Rosatom
Plans to allow Russia to build nuclear power plants in the UK are under review because of the Ukraine crisis, the Government has said. Ministers signed a nuclear energy co-operation pact with Russia’s state nuclear firm Rosatom in September in order to enable it “to prepare for entry into the UK civil nuclear market”. The agreement described the prospect of working together on British soil as “a realistic longer-term ambition”. But the Department of Energy and Climate Change said on Tuesday: “No decisions have been made on how this work will be taken forward, which is under consideration in the light of recent developments in Ukraine.”
Telegraph 25th March 2014 read more »
BBC 25th March 2014 read more »
ITV 25th March 2014 read more »
Energy Costs
Energy supplier SSE says it will freeze domestic gas and electricity prices at their current levels until 2016. The move comes after many of the “big six” UK energy firms raised their tariffs at the end of last year. SSE said it would legally separate its retail and wholesale businesses by March 2015, in order to “improve transparency”. The company announced it would cut 500 jobs and shelve three planned offshore wind farm developments. As a result, SSE hopes to make annual operational cost savings of £100m.
BBC 26th March 2014 read more »
FT 26th March 2014 read more »
Telegraph 26th March 2014 read more »
Times 26th March 2014 read more »
Heysham
More than 60 people, including members of Lancaster Diocese Faith and Justice Commission, held a vigil at Heysham Nuclear Power station on 8 March, the third anniversary of the nuclear accident at Fukishima in Japan. In part, they were inspired by Columban Sean McDonagh’s book, ‘Fukushima:The Death Knell for Nuclear Energy?’ which looked at the environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power, particularly learning lessons from what happened at Fukushima.
Independent Catholic News 24th March 2014 read more »
Sizewell
The Four Villages Bypass Group, which is made up of councillors from the parishes of Little Glemham, Marlesford and Farnham with Stratford St Andrew, has made fresh calls for the project to become a condition of the approval of Sizewell C – a scheme which they say would put additional strain on the already burdened stretch of road.
East Anglian Daily Times 24th Aug 2014 read more »
EPRs
With two new UK reactors planned at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and three years after the meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan, it is worth considering whether the design, procurement, construction, and management of nuclear power plants is sufficiently reliable to allay public concern over radiation and value for money. In the case of the reactor design chosen for Hinkley C, the French-designed European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), there is not yet a finished power plant to judge by. The two plants closest to completion, in Finland and France, have been plagued by astonishing cost overruns and construction delays, along with a litany of complaints over design flaws, poor quality control, and construction lapses.
Guardian 25th March 2014 read more »
Nuclear Security
Thirty-five out of 53 nations taking part in a summit on nuclear security have pledged to turn international guidelines into national laws. The US, UK and Japan were among the countries to agree to the deal at the summit in the Dutch city of The Hague. Major nuclear powers Russia, China, India and Pakistan did not join the initiative. One of the main objectives of the deal is to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear material. US President Barack Obama hosted the first Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in Washington DC in 2010, a year after he declared nuclear terrorism “one of the greatest threats to international security”.
BBC 25th March 2014 read more »
Almost two-thirds of the states represented at the third Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in the Netherlands have committed themselves to measures aimed at establishing an “effective and sustainable” nuclear safety regime.
World Nuclear News 25th March 2014 read more »
President Obama details the proposed nuclear security improvements at the Nuclear Security Summit 2014, The Hague
Telegraph 25th March 2014 read more »
David Cameron joined Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Xi Jinping and other world leaders to play a “nukes on the loose” war game to see how they would cope with a terrorist nuclear attack. The German chancellor grumbled at being asked to play games and take tests with the Prime Minister, US and Chinese presidents around a table with dozens of heads of state at a nuclear summit in The Hague. Her complaints were overruled because Mr Obama was keen on the idea and in on the surprise. In the war game, played out by actors in a series of short films, a terrorist attack with an atomic “dirty bomb” takes place in the financial heart of an unnamed but Western metropolis. “It could be the City of London, or Wall Street, Milan or anywhere”, summit leaders were told. As the scenario unfolded, it emerged that the terrorists are from an unidentified global terror network and they have stolen nuclear material from an unidentified country that had poorly secured its radiological and nuclear stockpiles.
