The UK should take a more “interventionist” approach to ensure new nuclear reactors are built — and in greater numbers — than currently planned, according to a report commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown released on Wednesday.
The report by Malcolm Wicks, the former energy minister appointed by Gordon Brown as his special representative for international energy issues, said that “the time for market innocence is over” and that the government needs to do more to safeguard electricity and gas supplies.
The report, ‘Energy Security: a national challenge in a changing world’, recommended that the UK should generate 30 to 40 per cent of its electricty from nuclear power stations by 2030 – up from the current 13 per cent.
Mr Wicks said that the UK has become too dependent on increasingly imported natural gas for its energy needs and argues that state intervention is needed to accelerate plans to build a new fleet of nuclear power stations.
“The era of heavy reliance on companies, competition and liberalisation must be re-assessed,” he said. “We must still rely on companies for exploration, delivery and supply but the state must become more active: interventionist, where necessary.”
Other recommendations from the report include:
- Prioritizing Norway, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as the most significant bilateral relationships to UK energy security. Relationships built on a broad base including diplomatic, development and cultural collaboration will provide a firm basis on which to pursue the UK’s energy security goals.
- The UK should remain at the forefront in developing and demonstrating CCS technology.
- The UK should continue to ensure that energy efficiency is at the heart of energy dialogues with its global partners.
- The Government should do what it can to support EU work to promote diversification of routes and sources of gas supply into Europe including through the use of EU diplomacy to influence third countries where they are better placed to do this than the UK bilaterally.
The Government should do what it can to support EU work to promote diversification of routes and sources of gas supply into Europe including through the use of EU diplomacy to influence third countries where they are better placed to do this than the UK bilaterally.
The future is looking greener for investors as ambitious government targets for generating renewable energy are providing fund managers with new opportunities.
More than 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity could eventually be derived from renewable sources, according to the latest estimates, compared with just 5.5 per cent today. This would be twice the government’s legally-binding target of 15 per cent by 2020.
Much of this is expected to come from wind power but other sources, including biomass and tidal power, will also increasingly be drawn upon. The government plans to invest £100bn in the renewable energy sector, which could involve the creation of as many as 500,000 jobs. It has also set out new plans for reducing carbon emissions to help tackle climate change.
Fund managers say this increased commitment, together with a similar focus from the US, plus stronger moves towards clean energy from China, is welcome news for an industry that has been slow to take off – and has suffered more than others in the recent downturn.
Edward Guinness, one of the managers of Guinness Asset Management’s Alternative Energy Fund, says green energy companies were trading at a premium to the market before the downturn but were hit hard last year, particularly as funding dried up.
His fund lost 40 per cent in the year to the end of June, according to total return figures from Lipper.
A number of other renewable energy funds, most of which have been set up in the past couple of years, have had an equally difficult run. Lipper’s rankings show that, over the same period, BlackRock’s New Energy Investment Trust, the Premier Renewable Energy trust and the Jupiter Green Investment Trust all saw negative returns of at least 30 per cent.
But new opportunities now look to be arising, particularly in wind power .
“The area where government policy is really having an impact on our investing is on the wind side,” says Guinness. “The UK has much better resources in this area than in solar, and the government wants to make it easier to get planning permission.”
His fund typically invests in companies that derive at least 50 per cent of their business from either the manufacture and development of renewable energy generation or the improvement of energy efficiency.
Guinness says solar stocks performed well last month as demand started to pick up following a difficult 18 months, in which the prices for solar panels halved. The lower prices should trigger stronger growth, he says, while providers should also receive a boost from cheaper raw materials, lower manufacturing costs and improved subsidies.
Luciano Diana, portfolio manager of the Pictet Clean Energy fund, says wind power is more attractive than solar because it is much cheaper. He claims that, for the first time, there is a real push to new energy around the world.
“For a long time, it has just been Europe supporting it but now there is a big push from the US and also Chinese packages dedicated to cleaner energy,” he says.
Fund managers say much of the new government investment will be captured by the large utilities.
The Association of Investment Companies argues that moves to combat climate change should prove beneficial to some of the big utility and infrastructure investment companies.
