Sellafield
Since the £2.8Bn Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) was opened in 1994, Sellafield’s ’flagship’ reprocessing plant has lost some 1000 tonnes of business contracted by overseas customers. Prior to its opening in March 1994, BNFL confirmed that it had secured overseas contracts amounting to 5334 tonnes of Light Water Reactor (LWR) spent fuel from utilities in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Holland. A majority of this fuel was scheduled for reprocessing, along with UK’s Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (AGR) fuel in THORP’s first 10- year ‘Baseload’ period with the remainder of overseas fuel (contracted from German utilities only), scheduled for the plant’s subsequent ‘Post-Baseload’ period – an order book that BNFL confidently predicted would be swelled by further overseas contracts. In the event, no new overseas contracts were ever won. Today, following information requests from CORE, Sellafield Ltd has confirmed that a total of 4373 tonnes of overseas fuel is expected to have been reprocessed by the time THORP completes all existing overseas contracts in 2016 – a shortfall of almost 1000 tonnes on the plant’s original order book. The latest figures show that a total of 4189 tonnes of overseas spent fuel has been reprocessed to date, with a further 184 tonnes still to be reprocessed and mostly of German origin. Some 50% of this balance is expected to be dealt with this financial year 2014/15, and the remainder in 2015/16.
CORE 25th July 2014 read more »
Nuclear Accidents
A new report from the US National Academy of Sciences says not enough is being done to prevent worst case scenario nuclear accidents. We agree. A year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster began in March 2011……the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz […] calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past. Unfortunately, the nuclear industry and its supporters both inside and outside governments didn’t pay much attention. Skip forward and another group of scientists warns of the dangers of devastating nuclear accidents and how not enough it being done to even consider them let alone prevent them. They argue that too little thinking is done about the “freakishly unusual” that can cause a nuclear disaster.
Greenpeace 25th July 2014 read more »
ABWRs
Developers of a proposed £8bn nuclear power station on Anglesey have welcomed the initial go-ahead for their chosen reactor technology. UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey has provisionally approved the planned reactor from Hitachi-GE UK for Wylfa Newydd. The step is a legal requirement for assessing new nuclear power plant proposals. A public consultation on the decision is now open until October. Horizon Nuclear Power chief operating officer, Alan Raymant, said: “This is an important step forward and we welcome the positive draft decision by the secretary of state.”
BBC 25th July 2014 read more »
Hartlepool
TWO men who were seen “acting suspiciously” near Hartlepool Power Station were searched by police. Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) officers received information about the actions of the pair near to the power station, at Seal Sands on the outskirts of Hartlepool. The men were stopped and searched and a mobile phone belonging to one of the men was confiscated as part of the police investigation. But inquiries found that the men posed no threat to the power station or the public and as a result they were not arrested and the case has been closed.
Hartlepool Mail 25th July 2014 read more »
Electricity Market Reform
Yesterday the Government announced what amounts to a cut in deployment of onshore wind power by 50 per cent and a cut in the amount of large scale solar farms that can be deployed to more or less zero. Since 2010 onshore wind has been installed at a rate of around 1000 MW (1GW) a year. But yesterday’s announcement, with only £50 million per year of extra money allocated for new projects for so-called ‘mature’ technologies such as onshore wind and solar farms, means that there is not enough money for more than around 500 MW of onshore wind to be deployed a year until 2020. This means that only around 2500 MW, less than half the 7000 MW of consented onshore windfarms (and none of the many proposed solar farms,) can be deployed.
Dave Toke’s Blog 25th July 2014 read more »
The government’s draft budget for the new Contracts for Difference (CfD) regime will result in consumers paying more on their energy bills than they need to, according to renewables groups. The Solar Trade Association (STA), Renewable UK, and the Renewable Energy Association (REA) all said the £205 million per year CfD budget was weighted too heavily towards immature and expensive generation technologies. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has set out £155 million per year for less established technologies (pot two), such as offshore wind, wave, and tidal stream generation, with £55 million per year set aside for established technologies (pot one), including onshore wind and large scale solar.
