Hinkley
Plans for a £14bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset could be delayed by the EU for another 12 months, Whitehall and industry insiders have warned.The Chancellor, George Osborne, seemingly made a major breakthrough yesterday, when he announced a civil nuclear co-operation agreement with the Chinese. This will allow the Chinese General Nuclear Power Group to take a large minority stake in EDF’s Hinkley project and later look at building further stations as part of the Coalition’s ambitious nuclear new build programme. the political row over spiralling energy costs, which has seen the Labour leader Ed Miliband vow to freeze bills, meant EU officials taking an even closer look at the Hinkley deal. “It’s a difficult one to call,” the source added.
Independent 16th Oct 2013 read more »
The governments of Britain and China have signed a memorandum of understanding on civil nuclear cooperation, paving the way for the Chinese General Nuclear Power Group to take a large stake in EDF’s Hinkley project.
Construction Index 16th Oct 2013 read more »
George Osborne will today hail a new era in Britain’s relations with China as a deal to give the green light for a generation of new nuclear plants – including Hinkley in Somerset – appears imminent. The Chancellor, who is leading a high-powered ministerial and business delegation to China, will use a keynote speech to students in Beijing to call for the two countries to take the “next big step” in their relationship. It is anticipated that a massive surge of investment from the Asian economic dynamo to build a new generation of nuclear power stations for the UK could be in the pipeline.
Western Daily Press 14th Oct 2013 read more »
UK firms good for ‘muck shifting’ but lack capability to build nuclear power statons says EDF boss. UK firms could miss out on major contracts to build EDF’s new £10bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point due to a lack of specialist expertise, the commercial director of the energy firm has said. Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Ken Owen, commercial director for nuclear new build at EDF Energy, said UK companies could miss out on the majority of specialist contracts to build the nuclear power station because of a dearth of hi-tech engineering skills.Contracts for preparatory works, which Owen described as “muck shifting”, have already gone to UK companies, while the main £2bn civils contract went to a joint venture between Bouygues and Laing O’Rourke, but more specialists contracts are likely to go to overseas firms, Owen said.
Building 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Business Green 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Wylfa
THE development of the new Wylfa nuclear power site can be a “springboard” for Wales to make the most of a revolution in energy supply, Welsh Secretary David Jones will claim today. He will tell a London audience: “In Wales we currently produce 1.1GW of renewable energy – but we can do more.” The Clwyd West Conservative MP will call for Wales to face up to the challenges ahead and be at the forefront of putting in place the technology and infrastructure that will keep Britain’s lights on. Describing the opportunity created by Wylfa B, he will say: “Wales has already begun to attract investors. Hitachi’s decision to build a nuclear power station at Wylfa highlights the attractiveness of Wales as a place to do business and invest.”
Daily Post 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Nuclear Subsidy
A backbench Labour MP made a stand against state support for nuclear on Monday, as speculation mounted government was due to announce a deal with EDF Energy. Paul Flynn, the member for Newport West, tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the coalition to “honour its own agreement and cancel all subsidies”. He criticised a reported 40-year deal for the proposed Hinkley Point C power station and said financial backing from China“will inevitably result in massive future liabilities to British taxpayers”.
Utility Week 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Record gas and electricity bills will continue to soar, Energy Secretary Ed Davey admitted today. The Lib Dem minister said families should brace themselves for “more price rises” but ruled out backing Labour’s plan to freeze prices or Tory moves to cut green taxes. The levies already add £132 to the average bill but now Mr Davey is preparing to sign off another new tax which will hike prices even further. The levy will pay for two new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point on the Severn estuary in Somerset. Mr Davey said an announcement was“extremely close”. He has been in tough talks with French firm EDF over a guaranteed minimum price for the electricity they will produce. Mr Davey will pass the cost to consumers through a levy on bills, starting in the early 2020s. “Green” taxes will then make up a third of a family’s electricity bill –about £270.
Mirror 13th Oct 2013 read more »
EMR
Another DECC document lands on my desk. When I say ‘lands’ I should really say ‘thuds’ or ‘crashes’ – it’s a monster. ‘Electricity Market Reform: Consultation on Proposals for Implementation’ is 285 pages long, and that’s not including the various annexes which have been published at the same time. Somewhat longer than the White Paper that started all this and with a key difference: the biggest single bit by far (120 pages or so) is about the capacity market and how to make it work. It’s fair to say that it’s now looming slightly larger in the overall scheme of things than the 19 pages it occupied in the white Paper.
Alan Whitehead MP 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Nuclear Costs
Many believe that nuclear power could become an important low-carbon source of energy as efforts to mitigate climate change accelerate. But it’s hard to predict the long-term costs as the technology evolves. With this in mind, several studies have garnered together expert views to inform policy-making, in what’s known as expert elicitation. Now a team in the US and Italy has found that an expert’s estimate of the cost of nuclear power in 2030 depends on whether he or she is an academic, in the public sector or industry. The average expected cost of nuclear technologies in 2030 was around $4800 per kW, with estimates ranging from $506 to $14,156 per kW. Experts in the public sector expected costs to be 14% higher than academics did, whilst industry experts were less optimistic still, predicting costs 32% above those anticipated by their university colleagues.
