Nuclear Safety
Letter Andy Hall ONR: Your article on Japan’s nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima was right to recognise the need for the UK to learn from such a disaster. As regulator for the nuclear industry in the UK we identified some key lessons to take from this devastating incident. They are: the need for a systematic approach to identifying events that could lead to accidents; robust measures to prevent those events progressing this far; and effective periodic review of safety analyses, to make sure they continue to meet high and continuously evolving regulatory standards. Fortunately, the UK acknowledged these requirements over 20 years ago and they were codified by the Office for Nuclear Regulation in its site licence conditions and safety assessment principles. Companies proposing the construction of new nuclear power stations in the UK must show they will meet these requirements and address specific issues identified in the chief nuclear inspector’s reports on the Fukushima accident.
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Letter Keith Baverstock: Welcome as Tepco president Naomi Hirose’s admission of the seriousness of the Fukushima accident is, it may be a bit naive to accept that the whole accident was down to a lack of seals on doors. There were reports early on – denied by Tepco, but then so were many things that we now know were true – that at least one of the reactors lost cooling as a result of a pipe fracture caused by the earthquake and not the tsunami. With or without the rubber seals, the lack of nitrogen-purging equipment, which led to the hydrogen explosions, was a major failure in the “in-depth” safety strategy. A taste of the attitude of “nuclear insiders” at the time comes from a report of a conference in Chicago one month after the accident headed: “Fukushima – a PR problem soon to fade from public attention?” I suppose we must be grateful for the question mark. Nuclear propagandists, including some quoted in this newspaper, insist there will be practically no health consequences from the accident, but they misrepresent the evidence, insisting that at doses below 100 millisieverts [mSv] risk can be neglected. This, as the study of the survivors of the atomic bombings in Japan has shown, is not the case: risk is proportional to dose from a threshold at zero dose to 2 Sv. This misrepresentation permits a policy of indefinite duration, endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that allows children to live with an annual external dose up to 20 mSv and which I calculate would increase the lifetime cancer risk of a child by up to 7% over a decade. Perhaps the question is: is the nuclear industry sufficiently responsible to manage the technology?
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Letter Stephen Tindale and others: The safety record of the global nuclear industry is undeniably better than that of just about any other energy-generating technology. The seriousness with which governments and regulators internationally took their responsibility post-Fukushima in ensuring the safety of operating power plants is commendable. It is this culture that drives the design of current and future-generation nuclear power stations that will be deployed in the UK; enhanced safety and greater resistance to external environmental influences have been key. The one thing the planet cannot afford is climate change. If current projections are anything like right, it is in a different league from any other environmental problem imaginable. Until it is possible to store electricity on a much greater scale than today, variable renewables are not able to provide the reliable electricity we need day in day out, which never falls below about 20,000MW in the UK. So it’s coal, gas or nuclear for this segment of our power demand. Unless carbon capture and storage really takes off – and even then it does not eliminate carbon emissions from fossil fuel use – the choice is simply nuclear power or high greenhouse gas emissions.
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
The European Parliament has backed a proposed €631 million ($851 million) program to support nuclear safety outside the EU, calling for neighbouring countries to be given priority. In a series of amendments approved on 20 November, the parliament said that said countries would get preferred funding if they fall into either of two categories: that they want to join the EU and are already getting ‘pre-accession assistance’; or if they are eligible for ‘European neighbourhood instrument’ spending.
World Nuclear News 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Energy Policy
It’s all getting a bit complicated. Energy policy which needs, one way or another, long-term vision and a reasonable level of security seems to be going short-term and getting bumpy. Not so much as a result of the opposition’s intervention on energy prices but because of increasing “differentiations” between coalition partners. It looks like it’s going to be ECO that’s “reviewed” but it’s unclear as to whether it will be chopped, incorporated or delayed. Whatever option is taken, that old uncertainty that has beset the Energy Bill and was evident in the hovering on carbon targets, looks set to creep in, to the obvious discomfiture of those who had thought ECO would be getting under way and were planning for its advent.
