Renewable Prospects: a positive new year view

 The prospects for renewable energy look wonderful. While hydro remains the largest renewable source globally at around 800 GW, the new renewables are coming up fast behind. There is now over 238GW(e) of wind turbine capacity in place globally, while PV solar has reached 70GW(pk), and both are still expanding rapidly- wind could double in the next 5 years, PV treble.  For now however, taken together, wind and PV capacity is about the same as that of the global nuclear fleet, although the load factors are of course much lower. Even so, wind now supplies more kWh than nuclear in the USA and in Germany wind supplies about the same kWhs pa as gas, while overall renewables there now supply about the same kWh pa as hard coal or about the same as nuclear.

 In addition to the headline-grabbing wind and PV, in the background few realise that there’s 245GW(th) of  solar thermal in use around the world, more capacity that wind, delivering heat. There is also an ever expanding amount of biomass use- UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) suggests that up to 20% of global energy could be provided by modern biomass/biogas/AD  technology without damaging food production. http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1606

 The new marine technologies are moving ahead well. Global spending on wave and tidal energy may reach US $1.2 billion  by 2015, according to the energy business analysts Douglas-Westwood in  their World Wave & Tidal Market Report 2011-2015. And according to the UK Carbon Trust, the total global market for both wave and tidal energies could be worth £40 billion per annum by 2050.

The UK is well placed to exploit most of these technologies and markets.

Technology Innovation Needs Assessments (‘TINAs’) for UK green energy technologies have recently been produced by the DECC backed Low Carbon Innovation Coordination Group (LCICG), on offshore wind and marine energy. The offshore wind TINA says ‘innovation is critical to enabling the deployment and cutting the cost of offshore wind power, with an estimated saving to the energy system of £18-89bn to 2050’. It adds, innovation can also help ‘create UK based business opportunities that could contribute an estimated £7-35bn to GDP to 2050’.

The Marine TINA says that ‘the UK has a large natural resource of marine energy that could make a meaningful contribution to the UK energy mix from around 2025. Cost of energy generated will need to reach around £100/MWh by 2025 for marine energy to be competitive with other technologies. This pathway is ambitious but possible with significant innovation. If successful, innovation in Marine energy could save the energy system approximately £3-8bn and help create a UK industry that could contribute an estimated £1-4bn to GDP up to 2050.’

LCICG also looked at advanced electricity networks and storage (EN&S) technologies, which it says ‘have the potential to address new stresses that are likely to be placed on the electricity system, and to do so more cost-effectively than would be possible through traditional methods of grid reinforcement and fossil-fuel-powered system balancing capacity. EN&S technologies could play an important role in the future energy system, supporting the uptake of renewable electricity generation, renewable heat, electric vehicles (EVs), and other low carbon technologies. Innovation in EN&S technologies could save the UK £4-19bn to 2050 and could help create UK-based business opportunities that could contribute an estimated £6-34bn to GDP to 2050.

TINAs on bioenergy, hydrogen, heating are due soon. www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/funding/funding_ops/innovation/tinas/tinas.aspx

When you put all these technologies together, it is relatively easy to create a scenario in which renewables can supply around 75% of UK electricity by 2030, as Friends of the Earth have just done: www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefing_notes/electriciy_mix_2030.pdf

Going further there is the EPSRC backed 2050 Transition Pathways study includes a grass roots community based scenario with ~120TWh of local  CHP! See www.lowcarbonpathways.org.uk/lowcarbon/conference/A_Short_Guide_to_UK_Transition_Pathways.pdf

And coming soon, a set of scenarios for Pugwash UK, using the DECC 2050 Pathways Calculator, including one in which renewables supply 100% of all UK energy by 2050

Systems with large contributions of variable renewables like this will need balancing, but it turns out that there are plenty of options.   When necessary, some demand can be managed to delay peaks and power can be imported via supergrid links when there are local shortfalls in supply and be balanced by exports of the occasional excess power we will have from the variable renewables.  In addition, for longer term balancing, we could convert some of the excess wind, wave, and tidal power that will sometimes be generated to hydrogen gas, to use as a fuel for when wind etc availability is low and demand high. So you don’t need fossil fuel plant for backup.  Or of course nuclear.