Utility Week 24th July 2014 read more »
Radwaste
“The government will do a screening programme of the entire UK (except for Scotland) and that’s fine, providing it’s a detailed survey and not a cursory one.” ~ Eddie Martin
Cumbria Trust 24th July 2014 read more »
The UK Government has today stepped up its search for an underground site to store the country’s radioactive waste and “provide protection over hundreds of thousands of years,” with communities poised to receive up to £1m a year just to consider hosting the facility. It states: “The Welsh Government is currently considering the evidence submitted in response to the call for evidence. If the Welsh Government decides to review its current policy, it will do so in an open and transparent way, which will include public consultation.” Craig Bennett of Friends of the Earth said: “Nearly 60 years after the UK’s first nuclear power station was switched on, we’re still not even close to figuring out an adequate solution for the industry’s legacy of toxic radioactive waste. The fact that the Government is having to offer bribes to communities to even talk to them about options, while making it clear they will override their views anyway, makes it crystal clear that this is a technology of the past, not the future. Successive UK governments have wasted immense amounts of money and political effort on nuclear power down the years. If even half of that had been put into safe, clean renewables and energy efficiency, we’d all be in a much better place.” A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “This White Paper does not apply to Wales. The Welsh Government currently has a reserved position on the geological disposal of higher activity radioactive waste and neither opposes or supports this policy. “In April we issued a call for evidence on whether to review our higher activity waste management policy, partly because we are required by EU law to report our policy for the safe and responsible management of radioactive waste by summer 2015. We are currently considering the evidence submitted in response to that call for evidence and will publish our decision and options for the way forward shortly.
Wales Online 24th July 2014 read more »
Communities could be paid millions of pounds just to consider having a facility to bury nuclear waste in their area, the government has said. Community projects could receive payments of up to £1 million a year if local people enter discussions about hosting a permanent geological disposal facility in their local area. This would rise to £2.5 million a year if bore-holes were drilled to assess the suitability of a site.
Professional Engineer 25th July 2014 read more »
Today’s entry reports on the proposed extension of the Planning Act 2008 regime to a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste. This week the government produced a White Paper (i.e. a statement of proposed legislation) on the long-term disposal of radioactive waste, A National Policy Statement (NPS) will be produced, although unlike the one for nuclear power stations, it will not be site-specific, as the site selection process will not be complete by then. All this will be in place by 2016.
BDB 25th July 2014 read more »
A disposal facility for deep disposal of nuclear waste should become a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) meaning that the planning application would be decided by the secretary of state rather than local councils, the government has said. The document states that both a GDF and borehole investigations necessary to identify where the facility would be located would be considered by the Planning Inspectorate, who would then provide a report to the secretary of state for a final decision. The government’s response acknowledges that several responses to the consultation suggested that the government was trying to force through planning permission and remove local councils from the process. But the government justified its stance by saying that the NSIP regime includes clear provisions for the involvement of local authorities where a development is taking place, and those neighbouring it.
Planning Resource 25th July 2014 read more »
Radhealth
About two weeks ago, I received an unsolicited email from Elsevier, the international science publishers, about my recent article in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (JENR) on increased rates of childhood leukemias near nuclear power plants (NPPs). It informed me that my article had been downloaded 482 times since its publication in March 2014. For people used to 100,000s of views of social media posts, this may sound like small beer, but in the specialist world on environmental radioactivity, it’s quite a statistic, even though it’s me saying so (smile). It means, apart from being a nice little earner for Elsevier at $36 per download, that a sizeable chunk of the scientists subscribing to JENR have read the article: indeed, in its own little niche, it could be said to have gone viral or partly viral.
Ian Fairlie 25th July 2014 read more »
In March 2014, an article on increased rates of childhood leukemias near nuclear power plants (NPPs) was published in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (JENR). A previous post discussed the making of the article and its high readership: this post describes its content in layman’s terms. The core issue is that, world-wide, over 60 epidemiological studies have examined cancer incidences in children near nuclear power plants (NPPs): most (>70%) indicate leukemia increases. I can think of no other area of toxicology (eg asbestos, lead, smoking) with so many studies, and with such clear associations as those between NPPs and child leukemias. Yet many nuclear Governments and the nuclear industry refute these findings and continue to resist their implications. It’s similar to the situations with cigarette smoking in the 1960s and with man-made global warming nowadays.
