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UK wind power – much cheaper than planned Wylfa nuclear power plant

‘Cheap’ power at Wylfa nuclear plant blown away by wind, The Times,  Emily Gosden, Energy Editor,  2 June 18 The electricity generated by the Wylfa nuclear plant could be about a fifth
cheaper than Hinkley Point’s but is likely to be much more expensive than
power from the latest offshore wind farms. It is understood that a figure
of close to £75 per megawatt-hour is under discussion as the “strike
price” that Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate developing the Anglesey
plant, would be guaranteed by the government for the electricity it
produces. The difference between the guaranteed price and the wholesale
price — currently £50 per MWh — would be paid for by consumers through
levies on their energy bills.

Ministers are preparing to announce next week
the outline of a deal to fund the proposed Wylfa plant, which could cost in
excess of £15 billion. The twin-reactor plant could generate 2.9 gigawatts
of electricity, enough to power five million homes. It is due to start
generating in the mid 2020s. The government plans to invest directly in
Wylfa, as well as to offer extensive guarantee loans for the project. These
measures are designed to cut the cost of the project and so lower the price
that consumers will have to cover.

Critics of nuclear power are likely to
draw unfavourable comparisons with offshore wind. Two projects in UK waters
were awarded guarantees prices of £57.50 per MWh last year. Some onshore
wind and solar projects are being built without any subsidy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cheap-power-at-nuclear-plant-blown-away-by-wind-3bzc2h5qm

June 1, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Hitachi ‘won’t pay’ for nuclear accidents at proposed Wylfa plant on Anglesey

Times 30th May 2018 Hitachi ‘won’t pay’ for nuclear accidents at proposed Wylfa plant on Anglesey. Hitachi could seek to absolve itself of financial responsibility for any accidents at its proposed new nuclear power station in north Wales.

The Japanese conglomerate has decided to continue with work developing the planned Wylfa plant on Anglesey after progress in financing talks with the government, which Hitachi is already relying on for a package of loan guarantees, subsidies and potential direct investment to make the project viable.

However, the company wants further concessions to reduce its risks, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported. Reports in several Japanese media outlets have claimed that the Wylfa plant could cost as much as three trillion yen, or almost £21 billion — making it even more expensive than Hinkley Point C.

EDF decided to build Hinkley Point only thanks to a 35-year subsidy contract from the government, which locks consumers into paying a fixed price for the power it generates and has been criticised for its high cost.

The Nikkei reported that some of Hitachi’s directors also wanted “safeguards that reduce or eliminate Hitachi’s financial
responsibility for accidents at the plant”. Nuclear operators are already obliged to take out insurance to cover their liabilities in case of an accident. If they are unable to secure insurance from the market, the government is obliged to step in and provide it instead. It is unclear what alternative arrangement or safeguards Hitachi might be seeking.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/hitachi-wont-pay-for-nuclear-accidents-at-proposed-wylfa-plant-on-anglesey-gtm28q0k3

June 1, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Persisting with the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) has brought Franc e to a costly nuclear crisis

Liberation 30th May 2018 [Machine Translation] “The impasse”, how the EPR sank French nuclear.
France 5 broadcasts this Wednesday night “Nuclear, the French impasse”, a documentary against the declining reign of the atom. This film investigates EDF’s crazy gamble: risking its survival on the EPR, a reactor that accumulates trouble.

Will the EPR be the Titanic of French nuclear power? This is the shocking question posed by a film investigated by director Patrick Benquet broadcast tonight on France 5 which points to the “impasse”
in which the “most nuclearized country in the world” has locked up by equipping itself with 58 reactors. the 70s-80s. A fleet of 19 aging plants, which still produces 75% of French electricity, and which EDF wants to keep at all costs by launching a new generation of pressurized water reactor:

the EPR, “the most powerful never built, able to supply electricity to a metropolis like Paris. It must have been the deadly weapon of the nuclear lobby to defend the reign of the atom undermined by the Fukushima disaster and the rise of green energies.

EDF dreamed of exporting it all over the world by selling this “new nuclear” as the best lever against global warming. But things did not go at all as planned. And today EDF is going through a crisis that threatens the very existence of the “public service preferred by the French,” says the documentary.

