Tidal vs Nuclear

Even as Gordon Brown gives support for more nuclear newbuild, tidal stream energy makes big strides forwards while nuclear costs rise and problems continue

Decommissioning costs rising

The cost of cleaning up the UK's nuclear facilities - some of which date back to the 1950s - will rise above £73bn, even as Gordon Brown is rushing to build new ones. Jim Morse, a senior director at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) told the BBC this week that the costs of dismantling 19 sites will rise by billions of pounds. The National Audit Office upgraded the figure to £73bn. it just keeps going up.

Morse said: "I think it's a high probability that in the short term it will undoubtedly go up. We've still a lot to discover. We haven't started waste retrieval in those parts of the estate where the degradation and radioactive decay has been at its greatest. No-one's done this before."

Nuclear shutdowns

In other nuclear developments this week, two of British Energy's ageing nuclear reactors - the Hunterston B7 reactor at Largs, Ayrshire, and the Sizewell B reactor in Leiston, Suffolk - also shut down unexpectedly triggering blackouts.

Robin Oakley, head of Greenpeace's climate and energy campaign, said: "The nuclear industry has had a woeful 24 hours that must be shaking confidence in this outdated technology. Sizewell B shut down unexpectedly, clean-up costs are soaring and the reactor that France wants to sell us has had construction halted for safety reasons."

EDF's not to be trusted

On Tuesday, the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) ordered EDF Energy to partly suspend the construction of its new-generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville after concerns about the quality of the construction work. This is the same company that has recently been buying up farmland adjacent to Wylfa nuclear power station on Anglesey, expecting to be given the green light to build a new nuclear power station there.

The local council is in favour of the project, because it is fearful that a nearby steel plant, dependent on the energy from the power plants, will have to close down when the power station is decommissioned after 2012. But the Welsh Assembly government has not given its view.

Marine current turbine world first

A Friends of the Earth Wales report has said a marine tidal farm could generate the equivalent energy to Wylfa rendering a new nuclear power station unnecessarily. The marine currents just alongside the power station are amongst the strongest around Britain's coast. Construction is to begin on a 10.5MW project, expected to be commissioned around 2011/2012.

The pioneering project is a joint initiative with Marine Current Turbines and npower. Marine Current Turbines has successfully installed the world's first megawatt-scale tidal turbine, a 1.2MW SeaGen tidal energy system, in Strangford Narrows, Northern Ireland in May. It should start regularly feeding power into the Northern Ireland grid in August.



Martin Wright, Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines said: "This has been a ground-breaking operation, the like of which has never been attempted before and it has attracted interest from around the world. SeaGen's installation has been filmed by TV crews from North America, Germany and France as well as from Ireland and the UK." When fully operational the tidal system's 16m diameter, twin rotors will operate for up to 18-20 hours per day.

These turbines are modular, so if these installations are successful more may be added later, spreading the cost, unlike with tidal barrages or nuclear power stations.

UK and Irish governments told to implement personal carbon trading

The British government should reconsider its decision to put on the backburner the idea of personal carbon trading, especially since the Irish government has now been advised to roll out a pilot for the transport sector.

Britain should consider giving individuals a personal carbon emissions allowance that they can use or trade, in order to help the country meet its CO2 emissions target, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) told the government last week. The government had earlier in the month dismissed the idea.

Hilary Benn, the environment minister, told me at a climate change conference (Think 08) that the scheme was too early (meaning that people weren't ready for it), too expensive and too complicated to explain and to administer. Additionally, he argued that there was a danger of inequity in the system, disproportionately affecting the elderly, rural and poor who would have to be compensated.

However, the Irish government has just received a recommendation to trial a form of Cap & Share in the transport sector.

The Defra report deliberately underplayed the carbon benefits and admitted to a low level of research quality citing a "reduction in personal emissions of 0-10% - although these figures have been drawn from research on metering and energy displays rather than trials of personal carbon trading... a low range of 0-5% reduction is assumed. Though [even] a 10% reduction would still not be sufficient to balance the cost-benefit assessment more favourably."

The Environmental Audit Committee disagreed. "Existing initiatives are unlikely to bring about behavioural change on the scale required, with many individuals choosing to disregard the connection between their own emissions and the larger challenge," the EAC said. "Personal carbon trading might be the kind of radical measure needed to bring about behavioural change." It would be more effective and fairer than bringing in "green" taxes.

Hilary Benn said the cost of introducing PCAs would be between £700m and £2bn.

