Inside Glanrhyd, the first solar ‘eco hamlet’ in Wales Residents of the new eco hamlet in Pembrokeshire can expect greatly reduced fuel bills and shared use of an electric car, Guardian, Steven Morris, 6 Jan 17,
Most of the houses in the Welsh village of Glanrhyd are of traditional construction – walls made out of hefty local stone, roofs of grey slate. They can get chilly when the winter winds whistle through the gaps.
The six houses that make up the “eco hamlet” of Pentre Solar look and feel very different. They are built using light, bright timber sourced from a nearby valley. The houses are carefully insulated, airtight and powered by solar panels.
Over the next few weeks the first tenants, local people from Pembrokeshire county council’s housing list, will move into what is being billed as the only development of its kind in the UK.
Their fuel bills are expected to be a fraction of their neighbours’ – and they will even get the use of a shared electric car for the school run, the shopping trip to nearby Cardigan, or even for a jolly to one of the many glorious local beaches…….
If the project, which has been backed by the Welsh government, does work, the hope is that similar developments could be rolled out across Wales and eventually across the UK.
Western Solar’s first venture was a solar farm, five miles from the eco hamlet. Doubts that it was sunny enough in this part of the British Isles (after all, the nearby village of Eglwyswrw made headlines last year after it rained for more than 80 days in a row) proved unfounded and the project thrived…….
Using technology borrowed from Germany, Western Solar built a prototype eco home called Tŷ Solar (Tŷ is Welsh for house). The idea was to produce a high-quality, brilliantly insulated, airtight house made of locally sourced timber and powered by solar energy…….
Western Solar’s ambitious plan is to build 1,000 more houses across the UK in the next 10 years and is looking for investors to help. The Welsh government is keen to see the concept work elsewhere. One of the key pledges of the current Labour-led administration is to provide an additional 20,000 affordable homes by 2021.…… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/06/inside-glanrhyd-the-first-solar-eco-hamlet-in-wales
January 7, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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Labour chiefs urge voters to ignore Jeremy Corbyn’s nuclear views ahead of Copeland by-election, Mirror UK, BYBEN GLAZE5 JAN 2017 The Labour leader is a veteran anti-nuclear campaigner, which could be a problem for him in Copeland in Cumbria Labour chiefs are quietly urging voters to ignore Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-nuclear views in a crunch by-election.
The Labour leader, a veteran anti-nukes campaigner, faces his biggest electoral test when voters go to the polls in Copeland, Cumbria.
The constituency is home to the Sellafield nuclear plant and next-door to Barrow-in-Furness, home to the shipyard building the Navy’s new
Trident nuclear submarines.
Labour is defending a slim 2,564 majority in the vote triggered by the resignation of MP Jamie Reed.
The Tories are favourites to win.
Senior Labour figures fear the Conservatives will highlight Mr Corbyn’s lifelong opposition to nuclear power and weapons. The Labour leader will “absolutely” visit the constituency during the campaign, according to party sources.
Copeland council’s Labour group leader Lena Hogg, who voted for Mr Corbyn in his successful leadership campaigns, hoped he would accept nuclear was popular locally.
Pro-nukes Mrs Hogg told the Mirror: “We have got it and it’s staying and people are quite happy about the fact we have had it since 1952.
“It doesn’t matter what people feel about it, it’s not going anywhere.”………http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-chiefs-tell-voters-ignore-9570679
January 7, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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NuGen ‘remains committed’ to Moorside nuclear plant http://www.in-cumbria.com/NuGen-remains-committed-to-Moorside-nuclear-plant-b026a08f-7adb-4f7a-b6ff-c67aa3026e0a-ds by Duncan Bick January 5, 2017 NUGEN says it “remains committed” to plans for a nuclear power station in Cumbria, despite the crisis affecting its majority shareholder Toshiba. Forty per cent was wiped off the Japanese company’s value in the last week of 2016 after it said that its US subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric, may have overpaid by several billions of dollars for another nuclear construction and services business.
To compound matters, the company is embroiled in an accounting scandal.
Its shares plunged to 259 yen (£1.81) on Thursday before staging a modest recovery on Friday. Yesterday they settled at slightly more than 277 yen when the Tokyo stock exchange closed.