There are these hidden costs of the atom, put under the carpet for decades, which rise to the surface: the enormous costs of reprocessing radioactive waste, is added the bill of the “great refit”: these works of Hercules designed to extend the lifespan of aging plants from 40 to 50 years. ”

EDF promised cheap electricity, but the real cost of nuclear energy today is in the tens and tens of billions. And ultimately it is the taxpayer who will pay, announces the implacable voice off. Yet, EDF, the nuclear state in the state, will launch the EPR at all costs. By assigning a strategic mission: take over
the old reactors that will gradually retire by 2035.
http://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/05/30/l-impasse-comment-l-epr-a-coule-le-nucleaire-francais_1655363

June 1, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

Ontario could save $1.2B by closing Pickering plant, buying power from Quebec – Greens

Ontario Greens would close nuclear plant this summer

Province could save $1.2B by closing Pickering plant, buying power from Quebec, leader says  CBC News 

The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station would close this summer if the Green Party of Ontario formed a government, according to leader Mike Schreiner.

Speaking on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today, Schreiner said while 1,900 jobs would be lost if the plant closed, others could be created by developing the plant’s prime waterfront property.

The party would not close the Bruce or Darlington nuclear generating stations, Schreiner said.

“There is no way we can shut down our nuclear plants tomorrow. It’s just unrealistic because (nuclear) produces 70 per cent of our power,” Schreiner said, though the party does oppose rebuilding such facilities.

The Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives have also said they would close the Pickering plant, but not until 2024. Like the Greens, the NDP has vowed to start decommissioning it this year.

Schreiner would also turn to Quebec to meet more of Ontario’s electricity needs. Cheap power from Quebec would help bring down hydro prices for consumers, he said.

The savings from both the plant closure and cheaper power from the neighbouring province would add up to $1 billion, Schreiner said, which could then be invested in making homes and businesses more energy efficient, Schreiner said.

“Nobody should have to choose between putting food on the table (and) paying their electricity bill,” Schreiner said.

The party would move Ontario toward a “clean economy” with technologies like electric vehicles and water conservation technology………..http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/green-party-leader-proposes-buying-hydro-quebec-1.4682582

June 1, 2018 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Energy politics – why renewables are winning over nuclear power

Why are renewables suddenly trouncing nuclear energy?  City Metric, By David Toke,   31 May 18 

If recent trends continue for another two years, the global share of electricity from renewables excluding hydropower will overtake nuclear for the first time. Even 20 years ago, this nuclear decline would have greatly surprised many people – particularly now that reducing carbon emissions is at the top of the political agenda.

On one level this is a story about changes in relative costs. The costs of solar and wind have plunged while nuclear has become almost astoundingly expensive. But this raises the question of why this came about. As I argue in my new book, Low Carbon Politics, it helps to dip into cultural theory.

Culture wars

The seminal text in this field, Risk and Culture (1982), by the British anthropologist Mary Douglas and American political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, argues the behaviour of individuals and institutions can be explained by four different biases:

  • Individualists: people biased towards outcomes that result from competitive arrangements;
  • Hierarchists: those who prefer ordered decisions being made by leaders and followed by others;
  • Egalitarians: people who favour equality and grassroots decision-making and pursue a common cause;
  • Fatalists: those who see decision-making as capricious and feel unable to influence outcomes.

The first three categories help explain different actors in the electricity industry. For governments and centralised monopolies often owned by the state, read hierarchists. For green campaigning organisations, read egalitarians, while free-market-minded private companies fit the individualist bias.

The priorities of these groups have not greatly changed in recent years. Hierarchists tend to favour nuclear power, since big power stations make for more straightforward grid planning, and nuclear power complements nuclear weapons capabilities considered important for national security.Egalitarians like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth usually oppose new nuclear power plant and favour renewables. Traditionally they have worried about radioactive environmental damage and nuclear proliferation. Individualists, meanwhile, favour whichever technologies reduce costs.

These cultural realities lie behind the problems experienced by nuclear power. To compound green opposition, many of nuclear power’s strongest supporters are conservative hierarchists who are either sceptical about the need to reduce carbon emissions or treat it as a low priority. Hence they are often unable or unwilling to mobilise climate change arguments to support nuclear, which has made it harder to persuade egalitarians to get on board. ………..
even hierarchists cannot ignore economic reality entirely. The South Carolina project has been abandoned and the Georgia project only survives through a very large federal loan bailout.

