Hinkley Point C: UK censured for failing to consult German public British government failed to abide by Aarhus convention that says major projects must consult citizens on environmental impacts, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 7 July 17, The UK has been censured by an international committee for its failure to notify the German public of the potential environmental impacts of Hinkley Point C, the new nuclear power station being built in Somerset, south-west England.
In a political embarrassment for the government, the verdict found that the UK had not complied with the Aarhus convention, an international agreement on involving citizens in environmental matters.
The Aarhus committee’s finding followed a complaint by a German Green party politician, who said the UK should now halt work on the project to properly consult with the public in neighbouring countries.
Sylvia Kotting-Uhl told the Guardian: “If the government does not want to ridicule the trans-boundary participation procedure that is now due, construction works should be suspended until the procedure is completed.”
While the ruling is very unlikely to affect the project, which began construction last year, the breach comes on top of a fortnight of bad news for the two atomic reactors.
EDF, the French state-owned developer of Hinkley Point C, admitted this week that costs were likely to rise by £1.5bn and there was a risk of a 15-month delay, just days after the public spending watchdog called the project “risky and expensive”.
Kotting-Uhl originally complained to Aarhus’s compliance committee in the summer of 2013, before the UK had agreed commercial terms with EDF.
She said the UK government had discriminated against Germans by not giving them opportunities to take part in the environmental impact assessment procedure for Hinkley, as the Aarhus convention requires. The committee agreed.
In conclusions published recently, the committee said: “By not ensuring that the public concerned in Germany had a reasonable chance to learn about the proposed activity and the opportunities for the public to participate in the respective decision-making, the party concerned failed to comply with article 6, paragraph 2, of the convention.”
Named after the Danish city of Århus, the convention covers the involvement of the public on environmental matters relating to developments such as power stations or new roads – including access to information, the public’s participation in decision-making, and access to justice. The UK ratified the agreement in 2005.
The former UN secretary general Kofi Annan called it “the most ambitious venture in the area of environmental democracy so far undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations”……https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/hinkley-point-c-uk-censured-german-public-edf
July 8, 2017
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politics international, UK |
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Solar Power Portal 4th July 2017, Aldi UK has marked the fourth Solar Independence Day with the announcement
that it will install a further 11,000 solar panels across more than 50 of
its stores by the end of the year.
The supermarket has already installed
more than 85,000 solar panels on all nine of its regional distribution
centres and more than 275 stores across the UK, generating over 17,500 MWh
of electricity a year.
This deployment will now be extended by the end of
the year, bringing its total store investment in solar to almost £17
million and saving more than 8,100 tonnes of CO2 in the process. https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/aldi_uk_marks_solar_independence_day_with_new_solar_rollout_pledge
July 7, 2017
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renewable, UK |
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The Hinkley C nuclear power plant will be a costly mistake – we can still stop it Spiralling bills and delays show why we should abandon this white elephant. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/energy/2017/07/hinkley-c-nuclear-power-plant-will-be-costly-mistake-we-can-still-stop-it
4 Jul 17 With every day that passes, the proposed new Hinkley Point power station looks less flagship and more shipwreck. But we don’t have to go down with this one.
Yesterday’s announcement that the cost of building the new nuclear plant has risen again, this time by a staggering £1.5bn, came just ten days after the National Audit Office confirmed what campaigners have been saying for years – that the deal is overpriced and risky.
According to a 2015 report from the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), Hinkley would make new nuclear power in the UK the world’s most costly. In fact the power station would, according to Greenpeace, be the most expensive object in history.
French state-owned company EDF will join China in paying for the plant, but taxpayers and consumers will cough up £30bn in subsidies for the energy produced. This could rise to an eye-watering £50bn.
With the cost of renewable energy now falling faster than anyone anticipated, it’s hard to imagine a more expensive way of producing power, or indeed a common sense reason for continuing with such a folly.
