Once Rocked by Nuclear Disaster, Fukushima Is Now a Renewables Hub
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/once-rocked-by-nuclear-disaster-fukushima-is-now-a-renewables-hub, 15 Apr 22,
More than a decade after a major nuclear power plant disaster, Fukushima, Japan is seeing extensive renewable energy development on abandoned lands, as satellite imagery from NASA shows.
When an earthquake and resulting tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, damaged reactors released radioactive material into the surrounding area, rendering large swaths of farmland unusable. Today, some of those fields are home to sprawling solar arrays.
The Fukushima prefecture has set a goal of 100 percent renewable power by 2040. Around 40 precent of its power currently comes from renewables, with plans underway to spend $2.75 billion on the development of 11 solar farms and 10 wind farms on contaminated or abandoned lands.
“A strong desire to never see a repeat of such an accident was the most important starting point” for Fukushima’s renewable push, Noriaki Saito, energy director at the prefecture’s planning department, told AFP.
UK’s energy strategy ”cowardly and incoherent” – solar and onshore wind are the practical options
Michael Grubb: The writer is professor of energy and climate change at
University College London and was former senior adviser to energy regulator
Ofgem.
The UK energy strategy is both cowardly and incoherent. The defining
feature of the UK energy strategy is its incoherence. It does not know what
problem it is trying to solve – and thus it does not solve any. By
failing to boost energy efficiency and kicking the only possible short-term
supply option – that of cheap onshore wind – into the long grass, it
most certainly will not help those struggling with energy bills in the
coming winters.
Offshore wind is the great success story of the past decade
and capacity has grown sharply in recent years. The strategy increases the
offshore target for 2030 from 40GW to 50GW. That’s very ambitious but
possible. But offshore wind involves big and complex kit from only a few
suppliers, it usually takes three to five years from bid to completion, and
the pace of expansion could stress supply chains and drive up costs. If it
were all concentrated in the North Sea, there would be immense challenges
for the grid – both in transmission and in managing the peaks and
troughs. Wind is best when distributed more widely.
The most cowardly failure concerns onshore wind. It is not only our cheapest energy resource
– it typically costs about a third to a quarter of what people will soon
be paying for their electricity – but it is, with solar, the only one
that could make a dent in the short term. The strategy outlines a plan for
nuclear to 2050, kicked off with one new plant to be funded before the next
general election. If it takes an energy crisis to actually make a decision,
so be it, but it will not help solve the crisis.
Nuclear is not only slow
and expensive, it would need to be flexible to ramp up and down with the
swings of demand, wind and solar. This further undermines the economics.
Launching a 30-year plan for nuclear also raises the question – why
can’t the government set out even a coherent 30-month plan for energy
efficiency?
FT 10th April 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/3fe73617-5f8f-4b70-8856-ca53e2ec92b3
UK government got its energy strategy so wrong
‘Major misjudgment’: how the Tories got their energy strategy so wrong. Analysis: betting big on nuclear, hydrogen, oil and gas while passing over energy saving measures, Johnson’s plan is a huge missed
opportunity.
Government industrial strategies are often derided as attempts to pick winners. The UK’s Conservative government has taken a different approach with its new energy strategy. In terms of dealing with the energybill and climate crises, it’s picking losers.
Nuclear power is the only major energy technology that has increased in cost in the last decade and
routinely suffers from massive time and budget overruns. Even Kwarteng acknowledges that France’s large nuclear fleet “cost a fortune”. The gamble Johnson is making, with taxpayers’ money, is that nuclear power is a more reliable wager to secure clean future power than renewables and fast-developing energy storage technologies. It’s a long shot.
Renewables and storage will develop much faster and get much cheaper due to the rapid learning that comes with small-scale technologies, unlike colossal projects
like nuclear.
Guardian 6th April 2022
” Renewable Energy Foundation (REF)” – strongly linked to anti-wind power lobby
Charity linked to UK anti-onshore wind campaigns active again. While the
name of the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) suggests it is a charity
dedicated to promoting low-carbon electricity, it appears to spend most of
its time campaigning against onshore wind.
