Paris deal ‘non-negotiable’: Merkel, Herald Sun ,Deutsche Presse Agentur, June 29, 2017
The Paris climate agreement is “irreversible and non-negotiable,” Chancellor Angela Merkel says, ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg.
The European Union’s remaining 27 members have expressed their “unequivocal” commitment to the accord despite the United States’ decision to leave, Merkel told the Bundestag.
President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that the US would cease participation in the 2015 agreement to halt climate change.
In an implicit reference to Trump, Merkel said that those “who believe the problems of this world can be solved though isolationism and protectionism are sorely mistaken – only together will we manage to find the right answers to the central questions of our time.”……
Merkel is hosting the G20 summit on July 7-8, which will bring together leaders including Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/paris-deal-nonnegotiable-merkel/news-story/3c17b77023b201e41fcc16d9a7c2e1a9
June 30, 2017
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“If President Trump wanted the United States to be truly ‘energy dominant,’ he’d invest in clean energy innovation instead of slashing renewable energy research. He’d have us lead on climate change, instead of retreating from leadership on the world stage by withdrawing the Paris climate agreement”
“Want to know what Trump’s idea of energy dominance looks like? Look no further than his crony cabinet. Thanks to this administration, Washington is more dominated by Big Oil, Gas and Coal executives and their shills than ever — and they’re having their way with American democracy,”
Trump’s road to ‘energy dominance’ excludes renewables http://reneweconomy.com.au/trumps-road-energy-dominance-excludes-renewables-16457/, By Mark Hand on 30 June 2017 ThinkProgress
President Donald Trump on Thursday touted a list of actions that he said will allow the United States to achieve “new era of American energy dominance,” while environmental groups decried the actions as gifts to corporate polluters that will harm both the climate and the clean energy sector.
The full potential of the nation’s “vast energy wealth” can be realized only “when government promotes energy development,” Trump said in a speech at the Department of Energy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
However, experts counter that the nation’s economic security depends on taking measures to address climate change. The vast amounts of fossil fuels in the United States and around the world will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change.
Trump told energy executives in the audience that they have “gone through eight years of hell.” Under his administration’s initiatives, “the golden era of American energy is now underway,” the president said. The president’s statement overlooked the tremendous growth in natural gas production and renewable energy that occurred during President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.
Declaring an end to the “war on coal,” Trump announced that the Department of Treasury will remove barriers to U.S. government financing of new coal plants overseas. Led by the Obama administration, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reached an agreement in 2015 that removed financial support for large coal-fired power plants, while allowing support for smaller coal plants in developing countries.
Studies show that building new coal-fired plants, including in developing countries, will disproportionately affect the world’s poor and. With most of the households in developing countries beyond the reach of electricity grids, new coal-fired power plants will unlikely bring them electricity.
Most experts also agree that low natural gas prices, not federal regulations or policy decisions, have had the greatest impact on declining coal production in the United States.
Other prominent items on the list were a presidential order to conduct a review of the nation’s nuclear energy policy. Trump also said his administration will implement a new offshore oil and gas leasing program that will create access to “the energy wealth right off our shores.” The Interior Department said Thursday that it is publishing a “request for information,” seeking comments from the public on what areas should be open for drilling, the first step in redoing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year plan.
As part of the theme of using exports to create “energy dominance,” Trump said the Department of Energy plans to approve two new applications for liquefied natural gas exports from the Lake Charles export terminal in Louisiana. He also said he has approved plans to build a new petroleum pipeline from the United States to Mexico. “It’ll go right under the wall,” Trump said.
With newly elected South Korean president Moon Jae-in scheduled to meet with Trump on Thursday, the president noted that San Diego-based Sempra Energy has formally agreed to negotiate a potential LNG export contract with South Korea.
Environmental groups condemned the administration’s list of actions. “Trump’s rhetoric on energy falls short of the reality in which he’s cancelling life-saving public health standards that protect clean air and water just to boost the profits of fossil fuel executives,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement.
Trump’s speech marked an “appalling conclusion” to what the administration has called “energy week,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters.
“If President Trump wanted the United States to be truly ‘energy dominant,’ he’d invest in clean energy innovation instead of slashing renewable energy research. He’d have us lead on climate change, instead of retreating from leadership on the world stage by withdrawing the Paris climate agreement,” Sittenfield said in a statement. “Without a doubt, Trump’s dirty energy week was a failure, with only vague policies that would benefit corporate polluters, while putting our natural heritage, our families’ health and our economic well-being at risk.”
