Dounreay
A TORY MSP hopeful has been ridiculed for saying he wants to reboot Dounreay’s nuclear plant. Malcolm Mackay says he wants it to start producing electricity – 21 years after it closed down. The remote Caithness facility is being decommissioned at a cost of £3billion to the taxpayer. Politicians and nuclear experts described former UKIP European Parliament candidate Mackay’s plan as “ridiculous”. Mackay, a business developer, is standing for Holyrood in Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and is on the Highlands and Islands regional list. On an election leaflet, he pledges to campaign to “restart Dounreay’s nuclear programme” as part of a “Scottish northern powerhouse”. The leaflet, along with statements from other Tory list hopefuls, was sent to homes in the Highlands.
Daily Record 22nd Nov 2015 read more »
Radhealth
Letter sent by a supporter of Radiation Free Lakeland to MPs: I was concerned and disappointed by your misleading comments in the Paris Climate Change Conference debate in Parliament today. Electricity generation by nuclear power is not clean nor low carbon when the full nuclear fuel cycle is taken into consideration. I have raised the following research by Dr Ian Fairlie, published in The Ecologist (link below) with Minister Amber Rudd MP and the NuGen consultation on the proposed new nuclear reactors to be built on the green belt buffer zone and flood plain next to Sellafield and which is of concern to many.
Radiation Free Lakeland 22nd Nov 2015 read more »
Energy Supplies
It doesn’t sound like much – only a few fractured bricks deep inside an ageing Scottish power station – but when EDF discovered cracks inside the graphite core of Hunterston B nuclear reactor in Ayrshire last week, it revealed a broader malaise in Britain’s energy industry. The plant, which has been pumping out electricity since the mid-1970s, doesn’t pose an immediate danger, EDF says, yet those cracks demonstrate the challenge that Amber Rudd, the first Conservative energy secretary in 20 years, faces to revamp Britain’s energy industry while, at the same time, keeping the lights on. Decades of underinvestment and endless tinkering with policy have left the UK increasingly reliant on a fleet of clapped-out old nuclear and coal-fired power stations. Built in the 1960s and 1970s, together they still supply at least half of all the nation’s electricity. Many are due to close over the next few months, opening a yawning supply gap. Others, like Hunterston B, which was not due to shut until 2023, are in urgent need of repairs. It’s been obvious for years that new stations are needed urgently to fill the gap, not merely windmills that generate intermittent electricity. That is why it was welcome last week when Ms Rudd used a speech in Westminster to inject some long overdue common sense into energy policy. For all the pragmatism she has brought to the debate over how to power Britain without bankrupting industry and consumers, Ms Rudd faces a daunting task: after years of confusion, rebuilding fragile confidence among investors will be tough; at the same time, rock-bottom wholesale electricity prices are making subsidy-free investment of any kind look unattractive; and many of the industry’s key players, such as RWE and E.ON, are deep in financial crisis. For an industry that relies on big investments to build pieces of kit that take years to complete and must remain in service for decades that follow, none of this is encouraging. Nor is it likely to trigger the flood of investment that Ms Rudd wants to rejuvenate the power sector while keeping household bills at an acceptable level. EDF looks set to press ahead with a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, but few others are queueing up to build new UK power plants. Most worryingly, the timeframe Ms Rudd faces is extremely tight. Although National Grid is confident that Britain’s energy supplies this winter are secure, the cushion of spare capacity is falling away fast. According to one study last week, by April next year the shortfall in UK “dispatchable generation” – the kind of flexible power generating capacity that can be switched on and off, unlike wind or solar – will be 52.3 gigawatts, well below peak UK demand of 54.2 gigawatts. It means volatile and higher prices – bad news for both industry and consumers. It also will force National Grid to adopt more emergency measures, including shutting down industrial consumers at peak times to manage demand.
Times 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
ENERGY experts have called for some of the Longannet power station’s generators to be kept switched on when it closes next year to help prevent a scenario where Scotland could be without electricity for up to 36 hours. Some of the most experienced figures in the industry have urged the UK and Scottish governments to intervene to prevent Scottish Power’s Fife plant, the last coal-fired power station in Scotland, closing completely in March next year. Sir Donald Miller, former Chairman of Scottish Power, Colin Gibson, retired Power Network Director of National Grid and Professor Iain Macleod, Past President of The Institution of Engineers in Scotland, have now had three meetings with officials in Energy Minster Fergus Ewing’s department and have also briefed the Secretary of State David Mundell. They say that under the privatisation arrangements neither the power companies nor National Grid have had any responsibility for planning long term security of supplies.
Herald 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
Letter Malcolm Parkin: THE real purpose of so-called “smart” electricity meters is surely rationing or variable charging, and the mere idea of that is a disgrace. Electricity should now be in low-cost continuous supply. When nuclear fission was first used to generate electricity in 1953, the possibility of an unlimited cheap supply of this clean and efficient fuel became a reality. So why did we put a limit on the use of that genius technology, in favour of wood burning and windmills, that produce unreliable and expensive electricity that many can no longer afford?