Toshiba holds a 60 per cent stake in developer NuGen, alongside ENGIE of France.
They are due to decide next year whether to proceed. If the do, a £10bn power station will be constructed at Moorside, Sellafield. The credit agency Moody’s has downgraded Toshiba’s ratings and warned that the writedown could affect the company’s ability to pay its debts.
But a spokesman for NuGen said: “NuGen’s shareholders [Toshiba and ENGIE] remain committed to the development of our Moorside project.
“NuGen is actively engaged in exploring a universe of investment opportunities to bring in additional investments, including debt and equity, to help fund the construction of Europe’s largest new nuclear power station.”
He added: “NuGen welcomed the recent signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the UK and Japanese governments.
“The agreement shows confidence in the progress and deliverability of Moorside and commitment to nuclear as a solution to meeting the UK’s low carbon electricity requirements.”
NuGen has been seeking further backers for the scheme and is understood to have held talks about investment from the Korea Electrical Power Corporation.
If Moorside does go ahead, Westinghouse, once owned by British Nuclear Fuels, would supply three reactors.
They would have a capacity of up to 3.8GW, enough to supply 7.5 per cent of the UK’s electricity.
January 6, 2017
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Toshiba puts UK’s nuclear power plans under threat: Fears that crisis will halt Japanese firm’s investment in British plant http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-4074492/Toshiba-puts-UK-s-nuclear-power-plans-threat-Fears-crisis-halt-Japanese-firm-s-investment-British-plant.html By Rachel Millard For The Daily Mail 30 December 2016 Britain’s nuclear power plans have been thrown into doubt as a financial crisis grips the company behind one of the country’s biggest projects.
Japanese company Toshiba owns a 60 per cent stake in the planned £10billion NuGen nuclear power project in Moorside, Cumbria, which aims to supply power for about 6million homes from 2025.
But shares plunged at Toshiba for the third day running yesterday after it warned of a multi-billion dollar write-down involving its US nuclear subsidiary.
Forty per cent has been wiped off the company’s value since it said on Monday that its US nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse Electric may have overpaid by several billions of dollars for another nuclear construction and services business.
Westinghouse UK is providing the reactors for the planned project in Cumbria, the rest of which is owned by French company Engie, and would be one of Europe’s largest nuclear power plants.
Moody’s investor service has downgraded Toshiba’s ratings and warned the writedown could affect the company’s ability to pay its debts, little over a year after its finances were seriously hit by an accounting scandal.
Justin Bowden, the GMB union’s national secretary for energy, said: ‘It needs to be established as soon as possible whether or not the collapsing Toshiba share price, in particular in relation to its Westinghouse operation, has any implications, and if so what these are for the extremely important Westinghouse project.’
Masako Kuwahara, a Moody’s vice-president, said: ‘The downgrade of Toshiba’s ratings principally reflects Moody’s deepening concerns over the sustainability of Toshiba’s near-term liquidity, as well as the substantive and rapid erosion of its equity base.
‘Although Toshiba is still assessing the exact amount of the impairment loss, its financial metrics will likely deteriorate further, potentially resulting in a negative equity position.’
Moody’s added that if Toshiba breached its debt obligations, its ability to stay solvent would depend on banks’ support.
‘The availability of such support in such a situation, is currently uncertain,’ Moody’s added.
Bankers and analysts said the latest shock could force Toshiba to trim down its businesses.
‘If the company wants to survive, it needs to go through a scrap-and-build process,’ said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.
Toshiba’s problems come after NuGen said it was in talks with potential investors for the Cumbria site, with a final investment decision due in 2018.
It is potentially a blow to the Government after ministers had described 2016 as a ‘year for the industry to look back on’ following backing for a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
Then UK energy minister Lucy Neville-Rolfe said Hinkley Point would ‘trigger this country’s nuclear renaissance’. But the GMB’s Bowden said: ‘We are one step away from the lights going out.’
NuGen yesterday declined to comment and Toshiba could not be reached for comment.
A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesman said: ‘We are working closely with developers on a number of proposed new nuclear projects in the UK, as they develop their plans.’
