Politics
Tom Burke: Amber Rudd’s appointment as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate has been welcomed by environmentalists. This is partly out of relief. There was a real risk that DECC would be abolished by an incoming Conservative Government. Taking away DECC would have weakened the Climate Change Committee and undermined the Climate Act. That would have pleased a significant faction of Tory MPs. Instead, it was the environmentalists who were pleased at DECC’s reprieve. To succeed, Rudd will have to square a number of very tricky circles. And she will have to do so with a Department not widely regarded as being run by the best and the brightest in Whitehall. There is little evidence that the climate and energy wings of the Department have ever thought they were working on the same problem. Another savage round of Whitehall budget cuts is unlikely to improve either the quality of DECC’s analytic skills or the confidence of its external stakeholders. Rudd’s early statements on energy policy illuminate the road ahead for her. She has been quick to reassure her less climate aware colleagues that she is no guileless green. There will be no more subsidies for onshore wind. Consent for new wind farms will have to be given by a local council planning authority which will have to consult residents. There will she says ‘be a much more accountable democratic process’. Rudd also wants to ‘unleash a new solar revolution’. She is clear that she wants this to be roof top solar thus avoiding an early clash with the Environment Secretary who is determined to keep solar off farmland.
Tom Burke 18th May 2015 read more »
MP Amber Rudd, the newly-appointed UK Secretary of State for Energy, has said she is confident that the Conservative government will bring in shale gas ‘during their next term’.
Scottish Energy News 21st May 2015 read more »
Geoffrey Lean: The much-hyped Green surge has been petering out because the party has been putting left-wing concerns above environmental ones.
Telegraph 20th May 2015 read more »
Radhealth
It has been four years since the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, Japan. There remains a huge amount of remedial work to be done, but in that time the scientific community has deepened its collective understanding of the chemistry of nuclear disasters, not least in relation to iodine. It may be a familiar element most associated with benign activities, such as wound treatment and water purification, but certain isotopes of iodine are harmful. The radioactive iodine from bomb testing and the Chernobyl accident has been shown to increase the rate of thyroid cancer among the general public. In both the Fukushima and the 1986 Chernobyl accidents, volatile iodine species were released into the environment with tellurium. Of all the fission products, iodine poses a special threat to public health because it has a high fission yield, it can spread as volatile species and in mammals it accumulates readily in the thyroid, a small but vital organ. While the vast majority of iodine radioactivity is short-lived, it can have life-changing effects. A thyroid cancer patient who has lost their thyroid function as a result of surgery or 131I treatment, will require hormone replacement medication for life.
Chemistry World 20th May 2015 read more »
Radwaste
Multinational engineering and design firm WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff has won a four-year contract with Radioactive Waste Management Limited (RWM) to provide specialist nuclear services to it and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Through the contract, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff will provide a range of services to support radioactive waste management and decommissioning activities across a number of the UK’s nuclear sites. The company will provide engineering design, environmental assessments and site characterisation services to support the development of a UK geological disposal facility (GDF), and will also supply support services in the areas of R&D, decommissioning and disposability assessments.
FM World 20th May 2015 read more »
Nukes vs Climate
Kirsty Gogan says the sooner environmentalists view nuclear as a low carbon solution the better for tackling climate change. Surely, when the world’s leading climate and energy scientists conclude that solving climate change is next to impossible without nuclear, we simply cannot afford to look the other way? Can we overcome this culture clash on the road to Paris?
Business Green 20th May 2015 read more »
Electricity Market Reform
The previous Government put much effort into introducing an Energy Act that significantly changed Great Britain’s electricity market. There is now a danger that ‘reform fatigue’ will deter the new Government from contemplating the need for further reform. However, it would be a mistake for the UK’s new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd MP, to think that all the issues are settled.
E3G 13th May 2015 read more »
Trident
WILLIAM McNeilly is no longer on the run. It is possible he may face court martial. We will see. He has already endured a verbal firing squad – from the British ¬military establishment . You’ll have heard them on the TV and radio, plummy voiced “defence experts” coming to the aide of their old Admiralty pals by taking shots at the brave whistleblower. They blast holes in his character – mocking his junior rank, questioning his experience and even his sanity. But submariner McNeilly is ¬superior to them all. He was doing his duty when he blew the gaff on Trident safety breaches.
