Waste Transport
The fourth sea shipment of vitrified HLW from Sellafield to Japan left Barrow docks at 10am today Friday 14th February 2013 on the ship Pacific Grebe, heading into the teeth of the next major storm to lash the Irish Sea. High winds had prevented the ship from meeting its original departure scheduled for the previous night’s high tide. The 65 tonnes of HLW, under unusually light security, was contained in five nuclear transport flasks which had been dispatched by rail under two separate transports from Sellafield on Wednesdeay 12th and Thursday 13th February 2013 to Barrow’s Ramsden Dock nuclear terminal, using the public railway line running down the West Cumbria’s coastline. Depending on the sea route to be taken, the 132 canisters of HLW (up to 28 per TN28 VT transport flask) will take up to six weeks to reach their destination in Japan where they will be placed in an interim store at Japan Nuclear Fuel’s (JNFL) Rokkasho plant at Aomori in the north of Honschu Island. Like the UK, Japan has no final disposal facility for the waste. Around 900 canisters in total are scheduled to be returned to Japan from Sellafield under the reprocessing contracts signed up to by a number of Japanese utilities several decades ago.
CORE 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Submarine Dismantling
Sellafield has been named on a Ministry of Defence short list of potential sites to store waste from its redundant nuclear-powered submarines. One of the sites, which also includes Chapelcross, near Annan, the Atomic Weapons Establishment sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire and Capenhurst in Cheshire, will be chosen as the place that radioactive waste from decommissioned submarines is stored until the 2040s, when a planned permanent disposal facility is up and running. Until then, the MoD is looking for sites to store the reactor components – categorised as radioactive waste – from its submarines that are no longer in service. Some 18 former Royal Navy nuclear submarines are currently stored afloat in Devonport, Plymouth, and Rosyth, Fife but cannot be completely dismantled until the reactor components have been safely removed. The first dismantling will be at Rosyth, with future dismantling taking place both there and at Devonport. A public consultation will take place in late this year and no decisions will be made until then. The location chosen will be used as an interim storage site for reactor components until after 2040, when the UK’s Geological Disposal Facility for the permanent disposal of spent fuel and nuclear waste, is planned to come into operation.
Cumberland News 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Nuclear Proliferation
I am giving a talk about the link between nuclear proliferation and nuclear power in Norwich, England on the 5th March 2014 at 7:00pm. It is called “Nuclear power, Trident replacement & worldwide nuclear proliferation” and is at the Vauxhall Centre, Johnson Place, Norwich. The talk is being organised by Norwich Stop the War and Norwich Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Unfortunately I only have about half an hour to get over the basics of quite a complicated subject but hopefully there will be a good question and answer session afterwards.
Peter Lux 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Energy Costs
The scramble to win new energy customers amid growing complaints about the “big six” power companies intensified on Friday with an independent supplier cutting its prices and one of the large providers promising to pay back annual credit balances. Ovo Energy became the cheapest supplier on the market by cutting the price of its lowest cost deal – Cheaper Energy Fixed – by £27 to just a little over £1,000 a year. This happened 24 hours after consumer group Which? revealed there had been 5.5 million complaints against the “big six” – EDF, Centrica, E.ON, npower, Scottish Power and SSE – last year and one of the other independents, First Utility, announced a 3.5% or £39 a year increase from 1 April. More than 800,000 customers are believed to have switched away from “big six” suppliers in just over a year.
Guardian 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Regulators should refer the “broken” energy market for a full competition inquiry after figures showed the biggest energy companies received more than 5.5 million complaints last year, according to Which?. The consumer group said Ofgem and the Office of Fair Trading should look into whether competition was working for consumers, and how it could be improved to deliver trust, transparancy and fair prices.
Telegraph 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Utilities
Faced with a grim present and an even grimmer future, Europe’s utilities are being forced to reinvent themselves – and adapt to a technological revolution in home energy services. Once unassailable incumbents are under pressure as never before, squeezed by the explosive growth of renewables and low wholesale energy prices. The European utilities have underperformed the broader European equity market by 80 per cent since the start of 2009. In the words of Peter Terium, chief executive of German power group RWE, they are experiencing the “worst structural crisis in the history of energy supply”. Some industry experts say that, in the future, tablets and smartphones will connect up to new kinds of devices that could end up bypassing the traditional utilities’ infrastructure entirely. It’s still unclear where companies such as RWE, EON and EDF fit into such a brave new world.
FT 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
States must ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again, according to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which will take this message to the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, in Nayarit, Mexico, on 13 and 14 February 2014. The movement calls upon states, on the basis of their existing obligations, to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all, because of the weapons’ catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
EU Reporter 14th Feb 2014 read more »
It sounds like the plot of a science fiction film, but US researchers have revealed an audacious plan to blow up asteroid approaching Earth with nuclear weapons. The Iowa team outlined their vision at a Nasa conference, and say they would need just a weeks notice to launch if the system were developed. It sends a small projectile to create a crater on the asteroid surface, then milliseconds later a nuclear warhead which detonates inside it.
Daily Mail 14th Feb 2014 read more »
US
The company that operates a southeastern Pennsylvania nuclear plant says it may decide within a year to shut down some of its 11 nuclear power stations if a way to make them profitable cannot be found. Exelon Corp., parent company of Limerick Generating Station owner Exelon Nuclear, said it has no current plans to close any nuclear plants before the end of their “federally licensed operating lives” except the Oyster Creek plant, which will close in 2019.
Business Week 14th Feb 2014 read more »
North Korea
United States secretary of state John Kerry has announced that China is willing to exert more pressure to get North Korea to give up its nuclear programme.
