Japan’s roads to have radioactive foundations. thetimes.co.uk
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Geiger Readings for June 29, 2016
Ambient office = 128 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 132 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 131 nanosieverts per hourRomaine lettuce from Central Market = 77 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 80 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 66 nanosieverts per hour -
Nuclear Reactors 381 – Brexit Effects On U.K. and E.U. Energy Policies And Climate Change Mitigation
My most recent blog posts had to do with ways in which the Brexit might impact specific nuclear power projects from in the U.K. Today, I am going to talk about impacts of the Brexit on the U.K. and European Union energy sectors.
Some members of the EU want the European Commission to have major influence over the energy policies and climate change mitigation measure of all member nations while other nations would prefer more local control. Central and Eastern European nations as a group prefer the local control option. The U.K. was also in favor of local control. Due to the fact that voting in the European Commission is proportional to population, the U.K. had a lot of influence over E.U. policies due to its large population. The Brexit will mean that the Central and Eastern European countries will be subjected to more European Commission control and monitoring of energy generation efficiencies, carbon emissions and the move to renewables. While the Central and Eastern European members of the E.U. have realistic concerns about the cost of complying with strict European Commission goals on energy, the objection of the U.K. was more philosophical because they did not like being told what to do even if it intended to do those things all along.
The U.K. was a pioneer in setting up a legally binding framework for mitigating climate change. In 2008, they decided on a goal of cutting their carbon emissions by eighty percent by 2050. While the recent Paris climate agreement endorsed the 2050 goal of the U.K, it also added additional provisions including the goal to restrict global temperature change to less than one and a half degrees Celsius by 2050. Analysts say that while the U.K. climate change goals are good policy, without the E.U. climate goals, they would have been at the mercy of changing political and economic realities in the U.K. With the full weight of the European Union enforcing E.U. climate change goals, it would have been more difficult for the U.K. to change its mind and policies before 2050. With respect to the U.K. and the E.U. meeting ambitious climate change goals, the prospect is more likely if they were working together rather than separately. The Brexit will likely weaken ambitious climate change goal.
Stability of markets and predictability of governmental policies are preferred by investors in general. Specifically, the outlook for investments in new energy projects including renewables is now for greater risk in light of the Brexit. Major energy suppliers came out strongly against the Brexit for this reason among others. With the Brexit, it may be more expensive to import equipment from within the E.U. for energy projects such as the Hinkley Point C nuclear project or offshore windmills. On the other hand, it will now be easier for companies to import cheap solar panels from China which is a threat to the U.K. solar panel producers. Until new trade policies are worked out between the U.K. and the E.U., there may be a reluctance of investors to take a chance on big energy projects in the U.K.
The E.U. has a policy of preventing member state subsidies for industrial sectors and this includes the energy sector. Austria brought suits against the U.K. and the Hinkley Point C energy project because it claimed that the U.K. government was violating the E.U. rules on subsidies. The Brexit will allow the U.K. to subsidize projects such as Hinkley Point C if it wants to. However, the E.U. has managed to sign treaties with other countries that include rejection of state subsidies which could interfere with U.K. trade with those countries. Supporters of renewable energy projects in the U.K. fear that with the restrictions imposed by the E.U. on subsidies removed, the U.K. government might be tempted to pour subsidies into gas fired power plants and nuclear fuel plants while decreasing support for renewables.
The U.K. exists on islands that are separate from the European mainland and most E.U. nations. However, the U.K. does have connections to the natural gas system and the electrical grid on the mainland. There are infrastructure projects in the works to expand these connections. The Brexit may mean that these projects could lose funding and priority.
As they say, it is an ill wind that blows no one good. The Brexit will have both positive and negative impacts on the U.K. and the E.U. with respect to energy projects and climate mitigation efforts.
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Geiger Readings for June 28, 2016
Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 122 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 118 nanosieverts per hourRedleaf lettuce from Central Market = 86 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 93 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 83 nanosieverts per hour -
Nuclear Reactors 380 – What Impace will the United Kingdom Exit From the European Union Have On Nuclear Energy Projects – Part Two of Two Parts
Part Two of Two Parts (Please read Part One first.)
The CEO of the Nuclear Industry Association has stated that there will be challenges for the U.K. and the E.U. regardless of whether the U.K. votes to stay or leave. He said, ” The UK’s nuclear industry operates globally, with strong and long-standing business connections, both in Europe and further afield. While the implications of the vote to leave the EU, and subsequent negotiations, will be assessed both by the UK government and European Union, we must not lose sight of the fact that we have significant challenges to replace retiring electricity generation plant, to improve our energy security and to reduce carbon emissions, and that has not changed as a result of the referendum. The nuclear industry will work with policymakers here and in the EU to ensure the implications and changes arising from the referendum result are properly understood, and to maintain the confidence in low carbon baseload power and high quality decommissioning which is a vital part of the UK’s industrial, engineering and scientific footprint.”
Analysts at the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority have reported that over one thousand clean-energy exploration jobs may be lost when the U.K. leaves the E.U. The AEA CEO is concerned that U.K. nuclear research programs may lose as much as seventy five million dollars in annual funding from the European Commission. The AEA administers the Joint European Torus (JET) project at its Culham Science Center. The JET is the biggest tokamak in the world. It is used for research on thermonuclear fusion by forty labs in Europe. The CEO of AEA said that “If we should lose our European funding, the lab would have to shrink to a tiny size and the jobs would go and the expertise would move to other countries […] and we would have lost our edge in a future technology that’s very, very important. The U.K. exit will mean that we will lose our influence, we will lose our capability to argue for it, and eventually the EU will put the experiments in this area of science in other places.”
The U.K. will be closing its coal fired power plants and many of its old nuclear power plants in the next couple of decades. This means that new sources of power will have to be developed as quickly as possible. Time will tell whether if the U.K. exit from the E.U. will make this task more difficult that if they had stayed in the E.U.
David Cameron, the current Prime Minister of the U.K. will step down in three months and an election will be held to form a new government and select a new Prime Minister. It will take the U.K. at least two years to leave the E.U. During that time many different problems will have to dealt with to disentangle the U.K. from treaties, projects and commitments involving the U.K. Nuclear energy programs are only one of many different industries that will be impacted by the separation.
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Geiger Readings for June 27, 2016
Ambient office = 134 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 126 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hourRoma tomato from Central Market = 130 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 67 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 59 nanosieverts per hour -
Geiger Readings for June 26, 2016
Ambient office = 133 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 122 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 116 nanosieverts per hourOrange bell pepper from Central Market = 105 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 95 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 89 nanosieverts per hour
