Sceptics will point out that scientists working on nuclear fusion have been claiming it’s a decade or so away for much longer than a decade. And we have already have technologies which can produce clean, cheap and limitless electricity from the sun, wind and waves.

But, while they don’t dispute the urgency of renewable investment and that there are still obstacles to overcome, nuclear fusion advocates can point to a scientific breakthrough and growing momentum to suggest star power could help the world get and stay off fossil fuels, particularly towards the middle and end of this century.

What is nuclear fusion?

When we talk about nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs, we’re talking about nuclear fission. That’s splitting one nucleus into two, producing a load of energy which you can either use to spin a turbine to produce electricity or let off in an explosion.

Nuclear fusion produces energy by smashing hydrogen nucleuses together to produce heat and to spin a turbine to make electricity. Minus the turbine, it’s how the sun and others stars produce the energy which powers life on earth. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) nuclear fusion professor Dennis Whyte says that pursuing nuclear fusion is just listening to “Mother Nature”.

“It’s very important to listen to her,” he said in a TED talk. “She’s already told us that fusion is the power source of the universe.”

Is it clean?

Kind of. Whereas burning fossil fuels produce greenhouse gases, nuclear fusion produces only helium. That doesn’t cause climate change and it’s safe to breathe in. Millions of parents let their children take it into their lungs in order to talk in a funny high-pitched voice.

Like nuclear fission, nuclear fusion produces radioactive material which has to be stored until the radioactivity wears off.

Nuclear fusion advocates say the waste is not “long-lived” but how long is long?

International nuclear fusion project Iter say it can be recycled or reused within 100 years and the Max Planck Institute says that after 100-500 years, the radioactivity drops to a similar level to coal ash.

That’s similar to claims made by the nuclear fission industry – that, while their waste is “weakly radioactive for a few hundred thousand years, the radioactivity from the main component of the waste which could cause health problems will have decayed to safe levels within a few hundred years”.

Is it safe?

Yes. University of Oklahama research has shown that Americans associate “nuclear energy” with words like “dangerous”, “radiation” and “explosion”.

They’re thinking here of nuclear fission, which was responsible for mass destruction when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed and when Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded.

But, leaving aside debates about fission’s safety, fusion advocates say it is intrinsically much safer than nuclear fusion.

Nuclear fission reactors have to be kept cool. The Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island nuclear fission plant failures were all because  cooling measures failed. Similarly, the current fear for Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant is that cooling systems will be disabled.

On the other hand, nuclear fusion reactors have to be kept very hot, around 100 million degrees C. If the outside world intrudes at all on a reactor, Whyte said, it won’t blow up. The reaction will fizzle out instantly.

Is it cheap to build?

Not yet. 30,000 construction workers are working 24/7 for Iter to build a fusion reactor in the south of France. It’s estimated to cost €20bn ($20bn) and was supposed to open in 2016.

Whyte’s students at MIT have made a breakthrough that he says will make reactors dramatically smaller, cheaper and faster to build.

To get a powerful reactor, you have to keep the stuff inside it (plasma) stable. The sun does that with its own magnetic field created by its sheer size.

To do that on earth, fusion reactors use very powerful donut-shaped magnets. The more powerful the magnets, the more powerful the reactor.

But the power of the magnets is limited because they run on electricity which is transported through copper wires. If the magnets are turned on for more than a few seconds, the electricity will burn the copper up.

Whyte presented his MIT students with this problem and they came up with the solution of replacing the copper with materials which don’t heat up known as superconductors.

Using these superconductors, an MIT spin-off called Commonwealth Fusion Systems hopes to build more powerful magnets to harness the plasma.

As they’re more powerful, the magnets can be smaller than Iter’s 17 m tall ones and the reactors also smaller, cheaper and quicker to build.

Is it cheap to run?

Not yet. As its not been produced commercially yet, it’s difficult to predict how much nuclear fusion could eventually cost.

Its advocates say, one the technology is sorted out, it will be cheap because its fuel is abundant.

When they say that, they are talking about deuterium. It’s found in any water source and costs just $13 a gram.

Whyte says the top inch of Boston harbour would provide all the deuterium necessary to power Boston with nuclear fusion for 100 years.

To make nuclear fusion energy, you smash deuterium into another type of hydrogen called tritium.

That’s much harder to get. Very little of it is present in nature and, while it can be made artificially, it currently costs about $30,000 a gram. An 800 MW nuclear fusion reactor would need around 300 grams a day. That would cost over $3bn a year to power just 130,000 homes.

Whyte told Climate Home that tritium is “not the fuel” and is “much more like a catalyst”.

In other words, you don’t need to keep feeding tritium into the reactor, you just need a little bit at the start and then the fusion reaction itself will produce more.

There’s about 30kg of tritium around now, mostly in Canada. “That’s sufficient to basically start the fusion economy going,” he said.

That’s in theory though. In practice, he said the technology “has not been demonstrated at scale yet”, although there are experiments at MIT and in the UK currently working on this problem.

Lithium is also needed. It lines the walls of a nuclear fusion reactor and scientists hope it will interact with the hydrogen to keep that tritium going around.

Compared to tritium, lithium is relatively abundant and is produced for electric vehicle batteries.

When will it be up and running?

The nuclear fusion developers timelines vary but all are uncertain.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, who Whyte works with, hope to have a demonstration plan up and running in 2025 and electricity created and sold to the grid by the early 2030s.

The US government is working with private companies a plan to get pilot plants by around 2030 despite the government’s official scientific advisors recommending a 2035-2040 target.

China has a fusion programme too, whose timeline is unclear, while the mainly EU-funded Iter plans to generate “industrial-scale” fusion energy by 2050.

The UK’s new post-Brexit Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) want to beat that by getting fusion power on the grid by 2040.

Is it popular?

It’s too early to tell, as no public opinion surveys have been done.

But Kuhika Gupta, who researches public views of nuclear fission at Oklahoma University told Climate Home that “most people would be open to the idea of fusion”.

She suspected that support would be similar to levels for so-called “advanced fission” reactors, which are more popular than existing nuclear fission reactors.

“A lot of these initial views would be based on technological optimism and the positive idea of innovation,” she said, “but as the technology develops and advocacy coalitions supporting and opposing fusion take shape, we could expect those initial views to shift”.

Some nuclear fusion supporters want to brand it as “fusion technology” to avoid the negative connotations the word “nuclear” has.

Who will get rich off it?

Rich people. Nuclear fusion is being backed financially by governments and big corporations and billionaires from the wealthy world. They include fossil fuel companies like Chevron and Eni, US technology giant  Google and Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists have bet on it too, like tech investor Sam Altman, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel.

Because of its size and complexity, fusion plants aren’t likely to be owned by local communities or regular individuals like solar and wind farms can be.

The post Nuclear fusion: Why Silicon Valley is betting on man-made star power appeared first on Climate Home News.

The International Energy Agency said a post-pandemic jobs rebound in the sector has been driven by emissions-cutting technologies such as electric vehicle production, building insulation, solar projects and wind farms.

Clean energy, which under IEA’s definition includes nuclear power, is now estimated to account for more than half the 65 million energy sector jobs globally.

However, the Paris-based agency said high energy prices including for fossil fuels have seen an upswing in employment, notably for liquefied natural gas infrastructure. Many countries in Europe are scrambling to find alternatives to Russian gas supplies due to the war in Ukraine.

It also noted that wages in clean energy jobs lag behind those in the fossil fuel industry, where unionization rates are higher and risky work has been compensated with higher pay. The exception is nuclear, due to the highly skilled labor needed, the agency said.

“Countries around the world are responding to the current crisis by seeking to accelerate the growth of homegrown clean energy industries,” said IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol. “The regions that make this move will see huge growth in jobs.”

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

He urged companies, labor representatives and governments to ensure that clean energy projects provide high quality employment and attract a diverse workforce. Women are significantly underrepresented in the energy sector, which as a whole accounts for about 2% of the global workforce, IEA said.

Where possible, fossil fuel workers should be given the option to retrain for clean energy jobs, the agency said. It predicted could up to 14 million new clean energy jobs could be created by 2030, with an additional 16 million workers switching to new roles related to clean energy.

The post Clean energy jobs overtake fossil fuel sector but wages lag behind appeared first on Climate Home News.

A motion to veto the European Commission’s proposal to include nuclear and gas in the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy was defeated by 328 votes to 278.

A minimum of 353 votes was needed to reject the plan, which means it is now officially approved by the European Parliament.

Objection to the inclusion of nuclear and gas in EU green finance taxonomy is rejected: 278 votes in favour, 328 votes against.

This means the proposal goes through: nuclear and gas are now officially recognised as “transitional” activities under the taxonomy. pic.twitter.com/G6se90ZUoi

— Frédéric Simon (@FredSimonEU) July 6, 2022

Before it becomes law, the proposal to include nuclear and gas in the EU’s green finance taxonomy must also face a vote in the EU Council of Ministers representing the EU’s 27 member states.

However, a majority of 20 countries is needed to veto the proposal in the Council, which makes a rejection highly unlikely.

Reacting on Twitter, the energy minister of Luxembourg said he would challenge the decision before the EU Court of Justice.

“Luxembourg and Denmark will press legal charges and the Court will rule about its legality,” wrote Claude Turmes, saying he deeply regrets the Parliament’s decision.

Protestors in the hemicycle reacted immediately after the vote, wearing T-shirts reading “betrayal” and calling MEPs “traitors”.

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

Michael Bloss, a German Green MEP, denounced the “madness” of labelling nuclear and gas as sustainable investments, saying it will keep Europe addicted to Russian fossil fuels for many more years.

“France’s nuclear reactors and waste dumps will be renovated and new fossil gas infrastructures created,” Bloss said in a statement. “No serious bank will trust this taxonomy,” he added, saying the Greens were now preparing to take legal action against the decision.

Greta Thunberg, the teenage activist who started the Fridays for Future movement, reacted coldly on Twitter, saying the vote will delay the green transition and “deepen our dependency on Russian fuels”.

“The hypocrisy is striking, but unfortunately not surprising,” she wrote.

The European Parliament just voted to label fossil gas as “green” energy. This will delay a desperately needed real sustainable transition and deepen our dependency on Russian fuels. The hypocrisy is striking, but unfortunately not surprising.
This is still #NotMyTaxonomy

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) July 6, 2022

Pascal Canfin, a French MEP who chairs the Parliament’s environment committee, sought to assuage the concerns of green activists, reminding them that the taxonomy does not give a blank cheque to all gas investments.

“The conditions set by the taxonomy for gas are precise: gas is only possible to replace coal, until 2030, under emission thresholds that are not considered dangerous and with reinforced transparency obligations,” he wrote on Twitter.

Nuclear Europe, an industry association, congratulated MEPs after the vote, saying Parliament had taken a “science-based decision” to include nuclear in the taxonomy.

“It is fantastic to see that a majority in the European Parliament has decided to listen to the experts and take the right decision,” said Yves Desbazeille, director-general of Nuclear Europe.

“We have less than 30 years left to decarbonise our economy in a sustainable way. By listening to the science, these MEPs have strengthened the EU’s chances of achieving this ambitious goal.”

Eurogas, an industry lobby group, was also cheerful, saying the Parliament’s decision “provides a decent framework” for future investments.

However, it said the European Commission’s taxonomy proposal “could have done more to promote coal phase-out and the adoption of best-in-class technologies” such as hydrogen and renewable gases.

“It is also crucial that we overcome bottlenecks for imports of diversified natural gas and LNG [liquified natural gas], and renewable hydrogen,” said James Watson, secretary-general of Eurogas.

This article was produced by Euractiv and republished under a content sharing agreement.

The post EU set to use ‘green’ label for gas, nuclear investments after parliamentary vote appeared first on Climate Home News.

“Making France a great green nation, that is our project,” Macron tweeted on the night of his victory, after he received 58.5% of the votes against 40.5% for Le Pen – a lower margin than in the 2017 election, when he got 66% of the votes. 

In the election campaign, Macron declared he would make France “the first major nation to abandon gas, oil and coal.”

While climate advocates are breathing a sigh of relief that Le Pen – who threatened to dismantle wind turbines – lost, Macron’s climate record to date has fallen short of the rhetoric.

Coming to power in 2017 on a promise to “make climate great again”, Macron inherited an underperforming state. France was successfully sued for failing to meet its 2015-18 emissions objectives and is is the only EU member state to have missed its 2020 renewable energy target.

After five years in power, the government remains off track to meet its 40% emissions reduction target by 2030 compared to 1990 levels – a goal which it will need to ramp up to align with the EU’s collective goal of at least 55% cuts.

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

Macron has said he wants to accelerate the construction of offshore wind farms, develop nuclear power and a large-scale programme to retrofit homes and make them more energy-efficient. But the deployment of renewables and uptake of electric transport has been slow.

France has only built one offshore wind farm. Macron announced this year that France will build 50 offshore wind farms by 2050, with 40GW of capacity. 

France’s weak record on deploying renewables is largely due to administrative hurdles and court challenges, especially for wind farm projects, Nicolas Berghmans, Iddri’s lead European affairs and climate expert, told Climate Home News. The time required for the installation of a wind farm in France is around eight years – significantly higher than in other EU countries, he said.

In 2021, a French court awarded damages to a Belgian couple who claimed that a wind turbine near their house in southern France caused a range of negative health impacts, referred to as “wind syndrome”, including headaches, insomnia and depression. 

Construction has started on offshore wind farms “so we should continue to see an acceleration of renewable energy deployment in the coming years,” said Berghmans.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced many EU countries to reconsider their long-standing opposition to nuclear power as they seek to reduce their dependence on Russian fossil fuels. France has relied heavily on nuclear energy for decades. 

The country derives around 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy and is home to 56 nuclear power reactors. In February, the government announced plans to build six new reactors and to consider building a further eight. 

Campaigners are not convinced.

Any new nuclear energy project will be expensive and not come online until 2035, said Raphael Hanoteaux, a senior policy advisor on gas politics at E3G. “Solar, wind and storage are already cheaper than nuclear, and will be even cheaper in 12 to 15 years,” he told Climate Home News.

“French politicians are obsessed with the nuclear industry, which diverts attention from real solutions,” Neil Makaroff, EU policy officer at Climate Action Network France, told Climate Home News. “Not a euro of the [coronavirus] recovery plan has been dedicated to renewables. A bad signal.”

“The existing nuclear power plant fleet is quickly ageing, as its underperformance this winter clearly showed, and it is today unlikely that it will be replaced with new reactors with an equivalent generation capacity,” said Berghmans. “Renewable production will have to close this large gap.”

China’s coal miners face a challenge to capture leaked methane

If Macron is to achieve his goal of reducing France’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels, he should focus on transport and housing, Sebastien Treyer, executive director of the think tank Iddri, told Climate Home News.

Enabling access to electric mobility and ensuring large-scale energy efficiency in buildings should be priorities for Macron’s short-term climate strategy, he said.

Electric mobility is on the rise in France, but it is not growing as strongly as in other EU countries, such as the Netherlands and Norway, said Berghmans. This is partly due to delays in deploying charging infrastructure, as well as to insufficient incentives for the uptake of electric vehicles, he said. French citizens rely heavily on cars – with 75% using a car for their daily commute – and investments in cycling and public transport are lagging, he added. 

A carbon tax on fuel has been frozen since 2018, when a proposed hike triggered widespread protests and gave birth to the “gilets jaunes” movement.

“The shadow of yellow vests still looms large. It’s likely Macron’s new government will remain extremely cautious about reintegrating the carbon tax to its arsenal of measures,” Lola Vallejo, climate programme director at Iddri, told Climate Home News.

Pakistan’s tree-planting ambition in doubt after Imran Khan’s exit

The country’s citizens’ assembly has identified mandatory minimum energy performance standards for buildings as a key measure to force deep renovation of buildings but this measure has been watered down by the government, said Makaroff. 

“Renovation efforts are still timid considering the triple menace of climate change, the cost of living crisis, and the Russia-Ukraine war,” Vallejo said. 

“Public support for [this] is still insufficient and poorly targeted to the deep energy renovations that are needed to achieve climate targets,” said Berghmans. The government should offer more solutions and alternatives to poorer households, whose financial balances are directly impacted by rising fuel prices, he said.

The post Macron promises to abandon gas, oil and coal, but will he deliver? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman told the online World Economic Forum this week the kingdom was pursuing blue, green and pink hydrogen development, the colours representing the way it is made – some cleaner than others.

He said the EU was interested in green hydrogen, made with renewable electricity, and joked that pink – to be generated with planned nuclear power plants – was of particular interest to women in the industry.

“We are recruiting, by the way, young Saudi ladies that are happy to see the pink coming along,” said bin Salman. “We have started being very conscious of taking care of our female new recruits and new cadets. We’re becoming an extremely well emancipated society.”

However the bulk is likely to be blue, made from methane gas and emitting carbon dioxide in the process, some of which may be captured and stored.

“We will have a field day with blue hydrogen because again, we’re the cheapest cost producer of gas,” bin Salman said. “We’re doing a huge investment in shale gas in Saudi Arabia and we will be dedicated to have that gas to be used for producing blue hydrogen.”

Likely future importers of hydrogen are in yellow with exporters in blue (Photo: Natural Earth)

Hydrogen can be burned to power processes like steel-making or propel planes and ships. While it’s currently expensive and not widely used, many analysts see it as a clean fuel of the future, particularly for applications that cannot be easily electrified. How clean depends on how it is made.

By 2050, the global trade in hydrogen is expected to be worth more than global trade in oil, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Europe and East Asia are likely to need more hydrogen than they can produce and Gulf nations are well-placed geographically to export through ships or pipelines.

Egypt names foreign minister Sameh Shoukry to lead Cop27 climate talks

Bin Salman said that he had discussed exporting green hydrogen to the EU with the European Commission’s vice-president Frans Timmermans. Saudi Arabia is developing a $5bn green hydrogen plant in its new megacity of Neom, which is due to start running by 2025.

E3G hydrogen analyst Lisa Fischer said the EU is developing guidelines on what constitutes “low-carbon” hydrogen and blue hydrogen, particularly if it comes from fracked shale gas, is likely to be excluded.

The other big hydrogen market is East Asia, which is more likely to accept blue hydrogen. Saudi Arabia is in hydrogen talks with South Korea and Japan.

Saudi Arabia’s electricity has always come almost entirely from oil and gas but it is now planning to ramp up renewables and to build two large nuclear power reactors for power and smaller ones to power taking salt out of sea-water.

The cost of producing green hydrogen. Red is the cheapest and blue is the most expensive (Photo: International Energy Agency)

With its abundant gas reserves and sunshine, the kingdom is well placed to produce both blue and green hydrogen cheaply. Its competitive advantage in nuclear power is less clear.

While women have won more freedoms in Saudi Arabia in recent years, notably permission to drive cars, in 2021 the World Economic Forum’s gender equality index ranked Saudi Arabia 147 out of 156 countries.

There are no female government ministers in Saudi Arabia, women take up just 7% of managerial roles and earn a quarter of a man’s income on average, the report found.

Green hydrogen creates jobs in production of renewable energy and electrolysers, and can support industries like fertiliser production.

