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...