Moorside
Land Grab by NuGen, with compulsory purchase on the cards, sees the “biggest construction project in Europe” more than double in size – from 200 to 552 hectares of farmland adjacent to Sellafield. Consultation documents published by NuGen on its new-build plans suggest a belated realisation by the developer that, given the topography, geology and other constraints of the Moorside site, three first of a kind AP1000 reactors, plus all the associated paraphernalia needed to construct, operate and service them, were never going to be squeezed into the land originally purchased from the NDA in 2009. It was from within this original land parcel of 200 hectares that NuGen subsequently projected that ‘the most suitable 100 ha would be selected for the nuclear power station’. Today, however, NuGen says that ‘the generating elements of the power station would cover some 200 hectares’ (EIA Scoping Report Vol 1 page 22, para 2.2.1) – the whole of the originally purchased land area and not just 100 hectares within it. The knock-on effect of this doubling of the reactor area from 100 to 200 hectares is the dramatic expansion of the overall West Cumbrian land area now required for investigation – from 200 to 552 hectares (EIA Scoping Report Vol 1, page 22, Para 2.2.1). The figures below show the extent of the Moorside mission creep from 200 to 552ha. The underestimate of the extent of land required for Moorside is echoed by a similar underestimate of the four year build time claimed for each of its projected AP1000 reactors – a timeline that NuGen knows to be wholly at odds with the current Westinghouse experience overseas. The VC Summer twin reactors for example, also scheduled to be built in four years, are currently in their 6th and 7th year of construction respectively and still nowhere near completion – let alone the production of electricity.
CORE 19th July 2015 read more »
CORE (pdf with diagrams and photo) 19th July 2015 read more »
Waste Transport
Thousands of train enthusiasts descended on the back road train depot of Kingmoor in Carlisle encouraged by Direct Rail Services to “celebrate 20 years” in a Charity Open Day. The £5 entrance fee going to ‘charity’ i.e. cash strapped local hospitals and good causes that in ‘austerity’ free days would be funded by government. Now the Nuclear industry can show off its largesse while the public pay for the privilege of shunting nuclear wastes around our towns and villages. The demographic attending the Open Day was largely eager older men with their notebooks and cameras at the ready to photograph the engines. The train enthusiasts were interspersed with families with excited young children running down to meet the DRS teddy bear and the nuclear freight engines.
Radiation Free Lakeland 19th July 2015 read more »
Energy Policy
THE billionaire boss of Scotland’s largest manufacturing complex has said that Britain may be better off if it left the EU as he launched an attack on the SNP’s energy policy. The Grangemouth plant on the Firth of Forth, which employs 1,300 workers and produces the bulk of fuels used in Scotland, is to be given a new lease of life from US fracked gas arriving on huge purpose-built ships from next year. Ineos is also keen to develop an indigenous fracking industry, having acquired exploration licences across central Scotland. Mr Ratcliffe, who revealed in an interview with The Herald last week that the SNP has told him it is “not against” fracking despite calling a moratorium in January, criticised the Scottish Government for placing too much emphasis on renewable power sources such as wind turbines. He said that shale gas should be part of the country’s energy mix. “You do need an energy policy that can survive the depletion of resources in the North Sea and that’s not going to be windmills,” he said. “Windmills don’t operate without wind, so you do need some backup.”
Herald 20th July 2015 read more »
Britain should drop its focus on nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS) and refocus spending on optimising renewables and energy efficiency, a leading academic has urged. Catherine Mitchell – a professor of energy policy at Exeter University a lead author on the IPCC’s Fifth Synthesis report – said on Wednesday: “I think the current energy policy in place is simply not credible.” Speaking at an event in Westminster, titled ‘Renewable energy: How far can Britain go?’, Mitchell said: “We may have one or two new nuclear plants, we may not. Even if we do, it doesn’t actually matter, because it does very little for carbon reductions. There may also be CCS being talked about – but even if CCS comes out, there’s really no space to put the carbon. “The only thing in town is renewable energy and energy efficiency. And it’s because those are the only things in town that we need to take stock as a country, and make sure that things are in place to be the building blocks of the future.” The first step to decarbonisation, argued Mitchell, is reducing the amount of energy needed in the first place, through fully insulating houses, and managing the demand side, so that the maximum demand and thus maximum capacity needed could fall. Mitchell also urged the Government to find ways to optimise the renewables system so “we don’t waste or dump the renewable energy that we do produce”. Her suggestions included more interconnectors with Europe and other countries, and an investment in various types of storage, including batteries and pumped hydro.