In 2007, EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said Hinkley C could be providing the power to cook Christmas turkeys by 2017. That slipped to 2025. Now we are told it could be another 15 months more – and this with a reactor design which has yet to be shown to work anywhere else in the world. The project threatens to sink into a whirlpool of expensive defensiveness and self-justification, all for a terrible deal which we will all be locked into, and paying for, for years to come.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. Over the past month, Theresa May’s administration has crumbled. Propped up by the Democratic Unionist Party, unable to implement its manifesto promises and derided in Europe, the disastrous election has left this government on its knees. But this moment of weakness creates an opportunity – we have the real chance to stop Hinkley in its tracks and think again.
The government appears committed, come what may, but if politicians from across political divides speak up against this expensive white elephant, we can force May to take the courageous decision needed to cancel the project.
It’s well known that politicians share a penchant for big projects like Hinkley – Heathrow expansion and HS2 to name but two – but even in this case it’s hard to see what is actually keeping the idea afloat.
Although the plans may be fatally holed, it is the lack of any real opposition holding the government to account that is stopping it going under completely. Labour and the Lib Dems both support the project. But it’s time to break away from the old school consensus around the often illusory benefits of building big new things. An opposition working together, along with a few sympathetic Tories, could consign Hinkley to the dustbin of history.
We know that alternative plans are available. There are many, much cheaper options. Germany, which is phasing out nuclear, is breaking renewable records and we can, too. You can’t have your cake and eat it when it comes to environment policy, any more than you can have your cake and eat it on Brexit. We need to make the right choices and ploughing such colossal subsidies into Hinkley sucks resources from where they are really needed: investment in renewables.
The New Economics Foundation has suggested we could provide more than six times our annual electricity needs through a Blue New Deal, getting renewable offshore energy through wind and wave while rejuvenating our coastal communities with 160,000 new jobs. Green MEP Molly Scott Cato has shown how the South West alone could meet all its energy needs through renewables, creating more than 100,000 new jobs. This puts the 900 full-time posts expected to be available at Hinkley, if construction is ever completed, into sharp perspective.
But to transition to this jobs-rich, decentralised, renewable energy economy, we need to make the right political choices now. In the case of Hinkley that means politicians holding the government to account when it is wasting taxpayers’ money on a project that is not fit for purpose – and simply won’t deliver what we need for the future. Jonathan Bartley is co-leader of the Green party. He was formerly the co-director of the thinktank Ekklesia.
July 5, 2017
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politics, UK |
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CORE 2nd July 2017, The Pacific Heron and sister shipPacific Egret, armed with naval canon and
carrying security ‘swat- squads’ sailed unladen from their home port of Barrow-in-Furness early this morning en-route to Cherbourg where MOX (mixed oxide) plutonium fuel assemblies will be loaded for onward delivery to Japan.
The 16 fuel assemblies, fabricated in French company Areva’s MeloxPlant and containing some 500kg of nuclear weapons useable plutonium aredestined for Kansai Electric’s Takahama 4 reactor in the south west of Japan. Preparation for the two-month voyage have been evident over the last few days at Barrow’s Ramsden Dock nuclear terminal with the loading of stores, the arrival of the security swat-squads provided by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary’s Strategic Escort Group (aka Sea-Plods), the
loading of ammunition and the sweeping of the ships’ hulls by divers.
Commenting on the preparations, CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said today that the need for this level of armed security brings home the reality of the very real and significant dangers of transporting plutonium – in this case enough for around one hundred nuclear weapons – and demolishes the industry’s complacent and short-sighted claim that such shipments pose no risks.
“At a time of heightened and increasingly sophisticated action by terrorists we re-iterate our condemnation of the trans-world shipment of such dangerous material by sea. This voyage not
only foists needless risks on the marine environment and communities along the route, but also raises additional and significant concerns in Japan on the use of MOX fuel in the Takahama reactor (as also used in the fated Fukushima reactors) which has only just re-started after the overturning of a court injunction by local activists which kept the reactor off-line for inadequate safety standards”
http://corecumbria.co.uk/news/nuclear-gunships-sail-from-barrow-on-plutonium-voyage-to-japan/
July 5, 2017
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safety, UK |
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Morning Star 1st July 2017, A BUNGLING Brexit bureaucrat has blown the lid on the government’s
“shocking attitude towards climate change,” official documents seen by
the Star reveal today. The files were part of a bundle of “sensitive”
papers seen by a Star reporter travelling on the Eurostar to Brussels on
Thursday morning.
