Saturday 19 July 2014

Nuclear's carbon footprint should not be overlooked


 
 
In his Green Column ‘Britain Pushes Hard on Nuclear Power’ (New York Times, 9 July 2014,( http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/business/britain-pushes-hard-on-nuclear-power.html)
Stanley Reed provides a fair account of a complex series of development’s on the UK’s nuclear energy policy, except in one particular.
He states:a nuclear power station, once built, produces carbon-free energy for decades.”
This is highly misleading, as a nuclear power plant is part of a complex chain of industrial nuclear activities, from cradle-to-grave, each of which has their own “carbon footprint.”

The uranium mined for the manufacture of the nuclear fuel needs to be processed and “enriched” (concentrated), to maximise to ability to extract the energy from the uranium. This enrichment process is heavily energy intensive.
For example, in the United States, the giant Oak Ridge K-25 uranium enrichment complex in Tennessee (whose demolition is being completed this year, having been closed in 1987) had several large coal-fired plants powering its gaseous diffusion enrichment activities.

More modern enrichment plants for commercial nuclear fuel feedstock manufacture use, significantly less energy in the centrifugal enrichment processes, but still emit greenhouse gases.
Once the nuclear fuels rods have been irradiated (‘cooked”) in the reactor core to release energy to generate power, they become part of the radioactive waste burden. They have to be actively cooled for several years before dry storage for centuries. All of these activities involve greenhouse gas, including carbon dioxide, emissions.

The other downside of nuclear energy, often overlooked, is it is uniquely unforgiving if attacked by terrorists. We know from several foiled terror plots, such suicide attacks have been in their plans.

Britain Pushes Hard on Nuclear Power

New York Times, JULY 9, 2014


Inside

Green Column

By STANLEY REED

 

LONDON — There are few places in the West where companies that build nuclear plants are welcome to construct new ones. That lack of choice probably accounts for a lot of the appeal of a nearly 500-acre stretch of scrubland called Moorside near the Irish Sea in northwest England.

Last week, Toshiba, the Japanese industrial giant, and GDF Suez, the French utility, said they planned to build three commercial nuclear reactors there at a cost of at least 10 billion pounds, or about $17 billion, beginning around 2020.

Even though Britain has not built a nuclear power station since the mid-1990s it is a hot prospect for the nuclear industry. The British government — unlike many of its Western counterparts — wants new nuclear power plants and appears to be willing to compel taxpayers and consumers to pay for them. It is a large and risky bet that energy prices will rise and that nuclear plants can be built without the delays and cost overruns that have plagued recent nuclear projects in France and Finland.

The British government is intervening in a big way in what had been one of the more open energy markets. The government is responding to worries, including fears that Britain, which has an aging fleet of nuclear and coal plants, may not have enough generating capacity to keep the lights on in the coming years.

In addition, a nuclear power station, once built, produces carbon-free energy for decades — a characteristic that will help Britain meet the government’s targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In the first quarter of this year, Britain obtained 37 percent of its electricity from low-carbon sources, including 18 percent from nuclear power.

The government is open to financing and other help from just about anywhere in its efforts to encourage construction of new nuclear plants and other low-carbon forms of electricity generation, like offshore wind turbines. British utilities have been unwilling to build nuclear power plants at home, and with the exception of the French, European utilities are also wary.

The nuclear project that has advanced furthest, Hinkley Point in southwest England, which will cost at least £16 billion, is to be built by a French utility, EDF, with help from Chinese nuclear companies and possibly other international investors.

Most of the countries in the global business of building nuclear power plants, including Russia and South Korea, are giving Britain a look. British energy projects are also attracting attention from the sovereign wealth funds of oil-producing countries and elsewhere that have cash to invest and want to earn steady returns for decades. Abu Dhabi, which has one of the world’s largest pools of capital, has made investments in British offshore wind projects through its renewable-energy arm, Masdar.

Under an agreement signed last year, the electricity generated by Hinkley Point will be guaranteed a wholesale price almost double the current price of power for 35 years, indexed to inflation, promising an estimated 10 percent rate of return.

Whether the government’s nuclear push is smart policy is a different question. Building a nuclear plant requires years, if not decades, of expensive design and regulatory work. A natural gas-fired power plant could make money with a 40 percent lower electricity price than is being guaranteed for Hinkley Point, according to Roland Vetter, an analyst at CF Partners, an energy trading firm based in London.

The financing of new nuclear plants in Britain has also raised concerns. For one thing, the European Union is looking into whether the arrangements for Hinkley Point are contrary to rules on state aid. A ruling against the plant would hurt other nuclear projects.

Nuclear power may be carbon free, but it can be harmful in other ways. After decades of operation, the nuclear industry in Britain is still searching for a way to safely dispose of the waste it generates. And nuclear energy always carries the risk of catastrophic accidents as the Fukushima disaster of 2011 in Japan showed.

