Renew Extra Weekly

This summer has seen nuclear power facing some big climate problems. Six of the seventeen reactors that have been out of service due to the heat wave in Europe are on the Danube – four in Hungary two in Romania. The river levels began to fall. In France , EDF temporarily shut down units on the banks of the Rhône, Meuse & Garonne rivers, to comply with regulations on the release of cooling water. Eight other reactors operated at reduced capacity. In all 6.4GW was lost in France , with jelly fish adding to the problem.  To add to EDFs ongoing cash issues, the almost new Flamanville 3 EPR is now to shut for a year for a refit of the reactor containment vessel- a new lid has to be installed. None of this make nuclear look very robust- or economic. No wonder then that Greenpeace Spain says it would be cheaper to shut the Almaraz n-plant than to continue its operation, although it’s been allowed to run to 2030. However, it’s not all bad news for nuclear. On the political front, th...

 The UK energy policy debate seems to reaching some sort of political break point. The Labour government is continuing to push net zero, but the right of centre view is that it, and renewables, are undermining the UK economy by pushing up energy costs.  And, instead,  coal, gas & nuclear are favoured, as in a new report from Tory-leaning think tank Onward, backed by shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho . But there were bitter green responses. And the Onward report was challenged by Carbon Brief - gas won’t be cheap. Neither will new nuclear.  However, Labour also has another, slightly separate, problem. It is under pressure from industry and some unions to support more gas drilling, even though few see new drilling as very helpful economically, and some say it could be disastrous in climate terms.  Or would it?  Some say not, if carbon capture and storage (CCS) was backed as a compensatory measures .   But CCS is still unproven at scale an...

 Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is booming, but it’s still not clear what its net impacts will be in energy/carbon terms- views differ. However, it is clear that there is a growing drive to use it more and more- with big profits to be made by whoever powers the growth. Not surprising then that all the usual suspects have turned up for a share in the proceeds – most obviously power plants powered by fossil gas, but also nuclear and renewable energy.   AI data centres are not exactly popular, since, ideally, they need to be near centres of population, where data processing demand is large. Although AC power can transmitted over long distances (a few hundred miles) without too much energy loss, digital data info is more sensitive - there are latency (delay) effects over long distance.   And rather than the use local mains grid power, it’s common for AI centres to set up their own local dedicated power units.  Such is the scale of the AI boom that all ...

 As wild fires spread around continental Europe, and also hit the UK, an unusual consensus seemed to emerge in UK press - climate change is real and we need to act urgently on clean energy. You would  expect the Guardian to say things like that, but the Telegraph ran an opinion piece saying that ‘the right needs to get serious about climate change’ and another saying that party leader Kemi Badenoch ‘must reverse course on net zero before she destroys the Tories’.  She did come back with a response , but it was mainly left to others to maintain the contrarian view, with, for example, John Constable , one time editor of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, saying ‘Climate change is real, but it is an unfortunate fact that renewables are useless.’ And in a Prosperity Institute paper, ‘Good Money After Bad- The Spiralling Costs of British Green Energy Initiatives and What We Can Do About It’, David Turver developed the contrarian view in more depth – with endorsement...

 While renewables are being supported in the UK by private sector investment, most recently via the Contracts for Difference market system, with no direct government cash input, over 70% of the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero expenditure is now nuclear related. DESNZ’s annual report and accounts says that ‘Great British Energy – Nuclear has remained a key component of the Government’s approach to energy security and decarbonisation, with work continuing to support the delivery of new nuclear projects, providing greater certainty for industry and investors, supporting highly skilled jobs across the supply chain, and contributing to a resilient, low carbon energy mix’.  It notes that through the Spending Review the department secured a capital settlement of £62.8bn from 2025-26 to 2029-30 and a resource settlement of £5.8bn from 2026-27 to 2028-29, including £8.3bn for GBE/GBE-Nuclear including SMRs and £14.2bn for the new Sizewell C European Pressurised-water Reac...

 The soon to be UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is being portrayed as a ‘new broom’ that could, or might, adopt better polices in all areas. Well, what about the energy sector?   It’s in a mess, economically, driven by high fossil gas prices, with retail electricity prices at an all-time high, despite renewable energy doing well (65 GW so far) with its wholesale price mostly being low. It’s in a mess technologically, at risk of undermining the crucial next stage of its important renewables programme by diverting cash to support major high-cost nuclear and fossil carbon capture and storage projects.  Both of these programme involve multi-billion funding. The much delayed Hinkley Point nuclear plant may end up costing £40-50bn, inflation adjusted, when it finally gets completed, probably in 2030. Its follow-on project, Sizewell C, may not do much better, despite promises about learning from Hinkley, and despite the investment risks being met by a consumer levy.  ...