Those jobs would help Saudi Arabia transition away from oil and gas while keeping its public on side, Fischer suggested. “If you don’t have that many rents any more from your fossil fuels then you need some other way of keeping people happy, to manage the politics.”

The post Saudi energy minister touts pink hydrogen made by “emancipated young ladies” appeared first on Climate Home News.

On Saturday, Imran Khan told a virtual gathering of global leaders: “We have decided we will not have any more power based on coal”.

Simon Nicholas, an energy finance analyst with Ieefa, said: “On the face of it, this is a highly significant statement for Pakistan, which was until now intending to exploit its domestic coal reserves.” The Pakistani Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy (ACJCE) said the announcement was “a step in the right direction”.

Plants under construction are expected to be completed, but the announcement pours cold water on the national grid operator’s projections of a significant expansion of coal power. As recently as April, the National Transmission and Despatch Company forecast 27GW of coal power capacity would be added between 2030 and 2047, bringing the total to 38GW. “This [plan] will now need to be re-written,” Nicholas said.

Sohaib Malik, an energy analyst from Pakistan, said the discrepancy reflected a lack of coordination between government and the power sector. “There’s no integrated plan that all are supposed to follow. They work in silos more often than not,” he told Climate Home.

In the week before Khan’s announcement, Pakistan’s energy minister met the Chinese ambassador and discussed investment in renewable energy.

Chinese companies are financing or building most of Pakistan’s coal plants through the China-Pakistan economic corridor, which Ieefa called the “centrepiece” of of China’s belt and road initiative (BRI). “If coal power is being de-prioritised within the China-Pakistan economic corridor it can now happen right across the BRI,” said Nicholas.

The Chinese government has suggested it would like to make its investments abroad “greener” and its environment ministry has recently floated blacklisting coal power investments abroad.

Malaysian bank to phase out coal finance, in a victory for campaigners

Khan’s adviser on climate change, Malik Amin Aslam, told Climate Home that coal plants under construction would not be cancelled. “They have state guarantees behind their [power purchase agreements], which can’t be re-negotiated,” he said.

Aslam added: “The imported coal projects established by previous government in the middle of Pakistan’s prime agriculture belt were a criminal act of ecocide. However, owing to state guarantees, it is impossible to de-commission them without extremely heavy financial costs and these agreements are locked in for 30-year timeframes.”

According to Pakistan’s government, there are 2,640 MW of plants under construction. A 660 MW plant built by a cement company in Port Qasim is expected to be completed in March 2021 and three plants with a combined capacity of 1,980 MW should be up and running in the coal-rich Thar desert by June 2022.

Two projects have been given permits but construction has not yet started. One is a 300 MW plant in Gwadar port, which will use imported coal. The other is a 330 MW plant in Thar, which will use local coal. A handful of plants are in earlier phases of planning. Aslam did not clarify whether these would go ahead.

ACJCE called on the government to government to “halt all those coal power plants or coal mining projects which are in their initial stages of development so that these do not become an unsustainable environmental, social and financial burden for the country”.

Chris Littlecott, associate director at E3G, said that governments tended not to cancel permits as they seek to maintain “regulatory certainty” and avoid legal challenges. But, he said, developers might think “it’s not a smart move to build coal plants any longer”.

Philippines declares moratorium on new coal power plants

Aslam told Climate Home the government was “seriously exploring” options to close operating plants early, including a proposal by American and British think tanks to shift from coal to renewables in exchange for debt relief.

Infographic from a report by the Rocky Mountain Institute, Sierra Club and Carbon Tracker

ACJCE called on the government to hold coal plants to strict environmental standards and to “phase them out gradually because they have become non-competitive” with wind and solar energy.

In his two-minute speech at the Climate Ambition Summit, Khan said that, by 2030, 60% of all electricity produced in Pakistan will come from clean sources and 30% of all vehicles will be electric. Aslam said this would be achieved using solar, hydro and wind as well as nuclear.

Muhammad Ali Shah, the chairman of Pakistan fisher-folk forum said hydropower should not be included in the category of renewables because of its impact on river ecology, aquatic life and the lives of those dependent on river waters. Solar and wind are cheaper and more environmentally friendly, he said.

Khan said he still intended to mine Pakistan’s coal and convert it to liquid fuels, which can be used for transport, and methane gas for power generation.

Balooning debt cripples poor countries’ hopes of green recovery from Covid

Aslam said turning coal to gas or liquids has a “significantly lower carbon footprint” than burning coal. In 2009, a Duke University study found the opposite. Unless the CO2 emissions are captured, it said turning coal to gas and burning it produces more emissions than burning the coal directly.

In 2014, Laszlo Varro, head of gas, coal and power markets at the International Energy Agency said coal gasification’s “overall carbon intensity is worse [than coal mining], so it is not attractive at all from a climate change point of view”.

ACJCE’s Zain Moulvi said: “Gasification and liquefaction of indigenous coal found in Thar simply displaces the site of pollution and fails to address the wider concerns and impacts of mining in Thar which have proven to be devastating to Thari communities.”

Ieefa’s Nicholas told Climate Home this part of the plan “demonstrates the continued influence of China and the coal lobby” and a desire for energy security. Energy security could be addressed better and cheaper with wind and solar, he said.

The post Pakistan signals coal power exit, in potential model for China’s belt and road appeared first on Climate Home News.

Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said the pandemic would transform societies. It would be impossible simply to reactivate the pre-Covid-19 global economy in the way that billion-dollar bailouts helped revive growth after the 2008 financial crisis.

“It’s a kind of a fork in the road for every country,” he told Climate Home News in a video interview from New York, adding that developing nations were especially vulnerable. “You have an opportunity to either invest in returning to yesterday’s economy or to invest into tomorrow’s economy.”

The coronavirus has killed more than 190,000 people worldwide.

Steiner said that the plunge in benchmark US oil prices to lows of around minus $40 a barrel on Monday – meaning producers and traders paying to get rid of it – highlighted a need to break dependence on fossil fuels and move to greener energies such as solar and wind power.

Crude began the year trading above $60.

“The fact that the lifeblood of our economy for much of the last 100 years has been dependent on a substance (whose price) oscillates literally in a few months by 200%, sometimes 300% … is in itself an illustration of how irrational our energy has become,” he said.

New Zealand sticks to 2030 climate target while waiting for 1.5C advice

He said that nuclear power had also failed to live up to promises of being a cheap and safe source of energy. Nuclear power “is a 20th century technology that is on the way out. Fossil fuels are rapidly moving in that direction.”

In government planning “there are thousands of possibilities in our daily economic transactions to insert the DNA of a low-carbon transition and recovery strategy. These are the possibilities we now need to test,” he said.

He noted that the Austrian government, for instance, said this month that state aid for Austrian Airlines should support climate policy targets. Similar opportunities to shape a greener future existed in all stimulus packages.

At the same time, he said that many countries, especially developing nations dependent on oil exports, needed to safeguard jobs and would need time to reform.

“You can’t talk a terrible crisis into a rosy opportunity,” he said. “We need to now have governments and markets design their strategy of exiting from fossil fuels over a period of probably 50 years, but with increasing and accelerating pace.”

Climate news in your inbox? Sign up here

Almost 200 governments committed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century. That is seen as essential to limit rising temperatures that scientists link to wildfires, heatwaves, rising seas and more powerful storms.

This week, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) estimated a deep decarbonisation of the world economy by 2050 requires total energy investment up to $130 trillion.

It would boost cumulative global GDP gains above business-as-usual by $98 trillion between now and 2050 and have benefits such as quadrupling renewable energy jobs to 42 million, Irena said.

Steiner said a green transition would also help reduce climate change and air pollution that kills millions of people a year. There were also risks that fossil fuel reserves would become stranded assets, that were unusable and worthless for investors.

IPCC: UN climate science report to consider lessons from coronavirus

Developing nations were most at risk from coronavirus and restrictions on trade and travel, since they cannot mobilise billions of dollars to shield their citizens.

In the Indian Ocean state of the Maldives, for instance, “no tourism means no economy,” he said.

Steiner was head of the UN Environment Programme at the time of the financial crisis and urged the adoption of a Global Green New Deal in 2009 to shift economies away from fossil fuels, one of the first uses of an idea that has since caught on far more widely.

In 2009, the reaction “was still a very partial and relatively limited green stimulus” even though nations including China, the United States, the European Union and South Korea and others invested billions of dollars into green measures.

And Covid-19 “isn’t a crisis we can solve with bailouts,” he said. “This time we are not going to see a return to a pre-Covid normal. It’s not just about getting back the economy we had before.”

He governments should put more resources into planning for the future.

“This is not a black swan, this is not Rumsfeld’s unknown unknown,” he said of the pandemic, referring to former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who spoke of “unknown unknowns” when discussing uncertainties about Iraq’s weapons arsenal.

“We have just been catapulted into that domain where oil is something that we actually cannot use,” Steiner said.

The post UN development chief calls for green shift away from ‘irrational’ oil dependence appeared first on Climate Home News.

This is not just woefully inadequate for meeting larger climate goals, it also negates science and sets a bad precedent, especially as Covid-19 engulfs the planet.

Already, the role of the leading emitters such as the US have made the goals of Paris Agreement more turbid.

And Japan’s plan issued on 30 March, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), further muddies the issue. The fight to address climate change has never been more serious, even though the 26^th annual UN climate summit – Cop26 – has been postponed in the wake of global pandemic.

The growth of greenhouse gas emissions over the past years has wreaked havoc across the world in the form of extreme weather events such as floods, forest fires, heatwaves and droughts.

Still, the world continues to exorbitantly emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with China, the US, India, Russia and Japan accounting for 62% of all emissions in 2018.

The per-capita carbon emissions show the skewed divisions between advanced industrial societies and the developing world, mandating an aggressive role for industrial societies in line with their historical responsibility in creating climate change.

Japan’s NDC lacks ambition.

To meet the Paris Agreement’s goals of keeping the temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, civil society (also within Japan) and governments largely from island states and lesser developed world have urged greater ambition from the developed world in solving the climate crises.

One crisis at a time, please – Climate Weekly

Being the fifth largest emitter globally and with per capita emissions close to those of the US, Japan however has shown punier responsibility towards the climate crisis.

Its revised NDC is a reiteration of previous climate targets.

Back in 2015, when Japan submitted its first NDC pledging to cut emissions by 26% by 2030 as compared to 2013 levels, environmental groups rated Japan’s efforts as the among the weakest by developed countries.

The revised NDC lacks an upward revision of targets, which is one of the major requirements of the Paris Agreement for submitting revised NDC.

It vaguely talks of steps to reduce long-term emissions without giving details. Additionally, Japan has overlooked another of the Paris Agreement’s key requirement, which is to have transparency in its domestic climate apparatus. Apparently, the revised NDC is formed without a proper public consultation process.

What’s Japan up to?

Ecologically, Japan is not well endowed with key natural resources and has relied on huge import of fossil fuels to fulfil its development needs.

Much before the ambitious solar rooftop programme in countries including Germany, China and India, Japanese programmes like Sun Shine, Moon Light, and Global Technology Programme drew huge success.

Till 2000, Japan was the sole installer and supplier for half of the solar panels on the planet.

Governments still due to submit tougher climate plans in 2020, despite Cop26 delay

Further, before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the concentration of nuclear energy stood at 14% of total power generation,

During the Kyoto Protocol regime, Japan had a target of a 6% reduction from 1990 levels in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol between 2008-2012.

However, rather than aiming for real emission cuts, Japan relied on offsets and buying credits from other countries.

Measures such as energy efficiency, Cool Plan for halving emissions by 2050 (without a base year) and coal tax have been touted as weak and highly insufficient.

Often in climate negotiations, Japan has worked closely with the biggest historical polluter – the United States – in common stances such as resisting ambition, pushing for “clean coal” and related technologies and refusing to fulfil finance and technology transfer to developing countries.

The Japan-United States Strategic Energy Partnership (JUSEP) in 2017 for promoting coal and controversial nuclear technologies in the Southeast Asian region is one such example. Applauded inititally, it did not translate into real climate actions.

The post-Fukushima changed the Japanese energy dimensions drastically.

From 2000-2010, the Japanese solar photo-voltaic (PV) industry became uncompetitive with foreign rivals.

After the Senkaku Island dispute (2010) with China, the import restrictions of rare earth elements (like neodymium, indium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium) further dented the solar programme.

This was worsened by poor oversight to see the effects of major solar programmes outside Japan’s innovations system. Its wind programme did not take off largely due to stringent environmental and technical norms regarding seismic zones.

Rather than focusing on restructuring its solar industry, Japan has opted for an easier option and switched to coal power in a big way.

It has more than 90 coal plants and plans to operate 22 additional new plants. It relies on coal for more than a third of its power generation needs, resulting in an upward increase in carbon emissions.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is backed by the fossil fuel lobby and prepares Basic Energy Plan which largely influences Japan’s climate targets.

Japan sticks to 2030 climate goals, draws fire for a ‘disappointing’ lack of ambition

With a weak NDC submission, Japan has also lost an opportunity to emerge as a climate leader in Asia, where giants such as India and China are making more efforts towards reducing dependence on fossil fuels and switching to renewables amid structural shifts in their economies.

For a start, Japan needs to urgently revise its climate targets mandated by science, shift massively to renewables with a clear plan for de-carbonisation and create transparent climate structures domestically involving all stakeholders.

The coronavirus and economic slowdowns should be no excuse for climate inaction.

The world cannot afford to passively watch rich emitters’ shenanigans. The (non) actions of climate rogues need to be called out unanimously and to raise climate ambition is no longer a matter of choice.

Dr Shekhar Deepak Singh is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong specialising on issues of Energy Policy, Environment and Sustainable Development. Views expressed are personal.

The post Japan’s woeful climate plan amounts to science denial appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a communique on Monday, African organisations and community groups said they “noted with concern the continued and deliberate proliferation of coal, oil and gas in Africa”.

Campaigners said planned fossil fuel expansion on the continent contradicted global commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise in average global temperatures to “well below 2C” above pre-industrial times.

The group called on African leaders meeting in Addis Ababa on 9-10 February to “put an end to fossil fuel development…. and rapidly initiate a transition to clean and safe renewable sources of energy that fully supports access to energy for those who currently lack it”.

The statement refers to a UN report published last year, which found that countries around the world were on track to produce 53% more oil, gas and coal than can be burnt to limit warming to 2C.

It also found that planned fossil fuel production to 2030 would exceed the amount countries can burn to meet their current pledges for action under the Paris Agreement, which add to more than 3C of warming.

Youth activists urge African governments to do more to curb climate change

In 2018, nearly 70% of energy investments in Africa went to fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). However, African countries only emit about 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and need to use more energy to help end poverty.

Mohamed Adow, director of climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said African civil society was calling on their political leaders to create a “fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty”.

“African countries investing in fossil fuels risk creating stranded assets and an unmanaged and disorderly transition from fossil fuels,” he said.

“We can either intentionally develop new ways to meet our energy needs without increasing our emissions or altogether lose the window of opportunity to ensure a safe climate and a sustainable future.”

This year’s African Union summit is focused on promoting peace in African countries as a vector for development. The transition of the African energy sector is due to be discussed in side events organised by member states, according to the summit’s agenda.

Africa has seen growing competition from large economies such as China and Russia to invest in energy projects and infrastructure. While China’s massive Belt and Road initiative does include renewable investment, large amount of money are being spent to upscale the continent’s oil and gas infrastructure.

At a UK-Africa investment summit in London last month, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to end all direct support for coal abroad but would still help African countries extract and use oil and gas.

World misses symbolic February deadline to ratchet up climate action before Cop26

Monday’s communique called on African leaders to “publicly condemn and reject the double standards advanced by fossil fuel companies and their allied interests, which result in the discriminatory treatment of Africa and her peoples.”

Francesca de Gasparis, executive director of the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI), said Africa had “immense opportunities” to create community-centred, accessible, affordable and clean energy.

“Yet we find our leaders signing up to expensive and environmentally devastating fossil fuel and nuclear energy projects that will bring few benefits to their people and will maintain vast inequality. We are appealing to the African Union to take a visionary stance,” she said.

A majority of African countries have committed to enhance their climate plans this year, according to the World Resources Institute. But the challenge of curbing greenhouse gas emissions comes on top of efforts to bridge the energy access gap.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest energy access rate in the world, with about 600 million people lacking electricity, according to the International Energy Agency.

In a 2019 report, Sustainable Energy for All found that current investments levels were not on track to meet 2030 global energy goals, warning that Sub-Saharan Africa was “at risk of getting left further behind” in the energy transition as population growth outstripped the increase of energy access.

The post Campaigners urge African Union to stop fossil fuel proliferation on continent appeared first on Climate Home News.

After much number-crunching and politicking, officials settled on an option to slash greenhouse gas emissions drastically.

Under the plan, EU-wide climate-damaging emissions will have to fall to a net-zero level by 2050. Any remaining emission output will have to be so low that forests, wetlands and perhaps technology can absorb the surplus.

Get daily bulletins in your inbox throughout Cop. Sign up here

That means that individual countries will not necessarily have to reach net-zero by 2050 themselves, as the likes of Finland and Sweden aim to achieve the feat much earlier, so there will be room to manoeuvre for slower starters.

The European Parliament was the first to back the commission’s plan but the real fight has since raged in the European Council, the member state institution that actually tasked the EU executive with drawing up the strategy in the first place.

Unanimous support is currently required to adopt the net-zero goal and over the course of the last 12 months, more and more countries have lined up behind it. At a June summit, the count reached 24 countries but fell short of the required 28.

Since that meeting, one of the four hold-outs, Estonia, has jumped on board but the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland still need convincing about the financial implications of agreeing to the target.

Polish shift

Several diplomats contacted by EURACTIV are confident of a deal in December though, as enough developments both at EU and national level have happened in the meantime. The pressure has also built to a telling level.

Polish elections in October resulted in the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) securing another term in office. Climate change policy was seen as a no-go area for prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki while campaigning for reelection but now his hands are free.

Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki (Photo: Kancelaria Premiera)

According to EU climate officials, there has been a step-change since PiS’s victory and the net-zero plan is now met with ‘how’ rather than an ‘outright no’. Financing the roughly €500 billion needed per year across the bloc to reach net-zero remains the main sticking point.

Coal was absent from Morawiecki’s post-election speech to parliament but clean energy was given special mention. “There was a time when we could have said we cannot afford to develop renewables. Now we cannot afford not to develop them,” he said.

Last week, Polish utility PGE announced that it is close to signing a deal with the world’s biggest developer of offshore wind, Orsted. It aims to sell a 50% stake in two wind farms to the Danish firm.

PGE’s chief executive Monika Morawiecka, a cousin of the prime minister, says that total capacity will reach 2.5 gigawatts at the two sites.

Under the new government, the energy ministry has also been disbanded and a new climate ministry is now in place, headed by COP president Michał Kurtyka, whose international profile has skyrocketed thanks to his role in UN talks.

Another factor that makes a Polish U-turn more likely is the dangerous levels of air pollution in the country’s cities, especially when inefficient heating systems ramp up in winter. Premature deaths number in the thousands in Poland and the issue is firmly in the public spotlight.

In addition to a new multi-billion-euro clean air programme, signing up to the 2050 plan in Brussels is less politically toxic now for Morawiecki if it is spun back at home as an anti-smog measure.