In parallel with these larger scale developments, there is also a role for local community based projects. 3.5GW worth of locally-owned renewable schemes could be installed by 2020 if the Government supports community energy, according to a coalition of organisations including the Co-operative, the National Trust, the Church of England and the Women's Institute.

A poll commissioned by The Co-operative found 68 % of the public would support local renewable energy projects that were owned by and benefited the community, compared to just 7% that would not. Paul Monaghan, head of social goals at the Co-operative, said: " Our towns, villages and districts are full of hundreds of groups all chomping at the bit to do their bit to generate and save energy locally and fight climate change."

Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, said: "There is huge enthusiasm for co-operatively-owned energy. But it is very difficult for co-operatives to compete in the energy market as regulations and incentives are designed for the bigger players”.

They want national targets for community energy, promotion of local ownership to increase public acceptance of renewables, Government-backed advice and support, higher subsidies for community schemes, tax breaks for investors and access to finance through the new green investment bank. Let’s hope that can be fought for and obtained.

Nuclear Contentions

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the nuclear industry became increasingly bullish about the prospects of nuclear power. The World Nuclear Association asserted that ‘people can draw confidence from the absence of any health harm even from this extreme, highly unusual event,’ while its then director general, John Ritch, claimed that  ‘countries like Germany will soon demonstrate the economic and environmental irresponsibility of allowing politicians to set important national policies in the middle of a panic attack.’

While it accepted that there were short term impacts, in a report marking the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster in March, the World Energy Council (WEC) commented  ‘Very little has changed... in respect of the future utilisation of nuclear in the energy mix.’ After surveying its members in 94 countries, according to senior project manager Ayed Al-Qatani, WEC had found that ‘The Fukushima accident has not led to any significant retraction in nuclear energy programs in countries outside Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Japan’. Progress in some countries had been delayed, but there was ‘no indication that their pursuit of nuclear power has declined in response to Fukushima.’ A subsequent report from the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), said that the Fukushima Daiichi incident had slowed nuclear growth by about 10% compared with projections before the accident.

This positive assertiveness, that all was, and will be, well, may overdone: the prospects for nuclear may not actually be as bright as portrayed. The NEA admitted that ‘as retirements increase in the 2030s and 2040s, a greater fraction of new-build will go to simply replace what already exists. Hence, it says ‘the growth of nuclear capacity could slow after 2030 unless there is a strong upturn in new construction at that stage’.

Moreover, there could be problems well before that.  In addition to the increasing economic problems facing the proposed nuclear programmes in the UK and USA, France is rethinking its policy on nuclear.  And Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and several other EU countries, are anti or non nuclear. Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan have also now adopted critical stances. Brazil has delayed work on a new nuclear plant and of course Japan in unlikely ever to build a new plant and may well keep most of the existing ones shut.

A 24-country public opinion study carried out by Ipsos in May 2011 found that 62% of those asked opposed nuclear power. 26% had changed their mind after Fukushima, with opposition in some countries being very high, ranging up to 69% in Brazil and 79% in Germany. Interestingly, it was at 62% in Russia and 58% in China- two of the key areas the industry looks to for future growth. A GlobeScan opinion poll, commissioned by the BBC, and completed in Sept 2011, put opposition in France at 83% and in Japan at 84%.

Certainly, given that context, internally, within the nuclear industry, the mood is more reflective. For example, Steve Kidd from the World Nuclear Association admitted, in the Industries trade journal Nuclear Engineering International, that since the Fukushima accident, ‘public and political acceptance of nuclear power has taken something of a knock in certain countries, resulting in the revival of phase-out policies.’ He went on:  ‘Even in countries where nuclear power is still being endorsed as a useful contributor to a clean energy future, statements in support of nuclear power have been something less than strong and positive endorsements. And if this is the case, political choices in favour of nuclear and decisions made by private companies to invest in new nuclear stations are likely to get deflected by the slightest problem, and other less worthy energy options may indeed be pursued’.

His view however was that much of this reaction was mistaken. Fukushima was ‘the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years, with radiation releases and contamination in some communities. And yet there have so far been no radiation-induced deaths, nor are there likely to be any in the future. How can this relatively benign incident create such a degree of fear that it is dominating discussion of nuclear power’s future?’