Daily Record 20th May 2015 read more »
NPT
A host of nuclear free states are claiming back their power to create the conditions for a much-needed legally binding agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons, moving beyond the NPT Review Conference. An unusual counting game is underway as the NPT undergoes its periodic review at the United Nations in New York. Five nuclear-armed states – China, France, Russia, the UK and USA – are doing their best to dominate the NPT and uphold the nuclear status quo that enables them to modernize their nuclear arsenals, while an overwhelming 159 states parties to the NPT have issued a joint “humanitarian disarmament”statement demanding an end to nuclear business as usual.
Open Democracy 20th May 2015 read more »
Japan – reactor restarts
The Japan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) has approved resumption of Ikata nuclear power plant in south-west of the country, marking a step ahead in reviving the nuclear power industry following the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Energy Business Review 20th May 2015 read more »
Iran
SEVEN-nation nuclear talks over Iran’s nuclear energy programme began in Vienna yesterday, as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to oppose foreign inspections of military sites. Negotiators from Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany met to discuss lifting sanctions in return for Iranian assurances that it is not developing nuclear weapons. A fact sheet on the framework accord issued by the US State Department said Iran would be required to grant the UN nuclear agency access to any “suspicious sites.”
Morning Star 21st May 2015 read more »
North Korea
North Korea claims it can now make nuclear weapons small enough to fit on the tip of a ballistic missile. Analysts and US officials have suspected the rogue state could do this.
Mirror 20th May 2015 read more »
BBC 20th May 2015 read more »
Independent 20th May 2015 read more »
China
China accounts for almost half of the world’s new-build of nuclear reactors but recent delays, cost overruns and safety scares are challenging the country’s plans for atomic energy, writes Paul Dorfman. The World Nuclear Status Report shows that China has 28 reactors under construction – 42% of the world’s total new-build – with 21 reactors (17 GW) in operation, which in 2013 provided 2.1% of the country’s electricity. If all their reactors under construction come online before 2020, this would bring the total to 49 reactors. To put this into perspective, in 2013 alone, China installed 12 GW of solar, a threefold increase over 2012. And recent events have challenged China’s plans for nuclear. There’s been the usual construction delays, cost increases, doubts over the siting of reactors in provinces inland, and questions over safety and regulatory oversight – and, remarkably, just last month, significant faults were found in the reactor pressure vessels already installed in the Areva EPRs atTaishan 1 and 2.
China Dialogue 20th May 2015 read more »
Czech Republic
The share of nuclear power in the Czech Republic’s electricity generation mix is expected to rise from about 35% currently to between 46% and 58% by 2040. The target is part of the pro-nuclear elements of a long-term energy strategy – ASEK, according to its Czech acronym – which the country’s trade and industry ministry published yesterday. The government expects two new reactors to be built at the Temelín and Dukovany nuclear power plants, according to the new strategy. But finance minister Andrej Babiš and prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka have reportedly said they are opposed to the state giving guarantees for the price of electricity generated from new nuclear reactors. They see such guarantees as state subsidies for nuclear power, which they are against. For that reason, state-owned utility ČEZ last year cancelled a tender for its plan to expand the Temelín nuclear power plant.
World Nuclear News 20th May 2015 read more »
South Africa
The South African Government is planning to invest between ZAR400bn and ZAR1tn ($34bn-$84bn) on the construction of six new nuclear power plants by 2030 to help address its rising power demands. In line with this decision, the government intends to start nuclear fleet procurement process this year aimed at generating 9,600MW of power, with first unit planned to be commissioned by 2023.
Energy Business Review 20th May 2015 read more »
100% Renewables
As most Alaskans can attest, energy in The Last Frontier is expensive. The average residential electricity rate of more than 18 cents per kWh is a full 50 percent higher than the national average, ranking among the highest in the country. That’s in part because outside the 50 hydro plants throughout the state, most of Alaska’s rural communities rely on imported diesel for their electricity. But the folks of Kodiak Island (pop. 15,000) in southern Alaska—powered almost 100 percent with renewable energy—have a different story to tell. Although Kodiak Island, the second-largest island in the United States, relied on hydropower for 80 percent of the electricity production, it was also burning 2.8 million gallons of diesel per year, at an annual cost of $7 million. In the face of climate change and high electricity costs, the board and managers at Kodiak Electric Association (KEA) set a goal of producing 95 percent of the community’s electrical needs with renewable energy by 2020. They actually arrived there well ahead of time, and are now 99.7 percent renewably powered by wind and hydro.
