Sizewell
Sizewell C: Construction of any new nuclear plant unlikely before 2018 – at least two years later than expected. Electricity would start to be generated 10 years later, in 2028. EDF Energy has consistently declined to set out its target schedule for getting the proposed nuclear power station through the planning process. However, Philip Ridley, head of planning at Suffolk Coastal District Council, believes the earliest that building of the twin European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) can start is 2018. Delay in agreeing financial arrangements for Hinkley has inevitably led to a slow-down in the progress of the Suffolk project, which at one time looked set for site works to commence in 2016. The European Commission is still examining whether the financial deal for Hinkley meets “state aid” regulations and there is a possibility it could launch a full investigation, a move which could cause a further 18-month delay.
East Anglian Daily Times 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Hinkley
Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger fears proposals for Hinkley Point C could fall foul of the EU’s Competition Commissioner. There is something slightly sinister about Senor Joaquín Almunia, the European Union’s Competition Commissioner. He has been determined to “get” Google and punish them for alleged tax avoidance, he has aimed equal fire at Apple – another American giant. He hates pretty well all big banks and fines them heavily whenever he can. And now he is trying to scupper the deal with EDF to build Hinkley C power station. His initial report runs to 68 highly critical pages. He suggests that the terms negotiated between the UK Government and EDF will overpay the French company, shield it from almost all operational risk and crowd out alternative sources of energy supply. In short, Senor Almunia seems to want to stop the deal and turn off the lights in Britain, because that is precisely what will happen if Hinkley C falls by the wayside.
Western Daily Press 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Anti-nuclear campaigners have attacked plans to release treated nuclear waste into the Severn Estuary.
Burnham-on-sea 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Sellafield
In voting to reject the GDF proposal, the County Cabinet recognised the wider issues by agreeing to: “encourage the Government to make the necessary investment to improve the existing surface storage facilities at Sellafield so that there is a more robust surface storage arrangement in the decades to come while the Government finds a permanent solution for the country’s higher activity radioactive waste” Less than a week after the County Council’s decision, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and its management of risk at Sellafield. The report, which in many ways reconfirmed Cumbria Council’s own concerns, described Sellafield as: “…an extraordinary accumulation of hazardous waste, much of it stored in outdated nuclear facilities”
Cumbria Trust 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Politics
A group of modernising pro-green Tories will today launch a fight-back within the party when they publish a manifesto outlining plans for a £5bn-a-year boost in economic growth, creating 300,000 jobs, by pursuing environmentally friendly policies. In a sign of their determination to challenge Tory climate-change sceptics after a leading minister said that David Cameron was getting rid of “green crap”, the modernisers will say that the most successful economies of the future will embrace both the environment and competitiveness. The publication of the manifesto by the 2020 group of Tory MPs came after the former Conservative environment secretary Lord Deben launched an offensive on climate-change sceptics. The approach of the modernisers is summed up by Tom Burke, chairman of E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism, who said it was wrong to put “the environment and the economy at opposite ends of a see-saw”.
Guardian 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Nuclear vs Climate
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently received by email an open letter by four nuclear scientists and engineers—Andrew C. Kadak, Richard A. Meserve, Neil E. Todreas, and Richard Wilson—titled “Nuclear Power’s Role in Responding to Climate Change.” Below we look at some of their arguments. Dr Kadak and his colleagues argue for an increased role for nuclear power, but gloss over problems that can and must be addressed to make the industry adequately safe and secure. Proponents of increasing nuclear power should be pushing the industry to meet higher safety and security standards, and for the NRC to require the plants to meet the regulations it is supposed to enforce.
Renew Economy 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
MoX
The board in charge of deciding whether or not the MOX facility under construction at the Savannah River Site should be issued an operating license has delayed its judgment until late February. The Atomic Safety Licensing Board falls under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The board was slated to make a decision in January, but decided to wait. “For a number of reasons, the preparation of that lengthy and complex decision has taken longer than anticipated,” the licensing board wrote in a document released on Jan. 24. “As a result, the Board now expects its initial decision to be deferred until the latter part of February 2014.”
Aiken Standard 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Energy Costs
Energy companies have hit out at Ofgem after being ordered to hand over information on every single trade they have made for the past ten years as part of a new annual competition audit. That amounts to millions of pieces of data and executives have questioned the timing of the regulator’s “unusual” request, which was made just before Christmas. Investigators from Ofgem, assisted by the Office of Fair Trading, have only four months to sift through the data before the audit is published in April.
Times 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
UK & France
The UK and French governments have signed a declaration on nuclear energy and also agreed to cooperate on climate change action. Signed before national leaders’ discussions over the European Union’s ( EU) 2030 energy and climate policy framework, the declaration reiterates the two governments’ shared view that nuclear power has a critical role to play in a cost-effective low carbon transition. Specifically, the two countries have agreed to constructively engage with the European Commission’s State aid consultation on Hinkley Point C to demonstrate that the project meets state aid rules, maximize opportunities for small medium enterprises (SMEs) in nuclear supply-chains, and also to fund joint training and skills centers.
Energy Business Review 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Japan
Whether the powers that be liked it or not, nuclear power took center stage in a debate involving four major candidates for the Tokyo gubernatorial election that was streamed live on the Internet Saturday. Three of the candidates came out firmly against atomic power.
Japan Times 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Iran’s foreign minister yesterday held rare private talks with his US counterpart and said it would be a “disaster” if Tehran did not turn a provisional agreement to defuse a decade-old dispute over its nuclear programme into a permanent deal.