They revealed how negotiators “have not yet engaged
with the EU Commission” on climate change and indicated that agreed
targets to reduce carbon emissions could be used as “political and
bureaucratic capital for bigger issues in the exit negotiations.”
GreenMP Caroline Lucas said the documents “appear to reveal a shocking
attitude towards climate change at the heart of government” and warned
that the government’s failure to take the issue seriously was a “dark
stain on their already tainted record.”
The papers suggest that on Britain’s exit, should Britain decide to no longer act jointly with the
EU on climate change, the EU will be faced with a decision of either
meeting the Paris Agreement by increasing remaining members’ targets or
setting a lower target overall — “both of which are politically
difficult.” http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-b7f9-Sensitive-Documents-Reveal-Climate-Deals-are-at-Risk-Following-Brexit
July 5, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, UK |
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Solar Portal 29th June 2017, What is expected to be Europe’s largest community battery is set to be
installed at an innovative regeneration scheme in Nottingham, with a 2MWh
Tesla battery to be deployed in September as part of a housing scheme
alongside community solar.
The £100 million Trent Basin project is a new housing development built at the site of an inland dock previously derelict
for around two decades. It is expected to deliver 500 homes over five
phases with 375kW of rooftop and ground mounted solar and the Tesla battery
to be installed by EvoEnergy.
In an innovative use of the solar farm, planning permission has been granted on the basis that the site shall be
cleared by 28 February 2020. By this time, the panels from the ground
mounted installation will be removed and installed on new homes built as
part of the development. https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/tesla_install_to_bring_europes_largest_community_battery_to_nottingham
July 3, 2017
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decentralised, UK |
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Times 1st July 2017, Turbines for the world’s first floating wind farm are set to arrive in
Scottish waters within weeks after taking to the seas off Norway. Five
turbines for the £200 million Hywind project, being built by Statoil, the
Norwegian energy group, were floated near Stord island on the country’s
southwest coast. They will be towed on a four-day journey to a location 16
miles off Peterhead.
The five turbines, standing 175m above sea level, are
kept afloat by ballasted steel cylinders that extend 78m beneath the waves.
Each will be attached to the seabed by chains. Together they should
generate up to 30 megawatts of power, enough to supply 20,000 homes.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/turbines-sail-closer-to-the-wind-8bfzgdxnl
July 3, 2017
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The tumbling cost of offshore wind power could mean that it turns out to be
25 per cent cheaper than energy from Hinkley Point nuclear plant when
subsidies are awarded to new projects this year, the industry regulator has
suggested.
Developers behind a series of proposed offshore wind farms are
vying to secure government contracts that will guarantee a price for the
electricity they generate for 15 years. Dermot Nolan, chief executive of
Ofgem, said he hoped the winning projects would emerge at a price of “£70
or less” per megawatt-hour (MWh).
That would compare with £92.50/MWh that
was last year awarded to Hinkley Point for a 35-year contract, fuelling
debate about the merits of the project and future nuclear plants. The
difference between the guaranteed price and wholesale price, currently
£43/MWh, will be subsidised by consumers through energy bills, with
payouts for Hinkley forecast to hit £30 billion.
Just a few years agooffshore wind was one of the most expensive technologies in the market. In
2014 the government awarded some projects a price of £150/MWh.
Technological advances, including bigger, more efficient turbines,
economies of scale in manufacturing and the introduction of a competitive
“reverse auction” process to award subsidies to the cheapest projects have
helped to bring costs down rapidly.
Times 30th June 2017
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/offshore-wind-power-could-be-25-cheaper-than-hinkley-s-nuclear-qk77fqhd9
July 1, 2017
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renewable, UK |
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Independent 29th June 2017, The Government has been strongly criticised for its lack of action on
climate change by its own independent advisers, who warned that global
warming was “happening, not waiting” and it was “neither justifiable nor
wise to delay further”.
