Hinkley
The French energy giant EDF is expected to make its long-awaited final investment decision on a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset next week. The company says it has called a board meeting for 28 July and the investment decision is on the agenda. BBC correspondent John Moylan said the firm’s board is expected to give the plant the go-ahead.
BBC 22nd July 2016 read more »
Sky News 22nd July 2016 read more »
ITV 21st July 2016 read more »
EDF will finally decide whether to proceed with a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset next week. The French government-controlled energy giant said on Thursday night that its board of directors would meet on Thursday 28 July. The final investment decision on whether to build two reactors at Hinkley Point is on the agenda for the meeting. The business and energy secretary, Greg Clark, said: “New nuclear is an essential part of our plan for a secure, clean and affordable energy system that will power the economy throughout this century. This is a welcome decision from EDF, and we look forward to the outcome.”
Guardian 22nd July 2016 read more »
EDF will make its long-delayed final investment decision on whether to build two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset next week, the company has announced. The French utility said on Thursday night it would hold a board meeting next Thursday at which it would take the final decision, which was originally expected early in the year. The company said in a statement: “The two reactors at Hinkley Point would strengthen EDF’s presence in Britain, a country where its subsidiary EDF Energy already operates 15 nuclear reactors and is the largest electricity supplier by volume.
FT 21st July 2016 read more »
Bloomberg 21st July 2016 read more »
French utility EDF called a board meeting for July 28 that will consider a final investment decision on its 18 billion pound ($24 billion) Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Britain, the company said on Thursday. The project to build two next-generation EPR nuclear reactors has divided opinion in France at a time when EDF’s finances are severely stretched already by its absorption of loss-making nuclear plant builder Areva. In a statement, EDF said that if approved, the first concrete for the reactors, scheduled for mid-2019, would coincide perfectly with the start-up of its other EPR project in Flamanville, northern France, scheduled for the end of 2018. The Flamanville project is years behind schedule and billions over budget already. But ensuring skilled nuclear engineers can move on to another project quickly is key for EDF to retain staff and know-how.
Reuters 21st July 2016 read more »
The surprise board meeting comes after French economy minister Emmanuel Macron suggested the final decision on building the Hinkley Point nuclear plant would be pushed back to September, almost three years after the UK government first agreed to financially support the plans. Newly appointed business and energy secretary Greg Clark said in a statement that he looks forward to the outcome of the board meeting. “New nuclear is an essential part of our plan for a secure, clean and affordable energy system that will power the economy throughout this century. “It’s clear that we are open for business as we come closer to sealing the deal on this major investment in British infrastructure and British jobs,” he added.
Telegraph 21 July 2016 read more »
EDF has moved a step closer towards approving its £18 billion project to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point by calling a board meeting to consider a final investment decision. Company directors will meet next Thursday to make a final judgment on whether to proceed with their plans to build two nuclear reactors in Somerset. In 2013 officials agreed to pay EDF a guaranteed £92.50 for every megawatt-hour of energy, indexed to inflation, for 35 years from the moment the station enters service. At the time average wholesale power prices were about £54 per megawatt-hour. They have since fallen sharply to about £43 per megawatt-hour this month.
Times 22nd July 2016 read more »
EDF has today called a meeting of its Board of Directors which will be held on 28 July 2016. The agenda includes the final investment decision for the construction of two EPR reactors at Hinkley PointC (HPC) in the south-west of England. The HPC Project is a major element of the Group’s CA 2030 strategy. The two EPR reactors at Hinkley Point would strengthen EDF’s presence in Britain, a country where its subsidiary EDF Energy already operates 15 nuclear reactors and is the largest electricity supplier by volume. HPC would also enable the Group to mobilise all its significant nuclear engineering skills following the final investment decision. The first concrete of reactor 1 of HPC, scheduled for mid-2019, would coincide with perfect continuity with the start-up of the EPR at Flamanville, scheduled for the end of 2018.
EDF 21st July 2016 read more »
EDF
The AMF examines the financial information provided by the electric utility market since 2013. The subjects of “major overhaul” and EPR Hinkley Point is a central concern. The EDF headquarters in Paris was raided Thursday by the financial markets Authority (AMF), according to a source familiar with the matter. The announcement confirmed a report in the World published on Thursday afternoon. According to the newspaper, several AMF investigators have asked to meet Pierre Todorov, Secretary General of the group, and would be seen release documents.
