The end of nuclear power is becoming the only solution to its financial mess
Nuclear Power Dirty Bomb The Market Oracle, Oct 28, 2013 By: Andrew_McKillop “………LOSS AVOIDANCE IS THE ONLY SOLUTION Turning off the nuclear tap will soon become the only solution. Civil nuclear power plant growth and proliferation has already cancelled in several countries, including Germany, Japan and Switzerland, and is likely to be placed on hold, because of nuclear debt and the sheer un-economic nature of nuclear power, in other countries. Of course we can be sure that China and India will come very late to the party and may need the “tweak” of one or more worst-case reactor meltdowns to make them move.
We can however be sure that Nuclear Nirvana’s murky underside of a Pandora’s Box of evils will soon cause a sea shift in ruling elite thinking.
Options exist for the rapid removal of nuclear power from the scene. Since 2008, in more than a half of OECD countries exposed to the realities of the sovereign debt crisis, electricity consumption has fallen, sometimes by double-digit amounts in 3 years. The need for nuclear power is cut by this real world trend. To be sure there are also long-term and rising nuclear debts due to accumulated wastes and to the near-term future crisis of reactor decommissioning – which in a sane world would only hasten the total abandonment of this failed option for supplying “cheap, clean and safe” power.
The options are better known than ever. The pathology of “we didnt know” has worn awfully thin after the Fukushima disaster. The same applies to Depleted Uranium weapons, nicely reserved for expert commentators to pontificate about – but which cause real world cancers and economic loss every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The choices and options are on the table for those who want to admit them. Unfortunately our current political decider elite is congenitally unable to admit them. Soldiering along and muddling through with the deadly, high cost option of nuclear power will continue – but not for long. As ever, one disaster is worth a lot more than a million words. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article42864.html
France’s Flamanville EPR fiasco – not a good look for UK’s new nuclear reactors
Dr Paul Dorfman, of the Energy Institute at University College, London, believes the British public is facing a turbulent nuclear future. He says: ‘It’s extremely likely that the construction at Hinkley Point will be over-budget and late. It is unfortunate because it will be the UK taxpayer and consumer, no doubt, who will be picking up the bill.’…..
Professor Steve Thomas, an energy policy expert at the University of Greenwich, has written a damning report on the EPR project, claiming, in 2010, that the entire design and construction was ‘in crisis’. His 26-page report catalogued the errors at Flamanville and in Finland, and concluded construction had gone ‘dramatically wrong’.
Deaths, chilling safety lapses, lawsuits, huge cost over-runs and delays: Why we can’t trust the French with Britain’s nuclear future, Daily mail UK, , 26 October 2013, By STEVE BIRD
- EDF’s nuclear reactor plant at Flamanville, Normandy, is beset by financial mismanagement and the deaths of workers
- EDF, along with French nuclear group Areva and investors from China, are due to start work on a £16bn plant in Hinkley Point in Somerset in 2017 It will be the first nuclear reactor in the UK in nearly 20 years – and also first European Pressurised Reactor (EPR)
- … yet no reactor of this design is yet working anywhere in the world……
- The optimism and excitement of that first day of construction is now long gone.Since then, the predicted cost of just under £3 billion has rocketed to more than £7 billion (it could go up still further). Continue reading
Bill Gates promotes his nuclear reactor business in Idaho
Bill Gates goes nuclear in Idaho http://gigaom.com/2013/10/25/bill-gates-goes-nuclear-in-idaho/?go_commented=1#comment-1375195 Katie Fehrenbacher OCT. 25, 2013 – Bill Gates, along with the staff of nuclear startup TerraPower, visited the U.S. government-owned Idaho National Labs this week to check out the facilities in advance of reactor design work that TerraPower plans to do at the facility. Gates is chairman of, and investor, in TerraPower, which has been developing a traveling wave nuclear reactor that can run on waste uranium, and can make and consume its own fuel — theoretically it doesn’t need to be refueled for hundreds of years.PD
“Nuclear Gypsies” work in Japan’s $150-billion Fukushima radiation clean-up
Radiation, desperation and gangsters: Inside the hidden tragedy of Fukushima The Globe and Mail , 25 Oct 13 ANTONI SLODKOWSKI AND MARI SAITO IWAKI — Reuters , Oct. 25 2013 Tetsuya Hayashi went to Fukushima to take a job at ground zero of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. He lasted less than two weeks.
Hayashi, 41, says he was recruited for a job monitoring the radiation exposure of workers leaving the plant in the summer of 2012. Instead, when he turned up for work, he was handed off through a web of contractors and assigned, to his surprise, to one of Fukushima’s hottest radiation zones.