Alan Whitehead MP 25th Nov 2013 read more »
David Cameron has been given a private warning by more than 25 Tory MPs that he risks splitting the Conservatives if he ditches green policies as a sop to the Right. Normally loyal backbenchers and ministers called the Prime Minister to a showdown in his Commons office on Friday in what one present said was a deliberate attempt to “flex our muscles”. The meeting was organised by Laura Sandys, whose decision to stand down at the next election fuelled concerns yesterday that Mr Cameron has all-but abandoned his attempts to modernise his party. The meeting included well-known advocates of green policies such as Zac Goldsmith and Greg Barker, the Energy Minister, but also a number of more sceptical MPs as well as loyalists such as Charles Hendry and Oliver Coleville. “It got quite feisty, with some quite interesting interventions from people you don’t normally see stepping out of line,” one who was present said. “There were some MPs representing constituency interests saying that most of the jobs in their patch were green jobs and that his loose talk on the environment risked giving investors the jitters.” Another MP said: “The real significance was that the “other side” those who are sceptical – have tended to act as a bloc and have been quite rebellious while those of us who support the green agenda can and have been taken for granted. This was the first time we have flexed our muscles and that will have come as a shock.” Mr Cameron is said later to have acknowledged that he was surprised at the breadth of concern in the mainstream of the Conservative parliamentary party at the direction of the Government. “He told someone he thought it an interesting and important counter-weight,” a senior MP said.
Times 26th Nov 2013 read more »
Energy Costs
Claims by the Big Six energy companies that price hikes are beyond their control have been demolished by new data showing the average profit they make per household has more than tripled in three years. The amount the firms make from selling gas and electricity soared from £30 per household in 2011 to £53 last year – and it is now estimated to have increased again, to about £105, according to Ofgem. As a result, the total profit that British Gas, Scottish Power, SSE, EDF, npower and E-on make from households leapt by 75 per cent last year to £1.2bn. This looks set to rise by even more in 2013, to somewhere in the region of £2bn.
Independent 25th Nov 2013 read more »
The big six energy firms have been exposed to further accusations of profiteering after the industry regulator revealed that profits per customer last year rose by 77%. On the eve of a protest by anti-poverty campaigners against power suppliers, Ofgem said the profit per household had risen from £30 in 2011 to £53, driven by higher prices and increased demand for heating during last year’s winter snap. The average profit margin for supplying energy to households in 2012 was 4.3%, up from 2.8% in 2011, with total profits from supplying energy to households and businesses rising from £1.25bn to £1.6bn last year.
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Grid
Power demand: National Grid employees manage UK electricity distribution from a control centre in Warwick. Spain sometimes produces so much renewable energy – well in excess of domestic demand – that its wind farms have to be shut down. A similar phenomenon occurs in Scotland. When it is a blustery day and windmills are generating more power than the system can handle, operators are given “constraint payments” to temporarily power down their turbines. Those problems could be solved with one simple fix: the construction of more interconnectors to link up Europe’s electricity markets.
FT 26th Nov 2013 read more »
France – new reactors
The great hope of the French industry, the third-generation European pressurised reactor, has been beset by problems. The two projects involving the reactor in Europe are suffering cost overruns and building delays. EDF’s nuclear power plant in Flamanville, the first to be built in France for 15 years, was expected to cost €3.3bn and be in operation last year. Costs have more than doubled and it is scheduled to be operational by 2016. The second project, a European Pressurised Reactor being built in Finland by Areva, has seen similar cost overruns and had its operational launch date put back from 2009 to about 2016. Years of bickering have ensued about who is to blame. The next big test will be the £16bn third-generation reactor in the UK at Hinkley Point. Its success would prove the technology can be employed on budget and on time in western Europe. Similar Chinese plants were built smoothly. Another obstacle facing the French nuclear industry is that Paris is looking to reduce its reliance on nuclear energy and focus more on renewable alternatives. EDF and Areva are making a push into renewable energy, mirroring this move. There is a fierce debate about how fast and how far the government is going to move towards renewables, particularly given the large investment and the likely rise in energy costs for already price-sensitive consumers. One problem for France is that a nuclear plant does not sit as well alongside renewable energy as a gas power plant. Nuclear cannot be turned on and off to back up intermittent wind power the way a gas plant can, for example. The fall in nuclear investment in the western world – potentially France included – has made China all the more important for the industry. China is building nuclear power plants at a pace unparalleled in the rest of the world. Mainland China operates 17 nuclear reactors, with 29 under construction, and the country is planning a fourfold increase in capacity by 2020.
FT 25th Nov 2013 read more »
France – Grid
Electricite de France SA, Europe’s biggest power generator and the owner of French grid operator RTE, said it would consider reducing its stake if required for an “industrial project.” “We can’t include the grid in our industrial strategy so if RTE has a development project that would necessitate an evolution we would listen and study it,” said Thomas Piquemal, EDF’s head of finance. Otherwise the utility remains “very happy as a financial shareholder.”
Bloomberg 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Romania – new reactors
Romania and China on Monday signed two nuclear cooperation agreements expected to give China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) a role in Romania’s sole Cernavoda plant as it builds extra reactors.
