Sizewell
EDF Energy has rejected claims that a process called “steam venting” at the Sizewell B nuclear power station may expose local residents to a health risk. Steam containing elements of radioactivity – well within emission limits imposed by regulators – is occasionally and with considerable noise vented to the environment because of conditions inside the reactor. However, John Busby, a consultant to the coalition of groups fighting plans for a £14billion Sizewell C plant, believes that the process could expose residents to health risk – particularly if there is an unexpected loss of connection to the national grid and standby generators fail to operate. In extreme conditions, he claims, this could lead to a catastrophic meltdown of the reactor core – as happened at Three Mile Island in the United States and at Fukushima in Japan.
East Anglian Daily Times 20th Sept 2014 read more »
Moorside
A new report has been produced by Radiation Free Lakeland, which outlines the impact “the biggest nuclear development in Europe” would have on Cumbria. Visible vapor plumes from AP1000 cooling towers would rise more than 5,000 feet above the towers (ie 2000 feet above the highest Lakeland fells) and extend as far as 9 miles downwind. Resulting precipitation would be from seawater drawn from the Irish Sea, which is contaminated by Sellafield’s reprocessing activity.
Radiation Free Lakeland 20th Sept 2014 read more »
Energy Costs
Populist pledges to help hard-pressed households by freezing energy bills, raising the minimum wage and re-nationalising the railways are a “misguided” ploy to win votes that will do nothing to help consumers, according to a respected think-tank. As the party conference season gets under way, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) will publish a report on Monday claiming MPs are backing policies that will push up prices. The IEA will say that debate centres on the “misapprehension” that high bills were due to “greedy profiteering by energy companies”. It highlights that the 1970s’ blackouts took place when the energy sector was under state control, while during the first 14 years of privatisation – between 1990 and 2004 – the average gas bill fell 16pc, while electricity bills fell 25pc. The IEA will warn that “high degrees of state control” are re-emerging in the sector, with no fewer than 13 overlapping green initiatives over the past decade now “interfering” with the energy market.
Telegraph 20th Sept 2014 read more »
Shetland
People in Shetland have been left frustrated by a stand-off between an energy company and the regulator that has put a stop to the building of a long-awaited new power station and shows no sign of early resolution. Last month, Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing gave planning permission for a new 120-megawatt power station a couple of miles north-east of Shetland’s capital, Lerwick. A Government press release announced Ewing’s satisfaction that construction work on the project would create 400 jobs. But neither the press release, nor most of the subsequent media coverage, mentioned the fact that national energy regulator Ofgem earlier this year ordered the developer Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (SHEPD) to take the project back to the drawing board.
Herald 21st Sept 2014 read more »
Iran
Iran is ready to work with the United States and its allies to stop Islamic State militants, but would like to see more flexibility on Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, senior Iranian officials told Reuters.
Reuters 21st Sept 2014 read more »
Renewables
How decentralized generators came to supply one quarter of global electricity: In a cover story and article 14 years ago about the emergent disruption of utilities, The Economist’s Vijay Vaitheeswaran coined the umbrella term “micropower” to mean sources of electricity that are relatively small, modular, mass-producible, quick-to-deploy, and hence rapidly scalable—the opposite of cathedral-like power plants that cost billions of dollars and take about a decade to license and build. His term combined two kinds of micropower: renewables other than big hydroelectric dams, and cogeneration of electricity together with useful heat in factories or buildings (also known as combined-heat-and-power, or CHP). Besides being cost-competitive and rapidly scalable, why does micropower matter? First, as explained below, its operation releases little or no carbon. Second, micro¬power ena¬bles individuals, communities, building owners, and factory operators to gener¬ate electricity, displacing dependence on centralized, inefficient, dirty genera¬tors. This democratizes energy choices, promotes competition, speeds learning and innova¬tion, and can further accelerate deployment—because “vernacular” technolo¬gies acces¬sible to many diverse market actors, even if individually small, tend to deploy faster in sum than a few big units requiring specialized institutions, complex approvals, intricate logistics, and hence long lead times.
Forbes 19th Sept 2014 read more »
A new handbook shows how forward-looking communities around the world are already moving away from reliance on fossil fuels and generating their own power with 100% renewables − while also becoming more prosperous and creating jobs. The report, How to Achieve 100% Renewable Energy, is being released today, ahead of the UN Climate Summit in New York next Tuesday (September 23), when the UN Secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, will call on world leaders to make new commitments to cut fossil fuel use. The World Future Council, based in Hamburg, Germany, has issued the report to show that it is only lack of political will that is preventing the world switching away from fossil fuels. It believes that the leaders at the UN summit need to set ambitious targets and timetables to achieve the switch to renewables.
Climate News Network 20th Sept 2014 read more »
Renewables – tidal
Keith Clarke, the former WS Atkins chief, has backed plans to build the world’s first tidal lagoon at Swansea Bay, joining the project’s developer as non-executive chairman. The proposed £1bn green energy scheme would involve building a six-mile horseshoe shaped sea wall in the bay, creating a lagoon that fills up and depletes with the tide, driving power turbines. Mr Clarke, who ran the engineering consultancy for eight years until 2011, said he was joining Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay as it was “an extremely exciting project whose time has come”.
Telegraph 20th Sept 2014 read more »
Climate
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and actor Leonardo di Caprio will join thousands in a march for climate action in New York on Sunday. The Manhattan demonstration is part of a global protest, with over 2,000 marches taking place around the world. Mr Ban will also tackle the issue with 125 heads of state and government on Tuesday at UN headquarters. It will be the first such gathering since the unsuccessful Copenhagen conference in 2009.
BBC 21st Sept 2014 read more »
World leaders must commit themselves to holding current rises in global temperatures to 2C. That is the stark message of experts and campaigners in the runup to the United Nations climate summit that will be held in New York later this week. They say that 2C is the maximum temperature increase that the world can tolerate without causing environmental mayhem, and they insist that politicians attending the meeting, including Barack Obama and David Cameron, must agree to that upper limit.
Observer 21st Sept 2014 read more »
Desmond Tutu, the Nobel peace prize winner and activist, has called for an international campaign to boycott mining companies, oil corporations and other businesses involved in the trade of fossil fuels. Writing exclusively in the Observer prior to this week’s UN climate summit in New York, Tutu says the same approach that was taken by the 1980s anti-apartheid campaign, of which he was a leader, should now be adopted in the battle to halt global warming.
Observer 21st Sept 2014 read more »
Observer 21st Sept 2014 read more »
Rich nations should make the deepest emission cuts and provide most money if countries are to share fairly the responsibility of preventing catastrophic climate change, says a major new study. Calculations by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) scientists and Friends of the Earth suggest the UK would need to make cuts of up to 75% on 1990 emission levels by 2025 and would also need to transfer $49bn (£30bn) to developing countries. The US would have to cut slightly less, but transfer up to $634bn to make a fair contribution.
Observer 21st Sept 2014 read more »
THE Arctic ice cap has melted so much that open water is now just 350 miles from the North Pole, the shortest distance recorded, scientists say. Satellite observations, from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) last week, coincide with a prediction from a leading British polar researcher that the summer ice cap is now so thin it is likely to disappear within five years, possibly as early as 2015.
Sunday Times 21st Sept 2014 read more »