Contrast this with casino complexes in Nevada like MGM Resorts not only installing their own solar photovoltaic arrays but paying many millions of dollars to opt out from the local monopoly electricity supplier. They have campaigned successfully to win a state referendum supporting electricity liberalisation.

The UK, meanwhile, is an example of how different biases can compete. Policy has traditionally been formed in hierarchical style, with big companies producing policy proposals which go out to wider consultation. It’s a cultural bias that favours nuclear power, but this conflicts with a key priority dating back to Thatcher that technological winners are chosen by the market.

This has led policymakers in Whitehall to favour both renewables and nuclear, but the private electricity companies have mostly refused to invest in nuclear, seeing it as too risky and expensive. The only companies prepared to plug the gap have been more hierarchists – EDF, which is majority-owned by France, and Chinese state nuclear corporations.

Even then, getting Hinkley C in south-west England underway – the first new nuclear plant since the 1990s – required an extensive commitment by the UK treasury to underwrite bank loans. There is also an embarrassingly high price to be paid for the electricity over a very long 35-year period. Such has been the bad publicity that it’s hard to imagine a politician agreeing to more plant on such terms.

Where does this reality leave hierarchists? Increasingly having to explain prohibitive nuclear costs to their electorates – at least in democracies. The alternative, as renewable energy becomes the new orthodoxy, is to embrace it.

In Australia, for example, a big utility company called AGL is trying to seduce homeowners to agree to link their solar panels to the company’s systems to centralise power dispatch in a so-called a “virtual power plant”.

The ConversationWhen the facts change, to misquote John Maynard Keynes, you can always change your mind.

David Toke, Reader in Energy Policy, University of Aberdeen.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.   https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/why-are-renewables-suddenly-trouncing-nuclear-energy-3779

June 1, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, culture and arts, politics | Leave a comment

Measures to compensate Arizona “Downwinders” approved by USA Congress

U.S. House Approves Measure to Compensate Arizona ‘Downwinders’ http://knau.org/post/us-house-approves-measure-compensate-arizona-downwinders, By RYAN HEINSIUS 31 May 18 •  Many Southwesterners sickened by Cold War nuclear weapons testing were excluded from a 1990 federal compensation program. Now the U.S. House has approved a measure aimed at providing relief to the residents known as downwinders. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius reports.

The original Radiation Exposure Compensation Act left out parts of Mohave County, the Hualapai Reservation, and southern Nevada, despite high rates of cancer and other diseases thought to be caused by nuclear fallout. The new House amendment orders the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to assess whether thousands are eligible for assistance.

“The American government made a promise with RECA, with the bill, and, by darn, we ought to follow through with it to make sure that anybody that was affected to be included in this process,” says Arizona Republican Paul Gosar who authored the measure.

Residents who’ve developed some diseases could be eligible for a $50,000 payment, and have until July 9, 2022 to file claims.

Nearly 200 atmospheric weapons were tested north of Las Vegas between 1945 and 1962. In the last three decades, more than 20,000 downwinder claims have been filed with the Justice Department, totaling more than $2 billion.

June 1, 2018 Posted by | indigenous issues, politics | Leave a comment

Congress has the power to stop squandering the public purse on new nuclear weapons

Congress should shoot down new nuke plan [Editorial]   https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Congress-should-shoot-down-new-nuke-plan-12945344.php

Do we really need to spend more taxpayer money making new types of nuclear bombs?

The United States already has 6,800 nuclear weapons, according to the latest figures from the Federation of Atomic Scientists. But frankly the published data on America’s atomic arsenal varies so wildly it seems nobody knows how to count all of our nukes. Suffice to say the United States already has enough atomic firepower to blow the world to kingdom come.

Nonetheless, the House Armed Services Committee recently authorized $65 million for development of a new type of nuclear weapon, a low-yield warhead that would be attached to a long-range submarine-launched ballistic missile. During this Memorial Day weekend, a time when we honor those who’ve lost their lives in service of our country, spending that money on veteran services makes a lot more sense than buying more bombs that will be detonated only in the unlikely event of an atomic cataclysm. This proposal is now wending its way around Capitol Hill, and Congress needs to shoot it out of the sky.

