New Nuclear
It no longer makes sense for any country to install a technology that can create a catastrophe such as Chernobyl or Fukushima — especially when far better alternatives are available. Technologies such as solar and wind are advancing so rapidly that by the time the first new nuclear reactors are installed in India, they will be less costly than nuclear energy. Most importantly, the alternative technologies are cleaner and safer. Solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years — as costs have been dropping. At this rate, solar is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting practically all of today’s energy needs. Even with this, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth. In places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia and parts of the United States and India, residential-scale solar production has already reached “grid parity” with average residential electricity prices. In other words, it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies — without government subsidies.
Washington Post 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
World Nuclear
Last week, the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), a subdivision of sorts of the International Energy Agency, composed of the remaining true believers in nuclear power, released a report calling on the world to more than double the use of nuclear power by 2050. Titled Technology Roadmap 2015: Nuclear Power, the report argues that this vast expansion of nuclear power is part of a necessary “energy revolution:” Stealing a phrase from Greenpeace (“energy revolution”), which has issued a number of well-documented reports showing clearly the steps to take for a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy system by 2050–if not before–doesn’t necessarily provide the credibility NEA might have desired. And the report itself is full of so much optimism and highly-dubious speculation that it’s hard to take too seriously. At least the NEA (perhaps because the intro is co-signed by the head of the IEA) acknowledges from the start that “This scenario is not a prediction of what will happen.” Indeed, it’s merely wishful thinking by the dwindling body of international nuclear enthusiasts. But really, you’d expect a report five years in the making (the report is an update of one released in 2010) would at least get its numbers straight internally. The report claims in the introduction and elsewhere that 72 reactors were under construction at the end of 2014. In another place, that number is 70. But when you add up the number when the report breaks it down by global region, you get 63 under construction. Where are those missing nine reactors? Under the ocean? In deep space? This report advocates 930 GW by 2050, which would be a 17% share of global electricity–still a big, and oh-so-unlikely jump from its current 11% share. Current capacity is only 396 GW, so NEA is still looking at a huge nuclear leap. It’s a leap of faith that won’t be rewarded. To get to that point would require a global investment of $4.4 Trillion, according to NEA. And that’s with a projection that costs of nuclear power construction in the U.S. and Europe would actually decrease between now and then–a projection that has no basis in history or reality, which has conclusively documented ever-increasing costs for nuclear reactors. As one investment analyst put it last week when the news broke that Georgia’s Vogtle reactors are delayed yet another 18 months with at least $700 million more in cost overruns, “who in their right mind would want to build a nuclear power plant?”
Green World 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Sizewell B
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has confirmed that EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Ltd, the licensee, has demonstrated that Sizewell B nuclear power station in Suffolk can continue to operate safely until 2025. This decision follows comprehensive assessment of the Periodic Safety Review (PSR), a ten-yearly review of safety required on all nuclear sites. Although the PSR is not complete until an agreed programme of work has been delivered, the ONR has identified no issues of nuclear safety significance that could impact generation at Sizewell B to the next date of review (2025). ONR identified a number of areas for improvement for the licensee and will monitor its progress in completing this work.
ONR 28th Jan 2015 read more »
Hunterston
ONR received a direct request from Scottish Energy Minister Mr Fergus Ewing to present the role of ONR and regulation of the two operating reactor sites at Hunterson B and Torness to a number of Scottish Ministers, Members of Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government officials. Although the primary purpose of the meeting was intended to address a number of general issues around nuclear safety, it also addressed specific concerns in relation to the discovery of key way root cracks in two graphite bricks in the reactor core of one of the two units at Hunterston B.
ONR Quarterly Review (accessed) 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
Sellafield
This time last year, ONR introduced a new innovative regulatory strategy and agreed to a collaborative approach with key stakeholders to accelerate hazard and risk reduction at Sellafield. One year on, the strategy is well established and is showing promising results, having a positive impact and increased safety benefits to the public around the site.
ONR Quarterly Review (accessed) 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
Cyber Security
Terrorists will soon be able to launch advanced cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure, a leading security figure has warned. World governments are “scared” of cyberwarfare and are not yet capable of deflecting cutting-edge hacks, Eugene Kaspersky, the founder and chief executive of Kaspersky Lab, said in an interview with The Times. Mr Kaspersky, who advises the British government, Interpol and Europol on cybersecurity issues, said that most states understood the “huge” problems they faced, but were a long way from having adequate systems in place to defend themselves.
Times 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Energy Costs
Recent cuts in consumer energy bills could have been much bigger and made much earlier, research from consumer body Which? has found. It said energy suppliers had failed to keep standard variable energy tariffs in line with falling wholesale prices over the past two years. As a result, households on standard energy tariffs were £145 worse off last year, or a total of £2.9bn, it said. Industry body Energy UK said firms had cut prices as soon as they could. Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: “Our analysis places a massive question mark over how suppliers have been setting prices over the last two years. “They now need to explain to their customers why bills don’t fall further in response to dropping wholesale prices.”