He says, by way of explanation, that it is due to mistaken beliefs about the impacts of radiation.  And more specifically he says: ‘There is undoubtedly a huge economic impact of moving people from their homes and jobs in order to protect them, but the reason for this is the essentially unwarranted fear of radiation. This in itself can cause many illnesses, providing much wider implications a long way from the scene of the accident.’

He thus seems to put much emphasis on psychological and stress impacts. He admits that, in reacting to concerns from the public, the nuclear industry might inadvertently have enhanced the level of fear that surrounds nuclear power, by stressing safety issues so much.  However he comes perilously close to claiming that the main culprit was what he labeled the ‘anti-nuclear brigade’.  For them  ‘the misunderstanding of radiation is an important key to discrediting nuclear power,’ thereby raising unwarranted fears. ‘Yet they are the very people who are inducing such effects by continuing to feed the public scares about radiation! So the psychological impacts become essentially self-fulfilling; they stoke up an (illusory) fear and then complain about the consequences of this.’ http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2061613

In a subsequent article, he even suggested that ‘the high and apparently rising capital investment costs of nuclear plants in the western world’ might in part be due to the success of the anti-nuclear movement, asking  ‘could it be that public acceptance issue is at least partly to blame for the high costs of nuclear; indeed, perhaps not only the capital investment costs but also the operating costs of plants?’ www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2062210

As I argue in my new book, given that the nuclear industry is clearly suffering economic problems, with Fukushima adding more, while  renewables are doing very well around the world, it is perhaps not surprising that some of its supporters have become a little shrill. But it seems a little odd to try to blame the opposition for their problems. It may be true that the anti-nuclear movement can at times be less than rigorous in its use of campaigning arguments, but the issues it seeks to raise are, arguably, real ones, reflecting real concerns and risks, and technological choices. The relative significance of some of the risks can be debated, as can the benefits or otherwise of the various technologies, but to suggest that the nuclear lobby has a unique grasp of the truth seems, to put it mildly, unconvincing and possibly inappropriate.

In addition to health impacts, and the unresolved issue of waste disposal, there are other contentious issues.  Although the cost are high, the nuclear industry has stressed the economic benefits.  A report commissioned by EDF Energy claimed that expanding Britain's nuclear reactor fleet could boost the UK economy and create 32,000 jobs. Well maybe. But so would a renewables/efficiency programme on the same investment scale. The London based Citigroup financial assessors have suggested that the ‘strike price' needed to support nuclear plant construction under the proposed new government EMR arrangements might be £166 per MWh.  That’s more than is needed by offshore wind projects and much more than is needed for on land wind.

My new book ‘Fukushima: impacts and implications’ is published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their new Pivot e-book initiative.

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=635859

No Fukushimas here!

The UK is to host a series of new nuclear plants of the same basic type as at Fukushima- Boiling Water Reactors, following Hitachi’s take over of the Horizon nuclear programme, which aims to build coastal plants at Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Anglesey in Wales  E.ON and RWE had previously pulled out. 

The new plants will be Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR), with improved safety features, some of which have already been built in Japan. But, following the  Fukushima accident,  the Japanese government has decided to phase out all nuclear capacity ‘in the 2030s’.   All its nuclear plants were shut down for testing after the accident, but two have now been restarted and work had recommenced on one part-built plant. Despite massive pubic opposition, further restarts may follow.  However, it seems unlikely that any new ones will be ordered, whereas in the UK there is strong government support for new nuclear.

The most common type of nuclear plant in the world is the Pressurised  Water Reactor (PWR)  in which pressurization raises the boiling point of water enabling  more efficient high temperature cooling. The disadvantage is that, to maintain the high pressure in the sealed reactor unit, heat transfer requires a secondary heat exchange circuit.  In Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) this is avoided- the water boils unpressuried inside the reactor fuel core, with the steam passing straight through to the turbines. That makes them more efficient in heat transfer terms and perhaps a bit more economic. The disadvantage is that the external turbines can become exposed to radioactive contamination, and since cooling is less efficient, BWRs need more water throughput, a key issue at Fukushima.