Herald 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
Hungary
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said last Friday his country is moving ahead with expansion plans at its Paks nuclear power plant, despite the European Union’s (EU) legal action against the move, Kallanish Energy reports. The EU started legal actions last week over a contract Hungary awarded to Russia’s state-owned Rosatom, for construction of two new reactors and the refurbishment of two others at the Paks complex, “without a transparent procedure.”
Kallanish Energy 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
China
Hubin is one of dozens of sites across the country where officials have plans ready, awaiting further approval, to build atomic reactors over the next decade — an ambitious program to expand the use of nuclear energy that Beijing considers essential to weaning the Chinese economy from its reliance on coal-fired plants, which churn out air pollution and carbon dioxide. Ask villagers here what they think of the proposed plant, though, and talk quickly turns to the Communist government’s dismal record of industrial accidents, as well as the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Residents in Hubin will be resettled to new homes a few miles away, but many said that they would still feel threatened living so close to a nuclear station.
New York Times 21st Nov 2015 read more »
US
Energy companies are finding that making plans to close a nuclear power plant doesn’t end the protests and anger. In Massachusetts, residents who live near Entergy Corporation’s Pilgrim Generating Station, worry about health and environmental threats from the spent radioactive fuel that remains at the plant once the power plant closes. And they’re not being quiet about it. “My house is six miles across open water from the reactor,” says Mary Lampert, the director of the citizen group Pilgrim Watch. “I can see it from my house, which is real motivation to get to work on the very serious issues that threaten our communities.” Lampert and her fellow activists are asking that the spent fuel be removed from storage pools and placed into dry casks on site. She says it’s the best they can hope for. She is right, according to nuclear energy expert Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland. “Currently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s position, however bizarre it might sound, is that we can leave these wastes at power plant sites forever, that it will be safe — despite the fact that it has plutonium in it that lasts for tens of thousands of years,” Makhijani says.
PRI 21st Nov 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
Subsidies for solar power are 22 times less than people think, according to a new YouGov poll commissioned by the Solar Trade Association. On average, respondents with a view estimated that solar accounts for £196 per year – but in reality subsidy for solar only accounts for £9 on an average household bill of £1,300 a year. The median estimate was £100. Many respondents said they did not know this. A survey on wind power earlier this year found that perceptions of the cost of wind were equally high. A spokesman for the Solar Trade Association said: “The Government has justified the cuts to solar and renewables on the basis of reducing costs on bills, but hasn’t told people that the cost of getting solar subsidy-free – a breakthrough achievement – is relatively modest.”
Scottish Energy News 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
Renewables
Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi have done it again. This time they’ve spelled out how 139 countries can each generate all the energy needed for homes, businesses, industry, transportation, agriculture—everything—from wind, solar and water power technologies, by 2050. Their national blueprints, released Nov. 18, follow similar plans they have published in the past few years to run each of the 50 U.S. states on renewables, as well as the entire world. Energy demand across the 139 nations by 2050 would be met with a broad set of wind, water and solar technologies: 19.4 percent onshore wind farms, 12.9 percent offshore wind farms, 42.2 percent utility-scale photovoltaic arrays, 5.6 percent rooftop solar panels, 6.0 percent commercial rooftop solar panels, 7.7 percent concentrated solar power arrays, 4.8 percent hydroelectricity, and 1.47 percent geothermal, wave and tidal power. Jacobson, Delucchi and more than a dozen colleagues from around the world have posted the details, country by country, in a self-published paper they released online. Hoping to make it available for COP, they have yet to publish it in a journal, but they intend to, Jacobson says. The previous plans have all been published.
Scientific American 19th Nov 2015 read more »
Letter Robin Russell-Jones: Matt Ridley, rather surprisingly, proposes that kerosene has proved beneficial to health. According to the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, kerosene is flammable and explosive above 37 degrees. It is an irritant to skin and eyes, and accidental ingestion is a common cause of fatalities in children. In India and Africa it is widely used as a fuel for heating and illumination in villages that lack electricity, but it is a major cause of indoor air pollution and won’t run an electrical appliance. A far better solution is to charge a battery using solar power during the day, which will provide sufficient power to run LED lighting and a computer during the hours of darkness. Earlier this year, Jeremy Leggett, founder of two such companies, SolarAid and Solarcentury, won the Gothenburg award for bringing this type of clean energy to more than 9m people.
FT 22nd Nov 2015 read more »
Sixteen of the world’s largest energy companies have launched a joint plan to nearly double the planet’s renewable energy capacity by 2025. The partners in the project, including EDF, Vestas, Iberdrola and Schneider Electric, propose a four-pronged plan to remove current barriers to renewable deployment.
