Energy Costs
About 300,000 more households could be in fuel poverty by Christmas, according to reports published on Monday, which warn that a government scheme to improve the energy efficiency of homes could take 30 years to succeed and add to energy prices in the meantime. The Energy Company Obligation (ECO), designed to cut bills of poor households by forcing suppliers to fit solid wall insulation, offer energy efficient boilers and other energy-saving measures, could add up to £116 to the average bill and push families that did not receive support further into fuel poverty. It said that while there were 2.7m fuel poor households in England alone, it expected the measure to help between 125,000 and 250,000 households out of fuel poverty by 2023.
Guardian 17th Dec 2012 more »
Independent 17th Dec 2012 more »
Telegraph 17th Dec 2012 more »
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BBC 17th Dec 2012 more »
The new ‘Energy Company Obligation’ (ECO) scheme will only scratch the surface of Britain’s fuel poverty problem and may see the Government backslide on its carbon reduction commitments, according to a new report from the think tank IPPR. From next year, ECO will oblige energy suppliers to improve the energy efficiency of fuel poor homes in order to tackle fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions. It will replace existing policies (the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target and the Community Energy Savings Programme) by subsidising higher-cost measures which won’t be available under the Green Deal. IPPR’s new report shows that while there are currently 2.7 million fuel poor households in England alone, ECO will take just 125,000 to 250,000 households across the whole of Great Britain out of fuel poverty by 2023. As a result, over 2 million fuel poor households will be left out in the cold. To ensure more fuel poor households can benefit from the programme, IPPR’s report recommends that the efficiency of the scheme should be improved by piloting a new area-based approach to tackling fuel poverty and involving local authorities to a greater extent.
IPPR 17th Dec 2012 more »
The government will today be urged to overhaul the forthcoming Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, in a new report warning the energy efficiency initiative will barely tackle fuel poverty and could cause the UK to miss its carbon budgets. However, the government downplayed the report, arguing some of its findings and recommendations were outdated.
Business Green 17th Dec 2012 more »
Radwaste
NUCLEAR protesters in Cumbria have stepped up their campaign against proposals to store radioactive waste under the western Lake District. Although a decision whether to site the dump in the county has yet to be made, the prospect that a decision will be made in the coming weeks is galvanising opposition. In the latest move, campaigners released the findings of survey of more than 500 visitors to Keswick. Conducted jointly by Friends of the Earth (FoE), Save Our Lake District – Don’t Dump Cumbria and Radiation Free Lakeland, the survey asked whether the presence of a nuclear dump either next to the national park or underneath it would affect the Lake District’s image. Results released this week show that 89 per cent of people thought a dump would have a negative impact on how people perceived the Lake District.
Westmorland Gazette 15th Dec 2012 more »
Bechtel
Union leaders are calling on the Government to block an engineering giant from bidding for a £6.1bn nuclear waste contract after alleged “serious lapses” on security and safety in America. San Francisco-based Bechtel, which managed the construction of the High Speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel, suffered high-profile embarrassments on two of its nuclear projects over the summer. In July, three nuclear protesters – led by 82-year-old Catholic nun Megan Rice – infiltrated the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, which enriched the uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb. The protesters splashed the walls with human blood. Bechtel co-manages the facility, though security is mainly provided by a division of G4S, the UK-based group which so spectacularly failed to provide enough guards for the London Olympics that very same month. Bechtel is in the running for the UK contract to decontaminate 12 nuclear sites, nine of which are Magnox stations that are obsolete in the rest of the world. Most of the bid teams are understood to be major US engineers, as they typically have the greatest experience in this type of decommissioning work.
Independent 17th Dec 2012 more »
Japan
Shares in Tepco, operator of the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power station, jumped 33pc after a pro-nuclear election win in Japan likely means any short-term plan to ditch atomic power will be shelved. Anti-nuclear sentiment has run high in Japan after last year’s Fukushima crisis, with opinion polls showing a majority of voters wanted to phase out nuclear power. However, that failed to translate into wider support for the DPJ, which had pledged to work toward a zero-nuclear country, or a group of small anti-nuclear parties which had little impact at the polling booth.
Telegraph 17th Dec 2012 more »
The LDP may slowly edge Japan back towards a pro-nuclear power position but post-Fukushima it is treading carefully.
Conservative Home 17th Dec 2012 more »
Despite the national trauma caused by the Fukushima nuclear accident last year, parties that made reducing or eliminating atomic power a central theme in their campaigns fared poorly. The newly formed Tomorrow party, which includes prominent anti-nuclear activists, won only nine seats, while the anti-nuclear Social Democrats and Communists together won only 10. In a poll of voters by NHK, Japan’s state-run broadcaster, only 10 per cent of respondents ranked energy policy as the most important issue in the election, compared with half who named the economy and jobs.
FT 17th Dec 2012 more »
Spain
Spain’s oldest nuclear plant, Garona, which came online in 1970, started shutting down ahead of new taxes that would render the plant unviable. Spain is introducing higher taxes on generators to address an energy tariff deficit.
Scotsman 17th Dec 2012 more »
Iran
On Iran, in particular, there is little to waste. Among Washington’s foreign policy luminaries, it is hard to find one who claims to know the Obama administration’s strategy. Some speculate that the White House may have already established a back channel dialogue with Tehran led by someone like Thomas Pickering, the veteran state department envoy. If so, it would be reassuring. But this is a hope rather than an estimate. Others worry that Mr Obama lacks a real strategy to communicate. This is not a concern about benign drift. Next month Benjamin Netanyahu will almost certainly be re-elected as Israel’s prime minister and claim a mandate to ensure that 2013 will be “the year we confront Iran” – as he reiterated last week. Even if an attack on Iran went as hoped, it would only be likely to delay its nuclear programme by a couple of years. And it would probably harden Iran’s resolve. As they say, knowledge cannot be bombed. Yet Mr Obama’s on-again/off-again record of Middle East diplomacy offers little reassurance he is preparing the kind of effort that might enable him to avert America’s third war with a Muslim country in a decade.
FT 16th Dec 2012 more »
Trident
A Trident submarine has been forced to limp back to port in the US after its rudder broke, upsetting Britain’s nuclear weapons patrols and undermining the effectiveness of a £300 million overhaul. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that HMS Vigilant, a nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads, suffered a “defect to her rudder”. She was on the way home to the Faslane naval base on the Clyde after test-firing a Trident missile in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida on 23 October.
Sunday Herald 16th Dec 2012 more »
A TRIDENT submarine has had to limp back to port in the US after its rudder broke following a missile test in the Atlantic. HMS Vigilant, a nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads, is understood to have returned to a US naval base, after a submariner Tweeted about being “stuck in the USA for Christmas”. The submarine was disabled while heading home to its Faslane base on the Clyde after launching a Trident missile on 23 October off the coast of Florida.
Scotsman 17th Dec 2012 more »
Renewables
Solarcentury is racing to complete a 6.3MW solar farm near Southampton, after receiving planning permission for the project from the local council. The company confirmed late last week that it has received consent from Eastleigh Borough Council to install 25,632 photovoltaic panels at Chalcroft Farm, West End.
Business Green 17th Dec 2012 more »
Energy Efficiency
Building industry outraged after ministers ditch plans to force property owners to fit energy efficient measures during renovations. Industry insiders accused politicians of ignoring the support for the plans and potential economic benefits and instead deciding new policies based on sensationalist tabloid newspaper stories.
Business Green 17th Dec 2012 more »