Renew Economy 21st May 2015 read more »
Renewables – jobs
More than 7.7m people around the world are now employed by the renewable energy industry – an 18% increase on last year. The figure comes from the Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2015 from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
Edie 20th May 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
Solar PV panels are the most popular form of green technology for housing associations in the UK, according to a new report from the National House-Building Council (NHBC) Foundation. The research found that almost two thirds of surveyed housing associations had dealt with ‘sustainable technologies’, with 75% saying solar PV was the option they would be most likely to use again.
Edie 20th May 2015 read more »
Renewables – tidal
Swedish company Minesto has been awarded a £9.5m EU grant to set up a marine power plant in North Wales. Minesto will use the money to establish a UK headquarters and install its ‘Deep Green’ turbine system off the coast of Holyhead. The so-called Deep Green, operates like an underwater kite, and claims to be the only proven marine power plant to generate electricity from low velocity tidal currents. Cleverly, the kites can reach speeds up to 10 times higher than the water current.
Edie 20th May 2015 read more »
Annual losses at Atlantis Resources – the innovative tidal power colossus which is building the world’s biggest underwater power station off the Pentland Firth – more than doubled last year. But the massive boost to its balance sheet of crystallising $98 million dollars of assets as it continues to physically build power-generating assets at its tidal array off the Caithness coast served to bolster investor confidence.
Scottish Energy News 21st May 2015 read more »
Community Energy
A newly incorporated Scottish community energy wind power company is starting its share offer national roadshow next week in Edinburgh to generate £1 million in direct shareholder investment in a Scottish renewables development. The Heartland Community Wind investment offers the chance for subsribers to become part-owners of two medium-scale turbines in the heart of Scotland – near to Aberfeldy and Kenmore. As a Community Benefit Society, Heartland is 100% owned by its members who elect their own Board. Anyone can become a member by taking a share in the project, from as little as £100.
Scottish Energy News 21st May 2015 read more »
Hydrogen
The ETI has completed an assessment of the potential of using salt caverns, traditionally used to store natural gas, to store hydrogen for power generation when the demand for electricity peaks daily. The report, which uses findings from a techno economic study carried out by Amec Foster Wheeler for the ETI concluded that using these caverns would reduce the investment needed in new clean power station capacity.
ETI 20th May 2015 read more »
Fossil Fuels
One of Britain’s leading energy experts has used the closure of another UK coal power station to call for a new national energy strategy. Energy company SSE announced on Wedneday that its Ferrybridge power station in West Yorkshire will close in March because it is “no longer economical”. Phil Taylor, a professor of electrical power systems and the director of the Institute for Sustainability at Newcastle University, welcomed the closure, saying it showed that the UK can’t continue to rely on fossil fuels.
Edie 20th May 2015 read more »
Gérard Mestrallet, chief executive of Engie, one of the world’s biggest power companies, says fossil fuel electricity generation is on the way out in Europe. The economics of gas and coal power generation have deteriorated to the point that future growth is more likely to come in big emerging markets such as India and China, rather than the EU, he told the FT on the sidelines of a business and climate change conference in Paris on Wednesday. “The choice we have made is very clear. We have stopped investing — and so did the others by the way — in thermal power generation in Europe and we are investing in renewables,” he said.
FT 21st May 2015 read more »
The low price of carbon is an indication that the market does not believe European Union politicians will take the necessary measures to fix the carbon market, the chief executive of German utility RWE said on Wednesday. EU diplomats last week approved a proposal to begin reforming the world’s biggest carbon market in 2019, with a view to begin removing some of the huge surplus of carbon allowances that has depressed prices on the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).
Reuters 20th May 2015 read more »
The decline of coal as a source of power generation in Britain was underlined yesterday when SSE said that it would close a coal-fired plant in the north of England. As Britain’s second-biggest energy supplier also revealed the loss of half a million customers in its full-year results, the decision to close the Ferrybridge site in North Yorkshire provoked an angry response from Yvette Cooper, the local MP and a candidate for the vacant Labour party leadership. Yvette Cooper, the MP for Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, demanded talks with the SSE management, pointing out that Ferrybridge had not reached the end of its natural life: “This is devastating for Ferrybridge and the area and comes on the back of job losses at Kellingley Colliery as well.”
Times 21st May 2015 read more »
Climate
The last 12-month period has seen the highest global temperatures on the planet, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and, even though we’re barely halfway through, it’s clear that 2015 is set to be record breaking year. Not since the 1970s have land and sea measurements dropped beneath the expected average and all the data from environmental watchdogs points towards a steady rise currently at one degree C above where it should be.
Independent 20th May 2015 read more »
