EcoRadio

Category: Energy Matters

The twentieth century way of life has been made available, largely due to the miracle of cheap energy. The price of energy has been at record lows for the past century and a half.As oil becomes increasingly scarce, it is becoming obvious to everyone, that the rapid economic and industrial growth we have enjoyed for that time is not sustainable.Now, the hunt is on. For renewable sources of energy, for alternative sources of energy, for a way of life that is less dependent on cheap energy. 

  • Oversubscribed solar panel scheme to cost taxpayers $440m

     

    Yesterday, Mr Garrett’s office revealed 55,000 of those applications had been approved, potentially at a total cost of $440m.

    The figure is well in excess of the $271m set aside at the last budget to fund the scheme to June 30.

    Mr Garrett said yesterday notifications to successful claimants would go out this week.

    He defended the scheme, which he said was part of an “unprecedented” investment in solar energy by the government.

    “Despite the claims and misinformation of the opposition spokesman, this government has funded over 11 times the number of systems funded in eight years of this program under the previous government,” he said.

    “We expect that the availability of solar credits will continue to drive a sustainable solar industry into the future.”

    Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the scheme had created a “boom-bust” mentality within the industry.

    “It’s another example of the government, and Mr Garrett in particular, having no management control of their systems.”

    He said: “They didn’t understand the program, they didn’t manage the program. They’ve cancelled it abruptly leaving everyone in confusion.”

    The $8000 rebate was introduced by the Howard government. The Rudd government means-tested it after taking office in 2007.

    Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren said that in paying out the claims the government had honoured its election promise.

    “It did have a transformational effect on solar, which is now much cheaper as a result of the

  • Families face nuclear tax in power bills

     

    The planned levy on household bills would add £44 to an annual electricity bill of £500 and contradicts repeated promises by ministers that the nuclear industry would no longer benefit from public subsidies. There is mounting pressure on the power industry to show it can keep the lights on, with fears growing of an energy gap as ageing nuclear stations are retired and plans for new coal plants attract hostile protests.

    Nuclear tax ‘An additional 10% on energy bills’ Link to this audio

    Ministers have become concerned that power companies such as E.ON and EDF Energy are reluctant to commit themselves to building nuclear stations because energy prices have fallen and they fear they will not be able to recoup the multi-billion pound cost of building new nuclear stations.

    The government believes that only by artificially increasing the cost of electricity generated by coal and gas stations through an additional carbon levy on household bills can nuclear become more competitive and encourage new reactors to be built.

    One European utility executive told the Guardian: “New nuclear will not happen without sorting out the carbon price.” The Guardian understands that the Office of Nuclear Development (OND), set up by Lord Mandelson’s business department, has promised nuclear companies that the price of carbon under the EU emissions trading scheme – now about €13 per tonne – will not be allowed to fall below €30 per tonne, and ideally €40. According to the energy consultancy firm EIC, the new carbon levy would add £44 to the £500 annual electricity bill paid by an average household.

    The matter has come to a head as governments around the world prepare for December’s global climate change summit in Copenhagen. For weeks officials from the OND have been privately assuring companies that if Copenhagen fails to secure a deal which significantly boosts the market price of carbon, the government will act to do so early next year.

    Politicians and environmental campaigners are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of the summit reaching any significant agreement, making intervention by ministers to support the nuclear industry likely.

    Nuclear developers, such as the French-owned group EDF Energy, will need to decide whether to commit funds to start building reactors in less than a year, which is why ministers are keen to act soon. The carbon tax would take effect from 2015, to encourage developers like EDF planning to have reactors operational from 2017.

    A senior government source said: “We know what companies’ investment criteria is. If Copenhagen does not reach agreement on it we will do it next year, either via a subsidy, levy or tax. We will look at it – the utilities know it.” He added: “The way we look at it is: the answer is €30 a tonne, what is the question?”

    The executive director of Greenpeace UK, John Sauven, said: “Nuclear power has always been a byword for monumental taxpayer handouts. Now the likes of EDF Energy are getting cold feet over the cost of new nuclear stations, it looks like the government is trying to sweeten the deal with public money. This is despite saying categorically that any new reactors will have to survive without subsidy. Without huge financial support, nuclear power doesn’t make economic sense. Even the big utilities now admit this.”

    The government wants energy companies to build at least eight new reactors – costing more than €20bn – to replace those being decommissioned and to provide a secure, low carbon supply of electricity. After giving public backing to new nuclear early last year, ministers have been overhauling the regulatory and planning regime to make it happen.