Hitachi are talking of building at least four reactors, and perhaps six, by around 2025, in which case that would be nearly 8GW total capacity. In addition EDF is planning to build two EPRs, Areva’s  upgraded version of the PWR, at  Hinkley  in Somerset –and  possibly two more at  Sizewell. In addition NuGeneration is still developing proposals for a plant near Sellafield and other bids may be forthcoming. In all there might be 19GW of new nuclear, much more than the 10GW of nuclear capacity than the UK currently has.

However there is a way to go! There have been major problems with the EPRs being built in France and Finland-  the Finnish project now looks like being six year late and as a result almost twice over budget and the French EPR is also very behind schedule.  EDF says it can learn form these problems with the UK versions, but it is far from clear whether they will be economically viable. The UK government is developing a new funding mechanism to try to help, but to avoid being seen to provide subsidy just to nuclear,  the new ‘Contracts for a Difference’ (CfD) system will also apply to renewable energy projects. The problem then is that it’s been estimated that nuclear plants would need a subsidy of at least £95-105/MWh, but more likely £120/MWh and possibly up to £165/MWh, whereas at present on land wind projects are getting £92/MWh, offshore windfarms £135/ MWh and  Solar PV £160/ MWh.  It would be somewhat provocative for nuclear to be getting more than wind or even PV!

The nuclear lobby says that it can get prices down, but so does the renewables lobby- it’s been claimed that offshore wind could get down to £100/MWh by 2020 and some studies have PV solar  reaching grid price parity by around then.  For its part the UK government now seems to be taking about  setting a CfD set strike price of around £100/MWh. That could mean that EDF and the others would have to get additional support through other means. It's all still in flux…

EDF does have the advantage that the EPR has gone through the UKs lengthy Generic Design Acceptance procedures, something that the Hitachi APWR will now have to start. The ABWR has also had a somewhat checkered history, with technical problems and low load factors: http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/hitachi-bid-more-fantasy-nuclear-power.html  So a 2025 completion date may be optimistic.

And that’s without taking account of any local objections. The new planning regime makes it hard for local people to object to anything except detail, but given the prospect of a large scale expansion of nuclear projects, with spent fuel to be stored at each site as well, opposition may grow and not turn out to be so easy to sidestep.   After all, the current programme is only the start.  The Energy Research Partnerships ‘Nuclear Fission Technology Roadmap’, produced by the UK National Nuclear Labs at Sellafield, talked of a 40GW nuclear follow up programme and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, at University of Oxford, headed up by Prof. Sir David King, looked at a 90GW 2050 nuclear scenario: see Towards a Low Carbon Pathway: http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/ and  www.energyresearchpartnership.org.uk/nucleartechnologyroadmap

It is true that the UK is one of the few places in the world where nuclear power has a degree of public support. An Ipsos-MORI Poll in August 2011 for the Nuclear Industry Association asked respondents ‘do you support or oppose building new nuclear power stations to replace the existing fleet’, 36% supported- 28% opposed, but we are now moving well beyond just a replacement programme,  to one that could undermine the rapid development of renewables, which most polls have found are much more strongly supported than nuclear. 

Now that we are actually facing major new projects, the balance could tip. In the most recent Poll for DECC, published  in September, 29% of respondents said they thought the benefits of nuclear energy outweighed the risks, while 30% thought the contrary, and 32% said the benefits and risks were evenly balanced.  By contrast 83% supported solar power, 76% backed offshore wind, 75% supported wave and tidal and 66% were in favour of onshore wind farms. 

www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/5707-decc-public-att-track-surv-wave1-summary.pdf

Germany amongst others is pushing ahead towards a non-nuclear renewable future. Several studies have indicated that the UK, which has much better renewable resources than Germany, could reach its climate targets without nuclear, and with the Hitachi BWR  intervention, the slogan ‘No Fukushimas here’ may take on a new meaning.

My new book ‘Fukushima: impacts and implications’ is published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their new Pivot e-book initiative.

