Hinkley
Britain’s first new nuclear power plant for a generation has been thrown into fresh doubt after French contractor EDF Energy began laying off staff at the site of the £14bn Hinkley Point C reactor. As the stand-off with the Government continued over the “strike price” for electricity from the plant, EDF said it would cut “the number of people working on the project for the time being”. The state-backed French company, which has so far spent around £800m on the project, declined to say how many of the 800 staff and contractors on the site would be stood down. But EDF sources said it would be a “significant” number, while denying the lay-offs amounted to brinkmanship. “This is not a bargaining chip. It’s good project management,” said a source.
Telegraph 23rd April 2013 read more »
As part of good project management, and to control costs, EDF Energy has taken steps to refocus its activities at its Hinkley Point C project. This reflects its priorities ahead of securing the financing necessary for the project. In this context much activity including further detailed pre-construction engineering work will continue ahead of the later construction phase. This means there will be a reduction in the number of people working on the project for the time being. Negotiations with the UK Government to agree a contract for the electricity from Hinkley Point C are making progress.
EDF Energy 23rd April 2013 read more »
EDF energy is cutting scores of jobs to control costs at the site of its proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The company is in the middle of difficult negotiations with ministers over the level of public subsidy the new reactors will receive over the next 40 years but insisted the project is not being mothballed and that it is not “holding a gun to the government’s head”. EDF and the government face a number of major obstacles in delivering new reactors even beyond the challenging financing. The project has yet to be approved by the European Union, which limits the state aid that can be given to industrial projects. The UK also has no site for the long term disposal of nuclear waste, after the rejection of a proposal in Cumbria by local councils. Such a facility was considered a prerequisite for the building of new reactors by David Cameron before the 2010 election. A senior EDF executive said recently: “We cannot afford to burn money every day, every week, every month without a clear understanding of where it’s leading us.”
Guardian 23rd April 2013 read more »
Prospect and Unite, the unions representing nuclear power workers, were not happy with the announcement by the debt-ridden French energy firm, EDF, that they are cutting the numbers doing preparatory work on the proposed power plant at Hinkley Point, C plant, in Somerset, to reduce costs. They would have been even less happy if they had heard Nigel Knee, EDF’s head of nuclear policy, tell the Westminster Energy and Environment Forum: “Arguably we should be looking for the investment that produces least jobs.” Candid, but politically not clever.
Independent 23rd April 2013 read more »
EDF is reducing its spending on its planned new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The company said it is refocusing its activities to control costs and that there will be a reduction in the number of people working on the project.
BBC 23rd April 2013 read more »
Telegraph 23rd April 2013 read more »
Independent 23rd April 2013 read more »
New Civil Engineer 23rd April 2013 read more »
Mirror 24th April 2013 read more »
Dow Jones 23rd April 2013 read more »
The leader of the union representing 21,000 workers in the nuclear decommissioning and energy supply industry has called on all parties involved in negotiations to redouble their efforts to reach agreement on a strike price for electricity generated by the planned Hinkley Point C in Somerset.
ITV 23rd April 2013 read more »
Lay-offs from EDF’s new Hinkley C development are a sign that the project could be on the verge of collapse, according to local campaigners in Somerset. “With today’s announcement of further lay-offs at Hinkley C, it looks like EDF could be preparing to pull-out,” said Theo Simon of the Stop Hinkley campaign. “There is a growing tide of challenges now being raised against the new nuclear plant – including doubts over its radioactive waste plan, EU competition laws, lack of adequate investment and the continued failure to reach agreement over fixing our future electricity prices in advance – so it’s not surprising that EDF are ready to cut their losses and run. But it will of course be a blow to the people in West Somerset who have pinned their hopes on EDFs PR promises of jobs and prosperity for all”.
Stop Hinkley 23rd April 2013 read more »
The Hinkley project will require a highly skilled workforce says Roger Stone, sector strategy manager South West for the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB). At its peak, the entire NNB programme will involve more than 250,000 workers, stimulate £1.5 billion annually in construction output and create business opportunities throughout the wider supply chain. However, for the jobs and economic benefits to materialise, a great deal of planning and investment will be necessary to ensure that we have the right skills to successfully deliver on such a monumental project.