However, Tim Yeo, the Conservative EAC chairman, strongly disagreed, saying difficulties of implementing the scheme could be overcome and calling for more feasibility work. He said that if the private sector were to administer it, it could be done a lot cheaper, along the lines of supermarket loyalty cards. "It engages people at all levels in their decisions, about whether they heat their house to a slightly lower temperature, whether they really need to put air conditioning in their flat, whether they really need to take that flight," he said.

Meanwhile, Ireland forges ahead

But PCAs are not the only such scheme on the table. At the end of May, British consultants AEA Energy and Environment released their interim final report, commissioned by Comhar, the Irish national sustainable development council, into Cap & Share, which the coalition government is seriously considering. Their conclusion was that Cap & Share is much fairer, cheaper, and more cost-effective.

Under Cap & Share, permits for the right to emit carbon are given to the population, who can then choose whether or not to sell them to companies introducing fossil fuels to the national economy. (Currently of course permits are given away under the EU emissions trading scheme, which boosts the energy companies’ profits at consumers’ expense.) As only a small number of firms are importing or producing energy, this makes C&S easy to administer. Each fuel company is required to purchase permits to match the eventual emissions from the fossil fuels they extract or import, with the total number being reduced year on year to promote the transition to a low carbon society.

Of course companies have to add the cost of the permits to their prices and this puts up the cost of everything sold because all goods and services have an energy content. But the Irish environment organization Feasta comments: "it's just as fair as any other scheme. Under the proposal lower income households, on average, would benefit since they have lower than average energy consumption and would receive emissions certificates worth more than the increased fuel costs they incur. "

How much would it cost?

AEA compares 10 different ways of rationing carbon currently being considered around the world, including carbon taxes. Their report is far more detailed than that produced by Hillary Benn’s department.


The AEA report compares the various carbon reducing schemes on offer. The green colour symbolizes the most benefit and the redder shade the least benefit.

They say the cost of "the Cap and Share scheme... would be lower than the more complex personal carbon allocation options but higher than introducing a carbon tax. For the Cap and Share scheme the cost of administering the fuel suppliers is likely to be secondary to the costs associated with issuing certificates to the general public. Our simple bottom up estimate... puts the transaction costs for a system where certificates are cashed in remotely in the range 8-11% of the value of the certificates. This range depends on income and assumes an allowance price of €20/tCO2 and a bank direct transaction charge of 5%. At higher carbon prices the cost effectiveness would be better, with transaction costs around 6-7% for a price of €50/tCO2."

AEA therefore recommends the system to be introduced on a trial basis first of all in the transport sector in the Republic of Ireland "with subsequent consideration to sectoral and geographical expansion" in the North. This would also combat the fuel tourism which currently goes on, as fuel is cheaper south of the border – which I witnessed first hand recently. Measures would be needed to shield the vulnerable from increased costs. AEA suggests not allocating to children, "although again consideration will be needed for increasing support to families".

AEA concludes its comparison thus: "Cap and Share and the Sky Trust currently appear the most favourable [schemes]. The schemes that treat individuals as an emitting entity (Tradable Energy Quotas, Personal Carbon Rationing, Rate All Products and Services and the Ayres Scheme) look the least appealing, because of their complexity and the resulting costs. Furthermore, the lack of public engagement, uncertainty over environmental outcome and no direct compensation for individuals mean non-traded options such as a carbon tax and direct regulation score less well in our analysis than Cap and Share and Sky Trust."

[The Sky Trust is an American idea whereby permits to pollute are auctioned and the revenue generated given to households in order to "lock in public support for emission reductions, no matter how high fuel prices would rise." The dividends could be used by residents to subsidize the price of energy-efficient appliances and/or renewable energy generation.]

The Irish Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering the recommendations. If the Irish government goes ahead it will be another case of the Republic courageously going first where its neighbours in the British Isles later follow – as with banning plastic bags and smoking in pubs. The ‘Celtic Tiger’ can certainly teach us a thing or two about looking after our health and the environment. How surprising is that?

Further illustrations of how the different schemes work:

In Memoriam Will Howard

My good friend Will Howard has just died, following a long and brave battle with cancer.

Will has been in recent years a passionate advocate of the form of personal carbon trading known as Cap and Share [link to the web site he set up].

Unbelievably, on the day he died, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced that the UK would set up what Reuters' press release called "Domestic Carbon Emissions Trading". This represents a fantastic achievement for the whole movement to get such a trading scheme established.

Despite his cancer Will cycled to Brussels from his home in west Wales near Machynlleth last summer as part of this campaign.