Scotsman 15th Feb 2014 read more »
Guardian 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Renewables – offshore wind
The government’s push into offshore wind power has created a boom in renegade ship operators that are exploiting workers and putting lives in danger, according to the UK’s largest marine workers’ union. Nautilus has dubbed the sector that operates boats for the UK’s offshore windfarms the “wild west” of renewable energy. The union says basic safety rules are not being enforced, bullying and harassment are commonplace, crews lack training and are often forced to work in sea conditions beyond recommended limits.
Guardian 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Renewables – Hydro
An underground hydroelectric turbine fed by a lake on Snowdon is to provide enough power for every National Trust properties in Wales. Plans to switch on the system yesterday had to be abandoned when storms brought down power lines which would have fed electricity generated by the plant into the National Grid. Water from a mountain stream is being channeled into a 2ft-wide steel pipe and through the turbine. Half a tonne of water travelling through the pipe every second will generate enough electricity for the Trust’s 18 castles and stately homes, 45 holiday cottages and 200 farms.
Times 15th Feb 2014 read more »
Microgeneration
This week’s Micro Power News.
Microgen Scotland 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Energy Efficiency
Proposed cuts to the energy company obligation have thrown social landlords’ retrofit plans into disarray. Nick Duxbury reveals just how bad the impact is likely to be – and it’s much worse than you thought. The extent to which energy companies’ appetite for more expensive hard-to-treat measures such as solid-wall insulation has evaporated becomes clear. Social landlords with schemes to reduce fuel poverty hanging in the balance, are starting to hear what energy companies will be willing to offer in the way of deals for solid-wall measures through ECO – and it is extremely worrying. As recently as November, when energy companies were still in a clamour to strike deals with landlords, prices were as high as £140 per tonne of carbon. Now contractors and landlords are reporting that energy companies, which are part way through reviewing their stance on solid-wall measures, are suggesting they will pay closer to £40 per tonne. Southampton Council is attempting to resuscitate a £30 million ECO deal to retrofit 2,000 social homes. Nick Cross, head of housing services at the council, says: ‘At the moment, we are being told the best we might get is £45 a tonne, which is less than a third of what we had provisionally expected prior to the autumn statement.’
Inside Housing 13th Feb 2014 read more »
Millions of British families could stop paying their gas bill today and not pay a penny more for gas to their energy company until next winter, if only their homes were made properly energy efficient, according to new research.
Energy Bill Revolution 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Students around the UK will tell their universities on Friday to reduce their investments in fossil fuels, in an effort to change the UK’s investment practices. The day of action will see student bodies of many higher educational institutions publicising their opposition to investments by their universities in oil and gas-related funds. At Oxford University, at least 10 common rooms have passed motions mandating each college’s junior and middle common room to push the university for full fossil fuel divestment. The university’s socially responsible investment review committee will meet later this month to consider these proposals. Motions at 14 other student unions throughout the UK were passed this week. People and Planet, the non-governmental organisation that organised the action, has also written an open letter to UniversitiesUK, calling for divestment.
Guardian 14th Feb 2014 read more »
Exploiting shale gas has opened social fissures in one of England’s most beautiful rural areas. Anybody ready to fight the class war? Geoff Davies is. The chief executive of Celtique Energie wants to frack in the South Downs National Park, even if it makes him the most unpopular man in West Sussex. The straight-talking Lancastrian has no time for the wealthy nimbies trying to sabotage his plans. Hostile local landowners, led by Lord Cowdray, have blocked the shale gas explorer at its drilling site near the sleepy village of Fernhurst. Such opponents are “selfish and unpatriotic”, he says, for wanting to deprive the country of the economic boon that shale gas could provide.
Times 15th Feb 2014 read more »
Scotland’s environmental watchdog has admitted that it cannot guarantee it will be able to monitor potentially explosive gas leaks from a pioneering new coal-bed methane plant. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has told planning appeal inspectors that it does not know whether it could assess any emissions leaking from gas wells at Dart Energy’s proposed scheme at Airth, near Falkirk, under existing pollution regulations. SEPA blamed its uncertainty on the novel nature of the scheme which, if approved, would be the first of its kind to exploit methane commercially in the UK. Methane is a flammable natural gas which can explode if concentrations build up. The watchdog’s admission increased safety concerns from campaigners who warned that local communities were in danger of being used as “guinea pigs” in a “devastating public health experiment”.
Times 15th Feb 2014 read more »
CCS
Industry leaders have called on Westminster to provide “robust new support” for fledgling carbon capture projects to prevent Britain missing out on thousands of jobs and lower household energy bills. Coal industry bosses made the plea in the wake of a major study into the viability of carbon capture and storage (CCS), which presses the case for an ambitious roll-out programme. It claims that up to 1,500 jobs could be created through the construction of each new-build CCS power plant with as many as 300 posts generated in the operational, maintenance and supply chain side. The report, published by the TUC and the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, also flags a likely reduction in the average annual household energy bill of £82, although other estimates warn of a probable increase in electricity costs.
Scotsman 15th Feb 2014 read more »
Climate
After years avoiding what used to be his trademark issue, David Cameron has now twice voiced his strong suspicion of a link with climate change, most recently in a passionately delivered peroration at Tuesday’s press conference. Junior environment minister Dan Rogerson, standing in for the more sceptical Owen Paterson, agreed on Thursday that global warming was to blame. And Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey accused some Conservatives of “parroting the arguments of the most discredited climate change deniers” – only for his deputy, Michael Fallon, to hit back by denouncing “unthinking climate change worship”. More significantly, Dame Julia Slingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist, judged that “all the evidence” suggested that climate change helped cause the “most exceptional period of rainfall in 248 years”. She was launching an official study that fingered increasingly heavy rains, sea-level rise in the Channel, and an increasing intensity of Atlantic storms hitting Britain as possible signs of its effects.
Telegraph 14th Feb 2014 read more »