December 30, 2016
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Cabinet files reveal plan to shoot nuclear intruders By Nick Higham, BBC News, 30 Dec 16 Sentries at Faslane naval base were ordered to shoot suspected intruders after three people broke into a nuclear submarine, cabinet papers show.
PM Margaret Thatcher, who was told of the order, said she was “horrified” that the intrusion had succeeded.
The papers are among records filed in 1989 and 1990 and released on Friday……..
‘Grave danger’ at Faslane
Three anti-nuclear demonstrators successfully cut through the perimeter fence at Faslane, on the Clyde, in the early hours of 10 October 1988. The demonstrators went through an open submarine hatch to reach the control room of HMS Repulse, a ballistic missile submarine, where they sprayed anti-nuclear slogans before being arrested.
A fourth demonstrator attempted to swim into the base, but was caught…….
Since the Eighties, anti-nuclear protesters have peacefully camped outsideFaslane, which is now the home of Trident nuclear weapons…….http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38369742
December 30, 2016
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Torpedo fired at Plymouth nuclear submarine dock ‘posed no danger’ Plymouth Herald, By JLewis_Herald December 27, 2016 A torpedo was inadvertently fired at the nuclear submarine dock in Plymouth.
And, in a separate incident, a dockyard worker in the city breathed in radioactive material, an investigation of incidents involving the nuclear industry has found.
But in both cases, The Times reports, the nuclear safety regulator deemed the incidents as being of no nuclear safety significance.
The decision that these and dozens more apparent safety breaches at nuclear installations around the country pose no danger has alarmed some scientists, who told the newspaper they should have been taken much more seriously.
Among the other incidents reported to the Office for Nuclear Regulation but dismissed as no more than ‘anomalies’ were three road accidents involving vehicles carrying nuclear material, the discovery of radioactive hydrogen in groundwater around the Dungeness nuclear power station in Kent and at least 70 safety incidents on the UK’s main nuclear warhead base at Aldermaston in Berkshire.
The Times reports that brief accounts of all the incidents were quietly published earlier this year.
They record events in the three years up to March 15 in what is said to be the first report of its kind.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation has defended its classification of the incidents, including the accidental firing of the torpedo at a nuclear submarine in dock in Plymouth and the ingestion of potentially deadly isotope of cobalt 13, breathed in by a Devonport Dockyard worker……..http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/torpedo-fired-at-plymouth-nuclear-submarine-dock-posed-no-danger/story-30013772-detail/story.html
December 28, 2016
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Nuclear plundering of the public purse – the Sellafield and Moorside billions, Ecologist, Martin Forwood 13th December 2016
“………Largely under-reported by the media, Moorside’s developer NuGen told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in early November that it had been calculating how elements of its proposed triple AP1000 reactor site might be carved up to allow the non-nuclear elements of the project to be paid for by the UK Government.
For despite casting its net far and wide in an attempt to drum up the additional finance to meet the clearly under-
estimated £15 billion cost of building Moorside, the consortium of Japan’s Toshiba and France’s Engie is clearly struggling to attract support.
The struggle was intensified by the not unexpected news on 8th December that Engie itself has declared that it will pull out of the Moorside and other new-build developments because “it no longer has the resources to finance such expensive projects” and wants to concentrate on renewables instead.
Hoping that the Treasury’s taxpayer cavalry will ride to the rescue, NuGen’s CEO Tom Samson told the House of Lords that one non-nuclear element of the project has been identified by the consortium as the seawater system required to cool Moorside’s reactors.
Exactly how this vital component of reactor operation can be classified by NuGen as a non-nuclear element and thereby qualify for taxpayer support is as incomprehensible as is the further suggestion that major ‘civil works’ such as the removal of excavation spoil, could also qualify for Government largesse.
It’s a telling sign of NuGen’s dire financial straits, and one that will leave tax-paying observers wondering exactly which part it is of the Government’s erstwhile promise – that future developers would shoulder the whole cost of new-build in the UK – that NuGen doesn’t understand or seeks to circumvent in its hour of self-inflicted need.
And now – taxpayer-funded transport infrastructure and powerlines
Then there’s the suggestion of Government assistance in improving the transport infrastructure in the Cumbrian area to help support both the decommissioning operations at Sellafield and the proposed construction site at Moorside.