When it was founded in 2004,
with the TV personality Noel Edmonds as its chair, the organisation was
clear it wanted to fight against the “grotesque political push” for
onshore renewable energy in the UK. It styles itself on its website as “a
registered charity promoting sustainable development for the benefit of the
public by means of energy conservation and the use of renewable energy”.
However, many in the energy sector believe the charity to be full of
anti-wind lobbyists. In 2008, the REF had what it described as a
“dialogue” with the Charity Commission over whether it was violating
its charitable status by being too political in its campaigning. The
Charity Commission said it assessed the complaint relating to the REF’s
campaigning activities and determined there was no evidence that it was not
charitable, but also provided guidance about how to achieve its objectives
as an organisation.
The REF has strong links to a group accused of climate
science scepticism, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, started by the
former chancellor Nigel Lawson, who has denied global heating is a problem.
Prof Michael Kelly, a trustee of the REF also has a position on the board
of the GWPF. John Constable, an adviser to the GWPF, has been quoted as an
REF spokesperson and was previously its director of policy and research.
Constable answered the Guardian’s questions for this article on behalf of
the REF.
While the REF has been relatively quiet in recent years, growing
pressure on the government to support wind energy to help solve the energy
crisis seems to have led to it becoming more active again. In recent weeks,
the charity has provided anti-onshore wind research to the Telegraph and
Daily Mail. Colin Davie, a trustee of the REF, has appeared on Radio 4’s
Today programme to oppose onshore wind. Constable added that the REF had
“no blanket policy” on renewables – but that the charity did not see
them as a large part of the net zero strategy. He added: “Each proposal
must be judged on its own merits, and providing that local environmental
concerns offer no obstacle, niche applications may be suitable, as they may
be for all renewables.”
Guardian 5th April 2022
Portugal to speed up switch to renewable power in wake of Ukraine war
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/portugal-speed-up-switch-renewable-power-wake-ukraine-war-2022-04-01/?fbclid= By Sergio Goncalves,
LISBON, April 1 (Reuters) – Portugal aims to accelerate its energy transition and increase the proportion of renewable sources by 20 percentage points to 80% of its electricity output by 2026, four years earlier than previously planned, the government said on Friday.
As part of a global shift away from carbon-emitting fossil fuels, countries are betting on renewable energies such as wind and solar, a transition that is being accelerated in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The new Socialist government that was sworn in on Wednesday, said in its overall programme released on Friday that the energy plans should mobilize more than 25 billion euros of investment in the next 10 years, involving public and private players, incentives and financing.
“Portugal has already taken very significant measures in the energy transition, but the evolution and duration of the war in Ukraine must necessarily imply new measures,” Cabinet Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva told a news conference.
The country, committed to become carbon neutral by 2050, currently gets 60% of its electricity from renewable sources – one of the largest proportions of green energy use in Europe.
Unlike central European countries, Portugal does not depend on Russian natural gas pipelines, as it mainly imports liquefied natural gas from Nigeria and the United States, and has not imported Russian crude since 2020.
The government also wants to “more than double the installed capacity of renewable sources in the next decade”.
Portugal, which closed its two coal-fired power plants last year, has 7.3 GW of hydroelectric capacity and 5.6 GW of onshore wind parks, which together represent 83% of its total installed capacity. Reporting by Sergio Goncalves Editing by Andrei Khalip and Frances Kerry
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) of the UK and Ireland call for truly green energy on old nuclear sites
NFLA endorses call for real green energy on former nuclear sites
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) of the UK and Ireland has called for renewable technologies to be used to produce ‘real green energy’ on land formerly occupied by now decommissioned nuclear power plants.
The NFLA was pleased to see the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the agency charged with making safe and clearing closed civil nuclear plants, committing itself in its latest draft Business Plan to being a ‘net (carbon) zero’ business, but disheartened by the lack of detail.
In its response to the consultation on the plan concluded today by the NDA, the NFLA hopes that ‘active consideration can be given to generating onsite power and heat to support decommissioning operations using renewable technologies.
Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee, said:
“We are surprised that the NDA has not picked up on the obvious. The land formerly occupied by nuclear power plants, whilst not being so attractive for residential, leisure or office developments, has great potential to be the location for solar farms, wind turbines and ‘green’ hydrogen. Or, where these plants are located by the sea, even to support offshore generation through being a support base for wind farms and tidal schemes. By their nature, nuclear plants are also linked to the electricity grid. Why not use their geographical situation and infrastructure for ‘real green’ energy generation?”
In its draft Business Plan, the NDA has indicated that the following land on each of these redundant power plant sites has now been ‘de-designated’ from nuclear use: Berkeley – 11 hectares; Harwell – 23 hectares; Oldbury – 32 hectares; Winfrith – 10 hectares; and Capenhurst – 17 hectares, but over the next decade all of the UK’s remaining outdated Advanced Gas Cooled reactors will be closed and decommissioning will begin, a process that will take over 100 years.
Councillor Blackburn added: “Clearly NDA operatives will be on-site for a long-time so an investment in micro-generation schemes, such as roof-mounted solar, a solar farm or wind turbines, would pay for itself many fold. Not only would the NDA reap the dividend of generating renewable power to support decommissioning operations, but it would also reduce the agency’s carbon footprint. And as 1,043 hectares is expected to be eventually freed up, there is no reason that the agency could not become a net exporter of renewable energy to the National Grid.”
In its response, the NFLA references a community-owned renewable energy provider which has a 915 KW solar farm on a 1.6 hectare site, and points out that the Oldbury ‘de-designated land’ is 32 hectares, enough to theoretically host twenty such schemes. For more information please contact: Richard Outram, Secretary, NFLA email Richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk / mobile 07583 097793
Local MP has vision for a non-nuclear future for Hunterston
LOCAL MP Patricia Gibson has spoken of her vision for a non-nuclear future
for Hunterston. The Westminster politician has thrown her weight behind a
call to develop a green energy plan for the site. She said: “The closure of
Hunterston B is the end of an era for North Ayrshire, regardless of
anyone’s views on nuclear power. “Jobs have been lost, with many more to
follow over the next eight years as the plant defuels and is then
decommissioned. “A plan to transition to new green energy generation at
this prime location must now be taken forward with a renewed sense of
urgency.
Largs & Millport News 24th Jan 2022
Transistion to genuinely clean energy has succeeded in many cases, including economically
Michael Grubb: Limiting climate change will require an unprecedented
global movement to make low-carbon technologies the norm. COP26 – the UN
climate conference held last November in Glasgow – showed that
unfortunately, the world is far from ready for such a movement.
Many leaders still assume that reducing emissions and growing their countries’
economies aren’t compatible goals. Yet in many places, transitions to
clean energy technologies have succeeded far beyond expectations.
Since 2010, wind power has grown from providing under 1% to providing 10% of
electricity in Brazil, and provided 15% of the EU’s electricity demand in
2019. Solar power – described as “the most expensive way to reduce
carbon emissions” as recently as 2014 – now costs 85% less than it did
a decade ago, increasingly making it the cheapest electricity in history.
And in India, affordable energy access programmes drove sales of
high-efficiency LED bulbs from just 3 million in 2012 to 670 million in
2018, with prices also falling by 85%.
These three technologies now offer
some of the cheapest ways to produce electricity or light across much of
the world. What’s crucial is that these transitions all involved
significant government action. Plus, most went ahead despite the fact that
in many cases, early economic calculations suggested that developing
renewables would be an especially expensive way to cut emissions.
Rather than relying on research and development to bring down costs through coming
up with new inventions – or leaving the market to do so on its own
through competition – governments used subsidies and public procurement
programmes (government commitments to buy a certain volume of a new
product) to keep costs down and boost uptake.
Historically, it’s been widely assumed that reducing emissions would mean damaging countries’
economies. And low-carbon transitions do, of course, involve social and
economic challenges. But well-designed policies – such as those used to
drive the revolutions in wind, solar and LEDs – have the potential to
create huge benefits for participating countries, not just for our climate.