John Murray, chairman of Ecofin, which invests in the utility and infrastructure sectors, says utilities have been largely oversold in recent months as investors have moved back into cyclical and recovery stocks. As a result, some companies in the sector are looking the cheapest they have been since 2003.
But, he points out: “Unlike in 2003, the fundamentals of the global utility sector are generally sound. Balance sheets are in relatively good shape and the utilities are proving that they are able to access long-term capital markets.”
Source - Power Engineering
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Saturday, 18 April 2009
EDF spied on environmentalists in Britain, court documents suggest
A French investigation into allegations that France's state energy giant EDF spied on Greenpeace has taken a new turn after a suggestion in court documents that the company may have monitored environmentalists across Europe, including Britain.
EDF, the world's biggest nuclear-reactor operator, owns the main UK nuclear power company British Energy, and is a major sponsor of the London Olympics.
Last month judges opened an investigation into allegations that state-owned EDF hired a private detective agency run by a former member of the French secret services to illegally spy on environmentalists and infiltrate their ranks.
Last week, in front of the investigating judge, the head of Kargus Consultants confirmed his involvement in hacking into Greenpeace computer systems and said a senior EDF official knew about the operation.
A computer expert from the detective agency admitted hacking into Greenpeace computer systems. The scandal sparked outrage among anti-nuclear campaigners in France, where the state has a troubled history with activists. Twenty-four years ago, the French secret service bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior.
French news website Mediapart, which has seen documents from the investigation, this week published extracts of the testimony by an EDF security executive and former police commander who is under investigation for conspiring to conduct illegal surveillance.
He denied ordering private detectives to use illegal means, saying the private investigators had been asked to monitor environmentalists' work and activities.
Asked about a CD-rom of information from detectives that was found in his office safe, he said it contained information about environmental group structures and summaries of meetings.
"It was a question of the [Greenpeace] non-governmental group's organisation in Belgium, Spain, perhaps Britain, let's say Europe," he added.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, told the Guardian: "This case appears to be much more extreme in nature than we thought and raises serious questions."
Today Sauven wrote to EDF Energy's chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, asking for immediate disclosure of any knowledge or evidence of "monitoring, illegal or otherwise" of Greenpeace staff members in Britain and worldwide.
Sauvan wrote: "What alarms me most is the evidence cited in official investigation files alleging that EDF was also seeking intelligence on Greenpeace activities in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Spain."
Greenpeace, which is opposed to building new nuclear reactors in the UK, previously wrote to EDF on 1 April asking for assurances that spying tactics had not been used against its staff.
De Rivaz wrote back on 9 April that EDF was co-operating with the legal investigation. "EDF of course strongly condemns any methods which attempt to fraudulently enter IT systems," he added. But Greenpeace said the letter failed to answer the question of whether UK staff had been targeted.
The French scandal has intensified in recent days. Last week, two senior EDF officials involved in the judges' investigation were suspended in what the company said was a "precautionary measure following an internal inquiry". Mediapart reported this week that EDF had two contracts with the private detective firm Kargus in 2004 and 2007.
EDF Energy's London office declined to comment, referring all inquiries to the Paris headquarters. A French spokeswoman said EDF would not comment on the claims that Greenpeace had been monitored across Europe.
The two EDF senior executives have maintained their innocence. In a statement last week, EDF said it "wholeheartedly condemns any method aimed at obtaining information illegally". The company has lodged a civil action for damages saying it was a "victim" of the detective firm Kargus.
Source - The Guardian
EDF, the world's biggest nuclear-reactor operator, owns the main UK nuclear power company British Energy, and is a major sponsor of the London Olympics.
Last month judges opened an investigation into allegations that state-owned EDF hired a private detective agency run by a former member of the French secret services to illegally spy on environmentalists and infiltrate their ranks.
Last week, in front of the investigating judge, the head of Kargus Consultants confirmed his involvement in hacking into Greenpeace computer systems and said a senior EDF official knew about the operation.
A computer expert from the detective agency admitted hacking into Greenpeace computer systems. The scandal sparked outrage among anti-nuclear campaigners in France, where the state has a troubled history with activists. Twenty-four years ago, the French secret service bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior.
French news website Mediapart, which has seen documents from the investigation, this week published extracts of the testimony by an EDF security executive and former police commander who is under investigation for conspiring to conduct illegal surveillance.