Ian Fairlie 25th July 2014 read more »
Analysis of recent data suggests that children, teenagers and young adults currently living close to Sellafield and Dounreay are not at an increased risk of developing cancer. Equally, there is no evidence of any increased cancer risk later in life among those resident in these areas at birth, according to a report in the British Journal of Cancer.
Nuclear Engineering International 24th July 2014 read more »
PRISM
IBERDROLA and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation towards the deployment of PRISM, a technology that reuses reprocessed plutonium. The two companies, along with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will analyse the options for GEH’s PRISM technology, which is designed to run on fuels that would normally be considered waste products: the transuranic (that is, heavier than uranium) metals found in spent nuclear fuel, and plutonium.
The Engineer 25th July 2014 read more »
Japan
An anti-nuclear citizens’ network has translated a Japanese court’s ruling blocking the restarts of two reactors into English, Korean and Chinese to spread the “universal values” of the judgment. Aileen Mioko Smith, the 64-year-old leader of the Kyoto-based anti-nuclear group Green Action, said she received a number of inquiries from nongovernmental groups in the United States and European embassies in Tokyo about the implications of the Fukui District Court’s landmark ruling on May 21. The court ordered Kansai Electric Power Co. not to restart the two reactors at its Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, saying that local residents can seek a halt to reactor operations because it is impossible for modern science to predict the scale of possible earthquakes.
Asahi Shimbun 13th July 2014 read more »
Scientists have found abnormalities in the blood of monkeys living near the site of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown.
Independent 25th July 2014 read more »
Nuclear Ships
Fifty years ago the world’s first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship sailed from the US to Europe on a publicity tour to persuade the world to embrace the atomic age. It didn’t quite work out like that. Sleek in shape, painted red and white, its interior decorated in what was then ultra-modern chrome, the NS Savannah wasn’t quite like any other cargo ship. It had facilities for passengers. The 600ft, 12,000-ton ship boasted a cinema, veranda bar and swimming pool. The cabins had no curtains. Instead, “polarised” windows, designed to cut glare, lined the sides of staterooms. The ship was one of the few to spring directly from the imagination of a US president. In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower had made his famous Atoms for Peace speech, attempting to balance the growing fear of nuclear apocalypse with optimism about the possibility of civilian use of atomic energy.
BBC 25th July 2014 read more »
Trident
Congratulations to the ten anti-nuclear protestors in Plymouth who blockaded Devonport naval base this morning. The activists chained themselves to their parked car in front of the entrance to the dockyard at 6am. The action was in protest against the work on nuclear-armed submarines which takes place at the base. The Vanguard-Class submarines which carry the UK’s Trident missiles are refitted at Devonport Dockyard, which has been the focus for many local protests over the years.
CND 25th July 2014 read more »
Renewables – solar
Bradford Council has become the first local authority in the UK to back plans for its schools to run on solar power, as it emerged that nationally just five schools have installed renewables that qualify for feed-in tariff incentives in the past year. The council has passed a motion led by the Green Party to support Friends of the Earth Run on Sun campaign, which will result in it providing technical and financial suport to schools wishing to install solar photovoltaics.
Business Green 25th July 2014 read more »
The Solar Building Company (SBC) and Mere Environmental have revealed plans to install a 49MW solar farm in Anglesey. The companies are seeking planning permission for the scheme which would see the development split across four separate areas of land located around Llanfihangel yn Nhowyn. SBC expects to start construction on the site in 2016, meaning that the developers will have to use the unproven contracts for difference (CfD) support mechanism instead of the RO scheme which is set to end in April 2015 for solar projects over 5MW. Speaking to Solar Power Portal, James Steynor, managing director of SBC explained that although the CfD budget was low, it was “not a disaster”. However, he pointed out that turbulent policy “destabilises the sector and costs jobs”.