Western Daily Press 23rd April 2013 read more »
Nuclear Subsidies
The nuclear industry enjoys a subsidy of at least £2.3bn a year and is in line for more public support under government plans to offer guaranteed prices for low-carbon power, a new report says. The research, commissioned by the environmental audit committee of MPs, risks inflaming the already heated debate about public support for new atomic power. The report’s publication comes as the committee launches an inquiry on Wednesday into subsidies for the wider energy industry. Government aid for other renewables is even higher than it is for nuclear – analysis by Oxford Energy Associates, a consultancy, estimates it at more than £3bn a year. The bulk of the support is provided under the Renewable Obligation scheme, which requires suppliers to provide a certain proportion of their electricity from approved renewable sources. “The government has said that there will be no public subsidy for new nuclear plants, but this research shows that the fixed-price contracts ministers are offering to EDF and other companies could represent a public subsidy,” said Joan Walley, a Labour MP and chair of the audit committee. “There may be a case for subsidies, but the government should come clean and admit it, if that is what is needed to keep the lights on and reduce carbon emissions,” she added.The bulk of the current £2.3bn subsidy is in the form of funding to deal with legacy nuclear waste.
FT 24th April 2013 read more »
Plutonium
Government plutonium swap-shop set to increase UK stockpile and turn Sellafield into dumping ground for plutonium no longer wanted by overseas customers. In a press release of 23rd April, the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) has given permission for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) – managers of Sellafield’s 118 tonne plutonium stockpile – to arrange title swaps and transfers for some of the 24 tonnes of foreign-owned plutonium currently held in the obscenely large and dangerous stockpile accumulated over the years through Sellafield’s reprocessing operations. The transfers will result in some 3 tonnes of foreign plutonium (including material of German and Dutch origin) being added to the UK-owned stocks, and just over half a tonne of German plutonium being transferred directly into Japan’s existing 16-tonne stock already stored at Sellafield.
CORE 23rd April 2013 read more »
The Government has agreed that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority can conduct a series of plutonium title swaps and title transfers with legacy overseas reprocessing customers. These swaps and transfers offer a cost effective and beneficial arrangement which allows the UK to gain national control over more of the civil plutonium in the UK and avoids the need to physically transport separated plutonium and its associated significant security measures.
DECC 23rd April 2013 read more »
Government Statement: subject to compliance with inter-governmental agreements and acceptable commercial arrangements, the UK is prepared to take ownership of overseas plutonium stored in the UK as a result of which it would be treated in with the same way as UK-owned plutonium. The Government considers that there are advantages to having national control over more of the civil plutonium in the UK, as this gives us greater influence over how we ultimately manage it.
DECC 23rd April 2013 read more »
Britain said it would take ownership of 2,950 kg of waste plutonium that it has been storing on behalf of European utilities and may reprocess it into fuel for a planned new generation of nuclear plants.
Reuters 23rd April 2013 read more »
Generating Capacity
What might you do as an energy company faced with a promise from the government that, if capacity availability for power generation looked a little tight over the next few years, you might get paid for delivering capacity, either from new or existing plants?
Alan Whitehead MP 23rd April 2013 read more »
Springfields
Police are to be withdrawn from a key nuclear site in Lancashire in a security shakeup, the Evening Post can reveal. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) has had armed officers stationed at the Springfields site in Salwick near Preston for decades. But a recent review of security at the site, which manufactures nuclear fuel products for the UK’s nuclear power stations, has concluded there is no longer a need for police officers there. The security of the site, which has been in operation since 1946 and employs 1,200 people, was put out to tender and has been won by a firm called Mitie Group plc. The CNC has denied it is a cost cutting exercise.
Lancashire Evening Post 22nd April 2013 read more »
Nuclear History
Letter David Lowry: It will not need a release of secret papers by our spooks to know how Margaret Thatcher used the nuclear industry to undermine the miners in the dispute in the early 1980s. She planned it over four years earlier, something we know from the minutes of the Cabinet committee on economic strategy held on 23 October 1979, barely a few months into Thatcher’s first term in power, initially leaked, and now posted on the Thatcher Foundation web site. They state: “A nuclear (energy) programme would have the advantage of removing a substantial portion of electricity production from the dangers of disruption by industrial action by coal miners or transport workers.”
Morning Star 23rd April 2013 read more »
Chernobyl
A FIREMAN who risked his life to tackle the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has spoken to a charity which helps children affected by the blast.
Northern Echo 23rd April 2013 read more »
North Korea
North Korea has demanded to be recognised as a nuclear weapons state, rejecting a US condition that it agree to give up its nuclear arms programme before talks can begin.
Guardian 23rd April 2013 read more »
Telegraph 23rd April 2013 read more »
RADIOACTIVE gases that could have come from North Korea’s nuclear test in February have unexpectedly been detected, possibly providing the first “smoking gun” evidence of the explosion. However, the 9 April measurement by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) – almost two months after Pyongyang said it had carried out the underground detonation – has given no indication of whether plutonium or highly-enriched uranium was used.