Trump’s speech was preceded by a roundtable, moderated by energy industry consultant and author Daniel Yergin, that included Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Perry explained it was research conducted at the DOE’s national laboratories that helped create early-stage directional drilling that allowed companies to extract natural gas at a much cheaper cost.
As part of its budget, though, the Trump administration requested a cut that would take about $900 million from the Office of Science, which oversees the DOE’s 10 national laboratories.
Pruitt said the job of the EPA is to “let the markets make decisions on what provides stable, cost-effective fuel to generate electricity” and not stand in the away of technology that helps to meet emissions standards.
David Turnbull, campaigns director at Oil Change International, said the “energy dominance” tagline “reveals an attitude toward our environment and energy policy that would destroy communities and our climate in order to feed his own desire to feel powerful over others.”
“Want to know what Trump’s idea of energy dominance looks like? Look no further than his crony cabinet. Thanks to this administration, Washington is more dominated by Big Oil, Gas and Coal executives and their shills than ever — and they’re having their way with American democracy,” Turnbull said in a statement. “Someone should put the leash back on Donald Trump, while the rest of us keep working to make America the leader it needs to be in renewable energy innovation and job creation.”
Also in his speech Thursday, Trump again addressed his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, describing it as “one-sided” and burdensome to U.S. businesses. The president left the door open for re-joining the agreement. “Maybe we’ll be back into it some day, but it will be on better terms. It will be on fair terms,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
June 30, 2017
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Dave Toke’s Blog 27th June 2017,The latest announcement from EDF that Hinkley C will be further delayed and that EDF will be hit with even more cost overruns risks making true the prediction of EDF former Finance Officer that the project will bankrupt the company.
This may well lead to increasing pressures on the UK Government to put billions of UK taxpayers money into the project. Hinkley C, which former EDF boss Vincent de Rivaz said (in 2007) would be generating by the end of this year (2017) will now, according to EDF, not be generating electricity until 2027.
Ten years on and the project is still ten years away! But meanwhile the company has spent massive sums getting not very far towards building the plant. It is now in danger of wasting even the money the French state has pumped into EDF to save the company and build the project in Somerset. Sixteen months ago EDF Finance Director Thomas
Piquemal resigned, after EDF decided to make a ‘final investment decision’ over Hinkley C, fearing it could put the whole company at risk.
Perhaps this is an echo of policy before privatisation of electricity when nuclear power appeared to cost very little simply because the Government, through the aegis of the nationalised industry, paid for all of the construction costs, not to mention taking responsibility for ‘back-end’ decommissioning costs. Then nobody noticed that they, the taxpayer and electricity consumer, were really picking up the bill. The nuclear industry longs to return to these bad old days.
http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/could-latest-delays-in-hinkley-c.html
June 30, 2017
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Utility Week 27th June 2017,The government has set up a new team to spearhead the UK’s withdrawal
from Euratom, a senior official said this morning. In a speech at a Nuclear
Industry Association conference this morning, Matt Clarke of the civil
nuclear and resilience directorate at the department for business, energy
and industrial strategy (BEIS) said the new team had been set up within the
department.
He told delegates at the Nuclear New Build conference that the
team would be involved in negotiations with the EU about establishing a
nuclear co-operation arrangements with key partner states and establishing
a new domestic nuclear safeguarding arrangements.
Last week’s Queen’s Speech contained a bill to create a domestic nuclear safeguarding regime to
replace the existing pan-European arrangements provided by Euratom. Clarke
said: “Exit [from Euratom] does not affect the government’s aims of
maintaining close co-operation on civil nuclear safety with Euratom members
and the rest of the world.”
He also tried to reassure the conference that the government remains committed to its small modular reactors (SMRs)
competition despite a lack of progress since its launch last March. Clarke said: “The government recognises the pot of SMRs. There are a number of potential benefits in terms of providing a secure, low carbon energy source
as well as broader industrial benefits and high value jobs.” He said that BEIS had met the companies which had submitted entries to the competition and would be “communicating next steps in due course.” He added that deciding how SMRs fit into the government’s wider industrial strategy was one of the “key questions” being addressed by NIA chair Lord Hutton,
who is leading work on shaping a tailored “sector deal” for the nuclear industry.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/BEIS-task-force-to-execute-Euratom-exit/1306162
June 30, 2017
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FT 28th June 2017,For most companies, problems for three of their biggest competitors would probably be cause for celebration. But at Russian nuclear conglomerate Rosatom, the recent setbacks at rivals Westinghouse, Areva and Kepco have instead caused concern.