    The government’s independent committee on climate change last week floated the idea of intervention in the carbon market, but claimed that this option had not been assessed in the UK before. The revelation that the government is far ahead of the committee on climate change’s thinking shows how committed ministers are to ensuring nuclear reactors get built, even if it means consumers have to subsidise them. The government will make its formal response to the committee’s annual report in January, when it is expected to publicly endorse the carbon tax. Ministers will argue that the tax will also benefit low carbon generators of electricity such as clean coal and renewables. But nuclear would be the biggest winner. Subsidies have recently been boosted for offshore windfarms, while clean coal is at least 15 years from being viable.

    A government spokesman said there were no “current plans” to put a floor on the carbon price or introduce a carbon tax, but did not rule it out in the future. Politicians are loath to admit that they are planning to introduce a subsidy for the nuclear industry. Anti-nuclear groups have accused governments of being too close to the industry, which they say already benefits from indirect subsidies. The government has promised to guarantee the cost of disposing of nuclear waste and also pay for the cleanup resulting from any nuclear accident.

  • Peak oil could hit soon, report says

     

    A report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could “peak” and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk.

    Falls in production will lead to higher and more volatile prices, and could encourage investment in even more polluting fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which “need to stay in the ground” to avoid dangerous climate change as a result of carbon emissions, the researchers said.

    The new report said there was too much geological, political and economic uncertainty to predict an exact date for peak oil, which would not lead to a sudden decline but a “bumpy plateau” with a downward trend in extraction.

    But Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said while those who forecasted an imminent decline had underestimated oil reserves, more positive forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were “at best optimistic and at worst implausible”.

    The world has used less than half of the planet’s conventionally extracted oil, but the remaining resources will be more difficult and expensive to get out of the ground, slowing production and increasing prices of crude.

    With exploitation of the world’s reserves running at more than 80m barrels a day, even major new discoveries such as the oil fields recently found in the Gulf of Mexico by BP would only delay a peak by a few days or weeks, the report said.

    Robert Gross of UKERC said: “The age of easy and cheap oil is coming to an end. It doesn’t suddenly come to an end; obviously it’s a gradual change. But we’re moving away from easy and cheap oil to increasingly difficult and expensive oil.”

    The public should expect to see more higher and more volatile petrol costs in the future, with long-distance travel becoming pricier.

    Britons should invest in the most energy-efficient vehicles and put pressure on the government to take the issue seriously, the researchers urged. With long time-scales and large investment needed to move away from a reliance on crude oil – particularly in the transport sector, which uses the lion’s share of fossil fuel – the report said governments needed to take action now.

    Sorrell said the UK government had no contingency plans for oil peaking before 2020, but officials needed to increase and speed up measures already being taken to cut climate emissions, such as improving vehicle fuel efficiency, shifting to electric cars and investing more in public transport.

    Though high oil prices could encourage investment in renewables and technological changes, they could also do the same for more polluting and energy-intensive forms of oil. These include tar sands, where extraction of fuel becomes viable when the oil price hits around $70/barrel – its current level – and converting coal to a liquid, which requires a great deal of energy.

    “Most of these unconventional resources need to stay in the ground, but [there are] such strong incentives to exploit them,” he said.

    The consequences in terms of carbon emissions of unconventional sources of oil could be “catastrophic”, Gross said.

    “The danger is, high oil prices push us into high carbon resources just as much as they might help push us towards renewables. The challenge for policymakers is to make sure, on a global scale, that that isn’t the response to more difficult and expensive oil.”

    A spokesman for the Energy and Climate Change Department said: “Already, our climate change, energy efficiency and energy security policies outlined in the UK low carbon transition plan are not only reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, but are consistent with the need to reduce our use of fossil fuels.

    “This will help to ease demand for oil in the UK and internationally. In addition, the UK government is investing and supporting research on renewable and clean transport technologies – which is the UK sector that consumes most fossil fuels.”

  • Olympic Dam mine ‘shut down

    Olympic Dam mine ‘shut down

     

    October 07, 2009

    Article from:  The Advertiser

    THE Olympic Dam mine is understood to have been shut down by an accident.

    It is believed a major breakdown has blocked the mine, potentially creating signifant costs for operator BHP Billiton, AdelaideNow has reported.

    A mine source has said no-one has been hurt.