Hungary’s meltdown

Viktor Orbán’s government initially said it would back the 2050 target but backtracked when it became clear that Poland would not budge at the June summit. The Czech Republic and Estonia also saw safety in numbers.

Hungary’s support was predicated on nuclear power being an option to decarbonise the economy. “Without atomic energy, there is no climate neutrality,” Innovation minister László Palkovics said at the time.

The Central European country gets more than 20% of its power from nuclear and 14% from renewable energy but plans to ratchet up its atom-smashing capacities in the coming years.

We need your help… Climate Home News is an independent news outlet dedicated to the most important global stories. If you can spare even a few dollars each month, it would make a huge difference to us. Our Patreon account is a safe and easy way to support our work.

Budapest has asked the commission to relax certain nuclear rules so that building works on its planned upgrade to the Paks power plant can proceed through partial licensing, rather than having to wait for time-consuming approval on the full site.

A commission source told Reuters that the institution is still reviewing the request. Approval could help Hungary in its efforts to help renegotiate the terms of the Russia-backed project with Moscow.

Budapest might also find reassurance in recent developments at the European Investment Bank, which has updated its energy lending policy to largely scrub its loan books of fossil fuels after 2021.

As part of the bank’s efforts to build consensus among its member state shareholders, officials at the triple-A rated lender took nuclear off the negotiating table and pledged to leave its policy towards the energy source untouched.

Technically, it means that nuclear remains eligible for EIB financing but, as pointed out by bank vice-president Andrew McDowell, no money has been put up for a new build since the early 1990s. Only safety and decommissioning projects have benefitted.

Orbán may also be compelled to back the 2050 goal when crunch time comes, especially after his ruling Fidesz party lost control of the capital. Budapest’s new green mayor has already declared a climate emergency and pledged carbon-neutrality.

The three hold-out nations have kept their cards close in order to eke out as many concessions as possible, with talks ongoing on the EU’s long-term budget, a new financial mechanism for most-affected regions and changes to lending policy at the EIB.

Their recalcitrance has tested the patience of other countries like France and the Netherlands by delaying the process, which forced the EU to go to a UN climate summit in New York empty-handed. There will also be little to shout about at Cop25 in Madrid.

But sources say Poland especially has reached the limits of its good faith and the new commission of Ursula von der Leyen will not hesitate to include the net-zero goal in a forthcoming climate law even if the EU28, or EU27 after Brexit, fail to agree.

Madrid climate talks to split nations into vanguard and laggard

Given that the legislation will be in the domain of environment, qualified majority voting would apply and the three 2050 hold-outs would lose their veto.

Commission officials insist that this is not the preferred option because of the scale of the transition needed by the mid-century strategy but have not ruled it out as a final resort if talks continue well into 2020.

At the start of Cop25 on Monday, von der Leyen doubled down on the 2050 target’s inclusion in the forthcoming climate law.

But if negotiations were to stall, the EU would be put on the back-foot internationally, as it would take a number of months to push through the law. Long-term climate strategies must be submitted to the UN at the end of 2020, leaving little space for diplomacy.

Next year is meant to be the year of soft climate power for Brussels, where envoys can take the 2050 plan to other parts of the world, deploy it in trade talks and push countries to be more ambitious in their own long-term plans.

Any delay into 2020 would cut the time in which that exercise can be made.

Sealing a deal

The new commission will reportedly make a last-ditch attempt to sweeten the deal on the table by publishing the details of its Just Transition Fund (JTF), along with the broad strokes of the European Green Deal, on 11 December, one day before the council summit.

EU officials are actually split over whether to show their hand before the summit or wait until after the council to go public, in order to get assurances that the net-zero target will be supported by everyone.

Under a proposal by the parliament, nearly €5 billion of the long-term overall budget would be ringfenced to help regions adapt to the energy transition.

Commission sources have told EURACTIV that the overall pot will be larger under its plans for the fund and might total between €15-20 billion or even €35 billion, by leveraging regional funds and other existing instruments.

The buildings of the Silesian Museum are built in and on top of a former coal mine in Katowice, Poland (Photo: Deposit Photos)

Regardless of the final figure, the commission’s proposal, which will feed into the ongoing long-term budget talks, will be more substantial than the parliament’s, which was designed by Polish lawmaker Jerzy Buzek.

Poland in particular has championed the need for an effective Just Transition Fund as part of a broader package, in return for its support on the net-zero issue.

Ursula von der Leyen also made extensive mention of the fund in her speeches to parliament and has entrusted Frans Timmermans and regional commissioner Elisa Ferreria with overseeing the mechanism.

During his hearing in front of MEPs, the Dutchman Timmermans said that “ there will be new money. It can’t all be rechanneling of existing funds”. He explained that it will be a “mix of fresh money, combined with co-financing”.

EIB link, fund fatigue

The JTF will also link up with the EIB’s updated lending policy, which along with scrapping fossil fuel support also increases the level of co-financing available for certain countries from 50% to 75%.

Ten member states eligible for the Emissions Trading Scheme’s Modernisation Fund (Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) will benefit from the higher ceiling.

A perennial problem of EIB funding is that member states are often ill-equipped or lacking the know-how to submit effective bids for cash injections. The JTF is set to include dedicated financing for so-called ‘technical assistance’.

Bank sources told EURACTIV that more money for technical assistance would be the perfect complement to its updated lending policy.

But the JTF is not a universally popular idea. EU policy think-tank Bruegel said in a paper on how the European Green Deal should work that “the EU does not need to establish a new Just Transition Fund to support coal-mining regions”.

“It only needs to make better use of the existing European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF),” a mechanism set up in 2006 that has a maximum annual budget of €150 million. Bruegel points out that, on average, only €40 million has been doled out per year.

The EGF can be activated when more than 500 workers lose their jobs at one single company because of changes in global trade or, more recently, the economic crisis. Bruegel suggests that its scope should be broadened to include the impact of decarbonisation.

Using an existing mechanism would cut bureaucratic hurdles but focusing the EGF’s activities on phasing out coal could displease member states who want the Just Transition Fund to be broad in scope, not limited just to energy issues.

The discussion is set to become far more heated in the course of 2020, when the talks on the EU’s seven-year budget move towards concluding.

Enter Frankfurt

The sheer scale of the transition needed to achieve net-zero cannot be understated. Outgoing commission officials have branded it “the king of policies” and “the defining legislation of a generation”. The size of the bill is equally large.

In order to generate the estimated half a trillion euros that will be needed every year up to 2050, EU funding will not be enough, and the institutions have not shied away from that.

The EIB’s updated lending policy has already been warmly received by officials and diplomats alike, thanks to the €1 trillion in attracted investment up to 2030 predicted by the EU lender.

Over the past half-century, the EIB has achieved a leverage ratio of roughly one to three, meaning that for every €1 euro invested, €3 more have been attracted.

But there remains a funding gap, even with a possible €100 billion a year purely from the EIB for green policies. That is where the European Central Bank is being encouraged to step in.

Former International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde has already taken over from Mario Draghi and the French national has signalled that increased climate action will be a part of her eight-year-long tenure in Frankfurt.

Christine Lagarde (Photo: World Economic Forum)

During her speech to the parliament in September, Lagarde said the ECB should “gradually eliminate” carbon assets from its books, although she added that “it cannot happen overnight”.

In an open letter to Lagarde dated 28 November, academics and civil society called on the new president to do more in climate policy and to mirror the EIB in pulling out of fossil fuels by 2021.

“Central bankers are understandably wary of going beyond their mandate and overlapping the role of governments. But the reality is that the European Parliament has repeatedly confirmed the necessary role of the ECB for sustainability,” said Stanislas Jourdan of Positive Money Europe, a signatory to the letter.

The ECB can buy EIB bonds and between 2015 and 2018, it created on average €55 billion per month. Its statutes say that it can buy 50% of the lender’s bonds but can only do so on the secondary market, for example from pension funds.

A bank source told EURACTIV the ECB would look to continue the practice under Lagarde but any decision to increase the scale of buying would be made “in total independence”.

But there is already pushback against any greater involvement of the Frankfurt bank in climate policy. ECB board member Benoit Coeure said on 28 November that “central banks cannot be at the forefront in fighting climate change.”

“This is and should remain a political task. But they can help within their mandates,” he insisted, adding that monetary policy can fight weakness in demand but it was not the right tool to address changing consumer preferences, such as a switch away from fossil fuel-driven cars.

Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann, who was previously tipped to succeed Draghi, also batted back the same call, saying it was up to governments and not the ECB to fight climate change.

“Monetary policy that explicitly pursues environmental goals runs the risk of being overburdened,” the hawkish minister told an event in Berlin.

“Politicians with democratic legitimacy must decide how society should combat climate change and they must also bear the responsibility this,” Weidmann added.

EU diplomats told EURACTIV that more explicit mention of ECB involvement in a potential net-zero 2050 final agreement could be an option but the feasibility is still being explored.

This piece was originally published on EURACTIV

The post In depth: The EU’s plan to become the first climate-neutral continent appeared first on Climate Home News.

In Paris, France, rich and developed countries met to replenish the Green Climate Fund. The UN fund was created as a carrot to convince developing countries, which have little historic responsibility for climate change, to curtail their greenhouse gas emissions.

With existing funds expected to run-out by the end of the year, the GCF’s two-day pledging conference sought to raise at least $9 billion of new cash by Friday to finance green projects in poor countries during the period 2020-2023.

Speaking ahead of the GCF pledging conference, Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the GCF, told Climate Home News the fund’s objective was “for countries not to have to chose between today and tomorrow”, between meeting energy needs and cutting emissions, but to integrate climate action and economic development.

Chile: Massive protests and disruption ahead of trade and UN climate summits

New contributions to the fund totalling between $9bn and $10bn would be “a big success”, he said, and would “send a positive signal to developing countries”.

But many African leaders, the continent where 600 million lack access to electricity and the fund’s cash could make the most difference, were 2,900km from Paris, courting a very different opportunity on the shores of the Black Sea.

Dozens of African heads of state, including the leaders of Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, along with ministers and thousands of business leaders arrived in the resort town of Sochi, to strengthen Russia-Africa cooperation and discuss prospective military, infrastructure and energy deals, largely focused on the oil, gas and nuclear industries.

The two-day summit, led by Russian president Vladimir Putin and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was the first Russia-Africa cooperation conference. It is a signal of Putin’s intent to compete for African business with China’s massive Belt and Road investment project.

France: Emmanuel Macron’s war on climate activism

Opening the summit on Wednesday, Putin hailed Africa as “one of the cool centres of economic growth” and encouraged “building close business ties” in countries across the continent.

Making no mention of climate change, Putin praised the expanding work of Russian oil and gas companies Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil in Africa and the creation of a nuclear industry in Egypt and Nigeria. “We are most certainly going to support their plans at the government level,” he said.

Russian companies are currently developing oil and gas-fields in Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Angola. Russian total trade with African countries reached $20bn last year, a small amount compared with China’s $204bn the same year.

Egyptian president el-Sisi said Russia was “a reliable partner for the African continent” and welcomed investments in the development and infrastructure sectors that the continent needs. “We regard this forum as a platform to develop the relationship for mutual investment and cooperation,” he added.

Theo Neethling, head of political studies at the University of the Free State in South Africa, said: “Survival and developmental politics are much higher on Africa’s agenda than green politics.

“African states view Beijing and Moscow as partners – albeit senior partners – that could provide much-needed funding without any strings attached pertaining to democracy or human rights.”

Wealthy country’s commitment to delivering green finance is not viewed with the same level of trust. Rich countries have promised to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year from a variety of sources by 2020. The OECD estimates that flow reached $71.2bn in 2017 (a number Oxfam has called “grossly overestimate[d]”), but still admits rich countries are not on track meet the goal.

Hi there. Just a reminder that CHN is a small independent news site, dedicated to bringing you stories like this from all over the world. That’s expensive and we need our readers to help. Here’s how you can, even for a few dollars a month.

Even if contributions to the GCF at the Paris summit reach the $10bn mark, it would be less than donors’ initial $10.3bn pledge to the fund for the previous period to 2020. It would also not be enough to fund the existing $15bn pipeline of projects seeking assistance as of December 2018.

The US and Australia, which collectively pledged $3.2bn last time around (although Donald Trump’s US reneged to the tune of $2bn), have said they would offer nothing in 2019. Other countries’ increased contributions have not yet filled the hole.

Sixteen countries have already promised to deliver $7.4bn. Germany, Norway, France, UK, Sweden, South Korea, Denmark and Iceland announced a doubling of their contributions. Others like Japan, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland Portugal and New Zealand are yet to make a contribution. Russia is one of the 25 delegations participating in the pledging conference. It gave $3m in 2014.

With clean technologies becoming increasingly cheaper, climate advocates hope development in Africa will proceed along a less-carbon intensive pathway than Europe, the US, Russia or even China.

If Russia is cutting oil and gas deals in Sochi, “they are no friend of Africa,” Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, told CHN, warning against the continent becoming “the dumping ground for other countries’ fossil fuel technology”.

“The GCF has become the most significant climate funder in Africa,” said Adow. “This funding is vital in diverting us from a path towards climate catastrophe towards one where the poorest people can have access to clean energy.”‘

But this vision is in danger of being outcompeted. Crispus Mugambi, resilience and climate change manager at Care Kenya, told CHN the money pledged to the GCF was “a drop in the ocean” compared to developing countries’ existing needs. This week, the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All issued a major report finding investment for electricity in sub-Saharan Africa was “alarmingly low” and had fallen in several countries.

“Africa probably needs hundreds of billions of dollars to be able to develop in a climate sensitive manner,” said Mugambi.

“There is common sense that development with clean energy is the way to go but African governments are trying to develop their economies with resources at their disposal,” he added.

The post As rich countries slow walk green finance, Putin offers Africa an alternative appeared first on Climate Home News.

Fast rising prices in the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS) have pushed the government into talks with the owners of Hungary’s last big lignite power plant, Mátra, about phasing out coal use and installing clean and renewable energy.

“Electricity production based on lignite has no more long-term economic viability in Europe, due to the sky-rocketing ETS quota prices and also the lack of any available future support scheme for coal-based energy production,” Barbara Botos, deputy secretary of state for climate at the innovation and technology ministry, told Climate Home News.

Botos said the government’s “preferred coal exit date” was 2030, although this is not yet supported by an official decision or strategy.

“Hungary intends to provide smart, clean and affordable energy for all,” Botos said. The government is outlining a “positive and innovative” development plan based on low greenhouse gas emissions, she added.

EU carbon price finally puts pressure on coal

Hungary is not as coal-reliant as some of its central and eastern European neighbours. Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria have the highest percentage of coal power in the EU. Yet on climate policy, the Visegrád Group – Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – tend to stick together in resisting measures that would price out the dirtiest fossil fuel. The Three Seas Inititaive, of which Hungary is a member, plans to host a climate policy cooperation summit this Thursday.

That cohesion may be breaking, and not just because of Hungary. Slovakia, which also uses less coal, said in December 2017 that it was considering ending coal-fired power and mining in 2023. Economy minister Peter Ziga told reporters on Monday that the government plans to pull subsidies for mines and power plants that year, Reuters reported.

Hungary, meanwhile, is about to begin a political discussion about a coal phase-out, Botos said earlier this month in a presentation to the European Commission’s Coal Regions in Transition Platform. The platform, launched last year, aims to help the EU’s poorest and most coal-reliant regions shift to clean energy by re-training workers, funding renewables and other projects.

Climate news in your inbox? Sign up here

Her comments, along with a presentation from a Mátra power plant representative, marked a “milestone” for the country, said Csaba Vaszkó, an independent Hungarian energy consultant who also spoke at the meeting. Even though Hungary’s coal industry has declined significantly, it is still strong in the region around Mátra, in the northeast.

If it sets an end date for coal, Hungary would join a growing group of western Europeans aiming for exits by 2030 at the latest, including France, the Netherlands, the UK, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Austria, Denmark and Sweden. Even coal-powered Germany is expected to set an end date for coal by the end of this year.

In Hungary, the move is motivated by rising costs of EU carbon prices after years of lagging and the fact that Mátra already has concepts for low-carbon projects, rather than making a political break from the Visegrád position, said Vaszkó.

A graph produced by Hungary’s transmission operator and presented by Barbara Botos, deputy secretary of state for climate

Hungary’s second national climate strategy, approved by the parliament in October, aims to reduce carbon emissions by replacing fossil fuels, improving energy efficiency, developing a green economy and adding forests, Botos said in the presentation. Coal-fired power could drop sharply in 2025, according to a scenario she was given by Hungary’s transmission system operator.

Also at the commission’s meeting, Zoltán Orosz, head of strategy for the Mátra power station’s owner, talked about the potential for replacing coal with biomass, gas, solar energy and battery storage in order to keep the plant alive beyond 2030. Further down the line there was also the potential for building a solar panel factory, he said.

Coal mining and power production in Hungary are already declining, according to the presentations from Botos, Vaszkó and Orosz.

Poland’s coal miners: ‘EU climate proposals terrify us’

The fuel generated 18% of Hungary’s electricity in 2016 – almost all from the Mátra station. Nuclear provided around half and gas roughly 20%. Most of the country’s coal and lignite basins have been closed, and the number of miners is down to 2,000 this year, from 125,000 in 1965.

However, Mátra’s lignite produced nearly 14% of the Hungary’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2016 and half of the energy sector’s pollution.

The fall in costs for solar and wind energy and lithium-ion batteries over the past 10 years can help create new industries, jobs and economic growth, Hungarian president Áder János told the parliament before it voted on the climate strategy last month.

Specifically, Budapest now aims to boost solar power capacity from 500 to 3,000 MW as early as 2022, Botos told CHN. The Mátra owners have installed a 16 MW photovoltaic plant on an abandoned slurry deposit, and plan to add two 20 MW solar plants nearby.

Russia’s state-owned Rosatom is also building a new nuclear power plant, which would replace older units in the later 2020s.

This article is not for republication

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is the environmental story of 2018.

No-one is better positioned than CHN’s Fabiano Maisonnave to cover the impact of his presidency on the world’s most important forest. We are the only international news site with a correspondent living in the heart of the Amazon. You can read some of the great reporting Fabiano has already done for us here.

We know we need to keep on this story, but after a huge 2018 and with the biggest UNFCCC talks in years approaching, our resources are really stretched. Please help us to keep Fabiano writing by making a small donation through our Patreon account.

The post Hungary wants end to coal power by 2030 appeared first on Climate Home News.

These concerns posed by its planned departure from the 61-year-old Euratom treaty have spurred London to act more decisively than in many other areas of Brexit prep work over the past two years.

In a progress report sent to the parliament earlier this week, the government said it had new inspection staff in training and key cooperation agreements either in place or in the making.

It also promised fill in for lost Euratom funding of research and development, so as to carry on a government goal to become a “world-leader” in nuclear energy innovation.

But if the UK and EU fail to clinch a deal on their future relationship before March 29, the timeline to finish these preparations will evaporate. The country will break away that day, without a Brexit transition period up through 2020.

Talks will move into their final stages when EU leaders meet in Brussels next week, amid continuing disagreement.

