In a speech to the Royal Society today, energy secretary Chris Huhne confirmed that the UK is to continue with its plan to build new nuclear power plants that was set in motion by the current Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband when he was Energy and Climate Change Secretary.

This means that, as chief inspector of nuclear installations Mike Weightman reported, current plants can have their lives extended, and new ones may be built.

Citing the costs of the the three low carbon technologies, Huhne said: “Offshore wind is assessed at £130 per megawatt hour, gas with carbon capture at £95 per megawatt hour, and nuclear at £66 per megawatt hour. These figures take account of waste and decommissioning costs, so nuclear should still be the cheapest low carbon source of electricity.”

It is those costs of dealing with the nuclear waste and decommissioning old reactors that Mr Huhne was clear to highlight. The cost of “cleaning up” nuclear waste has risen to “Half of [his] department’s budget”, and there is “6,900 cubic metres of high-level nuclear waste” that needs to be managed until we know how to deal with it.

Despite safety fears, nuclear power is one of the best low-carbon technologies we have.

The report makes 38 recommendations of lessons learned from Fukushima, but stresses that is that nuclear power is safer than it has ever been.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has said “operators should continue to follow the founding principle of continuous improvement”, making nuclear power safer as time goes on.

This news comes just days after the news that the UK government could get a £3bn windfall from the sale of Urenco, a uranium enrichment company.

EDF Energy, which runs 8 nuclear sites in the UK, has welcomed the publication of the Weightman report, and publicly committed to implementing the 38 recommendations made in the report.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is to be made into an independent body, separate from the HSE, and would be formally responsible in law for regulating the nuclear power industry.

Mike Weightman

Mike Weightman is the chief inspector of nuclear installations and executive head of the ONR. He said: “No matter how high our standards, the quest for improvement must never stop. We will ensure lessons are learned from Fukushima. Action has already been taken in many cases, with work underway to further enhance safety at UK sites.”

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said: “I would like to give my utmost thanks to Dr Weightman for a thorough, detailed and authoritative report.

“The report makes clear that the UK has one of the best nuclear safety regimes in the world and that nuclear power can go on powering homes and businesses across the UK, as well as supporting jobs.”

Mr Huhne recently halted the ‘dash for gas’ after it was announced that significant quantities of shale gas could lie under the UK. Could we now see him go against the Liberal Democrat party line and call for a ‘dash for nuclear’ alongside his fellow coalition partners? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The report on what can be learned from the Fukushima disaster is expected to kick-start the UK’s nuclear programme, despite criticism from Greenpeace and other environmental groups that it has been rushed through.

Anti-nuclear protesters are infuriated that preliminary work has already begun on an EDF-run site at Hinkley Point, before the report has been published.

The DECC has however, denied that anyone has jumped the gun, stating that any changes or demands made in the final report will be met by the relevant stakeholders.

This comes amid news that Britain may receive a windfall of £3bn from selling its one-third stake in Urenco.

Urenco holds a 27% market share of the global uranium enrichment market, with orders stretching beyond 2025. The other two shareholders are the German utility giants E.ON and RWE Npower. They are now interested in selling their stakes in the business since Germany announced it is outlawing nuclear power entirely by 2022.

We will be bringing you updates on the Weightman report when it is published later this week.

Wind power installed in Europe in 2010 - Source: Wikipedia Commons

After the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany decided to shut down its 17 nuclear power stations by 2022, closing the 7 oldest ones immediately.

This has turned Germany from a net exporter of electricity, to a net importer of electricity almost overnight. Germany has over 21,000 wind turbines – more than any other country in Europe.

Germany now imports power from France which is generated by nuclear power, where EDF Energy’s running of its 58 nuclear reactors is still a mainly privatised affair. Nuclear power supplies around 75% of France’s electricity.

This heightened need to transport electricity around Europe to meet fluctuating demand is leading to increased talk of the proposed ‘European super-grid’, which is being priced at around £28 billion.

The ‘super grid’ would help to balance load at times of higher or lower demand in all European countries. This changes at different times of the day and year, and is going to become ever more dependant on variations in wind strengths too. It would also likely mean an EU-wide electricity trading market, allowing the utilities giants like the “big six” to sell energy to any country in the EU.

Thanks to Hurricane Irene, 7.2 per cent of our electricity was being produced by wind turbines on Tuesday 6th September at 11:58am.

The latest reports from the British Wind Energy Association are understandably keen to talk up the renewable source of power, but other commentators have been more interested in exposing its inefficiencies.

Britain now has over 3,500 wind turbines, but these still only account for a fraction of the total electricity we use, encouraging comment that the highly-subsidised form of energy is a waste of time and money.

To meet Britain’s EU-agreed renewables targets, we would need to build at least another 10,000 turbines by 2020 in addition to the 3,500 we already have. Figures for wind power generation are sketchy at best, with some sources saying the amount generated last year was less than 1% of the energy used, and others saying it was more like 2.7%.

