Horizon etc
The China National Nuclear Power Corporation (CNNPC), which is keen to invest in Britain, has just unveiled plans to raise about £17bn through a domestic share offering. A team from the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI), an arm of the huge China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), met senior DECC officials over the last few days, three different sources confirmed. The first part of the plan involves CNNC and another state-owned firm, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation, bidding in two separate groups against each other for a stake in the Horizon consortium, which wants to construct new atomic plants at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. But sources close to the Chinese say they are also interested in other locations at Bradwell in Essex, Heysham in Lancashire and Hartlepool in County Durham. EDF has the right of first refusal to operate on these sites but CNNC wants to use an existing technology tie-up with US-based nuclear engineering group Westinghouse to potentially build three more reactors. The Chinese accept they would need to bring in a UK utility firm to operate the plants and overcome any political or public resistance to their plans.
Guardian 20th July 2012 more >>
Nuclear Finance
UBS says its negative views for European utilities with large nuclear and lignite coal exposure prompt it to downgrade RWE and EDF to “sell” and cut its estimates for E.ON and GDF. The German renewables boom has quickly reshaped the central European power market. Solar is eliminating mid-day peaks, even when it is rainy. Wind is crashing night-time spot prices. Coal and gas utilisation are down, and renewables are now cutting into lignite volumes. And the situation is set to deteriorate,” UBS says in a note. At inflation-adjusted commodity prices, the market would see conventional generation EBITDA falling by two-thirds, mainly due to lower margins on lignite and nuclear, it says.
Reuters 20th July 2012 more >>
EMR
The Energy and Climate Change Committee will publish its report Draft Energy Bill: Pre-legislative Scrutiny (HC 275-I) on Monday 23 July 2012 at 00.01 am. Embargoed copies of the Report will be available electronically to members of the press and witnesses at 11 am on Friday 20 July 2012.
Parliament 19th July 2012 more >>
After 12 years of energy policy reviews, you might think the government had exhausted every possible avenue for debate on the subject. But just two months after the energy secretary, Ed Davey, published a draft bill setting out the framework for investment in new power stations, the thrust of this long-awaited reform is again stoking arguments in the coalition. Central to Mr Davey’s plan is a regime that involves the state setting minimum prices for power generated from different sources. The idea is to let the government set the power mix – so much to come from renewables; so much from nuclear and gas and so on – and hence achieve its overall desire for more electricity to come from cleaner technologies. George Osborne, the chancellor, has now waded into the debate about the appropriate level for these different energy sources. He wants to cut incentives for renewables. Although Mr Davey’s plans already envisaged a reduction, Mr Osborne does not think it goes far enough. He believes wind could crowd out future investment in gas-fired stations and saddle the consumer with excessive costs. There is an element of crude politics in this. Energy is a Liberal Democrat bailiwick in the cabinet, and Tory backbenchers increasingly jib at their partners’ green enthusiasms. It is unclear anyway whether Mr Osborne’s fears are indeed justified. As Mr Davey’s proposals are linked to assessments of long-term power prices, it is impossible to know who is right. But the declared need to peer far into the future to determine what actions should be taken today is precisely the flaw in Mr Davey’s Gosplan-like vision, which assigns to Whitehall the role of purchasing power for the entire nation. This means picking winners. As the energy economist Dieter Helm has observed, “the history of energy policy is littered with such ill-judged adventures”.
FT 21st July 2012 more >>
Hinkley
Permission has been given to build a temporary sea jetty at Hinkley Point C in west Somerset, the site of a proposed new nuclear power station. The company behind the plans, EDF Energy, said it welcomed the decision. The 500-metre long structure would be used to bring in materials during the construction of the proposed new nuclear power station, if approved.
BBC 20th July 2012 more >>
EDF Energy is coming under fire for providing only temporary accommodation for Hinkley Point C workers, despite a report funded by the Homes and Community Agency proposing legacy options for the same overall cost. The assessment of EDF Energy’s Bridgwater A Campus proposals, conducted by Jones Lang Lasalle, proposes two alternatives to temporary dwellings, which under current plans will be demolished once the power station is finished.
Utility Week 20th July 2012 more >>
Dungeness
EDF Energy’s 550-megawatt (MW) Dungeness B21 nuclear unit in Britain shut down on Friday afternoon, National Grid data showed, in line with a scheduled outage.