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=635859

Japan's alternative plan

Japan used to obtain around 26% of its electricity from its 54 nuclear plants. After Fukushima in March 2011, with opposition to nuclear widespread, all its nuclear power reactors were shutdown in sequence for safety checks, reviews and upgrades. Local prefectures, who in theory have the last say, resisted moves to restart them. So by May 2012 Japan had become nuclear free. But with the summer air-conditioning load looming, there were pressures to restart two of Kansai Electrical Power Co’s plants in the Western Fukui area, despite the very strong national opposition- thousands of people took to the streets in protest. Prime minister Yoshihiko Noda said ‘We should restart the Ohi No. 3 and No. 4 reactors in order to protect the people's livelihoods. Japanese society cannot survive if we stop all nuclear reactors or keep them halted.’

He insisted that new safety measures would ensure the two reactors would not leak radiation if an earthquake or tsunami as severe as at Fukushima should strike them. However, while some of the main measures to secure cooling functions and prevent meltdowns as in Fukushima had been installed, more than a third of the necessary upgrades on the list were still incomplete- the full upgrades may take up to three years.

Nevertheless local governor Issei Nishikawa  evidently indicated approval for a restart: the Fukui region has the largest nuclear plant concentration in the country (13 reactors) and is heavily dependent on them for energy and employment. According a report in WISE/ NIRN’s Nuclear Monitor 751, there had been intense lobbying of political leaders by Kansai Electric Power Co (Kepco) and threats by major corporate supporters to relocate outside the region were cited by the Union of Kansai Governments as reasons for caving in. Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto admitted defeat but said he had done all he could. Kepco evidently put a lot of pressure on companies in the region, telling them that without the Oi reactors, they would face rolling blackouts. Those firms, in turn, pressured local politicians, saying that if there were blackouts they would have to relocate outside the region.

Noda said the startup was not intended just for the summer, rejecting calls for limited operation by Osaka city and other nearby towns: ‘the livelihoods and daily lives of the Japanese people cannot be sustained if reactors are only restarted for the summer.’ He said he planned to start up more reactors whenever their safety was confirmed. At the same time, he confirmed that the government would be producing a national energy plan, although it was delayed from June to August.  Presumably he wanted the initial start up in place to prepare the political climate for a less anti nuclear plan. And, despite a lot of protest, he got his way- the go ahead for the two Ohi plants to start up came in late June and they reached full power in July.

So the nuclear-free honeymoon period is over. It would certainly have been hard for Japan to run without some extra input.  Even with its full nuclear compliment, it was highly dependent on energy imports; it imported around 80% of its energy mostly coal and oil  (and of course uranium). But it had made good progress in cutting demand through emergency energy saving efforts, and given time renewables could be ramped up to take over most electricity and heat supply.  Certainly it is trying to develop an alternative approach, based on energy efficiency and a major commitment to renewables, including a new quite generous Feed-In Tariff for PV solar, a 1GW off shore wind programme and more support for other marine renewables- offshore projects obviously make sense in a country where land is at a premium. 

In August a consultation report emerged, based on the three options that the government had put forward - zero nuclear, 15% nuclear or 20-25% nuclear, with renewables taking up most the slack, at 30-35%.  Early indications were that most of the public backed the zero nuclear option.  And in Sep, the government announced that it was aiming to get to zero nuclear ‘in the 2030s’. Given that Japan was originally planning  to expand nuclear from its pre Fukushima 26% to 45% of total electricity, that’s a  big shift- but at what a huge financial and social cost, not least to the thousands of evacuees still unable to return home.

Their plight was revealed in a survey by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Committee for the Japanese Diet found.  Over 10,000 local resident responded, some very bitterly. The survey found that delays in passing on information meant that awareness of the accident was initially very low amongst residents. Some residents did not realise they were being evacuated from their homes because of a nuclear accident and might not be able to return for a long time. Many reported fleeing in just the clothes they had on, without taking time to gather valuables, medical records or even to lock their homes, with some thinking they were being evacuated because of the risk of a further tsunami. Evacuation orders were issued firstly for a zone close to the plant, the next day the evacuation zone was increased to 10 km, then 20 km, and finally the government requested voluntary evacuation for residents 20-30 km from the plant. Some ended up having to move several (4-6+) times, some into areas which turned out to be more contaminated. Many respondents referred to TV reports that there were no immediate health risks. So now evacuees didn’t trust the media or assurances that they could return.   Residents said they had often been assured of the safety of nuclear power, and thought that an accident could never occur. Now they know better.