It's to his great credit, that as the main UK campaigner for this simplified form of carbon trading, it is now firmly on the UK political agenda.

A lifelong campaigner

I will try to summarise what I know of his life. Will was a brave man who cared deeply about the state of the planet and its people.

I met him in 1997 when we began collaboration on two projects: a Green Solutions CD-Rom for the Centre for ALternative Technoogy, featuring the then new technology of Quicktime virtual reality, and the Palace of Amnesia, a prototype computer game I wrote and he directed.

At that time he was living on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea, running an Apple Mac design company.

With his wife Lyn and boys Sam and Dougie they had moved there from Bristol, where Will, who held a PhD in biology and was an ornithologist, had been a campaign officer for Amnesty International.

This was an early example of the strength of his campaigning zeal.

When my wife Zoe was severely ill in 1998 with a heart tumour, they put us up in their Swansea flat and took care of our own boys.

Their boys were and are home-educated, another example of Will's do-it-yourself approach to life - he and Lyn believe the education system lets children down.

The track of their life eventually led them to Machynlleth where I live, and where Will pioneered a campaign to have the Dyfi Valley becme a Fair Trade Valley - and he succeeded.

As a multimedia author he programmed the Carbon Gym for CAT, and designed the multimedia version of Peter Lord's The Visual Culture of Wales - three CD-Roms for the University of Wales.

This was not enough - he moved on to the most pressing matter of our time - mitigating climate change.

Will was not good at putting himself first. This was part of his selflessness.

In 2004 he had lower back ache which he attributed to poor computer use. In fact it was cancer but because he delayed seeing a doctor about it, so it was at stage 4 before being diagnosed.

He was given just about three months to live.

But he refused to give in, a mark of his courage.

He spent a year trying alternative methods of treatment believing the NHS way to be deeply flawed. They almost worked. But cancer is a persistent enemy.

With stubborn determination he survived a further three years - with the help of his wife, Lyn, and boys, always trying the latest remedies and treatments, from Switzerland and the States, supported by his GP Simon Morpeth. Latterly these included chemo and radiotherapy.

Perhaps he should not have made the bike ride to Brussels. But you couldn't have stopped him. He was determined to do it, because he loved the planet and believed this to be the best thing he could do with his life.

You couldn't ask for more.

The best tribute for him is that his work be carried on to its successful completion.

This is an inadequate memorial. I hope others will add to it.

New climate chief is government patsy

Lord Adair Turner, in day one of his job as chair of the so-called "independent" Committee on Climate Change revealed in a Radio 4 Today interview this morning that he is not going to give the government a hard time.

The committee is supposed to be a sharp-toothed watchdog criticising Government progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Under repeated questioning by John Humphreys, he said he would not query specific government policies, and supported the 'dream' (Naughtie's word) of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

CCS is not proven or costed. But the business world is counting on it to deliver business as usual.

So is the government. Business Secretary John Hutton said today power generation from fossil fuels would continue to play a "key role"

The Government is considering whether to give the go-ahead to build Britain's first new coal-fired power station in over 20 years, at Kingsnorth in Kent.

Hutton said: "Our leadership role is best promoted by the actions we take on capping emissions, carbon pricing and supporting the development of new carbon capture and storage technology. Not by gesture politics."

Gesture politics is something the government is very good at when it comes to fighting climate change.

Turner and Hutton are of the same mold.

Who is Turner?

Baron Turner of Ecchinswell is a British businessman, academic, a non-executive director for a number of business groups including Standard Chartered plc, United Business Media plc, Siemens plc, Paternoster Ltd.

He is a former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and a former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe.

He knows a thing or two about business as usual, and has plenty of vested interests to pursue.

I would imagine that his discussions with fellow committee member Michael Grubb, the Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust, will be quite heated. Grubb is a lot more realistic about the dire straits we're in.

But when Turner eventually gets round to publishing his first report from the committee - not until December - what a sense of urgency - you can expect it to be as criticial as an interview with Michael Parkinson.

Let's be clear. Digging carbon out of the ground is something we should phase out asap. CCS is not going to work or be prohibitively expensive.

"The Energy Bill: In Search of Alternatives"

Places remain at an important parliamentary debate, which I can't get to but I urge anyone near London who can to do so.

It is taking place in two weeks time (Thursday 20th March 2008) in Westminster.

ONLY 8 PLACES REMAIN (reserve your place today - see below - names can be changed later).