Scotsman 24th April 2013 read more »
Japan
Operators of Fukushima nuclear power plant have confirmed they were forced to halt the cooling of a spent fuel pool in order to remove two dead rats. It was the third time in five weeks that critical cooling equipment has been forced to go off line at the plant in northeast Japan due to rodents.
Telegraph 24th April 2013 read more »
A U.N. nuclear watchdog team said Japan may need longer than the projected 40 years to decommission the Fukushima power plant and urged Tepco to improve stability at the facility.
Japan Times 24th April 2013 read more »
U.S. officials and experts have expressed strong reservations about the plan to operate a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori to recover fissionable plutonium while most of the nation’s reactors remain shuttered, a Japan Atomic Energy Commission member said. “It was an unprecedentedly severe reaction,” Tatsujiro Suzuki, the commission’s vice chairman, said Monday of U.S. officials’ comments during his trip there earlier this month. “I think this is because the Liberal Democratic Party stands firm to uphold a policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, and also because plans to operate the reprocessing plant are moving forward,” Suzuki said.
Japan Times 24th April 2013 read more »
Fukushima Crisis update 19th to 22nd April.
Greenpeace 23rd April 2013 read more »
Egypt
Russia will help Egypt develop its nuclear power programme, Trade and Industry Minister Hatem Saleh said on Monday, signalling that the Islamist-led state will press ahead with its quest for atomic energy.
News24 24th April 2013 read more »
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s atomic energy ambitions are grand enough to grant several reactor vendors multi-billion dollar contracts to keep them busy building in the desert for decades.
Economic Times 23rd April 2013 read more »
Reuters 23rd April 2013 read more »
Iran
‘We are heading toward a collision course by the end of the year’: Iran will be capable of making a nuclear weapon in two months, warns Israeli intelligence official.
Independent 23rd April 2013 read more »
Energy Efficiency
Investments in efficiency help manage rising energy costs and can enhance a company’s role as a corporate citizen, as well as being profitable and low-risk. A 2008 McKinsey report estimated that $170bn could be invested in energy efficiency yielding an average internal rate of return of 17%. That’s good news for the company as it increases its efficiency, good news for investors and good news for the planet. Why wouldn’t more companies want to be investing in efficiency?
Guardian 22nd April 2013 read more »
Carbon
The obituaries that have been written for the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) could yet prove premature if a growing group of MEPs, national ministers and green businesses have their way. Although at the same time as proposals are being developed to revive proposed reforms to the bloc’s carbon market after they were voted down last week, analysts are counselling that fixing the scheme this side of 2020 remains a long shot, barring a shift in the parliament’s political balance at next year’s European elections.
Business Green 23rd April 2013 read more »
George Monbiot: The European emissions trading system died last week. Why? Because of the lobbying power of big business.
Guardian 22nd April 2013 read more »
THE UK’s carbon footprint has grown by a tenth in the past two decades, the Westminster government’s climate advisers say. The amount of emissions the country has produced domestically, for example from transport, power, heating and manufacturing, has fallen by about 20 per cent over two decades, the committee on climate change said. But increased imports of goods, which create emissions during their manufacture in other countries, are pushing up the overall total of greenhouse gases for which the UK is responsible, a new report said. Concerns that policies which aim to cut carbon emissions in the UK are pushing manufacturing overseas are unfounded, however, the report revealed.
Scotsman 24th April 2013 read more »
Herald 24th April 2013 read more »
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said that the UK’s total contribution towards heating the climate has actually increased. This is because the UK is importing goods that produce CO2 in other countries. The UK has been cutting emissions at home, but it has been importing more goods from other countries, pushing up CO2 emissions there.
BBC 24th April 2013 read more »
Shale Gas
Shale gas extracted in the UK would be lower carbon than imported gas from countries such as Qatar, and help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if well regulated, the government’s chief climate change advisers have said. But in a report published on Wednesday, the Committee on Climate Change also sounded caution on the prospects for widespread development of shale in the UK. It said that relying heavily on gas would scupper the UK’s chances of meeting emissions targets in the longer term, and prevent needed investments in low-carbon technologies. Green campaigners also focused on research from the CCC that found the UK’s carbon footprint was increasing, instead of shrinking, if imports were taken into account. The UK is a major importer of manufactured goods, especially from China, and the CCC examined the impact on the climate of emissions from the production of these goods.
Guardian 24th April 2013 read more »