Pentagon officials reportedly used some cockamamie logic to justify the expenditure, arguing that if the Russians use tactical nukes on the battlefield, the United States needs the capability to respond with a limited nuclear strike instead of a full-scale attack involving hundreds of warheads. If our planes are rendered incapable of delivering any of the 200 low-yield weapons already in Europe, they reasoned, we need to be able to launch them toward Russia from submarines.

As Walter Pincus, a respected former national security reporter for the Washington Post, pointed out, the problem is that the Russians won’t know the missiles launched from those submarines are carrying low-yield nukes. They’ll probably assume they’re under attack from the more powerful nuclear weapons typically carried by submarines as part of a first-strike intended to destroy their capacity to launch a full-scale response against the United States.

Pentagon officials argued the new bombs would deter the Russians from using tactical nukes, because they’d know the United States could respond with similar low-yield weapons. But the idea that the superpowers can fire smaller nuclear bombs at each other without escalating the conflict to Armageddon stretches credulity.

Adding even more nuclear weapons to the nation’s atomic arsenal won’t enhance deterrence. The United States already spends more on defense than the next eight top defense spending nations combined. It’s noteworthy that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats recently warned lawmakers the spiraling federal debt could jeopardize national security. Wasting money deploying more nuclear weapons would be a step in the wrong direction

May 30, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Britain’s “nuclear renaissance” in the balance as Hitachi ponders Wylfa nuclear project

Times 27th May 2018 , The fate of a £15bn-plus nuclear power station is set to be decided this
week — and with it the future of Britain’s atomic renaissance.

The Japanese industrial giant Hitachi is due to decide Monday whether to
proceed with Wylfa. Hitachi’s decision has huge implications for
industrial collaboration between Britain and Japan and the country’s
nuclear power industry.

The project hinges on winning financial support
from Westminster. This weekend, ministers are expected to set out their
offer to Hitachi in a letter ahead of the crucial meeting. The proposal is
expected to include UK taxpayers taking a direct stake in the plant,
alongside Hitachi and the Japanese state, as well as guaranteeing loans. In
return, Westminster wants Hitachi to substantially undercut on price the
£20bn Hinkley Point plant in Somerset, which is being built by EDF.

TheFrench company struck a deal with the government for a guaranteed payment
of £92.50 per megawatt hour for 35 years. Ministers are expected to make
an announcement once they return from this week’s parliamentary recess.
They will herald it as an example of the type of post-Brexit trade deal
Britain can expect.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/deadline-day-for-japans-hitachi-over-wales-15bn-horizon-nuclear-plant-mdxhnj9x8

May 30, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

President Trump’s Washington swamp – the nuclear lobby/politics revolving door

New swamp: Ex-Perry adviser lobbies for energy firm bailout AP, By MATTHEW DALY and RICHARD LARDNER, 29 May 18,  WASHINGTON  — At a West Virginia rally on tax cuts, President Donald Trump veered off on a subject that likely puzzled most of his audience.

“Nine of your people just came up to me outside. ’Could you talk about 202?’” he said. “We’ll be looking at that 202. You know what a 202 is? We’re trying.”

One person who undoubtedly knew what Trump was talking about last month was Jeff Miller, an energy lobbyist with whom the president had dined the night before. Miller had been hired by FirstEnergy Solutions, a bankrupt power company that relies on coal and nuclear energy to produce electricity. His assignment: push the Trump administration to use a so-called 202 order — named for a provision of the Federal Power Act — to secure a bailout worth billions of dollars.

Although Trump didn’t agree to the plan — he still hasn’t — for Miller, a president’s public declaration of interest amounted to a job well done.

How a single lobbyist helped carry a long-shot idea from obscurity to the presidential stage is a twisty journey through the new swamp of Trump’s Washington. Rather than clearing out the lobbyists and campaign donors that spend big money to sway politicians, Trump and his advisers paved the way for a new cast of powerbrokers who have quickly embraced familiar ways to wield influence.