Environmental Research Web 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Europe
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary want the European Union to support nuclear energy projects and not to over-regulate the area, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday after a summit of the “Visegrad Four” countries.The four also threw their backing behind shale gas extraction in Europe, and agreed to set up a natural gas market forum with the aim of fostering a regional gas market, which will convene in Budapest this month, Orban said. “We expect the European Union to help rather than hinder the increase of nuclear capacity in central Europe,” Orban told a news conference after the meeting. “This area must not be over-regulated and the issue of state aid for energy investments should also be reviewed, because we think that nuclear energy is being discriminated against here.”
Reuters 14th Oct 2013 read more »
World Nuclear News 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Uranium
The government of Tanzania has been warned to review its decision to issue uranium mining and extraction licences on grounds that it will set back the national development strategies. Experts says the process is likely to impact on the government’s cost of waste disposal, environmental rehabilitation, compensation and the healthcare for its people. The consensus was reached at the just ended conference on Uranium Mining on Impact on Health and Environment held in Dar es Salaam.
IPP Media 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Oldbury
John Large, engineering consultant, talked about nuclear waste at a public event organised by Stroud District Green Party on Thursday 26th September 2013 at the Old Town Hall, The Shambles, High St, Stroud. This is an interview with Philip Booth after the talk in which John Large considered the options for dealing with the existing and future radioactive waste at Oldbury (see photo view from Randwick Woods left) and how the quantity and dispersion of this waste might be enormously increased and spread in the event of an accident.
Stroud TV 13th Oct 2013 read more »
Belgium
An Areva-led consortium recently won a $33 million contract to help manage of one Europe’s largest nuclear research projects. Belgian research center SCK CEN has spent several years designing a replacement for its 50-year-old BR2 reactor in Mol. The chosen design, known as MYRRHA, will combine a MOX-fuelled, lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor with a proton accelerator. Slated to come online in 2025, it will allow scientists to study methods of transmuting long-lived fission products and minor actinides to reduce nuclear waste. The 50-100 megawatt (thermal) plant will also allow research to further the development of heavy-liquid-metal-based reactors. Additionally, it will produce irradiated silicon and medical isotopes, according to SCK CEN.
Nuclear Street 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Japan
As the scale of the challenge at Fukushima has become clearer with every new accident and radiation leak, the men working inside the plant are suffering from plummeting morale, health problems and anxiety about the future. Even now, at the start of a decommissioning operation that is expected to last 40 years, the plant faces a shortage of workers qualified to manage the dangerous work that lies ahead. The hazards faced by the nearly 900 employees of Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] and about 5,000 workers hired by a network of contractors and sub-contractors were underlined this month when six men were doused with contaminated water at a desalination facility. The men, who were wearing protective clothing, suffered no ill health effects in the incident, according to Tepco, but their brush with danger was a sign that the cleanup is entering its most precarious stage since the meltdown in March 2011.70% of Tepco workers at Fukushima Daiichi who were also forced to evacuate their homes by the meltdown. They have yet to come to terms with that loss and many live away from their families in makeshift accommodation near the plant.
Guardian 15th Oct 2013 read more »
It wasn’t a refrigeration company’s decision to use a cartoon egg with wings, of indeterminate gender and with “a strong sense of justice” as its corporate mascot that got Japan-based internet users giggling. It was, simply, the character’s name. Fukuppy has become an unlikely online star after someone spotted his unintentionally hilarious name on the firm’s website. This led to inaccurate reports that Fukuppy was being used to promote the regeneration of Fukushima Prefecture – given the long list of problems to have hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant since the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, some thought the name would have been inadvertently fitting.
Guardian 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Efforts to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi power plant began soon after the March 2011 tsunami, but work by Japanese nuclear officials and the plant’s operator, Tepco, to remove all fuel could take four decades. See below where the major work has happened.
Guardian 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Typhoon Wipha appeared set to make a close approach to Tokyo Wednesday morning (Tuesday evening EDT), potentially bringing a storm surge, heavy rain, and flooding to the massive metropolitan area of more than 35 million. It is also likely to impact the still-damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor 130 miles northeast of Tokyo, already leaking hundreds of tons of contaminated water into the ocean daily as of August.
Climate Progress 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Reuters 15th Oct 2013 read more »
THE operator of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, under fire to put right repeated contamination mishaps, has promised to draft in extra workers and improve equipment as part of plans to make the site safe. Tepco, has been reprimanded twice in as many months by Japan’s nuclear regulator for mismanagement in a clean-up operation more than two-and-half years after the Fukushima Daiichi plant was struck by an earthquake and tsunami.
Herald 16th Oct 2013 read more »
Germany
Solar and wind energy production accounted for as much as 60% of Germany’s electricity use on October 3 (a Thursday), according to a new study from energy consultant Bernard Chabot. At peak production — right around 12pm that day — wind energy and solar energy were producing about 59.1% of the northern country’s power.