If we want to solve climate change, we first need to transform our economic
thinking.
Renew Economy 20th Jan 2022
Australia continues to lead the world for solar installations.
Rooftop solar took a hit in 2021 with the industry growing a third less than expected thanks to lockdowns and supply chain disruptions, despite still showing strong growth overall. More than 3m households and small businesses across the country now have solar panel systems installed, with the milestone reached in November. According to registration data provided by solar consultancy company SunWiz, 3.24GW of new solar capacity was added across the country last year, representing 10% growth on the previous year.
These figures include small rooftop systems of less than 100MW registered by homeowners and small businesses, and do not include large, industrial-scale solar installations. Queensland now has the most installed capacity, with 4,483MW, closely followed by New South Wales (4,256MW) and Victoria (3,839MW). Australia continues to lead the world for solar installations with a total installed capacity of just under 17GW.
nationwide.
Guardian 19th Jan 2022
Germany’s admirable record in promoting renewable energy, as it leaves nuclear behind.
The nuclear shenanigans aren’t enough to take away Germany’s crown as a climate-forward country. The politics that sped up the nuclear phaseout also created room for a renewables boom. Starting with the Renewable Energy Sources Act in 2000, Germany’s energy policy, known as energiewende, created some of the most generous subsidies for solar power. ………..
Germany moved ahead with a plan to shut off nearly 50 per cent of its nuclear power plants, with the rest scheduled to close by the end of 2022. Some asked how a climate-forward country could lay waste to a source of zero-carbon power, [zero carbon? not so] especially when there’s a shortage of it. Others
pointed out that Germany’s renewables investments are for naught if it has to fill up the nuclear quota using dirty coal. Outrageous, right?
Not so fast, says Nikos Tsafos, an energy and climate analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s very easy to solve climate change if I’m not politically constrained.” Any sensible climate plan
requires that clean energy replaces dirty sources quickly, while at the same time efficiency measures cut the demand for energy overall.
That, in theory, would result in a smooth decline in emissions as laid out in scientific models. Reality, however, is anything but smooth. The transition will inevitably be shaped by human particularities.
The nuclear shenanigans aren’t enough to take away Germany’s crown as a climate-forward country. The politics that sped up the nuclear phaseout also created room for a renewables boom. Starting with the Renewable Energy Sources Act in 2000, Germany’s energy policy, known as energiewende, created some of the most generous subsidies for solar power. These came in the form of guaranteed prices (or feed-in tariffs) for generating solar power. German taxpayers paid billions of euros to support a new technology. The demand created giant solar companies, including many in China, that progressively made the technology cheaper (with additional support in the form of Chinese subsidies) and thus more accessible to the rest of the world.
Financial Post 11th Jan 2022
The European Association for Renewable Energie Eurosolar rejects inclusion of nuclear and natural in the EU taxonomy
The European Association for Renewable Energie Eurosolar rejects »any
elements of nuclear and natural gas supply in the EU taxonomy for
environmentally sustainable activities«. The taxonomy is a classification
system for sustainable economic activities which are due to receive
advantageous financing conditions under EU regulations.
The European
Commision has proposed to include nuclear and natural gas into the
taxonomy. Member states like Germany strongly protested or, like Luxembourg
and Austria, even announced to bring action against the Commission, while
others are decisively supporting the proposal.
Photon 10th Jan 2022
Hunterston nuclear power workers need a just transition to sustainable work. No more subsidies to the nuclear industry.
Workers are key to a just transition at the Hunterston nuclear plant,
which retires today, according to the Scottish Greens.
The nuclear sectorbhas used the occasion to call for more subsidies, despite the UK Government
already subsidising the sector and proposing to charge bill payers upfront
to pay for nuclear power stations that haven’t even been built yet, like
at Hinkley Point.