He was told he would have to wear an oxygen tank and a double-layer protective suit. Even then, his handlers told him, the radiation would be so high it could burn through his annual exposure limit in just under an hour.
“I felt cheated and entrapped,” Hayashi said. “I had not agreed to any of this.” Continue reading
Poor working conditions in Japan’s nuclear industry
At Fukushima, ‘nuclear gypsies’ struggle with low wages and steep risks The Verge, By Katie Drummond on October 25, 2013 “….. the process of cleaning up that mess has become something of a disaster itself: an estimated 50,000 “nuclear gypsies” employed by the project are now grappling with poor wages, risky working conditions, and rampant labor violations. In a sweeping investigation, Reuters reports that a combination of factors like lax governmental regulations, sketchy contractors, and poor oversight is to blame for the fiasco. Some workers complain of having their wages skimmed by illegal labor rackets, while others say they were hired to do one job before being forced into a much more dangerous one. Unfortunately, the investigation notes that the Fukushima cleanup merely highlights problems that have long plagued the industry. “Working conditions in the nuclear industry have always been bad,” Saburo Murata, deputy director of Osaka’s Hannan Chuo Hospital, told Reuters. “Problems with money, outsourced recruitment, lack of proper health insurance — these have existed for decades.” http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/25/5028568/fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-low-wages-high-risks
Britain embarks on a lose – lose nuclear power program
Costs for renewables, on the other hand, are expected to drop further – the world-wide boom in investing in these technologies has just begun. And, in contrast to uranium, the “fuel” for wind and solar power is locally sourced and abundant in Britain, driving towards a more energy secure and independent country – the real win-win situation for everybody.
New nuclear is a lose-lose situation for Britain http://theconversation.com/new-nuclear-is-a-lose-lose-situation-for-britain-19530 Matthias Reeg 24 Oct 13, The first new nuclear power station in Britain in nearly 20 years is to be built, an announcement that comes only two and a half years after the disaster at Fukushima focused the world’s attention the drawbacks of nuclear power. At a first glance it looks like the nuclear industry is back in business in Europe.
The deal between French energy giant EDF, which operates Britain’s existing nuclear power plants, and the planned Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, and the British government was pitched as a win-win situation for everybody. The consumers are assured of their electricity supply, the government invests in jobs and bolsters a “cutting-edge” low carbon technology that will help Britain hit it’s CO2 emissions targets, and EDF secures a profit margin of 10%.
The deal guarantees EDF a price of £92.50 (about €110) per megawatt hour (MWh) for 35 years from the time the plant starts generating, inflation linked to the consumer price index. The UK government, in its overflowing generosity, has also agreed tounderwrite 65% of the £16 billion cost of building the plant.
But looking at the numbers more closely reveals a different picture. A picture, in fact, that is entirely the opposite. The deal is a confession in public, a statement of failure of a technology that was never and probably will never be built and operated at competitive cost. Continue reading
Uncertainty on costs of UK’s new nuclear power project
UK nuclear power plant contract: £80bn deal or no deal? Fiona Harvey and Patrick WintourThe Guardian, Monday 21 October 2013 Political parties and industry groups welcome low-carbon project as academics and campaigners question cost and waste. The British energy secretary, Ed Davey, has signed the first new nuclear contract with French state-backed utility firm EDF, admitting only a clairvoyant could know the true cost to the taxpayer of the 35-year contract because of the uncertainty of future energy prices.
Energy academics said on Monday that the deal was a gamble, but estimated the cost would be at least £80bn over the life of the two new reactors to be built in Somerset, or roughly £3.5m a day for each reactor at current rates. The cost will depend on how energy prices move over the next 30 years.
Ministers made it clear that future governments would be locked into the contract, set to run until 2058, or face large penalties to compensate EDF. The Treasury has also been forced to offer loan guarantees to underwrite the finance for the investment, which is being undertaken by a consortium of French and Chinese investors.
The contract – which was signed as npower became the third major energy supplier to announce inflation-busting price rises – attracted strong criticism from some environmental groups, who said the price was excessive and the issue of waste unresolved….
The coaliton agreement signed in 2010 opposed providing nuclear industry with any public subsidy, a position reaffirmed by the Liberal Democrats at their conference this autumn. The conference also ended the party’s opposition in principle to nuclear power……
David Boyle, a Lib Dem adviser to Nick Clegg, said: “Everyone knows that nuclear energy would be impossible without some kind of guarantee, and I seriously doubt whether EDF will ever make money even on that one. But that was not what we promised ourselves, let alone anyone else. The party’s embarrassing new policy repeats the same glib non-position – no nuclear subsidies – when that is precisely what is now being agreed.”…..