Telegraph 25th March 2014 read more »
Sky News 25th March 2014 read more »
Apart from North Korea and Iran, who were not in the Netherlands – there are still some 25 states with 1kg or more of weapons- usable nuclear material, and some states are still increasing rather than reducing their stockpiles. On top of that, some 85 per cent of the global stockpile of HEU and separated plutonium remains outside civilian control and so not subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines or the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its 2005 amendment. Place in that context the fact that a group such as al-Qaeda would need only a small amount of fissile material – about 16kg of HEU or 4kg of plutonium – to make a crude nuclear weapon, or less to make a “dirty bomb”. Or the fact that in the past year alone there have been some 140 cases of missing or unauthorised use of nuclear and radioactive material reported to the IAEA, whose central role in combating nuclear terror was also underlined in the closing communique. In 2011 six people were arrested in Moldova as they tried to sell more than a kilo of weapons-grade uranium 235. In 2010 two Armenians were arrested in Georgia trying to sell 18g of HEU in a lead-lined cigarette case. The security of Pakistan’s arsenals is a constant concern. A new concern now is Russia’s willingness to co-operate with the West.
Irish Times 26th March 2014 read more »
World leaders called on countries on Tuesday to cut their use and their stocks of highly enriched nuclear fuel to the minimum to help prevent al Qaeda-style militants from obtaining material for atomic bombs. Winding up a third nuclear security summit since 2010, this one overshadowed by the Ukraine crisis, 53 countries – including the United States and Russia at a time of high tension between them – agreed much headway had been made in the past four years. But they also underlined that many challenges remained and stressed the need for increased international cooperation to make sure highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium and other radioactive substances do not fall into the wrong hands.
Reuters 25th March 2014 read more »
It’s a scene straight from a Hollywood script: world leaders are faced with a rogue terrorist in possession of a dirty bomb and have minutes to decide how to save their nations from nuclear catastrophe. But it was not in Los Angeles that such a scenario played out this week: it was in the leafy surrounds of The Hague in the Netherlands, a city better known for its international courts and seaside walks.
Independent 25th March 2014 read more »
Nuclear vs Climate
At the Frontline Club on Friday 21 March, a screening of Pandora’s Promise was followed by a Q&A with director Robert Stone and environmental activist Mark Lynas who features in the film, which was moderated by Tom Clarke, Science Editor for Channel 4 News. The film asks the question whether nuclear energy is actually the answer to global warming and unsustainable fossil fuel consumption in our rapidly modernising world.
Frontline 25th March 2014 read more »
Utilities
A consortium led by Centrica has bought the supply division of Bord Gáis for €1.1 billion. The owner of British Gas intends to replicate its integrated model of owning power stations and a supply business in the Republic of Ireland, which offers better growth prospects than Britain.
Times 26th March 2014 read more »
The full-scale competition review of the UK’s energy market which will be announced later this week is a challenge the industry should welcome. The inquiry will absorb a huge amount of time and effort over the next year but it offers the chance both for the industry to clear its name by removing the cloud of public suspicion over pricing policies and simultaneously for individual companies to examine their own strategic positioning in a market which is changing rapidly. Of course, the competition review will add to uncertainty and will reinforce the reluctance to invest in new generating capacity, which is already evident, but the sense of doubt will exist in any case, and the review may help to produce some longer-term clarity. In the short term the government will have to find a new mechanism to ensure that supply is adequate to meet demand – and doing so with an expensive plan for emergency electricity supplies. But that is a separate issue from this fundamental analysis
FT 26th March 2014 read more »
China
Zhang Guobao, former chief of the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Monday that China needs nuclear energy to end reliance on fossil fuels such as coal. “I believe we still should develop nuclear power appropriately because it currently accounts for only 2 percent of the nation’s total electricity generation,” Zhang said during a keynote speech at the three-day China Development Forum that kicked off in Beijing on Saturday.