Edie 17th July 2015 read more »
World Nuclear
Global investment in new nuclear is an order of magnitude less than renewable energy investment. That is just one of the findings of a new independent report on the state of the worldwide nuclear industry that was issued on Thursday. No matter which aspect of the nuclear industry is assessed, the picture isn’t pretty. Despite talk of a nuclear renaissance in the 1990s, no single Generation III reactor has come into service in the past 20 years. Most are delayed three to nine years and are far over budget. “The impressively resilient hopes that many people still have of a global nuclear renaissance are being trumped by a real‐time revolution in efficiency‐plus‐renewables‐plus-storage, delivering more and more solutions on the ground every year,” Jonathon Porritt, co-founder of the Forum for the Future and former Chairman of the U.K. Sustainable Development Commission, wrote in the forward to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2015. “[The report] remorselessly lays bare the gap between the promise of innovation in the nuclear industry and its delivered results.”
Renew Economy 20th July 2015 read more »
Utilities
A new independent energy supply company – the first in the UK operating on a non-profit basis – has received £3.5 million in funding and plans to be selling heat and power to tenants in 200,000 homes across Scotland by 2020. Our Power Energy expects to save its members up to 10%on their household utility bills compared to standard commercial tariffs. The company has been backed by the Scottish Government to the tune of £2.5 million with another £1 million from Social Investment Scotland, both in the form of repayable loans.
Scottish Energy News 20th July 2015 read more »
Electricity Supplies
Aghast at the political and industry response to the National Grid’s own report that the UK capacity margin for electricity generation is set to fall to just 1.2% this winter, OFGEM has issued a statement aimed at re-assuring consumers that ‘the lights will stay on this winter’. It highlights that the National Grid has secured 2.56 GW additional balancing services to ensure secure supplies for consumers this coming winter. It also emphasises that there are clear opportunities for generators and other market participants to play a role in delivering security of supply for 2016/17. OFGEM’s Electricity Security of Supply report has confirmed that National Grid has enough additional balancing services to secure electricity supplies for consumers this winter.
Scottish Energy News 20th July 2015 read more »
Energy Costs
Utilitywise has condemned the abolition of the Climate Change Levy (CCL) saying that costs to UK businesses will rise by millions as a result. While the levy is widely regarded as a subsidy for renewables it is primarily a tax on the energy use of UK businesses, increasing cost of consumption while providing support to renewables. This could be offset by sourcing energy from renewables which due to growth in the industry resulted in Levy Exempt Supplies trading at a discount. The end result was that companies such a Utilitywise could negotiate a benefit for their customers generating significant savings. Jon Ferris, Head of Markets, Utilitywise, said: “Without notice or consultation, the unexpected abolition of Climate Change Levy exemption in the summer budget has shocked the energy industry. Costs for UK business and public sector energy consumers will increase by millions of pounds as a result.
Scottish Energy News 20th July 2015 read more »
US
Ten years after the explosion of the first atomic bomb, when a group of nuclear scientists saw the first mushroom cloud and confessed that they “knew sin,” a switch was thrown in up-state New York yesterday, and for the first time in this country generated atomic power for such innocent uses as lighting lamps, turning fans and cooking hamburgers. Mr Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called it “a moving demonstration that the atom can indeed be stripped of its military casing and adapted to the arts of peace.”
Guardian 20th July 2015 read more »
The nuclear industry in the United States has been at a standstill for several decades. After an extraordinary wave of construction in the 1960s and 1970s, the nuclear industry ground to a halt. A confluence of events killed off new construction, including high interest rates, cost overruns, delays, and the Three Mile Island incident that scared the public and turned it against nuclear power. But despite the nuclear industry’s inability to build more than a handful of new nuclear power plants since the 1980s, nuclear power still accounts for about 19 percent of electricity generation in the United States, the third largest source of electricity behind coal and natural gas. Yet the nation’s 99 reactors are mostly nearing their retirement age. Having originally been planned for 40-year lifespans, many of the reactors would have already been forced to shut down by now, with nearly all of the rest hitting their limits at some point within the next decade. Instead, more than three-quarters of them have already received a 20-year extension, putting off their retirements until the 2030s. To remedy the situation, power plant owners are simply proposing another 20-year extension, according to CNBC. If that were to happen, that would mean that many of the nation’s 99 reactors could operate for 80 years, 40 years longer than originally planned.
Oil Price 19th July 2015 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Brazil and Argentina sought to acquire or develop technologies to enrich and reprocess uranium. At the time neither country was a member of the global weapons control regime, and both were bent on building ballistic missiles. While there is no unequivocal evidence that either country ever worked concertedly towards a nuclear weapon, they certainly saw each other as major potential security threats, and both their military establishments had contingency plans in place for the event of war.
The Conversation 20th July 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
Solar power could prove key in providing cheap, reliable electricity, particularly in sunny rural areas of the developing world. Small solar is becoming increasingly popular – but widespread knowledge is still lacking.
Deutsche Welle 15th July 2015 read more »
Energy Storage
Gaelectric’s innovative compressed air energy storage (CAES) project near Larne in County Antrim, Northern Ireland has been secured up to €6.47 million of European Union funding. The project – which has been included as a Project of Common Interest (PCI) under the EU programme to promote transboundary energy infrastructure – will store energy in the form of compressed air in especially engineered caverns created within geological salt deposits for this purpose.
Scottish Energy News 20th July 2015 read more »