Antony Froggatt, from the Chatham House thinktank, said EDF’s costs projection had already increased markedly. “In 2006, its submission to the government’s energy review stated [the type of reactor to be used, a European pressurised water reactor] would cost £28.80 per megawatt-hour in 2013 values,” he said. “This more than threefold increase [to £92.50], over eight years, puts the cost of nuclear electricity at about double the current market rate – higher than that produced by both gas and coal-fired power stations, and more costly than many renewable energy options.”
Projects to build new reactors in France, Finland and elsewhere have run into delays and cost increases………. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/21/uk-nuclear-power-plant-contract-deal-no-deal
Hinkley nuclear power plant irrelevant to UK’s energy problems
UK nuclear power plant contract: £80bn deal or no deal? Fiona Harvey and Patrick WintourThe Guardian, Monday 21 October 2013 “……..John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Hinkley C fails every test – economic, consumer and environmental. It will lock a generation of consumers into higher energy bills via a strike price that’s nearly double the current price of electricity, and it will distort energy policy by displacing newer, cleaner technologies that are dropping dramatically in price.”
Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said the nuclear deal would not solve the short-term problem of keeping the lights on as current nuclear and many coal-fired power stations were expected to shut down in the next few years, long before Hinkley C started operating.
“[It] is a major development for the UK energy mix, but does nothing to address the looming capacity crunch. Hinkley will still be a construction site when old coal and nuclear capacity is shut down,” she said…..http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/21/uk-nuclear-power-plant-contract-deal-no-deal
AREVA’s renewable energy business slowing, because of political uncertainty
French Nuclear Giant Areva Sees Revenue Slump http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/french-nuclear-giant-areva-sees-revenue-slump-20670644 PARIS October 24, 2013 (AP) French nuclear giant Areva says its revenue fell in the third quarter partially due to a slump in business at its renewable energies division.
The state-controlled company said Thursday that its revenue dropped 5.8 percent to 2.1 billion euros ($2.9 billion) in the June-to-September quarter.
The company, which is struggling to stage a turnaround following a global rethink of nuclear energy, said some of the slide was due to unfavorable currency exchange rates, including a strong dollar. It also saw a slowdown in business in its reactors and services division in the U.S.
But the biggest slide came in its renewable energies division, which is small but had been growing quickly. Sales fell 46 percent there. Areva blamed the decline on indecision in the new market.
UK’s new nuclear power – a bad financial gamble
‘New generation’: The UK bets on a nuclear future, DW, Emma Wallis, 21 Oct
“….…Hidden costs Pete Roche works at “Spinwatch”, an organization that aims to highlight the true meaning behind government PR, or “spin.” Roche’s area of expertise is “Nuclear Spin.”
The UK government, he believes, “thinks they need [nuclear power] because there are an awful lot of coal fired stations due to close over the next few years, and the gas from the North Sea is also reducing.”
He also feels that consumers are not being told the true cost of nuclear energy. “At the beginning of all this we were told that nuclear is the cheapest for providing low-carbon electricity,” something he says is not necessarily true.
Price comparisons
By comparison, offshore wind costs 130 British pounds per megawatt, a figure that might drop to 100 by 2030. Although on the government press release for Hinkley Point, they estimate that Hinkley Point on 430 acres will be able to generate 26 terrawatt hours of electricity, compared to 130,000 acres of solar farms needed and 250,000 acres of onshore wind farms.
Roche told DW that Germany is “showing us the way,” clearly wishing that the UK had also decided after Fukushima to phase out its nuclear power, not increase them.
“The first difference that I like to highlight between Germany and the UK is that Germany expects to reduce energy consumption by about 20 percent, I think. And the UK is expecting our energy consumption to increase. If we went for the kinds of reduction in consumption that Germany is going for, it would be much easier to implement a renewable energy strategy.”…..http://www.dw.de/new-generation-the-uk-bets-on-a-nuclear-future/a-17171536
End of plans for Levy nuclear power plant, termination of Crystal River nuclear plant
Duke Energy’s revised agreement ends nuclear power plant plans ww.power-eng.com/articles/2013/10/duke-energys-revised-agreement-ends-nuclear-power-plant-plans.html Oct 17, 2013The Florida Public Service Commission approved a Revised and Restated Settlement Agreement that officially ends plans for Duke Energy Florida (NYSE: DUK) to build the Levy nuclear power plant and allows the retirement the shuttered Crystal River nuclear plant.
As part of the revised agreement, recoverable costs for Crystal River Unit 3 will be capped at $1.4 billion, with stockholders covering the first $295 million. Commissioners said in a release that when a plant is retired, the company has a right, by law, to recover the remaining costs from its customers.
