angered green groups and renewable energy firms by confirming it would largely halt the development of onshore wind farms if elected. Launching the manifesto at an event in Swindon, Prime Minister David Cameron underlined the Conservative’s commitment to national and economic security, but made no mention of climate security or energy and environment issues.
Business Green 14th April 2015 read more »
The RenewableUK trade association has claimed the Conservative party’s election manifesto is putting thousands of jobs at risk over its commitment to “halt the spread of onshore wind farms”.The manifesto states: “Onshore wind now makes a meaningful contribution to our energy mix and has been part of the necessary increase in renewable capacity. “However, onshore windfarms often fail to win public support and are unable by themselves to provide the firm capacity that a stable energy system requires. As a result, we will end any new public subsidy for them and change the law so that local people have the final say on windfarm applications.”
Scottish Energy News 15th April 2015 read more »
Wind power companies have rounded on the Conservatives for unveiling a “perverse” and “idiotic” manifesto pledge to halt the spread of onshore wind farms. The party reaffirmed a promise to end any new public subsidies for the wind farms some Conservative MPs say are an expensive blight on the landscape. The manifesto says wind power has made “a meaningful contribution to our energy mix” but a Tory government would also change the law on new applications so local people have the final say. “The whole thing is just perverse beyond belief,” said Andrew Whalley, chief executive of Renewable Energy Generation, which owns or operates 16 wind farms around the UK and has about 20 plants in development. “For a government that claims to be the greenest ever and wants electricity prices to be lower it doesn’t make any sense,” he said, arguing that wind farms in some locations were as cheap as gas plants and supported thousands of jobs.
FT 14th April 2015 read more »
Japan – Fukushima
Watch footage from inside the Fukushima nuclear power plant as the first robot enters one of its melted reactors.
Telegraph 14th April 2015 read more »
Independent 14th April 2015 read more »
Sky News 14th April 2015 read more »
Mirror 14th April 2015 read more »
Japan – reactor re-starts
A court ruled to bar Kansai Electric Power Co. from restarting two reactors at a plant in western Japan, dealing the government a blow in its efforts to resume nuclear power generation after the 2011 meltdown in Fukushima. A panel of judges with the Fukui District Court Tuesday issued an injunction preventing the utility from moving ahead with plans to resume operations at the atomic units, according to the plaintiffs in the case. The injunction may force the utility to delay bringing the No. 3 and 4 units back online at the Takahama atomic plant in Fukui, a nuclear hub on the coast of western Japan. The decision comes less than two months after Kansai predicted the reactors would be working by November following regulatory approval of the utility’s safety report on the units.
Bloomberg 14th April 2015 read more »
Guardian 14th April 2015 read more »
Herald 14th April 2015 read more »
Morning Star 15th April 2015 read more »
BBC 14th April 2015 read more »
FT 14th April 2015 read more »
Plans to restart dozens of nuclear power stations turned off after the Fukushima disaster have been dealt a blow by a court ruling that to reopen the first plant would pose a danger to the public. A group of environmentalists won an injunction yesterday to prevent the reopening of the Takahama power station, which had been due to go back online in November. The Fukui District Court accepted their argument that, despite a tightening of safety standards, the plant still threatened millions of people in central Japan – including the old imperial capital, Kyoto, which is no more than 35 miles away. The Kansai Electric Power Company, which operates Takahama, called the ruling “extremely regrettable and unacceptable” and said that it would appeal. The government insisted that it would not change its plans to restart Japan’s nuclear plants, which were s hut down after a tsunami caused a nuclear disaster in reactors at the Fukushima plant in March 2011. Campaigners hailed the court ruling yesterday, saying that it would, at the very least, delay the restart of Takahama, and complicate efforts to bring Japan’s 43 other dormant reactors back online.
Times 15th April 2015 read more »
Japan’s pro-nuclear lobby has pledged that 2015 would be the year reactors are restarted, despite public wariness that has lingered since the Fukushima disaster. Industry officials and supporters said the country desperately needs atomic power to play its part in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure a stable electricity supply.
