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News June 2021

Wylfa

The Welsh Government has been urged to allow Gwynedd Council to speed up a review of its planning blueprint amid concerns over the housing crisis engulfing parts of the region. Adopted in 2017 as a requirement for all local authorities, Anglesey and Gwynedd’s Joint Local Development Plan (JLDP) forms the backbone of both councils’ planning policies and earmarks where up to 8,000 new homes should be built. When drawn up four years ago the plan assumed that the area would need to house thousands of workers to help build and eventually work at the proposed Wylfa Newydd development in northern Anglesey, impacting communities not only on the island but also northern Gwynedd. But following the apparent demise of the nuclear build and an unprecedented skyrocketing in house prices – partially prompted by an ever rising number of properties being snapped up as second homes – calls have been made for an urgent review of the “outdated” and “not fit for purpose” plan to meet locals’ current needs.

Nation Cymru 28th June 2021 read more »

Nuclear Policy

GMB – the energy union – has told Ministers ‘no nuclear – no net zero’ as the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy releases its ‘Roadmap to 2024’. The report, out today, says the UK must ‘restore nuclear capacity to at least 10GW with deployable technologies, by the early 2030s’. GMB members working in the nuclear industry have been helping provide low carbon energy since the 1950s, while investment in nuclear supports more jobs than any other large-scale low carbon and renewable alternatives.

GMB 29th June 2021 read more »

The government has today been urged to make sure that the country has at least 10 gigawatts of operational nuclear capacity by the early 2030s as the current fleet of power plants begin to be shut down. In a new report, the cross-parliamentary group for nuclear power urged ministers to commit to new nuclear projects in order to keep on track to achieve its net zero goal. Developing such capacity would put the government in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in its latest carbon budget.

City AM 30th June 2021 read more »

Renewable Policy

UK renewable energy capacity to more than double by 2030. GlobalData projects the nation’s clean energy capacity to increase from 46.7GW in 2020 to 110.5GW by the end of the decade. Renewable energy capacity in the UK is expected to more than double by 2030, powered by significant growth in the wind power sector. That is according to a report by data and analytics firm GlobalData, which projects the nation’s renewable power capacity to increase from 46.7 gigawatts (GW) in 2020 to 110.5 GW by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9%. The UK government has committed to reaching net zero on greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and offshore wind is a key component of its strategy to achieving its climate goals. The country has about 35% of the global wind capacity installed and is already home to seven of the world’s 10 biggest sites, with its Dogger Bank project in the North Sea set to become the largest of its type.

NS Energy 29th June 2021 read more »

AGRs

Slaughter and May advised EDF Energy on the entry into revised arrangements with the UK government and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to deliver the safe and efficient decommissioning of the UK’s seven advanced gas cooled reactor (AGR) power stations. The UK’s AGR power stations are scheduled to reach the end of their working lives on a rolling basis by 2030. The new arrangements will see EDF Energy and the NDA working together to ensure the successful defueling of the AGR power stations and a seamless transfer of ownership of the stations to the NDA. The combined expertise of EDF Energy and the NDA in defueling and decommissioning will ensure the long-term clean-up of the sites is completed safely and efficiently while delivering savings of an estimated £1 billion for the UK taxpayer. Slaughter and May worked in collaboration with EDF Energy’s in-house legal team, led by Rose Manassei.

Slaughter & May 28th June 2021 read more »

Taishan

China’s handling of nuclear plant leak shows need for transparency. For the Chinese Communist Party, opacity is a virtue and transparency is a virtue. This approach to governance worked well for the party. 100th anniversary Established on Thursday. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well if you run a nuclear power plant in China, especially if you are partnering with a foreign investor who cannot easily accept the principles of political parties. Framatome, a division of China General Nuclear Power Group and France’s EDF, provided an example of this textbook two weeks ago when CNN reported that President Joe Biden’s administration was “evaluating.” [a] Leak was reported At a nuclear facility in China. “Framatome’s memo to the US Department of Energy dated June 8, and CNN’s report was released on Monday morning, June 14, China time. Taishan Nuclear Power Station seems to have tried to anticipate the report by issuing a statement on its website on Sunday night, June 13. In a CNN report. CGN and Taiyama’s approach to the “neither apologize nor explain” type of situation shook people. A local government official in Jiangmen, which controls the Taishan plant, told the Financial Times that the locals were completely in the dark. “The factory says everything is going well,” officials said. “What can we do without proper explanation of CNN’s report?”