Another big concern is whether the British government is making the right call when others in Europe are going the opposite direction. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany responded to the Fukushima disaster by accelerating the phasing out of nuclear power in her country. Aging plants would not be replaced, while the buildup of wind and solar power was greatly expanded. The decision has hurt the financial performance of the big German utilities and raised electricity rates for consumers, but some observers think Germany could wind up looking smart.

“The risk of having those old plants up and running after their useful life is just not worth it,” said Francesco Starace, the chief executive of Enel, an Italian utility.

Britain’s push to build new nuclear power plants is risky, he said. “The sheer size, long time scale and the recent history of cost increases in the nuclear industry around the world only add to the uncertainty that these projects can be completed on time and at a reasonable cost to consumers,” Mr. Starace said.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Friday 18 July 2014

Russia has suffered its own passenger aircraft shooting down....by Ukraine

Today's reports of the terrible shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines passenger aircraft  makes mention of the recent deliberate successful targeting of military aircraft with ground launched missiles by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine (18 July).
They also highligh the two well-known incidents of civilian aircraft being shot down by  military forces: the Korean Airlines  KAL 007 over Russia’s Sakhalin Island in 1983 by Soviet air defences; and the Iran Airbus 655, shot down by a US navy warship, the Vincennes, in the Persian Gulf in 1988.

But a much more recent downing into the Black Sea off Sochi of a commercial airliner, a Russian Tu-154 jet -  Siberian Airlines Flight SB 1812 - from Tel Aviv to Moscow, with the death of 66 assengers and 12 crew, occurred on 4 October 2001(“Russian and Ukrainian Officials: Missile Downed Plane,” October 12, 2001, http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80485&page=1).

World attention at the time was the bellicose build up to the NATO invasion of Afghanistan three days later, but the cause of the crash is very relevant:  it was a  Ukrainian air defence ground-to-air missile system. (“ Ukraine Court Upholds Dismissal of Airline Shoot-Down Claim,” 12 November 2012; http://en.ria.ru/russia/20121211/178080469.html)

Ukraine’s Supreme Commercial Court however upheld an earlier ruling clearing the Ukrainian military of any liability for the crash, even  though the Gelendzhik radar base on Russia's Black Sea coast detected an airborne object heading toward the plane from 50 kilometers away just 30 seconds before the aircraft exploded.Television pictures of the aircraft's wreckage - later recovered from the sea- showed it had been peppered with shrapnel consistent with impact of a "fragmenting" warhead.

The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee, a civil aviation authority within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), said the crash was caused by an accidental hit from a Ukrainian S-200 surface-to-air missile strike during military training exercises.

However, the Kiev Interregional Commercial Court of Appeal, in September 2011, rejected a compensation claim from the Russian airline against the Ukraine Defense Ministry and the Ukraine State Treasury.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office inexplicably closed the criminal case into the accident in 2007, finding “no evidence of wrongdoing.”

This backstory shows the inexcusable shooting down of the passenger jet over Ukraine this week has a complex context, which ought to be remembered when the international community points its accusatory finger towards Moscow. Russia has suffered its own aircraft shoot-down tragedy.

 

Thursday 17 July 2014

How UK armed Assad

I submitted this letter to the Independent, but they declined to publish it.
 
The small article  on page 22 of your newspaper on 10 July reported that in the early 1980s chemicals exported to Syria could have been subsequently diverted for use by the autocratic Assad regime in the nerve gas Sarin (“UK chemicals could have been used in Syrian sarin”).
Unfortunately, it is not only over thirty years ago that the UK has licensed the export of chemicals and technologies with dual civil and military end uses. There is a distressing list of more contemporary exports.

 
 
Licences
 

Date
Type
Country
Item
Revoked
Rating
Value
2011-09
 
 
£997
£1,001
 
 
 
 
 
2011-02
 
£12,020
2010-12
 
£12,000
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2010-07
 
£10,167
 
 
 
 
 
2010-06
 
 
N/A
Unknown
2010-05
 
£345
2010-05
 
£17,038
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2010-02
 
 
£197,732
2010-01
2011-05
 ML3
£30,000
2009-11
 
 
£1,515,000
£900,000
2009-10
 
 
£2,451
 
 
 
 
 
2009-09
 
£22,139
 
 
 
 
 
2009-08
 
£1,250,000
2009-08
 
£1,250,000
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2009-06
 
£540
 
 
 
 
 
 

Date
Type
Country
Item
Revoked
Rating
Value
 
 
 
 
 
2009-04Refused(1)
 chemicals  
 
N/A
2009-03Refused(1)
 
 
N/A
2009-02
 
£6,220
2008-12
 
£41,900
2008-10
 
 
£44,187
2008-10
 
 
 
 ML13
£5,040
2008-09Refused(1)
 
N/A
2008-08
 
 ML3
£30,000
2008-08
 
£212,430
2008-08
 
£26,430
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2008-05
 
£14,027
 
 
 
 
 
[ SIEL= Standard Individual Export Licence;
OIEL=Open Individual Export License] 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I think the Foreign Secretary and his Labour predecessors should explain to the public why they gave permission for such materials and technologies to be exported to a regime led by such a political thug.