Their woes are representative of the wider threat from renewable and other sources of energy to the nuclear industry,
according to Kirill Komarov, Rosatom’s deputy chief executive, amid ambitious growth plans by the sprawling state-run group. Many analysts still see Rosatom, a conglomerate that spans the nuclear energy industry, as a beneficiary of the crisis given its ambitions. It is managing 42 power plant projects in 12 countries, including EU members Finland and Hungary, commissioned 10 nuclear units in the past decade, and has a 10-year order book worth $133bn, excluding its domestic business. This plays a part in the forecasts of the International Energy Agency of a tripling of global nuclear capacity by 2060. Rosatom’s increased influence has unnerved some, however.
Its role as a 34 per cent shareholder and supplier of finance and atomic fuel for Finland’s Hanhikivi plant almost caused the collapse of the Finnish government in 2014, when the country’s Green party left the previous ruling coalition in protest.
The EU took three years to approve Hungary’s Pak II plant, built and financed by Rosatom, amid fears in Brussels of Russian leverage on the bloc’s eastern flank.But given the troubles at western rivals and the pivot by Seoul, some
industry analysts say only China’s collection of state-controlled nuclear firms have similar scale to challenge Rosatom.
https://www.ft.com/content/774358b4-5a4a-11e7-9bc8-8055f264aa8b
June 30, 2017
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Greenpeace 28th June 2017, The Nuclear Safety Authority (NSA) is under unprecedented pressure from EDF
and AREVA. This unprecedented situation shows that ASN’s decision is no longer limited to nuclear safety: it has become a political one.
What do EDF and AREVA want to do? Derogating from the most basic standards of nuclear safety so that the Flamanville EPR is put into operation despite its defective parts. Behind the authorization of this tank of the EPR, it
is indeed the survival of the French nuclear industry is at stake. Indeed, EDF and AREVA play a big part in the EPR in Flamanville.
The decisions that will be taken on this site will have far-reaching consequences for the future of the projects sold in the United Kingdom, Finland and China.
We appeal to the responsibility of Nicolas Hulot, Minister of Ecological and Solidarity Transition and in charge of nuclear safety. The ASN can no longer take a safety decision independently and cannot resist the pressure.
As for us French citizens, we do not have to pay the price of strategic and technical errors of EDF and AREVA. By putting an end to the Flamanville shipyard, Nicolas Hulot can still avoid it.
https://www.greenpeace.fr/nicolas-hulot-ne-laissez-pas-lasn-sacrifier-la-surete-pour-sauver-lindustrie-nucleaire/
June 30, 2017
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Companies promise payback when prices rise — but until then, uranium wants a break, Casper Star Tribune, Heather Richards 307-266-0592, Heather.Richards@trib.com Jun 27, 2017
When the market recovers, the uranium industry won’t need a tax break. But it does now, industry representatives say.
Citing low prices and employment, the Wyoming Mining Association will make the case for a state tax cut on uranium when lawmakers meet Thursday in Casper…..
prices for yellowcake, the powdery ore processed after mining, tumbled as low as $18 per pound last year due to a worldwide glut, from record highs of more than $120 in 2007. Production is down, and employment in the industry has fallen to its lowest level since 2004, according to the Wyoming Mining Association.
Uranium companies need an incentive to invest in new mines and production while the market is suffering…..
Otherwise, production is going to continue to decline as companies dig out the ore available at their existing mines and shy away from the cost of new operations or expansion.
…..But the idea has already sparked pushback by those unimpressed with the association’s argument.
“’When the market recovers’ has been the theme song of the uranium industry since the 1980s, and they always want some kind of deal,” said Wilma Tope, a board member with the Powder River Basin Resource Council, which opposes a tax cut. “Unfortunately, the history of this industry is one of leaving behind un-reclaimed uranium mines and polluted landscapes for other taxpayers to clean up.”
In a statement released before the committee meeting, the council pointed out that current reclamation sites in Fremont County still need to be addressed, including groundwater concerns at the both the former Split Rock facility near Jeffrey City and the Umetco Minerals Corp. outside Riverton. Cleanup at the American Nuclear Corporation site in Fremont County is on hold due to lack of funds, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company went under in 1994. Cleanup responsibilities were transferred to the state of Wyoming, according to the commission.