EU Business 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Japan – Fukushima
Fukushima Crisis update 19th to 21st Nov.
Greenpeace 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Iran
The Iranian nuclear deal has unsurprisingly elicited fierce responses on all sides – with the US, Russia, Iran and the UK content, while Saudi Arabia and Israel rage from the sidelines.
Telegraph 24th Nov 2013 read more »
Obama forced to defend Iran nuclear deal over growing criticism that he gave too much away in exchange for too little.
Daily Mail 26th Nov 2013 read more »
BBC 25th Nov 2013 read more »
FOREIGN Secretary William Hague has hit back at critics of the international deal with Iran on its nuclear ambitions and told MPs it would have been a “grave error” not to attempt a diplomatic deal. Critics of the agreement, finally brokered over the weekend after marathon talks in Geneva, would inevitably point to the easing of about £4.3 billion of sanctions on Iran, Mr Hague said. But in a statement to MPs, he said reaching a deal for the first time in a decade was a milestone on the path towards a full deal to halt Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions for goods.
Herald 26th Nov 2013 read more »
While oil prices may decline and safe havens could lose favour, not everything hinges on diplomacy The Iranian nuclear agreement, struck in the early hours of Sunday morning, has been hailed as historic – laying the foundations for a more comprehensive deal in the next year.
City AM 26th Nov 2013 read more »
THE HISTORIC interim agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and (primarily) the West over the former’s nuclear ambitions is the real deal – an actual current event that lives up to the “historic” tagline far too easily given out by breathless commentators. However, on its immediate merits, the best that can be said of the accord is that it managed to buy the West six months for a comprehensive deal to be done.
City AM 26th Nov 2013 read more »
To judge from initial reactions, keeping the nuclear deal with Iran on track could be just as difficult as reaching it in the first place. The threat from hawks in Iran has, for now, receded. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has branded the deal a success, and did not support the judgment of Kayhan, the newspaper whose director he appoints, when it said on its front page that the deal lasted for one hour, until the US secretary of state, John Kerry, denied he had recognised Iran’s right to enrich. The supreme leader trusts the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and thinks of him as an obedient diplomat. Mr Zarif in return has done a good job selling the deal back home. To be pictured shaking the hand of the US secretary of state would have meant certain early retirement two years ago.
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Saudi Arabia dislikes the deal the West has cut with Iran for two reasons. The first is obvious: it is an encouragement to its greatest regional rival, a country it regards as a menace. The fact the West largely agrees Iran is a menace makes it all the harder to bear. The royals in Riyadh believe the West’s focus on Iran’s nuclear programme distracts from the real threat: Iran’s promotion of Shia interests throughout the region, particularly in the Arab parts of it that Sunni Saudi Arabia regards as its own backyard, and above all in Syria. The second reason is subtler. Its bluff has been called, and now it must live up to the responsibilities it has invoked for itself. It wonders whether it has the capability to do so. So should we. Western diplomats can make their own judgments about Iran – and this deal suggests they have done. Predicting Saudi actions is much harder, even though it is a western ally.
Telegraph 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Iran’s oil industry to benefit from the nuclear agreement, despite US insisting ‘core sanctions’ will stay ‘firmly in place’.
Telegraph 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Iran nuclear deal is better than ‘ghastly’ military action, Blair insists as Hague defends lifting sanctions in the Commons.
Daily Mail 25th Nov 2013 read more »
It would be foolish for Congress to jeopardize a good deal with Iran that addresses the most urgent proliferation concerns.
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Poland – solar
Poland is constantly indicated as one of rising markets with high potential for future development in photovoltaics. Up to now, this sector in Poland compared to other European countries remains small due to lack of adequate Renewable Energy Act that could provide transparent support mechanism for photovoltaics. Long awaited renewable energy law draft was issued by Polish Government last week.
Renewables International 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Germany – renewable subsidies
The European Union wants to investigate whether the reductions on renewable energy contributions that Germany awards to its large industrial power consumers are in breach of competition rules. According to Handelsblatt, proceedings could start as early as the 18th of December. Worst case, the EU could indeed decide that these tax reductions are unpermitted aid for the German industry.
Energytics 25th Nov 2013 read more »
India – nuclear scientists
Indian nuclear scientists haven’t had an easy time of it over the past decade. Not only has the scientific community been plagued by “suicides”, unexplained deaths and sabotage, but those incidents have gone mostly underreported in the country, diluting public interest and leaving the cases quickly cast off by police.
