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Jason Ford
Jason Ford
News Editor
Energy events put spotlight on transport and nuclear industry
Energy dominates this week’s events, with hydrogen and fuel cells for transportation plus the aftermath of Fukushima high on the agenda.
Tony Roulstone MA CEng FIMechE MIET is delivering a lecture tomorrow entitled ‘Fukushima — new wine in old wineskins?’
Taking place at IMechE, central London, the free lecture is based on the premise that events at Fukushima have cast doubts over the inevitability of a nuclear renaissance.
The event’s publicity material states: ‘The scale of the accident, involving multiple reactors and the way it ran across the global news for weeks…has challenged the idea that the nuclear industry has learned the lessons and is now a safe-and-sound means of generating electricity.’
Roulstone’s talk will focus of what went wrong at Fukushima and the response from Japanese authorities, moving on to consider whether the effects of the accident might be felt more by old reactors such as those at Fukushima, or newer ones such as those planned to be built in the UK.
In April, the investment bank UBS is reported to have said that the scale of Fukushima was the biggest yet to test the credibility of nuclear power, given that the disaster took place in one of the world’s largest economies.
Rolling TV news coverage brought constant updates into people’s homes and the inevitable comparisons with Chernobyl in 1986 were made plausible when the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) rated Fukushima a level 7 accident.
Last week, that rating was criticised by Prof Richard Wakeford of the Dalton Nuclear Institute, Manchester University.
Writing in the Journal of Radiological Protection, Prof Wakeford queried the decision to rate Fukushima a Level 7 event, given that the crippled plant released 10 per cent of the radioactivity released by Chernobyl at the time the INES announcement was made.
Similarly, Mike Weightman, executive head of the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the UK’s chief inspector of nuclear installations, last week published a report that acknowledged that lessons should be learnt from events in Japan but that the UK’s own nuclear operations should not be curtailed.
Weightman’s report identified 25 recommended areas for review ‘to determine if sensible and appropriate measures can further improve safety in the UK nuclear industry’. Click here to read more and to access the interim report, entitled ‘Japanese earthquake and tsunami: implications for the UK Nuclear Industry’.
Energy of a different kind now — and news that the London Cleantech Cluster Event taking place tomorrow will focus on the theme of hydrogen and fuel cells in transport.
According to the organisers, this event will explore whether London’s existing hydrogen vehicles — namely a fleet of buses and soon-to-be-introduced black taxi cabs — are the precursors of a fully fledged hydrogen economy in the city and the extent to which the UK is developing a hydrogen cluster.
Panelists from business and academia will discuss whether London needs a hydrogen infrastructure for transport, given that it is rolling out an electric-vehicle charging infrastructure. The economic feasibility of running a hydrogen or fuel-cell vehicle will be open to discussion too.
Attendees will include clean-tech entrepreneurs, investors, research institutes and local development agencies.
This event comes after the announcement last week that Honda is joining the Clean Energy Partnership, a European fuel cell vehicle and hydrogen infrastructure demonstration project. The automotive giant will contribute two FCX Clarity fuel cell electric vehicles to the project to demonstrate the viability of fuel cell technology.
Cranfield University this week hosts ’National Manufacturing Debate 2011 — investment, incentives and innovation’. Taking place over Tuesday and Wednesday, the event will incorporate tours and demonstrations of Cranfield’s facilities to provide an oversight of work in progress and future research activity.
The main event, namely the National Manufacturing Debate, will consider the motion: ‘Can the manufacturing sector create a significant number of long-term jobs and a regional balance?’
Keynote speakers include Mark Prisk MP, minister of state for business and enterprise; Philip Greenish CBE, chief executive, The Royal Academy of Engineering; and Andreas Pelz, global chief of service engineering, Rolls-Royce.
Finally, Tata Motors is to release its full-year results this week. In March, the Indian company announced that it was expanding its UK research centre at Warwick University to focus on low-carbon technology. In the same month, Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover awarded more than 40 UK companies contracts worth £2bn to supply components for the Range Rover Evoque.