    The state Government is treating the situation as a major incident.  AdelaideNow reported earlier that it was understood the incident involved a haulage accident.

    The Olympic dam mine produced uranium, copper and other minerals.

    Follow breaking coverage of the incident at AdelaideNow.

     

  • India plans to cut carbon and fuel poverty wtth untested nuclear power

     

     

    “This will sharply reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change,” he said, adding that Asia was now seeing a huge spurt in nuclear plant building. The Indian plan, which relies on untested technology, was criticised by anti-nuclear campaigners as “a nightmare disguised as a dream”.

     

    The prime minister said a breakthrough deal with the US, sanctioned by the international community, had opened the door for the country to “think big” and meet the demands of its billion-strong population. He did not say how much the plans would cost, or how they would be paid for.

     

    The intervention comes as talks in Bangkok aimed at resolving the impasse between developing and developed countries over a new climate change deal to replace the Kyoto protocol have stalled. India, one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, has been dismayed that its pledges of action – including a dramatic expansion of nuclear power – have been met with inaction from richer nations.

     

    The prime minister’s statement also brings Delhi alongside Beijing which has long promoted atomic energy. India’s plan would see it leapfrog its northern neighbour. At present China has 11 reactors in operation producing 8,000MW but has proposed that by 2020 this output be increased 10-fold. The UK, by contrast, has an installed capacity of around 12,000MW, much of which is due to go offline and be replaced by a new fleet of reactors in the next decade.

     

    Nuclear power has been a contentious issue in India. Although the country has had a decades-old atomic programme, it was effectively blacklisted from global civilian nuclear trade after testing a nuclear device in 1974. That embargo was lifted in 2008 after negotations with Washington.

    The result has been a rush to sign deals – both to supply uranium and to build reactors. France, Russia and the United States have all sought access to the booming Indian market.

     

    India has an ambitious three-stage nuclear programme which it sees as a “silver bullet” to its dire energy shortage. At present 400m people cannot light their homes and the country imports 70% of its oil.

     

    Delhi says that it will be able to surmount these considerable problems and generate clean green power with an atomic programme that “virtuously recycles” the plutonium waste that reactors produce. This radioactive isotope takes thousands of years to be rendered safe and dealing with it is the greatest challenge facing nuclear energy’s proponents.

     

    The Indian plan turns this waste into fuel. Using thorium, which is abundant in the country, combined with plutonium, the country aims to produce power and “breed” stockpiles of uranium.

     

    It is a technology that no other country has mastered – and many have dropped – but India still has more than 2,000 scientists working on the technical problems.

     

    Singh said the country had entered “stage two” of the programme and had completed a prototype breeder reactor in southern India.

     

    However campaigners said “if climate change is the problem, nuclear power is not the answer”. SP Udayakumar, convenor of India’s Alliance for Anti-Nuclear Movements, questioned whether the technology India was pushing would ever be ready.

     

    “The nuclear technology the prime minister talks about is not proven. If we start going ahead then the issue is the amount of carbon emitted by building, maintaining, operating and decommissioning nuclear plants means that (nuclear power) is a hugely polluting technology. If it does not work then we are left with waste that takes 24,000 years to become safe. It is a gamble we will pay for generations to come

  • UK launches 22m(UK) wave energy fund

     

    The government faced criticism last month from Conservative shadow energy and climate change secretary Greg Clark, after it emerged that none of the £50 million Deployment Fund had yet been distributed. Clark said that the government was guilty of providing over 20 times more subsidies to the coal industry than it has delivered to the marine energy sector.

    Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Hunt said that the new Proving Fund would help marine projects “get off the drawing board and into the water, taking them a vital step closer to full scale commercial viability”.

    The launch of the new fund completes a good few weeks for the marine energy sector, after the Carbon Trust announced that it has awarded £500,000 from the deployment fund to marine energy firms Pelamis Wave Power and Marine Current Turbines to help them develop more cost effective means of installing their technologies, and the Department of Business and Skills unveiled plans to create 1,500 engineering graduate placements to support the sector.

    According to recent research from the Carbon Trust, a quarter of the world’s wave energy technologies are already developed in the UK, while the marine energy sector has the potential to contribute £2 billion a year to the country’s economy by 2050, employing 16,000 people in the process.

    In related news, the government announced that it is currently working on a new Marine Action Plan that will be published early next year and will detail the steps the industry needs to take to ensure the wider roll out of wave and tidal technologies.