Tag Archives: power

UK’s ‘unlawful’ £35 billion support to fossil fuels in ECJ challenge Updated for 2026

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An innovative energy company today launched a legal challenge to UK Government electricity market ‘reforms’ in the European Court of Justice.

According to Tempus Energy, which brought the challenge, the new system represents an “unlawful subsidy” worth as much as £2.5 billion a year to fossil fuel power generators, for a 15-year period.

As part of the Electricity Market Reform, the Capacity Market was set up to offer subsidies to reliable forms of power capacity to switch in when needed to balance demand.

This includes both the supply of new power on demand (‘supply side’); and cuts in demand for power from power users (‘demand side’). The intended result is to create a 50 GW back-up capability for when the system is tight. 

But Tempus says the way the Capacity Market has been designed violates the EU’s State Aid rules by prioritising fossil fuel electricity generation over “cheaper and more reliable” demand-side options.

Specifically, ‘supply side’ contracts will last for 15 years, but inexplicably, ‘demand side’ contracts will last for only one year – giving power generation a clear advantage over demand reduction.

An ‘engrained bias’ in favour of building new generation assets

Tempus CEO Sara Bell said: “The Capacity Market was originally set up to keep the lights on at the lowest possible cost; a format that has been used very successfully in the US.

“But an engrained, institutional bias in favour of building new assets to boost supply means that cost effective ‘no build’ technologies for managing demand have been ignored. This will push up electricity bills needlessly and commit consumers to paying for capacity that we would not need if we invested in building demand-flexibility, for those who want to use it.”

In the first year of the Capacity Market alone, she added, obligations of up to £2.5bn for expensive peaking power stations to be switched on will be created.

Those costs, plus year on year additional peaking power costs for the next 15 years, will be passed onto customers, potentially costing them over £35 billion – at a time when over 2,280,000 million households are living in fuel poverty.

Under regulations made under the Energy Act, the Government plans to award new generators with ‘capacity contracts’ guaranteeing a revenue stream for up to 15 years to provide energy when called upon by National Grid.

Conversely, customers who volunteer to turn down energy use during peak times, and the companies that aggregate capacity created by customers, will be awarded capacity contracts of just one year.

Notably, the generation contracts will mostly involve the consumption of fossil fuels, often in inefficient plant, and financial benefits will go to large, centralised power companies. By contrast ordinary consumers can benefit from reducing their power usage at times of peak demand.

Marcin Stoczkiewicz, head of climate and energy at ClientEarth, said: “If allowed to go ahead, the UK’s ‘capacity mechanism’ will artificially prop up the existing coal-reliant energy system by paying generators extra to produce more electricity at peak times.

“The costs will be passed on to consumers, regardless of when they use power. This is bad for the environment and for our pockets. We are supporting their action because it’s crucial to driving progress on climate change.”

One year contracts ‘not a viable proposition’

The problem with one year contracts is that technology investments are required to enable equipment to be switched off automatically at times of strong power demand, and these cannot reasonably be paid off in a single year, says Bell.

“The one year contracts offered for demand flexibility are not a viable proposition to customers who would, for a longer revenue stream, be able to invest in flexible technology that would save money and energy in the long term while making our system more secure.”

“Instead, the lack of commitment to innovation from the Government will stymie investment and therefore the advancement of a smart industry that could fundamentally transform our energy economy.”

And this is Tempus’s business model: it aggregates the power-saving potential of many households and businesses using smart technology to automatically shift non-time critical energy use into the cheapest price period. It then shares the benefits with its providers.

By bringing the challenge, Tempus Energy aims to obtain a ruling by the European Court that the state aid approval was unlawful, which will force the EU Commission to hold a formal inquiry.

The case may therefore have a destabilising impact on the first Capacity Market Auction – scheduled for 16th December – as well as challenging the validity of the subsidy scheme in its current form.