But life goes on. Japanese company Softbank Mobile’s Sharp Pantone 5 107SH smart phone has a gamma radiation monitor app.   Lets hope it’s not need in future. The interim ‘zero nuclear in /by the 2030s’ position is a little  vague- that could  mean up to 2039! And it’s far enough away to allow for backsliding…

The full Fukushima story is covered in a book I’ve produced as part of  Palgrave Macmillan’s new Pivot e-book initiative.  Out at the end of October:  ‘Fukushima: impacts and implications’.

A brave new EU-MENA supergrid

 

The Desertec Industrial Initiative, based in Germany, is all about ambitious plans for linking renewable energy projects across the EU, Middle East and North Africa (EU-MENA) region via a supergrid, to their mutual advantage. It says it can be done by 2050 and in a new report lays out what it might mean.  What is very striking about their analysis are the assumptions about the huge growth in energy demand in the ME and NA regions, and the scale of the renewable resources that is available there, much more  than  in the EU. 

They say that Turkey and Egypt will have the largest population and highest power demand in the MENA region in 2050 but also that, due to high per capita consumption, Saudi Arabia will be of a similar size in terms of power demand. ‘These three countries, together with Jordan and Syria, make up about a third of total EUMENA demand – as much as the four largest EU economies Germany, France, the UK and Italy together’.

They go on  ‘Due to the high demand in the Middle East and Egypt, most of the desert power produced there will be consumed locally’ and ,  since ‘unlike most of the major economies in the center of Europe, the region enjoys good solar and wind conditions’ they will not need imports.  However  ‘given their relatively small populations and abundant renewables resources, the Maghreb and Libya export large quantities of power to Europe’. They will be what Desertec calls ‘super producers’ while most of the rest are importers –countries with large demand but relatively few renewable resources. e.g. Germany, Italy, France and Turkey.  But there are some in between, i.e. countries with reasonable renewable resources, who will  need balancing top-ups. Examples quoted are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Spain, the UK and Denmark.

The Desertec 2050 report argues that the ‘balancer’ countries  ‘build just as much renewables capacity as is economic to cover most of their domestic load. Covering the remaining minor share of the load with domestic renewables becomes less economical, since curtailment of excess energy would occur. Consequently, these countries import power when needed and export it when their production exceeds domestic demand. They thereby avoid building the final segment of domestic renewables, which would make the sustainable power system more expensive due to high curtailment’.

Not everyone will agree with that analysis, or therefore the need for some EU countries to import perhaps 20% of their power from the south, while still using some gas, as  Desertec sees  importers as doing . ‘Since gas, and thereby carbon emissions, are allocated under a common cap to where they are needed most, the countries with limited renewables can use more gas than in an isolated system.’

This sounds dangerously like special pleading by Germany to be allowed to continue to use gas!   However,  the Desertec  report says that  it will all balance out equitably: ‘While super producers, balancers and importers profit from system integration in a different way, they all benefit from being part of a large sustainable power system. At the same time, their complementary roles lead to a situation of mutual reliance, in which no one country is dependent on another but instead each country is reliant on the system as a whole’.

Well maybe, but I can see plenty of potential for conflict, and certainly a need for a lot of detailed negotiations. It could make the current battles over the euro and national debts look easy! It certainly does open up a new geopolitical perspective, based on sharing renewable energy resources to mutual gain.

In reality though this wont be cooperative sharing, but  would be driven by market forces and the  interests of the  big investors in what after all will be a huge project.  Can it be set up to avoid market power becoming monopolised?   Should competition be restrained or increased? Could the supergrid be run as common service? 

There are plenty of political issues to get sorted before it’s too late; unless that is you think the whole idea should be opposed.  Certainly some environmentalists do not like large scale centralised systems- and would prefer the emphasis to be on the local scale. However, the big and the small are not really in conflict technologically- they could in fact be mutually reinforcing, enabling variable local supplies to feed into and be balanced by wider grid links. In essence it’s like the internet- a grid system serving a range of  decentral nodes.   But there could be conflicts over funding- big projects may attract big money to the detriment of small projects. That would be tragic since we need to develop renewables fully at both scales.