Vice 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
Kate Hudson; The nuclear deal between Iran and the US is rightly hailed as a historic development – a vindication of the diplomatic path and a step away from the war that has been mooted against Iran for a decade. Taken together with the recent IAEA agreement with Iran, it will, as Barack Obama puts it, “cut off Iran’s most likely paths to a bomb”. No doubt the agreement will be held up as evidence of Obama’s much-trumpeted commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world. And of course, non-proliferation initiatives like this are an essential part of that process. But it seems a touch unbalanced to have so much concern about nuclear bombs that do not yet exist, and so little apparent concern for the thousands of nuclear bombs that already do. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is an obvious example of this because of its status as the only country in the Middle East actually with nuclear weapons. But all the permanent members of the UN security council that were in the negotiations with Iran have their own nuclear arsenals, and all of them – including our own government – have plans to modernise them. Is the irony lost on them?
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Renewables – offshore wind
Plans for a huge wind farm off the north Devon coast have been shelved. Developer RWE Innogy is pulling the plug on the 240-turbine Atlantic Array project, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) told the BBC. The scheme, which had not yet received the go-ahead, had attracted criticism with environmentalists worried about its impact on marine wildlife in the Bristol Channel. RWE Innogy told the Guardian it was “not the right time” for the project.
BBC 26th Nov 2013 read more »
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Telegraph 26th Nov 2013 read more »
A five-turbine floating wind farm – believed to be Europe’s largest – is set to be built off the coast of Peterhead. The Hywind project will see the five turbines operate in waters several miles from land in a move towards creating an economically viable scheme.
BBC 25th Nov 2013 read more »
STV 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Renewables – solar
This month executives from more than a dozen British solar-energy companies flew out to Saudi Arabia led by Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change. Their objective was to capture a slice of the Islamic kingdom’s $109bn push into renewable energy. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, says it hopes to generate 41GW of solar power by 2032 to help meet its growing domestic energy needs and reduce its reliance on oil reserves. Although at an early stage, its ambitious plans have the attention of the renewables industry and start-up companies from the UK. These include Naked Energy and Oxford Photovoltaics. Guildford-based Naked Energy has developed a hybrid solar technology that generates both heat and power from the same glass collectors. Christophe Williams, managing director, hopes the trip will lead to a partnership in the country. He argues that Naked Energy’s technology addresses two key problems facing the kingdom: dust and heating. Conventional photovoltaic panels lose about half a per cent of their efficiency with every degree rise in temperature above 25C. Naked Energy’s design transfers that heat away from the cells, increasing the electricity output from the solar cells and providing hot water, he says.
FT 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Renewables – Europe
Times are tough for Europe’s utilities. Nearly fifteen years after the power markets were liberalised, companies are being forced to find new models of working in the face of increased regulation and a changing energy mix with the added pressure to build low-carbon generation. Weak demand for power thanks to the long-running economic crisis is an added pressure. The effect on the industry is evident in share price performance. Analysis by Accenture shows that, since January 2008, the combined market capitalisation of the top 26 European utilities has fallen by more than 230bn. Many of Europe’s utilities are also still dealing with the legacies of a boom in mergers and acquisition that gripped the sector before the financial crisis in 2008. National champions were born but, when the downturn took hold, many companies found themselves with relatively high debt. T he situation is particularly acute in Germany where the government is driving through the “Energiewende” – energy transformation – in a bid to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. It is committed to closing its nuclear plants by 2022 and wants to generate at least 35 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The reforms have seen a flood of subsidised electricity produced by wind and solar power plants, driving down wholesale prices during times of peak demand and eroding the profitability of gas-fired power plants in particular. Renewable energy is prioritised by law in the German grid, meaning that gas and coal stations are sometimes required only at peak load periods. While the dominant players, including Eon and RWE are investing heavily in renewables, their main sources of supply remain gas and coal.
FT 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Fuel Poverty
Hospitals have seen cases of hypothermia rise by more than a third to 28,000 under the coalition, amid soaring energy bills and harsh winters, according to figures uncovered by Labour. Luciana Berger, the shadow public health minister, said a rise in episodes of the life-threatening condition were “deeply shocking”. She called for more action to help vulnerable people heat their homes. Figures released by the Department of Health show that 28,354 episodes of hypothermia were treated in 2012/13 – an increase of 25% on the year before and 40% on the year before that. Many of these relate to the over-70s and babies, who are more susceptible to the cold.
Guardian 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Climate
Warsaw climate talks offer glimpse of progress, but defer major decisions.
Carbon Brief 25th Nov 2013 read more »
Warsaw deal at a glance.
Carbon Brief 25th Nov 2013 read more »