However a DECC Spokesperson insisted: “We are fully confident in this auction. The European Commission has concluded that the Capacity Market is within European State aid rules. This challenge will have no impact on the running of the capacity auction in December.”

Europe-wide repercussions

In the US, 10-12% of power is now provided by customers with demand flexibility technology. The EU legal challenge will raise a serious question for investors as to why the UK cannot emulate the successful way in which other countries, like the US, use demand-side capability to cost effectively keep the lights.

As a result of the UK Capacity Market approval, other European countries are lining Capacity Market policies that also discriminate against demand-side resources in favour of generation, said Bell:

“In countries where renewables generation already makes up a significant proportion of the grid mix, such as Germany, the legal challenge will be particularly beneficial as demand side flexibility is the only scalable means to efficiently use ‘wrong time’ renewable generation, which is otherwise wasted. This challenge will ensure other countries are forced to develop level playing fields for all resources.”

Up to 40% of the UK electricity grid is underutilised at a given time. By increasing the use of smart technology to manage energy demand spikes, it is possible to utilise much more of the grid.

That would reduce the need for spending more on infrastructure (paid for by consumers) as well as limiting the need to pay for expensive ‘peaking’ generation, and enabling better access to renewables at times when they are cheap and plentiful.

 

 

 

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 




387756

Move over big power – the micropower revolution is here! Updated for 2026

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There is no shortage of shouting and dire warnings about the state of the climate and our need to phase out fossil fuels. But there is a more silent revolution happening too – in micropower.

Small-scale electricity generation is slowly replacing big fossil-fuel driven power plants, which are currently the world’s single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

These micro-electricity producers are relatively small scale, inexpensive, and most importantly, produce little to no carbon emissions. Last year micropower contributed to around a quarter of the world’s electricity, up from 10% in 2000.

What is micropower?

Rooftop solar may be the first thing that springs to mind, but micropower is much more than just solar panels on roofs. The definition of micropower can sometimes be confusing. Amory Lovins and his coauthors discuss this in The Economist‘s 2002 book of the year Small Is Profitable and define micropower as “all renewables except big hydro“.

This definition of micropower thus includes wind farms, even though these can be quite large, because of the scalable (you can plant more or less wind turbines), rapidly deployable, and distributed nature of the individual units.

It does not, however, include hydropower plants larger than 50 megawatts or nuclear power plants, even though these are low- or no-carbon.

Most recently, the Rocky Mountain Institute has included industry sales data of cogeneration power plants in its analysis of micropower trends.

Cogeneration on the rise

In essence, cogeneration uses energy twice – once to produce electricity, and a second time as heat. It is often referred to as combined heat and power. By producing heat for buildings and houses, cogeneration is much more efficient than even thermal plants, which only generate electricity.

Cogeneration has risen dramatically in the past 15 years, but is often overlooked in estimates of energy production. It comes in a variety of forms and can even use waste gases from agriculture and industrial production.

An even more efficient process is sometimes called trigeneration, producing both heating and cooling. Have you ever seen those mysterious plumes of steam rising from manhole covers in New York, in films like Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver? Much of that steam comes from New York’s steam system, which is used to heat and cool buildings in Manhattan.

Trigeneration can convert as much as 93% of fuel into useful energy.

Although many cogeneration plants still rely on natural gas for power, they produces roughly 40% less greenhouse gas than a coal plant. While many environmentalists advocate an immediate switch to renewables, others argue that natural gas is providing a lower-carbon ‘bridge’ while the use of renewables can be scaled up.

Grids are going micro too

It’s not just power plants that are going micro. Micro-grids are being built all over the world, both to increase energy efficiency and to provide adaptable and resilient power in the case of major storms or natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. This is particularly important as extreme weather events are likely to increase due to global warming.

These micro-grids, which typically incorporate renewables and cogeneration, are designed to be able to operate independently of the main power grid. If disaster strikes, they can produce islands of power to critical facilities such as police, fire services and hospitals.