BBC 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Scottish Energy News 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
One of the UK government’s much-welcomed alternative suppliers to Britain’s Big Six – the renewable electricity company Good Energy – is to lower its gas price by an average of 3.2% and its electricity price by 2.1% for the average household customer. For the average dual fuel user, this means a saving of £33 off their annual bill – beating the £28 average saving that the ‘Big Six’ are offering through their gas-only price reductions. The independent energy supplier, renowned for its consistently high rankings in customer satisfaction surveys, gets all of its electricity from renewable sources. It offers the cheapest tariff of all 100% renewable electricity companies and is £23 lower than the price of Ecotricity’s average dual fuel tariff.
Scottish Energy News 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
Business Green 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Scotland
Holyrood MSPs will have more say – and more chance to hold to account – major energy suppliers operating across UK markets – including Scotland – even though they may not be domiciled or registered in Scotland under the new Smith Commission and UK Government’s Draft Scotland Bill.
Scottish Energy News 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
US
Many nuclear reactors in the US have had their service extended past their expected decommissioning points, and the low price of natural gas has helped drive the closure of some of these sites. In order to maintain its current levels of nuclear power generation, the country needs to build and open new plants. Unfortunately, the US hasn’t completed a new plant for decades, as a combination of local opposition and large cost overruns left utilities looking to other sources of power. In recent years, however, the Obama administration has licensed several new nuclear plants, and there are currently five under construction. These plants provide the first chance to learn whether modern reactor designs and improved construction techniques could overcome the problems that brought an end to plant construction in the 1970s. So far, however, the results have not been promising. Southern Co., the owner of the Vogtle site in Georgia, has seen delays on the construction of two new reactors, delays that have left it embroiled in lawsuits with the two primary contractors for the reactors, Westinghouse Electric and Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. Now, the company has announced further delays that will push the project back at least 18 months more. That will result in costs from extended financing that are expected to run over $700 million.
Ars Technica 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Experts are urging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to convince a suspicious Congress that foreign investment will help sustain a withering nuclear power industry. Top hands from the nuclear and defense industries testified last week during a hearing at the agency’s headquarters near Washington, DC, that Cold War-era regulations like the Atomic Energy Act are outdated, and that fractional ownership by foreign entities does not mean foreign control. The 1954 law rules out foreign ownership, control and domination of commercial nuclear power plants. But nuclear technology is increasingly modular, with a global supply chain, and developed by joint ventures of multinational entities.
Argus Media 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Germany
The Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) has rejected an appeal by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) against an earlier judgement that revoked the permit for the nuclear interim storage site in Brunsbüttel, Schleswig-Holstein. The revocation is therefore legally binding. However, due to a decision issued by Energy Minister Dr. Robert Habeck of Schleswig-Holstein, the operation of the interim storage site will be tolerated until the beginning auf 2018. The search for a permanent German nuclear storage site is still at its beginning. In mid-2013 a Nuclear “Location Search Act” was adopted by Parliament and entered into force shortly after (partly also in 1 January 2014). At the moment, a committee is in the process of preparing the procedure for selecting a permanent site. It shall put forward proposals for safety requirements by late 2015. The decision concerning the individual steps in the selection procedure will then be taken by Parliament and will surely be controversial again. Until the search has been successfully completed, nuclear waste therefore has to be stored in interim storage sites. Besides 26 Castor containers have to be taken back from abroad and stored in Germany. Yet it was agreed not to store them in the controversial Gorleben site anymore.
German Energy Blog 19th Jan 2015 read more »
China
French utility EDF has signed an agreement with China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) to share their experience of plant operation and engineering support for existing nuclear fleets. The agreement intends to preserve the highest safety levels as well as maintain consistency between French and Chinese procedures and standards.
Energy Business Review 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Areva has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with CNNC to launch a joint venture in the field of nuclear transportation and logistics. Under the terms of the agreement, Areva will provide its expertise and experience for the installation of a used fuel transportation and logistics system in China. The new joint venture aims to become CNNC’s supplier for spent fuel transport operations by road, train and sea modes.