What happens next? Most likely the supergrid will emerge piecemeal, with a few links here and there, between the UK and the continent and within the EU (see my earlier Blog) and possibly across the Med, with no central plan or agreement.   A bit like how national electricity supply systems in the UK and elsewhere first emerged. That could be chaotic and wasteful. But where is the central authority to impose rational plan?  Not the EU/EC surely!     www.dii-eumena.com/desert-power-2050/

Fukushima revisited

 It’s around year and a half since the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster started. But it’s still not over. The reactor core meltdowns may have been contained, although they are still active and temperatures have fluctuated, suggesting continued risks of further fuel melts and emissions.  Perhaps more worryingly, a tank containing spent fuel is still precariously balanced on top of the wreck of Reactor 4, and some fear that if another earthquake hit the site it could fall and spill its lethal contents- 1500 fuel rods. That could result in much more radioactive material being released than from any previous nuclear accident.  The open waste tank has been propped up and a cover put over it, but it will take some time before the rods can be removed.  It will also be some while before the melted fuel in the cores can be removed, and the mess from the explosions can be cleaned up- vast areas of NE Japan have to be decontaminated

So maybe it’s not a bad time to take a look at what happened at Fukushima and its implications. That’s what I tried to do in a new book, to be published soon as part of Palgrave Macmillan’s new Pivot e- book initiative.

Japan has been hit by nuclear disasters before. The US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII, forcing its surrender, seem to have been part of the reason why Japan as a society redefined itself as a non-military state, still devoted to winning, but this time through civil technology.  It did well in many areas of technology, although its choice of nuclear technology seems not to have turned out to be wise. Perhaps now it will reconfigure itself as a non-nuclear, renewable energy focused society – and win that way. In May, Naoto Kan, the former Prime Minister, told a parliamentary committee that the bulk of the blame for the disaster lay with the nuclear lobby, which he said had acted like the nation's out-of-control military during the Second World War, with "a grip on actual political power".

There certainly is a continuing incentive to make changes. The economic impact of Fukushima has been very serious. The disaster clean up cost – put at around $250 billion, forced the Japanese government to bail out and take over TEPCO, the plant operator, and, with public fears mounting, it has also carried out safety tests on all the other all the plants. That meant that by May all Japan nuclear plants had been shut down- although two have now been restarted, despite massive 170,000 strong protests. 

The full social and health impacts of the Fukushima  accident are as yet unknown. While no radiation related deaths have yet been reported, longer-term effects are possible. In May TEPCO almost quadrupled its initial estimates of total Iodine-131 releases from Fukushima- from 130 Peta Bq to 511PBq. Iodine-131's half-life is 8 days, so it is so not worrying as the releases of  Caesium 137, which has a 30 year half life. TEPCOs estimates for releases of Caesium 137 were raised from 6.1 to 13.6 PBq .

An  interim UN-World Health Organisation study says that in the most affected areas of Fukushima prefecture, thyroid doses from iodine-131 were estimated as between 10 and 100 mSv apart from one area which was lower, at 1 to 10 mSv, and one that was higher for infants at 100-200 mSv. In the rest of Fukushima, adults received 1 to 10 mSv to their thyroids while children and infants received 10 to 100 mSv, the study estimated. For comparison, it said young people in the vicinity of the Chernobyl accident received on average doses of 300 to 1400 mSv to their thyroids.

However comparisons with Chernobyl do not go down well in Japan, which is desperately trying to re-establish normalacy.  Not least since Japan was a candidate for hosting the 2020 Olympics. While by then the radiation issue may not be seen as so significant, the International Olympic Organising Committee have indicated concerns about the energy situation in Japan. They are not alone. Whereas Germany already had a established plan for nuclear phase out and expansion of renewables, which it accelerated after Fukushima, renewables had been marginalised in Japan. Now it is desperately trying to catch up. For example, it is backing some large offshore wind farms using floating wind turbine technology.