While more than 260 such projects are planned or operating in the United States, Connecticut has become the first state to role out a statewide pilot. Micro-grids aren’t just helpful during natural disasters – they avoid long-distance transmission, so can reduce line energy losses which can reach as high as 20%.

Cities, and the way they are powered, will undoubtedly play a huge role in the transition to a sustainable and resilient energy future. New York has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 19% since 2005. This is partly from an increased use of cogeneration and natural gas, and upgraded city operations using cleaner vehicles.

In fact, while ‘going green’ often conjures up images of Arcadian off-grid living, New Yorkers have the smallest carbon footprint in America. They generate less than 30% of the average national emissions. Compact cities are more energy efficient for a host of reasons, and as many have pointed out, the way to a green future isn’t urban sprawl.

The central power plants that dominated the 20th century energy landscape are seeing their market share in energy generation fall rapidly. New power plants are becoming smaller, scale-able and more efficient, as renewables and cogeneration continue to increase their production share.

The past and future of micropower

In many ways the rapid growth of micropower is a back to the future scenario.

In 1882, Thomas Edison’s famous Pearl Street plant began generating heat and electricity for lower Manhattan. Natural Geographic has a wonderful explorable infographic about the way “power pulses, information flies, and steam flows” below the streets of New York.

Thomas Edison envisioned similar systems to provide local power and heat into the future. Power grids and centralised power plants changed all that, and the 20th century seemed to prove Edison wrong.

But clearly things have changed since then, as micro-power’s market share pushes upwards. Technological innovation, changes in energy production and extraction, and public concern over climate change and natural disasters have helped power the revolution.

We certainly aren’t in the clear yet, and the world desperately needs a global climate agreement. The future may still be cloudy, despite the groundbreaking deal between the US and China.

But the micropower revolution bodes well for a resilient, secure, and low-carbon energy future. Perhaps every cloud does have a silver lining.

 

 

Morgan Saletta is a Doctoral Candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. A trained anthropologist and historian of science, his research interests include the Neolithic transition in Europe, transnational environmental history (particularly in the Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds), as well as the many interactions between science, technology and society. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




383794

There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

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Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




387540

There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




387540

There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




387540

There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




387540

There’s no place for nuclear in the ‘Clean Power Plan’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the Environmental Protection Agency’s goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency’s leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector.

We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan’s purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

The framework must be flexible and adaptable, to account for technological advances and regional differences in energy resources and regulatory systems, but it must also encourage rational and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan’s purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

  1. Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
  2. Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
  3. Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
  4. Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan – perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan’s treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

  • Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
  • Encourages states to ‘preserve’ reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state’s existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation’s operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency. If anything, EPA should simply recommend that low-carbon energy sources be replaced with other low-carbon resources, but singling out nuclear for ‘preservation’ suggests it is better for states to lock themselves into obsolete and increasingly uneconomical nuclear.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

  • New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
  • Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota’s Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors ($10 million/megawatt). [1]

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA’s evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power’s impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors’ use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents.

There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan’s consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014. [2]

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the ‘at-risk’ nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity, [3] let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to ‘preserve’ (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology’s costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We are hopeful that the Clean Power Plan will be a watershed in setting the country on a path to emissions reductions and climate action, and we are grateful to the EPA for taking this step.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

 

 

Action – organizations: Make sure your organization is signed on to our comments on the Clean Power Plan, which expand on the points above. The comments, and current list of endorsers, are here. If your organization is not listed, please sign on now by sending an e-mail to me at nirsnet@nirs.org with your name, title, organization name, city, and state (and country if outside the US – we encourage our international friends to support us in this effort!). Please sign on by midnight, Sunday, November 30, 2014.