Archy World News 21st July 2016 read more »
[Machine Translation] The bad news is not completed for EDF. The group, whose incessantly expected shortly the final investment decision on the Hinkley Point C project, announced yesterday that its nuclear production will be lower than expected this year, especially given the new requirements of the Nuclear Safety Authority . The aim EBITDA was however confirmed because the group can count on the tariff readjustment which he is entitled. The announcement also shows that the energy company has only limited control of the prospects of its nuclear fleet. The additional tests requested by the ASN will increase the dwell time of 18 of the 58 reactors. It also raises uncertainty about the impact of these measures beyond 2016, as emphasized Farman Ahmed, Jefferies. It is difficult to address the problems of 18 reactors in six months, he said in a note to clients. The analyst remains cautious on the issue, on which it is to “underperformance” with a recovery to 7.50 euros, the lowest in the square. The results will start to come under increased pressure because of the rapid increase in exposure to low wholesale prices and the proliferation of nuclear issues, he says.
Boursier 20th July 2016 read more »
Moorside
This saturday from 10 am till 12 noon Radiation Free Lakeland and others will hold a Demonstration outside the Moorside CONsultation in Whitehaven. Those who should be shouting the loudest at the destruction of internationally protected habitats have instead put their shoulders to the wheel to facilitate the nuclear juggernaught. Cumbria Wildlife Trust have said that they feel Moorside is just too big, too nasty and and too entrenched in government policy to fight. They have said this to thousands of Cumbrian wildlife enthusiasts. Those thousands of people, the very people who would be shouting about the biggest and nastiest nuclear development in Europe have been told that “there is no option to stop this happening.” This alone makes NuGen’s CONsultation a sham. Not content with this, Cumbria Wildlife Trust have “teamed up” with NuGen at Gillerthwaite Moss, Ennerdale. This is exactly the same area that has previously been eyed up for geological dumping of heat generating waste – a win win? The nuclear industry and the pro nuclear forces in government must be laughing their cotton socks off.
Radiation Free Lakeland 21st July 2016 read more »
CUMBRIA County Council is backing plans for a new nuclear power station at Moorside, Sellafield. But it says that the project must be accompanied by huge investment in infrastructure, such as road and rail. Addressing the council’s cabinet, leader Stewart Young said that the authority needed the Government or NuGen – the firm behind the Moorside proposal – to stump up cash in advance to fund improvements.
In Cumbria 21st July 2016 read more »
Whitehaven News 21st July 2016 read more »
Wylfa
The push to recover used radioactive fuel from the last nuclear power station of its kind is under way. Wylfa nuclear plant’s last reactor was turned off after 44 years at an outage ceremony on Anglesey in December. Workers have spent the past six months putting decommissioning plans into action, including a new safety regime. Removing 800 tonnes of spent Magnox fuel will now be the “dominant” focus over the next three years, officials have said. “Once we are fuel free, over 99% of all the radioactivity on the site will have left,” said Gordon Malcolm, deputy site director at Wylfa.
BBC 22nd July 2016 read more »
New Nuclear
Ten years ago, the Labour government under Tony Blair gave the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built in Britain. It was a remarkable about-turn from the outcome of the energy white paper just three years earlier, which had kicked nuclear into the long grass, emphasising instead a push for renewables and energy efficiency. As a film-maker who’d grown up in the 1980s and whose chief memories of nuclear power were of the catastrophic accident at Chernobyl, I felt compelled to investigate. How had this power source that I knew only as a byword for danger and disaster managed to pull off such a stunning reinvention as the clean, green saviour of climate change? Answering that question has taken me on a decade-long film-making journey as I’ve delved into the history and politics of this most controversial energy source, not just in Britain, but in the US, France and Germany too. And what I discovered was like something out of a soap opera — a fairy-tale romance that developed into a turbulent, on-off relationship whose drama continues to play out to this day. Vicki Lesley is a documentary director from Brighton. She is currently crowdfunding to cover final post-production costs on her film The Atom: A Love Affair. To support the film visit www.tennerfilms.com/donate
Morning Star 22nd July 2016 read more »
Energy Markets
The House of Lords’ Economic Affairs Committee has launched a new inquiry into the economics of the UK energy market, which have focused on three objectives over the past 10 years: – Maintaining continuous supplies of energy and minimising threats to energy security; Ensuring that the costs of energy supply are competitive for business and individual users; and Decarbonising the mixture of energy used in the UK as a contribution to the international effort to minimise the risks of climate change. Lords will consider whether the present mix of policy interventions and subsidies have led to failures in the energy market. It will look at what measures are required to correct these failures. The accelerated closure of coal-fired plants and subsidies for renewables have been the principal means of securing decarbonisation. Paying for subsidies by charges on consumers, rather than from taxes, has meant that prices have risen while the resultant lack of investment in baseload capacity means that continuity of supply is now seriously threatened.
Scottish Energy News 22nd July 2016 read more »
Utilities
Energy giant SSE lost another 50,000 customer accounts in the three months to June as switching away from established suppliers to smaller rivals continued. But the company, formerly known as Scottish and Southern, said it had had a “solid” start to the financial year, with the rate of customer losses roughly half that seen in the same period last year.
