Chernobyl
26 April 2015, marks the 29th anniversary of the worst nuclear disaster in world history – the Chernobyl catastrophe. And unfortunately, preventing further major releases of radioactivity into the environment seems to be a race against time. As a new Greenpeace report detailing the efforts at the sight shows, there are no real solutions in sight. Nearly three decades after the start of the Chernobyl disaster, its atomic legacy is a stark and ominous reminder that nuclear power can never be a safe energy source.
Greenpeace 26th April 2015 read more »
Chernobyl 29 years on.
Greenpeace 26th April 2015 read more »
The worst disaster in the history of nuclear power occurred on this day in 1986 when two explosions at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine released a huge cloud of radioactive matter into the atmosphere.
BT 26th April 2015 read more »
Sellafield
Miniature submarines are being used to remove nuclear waste from storage ponds at Sellafield in Cumbria. There are about 800 cartridges of radioactive cobalt from the 1950s and 1960s that were used for radiotherapy and to sterilize medical supplies. Radioactive isotope sources need to be safely disposed of in the same manner as other nuclear materials. The cartridges are stored underwater in open-top skips and are being retrieved by the 3ft (1m) submarines. Paul Nichol, head of the Pile Fuel Storage Pond at Sellafield, said: “The cartridges are generally used for things like radiotherapy machines and they apply a really significant dose because the whole point of that is to kill cancer cells. “The problem we face is we’re dealing with a historical legacy going back to the 1950s so currently these cartridges are stored in an old facility that dates back to that era. “Our job is to get them into much more modern containment.”
BBC 26th April 2015 read more »
NPT
States parties are meeting in New York next week for the four-week NPT Review Conference, held once every five years to consider the health of the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime. Britain, alongside the other four nuclear weapon states, has particularly acute responsibilities towards the rest of the international community. These involve legal obligations to engage in disarmament negotiations freely entered into in recognition of the essential need to act collectively in the interests of common global security. Yet the evidence, particularly seen in the nuclear modernisation programmes mirrored in every nuclear-armed state, backs up the strong suspicion is that there is little intention to follow through.
Huffington Post 24th April 2015 read more »
Global activists presented 8 million petitions to the U.N. disarmament chief on Sunday demanding a world free of nuclear weapons, kicking off a conference by world powers to review progress toward eventually achieving total disarmament. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s foreign minister are both expected to speak at the conference Monday amid intense interest in the fate of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, Review Conference happens every five years, and experts have warned that little progress is expected this time, especially with relations cool between the two largest nuclear powers, Russia and the United States. The more than a thousand demonstrators demanded that the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries do far more toward cutting stockpiles. Many protesters were from Japan, the only country ever hit by a nuclear attack. Fragile survivors of the U.S. attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago led the way in wheelchairs.
Big Story 26th April 2015 read more »
Europe
Weak European renewable energy goals originated with Shell lobby pitch for gas – not renewable energy – to provide pathway for decarbonisation, access to information papers show.
Guardian 27th April 2015 read more »
Energy Supplies
British Gas profits are set to rise following the cold start to the year, Centrica has said, as it warned problems at Britain’s main gas storage facility could last into the winter. The harsh winter has given the company a boost with consumers turning up thermostats and using more energy in the first three months of the year than over the same period in 2014. The company said that “colder than normal weather” meant gas consumption was 10pc higher than in the same period a year ago and 2pc more electricity was used.
Telegraph 27th April 2015 read more »
The United States is poised to flood world markets with once-unthinkable quantities of liquefied natural gas as soon as this year, profoundly changing the geo-politics of global energy and posing a major threat to Russian gas dominance in Europe.
Telegraph 26th April 2015 read more »
Japan – solar
One by one, Japan is turning off the lights at the giant oil-fired power plants that propelled it to the ranks of the world’s top industrialised nations. With nuclear power in the doldrums after the Fukushima disaster, it’s solar energy that is becoming the alternative. Solar power is set to become profitable in Japan as early as this quarter, according to the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), freeing it from the need for government subsidies and making it the last of the G7 economies where the technology has become economically viable. Japan is now one of the world’s four largest markets for solar panels and a large number of power plants are coming onstream, including two giant arrays over water in Kato City and a $1.1 billion solar farm being built on a salt field in Okayama, both west of Osaka.