Leaving aside NuGen’s less than subtle ploy to boost its case for infrastructure improvements by lumping together Moorside and Sellafield decommissioning, local communities will nevertheless know to their frustration that pleas to improve West Cumbria’s chronic road and rail infrastructure have fallen on deaf Government and industry ears for decades.
Even the construction of the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) in the 1980’s and 90’s – a project of similar workforce size to that forecast for Moorside and with similar demands on the local infrastructure – saw no improvements whatsoever made to the outdated transport system.
With Sellafield’s commercial reprocessing operations in their death throes and the site in clean-up mode, it would be morally indefensible for the taxpayer to be expected to step in now to bank roll a Japanese / French private consortium that has clearly bitten off more than it can chew and finds itself short of funding for a project whose timetable and sums increasingly fail to add up.
The very notion that the Treasury should ride to the rescue of NuGen’s vested interest in a new-build project that has considerably less than full public support will be anathema to taxpayers, particularly as they witness hospital and community services in West Cumbria – whose survival is in everyone’s interest – being increasingly starved of Government support.
A thought must be spared too for those facing the double whammy of increased electricity bills as a result of the estimated £2.5 billion cost of connecting Moorside to an upgraded North West Coast grid system – a contentious and hugely disruptive and visually damaging upgrade that National Grid has confirmed again recently would not be necessary if the Moorside project was not on the table.
The government must pull back from this boondoggle project
Time will tell whether the historically apron-stringed – some would say incestuous – relationship between Government and UK Nuclear will come up trumps for NuGen.
But if it doesn’t there will be no public sympathy for a consortium that has walked open-eyed into a remote green field site well documented as being ‘less than optimum’ for new-build in construction, infrastructure and transmission terms.
Nugen has made its bed and should now lie in it or, as the other saying suggests, get out of the Cumbrian kitchen if it can’t stand the financial heat.
Martin Forwood is the Campaign Coordinator of CORE, Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment.
This article was originally published on the CORE website. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988449/nuclear_plundering_of_the_public_purse_the_sellafield_and_moorside_billions.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=
December 19, 2016
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Nuclear plundering of the public purse – the Sellafield and Moorside billions, Ecologist, Martin Forwood 13th December 2016
While the government is cutting vital public expenditure across the board there’s one industry for which no costs are too great, writes Martin Forwood. The price of an ‘evaporator’ at the Sellafield nuclear complex is escalating towards £1 billion, while billions more of taxpayer finance are being lined up to finance cooling systems, power lines and transport links for the adjacent Moorside new-build nuclear power plant.
The Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s elevation to the US Presidency have turned the international status quo upside down.
But some things – like the nuclear industry’s insatiable appetite for taxpayers’ money – never change.
Sellafield’s Evaporator D project, with NuGen’s Moorside in hot pursuit, is a prime example as it limps along, sustained only by ever increasing helpings from the public purse.
With nuclear power rightly acknowledged as being a hideously expensive way of boiling a kettle, then Evaporator D – known to the Sellafield workforce as the ‘Big Kettle’ – must be breaking all records.
Initially costed at £90 million (2007) and originally due to come into operation in 2010/11, the cost has increased eight-fold to £740m – as at September 2015. With a ‘challenging’ operational date currently pencilled in as 2017/18, and with updated figures yet to be published, the sky is clearly the limit for Evaporator D.
The tortured progress of the new Evaporator, designed to reduce (by evaporation) the volume of the dangerous liquid High Level Wastes (HLW) produced by spent fuel reprocessing, reveals a catalogue of project mismanagement and eye-watering cost hikes that show little sign of abating.
Promoted specifically by BNFL and subsequently by the NDA as being urgently needed to support continued reprocessing operations in the B205 (magnox fuel) and THORP (oxide fuel) plant, Evaporator D is currently being shoe-horned into the HLW complex.
There it will join its three fellow but semi-crippled evaporators (A,B & C) whose increasing unreliability through age and internal corrosion had underpinned the urgency for Evaporator D.
A tale of mismanagement and incompetence
Despite claiming not to recognise the £90m estimate of 2007, the NDA was nevertheless happy to confirm a price tag of £100m in 2008, since when the cost of Evaporator D has risen in almost annual increments – with the biggest hike to over £600m.