Scotsman 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
British nuclear experts are being lined up to help decommission the damaged Fukushima power plant in a move that could reboot Japan’s atomic power capabilities. Lady Judge, the British-American nuclear expert and adviser at Fukushima, is organising for engineers from Sellafield in Cumbria to travel to Japan to advise on decontaminating and shutting down the stricken site. “At Sellafield and Dounreay we are decommissioning big power plants and we can provide a very good example to the Japanese of how to do it safely,” said Lady Judge in an interview with The Telegraph. “I’ve been talking to Sellafield about sending some engineers to help.”
Telegraph 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Can it really be true that Lady Judge, a wafer-thin 68-year-old with a ruffed collar and a French bun, is the saviour of Japan’s nuclear industry – and, arguably, its economy too? Granted, the American-born Brit radiates formidability: her glance, down an immaculately powdered nose, has the penetration of a gamma ray. And she was once dubbed “The Atomic Kitten” by Private Eye. But let’s face it, the Japanese aren’t known for taking their problems to foreigners, especially not to women.
Telegraph 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
US – Radwaste
After 26 years of failure and delay on the part of the Department of Energy (DOE) to submit a license for a permanent repository for nuclear waste, it may be true the political wheels have ground slowly since the 2008 submission. But perhaps what took the DOE so long to submit the application in the first place, after the 1982 Reagan-era decision mandating that the DOE had to do so, was exactly what ground the political wheels to a halt: Yucca Mountain is bad science.
Ace Hoffman 31st Jan 2014 read more »
Iran
The foreign ministers of the United States and Iran held rare private talks in Germany on Sunday to discuss the next stage in efforts to reach a definitive agreement to end a decade-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Independent 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Guardian 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Scotsman 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential heir apparent, has urged her former Senate colleagues not to pass new sanctions on Iran, even as she called the Islamic Republic a “threat to global security”. The intervention from Clinton, who holds a commanding lead in a 2016 Democratic primary contest she has not formally entered, represents both a new opportunity for the Obama administration to rescue its major diplomatic overture from a Congress that largely loathes it and a threat of being undermined by a potent and independent force within the Democratic Party.
Guardian 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
ANTI-WAR campaigners met on Saturday (January 25) to discuss the future of nuclear weapons and how they should be banned. Mayor Alan Roberts, Deputy Mayor Bruce Dowling and Hastings Against War took part in a presentation by Dr Rebecca Johnson, CND vice-president and former senior advisor to the International Weapons of Mass Destruction (Blix) Commission.
Hastings & St Leonards Observer 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Philip Hammond has told his defence ministers to privately lobby the shipbuilding unions because of concern within government that Labour MPs are turning against Ed Miliband’s decision to back plans to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent. According to a number of Westminster sources, the defence secretary decided to make the unusual move after junior ministers warned him that parliamentary support for the £80bn Trident renewal was beginning to ebb, particularly on the Labour backbenches.
Guardian 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
CCS
Household energy bills would be slashed by £82 a year if the government boosted carbon capturing equipment on power stations instead of relying so much on offshore wind farms to tackle climate change, research suggests. Up to 30,000 construction jobs a year could eventually be created as well, according to analysis by the Trades Union Congress and the Carbon Capture and Storage Association of a technology that has struggled to make headway in Britain.
FT 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Renewables – Ireland
Ireland is short of money but not wind, which now forms a central plank of its energy policy. But plans to develop wind power and export it to Britain are sparking a rural revolt, with local protest groups uniting through social media. Some claim Ireland will become a wind farm for Britain.
BBC 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Smart Meters
Consumers could be saddled with an extra £1.8bn on their energy bills because of flaws in the Government’s plan to install “smart” gas and electricity meters in every home by 2020, suppliers have warned. Three of the Big Six energy suppliers – EDF Energy, ScottishPower and npower – are now calling on ministers to review the £12bn nationwide rollout of the meters, which automatically take gas and electricity usage readings and transmit the information back to suppliers. Ministers claim consumers should eventually save money because they will be able to see their usage in real-time, encouraging them to use less energy. Meter reading and billing costs should also fall. However, bills will rise over this decade to pay for the installation programme, while critics say the savings are uncertain. More than 1m homes already have the meters but the nationwide rollout is due to begin in earnest next year.
Telegraph 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
Energy Storage
Holyrood ministers are coming under pressure to launch a £1.5 billion scheme to store energy using “liquid air” batteries and other technologies to help meet future power needs. An expert report due out this week by the left-leaning Jimmy Reid Foundation calls for a radical rethink by the Scottish Government. It should adopt “a much more ambitious strategy” on energy storage to create jobs, wealth and exports, it says.
Herald 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Fracking opponents have claimed an early victory in the battle over British shale gas exploration, forming a “legal blockade” to thwart the controversial process at a site in the South Downs National Park. Five landowners including Viscount Cowdray have written to Ed Davey, the energy secretary, to say that they do not give permission for any drilling beneath their land, which surrounds a proposed exploration site near Fernhurst, West Sussex. The opposition would effectively block company Celtique Energie from drilling a horizontal well of sufficient length to ‘frack’ it to extract any shale oil or gas it discovers. Under trespass law, Celtique would have to ask Mr Davey and the courts to overrule the landowners. Andrew Wiseman of Harrison Grant solicitors, representing the landowners, said the proposed site of the drilling rig was now “totally surrounded”, making fracking from it “impossible”.
Telegraph 3rd Feb 2014 read more »
Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada says the US shale revolution will not change Qatar’s strategy of becoming an LNG superpower.
Telegraph 2nd Feb 2014 read more »