Action – individuals: Please send in your comments on our action page here. And please share the action page with your friends and colleagues using the logos at its top, or share our previous Alert on the issue on Facebook and Twitter here. More than 19,000 of you have acted so far; we want to top 20,000 (do I hear 25,000?) comments before the December 1 deadline. Your help in outreach is essential to meet that goal.

Tim Judson is Executive Director of Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD.

For full list of signatories see NIRS.

References

1. Shaffer, David. ‘Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant‘. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014.

2. Sun Day Campaign. ‘Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014‘. July 21, 2014.

3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. ‘2013 Wind Technologies Market Report‘. US Department of Energy. August 18, 2014.

 




387540

The UK’s farms can generate as much power as Hinkley C by 2020 – renewably! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Summon into your mind, for a moment, the image of a deeply perplexed Ed Davey, late at night, deep in thought, sitting there behind his Secretary of State’s desk in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, staring down at a single large number in a memo from his Permanent Secretary:


Strictly confidential – for the Secretary of State

As requested, we’ve researched three options to provide c. 7% of total UK electricity demand by 2025 at the latest:

  1. A barrage on the Severn Estuary.
  2. 2 new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
  3. 20 GW of renewable electricity generation capacity on UK farms.

As it happens, Secretary of State, the choice is actually a bit of a no-brainer, apart from two little stumbling points that I’ll come to in a minute.

For the time being, let’s immediately dismiss Option 1. Too many uncertainties, very high cost, and the bird brigade really don’t like it.

Regarding Option 2, we already know that those two reactors (at c. £24 billion) would be the most expensive power stations anywhere in the world – were they ever to be built.

As you know, Secretary of State, recent news means that now looks increasingly unlikely:

  • The main construction company involved (AREVA) is in a ‘financial crisis’.
  • Even parts of the nuclear industry think the chosen reactor design is “unconstructable“.
  • And I’m afraid it gets worse: we’ve known for some time that the Treasury is carrying out a secret review of the whole deal.

It’s a bleak outlook. Which brings us to Option 3 – and this really is the no-brainer!

Farming energy – 20GW can be mobilised by 2020

A brilliant new piece of research from Forum for the Future, Farmers Weekly and Nottingham Trent University has analysed the potential for rolling out different renewable technologies on UK farms – principally solar and wind, with a bit of anaerobic digestion thrown in for good measure.

Based on experience to date (there are already more pioneers out there than you might imagine!), their report estimates that it would be relatively simple to get the first 20 GW onto the grid from farm-based solar and wind.

And that could be on stream by 2020 if we get behind it, well before the projected date of 2023 for completion at Hinkley Point – if you believe that!

The National Farmers Union loves it – and you can’t say that very often! It’s true, of course, that wind has fallen out of favour with your coalition partners, who are competing furiously with UKIP to see who can more effectively trash our wind industry while simultaneously hammering the rural economy.

Despite the media and political spin, the majority of Brits like wind power. But solar power is really very popular. Not just on roofs (farmhouses and farm buildings have lots of roofs pointing in the right direction, or so I’m told!), but mounted on the ground.

14GW of solar on 0.5% of Britain’s farmland – and the sheep can carry on grazing

So let’s look at solar more closely. If these ground-mounted solar farms are designed in the right way (to minimise visual intrusion through screening with trees and so on), on the right bits of land, with local communities consulted and involved at every turn, this would be an absolute winner.

And the 14GW of solar in the overall total of 20 GW of renewables would require no more than 21,000 hectares, or just 0.5% of the land area of UK farms. Typically that will be pastureland on south-facing slopes, and guess what – with the panels in place, animals can just carry on grazing.

And to prove it I’ve got some wonderful photos to show you, Secretary of State, of sheep grazing happily amongst the solar panels – and chickens too, come to that! There are some even more beautiful images of panels in amongst restored wildflower meadows, with bees and butterflies all over the place.

It even turns out that bumblebees just love making their nests in the ground sheltered by the panels! What, as they say, Secretary of State, is not to like?!