Reuters 20th July 2012 more >>
Sellafield
Signs that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has little confidence in predicting the closure of Sellafields B205 magnox reprocessing plant are evident in documents published by the Authority this week. The Magnox Operating Plan (MOP9) and accompanying Strategy Position Paper reveal how the NDA has been forced into a pick and mix approach because of what it describes as the inconsistent and unpredictable performance of the plant and associated facilities. Many observers will rightly question why the NDA has only now woken up to the obvious fallibilities of an almost 50-year old plant it inherited over 7 years ago. When the last operating plan MOP8, published in 2010, had projected a plant closure in 2016, the date was based on a single assumed annual throughput being achieved. Continuing poor performance however resulted in an almost immediate extension of the closure date to 2017, and even this is now is deemed to be increasingly unrealistic. Published this week, MOP9 now tentatively suggests at least 2 closure dates (or something between the two) for B205 by assuming two different annual reprocessing rates an upper bound of 740 tonnes per year and 450 tonnes per year lower bound. Put in context, the latter rate tallies almost exactly with the average throughput achieved annually by B205 over the last 5 years of operation, whilst the upper bound of 740 tonnes per year has not been achieved for 8 years.
CORE 20th July 2012 more >>
CORE has whipped up a storm over West Cumbrian beaches, but health agency and nuclear operators have moved swiftly to calm the waters. CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) says that warning notices should be put up on the local beaches due to the number of radioactive particles being unearthed from the sand arising from Sellafield operations. But Sellafields independent health and safety community watchdogs the West Cumbria Stakeholders Group which has the beach findings reported to them routinely says there is no need to warn people when there is no danger.
Whitehaven News 19th July 2012 more >>
Radwaste
ANTI-NUCLEAR campaigners have criticised a safety partnership for failing to slam the door shut on the prospect of an underground radioactive waste store being built in West Cumbria.The West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership yesterday approved its final report on issues surrounding the possibility of a repository in the west of the county.The document, which has been more than three years in the making, will now be sent to Allerdale Borough Council, Copeland Borough Council and Cumbria County Council. The three authorities will decide this autumn whether to take part in a search to see if there is anywhere suitable for a higher activity radioactive waste repository in Copeland and/or Allerdale.
NW Evening Mail 20th July 2012 more >>
A report into the implications for Cumbria of hosting a high-level nuclear waste repository has been released.
BBC 20th July 2012 more >>
Radioactive waste produced by nuclear power remains harmful for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. The government is desperate for a solution but burying it under the Lake District isnt the answer. The UKs nuclear legacy is costing us a fortune. The Department of Energy and Climate Change spends two-thirds of its budget looking after the UK’s nuclear wastes and the facilities which have created them. That figure is rising: last year DECC had to find an extra £4 billion to cover the spiraling cost.
Greenpeace 20th July 2012 more >>
It is now up to three Cumbrian local authorities whether to try to find somewhere in the area to bury highly radioactive nuclear waste. But senior Cumbria, Copeland and Allerdale councillors have promised that the crucial decision would be made in public at executive and cabinet meetings.
Cumberland News 20th July 2012 more >>
Kent County Council has vowed to oppose controversial plans for a nuclear waste site – and says it could hold a county-wide referendum on the scheme. County councillors have backed a report that says the proposal, which Shepway council is canvassing public opinion on, “must be resisted in the strongest possible way.”
Kent Messenger 20th July 2012 more >>
Fast Reactors
Sir Richard Branson is urging the US government to help commercialise a controversial class of nuclear reactor, according to a letter seen by the Guardian asking for a meeting with President Barack Obama and US energy secretary Steven Chu. The White House declined the meeting to discuss integral fast reactors (IFRs), which proponents say offer a way of dealing with nuclear waste, although no working commercial reactors are in operation. But the move brings the intriguing prospect of a race to develop nuclear technology between Branson and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose new company TerraPower is developing another type of next-generation nuclear technology known as the travelling wave reactor. Branson’s letter to Obama, co-signed by two others including Eric Loewen, the chief engineer for GE-Hitachi’s Prism reactor, which along with fuel recycling facilities would constitute an IFR. Loewen signed the letter in his capacity as president of the American Nuclear Society, not as the Prism boss.