Telegraph 21st July 2016 read more »
Politics
The country’s shift to a low-carbon economy has stalled, industrialisation of the countryside has sped up – and last week, just hours into her new job as prime minister, Theresa May blew a chill wind over hopes of anything different from her new administration.
FoE 21st July 2016 read more »
Radhealth
Letter Carol McManus: GEORGE Kerevan’s excellent article clearly portrays the cost of nuclear weapons (Nuclear ambitions have always been achieved at the cost of prosperity, July 18, The National). There’s another cost – of immense consequence to Scotland. Suppression and/or distortion of facts have been linked to the nuclear industry since at least the 1950s, an example being the long suppression of Dr Alice Stewart’s research findings on the dangers of X-rays to the unborn child. There is considerable evidence that another may be contained in a UK Government version of events quoted by Kerevan – that of the wind direction and areas affected by fallout from the Windscale nuclear fire of 1957. This fire was the most serious nuclear accident to occur outwith the Soviet Union up until that time, and so of great embarrassment to the government. Radioactive fallout from Windscale was detected in days following the fire over northern Europe and as far north-east as Norway, which indicates a far different direction of travel. Paul Langley’s nuclear history blog records that the Scandinavians knew what had happened at Windscale before the British people were informed. At the time, wind direction was officially reported to have been blowing out to sea, but in 1974 this was corrected by the Director of the National Radiation Protection Board to state that the wind at the time of the fire was blowing the radiation inland (as Kerevan wrote).
National 22nd July 2016 read more »
Fukushima
Radioactive contamination in the seabed off the Fukushima coast is hundreds of times above pre-2011 levels, while contamination in local rivers is up to 200 times higher than ocean sediment, according to results from Greenpeace Japan survey work released today. “The extremely high levels of radioactivity we found along the river systems highlights the enormity and longevity of both the environmental contamination and the public health risks resulting from the Fukushima disaster,” said Ai Kashiwagi, Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Japan. “These river samples were taken in areas where the Abe government is stating it is safe for people to live. But the results show there is no return to normal after this nuclear catastrophe,” said Kashiwagi. Riverbank sediment samples taken along the Niida River in Minami Soma, measured as high as 29,800 Bq/kg for radiocaesium (Cs-134 and 137). The Niida samples were taken where there are no restrictions on people living, as were other river samples. At the estuary of the Abukuma River in Miyagi prefecture, which lies more than 90km north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, levels measured in sediment samples were as high as 6,500 Bq/kg.
Greenpeace 21st July 2016 read more »
Renewables – offshore wind
The Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall has confirmed it will now build a new £300 million offshore wind farm in Aberdeen Bay, installing 11 turbines to generate 92.4-MW of electricity. When completed, it will be the Scotland’s largest offshore wind test and demonstration facility. Vattenfall’s investment decision also triggers an agreement for the European energy company to acquire the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group’s 25% share for an undisclosed sum and become the 100% owner of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Limited. The project was subject to numerous delays because of a series of unsuccessful legal appeals by Donald Trump, now US presidential candidate for the Republican party, because, he claimed, it would spoil the view from a local golf course development he is involved in.
Scottish Energy News 21st July 2016 read more »
Guardian 21st July 2016 read more »
Vattenfall yesterday decided to invest more than £300mn to build Scotland’s largest offshore wind test and demonstration facility. Vattenfall’s investment decision triggers an agreement for the European energy company to acquire the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group’s 25% share for an undisclosed sum and become the 100% owner of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Limited, the company behind the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), also known as the Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm.
Vattenfall 21st July 2016 read more »
Renewables – tidal
The world’s biggest – and most powerful – tidal turbine has now arrived in Orkney and the Scotrenewables Tidal Power turbine (pictured here at Hatston Pier) is due to be deployed at the islands’ European Marine Energy Centre tidal test site this summer. The near-200ft long SR2000 Scotrenewables tidal turbine is a unique floating tidal technology designed to minimise installation and operational costs. The device hosts two propellers which fold up while being towed.
Scottish Energy News 22nd July 2016 read more »
Energy Efficiency
Over the past 10 years, UK electricity consumption – as well as natural gas consumption – has fallen steadily year on year. Electricity sales are now 13 per cent lower than 10 years ago. They are 25 per cent below the level government planning forecasts – which justified Hinkley C’s development – anticipated they would be. One of the main reasons electricity demand is falling is simply that the everyday products we enjoy, that require electricity to operate, do so far more efficiently than before. It is of paramount importance that those charged with delivering Brexit do not willfully reverse this trend in order to satisfy some abstract philosophy.
Business Green 21st July 2016 read more »