Miller is among them. A well-connected GOP fundraiser, he has served as an adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also a close friend. He ran Perry’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2016. And when Trump tapped Perry to lead the Energy Department, Miller shepherded his friend through confirmation, sitting behind him, next to the nominee’s wife, at the Senate hearing.

When Perry came to Washington, Miller did, too. He launched his firm, Miller Strategies, early last year and began lobbying his friend and other Washington officials.

Besides Perry, Miller is close to other Trump-era power players. He is among House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s best friends, their relationship dating back decades to Miller’s days in California. In more recent years, Miller developed a friendship with Vice President Mike Pence adviser Marty Obst.

“He’s very influential in Washington, a leading fundraiser,” Obst said of Miller.

Now, after 14 months in business, the 43-year-old Miller has collected more than $3.2 million from a roster of clients that includes several of the nation’s largest energy companies, among them Southern Co., a nuclear power plant operator headquartered in Atlanta, and Texas-based Valero Energy, according to federal filings.

Miller also has continued to raise money for GOP politicians. He contributed nearly $37,000 of his own over the past year to Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Greg Pence of Indiana, who’s seeking the congressional seat once held by his younger brother, the vice president, according to federal campaign records.

He is an active supporter of America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC that raised $4.7 million in the first three months of 2018.

…….. Miller registered as a lobbyist in Washington in February 2017, just after Trump took office. He was hired by FirstEnergy in July 2017. Lobbying disclosure records show he was paid to target the highest levels of American government: the White House — including the offices of Trump and Pence — and Perry’s Energy Department. Miller has earned $330,000 from FirstEnergy since last year, making him one of the company’s highest-paid outside lobbyists……..https://apnews.com/e620b6cb527d41ebbb1c27974d771822

 

May 30, 2018 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. Senator Ed Markey points out the absurdity of John Bolton’s suggesting the “Libya model” for negotiating with North Korea

The $100 billion dollar man  by beyondnuclearinternational  Senator Ed Markey wants to slash nuclear weapons spending and get the US back to the negotiating table with North Korea By Linda Pentz Gunter

“The Libya model as Kim Jong-un has been interpreting it, is that it’s one where the leader of the country surrenders their nuclear capability only to then be overthrown and killed. Why would you not think that Kim would not interpret that, as it continued to escalate with John Bolton on the Sunday shows, with the Vice President talking about the Gaddafi model? Why would you think that there would be any other interpretation than what happened to Gaddafi at the end of his denuclearization, which is that he wound up dead? Why would you think that would not in fact elicit hostility from a negotiating partner only three weeks from sitting down across the table?”

The man on the receiving end of this May 24th peppering was US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The gentle barrage came during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing after the North Korean regime reacted with unsurprising offense to National Security Advisor John Bolton’s reference to the 2003 disarming of Libya as the model for the White House approach to “denuclearizing” North Korea.

As we already know, the North Korean response — along with its accurate assessment of Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy” — prompted President Trump to call off the talks and accuse North Korea of “tremendous anger and open hostility.” And then say the talks were back on. Maybe. And then….who knows?

But who was grilling Pompeo? Many might spot his identity from the style of the written transcript alone. It is reasonable, tinged with humor, polite but persistent. To the point. For those unfamiliar with the speaker, the answer is the same as another question: Who is the US anti-nuclear movement’s most enduring and steadfast ally in Congress? That person would be Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts.

Markey has fought alongside us for decades on both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Both he, and The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability recently reminded us of this during the ANA Capitol Hill awards night on May 22. The event was part of ANA’s annual DC Days lobbying effort. Markey was one of two Congressional recipients of an ANA award, along with another stalwart champion, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California……..

During a May 22, 2008 oversight hearing of the House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee, of which Markey was chairman, the then Congressman asked Bush Energy Secretary, Samuel Bodman:

“But aren’t you suspicious that the Saudis don’t want a solar agreement? Saudi Arabia is the Saudi Arabia of solar. There it is. It sits there as a desert with sun 12 months a year, blistering hot. Why wouldn’t this administration be suspicious that they are asking for nuclear rather than solar power exchange in order to meet their long-term energy needs?”

