Corrupt thieves are after Italy's wind subsidies:
Oreste Vigorito, head of the IVPC energy company and president of Italy's National Association of Wind Energy, was arrested on Tuesday in Naples. Vito Nicastri, a Sicilian business associate, was arrested in Alcamo, Sicily.
Two other men were arrested in Sicily and the Naples area, while 11 others were charged but not arrested. Police said the charges related to fraud involved in obtaining public subsidies to construct wind farms.
[Financial Times] Top executives arrested in Italy wind farm probe
Several national plans for nuclear expansion are going forwards:
In Britain, Miliband proposes plan to build 15 GW of new reactors by 2030. Which to be fair, doesn't do much other than replace existing nuclear plants. Which is important, but hardly addresses CO2 emissions. The figure in the article is a projected 30% nuclear electricity in 20 years, or barely ~15% of primary energy.
(Simultaneously, the UK is moving on carbon-sequestration plans, funding giant demonstration plants. Earlier this year Miliband established requirements not to approve any new coal plants without CCS.)
There is a circulating Guardian blogpost with ridiculous FUD about UK's nuclear plan. Curiously, the article does not mention the author's conflict of interest.
In the US Senate, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and James Webb (D-VA) offer a bill aiming to double nuclear capacity by 2030. The main action is a direct subsidy (loan guarantees), which I think is dubious economic policy. A speech by Sen. Alexander introducing this bill is transcribed here.
In the UAE, WSJ reports the South Korean bid for four new reactors is taking a lead, underbidding the other competitors. The contractor will be announced in just a few weeks.
China's aggressive trade policy includes blocking exports of strategic lanthanide metals (which among other things are crucial to wind turbines and electric cars). Der Spiegel reports this may cause supply shortages around the world. Separately, Chinese solar firms admit to dumping solar panels in the US.
Also in Der Spiegel is an ominous feature, "Westward Expansion: Gazprom's American Ambitions".
WSJ reports China's advancing plans on Gen 4 reactors, specifically SFRs. I think the article may be confused: it refers to an Experimental Fast Reactor generating 800 MWe power, whereas it is apparently a research reactor of only 65 MWt [2]. There are 800 MWe commercial fast reactors in the plans for China, but these are Russian BN-800's.
In Jordan, a $1 billion aquifer project is being stymied by substantial radium contamination. Purely natural contamination from thorium minerals. Puts the "oh no the power plant leaked 2 Bq" stories in perspective.
> Also in Der Spiegel is an ominous feature, "Westward Expansion: Gazprom's American Ambitions".
ReplyDeleteAnd why is this ominous? Gazprom is huge, corrupt, non-transparent company but it never refused to sell gas to well paying customer. Tanker transported LNG is perfectly fungible.
OK, burning fossil fuels is stupid. But I do not see how Russian gas is more evil then Saudi oil.
The BN-800s are actually 880 MWe. I guess it's 800 MWe at a 90% capacity factor.
ReplyDelete> The BN-800s are actually 880 MWe.
ReplyDeleteThey probably designed it for 800 MWe, later found a way to increase power a bit but were too lazy to change official name in heaps of official documentation.
Thinking about carbon capture coal, has anyone considered adding big buffer tanks and doing the endothermic steps (oxygen extraction, CO2 compression) on a load-following basis?
ReplyDelete