June 30, 2017
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House energy bill spends $3.6B more than Trump budget, The Hill BY DEVIN HENRY – 06/27/17 House appropriators on Tuesday introduced a spending bill for federal energy and water departments that spends $3.65 billion more in 2018 than President Trump requested for the agencies.
The bill, which funds the Department of Energy (DOE), nuclear weapons oversight, the Army Corps of Engineers and other departments, would spend $37.56 billion total in 2018, a $209 million cut from current funding levels.
But the measure is a rejection of Trump’s budget proposal, which looked to deeply slash spending for the initiatives funded by the legislation.
The House bill would cut funding for several DOE programs, including energy agencies, research, nuclear power and renewable energy programs, though few are close to the cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
Renewable energy research, for instance, is cut by $986 million over current levels, but that is $468 million less than the cuts for which Trump had aimed.
Fossil fuel research offices would receive $635 million under the bill, a $33 million cut compared to the $388 million cut President Trump had requested.
The bill increases funding for the DOE’s nuclear weapons security programs and the Army Corps of Engineers. It also contains $150 million to kickstart the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, a priority for Trump and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, but one that has garnered opposition from Nevada officials and lawmakers…….http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/339657-house-energy-funding-bill-would-spend-36b-more-than-trump
June 30, 2017
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Trump’s Plans for a Nuclear Revival Will Begin With a Study, Bloomberg, By Jennifer A Dlouhy, June 30, 2017,
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As part of White House Energy Week, nuclear in the spotlight
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Nuclear reactors face competition from gas and wind power
President Donald Trump has a plan to help the aging fleet of U.S. nuclear reactors estimated to be losing nearly $3 billion a year: study the issue.
At the culmination of the White House “Energy Week,” Trump is set to announce a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear regulation, stopping short — for now — of the big federal interventions advocates say are needed to revitalize the industry, which is struggling to compete against cheap natural gas and dispose of its radioactive waste.
“I have no idea what a review will tell us that we don’t already know,” said Mike McKenna, a Republican energy strategist with close ties to the administration. “For anyone who knows nuclear, there’s no doubt about what needs to be done. It’s a question of doing it — not talking about it.”
In his speech, Trump is also set to describe how growing exports of oil and natural gas are creating domestic jobs, helping allies abroad and boosting the global influence of the U.S., according to a person familiar with the matter. Along with the nuclear review, Trump will highlight U.S. coal exports to Ukraine, the person said, declining to be identified before the announcement. The nuclear assessment is set to go further than other, more discrete reviews by analyzing an array of regulatory challenges and possible prescriptions for fixing them.
Rescuing the nuclear industry is a costly, complex challenge for the Trump administration. Subsidizing at-risk nuclear reactors to keep them online through 2020 would require an estimated $2.9 billion annually, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. And making deeper market changes to better compensate nuclear power plants for the reliable, zero-carbon electricity they offer depends on action by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which lacks a working quorum.
And while a House committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would revive research on permanently stashing spent radioactive material at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the idea is politically fraught and opposed by most of that state’s lawmakers.
Top Trump administration officials have been touting nuclear power as an important economic and national security asset, with Energy Secretary Rick Perry promising to “make nuclear energy cool again” and insisting the U.S. needs to regain a “leadership role” developing it…….
ClearPath has pushed for the Energy Department to stage a “grand challenge” with the goal of getting at least four advanced reactors under construction within a decade. The group also advocates electricity market reforms that could give extra value to power that comes from resilient, reliable sources.
Nuclear enthusiasts — including some invited to attend Trump’s speech at the Energy Department Thursday — have advanced a slew of ideas to help the struggling power source with its chief problems, which include a costly government licensing process for new designs. The administration’s planned nuclear review could address the barriers holding back new advanced reactors that rely on sodium, lead and molten salt to for cooling.
Without waiting for Congress, the administration could stand up a government Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and begin securing land and water rights for Yucca Mountain, McKenna said……
The Trump administration’s proposed budget would slash Energy Department funding for nuclear energy by more than 28 percent, including support for the development of small modular reactors.…https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-29/trump-s-plans-for-a-nuclear-revival-will-begin-with-a-study
June 30, 2017
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Kepco confirms talks with Toshiba over UK nuclear — but only with its own reactors, Telegraph Jillian Ambrose 28 JUNE 2017 South Korea’s largest power company is in talks with Toshiba to prop up its plans to build Europe’s largest new nuclear plant in the UK.