Please click here to learn of the high calibre line-up or see below:

Agenda

09:30 Registration and Networking

10:15 Chair’s Introductions
Maria McCaffery, Chief Executive, British Wind Energy Association (BWEA)

10:30 The Need for a Rational and Open Debate on the Future of Energy Policy
Malcolm Wicks MP, Minister for Energy (provisional confirmation)

10:45 Delivering the Energy Bill
- The energy supply side focus: planning and infrastructure;
- Delivering the three low carbon energy types - Renewables, Carbon Capture and storage and Nuclear;
- How is it all going to actually happen, and to what timescale?

Speaker tbc, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR)

11:00 The Future Role of Nuclear Power

- New nuclear as part of Britain’s future energy mix;
- The importance of nuclear power in fighting climate change;
- Securing the UK’s future electricity supplies though nuclear means.

Sir Keith Parker, Chief Executive, Nuclear Industry Association (NIA)

11:15 Critique of the Latest Government Thinking

- The challenges ahead
- Alternative models to the problems currently faced in regards to the search for alternatives.

Rt. Hon Michael Meacher MP, Former Environment Minister

11:30 Environmentally Friendly Energy Alternatives

- Investment in hydrogen production and fuel cells as enablers of a future renewable and low-carbon economy;
-Alternative solutions such as marine reserves and renewable energy;
- Threats linked to energy alternatives such as harmful radiation and proliferation.

Doug Parr, Chief Scientist, Greenpeace

11:45 Coffee Break and Networking

12:00 Questions and Answers Session

13:00 Lunch and Networking

14:00 Close


Another event which also may be of interest to you could be:
http://insidegovernment.msgfocus.com/c/16I8kEIGjeT7SFX

To book, click: http://insidegovernment.msgfocus.com/c/16I9vwBXRuGYBdO
If you have any other queries, please call 0207 484 5224.

Don't let them relax uranium transport rules!

About 20 million packages of all sizes containing radioactive materials are transported around the world annually on public road, railways and ships.

With the comeback of nuclear power, there is an increasing demand for transportation of radioactive materials.

Wisely, regulations have been in place to strictly control their movement. But the industry is now complaining of bottlenecks and delays.

This is compounded by the fact that, sensibly, fewer and fewer transporters want to deal with the hazardous materials. Moeller Maersk, the world's largest container shipping line measured on vessel capacity, adopted a policy of not shipping radioactive materials in April 2007.

"It is a very complex problem," said Bernard Monot, external relations vice president at the logistics department of the world's biggest maker of nuclear reactors, Areva.

"The shippers complain about the port authorities, who in turn hold the shipping lines responsible and everybody accuses heavy regulations," he says.

So they want the rules cut.

For example in Holland, "It takes around six weeks to receive a permit," according to Pyter Hiemstra, spokesman for SenterNovem, the agency handling permits on behalf of the Dutch Department of Spatial Planning, Housing and Environment.

He said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had asked countries to speed this up.

"What we would be looking for is for radioactive to be accepted for transit permission normally with 24 to 48 hours notice," said John Leach, General Manager for Dangerous Cargo, Special Cargo Management at Moeller Maersk.

The Low Carbon Kid argues hat the last thing we need is a relaxing of rule around the transport of radioactive materials. The world is a dangerous enough place as it is.

It is governments and local authorities and port authorities who control these rules. Write to your MP and ask them not to let these rules be relaxed.

Stop Arctic Oil and Gas

Arctic Oil & Gas Corp. is an oil exploration venture company that has filed for the exclusive exploitation, development, marketing and extraction rights to the oil and gas resources of the seafloor and subsurface contained within the ”Arctic Claims“.

A preliminary assessment by the US Geological Survey (USGS) suggests the Arctic seabed may hold up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves.

But the planet’s ecosystem could not absorb without radical change the release of the greenhouse gases their burning would release, nor the seabed’s ecosystem survive the mining.

It is madness and craziness beyond belief to exploit this resource.

It is absolutely vital that the world agree, as it did fifty years ago with Antarctica, to set aside a large percentage of the world’s surface as inviolable conservation areas, and it must be made financially worthwhile by their host nations to do so, along the lines of the agreement to pay countries with rainforests not to chop them down in return for carbon credits, in the post-2012 climate negotiations.

But this company does not care about this. Its email to me asked me to invest in the chance to make trillions of dollars from exploiting "the last frontier". It boasted greedily of how the area has more promise than Iraq.

An Exclusive Rights Claim to the Hydrocarbon Resources of the Arctic Oceans Commons was formally lodged by the Company and its partners with the United Nations and the five Arctic countries on May 9th 2006.