Duke will continue to collect fixed amounts for costs associated with the canceled Levy nuclear plant until 2017. However, customers will earn refunds that were in the original 2012 agreement, including $129 million this year, $139 million in 2014, $50 million in 2015 and $70 million in 2016. Customers will also receive a refund of $835 million from insurance proceeds over the Crystal River unit by the end of 2014.
Renewable energy investments already making good returns
Renewable Energy Stocks that are Already Paying Out Oil Price. com By The Energy Report | Thu, 17 October 2013 Alternative energy is a long-term investment, but returns are already rolling in, says Edward Guinness, co-manager of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund, which is up a whopping 67% year to date. Before you know it, rooftop solar could be as ubiquitous as mobile phones, and developments in wind energy are already creating a compelling value proposition for energy consumers—especially in Europe, where energy prices are high. Learn about the holdings driving growth for Guinness’ fund in this interview with The Energy Report……http://oilprice.com/Finance/investing-and-trading-reports/Renewable-Energy-Stocks-that-are-Already-Paying-Out.html
Renewables leading in global energy investment
Citibank: Renewables will get bulk of world’s new power investment http://fuelfix.com/midland/2013/10/10/citibank-renewables-will-get-bulk-of-worlds-new-power-investment/ October 10, 2013 The world is going clean: Renewable energy will make up more than 70 percent of investment in new power generation by 2025, a Citibank report said Thursday.
Demand for power is growing around the globe and most of it will be renewable. Of the nearly $10 trillion dollars that will be poured into the power sector in the next decade, more than $2 trillion will be invested in wind, followed by $1.5 trillion in hydropower and $1.3 trillion in solar power, as nations around the world begin to make the shift away from fossil fuel generation.
While natural gas has cut into coal’s dominance for power generation in the United States, the report notes that in the longer run, the lower price of solar energy will make it increasingly attractive, especially during peak demand periods, when wholesale power in Texas can cost as much as $4,500 per megawatt-hour.
“Solar steals the most valuable part of electricity generation at the peak of the day when prices are highest,” the report said. German natural gas power plants have already said they are reluctant to build new generation because of the impact of solar power on their profits, according to the report.
More than $37 trillion will be invested in the global energy infrastructure in the next two decades, with nearly 50 percent of it devoted to electricity generation, Citibank estimated in the report. Oil production will account for about 37 percent of total investment, followed by natural gas, coal and biofuels, at 23 percent, 3 percent and one percent, respectively.
AREVA joins the pack marketing nukes to Britain
Areva Said Ready to Join Group Building U.K. Nuclear Power Plant, Bloomberg News By Tara Patel and Francois de Beaupuy October 16, 2013 Areva will take a stake in the Hinkley Point project from Electricite de France SA, the people said, asking not to be identified before an announcement is made. China General Nuclear Power Corp. will also become a shareholder, the people said. Areva and EDF’s boards will meet in the next week to approve the deal, they said.
Bringing in Areva and China General as partners will allow EDF to share the expense of a project likely to cost about 14 billion pounds ($22 billion). The EDF-led group, expected to sign an agreement with the U.K. government next week, will build two Areva-designed EPR reactors able to supply about 3,600 megawatts, more than 4 percent of U.K. generation capacity. Officials at EDF and Areva declined to comment. Nobody at China General was available to comment outside office hours……http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-10-16/areva-said-ready-to-join-group-building-u-dot-k-dot-nuclear-power-plant
Financial boost for global renewable energy
Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Gives a Boost to Global Renewable Energy http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Norways-Sovereign-Wealth-Fund-Gives-a-Boost-to-Global-Renewable-Energy.html By Joao Peixe | Wed, 16 October 2013 The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is the largest in the world at around $750 billion, and a new government is currently being formed in Oslo that is considering investing some of the wealth in renewable energy projects across the world.
Formed in 1990, the fund generates money from taxes on Norway’s oil and gas industry, as well as owning several fields in the North Sea, and a 67% stake in Statoil. It also owns large shares in many of Europe’s largest companies, and it has been calculated that one in every $80 invested in equities around the world is owned by Norway, giving the fund massive influence over the global financial market.
Samantha Smith, the head of global climate and energy initiative at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), explained that “if Norway actually does this, it will be an unprecedented shift in the global investment community and also for tangible action on climate change.”
After the elections that took place in September, truthdig reports that a centre-right coalition government is being formed by Erna Solberg, the leader of the Conservative party. One of the first proposals that they have talked about is to use the sovereign wealth fund, officially known as the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, to invest in renewable energy projects in developing countries, and the global renewables sector.
The WWF is asking the Norwegian government to give 5% of its investment portfolio to invest in renewable energy infrastructure, and end all investment in coal and tar sands.
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