EU lawmakers support 55% emission cuts as IPCC spectre lurks

“If there isn’t a deal, the presumption is that all of that falls through,” said Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association.

“The longer the situation goes on, the more risk there is that there would be a shortage [of power],” he added. “The more risk there is that there may be planned maintenance that means a power station is not operating and there could be delays in moving components backwards and forwards.”

Euratom is governed by a standalone treaty that predates the European Union, but covers all 28 of its member countries.

It manages nuclear fuel supply throughout the bloc, inspects civil nuclear sites to make sure they’re not being used for weapons, and holds cooperation agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other countries active in the industry. It also allows for free movement of nuclear workers and equipment between members, facilitates the construction of new projects and funds research and development, including the EU’s portion of an international nuclear fusion pilot project in France.

What happens in the next few months will impact the future of the Paris Agreement and the global climate

CHN will be there keeping you informed from the inside.

If you value our coverage, please consider helping us. Become a CHN patron for as little as $5 per month.

We have set up a Patreon account. It’s a simple, safe and easy way for you to become part of a community that will secure and guide our future.

Thank you!

A no-deal ‘Brexatom’ on March 29, without replacements set for Euratom’s role, could lead to significant problems in the UK’s energy market, both in the nearer and longer terms.

Nuclear energy generates around a quarter of Britain’s electricity from seven power stations. It’s one of the few European countries intent on building a fleet of new, expensive but emissions-free nuclear stations, starting with the Hinkley Point C plant already under construction by French energy utility EDF.

The longer the gap between Euratom and a new domestic regime, the more likely plants would be to run out of fuel (when that happens depends on how much fuel the operators can stockpile before Brexit day). Even with fuel, however, Britain’s generators would have to stop if they can’t meet international non-proliferation standards. That requires a new domestic system to inspect all UK sites, with approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Imported supplies of medical radioisotopes, used for cancer treatments and diagnoses, could also be interrupted immediately after Brexit. Radioisotopes only last a few hours, and the UK cannot produce them at home.

Kosovo: World Bank dumps plant, ending support for coal worldwide

In the longer term, the UK could struggle to attract the workers or import the reactor components needed for Hinkley and other new nuclear plants, as well as maintenance work on existing reactors.

With all these potential risks, the UK government’s rush to create a seamless transition out of Euratom, and its early agreement with the EU on issues such as the ownership of fissile materials that Euratom now holds in the UK, are all reassuring.

As part of its preparation, the government was quick to pass a nuclear safeguards bill this year that gives the Office of Nuclear Regulation the power to inspect civil nuclear sites for compliance with non-proliferation rules.

The nuclear regulator, which was traditionally responsible for safety, “remains confident” that it will have the new safeguards regime in place by March 29, the government told the parliament this week. It’s expected to need at least nine safeguards inspectors by then, and has so far hired and started training 14 of them, it said.

The progress report doesn’t solve the sticky problem of medical isotopes, which could be left useless if they are stuck in border queues. The government said it was still considering options to avoid a shortage.

Meanwhile, the government is firming up bilateral deals with key international nuclear players. It signed an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in June, and is close to finalising cooperation deals with key nuclear countries – the US, Australia, Canada and Japan – before March 29, it said.

Climate news in your inbox? Sign up here

Deals agreed with Australia in August and the US in May are making their ways through those parliaments for ratification, and are expected to be presented to the UK parliament this autumn. The government also expects to sign a deal with Canada later this year and is in talks with Japan on additions to an existing nuclear cooperation deal between the two, it said.

But the UK is also keen to keep close ties with Euratom – something the nuclear industry is intent on seeing.

The government told the parliament it wants to negotiate a “mutually beneficial” civil nuclear relationship with Euratom. “This would be more comprehensive and broad than any existing agreement between Euratom and a third country, and would help ensure the UK’s standing as a leading and responsible civil nuclear state is maintained,” it said.

The relationship should give the country an association with European research and training programmes and funding, protect existing nuclear material supply contracts after Brexit, simplify export controls for sensitive nuclear materials, equipment and technology between the two, and allow the UK to continue cooperating in the supply of medical radioisotopes, among other benefits.

The UK, for one, certainly has something to gain from these post-Brexit ties, the government said. “These objectives form part of government’s wider ambition to develop an economic relationship with the EU that maximises future prosperity in line with the industrial strategy, and a new trading relationship that includes a free trade area for goods.”

Republish this article

The post Brexit: Avoiding the nuclear fallout appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a batch of papers released on Thursday, the department for exiting the EU detailed how it is preparing for a possible crash Brexit on 29 March — while stressing that it continues to negotiate for a “good and sustainable future relationship” with the European Union.

The 25 notices set out the government’s plans for a no-deal departure in a wide range of policy areas, including industrial and vehicle emissions, nuclear energy, farming, medicines, product labelling, money and tax, and applications for EU funding. This is the first instalment of notices, and more are expected this month.

They’re meant to quell business and public concerns as Brexit day looms and the potential for a no-deal departure grows more realistic, particularly with little progress in negotiations for the overarching EU-UK relationship.

With just over six months to go, critics argue the government is moving too slowly and has given few details on preparations such as the new environmental watchdog agency.

“Repeated (& welcome) refrain of continued commitment to high standards — but will the statutory instruments be ready in time to bring over all EU law by exit day? Complex process that must be watertight, and we haven’t even seen drafts yet. Tick, tock…” tweeted Amy Mount from the Greener UK coalition of environmental organisations.

What happens in the next few months will impact the future of the Paris Agreement and the global climate

CHN will be there keeping you informed from the inside.

If you value our coverage, please consider helping us. Become a CHN patron for as little as $7 a month.

We have set up a Patreon account. It’s a simple, safe and easy way for you to become part of a community that will secure and guide our future.

Thank you!

The EU’s biggest tools for cutting greenhouse emissions and boost clean energy are not mentioned.

The government was expected to include a notice on preparations for the emissions trading system, which applies to 11,000 factories and power plants across the EU, plus air travel within the bloc. It is now planned for a later instalment, a government spokesperson said.

There is also no mention of policies setting national emissions reduction goals for sectors such as transport, buildings and agriculture, or of EU renewable energy and energy efficiency targets and the internal energy market.

Cars, coolants and industrial plants

Instead, Thursday’s publication sets out London’s plans for replacing the EU’s CO2 emissions targets for cars and vans registered in the bloc.

In a no-deal Brexit, EU rules would stop applying to new vehicles registered in Britain. The country’s department for transport would therefore take over the European Commission’s role, with the aim of setting rules that are “at least as ambitious as current arrangements,” the notice stated.

The same goes for limits on ozone-depleting and potent greenhouse gas emissions from coolants, according to another notice. EU regulation requires the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in line with the international Montreal Protocol. As part of it, the European Commission hands out HFC quotas to businesses, gradually reducing them every few years.

If Britain crashes out next year, the majority of the EU’s rules for this group of pollutants will continue to apply, the government said. It would allocate quotas in the same way and on the same schedule, just through a UK agency rather than Brussels.

1/6 There are several environment-related papers amongst today’s #NoDealBrexit preparedness notices, but many of #GreenerUK‘s questions are still unanswered – & some new risks have emerged https://t.co/3oJVqImOTn

— Amy Mount (@ASmallAMount) September 13, 2018

The government will also continue to apply air pollution rules for large combustion power plants, waste incineration plants and other industrial sites under new legislation, it said.

Without a Brexit deal, the UK would leave an EU process for setting environmental permitting standards. However, it plans to pass a law that makes sure the bloc’s existing “best available techniques” apply in the country, and allows the country to adopt new ones.

The government is also introducing the country’s first Environment Bill in 20 years, which will set rules for clean air and other protections in England and set up an independent Environment Agency, it said.

However, the government acknowledged it may not be ready in time. “We are considering what interim measures may be necessary in a no-deal scenario after March 29, 2019 and before the Environment Act is passed and comes into effect.”

Nuclear, oil and gas

London has worked quickly to set up a national inspections regime for nuclear energy sites in the country, to fill in for the EU’s atomic energy community, Euratom, and expects to have it in place by 29 March, according to a notice.

The inspections system — to make sure the country’s nuclear power plants, fuel processing sites, research centres and other facilities are not used to make nuclear weapons — is crucial to keeping Britain’s seven nuclear power stations running after a no-deal Brexit. They generate around a quarter of the country’s electricity, which would likely be replaced with gas or coal-fired power if not available.

But Euratom also oversees nuclear fuel supply around the EU, and some nuclear fuel supply contracts will need to be re-approved once the UK leaves, the government said. It urged companies to talk to Euratom and their contract counterparts about the process.

While the country would also lose Euratom funding for nuclear research — including its participation, with the rest of the EU, in the nuclear fusion pilot project ITER in France — the government stressed that it plans to step up with its own money to keep the programmes going.

One area that will see little change from an immediate departure, instead, is the rules for oil and gas licensing and environmental protection. UK law already addresses environmental requirements for offshore oil and gas drilling and licensing on- and offshore, but the government said it will amend rules to make sure there is “broad continuity”.

Republish this article

The post UK offers green assurances for no-deal Brexit appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UK is also taking part, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) confirmed to Climate Home News on Wednesday.

The Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy (Nice) partnership will be launched on Thursday at a ministerial summit being held in Copenhagen and Malmö.

In a blog post on his department’s website, US deputy energy secretary Dan Brouillette called for countries to work together for a “Nice Future”.

“If the world is serious about reducing emissions and growing economies, then the ministerial must consider all options when it comes to carbon-free power, including clean, reliable nuclear energy,” he said.

If you like what we do, support us

Become a CHN member for as little as $5 per month to help us keep bringing you the most in-depth coverage of climate politics and underreported stories from around the world.

We have set up a Patreon account. It’s a simple, safe and easy way for you to become part of a community that will secure and guide our future.

Thank you!

Brouillette said the partnership would “make sure nuclear has a seat at the table during discussions about innovation and advanced clean energy systems of the future”.

Nice parallels international initiatives on solar and wind, smart grids, electric vehicles and energy access, all of which are grouped under the auspices of the Clean Energy Ministerial.

Director general of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) Agneta Rising will tell the launch on Thursday: “Countries will need to use nuclear energy alongside other forms of clean energy to deliver a sustainable energy mix that is affordable to all and that supports economic development.”

The initiative will promote nuclear technology to governments and policy makers as a solution to the problem of cutting emissions. In particular, it will focus on nuclear as a source for energy-intensive applications, such as desalination.

“Innovative nuclear systems will play a critical role in world-wide decarbonisation,” said Brouillette.

While generally avoiding public discussion of climate change, US president Donald Trump’s administration has pursued an international energy agenda that promotes nuclear and carbon capture as low-carbon industrial solutions. The US, alongside Saudi Arabia and Norway, will also launch a coalition aimed at boosting carbon capture at the meeting.

Around 50 nuclear reactors are under construction around the world, many of them in China, India, UAE and Russia. Brouillette said more than a dozen other governments had expressed interest in joining the Nice partnership. These include Poland, Romania, UAE, Russia and Argentina, according to the WNA.

Climate Home News wins online media award

The UK, which is building a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point, has spearheaded a similar global political alliance aimed at ending coal power. Energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry attended the Denmark-Sweden event this week.

UK business and industry minister Richard Harrington said the “pivotal global initiative continues an essential dialogue on the role of nuclear in the clean energy systems of the future.

“Advancing innovative technology in nuclear will enable us to continue this momentum – and it is crucial that nations are coming together in this way to share expertise around this dynamic clean energy technology,” he said.

The partnership marks a return for Japan’s nuclear ambitions to the international stage, seven years after the country announced a full nuclear exit in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The phase-out led to near record coal consumption. But prime minister Shinzo Abe reversed the policy in 2014, calling nuclear the country’s most important energy resource.

Critics of nuclear power point at its high energy costs, potential for dangerous meltdowns and issues with radioactive waste as reasons to focus on other clean energy sources.

The industry is “notoriously overly-optimistic”, said Doug Parr, chief scientist for Greenpeace UK. “The data on nuclear shows that it is slow, risky, nowhere near as reliable as its advocates claim, very, very expensive and still rising in price. Left to themselves, the money markets will not invest in it.

“Nuclear’s last hope is that governments will rescue it from the market’s judgement due to its potential to provide low-carbon baseload. But twenty-first century electricity grids will differ from twentieth century grids in similar ways to information networks. They will be international, distributed, renewable and smart. They will have no need for baseload, and no place for nuclear.”

Republish this article

The post US launches nuclear initiative to cut carbon with Canada, Japan, UK appeared first on Climate Home News.

Renewable costs have fallen dramatically over a series of auctions in the past five years, challenging coal utilities’ dominance of the market.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research analysed government and industry data from recent procurement rounds.

It showed wind and solar PV prices dropping to 0.62 Rand/kWh (US$0.044) in 2015. Coal came in at R1.03/kWh from independent suppliers and R1.05-1.16/kWh from state utility Eskom – not counting a proposed carbon tax.

CSIR analysis of power generation cost data

Report: South Africa targets 2025 emissions peak in UN climate plan

South Africa’s coal-heavy power mix puts it among the 20 highest emitting countries in the world, with energy demand only growing.

It relies on the polluting fuel for nearly 90% of electricity, has another 8.7GW under construction and 5.8GW in the pre-build pipeline, according to Coal Swarm.

In its contribution to the Paris climate deal, South Africa pledged to peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

Harald Winkler, director of energy research at the University of Cape Town, told Climate Home the pre-construction coal projects were incompatible with that commitment.

The government’s preferred alternative is nuclear, with plans for a 9.6GW fleet by 2030, but critics say it is too expensive. A lack of transparency has fuelled suspicions – officially denied – that Russia has already won the contract.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

While data on nuclear costs is scarce, Winkler said 94% of his department’s energy model runs showed atomic power would raise prices. “We think that is pretty compelling evidence that nuclear is not the least cost solution,” he said.

“You are building so much in one go and basically indebting the country. That doesn’t seem wise.”

A renewables-only scenario is possible, but depends on concentrated solar power getting cheaper, his analysis shows. CSP provides flexible power that can back up intermittent wind and solar PV generation.

The government is preparing a review of its electricity strategy, the Daily Maverick reports, but publication has been repeatedly delayed.

The post Wind, solar costs undercut new coal plants in South Africa appeared first on Climate Home News.

Financed by the French and Chinese governments and to be built by French state-controlled energy company EDF, the Hinkley C power plant has been the subject of fierce debate in the UK.

Critics say the new plant will be an expensive “white elephant” and is unsuited to a fast-developing energy sector where cheaper renewables, flexible demand management and tech-driven efficiency measures will reign.

Supporters argue the UK needs a guaranteed source of low carbon base-load power to fill a gap left by a planned phaseout of coal by 2025, and the closure of other nuclear plants.

The government says it’s essential to keep the UK on course to meet a legally binding goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% on 1990 levels by 2050.

So what’s the skinny? Simon Evans at Carbon Brief offers a nuts n’ bolts look at the deal in this article. Below is a taster of how the decision has gone down among domestic experts and international observers.

First off the market – and judging by initial reactions, it’s not convinced…

Oh… pic.twitter.com/XfChFb6KrH

— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) September 15, 2016

True, the plant will offer a huge wedge of power, but it will be expensive…

Greg Clark "minded" to offer £92.50/MWh to EDF for Hinkley, govt statement says. Renewables still cheaper pic.twitter.com/CnQqlqWdeh

— Jess Shankleman (@Jess_Shankleman) September 15, 2016

Bloomberg and Greenpeace agree on this – not a natural alliance, perhaps. Here’s the green group’s executive director John Sauven:

“Today’s announcement has changed virtually nothing. This deal remains terrible value for money for bill payers and taxpayers. The inflation linked electricity price for Hinkley over the coming decades will be astronomical compared to the falling price of renewable power, battery storage and smart energy technology.”

Confused? You’re not the only one…

"Nuclear is too expensive!"…. "OK, let's find ways to make it cheaper"… "Cheaper? No, we're finding ways to make it even more expensive"

— Carbon Counter (@CO2Counter) September 15, 2016

That said, it does offer a base-load power and the costs are subject to further analysis, argues Sam Fankhauser, co-Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment:

“Analysis by the Committee on Climate Change has shown that it would be very difficult for the UK to achieve the average cut in annual emissions of greenhouse gases of about 57 per cent over the period between 2028 and 2032 compared with 1990, as required by the Fifth Carbon Budget which was passed by Parliament in July, if neither new nuclear power plants nor carbon capture and storage technology are operating.

“There has been much speculation about whether the strike price for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50 per megawatt-hour is too high. However, it is important to note that such an assessment requires estimations of the wholesale price of electricity for the 35-year period from when Hinkley Point C starts operating, which is not likely before 2025. Such estimates cannot be made with any precision and are subject to large uncertainties.”

Govt said they'd review all parts of #Hinkley deal. Strange then they've not reviewed high price that saddles consumers with a £30bn bill!

— Barry Gardiner (@BarryGardiner) September 15, 2016

But as Labour MP and climate spokesperson Barry Gardiner alludes to in his tweet, this is a gamble – a bet that future costs of renewables won’t fall fast and the storage required to unleash wind and solar won’t come online faster.

Cash available to invest in these other forms of energy will also be tighter as a result: here’s a handy chart from UK energy wonk Simon Moore:

The share of agreed UK low-carbon spend taken up by #Hinkley (area=total support) – the fat purple one in the middle pic.twitter.com/J36ELLh0qS

— Simon Moore (@SMoore1984) September 15, 2016

Let’s be clear, this was not a decision solely based on the economics of the project or on the number of jobs it will create, despite the government’s best efforts to spin that line today…

Building #Hinkley will create 26,000 jobs and #apprenticeships pic.twitter.com/RkAJs77hcS

— Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (@SciTechgovuk) September 15, 2016

Sky News touched on a vital angle to the UK’s hunt for a new nuclear reactor: relations with Beijing

Hinkley deal eases UK-China ties… for now https://t.co/EwWUiR9xds

— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 15, 2016

The Chinese were angered when new prime minister Theresa May put plans for Hinkley C on ice in July. The UK had to send its top diplomat in Beijing to smooth the waters today.

Details of deal were explained to Chinese National Energy Administration by UK ambassador in Bejing

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) September 15, 2016

The simmering rage comes out in the coverage from state news agency Xinhua…

#Hinkley @XHNews coverage. Reading between the lines… pic.twitter.com/CzASt1Bs41

— Ed King (@edking_I) September 15, 2016

Failure to seal a deal, it suggests, would have represented a severe blow to China’s nuclear ambitions, and to Sino-British diplomatic links…

More from that priceless @XHNews report… pic.twitter.com/Ef7GsYZM1h

— Ed King (@edking_I) September 15, 2016

Now these are back on track (for now) the UK will hope one of its other climate plans – to become a hub for Chinese green finance – can bear fruit.

Domestically May’s decision has already caused a backlash among some Conservatives – notably the influential columnist Tim Montgomerie.

For decades to come, UK business & consumers will be paying over the odds while competitors use cheaper, new energy technologies #Hinkley

— Tim Montgomerie (@montie) September 15, 2016

…and fund manager Ben Goldsmith, who sits on the Conservative Environment Network

I wish we could know what was said in conversations that led to our Gov't saying yes to a huge, extortionate monstrosity of a nuclear plant.