Two things, unfortunately, as I mentioned above.

SNAFU #1 – Liz Truss

Your fellow Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Liz Truss, threw a bit of a hissy fit about farmers needing to stick to the business of food production, and not getting involved in energy production.

It turns out that she hadn’t seen any of the beautiful photos I’ve referred to above, and seriously thought that ground-mounted solar arrays carpeted the entire land area! (I blame her ignorance on Defra’s Permanent Secretary personally!)

And this is unfortunate, because even she has belatedly woken up to the importance of protecting pollinating insects, with lots of enthusiastic discussions going on between her department and National Rail and the Highways Agency.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t realise that farm-based solar could be a great way of helping all those bees – which we probably want to be close to the crops anyway, I would have thought?

SNAFU #2 – Hinkley C nuclear power station

We’ve pretty much put all our low-carbon eggs into EDF’s all-encompassing nuclear basket – to the tune of £24 billion, or even £37 billion by some estimates!

I’m sorry to have to tell you, Secretary of State, that there’s no way of saving face here. You’re already an object of scorn for some environmentalists (I think I showed you that blog from bloody Jonathon Porritt!), and if you now flip back again, having so assertively flopped into the nuclear camp, many people (even outside the Treasury) might start to question your judgement.

However, I don’t think we need panic here. The Hinkley Point deal with EDF probably won’t come unstuck until after the next General Election, and in the meantime, you have a wonderful opportunity to buff up your residual green credentials by pressing the start button on Farm Power UK right now.

And the overall cost of renewable electricity from our farms is likely to be much lower than that from nuclear power stations, while also creating much needed rural employment.

Moreover the power will begin to flow pretty much immediately – reducing the chances of electricity shortages in time for winter 2015 – never mind waiting until 2023 (if we’re lucky) before a single watt is produced.

We’re talking 7% after all!!

 

 

Jonathon Porritt has been an environmental campaigner since 1974, and is still hard at it nearly 40 years on. His latest book is The World we Made. He blogs at jonathonporritt.com/blog.

This article is also published on Jonathon’s blog.

 

 




387348

The UK’s farms can generate as much power as Hinkley C by 2020 – renewably! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Summon into your mind, for a moment, the image of a deeply perplexed Ed Davey, late at night, deep in thought, sitting there behind his Secretary of State’s desk in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, staring down at a single large number in a memo from his Permanent Secretary:


Strictly confidential – for the Secretary of State

As requested, we’ve researched three options to provide c. 7% of total UK electricity demand by 2025 at the latest:

  1. A barrage on the Severn Estuary.
  2. 2 new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
  3. 20 GW of renewable electricity generation capacity on UK farms.

As it happens, Secretary of State, the choice is actually a bit of a no-brainer, apart from two little stumbling points that I’ll come to in a minute.

For the time being, let’s immediately dismiss Option 1. Too many uncertainties, very high cost, and the bird brigade really don’t like it.

Regarding Option 2, we already know that those two reactors (at c. £24 billion) would be the most expensive power stations anywhere in the world – were they ever to be built.

As you know, Secretary of State, recent news means that now looks increasingly unlikely:

  • The main construction company involved (AREVA) is in a ‘financial crisis’.
  • Even parts of the nuclear industry think the chosen reactor design is “unconstructable“.
  • And I’m afraid it gets worse: we’ve known for some time that the Treasury is carrying out a secret review of the whole deal.

It’s a bleak outlook. Which brings us to Option 3 – and this really is the no-brainer!

Farming energy – 20GW can be mobilised by 2020

A brilliant new piece of research from Forum for the Future, Farmers Weekly and Nottingham Trent University has analysed the potential for rolling out different renewable technologies on UK farms – principally solar and wind, with a bit of anaerobic digestion thrown in for good measure.

Based on experience to date (there are already more pioneers out there than you might imagine!), their report estimates that it would be relatively simple to get the first 20 GW onto the grid from farm-based solar and wind.