That number comes in a damning report by the National Audit Office that was highly critical of the NDA’s project management and that of its subsequently sacked contractor Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) who had acted for the NDA as Sellafield’s Parent Body Organisation since 2008. As the NAO reported,
“Gaps in the capability of subcontractors in the supply chain to undertake work to the standards required for nuclear installations have had direct consequences for the speed and efficiency of project delivery. For example, the Authority estimates that £50 million of the £244 million increase in the cost of evaporator D and part of the 18-month delay since 2009 is because the subcontractor lacked experience in welding to the necessary nuclear quality standards.
“The Authority was aware of these risks when it approved the start of construction. It relied on Sellafield Limited’s assurances that its subcontractor could manage the risks. The Authority did not obtain assurance from Sellafield Limited that it had put in place appropriate quality assurance and training.”
The cramped conditions in and around the HLW complex was a major factor in employing the novel option of having the main elements of the Evaporator built off-site (by Interserve at Ellesmere Port) and delivered by barge to Sellafield beach in the form of 11 modules, the largest weighing 500 tonnes and measuring 12.5 x 7.5 x 27 metres tall. The Evaporator, whose top and bottom sections are shown above being fabricated at Ellesmere Port, will operate in an upright position once installed at Sellafield.
Novel as the option was, it soon fell foul of a range of problems that included a disorganised supply chain, design changes, the quality of module fabrication, and seismic qualification.
With the modules delivered to Sellafield beach and hauled onto site between 2011 and 2013, Evaporator D’s cost increases from 2013 onwards are largely attributed by the NDA to the ‘transfer of incomplete modules to site’. This resulted in extensive additional cutting and welding work being needed – in a confined work space – to connect together the component parts of the Evaporator system.
And now Evaporator D looks set to miss the ‘reprocessing boat’
The greatest irony of all is, of course, that despite the early hullabaloo about its urgent and crucial support role for reprocessing at Sellafield, Evaporator D can be of service to THORP reprocessing (due to finish in 2018) for no more than one year at best.
At worst it will be of service only for THORP’s post-2018 clean out, the remnant days of B205 reprocessing which is due to end around 2020 and other site decommissioning work.
Faced with this prospect and the embarrassing reality that its much vaunted Evaporator D could indeed miss the THORP reprocessing boat for which it was primarily designed, the NDA and Sellafield Ltd damage limitation teams have recently swung into top gear – by stressing the Evaporator’s future decommissioning role through its ability to deal with the larger waste particles expected to be encountered during the coming years of clean-up work.
For a project whose £740m cost will undoubtedly escalate further, aggrieved taxpayers may take some comfort from Sellafield’s 2012 announcement that plans for a fifth (£600m) Evaporator E had been scrapped. But they should now cast a wary eye to NuGen’s new-build project just across the road from Sellafield where the prospect of further pilfering from the public purse is simmering on the back-burner.
Moorside nuclear power plant – another massive drain on taxpayers’ money …….
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988449/nuclear_plundering_of_the_public_purse_the_sellafield_and_moorside_billions.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=
December 19, 2016
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Calls to ban ‘unsafe’ nuclear flights from Highland airport Sunday Herald, Rob Edwards, 18 Dec 16 FLIGHTS loaded with weapons-grade uranium that are being launched from a Highland airport are in dangerous breach of runway safety limits, according to documents released under Freedom of Information (FoI) law.
The revelations have led to angry accusations from politicians and environmental groups that a “horrific gamble” is being taken on these flights and calls for the nuclear transports to be banned immediately.
Bombs-grade uranium from Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness is being flown from Wick John O’Groats Airport to America aboard 130-tonne C-17 US Air Force planes, which according to the documents, are too heavy for most of the runway.
The company that runs the airport denies these accusations and says the runway complies with current industry standards.
A deal to fly 700 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium waste from Dounreay to the US was announced by former UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, at a nuclear security summit in Washington DC in March. The first flight took place from Wick airport under armed guard on September 17 – and more are expected next year.
There were earlier reports that Wick’s runway was too short for C-17 aircraft and that the airport’s rescue and firefighting capability was inadequate. The flight from the US in September landed at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray, which experts say could have been to minimise the weight of fuel it was carrying for its short hop to and from Wick.