Germany already has 22,000 turbines, but they generate only 15% of their capacity – a measly 6% of the nation’s energy. This means that, in the wake of their decision to close all nuclear plants by 2022, they have plans to build new coal plants to subsidise the wind farms’ intermittent supply, as well as purchasing power from France, which was ironically, generated by nuclear power stations.

Many now believe that wind power has been exposed as so inefficient and unreliable that it is not seen as a clean alternative to Coal, Oil and Gas.

RWE, parent company of Npower, is assessing the sale of the UK company in a rethink of strategy.

This comes after German parliament last week backed a withdrawal from nuclear power by 2022, following Japan’s nuclear crisis.

Nuclear power generates around a quarter of Germany’s total electricity supply.

For heavily nuclear-reliant RWE, this decision could mean a difficult financial future, especially coupled with the company’s net debts of around £24bn.

British MPs have expressed concern, claiming that if Npower were bought by another big six rival, the UK energy market would suffer decreased competition.

The sale of Npower is estimated to earn RWE around £5bn. It is not believed that there is a deal imminent.

Merkel’s coalition government has performed a complete reversal of policy regarding nuclear power. There have been many anti-nuclear protests in Germany following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Germany is the largest industrialised nation to go anti-nuclear for 25 years. The country is to now shut down its 17 running nuclear reactors over the next 11 years.

Merkel said that the decision to shun nuclear power leaves an opportunity open for the nation to become a trailblazer in renewable energy.

Analysts say the decision may be partly politically motivated, with the German Green Party boosted by the anti-nuclear protests, and Merkel possibly eyeing a future coalition with the Greens.

There are fears that due to one of Europe’s largest nations losing 23% of its energy supply, the rest of the continent will feel a rise in energy prices.

There are now increased calls for UK to follow Germany in stepping away from nuclear power. Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauven said: “As one of the world’s ­economic powerhouses, Germany is showing that you don’t need nuclear power to have a strong economy. The country is ­throwing its weight behind clean, ­renewable energy.”

All 143 of Europe’s nuclear reactors will undergo new stress tests devised by European nuclear watchdogs covering both natural and man made hazards.

From 1 June, nuclear power plants will be tested for resilience to natural disasters like the earthquake and tsunami that set off the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan.

The European Commission and the European Nuclear Safety Regulators’ Group (ENSREG) agreed tests will also cover hazards such as terrorist attacks, transport accidents, forest fires and the loss of electrical power supplies.

If the stress tests find that any nuclear reactors are not up to scratch, they could be temporarily shut down, or even closed entirely.

The tests are to be done in a three step process. Step 1 is a pre-assessment, the completion of a safety questionnaire by plant operators, supported by documentation where required.

The questionnaire answers are then assessed by the national regulator in step 2, to devise whether the questionnaire answers are credible.

The final step is a peer review of a team of 7 people, 1 from the European Commission and 6 others from regulators all over Europe. Details of the reports will also be made public.

The Energy Secretary announced yesterday that ministers have accepted the Committee on Climate Change‘s proposal to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 50% by 2025 – the biggest commitment of any EU country so far.

The secretary, briefing MPs on the 4th carbon budget, stated there would be a review in 2014 to check the progress and make sure it is in line with the rest of Europe.

Chris Huhne refuted claims that the public would face energy price hikes to fund the reduction, by saying customers would face no additional costs as a result during this parliament.

The reception to the announcement has been mostly positive, but with the coalition being committed to claims that this government would be the “greenest ever”, it is an expected move.

Huhne has said the budget will “set Britain on the path to green growth”.

“It will generate jobs and export opportunities in these sectors – maintain energy security and protect our economy from oil price volatility. It’s a framework for growth, not just for action on climate but for growth and prosperity,” said the energy secretary.

There is a final deadline of June of this year to set out the 4th carbon budget, which will limit the emissions from 2023-2027.

The coalition government’s planned reforms of the energy industry are hiding subsidies for nuclear power, says the Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC).

The committee claims these covert subsidies are betraying the previous promise that a new generation of nuclear plants would not be publicly funded.

The government plans prefer a scheme that encourages all low carbon generation. The ECCC says this could disproportionally favour nuclear power and disadvantage renewable technologies such as wind and solar power if the incentives are not tailored for each individual sector.

The ECCC has branded the energy market reform as “deeply irresponsible”.

“Ministers believe that new nuclear could play a key role in keep the lights on and meeting our climate change targets – but they don’t want to own up to supporting it,” Committee chair Tim Yeo said.

“The Government must be up front about the support it is giving to nuclear and not hide subsidies in a one-size-fits-all design for long-term energy contracts,” he said.

The government is expected to announce a commitment to a long term legally-binding carbon reduction plan in an attempt to justify their “greenest government ever” claims later this week.