Hartlepool/Heysham
One of two nuclear power stations shut down after a crack was found in a boiler is safe to use again, regulators have said. Electricity firm EDF temporarily closed down two of its nuclear power stations, Heysham 1, in Lancashire, and Hartlepool, Teesside, in August. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) declared three of the four reactors safe but the fourth, at Heysham 1, requires further safety checks. Hartlepool can now resume operations. The problem was detected during a routine boiler inspection in June. EDF said it shut all four reactors at the two stations as a “precautionary measure” because they are of similar design.
BBC 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Decommissioning
In its latest annual report, the Paris-based International Energy Agency warns that governments across the world are significantly underestimating the cost of decommissioning nuclear reactors. It says that the bill will exceed $100 billion over the next 25 years alone, and it points out that almost 200 reactors are due to be shut down by 2040, whereas only 10 have been decommissioned since 1970.
Machinery Market 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Centrica
Ed Miliband may be struggling to make an impact in the election polls, but he is having a devastating effect on the stock market. Ever since the Labour leader said he would freeze energy prices last year shares in Centrica [LON:CNA], which owns British Gas, have moved sharply lower. The company’s shares peaked at 402.2p in September last year and they have slumped 29pc lower since to 293.9p at the end of last week. The utility company was valued at £20.7bn at its height and with Mr Miliband’s help it is now down £6.1bn to £14.6bn at the end of last week. It has not all been Mr Milliband’s doing, of course. The utility has been hit by milder weather in the UK reducing home gas sales and its oil and gas exploration business is suffering from a sharp fall in the oil price. Centrica blamed a warm winter in the UK and the fact that the nuclear power business, in which it owns a 20pc stake, was hit by safety shutdowns to the Heysham 1 and Hartlepool nuclear plants. The nuclear restarts have been further delayed since then, while unusually warm weather has persisted.
Telegraph 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Japan
More than three years into the massive cleanup of Japan’s tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant, only a tiny fraction of the workers are focused on key tasks such as preparing for the dismantling of the broken reactors and removing radioactive fuel rods. Instead, nearly all the workers at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant are devoted to an enormously distracting problem: a still-growing amount of contaminated water used to keep the damaged reactors from overheating. The amount has been swelled further by groundwater entering the reactor buildings. Hundreds of huge blue and gray tanks to store the radioactive water, and buildings holding water treatment equipment are rapidly taking over the plant, where the cores of three reactors melted following a 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Workers were building more tanks during a visit to the complex Wednesday by foreign media
SG Gate 12th Nov 2014 read more »
Iran
Time is running out for diplomats from six world powers to reach an agreement with Iran about its nuclear programme, with a deadline set for tomorrow; John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, has warned of “serious gaps” in the talks.
Independent 23rd Nov 2014 read more »
Reuters 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
BBC 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Germany
Sixty miles northeast of Düsseldorf, outside the town of Hamm in northwest Germany, workers are giving a final tune-up to a glittering new power station. Germany is the biggest proponent of the green electricity revolution, but this plant won’t be powered by the sun, wind or woodchips — it will burn dirty old coal. Built by German energy giant RWE at a cost of €2bn (£1.6bn), the plant is no aberration. This year the company, which owns Npower in Britain, and its rivals have poured billions of euros into a fleet of new coal-fired plants, the most polluting form of power generation. When finished they will be capable of supplying more than 8m households.
Sunday Times 23rd Nov 2014 read more »
China
China, which does nothing in small doses, will need about 1,000 nuclear reactors, 500,000 wind turbines or 50,000 solar farms as it takes up the fight against climate change.
Bloomberg 21st Nov 2014 read more »
Trident
A£37 million deal has been struck by Westminster with the US government for a dozen huge new Trident missile launchers more than a year before the UK parliament decides if the nuclear weapons system should be renewed. Sarah Boyack MSP, one of the candidates to become Labour’s Scottish leader, was “extremely concerned” the decision to renew Trident was being taken as read. “The MoD should not be pre-empting a decision of the UK parliament,” she said. “It’s unacceptable that we’re finding this out from US sources rather than the UK Government. “Spending billions on acquiring a new weapons system would be going in the wrong direction.”