Now detailed technical reports obtained by the Sunday Herald disclose that the runway may not be strong enough to withstand the flights. Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) had commissioned the US engineering firm AECOM to examine the structural suitability of Wick’s runway for C-17s, and it produced a 46-page report in October 2015.
Under safety standards used by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the report found that most of the runway was deficient. “The movements of the C-17 will not meet the necessary criteria for normal overloading operations as stated in the guidance and thus should only be allowed in emergency situations,” it said……….
John Finnie MSP, transport spokesperson for the Scottish Greens, called for the flights to be suspended pending a safety review. “The public will rightly be alarmed by this disclosure,” he said.
“It clearly suggests that no legitimate risk assessment has been undertaken and a lower standard is being applied simply because of what the cargo is. I intend raising this matter in the Scottish Parliament.”
Friends of the Earth Scotland described the released documents as damning. “It is almost beyond belief that these flights are using a runway that is not fit for purpose,” said the environmental group’s director, Dr Richard Dixon.
“Gambling against the horrific consequences of one of these flights crashing is bad enough but vastly increasing the risk of a crash by using an unsuitable airport is almost too stupid to believe. Whoever thought this was an acceptable plan should lose their job and these flights should be banned immediately.”
Tor Justad, chairperson of the campaign group Highlands Against Nuclear Transport, demanded an “absolute assurance” that the C-17 aircraft would not damage the runway or suffer an accident. “Safety standards are being compromised to allow the uranium flights to go ahead,” he said………….. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14973582.Calls_to_ban___39_unsafe__39__nuclear_flights_from_Highland_airport/?ref=rss
December 19, 2016
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any UK financing would be “off balance sheet” to avoid inflating public debts
The UK’s willingness to consider government involvement reflects a change in thinking since Theresa May replaced David Cameron as prime minister last June. Her enthusiasm for “industrial strategy” — a term enshrined in Mr Clark’s formal job title — has already been widely interpreted as signalling a greater openness to intervention in business affairs.
Public finance sought for Welsh nuclear plant, Hitachi in talks over state funding for Wylfa in Anglesey by: Andrew Ward and Jim Pickard in London, Ft.com, 16 Dec 16
Hitachi is in talks with the Japanese and UK governments about potential state financing for the multibillion-pound nuclear power station it is planning to build in Wales.
Government equity, loans and credit guarantees are among the options being explored by the Japanese conglomerate and officials in London and Tokyo, according to people briefed on the matter.
Any UK public finance for the power plant at Wylfa in Anglesey would represent a major change in policy; the British government has for years resisted the idea of exposing taxpayers’ money to the heavy expense and high risks involved in building nuclear reactors.
Philip Hammond, UK chancellor, is in Japan this week, and Greg Clark, business secretary, is expected to visit next week, with the Hitachi nuclear project high on the agenda for both.
Following a meeting with government officials and business leaders in Tokyo on Thursday, Mr Hammond that financing for the nuclear power project in Wales could total around £12bn, of which a portion would be contributed by Japan. Negotiations are continuing but bankers indicated the Japanese contribution could be on the order of ¥1tn ($8.5bn).
People involved in the process said talks still “have a long way to go” and it was far from certain that a deal with the two governments would be reached.
One person said that any UK financing would be “off balance sheet” to avoid inflating public debts. This could include the government taking a direct minority stake alongside Hitachi provided it did not bring the whole project on to the Treasury’s books. Japanese government support is likely to come in the form of loans.
UK government officials said they were “looking at options” for how the Wylfa project should be financed.
The UK’s willingness to consider government involvement reflects a change in thinking since Theresa May replaced David Cameron as prime minister last June. Her enthusiasm for “industrial strategy” — a term enshrined in Mr Clark’s formal job title — has already been widely interpreted as signalling a greater openness to intervention in business affairs.
Hitachi acquired Horizon Nuclear Power, the company planning to build the Wylfa plant, from German utilities Eon and RWE in 2012.