He denied ordering private detectives to use illegal means, saying the private investigators had been asked to monitor environmentalists' work and activities.
Asked about a CD-rom of information from detectives that was found in his office safe, he said it contained information about environmental group structures and summaries of meetings.
"It was a question of the [Greenpeace] non-governmental group's organisation in Belgium, Spain, perhaps Britain, let's say Europe," he added.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, told the Guardian: "This case appears to be much more extreme in nature than we thought and raises serious questions."
Today Sauven wrote to EDF Energy's chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, asking for immediate disclosure of any knowledge or evidence of "monitoring, illegal or otherwise" of Greenpeace staff members in Britain and worldwide.
Sauvan wrote: "What alarms me most is the evidence cited in official investigation files alleging that EDF was also seeking intelligence on Greenpeace activities in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Spain."
Greenpeace, which is opposed to building new nuclear reactors in the UK, previously wrote to EDF on 1 April asking for assurances that spying tactics had not been used against its staff.
De Rivaz wrote back on 9 April that EDF was co-operating with the legal investigation. "EDF of course strongly condemns any methods which attempt to fraudulently enter IT systems," he added. But Greenpeace said the letter failed to answer the question of whether UK staff had been targeted.
The French scandal has intensified in recent days. Last week, two senior EDF officials involved in the judges' investigation were suspended in what the company said was a "precautionary measure following an internal inquiry". Mediapart reported this week that EDF had two contracts with the private detective firm Kargus in 2004 and 2007.
EDF Energy's London office declined to comment, referring all inquiries to the Paris headquarters. A French spokeswoman said EDF would not comment on the claims that Greenpeace had been monitored across Europe.
The two EDF senior executives have maintained their innocence. In a statement last week, EDF said it "wholeheartedly condemns any method aimed at obtaining information illegally". The company has lodged a civil action for damages saying it was a "victim" of the detective firm Kargus.
Source - The Guardian
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Future of UK’s energy supply is bleak
With every week that goes by it becomes clearer that, within a few years, Britain will face an unprecedented crisis, thanks to the shambles the Government has made of our energy policy.
After years of dereliction, when only a crash programme of measures could keep our lights on and our economy functioning, our policy has become so skewed by blinkered environmentalism and diktats from the EU that we are fast heading for the worst of all worlds - a near-total dependence on foreign sources of energy which will not only be astronomically expensive but which can in no way be guaranteed to supply all the electricity we need.
What are the hard facts?
Between now and 2015 we shall lose 40 per cent of the generating capacity we currently require to meet maximum demand (still rising), due to the phasing out of almost all our obsolescent nuclear reactors and the closure of nine of our major coal- and oil-fired power stations under an EU “anti-pollution” directive.
Gordon Brown talks about building a new generation of nuclear power plants, for which we would have to rely on the French - having two years ago sold off Westinghouse, the only British-owned firm capable of constructing them.
But even if the French play ball, which seems less likely since the collapse of Brown’s plan to sell off British Energy to France’s EDF, the new plants could still not be built in time to plug the gap.
The only short-term remedy will be to build yet more gas-fired stations, at a time when we are fast running out of our own gas supplies and when gas prices are shooting through the roof, reducing us to dependence on countries such as Mr Putin’s Russia or Qatar, both of which have recently announced caps on future exports.
Our best bet might seem to invest urgently in a dozen more coal-fired power stations, which still supply more than a third of our electricity.
But own coal industry is so run down - though we still have more than 100 years of reserves - that barely a quarter of the 62 million tons of coal we used last year was British.The rest had to be imported, including 22 million tons from Russia and 12 million tons from South Africa.
At a time when rocketing world demand for coal has already doubled prices in a year, we should again be dependent on unreliable foreign sources, to generate electricity by means which excite almost as much fury from environmentalists as nuclear power - as we saw with last week’s demonstrations against plans by German-owned E.On to build a new “clean coal” station at Kingsnorth in Kent.
With this colossal crisis fast approaching, our ministers are still lost in the cloudcuckooland of Mr Brown’s £100 billion “green energy” plan, to meet our EU target of generating a third of our electricity from renewables by 2020.