Jong-hyuck Park, an executive from Kepco, confirmed the group’s interest in buying a stake of the embattled Moorside nuclear project on the sidelines of an industry event, but said Kepco would want to use its own reactor design.
The South Korean state-backed utility is one of the world’s strongest nuclear developers and has harboured an interest in Moorside since 2013. Its appetite for a UK nuclear project was revived following the collapse of Toshiba’s US nuclear business, Westinghouse, which was supposed to provide the reactor design for the project.
A deal with Toshiba, the last remaining group behind the NuGeneration venture, could rescue the £10bn project. But a change in reactor design would also derail the 2025 start date by at least two years in a further blow to the UK’s new nuclear ambitions.
Earlier this week a French newspaper reported that EDF’s internal review of the Hinkley Point C new nuclear plant is expected to show a €3bn (£2.6bn) overspend and a two year delay, which would also push the start-date back to 2027.
The slow progress in securing new investment in baseload power generation raises questions over the UK’s energy supplies in the middle of the next decade. More than two thirds of the country’s power generation capacity will have retired between 2010 and 2030.
Moorside was plunged into doubt in recent months due to the Japanese conglomerate’s financial woes which threatened to derail the use of the Westinghouse 1000 reactor and cost the project its junior partner Engie. ….
Kepco’s renewed interest in Moorside emerged the same day that South Korean president Moon Jae-in suspended construction of two of Kepco’s partially built nuclear reactors to consult on whether they should move forward.
The decision comes following Mr Moon’s pledge to stop building nuclear reactors, and rid the country of nuclear power entirely by 2060. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/28/kepco-confirms-talks-toshiba-uk-nuclear-but-reactors/
June 30, 2017
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Russia has ‘enormous’ underground bunkers ready for nuclear war http://nypost.com/2017/06/29/russia-has-enormous-underground-bunkers-ready-for-nuclear-war/By Ruth Brown, June 29, 2017 Russia is maintaining giant bunkers underneath Moscow where Kremlin bigwigs can live underground for months after a nuclear attack, because the administration is convinced the U.S. plans on overthrowing President Vladimir Putin, according to a newly revealed Pentagon report.
“A deep underground facility at the Kremlin and an enormous underground leadership bunker adjacent to Moscow State University are intended for the national command authority in wartime,” says the report, according to the Times of London.
“Highly effective life-support systems may permit independent operations for many months following a nuclear attack.”
The Defense Intelligence Agency report on Moscow’s military might — the first since the Cold War — says the “enormous” bunkers are 985 feet underground and can house as many as 10,000 people in the case of nuclear Armageddon, according to the paper.
The shelters are linked to other bunkers outside of the city — as well as the VIP terminal at Vnukovo airfield, in case the honchos need to flee, the report said.
The report, which predates President Trump’s election but was released Wednesday, says Putin believes the U.S. is intent on regime change as part of our “efforts to promote democracy around the world.”
“The Kremlin is convinced the United States is laying the groundwork for regime-change in Russia,” the report says.
June 30, 2017
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Is The U.K. Nuclear Program In Disarray And Will The Wind Blow In?
Summary
Hinkley Point C : construction progressing, technology and cost of power the issue.
NuGen : Toshiba exiting, who will step up? Reactor design still unclear. China interested but will this be controversial?
Wylfa : Hitachi-GE ABWR reactors technically strong, but Hitachi won’t finance the project. Who will?
Meanwhile decommissioning of UK nuclear plants by 2023; where will the power come from? Wind well positioned to benefit…….https://seekingalpha.com/article/4084787-u-k-nuclear-program-disarray-will-wind-blow
June 30, 2017
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FT 28th June 2017, South Korea’s nuclear shares took a hit from the new government’s
anti-nuclear policy, a day after president Moon Jae-in decided to suspend
construction of two partially built nuclear reactors. Mr Moon said on
Tuesday the construction of Shin Kori No 5 and Shin Kori No 6 in Busan, the
country’s second-largest port city, would be halted for three months,
during which the government would seek views from the public on their
future.
Shares of Kepco, the state-run utility at the forefront of the
country’s efforts to export nuclear reactors, fell 1.8 per cent while those
of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, which is leading a consortium to
build the two nuclear reactors, dropped 4.4 per cent. The suspension of the
construction of the two reactors – wi th about one-third of construction
already finished – came after Mr Moon pledged to stop building nuclear
reactors, with the goal of making the county nuclear free by 2060.