While it remains to be seen whether policies will change elsewhere, with the UK, USA, China, India and Russia still pressing ahead with nuclear to various extents, it is clear that, as I review in my new book, Fukushima, like Chernobyl before it, has led to major changes in attitudes around the world, and for Japan and several other key countries, including German, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, a fundamental shift in policy. Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines have also backed off from nuclear. Following the elections in 2012, nuclear power is also now being challenged in France, increasingly on economic grounds, this leading to potential knock-on impacts for the UK programme, with investment in its proposed nuclear projects looking increasingly risky.

I suspect that it can only get worse.

Radiation issues:

Doses: www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_WHO_on_Fukushima_doses_2405121.html

Impacts:   http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/ee/c2ee22019a which talks of there possibly being 100s or maybe 1000s of radiation-related deaths  around the world  ultimately, due to Fukushima, most though in Japan.

Supergrid: the UK makes a start

 

National Grid and Scottish Power Transmission have awarded a £1bn contract for first ever sub sea electricity link between Scotland and England. The 2,200MW High Voltage Direct Current  link will be a vital reinforcement- bringing energy from renewable sources in Scotland to the south and helping to meet 2020 renewable targets. It will run 420km between Hunterston in Ayrshire to the Wirral- the longest link of this capacity in the world. It should be fully operational by 2016.

There are already about 3 GW of interconnector links to France and the Netherlands, but nine more are either in construction, planning or subject to feasibility studies. The next to open, in autumn 2012, will be a link between the Republic of Ireland and Wales. Then there is a 1 GW Kent-Belgium link, planned for 2018 and maybe a 1.4 GW link to Norway, 900km, by 2019. Another would link England to Alderney, where very strong tides could produce large amounts of electricity, and then on to France.

Energy Minister Charles Hendry has also been negotiating with Iceland over the possibility of connecting the UK to its abundant geothermal energy, via a 1000 km plus undersea High Voltage Direct Current supergrid.. That may be some way off, but, with the other projects, a ‘supergrid’  network may be gradually taking shape- and it can link up to, and help balance, offshore wind farms in the North Sea. By 2020 there could be 18GW of offshore wind capacity in place, with more to follow. They will all need grid links.

Supergrid interconnectors are costly. The Britain-Netherland 240km link, which opened in 2011, cost £500m. But we have the best wind, wave and tidal resource in Europe, so we should be able to produces large amount of excess electricity and sell it abroad. More than offsetting the cost of the interconnector  and more than offsetting the need to occasionally have to import balancing power when UK wind is low.

The supergrid would eventually be EU wide, linking to the large hydro capacity in Norway and elsewhere, with the reservoirs acting as  stores for excess wind derived power,  and it may even possibly extended it to the large yet to be developed solar resource in North Africa. www.desertec.org/ This wide geographical spread should ensure that power would be available even when the whole of Northern Europe is temporarily becalmed.  

Similar ideas have emerged elsewhere. The Japan Renewable Energy Foundation   and the Desertec Foundation have teamed to promote an Asian Supergrid that would connect the national grids of Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia and Russia. This could open up opportunities for renewable energy development in which the power produced could be moved to where it is needed most. So Japan, with fewer areas in which to build renewable projects, could benefit from wind power produced in placed like Inner Mongolia, where potential capacity far exceeds demand. There a have also been proposals for a major Concentrated Solar Power project in  the Gobi desert, which straddles China and Mongolia. Excess electricity (around 1GW) from the Gobitec project would be exported to urban centers in China, Japan, and South Korea via a new network of nearly 4,000 km of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines. .http://www.gobitec.org/ 

There can obviously be problems with mega projects like this, as I have explored in a recent paper: .  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2012.04.001

Some have argued that it’s foolish to try to go  remote sources, and concentrate, and then transmit over long distances, energy that is naturally distributed everywhere.   It’s also argued that it  could degenerate into a neo-colonial resource grab, with poor areas being exploited by rich energy hungry countries, who might then not develop their own renewables  sources.  That clearly has to be resisted: the host country should have priority   access and only excess power exported.  And we have to avoid imported supergrid power being seen as alternative to locally produced power. We need all the types of renewable energy development, at all scales, for a sustainable future. But as far as the planet is concerned, it doesn’t matter where the energy projects are built as long as they avoid emissions, and in energy and carbon terms, it makes sense to go to where the resources are best. So we need to face up to the political problems and start to think outside of national boxes.