Not an energy expert in the country says this is remotely feasible. Our present 2,000 wind turbines supply just 1.5 per cent of our power, and even if Mr Brown’s 7,000 additional turbines could in practice be built, we would still be more than 200 per cent short of our EU target.
Worse still is the fact that our electricity investment market is now so skewed by the various subsidy and “carbon savings” schemes adopted to meet our various EU targets that these are now uselessly soaking up more than £5 billion a year which should otherwise be urgently invested in proper generating capacity.
Our major power companies can now make so much money from “renewables” subsidies and other “planet saving” schemes that they have much less incentive to risk capital on those which might keep our lights on.
Our energy policy is now so constrained and distorted by EU requirements that, even if we had a government with the knowhow and will to sort out the mess, we should soon be breaking EU laws all over the place.
Tragically, no one seems to remain in more blissful ignorance of all these harsh realities than our Conservative opposition which, when the crisis arrives, may well be in power.
Not only will those at the top of the Tory party, on present showing, have no idea why the lights are going out, but they will have even less idea of what to do about it - because by then it will be too late.
Source: The Telegraph
After years of dereliction, when only a crash programme of measures could keep our lights on and our economy functioning, our policy has become so skewed by blinkered environmentalism and diktats from the EU that we are fast heading for the worst of all worlds - a near-total dependence on foreign sources of energy which will not only be astronomically expensive but which can in no way be guaranteed to supply all the electricity we need.
What are the hard facts?
Between now and 2015 we shall lose 40 per cent of the generating capacity we currently require to meet maximum demand (still rising), due to the phasing out of almost all our obsolescent nuclear reactors and the closure of nine of our major coal- and oil-fired power stations under an EU “anti-pollution” directive.
Gordon Brown talks about building a new generation of nuclear power plants, for which we would have to rely on the French - having two years ago sold off Westinghouse, the only British-owned firm capable of constructing them.
But even if the French play ball, which seems less likely since the collapse of Brown’s plan to sell off British Energy to France’s EDF, the new plants could still not be built in time to plug the gap.
The only short-term remedy will be to build yet more gas-fired stations, at a time when we are fast running out of our own gas supplies and when gas prices are shooting through the roof, reducing us to dependence on countries such as Mr Putin’s Russia or Qatar, both of which have recently announced caps on future exports.
Our best bet might seem to invest urgently in a dozen more coal-fired power stations, which still supply more than a third of our electricity.
But own coal industry is so run down - though we still have more than 100 years of reserves - that barely a quarter of the 62 million tons of coal we used last year was British.The rest had to be imported, including 22 million tons from Russia and 12 million tons from South Africa.
At a time when rocketing world demand for coal has already doubled prices in a year, we should again be dependent on unreliable foreign sources, to generate electricity by means which excite almost as much fury from environmentalists as nuclear power - as we saw with last week’s demonstrations against plans by German-owned E.On to build a new “clean coal” station at Kingsnorth in Kent.
With this colossal crisis fast approaching, our ministers are still lost in the cloudcuckooland of Mr Brown’s £100 billion “green energy” plan, to meet our EU target of generating a third of our electricity from renewables by 2020.
Not an energy expert in the country says this is remotely feasible. Our present 2,000 wind turbines supply just 1.5 per cent of our power, and even if Mr Brown’s 7,000 additional turbines could in practice be built, we would still be more than 200 per cent short of our EU target.
Worse still is the fact that our electricity investment market is now so skewed by the various subsidy and “carbon savings” schemes adopted to meet our various EU targets that these are now uselessly soaking up more than £5 billion a year which should otherwise be urgently invested in proper generating capacity.
Our major power companies can now make so much money from “renewables” subsidies and other “planet saving” schemes that they have much less incentive to risk capital on those which might keep our lights on.
Our energy policy is now so constrained and distorted by EU requirements that, even if we had a government with the knowhow and will to sort out the mess, we should soon be breaking EU laws all over the place.
Tragically, no one seems to remain in more blissful ignorance of all these harsh realities than our Conservative opposition which, when the crisis arrives, may well be in power.
Not only will those at the top of the Tory party, on present showing, have no idea why the lights are going out, but they will have even less idea of what to do about it - because by then it will be too late.
Source: The Telegraph
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