A renewable energy developer and operator – which is, inter alia, developing a wind farm site in Wormit, Fife – has published a new report showing that a mix of renewables, energy storage and backup gas generation can provide the same low carbon baseload power as Hinkley Point at a 25% cheaper price. In the report – ‘Hinkley Point Through The Looking Glass’ – Niels Kroninger, Joint Managing Director, Green Hedge Energy, shows how this would save UK consumers £720 million per year for 35 years. He said: “We’ve invited DECC to start negotiating such a contract with us and other renewable energy firms if they are committed to technology neutrality. This also goes to show that the cost assumptions we make, albeit surprising, are realistic today”.
Scottish Energy News 28th April 2016 read more »
Letter: Pete Wilkinson, Chairperson, Together Against Sizewell C: Energy secretary Amber Rudd clearly has the gift of clairvoyance. She says that no liabilities would fall to the UK taxpayer or consumer should Hinkley Point C be cancelled. Who, pray, would foot the bill to complete the project should EDF withdraw after a few years of construction when cost and time overruns became apparent, as they have with other projects in France and Finland? And assuming the plant ever began generating its costly electricity, who would be responsible for the waste management costs, the size of which can only be estimated since the location, depth, technical details about cladding, inventory, or even if there will ever be a repository, remain stubbornly vague and could yet result in indefinite storage on site? Spent nuclear fuel from Hinkley C or Sizewell C would be on their respective sites for an estimated 160 years. Who will take title to hundreds of tonnes of spent nuclear fuel if, as is likely, within that time period, EDF disappears? As usual, the public purse would be required to bail out a private venture. Rudd’s claim of “no liabilities” is as irresponsible as a short-term response to legitimate concerns as government’s energy policy will prove to be in the long term. Better to cancel Hinkley, Sizewell and all the other nuclear plans now while some semblance of energy policy credibility remains, than to see it unravel in the most embarrassing way over the coming decades, leaving communities like ours to carry the can for government obsession with a nuclear fix.
Guardian 27th April 2016 read more »
Letter Dr John Twidell (Co-author of university textbook Renewable Energy Resources): Amber Rudd misleadingly implies that “continuous power” (ie not able to increase or decrease to fit demand) is advantageous. Moreover, the adjective she should have used for nuclear power is “constant”, which at large gigawatt source capacity presents a considerable challenge for transmission and for grid operators to balance against load. However, if “continuous” or “immediate” power is needed, there are many options from renewables. Biomass is stored energy that can be used for electricity, heat and fuels continuously or when needed, eg by immediate combustion, as biogas, as landfill gas, via pyrolysis, via fermentation and as oils and esters. Hydro power may be both continuous and rapidly adjusted. Variable generation from wind, sunshine and tides integrates over distance and time to be, in effect over the UK, continuous, but not constant. Constancy and controlled variation are provided by storage, eg pumped hydro, pumped tidal reservoir, batteries (of which there are many options), and, in effect, by demand-side load switching. Rudd goes on to praise nuclear power for aiming to supply electricity to 6m homes from a single power station. Such centralisation of multi-gigawatt capacity is not a sensible strategy because of the widespread disruption caused by unexpected generation and transmission outages, and by closures needed for refuelling. Nor sensible if we are concerned about terrorist disruption. The sensible alternative is a distributed generation system which integrates and controls power. Renewables fit a strategy for robust distributed power using a network (a grid) of connections, in a similar robust manner to the internet. Modern communications and control allow such a strategy, especially when blended with methods of using electricity efficiently.
Guardian 27th April 2016 read more »
Letter Kate Macintosh: Amanda Rudd implies that nuclear is needed to cover base-load generation becaus e of the intermittency factor in wind and solar generation. She should speak with her German colleagues who are satisfied that they will meet their target of becoming independent of all fossil fuels by 2050, covering base-load with bio-digestion. This source of both gas and electricity – provided it is located close to a ready source of either waste vegetable matter of animal waste – is a win-win, as it puts to beneficial use what would otherwise release methane into the atmosphere and provides farmers with nutrient-rich irrigation ponds. Bio-digestion generation has a further advantage in that its output can be moderated to reflect demand at no cost, whereas nuclear is totally inflexible in this regard.
Guardian 27th April 2016 read more »