How little has changed since then, as the Trump administration prepares to sign a nuclear energy deal with Saudi Arabia that may not require what Markey referred to at the ANA event as the “gold standard, or a commitment from Saudi Arabia not to enrich or reprocess nuclear materials that can be used in nuclear bombs.”……….

Markey, and his Democratic colleague in the House of Representatives, Ted Lieu of California, have introduced their Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons act. The bill, explained Markey “says no American president, especially President Donald Trump, should be able to unilaterally launch nuclear weapons without provocation, without consultation, without warning and without the United States having been attacked with nuclear weapons.” ……..

“We cannot squander funding on nuclear weapons, on nuclear programs, on nuclear repositories that we do not need and instead steal that money from the mouths of children who need a food stamp program, or elderly who need care in nursing homes,” Markey went on. “We cannot make that choice in good conscience which is why I am so proud to be here with you. Because the least we should be able to say, if a nuclear war does break out in North Korea, is that we tried, we really tried to avoid that catastrophic outcome.” ….https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/05/26/ed-markey-on-stopping-nuclear-war/

May 28, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

28 May – deadline day for Hitachi over whether or not to proceed with UK Horizon nuclear power plant

Deadline day for Japan’s Hitachi over Wales £15bn Horizon nuclear plant  Sunday Times, 27 May 18   The fate of a £15bn-plus nuclear power station is set to be decided this week — and with it the future of Britain’s atomic renaissance.

The Japanese industrial giant Hitachi is due to decide tomorrow whether to proceed with Horizon, a twin-reactor plant on Anglesey, north Wales.

Hitachi’s decision has huge implications for industrial collaboration between Britain and Japan and the country’s nuclear power industry. The project hinges on winning financial support from Westminster.

This weekend, ministers are expected to set out their offer to Hitachi in a letter ahead of the crucial meeting. The proposal is expected to include UK taxpayers taking a direct stake in the plant, alongside Hitachi and the Japanese state, as well as guaranteeing loans.

In return, Westminster wants Hitachi…(subscribers only) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/deadline-day-for-japans-hitachi-over-wales-15bn-horizon-nuclear-plant-mdxhnj9x8

May 28, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Jordan drops plans for large nuclear reactors, will try small ones from Russia

Jordan Settles for Smaller Russian Nuclear Reactor by 2022 May 27th, 2018 via SyndiGate.info  

Jordan on Saturday announced a plan for a small modular nuclear reactor with Russia, replacing the $10 billion nuclear power plant for which an agreement was signed in 2015 between the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) and Russia’s Rosatom Overseas.

“Jordan is now focusing on small modular reactors because the large reactors place financial burden on the Kingdom and in light of the current fiscal conditions we believe it is best to focus on smaller reactors,” a government official, who preferred anonymity, told The Jordan Times on Saturday.

The official said the plan for the $10 billion nuclear plant with Russia that entails building two nuclear reactors with total capacity of 2,000 megawatts is over now and that focus will be on smaller reactors, which are safe, require less financial burden and for which Jordan can attract investors, the official said Saturday……..https://www.albawaba.com/news/jordan-settles-smaller-russian-nuclear-reactor-2022-1137364

May 28, 2018 Posted by | Jordan, politics | Leave a comment

Pennsylvania nuclear lobby hoping for nuclear industry salvation via Tax-payer funding

Nuclear plants hope not to close, The Daily Item, By John Finnerty CNHI Harrisburg reporter, May 26, 2018, HARRISBURG — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law this week a $300 million Zero Emissions Certificate program intended to prop up the state’s nuclear power plants.

Nuclear energy industry lobbyists in Pennsylvania hope to see similar state aid here, to hold off announced closings of the Three Mile Island power plant operated by Exelon in Dauphin County and Beaver Valley Power Station, operated by FirstEnergy in Beaver County.

Exelon will not refuel Three Mile Island, as scheduled, in October 2019, unless something changes, David Fein, Exelon’s vice president for state and government affairs, said Thursday. FirstEnergy has filed noticed with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that Beaver Valley will cease operating in 2021……….

Three Mile Island was the site of what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has described as “the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history” when its reactor partially melted down on March 28, 1979. The incident prompted then-Gov. Dick Thornburgh to announce that women and children within five miles of the nuclear power plant should evacuate. An estimated 140,000 people within 20 miles of the power plant fled the area in the days after the incident, according to an NRC summary of the event.