Guardian 20th July 2012 more >>
Companies
Under a memorandum of understanding, signed 18 July, AREVA and Rosatom have agreed to set up working groups to study opportunities for strengthening their co-operation in the nuclear sector. This decision is in line with the Franco-Russian intergovernmental declaration of 18 November 2011, that called for closer ties between the companies involved in the nuclear industry in both countries. The working groups will focus their attention on a variety of topics including: services to existing nuclear reactors, particularly those based on Russian VVER technology; the management of spent fuel; and co-operation in manufacturing and supply chain for nuclear islands components.
Modern Power Systems 20th July 2012 more >>
Japan
In a rare move by a former Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama joined a boisterous anti-nuclear demonstration outside his old office on Friday, a fresh sign that the ruling party he once led is fracturing over energy and other policies.
Reuters 20th July 2012 more >>
Operations commenced this week to remove nuclear fuel rods from a storage pool at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, some 16 months after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl occurred at the Japanese site. Plant operator TEPCO requested media outlets to refrain from filming the delicate and dangerous operations, but aerial images aired on TV and online showed cranes lifting two of the 1535 fuel units from the No 4 reactor building.
New Scientist 20th July 2012 more >>
Kansai Electric Power Co said its 1,180-megawatt No. 4 reactor at its Ohi nuclear plant resumed supplying electricity to the grid on Saturday, Japan’s second nuclear unit to regain power since last year’s Fukushima crisis led to the shutdown of all units.
Reuters 21st July 2012 more >>
Japan’s health ministry said it would investigate reports that workers at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant were urged by a subcontractor to place lead around radiation detection devices in order to stay under a safety threshold for exposure.
Reuters 21st July 2012 more >>
Fukushima Crisis Update 17th 19th July 2012.
Greenpeace International 20th July 2012 more >>
Trident
The SNP announced that they would end decades of opposition to the Nato alliance by allowing the question of membership for an independent Scotland to be debated at the party’s autumn conference in Perth. Mr Salmond has attempted to evade the issue by claiming that the decision will not compromise his party’s anti-nuclear credentials and that “the non-nuclear position of the SNP is paramount” but facts are facts. Like it or not, whether it be a matter of perception or the facts of life, the reality is that Scotland will find itself embroiled in a wider debate about the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrent by joining Nato.
Herald 21st July 2012 more >>
Letter George Robertson: “Deterrence, based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities, remains a core element of our overall strategy. The circumstances in which any use of nuclear weapons might have to be contemplated are extremely remote. As long as nuclear weapons exist, Nato will remain a nuclear alliance.
Herald 21st July 2012 more >>
Renewables
The nub of the Osborne/Davey clash is that the Chancellor believes that in the balance between lower energy bills and lower carbon emissions the former should win out. He wants to link the renewables policy to decisions on gas so that there is a credible and certain framework for investment in both. The Energy Secretary accepts the case for a ten per cent cut in the subsidy for onshore wind farms; Mr Osborne wants a bigger reduction. His leadership ambitions will want to march in step with the instincts of Conservative MPs; a hundred of them recently signed a letter urging cuts in onshore wind farm subsidies. Mr Davey is fighting his corner for LibDem activists; as a separate piece in the F.T today notes, unless gas plans can “be fitted with still-nascent carbon capturing technology, the UK could miss its climate targets”. As I have pointed out before, the Energy Secretary’s own Climate Change Calculator demonstrates that if Britain’s energy needs are to be met and emissions reduced – and security of supply buttressed – there is no substitute for a big expansion of nuclear power: shale gas should also have a role to play. Tony Lodge has argued recently on this site that “the priority should now be to deliver the new build of atomic plants and to re-examine a carbon price floor which will prematurely force coal out and encourage a greater reliance on gas than relative prices warrant”.
Conservative Home 20th July 2012 more >>
Microgeneraton
Micro Power News this week: FiT review results announced for non-PV renewables, plus community solar will now be exempt from the minimum energy efficiency requirement; Manchester Deep Geothermal Plans announced; New Forest solar farm switched on; small hydro for Trossachs announced; Brighton Solar Co-op raises£200k; Aberdeen Council rents out its roofs; Which?, WWF, and Greenpeace warn of Green Deal failure; South West renewables power ahead.
Micro Gen Scotland 20thJuly 2012 more >>