And that could be on stream by 2020 if we get behind it, well before the projected date of 2023 for completion at Hinkley Point – if you believe that!

The National Farmers Union loves it – and you can’t say that very often! It’s true, of course, that wind has fallen out of favour with your coalition partners, who are competing furiously with UKIP to see who can more effectively trash our wind industry while simultaneously hammering the rural economy.

Despite the media and political spin, the majority of Brits like wind power. But solar power is really very popular. Not just on roofs (farmhouses and farm buildings have lots of roofs pointing in the right direction, or so I’m told!), but mounted on the ground.

14GW of solar on 0.5% of Britain’s farmland – and the sheep can carry on grazing

So let’s look at solar more closely. If these ground-mounted solar farms are designed in the right way (to minimise visual intrusion through screening with trees and so on), on the right bits of land, with local communities consulted and involved at every turn, this would be an absolute winner.

And the 14GW of solar in the overall total of 20 GW of renewables would require no more than 21,000 hectares, or just 0.5% of the land area of UK farms. Typically that will be pastureland on south-facing slopes, and guess what – with the panels in place, animals can just carry on grazing.

And just to prove it I’ve got some wonderful photos to show you, Secretary of State, of sheep grazing happily amongst the solar panels – and chickens too, come to that! There are some even more beautiful images of panels in amongst restored wildflower meadows, with bees and butterflies all over the place.

It even turns out that bumblebees just love making their nests in the ground sheltered by the panels! What, as they say, Secretary of State, is not to like?!

Two things, unfortunately, as I mentioned above.

SNAFU #1 – Liz Truss

Your fellow Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Liz Truss, threw a bit of a hissy fit about farmers needing to stick to the business of food production, and not getting involved in energy production.

It turns out that she hadn’t seen any of the beautiful photos I’ve referred to above, and seriously thought that ground-mounted solar arrays carpeted the entire land area! (I blame her ignorance on Defra’s Permanent Secretary personally!)

And this is unfortunate, because even she has belatedly woken up to the importance of protecting pollinating insects, with lots of enthusiastic discussions going on between her department and National Rail and the Highways Agency.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t realise that farm-based solar could be a great way of helping all those bees – which we probably want to be close to the crops anyway, I would have thought?

SNAFU #2 – Hinkley C nuclear power station

We’ve pretty much put all our low-carbon eggs into EDF’s all-encompassing nuclear basket – to the tune of £24 billion, or even £37 billion by some estimates!

I’m sorry to have to tell you, Secretary of State, that there’s no way of saving face here. You’re already an object of scorn for some environmentalists (I think I showed you that blog from bloody Jonathon Porritt!), and if you now flip back again, having so assertively flopped into the nuclear camp, many people (even outside the Treasury) might start to question your judgement.

However, I don’t think we need panic here. The Hinkley Point deal with EDF probably won’t come unstuck until after the next General Election, and in the meantime, you have a wonderful opportunity to buff up your residual green credentials by pressing the start button on Farm Power UK right now.

And the overall cost of renewable electricity from our farms is likely to be much lower than that from nuclear power stations, while also creating much needed rural employment.

Moreover the power will begin to flow pretty much immediately – reducing the chances of electricity shortages in time for winter 2015 – never mind waiting until 2023 (if we’re lucky) before a single watt is produced.

We’re talking 7% after all!!

 

 

Jonathon Porritt has been an environmental campaigner since 1974, and is still hard at it nearly 40 years on. His latest book is The World we Made. He blogs at jonathonporritt.com/blog.

This article is also published on Jonathon’s blog.

 

 




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Solar power is getting cheaper quicker than the IPCC thought Updated for 2026

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IPCC figures are already out of date when it comes to the price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation, according to analysis by the Fraunhofer Institute.