The scheme has been given fresh momentum by the government’s approval in September for the £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Somerset — a decision which confirmed Mrs May’s support for renewal of the UK’s nuclear power industry……. https://www.ft.com/content/8204883c-c2eb-11e6-9bca-2b93a6856354
December 17, 2016
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Hinkley Point C Wylfa Newydd NuClear News No 91, Jan 2017 Back at the Nuclear Industry Association’s annual conference EDF’s Humphrey Cadoux-Hudson tries to keep the delusion going telling delegates that “1,000 workers [are] currently on site” and “first nuclear concrete expected in Q1 2017”
In fact the first pour of concrete (for the reactors) will not start until 2019. At the moment a temporary jetty is being built but it will take about a year to complete and construction of workers’ accommodation may start in 2017. In the meantime about a 100 HGV lorry movements a day are carrying, spoil, limestone, rebar, metal shearing aggregate and plate material. 40 buses a day carry shift workers between Bridgwater and the site, but ironically these buses can’t be used by local residents who have had their local services scrapped.
So there will be two more years of falling renewable costs and rising nuclear costs before construction at Hinkley can get underway in earnest. And two more years of revelations about the mess that EDF and Areva have gotten themselves into. ) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo91.pdf
December 17, 2016
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South Korea says minister, British counterpart discussed nuclear power cooperation http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-nuclear-uk-idUSKBN14508N 15 Dec 16 South Korea’s energy minister Joo
Hyung-hwan discussed cooperation on British nuclear energy projects in a meeting in London on Thursday with Britain’s business minister Greg Clark, South Korea’s energy ministry said in a statement.
The statement from Seoul didn’t disclose details of discussions on nuclear energy, but said the two countries will hold a follow-up meeting in the first half of next year.
A British government statement issued said the two countries underlined a commitment at the meeting to keep working together on science, innovation and technology, without mentioning nuclear power.
Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy and the world’s fifth-biggest user of nuclear power, is keen to export its nuclear reactor technology, developed through state-run utility Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO).
Earlier this year, Britain gave the green light to the $24 billion Hinkley Point C project, its first new nuclear power plant in decades.
Along with that project, NuGen, a joint venture between Toshiba and French utility company Engie, plans to build three reactors at the Moorside site on the coast of Cumbria, in northwest England.
According to Seoul’s statement on Friday, Korea’s energy minister also had a meeting with NuGen chief Tom Samson during his British visit. The minister said Korean participation in Nugen projects would contribute to their success.
Earlier this year a person familiar with the situation told Reuters KEPCO had engaged in talks with Toshiba and Engie about buying a stake NuGen. A NuGen spokesman declined to comment on whether talks were taking place with KEPCO, which also declined to comment.
(Reporting by Jane Chung; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
December 17, 2016
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The Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Development Bank of Japan will provide financing for the project, the official told Reuters.
The funding plans are a boost for the project, one of several new nuclear plants planned in the UK, which is aiming to replacing its ageing fleet of atomic reactors.
Hitachi’s Horizon unit plans to construct at least 5.4 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity across two sites in Britain.
The funds will be provided for the first plant planned at Wylfa Newydd in Wales.
The Nikkei newspaper said Hitachi would invest about 10 percent of the expected 19 billion pounds ($24 billion) cost of the project. A Hitachi official declined to comment, saying the amount has not been announced.
