Renewable Targets
Good progress in decarbonising electricity will not compensate for slow progress on heat and backwards progress on transport, says the committee’s report. The UK is currently not even halfway towards its heating target, and progress towards its transport target actually reversed between 2014 and 2015, with the proportion falling from 4.93% to 4.23%. The think tank Policy Exchange has also issued a report today on renewable heat. It reaches a similar conclusion about the unsatisfactory level of reliance on heat pumps when it comes to decarbonisation. The government’s renewable heat strategy, developed in 2012 and 2013 by the now defunct Department of Energy and Climate Change, relies on this technology to provide more than 80% of domestic heating by 2050. Instead, this report recommends that the government focuses on energy efficiency, decarbonising gas use, and greener gases, such as biomethane, to reduce emissions from heating in the long term.
Carbon Brief 9th Sept 2016 read more »
Britain is set to miss its target to provide 15 per cent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, MPs have warned. A report released by the energy and climate change committee says that Britain is dragging its heels in two key policy areas: the transition to greener forms of heating and transportation fuels. British households and businesses remain overwhelmingly dependent on burning gas to heat homes and offices, the report said. Currently, less than 6 per cent of UK heating comes from renewable sources, such as woodchip-fired boilers. That is less than half of the nation’s target to raise this to 12 per cent by 2020. The proportion of renewable energy used in transport fuels actually fell slightly last year as motorists continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel. Angus MacNeil, chairman of the energy and climate change committee, said: “The experts we spoke to were clear – the UK will miss its 2020 renewable energy targets without major policy improvements. Failing to meet these would damage the UK’s reputation for climate change leadership. The government must take urgent action on heat and transport.” Progress on greening the nation’s electricity supply has been better, following construction of a string of windfarms and the closure of coal-fired power stations.
Times 9th Sept 2016 read more »
Guardian 9th Sept 2016 read more »
Hinkley
Letter Prof Bob Bradley: At the G20 summit, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, made it clear that Britain is “open for business” and, therefore, still a major force in the world economy. She also cast doubt on the future of Hinkley Point as it is presently planned, yet it is very clear that nuclear is the only real solution to our long-term electricity needs. Surely the time has come to reinvest in our nuclear power building capability, using UK expertise and companies. If necessary we should do what all industries do, recruit key individual personnel on the world jobs market. This route allows us fully to understand and control the systems we build, to train personnel at the cutting edge of new technologies and, critically, to invest taxpayers’ money in a new UK industry.
Telegraph 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Letter: The UK government is expected to conclude its review of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project in the next few weeks. As members of EDF Energy’s stakeholder advisory panel, we would like to set out the five main reasons we believe that it is strongly in the national interest to press ahead with the plant. The UK needs new nuclear generating capacity to replace its ageing fleet, to provide stable supplies of low-carbon electricity for decades to come and to reduce the country’s reliance on imported energy. Wind and solar have a crucial part to play in our energy future, but are by their nature intermittent sources of power. No one knows how long it will take for new technologies — such as advanced forms of battery storage or small modular nuclear reactors — to contribute to the energy mix at an affordable price.
FT 9th Sept 2016 read more »
A Welsh firm has been named as the preferred bidder for a 200,000-tonne order of steel for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project. The order to Express Reinforcements, placed by the Bouygues and Laing O’Rourke joint venture main contractors, is understood to be worth over £100 million. Reinforced steel will be supplied from the firm’s Neath and Newport manufacturing centres using rod supplied by CELSA Steel in Cardiff.
Bridgwater Mercury 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Wales Online 8th Sept 2016 read more »
A company from Bideford has secured a contract worth nearly £10million for work towards Britain’s first nuclear power station in nearly 30 years. TCi (GB) ltd has been named as the preferred bidder for the Hinkley Point C power station’s office and welfare equipment, with a contract worth £9.7million. Work on the project in Somerset – which is currently under review by the Prime Minister – would see the firm setting up infrastructure for the project team and is expected to create at least five more jobs.