— Ben Goldsmith (@BenGoldsmith) September 15, 2016

Still – for Tory voters it may be as good as it gets, given their longstanding antipathy to onshore wind. Imagine this instead?!

100% renewable electricity in Britain: cover an area the size of Wales in wind turbines and be able store up to a week of demand. #easy

— Carbon Counter (@CO2Counter) September 15, 2016

Wrapping up… the decision marks the start of a new round of work to deliver a UK low carbon energy plan to meet recently-agreed 2030 emission-slashing targets.

Clean energy expert Dr Jonathan Marshall from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit says more focus is now required on building an energy matrix suitable for the next century…

“Now the decision is done, one assumes that the Government will turn its attention to delivering similar certainty to other parts of the low-carbon energy system, notably offshore wind, tidal power, energy efficiency and demand-side response. Another thing for it to consider is whether the Hinkley model of bespoke, one-off deals with preferred bidders is really the way it wishes to do business; a more free-market approach, with genuine competition between low-carbon providers which also rewards innovation rather than incumbency, is surely the way to go.”

With offshore wind costs falling fast and the case for renewables increasingly compelling it remains to be seen if Hinkley C looks such a good deal when it comes online in 2025.

Or should that be if?

"First electricity from Hinkley C is due to be produced in 2025" – EDF still sticking to timetable no-one quite believes

— Simon Evans (@DrSimEvans) September 15, 2016

The post Atomic politics: UK mends China links with Hinkley deal appeared first on Climate Home News.

The decision was announced hours after a bruising meeting of the board of the giant French energy company EDF, at which directors decided by 10 votes to seven to go ahead with the building of two 1,600 megawatt reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England.

One director, Gerard Magnin, had already resigned in protest before the meeting, saying the project was “very risky”. All six union members, who are worker directors, said they were going to vote against because they believed that any new investment should be directed at making ageing French reactors safer.

So certain were EDF that a signing ceremony with the British government would take place today to provide the company with 35 years of subsidies for their electricity that they had hired marquees, invited the world’s press and laid in stocks of champagne to toast the agreement.

China warns UK review of Hinkley nuclear plant risks damaging trust: https://t.co/wlfP1vVxko (Xinhua)

— Megan Darby (@climatemegan) August 1, 2016

But EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz, who had pushed for the deal, cancelled a trip to Britain on hearing the government announcement.

Britain’s new prime minister, Theresa May, who had never publicly endorsed the project like her predecessor David Cameron, has clearly heeded the myriad voices outside the nuclear industry that say this is a bad deal for British consumers.

Her new business and energy secretary, Greg Clark, in a brief statement, said the decision was deferred until “early autumn” while the “government reviews all the component parts of the agreement” to build what is the most expensive power plant the world has ever seen.

Hinkley Point C, as the new station would have been called, is estimated by the company to cost £18 billion, take nine years to build, and provide 7% of the UK’s electricity via two 1,600 megawatt reactors.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

This is a new type of reactor, of which four are being built − one at Olkiluoto in Finland, one at Flamanville in France, and two in China. All are years behind schedule and costs in France and Finland have trebled.

None are expected to produce power until 2018, although what is happening in China is not clear.

Because of these delays, the French were not actually going to start pouring concrete for construction until 2019, and there were already severe doubts that the timetable proposed by the French for Hinkley Point could be met.

Some have even suggested that the delays elsewhere have shown that the design is flawed and that the reactors may never work efficiently.

This may concern the British government, but the sticking point is more likely to be the staggeringly high cost that consumers will have to pay for electricity produced by the plants.

Hinkley – cancelling the wedding was an embarrassment but there are serious alternatives. https://t.co/lWqppo3Koj

— Nick Butler (@nickb2211) August 1, 2016

In 2012, the previous government agreed to pay £92.50 for each megawatt hour of electricity produced − a price that would rise with inflation.

With wholesale prices going down, that is already three times the current price of electricity and it is calculated that it would cost every bill payer in Britain £10 a year for 35 years just to keep the station open – and it could be more.

If Theresa May is anything like her predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, who did not think nuclear power was value for money, the project will be in jeopardy.

EDF already runs 15 ageing nuclear reactors in Britain and was looking to build the two at Hinkley and another two in Essex to replace the old ones as they close down.

Analysis: Can nuclear really deliver 25% of global electricity by 2050?

The Chinese, Japanese and Americans were being encouraged to build reactors in other parts of England and Wales. All these look less likely now.

The problem for nuclear power is that new stations cost billions to build and take a decade before they get any income back.

This has brought EDF huge debts and borrowings, which has put the company in financial difficulty − hence the internal controversy about the Hinkley decision.

Claire Jacobson, head of climate, energy and environment policy at EEF, the British manufacturers’ lobby group that supports the nuclear industry, said the government’s decision was “yet another blow to a decision that has been hindered by many delays and uncertainties”.

Emissions targets

Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industries Association, warned that failure to go ahead with the project would risk the lights going out and missing the country’s carbon emissions reduction targets. He said ministers “need to act quickly to endorse the decision [to go ahead]”.

However, critics of the controversial project were delighted. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace, said: “Theresa May now has the chance to stop this radioactive white elephant in its tracks.

“She should look at the evidence and see that this deal would be a monumental disaster for the taxpayers and the bill payers. Countless experts have warned that for British families this power station will be terrible value for money.”

Until last night, the UK was the most positive country in Europe about nuclear power and planned to build a total of 10 nuclear power plants, Hinkley Point being the first of them. This was despite the fact that nuclear costs continue to escalate while its main competitors − renewables of all kinds − fall in price.

The Hinkley Point project is now more expensive than offshore wind power, which is the most expensive renewable, and is far more costly than solar and onshore wind. Biogas and small-scale hydro projects in Britain, all so far underdeveloped, are also cheaper than nuclear.

Safety fears

The price of all renewables is going down as they develop, while the price rises for nuclear power, with safety fears and threats from terrorism pushing costs up.

It is also argued, even by the UK’s national electricity grid, that the day of the large power plant is over, to be replaced by small local generators providing electricity near to homes and factories − something that renewables are ideally suited for.

Even France, which has 58 reactors, and is building a Hinkley prototype at Flamanville in Normandy, has no plans to build any more. All its new energy projects are renewables, and it has plentiful supplies of untapped wind and solar power, which are cheaper.

China, which is currently building more nuclear plants that any other country, is also hoping to build new plants in Britain, and China General Nuclear Power had agreed to fund one-third of the Hinkley Point project to get an entry to the UK market.

They were due to be at the celebrations in Somerset, but in a statement said: “We respect the new government’s need to familiarise itself with a project as important to the UK’s future energy policy as Hinkley Point C and we stand ready to help the government in this respect.”

They then flew home.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Atomic shambles: UK nuclear plans need urgent rethink appeared first on Climate Home News.

Despite the UK referendum vote to leave the European Union, the industry is confident that many small reactors will be built in Britain and that the country will become a showcase for the industry and an exporter of the technology.

The ideal is for each town to have its own reactor.

The government-owned National Nuclear Laboratory says the industry worldwide will be worth £400 billion by 2035, and much of the development and new build will be in Britain. In a Nuclear Energy Insider poll, almost 70% of those in the nuclear industry thought this figure was realistic.

Although the UK government under a newly-appointed prime minister is still encouraging the French, Chinese, Japanese and US companies to build 10 giant new nuclear power stations of 1,000 megawatts or more, it is also running a competition to find the best small-scale reactor design and is investing £250 million in research and development of reactors of about 30 megawatts or less.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

More than 80% of the nuclear industry regard this as a significant step towards making the UK a centre for this technology, but want yet more help.

They want fast-track licensing for the new designs, reduced regulation, and a government-financed campaign to convince the public that small modular reactors are the future for energy.

They also ask that the “government change the public negative mindset to nuclear” and “stop putting money into unreliable renewable forms of energy”.

This and the suggestion of “a level playing field between energy sources by phasing out subsidies” may amuse anti-nuclear lobbyists. They complain it is the subsidies to the nuclear industry in free state insurance, policing, research funding, and waste disposal that should be scrapped.

Hinkley nuclear plant will be most expensive object on earth. Tell the UK Gov we want renewable energy instead https://t.co/LppiEi0JcD

— Bryan Adams (@bryanadams) July 25, 2016

Despite the general delight of the industry at the way the new-look Conservative government is encouraging them at every level, there is some caution about the ability of the UK to build either small modular reactors or advanced ones, such as proposed plutonium burning reactors.

Nearly two-thirds of those questioned said they did not think the UK had the necessary industrial expertise and supply chain to construct and manufacture these reactors.

This is key strategic question for the UK government following its vote last week to renew its Trident nuclear submarine programme, which will carry nuclear missiles.

Small modular reactors are similar to those needed for nuclear ships and submarines, so the UK has to have a substantial pool of expertise in small nuclear reactors in order to maintain a credible nuclear submarine fleet.

Royal Navy submarine HMS Turbulent, one of the UK’s fleet of nuclear-powered subs (Pic: Royal Navy/Flickr)

A link between the civil and military nuclear programmes is always denied.

This may be true as far as transferring plutonium for bombs is concerned, but this is clearly not the case as far as personnel is concerned. Rolls-Royce, the British company most involved in both civil and military nuclear activity, will use the same people for both programmes.

Despite the current lack of expertise in the UK, there was optimism that it could become an exporter to the rest of the world of the small modular reactor technology, with 67% giving a thumbs up to this suggestion.

Progress assessment

The survey was part of a run-up to a Small Modular Reactor Summit in Londonin October, when 500 executives from the industry around the world will be meeting to assess progress.

They include many of the big companies currently building the 1,000 megawatt reactors that have dominated the market in the last 30 years.

Most of the industry now believes that this era is over, even though the UK government still wants 10 more built in Britain – a figure that is regarded as completely unrealistic.

This is mainly because getting the capital together for such projects is becoming ever more problematic because of the decade or so it takes to build a large reactor.

Later this week, the French energy giant EDF will make a decision on whether to go ahead with its plan for the first of the 10 planned in the UK − two giant reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England.

It is the difficulty of raising more than £20 billion to fund the project that is the main sticking point, although there are question marks over whether the design can ever be built and produce electricity at a competitive price.

This article wasproduced by the Climate News Network

The post Could every UK town have a small nuclear reactor? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ten new nuclear reactors came on line last year worldwide, and more new reactors are being built than at any time since 1990.

According to the report by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), there were 66 power reactors under construction across the world last year, and another 158 planned. Of those being built, 24 were in mainland China.

In what it promises will be an annual update of the industry’s “progress”, the WNA presents a rosy picture of the future of the industry, which it hopes will produce ever-increasing amounts of the world’s power.

Currently, the industry provides 10% of the world’s electricity, but its target is to supply 25% by 2050 − requiring a massive new build programme. The plan is to open 10 new reactors a year until 2020, another 25 a year to 2030, and more than 30 a year until 2050.

Vast increase

The industry regards this as vital to ensure that the governments of the world keep to their plan of keeping the planet from passing the internationally-agreed limit of a 2C rise in temperatures above pre-industrial levels. It says only a vast increase in new nuclear power, combined with renewables, can achieve this.

“The World Nuclear Association’s vision for the future global electricity system consists of a diverse mix of low-carbon technologies – where renewables, nuclear and a greatly reduced level of fossil fuels (preferably with carbon capture and storage) work together in harmony to ensure a reliable, affordable and clean energy supply,” the report says.

Despite its optimism, the WNA admits that the situation globally for the industry is “challenging”, particularly in Europe and the US, where low electricity prices are making nuclear power uneconomic.

The brightest prospect is China, where nuclear power is shielded from market forces. Eight new reactors were connected to the grid in 2015, with many more scheduled for construction as part of China’s bid to phase out coal and improve air quality.

“There is great emphasis in the report on the continued operation of nuclear power stations well beyond their original design life”

The largest nuclear power exporter is Russia, and President Putin is offering countries generous terms, including providing the fuel for the reactors and then taking the waste back to Russia.

This plan, which ties countries into close partnerships with Russia, could be seen to pose political dangers for the countries concerned, giving Russia direct control over their energy supplies.

Many countries have chosen to ignore this potential problem. As a result, Russia’s national nuclear industry is currently committed to building new reactors in China, Hungary, India and Turkey, and is engaged with potential buyers in Jordan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, South Africa and Vietnam, among others.

South Korea and India are also quoted in the WNA report as boosting nuclear power with new commitments in 2015.

In Europe and North America, however, nuclear operators are struggling. In Europe, this is mainly because of political opposition in Germany and the fact that the French nuclear industry’s flagship new design, currently under construction, is badly delayed by cost overruns and time delays.

No impact on Hinkley Point nuclear plant scheme, says Amber Rudd https://t.co/00Po4T23yU by @AlanJonesPA pic.twitter.com/uWknKJE1La

— PA Media (@PA) June 29, 2016

The recent UK vote to leave the European Union, which took place after the WNA report was compiled, will make this situation worse. The British plan to build 10 new reactors, including four of French design, now seems much less likely to be realised.

In North America, the success of the shale gas industry has meant that nuclear power finds it hard to compete on price.

Aside from new build, there is great emphasis in the report on the continued operation of nuclear power stations well beyond their original design life.

It says that, in many cases, there is no reason why, with regular refurbishment, many nuclear reactors could not continue in service permanently. In many cases, it says, it would be cheaper to refurbish an existing station than to build a new one.

The exception is the advanced gas cooled reactors operated in the UK. These have life-limiting factors that mean they will close well before the 60-year lifespan that reactors of other designs could easily manage, the report says.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Can nuclear really deliver 25% of global electricity by 2050? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Dungeness nuclear power station on the south coast of England (Flickr/ Simon Ingram)

By Paul Brown

Concerns are being raised about the billions of dollars being spent on research to design and build small nuclear reactors for electricity production

The world’s big powers are in a race to build a new series of small reactors, which they believe will combine with renewables to create a low-carbon future for the planet.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) have hardly been heard of by the public, but many billions of dollars are being spent in the US, China, Russia, the UK and France on research and development.

The nuclear industry believes the first reactors can be deployed as early as 2025, and the plan is for them to be sited close to towns to produce the local electricity supply.

Trump: Nuclear war a bigger threat than climate change

This week, leaders of companies from across the globe are meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, to assess progress on prototypes and to address the all-important question of licensing these new designs for safety.

The US government has already put $217 million into one commercial design, and is offering billions of dollars in loan guarantees for others.

Preferred designs

The UK government has just announced a competition to get the best design and has put £250 million into a fund to pay for research and development over the next five years.

Preferred designs will be picked later this year, and the UK plans to be a world leader in the technology, exporting small reactors across the world, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The industry says the smallest reactors could be produced on a factory production line and transported by large lorry, and the larger ones could be produced as prefabricated components to be assembled on site. This would vastly reduce both building costs and construction time.

In an editorial, the Nuclear Energy Insider newspaper expresses its enthusiasm for the strategy, but calls for “more resources to accelerate the development and approval of SMR designs so that consumers can benefit from lower costs and the UK’s nuclear renaissance can be cemented”.

The newspaper claims that the new designs will produce power at one-third of the cost of the planned Hinkley Point reactors in southwest England, where the 3,200 megawatt output will cost double the current market price of electricity.

“Multiple SMRs may actually present a higher risk than a single large reactor, especially if plant owners try to cut costs by reducing support staff or safety equipment per reactor”

So far, there has been no reaction from the British public to this commitment to a new generation of nuclear reactors, but that will no doubt come later this year when the government names the sites where it plans to build the SMRs.

Most likely locations for the first prototypes will be at existing nuclear sites where old reactors have been shut down or nuclear fuel is made. Another alternative is the land owned by the military, where no planning permission will be required, but this might not go down well with the public.

The new reactors can have an output of anything from 10 to 300 megawatts. This ranges from the needs of a small town to a very large one.

To be cost-effective, they need to be placed near towns, producing electricity where it is needed. What the local population will say to having a nuclear power station in their midst is hard to say – wind farms in Britain have raised such opposition that the government has allowed people to veto them.

Report: As memory of Chernobyl, Fukushima fades, activists renew nuclear warning 

The alternative is to group a whole series of these small reactors together so that they produce the same power as a large reactor, but critics wonder how this will keep down costs and are concerned about safety. Would a group of reactors need to be under a concrete shield to contain any accidental release of radioactivity?

Enthusiasts for the technology point out that small reactors are not new, with hundreds in operation across the world as power plants for submarines and icebreakers.

Critics accept that while the technology is known to work, the costs are unknown. Small reactors are for military use, and so economic considerations do not apply in the same way.

Efficiency and cost

British members of parliament on the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee were keen on the idea. Their report enthused that SMRs are designed in a way that allows them to be manufactured at a plant, brought to site fully constructed, and installed module by module, thereby potentially improving manufacturing efficiency and cost, while reducing construction time and financing costs”.

The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists points out the difficulties of placing small reactors close to centres of population and doubts that they can produce power more cheaply than larger ones. It points out that existing commercial reactors originally got bigger and bigger to produce economies of scale.

Report: Renegade’ UK physicists say they’re on fast track to nuclear fusion 

The scientists accept industry claims that smaller reactors are inherently less dangerous than larger ones, but argue: “While this is true it is misleading, because smaller ones generate less power than large ones, and therefore more are required to meet the same energy needs.

“Multiple SMRs may actually present a higher risk than a single large reactor, especially if plant owners try to cut costs by reducing support staff or safety equipment per reactor.”

Their report concludes: “Unless a number of optimistic assumptions are realised, SMRs are not likely to be a viable solution to the economic and safety problems faced by nuclear power.”

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Are small nuclear reactors a clean energy solution? appeared first on Climate Home News.

A member of the International Atomic Energy Agency surveys the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station on a 2015 visit to discuss decommissioning plans with the Japanese government (Credit: Susanna Loof / IAEA)

By Alex Pashley

As aides escorted him past swaying chandeliers to a panic room, the mind of Japan’s prime minister flashed to his country’s seaside nuclear power stations. 

Tremors in Tokyo meant tsunamis, Naoto Kan, a physics graduate, feared. It was 11 March 2011.

The next day 250km north-east of the capital, three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant went into meltdown as cooling systems failed.

Large explosions shot radioactive materials into the atmosphere following a barrage by 20-metre waves. Over 100,000 residents were evacuated.

Under worst case scenarios, the fallout could affect 50 million citizens – and envelop the capital – specialists informed the leader. 

“Only a great world war would have had the same impact,” Kan, now an opposition lawmaker, told an anti-nuclear event in the UK Parliament on Thursday.

“My thoughts on nuclear power changed 180 degrees. The country would go down in ruin,” said Kan, a youthful man despite his 69 years.

Six months later he had resigned, public support for atomic energy bombed, and Japan resorted to ramping up fossil fuel imports as its 54 reactors were shut down.

Report: Japan delivers 26% emissions reduction plan to UN

It was an impassioned first hand account of the dangers of nuclear from a man who presided over the country’s worst national event since the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.

His speech as part of a panel on Thursday was timely. March 13 will mark the fifth anniversary of the accident, which some scientists say is the most catastrophic nuclear disaster in history.