The Company intends to operate as the ”lead manager“ tasked to create a multinational joint venture consortium of major oil companies, whose technology and managerial expertise will be vital to recovering the oil and gas from the harsh, deep waters of the Arctic in an environmentally safe manner.

Its contact details are here:

Corporate Address:
Arctic Oil and Gas Corp.
8350 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 200
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Investors and Press phone: 702.953.9688
Corporate phone: 323.556.0643
Email: ir@arcticoag.com

The company is obviously aware of the "sensitive" nature of its activities. Reading its policy on "corporate governance" is illuminating:

Arctic Oil & Gas Corp. is also committed to the highest possible standards of openness, honesty and accountability. In line with that commitment, we expect employees and others that we deal with who have serious concerns about any aspect of the company‘s work to come forward and voice those concerns.

Employees are often the first to realize that there may be something seriously wrong within the company. However, they may decide not to express their concerns because they feel that speaking up would be disloyal to their colleagues or to the company.

They may also fear harassment or victimization. In these circumstances, they may feel it would be easier to ignore the concern rather than report what may just be a suspicion of malpractice.

For this reason, the company has instituted a Whistle Blowing Policy is that is intended to encourage and enable employees to raise serious concerns within the company rather than overlooking a problem or seeking a resolution of the problem outside the company.

Then, presumably, they can be silenced.

Sustainable war

It's nice to know that even the Ministry of Defence is going green, in the battle against climate change.

Derek Twigg of the MoD told Fraser Kemp on Monday, in Parliamentary Questions, all about the measures they are taking... "improving building energy management and energy efficiency... working with the Carbon Trust ... embedding pro-rata energy efficiency targets into service delivery agreements ... trying to procure energy-efficient vehicles and offset emissions from ministerial flights."

And they will "develop and implement a carbon neutrality strategy for the MOD office estate..." etc. etc.

One day, perhaps, all wars will be carbon neutralised and solar-powered. Just like the old days.

So that's alright then.

Fire at nuclear plant put out

A fire started at Vattenfall Europe's currently closed Kruemmel nuclear plant in northern German but was quickly put out by the plant's own fire brigade on Monday, the operator and local government said [report from Reuters].

No radioactive substances had been released and all relevant authorities had been informed, Vattenfall said in a statement.

The 1,402 megawatt plant, which is jointly operated by the Swedish/German utility Vattanfall utility group and by Germany's E.ON has been closed since June 28, 2007 when a fire at a tranformer substation caused a short circuit.

The Social Affairs Ministry in the northern state of Schleswig Holstein, which supervises nuclear safety, said the incident took place around 0700 GMT and was resolved shortly after 0800 GMT.

The internal fire brigade had dealt with the fire so there had been no need to involve public fire fighters, it said. There were no injuries.

Vattenfall confirmed the details in a statement, saying there had been a smouldering fire at a ventilation system.

Germany is in the process of phasing out nuclear power by 2020 under plans agreed by the previous coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens.

The plans are being contested by the conservative parties CDU/CSU, which are currently in a coalition government with the SPD. Each safety-related incident is helping to weaken their arguments and reignite fears over the safety of the technology.

A statement from the ministry said the cause of the fire had not yet been determined but its experts were investigating at the site.

The 24-year old Kruemmel reactor is about 20 km (12.43 miles) southeast of Hamburg on the River Elbe.

Adjacent Brunsbuettel, another nuclear plant operated jointly by Vattenfall and E.ON, with 806 megawatts of capacity, also remains shut since the incidents last summer.

Environmental organisation Greenpeace called for the permanent closure of the two plants.

"The latest fire at Kruemmel shows that reactors cannot be operated safely," it said in a statement, adding that power markets were managing without the supply.

Utilities say they need to prolong nuclear operations to win time to meet increasingly ambitious goals for curbing emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide.

What about the waste?

The Energy Bill has no clear statement on the waste disposal regime that will be necessary for new build nuclear.

The problem is underscored by a new National Audit Office report on the costs of cleaning up waste from Britain's first civil nuclear power programme, which it says "are still rising and uncertainties abound". It says the current £73bn cost of decommissioning the 19 existing nuclear sites over the next century is 18% above initial estimates, and the costs of even near-term actions are still rising when they should have stabilised.