English People’s Daily 24th March 2014 read more »
A collection of commercial deals, including for Airbus aircraft and Areva, the nuclear group, are set to be signed on Wednesday when President Xi visits Mr Hollande at the Elysée Palace. There is also expected to be a deal with Areva to build a nuclear waste plant in China.
FT 25th March 2014 read more »
Germany
Bloomberg Television’s David Tweed visits Feldheim, an energy self-sufficient village in Bavaria that produces four times the electrity it needs – and makes a profit from selling the surplus.
Telegraph 25th March 2014 read more »
Ukraine – Energy Supplies
Never let it be said that the global nuclear power industry lets a good crisis go to waste….the industry is now promoting the far-fetched notion that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia should lead to new development of nuclear power, especially in Eastern Europe. There is certainly significant truth in the idea that the conflict could increasingly turn on energy issues in coming months and years–after all, Russia already has used shut-offs of natural gas to and through Ukraine as a political weapon in the past. But the idea is far-fetched because new nuclear power would be far too slow to make any difference to the region’s energy picture for the next decade at least, and nuclear power would do little to solve the region’s, especially Ukraine’s, reliance on Russian natural gas, which is used primarily for heating, not electricity generation.
Green World 25th March 2014 read more »
John Sauven – Using the Crimea crisis to promote fracking is disingenuous – only tackling climate change can reduce our exposure to energy imports The chutzpah of these attempts to build support for an increasingly unpopular fracking industry is astonishing. These are the same people who were arguing the case for the construction of up to 40 gas power stations. This would have left us even more dependent on imported gas. The Crimean crisis should be a catalyst for a rethink about whether the government’s “dash for gas” is the wisest energy policy for a country with dwindling North Sea resources. But rather than admit that we should be reducing our dependence on gas, its proponents prefer to blame the green groups that have for decades been arguing for a reduced reliance on finite energy sources. Claims that fracking offers a panacea to dependence on Russian gas don’t even stack up. A study for the oil and gas industry by consultants Pöyry, found that European supplies wouldn’t even come on stream at scale for at least a decade. The study also shows that while the EU’s dependency on gas imports could be reduced by up to 18% depending on the success of EU shale gas extraction, it is actually supplies of liquefied natural gas from Qatar that would be displaced by shale gas. Supplies that are deemed “secure” by Fallon. Even a shale gas boom will have no impact on Russian imports until well into the next decade, by which point demand for gas should be falling sharply in the EU as efforts to limit climate change bear fruit.
Guardian 25th March 2014 read more »
E3G, the think tank, has produced this infographic with Trillion Fund to show why shale gas is not the answer to the EU’s energy needs. Don’t believe us? Check out these fracktoids.
Trillion Fund 24th March 2014 read more »
Fracking will be “good for our country”, David Cameron said as he blamed a “lack of understanding” about the process for some of the opposition to shale gas. The prime minister said that once wells are up and running later this year, there would be more public enthusiasm, and exploiting shale gas reserves could help Europe wean itself off reliance on exports from Russia. The Ukraine crisis has increased the urgency of European efforts to find alternative sources of energy to reduce the leverage Russia’s oil and gas supplies give it across the continent.
Guardian 26th March 2014 read more »
Times 26th March 2014 read more »
Heat Networks
Minister for Energy and Climate Change Greg Barker today announced the latest round of successful projects through the Heat Networks Delivery Unit that will provide heating to local homes and businesses through new projects using a range of low carbon technologies, including energy from waste or recovered heat taken from industry. Each project is designed to provide more efficient heating to buildings which can help to drive down consumers’ heating bills and reduce emissions.
