Tim Probert, Power Engineering International

EDF is to submit an initial planning request on 2 August to build two reactors at the existing Hinkley Point nuclear site in Somerset, England, reports World Nuclear News.

The submission will be made to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), an independent secretariat created by the Labour government last October to make major projects less prone to lengthy public enquiries by keeping local enquiries concerned with local issues, not national energy policy. The new regime should avoid the farcical public enquiry seen in the 1980s - when the UK built its last nuclear reactor, at Sizewell in Suffolk - which took three years and a record 16 million words of evidence.

The IPC will effectively be instructed by the government’s National Policy Statement (NPS) for nuclear to give considerable weight to the need for new build nuclear when considering applications. The commission will work to strict deadlines to make a decision, meaning that Hinkley Point C could be given approval by mid-2011 and EDF will have a chance to meet its self-imposed deadline of 2017 to commission the plant.

However, the Conservative Party, favourites to win the upcoming General Election (odds-on to be on 6 May), wants to scrap the IPC. This is mainly because it takes the power to approve/reject planning applications out of the hands of the Secretary of State, and into the hands of a non-elected quango official.

Yet the Tories do like the government’s nuclear NPS, which is site-specific, and will abrogate local enquiries about the need for nuclear. The only snag is that the NPS has not been ratified by Parliament, meaning that nuclear opponents like Greenpeace, which are itching to disrupt progress, could mount a legal objection.

A vote is expected some time this year, but if the Tories are elected in May and scrap the IPC then there will still be a great deal of uncertainty over whether EDF Energy CEO Vincent de Rivaz will be able to roast his Christmas turkey with power from Hinkley Point C in 2017.

Tim Probert is conference director of Nuclear Power Europe.

Tim Probert, Power Engineering International

There is increasing talk that Great Britain will re-introduce capacity payments to incentivize low carbon electricity investment. Both the current Labour government and the Conservative Party have made noises to this end recently.

Frankly, Britain has no choice. In 2001, the government replaced the existing pool trading system with NETA (New Electricity Trading Arrangements) in an attempt to increase competition among Britain’s power generators and drive down prices.

To this end, it was a success. No longer were generators the only bidders in the wholesale market - under NETA both generators and suppliers were able to trade via contracts and exchanges, meaning that retailers were able to get better prices.

Domestic power prices did initially fall, mainly due to an oversupply of gas generation and cheap gas. However, this, and the discontinuation of the pool system’s capacity payments mechanism, had the unfortunate effect of causing the mothballing of coal plants and was a major factor in the bankruptcy of nuclear operator British Energy.

It also curbed generators’ enthusiasm to invest in new power plants. Furthermore, due to increasing consolidation in the sector, generators and retailers tended to be one and the same - Peter was paying Paul for the same electricity sold in the wholesale market. With this comfortable situation, generators had little incentive to pass on lower wholesale prices to consumers and further curbed enthusiasm to invest.

So now British energy secretary Ed Miliband has gone on the record to say that he is actively considering a return to capacity payments for low carbon generation, i.e. wind, nuclear and CCS-equipped fossil fuel plants, to boost investment.

With a ‘free market’ system like NETA, the future will be gas, gas and more gas. Just last week saw the official opening of a large CCGT plant (Marchwood, nr. Southampton) and there are many more in the pipeline. There is no doubt that this approach will deliver some of the necessary gigawatts needed to replace the plethora of soon-to-be decommissioned coal and nuclear plants.

Yet carbon emissions targets and the question of energy security cloud the issue. Being potentially 80% reliant on increasingly imported gas for electricity does not strike me as particularly sane, while it does little to achieve long-term carbon emissions targets.

A move to capacity payments is necessary to pay for little-used back-up power for the UK’s colossal expansion of offshore wind power. Moreover, it would incentivize new build nuclear, reverse falling reserve margins and ameliorate the likelihood of blackouts, which, lest we forget, are actually forecast in the government’s own figures for 2017…

By David Wagman, Chief Editor, Power Engineering magazine

Sen. Lisa Murkowski is taking on the Environmental Protection Agency and its efforts to develop greenhouse gas regulations that will affect virtually every electric power generator in the U.S.

The Alaska Republican said  she would try to keep the EPA from drawing up rules on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, refineries, manufacturers and other large emitters by filing a “disapproval resolution.” This is a procedural tool in Congress that prohibits rules written by executive branch agencies from taking effect.

Murkowski  argues it’s Congress and not the EPA that should write the rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

“If Congress allows this to happen there will be severe consequences to our economy,” Murkowski was quoted by one news agency as saying. “Businesses will be forced to cut jobs, if not move outside our borders or close their doors for good perhaps. Domestic energy production will be severely restricted, increasing our dependence on foreign suppliers and threatening our national security.”

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson on January 21 reportedly urged senators to reject Murkowski’s proposal, saying in a statement that it “put politics over science” and would require the EPA to ignore not only the Supreme Court’s directive but “the evidence before our own eyes.”

“The Murkowski resolution asks each senator to deny the overwhelming science that greenhouse gas pollution is a real and serious threat to the health and welfare of our citizens,’ she is quoted as saying. “And it would be a reversal of the formal recognition that both the Senate and the House have already made of the harmful effects of greenhouse gas pollution.”

At its core, Jackson said, Murkowski’s resolution “is not about preventing or postponing regulation, but about denying the established scientific fact that greenhouse gases threaten the health of our people.”

The EPA is working on regulations that will limit emissions by large producers of greenhouse gases as part of a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases endanger the country’s health and welfare.

Both the White House and congressional leaders have said they prefer that Congress write a law that would regulate greenhouse gas emissions. But the legislation has stalled in the Senate. If Congress fails to act, the EPA could set the rules .

What are your thoughts on the controversy?

Tim Probert, Power Engineering International

This evening I interviewed Greg Clark MP, the UK’s shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. With a general election on the horizon (expected to be held on 6 May), and with opinion polls pointing towards a Conservative victory, Clark’s ideas need to be heard.

Clark is a big believer in gas fired generation. It is his specialist subject. Cheaper and quicker to build than coal, nuclear and just about every other source of power generation, Clark views gas as the lynchpin of the UK’s energy policy over the next decade. Currently accounting for 50% of the UK’s power generation, Clark will be happy for the UK’s reliance on gas fired power to grow virtually without limit despite its growing dependence on imports (and impact on carbon emissions) - as long as there is enough storage to cover its needs.

Clark says the Conservative Party is firmly behind the current Labour government’s new-found enthusiasm for nuclear power and if elected, it will work with the European Union to look at placing a floor under the carbon price to incentivize the construction of low carbon power infrastructure. Clark is righly weary, however, that a pan-European floor price may be politically untenable, with Eastern Europe nations like Poland more than 90% reliant on coal fired power.

The Tories have frequently been attacked for their perceived negative attitude towards onshore wind farms. Viewed as the epitome of ‘nimbyism’, many such projects in Conservative-controlled areas have been derailed by local opposition. Clark’s solution is to encourage communities to sell electricity from collectively owned onshore wind farms, as seen in other Western European nations, so that Joe Public is enfranchised and so comes to see them as a Good Thing.

To facilitate this, Clark proposes that business rates levied on wind farms be handed back to communities that build the wind farms, and is talking with utilities as to how communities that site wind farms could be subject to lower electricity bills.

The full interview will be published in the February issue of Power Engineering International on 8 February.