Edie 20th Nov 2015 read more »
Renewable Heat
A heat pump manufactured by Star Renewable Energy has been shipped from Glasgow to E.ON’s community energy centre in Cranbrook following a launch attended by MSPs Sarah Boyack and Ken MacIntosh. The renewable heat technology will allow renewable heating and hot water to be delivered to 300 brand new homes through a network of super-insulated underground pipes and will eventually deliver the harvested heat to 3,500 new homes and 1.4 million square feet of industrial space. Star Renewable Energy director Dave Pearson talked about the uncertainty of the UK’s Government indecision about the continuity of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) past March 2016 is causing. He said: “It is particularly astounding that technology hailed as “game-changing” by former UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey, which can draw warmth from rivers and provide affordable, clean heat for homes across the country and save millions of tonnes of CO2 is not receiving the same level of support of technologies such as nuclear, when half of the energy we use in the UK does not come as electricity but in the form of heat”.
Scottish Energy News 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
Community Energy
The latest round of UK government cuts will devastate the community energy sector, writes Lesley Riddoch. This Friday signals the end of growth in the UK’s thriving/fledgling community energy sector. It’s the last day claims can be made for tax relief on investments in community renewables and the last in a series of blows by Westminster that virtually ends new community wind, solar, hydro or biomass projects in Scotland. Ironically, this comes a week after one of the most astonishing community energy achievements. Last week, a remote Highland community of 228 people hit its target of three quarters of a million pounds invested in a small community-owned hydro scheme in just five weeks. The Applecross Community Hydro project – run by the aptly named “Apple Juice” Community Benefit Society – will now produce hydro electricity from one of the short but dependable and vigorous rivers in remote Lochalsh.
Scotsman 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
Energy Efficiency
Big six supplier Eon has called on the government for policy clarity on energy efficiency as Ofgem figures reveal the first target for the current Energy Company Obligation (ECO) period have been hit more than a year early.
Edie 20th Nov 2015 read more »
CCS
SNP MP Roger Mullin has called on the UK Government to include details of how it will support the proposed Peterhead carbon capture and storage (CCS) project following the announcement by UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd that coal plants will be phased out in favour of gas plants over the next ten years. The Peterhead carbon capture and storage project remains in the bidding for funding as part of the UK Government’s £1 billion CCS commercialisation programme. The Peterhead CCS project – a collaboration between Shell and SSE – is the world’s first full-scale gas CCS project. The project was given planning permission in June and final investment decisions on the project are expected early in 2016 and the project aims to be operational in 2018-19.
Scottish Energy News 23rd Nov 2015 read more »
Climate Conference
Former Green Party chair Sir Jonathon Porritt has traditionally been pessimistic about world leaders’ efforts. Environmentalists will hardly be holding their breaths when world leaders gather in Paris a week today for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The conference hopes to agree measures to keep the increase in global temperatures under the 2°C limit scientists believe is needed to stop dangerous climate change. There have been plenty of other conferences – such as Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997 – that raised hopes but proved disappointing. But this time could be different, according to one of the UK’s leading environmental campaigners. Sir Jonathon Porritt, former Green Party chair, has traditionally been pessimistic about world leaders doing what it takes to tackle climate change. But in an interview with The Independent, Sir Jonathon said he was greatly encouraged by pledges made recently by more than 160 countries to cut their carbon emissions by 2030. If enacted, these cuts would collectively limit global warming to 2.7°C. And he was optimistic about the technological advances being made in renewable energy generation and electricity storage that had made it feasible to eradicate fossil fuels in the coming decades and replace them with an entirely green power supply.
Independent 22nd Nov 2015 read more »
Ed Miliband has called on the UK to become the first country in the world to enshrine in law a target of reducing carbon emissions to zero. The former Labour leader and energy secretary said Britain should show leadership and send a clear signal to businesses by building on its existing target of cutting emissions by 80% by 2050 under the Climate Change Act.
Guardian 22nd Nov 2015 read more »
Ed Miliband: Just like at Copenhagen, what matters as much as Paris is what happens afterwards. That is why countries are rightly seeking to build an upwards ratchet mechanism into the agreement. If these pledges are the start, not the final word – a prelude to greater ambition – then we can still avoid the most dangerous effects of global warming. What does this mean for Britain? The last Labour government introduced the Climate Change Act, with all-party support for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 – the first country in the world to legislate for such deep, long-term cuts. It is essential we remain on track for this goal, including making the right decisions about the period to 2030 which will face the government in the coming months. But what the science now tells us is that we will need to go further and see a complete end to the accumulation of additional greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The world will need to move to zero emissions at some time in the second half of the century, as President Obama and the other G7 leaders, including David Cameron, have rightly acknowledged. A point will come when the total carbon budget for the world will simply be used up.
Guardian 22nd Nov 2015 read more »