Energy Business 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
India
The nuclear “breakthrough understanding” between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to allay U.S. concerns about industry liability and unlock billions of dollars in investments into Indian power projects. Here’s a Q&A that lays out some of the detail of the deal, based on briefings by both sides:
Reuters 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
Iran
Iran sends fourth satellite into orbit amid fears country is using space programme to develop nuclear weapons
Daily Mail 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
Renewables – wind
Wind energy broke new records for weekly, monthly and half-hourly energy generation last month, according to new figures from the UK National Grid. January was the most productive month ever for wind energy, providing 14% of Britain’s electricity (4.13 terawatt hours) – enough to power the equivalent of 8.7 million UK homes. The weekly record was also broken in January with 1.119 gigawatt hours generated, and the half-hourly record was exceeded on 2 January when wind supplied 31% of Britain’s electricity demand. The news came as overall UK wind capacity (onshore and offshore) topped 12 gigawatts for the first time – a milestone for the country and enough to supply nearly seven million UK households.
Scottish Energy News 3rd Feb 2015 read more »
Business Green 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Renewables – offshore wind
Europe’s offshore wind industry has united in a call for policymakers to provide long-term funding certainty, as new figures reveal the market slowed in 2014, will be even quieter this year and ‘slump’ in 2016. According to the latest key trends and statistics report from the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), 1.5GW of new offshore wind capacity was added to the grid in 2014 – more than 5% less than in 2013.
Edie 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Renewables – solar
China has now overtaken the European Union as the largest new market for solar power as the industry becomes one of the fastest growing in the world. Solar power is on course to overtake nuclear as a primary source of electricity production as the price of photovoltaic (PV) panels continues to fall. Mass production in China and Taiwan has helped to increase the extraordinary growth of the solar power across the world and has led to an 80% reduction in the cost of panels since 2008. Europe, and particularly Germany and Italy, led the way in solar installation, but Asia and the US are now catching up fast. The African continent, which has the most potential to benefit from solar power, has been slow to adopt the technology, but is now embracing its possibilities. While investment in small domestic installation continues, there has been a big increase in utilities creating large solar farms. On a larger scale, the report gives examples of wind and solar generation power stations combined with battery storage, which are being tried successfully in China.
Climate News Network 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Energy Efficiency
Eighty chief executives from some of Britain’s biggest companies, charities, and industry associations have called on all political parties to make energy efficiency a top priority in their election campaigns. A letter to the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, backed by B&Q, IKEA, and the Federation of Master Builders among many others, called for a “bold new approach” to energy saving, that would include energy efficiency as part of the government’s infrastructure upgrade plan.
Business Green 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Fracking is set to be banned on two-fifths of the land in England being offered for shale gas exploration by the government, according to a Guardian analysis. Such a wide-ranging ban would be a significant blow to the UK’s embryonic fracking industry, which David Cameron and George Osborne have enthusiastically backed. There were setbacks last week after the Scottish government declared a moratorium and UK ministers were forced to accept a swath of new environmental protections proposed by Labour, leading some analysts to say the outlook for fracking was bleak. One of those new protections was to rule out fracking in national parks, areas of outstanding natural be auty (AONBs), sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and groundwater source protection zones (SPZs). Neither the government nor Labour have stated how much of the land available for future shale gas drilling – 60% of England – would be affected by the new bans. But a Guardian data analysis has revealed it is 39.7%, with large swaths of the south and south east off-limits, as well as the Yorkshire Dales and Peak district. An independent analysis by Greenpeace also found that 45% of the 931 blocks being licensed for fracking in England were at least 50% covered by protected areas, which it said was likely to make them unattractive to fracking companies. Just 3% of of the blocks have no protected areas at all, Greenpeace found.
Guardian 2nd Feb 2015 read more »
Why a UK shale gas industry is incompatible with the 2°C framing of dangerous climate change. Professor Mair’s Royal Society post suggests that the development of a UK shale gas industry is compatible with the UK’s climate change targets. I suggest this conclusion is premised on a partial and overly simplistic interpretation of the UK’s muddled climate change obligations. In brief: Shale gas within domestic carbon budgets. The development of a UK shale gas industry may be compatible with the UK’s domestic carbon budgets – just. These budgets are however premised on a high probability of exceeding the 2°C threshold between acceptable and dangerous climate change and on a highly inequitable allocation of the global carbon budget to the UK. Even under such lax conditions (and hence a larger UK carbon budget) there is a significant risk that a new and large-scale UK shale gas infrastructure could become a stranded asset within a decade or so of major shale gas extraction.
Kevin Anderson 31st Jan 2015 read more »
CCS
Carbon sequestration promises to address greenhouse-gas emissions by capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and injecting it deep below the Earth’s surface, where it would permanently solidify into rock. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that current carbon-sequestration technologies may eliminate up to 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. While such technologies may successfully remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, researchers in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT have found that once injected into the ground, less carbon dioxide is converted to rock than previously imagined. The team studied the chemical reactions between carbon dioxide and its surroundings once the gas is injected into the Earth — finding that as carbon dioxide works its way underground, only a small fraction of the gas turns to rock. The remainder of the gas stays in a more tenuous form.
Penn Energy 30th Jan 2015 read more »