Only Chernobyl – which will mark 30 years on April 26 – shares the maximum level-7 rating on a sliding scale. Mikhail Gorbachev – Russia’s leader at the time of the disaster  – was also due to give his account, but cancelled due to health concerns.

The event was a bid to instruct UK energy policy as it plans to builds its first nuclear station for a generation. Nuclear is touted as a lower carbon source of reliable baseload power.

Interest in the implications of a renewed nuclear power programme here is high. Forty MPs were registered to attend the event, said organisers.

The economics might still defeat the case for the £18bn ($26bn) Hinkley Point C reactor in Somerset, but do not underestimate the risks, the panel which included a Japanese policy researcher, a manager of a Fukushima evacuees centre and a UK academic, said.

Rates of thyroid cancer in young people are beginning to climb in Fukushima, just as they were found to in Chernobyl, the panel said. How to tackle nuclear waste is unresolved, and the benefits in tackling global warming are lower than stated.

“Don’t consider Fukushima as something that could never never happen to you. It could,” said Yoshiko Aoki, who runs a centre for evacuees 10km from the site.

Abandoned gas masks in the deserted site of Chernobly (Flickr/ Tim Suess)

Britain’s seven nuclear power stations supply 19% of its electricity, according to the Nuclear Industry Association. The government is mulling eight potential sites for new plants, the BBC reports.

A 2013 World Health Organisation report said there was a 4% higher chance of solid cancers for females exposed as infants in Fukushima. There had been no observed risk to the the general Japanese population and abroad, and predicted effects were “low”.

Still, nuclear is a flawed response to tackle climate change said Paul Dorfman, a professor at UCL’s Energy Institute and founder of the Nuclear Consulting Group.

“Nuclear is based on the coast or inland by water for cooling purposes. The first places that will be affected [by climate change] according to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers will be coastal regions,” he told Climate Home.

And a long planning process meant they wouldn’t come online early enough to significantly cut emissions, added Dorfman, who argued official assessments of the radiation threats from Hinkley, ran by French utility EDF had been downplayed. 

Safety over new reactors cannot be guaranteed he said, and the UK government was only insured up to $134 million in the event of an accident, whereas the Fukushima clean-up operation may cost $100-200 billion.

Report: Japan bucks trend as G7 quits coal

Away from the UK, China plans to build 40 plants. Other emerging nations like South Africa and India are also looking to harness the power of the atom.

The newly-inked Paris agreement’s exacting carbon reduction targets would appear to give a fillip to this energy source, with greenhouse gases needing to fall to zero by 2100.

But former PM Kan was unequivocal. Renewable power from solar and wind was the best solution to tackle carbon emissions. 

Japan whose emissions spiked as it imported natural gas and coal to fill its nuclear hole, could deploy enough solar photovoltaic cells to replace its atomic fleet within 5-10 years, he claimed. 

Tetsunari Iida of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies beamed of 200 communities installing solar panels in a new bottom-up “energy democracy”. But Japan, like any other, is not immune to political realities.

The Abe government, which has turned 2 reactors back on, intends for nuclear to supply 20-22% of electricity in 2030. Solar is forecast to account for just 7%, though analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance predict it slightly higher at 12%, still a fraction.

But scarred by the prospect of a catastrophic nuclear accident, any alternative is better, the panel said.

As the government declares certain zones safe, and evacuees return to rebuild after five years of a life displaced, Aoki of the evacuees centre warned.

“You don’t want to be apologising to your own children or grandchildren for making a big mistake… Please learn from Fukushima,” she said.

The post As memory of Chernobyl, Fukushima fades, activists renew nuclear warning appeared first on Climate Home News.

Pacific Heron, one of the two ships moored in England before heading to transport plutonium (Pic: CORE)

By Paul Brown

Two armed ships set off from the northwest of England this week to sail round the world to Japan on a secretive and controversial mission to collect a consignment of plutonium and transport it to the US.

The cargo of plutonium, once the most sought-after and valuable substance in the world, is one of a number of ever-growing stockpiles that are becoming an increasing financial and security embarrassment to the countries that own them.

So far, there is no commercially viable use for this toxic metal, and there is increasing fear that plutonium could fall into the hands of terrorists, or that governments could be tempted to use it to join the nuclear arms race.

All the plans to use plutonium for peaceful purposes in fast breeder and commercial reactors have so far failed to keep pace with the amounts of this highly-dangerous radioactive metal being produced by the countries that run nuclear power stations.

The small amounts of plutonium that have been used in conventional and fast breeder reactors have produced very little electricity − at startlingly high costs.

Out of harm’s way

Japan, with its 47-ton stockpile, is among the countries that once hoped to turn their plutonium into a power source, but various attempts have failed. The government, which has a firm policy of using it only for peaceful purposes, has nonetheless come under pressure to keep it out of harm’s way. Hence, the current plan to ship it to the US.

Altogether, 15 countries across the world have stockpiles. They include North Korea, which hopes to turn it into nuclear weapons.

The UK has the largest pile, with 140 tons held at Sellafield in north-west England, where plutonium has been produced at the site’s nuclear power plant since the 1950s. The government has yet to come up with a policy on what to do with it – and, meanwhile, the costs of keeping it under armed guard continue to rise.

Like most countries, the UK cannot decide whether it has an asset or a liability. The plutonium does not appear on any balance sheet, and the huge costs of storing it safely − to avoid it going critical and causing a meltdown − and guarding it against terrorists are not shown as a cost of nuclear power.

Report: Taiwan election points to nuclear phase-out by 2023

This enables the industry to claim that nuclear is an attractive and clean energy-producing option to help combat climate change.

The two ships that set off from the English port of Barrow-in-Furness this week are the Pacific Egret and Pacific Heron, nuclear fuel carriers fitted with naval cannon on deck. They are operated by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd, which ultimately is owned by the British government.

The presence on both ships of a heavily-armed security squad − provided by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary’s Strategic Escort Group − and the earlier loading of stores and the craning on board of live ammunition point to a long, security-conscious voyage ahead.

The shipment of plutonium from Japan to the US falls under the US-led Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), or Material Management & Minimisation (M3) programme, whereby weapons-useable material such as plutonium and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) is removed from facilities worldwide for safekeeping in the US.

Report: ‘Renegade’ UK physicists say they’re on fast track to nuclear fusion

The cargo to be loaded onto the two UK ships in Japan consists of some 331kg of plutonium from Japan’s Tokai Research Establishment.

This plutonium – a substantial fraction of which was supplied to Japan by the UK decades ago for “experimental purposes” in Tokai’s Fast Critical Assembly (FCA) facility − is described by the US Department of Energy (DOE) as “posing a potential threat to national security, being susceptible to use in an improvised nuclear device, and presenting a high risk of theft or diversion”. Or, as another US expert put it, “sufficient to make up to 40 nuclear bombs”.

Under the US-led programme, the plutonium will be transported from Japan to the US port of Charleston and onwards to the Savannah River site in South Carolina.

Tom Clements, director of the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch, has condemned this import of plutonium as a material that will simply be stranded at the site, with no clear disposition path out of South Carolina. He sees it as further evidence that Savannah River is being used as a dumping ground for an extensive range of international nuclear waste.

Prime terrorist material

The British group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) has for decades tracked the transport of nuclear materials round the world.

Their spokesman, Martin Forwood, said: “The practice of shipping this plutonium to the US as a safeguard is completely undermined by deliberately exposing this prime terrorist material to a lengthy sea transport, during which it will face everyday maritime risks and targeting by those with hostile intentions.

“We see this as wholly unnecessary and a significant security threat in today’s volatile and unpredictable world.”

The best option, CORE believes, would have been to leave it where it was, under guard.

From DOE documents, this shipment will be the first of a number of planned shipments for what is referred to as “Gap Material Plutonium” – weapons-useable materials that are not covered under other US or Russian programmes.

In total, the DOE plans to import up to 900kg of “at risk” plutonium − currently held in seven countries − via 12 shipments over seven years. Other materials include stocks of HEU – the most highly enriched plutonium,(to 93%), also being supplied to Japan by the UK.

The voyage from Barrow to Japan takes about six weeks, and a further seven weeks from Japan to Savannah River − use of the Panama Canal having been ruled out by the DOE in its documents on the shipment. Previously, the countries near the canal have objected to nuclear transport in their territorial waters.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Armed ships embark on secretive plutonium mission appeared first on Climate Home News.

Known as “nuke 4”, Lungmen plant has cost US$10 billion to build, but its future is uncertain (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)

By Megan Darby

Taiwan is facing a phase-out of atomic power, with nuclear sceptic Ing-wen Tsai tipped to win a presidential election on Saturday.

The island state’s three operating nuclear plants are due for retirement by 2023. A fourth, 90% built, was mothballed last year in response to protests from a public spooked by Japan’s Fukushima disaster.

Opinion polls predict a landslide victory for Tsai, with her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in with a chance of its first ever parliamentary majority.

Her vision of a “nuclear-free homeland” has been dismissed as “unrealistic” by the incumbent Kuomintang (KMT) party.

The exclusion of a major source of low carbon electricity, which accounts for 19% of supply, raises tough questions about Taiwan’s climate goals.

Kwang-yin Liu, reporter for Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine, told Climate Home by email: “No matter which party takes office – KMT or DPP – the challenges will be the same: with the policy of decommissioning the old nuclear reactors in place, Taiwan will need to increase its budget dramatically in developing renewable energy sources in order to cut emissions.

“However, [with] an absence of both the political will to raise the electricity price and a clear roadmap to investing in renewables, these goals are almost impossible to achieve.”

Report: Taiwan aims to lead mainland China with climate plan

Taiwan is responsible for an estimated 0.55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet it is excluded from UN forums, including the climate body. Beijing insists the breakaway province, functionally independent since the end of World War II, will eventually be reintegrated with mainland China.

Despite its diplomatic isolation, the government in Taipei has set emissions targets: a 20% cut from 2005 levels by 2030 and a halving by 2050.

The climate agenda had a lower profile in this election campaign than the last in 2012, said Chia-Wei Chao from the Green Citizen Action Alliance.

Tsai’s DPP committed to support renewables and energy efficiency, but didn’t refer to the long-term goal. Nor have an energy tax or climate adaptation strategy been much discussed this time round.

Setting out her green energy platform in September, Tsai predicted NT$1 trillion (US$30 billion) of investment in the renewables sector.

“The time is ripe for Taiwan’s green energy development — what we lack is a government determined to see it through,” she said in remarks reported by the China Post.

Analysis: Diplomatic limbo lets Taiwan dodge climate responsibility

Tze-Luen Lin, energy and climate expert at National Taiwan University, expressed confidence the emissions targets were attainable.

“Some people argue that we need nuclear to meet that challenge, but I think there is still some room for energy efficiency,” he told Climate Home.

The shallow Taiwan Strait offers scope for large scale offshore wind farms, but such projects have been slow to take off.

“It is very possible for government to speed up investment and create a better environment for business,” said Lin.

The biggest challenge will be transforming the manufacturing-led economy, in Lin’s view: curbing the carbon footprints of heavy industries like steel.

The post Taiwan election points to nuclear phase-out by 2023 appeared first on Climate Home News.

China’s first experimental fast breeder reactor under construction in 2004. (Flickr/ Petr Pavlicek/IAEA)

By Zhang Chun

Efforts to speed carbon cuts pledged under the Paris climate deal will require a fast, mass mobilisation of low carbon technology at costs that can be competitive with coal, a task to which nuclear power will likely be unsuited.

So says a new version of the World Nuclear Energy Industry Status Report, which tracks developments in the sector and provides outlooks based on developments energy and climate policy.

Time is the main enemy of the world nuclear industry, says Mycle Schneider, the author of the report which had its abridged version published in Beijing this week.

“Everyone needs to speed up energy transition, and cheap quick technology is going to be the first choice,” he said, pointing to figures in the report which indicate that 70% of the 60 or so reactors currently worldwide are delayed. Five of these have been listed as “under construction” for over 30 years.

Report: China top officials outline greener five year plan

The 40 reactor units built between 2005 and July 2015 had an average construction time of 9.4 years, suggesting that a fast-roll of the technology in future decades is highly unlikely.

In China, where 18 units are under construction, the average construction time is faster at 5.7 years.

And as nuclear power has already suffered three major accidents (Three Mile Island in the US, Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, and Fukushima in Japan), higher safety demands raise standards for construction and operation, ensuring that the majority of postponements or cancellations of nuclear power plants were due to excessive costs, Schneider adds.

Meanwhile, wind and solar power are being rolled out at a much faster pace. Between the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and 2014, growth in solar and wind capacity outstripped that in nuclear power. Nuclear power peaked in terms of share of energy production in 1996, at 17.6%, falling to 10.8% in 2014.

Report: Nuclear faces tough 2015 as renewables growth soars

Even in China, which is bucking the trend by persisting with plans for nuclear power, the outlook for build-out is looking increasingly uncertain, as nuclear power faces both high costs and fierce competition from other energy sources in the electricity sector.

Wang Yinan, a researcher at the State Council’s Development Research Centre, is opposed to large-scale development of nuclear power, believing the risks involved are too great. The latest technology, known as Generation III+, is unproven in practice, with none of these new reactors yet in operation. To compound the problem, regulatory staff and engineers are not yet up to speed with the new technology, raising concerns about safety.

As Schneider puts it, those capabilities take time to build up – it’s not just a matter of taking a training course in nuclear power. And in a country as densely populated as China, an accident could be catastrophic.

A frenzy of construction in new coal-fired power stations and a rapid expansion of wind and solar power, has placed China’s with an electricity market in surplus. But China has approved new reactors in all of the last six years, with the exception of 2011 when a moratorium was placed after the Fukushima disaster.

Report: ‘Renegade’ UK physicists say they’re on fast track to nuclear fusion 

National Development and Reform Commission plans would see China reach 58 gigawatts (GW) of installed nuclear power generating capacity by 2020. However as only 51 GW of capacity is already in operation or under construction, it is very unlikely this target will be reached, given that length of time it takes to build new nuclear.

However some think that on current trends at least, nuclear power is essential. Lan Ziyong, chief engineer for the China Nuclear Energy Association is one. He outlines two reasons why it is needed. “First, to meet our emissions commitments; second because wind and solar power are not stable enough.”

The future will depend on whether or not technology can keep up with the trends. Yang Fuqiang, Senior Adviser on Climate, Energy and Environment for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that it would be feasible for nuclear power to provide 10-12% of China’s energy, up from the current 3%.

“If there are new breakthroughs in nuclear technology and current safety concerns are resolved, nuclear power may yet have a longer lifespan,” Yang points out.

This article first appeared on China Dialogue 

The post China’s prospects for big nuclear fade post-Paris appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Lance Cheung/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn in Paris

A new global climate agreement, to be reached this week in Paris, will accelerate a global low-carbon transition, given some 185 countries have pledged new, strengthened, greenhouse gas emissions targets, alongside a blizzard of climate-related news and releases.

Parsing the exact winners from a low-carbon transition, through the lens of the two-week conference which ends on Friday, is an inexact science, given the vagueness of announcements.

One approach is to name-check the technologies mentioned in the national pledges; in the thousands of speeches and side-events; and in the new funding and deployment targets. Another approach is to review the circulating analysis and commentary.

IN DEPTH: Breaking energy and carbon analysis

The International Energy Agency (IEA) analysed the energy-related impacts of the national emissions pledges, also called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). “The most common energy-related measures are those that target increased renewables deployment (40% of submissions), or improved efficiency in energy use (one-third of submissions),” the IEA said, adding that the pledges collectively would required $14 trillion additional investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency through 2030.

All pledges would limit emissions in the energy sector, whether through specific targets or vaguer policies and measures, but “only a handful of countries” mentioned other measures to cut energy sector emissions, the IEA said, such as phasing out of inefficient coal plants, lowering methane emissions from oil and gas, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon pricing, or other specific technologies such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage and low-carbon transport.

Turning to the business side events during the Paris conference, the Lima Paris Action Agenda held whole-day events along the themes: agriculture; forests; transport; renewable energy; energy access and efficiency; resilience; cities; private finance; business; innovation; buildings; and short-term pollutants. This is only a check-list of the most impacted sectors.

On specific targets, the standout announcement was made by India and France last week for an “international solar alliance”. The two countries sought to mobilise more than $1 trillion by 2030 to boost solar power in 120 developing countries.

Others included an aspirational, African target to deploy an additional 300 GW of renewable energy by 2030, with $10 billion support from industrialised nations. Other targets included a Global Geothermal Alliance target to develop 50 GW of geothermal power by 2030; and support from some 53 major companies (including BMW Group, Coca Cola, IKEA and Swiss Post) for an RE100 initiative to source all their electricity from renewable sources, by no fixed deadline.

Turning to donor announcements, the United Nations compiled a summary at the midway point through the conference on Sunday. While the funding comprised a headline total of tens of billions of dollars, there was negligible or zero resolution by sector or technology, referring mostly to “climate finance” or “climate action”. Rare exceptions included: Iceland’s $10 million annual support for “geothermal development, sustainable land and ocean management”; and Norway’s $400 million annual support for tropical forests.

Finally, there has been a diversity of analysis around the Paris conference and a low-carbon transition. Regarding the impact of an ambitious Paris agreement, Barclays Capital two weeks ago compared the impact across a range of sectors, identifying the biggest winners as renewable energy, efficient lighting manufacturers and power transmission manufacturers, and the biggest losers as automotive, fossil fuels and oil and gas.

Barclays Capital also found losers, where the fossil fuel industry would lose around $34 trillion in revenues cumulatively from 2014-2040 as a result of the new, national climate action pledges.

Regarding winners from a low-carbon transition more generally, Goldman Sachs last week highlighted four “front runner” technologies: LED light bulbs; solar power; wind; and electric and hybrid vehicles. Along similar lines, two weeks ago, Bank of America Merrill Lynch highlighted nine “entry points” for investors: energy efficiency; wind; solar; renewable energy yieldcos; nextgen vehicles batteries and storage; nuclear; hydropower; diversified cleantech; and other cleantech.

The post Solar: The biggest winner from Paris climate talks? appeared first on Climate Home News.

High-density living leaves more space for nature, ecomodernists argue (Flickr/ Jimmy Tan)

By Alex Pashley

An attempt to bridge a political divide on how to combat climate change has backfired, with participants turning on each other.

Last week was the UK launch of the in-vogue movement of ecomodernism at a right-wing think tank in London.

For manifesto co-author Mark Lynas, it was a “screw-up of impressive proportions”, as ousted environment minister Owen Paterson seized its platform to blast what he calls the “green blob”.

Rather than constructively explore how ecomodernism aims to use science and technology to solve climate change, Paterson dominated the event with his anti-environmentalist agenda.

“Carbon dioxide isn’t a poison,” said the Conservative backbencher, who was fired from his cabinet post in 2014.

“If you did have very modest warming actually you would see crops grow further north, and you’d see growing yields.” Saving rhinos was a more immediate concern than climate, he said.

Mark Lynas: “Paterson looked entirely unperturbed throughout” > http://t.co/BPhkMOdyV9 https://t.co/fgjkcS7HNX

— Lawrence Carter (@lawrencecarter1) September 30, 2015

Ecomodernists seek to address the perceived failings of traditional environmentalism, with its hostility to technologies like nuclear power and genetically modified crops.

Founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus from California’s Breakthrough Institute argue intensive energy and farming methods are good for the environment, as they spare larger chunks of land from human intervention.

Lynas considered it a centre-left proposition, he later wrote in the Guardian, but thought it could transcend the political polarisation that typically characterise environmental debates.

But with Paterson’s think tank UK2020 hosting and several climate sceptic bloggers in the audience, the launch had a clear right-wing tilt.

Despite the guests’ intention to build consensus and move the political far right past its mode of seeing the environmental protection as a constraint on growth, the message was muddied.

Tory peer and self-described lukewarmer Matt Ridley voiced his support for fossil fuels to protect the world’s poor from polluting indoor wood stoves.

“We’re the only species that wants to use them. We don’t want to pinch Nature’s lunch,” he said.

Lynas’s frank assessment of the launch only prompted another round of debate on social media over how much ecomodernists could – or should – find common ground with sceptical figures.

But he remained optimistic, writing: “Our small attempt at ideological depolarisation was certainly ill-timed. But that does not mean it is necessarily doomed. I hope.”

The post UK ecomodernism launch ‘hijacked by climate lukewarmers’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

CEO David Kingham with stage two device of Tokamak’s bid to claim fusion energy. (Credit: AlexPashley)

By Alex Pashley

Doughnut-shaped and like a cored apple, could a pint-sized nuclear reactor recreate the sun on Earth?

A start-up in southeast England is betting on it. Tokamak Energy (TE), a privately funded venture 55 miles west of London, says it is pursuing “a faster way to fusion”.

The 16-strong team aims to convert the energy that fuels stars into electricity within ten years.

That would be a colossal feat of physics and engineering, and something that has eluded scientists since the 1950s.

The timeframe to reach what it calls a “Wright Brothers moment” is bullish.

In an industry scarred by rash proclamations of fusion’s arrival, the small spin-off of the nearby world leading Culham Laboratory is going against the grain.

Across the channel, government consensus and budgets back a £13 billion joint research effort in southern France seeking to produce fusion at power-plant scale.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or Iter, aims to start operations in the mid-2020s, and achieve fusion electricity by 2050 at the latest.

Yet so far it resembles vast quantities of concrete poured into the ground, with mounting setbacks pushing back the date the 35-nation endeavour starts mixing the fuel.

Enduring appeal

Fusion being just a generation away is a habitual refrain, observers scoff.

But glacial progress could stymie the race for fusion, as policymakers lose interest and divert research funds, warns TE chief executive, David Kingham.

“We’re now sure it’s possible to achieve fusion energy gain that’s much smaller than people conventionally think,” Kingham tells RTCC from the venture’s aircraft-style hangar H.Q. in an Oxfordshire science park.

Nuclear fusion’s appeal is enduring for a reason. It could produce near-limitless energy from abundant sources. Radioactive waste is minimal, there’s no risk of proliferation, and it produces zero greenhouse gas emissions.

As global temperatures continue their unrelenting climb, it could account for all our energy needs and do away with fossil fuels. Or that’s how the most Panglossian viewing goes.

Tokamak take their name for the Russian acronym meaning”toroidal chamber magentic coils” (Credit: RTCC)

Though there’s a hitch. Fusion is outstandingly complex. After decades of forward steps, the endeavour is more or less stuck in a rut, Kingham says.

The pursuit saw gains from the 1950s onwards, catalysed by the splitting of the atom, breaking records in 1997 when a British cooperative produced fusion energy.

The Joint European Torus (JET) at Culham generated 16 megawatts or 65% of the energy put in. The goal is to get net energy gain.

To achieve fusion, charged particles are heated up to over a million degrees and collided when they would usually stay apart.

The fuel is a mixture of deuterium and tritium, two isotypes of hydrogen. The first is found in seawater, while tritium can be made from lithium inside the reactor.

That creates a fast-moving soup called plasma. This needs to be confined or trapped, so the fuel can be kept hot and long enough for fusion to occur.

That’s the theory, though different methods exist, ranging from using lasers to magnets to confine the plasma.

Jet engines

TE have a five-step plan to get to their goal. Up to £300 million is required, and they have drummed up £10 million in investments, grants and tax breaks, so far to work early versions.

The aim is to roll them off the production line like jet engines. Kingham calculates 400-700 of the machines with 100 megawatt capacity could power the UK’s energy needs.

Their device is a tweaked spherical tokamak, a Russian acronym that stands for “toroidal chamber magnetic coils”. The plasma is heated using microwaves and has to be stabilised by controlling the shape of the magnetic fields.

Machines will use stronger ‘superconductor’ magnets and progress to liquid nitrogen to eventually helium gas to cool it down. But it’s one-twentieth of Iter’s size.

“The balance for us is being realistic about the risks. You can’t pretend there aren’t in both technological development and our ability to raise further investment.

“But the value of the goal is sufficiently high that people can justify taking a bold view,” he adds.

TE’s logic believes large amounts of energy can be saved by cooling the reactors less. That boosts chances of scoring finance, and scaling up the model to get to fusion.

Mind boggling

This disruptive technology and its optimistic timelines has ruffled feathers.

“I guess you could call us renegades, yes,” Kingham submits.

At a meeting sizing up fusion’s potential in July in the House of Lords, the country’s scrutinising upper chamber, Kingham and Steve Cowley, the head of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority traded barbs.

TE’s plan “boggles the mind,” Cowley said according to a transcript, fearing dents to the UK’s scientific credibility given its forecasts.

“[C]laims to investors of being able to get to fusion by 2018 drove us to say, “We need to have you at arm’s length,” charged Cowley, also director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.

Cowley argued the process for TE to get nuclear licensing would draw the process out at least ten or fifteen years after achieving fusion electricity. He sees 2040 as more realistic.

With the bulk of £171 million being invested through state funding Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, going to Culham, that reputation is key.

“We think we have the basic ingredients that give us a really good shot at trying to make rapid progress,” Kingham responded.

Tokamak Energy’s five-step plan to get to fusion (Credit: RTCC)

The venture says it is backed by new scientific evidence, and was given a fillip in August when the World Economic Forum named it a technological pioneer. Spotify and Dropbox have been past winners.

Howard Wilson, a fusion expert at York University, said he had seen nothing that suggested TE could “get ahead of the pack”.

Iter was the path to follow, with the knowledge arising from its construction giving the best chance to claim fusion, he said. It aims to produce 500 megawatts of power from 50MW of input.

Jonathan Menard, who directs the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade at Princeton University, a rival project, welcomed TE’s “different research line”, given Iter’s protracted problems.

But he insisted milestones were more relevant than timeframes. “The field has been burned by promises about making timescales, we’re reluctant to do that.”

And he urged patience in the race to achieve “one of the most scientifically challenging things humankind has ever done.” The weakness of solar and wind to shore up baseload power, which fusion could address, meant it deserved interest.

Report: G7 buoys climate talks with support for zero carbon goal

Growing realisation that the planet needs to halt emissions, with the G7 bloc of advanced economies calling for “decarbonisation of the global economy” by 2100, means interest will remain.

Other fusion initiatives are whirring in the US and Europe.

So too in China, Menard says, where the  world’s clean energy superpower is shovelling money into projects and PhD students without the West’s emphasis on value for money.

In spite of its complex challenges, Kingham is defiant in his outfit’s long-shot bet.

“There’s something fascinating about plasma and how you control these hot wriggly objects that aren’t like solids, liquids, or gases.

“It has to be something about producing the sun on earth.”

The post ‘Renegade’ UK physicists say they’re on fast track to nuclear fusion appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Bigstock)

By Paul Brown

The post Will China rescue Europe’s nuclear energy industry? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Olkiluoto reactor in Finland under construction (Pic: Flickr/BBC World Service)

By Paul Brown

The European nuclear industry, led by France, seems to be in terminal decline.

A new Finnish reactor has been cancelled, while French constructions are running into technical faults and severe financial problems.

The French government owns 85% of both of the country’s two premier nuclear companies – Areva, which designs the reactors, and Électricité de France (EDF), which builds and manages them. Now it is amalgamating the two giants in a bid to rescue the industry.

Even if the vast financial losses involved in building new nuclear stations can be stemmed, there is still a big question mark over whether either company can win any new orders.

Their flagship project, the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), billed as the most powerful reactor in the world, has two prototypes under construction − one in Finland and the second in France. Both of the 1,650 megawatt reactors are years late and billions of Euro over budget, with no sign of either being completed.

Disillusioned Finns

The Finnish government, once the most enthusiastic nuclear cheerleader in Europe, has lost patience with Areva. Finnish electricity company TVO has scrapped plans to build a second EPR in Finland.

This is because the first one, under construction at Olkiluoto since 2005, supposed to be finished by 2009, is not now expected to be producing electricity until 2018 – and even that may yet prove optimistic. It was intended  to be the first of a “worldwide fleet”.

The second EPR under construction, at Flamanville in France, is also seriously delayed, and possibly in even deeper trouble because of concerns about the quality of steel in the pressure vessel.

The components, forged in France by Areva, were already in place in the half-built reactor before questions over the carbon content of the vessel and its safety were raised and work was halted.

The knock-on effect of the inquiry into this safety glitch is that the Flamanville reactor will be delayed again. In a worst-case scenario, it would have to be part-dismantled or scrapped altogether.

This has also raised queries over the French company’s biggest potential export market, China. Two EPRs are being built in China, but checks are being made there too because these reactors may also have excess carbon in the steel. The suspect parts were made in France in the same forge as the Flamanville pressure vessel.

These delays and cancellations have placed a severe strain on Areva’s finances. In 2014, on revenues of €8.3 billion (US$9.2 billion), it lost €4.8 billion. Hence, the French government’s move to amalgamate the two companies to try to make one viable unit. In fact, EDF will take over Areva, which has not sold a new reactor since 2007.

Serious blow

This is a serious blow to the pride of a country that is seen as the world leader in nuclear energy, with 75% of its electricity coming from 58 reactors.

The French government is keen to rescue the industry, but had already decided against ordering any more reactors after the fiasco in building Flamanville, which was years late and over budget even before the latest hiccup.

All this leaves the UK as the last country in the world anxious to buy a French reactor. With a new Conservative government in power for less than a month, its energy policy is already in disarray.

Plans to build four 1,650 megawatt EPRs in Britain to produce 14% of the country’s electricity − announced before this month’s general election − look ever more unlikely.

Even with the first two at Hinkley Point in the west of England − where site preparations have been made, and a final agreement was expected with EDF this summer − nothing is likely to happen for months. The most likely course must now be cancellation.

Plans have been put on hold while EDF and Areva sort out the problems at Flamanville, and then try to find a way of financing the project. Four hundred workers on the Hinkley Point project have already been laid off.

Unfair state aid

The new British government is already facing legal challenges from Austria and Luxembourg and from various renewable energy groups over the state aid for this nuclear project.

Even if ministers see these threats off, it seems unlikely that anyone will commit to building new EPRs in the UK until at least one of the four reactors under construction in China, Finland and France is actually shown to work.

There is no guarantee that will happen in the next three years, so the chances of Britain getting any new nuclear power stations before 2030 are close to zero.

Currently, the UK is closing coal-fired stations to comply with European Union directives to combat climate change, but it has not developed renewables as fast as Germany and other European neighbours − claiming that new nuclear build would fill the gap.

It now looks as though the government will urgently need to rethink its energy policy.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Europe needs new energy policy as nuclear giants stumble appeared first on Climate Home News.

A research reactor at Reed College, US (Pic: Flickr/Don McCullough)

By Paul Brown

Nuclear plants have been getting larger and larger since they were first built 60 years ago, but now the industry, with US government backing, believes that small factory-built reactors will provide a new market.

Small modular reactors, known as SMRs, are not much different from the nuclear power plants that successfully power submarines and icebreakers. They do not need to be attached to the grid and can be scaled up and down in size depending on the power output needed.

The idea is that multiple plants could be built if required. The plan contrasts sharply with the existing power plants being built in Europe, America, China and India. These tend to have an output of more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) apiece, the equivalent of a large coal-fired plant.

The largest of all are the European Pressurised Reactors that are currently under construction in Finland and France, each with a design output of 1,600 MW. The UK hopes to build two EPRs on one site near Bristol in the West of England to provide 7% of the country’s electricity.

However, delays to the plants in Finland and France, now totalling years, with cost overruns in billions that have already doubled the price of construction, have cast doubt on whether anyone else will want to order one.

Safety claim 

In fact the British plans are currently on hold because the French company EDF is having trouble financing the £24 billion project.

The uncertainty is increased because both the Austrian and Luxembourg governments are taking the UK to court to object to unfair subsidies for the twin reactors that will, in their view, damage the renewable industry.

With the market for big nuclear power stations clearly in trouble, both the US and Britain have shown interest in their smaller cousins.

The idea is to cut costs and construction times by making the reactors on a production line, like automobiles, and shipping the parts to be assembled on site.

Both countries believe that the need for low carbon electricity sources will increase after the Paris climate summit in December and give the technology a boost.

The US last year put $217m into one SMR design for research and development and has just announced another $917m for nuclear research, a large percentage of which will go on developing this technology.

This new generation of reactors could produce as little as 30 MW, enough to power a small town. This makes then easier to construct and control – so that, in theory at any rate, the fear of a nuclear accident can be removed.

Orders needed

An industry summit to discuss these reactors is being held in Charlotte, North Carolina on 14 and 15 April. In an indication of the interest it is generating, 38 utility companies are attending, all potential customers, to hear those who are offering a series of designs.

Despite this enthusiasm, and how good the prospect sounds on paper, the amount of investment involved in achieving economies of scale is very large. A nuclear power plant production line needs a lot of orders to make it viable, and a pilot plant has yet to be licensed.

Dr. Glenn George, principal with KPMG’s advisory practice, and co-head of the company’s US Economics & Regulation group, quoted in the Nuclear Energy Insider, said he thought potential investors were still doubtful, and wanted to wait and see.

“The economic and financial advantages that come from easy siting and series production in a factory setting need to be weighed against SMRs’ smaller capacity and energy output. This places a high burden on SMRs to be cost-effective relative to large nuclear power plants,” he said.

“For the market for new nuclear plants, including SMRs, to flourish, there likely needs to be significantly more expensive natural gas, or an effective price on carbon, or both.”

Dr George said he thought that with the current price of gas the small reactors would not be able to compete with efficient combined cycle plants.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network 

The post UN climate talks may boost small nuclear reactors appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Bigstock)

By Paul Brown

With nuclear power falling ever further behind renewables as a global energy source, and as the price of oil and gas falls, the future of the industry in 2015 and beyond looks bleak.

Renewables now supply 22% of global electricity and nuclear only 11% − a share that is gradually falling as old plants close and fewer new ones are commissioned.

New large-scale installations of wind and solar power arrays continue to surge across the world. Countries without full grids and power outages, such as India, increasingly find that wind and solar are quick and easy ways to bring electricity to people who have previously had no supply.

Developed countries, meanwhile, faced with reducing carbon dioxide emissions, find that the cost of both these renewable technologies is coming down substantially. Subsidies for wind and solar are being reduced and, in some cases, will disappear altogether in the next 10 years.

Speed of installation

The other advantage that renewables have is speed of installation. Solar panels, once manufactured, can be installed on a rooftop and be in operation in a single day. Wind turbines can be put up in a week.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, continues to get more expensive. In China and Russia, costs are not transparent, and even in democracies they hard to pin down. But it is clear that they are rising dramatically.

Building of the proposed twin European Pressurised Water reactors, called Hinkley Point C, in Britain’s West Country is due to start in 2015, but the price has risen several times already. Estimated construction costs have now jumped from £16 billion to £24 billion − before the first concrete has even been poured.

The other problem with nuclear is the time frame. Originally, Hinkley Point C was due to be completed by 2018. This has now slipped to 2024, but even this is optimistic judging by the performance of the two prototypes in Finland and France, both of which are late and over budget.

The Finnish plant was due to open in 2009, but is still at least three years from commissioning. The French plant is five years overdue.

In many countries, there are plans on paper for new nuclear stations, and China, South Korea and India are among those that are continuing to build them. Other countries, particularly where private capital is needed to finance them, are putting their plans on hold.

Extend life

The US, which still has the largest number of reactors of any country in the world, is opting instead to extend the life of its plants. Many operators are considering applying for such extensions from 60 to 80 years. Provided they are up to modern safety standards, there seems no barrier to this.

Many other countries, including the UK, are extending the lives of their plants as long as possible, so the industry won’t be disappearing any time soon.

But one of the key problems for the nuclear sector is that reactors have been designed to be at full power all of the time. With renewables taking an increasing share of the market, a combination of nuclear, wind and solar can produce more electricity than required − leaving a problem of what to turn off.

A way round this problem being developed in Britain is large, strategically-based batteries. A five-megawatt battery, the largest in Europe, has just been commissioned in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in the middle of England.

This is charged up when there is too much power in the grid, and releases its energy when there is a surge in demand.

If, during a two-year trial, this works to smooth the peaks and troughs of demand, and cuts the costs of switching on expensive gas turbines, then a network of batteries will be installed across the country to harvest the intermittent supplies of renewables.

The only bright spot for nuclear at the moment is the development of small nuclear reactors. These are from 30 megawatts upwards and are designed to be built in a factory and assembled on site − a bit like wind turbines are.

These can be installed singly or in a series, depending on the demand. Their two greatest selling points are that they would be good in remote locations far from other power sources, and are said to be much safer than their larger cousins.

Price tag

However, a drawback is the price tag of around $3 billion dollars. Both the US and UK are supporting private firms in research and development, but commercial operation is a long way off.

Whether a small nuclear power station would be any more welcomed than a wind or solar farm to provide power in a neighbourhood is a question still to be tested.

Nuclear enthusiasts − and there are still many in the political and scientific world − continue to work on fast breeder reactors, fusion and thorium reactors, heavily supported by governments who still believe that one day the technology will be the source of cheap and unlimited power. But, so far, that remains a distant dream.

In the meantime, investors are increasingly sceptical about putting their money into nuclear − whereas renewables promise an increasingly rapid return on investment, and may get a further boost if the governments of the world finally take climate change seriously.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Nuclear faces tough 2015 as renewables growth soars appeared first on Climate Home News.

The French and British governments say nuclear energy will lie at the heart of ensuring the world weans itself off carbon polluting fossil fuels.

A statement released after a day of meetings between UK Prime Minister David Cameron and France President Francois Hollande says nuclear power has a “critical role to play in a cost-effective low carbon transition”.

It adds: “Today, we reiterated our resolve to work together towards achieving an ambitious and legally-binding agreement at the next COP in Paris in 2015, and to support an EU-wide emissions reduction target of at least 40% by 2030.”

Excellent meeting with my French counterpart Phillipe Martin: UK & France working together for ambitious EU climate change package
— Edward Davey (@EdwardDaveyMP) January 31, 2014

The UK and France supported a recent EU decision to aim for a 40% decarbonisation target for 2030, which was opposed by some smaller countries and the region’s energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger.

But both also opposed a high renewable energy target. The UK has aspirations to develop its shale gas reserves, while France has a huge nuclear sector.