While the UK has been at the forefront of the world’s efforts to combat the risks from the rising temperatures, the
Committee on Climate Change – chaired by former Conservative Cabinet
Minister John Gummer, now Lord Deben – said there was now a “risk of
stalling” just when the economy was poised to take advantage of the shift
to a low-carbon economy.
A new Clean Growth Plan setting out how Britain
will cut carbon emissions in the late 2020s and early 2030s was now
“urgently needed”. Such a plan was legally required to be published as soon
as possible after the Government announced new targets last year, but is
not now expected until September.
One leading environmentalist said the
CCC’s report raised a “very serious red flag” about Ministers’ inaction,
while the Government admitted “there is a need to do more”. Claire Perry,
the newly appointed Climate Change Minister, told Parliament this week that
she wanted the Clean Growth Plan to be “as ambitious, robust and clear” as
possible, describing the document as “vitally important”. The CCC’s
report said many existing Government policies were “running out” and
new ones were needed. It recommended a string of different measures
including policies to boost electric vehicle ownership, which the report
said should make up around 60 per cent of new car and van sales by 2030. To
achieve those targets, the Government needed to provide some financial
support, preferential tax rates and ensure the “effective roll-out of
charging infrastructure”. Other measures included helping to develop a
carbon capture and storage system, looking for ways to remove carbon from
the atmosphere, having a contingency plan to delays to planned project –
“for example of new nuclear power plants” – and the tight regulation
of fracking operations to ensure a rapid response to leaks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/government-climate-change-experts-unjustifiable-lack-action-environment-global-warming-fossil-fuels-a7813741.html
July 1, 2017
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climate change, UK |
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Guardian 29th June 2017, The government must reverse its opposition to new building regulations that
ensure homes, hospitals and schools do not overheat as the number of deadly
heatwaves rises, according to its official climate change advisers. The
Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommended the new regulations in 2015
but ministers rejected the advice, citing a commitment to “reduce net
regulation on homebuilders”.
Without action, the number of people dying as
a result of heat is expected to more than triple to 7,000 a year by 2040,
the CCC warns in its annual report on the UK’s pr ogress on tackling global
warming. Earlier in June, Britain experienced its longest period with
temperatures above 30C since 1976. Heatwaves are known killers in the UK
and the number of hot days is rising. On the hottest day of the year in
2016 there were almost 400 extra deaths, while a heatwave in 2006 led to
680 people dying and another in 2003 contributed to the deaths of about
2,000 people.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/29/failure-to-update-building-regulations-could-triple-heatwave-deaths-by-2040
July 1, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, health, UK |
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The National 30th June 2017, RENEWABLE electricity generation in Scotland has reached a record high. A
new UK government report shows that generation was up by 13 per cent in the
first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. There was
also a 16 per cent increase in capacity with more than half of all gross
electricity consumption in Scotland coming from renewables.
Scotland’s total installed renewable capacity – the amount of renewable electricity
the country is capable of producing – now stands at 9.3GW, which is four
times what it was just a decade ago.
The renewable electricity sector also supports 26,000 jobs and has a turnover of £5 billion which is set to grow
further as new capacity comes on stream. Acting director of WWF Scotland Dr
Sam Gardner said: “It’s fantastic news that Scotland’s renewable
electricity generation is at an all-time high and re-affirms the vital role
it plays in powering the country. The renewable electricity sector
continues to play a vital role at the heart of Scotland’s economy,
delivering jobs and attracting investment.” However, he added: “If we are
to replicate these benefits in the wider economy the Energy Strategy from
the Scottish Government should make clear the steps it plans to take to
remove fossil fuels from the heat and transport sectors. “The Scottish
Government now needs to set out clear policies for how it will replicate
its amazing progress on renewable electricity in the heat and transport
sectors to ensure we hit the 50 per cent target by 2030.”
http://www.thenational.scot/business/15381373.Record_renewable_levels_in_Scotland_as_minister_describes__vindication__of_policies/
July 1, 2017
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renewable, UK |
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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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business and costs, politics, South Korea, UK |
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Clacton & Frinton Gazette 27th June 2017, A CAMPAIGN group has described process used to dissolve the FEDs at
Bradwell as an “outrage” and an “insult”. Members of the Blackwater
Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) had their say on the process which saw
radioactive waste dissolved in acid at the site.