Japan Today 15th April 2015 read more »
Nuclear power benefitted the Japanese economy by some ¥33 trillion over the years, said Masakazu Toyoda of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ), and the country risks wasting this in its slow progress to restart its reactors.
World Nuclear News 14th April 2015 read more »
Nigeria
Nigeria is in talks with Russia’s Rosatom Corp. to build as many as four nuclear power plants costing about $20 billion as Africa’s biggest economy seeks to boost generation and end daily blackouts.
Bloomberg 14th April 2015 read more »
Energy Business Review 15th April 2015 read more »
New Economy 14th April 2015 read more »
Poland
Plans to build Poland’s first nuclear power plant will be delayed by at least another two years, sources said, after the decision late last year by state-run utility PGE to take on site research itself and cancel a consultancy contract. The project, expected to cost between $10 billion (6.82 billion pounds) and $15 billion, was first touted in 2009 as part of a drive to find alternatives to coal-fired power. Since then it has been delayed as falling power prices weakened its economic case and Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident hit public support. Now PGE’s move last December to scrap a 250 million zloty ($65.87 million) contract with Australia’s WorleyParsons on the grounds that it was taking too long to look into available sites, will push the plant’s construction further back, according to two sources with knowledge of the project.
Reuters 14th April 2015 read more »
Israel
West Germany secretly funded the development of Israel’s nuclear weapons, a German newspaper has claimed, despite Israeli denials. Welt newspaper repeated long-standing allegations that the government of former chancellor Konrad Adenauer secretly channelled hundreds of millions of dollars into Israel’s nuclear programme in the 1960s.
Telegraph 14th April 2015 read more »
Irish Independent 15th April 2015 read more »
France
Solar PV is setting new records in France, the home of nuclear energy, with the country hitting records both in terms of peak output of solar power, and in the share of energy production in the past week.
Renew Economy 14th April 2015 read more »
Iran
Congress put aside intense political differences over Iranian nuclear talks on Tuesday and agreed on a mechanism to review the historic deal without imposing restrictions that could have sunk negotiations entirely. In a rare outbreak of bipartisan compromise and a partial victory for the White House, the Senate foreign relations committee voted unanimously to amend language in legislation that once threatened to give congressional hawks a chance to derail nuclear diplomacy and risk resorting to military strikes.
Guardian 14th April 2015 read more »
Reuters 15th April 2015 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
Sturgeon defends position on Nato explaining most member states do not possess nuclear weapons.
The National 15th April 2015 read more »
Hundreds of protesters blockaded the Faslane naval base in Scotland on Monday of this week. The event was called by the Scrap Trident coalition. It followed one of Scotland’s biggest marches against nuclear weapons on 4 April in Glasgow. Faslane is where Trident nuclear submarines are based. From early morning the protesters chained themselves to each other ahead of shift change. Some 34 people were arrested.
Socialist Worker 14th April 2015 read more »
Nicky Campbell went to Loch Gare, the home of Trident’s nuclear submarine, to speak to former Naval Commander John Harbour and a group of anti-nuclear demonstrators at the Peace Camp. One protester said he believes the defence budget would be better off being spent on the NHS as “there are countries out there who are nuclear free and military free and they have the best health services and a good economic system”.
BBC 14th April 2015 read more »
Energy Storage
The Government lists energy storage as one of eight great technologies in which the UK can become a global leader. This briefing outlines the roles of energy storage in the electricity, heat and transport sectors and describes the technologies used from the household level up. It also discusses current barriers and policies for energy storage and potential future uptake.
Parliament 14th April 2015 read more »
Grid Connections
The Scottish National Party said it will reform the “failed” transmission charging regime to benefit the Scottish energy industry as part of its election manifesto. The party said that it would push for a transmission charging regime which supports Scotland’s energy industry “rather than undermining it as the current regime does”.The SNP claims that the current transmission charging regime penalises the energy industry in Scotland, with generators in the north of the country paying £26 per kilowatt and in Fife paying £17.10/kW. This compares to Cornwall where generators are paid £5.80/kW and Somerset where they are paid £3.94/kW.
Utility Week 14th April 2015 read more »