North Devon Gazette 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Energy Policy
Corbyn officially launched his new green agenda in Nottingham on Wednesday (7 September), pledging to generate 300,000 jobs in the renewable sector as well as establishing a target of generating 65% of the UK’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Alongside those two landmark promises, the Labour Leader would also seek to turn the country into a world leader in green technology, immediately reinstate the recently-abolished Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), ban fracking and shut down all coal-fired power stations. But while Corbyn has vowed to “protect the future of our planet, with social justice at the heart of our environment policies”, green groups and organisations have questioned the Labour leader’s ability to bring about dramatic and transformational change. Fresh from controversially labelling the National Grid’s demand response aspirations as “fanciful nonsense”, the union for energy workers GMB has warned that Corbyn’s “wishful thinking” wouldn’t keep the lights on and keep the economy functioning. “Everyone gets how, over time, renewable energy sources have an important role to play in a sensibly conceived mixed energy policy,” GMB’s national secretary for energy Justin Bowden said. “However, wishful thinking doesn’t generate the power we need to heat homes, keep the lights on and the economy functioning; this means that until there are technological breakthroughs in carbon capture or solar storage then gas and nuclear power are the only reliable, low-carbon shows in town for all those days when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
Edie 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Infrastructure
The prospective returns to infrastructure projects vary. More investment in roads will provide large benefits to motorists and facilitate more trade. Expensive railway projects, offshore wind power and a new nuclear power station are much more dubious uses of scarce resources, where alternative ways of achieving objectives are available. The Treasury should design incentives and encourage regulatory structures that are well-attuned to favour high-return investment and to avoid those that are simply politically driven and are just the convenient use of a ministerial credit card to buy “luxury goods” consumers would otherwise shun.
Telegraph 8th Sept 2016 read more »
North Korea
North Korea says it has successfully carried out its fifth test of a nuclear device. The announcement on state media came hours after a huge seismic event was detected near its nuclear test site. South Korea believes it is the North’s biggest ever test, raising fears the state has made real nuclear advances.
BBC 9th Sept 2016 read more »
South Africa
Parliament was warned yesterday that the final bill for nuclear power procurement could be three times higher than projected because of unpredictable cost escalations and the expense of decommissioning nuclear power plants.
Times 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Germany
Berlin delivers new decarbonisation proposal but lack of detail on coal phaseout and electric cars anger green groups.
Climate Change News 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Renewable Heat
The Government’s strategy for making UK heating supplies green would cost £12,000 for every household and be a “colossal waste of money”, a leading think tank has warned. Policy Exchange said plans drawn up under the Coalition government for “heat pump” technology to be installed in more than 80pc of UK homes by 2050 would be “very costly and challenging” and called for a rethink by the new Business and Energy Department. Currently, more than 80pc of UK homes use gas boilers for heating, contributing significantly to UK carbon emissions. To hit the climate change targets, heating will largely need to be decarbonised. The Government’s most recent strategy envisages widespread use of heat pumps, a technology that uses a reverse refrigeration process to draw heat from the air, the ground or a water source and increase the temperature. Heat pumps require electricity to power the process and involve significant upheaval for the installation of the equipment in every home. Policy Exchange estimates that the total cost of the plan to fit heat pumps in most homes could reach £300bn . A government spokesman said: “Government has no intention of forcing households into making expensive changes to their heating and has not set a target for electric heat pumps. So we do not recognise the numbers produced.”
Telegraph 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Renewables – tidal
In a little-reported Opposition debate on energy in the Westminster parliament (moved by the SNP and Labour), the SNP yesterday highlighted the potential of Scotland’s tidal energy industry as a potential ‘world leader’ Callum McCaig, MP (SNP, Aberdeen South) – leader of the SNP Westminster Group on Energy – said: “To take things forward we need a proper decarbonisation plan.”
Scottish Energy News 9th Sept 2016 read more »
Local Energy
Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to use new laws and the public purse to promote the creation of more than 200 local energy companies. He pledged to create 1,000 community energy co-operatives and give them the legal right to directly sell energy to the people they serve. Outlining his new ‘energy and environment manifesto’ in the Guardian, he slammed Britain’s energy market as not just “expensive, inefficient and polluting” but “above all, undemocratic”. He said the new package of policies would “pioneer a democratic, community-led system of energy supply”. If voted into office, the Labour leader promised to build 1 million carbon neutral homes, half of them council houses. A national home insulation programme would be created to bring four million homes up to the energy efficiency standards B or C, and all rented housing would be forced to meet the same standards. Vulnerable customers would be given help paying their bills.
Utility Week 8th Sept 2016 read more »
Fossil Fuels
A contentious decision to approve the construction of an open-cast coalmine at Druridge Bay in Northumberland has been called in by Sajid Javid because of fears about its impact on climate change. Local planning authorities gave their backing to the project at Highthorn, 30 miles north of Newcastle, in July. Officials said that the secretary for communities and local government wished to examine “the extent to which the proposed development is consistent with government policies for meeting the challenge of climate change”. A letter from Mr Javid to the council listed six other areas that he wanted to review. It was the first time that climate change had been explicitly cited as a reason for taking over a planning decision for a British industrial project, experts said. A public inquiry will be held to decide whether the project should proceed.
Times 9th Sept 2016 read more »
FT 9th Sept 2016 read more »
