Utilities
The integrated utility services (IUS) model that RMI developed for Fort Collins includes: a) deploys energy efficiency and rooftop solar as default options for residential and small commercial customers, b) does so with on-bill financing and other mechanisms to ensure no increase in customers’ monthly utility bills, and c) preserves utility revenue. This sounds like an unlikely, too-good-to-be-true combination, but our analysis shows that both municipally-owned utilities like Fort Collins Utilities and other member- or independently-owned utilities alike can achieve very real success.
Renew Economy 30th March 2015 read more »
Energy Costs
Millions of households would save money on their energy bills if suppliers replaced the complex pricing system with simple “petrol station-style” prices, a consumer watchdog has found. Ninety-one per cent of people spotted the cheapest deal when shown simple prices compared with 43 per cent who made the correct choice under the present system, according to a survey of 2,500 people commissioned by Which? and EDF Energy. Simple pricing involves showing the cost of gas or electricity as a single rate per kilowatt hour. Unlike the present system, there is no daily standing charge. People would no longer need to know how much energy they consumed to work out the cheapest deal.
Times 30th March 2015 read more »
The Labour leader has pledged to introduce a price cap on energy, which the party says will cut annual bills by £120 a year on average. In rough terms, that is a 10% price cut. “We believe Centrica’s shares could be worth at least 20% less under a Labour-led government than a Conservative one,” said Deutsche. Further, under an “aggressive” Labour administration, the downside could be 40%, implying a share price of 150p, compared with 259p today. Back in September 2013, just before Miliband made his original “price freeze” pledge, Centrica shares were trading at 400p. The post-privatisation era has descended into a fog of distorted commercial incentives and general mistrust of corporate power. Almost no one builds plant – nuclear, wind or gas – without some form of government guarantee these days. And nobody really knows whether a 3%, 5% or 7% margin is fair at the supply end, or even the appropriate measure. Shouldn’t we be looking at return on capital?
Guardian 29th March 2015 read more »
Energy Supply
EDF Energy has beaten off competition from its Big Six rivals to win back the £1 billion-a-year government contract to supply electricity to hospitals, motorways, police stations and schools.The Crown Commercial Service, the new Whitehall central buying unit created with the aim of saving taxpayer money, has awarded the French-owned energy supplier a new four-year contract covering thousands of public buildings, including the National Gallery. The 8,000 sites — local government, the NHS, the Highways Agency and cultural assets — use the same amount of electricity in a year as 2.3 million UK homes, although as part of the contract EDF will offer its public sector customers advice on reducing consumption. It is understood that the new agreement, Britain’s largest energy contract, is bigger than the previous four-year deal, at about 9.6 TWh of electricity compared with the previous usage of about 7.5 TWh. News of the renewal follows EDF’s successful pitch in 2013 for a ten-year contract to supply electricity to Network Rail. That deal is understood to be about a third of the level of yesterday’s agreement in usage terms.
Times 28th March 2015 read more »
Nuclear Skills
Foreign students banned from British university science courses because they might learn how to make nuclear and chemical weapons.
Independent 29th March 2015 read more »
Nuclear Submarines
When nuclear-powered submarines reach the end of their lives, dismantling them is a complicated and laborious process. At the end of their useful lives the subs essentially become floating nuclear hazards, fizzing with lethal, spent nuclear fuel that’s extremely hard to get out. Nuclear navies have had to go to extraordinary lengths to cope with their bloated and ageing Cold War fleets of hunter-killer and ballistic missile nuclear subs.
BBC 30th March 2015 read more »
Japan – Fukushima
With scarred skies, scratched negatives, shots of shattered railways and dead wildlife, Japanese photographers respond to the tragic events of 11 March 2011, when an earthquake led to a tsunami and nuclear reactor leak.
Guardian 30th March 2015 read more »
Iran
Deal in doubt as Iran rules out sending nuclear stocks abroad.
Telegraph 30th March 2015 read more »
Intensive talks are set to resume in Switzerland ahead of Tuesday’s deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran. Ministers from six world powers are expected to hold their first full session on Monday with Iran’s foreign minister.
BBC 30th March 2015 read more »
Daily Mail 30th March 2015 read more »
Independent 29th March 2015 read more »
China
The signals are clear – but contradictary. China has embraced the concept of climate change and is allowing officials to discuss the risks openly. Two weeks ago Zheng Guogang, head of the Chinese metereological administration warned of droughts, rainstorms and the threat to major infrastructure projects. He could not have spoken without permission. But at the same time economic growth remains the prime objective of Chinese policy and growth requires the consumption of ever greater volumes of primary energy, led by coal. Demand may have slipped by a small amount last year but new coal plants are still being opened. Coal consumption in China has doubled in the last ten years. China is now the world’s largest economy and consumes more than half of all the coal used worldwide each year. Within two decades, even on quite modest assumptions about economic growth it will have an economy twice the size of the US with personal living standards equivalent to those of the US in 1980. But it will still be an economy powered by coal – with demand on current policies up by another 20 to 25 per cent according to the forecasts produced by the International Energy Agency.
FT 29th March 2015 read more »
Renewables
News that a Texas city is to be powered by 100% renewable energy sparked surprise in an oil-obsessed, Republican-dominated state where fossil fuels are king and climate change activists were described as “the equivalent of the flat-earthers” by US senator and GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz. When its staff examined their options last year, they discovered something that seemed remarkable, especially in Texas: renewable energy was cheaper than non-renewable. And so last month city officials finalised a deal with SunEdison, a giant multinational solar energy company. It means that by January 2017, all electricity within the city’s service area will come from wind and solar power.
Guardian 29th March 2015 read more »