Reuters 26th April 2015 read more »
Iran
He rarely ever publicly criticizes his successor, Barack Obama. But on Saturday night, George W. Bush apparently lashed out at the President’s foreign policy. Speaking at a closed-door meeting with Jewish donors in Las Vegas, the 68-year-old former leader suggested that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran was not plausible – and comes too early.
Daily Mail 27th April 2015 read more »
Trident
GIBRALTAR has been earmarked as a possible base for Britain’s Vanguard nuclear submarines if the SNP ¬succeeds in ridding Scotland of Trident.
Express 27th April 2015 read more »
Renewables
NINE businesses are collaborating with Perth & Kinross Council to promote the area as a renewable energy hub. Representatives from the companies and the local authority will be attending the All Energy trade show which runs in Glasgow at the Scottish Exhibitions and Conference Centre next week. Firms backing the Invest in Perth drive include Kilmac Construction SME Utilities, My Eco Solution, Green Highland Renewables, Smith Gore, Campbell Dallas, Liquid Ventures, RTS and Sawdust Woodfuels. Derek Ross, director at civil engineering and renewable developer Kilmac, which employs 80 people, said: “We believe that Perth is primed for further green investment, into a sector which is very forward thinking, adaptable and likely to be a key employer in Scotland for the foreseeable future.”
Herald 27th April 2015 read more »
The vast majority of members – 95% – of the Renewable Energy Association (REA) say UK political parties have failed to address needs of the renewable energy industry in election campaigns. Renewable energy companies overwhelmingly believe that the needs of the industry have not been properly addressed during the ongoing election campaign, a survey carried out by the REA has revealed. Of the 136 REA members who responded to the survey, 95% said that they did not ‘feel that the political parties are addressing the needs of the renewable energy during this election campaign’.
Scottish Energy News 27th April 2015 read more »
Renewables – Hydro
GHOST hydropower plants that will never be built could cause a collapse in the industry in Scotland. Even though the plants do not exist they are still counted as producing energy by the Department of Climate Change (DECC) which then cuts the subsidy for schemes planned for the future, making them unviable. “These cuts could put us out of business,” said Richard Haworth of Blairgowrie-based Glen Hydro which is planning eight schemes over the next two years. “The way DECC operates the subsidy means that we are being penalised for something that is not going to happen and is going to stop a lot of schemes being built.” The small scale hydropower industry directly employs 500 people in Scotland with 70-80 per cent of a new scheme being spent in the local economy of rural parts of the country.
The National 27th April 2015 read more »
Renewables – Biogas
“It’s a fantastic idea, I say – powering a bus with poo, who’d have thought?” The soft West Country burr belongs to Maisie, a 30-year-old nurse travelling with her toddler, Josh, and three bags of shopping. Squirming out of his mother’s grasp, Josh presses his face to the window as we pass rows of Georgian terraces and graffiti-speckled tower blocks. This is Bristol, and while the surroundings are typical of many British cities, our 41-seater bus is unique. Not due to its sleek design or humorous exterior – though it’s certainly turning heads as we drive past the harbourside – but because the aptly named No 2 bus doesn’t use electricity or oil: it runs entirely on human faeces.
Guardian 27th April 2015 read more »
Community Energy
An innovative energy project that will explore the possibility of developing a system for supplying electricity from renewable sources straight to local consumers in rural areas is planned for the Isle of Mull. Project ACCESS (Assisting Communities to Connect to Electrical Sustainable Sources) will enable the real-time matching of local renewable electricity generation to local electricity demand in off-gas-grid properties. Part funded through the Scottish Government’s Local Energy Challenge Fund and valued at just over £2 million, Project ACCESS aims to drive the development of financially viable grid connections for small scale generators in transmission constrained areas of the Scottish networks.
Scottish Energy News 27th April 2015 read more »
