Sizewell
About a hundred residents packed out a village hall in east Suffolk to hear the latest plans related to the construction of a nuclear power plant. EDF Energy held the meeting in Hacheston on Friday night as part of its ongoing community consultations over Sizewell C and the associated park-and-ride planned for the parish to ferry workers to and from the construction site. Head of communications, Tom McGarry, told the meeting that the power plant was not assured to proceed and stressed the importance of community feedback during the three stage consultation process.
East Anglian daily Times 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Hinkley
The Irish National Trust, An Taisce (‘an tashka’) challenged the grant of a development consent order (DCO) for the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station on the ground that the government should have consulted the Irish government on the transboundary effects of the project but did not do so. Mrs Justice Patterson heard the case in December and ruled that consultation had not been necessary. An Taisce appealed to the Court of Appeal and this was heard last month by Lord Justices Sullivan and Longmore and Lady Justice Gloster (who said it was fine to address them as ‘my Lords’ rather than ‘my Lords and my Lady’ each time). Judgment was issued on Friday and can be found here. The case centred around the meaning of ‘likely’ in this context, given that Ireland should have been consulted if environmental effects from the project were considered ‘likely’.
BDB Law 2nd Aug 2014 read more »
Place Making Resource 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Energy Regulation
Lessons from America: Europe’s 500 million (m) population dwarfs the US’s 320 m but the US, with its 50 States, has a far bigger pool of differing energy regulatory situations to experiment and learn from than Europe’s 25 countries; and the States have a far longer history of working together than Europe does.
IGov 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Energy Markets
The UK’s wholesale gas markets should be included in the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) energy probe, warned energy and climate change chairman Tim Yeo.
Utility Week 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Energy Costs
The cost of heating a home, or even flicking on a light switch, is a hot potato on the political front, but alarm about soaring energy bills is not a uniquely British phenomenon. Many of our European neighbours are even more worried than we about rising prices for household power. The Russians, Spanish, Polish and Germans are all far more concerned about electricity and gas prices, according to a report published today.
Times 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Utilities
Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has been accused of dodging some of his own green taxes by switching to an energy supplier which is exempt from paying them. Mr Davey recently joined 10,000 other people in a “collective switching” scheme designed to secure cheaper bills by reducing the power of the Big Six energy companies. He switched from Sainsbury’s Energy to Green Star Energy. As a small company with fewer than 250,000 customers, Green Star is exempt from the Energy Company Obligation (Eco), a subsidy scheme for insulation funded by households via their energy bills. Eco costs the average customer of a large energy company about £30-50 a year. Green Star is also exempt from the Warm Homes Scheme, which helps people struggling to pay their energy bills and costs the average household about £20 a year.
Times 4th Aug 2014 read more »
France
The French government approved its long-awaited Energy Bill last week, amidst predictions the wide-ranging legislation could mobilise up to €10bn of investment in clean technologies. The cabinet approved the proposed bill last Wednesday, clearing the way for it to go before parliament this autumn.
Business Green 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Bulgaria
Bulgaria has signed an agreement with Westinghouse Electric Company for the expansion of a nuclear power plant in the country. US-based Westinghouse, part of Japan’s Toshiba group, said it will provide all of the plant equipment, design, engineering and fuel for the Kozloduy nuclear power plant. It will help build a new 1,000 reactor estimated to cost more than $5 billion (£3bn). The project is expected to create more than 20,000 jobs in Bulgaria help the EU nation reduce its energy dependence on Russia.
Energy Live News 4th Aug 2014 read more »
India
India has to hugely expand nuclear power along with its entire power system to bring electricity to 300 million people and move away from coal, according to a study by the International Energy Agency (IEA). At a mere 673 kWh per year on average, per capita electricity consumption in India is less than one quarter of the global average, said the IEA, highlighting its analysis of India’s electricity system published in its Energy Technology Persepctives 2014. A “first priority” for India is to raise this level of power consumption, while bringing electricity to some 300 million unconnected people.
World Nuclear News 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Nuclear weapons
A seven mile long pink scarf knitted by women in Wimbledon will be unveiled to mark the 69th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. A total of 100 knitters from the Wimbledon branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament have stitched pink panels of about 3ft by 2ft to be joined together. A group from the branch will travel to Aldermaston on Saturday, August 9, to unfurl the huge scarf between two Atomic Weapons Establishments in Berkshire.
Your Local Guardian 5th Aug 2014 read more »
Weapons Convoy
A major accident involving nuclear warheads transported through the UK has only been averted thanks to luck, anti-nuclear campaigners and local government officials told RIA Novosti. “We have seen a steady stream of incidents, many low level, but then one or two that have caused more concern,” Peter Burt, research manager with the Nuclear Information Service (NIS), told RIA Novosti. Between 2007 and 2012, the UK has seen some 70 safety incidents involving military convoys transporting nuclear warheads by road from the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport on the Clyde to maintenance facilities in Berkshire, England
RIA Novosti 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Renewables – wind
Climate sceptic columnist Christopher Booker has launched his latest attack on wind power, but the picture he presents of the technology is curiously distorted. In an article for the Daily Mail he says the UK is suffering “a bout of collective insanity over renewable energy, for which it is hard to think of any historical parallel”. We’ve gone through Booker’s piece, and noted some things you probably wouldn’t know after reading it.
Carbon Brief 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Renewables – solar
Four of the UK’s leading solar companies are to sue the government over proposals to halt subsidies for large solar farms from early next year, sparking the third legal battle over solar policy in three years. Solarcentury, Lark Energy, TGC Renewables, and Orta Solar Farms will tomorrow formally request a judicial review over the government’s consultation on the proposed closure of the Renewable Obligation (RO) subsidy regime to solar farms larger than 5MW from 1 April next year – two years earlier than planned.
Business Green 3rd Aug 2014 read more »
Guardian 4th Aug 2014 read more »
The solar industry has welcomed plans to ease planning permission requirements for roof-top photovoltaic (PV) projects with up to 1MW in capacity. Planning permission is not currently required for solar schemes of up to 50kW in size in most circumstances under the permitted development rule. But according to a consultation published by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) last week the government now intends to extend the more relaxed planning rules to systems that are up to 20 times larger.
Business Green 4th Aug 2014 read more »
A decade ago, the solar industry was almost nonexistent in the U.S. There was a large solar thermal power plant in the Mojave Desert that was completed in 1984; but between then and around 2008, there was almost no solar activity in the U.S. That all changed as costs quickly dropped for solar energy, and solar panel prices fell. Today, solar power plants are competing with fossil fuels on a cost-per-kW-hr basis to provide energy to the grid, and homeowners are now beginning to create their own power from the sun. Quickly, solar energy is taking over the country.
Motley Fool 3rd Aug 2014 read more »
Low Carbon Technology
Entrepreneurs are unable to effectively bring new low-carbon products to market due to a lack of government support and poor communication in helping businesses bridge the so-called ‘valley of death’ between technology readiness and commercial deployment.
Utility Week 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Output from shale wells decline so quickly that they will never be profitable. When investors realise this the industry will collapse.
Telegraph 4th Aug 2014 read more »
Fracking could unleash health and environmental disasters while failing to deliver the promised economic boom, reports claimed yesterday. Research by US and British scientists and medics warns of potentially lasting damage to tourism and agriculture while bringing only short-term jobs and doing little to cut long-term energy costs. One of the reports, from the Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and published last month, concluded by saying “confidence” in fracking “is undermined by a series of disingenuous claims made by both the Government and industry”.
Mirror 5th Aug 2014 read more »