Solar Portal 25th July 2014 read more »
The Solar Trade Association has accused the government of stacking the deck against solar after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) revealed that only £50 million would be available per year in the auction pot for Contracts for Difference (CfD). Solar developers looking to install projects over 5MW from April 2015 will have to compete with hydro, energy from waste, onshore wind, landfill gas and sewage gas for a share of the proposed £50 million pot. Reacting to the news, Leonie Greene, head of external affairs at the STA said: “The message the government is sending out today is clear. It is backing nuclear and other more expensive renewables over value for money solar.
Solar Portal 25th July 2014 read more »
Solar and onshore wind will compete for a share of £50 million a year under the contracts for difference (CfDs) scheme, according to a document published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Solar Portal 25th July 2014 read more »
The skies are threatening to pour on the Apple solar farm but as the woman in-charge of the company’s environmental initiatives points out: the panels are still putting out some power. Apple is still greening its act. The company, which once drew fire from campaigners for working conditions in China and heavy reliance on fossil fuels, is now leading other technology companies in controlling its own power supply and expanding its use of renewable energy.
Guardian 25th July 2014 read more »
Renewables – wind
One of Britain’s leading universities has apologised after admitting it may have misled the public and journalists by claiming wind turbine fires are a major problem for the industry and could be 10 times more common than thought. Imperial College London this week issued a clarification note on controversial research by Dr Guillermo Rein, from its Department of Mechanical Engineering, who examined the potential scale of economic losses from turbines catching fire.
Business Green 23rd July 2014 read more »
Green Deal
The Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF) has been closed indefinitely by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) after just seven weeks. The incentive package was only launched in early June but has already gone through its £120 million budget due to “overwhelming demand”.
Utility Week 25th July 2014 read more »
Guardian 25th July 2014 read more »
After just six short weeks, the Green Deal Home Improvement fund is no more. The cashback fund, launched on June 9, abruptly closed to new applicants on Thursday night. The Department for Energy and Climate said “overwhelming popular demand” meant the allocation of £120m – meant to last until April 2015 – has already been hoovered up by households keen to install double glazing and insulation. But few will be fooled into thinking this is a success, regardless of how the politicians present it.
Telegraph 25th July 2014 read more »
The government’s latest proposals to tackle the UK’s catastrophic fuel poverty problem were published with a fanfare this week. But critics accused the coalition of “setting meaningless targets” and ignoring the plight of pensioners. Fuel poverty campaigners united in criticising the delays in helping those in fuel poverty. Jenny Saunders, of the charity National Energy Action (NEA) said: “There is a significant risk that more than a million fuel-poor households will continue to live in hard-to-heat homes by 2025 and the £1bn savings on bills will not be achieved.” Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, was more forthright, branding the strategy “unambitious” and the targets “inadequate”. Ed Matthew, of the Energy Bill Revolution said: “The strategy is so full of holes they will never plug the UK’s fuel-poor homes.” Jenny Holland, of the Association for the Conservation of Energy said the plans ignore the most vulnerable people. “By setting a target only for the 2.3 million deemed to be in fuel poverty, the Government is ignoring 2 million households who are far too poor to afford a Green Deal loan to upgrade their home.” The Government’s proposals are up for consultation until 7 October. Ms Saunders said: “We will ensure the voices of the fuel-poor are heard through the consultation period.”
Independent 26th July 2014 read more »
Energy Efficiency
This article describes how two separate government departments are now requiring companies to comply with requirements to calculate, and then display, relative energy performances in commercial buildings from A to G, in two entirely different and non-compatible ways.
ACE 24th July 2014 read more »
In proposing a 30% rather than a 40% energy demand reduction target, the European Commission is increasing the risks that European Union member states face from fossil fuel dependence and slowing the economic and social benefits of better insulated homes and lower energy bills. The EU should have the courage to adopt a legally binding target of 40% energy savings by 2030 as was originally proposed. This would ensure that all member states introduce effective energy efficiency policies and would reinforce the EU’s leadership role in reducing carbon emissions and preventing dangerous climate change.
Sussex Energy Group 25th July 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
How’s this for a paradox? Fracking has just suffered its greatest setback yet in Britain – in the week that has perhaps done most to make the case for it. For, even as concern about Europe’s energy security escalated following the downing of MH17, a planning application by a shale company was rejected for the first time.
Telegraph 25th July 2014 read more »