Readers' comments (6)
Steven Freedman | 23 May 2011 1:38 pm
Hydrogen appears great: however it is not a natural fuel. At present it is made from another hydrocarbon. What has not been told is what hydrogen costs and what is the source material. If you make hydrogen by electrolysis, then what is the source of the electricity. The whole picture, minemouth to disposal, has to be understood and afordable.
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Allyn Boyes | 23 May 2011 1:58 pm
In the case of the Fukushima Nuclear crisis I would say its clearly been over exaggerated in its importance to new builds in the UK because: its an old design of plant, it suffered from a quake which it survived followed by a Tsunami which damaged the stand by generators and It hasn’t released anywhere near the radioactivity that Chernobyl did. Our Nuclear plant is obviously of the latest technology, we suffer only tiny quakes and even less likely to see a Tsunami and we can learn lessons from Fukushima. So I would think it madness to abandon the nuclear programme in the UK and If we do the lights will go out!.
As regards the Fuel cell vehicles in the city, they can’t be considered green unless the power to charge the vehicles is generated itself by a green technology. There are footprint savings of course as the cells are efficient at the low loads in the city areas so CO2 emissions at the power plants will be down. Of course if wind, wave, solar or tidal is solely providing the energy supply for green vehicles then they are truly green. (the same would be true in the case of energy to charge coming from nuclear source). The real problem with fuel cell vehicles on H2 is that outside the cities where would you fuel them? As our power stations are set up to supply liquid fuels, and its a massive network, the obvious choice would be to use a reforming fuel cell and supply methanol at the petrol stations. It’s less green as C02 by-product of reforming is released to the atmosphere but its a good way to utilise existing energy distribution infra structure.
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Doug Anderson | 23 May 2011 2:31 pm
Hydrogen Transport- maybe we should be looking at the question of where do we get the hydrogen from and how can we do it with greener technology? ...maybe wind to hydrogen systems could be considered, especially for more rural areas see: http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_wind_hydrogen.html This tech in the US is already being looked at as a way to store wind energy, all wind farms are out in the less populated areas anyway, so why not have a wind farm with small scale hydrogen fueling station nearby?
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Simon Martin | 23 May 2011 5:19 pm
The main issue with nuclear power is the misconceptions which influence the public's thinking, and these misconceptions being based on 50 year old technologies. Things have moved on since then and the public need to be reminded of the stark choices which have to be made. They also need reminding that we have an energy crisis looming and there are limited options available if their lights are to remain on.
Such a time ought to be exploited by the nuclear industry, educate the public, show how much safer things are, and promote the developments.
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Colin Megson | 23 May 2011 10:36 pm
Alvin Weinberg, the inventor of, and patent holder for Light Water Reactors (LWRs), railed against their use for civil power generation, because of their safety frailties. He feared loss-of-coolant/core meltdown accidents, as witnessed in the 3 Fukushima Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) - one kind of LWR. The UK's new-build-nuclear will be Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs)- the other kind of LWR. Old design LWRs have active safety characteristics, whereby coolant has to be delivered to the core, in the event of a scram, to handle decay heat; this didn't happen at Fukushima, when all electrics were lost. New-build PWRs have passive cooling, but coolant has to be in place, fail-safe valves have to operate and gravity (guaranteed to be there) does its job.
Weinberg promoted Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs) for civil purposes, because they have intrinsic passive safety. With a negative coefficient of reactivity, fission drops off if the core overheats and a non-mechanical (chemical) freeze-plug melts, if overheating occurs or if electrics are lost, and drains the core (containing the fissile fuel) to a dump-tank. The dump-tank is configured for fissioning to cease and with cooling characteristics to remove decay heat.
LFTRs produce high temperature process heat, ideal for hydrogen production. Even the 'waste' heat from electricity generation is at a high enough temperature to produce potable water from seawater or brackish groundwater. Such high quality process heat can produce carbon-neutral fuels, from atmospheric CO2 and ammonia, for fertiliser production, from atmospheric nitrogen.
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Andrew Starr | 25 May 2011 12:18 pm
The National Manufacturing Debate has raised the profile of manufacturing in the UK economy. It is refreshing to hear Mark Prisk emphasise the contribution made by engineers and manufacturers. Engineering professionals, politicians and media figures must engage further to promote the value of manufacturing to young people for their careers, and to investors for growth.
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