Sellafield
The cost of decommissioning Britain’s nuclear sites, and particularly the Sellafield complex, has increased by billions of pounds with both regulators and the government being accused of incompetence by anti-nuclear campaigners and union leaders. The estimated cost of decommissioning the UK’s nuclear legacy over the next century has rocketed from £63.8 billion ($104.1 billion) two years ago to £69.8 billion ($113.9 billion) by Sunday, with even more increases predicted in the coming years, reports The Independent.
Russia Today 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Energy Security
A brown-out is when the National Grid intentionally reduces voltage to ration electricity supplies. To prevent a blackout. And it could happen this winter, due to predicted power shortages. Four EDF-owned nuclear reactors that were shut down for safety reasons in August are taking longer to repair than expected, and may now stay offline until 2015. One analyst has suggested that, as a result, the chance of a brown-out has jumped from the usual 0.1% to 10%. Modern digital devices – TV set-top boxes, computers, Wi-Fi routers, etc – may malfunction or sustain damage at lower voltages.
Guardian 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Radhealth
Leucémies des enfants : leur augmentation autour des centrales nucléaires est confirmée.
Vivre apres Fukushima 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Radiation Monitoring
Radiation Free Lakeland are lobbying for independent radiation monitoring in the North West. This used to be carried out by Radiation Monitoring in Lancashire – RADMIL – which was disbanded a few years ago due to council cuts.
Radiation Free Lakeland 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Utilities
The domestic energy market is facing its biggest shake-up in decades as disruptor companies are making major inroads into the dominance of the Big Six giants. Today First Utility will reveal that it has become the first independent company to sign up a million accounts. The latest data revealed that more people switched to independent firms than the Big Six in May, the first time the challengers have achieved that. First Utility, which now has 2 per cent of the market with 550,000 customers (many taking both gas and electricity), has promised to celebrate its million account milestone by pledging 1 per cent of its profits to charity.
Independent 8th Sept 2014 read more »
First Utility can double its customer base in the next two years, its boss has claimed, as it became the first “small” energy supplier to acquire more than 1m gas and electricity accounts. Ian McCaig, chief executive, said it was a “realistic” ambition to get to 2m accounts by the end of 2016, but said that Labour’s price freeze plan and possible price spikes triggered by the Ukraine crisis were the biggest threats in its path.
Telegraph 8th Sept 2014 read more »
Times 8th Sept 2014 read more »
Azerbaijan
Areva has presented Azerbaijan government officials with its proposals to construct a nuclear research reactor in the Central Asian country. Ali Abbasov, Azerbaijan’s communications and technology minister, met a delegation of experts from the French company on 3 September. The reactor could “transform Azerbaijan into a regional centre” for nuclear research, Abbasov said, according to a ministry statement.
World Nuclear News 5th Sept 2014 read more »
Iran
Iran has arrested a Ukrainian man suspected of sabotaging the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a facility jointly run by Iran and Russia. The suspect pretended to be an expert from Russia, the Iranian daily Hamshahri cited authorities as saying. Neither the name of the suspect nor the nature of the sabotage has been released. The nuclear power facility began operations three years ago with Russian help.
IB Times 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Nuclear Weapons
The loss of Scotland would be problematic for the rUK as the Scottish government has made clear it would demand the removal of Britain’s nuclear submarine base from Faslane on the River Clyde. The submarine force is the totality of the rUK nuclear deterrent; no other base is equipped to service the four Vanguard nuclear-armed submarines and the 200-plus Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles: an alternative would cost around £5bn and require a decade to build.
FT 8th Sept 2014 read more »
Renewables
The renewable energy industry has united to launch a series of ‘key tests’ for the UK political parties ahead of the next General Election. Leading renewable energy trade bodies including the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA), the British Hydropower Association (BHA), the Renewable Energy Association (REA), the British Photovoltaic Association (BPVA), RenewableUK, Scottish Renewables and the Solar Trade Association (STA), have launched a renewables manifesto statement and campaign hosted on the Action for Renewables website. The trade bodies have set out six key tests for the next Government, and a campaign has been launched encouraging members of the public to write to the different party leaders to encourage them to take forward the principles into the General Election.