Herald 23rd Nov 2014 read more »
Renewables
UK farms could be a major player in a shift towards a resilient, low-carbon energy system, according to a landmark report launched today by the Farm Power coalition. The coalition, which is made up of a growing number of farming bodies, businesses and NGOs, are now calling on policymakers and other key stakeholders, including supermarkets, to support the renewable energy vision. The research carried out by sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, which leads the coalition, and Nottingham Trent University, found there was at least 10GW of untapped resource across UK farms – equivalent to more than three times the installed capacity of the proposed new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C.
Click Green 21st Nov 2014 read more »
Renewables – wave
A technology development body is to be set up to encourage innovation in the wave energy industry, the Scottish Government has announced. The body, Wave Energy Scotland, will bring the best engineering and academic minds together to work on furthering wave technology, Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said. He is due to provide more details of his plans in a parliamentary statement at Holyrood next week. The announcement came less than 24 hours after a wave power company announced it has gone into administration after failing to secure enough funding to develop its technology. Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power (PWP) designs, manufactures and operates wave energy converters which it has been testing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. The company, which employs more than 50 staff, had been seeking a “strategic partner capable of taking the world’s most advanced wave energy technology into serial production”. The latest Scottish Government announcement does not directly refer to Pelamis. But ministers did say they recognise that early stage technologies, such as wave energy, can take time to flourish.
STV 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Herald 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
BBC 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Renewables – wind
CONSTRUCTION of the largest wind farm in the Scottish Highlands will require almost 10 times the amount of stone used to build the Berlin Wall, according to one of Britain’s leading environmental charities. The John Muir Trust (JMT) warns that an obsession with wind power is inflicting industrial-scale damage on the country’s wildest and most remote areas because vast quantities of stone are quarried to build access roads and create the foundations and bases for giant turbines. The charity is particularly concerned about plans for 67 turbines in the Monadhliath mountains overlooking Loch Ness in Inverness-shire.
Sunday Times 23rd Nov 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Hundreds of government-funded boreholes are set to be drilled across Britain to try to persuade the public that a looming shale gas boom can be developed safely, the Observer has learned. Sensors in the boreholes would detect possible water pollution or earthquakes caused by fracking and the information would be made public.
Observer 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Climate
The UK is dangerously “exposed” to increasingly extreme weather brought about by climate change, a leading adviser to the Government has warned. Professor Lord Krebs, who chairs an expert group of the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said thousands of lives could be lost in searing heatwaves, and a lack of spending on flood defences would lead to “unnecessary flood damage” unless action was taken. He called on Britain and other countries to do more to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, saying global warming could have “profound implications” even for wealthy countries such as the UK.
Independent 23rd Nov 2014 read more »
Next December, 196 nations will meet in Paris to agree a course of action to respond to climate change. They will do so under the auspices of the UN framework convention on climate change. This is an international treaty negotiated at the Earth summit in Rio in 1992 with the objective to “stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system”. The discussions in Paris in 2015 will be informed by the latest climate science. In our play 2071, which recently completed its inaugural run at the Royal Court theatre in London, directed by Katie Mitchell, we explore the science, i ts implications and the options before us. A key aim is to leave the audience better placed to participate in the public discourse, in which we all need to play a part. Climate change is a controversial subject that can raise strong emotions. We are all susceptible to being less open-minded and rational about it than we may appreciate. The climate system is very complex, yet its discussion is often oversimplified. There are gaps in our knowledge, and many scientific uncertainties, some of which are fundamentally unknowable. This makes it extremely difficult to predict precisely what the future holds and to determine exactly what actions, if any, to take. In addition there are economic considerations, political implications and ethical questions that further complicate the way forward.
Observer 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
Six vital steps world leaders must agree to take to protect Earth. International talks in Paris in 2015 could see the world’s nations agree to limit global warming to a rise of 2C.
Observer 22nd Nov 2014 read more »