CoRWM, the independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, said in 2006 nuclear waste, which remains toxic for centuries, should be kept forever in a specially built safe storage facility deep underground. But while the government pointed to this as the solution to waste from any new plants, CoRWM said it only meant this solution to apply to waste from Britain's old military nuclear programme dating back to the 1950s, so called legacy waste.

So each company wishing to invest in nuclear power will have to submit a 'funded decommissioning programm' to the Secretary of State for BERR's approval. This will lay out how hazardous material will be treated, stored, transported and disposed of 'during the operation of a nuclear installation'.

The Government has asked for communities to volunteer to have nuclear waste stored in its location, but none have been forthcoming so far. However, an agreement between Copeland, Cumbria county council and the government has been made to set up a “community fund” in return for allowing the continued operation and expansion of a low-level waste repository, where lightly contaminated material such as clothing is stored.

The government will put £10m ($19m, €13m) into the fund as well as £1.5m for each year the repository is operating - the first such arrangement in the UK, after 18 months of talks. Much bigger sums and tougher negotiations would be involved before any community agreed to host a long-term deep-level waste dump.

Yet the government has said taxpayers will not foot the bill for the storage of waste from new nuclear build. So how are we to trust such statements?

The EU's 2020 targets for emissions and renewables

The EU has set a target of a 20% cut from 2005 levels in the continent's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, potentially rising to 30% in the event of a global agreement.

Total EU industrial emissions in 2020 will be capped at 21% below 2005 levels. This means that 20% of all energy consumption - for electricity, heating and cooling, and transport - in the 25 states must be derived from renewable sources by that date.

In addition up to 12 carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects will be supported and gases capotured would be credited as not emitted under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The ETS itself will be modified to establish a central cap on emissions rather than the current system of Member States setting emissions caps for their own economies. Furthermore:

• two new gases (nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbons) will be included
• road transport and shipping remain excluded, although the latter is likely to be included later
• agriculture and forestry are also left out because it's hard to measure their emissions
• smaller installations, emitting below 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, will be able to opt out from the ETS, provided they institute alternative reduction measures. 

For the UK, the Commission proposes:
• a 16% reduction in UK emissions from sectors not covered by the EU ETS by 2020 from 2005 levels
• 15% of all UK energy to be renewable by 2020
• 10% of road transport fuels to come from renewable sources, as long as they are produced sustainably.

Business Secretary John Hutton said most of the new renewable electricity would come from the fact that "the UK is already scoping a vast expansion of wind energy offshore and tidal power on the Severn". Transport Minister Ruth Kelly welcomed the proposal of sustainability criteria for biofuels.

But Greenpeace said "The EU target for biofuels is a mistake. Biomass is more efficiently used for electricity and heat production rather than to fuel high-consumption cars".

Allocation of credits

Campaigners did welcome the fact that power generators will, from 2013, have to pay for their ETS credits, rather than get windfall profits from being given them as at present, but criticised the loopholes given to high energy users - the steel, aluminium and cement industries - after fierce lobbying.

Currently, 90% of carbon emission allowances are given free to industrial installations, but by 2013 it is estimated that around 60% will be auctioned. The text adds that "full auctioning should be the rule from 2013 onwards for the power sector", which is expected to lead to a 10-15% rise in electricity prices. In other sectors, free allocations will gradually be completely phased out on an annual basis between 2013 and 2020.

However, certain energy-intensive sectors could continue to get all their allowances for free in the long term if the Commission determines that otherwise facilities would relocate to countries with less stringent climate protection laws. The EC says these sectors "are yet to be determined".

Commission President José Manuel Barroso said, "There is no point in Europe being tough if it just means production shifting to countries allowing a free-for-all on emissions. An international agreement is the best way to tackle this." 

Assuming a global climate change deal is reached, member states will continue to be able to meet part of their target by financing emission reduction projects in countries outside the EU, up to a limit of about a quarter of total reduction. CDM administrators have complained this will mean a reduction in projects.

"a very small effort

WWF observed that "The 20% target is not even in line with the latest Bali agreement - that developed countries should cut emissions by 25-40% by 2020". "Overall, it is a very small effort," said Dr Stephan Singer, head of its European Climate and Energy Unit. 
The proposals will get final adoption by April-May 2009 at the latest, following negotiations between member states and the European parliament.

Congratulations to Australia

Hats off to Australia's new Foreign Minister Stephen Smith who had the guts to tell India's nuclear envoy Shyam Saran on Tuesday that Oz would not sell uranium to New Delhi unless it signs the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

This reverses a decision by the previous government.