DECC 26th March 2014 read more »
Renewables – offshore wind
At last. After four long years of speculation and consternation, planning applications and policy U-turns, Siemens today confirmed it will invest £160m and create 1,000 new jobs through its “Green Port Hull” project. It is a “massive vote of confidence”, “excellent news for the people of Hull and the Humber”, “a huge boost to the UK renewables industry”, and “a major coup for the British wind industry”. For once, the breathless plaudits feel justified, this really is a very big deal for the UK’s green economy, and by extension, the economy as a whole. The implications of Siemens decision to locate a flagship manufacturing wind plant in the UK are two-fold: practical and symbolic.
Business Green 25th March 2014 read more »
Britain’s growing fleet of offshore windfarms provides a vital national security role as the western world engages in a stand-off with Moscow over Ukraine, Ed Davey has said. Speaking on Tuesday after German group Siemens said it would create 1,000 UK jobs in wind turbine production and installation, the energy and climate change secretary said he believed a long-promised renewable energy revolution in the North Sea had finally taken off.
Guardian 25th March 2014 read more »
Siemens’ decision to invest £160m in the UK’s first offshore wind turbine blade plant in Yorkshire was greeted with elation on Monday, but also some puzzlement. The German industrial group has been dangling the prospect of a turbine factory before jobs-hungry ministers for the past four years, as have others including Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, France’s Areva and Spain’s Gamesa. No company has taken the plunge until now and it has been easy to understand why. Three offshore wind projects have been scrapped since November, most recently the second phase of the world’s biggest farm, London Array, last month. This followed nearly two years of nervous speculation about how the heavily subsidised industry would fare under sweeping reforms of the financial incentives offered to low carbon power generators. The situatio n has been so dire that at the end of 2012, the three foreign companies supplying most of the 1,000-plus turbines for the UK’s 22 offshore wind farms had taken just one order between them for the year – for Siemens turbines.
FT 25th March 2014 read more »
The decision by German manufacturing giant Siemens to create a new manufacturing base for offshore wind turbines on the site of an old dock could help bring up to 10,000 jobs locally and marks the turning of the tide on the Humber, it is claimed. Hull defied the critics to secure the status of UK City of Culture 2017. Only last week it received the backing of the Government for an electric rail link cutting journey times to London as well as the northern powerhouses of Leeds Manchester and ultimately connecting with HS2. Meanwhile, its Premiership footballers only need to dispatch Sheffield United to secure a place in this year’s FA Cup Final. These are indeed optimistic times. Politicians, environmentalists, unions and business leaders yesterday queued up to heap praise on the city which has been locked in four years of – at times – fraught negotiation with the German engineering giant as the Government appeared to waver in its support for green energy.
Independent 25th March 2014 read more »
Energy Efficiency
More than 58,000 measures to improve energy efficiency were installed in Scottish homes last year, official figures show. Power companies are required to install the measures as part of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO). The ECO aims to help tackle fuel poverty and lower carbon emissions across the country. But the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) has voiced concerns that the ECO scheme could be scrapped. Statistics from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change revealed a higher proportion of houses in Scotland benefited from having improved insulation installed or new boilers fitted than the rest of the UK. In total 58,058 energy saving measures were fitted to homes in Scotland.
BBC 26th March 2014 read more »
Scotsman 26th March 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Plans to expand shale gas “fracking” in the UK must learn from leaks and poor monitoring at existing onshore oil and gas sites, scientists say. A review of 2,152 wells drilled from 1902-2013 found up to 100 “orphaned” wells for which no firm is responsible. Only two cases of well “failure” were recorded, but legacy sites are not monitored for leaks, the authors note.
BBC 25th March 2014 read more »
Climate
European summers are getting warmer and the very hot summer of 2003 – when more than 20,000 people died in an extensive continent-wide heat-wave – will be the norm by the 2040s, a study by the Met Office has concluded.
Independent 26th March 2014 read more »
Times 26th March 2014 read more »
Herald 26th March 2014 read more »
