Renew Extra Weekly

UK Minister for Energy Michael Shanks reportedly said that ‘Fusion has the potential to provide virtually limitless clean energy’. That’s a dream that some now see as getting a bit more real.  The UK has form in this area. It was a pioneer in nuclear fusion, with the ZETA device built at Harwell in the late 1950s getting, briefly, a very good press: there was front-page newspaper coverage saying it was a breakthrough towards unlimited energy. Sadly, and embarrassingly, it turned out not to be the case .   However, the UK persevered with fusion over the years, for example playing host to JET, the Joint European Torus test unit at UKAEA Culham. And now the UK government has committed more than £2.5 billion over five years to new nuclear fusion , including £1.3 billion for UK Fusion Energy to deliver the STEP programme (a spin-off from Culham)  in partnership with industry. A further £740 million is earmarked for research and development infrastructure and facilities....

 The future may look bit uncertain, with technologically-heightened challenges proliferating: for example, there’s the growing impacts of climate change, but also of AI, that now being portrayed as a new existential threat, with calls for a halt or delay in its development- even from the Pope!  Quite apart from the local impact of AI/data centres, there are certainly some big issues .  Just as there are with climate change. We are struggling to deal with the later- mainly by pushing for renewables. But not everyone agrees.  And it’s the same for AI. For example, in September, addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, US president Donald Trump said we should not to block AI, which he called ‘superintelligence’, adding that the people who warn that it is going to ‘kill us’ are the same ones who warned about global warming. Which evidently, unlike AI, he does not believe in. That is why he is so against renewables and so pro coal. It is good to have it all laid o...

With the energy policy debate churning on, I thought I would look back at what has sometimes been seen as useful metric for comparison of energy options - Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI). That’s a measure of how much energy you have to use to build (and where relevant, run) an energy supply system, compared with how much energy you get out of it over its lifetime of operation. For example, as fossil fuel resources get scarcer and harder to extract, the EROEI ratios for their use are falling (e.g. from 44:1 in 1950, to 8:1 in 2020 for oil) this being one more reason why they are on the way out .  In terms of the non-fossil energy options, in some (but not all) studies I have seen, renewables generally do much better than nuclear, their only supply side rival, which should be no surprise, since (bio energy systems apart) renewables do not need any fuel to run. With nuclear, energy has to be used to mine, mill and process uranium ore into fuel, and the amount of energy needed...

 ‘I am determined that we meet the commitment on which Labour was elected and reach net zero by 2050.’ So said UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham - although still not coming off the fence on the oil and gas issue (see my last post ). But he was adamant that ‘the climate crisis presents us with an enormous challenge and possibility. In the coming years, we need to change the way we travel, the way we build homes and the way we produce energy. I have long seen the green transition as the best chance we will ever have to reindustrialise Britain.’  However, he said, ‘I believe there are two routes we can follow. There’s the traditional Whitehall way: make people pay for the change with more regulation and higher costs, and allow private companies to reap the rewards. Or we can pursue a different route: help people make the change by creating jobs, lowering bills and bringing power back to them’.  And he strongly backed the community energy ‘peoples power’ approach being develope...

Renewables now supply over 52% of UK power, and are booming.  For example, onshore wind power capacity entering the planning system ‘has more than tripled since Labour dropped the blocks on onshore developments within days of coming to power just over two years ago’ according to the Guardian , and its onward development could save UK £3bn a year. Offshore wind and solar are booming too and can make further major contributions. Biomass is also making a contribution and more is possible. Although there are concerns about the sustainability of using imported forestry products, biogas produced from food and farm waste is a locally sourced option , with room for growth in AD generally.  Tidal energy is also under development with projects in Scotland and Wales, and there’s a new geothermal project in Cornwall. All in all, renewables seem to be doing quite well, and expansion is planned so that they supply the bulk of UK power by 2030, with 77-82% of power coming just from wind ...

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...