India's Saran had brokered a deal with the I-don't-give-a-damn United States to provide nuclear power aid to India while allowing it to continue nuclear weapons production

He'd then got the old OZ government to agree to supply the yellow stuff, overturning a policy of selling the fuel only to NPT signatories.

Fortunately Australia's now seen sense and the world is, in theory at least, a safer place.

Uranium Blues

Building new nuclear power stations will have an impact that reaches far beyond our borders - to the places where the fuel for them is mined.

> Comment is Free article

Will new nuclear power stations be insurable?

The Government has announced its decision on nuclear power, which is SUCH a surprise!

Utility bosses such as Dr Paul Golby, CEO of E.On and Monsieur Vincent de Rivaz, CEO of EDF proclaim they do not want or seek subsidies for new nuclear build.

Anyone who believes this probably still thinks nuclear power is "so cheap as to be hardly worth metering" (the industry's original claim).

Here's a list of questions about just a few things the poor taxpayer will probably have to stump up for:

Insurance. Nuclear plant operators have limited liability in the case of an accident. Any cost over £700m is covered by the taxpayer. Are they prepared to take on board the full insurance liabilities, which in the case of Chernobyl has already run to several tens of billions?

And are they prepared to share with any other private investors the full costs of the pre-construction safety analysis, currently covered by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate using public money?

What about the costs of the UK's membership of the EU's nuclear agency, Euratom; and the International Atomic Energy Agency - both of which do promotional and safety work for nuclear? Taxpayers pay for this.

And the current Technology Strategy Board £100m competition for proposals for collaborative research and development, into low carbon tech, including nuclear power.

Or the current research done by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, using taxpayers' money, on so-called Generation 4 reactor designs?

And are we expected to believe these companies will be around in any time over a few decades hence, for thousands of years, to pay for the full cost of management of the new radioactive waste produced?

The Low Carbon Kid would place money on all answers to these questions being in the negative.

Nuclear Power Consultation Flawed - Report

Business Secretary John Hutton is due to announce a decision on an expansion of nuclear energy tomorrow. But an academic report has accused its public consultation last year of being flawed and misleading.

Greenpeace says it is considering dragging the Government back to court.

"The government was in error in asking the public for a decision 'in principle', when the core 'what if' issues were not consulted on in any meaningful way, or resolved in practice," the academics from universities including Oxford, Warwick, Sussex, Newcastle, Cardiff and Manchester conclude.

"These issues include nuclear fuel supply and manufacture, vulnerability to attack, security and nuclear proliferation, radiation waste, radiation risk and health effects, reactor decommissioning, reactor design and siting," they added.

Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said, "For such senior insiders to be so critical of the consultation process is a deeply troubling commentary on the Government’s approach to this issue, and as the report reveals, nuclear power could only reduce the UK’s CO2 emissions by 4% by 2025 - too little, too late.

"Our lawyers are looking at this report and will also examine the Government’s decision on new nuclear build with great interest. We won’t be rushed into a decision, but nothing has been ruled out at this stage."

The main issue for the group of academics is disposal of waste from the new nuclear plants.

"The government consultation documents said this issue had been resolved. That is simply not true," said Paul Dorfman of Warwick University, one of the report's authors.

CoRWM, the independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, said in 2006 nuclear waste, which remains toxic for centuries, should be kept forever in a specially built safe storage facility deep under ground.

But while the government pointed to this as the solution to waste from any new plants, CoRWM said it only meant this solution to apply to waste from Britain's old military nuclear programme dating back to the 1950s, so called legacy waste.

The academics also accused the government of glossing over security considerations, the true costs of nuclear and alternative renewable energy sources, the availability of uranium fuel and the siting of new nuclear plants given sea level rises due to global warming.

Of course, a government green light is not actually necessary -- there is no legal barrier to any utility now opting to build a nuclear plant, although there is a lot of planning red tape.

"Although the government has said no public money will be involved in any new nuclear plants, a positive declaration must indicate government commitment in the final event and that can only mean taxpayers' money," said Dorfman.

The report notes that the new nuclear plant being built in Finland, touted by pro-nuclear adherents as a model for the way forward, is not only two years behind schedule but already 50 percent over budget, a fate it suggests would be in store for new plants in Britain, to the detriment of alternative power sources.

The Business and Enterprise Department says the Government believed the consultation was an "open, fair and full" process.

A spokesman said, "We have received 2,700 responses from the extensive consultation, which included public meetings across the UK, a written consultation document and a website. Time is pressing. Consulting indefinitely is not an option."