Chairman, Andy Blowers said: “It is nothing short of an outrage and an insult to the Blackwater
environment and communities that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
(NDA) persisted despite all the signs that dissolution with nitric acid was
a failing technology.” BANNG Secretary, Varrie Blowers added: “The NDA
obviously believes that the end justified the chaotic means. While FED
dissolution may not have finished, it is hard to imagine that anyone can
think that the FED at Bradwell has been dealt with successfully, given all
the operational difficulties and the outages experienced.”
BANNG believe the reason the process has now been completed is because of the
re-characterisation of the waste, rather than it being fully dealt with.
They point to only one third of Intermediate Level Waste being treated, as
opposed to the full amount, with two thirds being reclassified as Low Level
Waste. Barry Turner, Vice-Chair of BANNG, said: “The Bradwell FED
dissolution plant has turned out to be an expensive one-off and has been
used to dissolve only one-third of the waste and not the originally
expected 100 per cent.” http://www.clactonandfrintongazette.co.uk/news/north_essex_news/15372952.Process_used_to_remove_radioactive_waste_an__outrage__and__insult__to_the_area__says_campaign_group/
June 30, 2017
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UK, wastes |
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Bristol Energy Co-op 27th June 2017, Bristol Energy Cooperative (BEC) launches a new crowdfund to continue its
journey to become a major generator of community-owned clean energy. The
crowdfund target of £1,150,000 will enable BEC to repay previous loans and
invest in new micro-renewable generation and storage schemes. These include
a 100kW Tesla battery storage project at a new sustainable housing site.
This bond offer builds on the popularity of BEC’s energy schemes where
surplus profits are reinvested into the community. BEC has a proven track
record of funding and developing renewables, including raising the
ambitious sum of £10m last year.
http://www.bristolenergy.coop/news–events/our-new-crowdfund-launches-to-continue-the-energy-revolution
June 30, 2017
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decentralised, UK |
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Times 27th June 2017,The lesson of the Hinkley Point C saga is not to repeat it. Contractors
started pouring concrete for the Hinkley Point C power station three months
ago and could be still at it in ten years‘ time.
By then, there is a chancethat the economics of energy will have suffered a surprise upheaval making
nuclear power genuinely affordable, but that chance is slim to vanishing.
It is more likely that current trends driving down the cost of renewable
and gas-fired power stations will continue.
Hinkley Point C will meanwhile be vulnerable to the sort of delays and cost-overruns that have plagued
every other reactor so far built to the same design, none of which is yet producing power. If experience is any guide, electricity from Hinkley Point will command more than twice the price of power from other sources,
including low-carbon renewables.
The value of subsidies to honour that “strike price”, which is meant to compensate the contractors for taking on
the risk of the project, will have more than quintupled since being agreed.
Hinkley Point C will create jobs but in a white elephant that will be technologically out of date before being connected to the grid. It is being built in part to keep the lights on without relying on highly polluting coal, but mainly because technology moves faster than bureaucracy. In complex matters politicians tend to rely on bureaucrats’ advice, and many
backed the plan before Theresa May gave her final approval last year.
Not one had the courage to cancel it when it was still possible to do so without exposing taxpayers to the risk of multibillion-pound compensation claims.
Sources close to an internal review of the project under way at EDF, the lead contractor, say that its budget is already edging up towards £20 billion from last year’s £18 billion estimate. Its completion date is now expected to be 2027 rather than 2025. The value to EDF and its Chinese partner of the “contract for difference” agreed in the deal has risen from
£6 billion to £30 billion as the price of gas and renewables, especially solar, has fallen.
The most alarming figure in the NAO report is an estimate of £22 billion that investors in Hinkley Point C could claim in
compensation were it to be scrapped. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/nuclear-options-n9b7sc5bq
June 28, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, UK |
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nuclear-news 