FT 29th June 2021 read more »

Fukushima

“Once people were gone, the boar took over,” explains Donovan Anderson, a researcher at Fukushima University in Japan. His genetic study of the wild boar that roam in an area largely abandoned after Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster – has revealed how the animals have thrived. Using DNA samples, he also discovered that boar have bred with domestic pigs that escaped from farms. This has created wild pig-boar hybrids that now inhabit the zone. “While the radiation hasn’t caused a genetic effect, the invasive domestic pig species has,” Mr Anderson explained.

BBC 30th June 2021 read more »

Europe

Analysis: New EU emissions plan is even less ambitious than ‘woeful’ UK climate efforts. After months of internal wrangling, the European Union has set out new legally binding emissions targets. The new legislation has signed into law a target to reduce net EU emissions by 55 per cent by 2030, from 1990 levels.

Independent 29th June 2021 read more »

Germany

The conservative climate group KlimaUnion (ClimateUnion), which is made up of party members of the governing CDU/CSU alliance, has released a position paper in which the members argue that Germany could become the world’s first industrialised country running on 100-percent renewable energy supply as early as 2030 and simultaneously reduce citizens’ expenses on transport, heating and power use. The group was founded in April with the aim of pushing the conservative bloc to adopt climate policy in line with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. In the paper, KlimaUnion argues that Germany could save up to 63 billion euros ($A100 billion) in energy imports per year if it manages to achieve a complete transition to renewable energy, which could be turned into a “growth booster” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Renew Economy 30th June 2021 read more »

Germany’s nuclear phase out expected to be complete by 2022 as country cuts capacity by over 60% last decade, says GlobalData. Between 2010 and 2020, installed nuclear capacity in Germany declined from 20.5GW to 8.1GW, according to GlobalData, which estimates the country will reach 4.1GW by the end of this year. The leading data and analytics company notes that this progression sets Germany on track to completely phase out nuclear by 2022. Rohit Ravetkar, Power Analyst at GlobalData says: “The German Government has made steady progress towards the elimination of nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Under the Energiewende policy, the country’s aim to fill its power generation void with renewable power includes a planned increase of solar PV capacity to 100GW by 2030. The expansion of solar PV systems has been the most successful in Germany, increasing at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.6% between 2010 and 2020.” Germany has been at the forefront in the adoption of solar PV technology since 2000. The country launched the 100,000 rooftop PV program way back in 1999, providing a significant push to the solar PV technology.

Global Data 29th June 2021 read more »

Taiwan

The Taiwan Government have plans to phase out nuclear power generation by 2025. Nuclear power installed capacity decreased from 4.9GW to 3.8GW, at a negative CAGR 1.2%. The capacity will reach zero by 2025 as per government plans. Taiwan was prompted to rethink its nuclear power program in 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. This led to the government placing one of its upcoming nuclear reactors on standby and postponing the construction of the other indefinitely. Existing reactors are set to be decommissioned after their useful life is over. Taiwan intends to fill the gap created by the retirement of its nuclear power plants with renewable power capacity. To support the development of renewable energy, the government passed the Renewable Energy Development Act in 2009 (further amended in 2019) which set a target of 27GW of installed capacity coming from renewables by 2025.

Power Technology 28th June 2021 read more »

Czechia

Dukovany II Power Plant, part of ČEZ Group, wrote yesterday to three potential bidders for the construction of a new nuclear unit at the Dukovany nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic. The letter is the official start of a safety assessment of EDF, Westinghouse and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the reactor vendors selected by the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade to participate in a pre-qualification round.

World Nuclear News 22nd June 2021 read more »

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