Renew Extra Weekly

France is having problems with nuclear power.  It was once the poster child for nuclear energy, which, after a rapid government funded build-up in the1980s based on standard Westinghouse Pressurised-water Reactor (PWR) designs, at one point supplied around 75% of its power, with over 50 reactors running around the country. Mass deployment of similar designs meant that there were economies of scale and given that it was a state-run programme, the government could supply low-cost funding and power could be supplied to consumers relatively cheaply. But the plants are now getting old, and there has been a long running debate over what to do to replace them: it will be expensive given the changed energy market, with cheaper alternatives emerging. At one stage, after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, it was proposed by the socialist government to limit nuclear to supplying just 50% of French power by 2025, with renewables to be ramped up.  That began to look quite sensible wh...

Time was when Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson talked about the ‘White Heat of Technology’ which was going to revolutionise UK Industrial growth in the 1960s.  Now Labour leader Keir Starmer is at it again, and this time it’s going to be Artificial Intelligence that will work its productivity enhancing magic on the UK economy.   AI, along with digitization, smart technology and automation, may indeed lead to higher efficiencies in many sectors, but that will also mean job losses. Some hope that the money saved will be invested new production so creating more jobs to compensate for the lost jobs and that the new jobs will be better paid and higher skilled. But it’s also possible that it will be (costly) skilled jobs that go and lower grade jobs that are left over. Plenty to debate there- some of it very grim . Add to that, AI could enhance the political risks associated with the centralised power of the newly emergent high technology-based billionaire elite, what, in h...

US President elect Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that ‘the UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of the windmills.’ He was, it seems, objecting to the UK windfall tax on excess oil and gas profits, newly expanded to 38% and extended to 2030, and to Labours plans to build many more offshore wind projects while cutting back on new oil and gas well projects. Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, said: ‘ The US president-elect is speaking not on behalf of people in the UK, but his own ‘drill baby drill’ agenda and the Big Oil bosses who poured millions into his campaign.’ A UK government spokesperson said: ‘Our priority is a fair, orderly and prosperous transition in the North Sea in line with our climate and legal obligations, and we will work with the sector to protect current and future generations of good jobs. We need to replace our dependency on unstable fossil fuel markets with clean, homegrown power controlled in Britain – which ...

Given the UK’s tight economic situation, there were some concerns about backsliding on renewables and watering down plans to fully decarbonise the power grid by 2030 after PM Starmer said, at the end of last year, that the target was now to have ‘at least 95%’ clean power generation by that year, i.e. lots more renewables plus some new nuclear, but not totalling 100%.  However, Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband said the remaining 5% was due to the need to maintain a strategic gas reserve. Well it is wise to have a reserve margin, and it does seem that these plant will have Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) added. But it will be quite challenging to get down to 5%, and all with CCS, by 2030, given that fossil gas fired plants supply around 30% of UK power at present and there are as yet no full scale gas CCS plants working in the UK. The first ones look like, at best, they won’t be starting up on Teesside/Humberside until 2028.    He also said nuclear power was vital, and that...