Commenting, Scottish Greens energy spokesperson Mark
Ruskell said: “Respect and thanks must go to the workers at Hunterston
who have kept our lights on over the decades and those who will continue
the important work of de-commissioning. “These communities deserve a just
transition away from an energy source that is expensive and neither clean
nor sustainable. The vast subsidies involved would be better spent
investing in modern renewable energy solutions that provide a long-term
future for workers and our planet.”
Scottish Greens 7th Jan 2021
https://greens.scot/news/greens-workers-key-to-hunterston-transition
Scotland very nearly reached goal of 100% renewable energy over 2020
Final figures released by the Scottish government show that the country
just missed out on reaching its goal of 100% of its energy consumption
being from renewables by 2020. In the year, the equivalent of 98.6% of
gross electricity consumption in Scotland was from renewable sources in
2020, up on the provisional figure of 97.4% released in May 2021.
Current 6th Jan 2022
Pro nuclear shills use UK’s energy crisis to promote nuclear, but with government action, renewable energy would solve the problem
Government failure behind energy crisis, Chartist, By Dave Toke -31/12/2021 The only thing wrong with renewables is that we’ve not built nearly enough of them, says Dave Toke. Amidst a global shortfall of gas supplies in relation to demand (and a global increase in gas prices), the anti-renewables lobbies are busy blaming a lack of wind and solar (wot, solar too?) for the soaring energy prices. It’s nonsense of course to pin the blame on renewables for a combination of a global oil and gas crisis and the UK’s unique market vulnerability to natural gas supply squeezes, but that’s precisely what is happening. The truth is we’d be much more secure and greener with a much higher proportion of energy coming from renewables backed up with a revived storage network that successive UK governments have allowed to run down.
Of course we’ve had fossil fuel energy price surges and crises for decades, but now, suddenly, to read some papers and a lot of tweets, I’m told mainly from fossil fuel lobbyists, it’s the fault of renewables! Remarkable!
Some are even using the crisis to boost the case for nuclear power. Now that’s ironic, given that five out of 14 of EDF’s nuclear units are offline as I write! With nuclear, of course, it’s always going to be better in the future (and never is). Certainly, the idea that the UK relying on 3.2GW units (like Hinkley C and the planned Sizewell C) for its security at times of pressure is a guarantee of system security needs rather clearer analysis than is being done at the moment. (By the way, did you know that the first Hinkley C – like EPR in China – got shut down this summer because of radioactive leaks? Somebody please tell me when it gets back online.)………………..
We need much, much more renewables. Currently, the UK generates about 100TWh a year of wind and solar, compared to around 900TWh of natural gas consumption. How on earth can you blame wind and solar for a failure to meet gas demand when the Government has so far incentivised only a small fraction of the renewable energy generation required to phase out reliance on natural gas? It’s gaslighting on a grand scale (pun intended).
And, yes, there’s easily enough renewables to do the job. All of UK energy could be supplied from offshore wind occupying less than less than 8 per cent of the UK’s offshore waters, not counting all the solar and other renewable energy resources in the UK. https://www.chartist.org.uk/government-failure-behind-energy-crisis/
Why nuclear power is a bad way to balance renewable energy
Why nuclear power is a bad way to balance renewable energy https://100percentrenewableuk.org/why-nuclear-power-is-a-bad-way-to-balance-renewable-energy
David Toke, Ian Fairlie and Herbert Eppel from 100percentrenewableuk discuss how nuclear power effectively switches off wind and solar power and how a 100percent renewable energy system is much better for the UK than one involving nuclear power.
The Government, backed by a lot of public policy reports paid for by pro-nuclear interests, constantly pushes out the view that nuclear power is ‘essential’ to balancing wind and solar power. But what they never mention is the massive waste of renewables that occurs in such a scenario. Under the scenarios planned by the Government nuclear power is paid very high prices to generate power even when there is excess electricity, which pushes renewables to close down. The Government also refuses to undertake serious investigations of how a system that uses excess renewables to create short and long term storage is a much better way of organising our energy needs rather than wasting more money on building nuclear power stations.
Look at our video which, drawing upon research on the role of nuclear and renewables, discusses these issues.
If you agree the aims of 100percentrenewableuk please join the discussion via our email group.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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