The numbers suggest that the IPCC’s capital expenditure figures for solar PV – provided in a minimum / maximum range to account for the variations from country to country – are actually higher than recent figures for key regions, including Germany, China and the US.

This matters because policymakers will compare the costs of reducing emissions using solar and other technologies in the coming negotiations to reach a global climate deal.

So why are the figures somewhat overstating the cost of solar? Usually when calculating and comparing the cost of energy generation options – which the IPCC do all the time – the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) is used.

This the overall cost of each unit of power, and accounts for all the costs involved in generating the power: capital expenditure, operating costs, maintenance etc.

The Fraunhofer Institute has also been calculating the cost of different energy generation technologies for a number of years – levelled out to account for startup costs and subsequent operation and maintenance.  

The most expensive bit – starting out – actually costs less now than the IPCC reports

It found the IPCC’s most recent levelised costs of electricity for solar may be based on much higher capital expenditure costs than is currently the case. Put simply, solar panels have got cheaper.

That means the ‘overnight capital expenditure’ of solar PV is significantly lower, both for small-scale, distributed models such as rooftop solar and for larger-scale solar infrastructure such as a solar thermal plant.

For example, you would only have to spend between $1,500-4,900 per kWp for rooftops installed with solar PV if you were using the Fraunhofer figures (on average), compared to the IPCC’s $2,200-5,300, which refer to the 2012 situation.

The figures fall even further when looking at utility-scale solar PV (think fields, with panels, and maybe sheep, or geese). The institute calculates that now, to start a solar plant the cost would be $1,300-3,300, rather than $1,700-4,300 as the IPCC had reported.

David de Jager, Managing Consultant at Ecofys and Operating Agent for the IEA-RETD agrees that the IPCC’s costs for solar are already outdated.

“Costs of solar photovoltaics have been declining so fast, that almost any publication will be outdated at the moment the ink has dried”, says de Jager who was involved with the IPCC report’s energy chapter as a Contributing Author. “The growing market will drive further cost reductions even further.”

Both minimum and maximum costs from the Fraunhofer ISE are lower than the most recent IPCC estimates from 2012, for both utility and rooftop capital expenditure.

Overall average cost levelled out across the life of the project is therefore also too high

If the capital expenditure figures are outdated, then the LCOE figure will also be calculated on an inaccurate basis, particularly because the capital expenditure for renewables is higher than fossil fuels like gas.

Economically it follows too that the cheaper installation gets, the cheaper the cost of solar gets overall, because of the much lower (and steady) operation and maintenance costs.

If the capital expenditure is higher than it should be, the levelised cost in solar-producing countries will also be higher.

The Fraunhofer institute have calculated the average cost of generating power from solar panels in a range of countries using the latest data. The ‘median’ cost of solar from the IPCC report is at the higher end of their LCOE values.

The IPCC looked at literature reflecting a wide range of PV-applications and regions. If you look at the key markets today, the study shows that PV costs are already at or below the low end of the range presented by IPCC.

Money for solar is cheaper too

Borrowing costs may also have been overstated by the IPCC, says Fraunhofer.

The IPCC uses a uniform 10% weighted average cost of capital so as to be able to compare costs across different energy generation methods which has a large impact on renewables because of their large up front capital costs.

Because the costs of borrowing capital in many parts of the world is cheap at the moment due to low interest rates – and certainly in places like Germany and the UK  – this number may also therefore inflate the cost of installing solar.

In fact, loan finance for solar installations is readily available at 5% or less – half the assumed interest rate.

However it’s impossible to verify the PV cost figures actually used in the most recent IPCC report, published last weekend, as no actual figures are quoted. Rather, assumed costs are opaquely woven into ‘scenario’ models.

 

 

Helle Abelvik-Lawson blogs for Greenpeace UK. Her background is as an academic in energy and human rights, and she now reports on global energy issues.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/newsdesk/energy/analysis/how-solar-power-getting-cheaper-quicker-ipcc-thought

 




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