Clean Technica 3rd Oct 2013 read more »
The cumulative total that German consumers have spent subsidising green energy is set to pass 100bn next year, a symbolic mark that could fuel further political debate about the country’s costly energy transition to renewables. The rising cost of Germany’s energy transition from nuclear and fossil fuels to renewables is set be one of the top items on a new German government’s agenda. Germany aims to raise the percentage of renewables in its electricity mix to 35 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050 – from 23 per cent last year. Germany’s four network operators revealed on Tuesday that the annual cost to support German renewable energy feed-in tariffs is set to rise to 23.6bn in 2014, from 20.4bn this year. The surcharge added to German electricity bills to cover the cost of renewables is set to increase 18 per cent to a record high of 6.24 cents per kilowatt hour, the network operators said
FT 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Canada
At low-key environmental hearings in southwestern Ontario, the arguments are technical to the point of distraction. But the fundamental question being addressed by a federal panel is alarmingly simple. Should radioactive nuclear waste be buried next to Lake Huron, a remarkably pristine body of water that is one of the wonders of the world? Common sense would say an emphatic no, particularly since some of the material slated to be buried 680 metres below ground near the picture-perfect town of Kincardine will remain dangerously radioactive for up to 100,000 years. But after hearings finish this month, the panel will make its recommendations to Ottawa on the basis of science rather than common sense. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility pointed out that Lake Huron has existed for only 15,000 years — the result of massive topographical shifts in the North American continent. Yet OPG says its computer modelling predicts the waste it hopes to bury will remain substantially undisturbed for up to 100,000 years.
Toronto Star 11th Oct 2013 read more »
US
Ralph Nader: With all the technological advancements in energy efficiency, solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, surely there are better and more efficient ways to meet our electricity needs without burdening future generations with deadly waste products and risking the radioactive contamination of entire regions should anything go wrong. Nuclear energy is unnecessary, uninsurable, uneconomic, unevacuable and most importantly, unsafe. The fact that it continues to exist at all is a result of a ferocious lobby, enlisting the autocratic power of government, that will not admit that its product is unfit for use in the modern world. Let us not allow the lessons of Fukushima to be ignored.
Huffington Post 11th Oct 2013 read more »
Iran
World powers and Iran are due to resume talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, after negotiators expressed “cautious optimism” on the first day of meetings.
BBC 16th Oct 2013 read more »
Herald 16th Oct 2013 read more »
Telegraph 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Independent 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Guardian 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Reuters 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Iran presents ‘timetable’ to end nuclear talks deadlock. Opening gambit from Tehran at Geneva talks apparently includes PowerPoint presentation of confidence-building measures.
Guardian 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Nuclear talks: Iran wants its plan kept secret to prevent backlash by hardliners.
Telegraph 15th Oct 2013 read more »
John Bolton: Tuesday’s opening of yet another round of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear-weapons program creates enormous risks for America’s anti-proliferation efforts. Tehran’s extensive propaganda campaign, stressing the “moderation” of its new president, Hassan Rouhani, seems to be working, softening up the gullible in the United States and Europe.
Guardian 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Submarines
A retired Sutton engineer has told of the terrifying moment when the nuclear submarine on which he served struck a Russian sub while on active service 45 years ago. Mystery still surrounds how HMS Warspite struck the Russian submarine in October, 1968, and the event is still shrouded in secrecy.
Chad 16th Oct 2013 read more »
Renewables
IKEA may have just fired the latest salvo in the clean energy revolution. Within the next 10 months, IKEA will begin selling flat-pack solar panel kits to retail customers in all of its 17 U.K. stores. And if that experiment is successful, IKEA could roll out the experiment to stores in the United States and the rest of the world. That means that, while shopping at IKEA for cheap, affordable furniture, you can now stock up on solar panel kits to transform your home into an energy-saving showcase. The innovative Swedish company already uses solar panels to power 40 of its U.S. locations, and is making available the same technology to the mainstream public.
Washington Post 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Energy Efficiency
CASH to improve the energy efficiency of homes will drive down fuel poverty and help create jobs, Housing Minister Margaret Burgess has said. Ms Burgess spoke out as almost £9 million was allocated to some of Scotland’s councils as part of the Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland (Heeps) scheme. The money comes on top of £46m already shared between all 32 local authorities.
Herald 16th Oct 2013 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Britain’s shale gas industry will create far fewer jobs than the 74,000 figure cited by David Cameron this summer, according to a forecast produced on behalf of the energy department. The prime minister said in August that he expected fracking to lead to the creation of large numbers of jobs in a North Sea oil-type boom. “We cannot afford to miss out on fracking,” he said. But an alternative figure of about a third of that level has been put forward by AMEC, the engineering consultancy that is advising Decc, the energy department.
FT 15th Oct 2013 read more »
Scotland will soon be added to the shale gas map after the British Geological Survey said that it would begin work to estimate the size of deposits between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The BGS said the Central Scottish Lowlands would become the third area under its microscope.
Times 16th Oct 2013 read more »