In Wales the Assembly Government is also sceptical about the need for new nuclear power stations - but with major energy decisions reserved to Westminster, it is powerless to block them.

Ministers in Cardiff Bay nevertheless "strongly support" an extension to the life of the Wylfa site on Anglesey, due to be decommissioned in 2010.

The site in the constituency of Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones is of "economic importance", the WAG said.

Have a low carbon Christmas!

From the Low Carbon Kid to all his readers - whatever their carbon footprint!

Peace, friendship and all the best for 2008. May 2008 be the year the drive to reduce climate change reaches critical mass.

Recommended new year's present

The Low Carbon Kid recommends - of all the boooks out right now on sustainable development:


TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL ECONOMY
By Worldwatch Institute

• From car-sharing and carbon taxes to fair trade and zero-waste cities, there are many ways to reach a more sustainable global economy – the focus of this year’s State of the World
• Updated annually providing information on the latest emerging markets and opportunities, this is ‘the environmentalist’s bible’ (Times Higher Education Supplement)
• ‘Essential reading’ – The Good Book Guide

In this 25th edition of State of the World – long established as the most authoritative and accessible annual guide to our progress towards a sustainable future – the studies pay particular attention to the many innovations in economic policy and business practices that lead us towards a more sustainable global economy.

Published annually in 28 languages, State of the World is relied upon by national governments, UN agencies, development workers and law-makers for its authoritative and up-to-the-minute analysis and information. It is essential for anyone concerned with building a positive, global future.
Get it here!

The Sellafield bomber - more details

This is an update on my post of 14 December about the "Sellafield bomber".

Darren Morris was arrested by Cumbria Constabulary on Monday 9 December in Southey Walk, Egremont, West Cumbria after a "small, rudimentary explosive device" was discovered by bailiffs at the home he owns.

A bomb disposal squad was brought in and a 100-metre cordon put in place around the property. The device was taken away for forensic examination.

Morris disappeared for a couple of days but was found, arrested, then released on bail. A report is being prepared by the Crown Prosecution Service and will be presented when he attends Workington Police Station on January 28.

The police have sought information from BNFL and his employer, Hertel.

They told me that "they and are satisfied that terrorist law is not applicable in this case. The case is being considered under criminal law the facts of which will be self explanatory if they are aired at court."

They continued "Enquiries at BNFL have been made with regard to any potential security issues."

So what was he doing there?

According to Hertel, he was part of a team removing asbestos from Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station, primarily used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, which is being decommissioned.

(Interestingly, the four Calder Hall cooling towers were demolished by controlled explosions as recently as Saturday 29 September 2007.)

In order to do this work he was vetted by the Defence Vetting Agency and apparently has no criminal record. His work was described as "low grade" - this work is still ongoing.

He has worked for Hertel since August 2006. Pending the investigation's results he has been suspended.

While there is a criminal investigation ongoing no one can comment further.

The Daily Mirror is the only source which says the device is "thought to be a nailbomb".

The big question is - what did he intend to do with it?

The second question that needs a response is - if he had security clearance and the device was only discovered accidentally, could he have gained further access to the site?

Calder Hall will not by now contain highly radioactive material, at least in the area Morris was working. But you do not need much radioactive material to make a 'dirty bomb'.

This incident ought to raise further disquiet about the overall danger to world security of the drive to build further nuclear power stations, let alone the quality of security at existing ones.

Is it a UFO?

Is this a flying saucer sitting in its hangar in Area 52?

Don't be silly, it's the Belgian ‘Princess Elisabeth’ research station, to be built in Antarctica by the International Polar Foundation during the summer season 2007-2008,.

It's going to be equipped with 408 solar modules from Kyocera as part of a plan to make the station the first zero-emission research facility. 

Eight wind turbines will also be installed, to generate on-site power for communication infrastructure, heating and electronics.

The Princess Elisabeth station will be exposed to the extreme Antarctic conditions, with temperatures going as low as –60°C and wind speeds reaching 250 km/h.

Such conditions demand a reliable energy supply.

Ofgem consults on distributed energy

The energy watchdog is conducting a 12-week consultation on distributed low-carbon electricity.

This is about medium-sized generation for communities and larger businesses - domestic microgeneration is being considered separately.

This is a technical document for owners and operators of distributed energy schemes, electricity suppliers, generators, distribution network operators, consumer groups, local authorities, property developers, and manufacturers and suppliers of small-scale renewable generation and CHP plant.

There will be a summary and workshop early in 2008 for non-specialists.

Deadline for response: 11 March 2008.

The document is here