($1 = 117.2600 yen)
($1 = 0.7971 pounds)
December 17, 2016
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Japan, politics international, UK |
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Moorside NuClear News No 91, Jan 2017 Unfortunately for nuclear supporters utilities in the UK are, like PGE, beginning to realise that the old utility model is dying. Engie, formerly GDF Suez, which owns 40% of NuGen, the Company which wants to build three new nuclear reactors at Moorside in Cumbria, next to Sellafield, is fully aware that “the future is going to be much more about decentralized energy”. The company is roughly one third owned by the French Government, and is the parent company of the Belgian utility, Electrabel, which operates all seven of Belgium’s nuclear reactors. But it is now trying to abandon its new reactor projects in Turkey and England because it no longer has the resources to finance such expensive projects. (8)
The Chief Executive of Engie UK, Wilfrid Petrie, says “It’s very difficult today to build a new power plant [in the UK] with current market conditions”. Instead, the Company offers localised services that could include installing insulation, district heating and solar panels on existing buildings as well as supplying gas and electricity. “We see the emergence of a new type of organisation within cities,” he says. Engie, he believes, can build on its relationships with councils and other commercial customers to expand its British business by developing local, decentralised energy in urban areas, where demand is high. “We don’t want to sell a huge amount of energy. Our big focus is on the demand side. The future is going to be much more about decentralized energy,” he says. (9)
If Engie does pull out of the NuGen consortium it will make it even harder to finance the construction of three new reactors at Moorside. NuGen has already told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee that it is hoping that certain non-nuclear elements of the project might be paid for by the UK Government. Despite casting its net far and wide in an attempt to drum up the required finance the consortium is clearly struggling to attract support. Hoping that the taxpayer will rescue the project, NuGen’s CEO Tom Samson told the House of Lords that one non-nuclear element of the project has been identified by the consortium as the seawater system required to cool Moorside’s reactors. Samson hopes that major ‘civil works’ such as the removal of excavation spoil, could also qualify for Government largesse. There’s also a suggestion there might be Government assistance to improve the transport infrastructure of Cumbria. The very notion that the Treasury should ride to the rescue when hospital and community services in West Cumbria are being increasingly starved of Government support is not going down too well in some quarters. (10) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo91.pdf
December 17, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, UK |
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Bradwell Notes NuClear News No 91, Jan 2017 Maldon District and Essex County Council are paving the way for Bradwell’s Chinese-built nuclear plant by offering free Mandarin lessons to councillors. Professor Andy Blowers, chairman of the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG), said “it may be that neither council possesses expertise in understanding what is proposed. And learning Mandarin will not compensate for that.” (1)
BANNG has been opposing new nuclear development at Bradwell for the last 8 years, on the grounds that the low-lying site is totally unsuitable for such development and, now, also because of concerns, shared with others, regarding security issues and Chinese involvement in such sensitive UK infrastructure. Professor Andy Blowers said: “There is a long process ahead before any new nuclear power station can be built at Bradwell. The rigorous Generic Design Assessment has not yet commenced and then there will be a planning process in which Maldon District and Essex County Councils will be consultees. By celebrating in any way, the County Council potentially compromises its disinterested role as a consulted planning authority. The suggestion that there is something to celebrate could give the impression that a new Chinese power station will simply be waved through”. (2)
Meanwhile the NDA’s policy of spreading nuclear waste around the country to save money continues. Essex County Council has voted to lift restrictions imposed only 4 years ago and to allow Magnox, operators of the Bradwell site, to transfer Intermediate-Level Waste (ILW) from Dungeness and Sizewell to the Bradwell Interim Storage Facility (ISF). The restriction had decreed that only Bradwell-generated waste could be stored there. Bradwell will now become a regional nuclear waste store for the indefinite future and a precedent for the import of further wastes may have been set. The planning approval means that the long-held principle of selfsufficiency, whereby each site hosts its own wastes, is contravened. (3)
In a surprise move EDF and Chinese nuclear company CGN have consulted Mersea Island residents over the proposed new nuclear power station at Bradwell. The previous official position was that Mersea Island was in the wrong planning area (despite being much closer to and directly downwind from the site). If people want to share their views on the project they can do so via the website: http://www.bradwellb.co.uk (4)
Sizewell C EDF Energy has launched its stage2 public consultation on the proposals for two EPRs to be built at Sizewell. The consultation is open until 3 February 2017. (1)
Community leaders who met to discuss the proposals agreed that the developers need to offer a better deal for Suffolk. Nearly 80 town and parish representatives along with members of the Joint Local Authority Group (JLAG) concluded that EDF Energy’s stage two consultation for Sizewell C has failed to make enough progress from its proposals four years ago. The key concerns raised at the summit focussed on the proposed accommodation campus, whose location near Therberton is feared to lack the required infrastructure to transport up to 2,400 workers to and from the construction site. Other issues included EDF’s alleged failure to “fully understand the communities of east Suffolk” and their concerns. The summit also heard that EDF’s proposals to have 35 metre high “spoil heaps” would have a significant impact on those living and visiting the area and it was not yet clear what mitigation would be provided. Transport routes for construction material were also said to be unclear, with EDF urged to provide more detail about how much would be brought in by road, sea and rail. (2) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo91.pdf
December 17, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
opposition to nuclear, UK |
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