…….Environmentalists interviewed for this story said the shadow of the 1979 incident “still lingers” in the minds of many people skeptical of the industry.

Tom Schuster, who leads the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Pennsylvania, said he’d recently heard Three Mile Island described as “the least popular nuclear power plant in the country.”

Schuster said it would be bad for climate change if the nuclear plants were replaced by plants running on fracked natural gas.

Still, he’s still not particularly sold on the idea that the power companies will follow through and close the plants if the state doesn’t provide subsidies. Any plan to reward nuclear power for producing cleaner energy should also provide incentives for solar and wind energy, he said.

Eric Epstein, the long-time president of TMI Alert, a local watchdog group, said that taxpayers have repeatedly been asked to subsidize the nuclear power plants and he sees no reason it should continue.

“Nuclear power can’t exist without subsidies,” he said. “The market has ruled. There should be no more subsidies.”

He said the industry suggestion that nuclear power is clean, doesn’t tell the whole story.

“When you look at their green benefits, you have to look at their brown impacts too,” he said, pointing to concerns about handling of the radioactive waste produced at the power plants.

No legislation has yet been introduced in Pennsylvania to spell out how the industry might be propped up here………http://www.dailyitem.com/news/local_news/nuclear-plants-hope-not-to-close/article_1875b9ad-f430-5904-be06-1048b736c352.html

May 28, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Britains big future nuclear power plans hang on government subsidising Hitachi

UK nuclear plans ‘risk collapse if Hitachi talks fail’https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/25/new-uk-nuclear-power-plants-hinge-on-deal-between-hitachi-and-government–    Adam Vaughan 

Japanese group believed to be demanding direct financial support with consumers making up the difference. 

Britain’s hopes for a number of new nuclear power stations could collapse if the government and the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi fail to make a breakthrough on talks for a plant in Wales, a top nuclear lobbyist has warned.

Hiroaki Nakanishi, the firm’s chairman, met Theresa May earlier this month, to press the prime minister for financial support for two reactors at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey.

The company’s board is understood be meeting on Monday to decide whether it can proceed with the UK’s subsequent offer, believed to include a multibillion-pound loan.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the industry-backed group New Nuclear Watch Europe, said the outcome of the negotiations had huge consequences for other international firms hoping to build reactors in Britain.

“If Hitachi walk away from Wylfa that probably spells the end of new nuclear in the UK,” he said.

The 3GW plant at Wylfa by the Hitachi subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power would be the UK’s second new nuclear power station after EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C, under construction in Somerset.

More are planned: EDF wants to build at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, South Korea’s Kepco at Moorside in Cumbria and China’s CGN at Bradwell in Essex, with EDF’s help.

Hitachi wants to build abroad because of a moribund home market,

while the UK government sees nuclear as an important source of low-carbon power.

Despite the protracted discussions between the two parties, London appears to still be committed to making the economics of nuclear work.

“I sense there’s still a lot of political will to make new nuclear happen from government, and backbenchers seem to want it in their areas,” a Whitehall source said.

An industry source said the deal would work if the government offered some form of financial support directly, while energy bill payers footed the rest through a subsidy known as a contract for difference.

That would mean Hitachi receiving a guaranteed price of power, likely to be around £80 a megawatt hour, lower than Hinkley’s £92.50 but still nearly twice the wholesale cost of electricity.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is understood to be enthusiastically backing the project, while the Treasury, which would have to see an equity contribution or loan for the construction period on government books, is more sceptical.

Paul Dorfman at the Energy Institute at University College London said: “This would mean the hardworking UK taxpayer and energy consumer, who are labouring under ramping austerity, are being asked to stump up for an extraordinarily expensive nuclear plant just at the time that renewable costs are plummeting.”

Japanese media have reported the UK government’s loan for the project could be as much as £13bn, and put the total cost of the plant at more than £20bn, even more than Hinkley Point C. The details are understood to have been leaked by the Japanese government, not Hitachi, and the UK government has said it “does not recognise” the reports.