Earlier today the UK’s largest nuclear site was closed after a radiation alarm was triggered by what officials say was a rise in ‘naturally occurring’ radon gas

The post Nuclear key to UN climate deal say France and UK appeared first on Climate Home News.

A tsunami caused Japan to shut down its nuclear reactors in 2011 (Source: Flickr/JuhaOnTheRoad)

By Sophie Yeo

The Japanese province of Fukushima has pledged to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2040, turning its 2011 nuclear disaster into an opportunity to tackle climate change.

The mayor of the region, which has a population of about two million people, hopes that community energy schemes will wean the region off fossil fuels completely in just over 25 years’ time.

Energy will be generated locally through community energy initiatives and will provide a clean and self-sustaining source of heat and electricity throughout the area.

A coalition of green energy groups welcomed the decision at a Community Power Conference held in Fukushima this week.

The scheme is regarded as a positive step to embrace renewable energy in Japan, where the national government remains pro-nuclear, despite widespread distrust of the technology and its regulation.

“The Japanese government is very much negative,” said Tetsunari Iida, director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Japan. “Local government like the Fukushima prefecture or the Tokyo metropolitan government are much more active, more progressive compared to the national government, which is occupied by the industry people.”

A recent survey found that 53% of Japanese people wanted to see nuclear power phased out gradually, and 23% wanted it scrapped instantly.

But Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe remains determined to restart the country’s nuclear power stations after the 2011 disaster forced them all to be closed down. This meant Japan had to rely more heavily on fossil fuels, including coal.

Nuclear power is seen by some as part of the solution to climate change, as it generates large volumes of energy without emitting carbon dioxide. But the fact that it generates dangerous radioactive waste makes it a controversial option.

Transition

Currently, Fukushima derives 22% of its primary energy from renewable sources. According to Stefan Schurig from the World Future Council, the price of clean energy is no longer an obstacle in making the transition away from fossil fuels.

“The cost of renewable energy has declined massively, so they’re more or less competitive with conventional types of energy,” he told RTCC.

A US$ 226 million floating offshore wind farm project is already in motion off the coast of Fukushima. One wind turbine is already delivering 2 megawatts of energy. By 2020, the goal is to have 143 turbines generating 1 gigawatts of wind energy, making use of the region’s considerable natural resources.

Iida told RTCC that local and metropolitan governments have a more progressive attitude towards climate change than at the central level, where he says industry maintains its stronghold.

The Japanese national government stunned other delegations at the UN’s climate change negotiations in Warsaw last November when it announced that it intended to backtrack on its previous commitment to reducing emissions by 25% on 1990 levels, to a 3.1% increase.

Iida added that community power schemes provided a sense of “local ownership, local participation” and that the nuclear disaster had changed the way people thought about energy.

He said: “Fukushima people are encouraged to set up community power all over the area.”

Leadership

A 100% renewables target is ambitious, not only domestically, but also globally. This week, the EU set its own tentative renewables target at 27% for 2030 as part of a package that many viewed as too limited in its scope.

In Germany 74 regions and municipalities have already reached 100% renewable energy status.

Nagano, the Japanese prefecture which hosted the Winter Olympics in 1998, has also pledged to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2050.

Schurig said: “There’s still a long way to go in Japan because the official government position is still very pro-nuclear, so it would be naïve to say this is an easy way, that we just need to set an example and other regions will follow.”

But he added that it was a positive step forward for an area that seemed hopeless following the devastation caused by the nuclear disaster.

“It’s one of the very few chances this place actually has,” he said. “I felt a very real hopelessness to cope with the situation, but also we need to change something, we need to look into the future.

“In setting this target, the mayor provides his people with a  new vision, with a positive spin that it the only possible strategy to convert this negative connection with Fukushima and spin it into a positive tone.”

The post Fukushima to use 100% renewable energy by 2040 appeared first on Climate Home News.

A 2010 protest outside Chevron meeting in Houston (Source: Flickr/Rainforest Action Network)

1 – Protests force fracking delay in Romania
US oil compant Chevron has postponed fracking work in the Romanian town of Pungesti following mass protests from about 300 local people. An equal number of riot police were called out to restrain the activists, but Reuters reports that some broke through, causing Chevron to delay activities for the second time in two months.

2 – Australia fire service should double its numbers
The Australian fire service will have to double their numbers by 2030 to cope with the increased bushfire risk caused by climate change, reports the Guardian. According to a new report from the newly independent Climate Council, Australia has just experienced its hottest 12 months on record, and the fire season will extend into October and March in the coming years.

3 – Japan signals return to nuclear power
Draft energy policies on the Japanese government website are the strongest indication yet that the country will return to nuclear power, due to the high cost and global warming implications of using replacement fossil fuels, Bloomberg reports. This is a shift from the government’s previous intention to phase out nuclear by the end of the 2030s.

4 – UK flood insurance scheme ignores climate change
The government’s new flood insurance scheme seriously underestimates the amount of homes in danger of flooding because it does not take into account the impacts of climate change, reports the Guardian. While the government’s own Climate Change Impact Assessment reveals that 970,000 homes will be at risk during the 2020s, their flood insurance deal covers just 500,000 homes.

5 – Thawing ice linked to Europe, US heatwaves
Thawing Arctic ice and snow is linked to worsening summer heatwaves and downpours in Europe, the US and other areas, say scientists in a new report. Reuters reports that this underlies the scale of the threat posed by global warming, but that some experts deemed the report “inconclusive”.

The post Protests halt Chevron fracking operations in Romania appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Bigstock)

By Alex Kirby

The combined contribution of wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy cannot provide enough power for the world to escape the ravages of climate change, according to four prominent scientists.

They say it is essential for society to use nuclear technology as well, though they acknowledge that it needs to be safer than many of today’s plants actually are.

The four scientists are James Hansen, formerly of NASA; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, from Australia’s University of Adelaide.

They make their inevitably divisive call in an open letter to environmental groups and politicians worldwide. The US news agency Associated Press (AP) was given an advance copy.

The letter says what is needed is to discuss the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change. It is a realistic suggestion, if you share the authors’ conviction that nuclear energy has a valid contribution to make.

But many environmental analysts and campaigners are vehement that the nuclear route is no option at all, some on safety grounds but others because it is so expensive. They say if the same money were spent on renewables, as happens in Germany, the problem could be solved sooner.

“The climate crisis demands significant low-carbon deployment today, and it is not clear if nuclear can meet that immediate challenge.”

The four scientists say this is unrealistic: they do not believe that new forms of renewable energy will be enough to let the world phase out fossil fuels within a few decades.

They write: “Those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough… with the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology”.

Dr Daniel Kammen is co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment at the University of California. He told the Climate News Network: “Nuclear power is certainly low-carbon in the use phase, but the problems with the nuclear fuel cycle, as managed today, are of: cost and extreme accidents.

“Today, nuclear power plants can cost as much as $10 billion for a 1500 MW plant and take a decade to construct. Neither needs to be the case, but at present both are part of the data of plants that are and have been built.

“The call by Hansen et al is for safe and economic nuclear power. If those conditions can be reliably met, it indeed makes a great deal of sense. So far, however, new plants do not meet these thresholds consistently…

“The climate crisis demands significant low-carbon deployment today, and it is not clear if nuclear can meet that immediate challenge.”

“We continue the plunge… and seem to be comfortable living with the devil we know – which will ultimately kill us.”

Dr Greg Mowry, of the School of Engineering at the University of St Thomas, Minnesota, said: “We may have already messed up the plant beyond recovery, because of greenhouse gases.”

For several reasons, including “public sentiment”, he said: “Nuclear does not seem to be viable at this point. And so we continue the plunge… and seem to be comfortable living with the devil we know – which will ultimately kill us.”

Hansen is credited with having persuaded the US Congress in 1988 of the gravity of climate change, helping to make it a key part of the world’s political and economic agenda. His colleagues all enjoy comparable respect for their work in climate science.

The four do not oppose renewable fuels, Emanuel said, but hope environmentalists will accept that “realistically, they cannot on their own solve the world’s energy problems.”

Hansen told AP environmentalists were “cheating themselves if they keep believing this fiction that all we need” is renewable energy. The joint letter says: “The time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems.”

The letter’s signatories acknowledge that there are risks, and say: “We understand that today’s nuclear plants are far from perfect.” But they say these risks are far smaller than that posed by extreme climate change.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Nuclear “essential” in climate fight say leading scientists appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Garthhh)

UK: The government has given the go-ahead for the UK’s first new nuclear station in a generation. France’s EDF Energy will lead a consortium, which includes Chinese investors, to build the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset. (BBC)

China: Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China’s largest cities, Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people, on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country’s first major air pollution crisis of the winter. (Reuters)

US: More than 150 Iowa professors and climate researchers have signed on to a statement released Friday that says extreme weather patterns caused by climate change are affecting farming, and updated practices are needed to prevent soil erosion and adjust to the new reality. (Yahoo Finance)

Australia: Retired Monash University researcher David Packham has said linking the bushfire disaster in New South Wales to climate change is “an absolute nonsense” and reducing fuel loads in the Australian bush is urgently needed. Packham says global warming is a gradual process which doesn’t explain major bushfires. (9 News National)

Research: Australian researchers have developed the “first rigorous framework” on how to relocate animals displaced due to climate change. The study, conducted by academics from four Australian universities and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), devised a formula on how to decide which species to relocate. (Guardian)

Report: Mongolia needs to spend up to $560 million per year between 2010 and 2050 to ensure its infrastructure can withstand severe weather conditions, a new report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says. (ADB)

UK: Dr Nigel Straw from the Forestry Commission says monitoring is key to organising a control to stop the spread of disease across England, Wales and Scotland which caused ash dieback in wild trees last year. The rise in global trade means pests that damage crops such as fungi, beetle and moths are now moving into new territories faster than other wildlife, aided by climate change. (BBC)

The post UK to invest in new nuclear generation appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Paul Brown

The Chinese are to help finance and build a new generation of nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom, helping out the French giant EDF which can no longer afford the £14 billion cost of the first station on its own.

The agreement, announced in China by George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer [Finance Minister] at the end of a visit, is bound to be controversial. Initially the Chinese will take only about a 30% interest in this first station, but in future reactor building programmes they will be allowed to own a majority stake.

The British Government deal with EDF, which already operates all the existing civil nuclear stations in the UK, is to heavily subsidise the new construction by guaranteeing the price of electricity for 35 years.

The exact price is yet to be announced but it is expected to be double the existing price of electricity and is sure to spark an inquiry by the European Union, which bans subsidies because they interfere with competition.

Many will see the decision to build two European Pressurized Reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset as extraordinary in view of the appalling cost overruns and delays of two similar ventures in Finland and France.

The same design of plant being built in Finland, Olkiluoto 3, is seven years late and billions over budget. Construction began in 2005 and the station was due to produce electricity in 2009. The latest estimate is that it will be on line in 2016.

EDF is building a second reactor at Flamanville in France. Work began in 2007, and the reactor was due to be completed in 2012 at a cost of 3 bn euros. Currently the completion date has slipped to 2016, and the cost has almost tripled to 8.5 bn euros.

“It may be shocking to some that businesses and investors from Britain… will not own the new generation of nuclear power plants, and they may instead belong to China’s nuclear power giants as well as to the French.”

Energy price rises

Mr Osborne claimed the deal was good for investment in Britain and for jobs, and asserted that it would mean lower long-term energy costs for consumers.

Despite his optimism EDF has already told British companies that they are unlikely to get many contracts. This is because it is 20 years since any British companies were involved in building nuclear power stations and they no longer have the expertise to do so. Most of the jobs are likely to go to French and Chinese companies.

Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, summed up some reaction in Britain: “When you think about the history of nuclear power, it may be shocking to some that businesses and investors from Britain – whose scientists and engineers were pioneers in this technology in the early days – will not own the new generation of nuclear power plants, and they may instead belong to China’s nuclear power giants as well as to the French.

“The Government is refusing to finance these hugely pricey projects directly – although it will allow the owners of any new nuclear generators to charge well above the current market price for any power they produce in years and decades to come, so that the billions in development and construction costs can be recouped.”

The announcement comes at a time when some older power stations in Britain are being closed because they are producing too much carbon dioxide and have not been modernised. The Government has been warned that Britain is in danger of power cuts in the next five years if there are cold winters.

However, the proposed nuclear stations will make no difference to this situation because they are likely to take 10 years to come on line if the current pattern of delays and cost overruns is repeated.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post China set to invest in UK nuclear industry appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Edik Berg)

Bangladesh: The NGOs appointed for different climate adaptation projects had to give as much as 20% of their project money as a bribe to government officials to have their funds released from Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF), reveals a study. (Daily Star)

UN: The UN’s civil aviation body reached consensus on 3 October for a roadmap to decide to create a market-based scheme curbing aviation emissions by 2020, but rejected an EU proposal allowing it to apply its Emissions Trading System (ETS) to foreign airlines in the interim. (EurActiv)

UK: A deal over subsidies for Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation could now be agreed within weeks, Michael Fallon, the energy minister, has said, which would cost an estimated £14 billion but is not expected to be running until the early 2020s. (Telegraph)

Canada: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s environment minister is casting doubt about scientific observations of melting summer sea ice in Canada’s north suggesting that scientific observations were not as important as the Harper government’s priorities in its new role as chair of a group of Arctic nations. (Canada.com)

UK: Foreign secretary William Hague has said that he had raised the case of Greenpeace activists accused by Russia of piracy with the Russian foreign minister Lavrov last week. Hague said the Foreign Office would continue to raise specific concerns Greenpeace had about due process or welfare with the Russian authorities. (Gov.uk)

US: As part of the ongoing effort to ensure that California is prepared for the impacts of climate change, the Climate Change Consortium for Specialty Crops has produced a report, “Impacts and Strategies for Resilience” which identifies recommendations to address the challenges posed by climate change to producers of specialty crops. (Lake County News)

UK: Sir Mark Walport, chief scientific advisor to the UK government, told the Royal Society that climate change experts need to learn how best to translate their findings for a wider audience. (RTCC)

Research: Bloomberg New Energy Finance has submitted evidence to the UK Parliament showing fracking will not bring down gas and electricity bills by as much as the government has promised voters. (RTCC)

UK: The head of the UK’s influential advisory Climate Change Committee has warned the government there can be no legal or economic justification to change the country’s current decarbonisation plans. (RTCC)

Denmark: Goldman Sachs, pension funds investor ATP and PFA Pension has committed to an investment of DKK 11 billion (over $2 billion) in Dong Energy to safeguard the future of one of the world’s biggest operators of wind farms, which is one of a number of European utilities struggling with high debt, weak power demand and the low profitability of the gas-fired power plants it also runs. (RTCC)

Research: According to new research from market analysts at IHS, global PV installations are forecast to exceed 40GW by 2014 for the first time, generating installation revenue of more than $86 billion. (RTCC)

The post Bangladeshi NGOs bribe government to release climate funds, says report appeared first on Climate Home News.

Chapelcross nuclear power station in south-west Scotland. (Pic: John)

By Paul Brown

The UK government insists it needs new nuclear power stations to replace ageing installations despite its safety watchdog granting lengthy extensions that could see old ones continue for decades.

The Coalition has been telling Parliament and the public that because eight large nuclear stations are scheduled to close over the next 10 years, the country needs urgently to construct new ones to keep the nation’s lights on.

Yet EDF, the French state-owned company that bought the eight nuclear stations in 2009 for £12.5 billion, has no intention of closing any of them.

A government spokesman denied that its statements were misleading and explained the apparent contradiction by saying that if the stations did not pass their periodic safety reviews then they would have to close.

However, there is no reason to believe they will fail safety tests.  The state safety watchdog, the Office for Nuclear Regulation, told Climate News Network that keeping them open is fine by them.

The stations are constantly monitored, and periodically have major safety reviews. As long as they remain safe, they can remain in operation, provided EDF wants them to. It is a commercial decision, the watchdog says.

Power generation

This strange situation means that if the government is successful in its policy of building eight new large nuclear stations, Britain will be getting almost half its electricity from nuclear power − something it has never told parliament or discussed as part of its energy policy.

Currently, EDF’s existing nuclear stations produce nearly 20% of the country’s electricity.  Until earlier this year, according to the government, two of them would be closing in 2016: Hinkley Point B in Somerset, England, and Hunterston B in north Ayrshire, Scotland, both of which came into operation in 1976.

These were supposed to be the beginning of a whole series of closures that the government used to argue that new stations were urgently needed.

However, EDF successfully applied for a seven-year extension to the lives of the two stations. The closing date for them has now changed on the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s website to 2023, but this could extend again to 2030, provided safety is still not an issue.

The policy of EDF is to continue going for life extensions for its reactors as long as it can. This means that five more stations that are due to close in 2018, 2019 and 2023, are all expected to be granted seven more years.

Cheap

To EDF, this rolling programme of seven-year extensions makes good economic sense. Nuclear power stations, once built, are reasonably cheap to run, and every country in the world keeps them open as long as possible.

Put simply, unless prohibitive costs are involved in periodically updating the safety requirements, running them makes considerable profits. The second reason is that it costs a minimum of £2 billion to decommission a nuclear reactor, according to the European Union, and there are two reactors at each of these EDF stations.

If they closed, that huge decommissioning liability would have to be shown on the nuclear generator’s balance sheet − figures that would soon overtake the net worth of the company, thus making it technically bankrupt.

A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokeswoman said she did not believe the government’s stance was misleading. The dates quoted for the closure of stations were their expected lifetimes, unless they were granted extensions. The government, she said, could not anticipate what would happen.

Meanwhile, the plans to build new stations continued – and the spokeswoman said EDF is still currently “inching forward” in its negotiations with the government on how to finance building them.

Costs

The cost of new stations is in stark contrast to the price EDF paid for the old ones.

The whole of British Energy cost EDF £12.5 billion to buy, for which it got eight large nuclear power stations, as well as considerable assets, including sites for new ones. This values the old stations, at best, at just over £1 billion each.

This is in contrast to the cost of building a new reactor of at least £8 billion, which is why EDF is unwilling to start on new ones until the government comes up with a generous guarantee of a minimum price for the electricity.  The price EDF is asking for would be double what consumers are currently paying.

The problem the government faces is that it was elected on the promise that it would not subsidise nuclear power. Various attempts to call a guaranteed price “a low carbon electricity tariff”, rather than a subsidy, have not satisfied critics.

This is also complicated because the European Union is also against subsidies, because they distort competition.

Despite this hurdle, EDF still plans to build new nuclear stations in Somerset and in Suffolk, England, although the decision to go ahead has been postponed several times.

The expected completion date of the first new station has been put back from 2018 to 2022, and even that is considered to be optimistic.

There is at least one other nuclear player in the market waiting to see how the negotiations go between EDF and the British government. This is the Japanese electronics giant Hitachi.

It plans to build new plants at other sites at Wylfa on the isle of Anglesey, Wales, and at Oldbury, in Gloucestershire, England. These proposals have also been welcomed by the government, but again no details of how much Hitachi will get for the electricity have been agreed.

Whatever happens, the Government spokeswoman said, it is still committed to its policy of new nuclear build to keep the lights on and ensure security of supply. 

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

The post Analysis: UK nuclear plans shrouded in mystery appeared first on Climate Home News.