Edie 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Historic Scotland has come under criticism for its decision not to object to a planning application that could see a wind farm substation built on a famous battlefield. East Lothian council has granted permission for the substation to be built on part of the site of the Battle of Prestonpans, considered the first significant conflict in the Jacobite rising of 1745. The Coastal Regeneration Alliance (CRA) has set up a protest group to fight the development, which could also see an enormous marine energy park built on the site of the closed down Cockenzie power station. The plans for the energy park have angered the local community, with 800 people attending a meeting organised by the CRA in Port Seton last week to voice their frustrations at the proposals.
Times 8th Sept 2014 read more »
Renewables – solar
Solar photovoltaics (pv) is the fuel of not only the future but increasingly the present. It is rapidly declining in cost, rapidly increasing in efficiency, and it fits in well with the increasingly decentralised, information oriented world that wants safe, clean energy solutions. Now the dominant corporations don’t want you to know this, but even in grey old UK solar pv is most likely going to be able to supply all of the UK’s energy requirements by 2050. Note that I mean ALL energy consumption, not just electricity, although this of course assumes that all thermal sources would be abolished (probably a bit over the top, but for the sake of the argument, let us assume this). There are some simple calculations that underpin this. There is a lag between the highest laboratory tested efficiency and the efficiency of the currently installed panels, but let us assume that the commercially available panel efficiency in 2050 has caught up more or less with the highest efficiency currently achievable in the lab – around 45 per cent (a little more than 3xs present average efficiency). So I am going to assume that in 2050, one square metre of solar panel will have a peak capacity of approaching 1 kWe – the ones on my house at the moment are 250 watt per square metre and ones being installed in some solar farms are now 300 watts per square metre.
Dave Toke’s Blog 6th Sept 2014 read more »
Community Energy
Letter Caroline Lucas MP: In July, the Institute for Public Policy Research set out clear plans for how cities and local authorities can provide an alternative to the Big Six and create a cleaner, smarter and more affordable energy system. Later this month, Community Energy Fortnight will celebrate success stories of locally owned energy from across the UK – projects such as the Brighton Energy Co-operative that provide a glimpse of an incredibly positive alternative energy future, where people are active producers and not just passive consumers. Profits are reinvested locally, rather than going into the pockets of multinational shareholders. The problem isn’t that we don’t know what policy changes are needed to give all local communities, villages, towns and cities the ability to generate their own heat and power from local renewable energy.
Guardian 7th Sept 2014 read more »
Climate
Letter: Later this month world leaders will gather in New York for a historic summit on climate change. This is an opportunity to inspire key decision-makers to act in the face of a growing climate crisis that threatens almost every aspect of our lives. Politicians all over the world cite a lack of public support as a reason not to take bold action against climate change. So on 21 September we will meet this moment with unprecedented public mobilisations in cities around the world, including thousands of people on the streets of London. Our goal is simple – to demonstrate the groundswell demand that exists for ambitious climate action.
Guardian 7th Sept 2014 read more »
China, India and other big emerging economies have outpaced the Group of Seven of rich nations for the first time on a closely watched measure of how countries are tackling climate change. The so-called E7 group of the seven major emerging economies, which include the world’s biggest manufacturing centres, cut their carbon intensity – carbon dioxide emissions per dollar of gross domestic product – by an average of 1.7 per cent last year. In order to reach the 2C goal, global carbon intensity would have to be cut by an average of 6 per cent a year, the report says, but last year’s global cut was only 1.2 per cent, meaning the planet is on track to warm by 4C by the end of the century.
FT 7th Sept 2014 read more »
The UK has become one of the world’s most climate-friendly countries in the past year after a record 34 per cent jump in renewable energy generation – despite the Conservative party abandoning its pro-green rhetoric. The closure of some coal-fired power stations and improved energy efficiency in factories and homes also helped the UK rise to second place in a global ranking of countries’ green economic performance.
FT 7th Sept 2014 read more »