Greenpeace said the UK was wrongly pursuing a “dinosaur” technology and should focus on renewables, batteries and interconnectors to other countries.

Kate Blagojevic, the group’s head of energy, said: “It’s unacceptable the Japanese public are hearing about this before the British public, if what we’re hearing is true that over £13bn of British taxpayer money is going to a Japanese company to build a plant in Wales.

“It’s pretty outrageous the government hasn’t been upfront about what they’re proposing and why.”

A spokesperson for BEIS said: “These discussions are commercially sensitive and we have no further details at this time.”

A Horizon spokesperson said: “It’s no secret we’re in discussions with the UK and Japanese governments, and have been for some time, over support for our project. With these discussions still ongoing it is too early to comment on the specifics of what a future deal may look like.

“We’re confident, given the strategic importance of our project to both nations, we’ll reach a successful conclusion to these discussions in the near future.”

 

May 26, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Solar and Wind Subsidies  are a Clear Success. The Coal and Nuclear Industries Just Aren’t Ready to Admit it.

https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/05/solar-and-wind-subsidies-are-clear-success-coal-and-nuclear-industries#.Wwh8jTSFPGg By Grant Smith, Senior Energy Policy Advisor  25 May 18 

The coal and nuclear industries criticize subsidies for solar and wind power based on their belief that the subsidies distort the market.

However, a closer look shows the coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear sectors enjoy substantial subsidies, and federal outlays for solar investments are decreasing as the price of solar declines. Wind costs have also dropped significantly over the last decade.

All sources of energy receive subsidies. The question is why continue to throw money at the dying coal and nuclear power industries, whose costs continue to rise despite subsidies.

Meanwhile, the solar and wind industries saw significant growth only in the last decade. It stands to reason that these sectors would receive taxpayer support – they generate well-paying jobs and reduce pollution.

These technologies also continuously become more efficient, while their prices steadily decline. In fact, according to Lazard, unsubsidized utility-scale wind and solar farms are now cheaper than new coal power plants and are competitive with natural gas power plants.

This month, solar developer John Weaver provided an analysis of a recent Energy Information Administration report, which described 2016 federal direct spending, research and development, and tax expenditures on energy technologies.

Solar power is subsidized by the federal government with the 30 percent investment tax credit, or ITC, Weaver explained. Both large and small solar arrays qualify. The credit is based on the costs of a solar project. He notes that the outlays for this credit have dropped by half since 2013.

“This speaks specifically to the falling price of solar power as the tax credit is directly based on project costs, and not system sizes,” Weaver said.

According to EIA, just over $1 billion in subsidies leveraged up to $30 billion in investment. Weaver suggests a higher number for subsidies, but, anyway you look at it, the solar ITC in 2016 leveraged much more investment than it cost.

Data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission show that since 2009, solar power capacity has multiplied by more than 89 times and wind power capacity has increased sixfold.

New coal and nuclear construction hasn’t seen the same success. The recent foray into new nuclear construction is reminiscent of the old days of construction delays and multi-billion-dollar cost overruns. Of new nuclear plants, one has been cancelled – the other is dependent on ratepayer support to get completed. Only one new nuclear unit has come online in the last 20 years. The new coal plants recently under construction or completed were total boondoggles.

But Congress is still dumping money into these technologies. According to EIA, the total combined tax expenditures for coal and nuclear power for years 2010, 2013 and 2016 were well over $4 billion combined. This doesn’t include the pay-as-you-go subsidy dumped on ratepayers at the state level to essentially force construction of these financially risky projects.

In addition, fossil fuels receive significant subsidies for development, extraction, investment and processing. A collaborative effort by Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the R Street Institute, known as the Green Scissors campaign, tracks federal tax expenditures for the energy sector. An analysis by the group concluded that fossil fuels received nearly $11 billion in subsidies in 2016.

The only reason nuclear power became a viable option in the first place was because Congress passed the Price Anderson Act in 1957 to shift the bulk of the costs of a major nuclear accident onto the public. These costs could come close to $1 trillion, according to CNN.

By contrast, subsidizing wind and solar investment has yielded very positive results. Any complaints from the fossil fuel and nuclear industries about those subsidies are hypocritical at best.

May 25, 2018 Posted by | politics, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

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