Kepco had been seen by industry experts as the only potential acquirer of the
bankrupt US nuclear power plant builder Westinghouse because of security
reasons. But experts caution the political shift on nuclear energy will
probably discourage the state-run company from pursuing any attempt to buy
Westinghouse. Kepco has not ruled out buying Westinghouse but said on
Wednesday it was mulling how the government’s changed nuclear stance may
affect its bid. Kepco is in talks to join a UK consortium called NuGen that
is using Westinghouse’s technology to build a new nuclear power station in
Cumbria, England. “It would be difficult for the state-run company to even
raise the possibility of bidding for Westinghouse, when the government sees
nuclear energy as a doomed industry,” said Suh Kyun-ryul, professor of
atomic engineering at Seoul National University. https://www.ft.com/content/a5d7ab48-5bd6-11e7-9bc8-8055f264aa8b
June 30, 2017
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Sempra VP Surprises, Says 100 Percent Renewable Grid Is Possible Now http://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/may/26/sempra-vp-surprises-says-100-percent-renewable-gri/ By Ingrid Lobet / inewsource A vice president with Sempra Energy, one of the nation’s largest utilities, made a stunning admission to a roomful of gas and oil executives this week: there is no technical impediment to California getting all of its energy from renewables — now.
In simple terms, this means all power could come from sources like wind, solar and hydro without reliance on fossil fuels. This has been the position of environmental groups and renewable energy companies. But not utilities, which typically argue that the grid still requires fossil electricity for stability, because renewables come and go.
“I am speaking with confidence now. We have a solution now to adjust the intermittency of solar and wind energy that is no longer a technology challenge. Now it is an economic decision,” said Patrick Lee, Sempra Energy vice president for major project controls. “So installing a base load power plant is no longer your only option. You can now look at solar, wind and storage as alternatives, and still be able to manage the reliability of the grid. So that is the takeaway I would like you to have.”
He addressed the annual La Jolla energy conference sponsored by the UC San Diego Institute of the Americas at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines.
Lee said that as a trained engineer, even three years ago he would not have believed this was possible.
“But today my answer is: The technology has been resolved. How fast do you want to get to 100 percent? That can be done today,” he said.
In those three years, not only have wind, solar and battery prices plunged. The software to control storage and the grid has also advanced.
Suddenly, there is software that can make grid adjustments and bring battery power online much, much faster. “We now have the ability to control the grid twenty times faster than you can blink your eye,” Lee said.
To commercialize the new control software, Sempra has spun off a company called Pxise Energy Solutions, LLC. It has licensed several patents developed with the company OSIsoft. Pxise has three more patents in the works. Lee is president of Pxise.
New abilities like this help point the way to future profit for utilities like Sempra facing financial challenges from many energy trends. But they also raise questions about the necessity of controversial new fossil fuel plants that these companies still want to build, such as the one near the beach in Carlsbad. Until recently, Sempra and that plant’s builder, NRG Energy, had countered, saying batteries were just not there yet.
June 30, 2017
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Le Monde 26th June 2017,[Machine Translation], EPR of Flamanville: a report warns EDF on the
reliability of the lid of the tank. The operator may have to quickly
replace this reactor masterpiece after commissioning, which is still
scheduled for the end of 2018.EDF executives have been overly optimistic,
obviously convinced that the future reactor tank of the Flamanville
(Manche) EPR reactor would pass without difficulty before the “judges” of
the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and its armed wing, the Institute of
Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN).
The situation is ultimately more complex: it is not excluded that the plant operator must at least
change the lid of this tank, only a few years after the EPR has been put
into service. Meeting on Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th June, the 31 members
of the permanent group of experts for nuclear pressure equipment
(industrialists, associations …) took note of a long report (193 pages)
of the IRSN and the Direction des Equipment under ASN’s nuclear pressure,
which is very critical in some respects. If it does not question the future
of the powerful third generation reactor (1,650 MW), designed by Areva in
the 1990s, it puts an additional mortgage on a project that will already
cost 10.5 billion d ‘ Three times more than expected. http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/06/26/un-feu-vert-sous-condition-attendu-pour-l-epr-de-flamanville_5151256_3234.html
June 30, 2017
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nuclear-news 